The Sequel Nobody Understands | A "Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" Video Essay 

“In Castlevania you’ll be fighting Dracula” *Shows footage of Metroid*

TW SA: The year botw came out, I was raped. The game was a huge part why I survived. I needed a world to get lost in. I struggled so hard with the fact, that the friends link had were dead and you couldn't change that in the end, like I couldn't change what happend to me, but it helped me to deal with this feeling. When totk came out, i was no longer the helpless 15 year old girl. I told people about what happend, I feel so much better and don't want to die anymore. In a sense i fought back against the calamity in my head, like the people of hyrule against the calamity ganon. To see that sidon, tulin, riju and yunobo didn't give up and got stronger, was the thing i needed to see. Even if the others are dead, link can still help them, and in the end, they help him too. There is always something to keep going, keep fighting and evolve. The defeated feeling after botw, after i realised i can't change the death is gone and replaced by afeelng of hope, because of how the world in zelda anf link are healing. They can't change what happend, but they can keep going... and so can I. These games mean so much to me in a sense I could never explain and I'm happy to see that there are other people who enjoy the kind of sequel totk is. Thanks for the video

This theme is also reflected in the music, much more orchestra. The main “Field (Day)” theme you hear while walking around now has woodwinds to accompany the lonely piano. Because Link isn’t alone anymore, and Hyrule is healing.

I feel like I’m being gaslit

may i make a response to this video? it’s okay if you’d rather i don’t, but if it’s okay with you i have some thoughts

I think I may know one of the reasons that people like BOTW more than TOTK. BOTW's main emotion is this sense of melancholy loneliness. The world is largely empty of people (with exceptions, of course), Zelda is basically dead, and the world is destroyed. But there is still this beautiful world to discover, despite it all. So the whole game has this bittersweet feeling. And bittersweet is a very powerful emotion. But ToTK isn't bittersweet. The world has rapidly healed, your friends are everywhere, and you're never lonely. It's not bittersweet, it's triumphant. And that's fun in a new way, but it's never going to have that lasting impression that melancholy does.

Ive sat with Tears of the Kingdom for over a year now, and honestly? Tears of the Kingdom is one of the greatest games ive ever played, it took what i loved about BotW and turned that up a couple notches while fixing almost all of my issues i had with BotW (either in ways i didnt expect like Fuse and weapon degradation or something as small as giving me the option to drop a weapon when i open a chest). TotK is one of those games that i think, over time, people will start to appreciate a lot more. This game had crazy expectations put on it that it could never live up to (kinda like Majora's Mask in that regard). And with Echoes of Wisdom taking pages out of Tears of the Kingdom's book? I think the future of Zelda looks very bright, these creative player driven experiences are awesome and ultimately what Miyamoto had envisioned originally with the very first Zelda...Aonuma and Fujibayashi where able to realize it

Here from @skittybitty's vid - I got bored of BOTW pretty quickly, so finding out the next Zelda game (and Warriors spin off) would be directly related annoyed me for a while. I'm glad you enjoyed them so much though, and hearing you talk about TOTK helps me get why other people found the set so fun! Hopefully we'll both be able to enjoy Echos of Wisdom : D

The thing about mastery… I kinda felt like I had already achieved that after completing half of the game, especially totk. At that point the enemy camps, mini bosses, sky islands, chest rewards, korok puzzles just keep repeating without getting harder (baddie’s HP and DMG go up but the movesets stay the same). Even the dungeons don’t get more difficult or complex.

Watched Skitty’s response to this video, and I just wanted to pop in and say hi! It’s interesting to hear a different opinion than my own, and I really enjoyed some of your jokes!

The re-using of the map with slightly different active spots is like the second playthrough in the OG game

I was expecting this comment section to be littered with “nuh uh!” Great essay and it feels nice to be seen for how I also viewed the game. Still have some qualms with the games, but I still love it.

I’m so glad to see that someone on the internet sees this game in the same way I do!

Personally for me I ended up playing BOTW much later than most people and everyone kept hyping up how good it was and when I finally played it I was actually kinda disappointed I felt like everything in the game was too generic none of the items or weapons felt special, the Divine Beasts all felt the same and the bosses felt very uninspired compared to the zelda games that came before it but after playing Tears of the Kingdom I absolutely loved it it fixed all of my issues I had with BOTW and then some I truly don't understand how people can say it's just a "DLC" it is so different and has way more content and fun mechanics compared to BOTW

"Nobody understands this game". My goodness, I wonder why.

There's something so much more satisfying this time around as well. I wasn't a fan of Botw from a gameplay standpoint. But totk expanded, revised, and now it actually feels like a Zelda game despite having the new formula

The first time I watched a video dunking on TotK, I asked myself, "Wait, does this mean I haven't been having fun playing the game?" This man gets it. 👍

I love this essay/video, TotK isn’t about discovering new places, (even though you have the depths and sky for that), it’s about revisiting your favorite locations to see what’s changed.

