I would have preferred Elden Ring style smaller but more characteristic undergrounds. Also the 4 main dungeons are still not dungeony enough compared to Ocarina, Majora, Twilight Princess etc.
I can't believe you didn't complain about the sages. The way to activate sages ability is awkward. I am chasing a sage, while the sage is chasing an enemy, and the enemy is chasing me.
YES. Sage abilities were cool in theory but they need to be directly manually activated. Not by touching specific samey looking blue ghosts who are usually busy tickling the enemies with ineffective attacks or otherwise off camera when you actually want to use their abilities. And seriously, giving Riju the MELEE fighter the most range specific ability? Perfection.
Fans: "The Divine Beast puzzles were really shallow and game-y, but it was cool that controlling the whole dungeon from your map screen made you think about how the whole thing interconnected" Nintendo: "We hear you loud and clear. We have removed the dungeon map controls" Fans: "W.. what"
That was basically the one and only good thing about the divine beasts, being able to affect the whole dungeon from anywhere. I was quite disappointed they got rid of that.
yeah i think the totk dungeons have better themes and stand out from each other much more, and the build up to them is great. however, the actual dungeons themselves from a gameplay perspective? definitely worse.
No wonder if found these dungeons even more boring than the last. You either activate the points by going through the most obvious gameplay or you get there with a rocket. No “aha” moments like when you tipped vah rutas nose.
my favorite part is when i forgot about the memory tears after the first one and when i remembered i immediately found the one where she tells you she's gonna become a dragon and felt like the game somehow spoiled itself
yup plus the geoglyph in the hebra snowfield (which is close to the first rauru one so i thought it was the next one) spoils sonia's death immediately i was like bruh
@@Rithy2105 Better yet, make it so that the cutscenes play in a specific order, and it pulls up the next one whenever you collect the next tear. They could do this, I think, hell, it might even be easier to program, because instead of needing to link a specific tear to a specific memory, they can just set a flag for the number of tears you've collected, and hook that up to a sequence of cutscenes that advances to the next one when you collect a new tear and the flag moves to the next number. Absolutely WILD they didn't do it this way.
@elizabethhicks4181 The forgotten temple clearly showed the order of the glyphs. I don't think they should restrict it that way, I did them in order and having to run around all over the map was kind of inconvenient and weird. In future runs having it unrestricted is better since you can just complete what's closest. To restrict it just because people failed to read or pay attention and spoiled it for themselves would suck.
@@dfabulous You misunderstand what I mean. Instead of having a particular glyph / tear link to a particular cutscene, instead just make it advance to the next when you pick up any glyph. I'm actually saying "keep the ability to pick the tears up in any order, but make it so that no matter what order you pick them up, the cutscenes play in order" so a different tear will play a different cutscene depending on the order you pick them up. You sacrifice the flavor of the glyphs having meaning to the cutscenes I guess but I think this idea is a more elegant solution.
There were so many instances were I was screaming at my screen, begging link to do his little exposition hand waves, and tell everyone WERE THE HELL ZELDA IS.
That she's a dragon? Why would he tell people that if he is one of if not the only person in Hyrule able to see dragons? It's heavily implied throughout BOTW that normal people can't see dragons, they can only on occasion spot the shadows that they cast. An NPC named Ronn even mentions that only those blessed by Hylia are able to see them. To everyone else, they're only a myth, and even if he is a trustworthy source, for one people would be skeptical given the ambiguous nature of dragons but also...what are they supposed to do with that information? Great, our princess and the only form of royalty we have is a dragon that no one but this guy can see. What do they do then? Keeping that sort of information on the down low until you're sure you either have a solution or can't possibly bring her back is the best option to not potentially send the entire kingdom into a panic because holy shit who the hell is supposed to rule now that we don't have a royal family
This pissed me off to no end, too. I even made a whole Reddit post about it to get an answer. Thankfully, they let me know that Link will tell Impa if you reach her after the "The Dragon's Tears" main quest. And, apparently, no one but a special few can see dragons which, I'll admit, is something I must have missed or forgot about either in this game or Breath of the Wild. Not sure why he doesn't tell any of the Sages though. They all had mystic, supernatural experiences with Link regarding the past Sages so, even if they can't see dragons, they would be far more ready to take Link at his word. Especially considering he recently retrieved his lost Master Sword.
In addition to what was said about the dragons, you have to remember that regardless of what tear memories hes seen, link has ALSO seen zelda in person multiple times, and he cant also assume shes a fake because the gazette storyline shows that many people are misunderstanding interactions they had with zelda.
I couldn't agree more about the apparent aversion Nintendo had to consequences and sacrifice in this game. It wasn't just with Zelda; Link canonically loses his right arm right at the start of the game and doesn't so much as blink at it. All the potential storytelling that could be done with a lost limb, wasted... only for him to magically grow his arm back during the final cutscene anyways. Hell, Link NEVER emotes at all during important moments. He shows more emotion cooking food, than discovering his supposed love interest sacrificed her humanity to save everyone.
The Link being emotionless thing is a consequence of Nintendo’s insistence of making Link some sort of Self-insert player character, even though they clearly aren’t writing him that way. Hell, you can’t even name him in either this game or BoTW.
There's an idle animation where he examines his new arm, but that's about it. It's not like we could expect much angst about it given how Link is still ultimately a silent, self-insert protagonist, but still, it's annoying that they just brought the arm back, that bit feels like sequel bait so that nobody questions why he can't use all these cool powers anymore.
Saying he doesn't react is plain wrong. He has an subtle, yes, but elaborate facial animation in the scene and his body language is breathing heavily .Then he stares at her flying away when you retrieve the sword, and is somber during the whole sequence of retrieving it.
@@bubbasgotback431 He's not "emotionless" at all. People have complied footage and screenshots on twitter and tumblr. Y'all are just unobservant or forget his animated moments, or were wearing a helmet of some kind that obscured his face during the scene, so you never saw it
The linearity paradox is fascinating… I totally missed the Thunderhead Isles section by just parachuting through the storm until I saw the faint glow of a shrine, which turned out to be the final destination of the whole Thunderhead Isles build up. I did this a number of times with Rauru’s Blessing shrines and then only realised when I got out that I’d skipped the designed challenge to get to the place…
@@esspfm There's a long quest chain starting in the Sheika village after defeating the Zelda doppleganger. It removes the thunderclouds obscuring vision on the island, and then you island hop all the way from the tail to the head of the dragon.
@@esspfm Yep, when Pyrah says ‘investigate zonai ruins’ it might have been helpful if she specified or even just hinted that you should start in Kakariko village! You can still do it afterwards tho.
Yeah Mineru was the 2nd sage i got. Purely by accident because i wanted to see what was in cloud. I didn’t even know i was doing the spirit dungeon! I thought it was just a cool side quest, but nope. Anyone i’m mentioning this because after i defeated Ganon, the next say after thinking about the game i realized… What was the point of the Zonai rings!?! So i went back to do it thinking something cool might happen, but nope! Just the prerequisite to the Mineru shrine that i already had done. Wow Zelda team XD
Honestly, something that baffled me was how incredibly fast I got over Tears of the Kingdom. I beat Breath of the Wild in 2018, and still adore it to this day, because I enjoyed playing it even after I beat it. But strangely, in Tears of the Kingdom, a game with almost double the content, lost all my attention after I beat it. It’s sad, because the game really is great, but it’s boring, and I don’t know what to do anymore.
Its because they half-assed a lot of things with the gameplay/UI, and absolutely refused to add much extra depth to the gameplay itself. So you've pretty much already mined all the depth from these systems if you've played the first game, and once the novelty of the new things in TotK is exhausted the game becomes 'boring' once again. There is like ten or so regular enemy types in the entire world, not counting bosses, and half of those enemy types are from the first game. That is absurdly low amount of mob variation for such a hugely scoped game. They made this incredible weapon fusion system for you to use, but didn't give you much to actually use it on. The other new mechanics also have incredible depth, but the most complex thing the game wants you to do is add a fan on a platform to make a boat for 99% of the game. In their quest for total freedom they've decided on total mediocrity as the solution. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. And once you've explored those new puddle-deep depths, the magic wears off.
same, botw is a game I couldn't wait to play again after I beat it but after beating totk it's a game I don't want to play again for a long time. I think it's a mixture of how bloated totk feels with everything there is to do in it and how similar it feels to botw, a game I've already replayed 3 times.
It doesn't help that the story really had no excuse at this point to not flesh Link out as a character. With Botw you could excuse it due to the Amnesia plot point, but now in the sequel what's the point of keeping Link a blank slate? He's not a player stand-in anymore since we can't name him, he's Link and we're expected to follow his journey for the entire game. Giving us a likeable personality to gravitate around helps players stay engaged with a game.
I feel like, even though BOTW suffers from this too, there's just SO much to do in TOTK and it's all so repetitive that it becomes kind of overwhelming and it leads to a level of disillusionment. I think people who actively replay BOTW to this day like myself just find it easier to do so in BOTW because the game was so heavily marketed as an "at-your-own-pace", exploration-heavy adventure. This game is too, but has like twice as much content, twice as many active plot beats and it gets overwhelming very fast.
That was a big missed opportunity. Keys are an iconic part of Zelda games and what would be a better time to reintroduce them than this game that was supposed to have dungeons added back into the series. Nintendo making them wide open hurt them in that I felt no sense of accomplishment making it to different areas. Having keys to keep areas off limits until a challenge is completed would have been rewarding. Not to mention no Big Key either for the boss area of the dungeon.
@Norweeg It also just makes getting to and opening chests boring. "Oooooh an opal how exciting." It felt satisfying finding a key cause then you get to explore deeper in the dungeon. Or you would get a map or compass that made exploration easier. Now we get the map from get-go and get told exactly where we need to go. Will give credit where credit is due, though, at least the bosses were unique this time.
I also think it would have been pretty cool if ghost Rauru appeared throughout the game outside the tutorial. The insights he offered on some of the areas in the sky area were pretty interesting. Since you’re using his arm (which they also never explain how that happened) it would have tackled having a companion character you can interact with throughout while also keeping the focus on exploration as you have to seek him out to get any information.
This is my speculatory take on the arm thing, but between the snippets or Rauru's power we see and the power parts from the Light Dragon confer, it feels pretty safe to assume that Light as a sage's power offers healing as one of its main points. Given it was his own arm, I'd openly believe part of his lingering spirit's force was used to "heal" the arm onto Link. It's like how you can stitch chopped off fingers back on if it's fast enough. And if that were a more exhaustive act, that would be a good point for why he fades before Link leaves the sky islands for the first time. All of that said, it's my own speculation and I also really wish they'd let Rauru be an insightful companion character that makes comments along the way about how the old world used to be. It would offer a lot of info we can't get otherwise, like personalities of the old sages, or some of the more specific purposes behind structures in the Depths.
