#and like again /I/ was kind of disappointed at the end of BOTW because I thought X Y or Z might happen and then it didn't

[pagesofkenna]

im guilty of this too so i can't really complain, but sometimes it irks me to see people complaining about stories or IPs not being good enough because they're not a completely different thing. like they wanted it to be something else entirely, and it's not, and they think it missed the mark

like specifically right now i'm following a LoZ fan who's been complaining that TOTK could have done X Y or Z and done a character so much better justice and instead it did A B and C and the whole game is a huge disappointment, and on the one hand I can understand their feelings of wanting this character portrayed in a different way but on the other hand.............. thats not the character? thats a different character you made up in your brain. its cool! you should explore that! but the project developers and IP owners dont want to tell the story you have in your head? they're telling a different story. where A B and C happens

[gaylactic-fire]

I love... love love love BOTW Zelink [All my followers pretend to be shocked] and I'd take anything in TOTK to give a hint they have gotten close again after the calamity, and they spent every moment together these last few years.

But Zelink is not going to be canon. And it just makes me a little sad thinking of the people who are hyping themselves up for that to be the case.

You can very much argue that romantic subtext was so present in certain games, it might as well have just been romantic text. Which is very true! I think you'd be hard pressed to look at Link and Zelda in Skyward Sword or Spirit Tracks and say there's nothing going on there. But Nintendo has always had a layer of subtly when it comes to these things. We've never seen Link and Zelda kiss. Nor them explicitly refer to one another with romantic terms or suggest they have a preexisting relationship. It's been like this since the start of the series all the way through to BOTW.

I don't think Nintendo has ever outright confirmed why Link never ends up with a romantic partner canonically, but my best guess is that it's the same reason Link is androgynous. He's designed to resonate with you. He's a blank slate, who's personality is just as much determined by your own actions as it is set in stone. I'd argue in BOTW especially more so than in ANY other LoZ game. To give Link a canon significant other would kind of defeat the purpose of that, as well as potentially isolate people of different sexualities or who simply do not like romance.

Maybe TOTK will break this tradition. It's impossible to know yet. But as it stands, I would not get your hopes up. Be excited for subtext! Be ready to eat those crumbs fed to us like greedy pigeons. Just don't go into TOTK expecting marriage, children, Link being the king etc, and then be disappointed and angry when that's simply not something that happens. Because it never has happened before and probably won't happen now after decades.

[sablegear0]

Finished TotK Finally

As in, finished the story. End numbers after buying the last boss pictures and completing the Compendium were 87.72% complete. I may go back and do koroks and minigames sporadically when I want to wander around in the world again.

So I suppose people might expect my thoughts or a review. Idk if I have anything unique to say but I may as well so: Plot and BIG ending spoilers under the cut. Also extremely long detailed opinions. Like this one got REALLY long. TL;DR at the very bottom.

The End Bits The Light Dragon In a previous blog I applauded Nintendo for letting their women characters turn into incomprehensible beasties lately (TotK, Dread). For the record, I posted that shortly before being spoiled on the fact that Zelda changes back at the end. Needless to say I was re-disappointed. I get WHY they did it. Permanently removing the title character from the game via 10,000 years of ego death doesn't really seem like a great reward for the player seeking out the plot; BotW/TotK Link and Zelda have gone through more than most of their incarnations to get where they are, so it's nice to give them a happy ending, etc. It just... kinda sucks because that was a really cool move otherwise. But Nintendo will not tell us an intentionally tragic (or even bittersweet) story so we got our girl back.

Also she was fine, by the way. She just woke up fully able to move and speak like she'd just had a bit of a rough nap. She also canonically does not remember her millennia spent as a dragon in any fashion. I know the fan writers are probably having a field day with injury/trauma recovery fics for her and I don't blame them. 10k years of ego death and a monstrous transformation should come with some consequences, shouldn't it?

To be honest the nature of the deus ex machina in question bugs me more than the fact that it happened. "Idk Sonia and Rauru did something" is the actual explanation we get (thanks Mineru, you're a real one tho) and it feels... hollow. Like, if the two dragons had clashed and injured one another, and "dying" knocked Zelda out of the transformation the same way destroying the Secret Stone that Ganondorf had taken destroyed his dragon form, that would make more sense, right? You still get your dramatic ending that's a cinematic reflection of Skyward Sword and a symbolic close (presumably) to Ganon's cycle of reincarnation. The arbitrary "power of love" (and not even the Hero's love, come on) ending just doesn't sit right.

Ganondorf Neither did the actual fight with Ganondorf, to be honest. I prepped some pretty high-value weapons, assuming that like BotW I'd have to break a few swords on him before the fight was over. But they just, again, deus ex machina'd that the Master Sword was indestructible for that fight and at no other time. My big scary weapons did see some good use in the wave fight beforehand, which was kind of neat but also kind of underwhelming. I guess that's the point where the game checks if you can handle that many enemies (ie. did you bring enough friends), similar to how doing the Divine Beasts halves Calamity Ganon's HP in BotW.

The duel-style fight for the first two phases was kind of cool. Made a bit annoying by TotK's tighter timing on parries and dodges. And the fact that the legitimate pressure of having your HP outright destroyed (cool, stressful) was removed by the third phase (annoying, no consequences for doing poorly in that part of the fight).

Third phase was neat. It was cinematic, but with no actual danger. I don't think I took any damage that wasn't just gloom-ticks from standing on the demon dragon to attack it. Didn't even get to use my cool bows in the aerial battle. Additionally I didn't have any need for the cool armour I had worked so hard to upgrade. I spent quite a lot of time and effort upgrading the Ancient Hero's Aspect and a second high-defense set (Champion's Leathers, Soldier's Greaves, Amber Earrings). The latter I did use in the demon dragon phase because it looked cool. The former I completely forgot that I had (despite having had to kill an ungodly amount of King Gleeoks to complete it). I used the Depths set for the first two-thirds of the fight because of the Gloom resistance it offered.

The Mechanics Devices All that said, what TotK set out to do it did decently well. It expanded on the physics-heavy improvisational gameplay of BotW with the addition of the Ultrahand fusion mechanic and Zonai Devices, improving on their base engine to create a system that I have heard other devs consider basically magic. Devices and weapon fusion, however, were clearly balanced with the early-to-mid-game in mind. The devices were tools, not weapons, even the ones that were nominally weapons. They simply did not put out enough raw damage to be used offensively, and were better as deterrents or distractions for enemies.

Weapon Fusion I know people weren't crazy about weapon degradation in BotW and I think TotK managed to make it slightly worse. In BotW, all you had to do was find where a desirable weapon spawned and make note of it so you could come back to pick it up after the Bloodmoon respawned everything. In TotK, you have to do that AND fight a monster with a good fuseable part to improve it. You have to do twice as much farming for about the same amount of gain. And that's not even accounting for the weapons you'd break fighting something big like a Lynel - sure they drop good parts, but you might break 2 or 3 weapons taking one down, even with help from your sages. You're operating at a net loss.

Granted the fused part of a weapon does the bulk of the work, but TotK did the interesting thing of making each flavour of weapon ("Soldier's", "Zonaite", "Gerudo", etc) have its own unique properties. This is very cool, until you find a type you like and struggle to find enough of them. Again, you have to trek around to find them and also hope you have the materials for a good fusion. It has its moments, like sticking a Silver Lynel horn on a Gerudo weapon to get a damage value over 100 (which is absurd, most "good" weapons cap out around 50 on average, barring any extra effects), but again, you're usually operating at a slight loss with respect to weapons.

Armour Upgrades To be frank: It's bad. It's bloated and way too resource-intensive. In BotW there were a limited number of sets you'd actually want to upgrade, as each had its own unique thing and that's it, there's one of each. Even doing all of them for completion's sake was achievable. In TotK they have those basic sets, plus a few more unique sets, plus a few redundant sets, and a frankly absurd number of generic aesthetic sets (which flavour of Link would you like? Ocarina of Time? Twilight Princess? Link's Awakenng Remake?) And in all of this they never thought to rebalance the amount of materials required for upgrading.

And on top of THAT, I think they messed with the item drop-rates too! Most enemies can drop 2 kinds of resources, some potentially have more, some only drop 1. in BotW I don't think (thought I may have to check) each type was a guaranteed drop, but you saw every type fairly frequently. In TotK each enemy now has distinct rare drops. And they can be RARE. And the worst part is you need a LOT of them for some armour upgrades. For example; Lizalfos tails are the Lizalfos rare drop, and the armour sets that need them can need up to 15 of the stupid things from a particular species of Lizalfos. Have fun grinding, because now you're playing Monster Hunter instead of Zelda.

