#i feel like botw is very much the perfect game in that you can do whatever you want but eventually everything will fall in place

[inspector-montoya-fox]

hi how have you been?

[imababblekat]

Botw Characters W/ A Crush; HC’s

@xxrainmxx​ ,” Hello, can I request headcanon of the corjection methods that Sidon, Mipha, and Revali would use to let their crush know their intentions? (gender neutral if possible)”

Anon Request, “ Hello, can I request headcanon of Mipha, Revali and Sidon trying to flirt with their crush?”

~xXx~

Sidon:

when Sidon has a crush on someone it goes one of two ways depending on how deeply he feels for that lucky person

if it’s in the beginning stages of him realizing that he likes them, he actually becomes a bit timid whenever they’re around

it’s not that he’s scared of these new found feelings, he’s just new to the concept of actually liking someone as opposed to being the object of affection like he is to so many others

once he gets past figuring things out and really starts having it hard for his crush, he’s back to his extravagant self

will absolutely boast about great qualities he sees in them, not just in private but to others as well

was already a huge supporter to begin with, but becomes even more so and always finds ways to be there for his crush

absolutely takes no shit from others talking about his crush behind their back

overall Sidon’s way of flirting or letting his feelings be known to his crush is grand action and devotion; he wants them to know how much they mean to him and how much he’s willing to do for them should they except him

Revali:

this feathered butt head is such a pain when he first realizes he has a crush on someone

absolute tsundere if you will

he’s just not used to the idea of being that fond of someone, that someone could hold such a power over him to make his heart feel like it’s falling from the sky by just walking into the same vicinity

once he gets past his complicated feelings about the ordeal, Revali starts to accept the ideas of why he developed feelings for this person and it turns into honorable admiration

he isn’t going to just fall for anyone of course

the Rito takes note in impressionable skills his crush possesses, such as how swift they are with a bow or how they’re able to finely put ingredients together to cook the perfect meal

if you don’t know Revali very well you probably wouldn’t be able to notice when he’s coming on to his crush; it’s all subtle compliments that could be mistaken as ire for the other

the closer he gets to his crush, he’ll actually start giving them small gifts as he finds it easier than trying to express how he feels with words, which is a shock to not just his crush but him as well, since the Rito Champion is known for having a colorful vocabulary

Mipha:

Mipha’s had crushes before, so depending on how close she is with the person she’s crushing on will determine whether or not she pursues those feelings

if she does, her crush can expect to be spending a lot more time with her

she’ll go out of her way to spend time with them when not swamped by her duties as not just the Zora Princess but also their Champion

much like her brother, she’s very supportive of her crush, just not in such an extravagant manner

she’s much more subtle with making her feelings known, almost in a shy kind of way

is always making sure her crush is safe and protected, and much like she had with Link in the game, she promises to always be there to heal them if they need

the further things pass on, she might start to also gift her crush small trinkets

gifts that remind her of them, such as shells that match their eyes, or some jewelry that accentuates their lovely smile

~xXx~

[ophanim-vesper]

My (personal) Problem With TOTK's Zelda

I think nothing infuriates me more about TOTK's writing than the fact that Zelda is literally a recycled, WORSE version of herself in BOTW.

What was Zelda's arc in BOTW? - struggling to unlock an important power that will help save the world. - is dreading an impending doom that will be caused by a formidable evil. - by losing/nearly losing those who love and support her, she finds her strength and sacrifices herself to help Link, spending hundreds to thousands of years in an intangible, unreachable form.

Very, VERY well-written and thematically consistent. Zelda had her struggles, her faults and her flaws and grew to be an incredible savior worthy of the prophecy that preceded her. She literally went from 'zero to hero', believing she was the weakest out of her companions (the Champions) to becoming one of the most important. Without her, the story of BOTW wouldn't have happened, and it's thanks to her that the kingdom is saved.

So what's Zelda's arc here in TOTK? uhhh.... - struggling to unlock an important power that will help save the world. - is dreading an impending doom that will be caused by a formidable evil. - by losing/nearly losing those who love and support her, she finds her strength and sacrifices herself to help Link, spending hundreds to thousands of years in an intangible, unreachable form.

Except, in my opinion it's much WORSE and carries much less weight than in BOTW. Why? Because there's one horrible mistake the writers of TOTK made when writing our beloved princess, and it's that...

They made her too perfect.

Idk if this is just me, but I dislike how Zelda was portrayed as this 'perfect, flawless and talented princess' who can do everything as if it was as simple as breathing for her. I didn't like how she suddenly became good at cooking at this game (referring to that one side quest with the meat and rice bowl). I loved the hc that she was a terrible cook, but even if she somehow learned, I wish it was mentioned how Link taught her or how she works super hard to become good at something she previously wasn't. I wish it was touched upon how she was an isolated princess who only had books for access to the outside world. I didn't like how it seemed she was suddenly a proficient explorer who knew all plant species and animals just because she 'read' about them (reading doesn't count for crap if you have no field experience!). It almost seems like every skill Link was good at is suddenly also Zelda's skill, aside from fighting. I don't like that. It makes them feel less unique from each other, and makes Zelda feel like she's copying Link in a sense. I wish Zelda had more obviously 'book smarts' while Link was more of a 'streets smarts' person.

Also, they completely forgot to give her any flaws. No struggles, no real issues, no intrapersonal problems at all. But what infuriates me the most to the point I see red, is this:

"Oh? You're struggling to unlock a new power you've never used before but desperately need to in order to go home/save the world? Lemme give you a quick pep talk and you're suddenly a master at using it, no struggle to learn needed yippeee!!!!!!"

Yeah. I don't like this.

I get it. In BOTW, Zelda had no proper mentor with experience to teach her to use her Light power. She had to figure it out herself, with everyone putting pressure on her, thus stunting her development further. And here, Zelda had supporting loved ones with experience in magic who can actually teach her. But come on...

It feels like such a lazy cop-out, and stomps on the beautiful arc Zelda had in BOTW when unlocking her power. It also sucks that it happens off-screen too, as in the next memory Zelda is suddenly proficient at time magic.

Zelda doubted herself. She was carrying pounds of self-loathing and frustration because she couldn't do the one thing she was destined to do. She felt useless, a failure and felt as if the Goddess herself was ignoring her. THAT is a character with struggle. THAT is an interesting protagonist. It is almost never fun when a character instantly learns to use a new skill they've never used before, or even knew existed-- and even WORSE when it happens OFF-SCREEN.

Of course, these are just my opinions though, and I'm sure many other people have different views of Zelda in either game. Feel free to rebuff my statements or even just continue the discussion! That's what these rant posts are made for, lol.

[loz-furbies]

Skyward Sword Zelda

Design

Now for something completely different since Zelda is a commoner this time! I think the outfit works well, it’s not too busy but it also has plenty of memorable details (I especially like the sailcloth around her shoulders) and the green and pink ribbons in her hair. And while the overall design is very different from the usual Zelda looks, the blue cloth on her waist at least reminds me of the “aprons” a little.

Mixed feelings about the white dress, the Hyrule crest collar is great, but everything else in the dress is really simple and basic so it feels a little out of place. However I like the white dress when she’s depicted with botw Zelda in her white dress, it’s a nice contrast how one has long flowy sleeves and the other has no sleeves at all.

Character

Skyward Sword Zelda has a charming and playful personality, making her super likable, and overall she really feels like an ideal girl-next-door type. As Link's childhood friend she's incredibly supportive of him, but also not above calling him out for being lazy or lightly teasing him. And she can be quite stern and gutsy when needed, as seen when she puts Groose and his cronies in place when she finds them bullying Link.

To some extent Zelda does feel a bit too much of idealised manic pixie dream girl to the more down-to-earth MC-kun that is Link. A considerable amount of her lines are spent on speaking positively of Link too, and we don't get to know much about what else she has going on in her life besides Link and the Plot.

A notable example of this is her status as a student of the knight academy, why is that not touched at all? Why was her role to give a trophy to the flight competition winner and not take part in it herself? Even if she's at a different stage from Link in her studies, shouldn't she still have something to say about their shared goal? I've seen some fans attribute the fact that she made it through a dungeon on her own to being a knight student, but I'm not giving the game credit for that.

We do get to know that she was interested in the surface even before the events of the story, and apparently has a knitting hobby judging by the items in her room. Which... okay I've been a bit too hard on her, as it's incredibly rare for any of the Zeldas to have a hobby at all and I do give SS Link points for his wood carving hobby too. It's just that so many of her lines are spent on gushing over Link so I guess I would have needed more stuff that's specific to her alone to balance that out.

Once she finds out about her role as the reborn goddess she becomes more serious and gloomy, but is still very much recognisable as the same character. Which has not been a given in the history of Zeldas with multiple personas, so good for her.

We don't get to know a lot about how regaining an unspecified amount of memories of her previous life has affected her sense of self, but I figure it has had at least some effect since she sometimes switches to first person, notably when apologising to Link about involving him in the grand anti-demise plan (which at least to me clearly isn't SS Zelda's fault). Though there's not any question if the goddess persona had somehow taken over, since the greatest line of the game "I'm still your Zelda" exists.

Ultimately while I think SS Zelda gets close to the line of being too much of a perfect fantasy waifu, she doesn't cross it and remains incredibly charming.

Role in the story

The game has a very slow beginning, where a lot of time is spent setting up Link and Zelda's relationship and ordinary life. And while the characters are the biggest draw for me in these games, I think there would have been room to condense the story a bit. Even if you really like the characters, in a video game you can reach a point where you're just hoping them to get on with it so you can actually play the game, which isn't exactly helpful if you're supposed to like the characters. But if you don't get frustrated with the slow start, Zelda is set up extremely well as someone you'd want to save.

After the setup she falls into a tornado, and the first part of the game is spent chasing after her and trying to figure out what's going on with her. You get more information about her bit by bit, so she clearly remains as the goal. Once you do catch up with her, it's after she was just rescued by Impa, who chides Link for having been too late to do anything himself. For me this worked just fine because I was really bad at the game, so her criticism was perfectly fair, but I wonder how better players felt about when the plot mandates that their perfect performance is judged to be a failure?