This is what I've been thinking, even before I finished the game. He should show up in all kinds of places like he does in the beginning, reminiscing about the past and giving a bit of advice if you talk to him. Nobody else can see him, other than like the Deku Tree and the sages after they awaken maybe. He doesn't know about what happened to Zelda due to being too busy being dead. Could also help with the samey-ness of the sage cutscenes. Just have him explain the Demon King thing after the first one, giving the prior sages their own individual scenes, so it wouldn't matter what order you do things in. Let him be surprised when he finds out Mineru's still around, too (...and just put her in the mask to start, not in the Pad but silent, still don't get why they did that...). And then when you get to the ending, him fading away while healing Zelda would actually mean something
This is EXACTLY what they could have done! Rauru as a companion would have been FANTASTIC! It would have been very impactful, make exploration rewarding and fixed some of the problems Rataoskr described and then even more so! Like with the stone tablets, they are SUCH a huge missed opportunity! TotK sadly has this huge problem of setting up really cool concepts and ideas and then doing absolutely nothing with them or giving us zero pay off! It’s infuriating when you care about these characters and the lore! Like they almost set up Rauru being our companion on the Great Sky Island, showing that this could actually work really well! And then he… leaves! WHY? They give no explanation, it’s so annoying. Then you have the stone tablets! A fantastic concept when combined with Rauru being a companion would have fixed SO many problems! Rauru, a person who lived through these memories, would be the one to read them out to Link and reward you with a heartfelt memory cutscene for each one as well his thoughts on it. (All of these stone tablets should have been cutscenes). These could be the cute interactions they tell us about in the base game but could also tell us about how Ganondorf was as a ruler and what his deal is, how he knew about secret stones & draconification, give us much needed information about where Rauru and Mineru come from, what the hell happened to their highly advanced species and what ancient Zonai civilisation was like. All things that Ganondorf describes in a cutscene, alluding to us being able to learn more about it and then they don’t tell us! Again with the set up and then doing NOTHING with it! Argh! The tablets could have been written by Mineru instead and there should be more of them, a lot of them being records of the Zonai history and civilisation because that was already set up as being something that Mineru really cared about and was knowledgable about. She also sent those tablets into the sky in the hopes it would aid Link in the future. The information from these tablets can then be used to help improve modern Hyrule and safeguard them from Ganon, perhaps even the ancient Sheikah read some of them and reverse engineered Zonai technology that way. Some of these memories Rauru didn’t personally live through, prompting you to go look for his sister to fill the gaps in your knowledge! Making going to Spirit Temple have an even bigger purpose and not hiding her away until the last 2 hours of the main story! The siblings could have a tear jerking reunion and Mineru being the Sage of Spirit can then start realise that Rauru through his arm might be able to make more of an impact in the physical world than he originally thought he could, buuut they need more information to be sure. So this prompts Link to go looking in the depths for answers which gives us something to do in the depths and also ties into involving Purah and telling her that we know about Zelda being a dragon and the master sword and now we’re looking for more answers, all of our efforts are now focused on how to get her back. This also ties into Josha’s quest, another really cool thing they set up (people used to live in the depths) that then they barely did anything with! Using the bargainer statues, with the Sage of Spirit’s construct being with you, prompts them to cough up answers. They could tell you about another set of stone tablets hidden away that were written so incredibly long ago by the Zonai. Not even Mineru knew about them! You can offer poes to get clues as to where they are. Then for each crucial one to go through a sequence of events like with Dragonhead Island to find them, face the Yiga clan, face off against a mini boss, and then each one slowly gives us the information about how to potentially reverse Draconification or give us more information on it or how secret stones work. It could even give us an ancient Zonai fighting technique (that would counteract Ganon’s flurry rush) and because Rauru used to be a skilled warrior he can teach you how to do it. Then at the end when Rauru says farewell and so does Mineru and Sonia, you feel like you actually have lost something! You have Zelda back but now these companions have to move on. It’s bitter sweet, you and the cast, like Purah and the sages, got attached to them just like Zelda did. And it would give a sense of closure to their spirits as well. They really did all they could to help present day Hyrule and defeat Ganon and now Rauru and Mineru can rest easy and pass on, knowing that the kingdom and Zonai technology is safe in the hands of Link, Zelda and Purah! And like how fucking cool would that be? It would tie into the game’s themes of exploration, it would help us get emotionally attached to the characters and it would solve SO MANY problems! They should have done this argh!
@@pitshoster401 Well, Aonuma co-directed Oot and MM, and was the director for WW and TP. All the conventional 3D Zelda games, and became the producer from SS and onward and Fujibayashi became the director. So maybe your beef should be with Fujibayashi for all the bizarre choices.
What bothered me most with Tears is how its story is told to you. It’s one of those things where linearity would’ve helped. The way I wish it had been done is you go do a major dungeon be it wind, fire or water and once completed a set of geoglyphs appear around the region. Furthermore the geoglyphs aren’t tied to a specific cutscene, they play in the correct order no matter where you are in the world. I wish this had been the case because my first time playing the second cut scene I get is Sonia getting her back broken by Ganondorf. Freedom is good but linear is good too especially if one mission I’m doing a dungeon and the next I’m helping get some porridge for a grandma.
Ooh I can see how that can be frustrating. For me personally, I liked that I could completely ignore the story in favor of doing whatever else I wanted. I remember getting frustrated at the water temple flux construct and leaving to go complete the Rito and Goron quests instead, plus a handful of side quests. It feels more like I'm making my own story, yk? I guess I like the uncertainty of it, it makes the world feel more organic to me. But I do like the idea of having to complete a dungeon before a geogliph shows up, solely because after you discover the truth of princess Zelda situation, nothing changes??? You're still chasing after this imposter like she's the real princess Zelda. The first thing I did after completing the quest was book it to the Zora domain so they could chillax. I thought there would be some new dialogue, but no. It would make sense for you to complete all of the dungeons, and THEN have the full story.
You think that's bad? At least with your cutscene she could still survive, nah I got the cutscene that goes "So your wife died in the last cutscene huh?" which made me go "WTF"
Fr. I tried so hard and succeeded to avoid online spoilers only to have the actual game spoil its story for me because there is no real direction on which geoglyphs to go to first. And the fact that the early game pushes you to go to hebra first only to have almost all the late story geoglyphs there was so frustrating
I wonder about that. I managed to reach the water Temple without doing any of the main Zora quest or get the armor. When I tried to activate the door, the game basically told me I couldn't do the dungeon with Sidon. I wish they did something similar to that with the tears.
they should’ve limited the traversal abilities, and have you upgrade or earn the abilities over time… like perhaps in _BOTW_ you can’t climb _everything_ from the start, just craggy rocks and trees… then later, you find gear or get some training that allows you to climb more types of surfaces. …in _TOTK,_ maybe limit how high the Sky Towers shoot you, and eventually they let you go higher and higher?
The problem lies on the fact that many people prefer the new dungeons. I have played most of the 3D Zeldas on the main consoles, Skyward Sword being the exception, for me I prefer the style of BotW and TotK much more than I do the classic dungeons, most dungeons in older Zeldas are really boring for me, yes it's a curated and well structured experience with some impressive design choices, but if I wanted that I would play something like Uncharted or the recent God Of War, curated and well structured also means that the freedom is reduced, unless you break the game, like you can do with the Boomerang in Twilight Princess. I much prefer the dungeons in this game because they were a constant string of, "wait, I can do that?!" And even after finishing the game I am playing the game and find myself thinking, "wait, I could have solved those parts in the dungeon by doing this instead." I much rather this than old dungeons were the way to solve them was stupidly easy or stupidly obscure to the point of not making any sense.
Of everything, my biggest gripe was that no one knew who Link was or believed in what he does or what he says. It made sense in BotW because they all thought he was dead. It does not make sense here.
@puresakkuHow can people forget about the person who literally slew the calamity couple of years ago. This shit is in History books and if you played the Hateno school sidequest you would know.
the biggest problem for me was “why?” Why am… I… doing any of this? I don’t feel like wandering endlessly doing shrines that all look the same. I wish I was on some sort of grand adventure. I miss Wind Waker. I miss Link to the Past. This game felt… pretty empty. I wish there were towns with NPC’s, little bits of story to explore all over the land.
This is why copious amounts of shrines can't replace a few good dungeons for me. The context in which those puzzles are being solved matters. Like to reconnect with a sage in ocarina of time for instance.
@@MrPoppertop Not just the context in terms of the story, but context within the dungeon itself. In most of the best dungeons, it's not just a series of random puzzle rooms. There is usually a clearly defined goal to work towards, or at least a general direction to guide you, and the puzzles almost always tie into the theme of the dungeon.
@chaoslord8918 That and the puzzles overlap with each other. Usually you'd find a big room surrounded with smaller ones containing small puzzles that all add up to the solution to a bigger one. Solving one puzzle leads to another one, and it eventually circles back around to the beginning. Open ended-ness breaks that structure apart completely, and I don't know if it's possible to replace it.
We really needed some of the destroyed villages from botw to be rebuilt in totk. Most of the map just felt as desolate as botw, despite the game promising the world to be much more fleshed out
When I found Lookout Landing, I was super pumped. It's the home base of Hyrule's reconstruction. Castle Town is probably halfway rebuilt behind it, and there's going to be multiple other smaller forts trying to establish new towns. No. Just lookout landing. Not a single new settlement. And the sky and depths only have about as much content as three map regions. So sad.
"They long for the freedom that can only be found in limitation" y e a h! this made me think of art school, and how our teachers would sometimes force us to use only one kind of material, or a specific tool or method for certain projects. the limitations always seemed imposing at first, but i always ended up with something that surprised even myself! its a different kind of creativity that scratches a whole different part of your brain, and i agree that open-world zelda could really thrive with some limitations/linearity in its dungeons!!
"necessity is the mother of invention" wish they had more puzzles that forced you to think with limited tools instead of being glorified tutorials for the zonai parts
@jo-ui3ly Having attended an art school for creative writing, I share the same sentiment! So many of my best and most imaginative pieces stemmed from assignments where we were limited to write odd scenarios and work with particular character eccentricities. Some of your most creative work can stem from limitation! Tears of the Kingdom would have benefitted greatly from such design being implemented in its dungeons.
@@heyheythrowawayi kinda wish they at least gave us random shit instead of exactly the amount of devices you need to solve the puzzle. like it would be way harder if you had to experiment with things that were put there just to confuse you. or even just limit the use of runes in the shrines, like oh in this one you can't use recall. kinda like the levels in mario odyssey where you don't have the hat, you need to solve a problem without your full set of tools which imposes a bigger challenge imo
@@highdefinition450You've never watched a casual play this game, have you? Even being restricted to the one item that solves the puzzle, people struggle. I think there are too many Zelda and puzzle veterans complaining without considering the people who have never played a Zelda game, or who are less capable at puzzle solving. Even though Zelda games are made to be beaten by children and so the puzzles have never been all that difficult...
I had this same experience in music. I majored in composition and giving ourselves limitations was something we were taught about early on. I think in the lecture we were given five notes and two instruments? But still, same idea of restrictions breed creativity. Need to just look at ocarina of time and what koji kondo did with all the ocarina songs that needed the key notes on buttons.
Eventually, to me, everything started to become a chore at some point. Need certain amount of materials to upgrade this. So I can use that more to go to this place to get another amount of materials to upgrade something else. Found myself getting caught in some sort of loop when it comes to gathering and using certain things.
Same. I loved the game right? But I still have a lot to criticize it for. I could play endless hours of botw. With this game I just found everything to eventually become a chore and I just thought I didn’t feel as emersed into the story line as I did the other games. I try not to complain too much about the game cause I don’t wanna ruin it for myself. Edit: my frustrations with the game could just be me and have nothing to do with whoever wrote the script for the story. I just found everything zelda to be doing in the past boring. And kinda just meaningless. While In Botw it was directly affecting links backstory and I viewed Zelda and links character completely differently then I ever had before. Or for instance, the sages, hold NO place in my heart like the other champions did. And then lastly. I enjoyed the first few hours of gameplay a crazy amount, and the excitement dwindled pretty quickly. As for Botw it dwindled incredibly slow. I’m very proud the writers made me feel the same way I did playing botw for the first time tho.
As someone who just recentely beated botw for the first time i can say that after i got the master sword everything started to feel like a chore and be pointless when compared to the main quest Hell even the main quest feels kinda pointless as only 2 divine beasts really felt like they were posing a threat to hyrule and Not just standing there... Menacingly
I have bad news for you, every single game ever made of this genre is like that, the new diablo that came out is 100x worse in this aspect. How else are they supposed to do it? They already give you all the materials you need for every shrine and cave in them, do you want them to babysit you every step of the way so your incredibly particular taste doesn't get spoiled????
I can’t agree more with the ending. Imagine how horrifying it is that Zelda is stuck outside of her own personality for all eternity to save her kingdom. Such a great twist and tragedy. Yet they undo it for no reason? I was frustrated as hell when she changed for no reason. Probably for botw3 continuity
I’m fine with her getting changed back, but not how quick and clean it was at the end. I think back to Twilight Princess where getting Ilia’s memory back was a whole quest you underwent. But since the end goal of this game is “Find Zelda” they wouldn’t want her to be around until right when the credits roll.
@@thelastwindwaker7948 I think a good idea for botw3/totk3 story would have been to FIND a way to change Zelda back to normal. Link may have to go back in time to find the solution which could then lead to him exploring older versions of Hyrule, maybe to a time when the Sky Islands and the Depths had a little more life to them and would feature references and easter eggs to past Zelda Games. This will then have us return to the current time where we have to enact whatever things we need to do, to return Zelda to normal. Maybe not that in particular, but a game where Link needs to find a way to return her to normal.
