#i wish i knew what it was like when totk was still a DLC

[ganondoodle]

still thinking about that text post i reblogged bc it articulates so well what some of the bad vibes i got from totk that i couldnt really pin point that well (and still cant put it in my own words lol); botw is all about trying to act out an old legend and it backfires severly, and i SO hoped the sequel would then move forward or try to explore the reason why clam gan could even come back at all (which isnt really done in totk bc tbh as sad as im to say this ganondorf really is kinda just clam gan but he talks now and looks hot, other than his first human appearance he isnt rly humanized in any way, might as well been an evil cloud talking)

botw left me with the intense feeling that now it would move forward, in the present, we must not keep looking at the past as its done now, move and rebuild (hmmmmm windwaker anyone??) together with zelda now and i wanted to see where it would go so badly bc exploring hyrule with zelda as your companion would make room for SO much character interactions and to me it just feels RIGHT, in botw you were seperated for so long and were finally back together with your best friend and one of the only survivors from the main people hit by the calamity at the end, now you tackle the next catastrophy together-

and totk just kinda reverses it all, whoop zelda gone again lol, no no we must look FURTHER into the past and exactly play it all out again, which doesnt just feel repetetive but also like its back-pedaling what botw was themed around bc in botw it went wrong and had to try picking up the pieces and save whats left to save; in totk its like yeah this is the RIGHT way to reenact the past and as a supposed sequel it just feels ... off its like, imagine windwaker ending with you sailing off to search for new lands and let the past rest like the game directly tells you and then theres a sequel where you are back and suddendly are supposed to bring back the old hyrule that was flooded at the end of the previous game actually if totk was that you had to go back to figure out ok how did it end up like this and how do we solve it now in the present so it wont just restart again yEAH!! and while the game may seem like its doing that on the surface .. it really isnt bc turns out how to solve it is just ... kill the evil guy but HARDER and the reason it got this far is ... he was always an evil guy and the only mistake that was made was the divine god king not stabbing him to death immediately

its all so hollow and with all the other stuff i have ranted about its just .. man what happened here

[multbasa]

IDK if this is controversial, but apparently TotK won't get DLC:

Good.

Honestly I can't think of a good way for them to add DLC. I would like a second quest playing Zelda like what was thought of for Skyward Sword but we already see her main story beats and there's not a lot to even make a good playable experience with her in TotK.

Do we really need more shrines or another temple like what was added in BotW? Not really.

There's a lot to do in TotK and I really enjoyed it. I still enjoy it. I have my own issues with the game but they wouldn't be fixed with DLC: personally I don't think the random order of the memories works in this game and I think it should have been only available in a set order. I did watch all the geoglyph memories in order but I watched them all before finishing the temples. I wish I had not seen them first since I liked how the story played out with a mystery involving this Zelda in Hyrule yet I already knew exactly what happened to Zelda. When I play the game again from the beginning eventually I will probably play everything in a set order to keep the story in line. That being said, I absolutely love the ending and the final boss and everything leading up to that. This is seriously my favourite ending to a Zelda game to date; it was beautiful, challenging, cinematic, everything I wanted it to be.

BotW's DLC involved the late champions and I adored the final photograph together, but TotK doesn't have that. The champions have moved on and I don't think the old sages need to be fleshed out because they were quite one dimensional—if that. If they were fleshed out, I don't even know what that would be about since they basically just get involved to fight Ganondorf.

Anyway, I don't think TotK needs DLC, and as a long time fan of the series, I can't wait to see what the next game will be about, who it will be about and where it will take place. I want something fresh and new. I loved BotW Link and Zelda and the other characters but it's time to move on. TotK finished off their story.

If there's no DLC, Nintendo probably has already begun development on the next title which is super exciting. Can't wait to see it in...6 years...oof, I'm going to be 30 years old by then.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Not story related spoiler for totk below!

