#exploring the depths in totk is one of my favorite things to do in the game

[daeyumi]

Exploring the depths 🌌🪻

[rawliverandgoronspice]

To ALSO add to the last reblog: I think I finally pinpointed what bugs me so much about TotK from a gameplay perspective (and that extends to BotW to an extent, tho not as much but still). Zelda used to be about exploration, combat and puzzle. The world was your oyster for discovering new mysteries, you were put into situations that required you to devise which tool to use and how to understand a space and its possibilities better, and you would fight on your way there also. But to me, we clearly were in a puzzle-first environment, where enemies came to try and halt your journey, while not being endgoals in themselves.

I think there was a drastic shift to combat-first gameplay since 2017 that I don't think we really acknowledged as a fanbase. Sure, there *are* puzzles still, but they are mostly relegated to shrines and dungeons. In the overworld, your challenges are traversal (and sometimes that warrants a puzzle and it's *great* when it happens) and combat-based (oh no, I want to go from point A to point B but there's a Hinox on the way!). But... Okay. Basically, in old Zelda games, every location was an intricate bundle of puzzles. To throw just an example among many, many others: Clock Town, in MM's, is a complex bundle of puzzles and opportunities and discoveries to make, taking on more and more depth as you acquire more tools and understand the intricate logic that animates it. The town itself is a toy that generally requires little to no combat. You have to understand what you can play with, and use observation, abilities and time to unwrap the entire thing. Geometry is here to ground you and give you a sense of realism --but more importantly, it's here to challenge your spatial understanding and give you little mysteries to return to later and expand upon.

Clock Town is obviously a pretty unique example, but... I don't know, I could have used Goron City, or Castle Town from Minish Cap, or a bunch of places from TP... My point is: places always had this intricate mixture of fun, moody set-dressing and puzzle-based intrigue. It's one of my favorite things about old school Zelda... and it's much, much rarer in these new iterations. Not saying it's not here, but it's not the focus anymore. The gameplay loop doesn't ask you to unravel the world in the same way. You want upgrades? You gotta kill a mini boss about it. You want more heart pieces? You gotta do shrines, which are utterly separated from the overworld (and sometimes combat-based too!). NPCs are no longer these keys in larger puzzles, but are basically used the way Skyrim would use them (no shade on Skyrim, love these kind of games --though getting tired tbh-- but they are not the same beast).

Now the game loop is much more about: how do I get from point A to point B, and how to I get rid of obstacle X on my way? Now I have gotten rid of obstacle X and I have better loot and better skill to help me get rid of larger obstacles --and getting rid of them is actively encouraged, and it's a huge part of what makes the game fun. It's not a bad game loop by any mean! But it is a drastic change from the old formula. And to me... there is, especially in TotK due to More Things I Already Talked About, a real loss of whismy and smallness and mystery inherent to that change.

I think this is why I lost interest in the Depths so fast. The Depths are about movement and combat... and basically nothing else. People who are into that kind of approach will be thrilled, but I got bored pretty fast because, beyond feeling empty, the Depths felt thoughtless to me.

Yes, of course, open worlds make it much harder to focus on intricate world design the way the old games used to conceive themselves. But... Yeah, we still begin to stray away from what once was a core pillar of the series, and one that was, by definition, much less violent.

[ecoamerica]

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[dany36]

full totk onion below for my own sanity. super long-ass rant ahead (11k words lmaoooo wow) and also contains spoilers.

so i beat the final boss of tears of the kingdom a while back. took me (according to my switch) “over 100 hours” to beat the game. i did about 110ish shrines, and got like 50 or so korok seeds. did quite a lot of sidequests as well. i was actually surprised how long i played it for considering how much fun i was not having playing it. but of course i wanted to uncover the whole overworld map (excluding the depths) and unlock as many shrines as possible to be able to say that hey, i explored quite a lot and gave this game a fair chance to impress me. which, unfortunately, it did not. if i had to rank all of the zelda games i’ve beaten (which i’ve done all except triforce heroes), i’d put botw in absolute last place, with totk slightly right above it.

before writing this, i re-read through this fantastic botw critical piece on destructoid by Cory Arnold ("Breaking down why Breath of the Wild is highly overrated") that literally hits on all the points on why i hate botw cus i wanted to see if maybe totk had improved on any of those criticisms. the criticisms that the author lists were similar (but much more eloquent) than the hasty list i had made when i first completed the game way back then. i was sad to re-read through it and realize that no, pretty much all of the major criticisms i had in botw were still present since totk is literally an exact copy of botw which some new stuff sprinkled on it, then they called it a brand new game. “but the depths!! the sky!! the new ultrahand mechanic!!” yeah that shit wasn’t fun for me at all (maybe the Ascend ability but more on that later). i literally couldn’t believe that this game cost 70 dollars when there were absolutely no enhancements in terms of the overworld and enemies and was seething through the first 4 hours of the game (or however long it took me to get through the tutorial portion of it). to quote that botw article i mentioned above:

If Breath of the Wild is your personal favorite game or favorite Zelda game, I’m not speaking to you. It’s the people foaming at the mouth at how it’s objectively better than other games, objectively better than other Zelda games, did open world better than other games, and want to enshrine it that I am addressing. This game is far too flawed to be getting this level of praise.

but i’m getting a bit ahead of myself. let’s start with the things i DID like and then i will write a lithany of all the things i hated about this game and why, despite having played it for 100+ hours, i had fun for maybe 10 hours of it.

the good

the ending.

one of the things i absolutely hated about botw was how short and unsatisfying the ending was. zelda wakes up and asks link if he remembers her and links says nothing, which then cuts to zelda and link talking together about…i think all they have to do to restore hyrule. i honestly forget because it sucked so bad that i had no interest in looking it up again. zelda turning human again with rauru’s and sonia’s help, and you having to catch her as she’s falling (a throwback to when you couldn’t catch her at the beginning of the game) were things that made it already looking better than botw’s stale-ass ending. zelda’s “link, i’m home!” was really sweet even if we once again get no emotion from link even though he knows the incredibly weighted decision zelda had made when she decided to turn into a dragon to restore the master sword. but whatever, more on that later.

i’m NOT saying totk’s ending is perfect, in fact i’ve seen some legit criticisms of it that i agree with, but in my opinion it wasn’t TERRIBLE like with how i felt with botw’s (and trust me i take every opportunity i get to bash on botw/totk). seeing link, zelda, and the four sages together at the end as they swear to protect hyrule and its princess was really cool and actually made it look like they were all in it together as friends/companions, in contrast to botw where we get no reference of the new champions in the ending at all. while this ending was better than totk, it’s still not like…at a level of it making my heart ache of joy/satisfcation/sadness (if you know me even the slightest i get very emotional with videogames and i will cry at literally anything lol) like in tww when hyrule floods, or SS with granny and fi leaving, or tp with midna and the mirror. which damn now that i think about it, it looks like zelda has a lot of bittersweet endings, so i will give totk +1 point in that there are no bittersweet moments at the end. i especially liked that they cleared up that no, zelda wasn’t aware or fully conscious about her hundreds of years roaming the skies as a dragon, because even the thought of her being aware of her time as a dragon was making me go insane. like, you mean that in botw she was trapped in the castle for 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay and NOW she had to spend another 1000 years or whatever as a dragon? hell no. so thank you totk ending for making that clear that she doesn’t remember that at all and that it actually felt like she was asleep like with SS Zelda. :)

which brings me to the next thing that i liked, which is...

princess zelda overall.

i think it should come to no one’s surprise that her decision to turn into a dragon really elevated this zelda’s status to just completely fucking badass. like, damn, i say that’s my baby and i’m proud. the incredible amount of courage that zelda had to have to make that decision is just something that i don’t think we’ve seen other zeldas make. i guess there’s TP Zelda giving up her life to save Midna but, is that a worse fate than be unconsciously roaming the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years not knowing when you’ll come back? and SS Zelda knew that link would come back to wake her up from her slumber, so…. i mean, the scene of the last tears of the dragon memory was just so impactful, and it was probably the only scene in the game that really punched me in the emotional gut. the whole dragon transformation scene was just so heartbreaking to watch and when you see those tears come out of the dragon’s eyes and realize that’s where those memories come from that you’re watching….i’m telling you it made me almost catatonic. like. what the FUCK. probably one of the best cutscenes in zelda history, if I’m being honest. when the memory ends and it leaves you in that field of silent princesses i just needed a moment to breathe. i didn’t even wanna move (both in-game and irl lol). what a beautiful sequence. it’s something i don’t think any other zelda game has made me feel. sure i cried like a fucking baby when granny “dies” in SS or when Fi says goodbye (and i swear i always cry at the beginning of tww when link says goodbye to his grandma oh god), but with the dragon scene it just left me fucking speechless. A+++ work.

now, do i HATE that zelda is once fucking again stuck somewhere else in the middle of the story waiting for us to rescue her instead of being a more active, nuanced character like in ST, TWW, or OoT? absolutely yes. can nintendo fucking do something new and interesting with zelda like (dare i say!!) HW did and give her some personality instead of just being a damsel in distress yet fucking again?? but plenty of people have already ranted about that so i will just leave this to say botw/totk zelda has gone through enough shit and deserves to rest and be happy without going into other things about her character that other people have already talked about in greater detail than i ever could. :)

yunobo and riju.

yunobo was absolutely one of my favorite characters in botw, and so it’s no surprise that he’s a fave here too. his attack was super useful when exploring those boring-ass caves where i had to clear mountains and mountains of rocks without having to use my limited supply of bomb flowers or wacking away with a boulder sword. also one-shot killing those annoying-ass ice lizalfos with his attack will always be funny. the thought of a goron leader having such a child-like voice and huggable face just makes him such an interesting and fun character to me. as for riju, although i didn’t really care for her in botw, there was something about her in this game that just made her really grow on me. some of it definitely has to do with her new design which i thought was fantastic (minus the heels in the fucking desert), but also her attack is just so badass and useful. also helps that the portion where you have to defend gerudo town from the gibdos reminded me a lot of hyrule warriors, aka one of my favorite games ever (unironically!!). so yeah, yunobo and riju really were the oasis in the desert of uninteresting NPCs in this game!

dragon head island.

out of all the boring-ass sky islands in this game, dragon head island was such a welcomed surprise. from the mysterious thunder clouds surrounding it, to the eeringly relaxing music that plays, it was a breath of fresh air. all of the sky islands in this game look almost identical and yet it was really nice to get something different with music that made me go, hey, this is actually great to listen to and will have to add it to my list of zelda music!

the path to the wind temple.

the rito village was the first village i headed to and i was really hopeful for this game when i had to climb up to the wind temple alongside tulin. that portion where you have to jump from one trampoline to another was fun as hell. i was like wow, this definitely feels new and refreshing. i’m also pretty sure that the music was changing as you’d get higher? either way, this part really felt like something from a zelda game and was just overall a blast to get through.

the wind and lightning temple bosses.

again, because the wind temple was the first temple i did, was REALLY impressed with how fun the colgera boss was. sky diving and using tulin’s ability to dodge the boss’s attacks was just so intense and exciting! ALSO the music that played during it was a remix of the dragon roost island theme from tww, which was so fitting and badass. and speaking of badass, the lightning temple boss was, although super disgusting, so cool as well!! i already talked about how fun riju’s attack is, so the part where all the gibdo hives come alive and start surrounding you was just soooo intense. like damn, i can’t remember any of the botw bosses being so damn fun. if i could re-do those two portions of the game, i definitely would.

the final ganondorf fights.