@@L1QU1DSCHW4RTZ honestly as time goes on I feel the same as you lol. I enjoyed botw and totk, but they have absolutely nothing on the older 3d games. It would be a huge shame to not see a super polished 3d entry with the technology available next generation, along with the amazing demo we saw in 2011. Let’s hope Nintendo doesn’t let the money get to them
@@L1QU1DSCHW4RTZ If you enjoyed Oot through TP you should definitely play Skyward Sword, despite all the criticism I think its a quality game with some of the best dungeons in the series
My main problem with BOTW and TOTK is that they're themed from a franchise that traditionally was a puzzle/progression based RPG. You start with nothing, and as you progress through challenges you grow and get stronger, culminating in what makes sense as the final boss fight, where you're going to use all that you've gained to win and save Hyrule. These two games almost completely get rid of any sense of progression. In BOTW you do the plateau which feels like a similar kind of progression, and from that point on its grinding for gear upgrades, scumming to get weapons because there's no progression, and even the champion powers don't feel particularly meaningful. They don't really allow you to do something you couldn't do before. Load up on some food, a few weapons, and you can finish the game really easily. You gain "freedom", a bunch of random activities that for the most part feel unrewarding and uninteresting, but lose the core of the game itself. It shouldn't be a surprise if I said my favorite part of BOTW was Eventide Island, precisely because you're stripped of freedom and forced to overcome what seems daunting with a few meager abilities and ingenuity. It's not particularly hard, but it felt more like Zelda than the rest of the game combined. If there's anything I hope Nintendo takes away from these games, it's the realization that linearity isn't bad. It's precisely what enables progression, growth, and interesting difficulty. Look at BG3, which I sincerely hope wins GOTY. It has loads of forced linearity precisely for this reason, even if each act has a lot of freedom for you to explore and do side content. It does it all, and I hope it wins to teach the game industry a simple lesson: you don't have to destroy your game to chase a game dev meta, it is very much possible to make your own great game while iterating on ideas from other games.
Both examples actually do have progression, it's just that the progression in older Zelda games is more blatant since it's the character getting more powers and abilities and in BotW and TotK what improves is the player more so than the character. Like fighting against the Flux Construct, the first fight against those is difficult because if you go in blind your first instinct is firing arrows towards the weak spot, like every Zelda game ever, but the constructs move their weak spot if you aim at it with the bow, so your next idea is to hit it with a weapon, but the other parts of the construct are in the way, you have to learn that Ultrahand can grab the blocks and even the weak spot to be able to get anywhere or realize that you can Recall the weak spot to stop it from moving around, then the second phase when the construct is high above and you can't get to it you have to use Ascent or Recall to get close enough to damage it. One boss results in discovering 3 or 4 different uses for the tools you have and these used then become part of your arsenal, to be used against other enemies, bosses or even just to explore the environment. There is growth, it's just not extremely obvious.
@@imatiu that is a different kind of growth tho. you describe the growth every player has playing any video game. you get good at it. be it dark souls bosses, shooters or even platformers like mario. you try > you fail > you learn > try again > suceed. the original comment meant that your character is growing. he learns new abilities and gets new gear and with that you can tackle challenges previously impossible.
@@imatiu See but subjectively that's just not progression to me. Progression that is meaningful is obvious and correlates to the story. Like how in Skyward Sword you must forge the Master Sword, and then have it blessed by Zelda the Goddess Incarnate in what is a very emotional cutscene. After that the sword looks like how it actually does, and you realize that Link just crafted what many iterations of his soul would go on to use over and over again. It's rewarding both as a mechanic of damage output and story and lore connections. Me knowing that the massive eye on the Hinox is probably his weak point is regular knowledge to anyone that's played video games in the last 40 years. And the decent guess that the mini boss made up of building blocks can probably be knocked down with my glorified construction ability also really isn't that interesting. In previous Zelda games, there was the occasional enemy or boss that required some real big brain time to figure out, and the reward for doing so would be something very substantial like the clawshot or bow. In these two games it's a treasure chest with a map that leads to something I might've already got accidentally, or a singular weapon to replace the 3 I just broke. And I don't hate these games, but there's a reason in the last 7 years I've replayed BoTW 5 times, and in the last decade I've replayed Skyward Sword 20 times. Partially because of childhood nostalgia, but also because I still find that game's story, puzzles, and items satisfying to this day.
@@hudsonweaver130 Then we differ a lot when it comes to games and what we like from them, in my case I cannot think about anything in OoT or TP that I would consider an interesting and difficult puzzle, the most memorable ones for me would be the first dungeon in OoT, due to the Spider Web puzzle, which was revolutionary considering it was one of the first applications of a 3D puzzle like that and the combination lock because not knowing english made that part really difficult. But a game that I can finish at 7 years old without basic knowledge of the english language isn't really something I would call a difficult or interesting adventure game. What would be an example for you about interesting puzzles in older Zelda games? Because with the exception of Mayora's Mask I cannot think of a Zelda game where the puzzles were memorable and interesting.
@@imatiu I think you might prefer harder puzzles than the average player. Mainstream games from that Oot/Tp made me think I actually enjoyed puzzles, but, like you said, those puzzles are just little brainteasers. Which is usually my preference. I just wanna feel like Indiana Jones. Not feel like I'm doing a graph theory assignment 😅
What I don't get about the dungeon cutscenes is that Nintendo already did a format that works much better in A Link Between Worlds. I can't understand for the life of me why they don't just replicate that. A Link Between Worlds dungeons are designed to be taken in a different order as well, and Nintendo just abandoned that form of storytelling.
Well, the dungeons in ALBW were also quite underwhelming when compared to other Zelda games, but at least they were better than the nonesense from BotW and TotK.
Heavy agree. Probably the only set where that decision could reasonably be justified is the Mystic set, but even then I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt to give it similar boosts to the Yiga set so as to not make the player *too* immortal
Yeah, especially for the starting outfit you get (archaic tunic I think it’s called?). Like bro it was HEAVILY marketed but why would anyone use it past the sky island
I think for the Ganon set it may have been because it has higher starting stats than the other stealth armor. Which I was actually okay with as far as the system goes, because upgrading more than one or two sets is ridiculously time-consuming and tedious, so I'd prefer higher base stats over upgradability in most cases.
@@andimari9194idk maybe if they like the way it looks I really don’t care about how upgraded my armor is most of the time I only upgrade the armor I like
On the note of a lack of loss in the game, I felt that way about link just having his arm again after Rauru left for real. I feel it would have made the ending feel more definitive.
At the very least, allow Link to keep the epic tattoo across his chest. Give *something* to indicate that he's still be scarred by the gloom... because no matter what, we're missing 2 heart slots from the original 40.
@@Aurora-313I'm still putting my eggs in the "DLC, if real, will give us those missing heart containers in bonus content side quests" basket, but yeah Link fr came out of it with nothing to show that things are different now
I find your thoughts on "loss" in the Zelda series to be very reassuring and valid. Like even after the ending, they could've had Link lose his (Rauru's) arm and it would've been more loss than they did in TotK and BotW.
Honestly, I was kind of confused as to why he got his old arm back. They said his arm was "replaced" not sealed or something. Having him keep the new arm, but have it lose it's power or something, could have still been an effective moment if done right.
@@PlaguecoricMaybe Link defeating the Demon King expelled gloom in tandem. In the ending, we see Hyrule Castle still floating, but no gloom flowing from underneath. Even still, I agree with everything you’re all saying
If nothing else, each postdungeon scene should have shown how the that sage actually contributed to the fight. They're all like, 'oh we fought him and lost' but we never see the fight.
The more I think about the stuff missing from this game, the more I think it just came down to time restraints. I'm sure there WAS some stuff the devs intended to put into the game, but this game is so jam-packed already there simply wasn't time to implement and QA it. That's why I'm really hoping they listen to this feedback and take appropriate action with the DLC.
@@juancampos9468 The overworld was re-used; they still had to design the depths which are the same size as the overworld in a way that's functional, and the sky islands.
@@juancampos9468 lol, how much exploring did you do in the depths? They have a TON of content. Not as much as the overworld granted, but there's plenty of see down there if you get all the lightroots. I also pointed out how the depths and overworld needed in interact in synchrony, which another review video pointed out had to be a programming NIGHTMARE.
The moment I realized that the rewards for any extra content I do would be outfits I already had in the last game and could get with the tap of one of the amiibo on my shelf, really crushed my will to continue exploring.
I'm super glad I never got those amiibos because of this and the rewards felt worth it to me. But I feel for the people who already had all those outfits through amiibos. Definitely a different experience
See, it's the opposite for me. I never had amiibo, so these all felt new and worth exploring. It actually made me want to 100% the game, whereas in botw, I stopped caring after the 440 koroks.
if twilight princess had a little bit of the freedom and side quests that totk has, or if totk had the twilight princess story and dungeon, I think that would be my perfect zelda game.
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY!! To me, when I hear/think of "What is THE *DEFINITIVE* Zelda game when you think; "The Legend Of Zelda"... It is ab-so-LUTLY *Twilight Princess.* It hits the nail on the head of every that made me fall in love with Zelda as a whole and truly treasure this franchise. *Story/ L O R E *Music *Atmosphere *Characters + Character Design (including enemies) *Boss Battles *Dungeons *Game-play/ Controls/ Move-sets and lastly *Effects/Emotions/ Player to Character/Story connection (How does this story effect the player?) It's a whopping 10/10 in every department (Yes. The game has flaws. But every game ever made has flaws as well, these flaws do not hinder my experiences in playing this game). I wish more games were able to capture that grandness that TP has perfectly accomplished. My gripe with the BOTW series as a whole (TotK included) is that is tries so hard to be the different ("wILd cHIld"... Get It? >;P) of the Zelda franchise as a whole that it com-PLETLY swerves and hits a pole as to make it feel like it's not a Zelda game at all. To me, it just feels like a really good open world game with a slap of a Zelda-ish paint job on top. I have played the older Zelda titles MORE (epecially TP) than I have picking up to play Breath again and lately TotK. And that's not good. To Me, what makes a GREAT/FANTASTIC Zelda game is replayability. What I mean is this question: "Do I want to play this again? To experience this grand journey with this character Link and face the trails, hardships, friendships and world again. Does this game make me whole memories?" If the answer is "No." I wont play it again. Zelda is a franchise that holds memories for me. Botw/AoC/ToTK do NOT.
One other key example of Zelda being no stranger to sad moments in its writing has to be Link's Awakening. In order to save an eternally dreaming Wind Fish, you sacrifice an entire island born from his dreams, which was full of animals and people who were living out their happy days. The only one who makes it out alive was your girlfriend, Marin, and even then, she only makes it out as a Seagull.
Or the inverse, majora's mask which has some of the most overtly sad moments quantity wise, if not also quality, has the ending wherein so many things were fixed but they were earned.
Honestly Thunderhead Island felt more like a Lightning temple than the Lightning temple did. The Lightning Temple was more akin to the Spirit Temple in OoT
nah man it was the earth temple in wind waker with the redeads and light puzzles. should have been called the earth temple ngl, it was in the desert and the others are called wind, fire and water. lightning is so random and i hate that the gerudos are associated with it now lol
@@highdefinition450 you realize the Spirit Temple did those first? :P plus thematically it felt more like a mix of the OoT Spirit Temple and TP’s Arbiter’s Grounds imo
You really hit the nail on the head with a lot of the issues with the story. The "wanting to have their cake and eat it to" and how it was just weird that at no time Link couldn't tell anyone else where zelda was.
Impa is pretty much the only exception as you can tell her about Zelda being a dragon after getting the last memory. I found it weird that I couldn't tell Purah at least about it too.
@@globalistgamer6418 Except he's not, really? You constantly see him do his little wave hand thing and talking to folks. It'd be nice if the dialogue could change for people looking for her or if Impa was there when Zelda is revealed to tell him to keep it a secret, maybe it would set everyone off in a panic or something? eh
zelda stories are amazing stories. and they appear simple, but have some seriously deep plotlines. like the skull kid. Skull kid, in ocarina of time, wants a friend. and he finds friends, in link and saria. but, at the end of the kid storyline, skull kid and link both leave (at different times), to find friends. link searching for Navi. Skull kid, for friends in general. don't remember what happened to saria. he meets 2 fairies, and befriends them. they become very close. but one day, they meet a merchant, who sells an interesting mask. enter, Majora's Mask. the mask of a demon, that then possesses Skull kid. slowly taking more and more control. through the story of majora's mask, he loses himself, and he eventually loses his two new friends, when finally he's saved by link, his original friend. he lost his friends, but found an old one. yet link leaves again, to continue his search for Navi. and once more, skull kid is alone. centuries later, in twilight princess, we see skull kid again. alone, in the forest, with puppets to replace the friends he lost, and never found. and when we get there, he is playing the song we, and saria, played in ocarina of time. a song of friendship, from people long gone. he still bears the scars of the mask, but he remembers a time when he played with his friends to music in lost woods. and so, when you, as link, enter the forest, he recognizes you. he tries to play with you. communicate with you. but your not that link. you don't remember him. so you attack. and so he tries again. multiple times, through the forest you chase, he tries, in vain, to make you remember. to get through to his friend. yet you keep attacking. until, at last, he realizes, he's alone. he will always be alone. and he leaves. the story of skull kid is one of the saddest stories in gaming, i've ever seen. literally brings me to tears, every time i think of it. An immortal kid, looking for friends long lost, never to be found. alone, he plays the song of happier times, as he make believes his friends are there, for he knows they never will be.