Vehicles and Horses The vehicles both did and didn't trivialize crossing the map; a significant amount of grinding is needed before you have enough batteries to cover any distance, Wings (the bird-shaped gliders) have a limited lifespan to keep you from just flying everywhere, and the overworld is generally complicated enough that any fast wheeled vehicle will not be useful for long, and any all-terrain vehicle moves only at a modest speed. Ironically, just use horses where available. They're faster, more versatile, and can be called to you if they're within earshot. Also horses can spawn with overall higher stats than in BotW, and can be upgraded, though with significant resource investment. (It is worth noting that the "best" horse in base BotW, the royal white horse, is only middling to above-average stat-wise when compared to a good wild-caught horse in TotK. They power-crept the horses!)

The most interesting vehicles/movement devices, to me, were the rockets and hot-air balloons. Both add a lot instant verticality in a game that is all about traversal. Fusing a rocket to a shield gets you a huge boost for little resource expenditure (rockets are a bit rare until you can purchase devices). And once you find the Autobuild schematic for a hot air balloon base, all you need to add is a flame-emitter and you can ascend as far as your batteries allow.

Shrines In my humble opinion, TotK knocked it out of the park with its shrines. The ones that have actual puzzles, anyway. There is an unfortunately large proportion of "blessing" shrines that have no puzzle in them, and not all of them even need to be worked for that hard. The ones that do have puzzles are excellent. There are quite a few that highlight different uses for devices, and a good handful that take the Eventide Island/Master Trials-style challenge of stripping you of all your gear and put some twist on it. (Notably these are most interesting in the mid-game, when you have enough hearts to survive but not to trivialize the no-armour combat difficulty.)

They also did the very classy thing of not locking outfit parts behind hidden chests in Shrines. All the hidden chests were perfectly optional bonus chests that required no frustrating re-visits after finding out where that last piece of armour was hiding. Also the slight variations on the music theme was a nice touch that kept the shrines feeling fresh. No shade to the Sheikah Shrine theme, but the strong synths could get a bit grating at times. TotK's gentle, plinky shrine theme variations were an improvement.

The Map The Overworld Probably(?) the most common complaint about TotK and one I share. It's too damn big. In addition to mostly recycling the map from BotW (which bothered some people more than it bothered me, I think), they added an equivalent-sized map for the Depths. Now, BotW's overworld already felt a bit sparse, but it fit the tone of a literal post-apocalyptic world and encouraged you to poke around looking for koroks and investigating enemy camps. TotK's surface overworld is dotted with far more enemy camps and significantly fewer koroks, so it is about as dense but more dangerous/annoying (depending on your hp and gear) to traverse.

There are some major changes to the surface, beyond adding ruins to some spots; most of Death mountain is now safe to travel on foot (probably to encourage use of vehicles) and is no longer superheated, and there are a few spots where the road network is broken, dividing the map into 2 halves that cannot be crossed between on horseback. (In BotW, by comparison, all the roads were connected and you could auto-pilot a horse from one end of the map to the other, provided you took roads marked on the map.)

The Sky The Sky islands were relatively few, for all the hype they got in the promotional material. However I think their self-contained structure and handful of unique features (the "death star" islands, the dive challenges) helped them not overstay their welcome. Besides, the islands themselves are technically also ruins, 10,000 years old and finally visible to the naked eye from the surface, It's a wonder there's as much left and it's as functional as it is. They are beautiful, though. I did enjoy just loitering around in the sky to take in the view and the relaxed atmosphere, as there are fewer enemies up there.

The Depths The Depths... I think I share the majority gripe with the Depths. They're too big. The Depths are another whole open world that is more hostile with even less in it. It exists to grind for resources and pad the playtime. The challenge of the depths is in initially traversing it, having to light your way through impenetrable darkness and navigate dense enemy encampments and find Light Roots to fill out the map. After that, provided you have enough battery power, it can generally be ignored by flying over it. Which is unfortunate. If I were to fix the Depths, I would make it more akin to the Sky Islands; more self-contained, make it a series of winding, interconnected discrete caves, like one big dungeon crawl, rather than a second open world to ignore. Still have the Light Roots be important to vision and mapping, but have the general landscape be more contained. Maybe even have a few more areas that are inaccessible at first except by dropping into the correct chasms, like they did with the Eventide Island and Tingle Island Chain areas of the Depths.

Everything Else Side Quests and Koroks Honestly I enjoyed the variety of sidequests in TotK, and also enjoyed that some of them were quite involved. TotK had two "Tarrey Town"-equivalent long-form side-quest lines; one being visiting all the stables with Penn (I am counting this as one quest because you get drip-fed armour pieces from a unique set throughout it), and the other being the Mayoral Election / Local Cuisine questline in Hateno Village. There were also side-quests to optionally construct the Champions' weapons, which was neat, and to build a house with crazy Ultrahand powers, which was totally frivolous but fun to do. The one thing that bugged me a bit about the side-quests was running into NPCs that reasonably should have remembered Link but didn't. It felt odd, especially poking around Tarrey Town initially.

The Korok puzzles had some new variety to them, which was nice. The block puzzles were given the extra interest of being able to rotate things with Ultrahand, and the vehicle/towing mechanics were given a chance to shine with the "help me reach my friend" puzzles. Having Hestu appear in some less-than-ideal places to begin with (and the whole Lost Woods thing omg what a pain) kind of sucked, but getting those sweet sweet inventory upgrades is always worth it.

The Characters I love all the Sages, I'm going to say it right now. It was really cool to see some familiar faces from BotW (that actually recognized me) and learn what they'd been up to in the ambiguous time-gap. Teba being the slight exception but honestly - meeting Tulin and realizing this sweet bean bird boy looks just like both his parents hit me right in the heart. Mineru was also very cool and I'm glad we got to hang out with her (and bid her a tearful goodbye... my lovely lanky lady...). I also appreciated that doing the Ancient Writings quest teases Mineru's introduction. That was a nice touch.

Penn and Purah are fun, and the Lucky Clover Gazette and Monster Control Crew quests add some depth and background progression to BotW's Hyrule. You get to see how ordinary people are faring and how things are advancing post-Calamity. Seeing the various peoples of Hyrule gather at Lookout Landing after clearing a regional temple was neat, even if it was really only for show.

I know some people have beef with Rauru and that's maybe a blog for another time, but I don't think I have a strong enough opinion to bother. I didn't mind him, I think his arc was clear enough, I think I would have liked to see more of him and Sonia interacting with Zelda in a more everyday fashion - it seemed like she had a lot of fun in the distant past and something more than just a text log of that and a couple cutscenes might have been nice. Honestly I think I would have liked to see more of Sonia especially, she seems like an interesting lady (again, something more than Chaucerian text as proof would have been nice).

I'm honestly kind of mid on Matt Mercer's Ganondorf? I get that he's a big name and people were excited to hear him in the role but idk if the voice was entirely a good fit. They rocked the hell out of his visual design, though. Very good updated look, borrowing elements from some of his previous incarnations. Again I would have liked to see more elaboration on him though; what was the Gerudo tribe like under his rule? Were there dissenters? Give me more worldbuilding or I'll be forced to do it myself.

Music Mostly the same, actually. Overworld themes were recycled. Shrine themes were different and an upgrade imo. Combat themes were slightly different but I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart at a listen. The Temple music though, oh boy. I loved these themes; they took the ramping instruments from the Divine Beasts control panel gimmick and mixed the Divine Beast Approach themes with each Sage's unique motif to create some really cool but pleasantly unobtrusive tracks. The Depths ambience was appropriately spooky, and the dynamic theme that kicks in when you high-dive was a nice touch, especially since there are distinct versions for diving to the surface and diving to the Depths.

But the standout tracks for me? First, the intro sequence where you descend with Zelda into the foundations of Hyrule Castle and hear the ever-layering Zonai chanting with the spooky reversed voice clips? MMM. 👌 So spooky, so tasty. Genuinely had me on edge even though I knew nothing would happen because it was the intro. The return sequence by the endgame has it build even more intensely as you descend even further and it's fantastic. Second is the Gloom's Approach / Gloom's Source battle theme. The distinctly electronic drone and beat associated with the Depths/gloom-related stuff gets room to shine when this tense bass-heavy track kicks in.

The Little Things I am actually going to stop this one here because I think this part deserves its own blog. There are a ton of little details in TotK that I absolutely adored and I want to gush about them with proper space allotted.

TL;DR TotK is alright. I know I'll catch flak for saying it's "good", so I won't. Settle down. It's alright. Some things it does extremely well, some things could have been edited for time, and some things remained just kinda mid from the original.

If I have to give it a number, it's a solid 6.5-7/10 . Competently constructed, technically impressive, mostly cut-and-pasted, mildly bloated, narratively kind of boring with no sense of stakes and an ending that undoes some otherwise interesting choices.

[draquus]

Tears of the Kingdom spoilers ahead:

I am playing TotK for the second time now, and I'm sad because it's a somewhat disappointing experience. The first playthrough, I was really drawn in by the story, and the experience of exploring the depths.

