Where Skyrim Succeeded, and Zelda Failed 

No

I cant tell if this is fr fr or cap bruh

The temu advertising team probably doesn't speak English. No way they approved this

You are clinically insane

ngl I hope America never fully divorces from China. Love some cheap Chinese crap

I think it's my favourite ad reel I've seen

Wait til you discover Nick Mulen's ad reads on cumtown. Truly unhinged.

THINGS, STUFF, ITEMS!

Since I am a notorious follower of Maxim 1, Pillage, Then Burn, I hate it when Dungeons or Areas go to long for me to take my Loot home !

​@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233I never thought I would have caught someone familiar with the 7 habits of highly effective pirates out in the wild lol. I miss schlock mercenary

@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233 Don't worry there's fast travel. But Dark Souls is heavy on the should I leave now with my loot or continue on decision making. Especially in the first when you don't get fast travel until the first half of the game and get to find like 10 different shortcut loop around. Because the level design was just so dam phenomenal in that one.

@@BrokenGauge Me too, I started reading shortly after it came out and it was a great tragedy when my stable daily fix ended. So I have to propagate the knowledge about it. And I hope for the day when Howard anounces a new project.

But in TOTK, if you find an underground passage, it leads to either a shrine, a korok, or that guy holding up the Hudson sign.

I think that’s fine though

I think there is a fair bit more to criticize here. - Story execution is awful. Being able to do a linear plot in any order is a good way to ruin any surprises - Several important characters are underutilized and have no obvious motivations. Including Ganondorf - Ultra-hand is overused, and yet at the same time you are never asked to do anything challenging with it - Re-using BotW's landscape kills a lot of exploration, as you have seen most of this before and know it - Re-using all the collectibles makes this game a nightmare at times. With far too much to do, it can easily overwhelm people - Dungeons are still very short and are all very similar structurally to each other - Combat is still rarely worth it, and the enemies damage has been increased to an absurd level - Enemy variety is still pretty low, with Bokoblins, Lizalfoes & Moblins still taking up the vast majority of encounters

It doesn't even have to be serious, it just has to commit to more within the world than Korok seeds, personally part of my issue with botw (haven't played the new one) is the weapon durability thing, rewards were always just more of the same weapons I already had, and if it was any good it was about avoiding using them until I "needed" them. I never felt a sense of progression at all and nothing felt like a real reward for finding anything or exploring, and so I never cared about what I was finding, and so I got bored. The game had GREAT mechanics for exploring the world, just what you explored never really amounted to anything, serious or otherwise.

The most memorable part of botw, for me, was the castle. You enter it, alone. Faced by a myriad of monsters and guardians, while heroic music plays in the background. You defeat every single foe and meet the ancient god and you slay him. That was memorable. That felt serious, impactful, it made me feel as though i was a real hero, and not just some twink with a passion for rock climbing

@@tyranitararmaldo combat is definitely worth it in TOTK, the enemy horns and a few other fuse items basically completely fixed that from the first game, Ganondorf's character in this game is very strong idk what you're on, and so much of hyrule is changed, plus sky islands, plus AN ENTIRE DEPTHS WORLD SPANNING ALL OF HYRULE TO EXPLORE so there is still exploration. Some of these complaints you've given are true, but some make me legitimately wonder if you've played the game

The way you described the unique sound of that death whistle is so *metal,* dude

The death whistle... this is where the Aztec series began!

Was really hoping Cyberpunk could hit it. It misses the mark a lot, but there's a few fleeting moments where it really hits the first playthrough Skyrim vibe. Like, I was doing some dumb gig for some fixer, and on the way back to V's apartment I walked into a plaza and looked up. Dead of night, but full of neon and bustling people and weird architecture linked up with criss-crossing catwalks, and just for a second I felt the same feeling that I got when I turned that corner out of Riverwood and saw Whiterun, with Dragonsreach looming over the city surrounded by golden plains. That feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of world in this open world game.

i'd suggest playing Blasphemous. if u want to explore and learn about an interesting in game civilization try playing "Blasphemous" blasphemous if u really resonate about what said in the video, the "Blasphemous" world has godtier lore, toptier voice acting, a bizarre universe where everulyone follows a masochistic religion devoutly and it is a fkin experience to learn more about the world and lore as u progress through the game and the atmosphere+presentation is godtier absolutely fascinating and intriguing. hyped af for the sequel. other than this , Hollow Knight, Elden Ring , Skyrim, Dark souls1 and thats it for good exploration. i'd fun playing and exploring risen2 when it came to exploration. maybe fallout3 also falls in the category

@@btchiaintkidding7837 Its sadly a 2d metroidvania though not a 3d open world game. I would say its closer to Dark Souls in that regard.