One of my main issues with the game is that most of the shrine puzzles were just too damn easy. There were a few that gave me a bit of a challenge, but a large percentage of them I came out thinking “wait… that’s IT??” In most of them, I would give the layout one glance and I would immediately know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t remember having that feeling during the shrines in BOTW
You could pretty much finish every shrine even faster than it already would be by a combination of static, reversal and oftenly a bomb shield. It's hilarious how badly designed they were (aside from the fact that it's only like 40 unique shrines with an actual puzzle).
@@thediesel1241 completely disagree? i have loved the shrines lmao, they aren't "hilarilously badly designed" though you're entitled to your opinion to dislike them.
I remember one shrine, where I placed a mirror in a light, went back to the previous room, saw that it didn't work the way I did it, so looked at how the rooms were laid out and went back to replace the mirror correctly. Almost like something you would do in a Zelda dungeon. The fact that I can distinctly remember that one dungeon with a very mild challenge, tells me that they really aren't good overall. There are some with fun unique ideas, like the one where you have to build a pinball machine, but none of these concepts are ever explored in an interesting way. Unless I'm misremembering just how insanely bad BotW's shrines were, these really aren't better at all.
I think one thing that would have helped the dungeons out, would be if you had to rescue the sage from the dungeon and you get their powers halfway through.
I do find inherent joy in trying to find the intended way of doing stuff in the Sky Islands, but when 70% of them are the same "bring this green rock here to get a Shrine" puzzle with slight variations, the joy stops. I was expecting the Sky Islands to be bigger portions of mass floating in the sky and I expected having to explore them as you explore Hyrule's surface. But I soon realized that Sky Islands in this game are not that. They are intended to be these puzzles in the wild. Almost as if they were Shrines except there's no loading screen nor limitations, it's a puzzle in the sky, and I actually really liked that realization. The problem here is, again, that the puzzles and ideas that you'll find in the Sky Islands are really basic and get really repetitive rather soon.
since the Zonai Shrines seem to take you through a portal to another place… how cool would it have been if the “interiors” of the Shrines took place on a sky island? they wouldn’t even have to be islands in the overworld, but the aesthetic of the sky islands was much nicer than the Shrine interiors… or even a mix of the two would’ve been nice 🤷🏻♂️
@Sam_T2000 i would have loved for the shrine puzzles to be in the overworld, or at least some of the heart containers/blessings to be the reward for quests or puzzles you stumble onto. would give me more of an incentive to explore and complete sidequests because i wouldn't only be getting rupees or arrows lmaoo
There's one sky island where you take minecart's to the next island to get to the end, having a reward being new zonia devices in a gatcha capsule was the cherry on top. and I thought that was really fun and assumed more of the sky islands would be like that where progress was more limited cause you can't climb past everything but still have all the tools at your disposal. And a meaningful reward, Thinking cause it was new content there would be just more than that too. Very close to achieving that but very soon i started getting repeat gatchas and copy pasta sky islands. Oh well
@@petercottantail7850 yeah I never really had any super insane expectations. Like some people were expecting entire civilizations living up there and stuff like that and I had already tempered my exactions judging from what we had been seeing in all the trailers. But not only are there few of them, what's worse is just the lack of creativity they have put into them. By far, the most interesting Sky Islands are the ones related to the dungeons, which are amazing, but the rest is quite literally a copy and paste. Such a huge missed opportunity.
its a damn shame that a full TWENTY-FIVE of the 31 shrine quests, many of which are in the sky, are "bring the crystal to the shrine", makes me miss the more unique shrine quests from botw
The story was one of my biggest gripes with TotK. It felt natural in BotW, like yeah you and Link both have to discover the world and both have to figure out what is happening. In TotK, it's all just a bunch of ideas mashed together. I found one of the last tears first so the story was completely ruined for me. Yeah I still cried when that final tear was shown and you see her in a dragon form. I stayed up for hours grinding to get enough stamia to pull the sword. It felt emotional. After that? Eh. The trials were okay, just tedious, the temples were a little better than the divine beasts. I loved the lightning one, it felt most like an OG Zelda dungeon and the boss was wicked cool. I loved The Depths and hated the sky islands. Hated most of the new Zoani stuff and how it was shoved in your face and you HAVE to use your new powers. I wish there were more towns and villages rebuilt. I don't understand the point of Lookout Landing, castle town is literally RIGHT THERE next to it. Just rebuild that. And where is all the BotW lore? What happened to the Sheikah stuff? Divine beasts? Why are NPCs acting like BotW never happened? Idk. TotK was a let down with all the hype surrounding it. I prefer BotW over it any day.
This is exactly how I felt- wtf happened to the lore of the original Champions? How did the Yiga end up underground? What happened to the Divine Beasts? The big baddie in BOTW is pig ghost Ganon and TOTK it’s unique gerudo man Ganondorf… where’s the transition? And if Rauru is the first king, then does that mean Ganondorf showed up BEFORE Ganon? If Zelda was a dragon for years & years, why does her dragon not show up in BOTW??? If BOTW says that the princess and her knight was an ancient legend, why isn’t it present in TOTK? There’s just so many plot holes I hate it not to mention Zelda looks like a completely normal Hylian despite being descended from an anthropomorphic goat with magic powers (my cope is just to believe that TOTK happened in an alternate universe than BOTW)
I can't believe they reused the same map and STILL couldn't be bothered to make proper dungeons. The rare, tiny sky islands were completely pointless. Sorry, but this game does not deserve to win GOTY.
The sky islands and the depths were shallow asf. The depths especially felt like it was all procedurally generated with its mines, lightroots, and yiga camps. All copy pasted.
The point about Link knowing about Zelda also applies to Ganon too. You can easily find out where he's at by finishing the yiga questline, but you can't tell anyone this at all.
honestly as a writer, this was my biggest gripe about TotK's writing. there is no reason you couldn't have told AT LEAST Purah about Zelda and Ganondorf's whereabouts, and it really wouldn't have changed anything. she could have easily encouraged you to gain the help of the other Hyrulean citizens before trying to challenge the Demon King on your own. As for Zelda, i semi-understand it, bc they wanted the Big Reveal that was Puppet Zelda, but even so, telling Purah could have just had her encourage you to get to the bottom of the Zelda sightings all over Hyrule before challenging the Demon King. it's just kind of a lazy cop out, in my opinion.
I hated how every dungeon felt like an Amazon distribution warehouse because the only design language they could come up with to stop you using Ascend everywhere was ridiculously high ceilings. They also just felt incredibly austere with very little decoration or iconography, even compared to the N64 games. And despite everything they tried to fix with the Divine Beasts they dropped the one thing that was cool about them, which was the dungeon itself having some kind of central puzzle, like the bird being able to rotate, similar to Stone Tower Temple flipping upside down or the raising and lowering of the water in Ocarina's Water Temple. Instead we just get "find these switches and by the way they're right here".
This. The Divine Beasts weren't spectacular by any stretch, but at least each Beast had its own gimmick to add even just a little flavor. They may not have been hard, but at least the environment had a purpose in its structure for puzzles and design. TotK "Dungeons" had fantastic lead-ups, but the actual executions were just... boring to me. The giant ship might as well have been a temple- there wasn't anything "shiplike" about it. No engine room or sails? No crows nest or lookout ports? No cabins? No brig? Zelda games have done "boat" dungeons before, and an aerial one had a lot of potential. But it just... feels like a floating rock. An island just like any other you've been too and will go to. The dungeons may have their own themes visually and musically, but... when they're all so boring and don't add any depth, then it's closer to wasted effort.
@@0ctopusComp1etelyevery totk dungeons have their flavors. Botw gimmick was « you can move that one thing » in EVERY dungeon. Totk is « the element is essential AND work differently »
The high ceiling solution exists so that there is no limitation on what surface ascend can be used on. I thought for sure it would be like other games and you could only it on surfaces with a particular texture or pattern, but that's not that case, they just used a high ceiling made of water, and allow ascend to be used everywhere else. They didn't limit the players, they challenged themselves not to create broken environments. This is the result of relentless QA testing and developers who care.
What made Ocarina of Time so rememberable was the fact the Temples were in regions of the map and inside of them was their own little world you got lost inside. The formula of the Divine Beasts feels like a quick puzzle for a 5 year old.
My mind was blown back in the day when I got to see what was in that cave on the cliff in the graveyard. Actually if you think about it all the adult dungeons are in plain sight as a child. Their placement in the world is really memorable.
@@thebuddah1253 Of course the graphics didn’t age well, but the map, dungeons, boss battles and story is on point. It’s definitely a Zelda masterpiece.
@@anonymousamerican4580 I feel like most kids would have alot of fun with it if they can look past the graphics. My neice played it for awhile and had fun.
I wish they did two different endings. one where link beats ganon and glides to the ground or falls then looks back in the sky and sees the dragon. Another ending would be the "true ending" where you complete some quest where you learn how to bring her back then in the end you pull out some object that allows you to turn her back. Getting the object could be some difficult quest that gives purpose and difficulty to it. Edit: seeing a lot of support on this comment. To further my critique of the ending with my possible solution, maybe on release, the ending should have been sad ending with leaving Zelda as dragon. Couple months down the road, DLC with massive quest to bring Zelda back essentially from the dead where you have to do a little bit of everything, explore land, sky, depths while finding clues, beating bosses, etc. I think the extra time between the release and the DLC would have hammered home the idea that saving Zelda would take time. DLC would start after receiving the Master Sword and completing all dungeons. I completely agree with everything Ratatoskr said in this video and am curious about his thoughts on what could have been although I am not sure he is very interested in what-ifs this long after release.
That would've worked better than what we got honestly. Maybe Mineru asks you to come to her in the depths and discuss how we could bring her back by using some old texts. Then it's a beefy side adventure where like you said we find the cure and get the true ending.
@@bubbasgotback431 because becoming a dragon is made out to be a forbdden irreversible act so the person attempting to reverse said act should need to pay a heavy toll.
The armor that pissed me off the most was the friggin 5 or 6 old Link sets that are all almost exactly the same. They had an awesome mechanic of finding maps in the sky and then having to go underground and explore some more and then you get almost literally nothing. a 4th pair of brown boots that you will never wear over your strong pieces.
The reward for getting all light roots is abysmal. I spent hours getting all those light roots, just to get a [SPOILER WARNING] picture of a medal that does absolutely nothing.
They could've added unique set bonuses as well to at least make them useful. Imagine wearing the TP outfit and being able to use the hero shade moves as a set bonus.
@@abelunseen739that sounds rad actually I heard the Ocarina set gives attack up as a set bonus? But I mean the Fierce Deity and Barbarian Armor exist for that. They all used to just give a Master Sword up bonus so this is still better but not fantastic imo. I'm glad they made the amiibo stuff actually usable in this game but I agree it would have been cool to things aside from the tunics, especially if they had their own bonuses that made them actually practical alongside other new stuff
I'm just going to throw in that in BOTW Zelda as a character was very dynamic. Over the course of the game, through the memory cut scenes, she develops a lot as a person. In tears of the kingdom, I felt like there was 0 character growth on any front by any character. Nobody has to grow to rise to the cause, they're sort of just.... Yea you're the chosen champion of *blank* and yea you're going to help link.
Tulin: "I am too cocky for my own good mwahahahaha OH my bow has been stolen due to my foolishness! Link got it back for me and now I have learned a very valuable lesson that I am going to explicitly state like it's an episode of Caillou. HEY is that Zelda (x3)????" Dumb people: "Wow what a charming and well developed cast!" There's SO much false tension in this game. I personally still struggled with Botw characters, mostly because I'm an artsy fartsy film person and struggled a lot with their dialogue and voice direction choices (Aonuma was once quoted pre-voice acting saying that if he had to do that, he would need a Hollywood caliber cast. I guess he lied lol), but Zelda was definitely at least dynamic and it's weird that they showed they could do that and then didn't continue doing it lol. And everyone's struggles and sacrifices would be much more poignant if there was actual loss in this game.
Well put, I think it goes along with the music being orchestral and distant from the world, it's larger and prettier but also emptier. And on the character development point, why is nobody talking about the direction Age of Calamity has taken the heroes? Zelda in particular is much better shown to struggle with her own feelings of having to fulfill expectations while also actually already contributing with tech interest. Yet it's only after she starts overcoming her self doubt that she can unleash her magical potential. This is hinted at in botw but does not feel emotionally close due to the horrible story telling they chose.