Eventually both Zelda and Link travel to the past, where Zelda explains herself as the reborn goddess and commits to her duty to seal Demise's curse for thousands of years, which changes the game's objective from trying to solve the mystery around her to a more clear rescue mission. Sealing herself to magic sleep is Zelda's big moment and the the game really plays it up, and to great success because that scene is beautiful. After that she doesn't really do much though, like because her darkness-sealing moment happens in the middle of the game (and chronologically before the main part of the gameplay since we're in the past here) and the grand finale darkness sealing is done by the Master Sword, there's not a lot of room for Zelda and she ends up with more of a victim role.

It is also kind of disappointing how Zelda gets damseled twice in the same game. I guess I can kind of see that since Link and Zelda's relationship is such a big part of the story, it makes sense that her life would be at risk when the stakes need to be at their stakiest, but I really wish they could have thought of something else than have her be woken up from her magical coma for five minutes before getting immediately kidnapped for the bad guys' evil resurrection ritual.

The end credits show snippets of Zelda's life after she fell to the surface, met Impa and started following her duty. Which was of course great but also a somewhat odd place to put it, and made me wonder if it was originally supposed to be shown somewhere during the story but got cut. And then they just put it in the credits since the scenes were already animated. But in any case it's nice to see more of Zelda's journey, even if strictly didn't offer any new information.

Relationships

As usual Zelda's most important relationship is with Link, and this time there even is more to it than a single line that they're childhood friends. Or they are childhood friends, and while in general I'm a big hater of this trope being so common in Japanese media, at least here it's used with a purpose, as the Goddess' master plan involved specifically preparing a hero who'd go to the ends of earth for her reborn form.

I said about Link and Zelda in Spirit Tracks that their relationship doesn't get any specific development and is more just about that they went on an adventure together and you have to imagine that they grew closer during that. Meanwhile in Skyward Sword they clearly know and care about each other as people and it's not just about like, general human empathy towards someone in trouble, which certainly makes their relationship more interesting.

So as I complained earlier, a lot of Zelda's lines are about Link. She gently teases him for being a sleepyhead, goes out of her way to arrange him time to practice for the flying competition and knows to send her loftwing to wake him up, asks his opinion on her ceremonial costume, asks him out to fly together which is totally written to look like a date, and so on. Some of her behaviour comes out as so flirty that it makes me think if she's all astonished at Link for being so oblivious. And she states multiple times that she wishes that Link will be the one to win the flying competition, so she can do the celebration ceremony with him, or how amazing he was when he managed to do that. The last point was brought up so many times that it just got really heavy handed, and I do think that some of it should have been cut, but just as it was entering actual cringe territory, an alternate explanation emerged that she actually wanted to talk about these ominous premonitions she's had, but had trouble bringing it up and was stalling for time.

Also it's just beautiful how the whole sleeping thing goes full circle, with Link being the notorious sleepyhead in the beginning, but Zelda requesting that it's Link's turn to wake her up as she's about to enter her magic sleep. Really shows that she has a lot of trust in him.

Meanwhile Link doesn't talk outside dialogue options as usual, so you don't get as much from his side, but his expressions when he looks at Zelda in many scenes tell a lot about how he cares about her.

In general their relationship skirts around being a romance but doesn't fully confirm anything (or at least that I can remember). After Link wins the flying contest, a scene where it looks like Zelda is about to kiss him is set up, but instead she pushes him off the ledge to complete the ceremony. And maybe she was just so coy about the "date" in the clouds because it was all about trying to gather courage and find a good moment to bring up a difficult topic, and Link's determined responses how he'll certainly save Zelda are totally platonic? But like, obviously a scene that teases a possible kiss is put in for a reason and the game ends with a shot of their loftwings flying together after Zelda tells about her future plans to live on the surface and asks what Link wants to do, so I'd say you need some serious anti-shipping goggles to ignore what's being implied.

Also since I brought it up for Spirit Tracks, Link and Zelda hold hands in this game too.

Impa is in the game as well in the role of Zelda's bodyguard, guide and friend, and this time offers a more meaningful relationship with her than her previous incarnations. Impa is fulfilling her job at assisting Zelda do hers, but they also clearly care about each other. We don't get to see them that much though, so their personal relationship isn't defined too well. Like Impa acts as a servant and refers to Zelda with "your grace", and Zelda just goes along with it and we don't know if she tried to establish a more equal relationship. In one of the end credits snippets we see Zelda doing this cute happy skip when she's walking with Impa and it looks like she's having fun, and these four seconds are probably their most casual scene together.

It's also really sweet when it's revealed that the old woman who helps the cast in the present timeline is actually Impa, so Zelda gets one more chance to meet her. Or it's kind of funny how they saying their goodbyes in the past but Impa reassures that they'll meet again, and after some time travel from Zelda's perspective the reunion in present time is literally just a few minutes later, and then Impa actually dies and they're separated for a second time. But obviously it was about how Impa had been hanging in there for thousands of years so she could still help Zelda and Link with their duty.

In any case Zelda and Impa's bond is clearly strong, even if we don't see the details. It also makes me think of how different this is from BotW Zelda's situation, and how things might have turned out for her if she had a mentor how knows what to do and also is emotionally supportive.

Groose primarily acts as a rival to Link, which includes being a romantic rival for Zelda's affections. He's not any threatening at it at all though since his feelings are clearly one sided, but it's not exactly clear what Zelda thinks about him. He is introduced when he has hidden Link's loftwing so that Link couldn't take part in the flying competition, and Zelda immediately jumps in to take Link's side. After that Groose's character development happens while Zelda is away, and next time they meet Groose behaves in a more respectable manner and Zelda appears to be happy to see him.

Like everyone else in Skyloft, she also has her own loftwing buddy, and much fuss is made about how everyone is soul-bonded to their bird. None of this really shows up about Zelda's relationship to her loftwing, who doesn't even get a name, though to be fair neither does Link's. In general I think the loftwings were hugely underdeveloped considering how much time you have to spend on one flying around.

Zelda also has a father with whom she actually gets to interact with, but I don't get much anything out of that except that they have a normal/good relationship.

[gay-jesus-probably]

(Feel free to ignore this-! I’m just happy to hear someone’s deep takes on Zelda)

I really love your deep dives and interpretations/discussions on the Gerudo people and their history, influence and life in BOTW/TOTK (I totally agree with all you’ve said)

I just want to ask/Point out (after reading your imperialism post about TOTK) didn’t the Zora for many years like- not want to serve or be a part of the Hylian families army either? Like, even before Mipha’s death, weren’t the Zora very much against conforming to the Hylian’s rules and such? (In every game?) I’m a bit confused on how Hyrule is split up, the Zora’s having their own kingdom(s), the Rito and Goron’s having elder’s/their own leaders but still serving the royal family??

It’s always bothered me how these separate races all still have statues to the Goddess Hylia (Started in BOTW) and not their own deity’s to pray to or follow (Like the Zora praying to Nayru makes sense, or even something like Jabu Jabu to bring back- or the Rito could’ve prayed to Valoo, a great dragon or something.)

It just feels like Nintendo COULD’VE put so much care into all their races stories and histories! But oops no this game will be for Kids(TM) and we can’t put anything too deep or serious. Makes me sad :( I wanted to see them in a deeper context.

Oh yeah, it's very weird that they just put zero effort into explaining some of the worldbuilding. I mean, in BOTW it makes perfect sense to have the races be off doing their own things! It's post apocalypse, Hyrule does not exist anymore, these different communities have no real reason to interact with each other! And I really liked that BOTW outright showed that there was no particular effort for diplomacy, but people still got along as individuals - I liked that we saw different races hanging around each other. I loved that there were Gerudo in Goron Town to trade for their gems, I loved that Goron were allowed into Gerudo Town because they're a race of rock people that legitimately don't have any real need for gender and just use masculine terms by their own choice, and the Gerudo understood that. And I loved the whole Tarrey Town sidequest, because it actually felt really satisfying to build up a new town that had inhabitants from all the races, not for any particular reason, but just because they were people that wanted to live there and work together. They didn't need a big central government to make it a whole Thing; they were just getting by.

And we also saw the less good side of these things, like that one guy in Hateno that greeted you at the gate, and decided Link was trustworthy specifically because he was Hylian, making it clear that xenophobia still existed. I like that Kass was kind of thrown by Link asking if he was a giant bird, and the implication that Link was being kinda insensitive there and Kass was choosing not to be offended. I liked that there was a Hylian couple on their honeymoon in Rito village because the guy genuinely loved the town and its culture, while his new wife looked down on the Rito and hated being around them. And I liked that the older Zora still held a grudge against Hyrule for many things, up to and including the fact that Mipha died defending it, and the older generation would rather risk everyone's wellbeing than accept help from a Hylian that had been involved. And I like that you can run into other Hylian's near Zora's domain that outright tell you Zora have been trying to recruit them to do something important, but they all refused to get involved because they don't think that those weird fish people could have anything serious going on and it all seemed really sketchy.

My point is, BOTW really did feel like it'd been a hundred years since the end of the world, and everyone was just trying to get by and live their lives. You saw people being open minded and accepting other races for no other reason than the fact that they were all people, and you saw people being petty and bigoted just because they didn't trust people that looked and acted differently from them, but for the most part people were all just getting by and doing their own thing. BOTW gave the impression that Hyrule had been an equal alliance between the Hylian's, Zora, Goron, Rito and Gerudo (and with the Sheikah having a considerably less equal role, specifically built on the Sheikah having been forced to submit to cultural genocide to save their own lives, and the Yiga clan being the survivors that fought back instead), with Hyrule acting as sort of the core of the alliance, if only due to literally being in the geographic middle.