One of my favorite games ever

what i thought upon reflecting on TOTK, was that the way they approached the game was to make it a re-do of botw. a remix, if you will. they had zonai stuff planned since the beginning of the darn trailer for "zelda wii u" but well, they didn't go for that stuff. they went hard into sheikah tech but now, the gameplay and story function of everything sheikah is replaced with everything zonai, in a sense it does mean that... the game kind of has to try hard to shoehorn itself into being a game that remembers that the other game happened: as in, where did the guardians go? why is malice now gloom? i dont think thats necessarily a BAD thing but its just. honestly i think i wouldve gladly accepted it being touted as a remix rather than a sequel, since to me it very much feels like "if we had more time, technology, and had different ideas for botw, this is what we would've done" like... demon dragon ganon briefly looks like calamity ganon in that one cutscene, and i think thats a nod to how this is a different take on calamity ganon. i think if you took out the slim few mentions of the prequel, being BOTW, it'd still stand well as a game. but it DOES have a unique spot in standing as a world that you re-experience after you've experienced a hyrule that existed in a drearier state in BOTW. so in that sense, yeah, stuff like hateno does make it a great sequel. the ways that you can see the world has grown... that time has moved on... that is what makes it a unique experience as a sequel. but in terms of the primary story, they definitely didn't focus too hard on making it a sequel, but... im sure plenty of that was out of wanting it to be able to stand on its own, and be a fun and engaging story for people who hadnt played BOTW. a good example of that i think is tulin. tulin is... almost nonexistent in botw, so both people who have played botw and who havent played it, are generally on the same page when experiencing his story. overall i love totk, and i think its an interesting combination of being a "remix game" and a sequel in the sense that its expanded upon the world, and uses the prior experience of botw to enhance its own world like it wouldnt stand as well alone if they entirely touted it as a remix. the tone of the world in general sorta relies on botw having happened: the calamity having been cleared up and saved, and civilization rebuilt ...but again, i also think that sometimes, sequels are developed with the mindset of "lets re-do what we did, with different stuff this time" instead of "how can we follow up on the story elements we created in the first game?" if they had done the latter, we'd have gotten an in game explanation of malice (not gloom) and how dead-ganondorfs malice created calamity ganon. or a different approach to zonai stuff, instead of it being "fundamentally this takes the role of sheikah stuff but its more interestingly designed" ...now time to actually watch the video

Even though I don’t fully agree with this video, I appreciate you sharing your opinion on the game and showing others your perspective. Even though I disagree with it, it’s still commendable. Keep up the good work. 🙏😊

I think what made TOTK such a good game to me was nostalgia combined with the excitement of exploring the same place I'm already familiar with again, just with new tools and new areas to visit. I also really enjoyed most of the story, even though it wasn't nearly as compelling to me as previous Zelda games. I was excited to see Tulin all grown up and ready to fly. I was happy to see Sidon had found love. I was impressed when I met Riju and saw her new haircut, as well as how much she had grown into her role. I was also pretty happy to see Yunobo, although I can't say I care that much about him (Daruk was just more fun). And although the dragon tear memories aren't nearly as interesting to see as the memories of BOTW (I think it would've been much more interesting and novel if we got to play as Zelda in the past), I still cried when Zelda sacrificed herself. And the music, man. I cried when the music picked up during the Colgera boss fight. I grew up playing Wind Waker with my dad, so hearing such a familiar song in such a glorious new form really hit hard for me. The music throughout the game is honestly phenomenal, that was just the most memorable part for me. This is to say that whatever everyone else felt was missing from TOTK just didn't matter as much to me. I went into TOTK expecting the same Hyrule I had already thoroughly explored, so every time I found something new, I felt that same excitement I got from BOTW. And I've honestly never expected much in the realm of story from Zelda games, so I wasn't that disappointed when the story wasn't as interesting as, say, Spirit Tracks or Skyward Sword. I didn't mind TOTK's shortcomings because I wasn't expecting the game to be all that special, just a pleasant venture back into a land I feel at home in, a return to a comfort zone with some new things to make it fun. And yeah, TOTK's story isn't perfect. I think it could've been a lot more. But I enjoyed it for what it is, rather than what was expected of it. That's the lesson here. It's fine if you don't like TOTK, but don't judge it on the basis of its predecessors. I consider modern Zelda to be a fresh start, it just needs more work before it'll be as perfect as everyone is expecting it to be. And it's fine to say TOTK is a letdown, because in some ways, it was. But clinging to previous ideas of what a Zelda game is is only going to hold us all back and prevent Zelda from getting any better or changing at all. Just play the game. Criticize it, but don't act like it wasn't a Zelda game, or it's just a disappointment and there's nothing to gain from the experience of playing it. You're just fundamentally wrong if you refuse to engage with a piece of media just because it doesn't fit the mold of what came before. Judge it by its merits and its shortcomings, without trying to fit it into the box of "old Zelda." Also, one of the weirdest things I've seen all of the TOTK hate videos do is pretend like BOTW and TOTK are inherently separate narrative experiences. They aren't. You literally cannot tell the story of TOTK without BOTW, and without TOTK, BOTW doesn't get a proper ending, imo. In order to analyze TOTK, you absolutely HAVE to assume that it is intrinsically linked with the previous game. You can't understand the theme of growth within TOTK without that assumption. And the people here in the comments saying "nothing's changed since BOTW" clearly didn't actually look at Hyrule in both games, let alone compare the themes and stories of the two. It sounds to me like people want to say TOTK is just DLC as a way to downplay the changes made in it, but also refuse to see it as an actual addition to BOTW. It's a weird way to look at a game, especially a Zelda game, since this isn't the first time this has happened in the series. You can't understand the story of OOT without MM, you know.

skitty fans invading rn

Came here from Skitty’s video. While I do have my gripes with the game, my fondest memory while playing it was building a truck to cross through the canyons of the Gerudo Desert. I didn’t like that location in BOTW, but it was a lot of fun here trying to navigate the terrain, thinking “huh, that wasn’t there last time”, changing the truck’s design to go through gaps or provide shade in the heat, and occasionally tumbling down a cliff into a swarm of enemies. Was it the most efficient way to go? No, not while the towers and gliders exist, and the truck disappeared after a cutscene which was kind of an anticlimactic end to the journey, but it was still fun to do while it lasted. TOTK for me looking back was very much a “make your own fun” kind of game like vanilla Minecraft. Just wish it did more to encourage different playstyles. Because believe me that if I could’ve brought that truck around longer I would’ve driven it straight through Ganondorf’s army and into his face

I hadn't seen the game in that way. I was starting to think like the people that say it's a dlc, and I didn't want to accept that. But this point of view made me remember that's not true. Good video.

