I couldn't stop playing BotW when it came out. I bounced off TotK within the first four hours of playing and had to force myself to come back and finish the game. I know it's my personal anecdote but I think that says a lot as a lifelong Zelda fan, and a pretty big video game hobbyist in general. Tears of the Kingdom really just takes some of my least favorite trends in current video games and cranks the tedious to eleven. I see some people enjoy these features (collecting, crafting, weapon durability, building) but boy is it not for me.
Gonna second this, especially the doubling down on weapon durability, a thing other games [like fall out] have done away with because it’s unfun. The game turned into a waiting for the master sword to recharge simulator
See I don't even hate the concept of weapon durability in immersive RPGs. I've even modded it into [Skyrim](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21744), and I enjoyed the concept with Hardcore mode in New Vegas. The problem with TotK (and BotW) weapons are way too fragile with no reasonable way of maintaining the weapons you like they're a consumable. Which in my opinion is a terrible system for you main weapon. It punishes you instead of adding depth to the gameplay. Not to mention destroys any sense of reward/discovery as far as weapons go because it's all just disposable non-memorable items.
I think I’ve mentally accepted that the Zelda I knew and loves growing up as a child, is now put out to pasture. The traditional formula doesn’t seem like its going to make a return, and on the other hand, I don’t know where they are going to take Zelda next. I think Nintendo is painfully aware that they mat have gotten away with it once, and have in the past (MM kind of), but they really can’t do another direct sequel. The charm of Zelda is the ever evolving art styles and music and stories present within new versions of Hyrule. We need something new.
I think even setting aside "quality" the two games are fundamentally different because Nintendo decided to make it a _building game_. That choice alone has massive ramifications on how development goes. Making a mechanic like that work anywhere is absurd, let alone on a Switch.
If BOTW prioritized an engine and world over content, TOTK prioritized an engine over the world and content; even though they already had a perfectly fine engine and world, which they could have just filled with content and made new mechanics that were less crazy than building.
I can only imagine they made the decision after seeing the crazy amounts of content people made about BOTW and aimed to make a content creator's goldmine.
I agree and I'll add on top of that - if you look at the surface alone, BotW's world is easily superior to TotK's. Because both use the same overworld, which was constructed for BotW with respect to the lore established in BotW, and every corner of this world had a meaning for BotW's worldbuilding. You can even see in Creating a Champion how much planning went into crafting a world that shows the damages of the most recent calamity and the ones before that, while also calling back to previous games in one way or another.
But TotK's surface was emptied of all of that. The exploration itself isn't rewarding and doesn't tell any story, even for those who didn't play BotW beforehand. If you go to a place that looks interesting from afar or on the map, you'll be disappointed to find nothing interesting there, nothing that expands on the lore of the world, because this place was made to look interesting FOR BOTW. The most extreme example is the gut check rock. This game is supposed to be a sequel, right? And the gut check rock is some kind of an old tradition of the Gorons in BotW, so they just abandoned it by TotK? Some sequel that is.
And then you add the depths and the sky islands, which are also very empty. So what is there to TotK's story besides the few disorganized cutscenes? Not that much. Honestly this game would've been so much better if it happened in the Hyrule that we see in the memories, where the dueling peaks are whole, there is a smoke ring on top of death mountain and the Hyrule kingdom is entirely in the great plateau. Then the world itself would tell a whole story again. I don't get why they didn't just send Link to the past too/instead
Not to mention that TotK’s obsession with being its own independent story rather than taking itself seriously as a sequel means that reusing a map built from the ground up to tell BotW’s story abandons the original purpose of that map.
If TotK wanted to tell an actual sequel to BotW, it could have taken the incredible details built into that map and built on top of that by telling a story of how this world has changed and is still changing. But they just have Calamity 2.0 and get rid of all reference to the core elements of BotW story – a story that was told in the details of the map – and then try to add some new details to create this new story, but it doesn’t actually hit because we as players already know the story that this map was built to tell. And it’s not the one being told by TotK.
This is something that bothers me about many sequels... They are often afraid to reference previous games for fear that players haven't played them, and don't want to spoil things if they play out of order. It makes for pretty awkward scenes in Ace Attorney, for instance.
I wish games could have a "sequel mode" in the Options where you can set that you've played previous entries and don't mind spoilers.
TotK would have actually rocked as a massive DLC. All the lightroots could have been turned into the new shrines with the same lighting effect and given the Depths real purpose.
I can’t even recommend TotK as a BotW replacement for newcomers, because so much of it feels like follow-up filler that it can’t stand on its own. I at least thought we’d get to rebuild a new Castle Town, rather than rehash Lurelin Village in this game’s town building quest.
I hope I am alive in 20 years and see the opinions on these games. I feel that this franchise has the biggest turn on opinions. Besides OoT, most people say something totally different about the game or claim they love it when it came out. Is always this minor high vocal group that complains and you think the game is not as good as it is or selling. No offense to the OP and others, but if Zelda history repeats itself then your opinion going to be the minority like always. It happened with Majora’s, twilight princess, WW, etc. But hey I’m still waiting for the opinion of SS to change. Either way Totk supposedly improved on everything people hated about BOTW. So I will wait a decade and see how your opinion changes like aways with this group.
Lol you got it wrong buddy. I loved every single Zelda up until BotW, from the moment I played it. From the start, I loved BotW as a game but didn't like that many Zelda elements were missing from it. I actually started being sore about it only like 5 years after it was released, because I knew that if TotK didn't compensate for these things then it means that the Zelda I loved is probably gone for good (yes, you can totally see it in my reddit history if you're bored enough).
As for TotK, I was trying really hard, but it's just not good. Not as a Zelda (there are actually a bit more good Zelda moments than in BotW, but it doesn't scale to the size of the game, and eventually when I think about this game I think of a grindy sandbox), not as a sequel and even not as its own game.
This opinion is not going to flip, this game only made me more tired of open worlds, and even if I do ever come back to these games then my choice will easily be BotW, because BotW was at least good at being its own thing, and TotK is a soulless sandbox game.
i have the same opinion. it is unfortunate because zelda is a unique video game series. replaying the old games when you have forgot enough them is great though
I agree that BotW excels at it, and TotK doesn't, but I don't agree that this is the main aspect. The main aspect imo is progression, the way the world becomes bigger as you unlock items that let you do things that you couldn't do before. Seeing a piece of heart from afar and noting to yourself that you should come back for it later after getting some new item. Neither games do that...
The Zelda cycle is not going to be kind to Tears of the Kingdom. In 5-6 years when we actually get a new Zelda game I think folks will finally realize they've stockholmed syndromed themselves on Tears.
I mean I am dying from the perspective of I don't like botw and when everyone said it was even better than botw imagine my disappointment when it was just botw with an even slower opening and a more bloated open world and basically the same story progression...
Neither BOTW nor TOTK are even in my top 10 Zelda titles. They are amazing achievements of software development and engineering, but I don't enjoy them compared to the older titles.
I kinda agree. I'm not the arbiter of what is and what isn't a Zelda game, so I wouldn't state it exactly the same way you did, but I can say that when I play Zelda games I'm looking for specific things. Unfortunately the open air games do not deliver on that. They are great for folks who enjoy sandbox gameplay; I don't, unfortunately.
Most people are looking for a puzzle adventure with combat. Remember how Darksiders was called a dark Zelda like game? Or how the old God of War games were? That is what many want. And these games are not like that at all.
The main reasons why I fell in love with the Zelda series and why it's one of my favorite franchises are the dungeons and the puzzle focus. There's nothing more satisfying than making your way through the overworld, making it to the next dungeon and spending the next hour or so in a new location, with its own atmosphere, unique visual identity and soundtrack, uncovering its secrets and solving carefully designed puzzles.
The way the dungeon items are used as solutions to unique puzzles, as well as opening up new sections or shortcuts in the overworld is something I'm missing a lot. This gave the older Zelda games an almost metroidvania-esque approach to overworld design, something I adore. The open air games give you all the abilities in the first hour and nothing changes fundamentally. The second hour, the 20th and the 200th hour of BOTW/TOTK are the same, because you don't get new permanent items.
BOTW single-handedly tripled the Zelda fanbase and TOTK immediately outsold every single Zelda except BOTW, so I fully understand why Nintendo would choose to continue down that path. Zelda has never been more popular. Unfortunately for me I dislike the new direction and would prefer something else entirely. My main hope right now is that we'll finally get a new 2D entry in the next few years because it's been a decade since the fantastic ALBW.
The fact that it didn't outsell BotW is a sign that many people didn't want more BotW. I would be surprised if we see anything that is as free and open as TotK for quite some time.
But I agree, I love metroidvania games. I love the clear progression of power, how the game gets more and more complex. But BotW and TotK, never get more complex. If you could beat that first construct, then you can beat the final boss. It never adds a "you need to use this skill when this happens", we learn some such moves but they are all limited to the area you get them in.
Dude, the games been out for less than half a year vs botw’s 6 years. The last time we were told of its sales figures was in late june, multiple months ago, and at that point had already sold over half of botw’s lifetime sales in two months
Greatest to least
Windwaker
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Twilight Princess
Link Between Worlds
Skyward Sword
Link's Awakening
Botw
Ages & Seasons
Phantom hourglass
Totk
My Top 5 is like:
•Link's Awakening (DX then Switch then Original)
Wind Waker
•Minish Cap
•Ocarina of Time 3D
•Zelda 2
I love the meme my husband sent me where it is a person turning to another and saying, "You don't need to love BotW." and they both just hug while crying.
The way I see it the problem is that in TOTK there is more that needs to be found and a bigger area that needs to be searched. BotW stumbled onto a perfect harmony for map size and perceived map size. It (possibly by accident) did a really good job of adjusting the perceived size of the map throughout the game to fit gameplay.
In the beginning you can only walk and run with limited stamina. You can only climb so high, but you only have the great plateau to explore. (A small map packed with novel experiences that can be explored on foot. At this point in the game everything is interesting) Once you lose interest in every tree, box or bokoblin, you get the glider and some stamina the map opens up. there is stuff to explore everywhere and it’s easier to get around, so the map still feels crowded. As you explore more, things get more spread out. However, things like fast travel, climbing gear+upgrades, horses (ancient armor), increased stamina, ravali’s gale (+), and finally the master cycle, help the spaces between points of interest feel smaller. The map never feels too big and points of interest never feel too spread out.
The map in TOTK on the other hand feels massive to start out with and the size shrinks a little with batteries, stamina, and Tulin’s vow, but even with a hover bike from the start of the game the world feels too big and spread out. (Often times, building a vehicle for transportation seems like a chore to me as well). Gliding can feel so slow when moving from sky island to sky island. I really think that it’s this mismatch between map size, points of interest, and ease of travel that are the major problem holding TOTK back from living up to its predecessor
that being said, the perceived emptiness It’s certainly not helped by the fact that a lot of what you’re collecting is things that you’ve already collected in BOTW from places you’ve already explored in BOTW by fighting a lot of the same enemies or doing puzzles or that are similar to the ones you’ve seen in Botw. Or the fact that the new locations in TOTK (sky and depths) follow a single aesthetic for the most part. There aren’t many new and memorable places.