Elder scrolls 6 is coming in like 2026 but it's probably gonna be delayed till 2040 and they'll make supreme edition, platinum edition, aniversary edition+, and god edition before es6 comes out💀💀💀

Elden Ring was a massive disappointment. The caves and catacombs on their own ruined any believability the world might have had. The catacombs especially. They had copy pasted sections in completely different parts of the map. They thought nobody will notice. There are also sooo many reused bosses. Both in the open world and the catacombs+ caves. This kills the difficulty as you already know all of their patterns. Killing them again is just a chore. Elden Ring would have been a much better game if they cut down on about half of it.

Still one of my favourite games of all time.

Underrated indie gem

Skyrim is what got me into gaming, had no real interest in video games before I played it at a friends house.

That was indeed nice explanation of why Skyrim was good, despite the rewards being useless :) thematic, but useless.

@@eggtasticbonail7252 bro are you kidding me skyrim is not indie although it was birthed by one person that one person is the big todd in the sky. So no skyrim is not a "indie game"

Music and atmosphere makes you wanna buy a home and marry Aela

​​​@@archersterling6726 and scream at Lydia for standing in front of your face while shooting arrows. 😂😂

Skyrim has a plethora of problems, but it's a beautiful mess. I have never felt more immersed in a game before.

@@DanteKingOfSin Skyrim makes you want to just walk

One of my favorite games, but very disappointing from a perspective of character progression. All those amazing skill trees and they waste them on dynamically generated enemies. The outcome is that the first dragon you fight will be weaker than a bandit boss you encounter very late in the game, which is absolutely ridiculous. Luckily there are mods that fix this and make the game truly challenging and rewarding... Well, mostly one mod, Requiem. I don't know why Bethesda doesn't want to learn this lesson. FomSoft does this excellently. Static and hand crafted content will always be far superior to dynamically generated enemies and loot.

and also with the architecture argument too. Twilight Princess' Sky city and Temple of Time dungeons both evoke this feeling of alien technology, this weird civilization that existed with it's atmosphere and the way it's designed. Even the Manor with the Yeti in the mountains had that level of creepy atmosphere of being lived in and subtext present in it. And even with the Stone Temple in Majora's Mask every detail felt deliberate. Of course with the scale of TOTK there can't be as much story to tell but I'll be damned if it had any to tell with it's locations.

Wait a minute... Bottom of the Well > Breath of the Wild BotW > BotW

It’s funny how ToTK desensitizes you to checking wells for cool stuff. There’s nothing interesting to find down there.

sounds tremendous, although your circumstances had to be altered from the majority.

​@@lloydmartelNobody expected the depths because only the sky islands were part of the marketing for this game and they hid half of the map from us so we can discover it ourselves

@@lloydmartel altered? He just played the game

Siofra W

Big problem is that if you trust the game and go where they suggest they will tell you about the underground and about lightroots and how to light up the enviornment and for most players that's how they learn it so it feels like a tutorial rather than exploration

Zonai?

playing outer wilds right now and the game is so exciting. The moment when I got sucked into brittle hollow's blackhole and thrown out of a whitehole is indescribable, it gave me goosebumps and left me in awe unlike any other game. Can't wait to finish this gem.

Bro coulda worded this way better

You can't even compare the two games. Outer Wilds is a fucking masterpiece. Zelda is just another Zelda game.

@@RoseColoredIrisnah you dickriding

This one’s honestly just schizo. Comparing a open world physics sandbox game to a triple a open world rpg is insane.

@@diegeticfridge9167 Yeah but is it worse than dunkey's videos though 🤔💬

I know finally

Praise the

Got a point😂

This is actually a really good point. When the exploration gets praised and emphasized so much the game feels so disappointing; but really, the whole point of the shrines and koroks is to encourage ingenuity, and as much exploration. I still wish exploration was better and more rewarding, but looking at it from the perspective of being more about ingenuity than exploration really does make it seem like they actually accomplished what they set out to do. And that's also where all of my own enjoyment of the game came from, personally.

Question: why is it a Zelda game then? Zelda as a franchise was based in the feeling of exploration and discovery. If the new game is about building shit, why isn’t its own franchise that can wholly focus on the construction systems and not be held back by the tropes of Zelda that were not designed for the game they’re making?

@@blank-vj1mc Well, most of Breath of the Wild's unique characteristics (at least for a Zelda game) came about just because the developers asked themselves why they did everything the way they did, and Aonuma didn't really have an answer for them. So BotW was a bit more of a deconstruction of the Zelda franchise than anything else, and I would imagine that TotK just focused a bit more on the new direction they decided to take. So basically, BotW came about because they were making a Zelda game, but wanted to try and make it as little like Zelda as they could (at least, that's the impression I got from the older interviews leading up to BotW).

