#it’s just like…. you keep just about everything the same from BOTW and then add a few lackluster things and new cutscenes and sell it at $70

[milf-erasure]

i feel like people have been jumping to attack anyone who says negative things about totk… but i’m kind of……. disappointed in it for various reasons. i’ve played every 3D zelda game (and loved most of them so i’m not a random hater lmao) and this just doesn’t feel like part of the series to me. the dungeons are incredibly lackluster and the whole fusing/ultrahand building stuff is janky and does not work well imo. the depths are cool at first but get old fast. the good stuff about totk is almost exclusively stuff from botw with a few exceptions. idk man. i think i got my hopes up too high

[mylonelydreaming]

All Co-Habitation Evidence *TotK Spoilers*

I'm going to hide all of this behind a read-more if you would like to remain unspoiled on everything like npc interactions, towns, quests, etc. Which I do have to talk about when it comes to this topic. Now, without further ado:

The bed in the house is the exact same as BotW, and unlike other beds in the world, you can freely sleep in it. If we open up both botw and totk, the bed is the exact same one from botw. Meaning that at the absolute minimum, Zelda has been sleeping in Link's bed. However, if you go up to the bed, Link can still sleep in it. There are very few beds that are free in this game, and the only other beds you can sleep in is obviously communal beds, such as those at lookout landing for those who are sick, injured, etc. You cannot normally sleep in another person's bed.

2. Link's hair-tie, Zelda's diary and the Champion's photo.

If you have completed The Champion's Ballad DLC, and correctly transferred your save, then the photo will still be there. But more importantly, the house has a new addition. Behind the house is "Zelda's secret well" that functions as her new study. In that well, you will find one of the volumes of her diary, hot-footed frogs splashing around, and Link's hair-tie in the corner of the room. Link never took that hair-tie off in botw (only when wearing the ancient helm), so it's a bit suspicious that it's down here of all places.

Not only this, but if you read the volumes of her diary, both the one in the well and on the desk near the bed, there are a couple of things that stick out:

Firstly, Zelda had Bolson build the well because she needed somewhere to focus alone. If she was living by herself, this makes no sense (and, in japanese, rather than "my house" it's simply "the house" here).

Secondly, Zelda states that Link is always by her side. To the point his clothes have become worn. So as a gift she made him a new tunic (and she "can't wait to see the look on his face" when he gets it, just saying).

and third, she had to hide said gift in the castle, otherwise he would find it in the house.

3. The School and Symin

During the time-skip, Zelda founded a new school in Hateno, where she became a teacher. Due to this, a child who misses her visits the house at around 12-2pm and calls it "Ms Zelda's house".

However, if you talk to Symin, he has this to say:

So, clearly, this is not Link's first time here (which should be obvious, how exactly did Zelda get to Hateno and the house in the first place after botw's ending? Link brought her there). He even asks Link why he came back to the village alone without Zelda. Additionally, if you go upstairs and read the "School Notes" it says this:

It talks about the opening expedition under the castle happening soon, and reiterates Link being by Zelda's side. Interestingly, in that opening sequence Zelda says she is glad she didn't leave the Purah Pad behind. Meaning she's glad she didn't leave it at home.

But wait, there's more

There is a side-quest at the school where Link becomes a teacher / substitute teacher. When you finish the quest, one of the children says this:

They say they already thought of Link as a teacher figure even before this quest. To add onto this, there is another child who wants to become a hero and is "always on the lookout for baddies".

4. Manny

Manny is an interesting case. At first, like some other npcs, he seems to have been entirely memory-wiped to be approachable for brand-new players who didn't play botw, but then he has the following to say:

So, first of all, he doesn't call the house "Zelda's house" and instead calls it "the house the princess was staying at"

Secondly, he asks Link to "keep the naive, new-in-town act" to a minimum.

Third, Manny has another dialogue, he wants to "check every well" in town to find frogs for Ivee (because, similar to his quest with Prima in botw, he thinks that's what she likes). But after he says this, he seems to realize he should not have said that in front of Link, saying "Uh oh, no coming back from that one" in the smaller text as though he knows Zelda's well is off-limits. Combined with him calling the house "the house the princess was staying at" he seems to know something.

5. Two Place settings, etc

The house has two places set, two towels, etc. And just in general a lot of things for supposedly one person. There is also a bigger kitchen, and let's be honest with ourselves here, who is more about cooking and actually good at it, Zelda or Link?