“a proper narrative sequel” sums it up perfectly

I'll give my two cents about this game as well. I really liked tears of the kingdom. Playing it for the first time felt really great. I really liked seeing the new enemies, playing around with the new abilities and seeing all the changes in the world of Hyrule, both big and small. I loved seeing how the people changed as well. Both mayor characters like the sages, but also minor characters like Hudson and even some random NPCs like Calip. All in all i really liked the game, but to me that feeling faded quickly. I got the feeling i was seeing the same set of monsters everywhere very fast, only a few new additions. The only time i didn't feel this was in the Gerudo desert with the Gibdos. But other than that i felt like no matter where i went I would see the same bokoblins, moblins, lizalfos, horriblins, likelikes, constructs, chuchus and keese. I would have loved to see more biome exclusive enemies. And i don't mean ice variants of existing enemies for snowy areas. I mean something like deku babas in Faron or Darknuts in Hyrule castle and a few ruined structures like a colloseum, Akala Citadel or Fort Hateno. I also felt like I was not challenged, ever. I had one tough fight with a Gleeok and one close encounter with Gloom hands, but no other fight felt like a challange. My most recent death is still at the location of the first Gleeok I ever encountered! Sure I did play botw, so I do have an advantage. But this little new challenge just felt sad. Why don't three Lynels come at me at once in the colloseum? Or at least have some other enemies nearby. Why isn't there something like an enemy camp of bokoblins with a Hinox so they can wake the Hinox up, so you need to be extra careful. Why do all nearby enemies vanish when a gloom hand spawns? Link is now 10 times stronger than he was in breath of the wild, yet the enemies Don feel like they have increased their strength accordingly. The old Enemies haven't changed in any way other than having a horn attack and the new enemies only feel mildly more challenging than anything botw had to offer. Or at least the Froxes, Gleeoks, Gloom Hands and Boss Bokos do. Evermeans, Baby Froxes, Horriblins, Likelikes and Aerocuda are not any more challenging than a bokoblin. And final issue i had was the sky and depths lacking in interesting stuff to do. The only interesting stuff in the sky to me were the two temples, the great sky island and the thunderhead isles. All the other sky islands felt like an afterthought to me. Most sky islands were just kinda empty, they either had a shrine and zonai dispenser or a boss and a treasure chest. But there were no big explorable sky islands other than the four "mandatory" ones. And for being in the sky a lot of them lacked the interesting traversal that should have come with the consept of being a floating landmass. There were few enemies, few animals, very little variety and literally no different biomes in the sky. Genuinely every sky islands has the same gray and yellow color pallet. And there were no NPC's other than in the great sky island. The depths was only slightly better. It at least had the exclusive Froxes and all the enemies dealing gloom damage. And the lifelessnes felt like it may have beem more deliberate, with it being the world Ganon envisions, just darkness and his monsters covering the land. But i felt it could have used a bit more variety in biomes either way and it definitely should have had more types of structures rather than the same mines, colloseums and yiga hideouts copied and pasted everywhere. All in all it was a good game, tho it did end up feeling repetitive quite quickly.

Just saw another RU-vidr that I enjoy comment on this video. This video is some good quality stuff. Will be checking out the rest of this channel for engaging content and fresh takes.

Idk chief, a lot of what you said could be said about a lot of games. And personal stories doesn't make the game better, it's just nostalgia. The problem is that Nintendo markets the game as a tribute to creativity. The game has a lot of options, sure, but the game almost never makes you struggle, thus , there's no challenge. The game is fun tho.

I hope this video doesn't receive too much hate based on a somewhat accusatory title, because I pretty much have felt every positive change you described during your experience. I can't speak for everyone's experience based on what each person enjoys and looks for in a game, but I came at BoTW and TotK from the perspective of a frequent hiker and nature lover. Not just a frequent hiker, but a hiker who likes to return to nature trails I've already done months or years beforehand. Going back to a trail you're very familiar with at a different time brings with it various seasonal changes, environmental changes, different plants and animals, etc. The whole vibe of the same trail can change depending on when you go and if you go multiple times. That's how I felt about TotK; I have sunk 400 hours into this game, fully exploring the same world I already fully explored as a high schooler. The combination of new music, new landmarks/subtle geographical changes like the trees becoming fully grown in Lanayru wetlands turning them into a dense forest or a beautiful creek with step waterfalls appearing in gerudo canyon, wide-scale seasonal changes like the rito blizzard and lack of lava in eldin, new animals/monsters, an improved and beautiful skybox, more frequent quests, as well as a healing civilization to explore really made the moment to moment gameplay, not just the big cinematic new moments, so much fun for me. This game still has some massive issues, baffling choices, and blatantly ignores some player criticisms from botw rather than fixing them (not including durability tho, I think fusing really does fix it in a fun way), but I still ADORE this game and is one of the most unique gaming experiences I've had, growing up and moving the BotW world forward with me.

The "unknown" in BOTW in the first couple hours becomes the "I've seen it 100 times before, don't care". The only thing TOTK brings to the table is upper and lower dimensions and a couple new mechanics. I don't speak for everyone obviously but I think it simply wasn't enough to justify what we should have got the first time. If BOTW was say...buried somewhere in the um...wild prior to releasing that pile of poo and they just worked on it and made TOTK, I believe many would have been more happy with it.

Hit the nail on the head so eloquently and concisely. I really don’t know what people wanted from this game besides what we actually got. My only personal issue with either game is clunky UX design. But tears of the kingdom really is a fantastic sequel and I very much enjoy interacting with all the citizens of hyrule.

These video essays about TOTK specifically has truly made me realise that everyone has different limits and taste. Which I already knew but I feel like I unlocked another level of understanding. They talk about the exact same topic like the item menu or abilities, and yet they will say the completely differing opinions on it. And you cant say neither of the opinions are wrong because they’re both true. This game truly taught me that something someone absolutely hates about a game, another didn’t even think twice about. From the title of this video and watching the video all the way through, I wasn’t really convinced that this game is something no one seems to understand. Because the points brought up in this video were points others have brought up and either shared a similar positive sentiment, or recognised the positives about it but overall took a negative experience out of it. Great video nonetheless.