@@andrewlyon8924 That’s actually not true at all BotW is the closest to the original Zelda that the series has ever achieved. And they specifically cited the fact the went back to the absolute basics of the formula. Tears of the Kingdom isn’t that. It’s well known that this was DLC that was expanded on to create a whole game. To me that sounds like the developers got bored and they just decided to make a new game with mechanics that were only designed to make the older system more fun. Zelda is about more than exploration, but it’s also not about being a Banjo Kazooie Nutz N Boltz rip off. Also, if you want to make a game in a franchise that’s as little of the franchise as possible, what’s the point? Zelda should be out on retirement or Nintendo needs to purge the brain trust they currently have. The modding scene would definitely appreciate it.

To be fair I don’t think it meant to be a exploration game, I feel like it more like a creation game where you meant to make cool mechanisms like hover bikes, mech suits, bombers

I agree, over half the time I've spent with TotK has just been "basically gmod but Zelda." Frankly, that's not a bad thing! Point is though, as the vid pointed out, every 10/10 review refers to the exploration as the main "thing" on offer, while once you actually get into the meat of the game it's all just puzzle solving and creativity toy. Really good puzzles and hella fun creativity toy, just misrepresented is all.

@@LAF0NT Eh it has a lot of great exploration too around the world.

​@@LAF0NTBut often the puzzle solving is for the sake of exploration. "How will I use the pieces I have available to me to get over there?"

Idk it seemed a bit shallow, it was just shoehorned into the start just so he could make the callback without actually adding anything

⁠​⁠@@jack_kerins he changed the quote so yes he added something lol wtf you on about.

I feel like that's where a lot of the explanation comes from. The flowers, the evolution of the towns and some characters it's much less about each individual cave

Where exactly was that?

So... just literally nirnroot, but less interesting

@@ELMQ missing my point. What I'm saying is the most interesting part is only made interesting by other games. On it's own the explanation isn't much to sneeze at.

The most interesting areas in the games are the ones that call back to previous locations to remind you how fucking ancient Hyrule is

That just highlights another problem I have with totk. Like, how do you know the arbiters grounds is even the same place as the twilight princess arbiters grounds? How do we know *any of this* is actually connected to past Zelda? Because you can find costumes that reference past games? Who made those costumes? What are they doing in there? How did they end up in a chest with a gameplay safe reward? More to the point, why are the rito and zora a separate race when all of the zora turned into rito in wind waker? Do you see the issue here? Zelda takes no effort to cement itself within any kind of timeline beyond cure references to past games. The arbiters grounds in totk wasn’t a place where they executed prisoners. It was an area made to get you to remember twilight princess. Everything in totk is 100% meta and it’s impossible to divorce it from that. It’s a sandbox built on the corpse of like 50 past games (and somehow it’s not as interesting as how that sounds)

​@@firstprimehunterI'd argue that you're looking too deep into it, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing but it can be damaging. The OP is saying that if you haven't played past games, then locations are obviously not going to mean anything which is true. However, these locations are simply...there to give familiarity/call back to older games to fans but are not rooted into being the exact same location previously. Take for example, Spectacle Rock, it's just two mountain peaks to the average person. And yet this location has been around since the first LoZ game and is constantly changing its location in every appearance. I think that trying to cement call backs is a double edge sword. It brings familiarity, but also ironically makes fans try to make sense of things when it clearly wasn't meant to in the first place. That's why I believe the fans who forced/put pressure on devs to make timelines of their games unironically ruined part of the magic of LoZ.

@@firstprimehunter that's less of a TotK issue and more of a longstanding series problem.

Well also Zelda has freedom of movement and the environments are designed to interest you in a way to want to go over to whatever mountain you see

Zelda has very great exploration because of the methods to get from pointA to pointB. You could find a higher point to fly, hitch a ride on a dragon, build a vehicle, climb a mountain, all to get to your pointB. The problem is pointB is generally pretty boring and uninteresting. This is where Skyrim thrives in comparison. The way in which to get to pointB in Skyrim kinda sucks. You'll just walk or fast travel there. Maybe you'll meet some cool NPC events on the road or something, but the travelling aspect of exploration in Skyrim is lacking (plus, youll probably be TOLD points of interest instead of seeing them from a distance first.) But the reward of exploration comes from the pointB itself. It's inherently interesting. So imo, the strengths of exploration in both games differ. For Zelda it excels at travel, for Skyrim it excels at, well, the destination and what is there.

