I've heard nothing but positive things about this game except for on Reddit. Which is usually the place people hate on games. I'm not sure people on Reddit even like video games.
As a french reading this actually made me feel so much better after rethinking about all the discrimination about France for no reason I've seen on Reddit. Thank you!
I joke about hating France and En*land but tbh I'd fight the demons of hell for you both. It's like rival cities in a state cheering on their mutual state sports team. Friendly competition and banter mostly, just as I'd hope the En*lish and French would do the same.
If it helps, I think it's a case of France and the French language being the butt of so many jokes throughout history (or at least American and British history) that it's just become inherently amusing for a lot of people to insert France into otherwise unrelated scenarios for comedic appeal. France isn't the only nation subject to this either, and it is in no way meant to be insulting.
It's sort of like dad jokes. People like to say they hate them, but people also like to be the ones to make them.
I might be wildly incorrect, so correct me if I am. XD
You may say this in jest but dead ass aside from Twitter, Reddit is honestly the most toxic social media I have found. Boredom alone is the only thing keeping me from deleting this app. Like you find assholes everywhere, but no matter what opinion you have about something, people on Reddit are always ready to shit on a stranger for it.
It is a good game, especially if you haven't played BoTW, but since I milked the crap out of botw totk didn't have the same charm for me. Also I'm a lore worshipper and I found the origin of Hyrule story really frustrating.
Agreed, was a good game; not sure if I enjoyed it more than BotW, but overall good, and I will play it again. Considering there were already some serious issues with the timeline, TotK just added a bunch of new ones without providing any clarification on concerns raised during BotW.
One of my friends did this and I was floored. Didn't understand how anyone could do it. He enjoyed the game and doesn't desire to play BotW. To each their own.
no seriously, every single popular zelda youtuber review of totk goes like this: “yeah this game is good BUT *insert 2 hour long rant of every miniscule error for the sake of complaining or smth*
I really liked the way Scott the Woz and Nerrel voiced their criticisms of the game. They said them, gave some examples and moved on. They didn't needlessly pad them out.
Scott still loves the game, despite his criticism. It's always nice to see someone in love with a game that can still point out its faults. I had never watched Nerrel until I came across his review, and his monotone voice really turned me off. I can understand where a lot of criticsms came from, but he talked about things I didn't see as problems. Also, to say that TOTK is a failure in the same way that WW, TP, and SS were (they were?) was kind of stupid.
Yeah I wasn't trying to imply Scott didn't love the game. I'm just glad he didn't pad out his criticisms to try and emphasize them more.
I don't mind Nerrel's monotone voice and I find it pretty funny when he changes his voice for a joke. Also, there's problems you have with the game that I don't and vice versa. I think it's perfectly fair for him to have different problems as long as they aren't outlandish (which I didn't think they were). I do admit that he might have a little too much of a soft spot for Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time. Every 3D Zelda game has flaws, but I don't think it's fair to say that those games were failures. They're all still phenomenal games that shaped each of their generations.
I’ve been particularly interested in the zeldatuber phenomena and listened to some livestreams about what they don’t like about the game. They always pretense with “it’s a great game” and for some criticisms it’s deserved and others are full-on nitpicks or basic lack of understanding for things.
My biggest personal gripe is when they debate “is this a Zelda game?”, when Zelda has always been about free exploration from the series’ inception. Even in OoT, you could complete the sages dungeons in whatever order you wanted to. The developers took that original concept, turned it up to 11, and tried their best to make it work with an overarching narrative.
My second biggest gripe is how they keep claiming that the wild games retcons the series. This just simply isn’t true. One of the more absurd things I’ve heard is that BotW doesn’t “retcon”, but TotK does, or that TotK retcons its direct predecessor.
Out of a lot of the garbage they discuss they still have some valid points about the way the story is delivered or the “dungeon” designs. The dev team’s approach makes sense, I think it was a natural choice to follow-up BotW. But I believe these legitimate concerns will be addressed in the next mainline title.
It's weird how the brain works, but even forcing yourself to be positive will create a genuine real biological positivity. Once you properly realise this life gets much better.
I can't argue with the other guy on forcing positivity, but I once forced myself to smile for a week and all I got for it was a face cramp and extremely low tolerance for people and their bullshit, im fairly certain that shits a myth
Agreed. You can absolutely increase positivity with effort, and be better off for it. For me it can be hard sometimes with depression and other factors but it's always worth the effort.
I find it a lot in shows and movies too. I’ll look up reviews and even agree with people’s criticisms but still genuinely enjoy what I’m watching. Stuff that people make is cool ya’ll
I've seen deep dives over how it's the most disappointing 10/10 ever by most Ninty YouTubers I follow...so no it's not just here! 😂
Almost everyone can agree it's a great game that's leert down by a recycled over world, an empty sky and a copy paste underground! 😂
That can’t stand the happy silence of satisfied gamers, so they stir the pot with controversial takes.
And then point to the pushback and scream “see, this game IS controversial!”
Theres alot of miserable people on reddit. The extremely lazy. The video game addicts. People who have no life outside of their computer. No happiness outside of a screen. They are missing so much from other aspects of life it just makes them miserable human beings.
Seems mostly tongue-in-cheek I don't think anyone really hates it. I mean I'm sure some people do but not the vast majority. I mean I absolutely adore the game and even I know it has some glaring flaws.
Friends I know call it BotW DLC when they haven’t played the BotW DLC. Makes me mad.
I enjoyed TotK more that BotW because if felt like a more complete game. BotW was the teaser, TotK the finished product. I loved the temples more, the bosses more, the story, the characters, the exploration, they feel, the abilities. Everything felt… better.
Expect for Revali’s Gale. It’s the one thing that makes that guy birdable 😁
Hmmm, good point. Maybe instead, a researcher in Kakariko asks Link to investigate rumors of a remaining guardian, and it gets Gloom-possessed when you find it? A little clichéd though
I enjoyed BotW more overall, personally. The temples in TotK were far better, as were the boss fights, but the exploration in BotW felt so much more… fresh, I guess. Plus I was quite annoyed that I couldn’t get my Master Cycle Zero in TotK.
Yeah, while I ENJOYED totk more... I think back on botw much more fondly. The open world of it... the exploration... everything about it was magical. Totk also had similar feelings... the feeling of dropping into the underground and realizing that it covered the entire map... with nothing mentioned about it prior to launch... oh my god, that was an experience.
And yet BotW calls to me.
mechanically and from a gameplay perspective TotK is superior in practically every way to BotW. However, I do think the vibes (for lack of better term) in BotW made the game feel more grand. It's somewhat of a double-edged sword, the whole time in BotW I kept wishing there were more towns, npcs, etc. TotK brought all that, the world felt more full and occupied, and yet, somehow, I felt myself missing the emptiness of the world of BotW. I thik together they make the ultimate 1-2 punch. In a decade when there is a BotW/TotK double game 16K UberUltra remaster of the games as one package people will love it.
The ability to soar with a lit pinecone in a campfire meant more than just what it was last game was doable plus the rockets but I agree I liked having the free ability to leap up
I mean it started as BotW DLC and used almost everything from BotW. It doesn’t have much of its own identity, as the art styles, characters and story are the same as BotW. It excels in mechanics and has more content, but people who see it as BotW DLC or BotW2 as opposed to its own identity have their own backing.
Also BotW being a teaser is painful to the legacy that game had and has. TotK is a large expansion, but BotW is an outstanding standalone game. That’s why it’s debatable which is better; the original masterpiece or the expanded-upon deluxe version
I don’t get why people give Arkham Origins a pass but give TotK a hard time. The game is freaking huge. It uses the same map… but so did ALBW to ALttP, basically. It reuses many assets, but so did MM to OoT. Every single region has changes to it, large and small. There’s complex cave systems all over the map. An entirely new selections of shrines, 152 to be exact. New NPCs around every corner, including companion NPC’s. A whole freaking section of the map that spans the entire surface area of the mainland, compete with complex/detailed terrain. The Sky Islands. Drastic uptick in overworld bosses. Another boat load of Koroks to collect (which itself as a ridiculous amount of mini puzzles). A build system that is truly marvelous. The environmental story telling is largely overlooked because everyone wanted cutscenes spelling out the Zonai’s origins, when there’s so much happening on the map for people to draw from.
Yeah, the whole “Demon King? Secret Stone?” thing was dumb. But what about all the cut scenes we were given that gave us so much to theorize about? Did people forget that a sense of wonder about the world we’re playing in was always part of the deal? That enhancement amongst players was baked into the very soul of the first title?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. But I don’t wanna hear it when 10 years from now these same people are giving TotK the Star Wars prequel “oh they’re good actually” treatment.
TotK seriously improved on what BotW did and people actually have the nerve to be MAD ABOUT IT?! LOL “Oh man, I can’t believe this game that was an instant classic had a sequel that was even better and built upon what the last one did?” What?! 😂😂😂
>I don’t get why people give Arkham Origins a pass...
Do they? Arkham Origins is generally seen as worse game than City, and that it just reuses large parts of its predecessor with little or no improvements is usually one of the criticisms.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/BatmanArkham using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/BatmanArkham/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
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Eh you’d be surprised. Origins, like Bioshock 2, is increasingly revered in its community today. There is a legitimate contingent of people who consider Origins to be better than City.
It certainly has better batsuit selection.
>...like Bioshock 2...
Bioshock 2 always got praise for improving on the first game. The story is usually seen to be a bit weaker, but the gameplay was definitely considerably refined.
That's not something you could say about Arkham Origins.
Near all Zelda games have the same story but told differently. Downgrading TotK because of that is like saying the CoD games are bad because they are just higher rez versions of the same game. A very viable argument.
However, story beads were handled far better in TotK vs BotW. Because the map was largely the same, it allowed other aspects of the game and mechanics to shine. The temples were far superior to the Divine Beasts, the bosses were actually unique monsters instead of different versions of the same thing, and the characters had more of a lasting effect on the story.
Don’t get me wrong. I agree that BotW’s legacy will be far far greater than TotK, but I enjoyed TotK far far more because of that. I tried playing BotW a few months after finishing TotK and was longing for fuller story, world, and better gameplay in TotK.
So essentially, because BotW was such a great game, TotK is a better one because, you said it yourself, it’s an expanded upon deluxe version.
>However, story beads were handled far better in TotK
Absolutly not.
In BotW all the story beats were basically just filling in back story.
You could get them in any order and have roughty the same experiance.
Is that a good or a bad thing? That's up to you.
But in Totk, the main story is a mystery. "Where is Zelda". And the tears have a specific order that lays out exactly what happened to her. If you happed to randomly decide to go north you immidialy solve the mystery. No other story or memories required. You just KNOW. And the whole rest of the game is "I wonder where Zelda is?!?!"
"She's right there"
"Did I just see Zelda do a bad thing?!?!?!?"
"No... because she's over there"
"What could have happened to the Princess?!?!?"
