#and also it annoys me that a lot of botw fans r like. Just botw fans. and not loz in general fans.. But still use the loz tags

[nomaishuttle]

perhaps a lot of my b*tw issues are actually due to my own expectations for the game and by extension my dislike for botw fans

[faroreswinds]

With the Tears of the Kingdom previews out, I took a gander at general reactions on Reddit. Why? I don’t know, I must hate myself. 

I also actively despise Zelda Youtubers so I don’t want to go there and read Youtube comments. 

I have been surprised by the number of negative comments after the previews. I figured this would go over really well, since Freedom TM seems to be popular theses days in your gameplay. With the overwhelming success of BotW, I figured more would be welcomed. 

But no, there are quite a few people who don’t like what they see. r/Games, for instance, has this thread where many people express that they aren’t sure if they really like the direction Zelda is heading now. As if it is really going too far. r/NintendoSwitch also has this thread where similar sentiments are shared. Of course, r/truezelda, r/tearsofthekingdom and r/Zelda share similar sentiments from time to time, but as they are Zelda subreddits, these fans are drowned out as haters or trolls. 

Now below the cut are some minor spoiler stuff. I will be hiding it for those who are keeping themselves spoiler free entirely.

You have been warned. There are gameplay spoilers below. 

Personally myself, I’m am not entirely pleased either. I already do not like this Princess Zelda or Link. I do not really like this Hyrule. I only really like Riju and Sidon. And I can tell you that the story will not be my cup of tea. It’s er... it’s going to be something.

Of course I will play the game and judge it accordingly. But first impressions have not been great. I can fuse a mushroom to my shield? Technically impressive, but not really want I wanted. I can craft vehicles? Looks dumb, I don’t want rockets or shit in my fantasy video game. 

Actual bombs being back is great though. Well, bomb flowers, but close enough, those are a classic. I also really think being able to bring Sidon on my adventure will be fun as well. Not... happy about Tulin though. He’s an annoying little kid, and frankly I don’t get the appeal. 

The new menu design looks both great and terrible. It’s ugly on the eyes, like really ugly. But there are some clear improvements in function. 

Not a fan of all the menu-ing you will have to do. Apparently, you have to go into a menu every time you want to fuse something to your arrow. No bulk fusing that we know of yet. That is a serious design flaw if true. Menu-ing also breaks up the flow of combat, and if I can just open a menu and dick around with the items to put a flamethrower on my shield, then there will be a lot of time spent in menus while in combat. 

Speaking of menus, they have not fixed the healing system. It still functions the same. Pause, eat as much as you want, continue battle. Lame. They did make some changes, but not in the way that enhances combat. 

First of all, you can cook anywhere with a new item (one time use though). This was never an issue. The real issue was never being able to cook in bulk, but one at a time, making it a tedious wait time of watching the same animations over and over again. 

Second, there is now a recipe book. Great, but unless hearty foods are no longer in the game I can promise you I will not be cooking much. I will make the most simple shit that is effective, not try to see what fun recipes I can make. Who cares if I can make cake if it only heals me 5 heart, when a fish with a hearty turnip will heal me thirty? But people asked for a recipe book, so I’m not necessarily mad that it is there. 

I also want to touch quickly on durability and ultrahand. Durability, of course, is back. Urg. But they tried to “fix” it by making it so you can fuse items together to make it more durable. Cool. But it’s still breakable. 

And apparently, you can just unfuse the item and then refuse it with something else to keep it even longer. This is essentially resetting durability. If this is true, then it is effectively no durability with extra, tedious steps. 

In fact, this whole game looks like a lot of tedium. 

As for ultrahand, there is apparently a skill that allows you to save past builds. You can then autobuild them instantly if you have the right items. Great idea, except did we really have to waste a skill slot for this? Apparently it is a later game skill. If true, this means that any early builds you make will be unable to be saved. Nintendo wanted to keep this skill a secret for some reason. Honestly, I have no idea why. It’s not like that it is worth keep private. It’s a QoL feature that people should probably know about. 

My guess is that they don’t want to discourage people from experimenting early on. If people can save their builds right away, they will just keep their early builds and continue to adjust them till they end the game, rather than continuing trying new things. And if you know there is a save feature you get later, you might be discouraged to try making things early since you cannot keep the schematics around. 

This is lame if true, though. 