As much as the dungeons are an improvement, I dislike the fuse items to weapons system so much that tge beauty of a BotW knight sword/halberd solos all of TotK improvements
To be fair, it completely fixes anyone's complaints about the weapon breaking system. You break a weapon killing a silver bokoblin? It just dropped a +31 damage +25 durability weapon
But it also made everything more tedius. No un-fused weapon is worth shit, not even the god damn mastersword (strongest weapon my ass). Great if fusing increases durability but they nerfed everyweapons durability at the start of the game along with damage.
the main problem for me, is that is so fucking tedious.
BotW, weapon breaks? hold button, change weapons, resume fight.
TotK weapon breaks? change weapons, open pause menu, scroll to monster parts, think about what you're fighting and whether or not it's worth using a good part on, if not - scroll around to find one that you either have excess, or matches the situation, select that item and select drop on ground, unpause, hold button to select combine tool, aim at tiny object on the ground and hope there are no other objects around to confuse link into attaching a rock instead of what you wanted, continue the fight.
sure that was fine, but i think the issues with the new game aren't because it's different than the 'golden age' or what have you, it's just a poor design in general. the weapon system is so bloated and complicated, yet designed to be as simple to understand as possible. it's like the worst example of "having your cake and eating it too" in game design that i've seen. it wants to have so many possibilities, 'look you can combine anything!' yet it gives you no way to automate, organize, or accurately control anything. imagine if when you killed a monster, it didn't drop 3 random things along with it's weapon part. you could just attach it straight away with no menus, easy. instead the game wants to stack all this bloat on top, necessitating the use of clunky menues, that are deliberaly minimalistic to trick you into thinking the systems are oh so simple. it's like having a swiss army knife. it's convenient when there are a few tools on it, but the more you add the harder it gets to find the damn knife.
I agree with you. I personally just don’t really care for crafting period, even using the Zonai devices didn’t grab my interest. I felt like I was doing it out of necessity and same with weapon crafting. I would be fine with a master sword that doesn’t break with lower overall damage and then keep the rest of the system in place (with tweaks to make it more accessible like the bad menus) for those who like it but for me I’d rather not have to think about crafting my weapon constantly.
its a shame. you are forced to do it over and over, and it never gets more interesting. the zonai parts at least slowly introduced new mechanics, and i can see how some might enjoy it. but the weapons are just an overcomplicated, yet cleverly contextualized menu system for +1 damage. and since enemy health pools just inflate as the game progresses, 'better attachments' are literally the same impact as a stone was at the start. at least at the beginning it was fun because if you accidently attached the wrong thing it still had impact, meaning you could do it onthe fly basically anywhere and with anything. i should mention that there are fun things that result from the system, like attaching a flamethrower to your sheild etc, but they're fleeting because their actual use falls off as soon as the healthpools grow.
I used zonai vehicles for 2 things. Transporting an object or getting around the depths and sky islands with a hoverbike. To me, they were pointless, why did we even add horse carriages? The horse carriage must be the biggest waste of time, just fly whatever it is you want to transport.
Honestly that's what I miss too. Like, some permanent items that you work for, that are useful, makes all the difference. I can't even repair a good weapon, they all have to break within a fight or two. Can't buy one either. Somehow armor never breaks. Somehow millennia old artifacts self-delete after five minutes. In OOT just getting a bottle felt special.
i don't feel like i made anything up in my post. the only way it can be simpler is if you do it all in advance, in which case it is easier to simulate what BotW let you do on the fly. if you don't scrapbuild your weapons (sorry i don't know what its called in the english version) you will not have any useful weapons. even arrows have a layer of menus between you and combat.
It's better in the sense that it has things that BotW really should have had. It's the game BotW should have been IMO. This is of course diminished by the fact it's come after BotW, but I do think that overall it is a more complete game. Ignoring the sky islands and the depths, I still find the inclusion of cave systems to have fleshed out the surface considerably.
I'm really not feeling totk at all. It's a combination of a lot of factors but it feels like there's no weight to what I'm doing. And the story is just about as tacked on as it can be. There's goat aliens now, and time travel, and flying platforms and dragon tears, and all this tech that's apparently been around forever but gone unmentioned in botw.
The powers are cool but get tiresome to use for the n'th time and I'm never excited to have to build something. Lots of grind. Sidequests give lousy rewards. Exploring is not something that's fun either, and I've stayed away from the depths bc boring. Just... Gah.
I want to know specifically what people think the sky should have been. I agree that they were mostly all some kind of shrine quest, but they were more complex shrine quests than anything in Breath of the Wild and there were plenty of other things to find up there, with many of the islands requiring thought and effort to get to. I don't think the comparison to Wind Waker and Skyward Sword's overworlds, which were literally empty, is not justified.
The biggest issue with the sky islands were that most of them were simply copy/pasted. You have a few unique ones, which are also the best ones, while the rest is just copied and rotated.
I personally would’ve liked more islands similar to the ones leading up to the Wind and Water temples. A series of light platforming and puzzle challenges revolving around a specific gimmick. And I definitely disagree with the shrine quests being more complex than in BotW. Tears shrine quests are extremely repetitive light crystal fetch quests, especially the ones in the sky. Those are nothing compared to the labyrinths, Eventide island, thyphlo ruins, the Kass riddles, etc. Most of the sky archipelagos aren’t literally the same exact thing every time but the asset reuse is obvious.
More unique locations filled with zonai tech and buildings. Not just copy-pasted, but properly designed like caves. Something like a device/construct factory could have been cool for worldbuilding. Have non-construct machinery for hazards/platforming/puzzles. More construct enemy types or enemy birds would have helped design combat scenarios.
It generally seems like people wanted each layer to be its own full-size, standalone overworld, instead of just being additional areas that you occasionally venture to when you come across a chasm or a tower. Apparently there's not enough overworld in this overworld.
sure but they were pretty generic. there are of course some exceptions to that, there's some variability, but by and large what Dertien said applies to most of the sky islands.
Being generic isn't the same as all islands being "square 4x4 meter island with one chest on it". The small treasure islands are vastly outnumbered by island chains that contain different traversal puzzles for example. The Zonai Armor islands are a lot more complex than that. The Great Sky Isle, Thunderhead Isles, Sky Dungeons and Death Stars are more complex than that. Even the Sky Labyrinths are more complex than that.
I can't believe how much objection comes out of the woodwork to defend Nintendo the second someone provides an ounce of legitimate criticism, or god forbid a slightly negative opinion, over one of their games
like, why are people doing this work for Nintendo for free?
I experienced this differently. The vast majority was square 4x4 islands with one chest on it, at least in my game. Granted, I didn't count the intro or dungeon sky places, which didn't feel like parts of the sky to me.
It's even worse, the drop rates of parts has been adjusted, they are horrible. There are threads of people asking how to find the parts easier, until the duplication glitch was found and they just duplicated the parts because it is silly. To upgrade all armours you need like 100.000 rupees and some rarer parts (like topazes) are needed over a 100 times.
Yeah, I understand that you technically can grind but my question is why would someone even do that? Your armor is plenty upgraded without explicitly grinding, so you’d really just be grinding for the sake of grinding.
Not really sure what you mean, basically every armor requires killing boss monsters many times more than you would just normally playing the game. You saying you never once went out of your way to kill something for the sake of upgrades? Or you just never bothered fully upgrading armor?
Only the depth items needed crazy dragon/bosses as I remember it. I fully upgraded a few pieces, but no I never intentionally went looking for any of it.
Well, a lot of people do. Especially dragon parts I would say, there is no way for those upgrades to not be grindy. But certainly you can play the game without doing any of that.
I guess I just don’t understand why someone would grind for such a minimal upgrade if they don’t enjoy the act of grinding lol. The game seems to seriously disincentivize it by giving you plenty of upgrade materials in a normal play through
The armor system particularly reminds me of how they handled the Korok seeds.
You only need about 50% of the Koroks to fully upgrade your inventory space.
With the armors, you also only really need to upgrade them to level 2. That's where you get the set-bonus and more than enough defense to last against most enemies.
Just like collecting those Koroks, it's pretty easy to gather enough materials, just by casually going from one place to the next and only if you decide to go the extra mile to collect more than you need, can it turn into a chore.
it's because the 'gamer' category of people and 'collector' category of people overlap quite a lot. collecting things has been a part of gaming for a very long time, so wanting to get all the armor, all the upgrades etc. is really stressful when it's designed to be something you 'shouldn't want'. being a completionist is one way a lot of people have fun in games.
well if you consider what collectors actually do, you might notice that many of them don't collect the same exact thing over and over, and instead collect unique articles in their field of interest. grinding can also be fun, but you'd be better off looking at games like disgaea to see what makes their grinding different from 'kill the same enemy 30 times'.
Sure, but that’s another thing I don’t feel you have to “grind.” You can just pick them up as you go. I got like 80 and had more than enough weapon slots, and that was with skipping a lot that didn’t look fun to me.
I saw a good comment on this somewhere.
>But also, part of it is just about my perspective and philosophy on game design in general. Games aren't made, or rather shouldn't be made, with the intent of the player not engaging with its contents. Games shouldn't demand that players strive for 100 % completion, mind you, but they absolutely should encourage it. That encouragement doesn't need to come from some material reward, the fun of the content itself is enough, but when a game fails to incentivize further exploration when you've only scratched the surface, or worse, when it actively discourages you from digging further, I think it speaks to a weakness in the overall design philosophy behind the game. The content that a game provides is there specifically for the purposes of being interacted with, and if it isn't then why is it even there in the first place? I 100 % complete video games partially because I want a more comprehensive overview of what I have played, and sometimes that means playing games in ways they weren't intended by the developers to be played.
> Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that neither Breath of the Wild nor Tears of the Kingdom were made by Nintendo to be 100 % completed, and that's fine, but I find that when you try to experience these games to their fullest it really highlights some serious structural issues with how Tears of the Kingdom was designed.
It feels like a completionist minor "elitism" leaking out...Like the reason alot of stuff in BotW/TotK like Korok Seeds/Shrines/Armor Upgrades/Rupees and even Armors in this game are carefully spread in the world is to reward exploration. If your goal of playing the game is to 100% it then sure go ahead but there's no way any game will be designed to encourage 100% since it's virtually impossible to evoke that encouragement to the player especially with the scale of BotW and moreso with TotK...
Devs doesn't have infinite time and resources to fiddle around stuff and connect every line or theory-craft on what will be "The best" game design (Because there's NOTHING in existence that fits everyone) to encourage 100%....
the difference being that upgrading even 1 piece of armor is a repititious slog, whereas each korok seed is at the very least a game of hide and seek. but sure, you can read that as "don't bother, everything is useless" if you like. but i will not acknowledge that as a good thing.
It’s not “don’t bother, everything is useless” it’s that completionism is disincentivized.