Now, all the tension of the story is just completely gone, because it was all dependent on believing Zelda's sacrifice was a profoundly meaningful thing. But the way the story ends, it just...isn't. She gets to go back, doesn't even remember being a dragon at all. Link gets completely fixed up with no consequences.

I am not, and this is important, complaining about it having a happy ending. I think Link being able to save Zelda is a really important thing, and it wouldn't have been a game I could fully enjoy if he hadn't. I just wish it felt earned. I wish he had to sacrifice something (like, you know, his arm). I wish there had been some connection between him and Raru and Sonia to justify their being able to fix things at the end. Were their spirits trapped somehow, and his freeing them gave them the ability to actually help? (Yes, that is the plot of BotW, but at least it's a plot). I wish Zelda's sacrifice left some mark on her, whether physical or emotional. I wish we had a better sense of how long she was in the past. It kind of seems like it might have been a year or more, but it also feels like about a week. I spent my whole first playthrough motivated by the deep sadness and pity evoked every time i saw the Light Dragon in the sky, but now I just can't make myself care.

And like, I get it, some plots just don't have as much tension when you know how they end. But the whole game is kind of like that. I have no desire to re-explore the Depths, because now I know there's almost nothing there. Once you realize it's just an inverse map, with few points of interest and a lot of repetition, the motivation is just gone. The sky is even worse. I was getting sick of it even on the first playthrough. There are no biomes; there are repetitive enemies, repetitive puzzles, and no story. Part of what made BotW so enjoyable to play and replay was how every new place told you something about itself and its history. For example, the broken guardians were a constant reminder of Link's failure, but they weren't just there. You could see why some outposts had survived, an why others hadn't, just from the placement of the dead (and sometimes terrifyingly alive) guardians. You could see the tragedy of a failed last stand, or a forgotten victory against all odds, written in the world around you. I played BotW at least six times, and it only felt a little overly familiar when I had basically memorized everything. I can't fault TotK for not being that level of amazing (BotW is in a league of its own), but I feel like it doesn't even try.

Now, don't get me wrong. TotK is still a fun game. It's just all the things it does best (the weapons, the building, the different abilities), are not really the things I love about Zelda. I did enjoy the actual dungeons, but they were mostly too short and too similar to the divine beasts. Only two of them (wind and lightning) really had interesting story elements. The things I love about Zelda games are the stories, the puzzles, the atmosphere, and the characters. This game seemed like it had all those elements at the beginning, but none of them really came through in the end.

Also, there is nothing about Raru and Sonia's child. Like, it's fine that he/she is not a major player, but we need to know why. Is it because it's a baby? Who has this baby, and why do we never see Raru & Sonia (the Good Parents) actually taking care of their child? Is (as seems more likely) their child already mostly grown and maybe having adventures somewhere else? Then why is he/she not at all involved in the Imprisoning War? Like, again, I can think of several answers to these questions, but there needs to be at least a hint.

Anyway, I do want to reiterate that this is not a bad game. It's just a frustrating mix of fantastic pieces that don't quite come together.

[minnowtank]

ok so i was already disappointed with totk's story and now i feel like people are making up things that didnt happen. like how does any of this represent a character progression. when compared to her botw self, totk zelda does not experience character growth. she merely learns that she has to make a sacrifice, then acts on it, with no internal conflict in between. and the sacrifice is basically just a less-bad version of the sacrifice she previously made. nothing she does in totk is connected to her arc in botw; in fact, the game makes a point of not mentioning her conflict in botw at all because it would only serve to highlight the sheer lack of growth she experiences in this game

large spoilers below

totk's story is essentially a watered down and neutered version of botw's story.

-> botw's story leads up to zelda sacrificing her humanity to seal ganon away by entering what is essentially a time prison where she and ganon are trapped, alive and perpetually conscious, in zelda's destroyed childhood home. throughout the story she struggles to learm how to use her magic due to a mental block, has an external conflict with her father that ends up fueling her internal conflict about her magic, is forced to become more mature in the face of tragedy, learns to like and value link, her appointed knight, has to own up to not being able to access her sealing power in time, and ends up being the last person standing. though her father was definitely to blame for worsening the mental block that kept her from learning her magic in time, the death of her father, champions, and the kingdom are her fault, too, because she had her own established flaws (i.e being stubborn contributed to her mental block). so she puts her life on the line to save the last living person she's grown to care about -- link. it's a tragic story, and a cautionary tale, and zelda grows from it. she is a fully realized character with a unique personality.

-> totk's story leads up to zelda sacrificing her humanity to transform into a dragon in order to act as a mobile USB charging port for the master sword; this causes her to go into a coma/dream state for most of it (debatably she gets out of the coma state when it is time to reunite with link except that makes very little sense when you think about how dragonification is explained. however she does say that she was "dreaming"). she learns a new magical ability with relative ease, and does not have any internal conflicts caused by the other characters in the story because they are all nice to her and believe her the whole time. nothing she does affects the story beyond her final act/what happens to rauru and ganondorf because its already "set in stone" and its made extremely clear that none of them could have done anything to stop ganondorf since he was too powerful. there is only one thing she does that COULD be seen as unintentionally assisting in ganondorf's rise to power but that was mostly sonia (& rauru's) fault, and also it's such an uncharacteristically stupid and nonsensical thing that it's clear they literally only act in this way to have the plot move along.*

essentially, zelda repeats a similar sacrificial act at the end of the story but goes through 0 personal journey/arc of her own beyond deciding that shes going to do it and learning a fun new power along the way. but oh no it gets worse. over and over the characters drill into your head that dragonification is permanent and cannot be undone in any way, and that zelda will be giving up her body and mind forever. they say this literally over and over again and then guess what happens. SHES RETURNED TO HUMAN FORM AT THE END. WITH NO SIDE EFFECTS EITHER BTW SHES JUST COMPLETELY RESTORED. because zelda turning into dragonification was a kind of "death" for her since she becomes a husk, this ends up being one of the most drawn-out fakeout deaths i have ever seen in a piece of media. i dont understand why nintendo did this like just COMMIT??! i still wouldnt have liked the overall story, but i wouldve given them credit if they just had zelda stay a dragon forever. at least with botw the entire point of zelda's sealing-ganon-away sacrifice was that she held out hope that link would be healed and come back to save her. so its never meant to be a permanent thing like dragonification. with the dragonification sacrifice the story literally just lies to you. LMAOOOO

anyway i was not satisfied with the story in this game. zelda is once again ripped away from link but the game doesnt have a good reason for it. the game really expects you to be like "yeah we decided to separate zelda from link for the entire game so that she could be used as a charging port for the master sword only to have her come back at the end with no side effects to her sacrifice. this was definitely a better idea than having the player rebuild the destroyed master sword alongside zelda and getting to learn more about zelda and develop her relationship with link. yeah we also decided to not flesh out link at all in this game, like we dont give him any personal motivation or any kind of feeling or the faintest whiff of a backstory to make him feel like a real person that exists and not just a player avatar. oh and he barely emotes in the story cutscenes for no reason again. hes not allowed to smile, and even if theres a point where he could be smiling the cutscene wont let you see it. arent you happy? oh also there are next to no references to the previous game's events and almost all of the sheikah technology has disappeared without a trace and no one brings that up. also zelda never brings up that she sacrificed herself for 100 years when talking about how she is committed to dragonification even though literally anyone in her shoes would bring that up or at least allude to it. also we didnt give any of the zonai characters or sonia any actual flaw and just had it so that ganondorf was just too powerful to beat them without it even really being their fault, but we'll pretend like rauru had "hubris" anyway even though he fucking was, quote, "aware of ganondorf's evil nature." YAYY"

*i am referring to the scene in which sonia and zelda confront the puppet zelda. the scene establishes that they've known that the puppet zelda is in fact a puppet from the start, but for some fucking reason they decide to follow along with it and have the puppet lead them outside the castle interior to an unguarded area (the first line from sonia confirms this). then, and only then, do they reveal that they are in on it, and by that time it is already too late and ganondorf is able to sneak up on sonia, kill her, and take her secret stone. maybe this is supposed to be a representation of the nonexistent "hubris" rauru has but it makes no sense. you know it's a puppet, so why dont you just immediately say that and try to fight the puppet in the guarded castle with rauru? what? why would you LISTEN TO WHAT ITS TELLING YOU TO DO?? these characters are supposed to be smart right? anyway just having it so that nobody knows it's a puppet would have salvaged this entire scene .