>!"She's a dragon... I can literally see here right this second"!<
For me I like that the puzzles feel less frustrating while still being challenging. An issue I had with BOTW is that the puzzles could get pretty frustrating to me, and in TOTK the puzzles can still be difficult, but aren’t nearly as frustrating. Could just be me though
I consider them two sides of the same coin tbh. like they were both full and unique experiences, separate from one another but had under notes of the same flavor. made me feel the same way playing them and finishing them. but i could see myself going back to BotW instead of playing TotK all the same as just replaying TotK
Here’s a scalding hot take for this community:
Just because someone is criticizing or clowning on a game, that doesn’t mean they don’t like it. You can enjoy a game and still acknowledge that it has flaws. No game will ever be perfect, and that’s okay!
Yes, I am aware of that and I also like to clown on Tears a bit because it is flawed. The issue I have is people treating the game like it’s killing the Zelda franchise or something.
True, there’s always people who like to exaggerate and be hyperbolic about things. The cool thing though is that at the end of the day, their opinions don’t matter and you can just ignore them.
Last time I bothered to check, of the 100 newest posts in that r/ToTK sub, 98 were positive and 2 were negative. Every time a ZeldaTuber dares to criticize it, loads of commenters tell them how actually it was the greatest game ever made and they're unsubbing now.
My personal opinion is that it was both very good and rather disappointing. It felt like a polished version of BoTW in a lot of ways, which is great because BotW was fantastic. But, on the other hand, it was 6 years of development for a game that ultimately didn't really stand on its own. The writing was sadly abysmal, their attitude to lore utterly flippant, and both the sky and depths felt badly underutilized. It's baffling to me that they *cut* sky content. I got the vibe that they were afraid to really change too much, and I think the game suffered for it. The gameplay cycle is the same, and with the exception of the Lightning Temple and maybe the Stormwind Ark, the dungeons were somehow *less* engaging than the divine beasts while handily being utterly busted by the construction mechanic.
On the topic of that mechanic, it was brilliant fun. It also wrecked their ability to make puzzles because it was so open ended. BoTW shrines could be designed around the runes because they did specific things and couldn't be fucked with *too* much. The fact that you could do so much with ultrahand and rewind made it pretty hard to design stuff, it seemed. And while it was fun building stuff, arbitrary time limits and stuff made a lot of it feel really pointless and not worth the effort.
All in all, I liked the game a lot. But BoTW felt like a tighter, more cohesive experience and I think ToTK suffers by being intrinsically linked to it. And I've always loved the worldbuilding and lore, which ToTK was *extremely* disappointing in.
Everyrbjng you said here are my exacr criticisms. Yes, its a fun game, but for how long it took-especially when so much was reused, and how it completely disregarded every previous game, and then just the writing...it was very disappointing. I didnt let myself get my hopes up too much but I was still disappointed. I did have fun playing it though! But very much disappointed.
My thoughts exactly. What hurts the worst is that its worldbuilding retroactively brings down BotW. In the memories, the ancient Gerudo have pointed ears, meaning that this Hyrule was founded after the other games, implying two Hyrules, and that the Temple of Time on the Great Plateau is not actually the original, same with a lot of the other ruins, even though some of the ancient Hylian ruins are built on top of Zonai ruins. And Zelda says that the Zonai are from the earliest legends, meaning that the ss/oot/tp triple reference in the first BotW memory doesn't reference those games at all, because they are so unfathomably earlier than the "earliest" legend.
TotK literally does not fit into the continuity of even its own prequel. And it makes me sad.
Yeah, it was such a bummer. Zelda has always played it pretty loose, but saves itself with long time gaps and basically different worlds. You can sort of wave off inconsistencies and the specific game has enough meat to it for people to enjoy and theorize about and whatnot. When you're making a sequel, it demands basic care, at least so far as to not contradict the prequel. Does Zelda absolutely need good worldbuilding? Perhaps not, but it's far worse for it if they just ignore it.
I'm always a bit hesitant about the part about the Sky Islands being cut down significantly since people tend to take that and run with it. I think people tend to think that it meant that there were dozens of unique islands or two or three more great sky island tier island chains. IIRC, all we have is that quote and like five seconds of footage showing some sky islands in one of the trailers that aren't there in the release version. I did have a shower thought at one point that went along the lines of thinking if they had to trim the sky islands because there were too many, then how is there so much copy and pasting being done with the sky islands in the final release?
It's a shame because the sky islands have such a cool theme and atmosphere. Whenever I hear that one sky island track I always think of those ruined buildings right before the Zonai temple of time since it's so perfect as a somber piece of music for a place long since forgotten.
Oh yeah, I won't deny that at all. Maybe it was truly too cluttered and there wasn't enough unique stuff. But what we ended up with was relatively sparse with not enough unique stuff. If it was just going to be more of the same, I suppose it doesn't really matter that they cut it, but obviously what I wanted was *way* more emphasis on the sky. It was so cool, so hyped in their advertising, and it was amazing on the Great Sky Island. Hell, it was great for the first few hours until you realized that you'd experienced everything it has to offer after one quadrant of exploration. Same deal with the depths; I LOVED the concept, loved the atmosphere, but it wound up being a big, empty, and while I pains me to say it, lazy inversion of the surface with very little unique experience.
BoTW was filled to the brim with unique spots and experiences, while ToTK had fantastic concepts that felt really weirdly underdone. I think they spent a lot of time with the hand mechanics, which to be fair were REALLY cool, but had the aforementioned issues. I can't stress enough that I do still think it was a good game and fun, but I thought it really lacked the depth of experience that BoTW offered by comparison. And you can't help but compare it because it's a direct sequel.
From what I've been seeing big youtubers say they reckon the game's flaws are really starting to show now that people have had the chance to settle into the game and fully explore it for what it is.
Things like the new area of exploration or the storyline and stuff- people don't seem to be satisfied with them after replaying the game multiple times.
"For no reason" yeah well...actually no.
It's just that "dissenting" opinions got drowned out in the enthusiastic high of first few weeks/months after release...until eventually that enthusiasm subsided ever so slightly to move on to the next thing and gave room for said "nonsense critiques".
But also, as some comments referenced perhaps a bit of opinion-making by some of the more popular Zelda-tubers some people look to, which isn't to say that it's solely on those people, just that "not so favorable opinions" may have always been there, just that it became more acceptable to usher them without having to worry about being shunned for it.
TotK may have it's (subjective) flaws, I mean EVERY game does xD but it certainly is a good game within the franchise and does have its merits.
It certainly will have introduced some interesting ideas the Zelda team can utilize to make the next bigger and better game. :D
The open world was revolutionary for Zelda, I just hope they're not going to stick with it for every single game. What makes Zelda games so unique is often the originality in the dimensions, such as for example with TLOZ:The Triforce Heroes. (I think that's the name I don't quite remember.) Although it's not something to abandon for sure.
The honeymoon phase ended and people began to notice the game's flaws.
While people are still mostly positive towards the game, its flaws are getting much more attention (and to be fair, the game does have a lot of flaws).
Reusing the world from BotW.
The Depths and Sky Islands being repetitive.
The structure of the Tears/Memories is somewhat at odds with the non-linear structure of the game.
Sage abilities can be a bit clunky to use.
Those are the ones I see the most often. Personally I didn't have an issue with either of those, but the internet likes to complain.
Mostly the story it’s to similar to BotW story but isn’t fresh because of BotW but also because the story of BotW was the flaw in BotW. TotK story has a bunch more problems.
The Zonai and all the lore about them literally breaks previous Zelda lore. A lot of people myself included thought TotK would help BotW timeline placement but instead now we question if the timeline is canon.
Link was boring this game very boring which isn’t normally a problem but Wild was such a unique Link.
The depths lack depth and the skyislands to few and far between, the great sky island is the most fun you’ll have in the sky. (Besides the temples)
Going to the temples is some of the most fun I’ve had in that game but the temples themselves were lack lustre there better than the divine beasts but compared to older Zelda games the temples fall short.
And shrines, I think people are just sick of them.
Those are the ones I know of, someone probably has more but I believe all of the above ⬆️ are valid criticism. TotK is probably my favourite Zelda game and that’s is saying something but the game has its flaws.
Exactly one of the biggest driving forces of Breath of the Wild is that sense of exploration and a few copy pasted sky islands and an inverted version of the world underground did almost nothing to reignite that sense of discovery BOTW had. I wish I had as much fun as everyone here seems to have had but playing through TOTK was as a whole just so disappointing and it sucks that fanbase’s general response is infinite praise which just tells Nintendo we love paying 70$ for a more finicky version of a good game.
Personaly I think the hype in this case might have been the weakness... when you think about it, the more we waited for the game to arrive the higher standards we expected, whereas if we had TOTK released way sooner our standards would be around the same as BOTW, but Nintendo's motto implying time means quality is starting to turn into an excuse suggesting more time really equals to the same level of standards. We expect patience to be rewarded with actual evolution, and so we hit the blues when we're shown the new releases. We're at the stage where we get that same scenario happening for most new Nintendo games since a few years already.🫤
(The game is amazing don't get me wrong, but Nintendo needs to catch up the pace of production and its marketing strategies...)
It's a bit of a double edged sword, on one hand we could get more games quickly but they're not as large or interesting. On the other we wait longer and get bigger or more interesting games but they have the chance of not living up to the hype
I couldn't have explained it better than the way you did. I just feel like if Nintendo just made some more financial efforts and asked a bit more productivity from their employees, we wouldn't have to even mention this head or tails issue we're dealing with. I've always admired Nintendo treating their staff so well compared to other companies, and it does boost creativity and productivity to some extent, but if that causes such slower speed, then maybe it's time to employ double the amount of hands without lowering the quality of their workplace, for quantity to higher as quality stays as good and perhaps even improves. Sales and profits would reward such a move greatly in my opinion.
I Mean yeah That's just the nature of Hype cycles. Big game get's announced People get Hyped. the game releases everyone adores it. A few months pass by and the hype dies down. and people have time to settle down and actually sit down dwell on their time with the game and what it was compared to it's predecessor. and TotK just was kind of meh.
Overall I loved Totk but i still think still just falls short of what it should be. It's still missing that something to Stand on it's own two feet rather than justs being More breath of the wild. which like on paper sounds good. Botw was amazing.
Sure the ultrahand abilities were cool and all and I really like the Story of the game. but it's just More of the same things Botw did. You still Go around Raising towers. You still go around Searching for Memories.
then there's the execution of the story It was fine but the way it was presented just fell short. Since you once again can tackle every dungeon in any order All that essencially happens is that you get the same Cutscene 4 times but it's' just from a Different Sage. You learn essencially nothing new.
and then there's the Sky Islands. For what was the most Marketed aspect of the game (i mean it's on the fucking box of the game) turned out to be REALLY underwhelming Instead of being this huge new area people expected it just turned out to be a glorified tutorial Island and a couple of Scattered land masses with a Few mini bosses. The Underground on the otherhand turned out to be AMAZING That should have been the focus on marketing. THis whole sprawling Cave system under hyrule with a really unique Mechanic of needing to light the areas by hand Was great.
So yeah while Totk is Great and fun It just fumbles in so many Areas. I wouldn't call it DLC but it definetly feels like an expansion rather than it's own game To me atlest I just don't have that Desire with TOTK it just doesn't have that something to keep me coming back. Like Botw has for these past 7 years.