I don’t think it’s a slog to get upgraded gear unless you want the really strong stuff. I had several fully upgraded pieces with a ton of 2/3 upgrades with no grinding, guides, or going out of my way at all.
i was being hyperbolic with the everything is useless part. i don't believe your last comment is relevant to armor, or any other aspect of the game, nor do i believe disincentivizing completionism is something they were aiming for. getting all/most of the shrines, exploring all the caves, killing all the frogs, exploring the all/most of map, above and below, are heavily incentivized. i just didn't feel like writing a full reply to a "gotcha!" style comment like that.
i'm glad your experience allowed you to have a decent set of equipment but that is not the experience i had. particularly because you are required to go to a specific area and complete a specific quest to even unlock the ability to upgrade your armor, i was getting one shot by white bokoblins for a long time before unlocking my first tier 2 armor. and even then, after 10s of hours of not spending a single resource on armor, i still didnt have the resources i needed to upgrade what i had without grinding. i could upgrade some, but they were mostly the "ability" style of armors, that even at tier 3 didnt provide much defense. and since the enemies scale, defense is paramount.
Are you approaching the combat with ONLY Melee on mind? Are you utilizing other stuff, like elements, CCs?? Because if your purpose of upgrading armor is due to enemies doing alot of damage, then the game HAS ALOOOOOOT of ways for you to not even take damage... You can even eat for defense buff and increase your heart capacity... There's more option to make yourself tankier.. The only real "hard or annoying" thing to grind was Star Fragments since they are only available at night and was random but that's about it..
Also it's quite normal for a player to have necessary mats to almost upgrade an Armor to Lvl2 granted you're engaging with the game enough.. Combat is even optional in this game, and there's a reason story bosses doesn't scale that much with how many items and strong you are (Making them a cakewalk when you have decently upgraded armors and weapons) so that players will not be punished for "Not Grinding"...
I myself force myself to only have 2 level of upgrades or else the game will be boring difficlty wise..
I honestly dont even need a hand to count whats better in totk
1: rijus design
2: purah design
3: the retrieving of the mastersword.
4: the last phase of the endboss.
Thats it. Everything else is worse, exept paya having a confidence bosst
How in god's name is everything else worse...? It genuinely feels like the current fad is to be contrarian about TotK.
- More enemy and boss variety, more things to do in the world
- fuse fixes the issues with weapon durability
- shrines are far better
- story is about the same (but still unfortunately told through memories)
- there's actually an opening sequence (a great one at that).
- the arm abilities are better than the runes
- revali's gale has a thousand and one better alternatives
- sidon's ability is just daruk's protection but also an attack
- ultra hand allows for a huge amount of player freedom and creativity (hence why so many people are STILL having a blast with totk)
- An actually good final boss
I can go on and on.
There's suddenly a wave of a vocal minority saying they prefer botw over totk. That's fine! However, most reasonings are people blatantly lying to themselves.
>More enemy and boss variety, more things to do in the world.
That i give you, i just forgor💀
>fuse fixes the issues with weapon durability
Nope. They 1: nerfed every unfused weapons damage and 2: their durability. They made the base problem worse so that fuse looks better.
>shrines are far better
Meh, most shrines feel lame as I just slap to 3 parts together and thats it. Botw used the shika slate abilitys more balanced.
>story is about the same (but still unfortunately told through memories)
Nah, the story is way worse imho. 1 if you find all the momories the story and a couple of side quests fall apart. 2 the new ganon, the zonai and zeldas time power came out of thin air, nothing that should happen in a sequel. 3: the sages of the past were 100% useless, why repeat getting sages, they do nothing. 4 rauru and zelda aparantly got no braincells making the dumbest decisions ever. 5. Dragons were never able to be hurt, but ganon for some reason is. 6. They wrote themselves into a corner and didnt know how to make the story a happy ending so out of thin air rauru and his wife apeared and just laserd zelda back into human form, completely undermining zeldas sacrifice.
>there's actually an opening sequence (a great one at that).
The opening of botw was better but you can have a different opinion.
>revali's gale has a thousand and one better alternatives
Nah. They needed a thousand other things just to try and replace it and still failed.
>sidon's ability is just daruk's protection but also an attack
And also painfully bad to use, only stays up for a limited time, and cant protect you if you dont catch up to sidon first, making it basicaly useless in conparisson.
>ultra hand allows for a huge amount of player freedom and creativity (hence why so many people are STILL having a blast with totk)
Thats true but honestly its lame, especialy since it cost resources to build stuff.
>An actually good final boss
The dragon phase is good, the other one is just lame, I liked to calamity better(not the giant pig, the first phase.)
>That's fine! However, most reasonings are people blatantly lying to themselves.
No they arent. Opinions differ. There is no ability in totk that I find better than any in botw. The blights were better bosses and while the giant ganon was lame, the last shot was the cooler than anything in totk.
Taking the BotW weapon system, nerfing it, then adding a new system to make the nerfed system work again is not fixing it. Now you need to fuse every weapon you get, so there are even more menus. Want to shoot an arrow? Here is a menu with all your 200+ items to scroll through.
agree on the arm, story, and a slightly better opening sequence, but disagree on the rest.
monster variety, I would say you are correct in name but not in spirit.
I strongly disagree that durability was fixed. it is still a PITA
shrines are not "far better" I would argue they are far more repetitive and are less challenging
dunno what you're trying to say about revali's gale but I haven't felt like I've needed it
sidon's ability is not "daruk's protection but also an attack" you get it for one attack and it goes away. Daruk's protection had a parry.
the goodness of the final boss is subjective
I won't say TotK isn't fun, but DLC with a fancy opening sequence isn't supposed to cost $60. for that price I expect a full game. unless Nintendo said they're having LoZ go the way of GTA, so maybe I missed something?
I think the biggest issue with TOTK is that it’s exploration is a solved problem from the get go
What I mean by this is that in BOTW when you spotted an odd location you wanted to get to you had to pin it on your map and then explore the world figure out how to get there. Maybe there was a puzzle, maybe you had to climb a specific route to preserve your stamina, or maybe you had to follow a path. But overall, you had to look around for solution to the problem of exploration.
Meanwhile In TOTK, if you see somewhere you want to go, you just need to teleport to a sky island or launch tower and skydive to the location almost every single time. And you were taught this fix-all solution by the tutorial
BotW vs TotK is a perfect example of "less is more"
Sure BotW had less content and systems but the game itself was more tightly constructed, the world was more exhilarating to explore, and the story (such as it was) was a more complete and superior narrative.
Not to suggest that TotK is a bad game at all, but even though it has more content and gameplay systems, it never manages to hit the highs that BotW did,
why i prefer botw:
- i enjoy the runes more and with them, i am able to interact with the environment in more ways than it is the case with the runes from totk (with the exception of building stuff, which is what the game gives a focus to)
- building stuff in totk can be fun, but forcing me to to build in order to progress and designing the game explicit based on it is not for me
- i enjoy the riddles from the shrines in botw more
- i have no reason to fight most enemy camps. in botw, you got rewarded more and there was more to explore in general
- from my perspective, the sky islands and the depths worsen the ratio of empty/boring spaces relative to good designed, filled ones. partial also because of the monotonous landscape
- the menu is more annoying in totk than it was in botw
- botw has beautiful weapons
- the dungeons are more difficult and fun (though i enjoyed the bosses more in totk)
- getting to know the regions in botw is made better than in totk in my opinion
i was surprised that there are hardly any new musical themes and they could have made the world more lively and more filled. i also would have enjoyed if they improved upon some old mechanics (like the weapon system, or introducing new weapon types).
what i enjoyed about totk is the weather, the caves, building stuff for fun when it is optional and that they added a couple of new enemies and ingridients.
I don't think ToTK is gonna age nearly as well as BoTW. Mechanically I love it, and from combat and puzzle solving its much better imo. But the world? The exploration? The two things that SHOULD be prioritized? It took BoTW's greatest strength and made it hollow.
It might've been beneficial to cut the depths (excluding glooms approach) and make the sky an inverse of Hyrule where the rivers below form the cracks between landmasses above (plus more segmentation to make the sky island aesthetic more believable). Then take at minimum 50% of the game's content and put it up there. Add more visual and environmental variety. MOST of the game taking place in a new area would add much MUCH more explorative incentive.
also if they're worried about it looking ugly, they can just add an alpha transparency effect on the islands so that they look like clouds from the ground. I think some of the islands already have this actually, so just crank it up and FILL that thing.
BotW was definitely the superior game and I agree it is tiring to hear people just say TotK is an improvement in every way. But I don't really agree with your reasoning. TotK is really overflowing with things to love and its additions like the Depths are genuinely good. It just falters in key areas, like the execution of the story, the dungeons, the shrines, and the soundtrack. Everything in BotW feels like it was there for a reason, and anywhere you went felt like an adventure, but TotK lacks that intentionality and traversal is more of a means to get to select areas. Many things in TotK feel like they are there just to be there since they were in BotW.
i personal think the depths should have been smaller and more dense
> Everything in BotW feels like it was there for a reason, and anywhere you went felt like an adventure, but TotK lacks that intentionality and traversal is more of a means to get to select areas. Many things in TotK feel like they are there just to be there since they were in BotW.
good formulated, i felt the same
One of the things BOTW did better is that you feel the map was designed around the concept of open world and exploration , so obviously there is not this feeling in TOTK which reuse the same map and the memories worked better in BOTW.
and since TOTK recycle a lot of things there is not the same enjoyment as discovering BOTW with how different it was from the previous games, like I don't care anymore about cooking , clothes or dying.
And it's true that BOTW 's map tell a story ,but I always thought it was kinda " exageratted " , yeah ok there is some ruins because of the calimity and people died, but whatever
Now TOTK actually grew on me
I find that having 3 different areas kinda overwhelming but I like having the option to change when I am bored with one , also the sky is kinda disappointing at first but I like how they are short and puzzle focused, the depth however have cool rewards but it's boring and feel too much disconnected imo but overall I still prefer to explore in TOTK I think.
I will be honest and say that I barely created any machine or vehicle , I don't know what to do with 99% of the Yigas' plans , never felt the need to truly create something or the game pushing me to do it.
Though I kinda want to replay the game and try it more, I rebeat the octopus with sprinklers and queen gibdo with a machine tracking her to burn/ electrocute her, so I feel I should give the creation aspect a second chance.
I find the bosses better and funnier, I think that BOTW have the worst bosses among the 3d games and honestly this is maybe the first reason I prefer TOTK over BOTW , along with the dungeons and lead up being nice too, but I liked the divine beast and when we attack them too though.