[abyssal-cryptid]

Even more Tears of the Kingdom thoughts (SPOILERS)

I cant figure out how long after Calamity this game is set. It's got to be at least some years, everyone else has changed but Link and Zelda

Link and Zelda have lived this time together in Link's house in Hateno <<33

Their Well holds Zelda's secret room

Also yes every well in this game has something so my favorite thing rn is just jumping into wells

Zelda had a school built to Hateno because she loves kids

I hate how so many people in this game who should know who Link is dont know him

You mean to tell Ive been living in Hateno for years and no one recognises me

Zelda is still referred to as princess which implies she hasnt allowed herself to be crowned queen

Ive spent like three hours just strolling in Hateno

I did get the camera and my enjoyment of the game has increased tenfold

HATENO TECH LAB HAS A RUINED GUARDIAN I REPEAT HATENO HAS A GUARDIAN REMAIN

Im so excited I missed seeing these everywhere

Purah's room has drawings of them and the divine beasts

You can just pick up the koroks who need to be reunited w their friends with ultrahand and carry them wherever they want to go. They also roll down hills

Me @ the forbidden ruins in Kakariko: "Let me in, let me innnn"

SIDON HAS A FIANCE

IM SO DISTRAUGHT

THEY SAW US SHIP LINK AND SIDON AND WENT "none of that here is his gf"

HUDSON HAS A DAUGHTER <<33

This game has cheese. I can die happy now

I am taking the elevator up every time I see a falling rock

Went to Akkala Citadel Ruins. Was looking at the views. SUDDENLY EVERYTHING GOES RED AND HANDS ARE CHASING ME WHAT THE FUCK

The way they dont let my boy have his long hair out on any fits is criminal. Could have tweaked the armor sets that much

Why is Zelda appearing everywhere and being an evil menace??? Zelda tf is going on w you?? Arent you supposed to be in the past

They looked at me, specifically, loving side quests more than my life and going "we have to give them more" and this is a good day

There's a golden horse???

Also I heard Yunobo is a dick in this??? Not my boy :(

I go to the Zora tower and there is a man nearly dead

ALSO OH MY GOD WHY DID ZELDA ATTACK KING DOREPHAN

Man was dying (Lets hope this doesnt age poorly because I dont think I could handle it)

So its been like five years at least since BOTW ended and like. Why does no one remember me and also where did all these new people come from that didnt exist here couple years ago?? Where were yall?? Having tea??

Kilton has a little brother <3

I should get back to the "first" main questline as in the Rito are dying in a blizzard but there's pretty flowers and mayoral elections

Did I already mention they did not nerf bows? They didnt and I love that, archers for life

Also I lost Hestu again and I need more inventory

I am afraid to venture into the Korok Forest

Stables are so fun. You get points from first visit, staying the night, registering horses etc AND THEY GIVE YOU REWARDS

I got the Traveler's Gear for General (my baby boy horse)

I found Big Horse and named him Babylon

Also saved this one guy stuck in a cave

Starting to get to a point where enemies drop 15-30 fuse power parts and life is getting easier

Ive activated like 20 shrines since I last did a bunch. I havent done them because what if I have to build vehicles (bad)

I miss cryonis

Havent done much in the sky tbh

I want my champions tunic. I however dont feel like going to the castle

Where the fuck is Ganondorf

I could always see him in BOTW I dont like this

I am kind of disappointed they didnt change the looks of old armor sets. HOWEVER. Cece's hat is all Im going to say. I wonder if I can wear that to Gerudo town

Im still a one shot to so many things

The Zora are dying (their water is turning into mud)

Gorons have malice pink eyes so dont trust theyre doing too well either

Barbarian armor fits so well with Link's messy long hair

Im still kind of shocked that the sheikah tech is just gone

How do I get into Hateno tech lab

Some of yall are actually building vehicles? Im avoiding that like the plague

Still salty about Sidon

I get taken for a little while and he gets engaged

His fiance did refer to Sidon as "my best friend"

The quote went "Im Prince Sidon's... oh forgive me. I am your best friend's fiancee"

She us cute but still

ALSO THEY MOVED MIPHA'S STATUE TO THE TOP OF PLOYMUS MOUNTAIN

THE ZORA'S DOMAIN STATUE IS NOW OF LINK AND SIDON

Why cant I marry him

Sidon carries Mipha's trident now (sobs)

When you meet him he goes "Its good to see you my friend" so happily

"By the way... I hope you know that I am truly happy to see you again after such a long time apart, my dearest friend"

I sobbed

He loves us so much

Just go visit him

Sidon wont marry me and Sonia and Rauru are married, cant a man find some love in Hyrule

[tuliptiger]

Ok ok ok last totk rant. Maybe a little nicer this time after playing it in a gentle way for a bit. I thiiiink my biggest gripe is that I don't really feel they asked and answered the question after BOTW was over, how do we continue this world and this story? What does it look like after Link and Zelda are reunited? How do we answer some of those loose end plots IF they need answering?

You know? I feel like there were a lot of questions to ask and it felt like they just wanted to start the story and plot over completely but with the same sand box elements, just keep the aesthetics but get rid of everything else because it's easier and quicker for production if we can pump out a game everyone has already liked.

I also feel like Totk got choked out by corporate decisions, trends and keeping everything dulled and dimmed down for a younger audience. Which is kind of fine because honestly I don't really know who the audience for totk was, if it was general or targeted at younger audiences. That is certainly what it feels like for a large majority of the game.

In which case, I need to come to terms with the fact it wasn't ever aimed at me regardless of the money I spend on it and I will always be disappointed because of that.

I did actually enjoy, kind of playing it for the first time in a couple months for a couple of hours. But I played it like I played botw, mid world with my horse and slowly kind of picked around the map in one central spot I liked for a little bit. Enjoyed the flora and fauna, didn't take battles too seriously or just ran away. Focused on an areas quests instead of shooting all over all 3 maps, without my horse or a mode of transportation.

I honestly hate the build system and I know I'm bitching about the things that didn't happen, and that I won't change anything by complaining but fr a mount system to me works so much better for open world games. I hate "paying" to make a vehicle or going through the motions of making a vehicle. It's cold and distant to me, I want my horse or a "living" mount companion to hang out with on my adventures. Bleh so much wasted potential and so many interesting questions that could've been asked but just weren't.

What's an interesting way to navigate the maps that gives players the freedom they want but isn't cumbersome? Somehow they made the horse controls worse which I honestly don't understand how that even happened, considering they did NOT improve or add anything to the horse system. Vehicles are a pain because yeah, the buying your vehicles aspect but also the menus, the menus and menus and menus and the scrolling through all your items. The fact that you not only have ultrahand but it was annoying ENOUGH that they added a specific tool to try and circumvent the annoyance of rebuilding vehicles.

And I can't even get started on the erasure of the sheika and sheika technology AND the fucking guardians and I cannot believe I'm saying it but I do actually miss the guardians. I think the battles with them were awesome and they were scary as hell and I liked not only running from them but knowing that they can cover a lot of distance quickly added to the thrill. It was so incredibly lazy to pave over them with "just another ancient civilization". Another question that could have or actually was asked this time and they just didn't want to answer it because it took effort to figure it out. "How do we continue with the sheika and guardians considering the calamity's impact on them? How do we not repeat botws ganon taking over the guardians when he awakens again?" I think pretty interesting questions! That will never be answered.

I miss having my horse teleport to me and not need to be within 500 ft of me. Quality of life and functionality just took a nose dive to me. Anyway! Totk is a different beast I suppose, the only way I'm going to enjoy it it seems is as slowly as I can and try and enjoy the things I liked about botw and the rare new things I find in totk.

I don't think I'll get over feeling disrespected by Nintendo and the developers though tbh, I am a chump for paying 70 dollars for a large dlc of a game I liked though and they knew it too. Fuck Nintendo, it's kind of always been that way but also like, fuck Nintendo.

[the-endless-storm]

Video game asks. Alk of them (or as many as you feel like doing)!

You come off anon right now and own up!I’ve answered most of them, but there's a few with no answers just because nothing comes to mind right away. I'd have to think about it longer and I don’t have the time or will,power to do so. Naughty anon, asking for so much!

1. Last game you finished

Chained Echoes

2. Games you’re currently playing

I started a mono-team on Pokemon Scarlet, but just to waste time.

3. 1-3 games you’ve played in the past 12 months that you really enjoyed.

Chained Echoes, Pokemon Scarlet, Metroid Fusion

4. Do you like to get 100% achievements/trophies?

I give it a go, but I’m not a completionist. If getting everything starts to frustrate me, I’ll stop. I don’t want to tarnish my enjoyment of a game with an irritation.

5. Games coming out that you’re looking forward to

Hades 2, Baiten Kaitos HD (as long as it's better than the Tales of Symphonia HD)

6. A series you’ve enjoyed since your early days of gaming and still enjoy to this day whether it still has games coming out or is one you return to

Pokemon obviously.

7. A series you’ve lost interest in.

Unfortunately it's Zelda. I don’t like the direction BOTW went in. I think they games look gorgeous and I’ve been told a hundred times over they are great. But all the things that made me love Zelda have been stripped out (the unique temples, fun items, etc) in favour of crafting meals and breakable weapons.