They put markers on the compass because you can't climb up towers or mountains to see your surroundings

@@AngelRamirez-do6tp morrowind didn't have markers

@Spark What's your point? The skyrim map markers serve the same purpose as climbing towers or shrine locator in botw.

Obsidian with Fallout New Vegas exploration >

​@@islandboy9381New Vegas has very good storytelling and quests and it is my favorite Fallout game ever. It, however, does not have exploration on the same level as Bethesda. The game tells you where everything is, every dungeon is in some way connected to a quest that you can find by talking to an NPC in a quest hub and most of the map is just boring uninspired desert. It gives you very little reason to stray from the path the quests give you. It does not have the same wonder of exploration that there is in Skyrim and Fallout 3.

@FeCyrineu I love how the quests always point to a location. It actually gives a reason to explore each area beyond just pointless loot. New vegas has the best story Fallout 3 easily has the best atmosphere And fallout 4 has the best gamplay

@@FeCyrineu Yes, this is the thing that I don't think most people realize. Bethesda captures the wonder of exploration by not necessarily giving every location a specific purpose. Some places just exist and that's all they're there for. Makes them interesting and mysterious. Each location tells its own story regardless. Not every location needs to be tied to a quest. Bethesda is also really really good at capturing the tone of the environment, which in and of itself makes exploration interesting. Bethesda also does a really good job at rewarding exploration in an organic way.

​@@nick15684 I agree - I think that might be why I actually disliked New Vegas. I'm more of an explorer gamer, and that one felt more like just a decent RPG.

I can't believe, they've had almost half a dozen releases of Skyrim to practice actually launching a polished playable game and they still haven't been able to do it.

Can't forget skyrim vr a full priced game that doesn't work unmodded meaning they didn't even test it out beyond getting it to run

Classic Bethesda. I bet Starfield will still have bugs found in Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. Like re-skinned dragons flying backwards or some shit. The memes will be glorious.

That was fixed quite some time ago.

Says more about the switch than Skyrim itself, it's hardware is severely outdated

especially if the lore would become "legend" by the next game (unless it is a direct sequal) lijke most of the series does.

I’m still waiting for the game that blends these two game design philosophies in the perfect proportion. That will be the next open-world masterpiece.

I disagree. While Skyrim does have a lot of lore, most of it is contained within books, and there is never any incentive to read them or even anything that lets the player know that there is anything in them. In addition, the Nordic ruins never feel like actual tombs, and the dwarven ruins NEVER feel like anyone ever lived in them. And while some ruins are unique, many if them have literally zero lore about who is buried there or what happened there. Skyrim is the starting point for many gamers that leads them to more and more in depth experiences, but it itself is quite simple.

Nah BOTW and TOTK are games for you to immerse in it's world too and they feel less empty then Skyrim too. Expect games like Witcher 3 and Elden RIng obviously surpass Skyrim in world building and exploration and Botw and TotK bothered with world building and lore too

​@@THEBEEEANSSThat's part of the game's strenght, I would say. Simplicity isn't bad.

It's there in many cases, you just have to look really hard and piece the environments together. Some of it is gone now in Totk, as the speculation is gone with some under- welming answers to questions from botw and not too much to replace it but the game is still a blast.

@@superluigi8539No it’s absolutely not there, none of the theories people concocted came true because Nintendo did not actually care in the slightest about the story or world, people are just writing their own stories and praising Nintendo for their own headcanon.

⁠@@larb6314pretty much

The lighthouse tower in Skyrim and the murder that has happened within it is very much the most memorable location event for me that I doubt I'll ever forget it to my dying days.

I felt the exact same way. Gorondia is never even mentioned again afterward.

Gorondia is such a wasted potential

And this isn't even mentioning the absolute nothingness the water temple has, where it should be the Most lore heavy dungeon, since Zora live many times longer than the other races Also the "Demon King? Secret Stone?" Copy paste cutscenes are just icky and no good Wheres my background as to why the sages joined rauru's side?

i think the best way i can describe zelda "mysteries" is like when someone says "guess what" and you say what but they just say "guess"... its just so tiring to never get anything from this, im not even asking for answers, but just MORE to the mysteries so you can build your own idea of it in your head. god knows we're never going to find out who the 3 dragons were or why they became what they are, or who the ancient hero was and why he looks the way he does, or any other countless things that feel purposely set up only to frustrate you with the lack of any real depth. not to go too off point but i'd say its honestly the same with most zelda characters too lol, its like they try to stay as safe as possible so they can recycle things in the future without fans questioning continuity or lore, even though hyrule and its characters have literally been reborn multiple times T_T they literally have the perfect world to exploit by making it interesting and/or wack as hell story wise and be able to then completely erase away when needed with no consequence, why do they waste it by trying to stick to some weird formula that nobody's asking for... (to mention the ancient hero again, its actually kind of cool that he looks the way he does, its not just another blonde boy twink in green like it always is, like they finally broke a part of that formula, but again they didnt do anything with it in totk and probably arent going to do anything with it later either, so r.i.p to red haired ugly green-ass cat..thing(?) link, you could've actually been interesting...)