I mean fuck, the existence of the Divine Beasts suggests that things are equal! Yeah, Hyrule has a royal family with holy powers due to literally being the descendants of a Goddess, and they're the ones that always get the reincarnation of the Hero that's the only one who can wield the bullshit OP magic sword... but they don't get a Divine Beast (Link's dinky little DLC motorcycle doesn't count). The Divine Beasts were specifically made to be weapons of mass destruction, and they were specifically made for the non-Hylian races. That really does suggest an active effort being taken to balance the scales, that the ancient people saw that only Hylian's were granted divine favour, and so if the gods wouldn't give that power to other races, they'd fucking make it themselves. The existence of the Divine Beasts feels like a promise to keep everyone on equal footing, and say what you will about pre-Calamity Hyrule, but they didn't even question keeping that promise.

...And then in TOTK, all of that's just gone. The Sheikah aren't their own people with a complicated relationship to the throne, now they're just Hylian's with a different aesthetic. The 'alliance' between the races turns out to be built on Hyrule's first King and Queen pointing their stockpile of magical nukes at everyone and asking them politely to become their subjects, and pretending not to notice the implied threat that they'd magically nuke anyone who refused. In BOTW the Sheikah race being sworn servants of the Hylian royal family was acknowledged as a fucked up situation, and that power imbalance being horribly abused in the past was what created the Yiga clan. In TOTK, we're outright told that Rito, Goron, Zora and Gerudo all exist for the sole purpose of serving the Hylian royal family, and that is framed as a good thing and the proper way of the world; the first sign of Ganondorf being evil is that he refuses to submit.

And even putting all that super gross ancient past stuff aside, the present day is equally fucked. Hyrule has been gone for a century. In BOTW, few people even remembered that Zelda had ever existed, and of those people not many of them cared. Nobody was really interested in having a central government, they were all getting by just fine on their own. And again, it was made pretty clear that the pre-calamity situation had been an actively maintained collective alliance between independent nations. There was a reason that people were predicting that Hyrule's monarchy would be abolished in TOTK, and that's because we all saw that there was literally no reason for anyone other than the Sheikah to respect Zelda's authority as a ruler - the Zora were the only other people to still remember her, and they were completely done with the Hylian royal family anyways. If Zelda rolled up declaring herself the Queen of Hyrule anywhere else, she'd be laughed out of town, because that's the standard response to a random teenager showing up and informing you she was actually the highest authority in the land. Zelda had no inherent authority left at the end of BOTW, if she wanted to be in charge, she'd need to earn it. That's the state of the world that we were shown.

Except nope, nevermind, Zelda's the almighty God Princess of the world and literally everyone mindlessly accepts her ultimate authority. She can order people to strip naked and walk into a monster den to die for her amusement, and they would immediately do it without asking any questions (yes I know the underwear thing was a misunderstanding, but the fact that everyone jumped to follow the misheard order without a single question is horrifying). And the imposter Zelda arc just hammers home the point that Zelda is in a completely unearned, lifelong position as dictator of the world, and literally nobody cares if she abuses that power. Zelda brainwashed Yunobo and forced him to ruin his own business and nearly destroy his own people? He's just worried she'll be angry that the mask keeping him brainwashed was destroyed. Zelda summons a giant monster to attack Yunobo and Link then walks away? Oh my god, the giant monster Zelda just summoned to kill us might hurt her, we have to save Zelda from it! Zelda literally openly attacks King Dorephan and tries to murder him? He'd rather go missing in the middle of a crisis and suffer alone in hiding than let anyone know that Zelda just tried to kill him. I don't understand why they bothered with the fake Zelda arc, because literally nothing the fake Zelda does is allowed to have consequences.

It just doesn't make any goddamn sense. Nobody feels real anymore, there's no politics between the races, there's no reason for anything being the way it is now. The entire world of Hyrule has been reduced to just Zelda's Fanclub, and nobody would ever consider doubting her for a second. I don't understand why the fake Zelda arc is in the game, because it's never actually allowed to be part of the story. Nobody actually cares about 'Zelda' tormenting people, and so we're told that there is literally nothing that can possibly happen to make Zelda lose her authority. There's no stakes. We're not supposed to care about anyone who isn't Zelda, we're not given any real reason to care about Zelda herself, and so why the fuck are we still here?

...I've distracted myself a lot here lmaoo, I'm not really sure where I was going with all of this beyond just rambling about shitty writing and bad continuity. The point is, BOTW had some really good writing and worldbuilding. That Hyrule felt like a real place inhabited by actual people, and the different races were their own, independent people. When they worked together, it was a sign of them putting time and effort into reaching out to each other and meet on the same level. Meanwhile TOTK feels like it's made of fucking cardboard most of the time.

(Also for the record I agree that the Goddess statues being Literally Everywhere was kinda fucked, BUT I'm willing to let it slide as a matter of just game design; that's where you go to trade spirit orbs for upgrades, so you want a spot to do that in every major town for player convenience. And using different deities in different areas wouldn't work, because the players are introduced to the mechanic with a goddess statue; they're not gonna naturally assume that the statue of a giant fish can do that too, so most of them would assume the statue is scenery and just ignore it. I thought it was at least a nice touch that the goddess statues had different decorations in some towns, and that some towns put the statues away from the main areas; it gave the impression that while everyone while worshipping Hylia was widespread, everyone was doing it differently, and in some places it wasn't very popular - just look at the Kakariko statue being in the middle of town with a well maintained pond surrounding it and torches to draw more attention to it, then compare that to the Gerudo Town statue being down a side street on the edge of town, away from the main gate, with nothing of any real importance nearby, and nothing to get people's attention. It really works with the Sheikah's culture being built on their devotion to the Goddess, while the Gerudo's history with Hylia and her followers is a lot more complicated, and so their statue's location implies that worship of Hylia is pretty unpopular among the Gerudo.)

[cooking-with-hailstones]

I’m curious, what do you think about Zelda games and continuity in general? I know one point of contention with BOTW/TOTK is the “lack” of continuity which yeah, i get it. It could be better. However the Zelda series is not known for its continuity lol. Like, take OOT and MM for example. MM is supposed to be a sequel to OOT, right? Well, tbh it’s not a very good one. Besides the fact that Link is the same one from oot, and the happy mask salesman and skull kid return, it feels really disconnected from its predecessor. I think Twilight Princess fits more as a sequel to OOT than MM. I could go on and on but what are your thoughts?

Very good question! So yeah, I know that the Zelda games give 0 craps about consistent lore or continuity, which is fine! I think they put forward a lot of different and interesting ideas. As a fandom, and especially as writers, we can treat it like a buffet of ideas to sample and play around with.

You raise an interesting point with oot/mm. I think the difference between oot/mm is the fact that they have very little in common with each other. New map, new characters, a completely different concept. There's a lot of mechanics that are the same but it really feels like you're in a new universe with the same aesthetics as the previous one, and that's about it.

I think TOTK stands out to people because it is a direct sequel with only a few years between them in-universe, but there is very little story, lore, and setting continuity between botw and totk. If it were a whole new game with a new slate of characters and a new map, I don't think the discrepancies would feel as jarring. That being said, I really love totk as a game! It's fantastic and I've sunk at least 100 hours in.

However, botw remains my favourite game because: botw is a gesamkunstwerk. TOTK is not a gesamkunstwerk.

And now here's my very long tangent about this:

I'm sure I've seen a video talking about this idea before but basically, a gesamkunstwerk is a German term for "total work of art." Coined by the composer Richard Wagner (whom we do not like, but his ideas were very influential), a gesamkunstwerk is a large scale work where everything reinforces each other. It is "a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms, or strives to do so." So in opera, for example, this would be how the orchestra, the costumes, the text, the music, the set pieces, everything comes together to tell one unified story.

I believe botw is a good example of a gesamkunstwerk: the open world setting serves the narrative framework, the Sheikah technology is incorporated seamlessly into the game mechanics, the story is scattered throughout the world for you to discover, but everything is still centered around your final goal and the narrative arc you're meant to travel. You're meant to explore, meet people, hone your skills, then face off against the final foe that you've been staring in the face for the whole game. You're meant to discover the world, to do all these things, as the player and as Link. Everything in botw reinforces everything else. It's not a perfect game by any means but it is incredibly well crafted.

And while totk improves on all the things in BOTW, it loses the cohesiveness that tied the first game together. I find that totk fights itself in a lot of ways. It didn't commit to being a linear game but it clearly has a linear path in mind (hello dragons tears...I am so glad a friend of mine told me to do them in order) The integration of zonai and Sheikah mechanics made no sense to me. The sages... Good gravy the sages...

Anyways this turned into a much longer post than I intended, but I hope this all made sense.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

https://www.tumblr.com/rawliverandgoronspice/718014251940315136?source=share

Ill be honest and say i think the removal of sheikah related lore was not for internal weird racist reasons and instead simply for game design reasons, why the zonai tech is so similar in concept and execution. totk is a sequel and also a redux, they needed technology for mechanics and a reason for the world to change and introducing an entirely new race of characters would be the perfect scapegoat. it feels like it ignores botw almost entirely because 1) new players 2) to be a finished version of botw more mechanics and more content. the narrative was barely a thing in this game because what mattered the most was design and gameplay above all else. i don't think caring about gameplay first particularly bad, it's a fun game they will probably revolutionize the industry once again, and that nintendo doesn't care about lore at all but it really wasn't the priory here at least that's how I felt when i play the game. i adore the overworld and the npcs but the main quest (tears) story itself is very stale. best praise i can give to it is character design and zeldas sacrifice/how they handled her and link that's literally it (vague because i don't know if you've gotten there yet, it's after the completion of the tears quest and getting the master sword). zelda lore at this point is a sandbox and us fans will do what we want with it. sorry for the ramble!