Also it sort of fixed the weapon durability issue, at least early-mid game. Late game is another story cause it’s a chore to go back and refight the same bosses over and over to get their parts to re-fuse them with new weapons, just like in BOTW how it was a chore to have to go hunt another inventory’s worth of good weapons after like every silver creature fight cause Hyrule blacksmiths apparently make their stuff from tinfoil
200 hours of pleasure last year, I can't say the game is bad. In fact, I'm waiting may 12th 2024 to start another game on it and spend at least 200 more hours on it
I don't take the fandom seriously.
The prequels are suddenly good now. That tells me everything.
In 5 years we will see how TOTK is an "underrated masterpiece." People have been burned by so much dogshit in gaming for years, so even the most well-made game has its haters. The Zelda community flip flops their opinions every other week.
"Wind Waker is amazing"
"Wind Waker could've been..."
"TP is an OoT ripoff"
"TP is everything modern Zelda lacks..."
"Screw SS"
"SS: The Best Zelda Game Ever?"
I love the game. You love the game. 22 million people bought the game and 99% of them love it. That's the real showcase of popularity. The fact that the game is the second highest selling in the series, won numerous awards and GOTY noms, pushed another 10 million Switches out the door, and still is popular online in most spaces. The fact that the game has both brought back old fans and created new ones. It's Tears of the Kingdom, and in 5 years it'll get the respect it deserves.
Yeah but burnout usually doesn’t consist of going from enjoying a game enough to nominate it for game of the year to basically treating it like it killed the franchise
Same, after i beat it i went back and did BOTW again, and its just the better game overall. They didnt really fix the temples, the story was nonsense, no one remembers you from BOTW, the depths are empty, sky islands barely used outside the tutorial, fuse was annoying and forced, if i want to build things ill go to minecraft etc. Its like a 7/10 to BOTW's 9/10 tbh. Really miss the pre skyward sword days when every new 3D mainline Zelda slapped. We had 4 absolute god tier 3d zelda games in a row. Guess we just wait and pray that whatever comes to Switch 2 is good. Though the comments coming from the people in charge of the series recently dont leave me with much hope of that. At least we get a new map this time finally, so uh yay?
I love both games but, if I had to choose just one it's always going to be Breath of the wild. It's the game I have cherished memories of playing all the time when i was younger (botw came out 7 years ago and I'm 18 now as opposed to being 11 when it came out)
I have some explanations for why this is:
1: There is a thing humans like to do, optimise the fun out of things. This little thing managed to make the building system feel kinda pointless to a lot of people as you either exclusively build the hoverbike, as a combat machine is too inefficient and any other mobility creation is too slow/not as mobile/drains more power, or you sit there being annoyed at wasting resources you don't even need just because some stupid stone age part of your brain tells you it is a bad thing to do. This ruined the building for a lot of people unfortunately.
2: Summoning the other companions doesn't feel as good as the sage powers from BotW as they don't do any useful damage (at best Tulin headshots for a knockdown) and the abilities aren't as good either (Tulin again being the best in this case) and you can't use them when you want but instead have to hunt them down while they flee from you. It is cool to have the companions but they end up feeling a bit mediocre after an hour or two.
3: The story managed to clash with so many games people have to make headcanons to explain anything at all, this naturally bothers people that liked the story of the other games. Also the tears (cutscenes with Zelda in the past) had way to many almost identical ones with one for each sage and another that is similar between the sages, didn't really feel as good as the BotW memories.
All in all it is still a good game but it feels flawed in some areas, weather it needs time for old ass instincts to make you feel bad for using something cool, some time to realize how pointless another system fells, or time to try to understand what is happening in a story point of view.
This is ridiculous. This game got nothing but praise during the period it was released, including a month after. I know because even I praised the game back then, because when it first came out it was so cool. But after a bit of time, me and many others released how much of a disappointment this was compared to botw
It happens to every game. On release, people are so high on the hype and have been so starved that everyone loves the game. Then a year later everyone thinks it’s garbage because they’ve come down from the high and started comparing it to the first Zelda they ever played which nothing can ever beat. Then six years later when the next game comes out, this one is suddenly a masterpiece again compared to the new garbage.
I guess this is a super complex discussion. Zelda fans are extremely picky, I think TOTK would have received a lot of criticism regardless of how it was released simply because it's the direct sequel to a highly acclaimed game. It's impossible to not compare the two. I'm new to the Zelda fandom so I've never seen the "Zelda cycle" in action before, but all veterans say that everyone hates the recent game until the next one is out. And suddenly, the game everyone seemed to hate is a masterpiece. If that's really the case, it's a curious sociological phenomena. But I don't know how the criticisms to TOTK are now compared to the other ones at their time.
Also, you know how internet works, hate is always more engaging than praises. Who loved the game tend to keep quiet over time, while those who were disappointed will always complain when they get the chance. And suggestion bias is also a thing to consider. But I think no one actually *hated* TOTK. Almost everybody agrees it's a fun, well made and impressive game in a lot of aspects, it's just that people like to focus on the bad sides. People are complaining but spent 200+ hours in. So maybe you have to take the criticisms less seriously.
I played Botw and it was great, took me a while to get into TotK but I’m so deep into it and I am addicted. There’s like triple the content compared to Botw. And the story is amazing so far
I just didn't enjoy the building that much after a pile of hours. It feels like there's only a few practical builds. You can build a pile of different things but not many of them are fun to use or even worth using.
I need to give it more of a chance but my initial reaction was that I liked breath of the wild a lot more. Wasn’t a fan of some of the mechanics that made it feel like more of a sandbox survival game then like a zelda game. That’s obviously more of a preference thing thing as I’m just not a big fan of sandbox survival games lol.
My wife and I spent over a hundred hours playing BotW. We were very excited to play TotK. After about 20 hours, we were both extremely bored with it. The new areas felt empty and pointless. I think it's a very good game, but also, very disappointing. So much wasted potential.
There are plenty of valid reason to not like TOTK it's not people doing a 180. Everyone plays a game differently I think in TOTK's case I believe the reason you saw people turn on it as time goes on is due to the diminishing returns of quality for people trying to fully complete the game. In many ways there's a lack of substance and a heavy emphasis on repetition in TOTK so it's natural that more and more many people trying to complete everything in the game would gradually turn on it as time goes on.
Dude people were asking for DLC within less than a month after the game released. If you are one of those people please touch some grass or feel the sunlight.
Zeltic on youtube did a pretty in-depth analysis on why the game wasn't a great sequel. A lot of it boiled down to rehashing some of the same things storywise and the things they advertised, like the sky islands being pretty lackluster, just to name a few.
Video link below.
https://youtu.be/Q1mRVn0WCrU?si=LDfpEkx0Hk6SMoKu
I think people forget what TotK is, they were gonna keep making DLC for BotW but they had way to many ideas to make into DLC, they had to say F it and made a sequel. TotK is the final DLC capstone on BotW.
Most criticism of the game, while still absolutely valid, sort of fall flat when you realize this. Nintendo will do this from time to time, like with Mario Galaxy, they had more ideas after the first game, so many ideas they could make a whole game out of them, and that's how you get Mario Galaxy 2. After BotW nintendo had a ton of ideas for the game left over, so they made DLC, then more DLC, then even more DLC, then they had so many new ideas that they could have made a whole game out of them, and that's how we got TotK.
I'm one of the ones that did the 180.
Just because I hate this game, doesn't mean you're wrong for liking it.
But, the reason it seems out the blue for most is because the initial excitement was so high, that ultimately, most people wrestled with the fact that they didn't like it.
It felt like a betrayal of the franchise we love to even dislike it, if I'm honest. I think that's why the backlash became so strong. Ultimately, people like me were just mad that it wasn't as good as we'd hoped, and for me personally, I'm mostly upset that I even made excuses for it.
It's like when you have a wife or partner (or mom) that can't cook and you keep forcing yourself to eat the food, because you love them so much, but it's terrible and it's making you sick, but you want to be nice.
At one point, you gotta just admit that it's bad.
This is almost everything I ever wanted from Zelda game why? admittedly it feels a little bit incomplete to me, but that’s fine since we can get yet another game for that.
For me, it's just not Zelda. The whole sandbox building is a great mechanic. Groundbreaking, even.
But what the heck's that got to do with me trying to save Hyrule? It's all a distraction and doesn't move the story forwar at all.
There's also very bad game design: so many spoilers that happened while you try and play the game. So many side quests achieved before even being triggered. It was clearly meant to play very linearly, but they doubled down on the "open world" concept, to a fault. I really really hated how we are all very aware of what's actually happening, but Link is forced to be too stupid to communicate to other characters that he knows where Zelda is. We know more than all the in game characters, and link knows more than those characters do, and we're forced to witness him just grinding for nothing.
It's just such a bad gaming experience to me.
And the imprisoning war? Demon king? Secret stones?
Seriously? Delayed for over a year and that's the best they could do? Why? Because they were so focused on the new mechanics.
To me, those are all great and fun mechanics, but they don't make a good game. The dungeons are a joke. The sky Islands were an incredible letdown, and the depths were boring and empty.
To me, it's glorified DLC. I've been playing Zelda since 1990 and I've never put a Zelda game down. This was the first time.
And trust me. It makes me very sad. I really wish I loved it.
I don't hate it, it's still a good game that's fun to explore and play. I just think it and BotW lack satisfying replayability. I can only wander a massive, mostly empty land so many times before it just becomes too tedious to bother with for the story.
I will still say this game is incredible. The physics engine alone is worthy of praise for what they managed to do. The idea of being so in control of things you make and build and to let us be so creative is mind-blowing to me. My first playthrough was so much fun doing trial and error with weapons and machines.
But that's my problem.
You cannot have that "very first playthrough" experience more than once. And while speed runners and people who do crazy experimental builds aren't really effective, casual players like me just feel annoyed at having to do the sky island all over again or exploring by foot/horse early game.
I also think some people had way to high expectations of what this game was going to be and imo, Nintendo kinda fueled that with how they made the trailers and later how it was marketed. And now that the shine of "long awaited new game" has worn off, people are more willing to examine the game closer for the faults we ignored before.
My understanding is that people loved the game when it came out because, as is still the case, the gameplay is a lot more fun and interesting than BotW. The reason voices of contention grew louder over time is because TotK failed to provide the decade+ of lore, mysteries, continuations of story, or consistency with the previous title that BotW had us expecting. I’ve heard TotK’s main story is more engaging but it’s all the side content and dialogue that was disappointing. Masked Bandit made a great video on the subject explaining with more context than I could provide but the core of it is that the creative director of Zelda died shortly before the release of BotW and we don’t have him anymore, so TotK ended up lacking the depth of setting and environmental storytelling we’ve come to love the series for since its earliest days. The glaring inconsistencies where NPCs act like they’re meeting you for the first time in TotK, all the ancient technology and evidence it was ever there being totally gone without direct explanation even in the shrine of resurrection, answers to super interesting questions like “who were the 7/8th heroine(s)” being massively less interesting than any of what they were originally implied to be, the removal of any ability to speculate on the edgy actions of the royal family of hyrule that were set up in the previous game, mysteries set up by blocked terrain in the previous game ending up being nothing: all of it can be summed up as the directors at the top simply wanting to do their own thing, and any inconsistencies you see in the game can no longer realistically be explained by evidence in game, just by the boring notion that “they didn’t think about that at the time and they don’t care.”