Something too many devs forgot... and players.

I can think of 2 games that have good side quests that do it in somewhat abnormal ways, and they're from the same series, but have good sidequests in different ways. NieR:Automata and NieR replicant. Now, replicant is a 2010 game and it's side quests are super dated interactively, structurally, and just by general design. Basically bland fetch quest galore. These quests are menial slogs with no real purpose in progressing anything in the game. But, they do contain LOADS of dialog between the protagonist and his companions. This helps greatly with building character and relationships in the cast. The quests practically suck by design. But there is 1 quest where the actual tangible reward is amazing. Its where you go fetch ingredients for a special cocktail, to get a pair of twin sisters to sing together at a local bar. Your reward for doing this quest is a duet of these sisters singing a song you normally only ever hear being sang solo by 1 of them around the village. It's not until the final stretch of the game that you hear another duet by them of the same song, but....different. NieR:Automata does quests better by design and execution, offers the same kind of character enhancing dialog, but the actual subject matter of the quests is IMPORTANT. Like, a person who did do sidequests and someone who skipped them just simply will not have the same experience with the games main story. Example: 1 of the games side quests, called amnesia, explores a murder mystery involving a very confused individual. Long story short, the information regarding the quest giver and murders basically alludes to the plot twist at the very end of the game. Actually, if you never did this side quest, and another sidequest about a girl's missing friend, you'd actually never even realize the plot twist at the end of the game is even a plot twist. You'd just go "oh okay, that's new, didn't know that" and it would kinda be lost on you. But if you played those quests you'd be like "holy fucking shit this changes everything I know about this character and their relationship". And there's wayyyy more quests that provide world, character and story building too. 1 mission you help build a slide for machine children in a village...before...a terrible tragedy. Another mission, you beat a machine at a race multiple times, but racing was everything they lived for. They feel sad and defeated, purposeless. They kill themselves in face of this existential crisis. Another sidequest you learn that androids feel a form of pleasure or happiness from combat and killing. Which redefines how you come to understand the full scope of the love that the main characters have for each other. Another sidequest explores a returning character from replicant who's survived for over 8,000 years. They talk about their past and the main characters, aka his friends, from replicant. He talks about how the machines were created, how he fought a war alone against them for God knows how long. Just a generally important world building quest. Another quest......has you burying one of the main characters and mourning them. A random interaction, not even a quest, Just something you can stumble upon at a certain point in the game, Is a recording of that dead characters final words to your current character. Their final words of love meant for the one they love most. Just, lost in the world, as a random encounter you can so so easily miss. Automata easily has the best sidequests I've ever experienced in a game. Not the most fun, but what you get out of them is more important than fun. They actually leave a mark on you, are memorable because of this, and greatly, GREATLY enhance the games various elements. Replicants side quests, while being horrible in design, show that you can make trash quests worthwhile if you give them meaning and value outside of material gain. Fuck the money rewards, I want to cry. THATS getting my REAL money's worth for the game I spent actual money on. I'll take tears and emotions over x5 materials, an upgrade item, and in-game currency anyway. Anyday

thats true. although theres some games which are 100% about game mechanics that still keep you interested in the game world and stories. Like Doom Eternal. after beating it, I was having a blast researching every demon - from the imp to the tyrant.

When I enter a shrine I think “did I remember to have at least two rocket shields”

damn , thats a really inefficient way to say that ToTK has immersive sim elements. btw i never thought of this so yeah bug W for you Any game that has immersive elements is Based af by default tbh. you almost got me sold in getting a switch

So not a Decorum. But challenges. All games have those. Your Skyrim example falls short in the challenge set but almost every dungeon is unique. A secret labyrinth to hide the Overseer's past expedition, helping a woman find a scroll, finding a song manuscript detailing the stories of an old tyrant. Decorum isn't challenge. They're aesthetics. Also Elden Ring already did it better gameplay wise like, come on Zelda games don't have that hard of a puzzle. It's not a point and click adventure game.