One thing I personally dislike is how stoic this version of Link is, in BotW as well. He never emotes in any of the cutscenes which really lessens the emotional impacts of the key moments. Compared to SwS, WW and even TP he feels just like a cardboard cutout thats just along for the ride. For example after the dragon reveal, he just snaps back to reality, sees Zelda flying above him, and ist basically like "Welp, that just happened.😐"
I think the sad part of TOTK's ending was supposed to be Zelda saying goodbye to Mineru, It may have been more impactful if we were able to see Zelda's perspective and her time in the past in-game. That's what's missing imo.
I'd really love a Torna the Golden Country-esque DLC where we play through the events depicted in the Dragon Tears as Zelda or Rauru. I don't know if that would work though since the Zelda series is much more hesitant to have you play as other characters than something like Xenoblade, and unlike Torna we already saw the most important parts of the story in the main game.
agreed. if you do the minor quests of getting all the ancient Hyrulean tablets' contents on the flower-shaped sky islands to Wortsworth in Kakariko Village, you gain some more small insight into how close Zelda and Mineru were, but that's something that you can completely miss before completing the endgame.
In my opinion they should've made some major side quest you could do after finding out Zelda was a dragon that would than allow you to unlock an alternate ending where you cured her of her dragon form. So the normal ending would be a somber one where you defeated Ganon and Zelda as a dragon flies into the sunset and than you could collect somethings for Mineru and she could work together with Purah to make some device that would allow you to cure Zelda and than you could have that epic ending but without having to break the rules that were setup.
While the time/light mix shenanigans to hand-wave her reversal into a dragon is acceptable imo, it is really weird when you think about they made optional dialogue with Impa making it clear she's now going to dedicate her time to searching the records for a possible way to reverse the transformation now that she knows Zelda's a dragon only for none of that to be necessary since all Rauru and Sonia needed to do was essentially revert both Link and Zelda to before all this happened to resolve it.
It could also be another reason to find Mineru, because she'd be the best mind to assist the effort to find a method of un-draconification. Maybe something to do with her Sage ability, mixed with Link's (Zelda's) Recall.
You summed up a lot of my qualms perfectly. Most Loz games have bittersweet endings so having Zelda stay a dragon and Link losing his arm would have been pretty great. Also as other commenters mentioned, they should have made the tears a little more linear because certain tears will straight up spoil the entire story.
Let me think about it... Yes, you're right. And let's just think about the 3D ones. OoT: Navi seprates from you, and you're forced to be an adult in the body of a kid. MM: Mikau and Darmani are still dead. Oddly happy otherwise, but tbf the game is filled with tragedy. WW: The kingdom of Hyrule is now lost forever to the sea, and so is the King. TP: You do not only lose Midna, but also access to the twillight realm in general, isolating two kingdoms forever. You also can't revert the loses on Hyrule castle, Kakariko or queen Zora. BotW: Zelda might have been rescued, but there's still a lot of things to do and hyrule still suffered due to Calamity Ganon. Then there's Skyward Sword and Tears being incredibly optimistic. With Skyward Sword it's fine because tragedy was avoided and the role of Impa and Fay was fulfilled, but not in Tears of the Kingdom where you have to do nothing for the happy ending.
I actually think BOTW is the most tragic of all Zelda games. Not only have thousands of people died and Hyrule basically plunged into a mini dark age, filled with ruins of the thriving kingdom and culture that was, but as you progress you learn about the champions who were once Links closest friends. Four brilliant people who sacrificed everything and could have lived long fruitful lives, who link and Zelda will never see again, all because of ganons pointless desire for power.
My favorite addition to the shrines is how lightroots and shrines mirror one another's locations. Cross-referencing the Depths and surface world maps to locate either respectively is such a lifesaver. I prefer either knowing where something is, or stumbling upon it by accident. Inversely, I absolutely HATE knowing that something is in the general area, but not knowing where it is.
"They long for the freedom that can only be found in limitation" Nice to hear someone who understands how I feel. The insistence on total freedom all of the time restricts me from having the compelling experience I actually wanted.
To many people get Nintendo bias and fail to see that there is such a thing as to much freedom. Everything became so simple and just trivial once you get auto build and can magic out whatever you need. Played TOTK and had fun overall but nowhere near a flawless 10/10 game at all 7/10 at best imo. Decided to give BOTW a play afterwards as I’d never played that one and am enjoying it far more because of stupid things like that. That mountain looks like it’s got something interesting on it. TOTK - pull out flying machine straight to it. BOTW - got to figure out how to actually get up their and in the process find many more interesting things on your journey.
@naboume466 the game kinda forces you tho, especially with the sky islands and many places in the depths. but having to put limitations on your own gameplay just so that you have a bit of fun is not something most people want to do lmao. it's like if someone says the new pokemon games are too easy and i tell them 'just do a nuzlocke bro'
@@highdefinition450 It absolutely does not, the gmae never forces you to use a specific solution to a problem, if you want to climb the mountain normally without using any flying machine you can do it, it's your choice that's what freedom means and the whole game is designed with that freedom in mind, this is just a silly complaint from people who want to complain for the sake of complaining.
@@naboume466 Players having the opportunity to give themselves self-imposed restrictions is entirely different from crafting a coherent gaming experience.
The thing that bothered me the most is that in the Key Items menu, each of the arm's abilities has a specific color (🔴Ultrahand, 🔵Fuse, 🟢Ascend, 🟠Recall, 🟣Autibuild) and each of the sages has a specific color (🟢Tulin, 🔴Yunobo, 🔵Sidon, 🟠Riju, 🟣Mineru) and when you sort the menu, they don't line up 🔴🔵🟢🟠🟣 🟢🔴🔵🟠🟣 It's such a simple thing, but for the love of god I can't unsee it. Just switch Tulin to the middle and that's it
oh my god I thought I was the only one who noticed this... I never brought it up because I wasn't sure if it was based on order or not, but in the order the game leads you to for the sages it's not even right....
It's interesting how BOTW/TOTK are supposed to be the more replayable games, but I feel myself going back to older Zelda's more to replay their dungeons.
I hated BOTW at launch, I beat it then sold it immediately. I picked it up again on Switch a year later along with its DLC after hearing people rave about the game. I thought maybe I missed something, so I had a more thorough play through trying to find the Zelda gameplay in this supposed Zelda game, still hated it. The DLC was insultingly bare bones. My expectations for TOTK was low but I picked it up out of morbid curiosity and it is exactly how I imagined. It's such a lazy copy paste fest much like most of the content in BOTW, the map is just littered with moblins, bokoblins and lizalfos again. 5 hours is all I could stomach.
Honestly think that the one thing they could have done to make TOTK feel like a brand new game (as opposed to BOTW+++) was new music. We've all heard the themes from BOTW so much and it's not long enough ago to feel nostalgic. For me it really added to the sense of 'oh, this again' when I arrived at places I was looking forward to revisiting.
It felt like the exact same game. Koroks (again), boring shrines (again), many similar Outfits, same music, same atmosphere etc.. It really is just a reimagined polished deluxe version of BotW. In no way it's a Sequel since even the story seems so incredibly random and made up on the Spot. Not to mention that the game just throws the whole Skyward Sword build up right into the garbage disposal.
@@thediesel1241 wow I completely disagree. That is the dumbest thing I have ever read. It is not at all a fucking "deluxe version" of BOTW, that is completely inaccurate. I have LOVED playing this game and while clearly based upon it's predecessor it still feels vastly different, with all kinds of new exploration (the best part of BOTW as well). New and far more interesting side quests, the sky islands and depths, etc. It does not AT ALL feel like a "the same exact game." That's wild.
On Dungeons, Nintendo tried divine beasts and heard all our feedback that it is not what we want from a Zelda dungeon. So with ToTK they thematically gave us what we asked for but obviously wanted to stick to their guns and give the open air sandbox dungeons another go. I still feel like an sandbox dungeon could still be fun, but progressing through it should be linear. That's where the real problem is. The water temple (my least favorite) feels so small because all the objectives can be completed in any order so there isn't any restrictions. Unlocking new parts of the temple along the way is a "Key" element to what's made classic dungeons so fun.
I cleared the Water and Sky Temple and these two honestly just felt like larger divine beasts. I've heard the Gerudo temple is more interesting and I really hope so. They are still far from evoking the feeling of old school dungeons between the Ocarina of Time and Skyward Sword era. If Elden Ring can seamlessly integrate a classic Soulslike dungeon in an open world Zelda should be able to as well. Nintendo has so much money to develop games. Why not include open air dungeons and linear dungeons as well
what about something like… each dungeon consists of several mini-dungeons? each dungeon would have some sort of central hub area, and you would choose which area you want to enter freely, but the progression through each chunk has more linear challenges. maybe there are a few instances where you need to revisit one chunk to get something and bring it to another, and maybe one chunk has the mini-boss, etc, etc… and the larger hub area could have some of those big puzzle-box elements, like the Divine Beasts had, that need to be manipulated to access each chunk?
Personally, the dungeon I like the least was the Fire Temple, which just so happens to be the dungeon closest to a traditional dungeon experience. I tried to complete the dungeon as intended, but because I knew that I could be progressing faster by manipulating and “cheating” my way through using ultra hand and ascend, the dungeon ended up feeling very tedious to me.
Yes! Exactly! Dungeons are supposed to be the trials on the Hero's Journey. On such a journey, you the hero shouldn't always get to choose what the challenge is or how difficult the challenge is. The challenge exists as something for you to rise to, not as something that meets you at your level. Having a lot of freedom in the overworld makes sense to me (though I still think having SOME restrictions in the overworld is good too), but dungeons should be the yin to the open world's yang. It breaks up the journey. It gives you something to really test your mettle on. It's not like this is a new idea either. Older Zelda games have already successfully struck this balance. I still don't understand this all-consuming obsession with player freedom. If you ask me, having a variety of experiences is far more important than player freedom for it's own sake.
Most open-world games have figured out that balance, it's really just these new Zelda games that are focused on freedom and I really hope they don't stick to that. I buy action-adventure games to play a curated experience, I don't like having to find ways to amuse myself and care about what's happening. It's fine in games like Minecraft or whatever but that's not the sort of experience I'm looking for in a Zelda game personally
@@highdefinition450 Yeah, it works better in games like Minecraft, Terraria, and various other survival crafting games because there's no explicit narrative motivation. You're just dropped into a world with little to no knowledge of it. Your only mandatory goal is to survive, and you're not directed at all into the role of a hero archetype.
One of the biggest issues about this game besides dungeon design is how your given pretty much everything at the start and are allowed to solve any puzzle right from the get go. I remember when I went across hyrule field or the great sea and found an obstacle I couldn’t get past, I took note of it and once I got the right item/equipment i came back and did the puzzle, that felt rewarding rather than “oh look another puzzle where I have to use ultrahand or ascend”
I finished the main story just last night, after really taking my time playing through the game together with my wife. We both loved a lot of the major hits of the ending sequence, and visually and symbolically it's gorgeously done... but the emotional payoff just felt absent. The post-credits scene really left us scratching our heads, and the whole sequence gave me the same feeling that the Hateno house did: does Link like, canonically, not exist to the other characters? It really felt like, in what was supposed to be a tearful, joyous reunion scene, Link was robbed of any deep emotional payoff to his relationship arc with Zelda, romantic or platonic. They did my boy dirty.
This was very helpful for me. "Massive Zelda fan" is an amazingly large understatement of a label for me, but I would have to say that BOTW and TOTK have unfortunately fallen short and are now being called "My least favorite of the franchise." But I did not know what was actually missing, I was only able to say, "This just doesn't seem like a Zelda game." Now this video has hit the target that I could not identify.
I agree. Both of these two games are simply not Zelda games. They tacked on a Zelda theme to it. It should of been a completely new IP. Four hours after the Plateau in BoTW was enough of these two games for me. I enjoyed what I did though but had my fill by then.
The "Eventide" Shrines were my favorite to do. One man Macguyvering his way through a combat puzzle box is awesome and I'm glad that the devs saw the reception to Eventide and gave us more of it!
The story issue is the main one for me. The few times that it felt like you were actively engaged in the story as it was unfolding, were genuinely great. But those times were extremely limited in number, although slightly more than BotW.
Great take. I definitely agree with your thoughts. Although, I'm surprised for a nearly 40 minute negative take, you haven't talked about how awful the Sage's Vows are especially when compared to the Champions' abilities in BotW.