THANK YOU! You put my thoughts about Tears of the Kingdom into words perfectly! Pretty much since the release of the game I've seen way too many people hating on it and it was honestly really upsetting because I absolutely love the game. Thank you so much for making this video!

Sonic pillow case is wild tho

Last year : TOTK IS GAME OF THE YEAR ! ONE OF THE BEST GAME EVER ! Now: TOTK is not good and breath of the wild was just a fluke. The amount of videos in my recommended that all have the same title, it’s insane how the public opinion changed about TOTK. Zelda is my favorite game franchise but i will never understand the fanbase. It’s always the same, the opinion changes so drastically over time about every single game ever since wind waker. Either it will be loved to hated or hated to love, it always ends up like ten years later as : “the misunderstood masterpiece”. It happened for wind waker, twilight princess, skyward sword… I just don’t understand it. I love every game period, that’s it. Some are better than others but never bad. In my mind, saying that a zelda game is bad is crazy with the level of quality they all have compared to so many unfinished and buggy games that keeps getting out all the time nowadays.

Something that helps me with the feeling of adventure is disabling the ‘-‘ button so I can’t use the map or fast travel

I can see your perspective, but I heartily disagree. I don't think Tears of the Kingdom does enough with changing its world to justify the reuse. Especially when the world goes out of its way to amnesia-fy the events of the previous game, making the revisits of each area pretty disappointing. Oh you may have technically been the one to build Tarrey town and get Hudson married, but don't expect any of the people living there to acknowledge that

I feel the same way about a lot of it, but looking back I do think there is a lot of merit to how others think about it. I loved visiting NPCs and seeing how they had changed, but there are some confusing instances of NPCs we spent a lot of time with not remembering us. I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting all the areas and seeing how (for example) Death mountain was completely changed due to the lava levels shifting. Yet, I also think they didn't do enough with some of the areas, like how the labyrinths are the same for the most part. The side quests are a lot better, but even the ones that I expected to be huge (like saving lurenin from pirates) still don't have the emotional impact some of the games in the past have achieved. The enemies have leveled up a little... but there is still a majority of enemies reskinned from BOTW compared to how many new ones they introduced. So while I feel largely the same , I think there are some major caveats to what you are saying.

My 6th-8th grade years (2014-2017) were akin to the Calamity and the events leading up to it, but all five Champions survive, meet up together in a predetermined spot, take a moment to catch their breath. After a while, they all march into Hyrule Castle on foot and complete the mission without the Divine Beasts.

Best totk essay I've seen so far

But can you pet a dog yet?

9:09 - Bro, I kept coming back because of that motorcycle and the ability to leap 100 feet into the air and glide around a cool ruined world. Tears of the Kingdom took all of that away. They took my bike, my cool sage/sheika powers, and then they filled the world NPCs I cared nothing for. They even took away guardians and gave you a bunch of smaller, worse, more boring bots that are basically reskins of bokoblins.

I have similar feelings about the game as you, but at the same time have the same frustrations and gripes as Skitty. Honestly, everyone has different lines and thresholds for what makes a game good for them, but critically speaking, TOTK is fractured and incomplete in so many facets, especially for a $70 game. I still really enjoyed your content despite disagreements, and have subscribed and look forward to your future content! ❤

ToTK is a great game, and I'm not gonna pretend it's not. The new abilites alone make it a blast. My only issue is that, I hardly feel any urge to go back and play it. I totally get the stance on the game being less about discovery, and more about experiencing change. Though, I've already seen that change once, and I already love BoTW. Those changes aren't as exciting to me as to those feelings I got seeing them in the original game. I think I honestly had more fun in the new shrines than in the overworld. They were crafted with the new abilities in mind. The old overworld was crafted with new exploration in mind, to make things stand out more. ToTK is fun, but, I'm not sure what kind of fun I should be having. The depths, while repetitive at times, were pretty cool. The sky islands though? Total bummer. The starting island was an amazing start and concept to what could have been, like entire cities to find. I think what I'm getting at is, the new stuff felt underutilized at times, and some things from BoTW they tried to make better, just didn't feel like a huge step foward. I still love this video! Great essay, and it's refreshing to see some postive light shined on this game. While I don't think it's a masterpiece of a game, I don't think it's a shell of a sequel, either. It's better if you play it in smaller doses. Excellent job!

Very noice, I'm currently playing TOTK and the explanation about your video about the sequel thing and the nostalgic effects of the game is real. Good job!

Thank you bro, I feel like no one understands this game but you really explained it

I can understand the nostalgia from players for whom Breath of the wild was a big part of their childhood. The feeling of going back to a place you have spent so many time exploring as a child to see how different, yet familiar it is must be magical, akin in a way to the feeling we experienced in Ocarina of Time, going back as adult Link to someplace we visited as child Link. However, giving you a set of glowing green lego blocks and awkward abilities doesn’t make up for the broken beyond repair gameplay loop, the underwhelming dungeon experiences, the boring, tedious and repetitive side content, the completely forgettable cast of characters with even less personality than a Deku stick and the complete lackluster story. This game will live in Zelda history as the sequel we didn’t need. The sandbox that stretched too far. With Echoes of Wisdom, they appear to be going back to a more traditional formula, albeit with small and fun elements of creativity and openess that is now part of Zelda's DNA, whether we like it or not. And after a year of dread, I finally have hope they can strike that delicate balance between a linear adventure with prevalent story and puzzle experiences and non linear exploration.