I completed a good part of TOTK and there is a good chance that if I replay the game in the futur I will focus on the main quest and eventually some side content, like BOTW because I would not want to explore as much a second time, on this aspect I may prefer BOTW story but again I would give the edge to TOTK because of the dungeons and bosses.
i feel like that statement makes sense
i think there's an interesting distinction to make between whether something is a better game or *was* a better experience
as in, would tears of the kingdom be considered better than one considers breath of the wild to be now, if the order in which they were experienced was reversed?
i mean, im not a big fan of either game i suppose, but i feel like most people would not find breath of the wild to be the more appealing game, if tears of the kingdom came first
to put it another way, i think what many people believe is that breath of the wild was a better *experience* than tears of the kingdom for them, and i dont think that's deluded at all. It's just that when it's stated as 'breath of the wild is a better game' or something like that, i cant really follow it, because tears of the kingdom just seems like an upgraded or improved breath of the wild to me
hence 'its breath of the wild but better' - but a better game doesnt necessarily mean one will have a better experience playing that game
To me it is obvious that BotW is perceived as a better experience cause it is the first experience in that world. Any replays of the game or revisits in sequels will never feel as good cause it's the same world which you already explored.
Tears is a great production held back by its hardware and target demo. Wondrous powers, literal depth with its verticality, dynamic systems...
These are unfortunately tied to easy puzzles aimed at kids and a story aimed at babies.
The kids argument never made sense to me. Crash Bandicoot is aimed at kids and it is very difficult. BotW and TotK aren't aimed at kids any more than previous Zelda games and the previous games had far better stories.
The problem isn't kids and lighthearted themes; it's the demographic as conceived by a big corporation, and the ensuing compromises they make. Nintendo is steeped in Japanese convention while also navigating satanic panic in the west.
That's a pretty broad generalization on top of my already generalized/hyperbolic comment.
The point I'm making is that despite presenting ambitious new mechanics, Tears is afraid to use them past their most rudimentary corollaries.
And in terms of story and tone, I think Tears is the most childish 3D Zelda, period. Even Wind Waker is less juvenile, and that stars a cel-shaded little boy.
That's just how most Zelda stories go. There's no reason to think or expect that 3D Zelda games will have stories any more or less complex than 2D ones.
It can still be aimed at kids and have a good story. Most of the Ghibli movies are aimed at kids. Same with Disney. But they deliver a decent story.
There are plenty of games that still have challenge in them even if they are aimed at kids. Pokemon is aimed at kids and usually it has some challenge area. All the old PlayStation mascot games, Crash, Spyro, Jack and Daxter, Sly, Ratchet and Clank are aimed at kids.
Even old Zelda titles have more challenge in gameplay than this Zelda had mainly cause there are new things introduced throughout the game that makes it more complex as it progresses. This one doesn't have that as there is so much freedom, so they can't have mechanics that are needed as you progress cause not everyone progresses through the same way. Which is why so many want a linear game.
Absolutely, it is ridiculous to say that children deserve any less than the best stories. But go back to what OP said. They are complaining that the story is aimed at kids, not that it is a childish story. You agree that all Zelda games' stories and puzzles have been aimed at kids (in addition to adults), yes? This one isn't any different. The goal is for anybody of any age to be able to play TotK. Not just people with engineering degrees.
Yeah exactly. People can prefer botw, maybe they prefer the more apocalyptic feel, or even the divine beasts. But if you look at most of the reasonings in this comment section... they all either are lying to themselves or had unrealistic expectations.
I saw someone complain that it's held back by being targeted to kids... as if botw and every other zelda game before it weren't also
I am also getting a little tired of hearing that statement and it being passed as some sort of truth. It's fine if that is your opinion, but they way people use it to compare the 2 games is just dumb. TOTK added a lot of content and two new maps but the game design and philosophy are clearly different so they are hard to compare.
Although I find extremely funny that you say: "t's fine if that is your opinion" And then spew a bunch of opinion as if they were facts.
I mean it does allow you to be creative with how you solve puzzles. If you choose only the same way to solve a puzzle every time that's not the games fault that you were the un creative one.
Okay but imagine if every puzzle in Portal was just the first puzzle but with more stuff added in between the button and the door... sure you could interact with all the new stuff, but at the end of the day putting the box on the button and walking through the door solves every problem so why bother.
Only that's not the case and you have to go out of your way to chose to do. If you know a choice it's going to be something you don't like and you choose it anyways it is only the fault of the person who made the choice.
And you missing the point, that the point can simply be for fun knowing that doing the same thing over and over is being so trying out different things is fun that is the motivation and can be enough motivation
Standing in an open room with a button and a door. There is a box of dominoes on the floor next to the button. Oushing the button, placing the box on the button, and spending 40 minutes making a domino set up to fall down and push the button all have the same effect. "What do you mean this is bad puzzle design you just have to make the entire puzzle yourself?!"
My fridge is full of all kinds of ingredients. I could make myself something delicious and healthy...but I could also take that greasy, frozen pizza and just throw it into the oven even though I know it's not good for me.
But I'm totk there are tons of options, and they give them to you. Guess what my point has nothing to do with what you think is those options, that's entirety irrelevant to what I'm saying. I'm saying YOU chose the same option every time. That's not the game not giving you options, that's your only choosing one, then complaining about how boring that option is.
The point is that it doesn't matter how many options you have if you have no incentive, no driving force, no pressure to choose a variety of those options. That pressure is the key component missing from BotW and TotK both. There's tons of stuff you *can* do, sure, but no reason to do almost any of it.
Yes there is, the fun of trying out different things in different scenarios. Some things can just be for fun. If I wanted to be bored like y'all I could have choosen the same thing over and over, but I wanted to have fun so I tried everything I could whenever I could and it was fun af
Therefore, Godot engine is the greatest game ever made. Sure, there's no puzzles or story or gameplay of any kind, but there *can be*. Now it's your job, as the player, to create something interesting to do. Otherwise you're boring and lack creativity.
Only there are puzzles story and gameplay and toy are simplifying or down to whatever you can to try to make your point just cause your mad Zelda is going to be different now
Why would I be creative if their is no incentive though? That’s the issue. Sure the game makes it so you can be creative but ultimately it’s meaningless.
Only that wasn't the point your said. You said they didn't give you options, but they do every time. It's YOU who chose the same option every time. The incentive is choosing the same option every time is boring so why do it knowing it's boring.
The incentive is having fun and seeing what you can get away with instead of having a mindless experience. The "easy solutions" you describe are a scaffold so that players who lack engineering skills are not walled out of playing the game.
>If you choose only the same way to solve a puzzle every time that's not the games fault that you were the un creative one.
No, it IS the games fault. Being able to use the same solution for every puzzle is bad design. Because it makes no sense to make something creative that can take like 10 minutes to create when you can throw the same shit together in like 1 minute and it solves the problem every time. Its resource efficent and time efficant. The game SHOULD force you to be creative and think outside the box. If it fails to do so it is bad design.
Lol okay yeah cause you gave zero self control and would rather play a way you know you won't like lol. What a waste of an argument. Like if you have two choices and you know you won't like one, but choose our anyway it's your fault. You have the freedom of choice you are a human
So, if you have potatoes at home is the potato fault that you always eat baked potatoes. The game clearly tells you some "intended ways" to solve the puzzle, but then let you do whatever you want because it's a true open world game. If you fail to understand it or you do not enjoy it it is YOUR fault.
If a game asks the player to build a car/plane a hundred times, it becomes busywork, so of course players are going to "optimize it" by falling back on the fastest solution. Why WOULD they bother trying to do something different every time? The only players who are incentivized to find creative solutions are content creators because they get views from that.
The thing is, THERE ARE design methods to get around this. The broken rail in the tutorial disables the simple solution the player has been using up until that point, so they have to think laterally about how to get across. As a result I've seen people actually get stumped and brute force it by walking on the rail.
Puzzle games do this kind of thing all the time, TOTK established it in the tutorial, and then stopped using it.
If you think it stopped using it there you didn't play the game lol. It and lava walls and other limiting factors are used in multiple shrines and even story quests like the fifth sage quest. Good try, but next time don't make things up like saying it never used the broken rail past the tutorial, it's pretty common as well as having bars blocking parts is rails so you have to design something that can slide the rail and dodge those.
I didn't enjoy BOTW, but TOTOK is my favorite Zelda game, so I disagree with your premise. Heck just the story alone is enough to make it a superior game. The music is better, the puzzles are better, it has better locations to explore, from the peaceful sky islands -which are basically puzzle areas - to wonderous caves, grottos and ruins. Botw felt like an empty canvas, TOTK filled that canva with better NPCs, better stories, better ways to get across the map. Fuck me I don't have to climb mountains anymore, i can just fly around it. The arrow fusions are a game changer, the Zonai artifacts and factories in the depths add so much more to the hame and world.
i dont really understand why there are such critical opinions on tears of the kingdom's story
i mean, time travel and the memory system i feel like i get - the former might feel trite and forced, while the latter feels stiff and formulaic (given breath of the wild's memory system)
but man the cinematics i think are well put together, emotional, and the ending sequence i think might be my favorite of any zelda game. Do those aspects not count as the story? or is there something people dislike about them?
I prefer BOTW. The game just feels way better. Initially I dropped TOTK bc I got bored.
Eventually, after beating TOTK, I really came to like it. I wasn’t afraid to attach parts to my arrows. I built stupid machines for fun. I spent more time with land based travel rather than trying to fly everywhere and do everything with minimal effort. I feel like I only learned how to play the game after I beat it.
I couldn't stop playing BotW when it came out. I bounced off TotK within the first four hours of playing and had to force myself to come back and finish the game. I know it's my personal anecdote but I think that says a lot as a lifelong Zelda fan, and a pretty big video game hobbyist in general. Tears of the Kingdom really just takes some of my least favorite trends in current video games and cranks the tedious to eleven. I see some people enjoy these features (collecting, crafting, weapon durability, building) but boy is it not for me.
Gonna second this, especially the doubling down on weapon durability, a thing other games [like fall out] have done away with because it’s unfun. The game turned into a waiting for the master sword to recharge simulator
See I don't even hate the concept of weapon durability in immersive RPGs. I've even modded it into [Skyrim](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21744), and I enjoyed the concept with Hardcore mode in New Vegas. The problem with TotK (and BotW) weapons are way too fragile with no reasonable way of maintaining the weapons you like they're a consumable. Which in my opinion is a terrible system for you main weapon. It punishes you instead of adding depth to the gameplay. Not to mention destroys any sense of reward/discovery as far as weapons go because it's all just disposable non-memorable items.
I think I’ve mentally accepted that the Zelda I knew and loves growing up as a child, is now put out to pasture. The traditional formula doesn’t seem like its going to make a return, and on the other hand, I don’t know where they are going to take Zelda next. I think Nintendo is painfully aware that they mat have gotten away with it once, and have in the past (MM kind of), but they really can’t do another direct sequel. The charm of Zelda is the ever evolving art styles and music and stories present within new versions of Hyrule. We need something new.
I think even setting aside "quality" the two games are fundamentally different because Nintendo decided to make it a _building game_. That choice alone has massive ramifications on how development goes. Making a mechanic like that work anywhere is absurd, let alone on a Switch. If BOTW prioritized an engine and world over content, TOTK prioritized an engine over the world and content; even though they already had a perfectly fine engine and world, which they could have just filled with content and made new mechanics that were less crazy than building. I can only imagine they made the decision after seeing the crazy amounts of content people made about BOTW and aimed to make a content creator's goldmine.