and speaking of boss battles, these fights also had me all tensed-up and at the edge of my seat. well, except the dragon ganon part (he turned into a dragon and all he could do was spit fire balls at me?? he literally had link on his mouth ready to crunch him down!! oh my bad these are the positives ahem). for the second ganondorf fight i got seriously stumped because he just kept dodging my flurry attacks or whatever, and then he kept hitting me with the attack that would remove one of my heart containers (which was really cool and new to see a zelda boss do THAT!!!). like, it actually made me think i was gonna get my ass kicked and would have to restart the battle. idk if this is the strategy since i haven’t looked it up online but eventually i figured out that, after he dodges your attack, he attacks you and you have to dodge THAT in order for your flurry attack or actually work. anyway, i really liked the ganondorf fights even if i sucked at fighting him and went through all of my 6 shields but hey, at least i beat him first try lol.

the sages joining you in the phantom ganon fight and when the temple bosses show up in the depths.

again just a really cool detail that in totk we actually see the sages actually fight alongside you and aid you in your quest to defeat ganondorf instead of hey you’ve awoken me as a sage i’m just gonna stay here and do nothing as you go and fight the demon king. plus it’s a cool moment when you see all those terrifying AF bosses show up in the depths and the sages are all like nah don’t worry about us, we got this! like…hell yeah? love you guys stay awesome and thank you for taking care of those bosses cus i did nOT want to fight them again since this game loves to make you fight the same enemies hundreds of times :)

the gloom hands.

wow, what a terrifying and cool enemy…the first time. but just like everything else in the game (which i will talk about later), they beat this concept to death until you just go ‘oh the gloom hands again, whatever’ and keep moving. the first time i encountered the gloom hands i was like what in the FUCK is this and what is this TERRIFYING MUSIC that plays!!! very dead-hand-from-oot of them. i thought that the floormasters from tww were terrifying with those disturbing sounds they would make but they got nothing on the gloom hands. and then when you think you finally defeat them all and you’re free from their creepy clutches, phantom ganon shows up and one-hit kills you. amazing!!

the ascend ability.

i wouldn’t say i LOVED the ascend ability (tbh i wasn’t fond of this whole crap with rauru’s arm abilities like idk it just doesn’t feel very zelda-ish but more on that later) but of the four abilities we get, i’d say ascend was the one i liked the most. took me forever to figure out some ascend puzzles at the beginning because i wasn’t used to the fact that uh yeah you can literally go through ceilings if you want so i for the most part would enjoy whenever the ascend ability would be involved. so i mean idk what else to say except that it was neat and wouldn’t make me groan to use it unlike ultrahand.

voice acting (japanese).

i’m sorry but hearing the last trailer where we hear zelda’s and (what i’m assuming was) ganondorf’s voice just made me roll my eyes and groan out loud at just how terrible and cartoony they sound. as soon as the game started and we hear zelda talk in that fake-sounding british voice, i just had to go in and switch the audio to japanese so that they could sound like REAL people instead of idk forced acting. and my god i’m glad i did. wish i had done that for botw because wow, the voice acting in japanese was just top-notch and actually made me like the characters and not like cringe at how the VAs sounded. so A++ to the japanese VAs but i mean who are we kidding they always excel at that and it didn’t sound like over-the-top or anything. it sounded just right :)

well that was nice. very lovely. and now for the things that i absolutely hated about the game. from this point on i’m going to quote a lot of things from the destructoid article and try to expand on them to fit totk. here we go!

the bad and ugly

the overworld.

oh boy. this is the big one. this is the one that, for the first 4ish hours of the game (or however long it took me to reach lookout landing), was just making me rage on the inside, and for the rest of the game, just continuously shake my head and sigh with disappointment (and still rage from time to time) at just how fucking boring the overworld in totk is. this is one of the biggest complaints i had in botw and, given that nintendo just fucking reused the same world for totk with literally almost no interesting or noteworthy changes, it continues to be the thing that makes me angry the most about this game. like, i’m sorry, but developers need to stop fucking making huge overworlds if they are just going to make them boring as hell to traverse and not be able to make them interesting to explore at all:

The game is all about running around aimlessly with nothing unique to discover, no area-specific secret bosses, and overall very little progression. The only secrets or things to discover are shrines or Koroks, leaving the world with a profound lack of mystery. I don’t understand why people complain about sailing in Wind Waker but suddenly love running around grassy plains and climbing rocks that take five times as long as sailing between islands did. Yes a game this size and length would be amazing if and only if it was rich with content all the way through, but it’s not. Clocktown (from Majora’s Mask) alone has more depth than the entirety of Breath of the Wild.

There’s the mention of shrines or koroks, but totk introduces the new exciting concept of…caves and wells!!! and while at first it might seem cool and exciting to explore, you then realize that at the end of the day, just like everything in this game, each cave is exactly the fucking same and only serves to hide those blue glowing overgrown frogs so once you find one, it’s like wellp, there’s nothing else of importance that you’re going to find in this cave EXCEPT maybe your umpteenth shrine or a treasure chest containing an outfit (i think that’s how i found all of the fierce deity clothes—within caves). and it’s like “well see dany! you found something ELSE within caves other than those frogs!!” yeah no i explored maybe like 50 or so caves and the shrine/outfits were found in like 4 caves i explored or something like that so no i wouldn’t call that exciting or wortwhile considering i never used the fierce deity outfit and i could have found my umpteenth shrine somewhere else. and the wells? yeah turns out there’s like 40+ wells whose only purpose is to report to some lady of how many you’ve found so that i think she can give you rupees? and honestly who cares. i have no idea what the reward is once you find all of them but what could be worth visiting the same boring-ass caves with the same boring-ass design just so that you can say “yep i’ve visited every well in this game!” and mark off yet another boring sidequest in totk.

at least with TP or MM whenever i found a cave i knew i was going to get a unique and interesting experience (that one cave in TP where you have to drop down to the lowest levels with the iron boots is one of my faves). but unfortunately here, any cool puzzles that would otherwise be found randomly in caves are now stuck strictly to the freaking shrines, which takes away any sort of mystery you might get from finding a cave because now you KNOW it’s just gonna be yet another same-y cave with the same damn enemies and really nothing else going for it except a bubbulfrog and MAYBE the start of a new shrine quest. and likewise, when you see a shrine, you KNOW you’re going in for your umpteenth ultrahand/rewind/ascend puzzle to get yet another shrine orb. like…totk’s approach to caves and puzzles and shrines take away any surprise that you might have had exploring its vast yet uninteresting overworld (how many times am i gonna say this in this rant lol).

and like god i distinctively remember this one part in the death mountain area where i was trying to reach goron city and i saw a shrine not too far—as in, i didn’t have to use the purah pad to be able to see it. so there i go, walking/running towards the shrine because what else is there to do in-between the rito and goron villages except hunt for shrines along the way. and it was so fucking frustrating because i swear i was just walking straight towards the shrine with nothing else in between. no cool music like in other open world games that immerse you with its beautiful music (see minecraft, horizon, sonic frontiers, xenoblade x), aboslutely no enemies, no interesting or beautiful terrain, just me walking like an idiot bored out of my mind listening to link’s clunky armor just to get to the shrine, complete it, and have to run all the way back to where i was since the shrine was the OPPOSITE direction of goron village.

and like, this empty and uninspiring overworld is what nintendo took 6 years to develop? “oh look there’s naming references to past zelda games teehee!! ruto lake! forest of time! something referencing the lokomos!!” but it’s like. you pass those landmarks without even realizing it because there is, most of the time, nothing worthwhile to do there despite the cool throwback name. at least with MM, which reused a lot of the same assets as OoT, the world was different and unique and interesting with lots of more background to similar-looking characters we saw in OoT (the cucco lady vs anju, for example). i felt like such a fool the first night playing totk because i seriously thought that this might be the MM of Botw—i hated (still do) botw but thought hey, now that they have the engine and the assets down, maybe they can now focusing on making the world and its characters and story more interesting and fleshed out! instead we just get the same korok seed BS, the same shrine BS that, although mildly amusing at first, gets boring and uninteresting fast as you explore your 73rd shrine and see the 46th korok hiding place.

and you might think “well dany of COURSE things are going to get repetitive! it’s an open world game and they can’t fill it with new and exciting content all throughout!!” ok then don’t make your overworld so fucking huge?? like WHY are these developers so hellbent on gloating about having “one of the biggest open-worlds” ever if you’re just going to be copy-pasting the same shit over and over with nothing interesting in between? you really think that what makes an overworld interesting is to see the same caves, the same damn bokoblin enemy camps, the same “uwu i need to reach my friend!” korok quests, the same “waaah i need to keep this postsign of the construction boss up in place and i can’t leave until i do!” BS, the same taluses/hinoxes, the same BOSSES all over the map?? yeah it was cool seeing the first gleeock out in the wild, i was like wow!! that’s amazing, i wonder if there will be different bosses roaming around like that? and then i saw that, nope! wrong again, dany! yet another cool idea beaten to death by just copy pasting the same enemy (with different elemental powers of course so as to not make it TOO obvious!) all over the goddamn map.

SPEAKING of copy-pasting the same things instead of having a boss or enemy or cave be truly unique, another thing that drove me insane was the mazes that you find in the overworld. i think i only did the one in the upper right, but there’s at least one other in the upper left of the corner. i thought it was a cool idea so i traversed through the (truth be told) rather boring maze just activating switches, which wasn’t really that interesting or challenging, it was just mildly frustrating and confusing navigating through it. and i fought i think a construct III at the end? whatever, you see those all over the sky as well. and what i got as a reward for navigating through the two mazes (the one in hyrule, and the one in the sky) was…one part of oot ganondorf’s outfits. like, ok, great, whatever, but before heading off to the final boss towards the end of the game i was like “well let me go do that other maze and see what that’s all about” but then i stopped myself and said, you know what, it’s probably gonna be the same BS, going through yet another non-engaging maze doing an uninteresting and confusing puzzle just to get either a weapon that calls back to an older game or another piece of oot ganondorf’s outfit. and i was like HMMMM yeah that doesn’t sound appealing or fun at all. SKIP!!!

Breath of the Wild wants you to grind and do repetitive shit all day. Fighting the same things over and over in a massive world isn’t fun, it really isn’t.

like i’m sorry if i’m just predictable and want something more entertaining to keep me interested in the world as i explore along instead of the same repetitive nonsense and then praise nintendo for giving us such a huge overworld for it. people might have complained about tww’s vast ocean but at least it gave us one of the most beautiful overworld themes to date and it made sense STORY-wise (as in, there’s sea everywhere and little islands in between because of the flooding of hyrule). here, and sorry to beat this point to the death but i just cannot emphasize enough how terrible of an experience it was for me to explore the overworld, because it’s just huge, boring, and repetitive for no reason.

and the worst part is, i couldn’t even ride my horse if i wanted to (which would have made exploring this forsaken world less annoying) because for some unknown reason, nintendo has decided that in these past two games, you can’t call for your horse from wherever you are. sure, you can BOARD your horse from the kakariko stable even if you left it far off in the rito village, that’s no problem! but calling your horse from wherever you want? no no that’s too unrealistic!

so no, i don’t care that you can climb every mountain in this game (to find what, another korok seed? lol). that’s not what makes exploration fun for me in a videogame. if i climb a mountain and then find a UNIQUE boss or a UNIQUE cave or a UNIQUE sidequest? now that’s cool. here? just copy-pasting away!