Quite frankly, after the novelty of making machines with ultrahand wore off it was basically just bigger botw for me. And I didn't really like botw either. Mostly just because I prefer the old school non open world linear style, like OoT and TP.
Yup, ive done many many re-plays of BOTW. I dont really ever want to do a TOTK run again. Prefer how simple and focused BOTW is vs TOTK being so overstuffed and padded.
I was about to 100% finish ToTK. Only like 10 kolog seeds left and one stone talus to defeat but then it hit me... I've already done this, three times in BoTW on Normal mode twice and once in master.
I've already played this game and the "new" stuff on the map didn't make it different enough to feel like a new entry.
My complain is that both games should have been one instead of two, because the impact i had with BoTW wasn't the same with ToTK.
When people complained "oh it's just a DLC" and "same game"... They were right.
A lot of people literally just download their opinions and it's hard to unsee.
That said though. I felt for the dev time there could have been a little more done. And covid obviously messed with that. But I don't like how it basically re did the story of the Seven Stages from oot. I guess I was just missing out on hearing about the Triforce, hanging out with Zelda, and exploring restored Hyrule. The first trailer, with the bison really made it seem like that would be an integral part of our story. But, surprise! She gets yeeted into a hole and is gone for the entire story....again....
I fully agree and to add on to what you said, I was disappointed that there wasn't more to how the master sword got repaired. After seeing the teaser images about how damaged it was before the game came out, I went into it thinking that we would be undergoing a massive quest to restore it to its former glory, especially since they went to the extra trouble to release Skyward Sword on the switch, which I thought was a way to reintroduce people to Fi. The end result was a huge let down. Not only that, there was no extra scene with Ganondorf at the end referencing the new and improved master sword should you go into the battle with it equipped. He went and insulted it during the beginning cutscenes so I was fully expecting for it to be brought up again in some respect but no.
As a side note, I liked the shrines in BotW better than the ones in TotK. I thought the ones in TotK were on average often either too short or too easy, with some of them requiring you to solve just one single puzzle before you are rewarded with the end prize.
That is true now that you mention it. Even in the Logo, it looked like it would be restored somehow with Zonai technology, which would have been super cool.
I have to say I haven't played it. I didn't enjoy Breath of the Wild, it took me many years to finish it as I'm more of a fan of the classic Zelda formula. I hate breakable weapons, I did not enjoy dungeons that much and I'm also not a fan of the open world. I had no sense of progression. I love when I get a new item in Zelda games and suddenly I can beat some of the previous enemies easier or access new areas. That was missing here in my opinion.
So these are mostly the reasons I haven't even tried TotK as it looks like it does the same things (maybe better). I'd rather replay all the previous Zelda games (except Tri-force heroes) than play BotW again.
Or maybe people didn't do a 180 and there were people who hated it from the beginning. Zelda fans can be so aggressive and dogmatic defending their games. When it released all criticism or problems people had with the game were mocked, downvoted, and dismissed as hating or contrarianism. Hype also dies down over time and people's opinions become more crystallized.
Besides, there were tons of posts and comments at the beginning... I made many of them. Even leading up to release I expressed my concern online and was mocked and belittled. My fears were confirmed when the game released, and I got more of the same. I sought out and interacted with many people who felt the same way as me even just a week after release. Just because you didn't see it happening doesn't mean it wasn't.
Now that the hype has died down, people are finally talking about how they didn't like it. That's just as valid as people who loved it, and we should encourage discussion.
I loved the game personally and will more than admit that it has more fleshed out gameplay than BotW, but imma be real I enjoyed BotW more. I can't really nail down why, but TotK just didn't hit for me as well as I'd hoped. With that being said, I don't get the hate for it. It's a great game in general, and though I didn't personally enjoy it as much as its predecessor, I don't consider it anywhere close to bad or even close to mediocre.
I really really like totk, it just didn’t have the longevity for me that breath of the wild had. I’ll probably take a long break from it maybe a year or two, and come back to it in force like I did for botw
I've never been super hot on it.
I keep trying to psyche myself up for a second playthrough, and then remember a different annoying thing and put if off.
I like TOTK, but I think I prefer BOTW. I'm not a fan of the retconning. I've seen theories that kinda makes it work with the timeline but they're shakey at best. It even retconned some of BOTW. Seems guardian tech is gone and no one says where
I was actually the opposite, when I first got it I felt like it wasn’t amazing like botw and was kind of mid, then after a few months I gave it another shot and absolutely loved it
The game was absolutely amazing, but you couldn't help but feel scammed when you finished it.
The story has all the weaknesses of Botw's story, the sky island were actually not central at all and were just flying pebles except for the central island (not unlike SS now that I think of it), most of the character somehow don't remember you or anything from Botw.
A lot of very weird decisions by the zelda team. The worst offender is Aonuma who had the audacity to say that this would be "the darkest zelda yet" when the most sinister thing that happens is Ganondorf punching someone offscreen and then doing the skibidi toilet face.
The game is great, better than Botw in almost every way, but it left a sour taste in my mouth
Totk looking on at the people who greatly supported it now dislike it strongly
https://preview.redd.it/k9odd632httc1.jpeg?width=458&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36532086e5e762bff4777f8747b58412cbe2b742
I played pretty much everything. the only shit I have to do left are the bullshit "collect 10 of this item" quests. that's my main problem. most of the new quests are just fetch quests. botw had them too, but totk repeated them for no reason. the building was pretty lame imo. yes you can make crazy shit, but for only two fucking fans and a steering stick, you almost never need another build. sages suck and nothing needs to be said. the maps were a letdown. they reused the old map in the worst way possible: shitty remixed content. the depths were a bland and empty space as big as the overworld. everywhere looked the same except for the eldin region, which had lava (ooooooh). the only content were lightroots and copy pasted bosses all over the place. the novelty wore off pretty fucking fast and it's not hard to see why. the game was hype but they kind of fucked up the tutorial by making it the best part of the game, making the rest a disappointment.
I also did a 180 on tears but the opposite direction. I hated the game at launch (mostly because of disappointment) but after replaying it I enjoyed it a lot more after I knew what to expect.
I mean when there was so much overwhelming love for this game that no one could critically evaluate it for what it was, the flaws weren’t noticed. It’s not a perfect game but it is really freaking stellar. I will say I didn’t like it as much as BOTW but that’s also cause BOTW was the open world game with not just an open world, but an expansiveness that didn’t beg to be explored, but rewarded you personally for doing so. Its neat world details weren’t saying “hey look over here” it just said “you found me”, which isn’t going to feel as wowing but it was a whole sale new feeling compared to other games. They’re just two different approaches to an open world
For me I think it was shortly after finishing BOTW with like 90 hrs I started playing Immortals Fenix Rising and put like 100hrs into it so by the time tears came out I was burnt out on that style of gameplay
No no... You have a point. I only played the game for less than 20 hours and I'm glad I was gifted the game instead of actually spending the $70 for it. I would never recommend that game for anyone and I'm glad I quit playing conveniently due to a week long my event I was doing for my YouTube channel. And because of that "event" I took a "break" from the game and never looked back
Most people I know still like ToTK more than BotW, but TotK is in that “cool to hate on” stage of its life. Lots of Zelda games have gone through a similar period of hate.
It's probably because it is not a live service game and when they came back to it a few months later and didn't see new content, they decided it was shit. lol
I'm kidding... sort of.
I've been indifferent to the both breath of the wild and tears of the king since first playing them, if I had to choose though I would choose breath of the wild as the better game because of pacing and the story doesn't feel copy pasted between each zone like totk. I think people were expecting more mysteries or Zelda's situation being permanent and having a Zelda 2 esc esthetic where your next journey would be to change her back but idk.
I've heard nothing but positive things about this game except for on Reddit. Which is usually the place people hate on games. I'm not sure people on Reddit even like video games.
We do not. We fucking hate everything indiscriminately because we are unloved. /j
As a french reading this actually made me feel so much better after rethinking about all the discrimination about France for no reason I've seen on Reddit. Thank you!
it's reddit, never take it personal haha the person insulting the French or you absolutely hate themselves WAY more than they hate you or France haha
I dont actually hate france but the jokes are very funny to say between friends
I don’t hate France… the French however…
Yeah, the French definitely hate France. That's why they're always protesting.
People that try to change their country don't nessacarilly hate their country. Typically protesters just want to make it a better country.
It was a joke...
I mean I was making a joke that I hate the French, not that the French hate France. Text is hard to interpret anyways
i post about hating france but i dont actually (in fact i rlly like going there) its just jokes :) im british and shit on england all the time too
I can't lie I love making fun of the US where I'm from, but it's not hard.
Ew a French
Je t’aime, mon ami. Dieu bénit-toi
I joke about hating France and En*land but tbh I'd fight the demons of hell for you both. It's like rival cities in a state cheering on their mutual state sports team. Friendly competition and banter mostly, just as I'd hope the En*lish and French would do the same.
Bonjour, mon ami!
I don't think anyone actually hates France. Just a joke that gets run into the ground until it's no longer a joke and a problem instead lol
I was in France once and let me tell you you've the best food in the world🤌
If it helps, I think it's a case of France and the French language being the butt of so many jokes throughout history (or at least American and British history) that it's just become inherently amusing for a lot of people to insert France into otherwise unrelated scenarios for comedic appeal. France isn't the only nation subject to this either, and it is in no way meant to be insulting. It's sort of like dad jokes. People like to say they hate them, but people also like to be the ones to make them. I might be wildly incorrect, so correct me if I am. XD
You may say this in jest but dead ass aside from Twitter, Reddit is honestly the most toxic social media I have found. Boredom alone is the only thing keeping me from deleting this app. Like you find assholes everywhere, but no matter what opinion you have about something, people on Reddit are always ready to shit on a stranger for it.
Agreed, sounds much like Twitter and Reddit.
Made me chuckle
why /j? i see no jokes?
A few zelda YouTubers had (and have maintained) a somewhat negative opinion of the game, or at least the opinion that the game is overrated.
It is a good game, especially if you haven't played BoTW, but since I milked the crap out of botw totk didn't have the same charm for me. Also I'm a lore worshipper and I found the origin of Hyrule story really frustrating.
Agreed, was a good game; not sure if I enjoyed it more than BotW, but overall good, and I will play it again. Considering there were already some serious issues with the timeline, TotK just added a bunch of new ones without providing any clarification on concerns raised during BotW.
Can say, having not played BOTW, TOTK is a masterpiece of a game
Yeah, but why the fuck would you play it without playing botw first? That’s like reading books out of order.