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So I sort of agree, especially on the first part. I absolutely believe that yes, sheikah were not sidelined for malicious reasons, and the ease of just having one super-powerful ultratech culture you rely on was cleaner than having the old relics hanging around. I actually think it's the cleanest choice to make (one that would have been *even cleaner* would have been to write a story and think of a world that reinvent its landmarks based on that new ideas of archeology and the past bursting back into the present, which is theme that coats the game but doesn't ever permeates it). I still think any acknowledgement that it used to exist would have enriched a world that has, ultimately, very little new things to teach us about itself (I have scoured the Depths a bunch, and it's a combat/exploration hotspot, and that's cool but also what a missed opportunity to try some proper FromSoftware-style worldbuilding down there!). I don't think this would have confused new players; if anything it could have hinted at more and gave the new players any reason to pick up Breath of the Wild? But: the world is a playground! That's cool. I think it could be a much more meaningful playground, that's all. There's a category of players who kind of need some light modicum of internal consistency to be invested in exploration, and will just get bored otherwise (I have seen a bunch of people making this exact remark, and honestly... yeah, there are areas in the game I'm not interested in exploring just because I know it's a consequenceless challenge in the end --I'm just not the kind of player that is hooked by a game loop on its own merit, I need to understand what I'm building towards or I lose interest. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't have changed anything to a regular TotK's enjoyer experience, but would have greatly enriched the experience of players like me)

Still think that making Sheikahs a subset of hylians was a very weird choice. Not an outright malicious one, but one that does build up with all of the other weird choices and make this Hyrule feel like a revisionist Hyrule; and one they simply... didn't have to make.

(I'll maybe do another post about this, but there are so many things in this game that would be very confusing to a new player either way also --but that's kind of going into another territory)

I disagree about one general point, however, and I may get offtrack here a little but I guess you gave me an excuse to rant a little about how narrative design is perceived by the general public and what has been frustrating to witness in regards to the conversation surrounding this game from my perspective.

Mainly, this notion that "they had no other choice" because they chose to prioritize gameplay. I'm going to overshare a little (again sorry) but I work in gamedev in real life; I am actually a narrative designer that did quest design and game writing on a couple of games, some of them that also qualify as AAA open worlds. I think it's completely fair to see this game from a player perspective as a series of compromises struck to privilege the aspect of the game they were the most confident with --however, it is literally my real life job to walk through situations that can be extremely similar to this one and find solutions that weave narration with fun experiences game and level designers managed to put together. It doesn't mean that story has to swallow gameplay: if anything, narrative designers always try to privilege mechanics first and treat them as narrative devices in their own right before whipping out the actual cutscenes and the constant writing (and this game was somehow under AND overwritten in my opinion, especially in English --so I don't think it even solved this aspect?). This is not at all aimed at you in particular but at the internet at large; it ends up being quite grating to see assumptions being made about what can and can't be done in non-linear narrative as like, a fact of the universe instead of it being a specific field that deserve research and investment just like any other graphical advancement or intricate interactive feature, and explain away poor design decisions by the strange notion that they had no other choice, as if Nintendo studios aren't comprised of a bunch of humans who made active and passive choices. Like, I worked on very similar issues. There are solutions to how you feed information to the player in a non-linear way. There are ways to maximize impact and depth, even when you let the player guide the story. Again: it's fine if it doesn't bug you or a lot of people --but there are flaws. It happens. It's gamedev. It's a miracle any game is made at all --and this one is its own sort of miracle. What strikes me as strange is that I never see that level of excuses made for companies that do not cultivate that same image of being an unapproachable, united workforce, that get instead torn to shreds at the slightest sideway brush --but that's another subject maybe (maybe).

Narrative design is this thing that, when it's not there, people don't realize it could be; and when it is there, people take it for granted unless it's very visibly front and center like in Edith Finch or Disco Elysium or any other number of indie games (generally it's the indies who do all the research and development and take all of the risks on that front --like seriously I worked in narrative-driven studios, known for their narrative games, where 2/3 of the game designers couldn't care less about emotional impact beyond satisfaction/frustration/boredom, and it's infinitely frustrating (heh) to have your specialization considered optional fluff when you know how far thematic cohesion can push a game when handled well ANYWAY anyway). So: I was always going to care about the way they handled narrative, because it's how I'm wired, what I research, and I also played this game in part because I was very curious on how they'd push their explorations of BotW's possibilities, which were very interesting if a little limited. Needless to say, this was a let down. And I think it's not unreasonable to have higher narrative standards than this.

I do want to autocorrect myself on a statement I put out before, however, that being the notion that not enough research was put into narrative. I think I want to push forward a new theory that sounds much more plausible to me (again based on nothing but speculation and weird déjà-vu vibes, which is perhaps why I care that much :) :) ), and that being: a lot of research was done, and then cut. It seems very plausible the narrative used to be much more ambitious than this --and then, for one reason or another, somebody panicked, or the thing got out of hand, or they couldn't get it to work exactly right, and everything was downscoped pretty late into production. Six years of development is a long time, and I don't think anyone with the standards of a Nintendo employee would have been happy with handling the storyline the way it was. It kinda feels like a rushed cobble-up of loose threads after a massive downsizing, leaving plot holes and suboptimal emotional experience. Again: just a theory, no proof at all. But I absolutely wouldn't be surprised, and it would explain a lot of things.

[marvel-starwarsfangirl]

Looking Back: Spirit Tracks over 10 years later

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was my very first official video game ever. I was first introduced to LoZ through my cousin. So, for Christmas, I was gifted with a DSI and Spirit Tracks plus Phantom Hourglass. Since the first time I popped that cartridge in, I knew Spirit Tracks was going to be something special. I was mesmerized by the world, the music, and the characters. As I played more and more Zelda games like Ocarina of Time, Spirit Tracks became that fun, little game I played as a child. However, that little game always had a special place in my heart. Playing it now, for the first time since I lost my original DS and copy of the game in 2019, it still remains my favorite.

The world: The world of Spirit Tracks to me is breathtaking. This world feels so real to me. There is so much to explore. Yeah, the train can be tedious, but aside from that the map is huge. Skyward Sword feels so limiting in what you can explore. And don't me wrong, I love Hyrule field, but even that feels small to me at times. Twilight Princess has the best Hyrule field of the older games. Spirit Tracks has so many places to explore. Although the villages aren't, I still appreciate the unique design of all of them.

The dungeons: While the dungeons or bosses in this game will never be as grand as the Ancient Cistern or spooky as Arbiter's Grounds, I still adore them. To me, they are what dungeons should be: challenging with fun puzzles. And that's the key word here: fun. These dungeons do a great job implementing the puzzles and items collected. I love how the Tower of Spirits continues to get challenge your puzzle-solving skills. The bosses also are just fun adventures for Link to take on. They don't need to be crazy or super grand because this game is meant to be a fun, little adventure.

The characters: We could argue which game has the best characters for hours (it's Skyward Sword stop arguing). That being said, I say Spirit Tracks has some really great characters. The Lokomos are all unique, Cole is a delightful little menace, and Byrne stole my heart. Thanks the the side quests, we do get some pretty fun interactions with the various npcs throughout the game. I love the teacher who has to disguise himself to get out of the castle. The rabbit man and his wife make for a cute romance story. And Ferrus is just a jolly man who loves trains. It's a great cast.

This game also has one of my favorite versions of Zelda. Just like with Skyward Sword, Spirit Tracks does a great job setting up her relationship with Link. Their relationship is so genuine and wholesome. They're friends who may pursue a romantic relationship when they're older. It's that good. They also gave Zelda a personality and stuff to do other than show up for the first and last few minutes to dump exposition. Y’all want playable Zelda? Well, here she is! She's adventurous, funny, caring, and feisty. There's so much life to her. She helps Link as much as she can and is a way better companion than Navi ever could be. Zelda is amazing. Her interactions with Link are stellar. I also love that the game shows just how much the two of them love and care for each other. Link and Zelda are perfect.

And yes, Byrne was my first fictional crush. It's his design I tell you. I love broody, tall men. It's that simple. But also, he does have a great arc. He becomes evil because he wanted power. Yet, he still had a soft spot for Anjean. After he's betrayed, he realizes the horrible truth and decides to help the heroes. Thanks to Anjean and Zelda's forgiving nature, they take Byrne in and help him. In turn, it is he who helps Zelda reclaim her body and gives his life. He's wonderful *sigh*.

The music: Spirit Tracks has some of the best Zelda music in my opinion and it's sad that it gets overlooked by like... every other game. I will be brutally honest, I genuinely don't remember any of the music from BotW or TotK. I'm sorry, that's the truth. But, I always remembered Spirit Tracks' music. From the upbeat title theme to Byrne's unique leitmotif, the music has always been fun. Cole's theme is one of my personal fave villain tracks. I love the music changes as you ascend the Tower of Spirits. I love the Lokomo songs even if the flute mechanic was a tad annoying at times. I love the Demon Train's intimidating theme. The Dark Train's leitmotif was the og anxiety bringer way before the guardians were even a thing.

The Story: I also adore the story of this game. When an ancient evil strikes, Link, Zelda, and co. must rally to save the day. I like that the train in this game actually has a meaning. It's not just a means of transportation; the tracks have magic in them that protect the world from demons. It's simple but effective. There are fun side quests that are optional but yield satisfying rewards and nothing feels too repetitive. In short, it's great. One thing I really appreciated was that Zelda couldn't just enter her body right away. She had to focus her power. It makes the game more interesting. And it’s one of the only Zelda games where she basically dies. This game has stakes!!!Byrne's death shows that there are consequences for one's actions and sacrifices that must be made. Saving the world isn't an easy path. Overall, I think it's a fun and effective story.

The Downsides: Obviously, it's not a perfect game. The flute mechanics are frustrating at times, especially when playing the Lokomo songs. I can't begin to tell you how annoying it is when you play everything right and the game still says retry. The train can also be a bit tedious. It does take time to get from place to place. At least the game isn't rushing you. Thankfully, the portals and force gems help make the journey more bearable. Finally, Malladus isn't that memorable of villain when compared to Demise or Ganondorf. Even Cole is more memorable and he's the secondary antagonist. The design of him sucks and isn't screaming "demon king" at all. That being said, Malladus' actions do standout. His murder of Byrne and using Cole as a vessel without the latter's consent are legit great moments. It does establish his cruelty and willingness to do whatever necessary to win. Also, Possessed Zelda is freaky.