Under the stairs in totk

VS botw:

Now, for this next section, I have to talk about things regarding another town in the game, a quest and a mechanic many have not unlocked yet. Continue to read at your own peril (I would hide it under another read more if I could)

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The Tarrey Town House

During TotK, after we wake up and leave the sky islands, we can complete a quest to unlock the ability to build a brand-new "Dream Home" in Akkala, close to Tarrey Town.

The quest involves baby-sitting Hudson and Rhondson's child, Mattison, who, if you'll recall, did not exist yet in botw. In totk, she is starting to gain independence and appears to be around 5 or 6 years old:

I doubt Link was sleeping rough for several years (and Zelda would never be okay with that). Anyway, Link babysits her, goes up into a hot-air balloon with the family, and then has to watch a tear-jerking scene between Mattison and her parents as she has come of the age young gerudo girls have to go to Gerudo Town and stay there until they get older and are ready to venture the world.

It is only after completing this quest, a quest completely about parenthood, that you are offered the "Dream Home" by Rhondson.

Additionally, an npc at the nearby stable has this to say:

So, the in-universe implications of the dream home is that it is a family home, something you only buy when you plan to marry someone or start a family.

Adding onto this, the dining table in the dream home has four seats instead of two. But there's also an interesting comparison to make with the Hateno house. The Hateno house had two seats and two places set, this house has four seats, but is clearly only being used by one person:

In other words, Link is living by himself in a house meant for a family. Which is depressing to think about, but in the context of the game makes sense.

But there's something else. In the new house pieces (including a study you cannot use yourself), all the photos on the wall are of Hateno Village:

Why would Link hang photos of Hateno in his new home, if it was not important or nostalgic to him? (and, as a minor detail, the same yellow flower is in both houses, presumably Link's favorite flower)

In conclusion, it's clear from all the evidence that not only were they living together in Hateno, but the brand-new house actually has it's own implications behind it (and further proves that Hateno was and is important to Link).

Oh, and there is also one last thing, in the japanese version of the game, but I can't mention it here because it is an even bigger spoiler than all of this combined. It'll be an addition to this post later

[ganondoodle]

thought about combining some of my yiga stories with the rewrite so

what if i took this old design for Ramuda (the thief that hid the clothing you can find in botw; i made him be the second founder of the yiga alongside koga) and used him as the boss of the shadow temple?

(in my yiga stories koga is a monk from back when the first calamity happened, after being hunted down by the royal family as their tech was being banned he and Ramuda founded the yiga; ramuda was a researcher and developed a way to seal malice into tattoos to make use of its life preserving and combat enhancing abilities; they used it first on themselves and it wasnt quite right yet the malice wasnt sealed enough within the tattoos and started to affect their mind leading them to get overtaken by their hatred for the royals and attempting to assassinate the king of their time, failing and being killed by the princess, hence the hole in his head, but they didnt die, the malice kept them alive but only in a zombie like way, they werent themselves anymore and were imprisoned in secret by the royal family- koga finished the research and used the more refined tech to do the same to himself which is why he is still alive to this day, side effects being mostly his extreme need for sleep, memory loss and loss of control when a bloodmoon hits)

so my thought was that the shadow temple is located beneath the akkala fort, but extremely hidden and kept a secret, the fortress being made in the first place to have constant control of it to make sure no one can even accidentally discover the dark secret the royal family of the past had kept (similar to the og shadow temple bc tbh it fits well into it all) ramuda being kept in an arena like cell at the end of it as he grew more agressive over time (id want to redesign them for this purpose but not by much, add more rot as they have been down there for centuries, and some sort of shackles, perhaps give him back arms that are shackled and in phase two they break free driven by the rage of recognizing that zelda is of royal blood once you defeat him they fall on their knees and start to disappear, but now that the malice is gone, and although they have no face left yet still recognize koga, weakly reaching for him with one hand, koga grabs it and as ramuda is already half gone his hand tightens the grip before disolving fully

even without spelling everything of this backstory out i think it work well as its clear koga had a personal connection to the person that turned into the boss and i think thats a realyl good thing, gives way more weight to it than just another mindless monster

a little more unsure is where the enigma stone was kept but one idea i had is that it was used to power whatever mechanism was put in place to keep ramuda locked in there, the only reason getting into the shadow temple at all being that it got damaged during the cataclysm and wasnt fully functioning anymore

(totk rewritten project)

[tirsynni]

While I'm aware that LoZ: HW isn't a canon game, I think it adds some interesting details and implications to the overall series, so I'm keeping it. One point is what causes the Heroes to be born and awaken and their role as sacrificial lamb. Another point is how it's more evidence -- with BotW further proving the point -- of why it's not a good thing that the legend of the Hero is known and how that being known affects the Princesses, which affects everything else.