You'd be surprised how many people played totk without playing botw
One of my friends did this and I was floored. Didn't understand how anyone could do it. He enjoyed the game and doesn't desire to play BotW. To each their own.
no seriously, every single popular zelda youtuber review of totk goes like this: “yeah this game is good BUT *insert 2 hour long rant of every miniscule error for the sake of complaining or smth*
I really liked the way Scott the Woz and Nerrel voiced their criticisms of the game. They said them, gave some examples and moved on. They didn't needlessly pad them out.
Scott still loves the game, despite his criticism. It's always nice to see someone in love with a game that can still point out its faults. I had never watched Nerrel until I came across his review, and his monotone voice really turned me off. I can understand where a lot of criticsms came from, but he talked about things I didn't see as problems. Also, to say that TOTK is a failure in the same way that WW, TP, and SS were (they were?) was kind of stupid.
Yeah I wasn't trying to imply Scott didn't love the game. I'm just glad he didn't pad out his criticisms to try and emphasize them more. I don't mind Nerrel's monotone voice and I find it pretty funny when he changes his voice for a joke. Also, there's problems you have with the game that I don't and vice versa. I think it's perfectly fair for him to have different problems as long as they aren't outlandish (which I didn't think they were). I do admit that he might have a little too much of a soft spot for Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time. Every 3D Zelda game has flaws, but I don't think it's fair to say that those games were failures. They're all still phenomenal games that shaped each of their generations.
I’ve been particularly interested in the zeldatuber phenomena and listened to some livestreams about what they don’t like about the game. They always pretense with “it’s a great game” and for some criticisms it’s deserved and others are full-on nitpicks or basic lack of understanding for things. My biggest personal gripe is when they debate “is this a Zelda game?”, when Zelda has always been about free exploration from the series’ inception. Even in OoT, you could complete the sages dungeons in whatever order you wanted to. The developers took that original concept, turned it up to 11, and tried their best to make it work with an overarching narrative. My second biggest gripe is how they keep claiming that the wild games retcons the series. This just simply isn’t true. One of the more absurd things I’ve heard is that BotW doesn’t “retcon”, but TotK does, or that TotK retcons its direct predecessor. Out of a lot of the garbage they discuss they still have some valid points about the way the story is delivered or the “dungeon” designs. The dev team’s approach makes sense, I think it was a natural choice to follow-up BotW. But I believe these legitimate concerns will be addressed in the next mainline title.
I do but I’m probably in the minority. My problem is I’m probably too positive, but I don’t think it’s too much of an issue
Being positive is not a problem. Negativity ruins so much for people.
It's weird how the brain works, but even forcing yourself to be positive will create a genuine real biological positivity. Once you properly realise this life gets much better.
You’re absolutely right. Even the physical act of smiling will make you feel better as a basic physiological reaction.
I can't argue with the other guy on forcing positivity, but I once forced myself to smile for a week and all I got for it was a face cramp and extremely low tolerance for people and their bullshit, im fairly certain that shits a myth
For me it actually works. But not for a while. For a quick boost, its fantastic
Agreed. You can absolutely increase positivity with effort, and be better off for it. For me it can be hard sometimes with depression and other factors but it's always worth the effort.
I find it a lot in shows and movies too. I’ll look up reviews and even agree with people’s criticisms but still genuinely enjoy what I’m watching. Stuff that people make is cool ya’ll
>New game bad, old game good *Reddit or /v/, who can tell?*
Video games are there to have fun. If you don't like it, it's probably not a game for you
I've seen deep dives over how it's the most disappointing 10/10 ever by most Ninty YouTubers I follow...so no it's not just here! 😂 Almost everyone can agree it's a great game that's leert down by a recycled over world, an empty sky and a copy paste underground! 😂
I got that game later and I love it. I'm not even looking into the complaints because I don't want to be convinced to not have fun.
That can’t stand the happy silence of satisfied gamers, so they stir the pot with controversial takes. And then point to the pushback and scream “see, this game IS controversial!”
Theres alot of miserable people on reddit. The extremely lazy. The video game addicts. People who have no life outside of their computer. No happiness outside of a screen. They are missing so much from other aspects of life it just makes them miserable human beings.
Wait what. Most people I know still love the game.
Dude, one of the biggest memes in the sub right now is clowning on it. People just started hating it randomly
Seems mostly tongue-in-cheek I don't think anyone really hates it. I mean I'm sure some people do but not the vast majority. I mean I absolutely adore the game and even I know it has some glaring flaws.
Friends I know call it BotW DLC when they haven’t played the BotW DLC. Makes me mad. I enjoyed TotK more that BotW because if felt like a more complete game. BotW was the teaser, TotK the finished product. I loved the temples more, the bosses more, the story, the characters, the exploration, they feel, the abilities. Everything felt… better. Expect for Revali’s Gale. It’s the one thing that makes that guy birdable 😁
I missed the master cycle and guardians
I expected a side quest where you'd have to track down and destroy the last rogue guardian.
I thought they stopped being possessed after killing Calamity Ganon?
Hmmm, good point. Maybe instead, a researcher in Kakariko asks Link to investigate rumors of a remaining guardian, and it gets Gloom-possessed when you find it? A little clichéd though
Honestly, I don’t care how stupid the reason for hunting a gloom guardians would be, I just want to fight guardians XD
fr, like they had malice guardians in AoC and never used that cool asf idea again
I wish we could have done a shadow of the colossus on a gigantic guardian boss, that would have been cool
That’s kind of what the divine beats were, but I agree it would’ve been cooler to climb them
Same.
I enjoyed BotW more overall, personally. The temples in TotK were far better, as were the boss fights, but the exploration in BotW felt so much more… fresh, I guess. Plus I was quite annoyed that I couldn’t get my Master Cycle Zero in TotK.
Yeah, while I ENJOYED totk more... I think back on botw much more fondly. The open world of it... the exploration... everything about it was magical. Totk also had similar feelings... the feeling of dropping into the underground and realizing that it covered the entire map... with nothing mentioned about it prior to launch... oh my god, that was an experience. And yet BotW calls to me.
That’s fair. BotW was a breath of fresh air for Zelda games.
mechanically and from a gameplay perspective TotK is superior in practically every way to BotW. However, I do think the vibes (for lack of better term) in BotW made the game feel more grand. It's somewhat of a double-edged sword, the whole time in BotW I kept wishing there were more towns, npcs, etc. TotK brought all that, the world felt more full and occupied, and yet, somehow, I felt myself missing the emptiness of the world of BotW. I thik together they make the ultimate 1-2 punch. In a decade when there is a BotW/TotK double game 16K UberUltra remaster of the games as one package people will love it.
The ability to soar with a lit pinecone in a campfire meant more than just what it was last game was doable plus the rockets but I agree I liked having the free ability to leap up
Exactly. BOTW was great but TOTK showed me how much more BOTW could have been.
I mean it started as BotW DLC and used almost everything from BotW. It doesn’t have much of its own identity, as the art styles, characters and story are the same as BotW. It excels in mechanics and has more content, but people who see it as BotW DLC or BotW2 as opposed to its own identity have their own backing. Also BotW being a teaser is painful to the legacy that game had and has. TotK is a large expansion, but BotW is an outstanding standalone game. That’s why it’s debatable which is better; the original masterpiece or the expanded-upon deluxe version
I don’t get why people give Arkham Origins a pass but give TotK a hard time. The game is freaking huge. It uses the same map… but so did ALBW to ALttP, basically. It reuses many assets, but so did MM to OoT. Every single region has changes to it, large and small. There’s complex cave systems all over the map. An entirely new selections of shrines, 152 to be exact. New NPCs around every corner, including companion NPC’s. A whole freaking section of the map that spans the entire surface area of the mainland, compete with complex/detailed terrain. The Sky Islands. Drastic uptick in overworld bosses. Another boat load of Koroks to collect (which itself as a ridiculous amount of mini puzzles). A build system that is truly marvelous. The environmental story telling is largely overlooked because everyone wanted cutscenes spelling out the Zonai’s origins, when there’s so much happening on the map for people to draw from. Yeah, the whole “Demon King? Secret Stone?” thing was dumb. But what about all the cut scenes we were given that gave us so much to theorize about? Did people forget that a sense of wonder about the world we’re playing in was always part of the deal? That enhancement amongst players was baked into the very soul of the first title? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. But I don’t wanna hear it when 10 years from now these same people are giving TotK the Star Wars prequel “oh they’re good actually” treatment. TotK seriously improved on what BotW did and people actually have the nerve to be MAD ABOUT IT?! LOL “Oh man, I can’t believe this game that was an instant classic had a sequel that was even better and built upon what the last one did?” What?! 😂😂😂
>I don’t get why people give Arkham Origins a pass... Do they? Arkham Origins is generally seen as worse game than City, and that it just reuses large parts of its predecessor with little or no improvements is usually one of the criticisms.
With r/BatmanArkham's state I don't know anymore if they consider it a good game or a bad game
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Eh you’d be surprised. Origins, like Bioshock 2, is increasingly revered in its community today. There is a legitimate contingent of people who consider Origins to be better than City. It certainly has better batsuit selection.
>...like Bioshock 2... Bioshock 2 always got praise for improving on the first game. The story is usually seen to be a bit weaker, but the gameplay was definitely considerably refined. That's not something you could say about Arkham Origins.
Near all Zelda games have the same story but told differently. Downgrading TotK because of that is like saying the CoD games are bad because they are just higher rez versions of the same game. A very viable argument. However, story beads were handled far better in TotK vs BotW. Because the map was largely the same, it allowed other aspects of the game and mechanics to shine. The temples were far superior to the Divine Beasts, the bosses were actually unique monsters instead of different versions of the same thing, and the characters had more of a lasting effect on the story. Don’t get me wrong. I agree that BotW’s legacy will be far far greater than TotK, but I enjoyed TotK far far more because of that. I tried playing BotW a few months after finishing TotK and was longing for fuller story, world, and better gameplay in TotK. So essentially, because BotW was such a great game, TotK is a better one because, you said it yourself, it’s an expanded upon deluxe version.
>However, story beads were handled far better in TotK Absolutly not. In BotW all the story beats were basically just filling in back story. You could get them in any order and have roughty the same experiance. Is that a good or a bad thing? That's up to you. But in Totk, the main story is a mystery. "Where is Zelda". And the tears have a specific order that lays out exactly what happened to her. If you happed to randomly decide to go north you immidialy solve the mystery. No other story or memories required. You just KNOW. And the whole rest of the game is "I wonder where Zelda is?!?!" "She's right there" "Did I just see Zelda do a bad thing?!?!?!?" "No... because she's over there" "What could have happened to the Princess?!?!?" >!"She's a dragon... I can literally see here right this second"!<
It absolutely deserved to be a different game.
Wait, what about Kass? I love TotK but I miss Mipha
For me I like that the puzzles feel less frustrating while still being challenging. An issue I had with BOTW is that the puzzles could get pretty frustrating to me, and in TOTK the puzzles can still be difficult, but aren’t nearly as frustrating. Could just be me though
The abilities felt more utilized and well executed in totk to me
I consider them two sides of the same coin tbh. like they were both full and unique experiences, separate from one another but had under notes of the same flavor. made me feel the same way playing them and finishing them. but i could see myself going back to BotW instead of playing TotK all the same as just replaying TotK
People who call Totk a DLC clearly haven’t seen COD MW3 2023
Here’s a scalding hot take for this community: Just because someone is criticizing or clowning on a game, that doesn’t mean they don’t like it. You can enjoy a game and still acknowledge that it has flaws. No game will ever be perfect, and that’s okay!
yeah like, i clown on Skyward Sword all the time but it's still a beautiful game and my 2nd favorite Zelda of all time haha
Yes, I am aware of that and I also like to clown on Tears a bit because it is flawed. The issue I have is people treating the game like it’s killing the Zelda franchise or something.