I would absolutely agree with you... If anything changed in any meaningful way. It feels like such a half hearted attempt at a sequel all things considered because almost none of the negative aspects of BOTW were fixed. The world is barely changed at all. The lore is in shambles. The dungeons are better, but I wouldn't label any of em as "good". Enemy variety is still lacking. The depths are boring and empty. The menuing is considerably worse. Shrines are still lame and forgettable. Combat is still a bit jank. The Champion Avatar summons are all terrible and lackluster replacements for what was available in BOTW. And it's all topped off in a world that most players had fully explored already and a half baked story that actively hurts the lore and history established by the first game (Nevermind the entire Zelda timeline). If the game took place entirely in the sky then that would've made the lack of real improvements more tolerable because at least at that point you would've been in a totally new environment to explore. Instead, they likely spent the past 5+ years of dev time on the crafting system that ultimately doesn't do much, because most puzzles can be solved with such basic solutions and being creative only uses up more resources and often just wastes more time. I don't doubt that the devs gave it their all, but I think they spent their time focusing on the one thing that didn't need to be improved on or added: the physics/Fuse. And they gave us a mediocre product as a result... for $70! You can enjoy the game, it's fun for what it is, but don't assume that people who don't like it or have genuine criticisms towards the game just don't understand it. This doesn't feel like a sequel just cuz it uses the same map. It just doesn't feel like a sequel in general.

thank you for this video. ik everyone is entitled to their opinion but i played botw for the first time during the pandemic. after that, totk came out as soon as i finished my first botw playthrough. i didn’t understand what 2015 botw players meant that they didn’t feel the same/didn’t like totk as much bc it’s the same hyrule. i, who recently played botw and came out of that experience, had so much fun with totk and seeing how hyrule changed and became better after botw’s events. it was so nice to see how the hyrule has become more of a community after all those “years”. tbh, i don’t really put much stock in the “feeling of exploring hyrule the first time.” i didn’t feel anything special playing botw because it was my first ever zelda game, and the world felt too empty and lonely for my tastes. maybe that’s why i liked totk much more too in terms of the world. I like the feel of community in totk and change, much more than the lonely post-apocalyptic hyrule of botw.

In a time where this game seems to have a cloud of disappointment around it from many people, you did a great job of explaining how truly wonderful it is. Awesome video!

5:35 - Ah man and the quests, I longed for a depopulated and empty Hyrule before the end, I was tempted to lose to Ganon then uninstall just so it'd be my canon ending. I couldn't stand these quests, the boring mii maker npcs and their terribly insipid writing. I ground that frog suit quest from start to finish with a guide and checklist and never have I regretted my time in any video game, I can't believe I did all that for a suit that doesn't work. They made a suit for the sole purpose of letting you climb up walls in the rain and it doesn't even work. They shouldn't have ever even put in that raining slide in the first place. This game is allergic to permanent upgrades it's always some tiny little unnoticeable bonus given a suit that costs a billion rupees that'll wear for a minute before you take it off and switch back to your main armor (which is the one with the best armor). I wish all the armor was cosmetic and you could wear whatever, upgrading all the stats independent of your outfit. You can wear an heat/ice attack suit that doesn't make you immune to the heat/ice OR move through sand/snow (which occur and cover the earth where you find heat and ice)?! You can the same bonus, anytime and at anyplace without drawback in other outfits. Seriously, what were they thinking?!

The growth section of this videoa wass like poetry

I was so young when I first played breath of the wild. Only twelve and it was close to my first video game. Tears of the kingdom came out during a really rough time in my life. It felt like coming home.

I love this take on TOTK, a great view of the direction they took. But, its a bit odd to can the game a narrative sequel, when it almost ignores entirely the events of BOTW and certain characters don't even remember Link. I suppose this helps people who didn't play BOTW to get invested, but does undercut a lot of your connection to the world when no one remembers what you did, a loads of things have changed without explanation. My main question has always been, why isn't Zelda Queen and so only Princess? That makes no sense 😂

2:12 and it’s exactly the kind of sequel totk isn’t

I don’t usually get ppl who say they agree to 100% on an essay. But with this video I feel that way, thank you for a great perspective I shared even before watching this video

This feels somewhat subjective, which is fine but i wouldnt word it as if its the reason everyone plays. I played botw to immerse myself in a world. getting stronger was my last priority. I actually intentionally put self imposed limitations on myself bc i felt TOO strong. i wanted to do the same thing with the next game but from the start i tried hunting down every shrine I could find and 100% them for the reward (which i eventually looked up and realized i didnt want at all) . I even used the really op hover bike for the depths. it was a terrible mistake that ruined my experience with the game. that on top of my griped with the story telling lead to me having a significantly worse experience with totk compared to botw. I however do agree that what drives exporation in totk 2 is the curiosity of what has changed. you were onto something with that one.

Depths are complex? You need to prepare for them? Sure...

I love this game, but I was very distracted because I figured out Zelda was an impostor very early on but everyone on Hyrule was like HURRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrRrrrrr. You would think Link would tell somebody. He doesn’t talk a lot You don’t ever read his text, but he does talk a lot. You often explain things to NPC‘s with your dialogue choices and he moves his hands around like he’s talking and stuff. We just never hear what he says.

TOTK is best seen as a part 2 to BOTW and not as an entirely new sequel imo.

Bless you. This is the exact kind of content I was trying to find when the negativity towards TotK started becoming more prevalent. Is it a perfect game? No. But I think a lot of the negativity comes from coming at it with expectations for something that it’s not, and you sum that up fantastically.

11:53 when you run an olympic sprint to Hateno town only to realize that- Also Hi Tulin 👋

I’ve been playing Zelda since the early 90’s and while I understand people enjoy what they like, this game is incredible by itself, as a sequel, and as a Zelda entry.

Your right, even the writer doesn't understand the game 😭 WE LIVE IN CHAOS

So grateful to see more people who enjoy the game for the same reasons I do. I honestly gave up defending the game and just ignored most videos that began coming out.

Wow.... what an excellent video! Your perspective on the game and its intentions struck me as extremely obvious, but only after hearing you share it.... like when we draw a blank on a word we wanna use and someone else calls it out. Every point you made was something I felt when playing the game, but I lacked the clarity to describe it. Thanks for calling out the words for me!