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Zelda lives in link’s house in totk. In botw, the decor was just a bit of furniture and weapons on display, but if you complete the champions ballad dlc in botw, something else will appear in both game houses: a very sweet picture of link, zelda and the champions hanging on a wall. In botw, this was accompanied by a very bittersweet cutscene, which I recommend watching if you can

I have so many thoughts about the living situation. When I first went there I was like "Ah, I'm home!! ...wait where's all my stuff"

Like... the house looks much more lived in, which is nice, but if you really look at it... it's all Zelda. There's like, not a single hint that Link lives there anymore. His weapons are gone (RIP champions, they're just completely forgotten T-T), and while that had been really the only decoration that had been his, it... I mean that was what he held on to. And maybe you could argue that yeah, Link isn't much of an interior decorator, but Zelda clearly loves taking pictures and decorating, and there isn't a single hint of Link in the house. (Unless you include the DLC picture - I knew about the cut scene and the pic, which is adorable and heart wrenching)

And if you look at other homes in Hateno, the married couples still sleep in separate beds because they're all twin sized. So like...

Did Link just give his house to Zelda and was like "nah I'm cool I've got other places to stay" and then just proceeded to camp in the woods or something?? Did he stay in Zora's Domain?? Like... Link, where do you live???

Zelda and Link are very close and there is no denying it, and I don't mind post-calamity Zelink at all, but like... Zelda's focus is very much on her kingdom. Her people are her world. Everything she wrote about in her journal and all the pictures in the home are about Hateno and Hyrule. She is a wonderful ruler for them. But it really makes me think that Link and her are very strictly platonic. Like, they adore each other, and Link is dedicated to Zelda for sure, but I don't know, the game hints far more strongly that Zelda, despite whatever feelings she may have for Link, is way too focused on rebuilding her kingdom to ever consider having any kind of romantic relationship with Link.

....your ask probably had absolutely nothing to do with this entire observation, but I've been dying to talk about it so XD But yes, I do love the cut scene for that picture, and it's absolutely bittersweet to see it hanging in the house </3 I wish the champions were remembered better in totk. I haven't gotten far in the game, just complete the Rito quest, not the others (so no spoilers!), but so far I've barely seen a reference to the champions or the divine beasts and it's like... guys. Guys, they're far more recent than the other calamity, ok?? Don't forget about them??? They helped Link defeat Ganon in the first place?????

[mudkippey]

It's weird how Tears of the Kingdom leaves us with more questions than answers. I feel thematically it makes sense that Breath of the Wild would have a lot of mysteries, since for a lot of the game Link's past is a mystery. But ToTK? Even though it finally explained who the Zonai are, it left us with even more questions! (And it's kind of odd so much focus is on the Zonai, considering they were only mentioned by name in Making of a Champion as far as I know).

-What happened to the Zonai? Ganondorf mentions Rauru and Mineru are the only ones left, so where are the others? Did they die out? Go somewhere else? Why aren't we told? This feels like something that shouldn't be a mystery. Rauru knows, Ganondorf probably knows, Mineru knows, Zelda probably asked and thus knows, why do none of the memories mention this? Seeing how excited Zelda was in the opening over finding those murals, I feel her memories would contain more about her discovering this kind of stuff.

-Speaking of memories, the dragons. We know how they're made now, so what was their reasoning? This is probably setup for DLC. Or maybe it's just something for us to wonder about.

-The Zonai ruins from BoTW. Namely, they look DIFFERENT from the ones we see in ToTK. What's up with the ones we find in the Faron region? Were there a bunch of Zonai who really liked the jungle? But if Mineru and Rauru are the only Zonai left...what happened to them? The Typhlo ruins quest gives some answers, but Faron is still up in the air.

-The calamity 10,000 years ago. What's the deal with that hero? Where did the Sheikah get their technology? Did they use the Zonai's technological knowledge? Again, it's odd that something from BoTW is still so unexplored. Instead, we're introduced to an even older war. Which makes sense for introducing the source of the calamity (Ganondorf) but this big event is never explored. We're thrown a bone when it comes to the hero (I'm not going to spoil it but if you know you know) and honestly...that leaves even more questions. Maybe it's laying foundation for DLC?