Climbing and watching the stamina bar is not fun, and it’s downright annoying when it begins to rain. Call it a mechanic or whatever you want but it’s not fun. It feels like they added a ton of mountain ranges just to pad the game length and justify a stamina meter when flatter land would have been just as acceptable.

i’d rather sail tww’s ocean or ride around ST’s tracks any day of the week. fucking NEXT!

the shrines.

like i mentioned at the beginning, i did my fair share of looking for and completing shrines because i wanted to get a fair sense of just all that this “new” game had to offer. sure, the first 10 or so are fun and interesting because you are learning to use the new arm powers. oh you want me to combine these two things with ultrahand to complete the shrine? cool! let me do that! oh ok, now you want me to rewind time on this object? omg neat! oh wow, now i have to be aware of my surroundings and use ascend here! cool! and then you do that again, and again, and again, and again, and again again again again until you’re on your 100th shrine and it’s like oh god PLEASE give me something new:

Shrine puzzles are all about the same level of difficulty, as are all the Divine Beasts and their bosses. Again, since they want to let you go anywhere, there is no progression of difficulty in either the bosses or puzzles. You do not learn new things and compound them as the game goes on […] You just do the same things with the same runes over and over. […] All have the exact same aesthetic, same music, and same lack of connection to game’s world. But rather than 120, there are actually only 80. There are 20 “Blessing” shrines which nine out of ten times give you some generic weapon you probably already have, accessed by completing puzzles of sorts outside the shrine to unlock them. Those “puzzles” are often just putting balls in holes, shooting an arrow at something, or fetch quests, though.

putting aside the number of shrines mentioned above (since they vary in totk), it’s like, that’s literally it. unlike previous zelda games, where maybe you’d enter a cave and wouldn’t have the necessary item to complete its puzzle, here, there’s no sense of progression because the game already gives you everything you need to explore ITS ENTIRE OVERWORLD AND ALL ITS SHRINES right from the beginning. and some people might like that, but it’s definitely not for me. because like, after you get all your arm powers, everything just stays exactly the fucking same through the rest of the damn game:

There is never a moment of “I need to comeback here later” which sounds convenient but it takes away from the sense of progression and getting stronger that this game and its fans claim it has. There is no excitement of getting a new mask, new song, boomerang, bottle, or equipment item that lets me do more. No matter where you go, you know you will be sufficiently equipped, and that takes the thrill out of it.

and i feel like that’s exactly one of the issues that i have with the concept of shrines in this game. it’s just the same types of puzzles with the same 4 powers tens of times until you complete them all and you can maybe recall 2 or 3 that you really liked and were like “huh ok that was cool” and move on. truly revolutionary for a game. and i just HATE that all pieces of heart/stamina currency is restricted to ONLY shrines because, once again, that leaves no variety or surprises in the game! you know completing a sidequest won’t yield a piece of heart or a stamina vessel ‘cus that’s all shrines, same for minigames or caves, which was half the fun of doing those things in previous games!! but no, once you find a type of SOMETHING in this game (a cave, a well, a shrine), you bet your ass that THAT same design is all you’ll ever see for the rest of the game.

shrines in this game did introduce a new type which is when they strip you of all of your equipment and only give you basic weapons that you have to use to get through the bunch of constructs that you have to fight inside. and yes, that was cool for the first couple of times, but i swear after my third one i was once again with the feeling of “oh god not THIS again??”. god i just feel like i’m just repeating the same issues i had with this game over and over again: repetition repetition repetition. this game just loves damn repeating itself!!! anyway, moving on…

99% of the side quests and NPCs.

this was a problem i had with botw and i don’t know why i’m surprised that totk did absolutely nothing to fix the issue of uninteresting, unengaging sidequests. remember in SS with the whole Peatrice-falling-in-love-with-you thing? or those sidequests in TWW with the rich and poor girl who at the end switch lifestyles because of circumstances in their lives, and you can help the now-poor Mila come to terms with her new life? or hell, ANY of the MM sidequests and how they actually made you empathize with its characters and actually care a little bit for what would happen to them? here in totk (and in botw) i just don’t feel that connection or need to help NPCs with their mundane problems like i would in previous zelda games:

Breath of Wild has its NPCs, but they are bland and as memorable as my ex-girlfriends’ birthdays. They don’t have unique characteristics, designs, or problems. Looking like they were born out of some generator rather than a human, they send you on shallow fetch quests. Collect 55 rushrooms. Tame that horse. The rewards are almost always just rupees, ingredients, or more generic breakable weapons.

i said 99% of the side quests and NPCs because i think the only one i actually cared for (but was actually tedious towards the end…) was rebuilding that lurelin village because the thought of having your home destroyed by “pirates” (aka bokoblins because god forbid this game have to create more unique enemies) was a bit too much for my heart to take. but i mean, other than that? who cares. oh that guy in hateno village has a creepy crush on that girl sweeping the front of the store? whatever. that whole elections thing in hateno village? yawn. some rito girl wants to cook some new recipe? i don’t know her. there’s really nothing much else i can say about NPCs or sidequests in this game because i can’t think of anyone else other than that guy who helped rebuild the village that actually made me feel SOMETHING else other than boredom. and like mentioned above, most of the time doing the sidequests isn’t really worth it because there’s no cool rewards like bottles, quiver expansions, pieces of heart, or an upgrade to an item because well, that would be taking away from the shrines-and-some-depths-treasure-chests-can-only-give-you-worthwhile-rewards thing from this game, huh?

overall, the villages in this game just feel empty and void of any interesting and captivating NPCs/sidequests that make me want to learn more about their lives. despite hateno village being the biggest village (i think) we’ve seen in a zelda game yet, i just…don’t really care for it or its people. same with kakariko village and zora’s domain, the latter of which just feels so big but just so fucking hollow and honestly boring to explore. tww’s windfall island just had tons of life and compelling characters of which i may not remember their names, but sure as hell remember their small but memorable sidequests. playing cupid between that guy that would walk around windfall and the girl with the orange dress is infinitely much more interesting than any of the so-called sidequests i did in hateno village.

the lack of enemy variety.

it’s kind of insane to me how, given that nintendo had about 5+ years to develop this game, they had a pretty good chance to develop new and interesting enemies. this was a problem i had with botw: fighting the same damn enemies just got old very damn fast. let’s see how many enemies (NOT including varieties, i don’t care that a fire keese is different than an ice keese, and also not mini bosses like hinoxes) botw had according to the zelda wiki: bokoblins, chuchus, keese, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, yigas, pebblits, guardian scouts, guardians, guardian skywatcher, and…guardian turret i guess. that’s 13 enemies for a game that boasts to have such a huge and unique overworld. THRITEEN types of enemies. just thirteen. compared to Xenoblade 1, which has 30+ types of enemies (i stopped counting really), and horizon zero dawn, which has 24 types of unique machines.

now let’s see how many enemies totk has! there’s bokoblins, boss bokoblins, chuchus, constructs, evermeans, horriblins, keese, like likes, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, aerocuda, pebblits, gibdos, gloom spawns, little frox, moth gibdo, and…yigas. 19 enemies, 6 more than its predecessor. just, wow, even now just looking at the numbers, the variety in this game is ABYSMAL considering that most of the time in the overworld you run in bokoblins, moblins, and lizalfos like 80% of the time. in caves, most of the time it’s just horroblins but really, the strategy to fight them all is exactly the same except for lynels, like likes, and gibdos, which you have to be more careful with. but really, it’s like…that’s all you could come up with for this huge overworld? i don’t know about other folks but for me, i eventually stopped fighting enemies because it just wasn’t worth it with how this game handles weapons and their durability:

But you quickly stop raiding camps and just avoid enemies in general, just as you slowly lose interest in exploring every ruin, because there is no suitable reward. You expend your breakable weapons, arrows, and food fighting easy enemies to get more breakable weapons; likely weaker than the ones you broke to get to it.

i already had more-than-enough strong enemy spoils to fuse with my weapons, i don’t need to fight my umpteenth silver bokoblin just to get another one of its stupid-looking horns to attach to my weapon and somehow make it stronger (and stupider). and also like, fighting them just got so boring after a while. sure, it’s a bit scary and intimidating fighting moblins when you only have 5 hearts and weak weapons, but eventually you get a two-handed weapon and all you have to do is just constantly whack away at your moblin/horriblin/bokoblin/lizalfos so that you constantly knock them down and don’t allow them to get back up cus it’s not like they have much variety in their attacks either. such thrilling combat if you ask me!! and the way that this game handles difficulty is just so stupid: making enemies “damage sponges” so that instead of 5 hits, now it takes 15 hits to kill a moblin in the same repetitive way—whack them away so that they can’t get up. how is this fun and interesting?

i fought a black lynel once in the wild and that was cool, but then i just never fought another one again because in my opinion the rewards for killing a lynel just aren’t really worth it. you break a couple of your weapons just to get some of its spoils and it’s like, eh, i’ll pass. a silver bokoblin’s horn might not be as strong but it’s not like it makes a HUGE difference in this game whether i have a silver bokoblin horn or a lynel horn. who cares!

the game of course then wanted me to fight a silver lynel on the way to kill ganondorf and i was like hell no, i don’t want to dodge the same moves over and over again and do the same flurry attacks over and over and over just like i did with the black lynel, except now i get to do it MORE times because of damage sponges! how is that exciting or interesting? at least give stronger enemies more variety in their attacks instead of making my hand hurt from just doing the same repetitive (there’s that word again) moves until it dies.

Speaking of Hinoxes and Stone Taluses, during my first encounter I was delighted to have a random mini-boss-like fight out in the open, thinking it was the only one. Then I quickly realized they’re copy and pasted all over the map. I was expecting to see unique mini-bosses or fights in certain locations, but that wouldn’t be possible when they have the loot system requiring you grind enemies over and over to upgrade numerical stats on armor. 

already touched on the point made above a little bit but just had to mention it here as well because as i said, this game takes away any sort of unique aspect to it by beating it to death via copy pasting enemies, mini bosses, and bosses all over its map. you can’t imagine the disappointment i felt when i learned that colgera, aka a boss i really loved fighting at the wind temple, was found again in the depths. and again. i at least fought it three times throughout the game, not sure if it appears more times but when i saw it the second time i was like holy shit, this again?? really? any memory of having such a thrill of fighting it for the first time was quickly erased realizing nintendo just can’t keep something unique in this game. same thing with phantom ganon—encountering it for the first time was cool and intimidating. by the time i rescued the deku tree i was just sick to death of it, so realizing i had to fight it YET AGAIN!!!! at hyrule castle with the whole fake zelda business was just almost unbearable. (man, typing this whole rant out is making me realize just how many repetitive and monotonous aspects there are to this game!!!! and i hate that i keep using that word but what else is there to describe the constant sludge of same same same same this game kept throwing at my face??)

combat gets repetitive very fast.

look, i mentioned it before but i don’t play zelda to custom make doohickeys that can kill enemies. i’m old fashioned and honestly not creative enough (minecraft building wasn’t for me, i just liked to explore), so i like my hand-to-hand combat, with an arrow or two in between. i’ve already mentioned this in the previous section but the combat in this game just gets so repetitive despite the many weapons this game tries to throw at your face. i mean really when you think about it you have three kinds of weapons: your typical sword, the two-handed sword, and the spear. and i guess the bow? (oh and the wands but i’m more referring to the classic combat weapons) but like, for hand-to-hand combat, your overall strategy doesn’t change regardless of the type of weapon you have, which is just wack away as many times as you can, and do some flurry attacks for the stronger enemies like lynels and uh. hmmm. yeah. why not introduce different attack mechanics depending on the type of weapon you are building, like the horizon series does with the many weapon types it introduces in the games?

i’m not saying previous zelda games’ combat was the most exciting or varied, but at least with tww, the special parry attack attack would VARY by either doing a helm splitter or a back slice. but here in botw/totk it’s like…your special sword attacks consist of your classic spin attack and the flurry attack, which just stays (yet again) constant throughout the game. no upgrades like with the hurricane spin or the great spin. with tp and even tmc you had your hidden skills you could learn to vary your sword attacks and even tp gives you a special finishing attack (the ending blow, and actually SS had this too now that i remember!), but these past two zelda games just have failed to give much flavor in the sword techniques you can use. which is kind of stupid when you think about it cus this link is supposed to have been trained in sword combat while tww link is some kid from an island and tp link is just some guy raised in a ranch. i don’t know if this is the game trying to make itself seem more difficult by having removed these types of different sword skills because like, why can’t i side step and do a back slice like in tp? or ANYTHING ELSE other than a damn flurry attack which, if you’re not good at dodging, then good luck with that shit. flurry attacking over and over again just gets old very fast and makes those sponge enemies even more of a chore to fight when i can’t add any flavor to my sword attacks. just yet another thing in the game that i feel severely pales in comparison to past zelda games.

the weapon durability.

speaking of combat variety…i have no idea why i thought weapon durability would go away in totk. do people really like having breakable weapons? it was something i absolutely hated in botw and well, it’s back and HOPEFULLY not here to stay as a staple of new zelda games!