Everything you said in the video was true, but I don't think that 'nobody understands' this. The argument is that Nintendo failed to deliver these things you and most people recognize they were aiming for. They said this was a 70 dollar experience (the most expensive switch game, the first to jump to this price), but the game did things like, every reward in the depths was reused amiibo armor or copy pasted every dungeon cutscene. They reused the memory cutscene format for the story but this ruined a lot of peoples experience of it, because you can see the ending twist way too early. They said the dungeons were like traditional dungeons again, but this was only surface level and failed again to scratch any sort of well designed dungeon itch for a lot of people. They made the UI worse than BotW, tweaking it a bit to make a couple things like cooking better but making other parts like arrows much worse so that the gameplay is very start and stop as you scroll through 100s of items. They had less shrine quests than the original game even though they had more shrines total, and more of the shrine quests they did have led to empty reward shrines. I think your hometown revisit analogy is kind of apt. As a kid you remember fondly playing on that playground, but now 20 years later its rusty and overgrown and nobody bothered to repaint it or fix the cracks in the sidewalk that are now glaring and everybody trips on them. Just because the kids CAN still have fun on that playground, and parents who used to play there still have fun playing with their kids there, doesnt mean it doesn't need some work. Ultrahand and fuse are beyond impressive, but it really seems like they focused almost solely on those new abilities and failed imo to do enough changes to the rest of the game to fill that 6 year wait.

I grew up not being really into Nintendo besides collecting Pokémon cards. As time went on, however, I felt distant from the Pokémon franchise and lost the charm I used to feel from it. Nintendo became empty to me. This changed completely around under a month before the release of Totk. I wish I had grown up on Zelda instead-the amount of depth and love I see of past and modern Zelda games are things I wish I experienced through my childhood. When my Zoology teacher introduced me to Totk (he was just really excited and kept talking about it) I looked up Totk and found the third trailer (at the time it was up for like 5-10 days). I immediately fell in love and became obsessed with Zelda in a matter of minutes. I knew of BotW a couple of years beforehand but it never peaked my interest until I really got exposed to Totk (yes, sadly I played totk before botw). While I love playing botw and totk basically all of the time, I just can’t help but feel regret not indulging in the older games from the past. While I may be a new Zelda fan I am glad to be one and I can’t wait to continue being part of the community. Botw and totk are my first steps to getting interested in Nintendo again. The Legend of Zelda is peak. The pessimism towards Totk is not something I pay attention to because it really did feel amazing to play over twice. I’m just glad to play it.

Finally, someone who gets it. Phenomenal video. Subbed.

Heya, I may disagree with this video, I also come from Skitty's, but I just wanted to give you TREMENDOUS KUDOS for some of the most mature handling of an online disagreement I've ever seen on this platform. In a perfect world this wouldn't have sounded like much, but Skitty and your's conflicting views in pretty much every other scenario on RU-vid would have caused a toxic flaming explosion. Thank you for being an absolute Chad and being cool about this :D I just felt like I needed to comment and leave a like. Honestly I'd be very curious to hear a response to Skitty coz this can be a really interesting discussion to have in such a civil manner. Maybe even the two of you can have a discord call about this or something, that can be a really awesome video. I dunno, I'm just here to show appreciation for such a good handling of an online disagreement.

My one problem with this game.. it that its memory of the previous title is... spotty at best in terms of what this link has already done with these people.

It’s to easy tho. The early game is hard, but it gets easy so fast after that.

I always talk about how the evolution of the land of Hyrule was the highlight of the game's story for me and the reason I was always in support of them reusing the map, but something else you mentioned that doesn't get talked about enough is how the game treats your evolution as a player. Most people are gonna go into the game with a general idea of how it controls and they're not gonna have any issues taking down a regular Breath of the Wild enemy, but they now have a whole lot of new mechanics to get the hang of and the enemies themselves come in new variants and have new tricks up their sleeves. You can play the game with only the abilities you carried over from Breath of the Wild (in fact I plan to for a challenge run at a later date), but you'll have a much harder time doing so because of how both the enemy and the terrain has evolved; taking advantage of the new tools at your disposal is how you're gonna get the edge this time. Tears of the Kingdom isn't a new adventure that failed to recapture the wonder of Breath of the Wild; it's a new chapter in that same adventure and an evolution of it, and the gameplay reflects that so well.

I just gave up on this game after finishing that worst brain dead water temple in Zelda history on top of the most brain dead easy gameplay that becomes utterly trivial the moment you start collecting white monster pieces. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me after beating every main-line Zelda since LTTP, most of the spin-offs, and clearing BOTW with 400+ hours doing every single quest. I'm willing to be yall money that the Switch 2 will get a re-release of TOTK with new DLC content baked in that will be purchasable on the switch version. Hopefully that will include a Master Mode that will make the game worth playing through. That one thing is what made BOTW a pretty good game in the end and kept me questing through completion.

One of my few ‘best souls hitting game’ of all time

You're very focused on the thematic elements of TotK. I like the themes and tone of the game as well, but I don't like the gameplay. You say the reason I like BotW is because its fun to become the master of the landscape, but in TotK there's nothing left to master.

Bro you deserve more subs. Quality is insane.

In an open world *exploration* is what matters most, by reusing the map that feeling is gone, and an open world with no exploration simply sucks. TotK is not just a bad sequel but a mid open world at best, the sky and the depths were a joke and definitely didn't make up for the recycled map.