​@@zurielschubert9410I fully agree

Even Skyrim as Cobbler suggested falls short somewhere if we are willing to go hard. Literally the most advertised and hyped feature about Skyrim's world was that there would be Giant Dragons and epic memorable battles with them. Now Guess how that actually tuned out to be... pointless easy battles with useless rewards or any interest whatsoever past the prologue of the game. The whole Dragonborn storyline was diminished of interest because of the weak presence and negligible impact of actual Dragons. On the other hand, TOTK had A Lot of interesting side quests and adventures that weren't featured in this video. There were so many adventures starting within adventures that I could not reduce the amount of side quests I had, because during the course of doing one, I was always being presented to more people and thus more stories.

I always love it when daddy cobbler fills me up with his pastry goodness

happy fathers day daddy cobbler

Not me, I went down to the depths (I can’t imagine on what universe someone could find it scary) And it just felt empty, there where some cool mushroom trees, but that’s really all that was down there, there was a cool mini boss frog thing, but that’s literally the only thing of interest in the depths so far for me, no underground dungeons, no dangerous lair of spiders Just a barren underground that happens to be dark

The rewards are better, but I feel that er has similar problems with context (or as dj calls it here, "decorum") for rewards to zelda. Most rewards feel pretty arbitrary, and I rarely got the sense that I was learning anything about where I was or who I just fought from the rewards. I think Japanese game design principles suffer in the transition to open world. I remember wandering around dungeons in wind waker and twilight princess fascinated by the architecture, and trying to put together the story of why it was there. Same for fromsoft games, especially Ds 1, where every area has a few hidden stories tucked away in their item placements. I enjoyed elden ring, and it did a good job scratching my exploration itch (especially in combination with the combat, as you pointed out), but the world it took place in didnt feel living and lived in in the way that Bethesda's games manage to capture, in spite of their other problems

@@koboldgeorge2140 I guess you must not have been reading the item descriptions, because there’s tons of location context for items. Not for everything, but there is still plenty. Either way, I don’t consider that a problem in the slightest. For every random cave with the Golden Order Greatsword in it there’s a Night’s Sacred Ground with the Mimic Tear and Fingerprint Blade. I was never expecting every single little cave and dungeon to have context because most of the side dungeons are there purely for the sake of content, not lore. Regardless, there was still *plenty* of environmental storytelling and appropriately placed item lore. I would consider something like that a nitpick because I almost never felt like I had no context for where I was.

@@koboldgeorge2140In my opinion, as someone who praises DS1 as the greatest game of all time, I think elden ring had much more depth and exploration in terms of learning about the world around you than any game I’ve ever played before. Definitely more than Skyrim, even if it’s a little more confusing to understand.

Elden Ring's exploration would have been a whole lot better if the various catacombs didn't feel like shuffled assets with recycled bosses over and over.

@@hurrdurrmurrgurr everything could always be better. Not sure what point you’re making. Pretty much everyone still loved the side dungeons even with boss reusage because the layouts were all unique and unpredictable and they never repeated the exact same boss setup since if they reused a boss it had a different move set or was combined with another boss. Realistically that’s the only way you could develop a game that size with that much space in the amount of time they had. They spent the most resources on the unique content like legacy dungeons and the medium-sized dungeons as well as the open world and if you take all of that content together it’s more content than any of the Dark Souls games. Elden Ring just also has *on top* of that a hundred little dungeons with less resources put into them.

I also wish when you infiltrated yiga bases there were more yiga members there, and each yiga member had humanizing dialogue and quests. 80% of the yiga show up in the depths but all actual yiga content is in the overworld

This is EXACTLY how I feel. Right down to the comment at the end about Elden Ring one-upping BOTW at its own game: exploration. BOTW is still my favorite game of all time due to the exploration, but TOTK might be my least favorite Zelda game. Here's the thing: I think you're right. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, when the hype has worn off, people will look back and realize BOTW did something TOTK did not.

I felt the same thing. But I eventually came around and am a believer that totk is the greatest videogame ever made

I agree, having played both BOTW and TOTK, these Zelda games lack soul. Unlike The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Dogma, Diablo, Dragon Age, and The Witcher, these games have a soul with a captivating story. BOTW along with TOTK would have been perfect if they had a more engaging story. Just like the Soul series, fun games to play but no engaging plot. Although it’s good to see the new Baldur’s Gates with a great story line up.

Agree completely. Everything that made Zelda games so unique and memorable are completely gone in the open world Zeldas. Truly unfortunate.

its not the makers of zelda, its nintendo itself, at least the games developed internally by the company. it always has been gameplay first and then the story comes after it, serving the gameplay ideas.