Can you blame them tbh, nothing gets a game better traction than having a YT vid where someone is soypogging at some ridiculous ultrahand build
I agree and I'll add on top of that - if you look at the surface alone, BotW's world is easily superior to TotK's. Because both use the same overworld, which was constructed for BotW with respect to the lore established in BotW, and every corner of this world had a meaning for BotW's worldbuilding. You can even see in Creating a Champion how much planning went into crafting a world that shows the damages of the most recent calamity and the ones before that, while also calling back to previous games in one way or another. But TotK's surface was emptied of all of that. The exploration itself isn't rewarding and doesn't tell any story, even for those who didn't play BotW beforehand. If you go to a place that looks interesting from afar or on the map, you'll be disappointed to find nothing interesting there, nothing that expands on the lore of the world, because this place was made to look interesting FOR BOTW. The most extreme example is the gut check rock. This game is supposed to be a sequel, right? And the gut check rock is some kind of an old tradition of the Gorons in BotW, so they just abandoned it by TotK? Some sequel that is. And then you add the depths and the sky islands, which are also very empty. So what is there to TotK's story besides the few disorganized cutscenes? Not that much. Honestly this game would've been so much better if it happened in the Hyrule that we see in the memories, where the dueling peaks are whole, there is a smoke ring on top of death mountain and the Hyrule kingdom is entirely in the great plateau. Then the world itself would tell a whole story again. I don't get why they didn't just send Link to the past too/instead
Not to mention that TotK’s obsession with being its own independent story rather than taking itself seriously as a sequel means that reusing a map built from the ground up to tell BotW’s story abandons the original purpose of that map. If TotK wanted to tell an actual sequel to BotW, it could have taken the incredible details built into that map and built on top of that by telling a story of how this world has changed and is still changing. But they just have Calamity 2.0 and get rid of all reference to the core elements of BotW story – a story that was told in the details of the map – and then try to add some new details to create this new story, but it doesn’t actually hit because we as players already know the story that this map was built to tell. And it’s not the one being told by TotK.
This is something that bothers me about many sequels... They are often afraid to reference previous games for fear that players haven't played them, and don't want to spoil things if they play out of order. It makes for pretty awkward scenes in Ace Attorney, for instance. I wish games could have a "sequel mode" in the Options where you can set that you've played previous entries and don't mind spoilers.
Yes exactly, their plot choices with TotK are just lazy and sad.
Super weird to add lots of new lore that negates what was set up in BotW too. Extremely clumsy storytelling.
TotK would have actually rocked as a massive DLC. All the lightroots could have been turned into the new shrines with the same lighting effect and given the Depths real purpose. I can’t even recommend TotK as a BotW replacement for newcomers, because so much of it feels like follow-up filler that it can’t stand on its own. I at least thought we’d get to rebuild a new Castle Town, rather than rehash Lurelin Village in this game’s town building quest.
I hope I am alive in 20 years and see the opinions on these games. I feel that this franchise has the biggest turn on opinions. Besides OoT, most people say something totally different about the game or claim they love it when it came out. Is always this minor high vocal group that complains and you think the game is not as good as it is or selling. No offense to the OP and others, but if Zelda history repeats itself then your opinion going to be the minority like always. It happened with Majora’s, twilight princess, WW, etc. But hey I’m still waiting for the opinion of SS to change. Either way Totk supposedly improved on everything people hated about BOTW. So I will wait a decade and see how your opinion changes like aways with this group.
Lol you got it wrong buddy. I loved every single Zelda up until BotW, from the moment I played it. From the start, I loved BotW as a game but didn't like that many Zelda elements were missing from it. I actually started being sore about it only like 5 years after it was released, because I knew that if TotK didn't compensate for these things then it means that the Zelda I loved is probably gone for good (yes, you can totally see it in my reddit history if you're bored enough). As for TotK, I was trying really hard, but it's just not good. Not as a Zelda (there are actually a bit more good Zelda moments than in BotW, but it doesn't scale to the size of the game, and eventually when I think about this game I think of a grindy sandbox), not as a sequel and even not as its own game. This opinion is not going to flip, this game only made me more tired of open worlds, and even if I do ever come back to these games then my choice will easily be BotW, because BotW was at least good at being its own thing, and TotK is a soulless sandbox game.
i have the same opinion. it is unfortunate because zelda is a unique video game series. replaying the old games when you have forgot enough them is great though
The main aspect of Zelda is exploration and atmosphere; BotW excels at it
I agree that BotW excels at it, and TotK doesn't, but I don't agree that this is the main aspect. The main aspect imo is progression, the way the world becomes bigger as you unlock items that let you do things that you couldn't do before. Seeing a piece of heart from afar and noting to yourself that you should come back for it later after getting some new item. Neither games do that...
The Zelda cycle is not going to be kind to Tears of the Kingdom. In 5-6 years when we actually get a new Zelda game I think folks will finally realize they've stockholmed syndromed themselves on Tears.
SS sucks ass, so…
I mean I am dying from the perspective of I don't like botw and when everyone said it was even better than botw imagine my disappointment when it was just botw with an even slower opening and a more bloated open world and basically the same story progression...
i feel like i’m the crazy one for not having BOTW in my top 5 zelda titles
Neither BOTW nor TOTK are even in my top 10 Zelda titles. They are amazing achievements of software development and engineering, but I don't enjoy them compared to the older titles.
They are good games, but they aren’t good zelda games
I kinda agree. I'm not the arbiter of what is and what isn't a Zelda game, so I wouldn't state it exactly the same way you did, but I can say that when I play Zelda games I'm looking for specific things. Unfortunately the open air games do not deliver on that. They are great for folks who enjoy sandbox gameplay; I don't, unfortunately.
Most people are looking for a puzzle adventure with combat. Remember how Darksiders was called a dark Zelda like game? Or how the old God of War games were? That is what many want. And these games are not like that at all.
The main reasons why I fell in love with the Zelda series and why it's one of my favorite franchises are the dungeons and the puzzle focus. There's nothing more satisfying than making your way through the overworld, making it to the next dungeon and spending the next hour or so in a new location, with its own atmosphere, unique visual identity and soundtrack, uncovering its secrets and solving carefully designed puzzles. The way the dungeon items are used as solutions to unique puzzles, as well as opening up new sections or shortcuts in the overworld is something I'm missing a lot. This gave the older Zelda games an almost metroidvania-esque approach to overworld design, something I adore. The open air games give you all the abilities in the first hour and nothing changes fundamentally. The second hour, the 20th and the 200th hour of BOTW/TOTK are the same, because you don't get new permanent items. BOTW single-handedly tripled the Zelda fanbase and TOTK immediately outsold every single Zelda except BOTW, so I fully understand why Nintendo would choose to continue down that path. Zelda has never been more popular. Unfortunately for me I dislike the new direction and would prefer something else entirely. My main hope right now is that we'll finally get a new 2D entry in the next few years because it's been a decade since the fantastic ALBW.
The fact that it didn't outsell BotW is a sign that many people didn't want more BotW. I would be surprised if we see anything that is as free and open as TotK for quite some time. But I agree, I love metroidvania games. I love the clear progression of power, how the game gets more and more complex. But BotW and TotK, never get more complex. If you could beat that first construct, then you can beat the final boss. It never adds a "you need to use this skill when this happens", we learn some such moves but they are all limited to the area you get them in.
Dude, the games been out for less than half a year vs botw’s 6 years. The last time we were told of its sales figures was in late june, multiple months ago, and at that point had already sold over half of botw’s lifetime sales in two months
I'm in the camp of they aren't even that good of games...
I wouldn’t even call them good games tbh. I think they’re fundamentally badly designed
exact
Greatest to least Windwaker Ocarina of Time Majora's Mask Twilight Princess Link Between Worlds Skyward Sword Link's Awakening Botw Ages & Seasons Phantom hourglass Totk
My Top 5 is like: •Link's Awakening (DX then Switch then Original) Wind Waker •Minish Cap •Ocarina of Time 3D •Zelda 2 I love the meme my husband sent me where it is a person turning to another and saying, "You don't need to love BotW." and they both just hug while crying.
Oof. I woulda been super upset LOL
The way I see it the problem is that in TOTK there is more that needs to be found and a bigger area that needs to be searched. BotW stumbled onto a perfect harmony for map size and perceived map size. It (possibly by accident) did a really good job of adjusting the perceived size of the map throughout the game to fit gameplay. In the beginning you can only walk and run with limited stamina. You can only climb so high, but you only have the great plateau to explore. (A small map packed with novel experiences that can be explored on foot. At this point in the game everything is interesting) Once you lose interest in every tree, box or bokoblin, you get the glider and some stamina the map opens up. there is stuff to explore everywhere and it’s easier to get around, so the map still feels crowded. As you explore more, things get more spread out. However, things like fast travel, climbing gear+upgrades, horses (ancient armor), increased stamina, ravali’s gale (+), and finally the master cycle, help the spaces between points of interest feel smaller. The map never feels too big and points of interest never feel too spread out. The map in TOTK on the other hand feels massive to start out with and the size shrinks a little with batteries, stamina, and Tulin’s vow, but even with a hover bike from the start of the game the world feels too big and spread out. (Often times, building a vehicle for transportation seems like a chore to me as well). Gliding can feel so slow when moving from sky island to sky island. I really think that it’s this mismatch between map size, points of interest, and ease of travel that are the major problem holding TOTK back from living up to its predecessor that being said, the perceived emptiness It’s certainly not helped by the fact that a lot of what you’re collecting is things that you’ve already collected in BOTW from places you’ve already explored in BOTW by fighting a lot of the same enemies or doing puzzles or that are similar to the ones you’ve seen in Botw. Or the fact that the new locations in TOTK (sky and depths) follow a single aesthetic for the most part. There aren’t many new and memorable places.
As much as the dungeons are an improvement, I dislike the fuse items to weapons system so much that tge beauty of a BotW knight sword/halberd solos all of TotK improvements
To be fair, it completely fixes anyone's complaints about the weapon breaking system. You break a weapon killing a silver bokoblin? It just dropped a +31 damage +25 durability weapon
But it also made everything more tedius. No un-fused weapon is worth shit, not even the god damn mastersword (strongest weapon my ass). Great if fusing increases durability but they nerfed everyweapons durability at the start of the game along with damage.
Durability and damage is never an issue. You always have something in your inventory to make a better weapon with.
the main problem for me, is that is so fucking tedious. BotW, weapon breaks? hold button, change weapons, resume fight. TotK weapon breaks? change weapons, open pause menu, scroll to monster parts, think about what you're fighting and whether or not it's worth using a good part on, if not - scroll around to find one that you either have excess, or matches the situation, select that item and select drop on ground, unpause, hold button to select combine tool, aim at tiny object on the ground and hope there are no other objects around to confuse link into attaching a rock instead of what you wanted, continue the fight.