I personally like how they're useful abilities that aren't absurdly broken but have a short cooldown, as opposed to 10-20 min cooldowns for broken abilities to cheese through things. It makes it an ability you can make use of frequently instead of once in a while. The terrible choice was having to walk up to them to use it, and accidentally using them and screwing things up. They should have had a button combination to use them on the fly whenever they're ready. Also a tip for Sidon's if you think its useless, the water shield you get doesn't go away if you use your bow instead of your weapon. So it's not so bad for free damage negation during ranged fights.
@@Madchimpz The short cooldown in TotK can definitely be useful at times, specifically with Tulin’s ability. But it makes you feel very reliant on the Sages and keep chasing them during fights instead of using your own weapons and focusing on the enemies. It’s true that the Champions’ abilities in BotW are broken compared to TotK, but its long cooldown was kind of the beauty of it. They intentionally make you feel independent and rely on your own skills and weapons. And only use theirs if necessary (or in emergencies).
Reusing DLC gear was the biggest red flag to me that nobody talks about. I straight up didn't do the final labyrinth because it left such a bad taste in my mouth.
Most of people will agree that the intro, the lead up to the dungeons, and the final boss section were the best parts of the game, and guess what? Those are the only linear parts of TotK when you need to follow the given path without total freedom
I wouldn’t really call the final boss section linear. You can still go there from the beginning of the game. Yeah, it’s a long hallway, but being a hallways is not what made the lead ups to the dungeons linear.
I was actually disappointed in how linear the beginning section was, though I can understand that it had to be, because of the abilities. I feel parts of TotK were too guided. Also, many people like the Plateau the best in BotW, which is basically entirely non-linear, so your argument is flawed, but everything to push some weird narrative I guess.
You are speaking for way too many people if you are claiming that most people are saying this. In fact, I would argue that the lead up to the Fire Temple is a lot less linear than the dungeon itself. Do you know how much stuff I did that was not relevant to the main quest during said lead up? Now, I am not complaining. I enjoyed doing that, and I chose that. But I am merely pointing out an example that disproves your claim.
@@NuiYabuko Your argument holds the same weight as mine, many people enjoyed both linear and open sections when they are well done. The problem here is that Nintendo refuses to combine both, despite being so simple to do so.
@@angelmendez-rivera351 What would disprove my point is not your individual experience with the lead up, but comments of people disliking them. I bet you would have a hard time trying to find a considerable amount of those, while finding positives would be much easier.
We should all keep talking about the dungeons and other opinions on the game---it's actually more important earlier on, when they're still deciding what the next game will be like in broad strokes.
Well that’s the thing. Nintendo spent most of their time with both of these games building the physics engine, now that it’s done, they are free to focus on literally everything else so I’m excited to see what the future of Zelda brings
@@jslaughter95that's what we said before TotK but they still spent a significant amount of time working on it lmao. Ngl I don't see 6 years worth of new content in TotK personally
37:02 i feel like an attempt to do this was made with mineru's death-- if you clear all the main story questlines you unlock a secret ending where zelda & company return to the sky islands and give mineru a tearful farewell as her spirit fades away. but like, why do i care? even if you clear all the main story quests, the player doesn't spend enough time with mineru to form any sort of significant bond with her. what little we see of her in the memory cutscenes is not very interesting--her main purpose seems to be to exposit about dragonification and clumsily foreshadow zelda's sacrifice. we don't know anything about this character, so i don't care what happens to her. i remember watching this scene and mostly just feeling annoyed at how desperately it was trying to get me to feel something. it wants to carry the same weight as midna shattering the mirror of twilight, or navi leaving link at the end of ocarina of time, without understanding why those scenes were so impactful. like, i would have been more weepy if they had killed off the hudson sign guy
Been saying it for months now….Worst dungeons in the entire series, which I was not expecting. Not only did they not learn any lessons from BoTW, it’s like they unlearned everything about dungeon design that made people like them since the series beginning. Incredibly bizarre. I think the problem is partly that by making the dungeons directly part of the open world, they lose the freedom that making them entirely separate instances provides. I guess it’s cool that you can see and enter most of the dungeons from a variety of directions and altitudes….but also I honestly couldn’t give less of a shit about that when I’m doing it.
Also your point about the memories not being shared to others makes sense, but I think it’s due to having done them too early. I wish Nintendo had gated them until after the regional phenomena because if you treat the geo glyphs as something to do after the 4 regions, you never encounter that issue you had
The 2 memories that spoil where zelda is should have been something else so the final memory would have been memorable instead of repeating what we already know again. Atleast foreshadowed a bit better than blatantly saying what was possible
Problem is that Nintendo have gotten obsessively attached to the ideal of "total player freedom at all costs", meaning they can't gate anything, no matter how much it would improve literally every aspect of the game.
@@viljamtheninja The weird part is that they actually gate dungeon completion behind the sage quests, I've read a lot of posts of people who reached the Wind Temple without Tulin and couldn't progress further because the game wouldn't allow it
That ending is the most modern japanese storytelling ending I've seen. So often they do not care about the logic of the world, they only care about the logic of the emotions. It doesn't matter to them that they are ruining the narrative to hit these emotional moments. It's vexed me greatly with many anime, although usually it's the other way around. We get a bittersweet ending without the proper setup, so in order for the characters to sacrifice themselves, it becomes necessary that they just discard important information and act out of character and irrationally. EDIT: Also you should play crosscode if you haven't. It's got the best zelda style dungeons of all time IMO, even better than actual zelda.
@@toastygoo xenoblade 2 is arguably more guilty of this, with the unnecessary ''pyra sacrifice'' scene in the end that would obviously be rendered useless minutes later.
@@basementreviewer788 Oh hell no - physical death is not something Blades from 2 have to worry about unless their core is completely destroyed. It's the memories of the journey and consequently everything Rex came to know about Pyra that was at stake during the sacrifice scene. Obviously they retained her memories, but Rex wasn't sure up until the last moment if Pyra was the Pyra he knew or another Pyra entirely, since throughout history an Aegis has never died.
CrossCode is absolutely phenomenal, I love Zelda games but CrossCode for me is far superior to any of them, the story is incredibly well done and the dungeon puzzles are genuinely challenging
I was talking with a friend before, discussing how I believed that the "Fire Temple" was the best dungeon in the game. I couldn't really understand why it was the best but I just knew it felt the best to explore and complete. That's when it hit me. The dungeon was the most linear one out of all the dungeons in the game, with you advancing to each floor linearly through the rail system. When you mentioned linearity here, I knew for sure that's what the current BOTW/TOTK dungeons are missing. Great video!
Funnily enough that Temple was the only one that I didn't do "linearly." I solved the entire thing way faster because I used... unconventional solutions that mostly involve zonai devices. (i.e, making a stone slab on the lava, put some fans and steering stick on it and then drive it under the gong area, ascend, boom. Others I just use flying machine and climb.) The main flaw of the temple design was that it just required you to _go_ to where the gongs are. Not actually solve puzzles to unlock it. That made it easy to cheat through the whole thing. All the temples have that flaw to be honest.
You only enjoyed it because you played it the „intended“ way. In the Moment i realized that i could just climb up there or build a zonai device the fun got out of me real fast. Some restrictions like in the shrines would do wonders
@@MatthiasW97 I guess that’s true. Other friends that also finished the temple in unconventional ways didn’t see what I saw in it. I truly wish they’d put restrictions similar to the shrines because playing the fire temple the intended way - linearly - was extremely satisfying and fun.
@@MatthiasW97Even when playing all dungeons in the intended way, the fire dungeon is still the only one that is mildly enjoyable. You can ruin all of them, by completely cheesing it, but the others, especially the water dungeon, are bad in the intended way as well.
I'm always scared to miss important items and chests, so i did most of the puzzles in the game the intended way. Unless it got too frustrating, then i just cheesed it with a rocket shield or smth
About what you said of linearity, i remember that one of my better memories from BotW was the path you use to get to the Zora region, youre usually led to follow the rivers trail until you get to the actual place. The thing is that the region has never ending rain because of Vah Ruto, which combined with the mountainous terrain pretty much forces you into that one path, which is filled with liztalfos (or however theyre called) All of that made the experience feel very streamlined, i didnt arrive at the city from some random point by flying from x mountain, i arrived to it from the giant bridge that leads to the main entrance It really proves that even open games need linearity at times
A part of me wishes they never added climbing or at least limited it way more, cause what happens is usually theres some place I know I want to go or I see something I want to try to get to and I just b line straight there and don't really take in what's around me that much. Even after the hundred or two hours I've had with both games there's still some big parts of the map I don't entirely remember the layout for cause I mostly only cared about just getting over whatever was between me and some landmark
I love that someone talked about this. This was one of my favourite parts of the first game, the road to the Zora was filled with character, with you meeting Sidon and several other Zora along the way that let you know of the situation. The heavy rain combined with electricity from the enemies turned two seperate functions into a new challenge. Then, you have a cutscene where a moblin fights you on the bridge. In totk, there is literally shit on the roads, and that's about it. No zora around to fill the environment with life and tell you what the deal is, just a bunch of shit everywhere. I thought for a bit that maybe all the zora had left because the water was getting too unclean, but nope, they're just all chilling in the capital. For whatever reason they also decided to destroy the path in several places to make it extremely confusing and difficult to follow. And then we have a boss bokoblin rather than a moblin, which btw are a terrible microboss because all their minion bokoblins just... don't attack you? like it's like fighting you're fighting 5 bokoblins with the power of 1 bokoblin...
@@stoopidapples1596 and even if in totk there was rain and mountainous terrain and an intended path to arrive to the zora region, you could just put two fans and a steering stick and fly in a straight line to it Ultrahand is fun, but i feel it robs the fun of so many other things
Or you did it like me, did Vah Medoh first, then went to the Zora area, used Revalis blessing to fly up to the area's Tower despite the rain and then used his power again from the top of the tower to be really high in the air and then fly all the way to Zora's domain without 😅
And if you do want to break it you could but this path is even more difficult to do. On my second playthough I wanted to come from the other side and even finished the bird divine machine first.
I actually think the divine beasts were more akin to classic dungeons than the temples in totk. The divine beasts involved manipulations of the entire dungeon layout. Things you did at one end affected other areas as well. Whereas the temples in totk are just for subpar shrine rooms slapped together with no connection apart from the paint and the music.
This seems to be a verry unpopular opinion, but i agree. I find BOTW divine beasts are better than TOTK "doungeons" because they were unique in their own way. Despite the flat design, they were new experiences built and designed from the start to be that way. Finding your way through the doungeon and moving part of it was an interesting concept, and I found it fun and satisfying. The main problems are they are short and the bad boss fights, but if you also consider the battle against the colossus before entering, the overall experience was really good in my opinion. In TOTK on the other hand they put 4 (5 whit the factory if it even counts) good looking temples with good boss fights, but with 4 puzzles that are too linear and easy (mainly because they are based only on the ultra hand) and totally unrelated each other. As you said, they tried to merge the old doungeon concept and the new style of BOTW together, but with the result of failing to succeed in either this things. I don't think they're so bad, but I don't find them even comparable to older Zelda titles, and I consider BOTW divine beasts to be more fun and unique experiences.
I think there's some truth to this, but I don't think it's enough to outweigh 1. how BotW didn't have any unique 'dungeon items' (TotK's are the worst in the series both in their mechanical value and in pacing, being received prior to the dungeon itself, but they are at least something that isn't completely generic) and 2. having pretty great and unique bosses instead of BotW's astoundingly phoned-in garbage.
Even that would have been bad enough, but you can't avoid getting a map of where every terminal is, down to which floors they're on, so there's no need to fully explore and understand the already very limited and straightforward space. Even as linear as Skyrim dungeons were (allegedly by outright policy from leadership), even they knew the map shouldn't tell you exactly what the line will look like or where the highlights will be.
I love TotK as well for so many reasons, but the one flaw I agree whole heartedly with you about is their own disregard for the story. The “have your cake and eat it, too”, happy-go-lucky ending really disappointed me as well. I was so thrilled when I learned that Zelda went so far to protect the realm. And then, to not even allow her the memory of her sacrifice… Like, what an incredible narrative choice it would have been to leave Zelda’s self-sacrifice canon. It would have been, IMO, one of the most compelling incarnations of Zelda ever.
The game ain't perfect, but for me it just hits the spot where the open world is fun to explore even after I have finally finished the main quest around the 100+ hr mark. The story itself is kinda weak and I dislike Zelda did not stay a dragon. When I saw that scene where she sacrificed herself, it had quite the impact. All that foreshadowing that lead up to it was paid off. The ending ruined that.