-What's the deal with Gerudo politics during Ganondorf's reign? We see him leading them, but the lightning sage has allied with Rauru. Was this a one-off, or were a bunch of Gerudo allying with Rauru? Ganondorf is also referred to as a hero to his people so...what led her/them to do that? When we're told "the last free Gerudo village has fallen" once Ganondorf goes demon mode, does that mean last Gerudo settlement PERIOD or the last one not under his rule? This game lifted a lot from OoT, and in that game the Gerudo largely escaped his wrath (aside from Nabooru, because she defied him).

-What happens to the Sheikah technology from BoTW? Someone on YouTube (the pinnacle of credibility) said there was dialogue mentioning it was disassembled so it couldn't be compromised again but...why? As far as Hyrule knew, Ganon was dead. Why did the Sheikah, who were so curious about this technology, not keep the shrines and figure out how to use their teleportation ability? The Shrines were never compromised, why disassemble them? I get we need room for the new Zonai shrines but it's odd there's not a good explanation for the absence of all Sheikah technology.

I wish the overworld had more of those murals we saw at the start of the game. It would make re-exploring the overworld from BoTW more enjoyable I think. Let us stumble upon an ancient Sheikah lab where we see they were working with Zonai technology to make what we saw in BoTW. Give us more insight on the first calamity. Have old ruins in Gerudo desert that give insight on life under Ganondorf before he was utterly lost in the sauce, or show us what happened to his followers after he was. Have more Zonai murals that show what happened to them and give us more clues on the dragons.

Archeology and studying the past is definitely a Thing in ToTK, and using murals to find out more about the past is introduced in the beginning. Why not continue that trend and make it part of the overworld, let us analyze them and draw our own conclusions like Zelda did at the start!

[gerudospiriit]

[Okay we all knew it was coming. I've got to go on a ramble about the Gerudo (edit: it ended up being about TotK in general oops). I'll go ahead and put it under a read more because there will be some spoiler-y things BUT--]

If I didn't have a million and six questions about the Gerudo in BotW, TotK did nothing to answer them and added another billion.

For starters, I was so glad to see that Ganondorf and the Gerudo together. Working together. The Gerudo loyal to him. I, of course, wish we got MORE because again, more questions and no answers, but I've always been fascinated by the position the Gerudo are in, ESPECIALLY Nabooru, and how their attitude toward Ganondorf evolved from pretty much OoT to BotW (I know they're in like four swords but). I loved seeing it even if it brings in a ton more inconsistencies and anxiety for me as an OoT/Nabooru fan.

So what am I on about. From seeing the scenes from the geoglyphs, seeing the Lightning Sage and how she reacts to news of Ganondorf I guess attacking the desert settlements, which may include Gerudo Town or whatever it might have been back then (which brings up more questions of course), I was immediately like "wait what happened then?" Did Ganondorf turn on the Gerudo? Did they turn on him? Was the sage a single actor, similar to Nabooru? IS she supposed to BE Nabooru, introducing a whole other can of worms for me specifically? Why would Ganondorf attack his own region when the Gerudo were obviously loyal to him? What changed their minds or what changed his? There's just soooo much there and they just....never explain a thing. And I get they MIGHT address a little more with the old sages in DLC but DAMN IT. I just want to KNOW.

All of that said, it also makes OoT more complicated because, unless this is like...the beginning of New Hyrule like the concept introduced in Phantom Hourglass after the flood, it doesn't fit. The obvious thing is looking at Ganondorf. If this is the BEGINNING, and Ganondorf is sealed away in the imprisoning war until Zelda and Link find him again in TotK, we couldn't have OoT, TP, WW, or any other game that features him. Like...my doom and gloom reptile brain can't help but wonder if this is meant to REPLACE OoT and therefore make all the other stuff irrelevant but that can't be because, again, Nabooru is mentioned by name and in a historical context. She existed in other words. So akdkjrbr.