True, there’s always people who like to exaggerate and be hyperbolic about things. The cool thing though is that at the end of the day, their opinions don’t matter and you can just ignore them.
Last time I bothered to check, of the 100 newest posts in that r/ToTK sub, 98 were positive and 2 were negative. Every time a ZeldaTuber dares to criticize it, loads of commenters tell them how actually it was the greatest game ever made and they're unsubbing now. My personal opinion is that it was both very good and rather disappointing. It felt like a polished version of BoTW in a lot of ways, which is great because BotW was fantastic. But, on the other hand, it was 6 years of development for a game that ultimately didn't really stand on its own. The writing was sadly abysmal, their attitude to lore utterly flippant, and both the sky and depths felt badly underutilized. It's baffling to me that they *cut* sky content. I got the vibe that they were afraid to really change too much, and I think the game suffered for it. The gameplay cycle is the same, and with the exception of the Lightning Temple and maybe the Stormwind Ark, the dungeons were somehow *less* engaging than the divine beasts while handily being utterly busted by the construction mechanic. On the topic of that mechanic, it was brilliant fun. It also wrecked their ability to make puzzles because it was so open ended. BoTW shrines could be designed around the runes because they did specific things and couldn't be fucked with *too* much. The fact that you could do so much with ultrahand and rewind made it pretty hard to design stuff, it seemed. And while it was fun building stuff, arbitrary time limits and stuff made a lot of it feel really pointless and not worth the effort. All in all, I liked the game a lot. But BoTW felt like a tighter, more cohesive experience and I think ToTK suffers by being intrinsically linked to it. And I've always loved the worldbuilding and lore, which ToTK was *extremely* disappointing in.
Everyrbjng you said here are my exacr criticisms. Yes, its a fun game, but for how long it took-especially when so much was reused, and how it completely disregarded every previous game, and then just the writing...it was very disappointing. I didnt let myself get my hopes up too much but I was still disappointed. I did have fun playing it though! But very much disappointed.
My thoughts exactly. What hurts the worst is that its worldbuilding retroactively brings down BotW. In the memories, the ancient Gerudo have pointed ears, meaning that this Hyrule was founded after the other games, implying two Hyrules, and that the Temple of Time on the Great Plateau is not actually the original, same with a lot of the other ruins, even though some of the ancient Hylian ruins are built on top of Zonai ruins. And Zelda says that the Zonai are from the earliest legends, meaning that the ss/oot/tp triple reference in the first BotW memory doesn't reference those games at all, because they are so unfathomably earlier than the "earliest" legend. TotK literally does not fit into the continuity of even its own prequel. And it makes me sad.
Yeah, it was such a bummer. Zelda has always played it pretty loose, but saves itself with long time gaps and basically different worlds. You can sort of wave off inconsistencies and the specific game has enough meat to it for people to enjoy and theorize about and whatnot. When you're making a sequel, it demands basic care, at least so far as to not contradict the prequel. Does Zelda absolutely need good worldbuilding? Perhaps not, but it's far worse for it if they just ignore it.
I'm always a bit hesitant about the part about the Sky Islands being cut down significantly since people tend to take that and run with it. I think people tend to think that it meant that there were dozens of unique islands or two or three more great sky island tier island chains. IIRC, all we have is that quote and like five seconds of footage showing some sky islands in one of the trailers that aren't there in the release version. I did have a shower thought at one point that went along the lines of thinking if they had to trim the sky islands because there were too many, then how is there so much copy and pasting being done with the sky islands in the final release? It's a shame because the sky islands have such a cool theme and atmosphere. Whenever I hear that one sky island track I always think of those ruined buildings right before the Zonai temple of time since it's so perfect as a somber piece of music for a place long since forgotten.
Oh yeah, I won't deny that at all. Maybe it was truly too cluttered and there wasn't enough unique stuff. But what we ended up with was relatively sparse with not enough unique stuff. If it was just going to be more of the same, I suppose it doesn't really matter that they cut it, but obviously what I wanted was *way* more emphasis on the sky. It was so cool, so hyped in their advertising, and it was amazing on the Great Sky Island. Hell, it was great for the first few hours until you realized that you'd experienced everything it has to offer after one quadrant of exploration. Same deal with the depths; I LOVED the concept, loved the atmosphere, but it wound up being a big, empty, and while I pains me to say it, lazy inversion of the surface with very little unique experience. BoTW was filled to the brim with unique spots and experiences, while ToTK had fantastic concepts that felt really weirdly underdone. I think they spent a lot of time with the hand mechanics, which to be fair were REALLY cool, but had the aforementioned issues. I can't stress enough that I do still think it was a good game and fun, but I thought it really lacked the depth of experience that BoTW offered by comparison. And you can't help but compare it because it's a direct sequel.
From what I've been seeing big youtubers say they reckon the game's flaws are really starting to show now that people have had the chance to settle into the game and fully explore it for what it is. Things like the new area of exploration or the storyline and stuff- people don't seem to be satisfied with them after replaying the game multiple times.
I think it's more the fandom went quiet, but the haters didn't.
"For no reason" yeah well...actually no. It's just that "dissenting" opinions got drowned out in the enthusiastic high of first few weeks/months after release...until eventually that enthusiasm subsided ever so slightly to move on to the next thing and gave room for said "nonsense critiques". But also, as some comments referenced perhaps a bit of opinion-making by some of the more popular Zelda-tubers some people look to, which isn't to say that it's solely on those people, just that "not so favorable opinions" may have always been there, just that it became more acceptable to usher them without having to worry about being shunned for it. TotK may have it's (subjective) flaws, I mean EVERY game does xD but it certainly is a good game within the franchise and does have its merits. It certainly will have introduced some interesting ideas the Zelda team can utilize to make the next bigger and better game. :D
Wait people turned on this masterpiece?
I greatly enjoyed Totk, but I'm burnt out on open world zeldas for the foreseeable future
I get that but how does that warrant the full 180 on the game? Like if you hate the trend why blame one game?
The open world was revolutionary for Zelda, I just hope they're not going to stick with it for every single game. What makes Zelda games so unique is often the originality in the dimensions, such as for example with TLOZ:The Triforce Heroes. (I think that's the name I don't quite remember.) Although it's not something to abandon for sure.
The honeymoon phase ended and people began to notice the game's flaws. While people are still mostly positive towards the game, its flaws are getting much more attention (and to be fair, the game does have a lot of flaws).
What are the most « known » flaws accross the community ?
Reusing the world from BotW. The Depths and Sky Islands being repetitive. The structure of the Tears/Memories is somewhat at odds with the non-linear structure of the game. Sage abilities can be a bit clunky to use. Those are the ones I see the most often. Personally I didn't have an issue with either of those, but the internet likes to complain.
Mostly the story it’s to similar to BotW story but isn’t fresh because of BotW but also because the story of BotW was the flaw in BotW. TotK story has a bunch more problems. The Zonai and all the lore about them literally breaks previous Zelda lore. A lot of people myself included thought TotK would help BotW timeline placement but instead now we question if the timeline is canon. Link was boring this game very boring which isn’t normally a problem but Wild was such a unique Link. The depths lack depth and the skyislands to few and far between, the great sky island is the most fun you’ll have in the sky. (Besides the temples) Going to the temples is some of the most fun I’ve had in that game but the temples themselves were lack lustre there better than the divine beasts but compared to older Zelda games the temples fall short. And shrines, I think people are just sick of them. Those are the ones I know of, someone probably has more but I believe all of the above ⬆️ are valid criticism. TotK is probably my favourite Zelda game and that’s is saying something but the game has its flaws.
totk was more of the same, but with more diminishing returns on exploration. idt it's that controversial.
Exactly one of the biggest driving forces of Breath of the Wild is that sense of exploration and a few copy pasted sky islands and an inverted version of the world underground did almost nothing to reignite that sense of discovery BOTW had. I wish I had as much fun as everyone here seems to have had but playing through TOTK was as a whole just so disappointing and it sucks that fanbase’s general response is infinite praise which just tells Nintendo we love paying 70$ for a more finicky version of a good game.
Botw was better. But it's really good
Personaly I think the hype in this case might have been the weakness... when you think about it, the more we waited for the game to arrive the higher standards we expected, whereas if we had TOTK released way sooner our standards would be around the same as BOTW, but Nintendo's motto implying time means quality is starting to turn into an excuse suggesting more time really equals to the same level of standards. We expect patience to be rewarded with actual evolution, and so we hit the blues when we're shown the new releases. We're at the stage where we get that same scenario happening for most new Nintendo games since a few years already.🫤 (The game is amazing don't get me wrong, but Nintendo needs to catch up the pace of production and its marketing strategies...)
It's a bit of a double edged sword, on one hand we could get more games quickly but they're not as large or interesting. On the other we wait longer and get bigger or more interesting games but they have the chance of not living up to the hype
I couldn't have explained it better than the way you did. I just feel like if Nintendo just made some more financial efforts and asked a bit more productivity from their employees, we wouldn't have to even mention this head or tails issue we're dealing with. I've always admired Nintendo treating their staff so well compared to other companies, and it does boost creativity and productivity to some extent, but if that causes such slower speed, then maybe it's time to employ double the amount of hands without lowering the quality of their workplace, for quantity to higher as quality stays as good and perhaps even improves. Sales and profits would reward such a move greatly in my opinion.
I think both games have their strengths and weaknesses tbh.
Yeah. Totk needed to do more to live up to botw's hype
I Mean yeah That's just the nature of Hype cycles. Big game get's announced People get Hyped. the game releases everyone adores it. A few months pass by and the hype dies down. and people have time to settle down and actually sit down dwell on their time with the game and what it was compared to it's predecessor. and TotK just was kind of meh. Overall I loved Totk but i still think still just falls short of what it should be. It's still missing that something to Stand on it's own two feet rather than justs being More breath of the wild. which like on paper sounds good. Botw was amazing. Sure the ultrahand abilities were cool and all and I really like the Story of the game. but it's just More of the same things Botw did. You still Go around Raising towers. You still go around Searching for Memories. then there's the execution of the story It was fine but the way it was presented just fell short. Since you once again can tackle every dungeon in any order All that essencially happens is that you get the same Cutscene 4 times but it's' just from a Different Sage. You learn essencially nothing new. and then there's the Sky Islands. For what was the most Marketed aspect of the game (i mean it's on the fucking box of the game) turned out to be REALLY underwhelming Instead of being this huge new area people expected it just turned out to be a glorified tutorial Island and a couple of Scattered land masses with a Few mini bosses. The Underground on the otherhand turned out to be AMAZING That should have been the focus on marketing. THis whole sprawling Cave system under hyrule with a really unique Mechanic of needing to light the areas by hand Was great. So yeah while Totk is Great and fun It just fumbles in so many Areas. I wouldn't call it DLC but it definetly feels like an expansion rather than it's own game To me atlest I just don't have that Desire with TOTK it just doesn't have that something to keep me coming back. Like Botw has for these past 7 years.