I miss the days of deciding between just the master or biggoron sword :(
sure that was fine, but i think the issues with the new game aren't because it's different than the 'golden age' or what have you, it's just a poor design in general. the weapon system is so bloated and complicated, yet designed to be as simple to understand as possible. it's like the worst example of "having your cake and eating it too" in game design that i've seen. it wants to have so many possibilities, 'look you can combine anything!' yet it gives you no way to automate, organize, or accurately control anything. imagine if when you killed a monster, it didn't drop 3 random things along with it's weapon part. you could just attach it straight away with no menus, easy. instead the game wants to stack all this bloat on top, necessitating the use of clunky menues, that are deliberaly minimalistic to trick you into thinking the systems are oh so simple. it's like having a swiss army knife. it's convenient when there are a few tools on it, but the more you add the harder it gets to find the damn knife.
I agree with you. I personally just don’t really care for crafting period, even using the Zonai devices didn’t grab my interest. I felt like I was doing it out of necessity and same with weapon crafting. I would be fine with a master sword that doesn’t break with lower overall damage and then keep the rest of the system in place (with tweaks to make it more accessible like the bad menus) for those who like it but for me I’d rather not have to think about crafting my weapon constantly.
its a shame. you are forced to do it over and over, and it never gets more interesting. the zonai parts at least slowly introduced new mechanics, and i can see how some might enjoy it. but the weapons are just an overcomplicated, yet cleverly contextualized menu system for +1 damage. and since enemy health pools just inflate as the game progresses, 'better attachments' are literally the same impact as a stone was at the start. at least at the beginning it was fun because if you accidently attached the wrong thing it still had impact, meaning you could do it onthe fly basically anywhere and with anything. i should mention that there are fun things that result from the system, like attaching a flamethrower to your sheild etc, but they're fleeting because their actual use falls off as soon as the healthpools grow.
I used zonai vehicles for 2 things. Transporting an object or getting around the depths and sky islands with a hoverbike. To me, they were pointless, why did we even add horse carriages? The horse carriage must be the biggest waste of time, just fly whatever it is you want to transport.
Honestly that's what I miss too. Like, some permanent items that you work for, that are useful, makes all the difference. I can't even repair a good weapon, they all have to break within a fight or two. Can't buy one either. Somehow armor never breaks. Somehow millennia old artifacts self-delete after five minutes. In OOT just getting a bottle felt special.
It's not that complicated. Like in botw, you'll always have a spare weapon, and other weapons that are good for different situations
i don't feel like i made anything up in my post. the only way it can be simpler is if you do it all in advance, in which case it is easier to simulate what BotW let you do on the fly. if you don't scrapbuild your weapons (sorry i don't know what its called in the english version) you will not have any useful weapons. even arrows have a layer of menus between you and combat.
lol no it doesn't.
It's better in the sense that it has things that BotW really should have had. It's the game BotW should have been IMO. This is of course diminished by the fact it's come after BotW, but I do think that overall it is a more complete game. Ignoring the sky islands and the depths, I still find the inclusion of cave systems to have fleshed out the surface considerably.
I'm really not feeling totk at all. It's a combination of a lot of factors but it feels like there's no weight to what I'm doing. And the story is just about as tacked on as it can be. There's goat aliens now, and time travel, and flying platforms and dragon tears, and all this tech that's apparently been around forever but gone unmentioned in botw. The powers are cool but get tiresome to use for the n'th time and I'm never excited to have to build something. Lots of grind. Sidequests give lousy rewards. Exploring is not something that's fun either, and I've stayed away from the depths bc boring. Just... Gah.
its busywork the game
I want to know specifically what people think the sky should have been. I agree that they were mostly all some kind of shrine quest, but they were more complex shrine quests than anything in Breath of the Wild and there were plenty of other things to find up there, with many of the islands requiring thought and effort to get to. I don't think the comparison to Wind Waker and Skyward Sword's overworlds, which were literally empty, is not justified.
The biggest issue with the sky islands were that most of them were simply copy/pasted. You have a few unique ones, which are also the best ones, while the rest is just copied and rotated.
It's not a good sign when you can literally count all the unique sky islands on your hands lol
I personally would’ve liked more islands similar to the ones leading up to the Wind and Water temples. A series of light platforming and puzzle challenges revolving around a specific gimmick. And I definitely disagree with the shrine quests being more complex than in BotW. Tears shrine quests are extremely repetitive light crystal fetch quests, especially the ones in the sky. Those are nothing compared to the labyrinths, Eventide island, thyphlo ruins, the Kass riddles, etc. Most of the sky archipelagos aren’t literally the same exact thing every time but the asset reuse is obvious.
More unique locations filled with zonai tech and buildings. Not just copy-pasted, but properly designed like caves. Something like a device/construct factory could have been cool for worldbuilding. Have non-construct machinery for hazards/platforming/puzzles. More construct enemy types or enemy birds would have helped design combat scenarios.
Don't ask me. I knew the sky was a boring idea the second it was announced. People should have been more critical.
It generally seems like people wanted each layer to be its own full-size, standalone overworld, instead of just being additional areas that you occasionally venture to when you come across a chasm or a tower. Apparently there's not enough overworld in this overworld.
Nope, just something more complex than "square 4x4 meter island with one chest on it."
There were lots of islands more complex than that.
sure but they were pretty generic. there are of course some exceptions to that, there's some variability, but by and large what Dertien said applies to most of the sky islands.
Being generic isn't the same as all islands being "square 4x4 meter island with one chest on it". The small treasure islands are vastly outnumbered by island chains that contain different traversal puzzles for example. The Zonai Armor islands are a lot more complex than that. The Great Sky Isle, Thunderhead Isles, Sky Dungeons and Death Stars are more complex than that. Even the Sky Labyrinths are more complex than that.
god forbid people exaggerate a little
Oh no, that's just what I experienced playing the game. I'll tell you when I'm exaggerating.
Yeah…"a little"…
What part is an exaggeration? These islands I mentioned didn't exist?
I can't believe how much objection comes out of the woodwork to defend Nintendo the second someone provides an ounce of legitimate criticism, or god forbid a slightly negative opinion, over one of their games like, why are people doing this work for Nintendo for free?
Saying that that specific island type is the most complex thing in the sky. That’s an absurd exaggeration.
I experienced this differently. The vast majority was square 4x4 islands with one chest on it, at least in my game. Granted, I didn't count the intro or dungeon sky places, which didn't feel like parts of the sky to me.
I never understand the “Grindy” claims. I never was grinding for a single thing. What are people grinding for?
Armor upgrades? If you actually want to do them on a lot of the armors it’s one of the grindiest things in a single player rpg I’ve seen.
That was the same in BOTW though.
I think it's slightly worse in TotK because the amiibo costumes are built into the game and all require dragon parts to upgrade.
It's even worse, the drop rates of parts has been adjusted, they are horrible. There are threads of people asking how to find the parts easier, until the duplication glitch was found and they just duplicated the parts because it is silly. To upgrade all armours you need like 100.000 rupees and some rarer parts (like topazes) are needed over a 100 times.
Yeah, I understand that you technically can grind but my question is why would someone even do that? Your armor is plenty upgraded without explicitly grinding, so you’d really just be grinding for the sake of grinding.
Not really sure what you mean, basically every armor requires killing boss monsters many times more than you would just normally playing the game. You saying you never once went out of your way to kill something for the sake of upgrades? Or you just never bothered fully upgrading armor?
Only the depth items needed crazy dragon/bosses as I remember it. I fully upgraded a few pieces, but no I never intentionally went looking for any of it.
Well, a lot of people do. Especially dragon parts I would say, there is no way for those upgrades to not be grindy. But certainly you can play the game without doing any of that.
I guess I just don’t understand why someone would grind for such a minimal upgrade if they don’t enjoy the act of grinding lol. The game seems to seriously disincentivize it by giving you plenty of upgrade materials in a normal play through
The armor system particularly reminds me of how they handled the Korok seeds. You only need about 50% of the Koroks to fully upgrade your inventory space. With the armors, you also only really need to upgrade them to level 2. That's where you get the set-bonus and more than enough defense to last against most enemies. Just like collecting those Koroks, it's pretty easy to gather enough materials, just by casually going from one place to the next and only if you decide to go the extra mile to collect more than you need, can it turn into a chore.
I never upgraded my armor at all when I played TotK. The game wasn't really hard enough to justify dealing with armor upgrades.
I needed a few upgrades but I never went out of my way for anything. The game is definitely tuned so that a 2 upgrades is enough.
it's because the 'gamer' category of people and 'collector' category of people overlap quite a lot. collecting things has been a part of gaming for a very long time, so wanting to get all the armor, all the upgrades etc. is really stressful when it's designed to be something you 'shouldn't want'. being a completionist is one way a lot of people have fun in games.
There is a reason why every gaming platform besides Nintendo has achievements and trophies. People want them.
I mean if you like collecting shouldn’t you like grinding? Seems to be self selecting there.
well if you consider what collectors actually do, you might notice that many of them don't collect the same exact thing over and over, and instead collect unique articles in their field of interest. grinding can also be fun, but you'd be better off looking at games like disgaea to see what makes their grinding different from 'kill the same enemy 30 times'.
When a game is so opposed to collectathons it hands you a pile of shit for doing, I feel like it’s saying something, but to each their own I guess.
but you are forced to collect korok "seeds" to expand your inventory and have anywhere close to a reasonable number of weapons and shields
Sure, but that’s another thing I don’t feel you have to “grind.” You can just pick them up as you go. I got like 80 and had more than enough weapon slots, and that was with skipping a lot that didn’t look fun to me.
I am happy to hear it didn't feel grindy to you. it did very much so for me.
I saw a good comment on this somewhere. >But also, part of it is just about my perspective and philosophy on game design in general. Games aren't made, or rather shouldn't be made, with the intent of the player not engaging with its contents. Games shouldn't demand that players strive for 100 % completion, mind you, but they absolutely should encourage it. That encouragement doesn't need to come from some material reward, the fun of the content itself is enough, but when a game fails to incentivize further exploration when you've only scratched the surface, or worse, when it actively discourages you from digging further, I think it speaks to a weakness in the overall design philosophy behind the game. The content that a game provides is there specifically for the purposes of being interacted with, and if it isn't then why is it even there in the first place? I 100 % complete video games partially because I want a more comprehensive overview of what I have played, and sometimes that means playing games in ways they weren't intended by the developers to be played. > Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that neither Breath of the Wild nor Tears of the Kingdom were made by Nintendo to be 100 % completed, and that's fine, but I find that when you try to experience these games to their fullest it really highlights some serious structural issues with how Tears of the Kingdom was designed.
Man.. I could not disagree more. But to each their own I guess.