I feel like I'm the only dude that just didn't touch BOTW for a long time, then heard of TOTK coming out in may, boughyt it and played it with almost no memories of my botw gameplay. And I think that's why I think TOTK is better than BOTW. Because I still knew a bit of what was before, but seeing every changes that I could recall made me enjoy this game a ton. When I played it, I didn't have any other game to play that I enjoyed as much as TOTK for about a year or two. It was a crazy experience to me, with the plethora of options you have to handle a problem. I was amazed about how a game this complex could run on a worthless support, about how almost no other game had done something like this before, it was crazy. And I became a bit sad when I saw that almost every friend of mine and most people on the internet had either forgotten about the game or just straight up said it was a failure of a sequel. I didn't understand their point because I knew that I enjoyed it much more than I did with BOTW, or at least from what I can recall. This game amazes me, and it can only show how much passion nintendo puts into the zelda franchise, and I'm honestly waiting for a game that can compete with this game : gameplaywise, soundtrackwise, visually wise, ..., this game almsot feels like it's perfect, and I know that if it wasn't for the switch, it would've been even better. Ik that was a lot of yapping, but I do think TOTK isn't just a sequel, it's a new game too. It obviously has flaws that it couldn't prevent but those appear as minor compared to what the game accomplished. Most people I know have played TOTK also played BOTW shortly before it came out, and is probably the reason why they didn't enjoy the experience as much as I did. TOTK is an insane game and I can't thank it enough for what it did to me as a person. I truly feel like this is the experience I had been waiting for after a huge amount of time. So yeah, I can say it proudly, TOTK is a masterpiece, as a sequel, but also a game as in and of itself.

Very well done and composed beautifully. Truly enjoyed the explanation and you nailed what it means for me anyway.

This is a great video! Although for me, the reason I kept going back to replay botw wasn't to get better at the game, it was to replay in new ways -- trying to re-experience the discovery in new ways. I'd play without the map, or by starting in different places, etc. So for me, totk could've had a lot more to discover and rediscover, especially in the sky, which I was hoping would have more variety, like the Great Sky Island set us up to expect. Still, a great game, and the curiosity to revisit locations DEFINITELY drove a lot of my excitement! :D

There's something more, too. Ever since Windwaker, they've shown us ancient tapestries of Hyrule's history, giving us hints of great unknown historical events. In a normal game, it would be a thin conceit; we only heard of this imaginary world a few minutes ago when we started playing the game, so there's not much surprise in a hidden history of the world. We can't be pulled into the mystery of the unknown unless there's a known. So the best a game can do is remind us of Egypt or something mysterious in the real world. The game itself cannot reveal any new secrets about the real world or our own history. But Zelda can. In Windwaker, the ancient tapestries were accompanied by the new music changing into the original Zelda theme. That is something from the real world, from my own history as a child, from 1987. When Tears of the Kingdom showed the first king of Hyrule, it was showing me something unknown to go with something I've known for a very long time.

I fully agree with your take. You hit the nail on the head about TOTK creating a new feeling of discovery based on what’s changed in the world which I think was equally as impactful as exploring Hyrule for the first time as this time, I have an emotional connection with the world and characters. My only gripe with the game is how similar to BOTW its structure was, especially since they told a linear story with the memories yet still gave you the ability to watch them out of order, resulting in spoiling yourself early

I think this is a very romantic way of validating a disappointing sequel that's full of short commings.

To anyone who agrees with this video, and or doesnt understand why ToTK is so Hated, might I recommend Skittybitty's video on it, because its _the_ most in depth, thorough and high quality video on the subject. Tell me your thoughts once you've finished it! 😊

huh? majoras mask was after ocarina, not windwaker..

Oh no. We understand it. A 7 year wait for the same map, a new dark map with nothing in it but recycled content, empty sky islands with no purpose but to push the repetitive shrines. Only one new “town.” Barely any substantial changes to existing towns - Hateno, embarrassingly, being the best. Reused ost. Absolutely doo doo poopoo garbage story decisions and disrespect to established lore, only 4 dungeons which are just open terminal hunts again, and the list goes on. Whole game is just a wonky playground for their new Bob the builder mechanic. People praising the game are just doing so out of some kinda of reverence for BotW - or perhaps out of some blind, honeymoon denial.

It surprises me people don't get the cycle of exploring makes you stronger. A flow between underworld, overworld, and mid helps you explore each faster as you get boons of eaches items.

1:56 “we want the entry entry to build on what came before it… I’d argue that this is the kind of sequel that ToTK is supposed to be” I would have loved if this was the case, but it’s just not. ToTK didn’t care about the lore of the world or what came before. The sheika tech disappeared because? No reason, the writers just said nobody knows. Almost none of the characters remember Link, mysteries that were built up in BoTW are ignored or have the laziest possible answers (looking at you 8th heroine). I could go on. From a technical perspective it’s a masterpiece, I just wish the writers cared a little bit.

Finally. A new video about tears of the kingdom that’s not negative.

I think you trying to be to nice with this game, like, I get what you said about change and all, but it's clear that this game is a very lazy sequel, you can find some cool stuff like, finding out Hudson has a daughter, but generally the map is the same with some minod changes, there is a guy on RU-vid showing all of the changes, and most of the times is simple a new well or a korok in a different place, the side quests are a lot more lazy as well, most of them involves you talking to someone, this game feels a lot more copy and past than BOTW, I don't know. I honestly didn't had as much fun playing this, and I don't like when people try to blame something else, like "oh, your older now, that's why you don't like it", no, I was an adult back in 2017 and I love BOTW, I played Skyrim for the first time recently and I loved it, so the reason why people don't like TOTK as much, is simply because the game is not that goor or that polish.

"nobody understands this, but me, cause i'm just so smart!!" Or maybe the game just isn't good.

I never understand how Tears Of The Kingdom get's thrown shit at for having the same map but Black 2 and White 2 do exactly that, along with lot's of new stuff and that game is a masterpiece?