If y'all made it to the end of this post, congrats. I know I'm in the minority when I say Spirit Tracks is my fave Zelda game, but I'll defend it nonetheless. It's a cute and wonderful game. I'm excited to replay it again in the near future. For now, I'll continue to listen to the music. I love this game so much guys.

[athetos]

My ridiculous, unrealistic smash dream roster

This was a lot of fun!

Some specific thoughts under the cut:

I cut some of the more uninteresting duplicate characters, like Dr. Mario. He does play differently than regular Mario, but not enough that I think he warrants a spot on the roster.

I would love for more sonic characters, I think shadow minimum, preferably knuckles too, and in my wildest dreams tails is there also. Shadow in particular I think would be really fun, with floatier physics than sonic. Knuckles would also be a good fit for the game, I think his moveset would translate well and with his recent surge in popularity it would be perfect.

Paper Mario would be very distinct from regular Mario; he’s a character I’ve wanted on the roster for ages. His hammer would be used in combat, he could use a spring jump for up B, and his final smash could be the star spirits from the n64 game assisting him like they did in the final bowser fight.

I’m craving more Zelda rep, and I think Ghirahim is a great choice for a more original swordfighter. However, any of the sages from botw/totk would also be a blast. I think a Rito character would be the least interesting, but I would be fine with a Goron, a zora, or a Gerudo. Sidon and Urbosa are my favs, so I would give them preference.

As much as I don’t think we necessarily need another jrpg swordfighter, I love Chrono and he could replace a fire emblem character. He also can use light magic, which would help him stand out more. His final smash could be a triple tech, I feel delta force or delta storm makes the most sense, but would feel a bit bad only 2 of his companions get used. So maybe his regular tech Luminaire instead?

In addition to Alucard, while he wasn’t on this tiermaker, I would love for soma Cruz to be an option. He has a very versatile moveset in the sorrow games, so there’s a lot of flexibility with making his attacks. Both him and Alucard could turn into bats for recovery, perhaps?

There are many characters I don’t particularly care for if they make it in the game one way or another, such as doomguy, Rayman, waluigi, etc. but I think the push for them to be added from the fandom is great so I would include them just for them.

Cuphead + mugman purely because I want them animated like their games and it would be a very cool stylistic choice

Earthworm Jim is an absolute legend and I would do anything for him to be added. It would be hysterical.

Most of the assist trophies are characters I like, but don’t think they’d translate as well to fighters, like Spyro, crash, or Ashley, but still have cool powers that would make them fun to summon.

Dixie, Jeanne, and Pauline would be echo fighters. Would that mean Peach has 2 echo fighters? Sorry Daisy, you have to go then…

Dr. egg man would be such a fun story mode boss! I mean it! He was made for this!

[rotisseries]

do you want to ramble about botw and totk?

this got long

YESSSSSS OK SO. botw zelda. I'm starting this off with a real attention grabber for you she's strangers coded to me. anyway. plotline of botw. the last time this hyrule has had a ganon encounter was 10k years ago. hyrule's whole thing is that the legend of the knight and the princess and the evil is a legend that has been passed down for generations, (sidenote I kind of hold the fun little headcanon that each zelda game is its own version of the same folktale, as opposed to being part of a real linear history, because frankly I know the devs don't actually care about the canonical timeline and I think some fans care too much. timeline is still fun though) so as you can imagine, 10k years, the current hyrule of botw is VERY divorced from its history, that's a pretty large part of botw in general, reconciling with the past. anyway the sheer lack of knowledge about the legend and the goddess power and anything related to it is making things very difficult for zelda. they have reason to believe that they're gonna have another ganon encounter soon, they've uncovered all these ancient robots and mechas that were used in the last battle, they're assembling a team of pilots for the mechas, they've gotten the current wielder of the master sword to protect the princess (link and zelda are like. 16/17 for the duration of the plot but link got the master sword at like 12. fucked up) and zelda is being expected to access her divine power, she can't. she doesn't know how, and her mother died when she was 6 (she didn't cry at the funeral. fucked) so she can't go to her for guidance, and her father is having her go to, and has been having her do this for years now, to sacred spring after sacred spring to pray in the hopes of accessing it. so she's dealing with a lot of pressure, and she just wants to work on the robots she is such a scientific mind its the cutest, zelink infodumping scenes my beloved, but she's also really focused on the ancient tech cause it's the only way she can think of to help, and her dad just gets more mad (her dad is such a shitbag. at some point he tells her she's the heir to a throne of nothing but failure. asswipe) about it cause he thinks she's not focusing enough on getting her powers so she feels powerless she feels like a failure and when link gets assigned to protect her it causes a lot of initial dislike for him because, to her, he's this embodiment of destined perfection she can't reach. he has the master sword he's their most skilled and youngest swordsman she's just a failure she's convinced he must hate her. he must think she's useless. and link won't communicate with her (this is the first zelda game with voiced lines and so therefore the first one where they give a canonical reason he doesn't say anything in cutscenes. it's because of the endless amount of pressure he's under, he feels like he has to be the perfect stoic swordsman. I could kill myself) so it's not really helping. eventually he saves her life from some yiga clan grunts and the yiga clan are basically evil ninjas and they grow to be friends, she confides in him in cutscenes, she has a diary you can find that implies he confided in her off screen, fun stuff, but she's not any closer to getting her power. then, on her 17th birthday, she goes up to the spring of wisdom to pray, (yes there are two others they are the springs of power and courage) because that's the hyrulean age of majority and adults are the only ones allowed to go up the mountain to the spring, and she has a feeling it's the last time. it will work, or it won't. they come down the mountain to where the champions are waiting (the champions are the aforementioned mecha pilots and I haven't really talked about them but they're all really good characters I love them also totk has a second gen of champions basically that are called the sages and I like the sages but I still prefer the champions I found out at some point not everyone feels the same way which. I genuinely don't get. but I'm gonna shut up about that now) and it hasn't worked. zelda doesn't have her power.

they're in the middle of comforting her, they get cut off by this horrible earthquake, they look towards the castle, and there’s this swirling mass over the castle, ganon is attacking. the champions rush to their mechas, and link and zelda run. the number one priority is to keep zelda alive. they head for hateno fort. (yes as in hateno the town with the house in totk. you can buy the house in botw and there’s a theory it was link's childhood home) they possibly went to the castle first and found out exactly what happened though, because on the way to hateno, zelda has a breakdown, screaming and crying about how everyone is dead and its all her fault, and they ARE dead. everyone at the castle is definitely dead, but ganon also managed to posses every single one of the hundreds of robots they had, AND had put evil blights in the mechas to ambush the champions, and the robots are wreaking havoc and the champions die in a losing battle in what was supposed to be their weapons of war. zelda and link make it to the field outside hateno, but there’s still robots everywhere, and link is on his last legs protecting zelda. he's about to get shot, and then she pushes him out of the way and finally has her divine power, she shuts down all the robots, and then turns to where link has collapsed. he dies in her arms. he gets taken to this shrine of resurrection to be healed until he can fight again, and zelda heads to the castle to hold ganon off until link is ready. she waits for 100 years.

100 years goes by, link wakes up an amnesiac, has to be given the gist of it, and then you wander around hyrule finding out all that ^ through various recovered memories (there’s a similar game mechanic in totk but it doesn't work as well imo bc in botw you can discover them at random and nothing bad happens, you already know how this story ends, whereas in totk it DOES spoil shit) you have to go free each of the mechas from the evil blights (which btw have similar weapons and fighting styles as the champions but otherwise bear no similarities and I just think it would've been fucked if they looked like the possessed bodies of the champions idk) and then you gotta go save zelda from the castle. you and her end ganon, it's an emotional meeting, the ghosts you were haunted by fade, and then the two of them leave, presumably to rebuild hyrule. so basically botw is about reconciling with the past, looking to it for guidance and forgiving yourself for the failures but moving on in spite of it, and I'm fucking normal

and then totk. so. link and zelda are investigating ruins under the castle cause weird shit has been happening lately, gross magic pouring out and making people sick. and then they get really deep, and find the decimated corpse of ganon, the man, being held by a magical hand. the magic is coming from him. ganon wakes up when they get in there, goes to attack them with the magic, link gets his arm fucked up and also the master sword this will be relevant later, and zelda falls down into this pit, link jumps after her, but he's saved by the aforementioned magic hand, he loses zelda. they're reaching for each other. also totk takes place like 6ish years after botw that's his common law wife of 6 years. and they lost each other once already for 100 years. oh god I'm so upset. anyway then the whole plot, is trying to find zelda. you wake up on some sky islands there are sky islands, your arm is now replaced with the magic arm, and the broken master sword has to be put in this mysterious glowing golden light. you go around you get help from your friends, who get dubbed the sages, and you discover, through a game mechanism similar to the lost memories botw quest, that zelda fell back in time. zelda has light powers as a general thing that's usually her power, in some games she also has prophetic visions, and in totk, you find out she also has time powers in her ancestry, and she accidentally sent herself back in time. at least 10k years most likely more. and she's hanging out with her ancestors, the first king and queen of hyrule. (timeline wise they are not actually the first king and queen of hyrule but whatever) the king is an anthropomorphic llama?? from the sky islands. zelda franchise tends to have furry species btw. anyway ganondorf is a threat back then too and zelda has to help the king and queen come up with a plan to defeat him it's a really fun journey she gets a lot of healing to that self esteem that her dad fucked up BUT ANYWAY. they realize they won't be able to permanently get rid of ganon and zelda has unbelievable amounts of faith in link and says that if they can contain ganon for now you can take care of it in the future, the king ends up having to sacrifice himself, and his arm, to keep ganon contained. and zelda still has no way back home to her time. then she sees this glowing golden light, and whoo! there's the master sword! it's still fucked up though. the only way to fix the sword is through bathing it in sacred power, and it's REALLY damaged, and zelda STILL HAS NO WAY HOME. so she turns herself into a dragon. there's these special stones that amplify magical power, she has one, and swallowing it turns you into an immortal dragon, at the cost of losing yourself. she holds the sword to herself, and it's going to bathe in her sacred power for 10k years or more. at the point you find out about this it's so fucked up cause you come out of the cutscene and you're surrounded by silent princess flowers and oh my god I haven't even explained the silent princess symbolism to you oh my god that's a whole other thing, anyway and dragon zelda is flying above you and at this point you've seen her around the map several other times and there were 3 other dragons in botw so you were kinda confused where this one came from but it was cool and it's just. ugh it's so fucked up. I kinda guessed the possibility early I just didn't want to acknowledge it. anyway then you get the sword from dragon zelda and it is stuck in her forehead poor baby and the sword claim scene is GORGEOUS and to the best of your knowledge and link's knowledge zelda is gone forever, and she did this for you. IT'S SO FUCKEDDDD and then when you get to fighting ganon he eventually turns himself into a dragon and dragon zelda comes to help you battle it out with dragon ganon and when you finally kill him the spirits? of zelda's ancestors show up, I think via the magical hand, and the one with time powers reverse both link's arm damage and zelda's draconification, and then you're both falling, and he has to catch her.