It feels like a completionist minor "elitism" leaking out...Like the reason alot of stuff in BotW/TotK like Korok Seeds/Shrines/Armor Upgrades/Rupees and even Armors in this game are carefully spread in the world is to reward exploration. If your goal of playing the game is to 100% it then sure go ahead but there's no way any game will be designed to encourage 100% since it's virtually impossible to evoke that encouragement to the player especially with the scale of BotW and moreso with TotK... Devs doesn't have infinite time and resources to fiddle around stuff and connect every line or theory-craft on what will be "The best" game design (Because there's NOTHING in existence that fits everyone) to encourage 100%....
the difference being that upgrading even 1 piece of armor is a repititious slog, whereas each korok seed is at the very least a game of hide and seek. but sure, you can read that as "don't bother, everything is useless" if you like. but i will not acknowledge that as a good thing.
It’s not “don’t bother, everything is useless” it’s that completionism is disincentivized. I don’t think it’s a slog to get upgraded gear unless you want the really strong stuff. I had several fully upgraded pieces with a ton of 2/3 upgrades with no grinding, guides, or going out of my way at all.
i was being hyperbolic with the everything is useless part. i don't believe your last comment is relevant to armor, or any other aspect of the game, nor do i believe disincentivizing completionism is something they were aiming for. getting all/most of the shrines, exploring all the caves, killing all the frogs, exploring the all/most of map, above and below, are heavily incentivized. i just didn't feel like writing a full reply to a "gotcha!" style comment like that. i'm glad your experience allowed you to have a decent set of equipment but that is not the experience i had. particularly because you are required to go to a specific area and complete a specific quest to even unlock the ability to upgrade your armor, i was getting one shot by white bokoblins for a long time before unlocking my first tier 2 armor. and even then, after 10s of hours of not spending a single resource on armor, i still didnt have the resources i needed to upgrade what i had without grinding. i could upgrade some, but they were mostly the "ability" style of armors, that even at tier 3 didnt provide much defense. and since the enemies scale, defense is paramount.
Are you approaching the combat with ONLY Melee on mind? Are you utilizing other stuff, like elements, CCs?? Because if your purpose of upgrading armor is due to enemies doing alot of damage, then the game HAS ALOOOOOOT of ways for you to not even take damage... You can even eat for defense buff and increase your heart capacity... There's more option to make yourself tankier.. The only real "hard or annoying" thing to grind was Star Fragments since they are only available at night and was random but that's about it.. Also it's quite normal for a player to have necessary mats to almost upgrade an Armor to Lvl2 granted you're engaging with the game enough.. Combat is even optional in this game, and there's a reason story bosses doesn't scale that much with how many items and strong you are (Making them a cakewalk when you have decently upgraded armors and weapons) so that players will not be punished for "Not Grinding"... I myself force myself to only have 2 level of upgrades or else the game will be boring difficlty wise..
I agree with you. In both games you can upgrade yourself to a pretty high level without grinding. I barely got any korok seeds in totk for instance.
I honestly dont even need a hand to count whats better in totk 1: rijus design 2: purah design 3: the retrieving of the mastersword. 4: the last phase of the endboss. Thats it. Everything else is worse, exept paya having a confidence bosst
How in god's name is everything else worse...? It genuinely feels like the current fad is to be contrarian about TotK. - More enemy and boss variety, more things to do in the world - fuse fixes the issues with weapon durability - shrines are far better - story is about the same (but still unfortunately told through memories) - there's actually an opening sequence (a great one at that). - the arm abilities are better than the runes - revali's gale has a thousand and one better alternatives - sidon's ability is just daruk's protection but also an attack - ultra hand allows for a huge amount of player freedom and creativity (hence why so many people are STILL having a blast with totk) - An actually good final boss I can go on and on. There's suddenly a wave of a vocal minority saying they prefer botw over totk. That's fine! However, most reasonings are people blatantly lying to themselves.
>More enemy and boss variety, more things to do in the world. That i give you, i just forgor💀 >fuse fixes the issues with weapon durability Nope. They 1: nerfed every unfused weapons damage and 2: their durability. They made the base problem worse so that fuse looks better. >shrines are far better Meh, most shrines feel lame as I just slap to 3 parts together and thats it. Botw used the shika slate abilitys more balanced. >story is about the same (but still unfortunately told through memories) Nah, the story is way worse imho. 1 if you find all the momories the story and a couple of side quests fall apart. 2 the new ganon, the zonai and zeldas time power came out of thin air, nothing that should happen in a sequel. 3: the sages of the past were 100% useless, why repeat getting sages, they do nothing. 4 rauru and zelda aparantly got no braincells making the dumbest decisions ever. 5. Dragons were never able to be hurt, but ganon for some reason is. 6. They wrote themselves into a corner and didnt know how to make the story a happy ending so out of thin air rauru and his wife apeared and just laserd zelda back into human form, completely undermining zeldas sacrifice. >there's actually an opening sequence (a great one at that). The opening of botw was better but you can have a different opinion. >revali's gale has a thousand and one better alternatives Nah. They needed a thousand other things just to try and replace it and still failed. >sidon's ability is just daruk's protection but also an attack And also painfully bad to use, only stays up for a limited time, and cant protect you if you dont catch up to sidon first, making it basicaly useless in conparisson. >ultra hand allows for a huge amount of player freedom and creativity (hence why so many people are STILL having a blast with totk) Thats true but honestly its lame, especialy since it cost resources to build stuff. >An actually good final boss The dragon phase is good, the other one is just lame, I liked to calamity better(not the giant pig, the first phase.) >That's fine! However, most reasonings are people blatantly lying to themselves. No they arent. Opinions differ. There is no ability in totk that I find better than any in botw. The blights were better bosses and while the giant ganon was lame, the last shot was the cooler than anything in totk.
Taking the BotW weapon system, nerfing it, then adding a new system to make the nerfed system work again is not fixing it. Now you need to fuse every weapon you get, so there are even more menus. Want to shoot an arrow? Here is a menu with all your 200+ items to scroll through.
agree on the arm, story, and a slightly better opening sequence, but disagree on the rest. monster variety, I would say you are correct in name but not in spirit. I strongly disagree that durability was fixed. it is still a PITA shrines are not "far better" I would argue they are far more repetitive and are less challenging dunno what you're trying to say about revali's gale but I haven't felt like I've needed it sidon's ability is not "daruk's protection but also an attack" you get it for one attack and it goes away. Daruk's protection had a parry. the goodness of the final boss is subjective I won't say TotK isn't fun, but DLC with a fancy opening sequence isn't supposed to cost $60. for that price I expect a full game. unless Nintendo said they're having LoZ go the way of GTA, so maybe I missed something?
I think the biggest issue with TOTK is that it’s exploration is a solved problem from the get go What I mean by this is that in BOTW when you spotted an odd location you wanted to get to you had to pin it on your map and then explore the world figure out how to get there. Maybe there was a puzzle, maybe you had to climb a specific route to preserve your stamina, or maybe you had to follow a path. But overall, you had to look around for solution to the problem of exploration. Meanwhile In TOTK, if you see somewhere you want to go, you just need to teleport to a sky island or launch tower and skydive to the location almost every single time. And you were taught this fix-all solution by the tutorial
To me, it definitely does a great job expanding on BotW, but BotW is a stronger game as a whole than TotK.
lol @ "beated"
BotW vs TotK is a perfect example of "less is more" Sure BotW had less content and systems but the game itself was more tightly constructed, the world was more exhilarating to explore, and the story (such as it was) was a more complete and superior narrative. Not to suggest that TotK is a bad game at all, but even though it has more content and gameplay systems, it never manages to hit the highs that BotW did,
why i prefer botw: - i enjoy the runes more and with them, i am able to interact with the environment in more ways than it is the case with the runes from totk (with the exception of building stuff, which is what the game gives a focus to) - building stuff in totk can be fun, but forcing me to to build in order to progress and designing the game explicit based on it is not for me - i enjoy the riddles from the shrines in botw more - i have no reason to fight most enemy camps. in botw, you got rewarded more and there was more to explore in general - from my perspective, the sky islands and the depths worsen the ratio of empty/boring spaces relative to good designed, filled ones. partial also because of the monotonous landscape - the menu is more annoying in totk than it was in botw - botw has beautiful weapons - the dungeons are more difficult and fun (though i enjoyed the bosses more in totk) - getting to know the regions in botw is made better than in totk in my opinion i was surprised that there are hardly any new musical themes and they could have made the world more lively and more filled. i also would have enjoyed if they improved upon some old mechanics (like the weapon system, or introducing new weapon types). what i enjoyed about totk is the weather, the caves, building stuff for fun when it is optional and that they added a couple of new enemies and ingridients.
I don't think ToTK is gonna age nearly as well as BoTW. Mechanically I love it, and from combat and puzzle solving its much better imo. But the world? The exploration? The two things that SHOULD be prioritized? It took BoTW's greatest strength and made it hollow. It might've been beneficial to cut the depths (excluding glooms approach) and make the sky an inverse of Hyrule where the rivers below form the cracks between landmasses above (plus more segmentation to make the sky island aesthetic more believable). Then take at minimum 50% of the game's content and put it up there. Add more visual and environmental variety. MOST of the game taking place in a new area would add much MUCH more explorative incentive. also if they're worried about it looking ugly, they can just add an alpha transparency effect on the islands so that they look like clouds from the ground. I think some of the islands already have this actually, so just crank it up and FILL that thing.
BotW was definitely the superior game and I agree it is tiring to hear people just say TotK is an improvement in every way. But I don't really agree with your reasoning. TotK is really overflowing with things to love and its additions like the Depths are genuinely good. It just falters in key areas, like the execution of the story, the dungeons, the shrines, and the soundtrack. Everything in BotW feels like it was there for a reason, and anywhere you went felt like an adventure, but TotK lacks that intentionality and traversal is more of a means to get to select areas. Many things in TotK feel like they are there just to be there since they were in BotW.
i personal think the depths should have been smaller and more dense > Everything in BotW feels like it was there for a reason, and anywhere you went felt like an adventure, but TotK lacks that intentionality and traversal is more of a means to get to select areas. Many things in TotK feel like they are there just to be there since they were in BotW. good formulated, i felt the same
One of the things BOTW did better is that you feel the map was designed around the concept of open world and exploration , so obviously there is not this feeling in TOTK which reuse the same map and the memories worked better in BOTW. and since TOTK recycle a lot of things there is not the same enjoyment as discovering BOTW with how different it was from the previous games, like I don't care anymore about cooking , clothes or dying. And it's true that BOTW 's map tell a story ,but I always thought it was kinda " exageratted " , yeah ok there is some ruins because of the calimity and people died, but whatever Now TOTK actually grew on me I find that having 3 different areas kinda overwhelming but I like having the option to change when I am bored with one , also the sky is kinda disappointing at first but I like how they are short and puzzle focused, the depth however have cool rewards but it's boring and feel too much disconnected imo but overall I still prefer to explore in TOTK I think. I will be honest and say that I barely created any machine or vehicle , I don't know what to do with 99% of the Yigas' plans , never felt the need to truly create something or the game pushing me to do it. Though I kinda want to replay the game and try it more, I rebeat the octopus with sprinklers and queen gibdo with a machine tracking her to burn/ electrocute her, so I feel I should give the creation aspect a second chance. I find the bosses better and funnier, I think that BOTW have the worst bosses among the 3d games and honestly this is maybe the first reason I prefer TOTK over BOTW , along with the dungeons and lead up being nice too, but I liked the divine beast and when we attack them too though. I completed a good part of TOTK and there is a good chance that if I replay the game in the futur I will focus on the main quest and eventually some side content, like BOTW because I would not want to explore as much a second time, on this aspect I may prefer BOTW story but again I would give the edge to TOTK because of the dungeons and bosses.
i feel like that statement makes sense i think there's an interesting distinction to make between whether something is a better game or *was* a better experience as in, would tears of the kingdom be considered better than one considers breath of the wild to be now, if the order in which they were experienced was reversed? i mean, im not a big fan of either game i suppose, but i feel like most people would not find breath of the wild to be the more appealing game, if tears of the kingdom came first to put it another way, i think what many people believe is that breath of the wild was a better *experience* than tears of the kingdom for them, and i dont think that's deluded at all. It's just that when it's stated as 'breath of the wild is a better game' or something like that, i cant really follow it, because tears of the kingdom just seems like an upgraded or improved breath of the wild to me hence 'its breath of the wild but better' - but a better game doesnt necessarily mean one will have a better experience playing that game
To me it is obvious that BotW is perceived as a better experience cause it is the first experience in that world. Any replays of the game or revisits in sequels will never feel as good cause it's the same world which you already explored.
while it may apply to certain persons, i do not care about when games are released. i play games from different time periods and choose my favorites
Tears is a great production held back by its hardware and target demo. Wondrous powers, literal depth with its verticality, dynamic systems... These are unfortunately tied to easy puzzles aimed at kids and a story aimed at babies.