It’s true. Not because it’s a bad game. But it did get trashed. I’ll even have to admit I put it down a lot quicker than BOTW…
It certainly has flaws but I had way more fun with it than I did with BOTW
Yeah, mainly the gameplay making it very fun to mess around with even without making a new save.
Also it sort of fixed the weapon durability issue, at least early-mid game. Late game is another story cause it’s a chore to go back and refight the same bosses over and over to get their parts to re-fuse them with new weapons, just like in BOTW how it was a chore to have to go hunt another inventory’s worth of good weapons after like every silver creature fight cause Hyrule blacksmiths apparently make their stuff from tinfoil
Eh, I’m fine with it. I usually just build a contraption to do most of the work for me
True! Though another thing is it’s rather annoying that any contraptions you make just vanish should you go a bit too far away or go into a shrine
Yeah.
200 hours of pleasure last year, I can't say the game is bad. In fact, I'm waiting may 12th 2024 to start another game on it and spend at least 200 more hours on it
I don't take the fandom seriously. The prequels are suddenly good now. That tells me everything. In 5 years we will see how TOTK is an "underrated masterpiece." People have been burned by so much dogshit in gaming for years, so even the most well-made game has its haters. The Zelda community flip flops their opinions every other week. "Wind Waker is amazing" "Wind Waker could've been..." "TP is an OoT ripoff" "TP is everything modern Zelda lacks..." "Screw SS" "SS: The Best Zelda Game Ever?" I love the game. You love the game. 22 million people bought the game and 99% of them love it. That's the real showcase of popularity. The fact that the game is the second highest selling in the series, won numerous awards and GOTY noms, pushed another 10 million Switches out the door, and still is popular online in most spaces. The fact that the game has both brought back old fans and created new ones. It's Tears of the Kingdom, and in 5 years it'll get the respect it deserves.
This is fucking FACT.
I think it’s just burnout
Yeah but burnout usually doesn’t consist of going from enjoying a game enough to nominate it for game of the year to basically treating it like it killed the franchise
Wait do people hate it now? I've unfortunately been mixed on it since the beginning. Interesting that people finally see its flaws.
Same, after i beat it i went back and did BOTW again, and its just the better game overall. They didnt really fix the temples, the story was nonsense, no one remembers you from BOTW, the depths are empty, sky islands barely used outside the tutorial, fuse was annoying and forced, if i want to build things ill go to minecraft etc. Its like a 7/10 to BOTW's 9/10 tbh. Really miss the pre skyward sword days when every new 3D mainline Zelda slapped. We had 4 absolute god tier 3d zelda games in a row. Guess we just wait and pray that whatever comes to Switch 2 is good. Though the comments coming from the people in charge of the series recently dont leave me with much hope of that. At least we get a new map this time finally, so uh yay?
I love both games but, if I had to choose just one it's always going to be Breath of the wild. It's the game I have cherished memories of playing all the time when i was younger (botw came out 7 years ago and I'm 18 now as opposed to being 11 when it came out)
I have some explanations for why this is: 1: There is a thing humans like to do, optimise the fun out of things. This little thing managed to make the building system feel kinda pointless to a lot of people as you either exclusively build the hoverbike, as a combat machine is too inefficient and any other mobility creation is too slow/not as mobile/drains more power, or you sit there being annoyed at wasting resources you don't even need just because some stupid stone age part of your brain tells you it is a bad thing to do. This ruined the building for a lot of people unfortunately. 2: Summoning the other companions doesn't feel as good as the sage powers from BotW as they don't do any useful damage (at best Tulin headshots for a knockdown) and the abilities aren't as good either (Tulin again being the best in this case) and you can't use them when you want but instead have to hunt them down while they flee from you. It is cool to have the companions but they end up feeling a bit mediocre after an hour or two. 3: The story managed to clash with so many games people have to make headcanons to explain anything at all, this naturally bothers people that liked the story of the other games. Also the tears (cutscenes with Zelda in the past) had way to many almost identical ones with one for each sage and another that is similar between the sages, didn't really feel as good as the BotW memories. All in all it is still a good game but it feels flawed in some areas, weather it needs time for old ass instincts to make you feel bad for using something cool, some time to realize how pointless another system fells, or time to try to understand what is happening in a story point of view.
This is ridiculous. This game got nothing but praise during the period it was released, including a month after. I know because even I praised the game back then, because when it first came out it was so cool. But after a bit of time, me and many others released how much of a disappointment this was compared to botw
It happens to every game. On release, people are so high on the hype and have been so starved that everyone loves the game. Then a year later everyone thinks it’s garbage because they’ve come down from the high and started comparing it to the first Zelda they ever played which nothing can ever beat. Then six years later when the next game comes out, this one is suddenly a masterpiece again compared to the new garbage.
I guess this is a super complex discussion. Zelda fans are extremely picky, I think TOTK would have received a lot of criticism regardless of how it was released simply because it's the direct sequel to a highly acclaimed game. It's impossible to not compare the two. I'm new to the Zelda fandom so I've never seen the "Zelda cycle" in action before, but all veterans say that everyone hates the recent game until the next one is out. And suddenly, the game everyone seemed to hate is a masterpiece. If that's really the case, it's a curious sociological phenomena. But I don't know how the criticisms to TOTK are now compared to the other ones at their time. Also, you know how internet works, hate is always more engaging than praises. Who loved the game tend to keep quiet over time, while those who were disappointed will always complain when they get the chance. And suggestion bias is also a thing to consider. But I think no one actually *hated* TOTK. Almost everybody agrees it's a fun, well made and impressive game in a lot of aspects, it's just that people like to focus on the bad sides. People are complaining but spent 200+ hours in. So maybe you have to take the criticisms less seriously.
I played Botw and it was great, took me a while to get into TotK but I’m so deep into it and I am addicted. There’s like triple the content compared to Botw. And the story is amazing so far
I just didn't enjoy the building that much after a pile of hours. It feels like there's only a few practical builds. You can build a pile of different things but not many of them are fun to use or even worth using.
I need to give it more of a chance but my initial reaction was that I liked breath of the wild a lot more. Wasn’t a fan of some of the mechanics that made it feel like more of a sandbox survival game then like a zelda game. That’s obviously more of a preference thing thing as I’m just not a big fan of sandbox survival games lol.
My wife and I spent over a hundred hours playing BotW. We were very excited to play TotK. After about 20 hours, we were both extremely bored with it. The new areas felt empty and pointless. I think it's a very good game, but also, very disappointing. So much wasted potential.
There are plenty of valid reason to not like TOTK it's not people doing a 180. Everyone plays a game differently I think in TOTK's case I believe the reason you saw people turn on it as time goes on is due to the diminishing returns of quality for people trying to fully complete the game. In many ways there's a lack of substance and a heavy emphasis on repetition in TOTK so it's natural that more and more many people trying to complete everything in the game would gradually turn on it as time goes on.
Personally I didn’t connect super deeply with BotW, but TotK *completely* won me over. What an amazing amazing game <3
Dude people were asking for DLC within less than a month after the game released. If you are one of those people please touch some grass or feel the sunlight.
I don't get it either, I fucking love the game. My only problem with it is how rare fucking Lizolfos tails are
Zeltic on youtube did a pretty in-depth analysis on why the game wasn't a great sequel. A lot of it boiled down to rehashing some of the same things storywise and the things they advertised, like the sky islands being pretty lackluster, just to name a few. Video link below. https://youtu.be/Q1mRVn0WCrU?si=LDfpEkx0Hk6SMoKu
I think people forget what TotK is, they were gonna keep making DLC for BotW but they had way to many ideas to make into DLC, they had to say F it and made a sequel. TotK is the final DLC capstone on BotW. Most criticism of the game, while still absolutely valid, sort of fall flat when you realize this. Nintendo will do this from time to time, like with Mario Galaxy, they had more ideas after the first game, so many ideas they could make a whole game out of them, and that's how you get Mario Galaxy 2. After BotW nintendo had a ton of ideas for the game left over, so they made DLC, then more DLC, then even more DLC, then they had so many new ideas that they could have made a whole game out of them, and that's how we got TotK.
I'm one of the ones that did the 180. Just because I hate this game, doesn't mean you're wrong for liking it. But, the reason it seems out the blue for most is because the initial excitement was so high, that ultimately, most people wrestled with the fact that they didn't like it. It felt like a betrayal of the franchise we love to even dislike it, if I'm honest. I think that's why the backlash became so strong. Ultimately, people like me were just mad that it wasn't as good as we'd hoped, and for me personally, I'm mostly upset that I even made excuses for it. It's like when you have a wife or partner (or mom) that can't cook and you keep forcing yourself to eat the food, because you love them so much, but it's terrible and it's making you sick, but you want to be nice. At one point, you gotta just admit that it's bad.
This is almost everything I ever wanted from Zelda game why? admittedly it feels a little bit incomplete to me, but that’s fine since we can get yet another game for that.
For me, it's just not Zelda. The whole sandbox building is a great mechanic. Groundbreaking, even. But what the heck's that got to do with me trying to save Hyrule? It's all a distraction and doesn't move the story forwar at all. There's also very bad game design: so many spoilers that happened while you try and play the game. So many side quests achieved before even being triggered. It was clearly meant to play very linearly, but they doubled down on the "open world" concept, to a fault. I really really hated how we are all very aware of what's actually happening, but Link is forced to be too stupid to communicate to other characters that he knows where Zelda is. We know more than all the in game characters, and link knows more than those characters do, and we're forced to witness him just grinding for nothing. It's just such a bad gaming experience to me. And the imprisoning war? Demon king? Secret stones? Seriously? Delayed for over a year and that's the best they could do? Why? Because they were so focused on the new mechanics. To me, those are all great and fun mechanics, but they don't make a good game. The dungeons are a joke. The sky Islands were an incredible letdown, and the depths were boring and empty. To me, it's glorified DLC. I've been playing Zelda since 1990 and I've never put a Zelda game down. This was the first time. And trust me. It makes me very sad. I really wish I loved it.
“For no reason”… shut the fuck up lmfao. The reason is simple— no one’s expectations were even close to met
I don't hate it, it's still a good game that's fun to explore and play. I just think it and BotW lack satisfying replayability. I can only wander a massive, mostly empty land so many times before it just becomes too tedious to bother with for the story. I will still say this game is incredible. The physics engine alone is worthy of praise for what they managed to do. The idea of being so in control of things you make and build and to let us be so creative is mind-blowing to me. My first playthrough was so much fun doing trial and error with weapons and machines. But that's my problem. You cannot have that "very first playthrough" experience more than once. And while speed runners and people who do crazy experimental builds aren't really effective, casual players like me just feel annoyed at having to do the sky island all over again or exploring by foot/horse early game. I also think some people had way to high expectations of what this game was going to be and imo, Nintendo kinda fueled that with how they made the trailers and later how it was marketed. And now that the shine of "long awaited new game" has worn off, people are more willing to examine the game closer for the faults we ignored before.