8. A series you haven’t played but are interested in trying

There are lots of games I see on Steam that I’d love to try, but can’t because I have a Mac and they aren’t compatible. I can’t name any right now, but I know they are there.

9. A game you played completely blind with no prior knowledge of and enjoyed/loved

Hollow Knight. It was on sale in the Nintendo Store and I thought it looked good so I bought it. Not at all what I was expecting but definitely worth it.

10. A console and/or handheld you’ve never played but would like to try

I’m a Nintendo Fanboy for life. So there isn’t one. Unless there's a Virtual Boy knocking around, I could give myself a headache for a day for that.

11. Do you prefer ‘blank slate’ main characters you make yourself or otherwise project onto, or characters with a set personality and backstory?

A character with a story for sure. Blank state works in some situations, but I like to see how the story progresses with the player character and how it changes them.

12. A character you particularly like in the game you’re currently playing.

Gotta be Larry in Pokemon Scarlet. He's the only one that isn't happy 24/7. Man needs a week off. We can all relate to Larry.

13. Quick, name the first song from a game that comes to mind

Lost Woods theme

14. A song that’s sure to hit your nostalgia buttons

15. Do you have a backlog and do you keep track of it.

Nope

16. A game you’d like to replay but haven’t.

I want to play Secret of Mana again now after listening to the title music.

17. A game you didn’t finish but would like to get back to or restart someday

I never finished Hollow Knight, but I doubt I’ll ever get it done. I won’t lie, I’m not great at some games, and most of HK I fluked my way through by sheer force of will. But the final part of the game required such perfect platform in skills over a long period that I got too annoyed with and rage quit over and over. So like the 100% completion above, I stopped before I ruined the game for myself.

18. A game location you really like

If I can move to my Animal Crossing island please that would be great.

19. A game you started up for the first time and you knew from the start it was going to be great

Chained Echoes. I'd read a couple of reviews that explained what kind of game it was, and once I started it, within a few minutes of the opening scenes I knew it was exactly what I’d been looking for for so long.

20. A boss you think is really cool.

21. A boss that was disappointing

22. A game ending that’s really stuck with you

23. A wow moment of awe

Watching the Moon hit Clock Town in Majora's Mask. I wasn’t expecting Zelda to be that dark.

24. A game with a cool art style

Okami has a style that looks like a watercolour painting. It took a while to get used to but is very unique.

25. A game's art style that had to grow on you

Zelda Wind Waker. Like everyone else, I didn’t like it at first, but honestly it's so damn beautiful now. I wish more games were made in that style.

26. Realism or Stylized?

Realism is only as good as the technology of the day, whereas Stylised can be whatever you want whenever you want it.

27. A game you like the atmosphere of

28. Pick a series you like. What was the first game you played for it? Was it a good starting point? Would it still be a good starting point now?

I’m going to pick the Kingdom Rush series. It's on Switch and Xbox now, whereas I started playing it on ArmorGames when it was first released. But Flash, Mobile or Console, it's a brilliant Tower Defence game and the first Kingdom Rush is just as good as any of the newer games in the series.

29. On average do you have one game or multiple games going?

Just one. I don’t have that much dedication.

30. Game you think you’ll finish next?

No clue. Need to have a game to play.

31. Someone has never played a video game before but is open to trying any genre. What game would you recommend as their first?

Maybe a 2D Zelda game like Link to the Past. Not too difficult with a simple control system, big map and lots to explore and collect.

[waywardsalt]

ok since tears of the kingdom is coming out like. insanely soon i figured i’ll just dump how i’ve been feeling abt it here. i wont tag for them and i dont intend to share any but because i have been actively seeking out spoilers i will vaguely reference them here so… idk really long musings on this game and my feelings abt it

(im just writing this out mostly for myself since i really kind of just. want to really figure out how i feel about this)

i… am not excited for totk?

i’ve figured out a bit ago that my severely waning interest in botw and general anxiety and discontent surrounding totk is just that… these games arent for me. i dont enjoy open world games with half a million things for you to do like it’s basically a sandbox. i struggle to really enjoy singleplayer minecraft. the space stage in spore gives me genuine anxiety, both when i played it as a kid and again when i reached it as an adult.

botw and totk are not games for me, and that’s cool. i’ve figured that out.

so why am i getting so damn anxious about this new game?

i am getting totk- not entirely of my own volition, i live with someone who is very genuinely excited for it, so it’s pre-ordered digitally on our switch. i am going to play it and complete it at least once.

the gameplay and world of botw never really got to me, and even what snippets of gameplay i see for totk dont really entice me. it just makes me anxious to think about the sheer amount of new stuff i’ll be dropped in the middle of and how i really dont care about this version of link or zelda or anyone else in botw’s hyrule

and some of the story spoiler stuff and general direction this game is going in has me just worried that the zelda series is moving away from what it used to be into an entirely new direction, that being a direction that it seems like i wont enjoy as much as everyone else seems to

so then i guess my main worry outside of totk is that i just end up struggling to really feel connected to the rest of the community about this? being a contrarian is fun until everyone is enjoying something you for some reason can’t get yourself to

i dont have a lot of hope in the story of totk to harken back to… ANYTHING of worth that past games have built up and made to be so important and interesting. hype is a dangerous thing for a not-yet-released game, and while i think the insane amount of speculation and theories and hype around totk will cause a lot of people to be disappointed with the final story, i dunno if i really wouldve liked it even if the story actually piqued my interest

maybe totk’s gameplay will really hook me. maybe i’ll enjoy the massive open world and gmod-ass gimmicks. but what ive seen of the story makes me less interested and the snippets of gameplay i see just make me remember how bored i now am with botw

at the end of the day this is just a video game with tags on this site i can blacklist and videos i can ignore and lore i can brush aside because at this point loz canon is a suggestion more than anything

i just cant shake the discomfort of once again being an outlier as everyone i see loses their mind about this new game while i just feel overwhelmed by it. i have played botw for a long time and have long since worn it out. i played age of calamity to completion and have not touched it or cared for it beyond the music since. i am not excited about totk and i feel like i am in the wrong due to my opinion

[violet-amet]

im gonna talk about totk, so spoilers. like big time, majory holy heckie spoilers. SPOILERS. End game spoilers!!!!!!!

BOTW/TOTK!Zelda is got to be the most bad ass princess of all time, because she really sacrificed herself to get the master sword to Link. For centuries even! Like, this girl already had to deal with being a seal for Calamity Ganon in BOTW for 100 years, and was only 17 at the time, but now, if the time skip is to be accurate, being 6 years, she is at least in her early twenties, and also kicks ass even more. Turning into a dragon? Based. Helping out Rauru and Sonia to keep an eye on Ganondorf, the most dangerous person in LoZ? Amazing. She is smart, courages, and most importantly, very very kind, if her actions across Hyrule post BOTW are anything to say about that.

She worked really hard to help people. Build a school house in Hateno, helped out various people across the land that struggled from the Calamity, and then decided to take a huge ass risk in losing herself to become a dragon for 10,000 years! Bruh! I think she really been through a lot, and I admire her for it! She is the coolest princess to exist! Though, ofc, you also got Wind Waker Zelda/Tetra too, being able to help out Link in that fight with Ganondorf. But they kept WW!Zelda locked in the basement of the fallen Hyrule Castle, and left her there until the end. Kind of sucks, because Tetra was an utter badass, despite being a child.

Honestly, I really liked her characterization in this game. She really has gone through a lot, and seeing her again at the end of the game, after all we did, was beautiful. I love her sooooo much. I also love her TOTK design a lot more than her BOTW one, mostly because the short hair is soooo cute!

While TOTK is what I expected, and wasn't disappointed, I had hoped for more with Zeldie. And while I certainly don't mind her role, I wish I could had spent more time with her, before she went back in time. Maybe even played as her, or something, even if brief. I'd like to get to know the other Zonai in the game. Felt like they didn't have enough time to shine, but the brief moment they did was pretty fun. Wish to have gotten to know her more.

Anyway, yeah, love this Zelda. She has got to be my top favorite now! Utter badass!

Also that last battle? Woof, it was amaaazing! Dragon Zelda top tier! I wish I could cosplay as her. hehe~.