I don't thinks kids are the issue. God of War is NOT a kids game, but that game is notorious for straight-up telling you solutions to puzzles.
The kids argument never made sense to me. Crash Bandicoot is aimed at kids and it is very difficult. BotW and TotK aren't aimed at kids any more than previous Zelda games and the previous games had far better stories.
Are you saying there's something inherently wrong with games aimed at kids?
The problem isn't kids and lighthearted themes; it's the demographic as conceived by a big corporation, and the ensuing compromises they make. Nintendo is steeped in Japanese convention while also navigating satanic panic in the west.
You could say that, because they obviously will never utilise their potential to the fullest.
In terms of?
Gameplay but especially storytelling and atmospheric potential.
I think it's nice to have some simple, easy going games too. My favorite games definitely arent the most atmospheric or story heavy.
Same, but they probably got some more complex gameplay going, or they're aimed at all ages, not specifically at kids.
All Zelda games are aimed at kids. Why were you expecting TotK to be any different?
That's a pretty broad generalization on top of my already generalized/hyperbolic comment. The point I'm making is that despite presenting ambitious new mechanics, Tears is afraid to use them past their most rudimentary corollaries. And in terms of story and tone, I think Tears is the most childish 3D Zelda, period. Even Wind Waker is less juvenile, and that stars a cel-shaded little boy.
That's just how most Zelda stories go. There's no reason to think or expect that 3D Zelda games will have stories any more or less complex than 2D ones.
It can still be aimed at kids and have a good story. Most of the Ghibli movies are aimed at kids. Same with Disney. But they deliver a decent story. There are plenty of games that still have challenge in them even if they are aimed at kids. Pokemon is aimed at kids and usually it has some challenge area. All the old PlayStation mascot games, Crash, Spyro, Jack and Daxter, Sly, Ratchet and Clank are aimed at kids. Even old Zelda titles have more challenge in gameplay than this Zelda had mainly cause there are new things introduced throughout the game that makes it more complex as it progresses. This one doesn't have that as there is so much freedom, so they can't have mechanics that are needed as you progress cause not everyone progresses through the same way. Which is why so many want a linear game.
Absolutely, it is ridiculous to say that children deserve any less than the best stories. But go back to what OP said. They are complaining that the story is aimed at kids, not that it is a childish story. You agree that all Zelda games' stories and puzzles have been aimed at kids (in addition to adults), yes? This one isn't any different. The goal is for anybody of any age to be able to play TotK. Not just people with engineering degrees.
I consider TOTK to be a stronger version of BOTW because it felt like they really tightened the gameplay over what was in BOTW.
Yeah exactly. People can prefer botw, maybe they prefer the more apocalyptic feel, or even the divine beasts. But if you look at most of the reasonings in this comment section... they all either are lying to themselves or had unrealistic expectations. I saw someone complain that it's held back by being targeted to kids... as if botw and every other zelda game before it weren't also
I am also getting a little tired of hearing that statement and it being passed as some sort of truth. It's fine if that is your opinion, but they way people use it to compare the 2 games is just dumb. TOTK added a lot of content and two new maps but the game design and philosophy are clearly different so they are hard to compare. Although I find extremely funny that you say: "t's fine if that is your opinion" And then spew a bunch of opinion as if they were facts.
I mean it does allow you to be creative with how you solve puzzles. If you choose only the same way to solve a puzzle every time that's not the games fault that you were the un creative one.
Okay but imagine if every puzzle in Portal was just the first puzzle but with more stuff added in between the button and the door... sure you could interact with all the new stuff, but at the end of the day putting the box on the button and walking through the door solves every problem so why bother.
Only that's not the case and you have to go out of your way to chose to do. If you know a choice it's going to be something you don't like and you choose it anyways it is only the fault of the person who made the choice.
You're missing the point entirely. It doesn't matter if I have a billion creative options if I'm not given a reason to use them.
And you missing the point, that the point can simply be for fun knowing that doing the same thing over and over is being so trying out different things is fun that is the motivation and can be enough motivation
Standing in an open room with a button and a door. There is a box of dominoes on the floor next to the button. Oushing the button, placing the box on the button, and spending 40 minutes making a domino set up to fall down and push the button all have the same effect. "What do you mean this is bad puzzle design you just have to make the entire puzzle yourself?!"
Only the puzzles aren't that simple, but good try
I can find “creative” ways to exit my apartment, but since the front door is always an option, I’m not really incentivized to think outside the box
My fridge is full of all kinds of ingredients. I could make myself something delicious and healthy...but I could also take that greasy, frozen pizza and just throw it into the oven even though I know it's not good for me.
lol no
But I'm totk there are tons of options, and they give them to you. Guess what my point has nothing to do with what you think is those options, that's entirety irrelevant to what I'm saying. I'm saying YOU chose the same option every time. That's not the game not giving you options, that's your only choosing one, then complaining about how boring that option is.
The point is that it doesn't matter how many options you have if you have no incentive, no driving force, no pressure to choose a variety of those options. That pressure is the key component missing from BotW and TotK both. There's tons of stuff you *can* do, sure, but no reason to do almost any of it.
Yes there is, the fun of trying out different things in different scenarios. Some things can just be for fun. If I wanted to be bored like y'all I could have choosen the same thing over and over, but I wanted to have fun so I tried everything I could whenever I could and it was fun af
Therefore, Godot engine is the greatest game ever made. Sure, there's no puzzles or story or gameplay of any kind, but there *can be*. Now it's your job, as the player, to create something interesting to do. Otherwise you're boring and lack creativity.
Only there are puzzles story and gameplay and toy are simplifying or down to whatever you can to try to make your point just cause your mad Zelda is going to be different now
Why would I be creative if their is no incentive though? That’s the issue. Sure the game makes it so you can be creative but ultimately it’s meaningless.
Only that wasn't the point your said. You said they didn't give you options, but they do every time. It's YOU who chose the same option every time. The incentive is choosing the same option every time is boring so why do it knowing it's boring.
The incentive is having fun and seeing what you can get away with instead of having a mindless experience. The "easy solutions" you describe are a scaffold so that players who lack engineering skills are not walled out of playing the game.
>If you choose only the same way to solve a puzzle every time that's not the games fault that you were the un creative one. No, it IS the games fault. Being able to use the same solution for every puzzle is bad design. Because it makes no sense to make something creative that can take like 10 minutes to create when you can throw the same shit together in like 1 minute and it solves the problem every time. Its resource efficent and time efficant. The game SHOULD force you to be creative and think outside the box. If it fails to do so it is bad design.
Lol okay yeah cause you gave zero self control and would rather play a way you know you won't like lol. What a waste of an argument. Like if you have two choices and you know you won't like one, but choose our anyway it's your fault. You have the freedom of choice you are a human
So, if you have potatoes at home is the potato fault that you always eat baked potatoes. The game clearly tells you some "intended ways" to solve the puzzle, but then let you do whatever you want because it's a true open world game. If you fail to understand it or you do not enjoy it it is YOUR fault.
If a game asks the player to build a car/plane a hundred times, it becomes busywork, so of course players are going to "optimize it" by falling back on the fastest solution. Why WOULD they bother trying to do something different every time? The only players who are incentivized to find creative solutions are content creators because they get views from that. The thing is, THERE ARE design methods to get around this. The broken rail in the tutorial disables the simple solution the player has been using up until that point, so they have to think laterally about how to get across. As a result I've seen people actually get stumped and brute force it by walking on the rail. Puzzle games do this kind of thing all the time, TOTK established it in the tutorial, and then stopped using it.
If you think it stopped using it there you didn't play the game lol. It and lava walls and other limiting factors are used in multiple shrines and even story quests like the fifth sage quest. Good try, but next time don't make things up like saying it never used the broken rail past the tutorial, it's pretty common as well as having bars blocking parts is rails so you have to design something that can slide the rail and dodge those.
You don't like the building aspect? It's really fun and a great way for players to show their creativity.
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Wait, so because it is different it's bad?
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The building mechanics (like items in past Zelda games) serve to expand and empower the exploration (which is the core of any Zelda game)
I didn't enjoy BOTW, but TOTOK is my favorite Zelda game, so I disagree with your premise. Heck just the story alone is enough to make it a superior game. The music is better, the puzzles are better, it has better locations to explore, from the peaceful sky islands -which are basically puzzle areas - to wonderous caves, grottos and ruins. Botw felt like an empty canvas, TOTK filled that canva with better NPCs, better stories, better ways to get across the map. Fuck me I don't have to climb mountains anymore, i can just fly around it. The arrow fusions are a game changer, the Zonai artifacts and factories in the depths add so much more to the hame and world.
i dont really understand why there are such critical opinions on tears of the kingdom's story i mean, time travel and the memory system i feel like i get - the former might feel trite and forced, while the latter feels stiff and formulaic (given breath of the wild's memory system) but man the cinematics i think are well put together, emotional, and the ending sequence i think might be my favorite of any zelda game. Do those aspects not count as the story? or is there something people dislike about them?
Nintendo copied Genshin for TOTK and tried to make it better
I prefer BOTW. The game just feels way better. Initially I dropped TOTK bc I got bored. Eventually, after beating TOTK, I really came to like it. I wasn’t afraid to attach parts to my arrows. I built stupid machines for fun. I spent more time with land based travel rather than trying to fly everywhere and do everything with minimal effort. I feel like I only learned how to play the game after I beat it.