I’m beating a dead horse here, but breakable weapons is not a fun concept at all. It’s tedious and makes finding and collecting new weapons completely moot because “well I’ll be able to use this for a few seconds til it breaks.”  If you want more weapons while keeping the thrill of finding them alive but not having a stronger one that makes others obsolete, then make a bunch of non-breakable weapons that are used differently and better in certain situations than others.

to piggyback on that last point, that sort of matches with what i was saying earlier about having different attack mechanics depending on the weapon that you’re using. i don’t know why the hell we need to have breakable weapons be a thing in this game. is it just to fill the overworld with more treasure chests of weapons you can find like the biggoron’s sword so you can be like “oh, thanks for this, it will break in a couple of hits and then i’ll lose it forever”? having the master sword “lose” its power after certain hits is so damn stupid too. sure zelda roamed the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years to power up the master sword but it still becomes unusable after wacking it against a moblin for a bit too long. this game just REALLY wants you to spend all your time running around and fighting the same enemies over and over again so you can get new weapons/stupid shit to fuse to them to make this game longer than it really is.

the music overall.

anyone who knows me even just a little bit knows how much i love video game music. i’ll even listen to music from games i haven’t even played, and i even cry of just pure joy at listening to some of the video game music out there. but oh god. just thinking about traversing the overworld in this game with just hearing link’s footsteps and the clunky armor is enough to make me go insane. why can’t we have good overworld music in zelda games anymore? as mentioned above, at least when i had to sail around tww’s ocean or ride around st’s tracks, it gave me some damn good music to listen to that, frankly, never got old (st’s overworld theme is still one of my ultimate faves in the series). and it’s not just hyrule, but the sky and the depths have this same problem as well: absolutely nothing but silence or (in the depth’s case) random creepy music from time to time. as if the overworld itself isn’t boring enough, they just had to make its “music” dull and lackluster and honestly non-memorable. when i think of exploring hyrule in TP i think of that badass orchestra-like music playing while i’m riding around with epona. when i think of exploring hyrule/the sky/the depths in totk i think of absolutely nothing but emptiness and boredom, music-wise. SIGH!

but if the overworld wasn’t bad enough, i feel like the locations themselves didn’t…really offer much in terms music that i’d personally want to save in my music collection. there were some exceptions, of course: hateno village (but really it’s just the same music as in botw), dragon head island (really chill music, love it), and…i think the lookout landing had some decent music, but honestly i don’t remember it well enough lmao. boss-wise, sure, the wind temple boss fight music was REALLY cool (dragon roost island sample in there? sign me the fuck up), and the build up as to when you’re going down to face ganondorf was also cool, but…again, for a game THIS damn huge, i’d expect more memorable music, like with the horizon series, minecraft, or xenoblade 1/X. idk, i just am not impressed with the music available in this game given how many iconic songs the zelda games have been in the past. like kakariko village’s theme song in this game is, imo, a disgrace. idk why they couldn’t have adjusted the classic kakariko village theme song to fit the new “aesthetic” they were going for with the sheikah. they did it in tww (where it’s a lively town) and they did it in tp (now in like a old wild west town kind of thing), why couldn’t they do it in botw/totk? ugh, just….so lame and bland.

the depths.

the problem i have with the depths is pretty much the same problems i had with the hyrule overworld except make it ten times worse and also now it’s completely dark. “but omg isn’t it cool how the depths mirror the surface overworld??” yeah i don’t really care, alttp already did that and it didn’t bore me to tears exploring the dark world. seriously, i fucking dreaded going to the depths because if the lack of new and interesting things to do on the surface is bad, then in the depths it’s just so much worse. at least in the surface you can use your horse in some areas to make it go a bit faster, but here? all on foot, baby. imagine exploring the surface all on foot, with barely ANY interesting landmarks, with the same 5 or so enemies, all the damn time, and it’s dark…can’t think of anything worse, game-design wise lmao. seriously, the depths were just idk another attempt to make this game’s overworld seem a lot bigger than it is but god it was just so damn fucking boring to me. i don’t care about the abandoned mines, or the springs, or…well, what else was there? just yet another treasure chest with yet another PART of an outfit? no thanks!!

i specifically remember that getting one part of the TP outfit was such a pain in the ass to get because it’s in that spiral part on the eastern side of the map except well it’s in the depths. it was literally just me running for like 5 minutes straight around this spiral while running past a bunch of bokoblins and other enemies because lmao i don’t want to fight the same damn enemy over and over again as i’m trying to get to the end of this spiral which is actually just part of some abandoned mines with no lore or anything else interesting in it that would make it memorable. and of course what’s at the end of it all? a throwback outfit so that you can think it was worth it to run like an idiot for 5 minutes straight. finding a quiver upgrade or an empty bottle would have felt more rewarding than just yet another outfit that i won’t be bothering to upgrade because upgrades in this game are so damn tedious.

99% of the islands.

i feel like a broken record here so i’ll keep this section short since my issues with the islands are similar to the issues i have with the shrines and the overworld and the caves except now they’re in the sky. other than dragon-head island and the one where you have to like move mirrors so that light shines in certain directions, the sky islands were stale and just a big whatever. i don’t know what else to say that i haven’t already beaten to death here except that the islands in tww are more interesting and rewarding to explore than the sky islands in totk. just would absolutely bore me to tears fighting my nth construct or doing the nth take-this-crystal-to-reveal-a-shrine quest next!

the temples.

again, my problems with the temples are very similar to that of shrines, ‘cus i mean they actually just feel like glorified shrines, but at least in totk they did a better job at having each temple have a different design and feel to it instead of botw where just every beast felt the fucking same (i honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the beast dungeons apart from one another). regardless, i don’t know about you guys but man do i sure as hell miss traditional zelda temples. to quote a person i follow who recently talked about their grievences with botw (waywardsalt):

Older zelda games’ dungeons being tied to their respective items is a big part- to me- of what makes those dungeons so good. […] The dungeons in past Zelda games are practically complex tutorials on how you can use your new items. […] And then you must then use that item to defeat that dungeon’s boss, and you usually have no chance of beating that boss if you don’t make use of the dungeon’s associated item. It’s like a final test for the item, seeing if you know how it works enough to complete the dungeon and use it against a boss’s weaknesses.

much like the beasts in botw, you get to a temple here and they immediately mark the spots of where you have to go. some are more straightforward and simplistic (the water temple) than others (the fire temple—which i think is the best of the four), but they all amount to the same thing: all of the puzzles are just a variation of yet another ultrahand object fusion, or if we get a little bit crazy, you have to use ascend throughout the temple. instead of giving you a mirror shield, the lightning temple just makes you use the ultrahand to move around mirrors to solve puzzles. which was cool at first (who doesn’t love mirror puzzles?), but the temple felt way too damn short compared to other mirror-heavy temples (spirit temple from oot and earth temple from tww), and moving around a mirror that’s laying in the room in plain sight just doesn’t have quite the same zelda feel of “i’ve fought my way through this temple, beat the miniboss, and NOW i finally have a mirror shield i can use to solve the puzzles i had been seeing previously!” ‘cus idk i do miss having that bit sense of progression that dungeon items would add: i DO miss stumbling upon a locked door in a temple and searching everywhere for a key to unlock it, or wondering “wow, i have to get up there, but i think i’m missing the temple item in order to advance, i guess i’ll have to come back here after defeating the miniboss.” instead here it’s just like, ok, i’m in the flashing dot room, what fan/cart/rocket/wing combination do they want me to build yet again??

i always felt like temples were supposed to be a big part of zelda games but, again, other than the fire temple, i felt like the temples here were rather fast to beat, with the water temple just being the worst offender. i mean they can’t all be winners, but considering this game ONLY has FOUR temples, you’d think they’d idk be a bit longer or more difficult to complete like in majora’s mask? there is barely any complexity in navigating temples like with MM’s snowhead temple or tww’s wind temple—the fire temple was the only one that did anything interesting with its navigation and the others were just so fucking flat, much like the beasts in botw. did the zelda team lose its main dungeon designer or something? even majora’s mask’s pirate fortress—a MINI dungeon—was more fun and interesting to navigate than THE fucking water temple in totk. what a joke!!!

the way the story gets told.

i won’t talk about my grievances with the story details themselves, there’s plenty of people who have rightly criticized how simplistic it is and how it doesn’t really make you empathize with ANY of its characters (except, in my opinion, princess zelda): not sorry but i actually laughed when ganondorf killed sonia lol, especially with them being like HA! your fake zelda ways can’t trick us!!! and then WHAM out comes ganondorf and fucking obliterates sonia like lol ok bye girl!!! i hardly knew you and the game gave me no incentive to care about you like i would with medli in tww or grandma impa in ss so your death means nothing to me! oh whoops i need to stop talking about the “story” and its “characters” before i get carried away!

anyway! i absolutely despised how botw told its bare-bones “story” through memories you had to find in the overworld, so can you imagine my utter disappointment when totk has decided to ONCE AGAIN tell its story the same damn way?? i get that they’re going for an open world aspect but my god, some fucking linearity won’t fucking kill you nintendo. plenty of open world games are STILL very much open world while forcing some linearity when trying to tell its story—horizon forbidden west and xenoblade x come to mind. these games still let you explore much of its world as freely as you want while making you progress through its story and make you care about its characters and their purpose along the way. but here with totk i feel no connection to the world or its people—kakariko village used to be such an important place in zelda games and i honestly couldn’t tell you the name of ONE interesting or appealing character from that village like renado in TP or Mila from TWW (what’s the name of that girl that took over from impa? even fucking impa is just another afterthought in this damn game). shit, i’m getting sidetracked again, but god there is just so many things to talk about how poor of a job totk does in making you FEEL something in its damn empty overworld but i got other shit to do and this is already way too damn long (if you’ve made it this far i could kiss you!!!!)

anyway anyway! my main problem with the way that the “story” gets told is that you can collect the memory that explains the bit about fake zelda way early in the game and you’re still running around visiting towns with the new sages being like “omg princess zelda was here and she tried to kill us!! :(“ like, link what the fuck you clearly just saw a memory that zelda is in the past (or has become a dragon if you went and hunted down all the memories right away) and there was a fake zelda back then, SPEAK UP and TELL these people something!!! same thing with those sidequests with penn or whatever, you’re over here hunting down clues about the missing princess, but you already know where she is!! she’s in the past!! the zelda that people have been seeing is more than likely fake!!! she’s a dragon!! but no, because nintendo for some reason couldn’t figure out how to tell an engaging and interesting story while also having an open world (they had 6 years!!!), you have to sit like an idiot as these people talk to you about fake zelda apparitions while you’re just like “gee i wonder what THAT could be!!”