Beginning of HW, Link is a trainee. Based on the rest of the games, I'm guessing he's around 17 (honestly, maybe even younger, as this is a fantasy setting and he's not a soldier or knight but a trainee). He was not supposed to be on the battlefield at all but, in true Link fashion, threw himself into the fray, anyway. When Volga was about to kill him and Impa, Link's triforce was revealed and he protected himself and Impa from Volga's flames, saving them.

In other games, that probably would have led to Link being pulled aside by Impa and given a different role, one more centered on Princess Zelda and the Big Bad. In this game, it's completely different. In this game, the Hero and all of its implications are known. It's a main part of the story, after all. That's why Cia wants Link: because he possesses the Spirit of the Hero. That's why he elevated overnight from a trainee to a high-ranking leadership position. There is no anonymous savior here like the other games: in this one, the spotlight is clearly on the Hero.

This happens in BotW, too, with the opposite reaction in many ways. In BotW and HW, both Links are no long just LINK. They are now the Hero, with all the responsibilities thereof. I would argue that they're both objectified, albeit in different ways. HW!Link is elevated in many ways. He's put in a leadership that he can't be qualified for, but it's okay: the Hero surely knows what he's doing! Surely he can lead these people into battle! BotW!Link is a weapon. The king treats him as part of the decor when he talks to Zelda. In different ways, they're no longer people: they're things. Amazing things, yes, but still things.

The Zeldas react differently, too. In BotW, Zelda is very much outside the norm and the pressure s high on her. She despises Link because it appears like the Hero title and its responsibility occurred easily and naturally while her title isn't as smooth. (That and how that goes is easily another bit of meta for later, especially if you toss in WW.) The weight of the legends is overwhelming and almost crushes them both.

In contrast, HW!Zelda doesn't have that same weight but is very aware of the myths and legends. She was more than ready to don the Sheik costume like the Princess Zelda of old. She stares at her Hero with bright, adoring eyes, and it's easy to wonder if she sees "Link" or if she sees the "Hero." The myths aren't a burden to her. She's already confident and deadly and doesn't seem to have the weight of legacy on her. If anything, she seems to glory in it.

There are several hints in the game that OBVIOUSLY the Hero belongs with the Princess. Not Link. The Hero. It would be interesting to think that while those ties made BotW!Zelda hate her Link, those same ties gave HW!Zelda a parallel to Cia. She knew the myths. The Hero was always paired with the Princess of Destiny. Now that Cia was defeated and Ganon struck down again, the Hero is obviously all hers. Destiny and all. They defeated the Evil together, just like in the stories, so obviously this was how the story ends.

Right?

[newartistgirl]

Lu little details (1)

  It’s the little details what make me hallucinate every single time there’s an update. Now, eventhough I may forget plenty of the ones I noticed while reading or thinking through (and some other I might have missed), I’m gonna try to list some of them.

  Im going to focus more on reference-to-games details not little details about the dynamics between the group.

  1. The first posts actually are full of references. Like really full. It would be endless to point out all of them. (Twilight and the soup, Legend and the seagulls, time being the one talking to the fairy, different views of the princess, Wind and the soup too, Twilight quoting Rusl (It’s not the only time), Legend thinking of “a separete world”) My favourite, probably, is Wind asking for Kaepora to repete what he had said. In this category I might add everything she took under consideration when decicing not just their personalities but also even their ages, and all the answers to some questions, being actually incredible the fact that Twi is ambidextrous (Tbh i don’t know what’s actually more impressive, the fact that jojo carefuly has in mind the dominant hand of each Link or the fact that someone, actually managed to notice Twilight would change hands) (Maybe I was not paying attention) (Now, I’m wondering if that drawing of Time shooting it was intentional. Because, if you look carefully, he is actually holding it like a right handed person would)

  2. Wild not knowing about wallmasters. This is the most obvious and straight to the point one of the boys having lived in different Hyrules and having had different adventures, however, in the comics that follow the stroryline you can also get from what they say several times hints of this exact same thing. Anyway, my favourite example of this is Sky asking who Ganon was.

  3. I would add here the different opinions of the Links on different matters (I’ve already mentioned the different views Hyrule and Wild have on the princess). Another example of this would be Wild and Wind “arguing” about Kings of Hyrule. It makes so much sense. (I’m not gonna go down that opinion/personlity lane, but it’s worth mentioning) And Twilight and Legend complaining about knights, all based on the game experiences.