There are effectively “8″ skills Link can use. I use the number “8″ loosely. It’s not really 8 skills, but rather 4 skills, 1 expanded feature on another skill, and 1 amiibo skill. 

Ultrahand - Link can pick up and move anything, and put them together in any configuration he would like

Fuse - Take up to two items and fuse them together like glue

Ascend - Go through ceilings and some enemies like water and reach the top

Recall - Turn back time on an object so it returns to its original position. 

These are the known, unique skills. Then we have

Autobuild - Quickly build past builds if you have the parts. This is essentially a save feature for Ultrahand

Amiibo - Literally just the amiibo skill, similar to the amiibo rune from Botw. 

Finally, we have two mysterious skills

Compass-thing - Some weird compass-looking green icon. It’s probably a tracking feature, but we do not know it’s purpose yet. 

Blank - We honestly don’t know what this could be. Could be a camera skill. Could be a secondary feature to one of the main 4 features. We just have no clue at all. 

Effectively, these are rune replacements. Ultrahand + Autobuild is just Magnesis but better. Recall is Statis but instead of freezing an object, you make it go in reverse into it’s original position. Amiibo is amiibo. 

Ascend is basically Revali’s Gale but through rock instead of the air. Fuse is entirely new. However, Ascend has some great exploration potential. Maybe I can find an air pocket in a cave with treasure. Hopefully, though, that treasure will be worth it and not some stupid consumable sword. 

The bomb runes and Cryonsis are entirely gone. The bombs have been replaced with bomb flowers as a consumable item now. So no more remote bombs, round or square. Cryonsis could have a similar skill that is that missing blank skill, but I suspect they want players to use the Ultrahand system, and make ships and the like. Cryonsis would remove the need to do this, so it has to go. 

Most of these skills are entirely focused on the sandbox-style of BotW. I am not a particular fan of sandbox games, and it saddens me that this is the direction Zelda seems to be going. It was fine for a single game, but I had hoped for a more cultured, straight-forward experience in future installments. I figured Totk would still value freedom to the player, but it doubled down in ways I was hoping it would not. 

The only real “combat” skills are maybe Fuse and Recall. Fuse because of making weapons better. Recall because you can make rolling stones hit enemies or the like.

But calling them real “combat” skills is a stretch. They don’t really actually do combat, but rather craft the necessary items to create a combat experience. I’m hoping that like BotW, we get more “combat” skills like Urbosa’s Fury (unless they didn’t add stuff like this because they want to player to interact with the fusing system). 

I am worried about the size of the map. BotW ran pretty ok, but it still had issues. This is a bigger game, with a LOT more going on. Honestly, it seems too ambitious for a Switch game. My super powerful PC sometimes struggles to play Elden Ring, and a little Switch will seamlessly play the biggest Zelda game of all time? When it couldn’t even get a small title like Link’s Awakening to play smoothly? I’m skeptical. 

And with the map size so big, I feel like this will be a one and done game for me. I’m a lot older now, and exploring large maps are only fun once. After the first time, it’s too overwhelming to try it again. I love Elden Ring, but it’s 30 square mile map keeps me from wanting to do another thorough playthrough again. I am actually replying it, but I plan to skip a lot. 

When it came to BotW’s map, it is so large but empty of meaningful content that I don’t have it in me to roam around just for the reason of roaming around. I need goals, that come with real, tangible rewards at the end. Now we are getting the map again (which was already 22 square miles) plus the sky PLUS underground stuff. That is a lot of land. How can you fill all that with meaningful content you want to do again and again? This could be potentially bigger than Elden Ring’s map. And Elden Ring’s map is really big. It’s starting to all get too big for me. 

Also, Korok seeds are back. Urg. Why? I don’t want them. Can we not figure out another means to fill the world with content besides more Korok seeds? 

However, and this might sound a bit callous... but I look forward to the future “BotW” versus “Totk” fights.

Already it’s happening. Fans wondering if Totk will completely invalidate the experience BotW offered. Totk looks richer, fuller. It’s larger. It looks like it has a better story. NPC companions, probably better side quests, lots of crafting, and hopefully better dungeons! 

I have no leg in this fight because I love MM and MM is not the most favorite Zelda game in the series among fans. I don’t particularly enjoy the direction Zelda is going, both in lore and gameplay. Seeing people argue about which game will be the better Zelda experience, BotW or Totk, will be quite funny to me. 

To end on a positive note, the Sky Islands we did see do look quite beautiful. I look forward to see these beautiful lands.