I can't speak for everyone here, but my disappointments were many, and I was probably most hyped for it out of all the zeldas in the past few years. The vibes are great. Art direction is killer. The mechanics and trials truely thought provoking and fun; However, I've been with the series since the OG. Zelda has always kinda been considered Nintendo's story game in a sea of games they claim not to care about story in. The kind of writing in totK, where you strip a player's past accomplishments from them, and hide objects they already gathered in new "ancient" places impossibly existing within places you've already been. (the "new" stuff being reused dlc armor from the last game). In no world should I have to meet two men to build a town, befriend both of them, build said town, return later to said town to learn that one man has UNLEARNED my existance, as has half the continent, and the very children taught in school by the very supposed hero they can only barely refference. It's hack writing. It's worldbuilding condemnation. It's wanting to have your cake (grab all the new playera you can, look at these shiney non-liniar dungeons only this demographic likes!) And eating it too (making money off the false promises "no guys look, dungeons! We're doing it again!") I think saying we don't understand what the game is, is a tad insulting to people who definitely combed over this experience, and found it sorely lacking when we know how well they can do. I was disappointment in this entry in the franchise, as someone who cares about story, narrative, and how the game and lore respect a players time and intelligence. Kids and new players aren't stupid. No part of BotW's story was too complex to recant in a better way than they did, without washing the world of it's environmental storytelling and shiekatech. "Well, theres this ancient civilization again, and they have this ancient technology again--but don't worry! It's different this time! From that other stuff. Also, we better not confuse our dumb players by including more than one reused macguffin!" It's the whiplash at these moments that pulled me out of the game, and reminded me that this franchise is as they all are; a tool to make money. Anyway, many of us care about this stuff because it's our avenue of enjoying our text. If we are consistantly shown the boot over bringing new players to the game, over and over, doesn't that kind of suck? I think we have a valid reason as any to air our disappointments, without the blanket statement of a title designed to pull eyes claiming we just don't get it. The reason why Majora's Mask is so good is because of what they managed to do with a year and reused assets. The story was more experimental and exploritory ((And I'm sorry; the moon sent falling on a city in denial by a dejected gremlin hyjacked possession style by psychedelic demon mask, where explores the idea of the power held in death and the accomplishments that inspire others (the death masks link dons to continue those characters struggles and bring them peace), and how characters respond to a world ending cataclysm.)) is so much better than the story of the game that came before it, even though it's touted as the better game. Oot's story was generic fantasy compared to what came after. Twilight Princess did somthing similar by trying to recapture OOT's feel in a post Wind Waker world, albeit with a new engine and art direction. I criticize the Zelda team because I know they can do better than this. Because I love what this franchise used to be, and what they were going for that initially got all of us on the Zelda train that they are so adamant about scrubbing from existance. And those aspects weren't what was provided in BotW or TotK for us. Or Skyward Sword. The team swears they make these changes (dungeons, etc) because they must innovate... where they believe it matters to innovate. Ex. More open solution puzzles that take less time and thought to craft, puzzels that seem deep and thought provoking at first, but ultimately cheese reigns supreme. In my opinion, totk had many cracks that continue to show themselves as we are introduced to other games by studios who aren't trying to make their franchises into disney. I don't think anyone could reasonably claim TotK's is a tighter experience all around than Elden Ring or Baulders Gate 3. But it could be, if they wanted it to be.

Nah bro, TOTK is one of the most over rated Zelda games of all time

tldr: totk has little to no new content, shouldn't cost 70$ and for 6 years of development(half a year longer than botw)even though most of the game is the exact same to add little to the base game. It is 70$. The depths are boring to explore, there are few sky islands, and pretty much everything else is meaningless. Ultrahand feels bad due to the switch's hardware (choppy framerate) and once you find out how to make a simple flying machine it is effectively pointless to make anything else, almost every shrine can be beaten with a rocket fused to a shield or lifting a platform then recall. The shrines are so simple, shallow and forgettable - a bunch of shrines are empty as well. The fuse menu is atrocious and half of the things are useless to fuse and don't have an effect. The subtle developments to the surface feel lacking, 100+ caves is excessive, most rewards for exploration are amiibo or dlc from botw (which not only is lazy but damaging to the story) finding each sage feels formulaic and being able to watch the memories in any order spoils the whole "hunt for zelda", not to mention how bad the dungeons were, they were somehow less enjoyable than botw. This isn't a "misunderstood" sequel it's just a poorly designed game on every level. botw was the first zelda in an open world like this so it would be difficult to get right, and they did make mistakes. It's just crazy how nintendo can work on a game for 6 years (half a year longer) bearing in mind that the engine and basic mechanics are the same to make a game with an almost exact same map and NPC's (who actually all forgot what happened), a story that completely disconnects from the first. Like WHERE DID TRHE SHIEKAH TECH GO???? WIL WE EVER LEARN ABOUT THE ZONAI RUINS FROM BOTW???? WHAT ABOUT THE LEVIATHANS???? WHAT ABOUT THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE THAT WAS UNIRONICALLY FORGOTTEN???? zelda games often have little easter eggs to older games but not to the point of calling them sequels and blatantly copying most of the game. barely scratching the surface with how much they dropped the ball on this game and FOR 70$ IS INSANE.

I do like the idea of the game being about rediscovery. I think going back and exploring the same world that's changed over time is interesting. I only wish they changed more of the map.

There are several things that I do not agree with, but I am going to focus only on the ending, the scene in which the dragon of light returns to be Zelda, to understand what happened you have to look at two scenes, first in the attack of the Moldora by Ganondorf, in this scene to amplify Rauru's power and repel the Moldora, Sonnia and Zelda stand behind him with their arms extended, the second scene is the one in which Sonnia pushes back a cup before it falls, Sonnia tells Zelda that to return something to its original state you have to use the memories of the object, the word memory here is key, because Link during the game is collecting Zelda's memories, that is why in the end they return it to its original state with Rauru and Sonnia amplifying (like in the Moldora scene) the power of recoil through Link, there are no script holes, it is explained, perhaps it is better understood in Japanese I recently discovered the video "The Poetry of Breath of the Wild" from the channel Writing with Andrew, in the video he talks about how these games (I would say all Zelda games) work more like poetry than narrative fiction, it changed the way I see these games.

All this said, I still think TOTK still gave me that "discover Hyrule" feeling again. The recontextualized map, particularly the surface, is one of my favorite parts of this game. BOTW was one of the best games ever made, but TOTK is one of my favorites.