@@Ozzianman I don't understand how the story could be weak. At least for me, it was engaging, original, and it was a great sequel to the story of Breath of the Wild. With no intention of hate, but with all the curiosity, it would be amazing if you or anyone else could actually justify why the story is "weak".
@@deomodderr At the time of posting, I was a bit salty about the ending. I still believe the ending weakened the story, leaving a bitter aftertaste after finishing the game as the emotions I felt during the cutscene where Zelda turned into a dragon became invalidated. Becoming a dragon is supposed to be permanent and the ending just did away with the consequence of her sacrifice through the power of friendship. It's a cop out. But then again I suppose Zelda needs to be alive to continue the royal family so fine I guess. Something that became a bit egregious was the Sage ancestor cutscenes that were more or less the same across the different sages. There was pretty much no point in watching the other sage cutscenes after having watched it once, it's just a repeat. Besides that, the writing of the game shines more in the smaller moments of the side content and main quests. That is what kept me invested in the game and kept me exploring. The journey itself.
This game is a $70 expansion pack. Majoras Mask was made in one year reusing assets and did something new and unique with it. This game took 6 years and is just BOTW again
There's a moment in Xenoblade X when you finally get the flight module for your mech and soar through the skies for the first time. The sprawling vertical forests and wide, gaping canyons that you once felt were too big to be in an actual video game break away and, in what I believe some call the "Toybox effect", the illusion breaks away and the world suddenly feels tiny and insignificant. The scene you showed of Saria parting with Link at the edge of the Kokiri Forest wasn't just a great scene in terms of execution and purpose- The setting itself felt "Full" and rooted you in a time and a place that felt real. I feel like Tears of the Kingdom didn't even try with the illusion. The cutscenes (that I watched) have no sense of place at all- Taking place in nondescript plains, large empty rooms, black voids and foggy platforms. Even when OoT does similar things, like the sage platform in the sacred realm, it uses ques like Link teleporting in and the sages having "Spots" to ground it in some sense of the game's reality. But I think the best example of this lack of "Place" is comparing the tutorial in BotW to the tutorial in TotK. While both are clearly gameplay-first areas to prepare you for the rest of the open world, BotW also anchors you to that world showing you an area of overgrown wildlife surrounding an emotionally-resonant ruins of the Temple of Time, with its only inhabitant being a lonely hermit who mysteriously wants to teach you what he knows. By contrast, TotK sets you up on the Zonai islands that... Feel like abstract puzzle islands tied together? Where the inhabitants are all robots whose only purpose is to teach you the mechanics? Where the "Temple of Time" is just another short puzzle that leads into a conveniently placed diving platform? It's fine the first time you go through it. But when you start to explore other islands, or the depths, and you realize that there's no "Place" in any of them, that they're all abstract gameplay conveniences skinned in a way to invoke an ambiguous "Zonai" theme... At least for me, I experienced the same "Toybox effect" that I did in Xenoblade X, just at the halfway point instead of near the ending.
Eh, i love the skells in xenoblade X and i think the world of X is one of the best open worlds out there, far more interesting to navigate and explore than botw or totk, and thats mainly because of the skells. It's probably to do with the fact that no matter where you go, you'll see something new. New environemnts on top of new environemnts, or new enemies and bosses. Or some caves and dungeons that cant be accessed via skells.
That's why I didn't use the Skells to explore new areas, except for areas I can't reach on foot. Exploring Sylvalum and Cauldros on foot is so much more rewarding. On the second playthrough, I just used a Skell and yeah, I got that effect too. It made exploring trivial.
My biggest issue with TotK is that it had the longest development time of any Zelda game ever and has the LEAST new content out of any Zelda game. The amount of recycled content is beyond ridiculous. The changes to the surface are trivial at best, the sky world is nothing and the Depths is just one small biome which was used to create a super repetitive proc-gen map.
@@acrane3496 They spent 6 years building the new physics. Open world maps are actually easily created, you can even have AI make them. Nintendo themselves said that the world in BotW was made very quickly. For me I love the open world, what I don't love is having the same world copy and pasted into a new game. A new world with more meaningful content, eg more dungeons, a Zonai civilization etc is something I would have wanted.
@@nicoterminaI hate that everything from the weapons to the constructs are disposable and constantly force you into unnecessary grinding or unintended exploits in order to have fun.
@@firenze6478 Yes and I think fused weapons should have far more durability, the Master Sword should be unbreakable and the glider/balloon devices shouldnt dissolve after 10 seconds.
@@nicotermina I think champions and legendary weapons should be unbreakable and the other weapons don’t break from use but the fused materials does break, so we have reason to hunt, but don’t have to sacrifice how we like to play in order to do so. Also zonai just shouldnt break, batteries are perfect by themselves and we should be able to store our constructs and they definitely shouldn’t break from reloading a save
Its not just linearity, but the maze like metroidvania esque approach of unlocking things that circle back in and unlock new things. The dungeon itself is a big puzzle made of smaller puzzles. The new dungeons are just small puzzles.
With regards to most negative reviews, people just compare TotK to elden ring and repeat the same things. Ratatoskr and Nerrel really dive into the game's problems (and strengths) from the perspective of a Zelda fan.
Honestly though, when BotW came out I was completely blown away and said to myself "this is the pinnacle of Zelda" Now fast forward to Totk. I just played Elden Ring for the first time in the last month leading up to TotK's release and it literally killed most good will and 6 years of hype I had for TotK Coming back to a game with breaking weapons was really annoying and something I didn't know I hated from BotW until TotK because now not only are weapons breaking but also high damage fused parts are lost without taking a full inventories worth of weapons to Tarrey Town. It me quit fighting enemies which lowered my engagement with the game by a lot. On top of that, there's only 3 different move sets even though there are numerous different weapons and thats not even something that was improved from BotW......it's the exact same 3 move sets. No change The ability to pause the game and heal at any point in combat negates any challenge. The only challenge is making sure you have enough health to survive being one shot Cannot dodge without locking on makes no sense and makes the combat feel less than half baked given everything else I just mentioned bringing it down to start Its hard to not compare to Elden Ring because it has done literally most, if not everything so much better than TotK I did 2 full playthroughs of Elden Ring back to back before TotK but felt like I had to rush the last bit of TotK on my first playthrough because I was far past done with the game long before then
@@randychristensen1028That sounds like a you problem. Games should be taken as what they're trying to achieve on their own. TotK is not ER and was never supposed to be.
after all the praise of all the youtubers out there it’s soooooo refreshing hearing this. you really captured ALL of my complaints with the game. thank you
@@highdefinition450 oh but please don't misinterpret it. I really enjoyed the game, just maybe had too many expectations of story etc. :/ Gameplay was fun tho.
@@littleredfox6849 : I think it's easy to get tired of it more because of other games you like that don't get NEARLY as much enthusiasm and, more importantly, forgiveness. A lot of the games that have been my genuine favorites over the years get a lot of crap thrown at them, get picked apart pretty hard with little attention given to their better qualities, and I've been legitimately called mentally ill a few times over liking them. What I wouldn't give to see just a little bit of that 'glass-half-full' attitude given to a few other underappreciated games. XD
Oot will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first Zelda game I played. The first 3d game i played. It was magical. It was a coming of age story when I was about 12. You begin as a child in a magical forest with innocence and trivial concerns. Special friends, and set out to be a hero without understanding the threat. Castle town is full of happy people, a couple in love, children playing, even a puppy. Your own mistakes and underestimating the villan lead to the ruin of everything you thought was permanent. Castle town is filled with redeads and its all on you to fix the world you just started to appreciate. In the end,bhis friends sacrifice for the cause, link does this all for them. He wont be there to see the fruits of his work. The story of growing into manhood and link is the embodiment of courage 💪
fun fact about wells. there is a side quest tied to wells, where you find a woman in a well that will reward you when you find more wells. dont know if the rewards are any good but you still get something if you remember where that damn npc is
@@SailorCheryl I saw a review of the game recently where the reviewer compared totk to botw and stardew valley to explain what the hell is going on and I think he put this rather nicely. In Stardew Valley, you have progression bars with meaningful rewards at the end. Botw takes the opposite approach, where you get no progression bars or rewards tied to them. And then TotK somehow decides to do neither and gives you progression bars with no rewards.
Let's be honest with ourselves about TOTK. It's a good game but most of it is literally a beat for beat retread of BOTW. I've been a Zelda fan since I first played Link's Awakening on Gameboy and I loved BOTW but TOTK feels like the exact same game Link wakes up on the tutorial island where he obtains all 4 of his main abilities right away, you visit all 4 tribes again where you complete a dungeon by activating 4 or so objects (this game's terminals from BOTW) to fight a boss, attempt to fight Ganon at Hyrule Castle, most of the story is hands off and told through cutscenes that you find in the overworld, etc. The way shrines, health, stamina, koroks, combat, armor upgrades, and cooking all function in the same way as in BOTW. In many cases it's literally the same recipes and upgrade lists. The map is mostly reused from BOTW and while the new sky islands are nice most of the new areas (the depths) are a barren wasteland. It's all the same biome with very little enemy variety and not much in terms of rewards for exploring It is fun gluing things together with Fuse and Ultra Hand but it's not enough to justify how little was changed or the elapsed development time between these Zelda games. Plenty of sequels have done more to differentiate themselves from their predecessor. Like Zelda 2, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker (which is sequel to adult Link OOT timeline), etc. I've seen a lot of people saying that they'll never go back to BOTW again because this game replaces it. They're right, this game is just a bigger BOTW. We only get one big Zelda every five or so years and it's pretty disheartening that what we got was almost exactly the same thing we got six years ago. It's crazy to think that the time between BOTW and TOTK is the longest between mainline Zeldas since ALTTP and OOT and yet how much of a copy/paste TOTK ended up being
@@supersaiyankrillin1237 Same. The overworld of BOTW was captivating to explore. Discovering places like Lurlin Village, finding Eventide Island, coming across crazy architectures like the labyrinths, etc. Discovering _how_ to navigate these areas was just as rewarding too. Figuring out how to traverse the harsh environments to get to places like Goron City were some of the best moments in the game for me. But TOTK doesn't have anything like that. Sure they may have rearranged where you find items but the exact concepts are the same. It's almost like I'm playing a randomizer It would have been nice if they had added more rewards for exploration. Almost everything is a Korok seed, a shrine, a breakable weapon, or if you're lucky- an armor piece. No unique optional bosses, dungeons, etc. I was hoping Nintendo would have taken more queues from Elden Ring but apparently not
This! Everything you said is what I think about this Game. Totk is so lazy and cheesy... I have never seen so much Copy&pasting in ANY sequel of whatsoever... And they really gave this game all those 10/10s, its unbelievable! Hopefully... NOT game of the year...
@@supersaiyankrillin1237I find TotK a chore. A grinding Zelda 😬 Zelda is going to weird places, next up multiplayer and daily rewards. I liked BotW because it opened my imagination to what Zelda could be, but TotK should definitely not be it
When impa says she's off to look for a solution I thought "oh this could be important" and then I never spoke to her again. I wish there were two endings, the current one only triggering if you do a quest with impa after finding all the memories, and another where zelda stays a dragon and flies into the sky as link falls
This review was cathartic for me. You highlight my experience pretty closely and my dissappointment in this game. I guess my hopes were too high for this game, but after Elden Ring which blended this linear and open style masterfully, I thought Nintendo were going to release something that mechanically deeply improved on BOTW. This is a better game, but my experience playing BOTW was far better. I still put 120 hours in TOTK tho lol.
For me, my favorite journey to the dungeon was actually the fire temple. This is because diving into death mountain was actually the first time i ever saw the depths(and i wasnt spoiled on it either) so my jaw dropped in that moment, but rito’s is very good as well.
For me the Rito’s was the best for a number of reasons. It was my first temple in Tears of the Kingdom, so learning that they actually use more traditional style Zelda dungeons and bosses was sick, and the flying boss was awesome. Beyond that the missions leading up to the temple is set in a location that uniquely forces you to engage with the mechanics. In both BotW and TotK many obstacles can be avoided by just climbing a tower or mountain and gliding, which you can’t do in the ship islands. You actually have to engage with its combat, stealth, platforming and the corresponding element champion.
I really think if Nintendo wants to continue down this route of "Go anywhere" style games is to make giant open dungeons in the style of a 3D Metroidvania. You may be able to start every major dungeon from the beginning, and complete sections of it but key items needed to complete certain puzzles are located elsewhere, with the game's overall narrative acting as a guide to push you towards discovering the locations of said items.