[wraithwritten]

some random totk thoughts. major story spoilers ahead

honestly I didn't come in playing this game for the story. unfortunately. which is what Zelda used to BE for me. after getting my story hopes set too high for botw and getting disappointed, I came in with a "story is secondary here" mentality and it shouldn't be considering how important story is to me overall. I came in here namely because I wanted to explore and just fool around. and having both the sky and DEPTHS (which I love the most) and a familiar but different hyrule is scratching that itch for me. basically treating this as my sandbox. so I can say I'm VERY satisfied when it comes to my gameplay and exploration needs. I only wish ultrahand building wasn't so janky to me (I think I need to turn off motion controls since I'm hardly using them this time around)

So that said. hate the rehash of how the majority of story cut scene use is linked to the past AGAIN. and the sages are very underdeveloped and kind of just there (hell even compared to TP I'd even say and those guys were just kind of there) and. not gonna lie. feels like they didn't know what to do with Zelda so we kind of have a semi-redo of zelda being majorly absent. and here we have all this talk of her sealing powers and now time manipulation and. she neither attempts to seal ganondorf away nor do we really get her. actually honing in on her time powers. despite the hints from poor poor plot device Sonia (I AM SO SORRY QUEEN YOU GOT THE DEAD WIFE TREATMENT). in terms of what the story shows us and implies. no. straight to the last resort "lose yourself and become a dragon" option. Zelda girl you deserve so much better especially after what you went through during the calamity and keeping ganon in stasis for 100 years. So as of now I'm not 100% done with the story, at the point where I'm about to use this amazing flying bike build to get up to hyrule castle where puppet zelda is but first I'm gonna get more stamina so I can get the master sword. but anyway. I'm kinda... just waiting to see how this all ends and I'll gather up more thoughts from there.

as a quick aside, all this makes me wonder now is who are the three other dragons??? three of the sages? past zonai? and unrelated but does rauru count as the seventh sage? it's emphasized there's just six and he's just there but STILL (if this is elaborated on I have not done the kakariko ring quest on account of not being able to access them thanks to that one guy).

also not a big fan of early hyrule being depicted as a more tribal people and the so described "good king of light" being the guy who bought civilization and technology to them. I obviously can't speak on this matter but I'm seeing something.

I also have some nitpicking as someone into worldbuilding and overall zelda lore but I'll leave that unsaid for now.

Some positives. more enemy variety thank god. now I'm not as bitter knowing moblins and bokoblins and lizalfos are the main fodder because at least there are other basic enemies beyond them. Would have liked more undead enemies though and poes being actual POES but I understand why they gotta be a more easily obtainable collectable soul currency. I would have liked a new yiga variant and a return of the bow users too but oh well. I LOVE them having bases in the depths though.

love the return of dungeons and ACTUAL bosses that feel more in line with past games. I was not a fan at all of the blights but I'm a BIG big fan of the more varied bosses here and their designs.

finally had some true genuine shit yourself moments beyond the repetitive guardian jumpscares from botw thanks to the depths. also seeing the silhouettes of gibdos in the desert made me yell I cannot begin to describe how happy I am some freaky as fuck enemies are FINALLY in the game. they're like weird redead bugs here. wish they screamed and froze you up still.

I also like seeing how Hyrule has changed in the past ??? years or so. would have liked confirmation but I'm glad everyone seems to be in the boat of a 4-6 year range.

overall though I'd say despite my fun and feeling totk improved on botw's gameplay for me and I'm getting waaay more enjoyment out of it, what I'm really yearning and itching for is in the older games and probably won't truly come back. anyway I wanna replay oot and mm and tp soooo bad. these three are THE essential games for me with mm and tp pretty much hogging the #1 fave spot

[game-boy-pocket]

No Tears of the Kingdom for me until USPS delivers the damn thing, but I beat my run of Breath of the Wild tonight.

I kind of rushed through it, especially toward the end when I started looking up all the remaining shrines I had left to complete. It's not an ideal way to play unless you're a speed runner, but BOTW for me is a long con that takes well over a month to beat. I probably could have taken my time just a bit more since I knew my copy of TOTK would not be here today. But I also maybe should have started sooner...but Mario brain would not let me. I was too high off of the movie. Anyway... despite all that, I still had an amazing time.

It's not perfection but this is exactly what I needed the next Zelda game to be after I was severely disappointed with Skyward Sword. And it's what I hope Zelda continues to be, but more refined, and slowly re-integrating what worked from the old formula...

Frankly, I don't want to ever fully go back to the old formula. I don't see any reason to. I think they nailed it the very first time and have not improved on it in any meaningful way. All the 3D games that came after OOT, followed that blueprint, but they all essentially took a swing at the king and they all missed... the old formula can live on in the form of 2D Zelda, which I don't think is going anywhere. Besides Ocarina, my favorite Zelda game is the original game on the NES. And playing this game felt a lot like playing both of them for the fist time again. And being able to go where I want with an obvious intended path very much reminds me of Zelda 1.

When I first played this game, I had a gut feeling... that this would be my new favorite Zelda game for several years, but the instant they released another one that expands on the foundation of BOTW, it's going to plummet down my ranking, dethroned by it's successor. And I do hope that ends up being true... but I also hope there will still be a reason to come back to this one. If not... well I'm just glad I got to take one more adventure before Hyrule changed. Ah... on this play through, I did the main quest as soon as I could, and then the Champions Ballad as soon as I could, because my god the Master Cycle Zero is the best thing that has ever been in a Zelda. I don't use horses, but you can't get me off of Master Cycle zero for anything... it's still wild that this concept was born in Mario Kart 8 on Wii U and made it's way to canon Zelda games... did not do trial of the sword though. Fuck that. Once was enough. Got all 120 shrines because I did want to get that Wild Armor set... I don't dislike Link's new look, but to me, Link's color will always be green... and if the Tunic of the Wild is not in TOTK, I will be doing most of my adventuring in the Hylian Tunic dyed green, assuming the dye shop is still in business... if the wild set is in the game, I sure hope it's not an end game reward. I want to have stuff to do besides looking for Korok seeds in the iconic green outfit. Now what to do with myself while i'm still waiting for TOTK to arrive...

[m0mmyxsuckyxsucky2]

Idk what to write at this point💀

L x gamer! gn! Reader

- if you guys aren’t in a relationship, he would always see you play games on your Nintendo.

-he doesn’t mind tho! He likes to watch you play.

- but when you guys are in a relationship, he begins to notice all your unhealthy habits and healthy ones.

-he tries to help you sleep if you wouldn’t because you need to defeat a boss.

-HÉ WOULD ALSO THREATEN YOU IN A UNNOTICED WAY IF YOU DONT LISTEN😭

- “s/o, you need to sleep. Especially if you play video games all the time. it’s very unhealthy for your eyes, Unless you want to have a bad eyesight of course..”

- “... fine, I’ll just save this part.”

- this man can be terrifying asf if he wants to.

-if you can’t sleep because you have the boss you need to defeat in your mind, he’ll gladly help you so.

-by petting you, murmuring sweet nothings, rub your back softly, brush his slender hands through your hair, LITERALLY EVERYTHING THAT MAKES YOU AT EASE AND CALM.

-you may think at some point that he hates seeing you play video games, but the truth is that he loves seeing you play any kind of games.

-he loves the determination in you, the fact that you won’t give up makes him determinate in his cases.

-hmm.. let’s say you play a game but you give up, he would be disappointed.

-BUT if you come back (with a glass of water or sum) and play it again, even if you’re frustrated.

-.. now that makes him go wild.

-normally the people he has cases with is not so determined, so unlike you of course.

-it just gives him so much motivation, and it lasts weeks (Maybe even more).

-you know he’s rich, right?

-be ready to be spoiled dude.

-you want the legend of Zelda botw? He already bought you one.

-oh! That new game you’ve been wanting came! Oh wait, L just gifted you one.

-he would give you every game you want, because you’re his partner (plus he wants to see your determinate cute face).

-he would also take a walk with you for fresh air.

-he doesn’t want you to end up like him.

-he loves seeing you play horror games, like fnaf or smth.

-only because he loves your reactions and the way you just talk to yourself.

-“hehe.. you can’t catch me now stupid ducks!”

-“s/o, there is one right behind you-“

-“AH WHERE?!”

-I think dark deception is his favorite game from now on.

-he would feed you his sweets while you play too! (AWW).

- cuddling while you play video games plus you giving him a forehead kisses every now and then?That makes him blush AND STILL KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE LMFAO

-he would stare at you to get motivating back.

-playing video games together? that would be so much fun.

-He would try and play, he even tries to beat you by remembering all your tactics.

-poor boy gets teased by matsuda of how you can beat him.

-so you decided to beat matsuda up by defeating him many times at super mash bros.

-Let’s say he was so devastated.

-you in the other hand laughed yourself to death, to the point where L was asking you if you were alright.

-overall good boyfriend, 10 out of 10 tbh👍

IF I MADE ANY MISSPELLINGS PLEASE TELL ME-

I wrote this shit late af💀

[giosprey]

Revali and Teba relationship in Age of Calamity. TW: rant & analysis

(and possibly bad English, sorry guys)

It’s been more than a week since Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was announced.

I’ve been complaining a lot about the plot choices, the clichés, the character development (*cough* KOHGA SUDDENDLY JOINING THE GOOD ONES despite all the 10k years hating the Royal family and worshipping Ganon but heh they wanted do make him a playable character, so I think that’s it), the fact that Link is even more stoic and unemotional than ever (in BotW he had his own reasons to be like that), the villain with no story, Terrako being unnecessary OP, and REVALI.