because i found dragonhead island + the fifth sage way before my fight with phantom ganon, one of my friends told me that once you beat him, you can go back to kakariko village and tell people that the zelda that prohibited access to the ring ruins is fake so that they’ll let you explore them and eventually lead you to dragonhead island. but see, i never had to do that so instead i was just frustrated at the game design that i can’t SPEAK UP about fake zelda because the game decided that this is the one time they want some linearity and you won’t be able to say anything about the fake zelda until you defeat her. instead of like, hey, let’s warn the citizens of hyrule that there’s a fake zelda running around and to not trust her?? hello?? just another missed opportunity of having this game somewhat connect you to its characters and surroundings.

likewise with the master sword. i got the master sword before i saw the final tear + learned of the sacrifice zelda had to make, so i was kinda mad cus i feel like the emotional impact of getting the master sword from the white dragon would have been MUCH MORE greater if the game would have FORCED me to see the final tear before trying to retrieve the master sword. so it’s just like, ugh. if i have to play another zelda game that does such a shitty job at telling its story and making compelling characters that evoke empathy and compassion, i will seriously not know what to do with myself. like a mutual (shoutout be-gay-do-crimes) recently mentioned: loneliness isn’t Zelda!!

and i know people have complained about this but like, sitting through the same damn cutscene after you beat the temple bosses was YET AGAIN nintendo showing that they don’t know how to keep things interesting and just repeat the same BS over and over again. why not have each old sage, which of course are just another afterthought in this game’s sea of uninteresting NPCs, add on something new from its POV so we literally don’t have to sit through the exact same story being told and have absolutely no unique perspective from the old sage? is it really too much to ask for a bit of variety for a game that reused a lot of assets from its previous game and had so many years in development? where are the good story writers from past zelda games??

link’s lack of emotions.

i have a full post where i talk about botw link’s lack of emotions and why it was such a disappointment going from tww/tp/ss to….that, so i won’t get too much into this here ‘cus i already wrote another thesis-long post about that that you can find. people defend totk link saying “but his micro expressions! omg!!! you’re OBVIOUSLY not paying attention!!” like ok lmao keep being happy you’re fed crumbs. botw/totk link’s emotions are a fucking joke when you compare to previous zelda games, even oot link showed relief and a smile at zelda when they thought they had killed ganondorf. totk link? exists in a vacuum. to quote waywardsalt again:

the blank stare and limited emoting worked in botw because… there’s a given reason for his lack of outward emotion in the past, plus he has no memory in the present. it makes sense. but this time around, he’s gotten memories in the years between this and the last game, but he just feels like a background character in most of the story beats.

like i’m sorry if i expect link to at least show a fucking SMILE at zelda once she says “link, i’m home!” GIVEN that he knows the incredibly weighted decision that zelda took in becoming a dragon and roam its skies for hundreds of years in order to give link and the people of hyrule some hope that evil will be defeated once again. this is the same girl that spent 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay waiting for YOU to heal and wake up. and there’s absolutely no emotional payback from link to us the player or zelda now that we know she won’t spent eternity as a dragon? give me a break! botw tried to explain it in zelda’s diary saying that “oh link doesn’t like showing emotion because he feels he has so much responsibility on his shoulder so he doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s feeling” but like, girl he’s not made of stone?? 

imagine if we had gotten a fraction of ss link’s expressions with totk link when he’s reaching out to zelda as she’s falling again after turning back into a human just like ss link did when he tried to catch zelda from falling to the surface. or respond to totk zelda’s “i’m home!” with the same smile that tp link gave to midna when he saw his friend was safe after the light spirits bring her back. it’s just ugh so fucking frustrating looking back at past links and how expressive they were and with totk we’re supposed to cheer that he has microexpressions and praise nintendo for making link such an emotionally-complex character through crumbs. it just makes the totk fanart of link and zelda even funnier considering how non-responsive link is to anything involving zelda. botw/totk zelda has gone through so much shit emotionally to just be talking to a wall. just whatever.

miscellaneous questionable gameplay decisions.

why can’t i call my horse from wherever i am in the overworld like i could in oot/mm/tp. this game tries to be sooo realistic with its slipping from walls if it’s raining or striking you with thunder if you have metallic weapons or well OF COURSE your horse can’t hear you whistling from where you are 10 thousand feet away! but sure i can dive from great heights and not die and i can climb mountains like spiderman and swim up waterfalls with a special shirt (but careful ‘cus this same shirt will make you drown with regular horizontal swimming!) and sure it’s fine for the gerudo to run through the desert in heels. like…make it make sense lol.

and why is it such an odyssey to use a sage’s ability. why do i have to chase them down in a chaotic battle for me to use riju’s ability. why aren’t there shortcut buttons for me to do this. who thought this was a good idea?

why is there no shortcut or a menu where i can easily switch back and forth between my most-used outfits? this was especially annoying in the desert when during the night it’d be freezing cold, so there i go to put on the rito pants and shirt. ah but it’s afternoon again so open up the menu and now switch to the gerudo head gear so you don’t die of heatstroke. like, there’s all these outfit options and this game makes it such a pain to quickly pick my most-used outfits, especially considering that each outfit consists of three parts so you have to be switching back and forth between whatever is currently needed. it’s why i never even bothered to get the climbing outfit because i sure as hell didn’t want to be switching back and forth between THAT and my green tunic just so i can climb this game’s dull mountains. there’s millions types of outfits and upgrading them just give you defense stats. to quote the destructoid article:

 OK, I can swim up a waterfall, but why not let me swim like a Zora as you could in Majora’s Mask? How about on top of just climbing faster, upgrading the climbing gear lets me climb in the rain without slipping? How about at least giving me a hotkey or shortcut to quickly change outfits on the fly instead of going through the menu every five seconds? Those would be things worth upgrading for, not just numerical defensive stats.

but of course you can’t use the same gear for climbing faster AND not allowing you to slip—why, what else would they fill the overworld with if not yet another super specific outfit?

the fusing ability was just a big whatever to me. like, just give me stronger weapons since that’s what i would end up doing 95% of the time with the fuse ability. i don’t care about fusing an ugly-ass looking bokoblin horn to my weapons to make them stronger, or putting a mushroom or whatever on my shield. oh i can fuse fruits and keese eyes and bomb flowers to make fire/ice/light/bomb arrows? very revolutionary.

eventually….ultrahand.

i won’t make this long since i’ve already talked about how i don’t play zelda games for customizations or being able to make my own house or whatever else this game tried to fit into it in a vain attempt to make the game seem bigger than it actually is. sure the ultrahand stuff is cool for the first few hours of the game and your first few shrines, but just like everything else that i’ve talked about on this thesis-long rant, it just got boring and monotonous and uninteresting to me. i honestly went through maybe 70% of the game with just the first zonai battery-thingy that you get from the start since i never really felt the need to upgrade it. ultrahand and its weird-ass puzzles just don’t feel zelda to me, i miss items like the hookshot/clawshots, the boomerang to stun enemies, the whip, the sand wand, the hammer, like…i don’t care that i can make machines that can obliterate enemy camps in an instant, it’s not like enemies are that hard in this game once you get to a certain point—i don’t need ultrahand BS for it. good for the people that are having fun with and making all sorts of contraptions, and yes in a game programming sense it is definitely cool and a marvel to think about, but……idk it just wasn’t for me and the game leaned too heavily on it for my liking. doing the same types of puzzles with carts/rockets/fans over and over again in shrines in the depths in the sky in the temples in the overworld just made me hate the ultrahand mechanic. at least with the ascend ability i felt like it wasn’t as overused as ultrahand but well i guess nintendo really wanted to show off its fancy new toy and say see!! this was worth the 70 dollars!!

—————

whew, well, there’s definitely more things i could talk about in regards to why this game is such a huge letdown for me and one of the worst ZELDA games i’ve had the displeasure to play, but i think i’ll stop here for my own sanity. if there’s one thing i’m grateful for this game is that it made me appreciate older zelda games so much more: i have this huge urge to play through tww and st again, hell even through ocarina of time too even though i’ve beaten that game EASILY over 80 times. i also had a lot of fun messaging back and forth with my buddy downpourstringloop as we would play through the game and exchange our thoughts on it (reminded me of our SS days!), so that was really cool as well. just like with botw, i definitely will not be playing through this game again as i would always do with pretty much all other zelda games (man i remember as soon as i beat ST i immediately started a new run for it because it was just so damn great). it just wasn’t fun for me and i don’t want to wade through 90+ hours of BS just to replay 10 hours of somewhat good moments.

so now that i’ve mostly poured out all most of my thoughts on this game, i hope that totk will not be taking up more of time and make me want to go insane at thinking of all the missed opportunities that nintendo had with this game coming from botw. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: i really hope the next zelda game isn’t in this same lackluster open world format and that nintendo can put back a little bit of the magic that made zelda games great and a joy to replay through. but unfortunately for me, people everywhere love botw/totk to death, so it looks like i will just have to ride it out and wait patiently for this zelda open world hype train to die. maybe then we’ll once again get interesting temples, new unique dungeon items, compelling characters and NPCs, engaging sidequests with worthwhile rewards, fun minigames that are rewarding to complete, gameplay that doesn't feel repetitive and beaten to death, and a story that tugs at my heart like SS or ST did.

PEACE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ✌️

[quirkle2]

nobody asked but im typing out all the gripes i have w totk . they're mostly nick-picky tho i loved this game. complaints first, praises after

single biggest gripe i have with totk is that the main selling point of the game, the sky, does not feel nearly as expansive as it should. i feel like there coulda been waayyy more islands up there, and Bigger ones, like the one u start out on. i want bigger pieces of land to explore, not these tiny little rocks. it feels i've seen everything there is to see the moment i land. as far as i remember, there's no biomes in the sky islands either, except for the great sky one. there's no differences, and many of the islands are copy-pasted. still fun to explore and still beautiful, but i was expecting... more

while i love the depths with all my heart and being down there is an Experience, i do think it could've been improved with a little bit of variety. it looks the same wherever u go, with the exception of the eldin region and a few other lavafalls sprinkled about. i think some different biomes woulda been so cool

no post-game. i don't even necessarily want a fully fleshed out post-game, i literally just want the game and the world to acknowledge i beat ganon instead of dumping me back in time moments before the fight i just started. this is a common thing, i know, but i Hate the practice

u can't pet th efuckign dogs

what the hell happened to ganon's face in that one scene . i thought we were past weirdly impossible expressions like that one midna grin. why did it happen again in the year 2023.

why did ganon's intro scene before the final fight pan to his feet so much

kinda predictable story, in the sense that zelda turned into the light dragon. saw it comin a mile away, but this is just me being bitchy the story itself is still very fulfilling and good. just predictable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing

okay that was 7 complaints 2 of which were memes now sit back as i ramble abt the good stuff. already made a thread abt the little stuff i liked now it's the bigish stuff

the music in some of the areas is genuine fucking art. some of my favorites are the wind temple theme and it's approach track, the construct factory theme, dragonhead island, the bits of the calamity ganon theme in this game's final boss track, frozen rito village,,, so many pieces of genuine skill and talent

the wind temple is absolutely one of the best experiences i've had in a video game, not because of the puzzle design, but the temple design. the moment where you look up into the clouds with tulin and you see a giant airship silhouette highlighted by lightning,, the approach track that plays when ur getting higher into the air had chills running down my spine. what a cool fucking concept for a temple

there's already a post somewhere on tumblr abt this, but i love that the citizens of hyrule don't follow the typical "every man for himself" apocalyptic mindset. they help each other, constantly. they seek out people to help in their spare time. they shelter each other and volunteer to do hard work for the sake of everybody else. i just think that's rly endearing n nice. a good message

the entire fuse and ultrahand mechanics are SUPER fun. so endlessly creative. and i love that a lot of the time, the game doesn't hold ur hand. it doesn't even Grab ur hand, it pushes u off the ledge to teach you how to fly. it Makes u get creative with ur solutions. it makes u feel stupid a Lot, but sometimes it makes u feel like an absolute genius (anybody else have trouble with that one rail shrine? anybody else just launch themselves across the pit and rail grind to skip the thing entirely?)

tulin.

the vibes of the thunderhead isles were Incredible. i went up there before the clouds cleared, and i gotta say, even if the game Wants u to go up there later in the story, exploring those islands while the storm is still active is an entirely different experience, and i recommend it. if ur reading this before you've finished this part, just don't go to the actual dragonhead island . leave that for when it prompts u, trust me.

ganon's dragon design ? fucking killer

a lot of the new armor pieces are really beautiful. the miner's set looks so fuckin stupid but the headpiece is cool. all the torso pieces for the elemental dragon sets r Gorgeous

loved that the first half of the final boss took place in the depths, and the second half took place in the sky. nintendo has always been good at linking game elements with stories and this is no exception imo

LOVED when ganon's health bar stretched super far to the right. that was so silly and intimidating

in the final fight, the way ganon would only be affected by flurry rushes at first and not any random attacks, but then random attacks were the only way to hit him later. i know it was scripted, but it genuinely made it feel like he was learning to fight link better

the theme of cycles and the circular nature of time throughout this game is wonderful, and how it's mirrored in the first/last settings of the game is genius. how the game starts in a cave, and then part of the ending is in that same cave. how link dived alone into that pond below the great sky island at the start, and then at the very end he dived For Zelda in that very same pond

[bokettochild]

How far are you in totk? Did you get all the memories? Are you enjoying the game?