and it mirrors the last time she fell, when he lost her, and this time he catches her, and he hugs her to him, and they fall into a pond, and he carries her out and she wakes up and looks at him and says that she was in a deep sleep and woke up when she felt a warm loving embrace and "oh link! I'm home" and AUGHHHHHHGH SHE HAD SO MUCH FAITH IN HIM THEY'RE SO IN LOVE I'M GONNA THROW UP.

anyway so totk continues botw's themes of contending with the past and moving past old failures and making things right, but it also is really good as a sequel to botw in that botw is a very lonesome journey, and everything about totk emphasizes that you are no longer alone. you have friends to help you, it's no longer you alone in world you don't recognize that doesn't remember you, it's you having help. you don’t need to do it alone anymore. and it's just. UGHHHH. I like botw better than totk I think totk's story feels a bit lacking at times? but I think overall it works really well as a sequel in continuing and working with the themes that botw has

[gerudospiriit]

[Maybe controversial thoughts ahoy? Just a general thought I've been stewing on now that I've been done with TotK for a minute now.]

I think the reason I have trouble outright saying I love the story of BotW/TotK and even SS to a degree is because I feel like they've made the story too black and white. And yes, I know that Zelda games have always been the fight of "good vs evil" but...any chance for any kind of nuance within that gets completely blanketed into basically this person is bad and this one is good and there is no further implication or exploration into it. And maybe this is just me getting old because this is my complaint with other series, too. But I crave even just a little bit of a peek into the gray areas they're presenting us with, but we just never get it. Instead, we're basically just spoon-fed the idea that the "good guys" can do no wrong and the "bad guys" are fully unjustified in their actions because the good guys are peerless with no background on any of it, even if there is perfect set up for SOMETHING.

Like one example is one I discussed with a friend last night about apparently the Rauru hate going around. And let me preface this with I don't hate Rauru. There's not enough context and information for me to hate Rauru for the reasons the haters are pointing to. He's fine. But here's sort of my takeaway from that discussion: you can't write what apparently happened between Hyrule and the Gerudo as a black and white narrative of good vs evil because it's very likely a political matter which is very much ALWAYS more gray and complicated. While I'm not ruling out the idea of Ganondorf just being Ganondorf and throwing a hissy fit, I'm willing to bet there are WAY more political implications to it than that. It's likely a very gray, diplomatic matter where both sides had their reasoning and grievances for what they did. Like it's suggested Rauru tries to get the Gerudo on board a few times. Which maybe was innocent enough, but might have looked like him trying to rob them of their sovereignty to the Gerudo, and if he went to them more than once after they already refused, of course that would be irritating. But like...it's literally about perspective. In the eyes of the Gerudo, Rauru and this new country probably looked evil. To Rauru and co., the Gerudo looked evil, especially after they retaliated to what they saw as reasonable attempts to I assume unify the country. Both sides felt they were correct in their actions. But because of the perspective we're seeing the memories from (even though I don't think that can be argued because, if these are Zelda's memories, how do we get the ones like the one where Ganondorf takes note of the Secret Stones which is in itself goofy but I've mentioned that before), Ganondorf and the Gerudo are painted as evil. And not JUST because of that since, as I mentioned, that makes no sense with the premise of the memories, he's just SHOWN to be evil from the get go. Or to at least have some unsavory ambitions concerning some stones he should have no knowledge of anyway.

And to the same effect, they go through some backbreaking efforts to make sure the "good guys" can't be questioned on their own gray morality or decisions. We get no context outside of maybe how the Geruro react (maybe) to the Zonai descending from the sky to become joint rulers of the land. We're lead to believe everyone was just okay with this arrangement and Rauru and Sonia are well-loved as monarchs. Which okay fine but it feels very questionable and outlandish, especially when the Gerudo are at least apparently not okay with it. Even with Zelda, there isn't a bad word said about her, even when she's running around telling people to fight monsters in their underwear, insisting they don't research a specific ruin, and generally wreaking havoc among the citizens of Hyrule (yes i know that isnt her but the point is thr characters don't). She is portrayed as an absolutely perfect human even before the upheaval with all the tidbits you get about her doings around Hyrule and rebuilding. Which is great, don't get me wrong. I'm glad to see she has matured and was very invested in rebuilding the country. I have nothing against Zelda as a character. I'm speaking to the implications of the writing as it once again glosses over any gray area she might have (which they didn't do in botw BTW and that was SO GOOD to see her just...be human) and making her just....too perfect right alongside the rest of Hyrule's monarchy portrayed in this game. And I understand we're dealing in a lot of gods and god-like characters, but, even though they're LIGHTLY suggested to be flawed, it really gets glossed over, muddled, or just not addressed. And I think this is very purposeful to ensure that the narrative they want to share is maintained, even if there are some pretty glaring inconsistencies at time when you look through the cracks that are there.

Tl;dr: basically, I feel like there is a lot of gray area stuff that gets made completely black and white because od how the writers portrayed certain characters, how they chose to frame certain scenes, and the overall inconsistency of how they handle story elements just makes the story less interesting. It's fine. And they definitely did better in this game with story overall. But removing all the potential nuance and going hard on a black and white story is just meh to me.]

[ganondoodle]

still thinking about how even just the decision to basically act like the shiekah tech never existed is just ... so baffling to me

bc again you could have done all the sonau tech does with shiekah instead, and they were perfect to be explored more in a sequel, why wouldnt you grasp that potential, the literal building blocks for more??

if you are that tired of shiekah tech .. dont make it a fuckign sequel to the game prominently featuring it???? totk doesnt take place generations after botw in which things could have changed drastically, its just a few years afterwards??

you want to reuse the map and get rid of shiekah tech? ok fine take LINK into the past then and the focus is for you to find a way to return; do some neat twist where its revealed that link was the one who sealed gan bc he couldnt defeat him without zelda or something if you dare (they wouldnt)

want less work than that and still reuse the map and get rid of shiekah tech AND reuse characters? ok then make it some alternate universe thingy like majoras mask in which everythign is the same but also isnt, its weird and creepy how characters you thoguht you knew suddendly dont act like themselves, shiekah tech doesnt exist, malice is now miasma, etc, it would give reason to why you feel so much like something about this world is familiar yet also very wrong

as far as im aware every "sequel" we have had so far were either generations apart from the first one, some alternate universe or a different location altogether- in all of which its plausible that things are different, things seem weirdly familiar but also wrong, or that another continent just works different from hyrule

but totk does none of that, its supposedly just a few years after the first game, same world same character, but its BUILT like some strange jumbled mess of stuff from botw and new stuff out of nowhere that just .. doesnt fit, but feeling a strange sense of otherness, a déja vu of something you know but it acts off, like an imposter, thats NOT intentional and it shows, its a mess of botw stuff, from stuff that people missed from the old games and entirely new stuff; i dont doubt it CAN work but the way it turned out is like a mix of 3 different puzzles forced together and being told 'see it fits!' even tho you can clearly see the pieces dont look right in these places

again it feels like a sequel that desperately wants you to forget the first game happened, that anythign from it mattered at all

and that isnt really ... the sense of a sequel? why insist on it being one when it only creates problems? is it marketing?? just like it was marketing to call age of calamity a telling of what happened before botw but then it wasnt that at all and that is still the sole reason why i dislike it? bc i was lied to? totk is like 10000 times worse than that, its a main title and doesnt even have the excuse of yeah its basically an excuse to play all your fav characters in fun ways and the game beign well aware that being its main appeal; what is totk appeal? a toybox with botw aestethic and none of the flavor?