As you all know Revali’s not quite the typical nice and kind character you would expect (plus he’s a Champions and all the others are friendly and caring towards Link and the princess so him being not nice is something that caught us off guard). But if you like and know his motives you’ll understand that he’s not mean just for the sake of being mean in BotW. He had redeeming qualities, and I don’t even like calling them redeeming qualities because he wasn’t a villain, nor a bad person. His last chat with Link as a spirit made it clear enough that he now acknowledges Link as a real hero; “the real key of them all”. (I’m not talking about the different translation from the Japanese to the English one, I’ve made another post about it so if you’re curious to know what I’m talking about go check it!)

When I first encountered Revali I never thought he was a jerk. Instead, I found him hilarious and very charming. His attitude and cockiness towards Link was funny and refreshing. At last one character that simply didn’t accept Link but wanted him to show his true potential in con act, not just because he was the chosen one of an ancient story of a sword and a hero. But I can understand that some people don’t like the surface of his character. He is quite arrogant and proud, that is true. But again: this is just his character! Botw left us with this sad yet beautiful memory of him humbled at the end and it was just perfect.

But then they gave us a DLC (The Champion’s Ballad) in which we were able to see few but still new aspects from the champions.

We got to learn Daruk’s not 100 % brave as he wanted to seem bc he’s afraid of dogs. We got to learn Mipha is not only a little Zora who’s in love with Link, but a caring pricess and sister. We got to learn Urbosa is not 100 % severe and tough, she deeply cares for Zelda and everyone’s safety. She’s got that sass which I love personally.

And then, we got to learn something that honestly I would’ve never expected: Revali being vulnerable. And I’m not just talking about the Champions’ recruitment memory, I’m also talking about all you got to learn by his diary, the hidden dialogues. I mean, they are real. The writers decided to give more depth to his character. If BotW developers would’ve just wanted Revali to be a jerk, they wouldn’t have added these details.

We got to learn that he DEEPLY cares and fears for his people. He wanted to be the best so that his people would recognize and remember him. He opened the Flight Range because he wanted to nurture the next gen of warriors and then trained also the little ones. 

There’s no one left who would even know me. But even so, it will always be my home.

It almost brought me into tears because I didn’t expect him to care so much about it. If he was so sure to be the best then he would’ve just said something like “I’m sure everyone’s still remembering me, I am the greatest afterall”.

So when I found out the Champions’ descendants were also present in Age of Calamity I couldn’t wait to see how Teba and Revali would’ve acted together.

And, to my biggest disappointment, the writers messed it up. They even messed THIS up. I had begrudgingly accepted his unjustified hate towards Link because... it’s Link? I had begrudgingly accepted that he was rude to Daruk.

At least I thought ‘well, maybe with Teba they will make him behave nicely’. And I mean, they did. Revali’s nice with Teba but... idk all I got to learn was that Teba respects Revali (more of a simplord-kind of respect) and Revali absorbs the compliments and just... goes ‘mhpf ’. 

Then when Link enters Medoh to help them, Revali acted in his ‘well I didn’t need your help’ way. What left me shocked is how Teba reacted.

‘I didn’t know the Champion would be so...’ (Which many think he was about to say short but he was indeed talking about his personality. In Italian he says something like ‘I would’ve not expected it (this personality trait) from the Champion’

This left me puzzled. Why would Teba care about how Revali treated Link? And apart from that, he basically said ‘thank you’ to Link. So why would Teba notice this? Just to make the player feel more hate towards Revali? As if ‘eheh now finally Teba realized his childhood hero is a jerk how does it feel?? never meet your heroes!!!’

And then, in Medoh, this happens:

Okay I admit: I’m impressed by this translation because in the Italian one he only says: ‘Hm, good to know. At least it was good for something. But no one will match my skill even in 100 years’.

Which I’ve found... weird??? I mean the line isn’t dubbed so I suppose it was said in a sarcastic tone, but... still weird? Idk I would’ve expected something else since he cared so much about his people using his Flight Range. He should be proud but... he talks about his skill??? Right now??? What the heck?

Heh... But again... writing.

Then this also happens:

And what made me furious is that we got NO ANSWER by Revali! C’mon! That was all he cared about, that people will recognize him. And you let Teba saying something like that without a single reaction from Revali?! Are you freaking kidding me? He basically said ‘When I come home I’ll tell everybody about you’. MAN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I mean come on! I expected at least a chuckle, anything!

And at the end…

Okay I’m gonna be honest, I almost cried. But I stopped when I heard that stupid and boring answer from Revali after what Teba had said.

“Hm.”

WHAT? WHAT THE F IS ‘HM’. I MEAN NOT ONLY YOU’VE MET A RITO FROM THE FUTURE WHO LOVES YOU, WHO HELPED YOU AND... YOU ONLY SAY THAT? Are you kidding me? Plus I hate we never got to see his face. Is he smiling to Teba? Is he even grateful? Is that ‘hm’ a nod? WHAT THE HELL. I HATE YOU KOEI TECMO.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. I’m playing Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity. Yeah. Nice gameplay and everything but no. I just pretend all of that never happened. 

So in the end: Koei Tecmo just didn’t give a sht about chatacters, I got it. It’s just that they massacred my boy and I’m so upset 😭

[creativesplat]

Since It’s @zelinkweek2021, I thought I would post something about how I think the relationship would start (if we were going of canon-BoTW (or at least what Canon is in my mind anyway):

This is based off Day 4 (Trust—Forged) and Day 7 (Mortality—Forsaken Fates) I have no idea if I’m allowed to do that with prompts... so I hope that’s okay? 

Pre-Calamity:

Link slowly realises that he has feelings for Zelda, as he follows her around, and is so conflicted, because of Mipha, that he decides to push Zelda away. 

The reason Zelda is cruel to Link is that she notices his stoic professionalism and hates how distant he is (because she loves him). She isn't sure how to handle the way her chest hurts when Link is around her, she doesn’t know what to do about the blushing when she thinks of him, so decides to push him away. After all the princess can’t have any distractions when trying to awaken her Sealing Powers, can she? 

That pre-calamity is the extent of their relationship. 

Post-Calamity:

Post-calamity is a little different. Mipha is dead. Link isn’t torn between the two anymore. 

Death and fate decided his tricky little love triangle. 

Its almost as if Hylia herself didn’t want Mipha in his life, it’s almost as if she accidentally pre-determined that Mipha would die. 

Somehow Link is always separated from other romantic interests, somehow it always ends up, just Link and Zelda. As if that is always how it should have been. Always how it would be. Just the two chosen by fate against the world.

He begins feeling closer to Zelda. She’s funny, witty, smart. She makes him smile and laugh and there’s a strange butterfly feeling in his stomach. He comes to terms with his love, hating himself for it, because despite Mipha’s death he still feels like he is betraying her. 

Even if he tries to reconcile that problem, he knows Zelda doesn’t love him, right? I mean, how could someone who shouted at him and berated him so much love him? Surely she just thought he was a disappointing failed hero, like everyone else did? 

Que pining. Very angsty pining.

Now onto Zelda. She knew from the moment she met Link she was in love. Even after all this time she loves him. Mipha’s death was convenient for her, and she hates that. She hates that even if there was a possibility of resurrecting Link’s fiancé (which there isn’t, since they had both tried to find one) she isn’t sure that she would want it to happen. 

She knows she shouldn’t fall in love, there’s still so much to rebuild. Link is wild, protective, and kind, what’s not to love? She realises that love is what awoke her power, and decides that instead of pushing out her feelings, she should accept them. She tries flirting a little, and that’s when it all goes downhill. He withdraws and Zelda panics. He doesn’t reciprocate! She messed up the friendship! Of course Link doesn’t love her, how could Link love her after all the mean, snide things she said to him? Cue more angsty pining. 

Then one day, Link kisses Zelda. They’re in Rito village, Link is feeling rubbish, he’s remembering Revali, he’s remembering Vah Medoh, the calamity, everything. He sees Teba and Saki, they’re both so in love, and his heart hurts. Giddy on emotion he kisses Zelda. They’re both shocked, Link runs out, Zelda has no idea what to do. 

They meet up the next day and nether talk about it, both of them want to. 

It takes another few weeks, and they’re both in the Zora’s Domain. Link hears Zelda apologising to Mipha for loving Link, for stealing him away from her, apologising for not wanting her back, in-case Link chose Mipha instead of her. Zelda’s a mess, she’s teary and snotty, and not making much sense. Link comes over and scoops Zelda up, he kisses her again, and she kisses him back. It might take time for them both to open up, to acknowledge the past and look towards the future, but they accept their relationship together. They accept that they will both face the world after the calamity together. 