  4. That image of Twilight holding a puppy and Wild, completely unbothered, next to him. I really like that kind of sense of humour, and it’s a funny tiny irrelevant detail that I very much appreciate.

  5. Warriors referencing his game. I think it’s happened three times. First, when they are talking and he hides himself from a lady and Hyrule laughs at him saying it’s the third time he’s done that, because being a lady’s man has already been proven as a danger .Second time, with the traitor little comic (I missed that one, ups). And third, while talking about the master sword and how “believing you are invencible” it’s a dangerous way of thinking. I know all Links actually make references to their respective games, but some other references feel more remarkable. 

  6. I almost forget about it. That conversation between Time and Wild about having entered Gerudo Town is another example of diference between the Links. It’s just that this one has a special place in my mind merely because I had never actually thought of that and it’s in fact wonderful how Wild reacts to hearing Time’s approach into granting himself respect and access to the town. Similar to this, due to the fact that it’s straight up linked to Wild, we have that scene where the gerudo outfit is descovered and he gets teased. (Fun fact; I had no actual clue that goron spice was actually a cooking item in botw until I red this. I had never shopped in the Goron City. And yeah, either I had already beaten Ganon or I was about to)

  7. In Lon Lon Ranch, as expected, we also have several references. Being the most noticeable; Malon explaining Hyrule wht they keep sugar water bowls around, the couple’s mask hanging on the wall, or how sky loves cuccos. (A little also “innocent” one may be that Malon straight up mocks her husband’s nose? Being this a reference to the design of the hero of Time)

  8. One that I also skipped (and very much love) is Twilight seeing some kind of resemblance between Time’s Captain’s hat and the Heroe’s Shade. We also see more Majora’s Mask references, being maybe the most obvious one Time saying: “Poor kid... He met a terrible fate”. Like, I can hear the Salesman’s laugh.

  I`m gonna leave it here for now evethough there are plenty more nice details that show the attention to detail of this comics. However, maybe it’s better to divide this into more defined categories, such as the different games or even characters. And maybe, that way, I can stress how much I appreciate some of those, because, let me tell you that I could rant on about every single one of this nonstop, specially if it’s related to who they are as characters. There’s in my opinion just too many good things to say about this guys and how the whole group works.

(please, correct any spelling mistake. I’m not a native speaker)

[1tsjusty0u]

BOTW Models - Ancient Materials

ok so thisll be going over the in-game models. i'll leave a .dae file to play around with in blender, however for full reference material it likely wont be enough if that makes sense. some things arent properly rendered (ex. the giant ancient core) and as such i have in game footage for reference!

^ the lineup (please click for better quality.) theres some differences (white ancient core and demo/different textures for the slate. also a mini slate but i'll get to that. but otherwise this is all the materials. now lets get down to business

The Slate (ConductorDemo, in the files/Conductor in Creating A Champion (i'll also show that!!!)

+ broken? textures. its small because it was like that when i imported it; the bigger one i had to upscale and fix the textures by exporting them separately. i'll add some textures here but you can see them in the .dae folder

now some notes: 1. the textures arent even really used in the final game, and 2. the handle isnt supposed to be white.

(the blue outline is for how the slate clips to the belt because i just noticed that. reminds me of the yiga!!. also sorry for low quality thats. botw for ya)

as you can see!!! the handles supposed to be orange and such. ancient energy and all that jazz. for the creating a champion page theres more info for it :] (please dont kill me nintendo)

you can see the clips but also ancient energy! i have more facts about that however thats coming once we get to the ancient core. for now keep it in mind! also i dont think you can do that disassemble turn on and off thing in the art which is sad. however the pin for the bomb is still in game :D!!

2. Gears!!!!

gearsgearsgearsgears!!!!!!!! these arent as complicated as the slate because everythings in order with them

the little u's on the side actually can glow! well. sort of. only in guardians- as theres actually separate gear models (likely for animating purposes) in guardians!!! however the material itself cannot glow. probably because its disconnected from the guardian...?

in promo art the gears for the head stay blue, but the underside gears seem to turn pink. personally i think they just stay blue

3. Screw!!!

this is the same as the gear; as in, theres not much to it. its textures r fine and i dont think its animated so!!!!

i. dont know where these are used honestly

4. Spring!!!!

same as gear and screw- everythings alright with it 👍

fun fact im at the 28 image limit . well the limit is 30 but you get what i mean. so i shall do part two and attach everything there!