@@ausgod538 So you and I both agree that its the makers of Zelda, I was not specific that it was Nintendo, but nonetheless Nintendo corporation is the maker of Zelda. You agree with my post.

There are plot threads in Skyrim that can be traced back to the mid 90s.

Most of Skyrim's dungeons are similar, the only thing you know about almost all of them is that a cult existed 5000 years ago and that they made temples for the dragons, and the dwarven ruins are literally just "these people were advanced, and then they vanished randomly"

when you explore in like, ocarina of time, it feels more like an adventure you could distill it down into an epic bedtime story. botw or totk? you cant.... really do that

@@THEBEEEANSS Not really. A good amount of the dungeons have stories tied to them that you can learn by reading related books, completing related quests, and talking to related NPCs. Likewise, the Dwemer ruins have unique stories too, which concern things like the study of Elder Scrolls, long lost tomes, expeditions gone wrong, and the creation and forging of unique materials that aren't found anywhere else because only the Dwemer had the know-how to work with them. There's environmental storytelling everywhere. The dungeon's aesthetic similarities are just that.

@@DovahFett You got stories for what TOTK has though. TOTK has environmental storytelling too. Just what exactly?

It does all matter actually. It does matter and there is a story for that, it's not not just set dressing and the world is not empty set dressing. Yep to test the hero with new challenges. Well since said guy is meant to save all of Hyrule yes they did need to do that. Not really it clearly exists especially by looking at ruined places and is not incoherent at all. It does not hand wave any possible experience with "chill it's just a game" it just shows rather then tells.

My exact feeling

You should try Outer Wilds if you haven’t already, a really great example of an open world game that not only has a great sense of purpose and history to its locations, but also bakes the discovering of this history into the gameplay

And FF16 will better than both combined. First game I’ve played in a long time with a modicum of emotion in it, imo

Starfield will suck

@@proggz39 I trust in Creative Business unit 3 And they also have Suzuki to create fantastic combat FF16 will be a Masterpiece

​@@Raiden-pi3gtPersonally, I will like it. The Direct was wonderful in showcasing the game, not a 10/10, more like an 8/10

I didn't get anything related to Starfield when I watched this

I agree completely

I got shunned online for not liking BOTW with arguments like "well, you have exploe the world to make it fun, if you aren't an explorer, this game isn't for you". Dude, I played Skyrim and The Witcher 3 for hours on end and always found interesting stuff and small little stories throughout the world. I explored almost every inch of these worlds. Whereas in Zelda: go somewhere, find chest with a weapon that breaks after like two hits, go somewhere else, get korok seed, repeat. There was not enough incentive for me to look closer anywhere after playing it for a few days. It left me with a feeling, that there isn't much to experience besides the busywork to stretch the playtime. It didn't even count, that I praised its mechanics and environmental systems. The sole fact that I didn't like the game as a whole, was direct proof, that my concerns were invalid and I wasn't the "correct" type of gamer to play this game. I'm not a huge fan of Nintendo in any way, I played Pokemon and Zelda in my childhood and then never again, but I don't hate Nintendo either. They don't put out the stuff, that I'm interested in nowadays, that's all. If they revolutionize something or put out good stuff? Good for them, praise is totally deserved. One problem I have is the inability of the fanbase to accept critizism of Nintendo or their games without resorting to counter-arguments, like "you played it wrong", "you just hate Nintendo", "your point is invalid, because Nintendo is the good guy".

Number one thing I remember is that shit got shockingly bleak in the later books. That and the really bizarre and confusing ending.

he is to braindead to understand dont try to explain

Speaking of windhelm, the curious things store was my favorite store in all of Skyrim lol. Homie had a gold spoon for sale or something wild lmao.

People are starting to turn on Bethesda because they haven't released a game in ages, besides Fallout 76 which was massively panned. It's kinda like how people are starting to turn on Rockstar mostly because they haven't released a new GTA in like 10 years. It's a recency bias, you're only as good as your last game, if you fuck up once everyone will start to hate you (at least on the internet)

Ikr? I’ve been playing Skyrim for the first time, and I look over at the clock and it’s been 3 hours. It’s such a good game!

@@lionsoldier1179I envy you.

He was clearly joking

If you haven't found the spirit sage at the end of the regional phenomena purah gives you a quest that leads you there

@@ttmfndng201 yeah, I found it before that point way before I even had finished the other phenomena, but when you do that and Purah tells you that you gotta find that sage they have a dialogue about how Link is very proactive for already doing that before they asked

Another place that has a similar feeling to this for me is the Deku forest, I went there expecting to get the master sword but first I got into the chasm close to it, I was curious as to how the Deku forest underground would look like since most areas underground are a mirror of the areas above. From there I got to the actual forest by using ascend on a place at the center...and the forest was desolate. None of the koroks were speaking or moving, the Deku tree had this earie dark red malice around it and it said it's stomach was strange and I thought it was going to die like in Ocarina of time. After helping it it lead me to the master sword which was itself such a cool discovery as to WHERE it is and how you're supposed to get it.