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Part V

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.9k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

“‘Justice is Dead’: Inspector Hyrule Loses her Badge for Lying in Sheikah Murder Trial”

This headline, alongside a photograph capturing the catastrophe that had been Link’s trial, was what had made the front page of the Times not long after it had all transpired. And it wasn’t the only one of its kind. Far from it. It seemed every publishing firm in town had released an article covering my epic blunder in court.

My name wasn’t unfamiliar to the masses either. As the daughter of the last pre-Yiga mayor to stand in office, anyone who read the paper regularly knew who I was. Until now, I’d been known all across town as the prodigy detective dedicated to keeping the streets free of crime, but now, all those people would look upon my face and see nothing but a filthy, lowlife perjurer.

I could live with my name being ground into the dirt by the media. What made me truly bitter beyond words was that the few individuals whom I’d once trusted and looked up to would now think the same of me.

I’d tried reaching out to Prosecutor Sigatur countless times in the hopes that she could in some way continue the investigation in my stead, but every time I called, she would never pick up. She probably saw this case as closed now anyway. I had managed to get a hold of Auntie Purah, but all she’d been willing to say to me was that she needed time to think before hanging up. As for Paya, I couldn’t even bring myself to try to contact her.

It wasn’t something I took pride in. Clearly the best thing for me to do would be to apologize to them all for my actions, most of all to Paya after all the needless grief I’d caused her. But I simply couldn’t do it. Just the idea of it felt wrong. No words that I could possibly say to them would be of any use in bettering the circumstances. I couldn’t bring Auntie Impa back. I couldn’t undo what I’d done. I couldn’t do anything. There wasn’t a single thing I was good for other than making a mockery of myself and disappointing those who’d once dared to put their faith in me. Nothing at all.

And now, to put a cherry atop the sundae of darkness and misery that my life had come to, the one person who mattered most to me, the one I’d dedicated myself to protecting, was gone, forever. Just when we’d finally found each other again. There was still so much I’d wanted to ask him, and even more that I’d wanted to say, but...

What I wouldn’t have given just to be by his side at that moment. What we did didn’t matter. Even if he and I were simply in the same room together, I’d feel more at ease. But who was I to wish for such things? I was the one who had failed him. I should’ve just testified that I’d been the one behind everything. I should’ve been the one on death row right then. Not him.

I thought recalling a happier time would perhaps help to restore me to my rational self, before it was too late, but in the end, it only proved to pour more salt in the wound.

“Alright, I’ll see you around.” Both Paya’s and my own ears perked up at the familiar, jovial voice down the hallway. “Great time catching up with you!” No sooner than we’d heard those words did Link come striding out of one of the classrooms on the left.

“Uhh...!” I turned toward Paya, who was suddenly as red as a raspberry. “I j-just remembered I had something to ask one of my teachers about!”

Just then, Link’s eyes landed on the two of us. Paya gave him a wave and a sheepish smile, both worth no more than half a second.

“You two have fun!”

Then she started to turn on her heel.

My outstretched arm just barely missed the strap of her school bag. “No, wait!”

“Bye!”

I gave a disgruntled snarl as she made her hasty retreat. She was far enough now that if I tried calling out to her, I’d only be drawing attention to myself.

“Everything alright, Zelda?”

“Link!” The boy in question was right there, just a foot’s distance or so behind me. “Oh, yes. Quite. Paya’s just...”

“She seemed busy.”

“Yes, yes,” I grumbled. Busy putting me on the spot, more like. As always. “Who was that you were talking to just now?”

“Oh, you must mean Sidon!” he exclaimed. “He and I knew each other in elementary school. He just transferred here last week, or so I’m told. What a small world we live in!”

He spoke animatedly, gesturing with his whole body as he told me tales of the mischief he and his childhood friends used to get up to. Though he himself had only been enrolled here since the start of that year, it seemed he already knew everyone on campus. Even the members of faculty were fond of him.

“So I heard you got in touch with my father again the other day,” he said as we rounded the corner of the building’s exterior on the way to our usual lunch spot.

“Oh, yes, I did!” He took a seat next to me on the concrete bench in front of the greenhouse.

“How’d that go?” he asked, then tore a massive bite out of his sandwich.

I winced in a mixture of worry and amazement. “Well, he didn’t really have much to contribute to my case, but I appreciate his hearing me out all the same.”

“Ah’m thure you ‘o.” He swallowed his mouthful of food before continuing, to my relief. “But he doesn’t take time out of his busy schedule to talk to just anyone, you know.”

“Oh, certainly. If it weren’t for Urbosa, I’m sure he wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”

Then a teasing grin lit up his face. “Aren’t you forgetting about someone?”

“Oh! Of course. My apologies,” I bowed, swivelling in his direction. “You’ve been a great help as well, Link. Thank you.”

A faint crease formed between his brows. “Come on now, I was only joking.” He gave my shoulder a light shove, nearly making me drop my lunch tray. “You should try being less prim and proper all the time. No one’s counting on you for anything, are they?”

“No, I suppose not.” No one amongst the living, anyway. Besides, he already had me eating lunch outside the cafeteria. How much more improper did he expect me to be? “I think it’s just the way I’ve been brought up.”

He gave a slow nod. “That’s understandable.” No doubt he could imagine how strict the CEO of Sheikah Tech. could be with her daughters sometimes. “Still, if you want my advice, try lightening up now and then. Trust me, you’ll be loads happier that way.”

My heart swelled at his kind words. If it were anyone else, I probably would have dismissed them as just another naïve optimist. “You think so?”

He shook his head, correcting me with, “I know so.”

I’d bumped his knee with my own when I’d turned to face him a short while earlier. It was then that I finally took notice of our sustained bodily contact, which in turn made me notice how little distance there really was between where he and I were now sitting.

He must’ve realized this as well. While I was still in a flustered rut about what to do, he caught me off guard and scooted even closer, until our thighs were just a hair’s breadth away from touching. I, of course, was a gawking, red-faced mess at this point, but he didn’t seem to mind. He simply kept looking at me with that disarmingly sweet smile of his.

Never in my life had I met someone more determined to keep smiling in spite of all the world’s cruelties than he was. It wasn’t ignorance; his father was none other than the district’s chief detective. He was simply, genuinely, fearless.

“Hey, so...” His mannerism had shifted out of nowhere from confident to slightly less confident. “Will you be coming back here for the horticulture club meet this afternoon? I just remembered you mentioning that the other day, and if you are going, it’d give me a reason to go.”

A rush of giddiness took hold of me, causing my heart to thrum wildly within my ribcage. “Really?”

“Oh, wait. Did I just—” He laughed into his palm, then groaned. “Did I say, ‘a reason,’ just now?” I nodded, perplexed. “I meant, ‘more reason.’ That’s what I meant to say, obviously, because I was already thinking about going before you mentioned it.”

He seemed to be telling that more to himself than to me. I did my best to reciprocate his forced chuckle. “Alright.”

“Yep...”

The bell rang in the distance, signalling five minutes until the start of class.

“Oh, dear. I’d better be off.” In a rush, I stood up and gathered my things. “My next class is on the other side of campus. Bye for now, Link!”

“Wait, Zelda!” I halted. “So...are you going?”

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my lips. “That’s what I had planned for today, yes.”

“Oh, spiffing!” His crow’s feet appeared adorably at the corners of his eyes, making my own smile grow. “I’ll see you then!”

By the time the memory had reached the end of its reel, there was a knife situated in the trembling grasp of my hand. Though the cuts were already a great deal in number, I’d barely even felt them until now. Now they stung like venom. In truth, it was most likely a result of the tears that had begun to fall upon the marred surface of my inner forearm. With this realization, my silent tears were only magnified into sobs of insurmountable extremity. The blade in my grip clattered mercilessly onto the desk. I was never going to see him again, was I?

As the salt of my tears mixed together with the little puddles of red that had formed, I caught myself staring blankly at the ball key sitting on the far end of my desk: the one Link had found at the scene of my godmother’s killing and had kept secret until the day before his conviction, when he’d entrusted it to me. Its dim, tangerine glow was just another painful reminder of how hopeless this situation really was.

Of course, being the spectacular mess of a person that I had become, I’d made the oh-so-wise decision to cut myself at the place where I carried out my chemistry experiments. With grandiosity, I oafishly spilled an entire beaker’s worth of fluid just as I’d finished wiping away the blood.

But just as I was about to go and fetch the mop, something happened that I never could’ve expected.

In the darkness of my apartment, the area on my desk where there had once been blood was glowing a strikingly brilliant blue.

I picked up the beaker that I’d knocked over. It bore the handwritten label, “5-Amino-2,3-dihydrophthalazine-1,4-dione.” Scanning the desk’s surface, something else caught my eye—something that could potentially be the “key” that I’d been searching for since the moment I’d discovered my dear godmother’s dead body.

The orange glow of the ball key, which had just so happened to find itself square in the middle of the splash zone, was being obscured by spots of blue light.