I've recovered all the memories you can get using the carvings in the Forgotten Temple! And can I just say, I am delighted it got used? I loves the Forgotten Temple concept from BOTW, and trying to figure out what once happened when it was whole was a fun thing to do (I even included it in a fic!) but getting to dive into teh lore behind old ruins? Makes me so happy?!!??!!?

I love getting to learn about Hyrule's history and see it in era's gone by! (Ask my sisters, I could probably blather about the History of Hyrule for ages!)

I did also retrieve the memory at the Deku Tree and the final Dragon's Tear one, but there are still unfilled memory slots, so I'm figuring out how to fill those....

Currently, I've aided the sages of the Rito and the Gerudo. The Gerudo first because they're my favorite race/region in either game! I just love the vibes, the community, the...everything! I really adore Gerudo Town and the areas around it and i'd say it's my "at home" space in BOTW

The Sky Islands are my 'at home' space, or base, in TotK, but I still love Gerudo Town!

I also really enjoyed the Rito quest. I'm a bit miffed we didn't see more of Teba, but Tulin is a dear, so I'm glad to have him along!

I did also complete the Water Temple, it's just the boss fight that's giving me grief! Honestly, running to Sidon every couple of moments to recharge the water attack is a pain in the ass. Just shooting water at the boss using arrow fusion is so much easier, but I ran out of splash fruit halfway through the battle so I have to restock and fight it again :(

Kinda am not enjoying Zora's Domain as much as the first game. It feels so different, as does Sidon, and the only parts I really enjoyed were talking with the old king and Mizu in the hidden chamber. That felt better than the actual domain LOL

That said, I've mapped all of Hyrule, most of the depths, and a good portion of the sky islands! I've collected at least one piece of most of teh clothing sets, (Sheik's mask is one of my favorites) and fought Phantom Ganon twice. The second fight came out of nowhere! I was in a cave, exploring and trying to find one of the entrances into the depths (you know those spots on the map where it's like a pocket of depths because you can only get at it from above?) and got the shit scared out of me by gloom hands. I managed to respawn and glide to a place above them and take them out, but then- BOOM! Phantom Ganon battle!

I love bombs. I would be nowhere by now without bombs.

Anyways, sorry for the ramble! I'm currently poised to fight the Gibdo queen again in the depths, so that's where I left off. (i'm totally not avoiding that annoying blob-octopus annoyance in the water-temple, nope! Not that it's a hard fight, just...tedious and very, very underwhelming)

[maggotssoup]

HEY THIS CONTAINS ENVIRONMENTAL SPOILERS IN TOTK

had a funny experience while playing totk. was just strolling around eldin, decided to go to the skull lake (because i think it’s very epic and cool) and climb that big pillar.

and. that pillar is the deepest fucking cave i’ve ever seen. i dropped down there half expecting to end up in the depths because it just never ended ??? then after a few seconds i saw the bottom and it was dark. and i thought it was the depths. i was super ready to just *nope* outta there.

i was very pleasantly surprised with hitting water (albeit startled, i admit), and a longer cave system.

i am a gremlin that likes to explore, so i kept traversing through the cave. the funny thing is that there’s stalkoblins down there which i absolutely didn’t expect. in hindsight it absolutely makes sense since it’s called the “skull lake”, but i can’t exactly go back in time and tell that to past me.

anyway. headshot a few stal enemies till i ran out of arrows (i never have enough of those), resorted to yeeting dazzlefruit at them (works like a charm btw. they die immediately) and went on.

then i reached a bigger, more spacious area. dazzled some stal enemies that were there before i noticed that this was a cave with Misko’s treasure in it. you wanna know what else was there? a stalnox. i hate minibosses. i attempted to just climb up to the chest without that big skeleton noticing me but nah. it saw me.

my tulin avatar started shooting at the stalnox (stan tulin) while i opened the chest, and to my fucking surprise i had found the fierce deity headpiece. do you have any idea how much i love the fierce deity? i wouldn’t expect you to. the fierce deity is probably my favorite flavor of link.

anyway. after i’d caught that one i was super happy. almost forgot i was being hunted down by a giant skeleton. i didn’t, of course, because the thing threw something at me and i exploded. i have no idea what happened.

reloaded at the same place (with the mask) and i just ascended the fuck outta there. i am now a very happy man. i have one part of my favorite set.

tldr; i found the fierce deity headpiece in totk and i wanted to share !! (:

[a-pale-azure-moon]

Random TotK Thoughts #2

I've gotten a bit further, having completed one regional phenomenon, found a few more dragon's tears, and done some sidequests and exploring. I am having so much fun!!!

Specific things under the cut just to be safe.

-Something I forgot to mention in the first post, but how awesome is it that your horses carry over? I love that the devs included this little bonus. I spent so much time catching horses in BotW just for fun, so it's extra nice having all of my favorite ponies around for another tour of Hyrule.

-Where did Zelda find that gold horse though? How does a gold horse even exist in the first place? It even looks metallic with the way light refracts off of its coat. Bizarre. xD

-Penn's "Soar Long!" is the best/worst catchphrase ever.

-The journey up to the Wind Temple was great. Just climbing higher and higher, using the islands as "stairs" to reach the eye of the storm. I can't say I was very impressed with the dungeon itself though; it's an improvement over the Divine Beasts in terms of design, as it feels like it has its own identity rather than just repeating the same aesthetic as the shrines, but the puzzles and layout were very basic and once again, the goal was to activate five things. It's still a downgrade from a more traditional Zelda dungeon.

-I did like having to fuse a giant icicle to a broken handle though. That was a neat idea. And the Colgera boss fight was good and very fun, if a bit easy. I'd rate the whole sequence as like, a B overall, i.e. good but still has room for improvement.

-Tulin is cute as heck and his skill is useful. His headshots are even more useful (except when the enemy falls off an edge and I lose the drops, which has happened a lot). I've still found myself missing Revali's Gale a little though. :/

-I killed my first Frox in the depths on my mission to get Autobuild. It was almost completely dark since I hadn't found the next Lightroot, so it took me a minute to notice the ore deposits on its back. I kept shooting its eye and wondering why it was barely doing any damage, lol.

-Imagine my surprise when I ran into a Yiga down there, and then when Kogha showed up. I like how this is a "logical" way for him to have survived his confrontation with Link back in BotW. And that he's still an idiot who's easy to beat.

-Did Link just give Zelda his house in Hateno? (Also, I appreciate that the photo from the Champion's Ballad is still on the wall. Another nice little continuity touch.) Interesting though that the table is set for two but there's only one bed....

-After I visited Robbie at the lab and got the shrine sensor (finally), whom did I see casually flying by but Naydra! And man....I'm so psyched that you can actually land on the dragons now. I hitched a ride on her for quite awhile, and it helped me reach a couple of towers and scout for some other points of interest. And I harvested a few of her parts too, of course.

-I was surprised to discover that she goes into the depths (I assume Farosh and Dinraal do as well). I almost fell off when she started diving and then I realized we were entering a chasm. Neat!

-Also, I love how her body undulates as she flies, and she makes this soft purring/growling sound too. It's the little details like this that make the game world feel so real and immersive.

-Knowing now that Mineru tinkered with the Purah Pad in the distant past, I'm getting a headache trying to figure out if Sheikah technology derived from Zonai technology, or if it's actually the other way around because of time travel shenanigans.

-Also, you can't tell me that Zelda, the massive history nerd, didn't take at least one selfie with her great-great-great-great (etc) grandparents and many, many pictures of ancient architecture and technology while she was in the past. Somewhere on the Purah Pad is a hidden file filled with hundreds of photos that she took. Change my mind!

-I have a mighty need to know how Rauru and Sonia met and what their courtship was like. This two second interaction in Memory #2 begs for elaboration.

(She hit him with a closed fist! The look he gives her just sends me, and then he rubs the spot afterwards like it bruised.)

-I like how Sonia's reaction to Zelda is basically, "I'm taking her home with me and adopting her."

-I'll confess to my idiocy that I didn't immediately notice that Rauru has three eyes; I thought its lid and lashes were part of his facial markings (tattoos?) until I looked more closely. Does he keep it closed by choice or does it only open as a reflex in certain situations? I'm guessing the latter since Mineru's third eye is closed as well.

-It's funny to me that he literally has hair down to his heels and his sister's hair is cropped so short it's almost unnoticeable under her ears and visor. xD

-Also, bless the animators for actually using Rauru's magnificent ears to show some of his emotions. The way they twitched in Memory #3 made me grin so much.

-I think I've figured out what the major plot twist of this game's going to be. It can't be a coincidence that Mineru mentioned a forbidden power of draconification and that there was a dragon that flew right next to the Great Sky Island to allow Link to descend to Hyrule, can it? Hmm...

[minijenn]

So 

I just beat Tears of the Kingdom

Thoughts under the cut because golly I have soooo many

OK SO THIS HAS IN JUST A WEEK ALONE BECOME NOT ONLY MY NEW FAVORITE ZELDA GAME BUT MY NEW FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME BECAUSE HOLY SHIT ITS INSANE

Ok, enough screaming, time for coherent thoughts. Sort of. First of all, the gameplay. Its SO fun. Honestly all of the arm mechanics are great; I still need to flex my creativity with ultrahand now that I’m done the game but once I do ohohoho  it’s aaaaaaall over for you nerds. I used ascend SO much tbh, way more than I probably should have, same with recall. The puzzles are really nicely open ended in a way that allows you to use any of these abilities in whatever way you’d like really to solve them. The world itself is so much more fun to traverse using them and speaking of that world its HUGE. Like I’ve barely even scratched the surface of the Depths and I’m gonna be spending a lot of my post game trying to finally map it all out. I do wish there was a bit more going on in the sky but ah well. Exploring what’s there is still fun. The dungeons are pretty good, not the best the series has ever seen, but a major step up from the divine beasts for sure. Same with the boss fights. Though the final phase of the final boss was such an insane spectale like seriously I’m still struggling to believe something that cool happened in a Zelda game imo

The game performs... mostly well, though I did notice a few framerate dips here and there but I’m rarely one to get too worked up over that sort of thing. The way it takes a world that was familiar in Breath of the Wild and makes it look so fresh and new is outstanding. And the music? Amazing, like seriously this game’s main theme slaps so hard, not to mention the final final boss music? ohohohoho godddddd. 