(on a sidenote; the sonau tech doesnt even .. matter? in botw at least calamity ganon was made of shiekah tech parts and him overtaking other tech is a big point, the sonau tech doesnt serve anything but .. idk minerus useless mech? gan doesnt even aknowledge it, he doesnt care, all it is is toys for the player, not link, but the player. the monsters mining the tech materials? what for? gan doesnt give a damn and they dont work for the yiga either??)

i said it before but it gives me the feeling that the way botw invited you to theorize, to look beneath the surface, the way it intrigued you and laid the groundwork for so many interesting things without denying anything.. was accidental? or perhaps put in the game without the directors noticing? i cant stop thinking about them saying sth like "after botw zelda wondered if the kingdom of hyrule needed to keep existing the way it had been before the calamity, but then totk happens" bc it just feels like they realized too late that botw naturally led into questioning the status quo and they scrambled to fit it back into a flat and boring road we have seen so many times before (or even worse really) with totk

zeldas character naturally leads into her questioning and reexamine their history and set of rules? we gotta teach her a lesson of why she is importante god given monarchy girl that has to keep it bc what if evil brown man shows up again for no reason

maybe im grasping at straws here but looking at it this way the sonau .. make more "sense"; the shiekah were a group that was under the rule of the royal family, and misstreated before (oh no look soemthing interesting) so they dont lend themselves well to be used for teaching zelda that lesson- the sonau however are tailored really to be just that; they are a supposedly godly race from the literal sky that founded this version of hyrule, that had tech even more advanced and better than the shiekah, she gets put in the past to meet the perfect god king of goodness personally, also his very fridgy wifey that zelda later replaces in a way, shes put there and treated like family and then gets to see just how evil that evil big man from the desert is, sonia is falcon-punched to death solely so zelda can feel obligated to take over her role, have her new, better 'family' hurt by gan; similarly so raurus sacrifice, look what a noble and good king he is, he payed the ultimate price to lock that evil man away, now zelda you cannot let their sacrifice go to waste, rebuild that divinely good kingdom like it was!!

and even though they go so much out of their way to put the cart back onto the rails of black and white-good and evil in an even flatter way than the old games, it still doesnt feel right, at least to me, it still feels like zelda shouldnt have gone along with all of that, it feels like even her character from botw was walked back entirely, except for the intro, it made her feel like a stranger to me-

because this is a sequel, i know this zelda, she wouldnt act like that after all that shes been through, this feels ... off

and it all just insulting to anyone who cared about botw more than surface level, or the zelda lore in general, i dont even care much about the timeline, but theres alot of lore and themes beyond it that felt ignored, especially so given that .. its a damn sequel, non AU, not generations apart, directly part 2-

but its not.

it even feels very "corporate", put zelda in a dress again, people liked that, put crazy abilities in the game to flashbang people with how insane it is even if its not the best for the gameplay or the story, put a new asthetic into it out of nowhere bc its 'new' and act like its been there the whole time, put gan in there bc people miss him and find him sexy even if his role is just as flat as that of an evil cloud monster-

*sigh*

you know, i saw a post that said aoc was like a bad fanfic (affectionate) and totk was like a bad fanfic (derogatory) and tbh thats like one of the best comparisons/summaries i have seen ..

[game-boy-pocket]

And so, after 295 hours, I decided to finally challenge the final boss of Tears of the Kingdom today, and now the credits are rolling. I didn't finish every side quest yet or get every collectible, but I will do that overtime. I just wanted to be free from the shackles of worrying about seeing a spoiler. I'm afraid the final boss actually was somewhat spoiled for me, but it's something I could have easily seen coming. I won't be spoiling anything major here. If I do feel like something constitutes a major spoiler, I will put up a warning.

Breath of the Wild was always going to be in my top 3 Zelda lists temporarily. I could see that even before I beat the game. It was clearly the blue print for the future of Zelda, and the next game would dethrone it in that top 3 very easily...

Well, was I right about that?

I didn't have many problems with Breath of the Wild. It was pretty close to my idea of a perfect Zelda game. I just wanted more variety in the enemies, caves, and more unique looking dungeons. I also wanted better bosses, including the final boss, and a bit more backstory to the final boss. These were the bare minimum of what I was asking for. All of them were addressed for the most part. The common enemies from the last game are still the most common enemies in TOTK. But they have new tricks, and there are enough other enemies, and the less common enemies in BOTW are now more common, so I'd say the problem was fixed well enough for me.... I still want more enemies in the next game though. Caves were not game changers, but they broke up the overworld exploration and every one of them had at least one collectible in it, so that was worth something. I still haven't found a good chunk of caves in the game.

The dungeons are now themed. And there is one in particular that is super reminiscent of Ocarina of Time. I don't think these dungeons will make believers out of classic Zelda fans that dislike BOTW, even though they're taking out of the OOT playbook pretty closely... I just think classic Zelda fans choose to be difficult. It's not enough that you can make a hammer, it has to be the megaton hammer, it's not enough that you're making your way to a switch that unlocks the path to the dungeon boss, there has to be small keys in treasure chests, it's not enough that you gain a new ability before the dungeon that you need to reach the dungeon, and progress through the dungeon, and defeat the dungeon boss, it has to be a gadget you find in a treasure chest half way through the dungeon... I'm sorry to classic Zelda fans, but this is just so much better to me. .......all the shrines still look the same though, which sucks, but at least they're not as ugly as the BOTW Shrines. Just because it has irl historical inspiration does not make it good.

The bosses are better. Three of them are great, very classic Zelda. One of them sucks. And another one is more like a Donkey Kong 64 boss, but I still thought it was cool... the Final Bosses were great. Slight spoiler alert, but they do not explain anything regarding Calamity Ganon and his connection to Ganondorf, if there even is a connection. I guess the theorists are gonna have to do the leg work unless Nintendo has another expensive book to sell... The backstory for Ganondorf in this game kind of sucks and makes no sense. They're kind of retreading old ground here but not in a fanservicy way. But it doesn't bring my opinion of the game down.

As for the more common complaints other people tended to have with BOTW... I really didn't have issues with durability, in my opinion, people who do have an issue either have a skill issue, or a hoarding issue. So I didn't need that addressed. If anything, I actually don't care for how TotK addressed this "issue"... like, I kind of like the concept, but not the execution... not because it made a new problem or anything... it just made the weapons all look ugly... I also don't play Zelda for story. If anything, I prefer story to be more subdued and not break up the pace of the game like Skyward Sword. So weather the story was good or bad, the fact that it didn't get in the way of the game itself makes it a non issue for me. However, I cannot enjoy the story of this game if it's meant to take place in the same universe as the other Legend of Zelda games. There is too much revisionist crap that doesn't make sense and even retroactively sours all the easter egg in BOTW for me... however, if I treat BOTW and TOTK as a reboot with no connections to the past games, I think I quite like the story. But the easter eggs from BOTW are still gonna bother me. So in other words, TOTK has a good story, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of the series. I don't care how often this series does time travel... what's even more disappointing is that Ganondorf's first words in the game is a real "oh shit" moment for me, because I thought this was going to be a game that was very meaningfully connected to the past... but no, it turns out, they just re-used an old Zelda character's name for a new one, and he has no connection whatsoever to that old character. Just a funny coincidence.

Anyway... my favorite part of the Zelda series besides exploring vast worlds is also the combat, and almost all of Link's tricks from BOTW return. I already felt like the combat in BOTW was pretty great as long as you didn't just hammer the melee button and do nothing else. But TOTK adds a lot of options. Many new ways to alter your melee weapons, your bows, a lot of items an be thrown with varying effects, even your shields could be used in combat, and you could even build devices that can assist you in battle.

The building mechanic is kind of optional, but is too fun not to experiment with. You can make devices that will help you traverse the terrain more easily, gain altitude, assist in battle, just straight up make attack robots or turrets or attack vehicles, it's great. I do think some people can't be bothered to mess with it though, which is a shame. I don't like to fast travel unless it's absolutely necessary, so I was constantly building little scooters, ATVs, and even a small aircraft... I do kind of miss having the Master Cycle Zero though. Nothing I built quite matched it in ease of use and mobility. But being able to mount laser canons on the front made up for it.

I replayed BOTW immediately before this game. And I was pretty amazed at how fresh the exploration felt. So much of Hyrule is just not recognizable at all. There's still easily recognizable landmarks like the Dueling Peaks, but things really got shaken up...

I know saying this would cause me to end up like that meme with the cat having all those swords pointed at it, but I truly would not be mad if they made this a trilogy of games and reused this map one more time, as long as it was shaken up even more, and they gave us at least one more new landmass to explore...

...oh yes. That's right. This game had islands in the sky, and an entire Hyrule Sized map underground that is kind of like the Dark World from a Link to the Past, except once the novelty wears off, it's not really that amazing, it's mostly a place to gather a few resources, re-fight bosses, and you will occasionally encounter a curiosity or find a cool treasure chest... the game brings back Poes, but not really... they're not little ghost monsters you have to defeat for their souls, they're just little blue flames you can pickup and spend for currency. A little disappointing. But at least the things you can buy with them are kind of cool. Useful for replacing some of those easter egg weapons people will be too afraid to use for fear of breaking. The side quests in this game are much better than in BOTW, especially with the addition of the new "Side Adventures" which are generally a bit larger in scale... the rewards still tend to suck... not as much as in BOTW because a lot of of the useless junk that you'd just sell in BOTW now has a secondary use in TOTK. But much like BOTW, I don't care if the rewards suck... for me, the journey is the reward. I just like playing around in Hyrule, fighting monsters, and now, exploring caves and building vehicles and flying through the sky.

I might go more in depth in my thoughts at another time, I have so many of them, but this game is just too big for me to cover in one big tumblr post, it is made up of so many parts, this is one of Nintendo's biggest games to date, and it is also one of the most fun games i've played, probably since Breath of the Wild. This easily bodies anything they've released between then and now, for me personally speaking.

If you have anything you'd like me to talk about further, my inbox is open, and of course i'm happy to talk Zelda that isn't related to TOTK, or just talking in general. Have at me.

On a side note... one thing I wished was different from BOTW was that you could unlock the classic green tunic earlier rather than making it an end game reward... you can find it immediately since it' just in a chest somewhere... I am embarassed how long it took me to find all three pieces. I found the tunic... but the trousers and cap eluded me for many days while I scoured the game, but if I actually thought about where I found the tunic, and applied my knowledge of BOTW, I could have easily deduced the location of the other two chests. Oh well... also... the actual end game reward really sucks, but once again.... journey is the reward. I'm just happy I got my green tunic back.

[bugcatcherwill]

Something I’m giggling about and feel like I must share: we have rice in hyrule, as well as fish, could sushi be a thing? Like sashimi could be but is there a Zelda version of nori the sea weed that is the key thing of a sushi roll.