But then bring in the Gerudo too. So they're loyal to Ganondorf here. Then they're...maybe not? But then they are again in OoT. And then, if we go by Urbosa's scorn, his memory is a despised one. The inconsistency is the same brand as a friend pointed out to me: with the scene looking so similar to the one from OoT where Ganondorf surrenders and pledges loyalty to Hyrule, why tf did the Gerudo and Hyrule fall for this AGAIN? Which makes my reptile brain again fire up and wonder if this imprisoning war stuff is meant to replace OoT. Like I get it's dramatic, but making the same mistake with the same man on both their parts is just...silly. And i guess you could argue that the Zonai history has been a lost one but like was it really? Rhoam and rulers before knew not to go down beneath the castle and apparently that was respected until the second Calamity messed things up and the gloom started causing problems. So the royal family, especially closer to the events of the imprisoning war, should know SOMETHING about it all. And yet they still APPARENTLY made the same mistake. Same goes for the Gerudo...and that's just being generous and saying it's a possibility they would even SEE Ganondorf again considering...you know....he's supposed to have been sealed up under the castle by the time OoT comes around, meaning the Gerudo would have never seen him after that and therefore their idea of him wouldn't have changed to what we see in OoT.

And you know, as I'm writing this (welcome to my stream of consciousness I guess lmao), I thought of an easy way they could have avoided all of this: don't involve Ganondorf and just use Demise. Don't get me wrong. I love Ganondorf and was very very happy to see him back. However, his return AS GANONDORF makes things so janky and complicated and I known it's just fanservice. I know why they dont, and the short answer is they've overly connected Demise and Ganondorf to the point they're just one person, but hear me out. They almost STRICTLY call him the Demon King anyway, suggesting the tie to Demise. The look after he transforms is Demise. Sealing Demise away again and him having no connection to Ganondorf at this point would keep everything following intact still, and they could just do what they have been doing with the curse and working in Demise's curse and influence like choosing Ganondorf as the vessel when he's born (as much as I still kinda hate that). Basically, Ganondorf should have just been Demise HIMSELF returning. And if you really wanted to bring Ganondorf back, fine. Tying them so tightly together as basically one in the same in this context is just a mess, so it would have been better if it was back to the sort of vessel idea. So I think it would have been better if

1. It was DEMISE they showed in the flashbacks to the beginning of Hyrule and the Imprisoning War (also isn't that what they called the events from SS? Does this stuff predate even THAT?). No Ganondorf for, as it stands, he couldn't exist yet. This solves the inconsistency of Ganondorf being in other eras when he should be sealed away. It makes how Demise and Ganondorf get involved a little squickier to work with, but that whole thing was already weird and hard to explain anyway.

2. Demise, then, is who gets resurrected beneath the castle. If you want Ganondorf back, to be like a physical body for him or whatever, make that another plot point. Make it to where someone finds a way to resurrect Ganondorf SPECIFICALLY, whether that's Demise himself or another actor like the Yiga Clan (ugh don't get me started on the damn Yiga Clan and the little sense they make god). Sprinkle in hints that this is going on, along with the historical context of who Ganondorf was. That maybe even part of the main story is TRYING (and failing) to stop Demise from getting Ganondorf resurrected because then he would be at actual full power or something like that.

Basically, just...separate Demise and Ganondorf more. Like I get there's the curse and I guess Ganondorf becomes some kind of vessel for Demise, but this game has basically just made them the same person and it makes everything all fucky and confusing with how they've presented this new founding of Hyrule and the imprisoning war. We would have a little bit better cohesion and sense at least.

And yeah I know people are going to bring up time traveling Zelda and that maybe this is just an entirely new timeline altogether from even BotW, and the past she ends up in is a completely different past than that of OoT's or something, but....idk. I also heard this was supposed to tie up all the timelines so????? And that she just fixed everything in the past is another theory??? It's all just really bizarre and adds nothing to the established story and lore. Too much fanservice and too little thought and consideration for plot.

Anyway. Maybe I'll figure some explanation out for at least the Gerudo. Or I'll eventually just stop trying to make it work. Maybe something will come out that helps in the DLC. and don't get me wrong: for all my criticisms on these points, the game was super fun and was a huge leap forward from botw, which always felt sparse and unfinished to me. This game did so so soooo much good and I still think it's an amazing game. But I love the story of the Zelda series. I love the lore. And I don't even hate what they did with all this, necessarily. I just wish they either cut these two games off from the previous games entirely without making all the historical references (and I'm not referring to place names, the outfits, or easter eggs necessarily) or did a better job of showing how these events related to the past games and lore instead of just tossing something out there with zero explanation of why it matters.