[vio-starzz]

Febuwhump Day Six, You Lied To Me

Characters: Link (Botw, post&during), Zelda, mention of others in it? Tw: Death, Violence, Swearing

Actually proud of this, Reblogging is appreciated <3

Ao3 Link!

“As long as you follow my leadership, it’ll be alright.”

Link knew better than to doubt that, knew better than to doubt the entirety of Hyrule and its knights. 

Yet, they still had those uncertain fears nagging at the back of their head. They still felt as though something simply didn’t add up. That even as the king spoke to them all, there were still those subtle uncertainties that lay right there, that maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be enough. Which, that alone ate at their every waking thought, yet they had to keep it together and ignore it. 

Zelda would be enough, the champions would be enough: Everything would be fine. 

Hyrule, no matter how big the calamity is, will stand tall. 

So no matter how everything feels wrong, how badly their gut is pleading at them, to think more about the fight that’s to come… It’d be okay. They’ll win this, easily. 

They’ve got the advantage, right? 

Wrong. Not enough. 

As the king's speech, and plans, end…. Link follows Zelda to the back, she’s clearly upset but Link needs to stay on task and quiet. Speaking to her is like speaking to a god. It just simply never happens. 

Or, at least, it’s actually harder than talking to Hylia. 

They slowly walk through the castle, making it all the way through to her room, which Link stops outside. She heads in, as they turn away, more as guarding her door– Or at least it may look that way. Link of course, no matter what, will respect her room as a sense of her own privacy. He won’t ever step in, and will only continue to accompany her after she comes back out. Whatever happens there is not, and will not, be their business. 

They do let their thoughts wander, but to something different this time, as the nagging anxieties are probably not best to keep on thought. 

Today itself is Zelda’s seventeenth birthday, which confuses Link in a sense. She always calls them older, making it known that she doesn’t know how he’s nearly two years younger. Although, that’s something she can’t know. Not even the champions need to know that someone, just recently sixteen, holds a sword that will put an end to something so evil. 

Hell, sixteen doesn’t seem bad, but to know they were knighted around the fairly young age of seven, and actually came into possession of being the highest rank at twelve? Nobody needs to know that. No guard, champion, or anyone needs to know just how young they are. 

Only their family understands… Which is perhaps why they haven’t let his younger sister on the grounds. She is quite talkative, and would fairly easily reveal that Link is not three years older than Zelda, as everyone has been led to believe. 

How exactly they believe Link is that old? Not even Link seems to understand. He would’ve thought they knew better, but alas, it seems they don’t. All he truly knows… Is that it isn’t fair. They should be a free child, not a knight, with absolutely no freedom. 

But alas, fate doesn’t allow children to be kids, does it… 

He wonders how his sister is… How free she’s been allowed to live, and perhaps how sad she’d be to know it’ll be another few months to see him again. He’d promised her, he’d see her maybe in a week? But it’s clear that won’t happen. 

He could probably ask the princess to stop by their town, so he could say hi… But, he’d rather not get punished by the kin again for taking a detour, when it’s clearly not the time, so of course, staying silent is what he’ll do. 

As always. 

When Zelda finally returns out, she’s wearing the same old white dress. Which Link has to prevent actually scowling at. It’s said to be her goddess attire, or whatever, but the fact alone that she wears no coat? How low has the king fallen to allow his only daughter to wear something that she’ll freeze in?

He’ll definitely have to lend her an elixir, to prevent from utterly freezing the moment they near the snowed out plains. Hell, it’s probably the least he can do to help. 

Because he knows damn well her father has put far too much pressure on someone so young. He hasn’t once been there as the father she needs. Just the king in her life. 

Seventeen isn’t old enough to hold the entire fate of a nation in their hands.

Neither is sixteen.          

Hell, at no age should someone have to hold so much power and pressure within their hands, especially not kids, but even adults can’t hold that amount of stress without it destroying them. 

Finally, they force themselves out of their gut crushing thoughts, and get back to following alongside Zelda, back to being her knight– and not someone trapped within self deprecating thoughts. 

Taking pace behind her, they remind themself several times to keep a steady pace, not to rush it, and certainly not to walk past her… Even when she’s walking so slow and it’s so tempting—

Before long, they’re already walking out of Castle Town, finding place alongside both of their horses… Zelda with her pure white steed, she’s named it Storm, and Link with their… Well, Brown horse, cream-coated mane… Epona. 

Where it came, that urged them to name the steed, they aren’t sure. But it was like a calling, like an unavoidable plea, and unfortunately it ranked over the urge to name her “Butter” which they had instead decided to nickname her. 