Ganondorf is exactly the despicable piece of shit I was hoping he’d be, the new characters like Rauru and Sonia and Mineru are fantastic editions to the Zelda cast and I can easily see them all becoming fan favorites. Seeing characters like Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon, and Riju have some major time to shine was great, and adventuring through the dungeons with them is a ton of fun! The side adventures/quests are also a lot more involved in this game, NPC interactions in general are just more fleshed out, and there’s just so much to do all across Hyrule, which leaves me with so much more to still get to now that I’m finished with it (still haven’t gotten all the shrines not to mention bubble gems; I’ll be playing this for a good long while even now that I’m done with it) 

Then of course there’s the story which had me theorizing and second guessing myself right up to the very end. Like seriously, I yelled and laughed and screamed, and of course sobbed like a BABY over the ending. It took so many turns I wasn’t expecting and I really liked that! If botw already made you care about Zelda, this game took it too a whole new level. The memory cutscenes fucked me up and this game personally victimized my emotions and I’ll never recover but I love it so much for that. I’m already thinking through several fanfic concepts centered around this game even as we speak so yeah, like I said, I’ll never recover. 

But anyway, overall, my first experience with ToTK has been an incredible one. It was well worth the wait, even better than I anticipated it would be, and will no doubt go down in history, just as BotW did before it, as one of the greatest games of all time. It certainly is in my book, anyway. 

[breannasfluff]

I would love to hear your rambles about Ur fics if u want, it doesn't have to be spoilers or anything, just like, your line of thought, why your gave each character those characteristics and stuff (feral wild my beloved 🩷🩷🩷)

Uh YES talking about the boys is my favorite thing 🥰🥰

I knew when I started writing Linked Moments I wanted it adjacent to Linked Universe, but not in the same timeline. I like the characters, their designs, some of their personality traits, but I want to do something unique!

The first few stories are always rougher as I find a handle on their personalities and how I want them to interact. Wild’s easiest because a) favorite, b) I read a lot of fics with him and c) I started replaying botw in preparation for TotK.

There’s some active decision on personality, but I really enjoy “discovering” each character as I write. Four, for example, fights every step of the way and just doesn’t flow well. I’m still trying to find a vibe off him and how he fits into the group.

Wild, Twi, Ledge, and Hyrule are definite favorites so we get a lot more of them. Wolfie is Wild’s safe person and I adore their interactions. I wanted him to be someone Wild could relax with when he’s still learning to trust everyone else. Also, someone who would connect to his more feral behavior.

I like to think that Wild was pretty darn wild when he first woke up. Obviously some basics remain, but you can’t convince me that boy didn’t put everything in his mouth to see if he could eat it 🤣

With Yiga disguised on the road he tended to stick to the outskirts unless he came in to a stable. He spent a lot of time with the dogs there, as well as observing wolves in the wild. He really likes wolves, despite an…incident we’ll explore later 👀

Hyrule is my cinnamon roll and he can totally kick your butt while smiling sweetly. I like his dynamic with Legend, so I try to keep that, but I also like having him buddied up with Wild.

I usually pick one or two relationships for each oneshot to focus on because otherwise it’s a lot to balance. Also, I want to show the different moments of growth between the pairs.

Thinks like Fae Touched, Wing Bois, and other oneshots are opportunities for me to explore different dynamics or back histories. Wild and Wolfie/Twilight is more of a precedence in Linked Moments.

Legend is our grouchy boy, but he understands trauma responses a little too well. He periodically recognizes what’s going on with Wild and really steps up into a calm role to help. He tries to provide what he needed but didn’t have 😭 It’s those moments that he’s very similar to Hyrule.

Warriors uhhhhh had ended up with some personal influences, woops. My writing has always been fairly personal in some way; either the genre, themes, or feelings. Lots of family fluff (especially in Encanto, which I wrote for before this). Writing is usually more grounded if it’s based on personal experience, so it’s a mix of that or straight up research. Usually if I’m worried about reception I post it under an alt account.

Time is a struggle for me although I know many readers liked his chapter with the Champion. He and Wild don’t operate the same and it puts a bit of a wedge on their interactions.

Wind is a loose cannon careening through the background and bodily throwing himself at people. He’s a tactile kid (even if he is a teen). I like seeing him have some depth, he’s a capable hero on his own.

Sky is a lot more of a gremlin at heart than I thought when I started writing. We haven’t seen much of him yet and he likes to cover up the chaos love with his “chosen hero” vibes.

I think I covered everyone and I’ve uh….been rambling a while lol 😅 Thank you for the ask! I’ve missed writing on vacation :( please feel free to drop further questions or I’ll tag you if I think of something!

[thegeminisage]

ok, i got about an hour and a half to play some zelda!!! i'm in rito village cuz i got my frog armor. my map says there's a chasm here so i'm gonna get some korok seeds and see if i can find it

god i miss kass.

i havent ben back here since i did the wind temple, so there's a lot of sidequests lol

ok, i NEVER would have found that chasm without help. the opening into the cave is SO tiny

off to a fantastic start. landed by a yiga hideout AND a lightroot!!

oh! it's isolated! i guess that makes sense cuz in the overworld it's surrounded by water. i was gearing up to do some Depths Exploring though, i kinda miss it??

i notice mineru didn't meet me. so she really is only in one little section until i do the dungeon. blegh

oh, it's not a proper yiga hideout, there's just a diary. something about a weapon with blue stone. PLEEEEASE be a timeshift stone please please please (guy who knows it wont actually be a timeshift stone)

CRYSTALLIZED ZONAI SHOP LETS FUCKING GOOO

aw and a schema stone

siren call of the depths: i kinda wanna explore more. i was gonna go back up to rito village and knock out some of those sidequests but fuck it

as with the overworld i have a lot of the eastern section knocked out and have barely touched the western half. so i guess i'll go clean up in the east. unfortunately i have not been marking ANY of my boss encounters bc i didnt want to look at this map too closely so i'll probably wind up doing them all again lol

i don't know, am i taking some of the joy of exploration out of the depths by looking at this map early? i guess so, but i don't want to forge on without it, and the internet has spoiled me for the whole thing anyway. besides, they're not detailed enough that you can really tell what it'll look like once you get there. i think some surprises will still remain

i am going to turn on hands i think lol. that's one surprise i DON'T want, not down here

i guess if things get too hairy or tedious i always have my bike...it's been so long since i learned about them, yet since then i've barely set foot down here at all. i was doing koroks. so it's been a REALLY long time since i've properly explored down here.

tiny dark spot by hateno so im starting there. warped to a nearby root and found the two new ones i need pretty much instantly without even using the spoiler map - they were just hidden behind a wall

i read somewehre that the weapons the ghost soldiers hold for you, the unrotted ones, will only be weapons you've already broken above. which is stupid cool but then WHYYY do i never get royal broadswords...they're my favorites...

another mine...i guess that's to be expected. why do they all have the names of the cities above though? like, hateno didn't exist throughout the ages, it wasnt in oot or whatever. you can't tell me every city in hyrule is 10,000 years old. i guess lin's sheikah slate is naming the mines and using the names of the villages it knows? but IT'S 10,000 years old too. i love totk but the way it breaks the lore is so fucking frustrating, especially since i was finally excited about the lore actually being COHESIVE for the first time after skyward sword.

ooh, this diary mentions a hidden yiga academy behind a waterfall in gerudo...i've been spoiled a bit for that questline too but i feel better that i found the tip organically

oh. i found a "researcher" lol

LMAOOOO she's asking me to pick my own demise. incred

good GOD what is that...i shouldn't have answered...i picked burny bc i actually hate freezy more but what in the name of god

i mean i killed her basically instantly but that was a little alarming! i wish i got a schema stone for one of THOSE

MORE refinery shopping. i already have enough for one battery upgrade and i'm close to getting a second

oop yeah there's upgrade #2

and another schema stone!

ok, doubling back to check and old map mark i missed...

GLOOM TREES BAD

oh it's cap of the sky! i actually already have one of those lol but i can sell this one

ok, let's see...there's a tiny dark spot under gut check rock, so i'll get that next...

i have like. 630 arrows lol and it's a good thing too bc i got spotted by a monster camp and just took them out from a tree

zonaite really isnt hard to collect...like, at first having to get 4000+ to max your battery seemed impossible. but the hard part is that the refineries don't sell a lot at once so you either have to warp around or wait to turn it all in lol

i like how weather attack makes food useful again? like i stopped making food to help me with heat or cold bc i had armor...BUT i can't have armor to defend me from the elements AND the attack up from the elements at the same time. if i want both, i need food for one or the other! it's very clever. now i need to be more mindful when cooking instead of just doing the same health and stamina refills over and over

i really hate how hard the lava air effect makes it to fucking SEE down here. jesus

killed a flux construct. sick nice etc

found a proper yiga hideout >:)

minecart tracks??? i want a cart too... :(

sadly lacking in cart to cart combat. 0/10 stars

ok, working my way down towards the spring of power. i want those bargainer statues lol

i like exploring the depth a lot better when shit is lit up. i didn't realize until now but it's exhausting not to be able to see ANYTHING. i think that's why i got so tired of it so quickly before, even though i was also having fun poking around. finding one light point after another is fun and that requires darkness but it's also really difficult to navigate the terrain when you can't see AND there's gloom

found my mf statue. i cant believe i walked right past these before...you wouldn't know they're there unless you're looking :/

YESSSSS HOOD OF THE DEPTHS...finally.................

i had almost 700 poes so i had plenty to buy with lol

ANOTHER yiga hideout!! have i done this one?? it looks familiar...

oh yep lmao i sure have. bummer. at least i can mark it off my map :/

ok, thats all i have time for!!!

[ivaalo]

I have mixed feelings about TotK.

As a game itself, it was so great, it was an experience, it's one of my favorite video game ever.

But as a sequel, I think they could have done so much more.

The reason why I love this game is mostly because it takes the best of BotW and has one of the best story a Zelda game has written.

But when I started to play the game, I noticed a lot of stuff that made me worried. The fast weapon-select-screen is very slow to load, same for the hand powers.

You still have the shrines. Okay I prefer this aesthetic, but it's still a redesign from the previous game. Same for Koroks. There's gotta be a way to upgrade your inventory / hearts / stamina without coping-pasting BotW. The problem with shrines is that you know the result of your efforts before finishing it. And when you know you can cheat the puzzles, it makes it not rewarding at all, no matter if you do it the "intended way" or not.

The dungeons are lazy (level design speaking). It's always like "you have to activate 4 or 5 mechanisms and that's it". In other Zelda games, this would have been the final room, not the whole dungeon. Most of puzzles are skippable, so low satisfaction.

Narration is lazy too. You collect memories. Every cutscene after a boss is the same.

The depths. Why??? Why making a whole new map... with nothing in it??? At first I thought this was gonna be a scary underworld. Like you have all this gloom stuff, and you actually make the scariest shit ever, and you don't. It's just boreland. The only good things to do there is farming, collecting roots of shrines to see their emplacement and that's it. No, I'm not considering the fanservice tunics as a good thing. It's breaking the 4th wall as hell. Nothing rewarding here. Like yeah, I just beat that gloom Gleeok! What do I get? Something an Amiibo could have given me.

The sky is empty too. Maybe there should have been only the land and the sky, without the depths, and this would have been better, since more effort would have been put in the sky islands.

The lore is weird. As much as I love exploring the lore of Zelda games, in this one, I feel like the creators didn't have any idea of how to implement the Zonai here. Like if the Ancien Hero is a Zonai, why are Rauru and Mineru considered the last Zonai? Where is the Sheikah tech? Like even the walls of the Shrine of Resurrection disappears?? We can only theorize that everything Sheikah rose from the earth when needed and went back to the ground once BotW is over, but a simple random line of explanation would be great. Also time span between events??? 100 years from the Calamity is something, 10,000 from the Sheikah gold-age is insanely huge, and it wasn't the first time Ganon woke up. So Zelda travelled like what? 300,000 years ago?? You wouldn't understand the language of someone 300 years ago in your own country, this is just absurd. The ancient Hyrulean text cannot be read, but Zelda can understand Sonia perfectly.