I’m bringing this up do you you saying your headconing cranberries are a thing in hyrule which I like, so what about things like pasta or stuff like sushi. I seen so much fanart of Zelda characters eating foods not in canon game like ramen

As rito specialize in stuff with wheat like baked goods or stews which makes sense they live in a frosty area and their stores mostly have baking stuff

The zora specialize in fish due to being water dwellers they have some spices stuff but mostly fish is in their stores

Gorons specialize in mostly mining due to they eat rocks, but their store shows they have stuff like their goron spice, sugar basically stuff that can be grounded up and put on a meal

Then there is the geurdo who specialize in basically everything like their market place has: mushrooms, cooked meat, stuff to make meals with like rice and wheat and rock salt, fruit even a lady at the bazar has lizalfos tails (feel like she’ll feel guilty on that one in your headcons)

Now here’s why I was giggling imagine now what would the monster tribes villages specialize in making for their stores for people to buy? Or would they be like the gorons and specialize in their own seasonings? Or be like the gerudo and have basically a random selection on many ingredients or would they make a first thing product hyrule never had before? Like noodles, or nori, or recipes like tempura by frying stuff with oil coated with a breading of flour and goron spice (I was sad they didn’t have that as a meal recipe in totk)

This is just one of those things as I was giggling about how you plans on things post botw and totk for the malice free monsters as I can’t wait to see what happens

I always love worldbuilding exercises like this because, looking at our real world for influence, a lot of food that we take for granted has very rich and detailed origins.

It's interesting because Japan's invention of sushi came from the fact that they used rice vinegar to ferment fish and keep it fresh, but then starting eating the rice fermented with it they'd otherwise throw out.

While sushi in our current day is usually flash-frozen to kill any parasites, I've shown Lizalfos as one of the species that can just eat fish raw with little problems. Lizalfos, at least non-elemental ones, also seem to be native to more wetlands areas of Hyrule. Their big encampment in Lanayru being a good example.

This would create something of a perfect storm of circumstances where Lizalfos' main crop they would grow would be rice because the environment there lets rice thrive, and their diet mainly consists of fish. So I can absolutely see them "inventing" sushi through that.

Anyways this is just reminding me of how Uncle Iroh invented Boba Tea in the ATLA world, so I absolutely wanna try something like that LMAO

[toxicnotebook]

TotK Impressions: Day 2

So I have an anxiety disorder, and money is a big trigger. I was lowkey expecting to have money-related intrusive thoughts for like, at least 3-5 days after buying Tears- despite knowing I could afford it- because that’s been my experience after moderate-to-big purchases. Sucks, but it happens.

I haven’t had any. I’m sure some of that is therapy but also the game is just that fucking good. I can see- and feel- the six year development time was not wasted. It is absolutely worth the money.

Okay, here are more impressions, and a mild Age of Calamity ~conspiracy~:

Dude the NPCS are SO MUCH FUN. Here’s a couple of my favorites so far:

Penn the Rito reporter! His design is so cute and I love his enthusiasm.

The people in the Castle Town hub are great, nice mix of BotW NPCs and new ones. The fact they were all so relieved to see Link alive was a nice touch. Also thank you devs for giving us a better home base.

I found a drummer who is part of a traveling band that performs at horse stables! Haven’t gone to Woodland to see them yet, but the fact they exist makes me VERY HAPPY!

The Sheikah elders arguing whether fighting offensively or defensively was great lol.

Some of them even react to the odder fusions! I fused a ring garland to a shield for the aesthetic

THE MONSTER HUNTING SQUADS. I LOVE THEM. WE’RE BROS 4EVER.

Okay regarding the monster hunter squads: I feel like maybe they were inspired by Age of Calamity? The UI for the fights is very similar to the ones in AoC. I do know they used the BotW engine to develop AoC, so it’s possible some code sharing happened. I have no proof, but it would be cool if AoC influenced TotK’s gameplay!

The Castle Town fort is great, I love that we have a more expansive homebase this time around. And the fact that everyone knew Link or knew of him was a nice bit of polish.

Speaking of homebases, yay the Hateno house is standing! I was a little disappointed it’s called Zelda’s House instead of Link & Zelda’s house, not gonna lie. But I know they’re trying to accommodate as many players as possible, and new players would just not be familiar with that sidequest. Plus, not every BotW player finished the house! I’m kinda glad they don’t assume tbh, and they left it open enough that older players can still assume Link is living there too.

The bit about Zelda staying in Hateno to help establish the first school is very sweet. Perfect bit of characterization for our researcher princess. I have a lowkey headcanon that Link is staying in Castle Town to head the surveys & reconstruction while Zelda works more on social program in Hateno, and they meet up as often as possible.

Okay back to Castle Town, I’m glad the giant telescope is more usable this time lol.

I looooove the Skyview Towers! The launch animation is so much fun, and I like the fact Purah reused the Sheikah tech to build them.

Although why did she reuse the Guardian legs specifically to HOLD DOWN LINK TO PREP HIM FOR LAUNCH. Girl that was unnecessary! You could have given him more warning!

I love her new design, of course. All the Sheikah designs I’ve seen have been A++.

When I got attacked by the walking trees for the first time I actually yelled “What the FUCK” out loud LMAO. I was NOT expecting to be attacking by the goddamn forests!

Horriblins also made me jump. But MAN their designs are SO COOL.

The monster designs in general have been top tier, give those designers a bonus because damn.

THE DEPTHS ARE SO FUCKING COOL. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. THE AESTHETIC, THE DIVE DOWN, THE PLANTS, THE CREATURES, THE POES!! POES ARE BACK!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH I WANNA BUILD A HOUSE DOWN THERE!

Also the running joke of Link startling people near the edge of the depth chasms is really charming, heh. Feral gremlin man is gonna feral gremlin.

Anyways I just got to Hateno last night, so I’m gonna bother more villagers and then maybe double back to Impa to start the obvious successor to the BotW memory quest. Or maybe I’ll go to Lurelin and beat up pirates. Or go back to Kakariko and dive into the big giant chasm that Naydra likes to fly into.

MAN it’s good to be back!!

[faroreswinds]

I got two anons in regards to Zelda.

I'm going to answer them here to maintain spoilers. So spoilers below for Totk.

I'm of two minds about totk's story, personally. Keeping it vague for spoiler reasons, I think the twist with Zelda was a really cool idea, and the final boss was a really grand spectacle that made for a great finale. The new characters, Rauru and Sonia, were welcome additions too, but getting the memories out of order slightly ruins the impact, and I think the scenes in the past should have been playable instead. I love this take on Ganon, but I think his motives should have been explored more.

So, my own thoughts on your specific thoughts.

I personally found the dragon thing.... dumb. It doesn't feel like it belongs in a Zelda game. A friend of mine and I always discuss how much we hated it, haha. But I understand why others like it.

The human side of the final boss was great! The dragon was dumb. But that was because I found the entire dragon concept incredibly dumb.

Rauru and Sonia are.... fine. They aren't really anything special, imo. We don't really get to know them. They are just... nice. That's pretty much their only defining personality trait. I don't hate them or anything, I just don't find them anything special either.

This Ganon is.... meh. He's pretty stupid. He literally leaves Stones out in the open and doesn't take them for some reason. That's dumb villain behavior. His motivation is slightly more clear in the Japanese - He thinks peace makes people weak and he wants people strong. So... that's it, really. I just wish they gave him a Trident and not a samurai sword. Where is my Trident, Nintendo? That's literally his thing, you even had it in the OG teaser trailer! Character-wise, he's no more special than OoT Ganon, except OoT Ganon is actually given screen time to build a rivalry with Link. And was actually a more successful Ganon than this one.

To be frank, I found there to be very little to enjoy from this game's narrative. It's so sloppy, childish (note, I don't mean for a younger audience either, I mean it's like a 9 year old wrote it), and devoid of anything meaningful. The only thing I can recall truly loving was when Dragonroost Island theme kicked in during the Rito boss fight. And that made me tear up a little. And only because of WW, not because of BotW.

To be clear, I enjoyed my time with the game on the whole. But the only reason I plan to replay it is because I want to make a video explaining every microscopic detail as to why this game's story was poorly conceived.

In hindsight, I feel like Botw was to Zelda what FFXV was to Final Fantasy; games that changed the direction of their respective series for better or worse and given Aonuma's whole thing about the previous 3D zeldas being "restrictive", I think we're stuck with the botw/totk formula for a long time.

We are. I'm not exactly.... opposed to the open-world design. I just don't think they figured it out yet.

I know so many people think BotW and Totk are perfected open-world games. To me, a perfect open-world game doesn't look like what these two games gave me.

Here is what I want from the next Zelda game.

A narrative that adapts to the players actions, so the choices we make matter more

A smaller map but at least 8 dungeons. The dungeons should not require an entire sequence to enter, but can be wandered into when discovered. Imagine looking into the lake and seeing a temple! And then imagine swimming into the lake, and entering that temple for a new dungeon. Or, searching the forest and finding an ancient ruins buried deep within the leaves.

The smaller map should have more NPCs. I want real, large cities! Lendyell's, not the pathetic Rito village. I want Goron City to BE a city! Come on, Nintendo, make it happen!

Please do not make Princess Zelda a whiney baby this time, please. Or, in the case of Totk, an uninteresting Mary Sue.

Make horses actually good this time.

Stop forcing me to menu all the damn time.

No building! Lame! Stop it!

Can we make Link emote again, please? It's so embarrassing that the n64 Link has more personality than the latest Zelda game on better hardware.

I have more but this is what is on the top of my list.

Of course, I know I sound like a negative nilly. But I don't really hate the idea of these games like a lot of fans seem to do. I just can't love them yet because there are still too many issues.

I want to love the new format desperately. Totk, while a crappy story, actually gave me glimpses into greatness. I can see how the team tweaked it, tried to find a perfected formula in there. I can see them trying, and that gives me hope!

Like, if you were to give me a choice between Totk and Botw, and I can only play one of these for the rest of my life, I'm going with Totk. It's not a better story, but it's a better game. It doubled down on Botw's weaknesses, but I think that just comes with using BotW as a base. Maybe an entirely new game can finally do away with those weaknesses.

Hopefully, we won't wait 6 years to find out! Hopefully no more than 3? We know that they have already started the planning phase of the new game. And it possible that they started a year ago. Totk was finished over a year ago, and had a year of testing before release. Hopefully, they delegated, and had a small team begin the start of the new game.

Plus, no covid this time to slow them down!

Here's to hoping!