I can't believe you made your way through those fucking clouds. Twice I tried to find my way through them and twice I just gave up. Spoilers I do remember trying to get every lamp light in the underground and finding the Temple of Light. I thought I found some cool secret but I couldn't do anything with it. I thought I had to get the rest of the lamp lights to unlock it. Then I came across the place where you build the mech. I heard the music change and I thought I found another cool secret. But I couldn't have any of the devices work with my arm. Then it hit me. They weren't cool secrets I found. I just hadn't got far enough into the main quest to unlock the areas. It was such a let down.

@@RoseColoredIris yeah it was hard to move around there but it was fun as hell. Also about what you wrote under, yeah it's a letdown and I think this is the biggest issue with this kind of game, the world is massive and it feels like we should explore but it lacks a sense of strangeness, it should have more places we don't understand properly or don't know what they are yet still we should be able to play on there and get something off of it.

Again with the Twilight Princess. The story wasn't that good to begin with and the focus of the new games is to spread the combat and puzzle design to the overworld, so longer linear dungeons are not needed.

​@@stefanostsougkranis5851but the combat and puzzle elements are shite?

@@stefanostsougkranis5851it was a better Zelda game than totk

The reason I don't entirely like tears it's because the game feels heavy and it feels so dragging in the sense that everything feels so inconvenient. Also the world doesn't have any build up, everything is empty, just like it's described in the video.

The depths strike me more as mining areas than an ancient civilization

At first I thought there wouldve been less shrines and more open dungeons at first, and I was deeply disappointed when I realised the shrine grind returned. The shrines are fun, but they do get very repetitive fast, and huge legacy dungeons like in older Zeldas wouldve been amazing. I guess it's harder to create dungeons that arent easily exploited with the large number of tools available in the game

There are still spots in that game that I've yet to finish and explore. I mean I am no completionist, but the fact that Skyrim still holds secrets to me just really shows that Todd and the Bethesda team has done a lot for their map and lore to enrich their game.

yeah its nintendo itself, at least the games developed internally by the company. it always has been gameplay first and then the story comes after it, serving the gameplay ideas. i doubt this will ever change considering how their developers new and old are following this.

See the problem is I think the rewards suck and I'm not invested in another heart container or a seed or a stupid plank of wood that's gonna break in the middle of the first fight I use it in. I loved the old Zelda titles because they felt structured, the puzzles were fun, the bosses were memorable, and honestly I liked the stories (especially Twilight Princess and MM).

@@Foreseer117 Yeah I get that! It's just an unfortunate reality that not every game is made for every person, and the Zelda team has moved on from the style you enjoyed. Maybe they'll return to structured stories someday, but if not at least you were the type of fan they catered to for a good while, and you got some great games out of it! :) My personal hope is that they strike a balance. BotW and TotK have been singularly focused on freedom > structure. But now they've done that, and I think it'd be interesting if they start reintroducing linearity into their open worlds. I think they've started down that path a bit in TotK but I really think there is an achievable middle ground between the ALTTP/OOT and LOZ1/BotW/TotK styles.

It's clear Nintendo did care about storytelling and lore at least some in the past games. Now they've totally thrown it out the window. Like botw and totk, you collect items in the different games, but the stakes are different. I'm collecting all the pieces of the fused shadow from the dungeons in TP, but what will Midna use them for? Can you trust her with such a powerful item? In Wind Waker, you collect the pieces of triforce and that's central to the story that has been constructed in such a way that you care about what's going on. In totk, I'm collecting zonaite so I can make cool vehicles. I collect korok seeds to expand my weapon space. I just don't want to pretend that Nintendo never cared about story. The stories were simple, but they mattered and motivated you to collect the different items. In totk, the main story is so unobtrusive that I don't really care about finding all the sages in tiny 20 minute dungeons. "The game isn't made for you". Yes I get that. But the problem is that every zelda game followed similar patterns and created a fan base that enjoyed those elements. Totk and botw threw it out the window so they could experiment with game play elements. Why did zelda have to become the experiment? Why couldn't it have been some other game not in the zelda franchise? Yes its not made for zelda fans, and that is exactly the problem.

Okay but hear me out: how about making a game with fun gameplay mechanics AND an interesting story/lore. Instead of completely disregarding the second

coomer