@@TheRealNintendoKidthat’s what metroidvania is though. And older Zelda had a lot of backtracking too, although maybe not to that extent. Still, I think a balance of openness and linearity is the best way to go for future Zelda.
@@TheRealNintendoKid A good Metroidvania never feels like you're backtracking for too long. They generally point you in the right direction most of the time. Plus you'd have fast travel, you wouldn't need to walk from one side of the map back to the other.
I actually think Elden Ring got exploration rewards right. Everything led to a potentially build-relevant reward. That, and there was always juicy lore.
i disagree, I think Elden Ring also got its exploration wrong in most cases, but not nearly as badly as Zelda. In most cases, you will find ingredients for perfume and crafting. In the case that you do find a cool weapon, it's most likely not suited to your build. It's actually very rare that the game rewards you in a way that's meaningful to your current build. To make matters worse, the bosses are reused so, so many times, and they even made some "boss" versions of regular trash enemies. I do still really like Elden Ring though, because I think the combat is fun regardless, and there are some truly awesome moments when you discover areas that you hadn't seen before, as well as learning just how truly _massive_ the world is as you continue your journey. The dungeons were also each impeccably made, and the large scale boss fights in the main scenario are the game's best highlights (Radahn in particular is probably my top 5 favorite boss fights in video games). The scope and sense of adventure was nothing like I had ever seen before, which makes me feel like ER is what BotW should have been all along.
95%+ of what you find in Elden Ring is worthless for your build, or is a consumable you'll never bother using. But at least there's a ton of enemy and boss variety, and you get experience from killing enemies. That is reward enough.
@@Madchimpz I suppose that, because I’m a lore addict, getting to learn a bit more about the world with a lore item from a grave or cave felt rewarding. Thinking on this old comment, I’m not sure they got it ‘right’, but they got it better than other open world games I’ve played.
I genuinely wish we had seen more villages. Lookout Landing was such a cool find, and i expected to find at least a few smaller villages around that were similar, but was a bit disappointed to find that it was just as empty as botw. The emptiness worked in the first game, but with rebuilding it feels like we could have had more : ( I would have loved to see Goponga Village Ruins to start rebuilding as the zora help hylians rebuild, or to see the Sage Temple Ruins have something cool there (other than that cave)
Up to a certain point (imo) you really only need 10 hearts, two stamina wheels, maybe ten weapons/shields/bows and that’s it. You’re now capable of beating Gannon, before that is borderline impossible. That being said, the upgrades feel pointless and the fact that you can turn off the sage blessings adds to this feeling, which then begins to effect every aspect of the game.
What else do you want? 10000 currencies? 1 currency? No currency? Nothing at all??? I see lot of criticisms in this section but no actual solution, useless negativity.
I think what would have worked better is if they had followed up on Impa telling you she would search for a way to reverse Zelda's draconification after you tell her following the completion of the dragon's tears quest. She tells you she'll search the archives for a cure, and then... it goes nowhere. Maybe after you recruit Mineru, she could tell you she's heard rumors of a way to reverse the process and you go looking for the macguffin. Rauru and Sonia helping you heal Zelda worked for me on an emotional level because it was essentially their final act of love and their way of fulfilling their promise to Zelda to send her home; they died before they could do that, but their spirits lingering on made sense to me. I just wish Link had spoken to Sonia's spirit like he did with Rauru's at some point; it would have been cute to see her talk to Link and tell him how much Zelda cares for him; maybe even have her or Rauru allude to Zelda's sacrifice ("Please bring her back safely."). One YT video I watched about Link and Zelda's relationship said that while Rauru's light powers and Sonia's time powers were necessary to change Zelda back, Link provided a necessary "motive" (i.e., his love for Zelda) in order to make it work. So, maybe include a line about "Only one with strong motive can change a dragon back to normal?" Also, I'm glad you didn't subscribe to the "Zelda should have stayed a dragon" opinion. That would have made for an awful ending; it would be like if Beauty and the Beast ended with the beast dying instead of turning back into a prince; it would have just rendered the whole story pointless.
disagree, i think that ending would have been cool. there should be some weight to the choices zelda makes but she always ends up fine. i expected her to be old in botw because it had been 100 years but she remained young, then i expected her to stay a dragon this time but again, she's totally fine. like in the end it really wasn't a sacrifice that she turned into a dragon because as i understood it, she's not really herself as a dragon, like she's not fully conscious as zelda. she ate a stone then woke up thousands of years later in link's arms :/ wish there was some other way to repair the master sword that didn't feel so bullshit lmao
@@highdefinition450 Link and Zelda had no way of knowing everything would work out. Before the ending they both thought it would be permanent, they both suffered. From Zelda's point of view it was essentially committing suicide, and the scene showed that it was physically and emotionally painful. The light dragon's actions in the ending also actually imply there was some level of awareness. It is not "bullshit" at all. The great deku tree explains it and it makes perfect sense with the lore we know about the sword. It is a sacred sword forged by the goddess/was originally the goddess sword. Of course it requires Zelda's sacred power to fix it. This is also an E10 game. It really sounds like you people want a downer ending in a game also aimed at children just for the sake of it.
I kinda assumed that the three of them were needed because it's an allusion to the Triforce. Sonia's wisdom, Rauru's power, and Link's courage were needed to bring her back, or something like that. It was still a very anime ending that didn't feel earned. It would have made more sense to add an after Ganon quest to find Impa, learn how to save Zelda, and then earn that as an extra cutscene.
@@highdefinition450 The fact that Zelda isn't herself anymore when she's the Light Dragon means that it logically is a sacrifice. Zelda didn't age for 100 years for the same reason Link didn't. Calamity Ganon is an ageless immortal spirit, so being inside it would also make you immortal. The Shrine of Resurrection works the same way.
@@kit76149 majora’s mask was rated E and respected the audience’s intelligence enough to not act as if a “downer ending” is too much for them to handle MM’s ending and overall narrative content is 10x more downer than anything in TOTK but still doesn’t treat the audience like idiots just because the intended audience is primarily children
THANK YOU FOR TALKING ABOUT HOW THE ENDING RUINS THE DRAGON SACRIFICE RULES. IT PISSED ME OFF SO BAD!!!!! THANK YOU LOL. I feel so vindicated, you're the only youtuber I've seen talk about it!
I hope the next zelda game has more permanant rewards, like talismans from elden ring. I'm tired of getting weaker weapons and even armor out of every chest i see.
@@user-wh4fx4cn1t well if you don't forget about it, but you complain about weapons being weak, then idk really what is the deal with you man, the damage is fine, silver lynel horns are pretty good
I've never seen anyone else mention how melancholy Saria's last scene is but it obviously is. I picked up on it as a kid first playing through the game. And I tried reloading and avoiding picking up the Ocarina of Time so that I could keep using Saria's Ocarina instead.
Okay, I NEED to talk about the shrines and rewards because they pissed me off to no end. I half agree with your opinions on shrines. The ones that offer genuine thought-provoking puzzles are amazing. I got stuck on some for HOURS. I love them to bits. But then you encounter the Rauru’s blessings. There are so many god damn Rauru’s blessings. I understand some of them. The islands like Zonaite Forge and Lightcast and Starview are great, because you have to solve a large scale puzzle or explore an intriguing landmass to get to the Blessing. I hate the Rauru’s Blessings shrines that have no buildup. There are a LOT of them. I remember literally just walking into a cave and fighting a few Bokoblins and then BAM, a blessing shrine. They’re EVERYWHERE, and it makes me upset because the actual puzzle shrines and combat shrines this time around were so good. It felt like wasted potential. And yeah, the armor rewards suck. I think of myself as a pretty intrinsically motivated guy, I love exploring just for the sake of it. I don’t really NEED a cool reward, y’know? But it would’ve been nice to see more new armor like the Miner armor or the Zonaite armor. It was lame just getting the amiibo gear again. It disappointed me greatly. The new armor sets and designs are so cool too. The game just needed more of that. I completely agree with the dungeon critique too. You know it’s bad when the tutorial shrine that shows off the upcoming dungeon mechanics and teaches you how to use them to their full potential are BETTER than the actual dungeon puzzles themselves. These dungeons need linearity to work, and I don’t understand why Nintendo doesn’t limit your options. Like you said, they do it for the shrines, so why not these? Don’t get me wrong though, the lead ups to the dungeons were incredible. I still get teary eyed thinking back on the climb to the Wind Temple. It was just masterful the whole way through. All this aside, this is still on the list of my top 10 favorite games of all time, easily. For all the problems this game has, it’s just so fun. I love it.
I'll always have this opinion, and it is a HUGE part of my big fix for TOTK: THE ONLY WAY TO REVERT ZELDA'S SACRIFICE WITHOUT DOING ASSPULL BULLSHIT WAS FOR LINK TO FIND THE TRIFORCE
Why DIDN'T they give us the Ability to Upgrade the BOTW DLC Armour that was brought over to TOTK? 21:10 It also annoys me that we can't tell the other Characters that 'Zelda' was fake even if Link saw the Memory where Ganondorf uses a Fake Zelda. The Ring Ruins should have been able to be accessed prior to Hyrule Castle if Link has already seen all of the Memories.
I am with you about the dungeons. The restrictions and solving a dungeon is super special . I think if the open world was free and the dungeons were restricted it gives the best of both worlds
When anyone talks about dungeons in BotW/TotK, I always remember this line from the first ever gameplay showcase of BotW, all the way back in December 2014. Ao Numa was riding through some random forest on horseback when he encountered a huge stone gateway, and Miyamoto said: "This [Architecture] looks a bit suspicious, we must be near a dungeon." THIS. This is my dream dungeon design. No massive drawn out quests leading up to them (or maybe keep them to some extent, given how good they ended up being in TotK), no boring story about some character who doesn't matter all that much, and no map markers telling you where they are. Instead, you just... find them. No more shrines that are over in less than 5 minutes, this way when you find something interesting, it MEANS something. I sort of experienced this in TotK with the spirit temple, I had only done the wind and water temples and I wanted to take a day off just to chill out and explore, and naturally, I ended up in the one region that didn't have any main story stuff (that I knew of), Faron. I loved exploring the sky islands, and I was curious to explore the huge storm cloud, so after wrangling together two hot air balloons into one giant zonai monstrosity, I made it up there. I did the shrine and thought I was done, but then I found the door of vitality with the zonai head behind it, and when it lead me on a path down into the depths which I had yet to explore, I can't overstate how AMAZING it felt when I realised there was an entire dungeon just sitting there. Unfortunately the dungeon itself kinda sucked, but the fact that I discovered an entire dungeon by accident was so genuinely euphoric that I wish every dungeon was like this. The entire point of these games is about discovery, so the fact that the biggest parts of these games don't tap into that is really disappointing. (sorry for the massive rant lol, ive wanted to get this off my chest for years)
You're totally right. If they spent the last 6 years making around 12ish massive dungeons I'd find the development a bit more believable. It just feels wrong that after all this time what we got was essentially a remix of BoTW with better gameplay mechanics.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, for saying what was said at@21:30 regarding the "Zelda has never had good stories". I hear that argument any time I or anybody else critique the story of TotK in any capacity. I'm like, "Are ya'll-playing the same franchise as me? Zelda stories have been awesome. Simple, but awesome, with good messages. What makes any story in any medium good is not only the content but the execution of the content. There were some great ideas in TotK story but the telling of it was really poor imo
Some people think with their feet. I like to assume that that kind of negative thoughts against Zelda stories are not made up of criticism, but entirely hate with drops of stupidity. And in the case of TotK, I have never, ever, never understood why, for example, people say that TotK's story is weak, dull and all the other negative adjectives, when the story is not only okay, nor is it good, but it is undoubtedly great. and I don't say it in vain. The real flaw instead is the narrative, because even loving the game I have seen some inconsistencies and errors in the narrative and I think it could have been improved, but it is still not a brutal mistake and clearly not an excuse to hate the game, that would be completely absurd. Anyway, I'm very grateful to read a comment that really makes sense in its words.
@@deomodderr none of the characters in totk are compelling in any way. the characters that were present last game are not developed at all, instead relying on the existing development from botw. and the introduced characters hardly even exist. i havent' collected all the tears because i really cannot be bothered at this stage, but the ones i did collect were boring.. and also out of order, like I immediately found out queen lady dies, far before the game could give me any reason at all to care about her. then we have 4 sages, which are just "hmm what if we brought back the champions from the first game and gave them... literally no character at all?" the entire story is like if someone was asked to describe the story of botw in a minute, except that would probably have more depth.