Still, Butter is a great name.

As they both boarded their horses, Link decided to toss her two spicy elixirs, which surprised her at first, but she did thank him upon realizing why he’d done it. He made sure they’d last a while, and even are one of the ones he’d made: So he can only hope she puts them to use the closer they get.

The horse ride forwards, despite being quite long… Was also quite peaceful, and with their fairly fast horses, it did make the way to the Spring of Wisdom easier. Link only had to kill a few enemies, and accidentally (purposely) allowed Epona to run into, killing, a spare bokoblin. 

There weren't too many enemies, only a few extra than normal which brought the feeling of the calamity being near…. 

It wasn’t that hard to zone out, and simply enjoy the ride. Feeling the air brush past, and just watching the scenery with little to no distractions was truly calming. They’d give anything, absolutely anything, to be able to enjoy this everyday. 

Before long they were upon the Spring of Wisdom, yet, of course, met with disappointment again. They could hear Hylia, apologizing and saying it’d all be okay. That no matter what, they’ll beat Calamity soon… That the war that’s coming is going to end.

But Zelda couldn’t hear any of it, it simply fell on Link’s ears, as Zelda broke down in the spring, crying her eyes out at how she’d failed, and Hylia staying close, trying to help, even when falling upon deaf ears. 

It was awful to witness how she stood there in the water, letting her dress soak, and her body shivering. How she was so desperate, that this was supposed to be the last time…. But alas, Link had to finally acknowledge how if she stayed longer in the freezing temperatures, hypothermia would be upon her…. 

Then she’d be in more misery, and Link would never hear the end of the King’s nonsense. 

Going in the water, they pull her up, holding her close as they escort her away from the springs…. Away from Hylia’s voice.

When leaving the sacred statue, they could hear Hylia speak once again… This time, just a faint whisper, just uttering two words they didn’t quite understand now… 

“I’m sorry”

Whatever she meant by that, Link was sure it wasn’t that big. They had bigger problems to face: Getting back and preventing Zelda from freezing…. They place her on her horse, allowing her to mount herself, but also passing out a blanket to wrap around her… One they knew they’d have to use, despite hoping they wouldn’t have to.

As they rode back, things felt tenser and worse, and eventually Link had decided to split the time, cutting and leading Zelda through a breakoff in the path. Through unpathed land, across the plains and insafer land to cut their time in half. 

It was her birthday, and she was met with the worst nightmare of her life, utter and complete failure? For fucks sake, this day cannot get any worse…

Getting back to the castle should’ve been a breeze, but as they came upon a hillside, miles away from Hyrule castle, they were met by the champions, and very quickly did Zelda dismount.

Link unboarded their own steed, to rejoin up to Zelda’s side as fast as possible… The champions were with Impa, who had been informed by Purah of the growing and dangerous developing presence near the castle,

“Is everything oka—“

They get no response , as the ground shakes, and from nearby Hyrule castle, a red glow and eerie black smog fills the sky, despite not quite being day, the moon appears, glowing so brightly red, as if needing to make it’s form known.

Just then, it becomes obvious as to what’s happening, as an outlined and clouded fog of ganon starts to split out of the castle….. Nobody needed to communicate much as the champions left to their perspective Diving Beasts, and Link and Zelda headed towards the castle, headed towards the King in a struggling effort….

But they didn’t reach him in time. 

As they came upon her father, they watched as Ganon’s power took over. Spreading greedily into each guardian, taking their power and force, leaving them as weapons against the kingdom. 

Turning what they thought they had, into nothing.

Link knew they couldn’t press into the castle, they didn’t want to leave the kingdom…. But protecting Zelda was their only mission: That was Link’s job as her knight.

Their horses were gone, having been scared and chosen to run off, Link had to suddenly grab her arm, and force her away. 

“W-What are you doing!? Link! Let go of me!”

He had to push away her pleas as they got away from the town, taking a safer path through one of the forests as they heard the signals from her slate… She pleaded and begged, until they both heard the signals, and she fell to a halt upon the ground. Her dress now covered in mud, as tears soaked her eyes…

“…No…”

The last signal, from Revali, suddenly comes, a simple and frantic [S.O.S] before cutting off, and falling to static. A large explosion is heard once more, from the castle, as the defenses are clearly down and gone, the knights have failed to protect Hyrule’s King in the end.

Link got down on one knee, trying to urge her forward, as even he knows what that means, only to be met by her head collapsing into his arms as she cries and tries to accept and mourn what they’ve just learnt.