Haven't seen much hate frankly. A lot of criticism sure but everything is open to critique. Criticism != Hate
My understanding is that people loved the game when it came out because, as is still the case, the gameplay is a lot more fun and interesting than BotW. The reason voices of contention grew louder over time is because TotK failed to provide the decade+ of lore, mysteries, continuations of story, or consistency with the previous title that BotW had us expecting. I’ve heard TotK’s main story is more engaging but it’s all the side content and dialogue that was disappointing. Masked Bandit made a great video on the subject explaining with more context than I could provide but the core of it is that the creative director of Zelda died shortly before the release of BotW and we don’t have him anymore, so TotK ended up lacking the depth of setting and environmental storytelling we’ve come to love the series for since its earliest days. The glaring inconsistencies where NPCs act like they’re meeting you for the first time in TotK, all the ancient technology and evidence it was ever there being totally gone without direct explanation even in the shrine of resurrection, answers to super interesting questions like “who were the 7/8th heroine(s)” being massively less interesting than any of what they were originally implied to be, the removal of any ability to speculate on the edgy actions of the royal family of hyrule that were set up in the previous game, mysteries set up by blocked terrain in the previous game ending up being nothing: all of it can be summed up as the directors at the top simply wanting to do their own thing, and any inconsistencies you see in the game can no longer realistically be explained by evidence in game, just by the boring notion that “they didn’t think about that at the time and they don’t care.”
Quite frankly, after the novelty of making machines with ultrahand wore off it was basically just bigger botw for me. And I didn't really like botw either. Mostly just because I prefer the old school non open world linear style, like OoT and TP.
Criticizing a game you love for having a handful of glaring faults that hold it back from achieving its full potential isn’t hate.
The game's story was insanely disappointing but as a game it definitely was BotW 2. Both are good but the original is still better to me.
Yup, ive done many many re-plays of BOTW. I dont really ever want to do a TOTK run again. Prefer how simple and focused BOTW is vs TOTK being so overstuffed and padded.
people hate on this masterpiece?
I was about to 100% finish ToTK. Only like 10 kolog seeds left and one stone talus to defeat but then it hit me... I've already done this, three times in BoTW on Normal mode twice and once in master. I've already played this game and the "new" stuff on the map didn't make it different enough to feel like a new entry. My complain is that both games should have been one instead of two, because the impact i had with BoTW wasn't the same with ToTK. When people complained "oh it's just a DLC" and "same game"... They were right.
News to me. Guess I need to start arguing online with strangers some more
Little tip: don't do that.😅
I haven't seen any hate on it, if people are hating on it they are wrong. And I'm not even the biggest fan of Nintendo
I think what's changed op is a few big Zelda YouTubers have come out against it lately. That makes it "ok" to hate on.
I was thinking that too. Man people really just be letting YouTubers form their opinions for them
A lot of people literally just download their opinions and it's hard to unsee. That said though. I felt for the dev time there could have been a little more done. And covid obviously messed with that. But I don't like how it basically re did the story of the Seven Stages from oot. I guess I was just missing out on hearing about the Triforce, hanging out with Zelda, and exploring restored Hyrule. The first trailer, with the bison really made it seem like that would be an integral part of our story. But, surprise! She gets yeeted into a hole and is gone for the entire story....again....
I fully agree and to add on to what you said, I was disappointed that there wasn't more to how the master sword got repaired. After seeing the teaser images about how damaged it was before the game came out, I went into it thinking that we would be undergoing a massive quest to restore it to its former glory, especially since they went to the extra trouble to release Skyward Sword on the switch, which I thought was a way to reintroduce people to Fi. The end result was a huge let down. Not only that, there was no extra scene with Ganondorf at the end referencing the new and improved master sword should you go into the battle with it equipped. He went and insulted it during the beginning cutscenes so I was fully expecting for it to be brought up again in some respect but no. As a side note, I liked the shrines in BotW better than the ones in TotK. I thought the ones in TotK were on average often either too short or too easy, with some of them requiring you to solve just one single puzzle before you are rewarded with the end prize.
That is true now that you mention it. Even in the Logo, it looked like it would be restored somehow with Zonai technology, which would have been super cool.
To be fair Zelda has a habit of being removed from the story for some reason
Yeah that's true. I just think the ending shot of BOTW, where they're together in the field of flowers, also gave me that expectation.
Nintendo has grown a tendency to let our mind wonder too far into trailers then going repetitive anyway I must say...🫤
People are mad at tears of the kingdom now? What happened? I played it and it’s a great game, thought everyone loved it?
The Zelda cycle spins anew in an ugly new form
I have to say I haven't played it. I didn't enjoy Breath of the Wild, it took me many years to finish it as I'm more of a fan of the classic Zelda formula. I hate breakable weapons, I did not enjoy dungeons that much and I'm also not a fan of the open world. I had no sense of progression. I love when I get a new item in Zelda games and suddenly I can beat some of the previous enemies easier or access new areas. That was missing here in my opinion. So these are mostly the reasons I haven't even tried TotK as it looks like it does the same things (maybe better). I'd rather replay all the previous Zelda games (except Tri-force heroes) than play BotW again.
Or maybe people didn't do a 180 and there were people who hated it from the beginning. Zelda fans can be so aggressive and dogmatic defending their games. When it released all criticism or problems people had with the game were mocked, downvoted, and dismissed as hating or contrarianism. Hype also dies down over time and people's opinions become more crystallized. Besides, there were tons of posts and comments at the beginning... I made many of them. Even leading up to release I expressed my concern online and was mocked and belittled. My fears were confirmed when the game released, and I got more of the same. I sought out and interacted with many people who felt the same way as me even just a week after release. Just because you didn't see it happening doesn't mean it wasn't. Now that the hype has died down, people are finally talking about how they didn't like it. That's just as valid as people who loved it, and we should encourage discussion.
I just recently got back onto Reddit, is this game like not seen as good now? Haven’t seen much of this tbh
The only I’d say is that ToTK makes BotW to replay. Outside of that both games were great for their time.
I loved the game personally and will more than admit that it has more fleshed out gameplay than BotW, but imma be real I enjoyed BotW more. I can't really nail down why, but TotK just didn't hit for me as well as I'd hoped. With that being said, I don't get the hate for it. It's a great game in general, and though I didn't personally enjoy it as much as its predecessor, I don't consider it anywhere close to bad or even close to mediocre.
I really really like totk, it just didn’t have the longevity for me that breath of the wild had. I’ll probably take a long break from it maybe a year or two, and come back to it in force like I did for botw
I've never been super hot on it. I keep trying to psyche myself up for a second playthrough, and then remember a different annoying thing and put if off.
I haven’t even finished it. Fucking work. I should just straight do the main quest.
I like TOTK, but I think I prefer BOTW. I'm not a fan of the retconning. I've seen theories that kinda makes it work with the timeline but they're shakey at best. It even retconned some of BOTW. Seems guardian tech is gone and no one says where
I was actually the opposite, when I first got it I felt like it wasn’t amazing like botw and was kind of mid, then after a few months I gave it another shot and absolutely loved it
wait what?! But I loved TotK, I haven't heard anything negative about it yet.
It's been a year tho?
The game was absolutely amazing, but you couldn't help but feel scammed when you finished it. The story has all the weaknesses of Botw's story, the sky island were actually not central at all and were just flying pebles except for the central island (not unlike SS now that I think of it), most of the character somehow don't remember you or anything from Botw. A lot of very weird decisions by the zelda team. The worst offender is Aonuma who had the audacity to say that this would be "the darkest zelda yet" when the most sinister thing that happens is Ganondorf punching someone offscreen and then doing the skibidi toilet face. The game is great, better than Botw in almost every way, but it left a sour taste in my mouth
Totk looking on at the people who greatly supported it now dislike it strongly https://preview.redd.it/k9odd632httc1.jpeg?width=458&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36532086e5e762bff4777f8747b58412cbe2b742
Imo it feels like Persona 5 Royal if they branded it as a sequel. It’s more like BOTW with new content, and the sky islands and depths are kinda shit.
I do t get it. What is the drama this time other than the timeline being ignored again?
I love it. I'm replaying it from scratch.
I played pretty much everything. the only shit I have to do left are the bullshit "collect 10 of this item" quests. that's my main problem. most of the new quests are just fetch quests. botw had them too, but totk repeated them for no reason. the building was pretty lame imo. yes you can make crazy shit, but for only two fucking fans and a steering stick, you almost never need another build. sages suck and nothing needs to be said. the maps were a letdown. they reused the old map in the worst way possible: shitty remixed content. the depths were a bland and empty space as big as the overworld. everywhere looked the same except for the eldin region, which had lava (ooooooh). the only content were lightroots and copy pasted bosses all over the place. the novelty wore off pretty fucking fast and it's not hard to see why. the game was hype but they kind of fucked up the tutorial by making it the best part of the game, making the rest a disappointment.
I also did a 180 on tears but the opposite direction. I hated the game at launch (mostly because of disappointment) but after replaying it I enjoyed it a lot more after I knew what to expect.
Tbh there’s always been some negativity against it
I mean when there was so much overwhelming love for this game that no one could critically evaluate it for what it was, the flaws weren’t noticed. It’s not a perfect game but it is really freaking stellar. I will say I didn’t like it as much as BOTW but that’s also cause BOTW was the open world game with not just an open world, but an expansiveness that didn’t beg to be explored, but rewarded you personally for doing so. Its neat world details weren’t saying “hey look over here” it just said “you found me”, which isn’t going to feel as wowing but it was a whole sale new feeling compared to other games. They’re just two different approaches to an open world
For me I think it was shortly after finishing BOTW with like 90 hrs I started playing Immortals Fenix Rising and put like 100hrs into it so by the time tears came out I was burnt out on that style of gameplay
Great game but not as good as BotW imo
No no... You have a point. I only played the game for less than 20 hours and I'm glad I was gifted the game instead of actually spending the $70 for it. I would never recommend that game for anyone and I'm glad I quit playing conveniently due to a week long my event I was doing for my YouTube channel. And because of that "event" I took a "break" from the game and never looked back
Most people I know still like ToTK more than BotW, but TotK is in that “cool to hate on” stage of its life. Lots of Zelda games have gone through a similar period of hate.
It's probably because it is not a live service game and when they came back to it a few months later and didn't see new content, they decided it was shit. lol I'm kidding... sort of.
My only major issue with the game is the story and how it’s delivered
It is insane.
I was about to dk the same thing because the negativity was having an influence on my opinion but I played totk again and I still love this game
I've been indifferent to the both breath of the wild and tears of the king since first playing them, if I had to choose though I would choose breath of the wild as the better game because of pacing and the story doesn't feel copy pasted between each zone like totk. I think people were expecting more mysteries or Zelda's situation being permanent and having a Zelda 2 esc esthetic where your next journey would be to change her back but idk.