Balancing. The upgrading stuff for your cloths are a copy-paste from the previous game, without balancing in consequence. Lizalfos's tails are rare as hell, and I need 36 of them. In BotW, this wasn't an issue, due to the abundance of Lizalfos and drop rate. This is an issue, in TotK.

Ambiance. This is supposed to be the Cataclysm. Except Yiga or Stal monsters (like BotW), no monster attack you if you don't approach them first. No attack in villages or forts. (Lurelin was already destroyed, and the Bazar was only a mission) Except Gloom hands, no enemy feels threatening. In BotW, the world was dominated by monsters and nothing changed until Link woke up. In this game, monsters are supposed to attack places and make their return, not just lay in Hyrule field waiting to get destroyed.

Other stuff, like if you gotta spend a lot of time in the air, why not having a boost module in your paraglider that you can upgrade, instead of Tulin's power?

Despite all of this rant, I loved this game. I just think they could have done so much more for a sequel, instead of copy-pasting stuffs from BotW. Reminder that this game took 6 years to develop. 7 years for BotW. Except BotW was all original. So yeah, kinda disappointed.

However, I want to say that I love this game with all my heart. The music, the cutscenes, the story, the bosses. It's pure blessing!

It's also bold of Nintendo to not care about the timeline anymore and make the BotW-TotK games separated from the established timeline.

It's hard to rank this game. I enjoyed it more than BotW, but deceptions (and the depth, which was a huge time-consuming chore) makes it so I don't want to replay it soon.

Wind Waker remains unbeatable.

[sleeplessadhara]

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Spoilers (my thoughts)

Firstly, I'm so, so happy I was able to play this game without spoiling myself and I went full on blind. I think that made the whole experience more enjoyable and magical for me.

The first minutes of the game I was already hooked, and I wanted to know more, who were the Zonnai? What are they? Were they godly entities, product of Hylia? Were they equal to her?

And then Ganondorf appeared, in his skeletal glory. I wasn't expecting Link to literally lose his arm and to almost die, and It was so unexpected that Zelda went back to the past too.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise, the controls felt mostly like BOTW, although at first I found it kinda tricky remembering the ultrahand controls and stuff, but after a few hours of playing I got used to it.

The difficulty of the enemies isn't SUPER hard, but it took me a few hours to learn again how to fight them without dying constantly (i was very rusty).

Next, I like that like in BOTW, they give you freedom to explore the First Sky Island to find more context, and history behind the Zonnai and Rauru. It was heartwarming to see Rauru observing the golems on their daily jobs, and listen to him while he said how he cherished them, or felt bad for them.

It was as if the golems weren't just plain old useless NPC's, and they had actual depth. I love the golems fr.

I also wanted to add that despite the game letting you roam about at your will, it also gives you lots of clues and tips on where to go next. I never felt lost at all.

Graphics and Visuals

Like BOTW, Tears of The Kingdom is a beautiful game. The scenery, the ambient, the backgrounds, it felt like I was truly walking on a Kingdom that was being rebuilt. The sky islands felt heavenly, but at the same time as if they were once occupied by people. And the Abyss... just wow. I was scared the first time I went down there.

Sound and Music

I'm sorry folks, I'm going to rant so much.

The music used on this game, are so smartly and beautifully crafted, you can't even imagine. From moment 1, it helps you get into the game and story.

I just loved hearing the songs and then, unexpectedly... BOOM. I could hear fragments of songs from other Zelda games. I also love how the songs match perfectly every single place, boss, cutscene, etc.

Not only that, but I think one of my favorite songs was the one that plays when fighting against Colgera. I wasn't expecting such a beautiful and epic music at that moment, and the gasp I let out while I was fighting the thing almost made me die. (I love how the characters advise you to visit first Rito village. It surely was worth it, and it's a direct punch to your heart by nostalgia).

Another song I loved was Sidon's theme. To me, the song felt more soft compared with BOTW, but at the end, it peaks up amazingly. It gave me the vibes that tells the story of how Sidon lost some of his courage in fear of losing his people, and then he regains it when Yona gives him a speech to push him to do the right thing.

Lastly, another thing I loved was how they mixed some of the songs with the music that play when you are near one of the dragons??? In the final battle that killed me, it was amazing.

The Voice Acting was on point too, I loved Sonnia's voice from the very beginning, it was so soft and warm, but when it needed to be, she was sharp and- yeah.

Story and Narrative

I think the story of TOTK is satisfying. I loved how at first we have no clue of what is happening, and as we go collecting the pieces of the puzzle, we can make our own conclusions until the story is explained to us.

I wasn't expecting Zelda to become a dragon, at all.

When I first saw the Light Dragon, I thought it was an addition, maybe related to a side-quest or something. But wow. When the dots connected, pain.

I thought for real that we wouldn't be able to bring back Zelda to her original form, and I cried a lot when I finished the Tears of the Dragon quest. The cutscene was heartbreaking.

When the music stops, and then starts again super loud, with an orchestral/choral version of Zelda's Lullaby, it made me feel that was she doing was something that there was no turning back from. An act of a princess who wanted nothing else than to help her people, but at the same time, being afraid of losing herself to the Draconian power.

She legit felt as if she was in great pain, and the scream she let out when transforming into the Light Dragon... and when she flew to the clouds vanishing while the Sages watched from afar her sacrifice... I lost it.

Anyway, moving on.

I also loved traveling to the different regions, where lots of things changed, and the Newer Sages had also some personality growth through the story.

One thing that disappointed me was that they barely talked about the Four Champions of BOTW. (When I saw that they changed Mipha's statue, I got so mad. Until I saw they made a zone in her memory, then I calmed down).

But, what happened to the Divine Beasts? Did they disappear to thin air? Is there a side-quest that explains what happened to them?? I don't know.

It just felt as if they never existed at all.

Next, I wanted to talk about the Final Boss.

It was really an improvement from BOTW, it felt as if I was truly fighting SOMEONE, when Ganondorf dodged my sword I was surprised. (I think it's not the first time they do this, but anyways, it's a good touch).

It also caught me off guard when he transformed into a dragon too, but at that moment I realized that maybe Zelda could come and help us. Which she did, and I'm so glad it happened.

Maybe the Dragon Ganon was an easy fight, but I don't care, I enjoyed every second of it: Zelda picking me up before I fell to my death, her dodging Ganon's attacks... It just felt right.

One thing I am kinda disappointed about the ending, was that Zelda didn't become the Queen of Hyrule.

On the other hand, I also would have loved to see Zelda return to Hateno Village and reunite with her students.

The students of the school she founded loved Zelda so much. They even made drawings of her!! And she had them displayed on her house and studying room!!!

Conclusion

I loved this game so much, every moment of it felt magical. I fell in love with the new characters, they had so much personality! They felt alive.

I don't think I can stress this enough, but Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece to me. I wish I could erase my memories and play it again for the first time.

This is a long rant that I had to let out of my system, I apologize for that.

[cobaltaris]

Aris Media 2023 #27: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

to be honest despite putting 100 hours into this I? don't know how to dissect this in my usual short-form reviews on this site? (this aged poorly i wrote like 10 paragraphs on it) guess we'll try because oh my god this was. an experience i wasn't ready for

so THAT was the imprisoning war...

also uh! Spoiler Warning! deep in the Read More for gameplay and story terms! i'm not gonna tell you how everything plays out but there is unrevealed stuff i need to go into, but being we're nearly a month out from release, that's mostly fine, i think

okay so breath of the wild aged kinda weirdly for me? it's a GREAT game but in retrospect it felt lacking compared tro some of my favorite Zelda games, especially in dungeons and storytelling, and i really was worried TotK wouldn't vibe with me cuz BotW looked to be a paradigm shift for the whole Zelda series

and? surprisingly, it all worked out?? i was so enthralled from beginning to end! having the same hyrule didn't end up mattering to me cuz i didnt replay BotW, and there was simply so much MORE to the world despite that. AND SO MANY KOROKS TO TORTURE AND CRUCIFY

not to mention when you can put a slab of iron together and put wheels and a stick on it and have it work as a great way to get around, the fun of traversal kinda overrode the thoughts i had about all that; the Zonai stuff is SO GOOD (that goes for both the devices and the people-okay mainly Mineru but can you blame me she is PERFECT)

SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS TO GET OFF HOT GOAT PEOPLE FOR A SEC; THIS F U C K

the memory stuff is kind of just okay in retrospect, didn't love the plot but the big key moments stuck with me, but GOD ganondorf is so good. they hit all the beats i was hoping for with him and probably made his most outright evil portrayal yet, while STILL making him so calm and in control that it's scary. the way they send him off is so good and please moots finish the game when you can cuz that ending OH MY GOD-

anyway! i just really liked vibing in this game doing shrines and whatnot, which with the new abilities are way more fun and memorable than in BotW. the jenga shrine is? amazing? Ultrahand makes every puzzle a joy to Ignore the Main Solution To, and Ascend and Recall are just outright broken and very fun to use. while I had more issues with durability this time i also love how natural and useful Fuse is; Rocket Shields are so fun and i wish I got more Rockets simply to use them more than I did

the characters are also a lot more fun this time around, and the returning ones got to shine way more! the Tarrey Town quest was SO good in this one, the Champions are a delight, the musical troupe you help out really stuck with me...and Addison. he's. he's a treasure. I'LL SUPPORT YOU

I didn't get too much out of the Sky Islands admittedly; they're still really cool but! generally repetitive after a bit and not super interesting, great atmosphere though. but it's the Depths that really caught me off guard, places in games with a lot of bounty to them but also HIGH levels of danger are some of my favorite things! but the thing i really loved about it is when i realized that it is Tears of the Kingdom's Dark World - its an exact mirror of the original world, Lightroots connecting to Shrines, water aboveground being walls in the Depths, and generally being a way harsher environment. once i realized that, it elevated it SO much, and along with a few things really made it feel like TotK was this hella cool mix of traditional and open-world Zelda

caves! finally back in this one! can i just say that between Vinny's pronunciation of them and their allure here i've gotten obsessed with finding them, every time i see one i just yell "BOOBEL GEM!!" and start firing arrows and hfgjfgjkfg

but no really the caves were such a sour missing part of BotW and their inclusion gives the world so much more needed complexity. i love exploring them, and to repeat this point again, it felt so Classic Zelda to go in one, solve an environmental puzzle, and get a Shrine out of it - and a free one almost always, which feels like the developers also bringing back how caves used to be! i need to say it again THIS GAME WAS SUCH A TREAT

that goes also somewhat for the dungeons, besides like, the Water Temple, which compared to other Water Temples felt extremely lacking, and even in this game it has...no scale? just feels like a regular place? BUT THE OTHERS. DAMN. even if i wish they were even bigger and had more to do, the fact they are real places with lore behind them to explore, different atmospheres - the Fire and Lightning ones EXCEED at this, especially in delivering great boss fights with the Sages' aid. too bad about that same cutscene repeating four times huh

there's even more i could go into it, like how the Gleeok fights are the most HYPE thing and i love them, or how i kinda still wish there was more enemy variety, and ALSO this game got me into the wonder that is house renovation, it's so good actually, but being i'm putting this all in a Tumblr post on a dashboard expected to be scrolled through at high velocity, i'll just cut it here because i loved this one too much. legit too much! it's a Top 3 Zelda, but there's almost too much to do and it can get overwhelming, and still areas left to improve on, but I am more than satisfied with what Tears turned out to be after my skepticism <3

Grade: S