Link himself can’t process any of it… Like their entire moment of grief is delayed, and their mind can’t help but wrap around the entire loss of friends and of their home itself.

How many knights Link knew that have probably all fallen by now, they had no idea. And that alone was devastating: For they didn’t know. 

She cried and cried for what felt like hours, but was only minutes, as Link tried to help her up so they could get away…. 

It was pathetic to think about really, as they ran…. As the sun itself was far gone, and now it was just the blood moon upon a darkened sky. What used to come every hundred years, has come far earlier with Calamity Ganon's arisal. 

They both stumble and tread on through the leaves and muddied path forward. Getting to fort Hateno, as things finally started to look awful. 

They were no longer free of Guardian territory, and just a few had weakened Link down. 

They weren’t set to fight these machines, and the Master Sword was growing weaker and weaker as they tried to defend them both with the sword's blade, when attacking itself seemed impossible, as getting close enough without leaving Zelda blind and easily open to attack was far too risky.

They try once more to deflect, but this time, they use their body— Causing Zelda to shriek in fear as the blast sears through half their chest painfully. But still, they stay in front, and try to lead her forward even when their legs begin to feel heavy and their grip weaker.

They tried, over and over, blast and blast again, able to kill maybe one or two guardians to defend her, before finally collapsing as she begs them to go. To leave her, and get away— But more come, more than three, four, eight…? How many were blurry, as their left ear dripped in blood, and half their body was burnt and scarred by now, soaking in blood, and also feeling as if this was the end: But they had to protect her, right?

They stumbled forward, gripping the Master Sword—Fi—Tightly as they brace for whatever these bastards bring against them.

They failed to even raise their sword towards the calamity, failed to do what they were born for, so at least they can protect her, give her the time to get away….?

Their vision sways as she runs ahead of them, they stumble back once more: and a blinding light fills the darkness, letting him know… That she did have it in her to unlock that power, the springs be damned… She… Did it…

They fall back, not able to think anymore, and only hoping to Hylia, or damnit, whatever god is out there and willing to listen….. That his sister is safe, that she doesn’t get cursed with death so early… And that…. she certainly doesn’t… learn of….. his defeat….. Of his… Fai…lure…

The lines between reality, and death blur…. As his thoughts fail to come in complete forms, and even as he feels Zelda grab him, he knows he isn’t quite there anymore…

He knows this is his end….

….

Link wakes up from his nightmare, breathing heavily and practically panting as they struggle to maintain a steady breath of air, and slowly calm down. It takes minutes as the scattered memories they didn’t fully have came back, as the blurry lines of the past connected, and their thoughts finally came together— As did their awareness.

It all made sense now.

He could feel and even see Hylia’s presence, as she tried to be there to calm them, but it didn’t matter to them.

The shrines, the way it was all set up after they woke from the shrine.

Fi had the audacity to believe she had to apologize for not being enough for the hero? But it wasn’t her fault! It wasn’t Link’s either, the blame was on none of them now, as the stupid apology from hundreds of years ago finally made sense…?

Link understood now, understood her words, and the false hope she set up to begin with.

“You…. Knew…?”

Hylia lied…?

She lied. She knew the entire time, and understood the entire fate that she placed upon them. And still, coldlessly and heartlessly she led them all to believe they had a winning chance, that Hyrule could win.

She knew, and still hadn’t bothered to utter a word….

“Child—“

“Her death….That’s your fault. It’s all your fault.” 

“Child, please–”

“No, you knew. You lied to me.”

Hell, she may have lied to everyone…. But Link was the only one who heard. Her words had fallen on deaf ears, except Link’s, and yet she still died. She could’ve done more, said more— She lied…

She lied.

[storm-demon]

almost done w totk and even tho i can't give thoughts on the final boss yet I wanna talk about what I thought

spoilers under cut

I don't think I've been more mixed on a game in a long time, this game has done things better than botw, but it's also made a lot of confusing choices and messed certain things up that I didn't have any issue with before. I'll maybe repeat myself a little here but I wanna start w the positives

-- The sky islands are a great addition that really make the paraglider feel important and more engaging than botw. The one downside that i've started to feel as I've gone on is that I really wish that they had expanded them, it kinda sucks how many of them are just isolated way out in the middle of nowhere with no interesting interactions.

-- Weapon fusing is a great addition that makes the weapon durability less intrusive (I already didn't even mind it too much in botw, but the ability to actually make weapons definitely makes the durability make more sense). Again only downside i felt as I went on is that there are times that the crafting can make the game a little grindy, I think this would really be balanced out if they'd just add a few more chests or drops with already decent fused weapons.

-- The new enemies, honestly botw really felt like it needed a little more diversity in it's enemy pool, so thank god totk takes steps to fix that. I think it could still use a few more, but the addition of things like actual miniboss fights like the gleekos and frox do help mix it up.

That's kinda the extent of the really positive stuff, a lot also just keeps the same quality of botw, which I like well enough. But now the things I didn't like, and I'll say now, there's quite a few of these.

-- They really fucked either the timing or the positioning of the perfect dodge from botw. It's not only way harder to do, but also a bit buggy because of it. I've had multiple instances of jumping out of the way of an attack only for an invisible aftershock to hit me. It also really brings to light a big issue with this game that there are just no i frames when dodging. This wasn't as noticible in botw because the parry dodge was decently easy to learn and get used to, but now with it near impossible to do it really goes to show how behind this game is compared to other character action games. I just wish that if nintendo wants to make a game like this, that they'd take the time to really learn from and understand games of this genre. Souls born games, for example, have i frames for a reason, and balance out their difficulty using things like your stamina meter and fast paced attack patterns. Hell these games already have a stamina feature, would it really be too hard to implement something like that?

-- The removal of the bomb ability also just,,, sucks. It makes fights like the molduga basically a waste of resources and time. Not to mention it makes breaking down rocks a constant resource sink, speaking of which

-- Why are there so many damn caves filled with rocks???? Not even really trying to 100% this game at all I ran into like 20 of them, they're an annoying resource sink, and the reward at the end is hardly ever worth it.

-- The depths suck. I'm sorry, but they're nowhere near as engaging as the sky layer when it comes to getting around, the darkness is just an annoyance, and a surprising amount of copy and paste landscape. I was also super disappointed to find that gloom resistance just... doesn't work. Made me instantly hate everything to do w the gloom.

-- Also on that not really not a fan of the gloom hands/phantom ganon. This kinda just exemplifies a bigger problem with this game, the lack of almost any i frames in this game makes the gloom hands just a constant stunlock. Every single guide I've looked at just suggests you cheese the fight by standing up on a ledge and shooting fire arrows at it. I think it's a sign of a really bad design when the way only/main suggested way to win a fight is to completely ignore the mechanics and cheese it. Not to mention it doesn't seem like the difficulty of the gloom hands is intentional because, honestly, the phantom ganon fight is not that hard at all. Hell the phantom ganon fight is honestly kinda laughable compared to the gloom hands, it's super unsatisfying and nearly ruined my opinion of the game entirely a few times.

--Lastly, and I hate to say it, I'm running into the exact same issue I had w botw that is the silver enemies. I was honestly really hoping with the introduction of actual mini bosses that we'd just drop these, but no such luck I guess. My main issue with the silver enemies is that in the point of the game that they show up they're not even really uniquely challenging, and they really just serve as hp sponges. My worst experience in botw was fighting a silver lynel, surviving pretty well, and getting off plently of perfect dodges, and then losing the fight simply because I smashed every single weapon i had on it's face. This is sliiiiightly better with the weapon crafting in this game, but really, not by much. I was talking abt this w my gf earlier but enemies like the darknuts were good examples of late game fights because the fight was a unique test of your skills, the silver enemies are annoying because it's just the same enemies i've been fighting the entire game, just stuffed with about 10 times as much hp. It's such a disappointing way to cap this game off, just the same way as botw

-- Almost forgot, but also having to walk up to a sage and talk to them with the A button is a really annoying way to use that. I know we're already using basically every button for this game, but certainly there was a better solution than that.

I think I'll avoid actually talking about the story until I finish the game, on a post of it's own, but before i finish off I think i wanna just rank all of the temple in the game

-- Wind temple

Great one to start with, was really fun to climb up to the temple, really got me used to using the ascend power and just made good use of the zonai powers in general. Not a super hard temple but that's fine honestly, especially because the boss fight here is easily the best. 8/10

-- Fire temple

Instantly falling from the first one (haha) it's unquestionable the worst, not just in this game, but maybe the worst temple I've played in any zelda game. The dungeon is SO incredibly tedious and slow, it takes forever just get around the damn thing, with the only real use of zonai powers being riding the minecarts on set tracks. Also using the hydrants I suppose (which also does not help the sluggishness of the dungeon). The temple is also painfully easy, the enemies are so scattered and isolated it's honestly just confusing, it feels like there was just no thought to where they were placed. Not the biggest fan of this boss either, which actually is a shame because i think it had promise but the camera fucks this whole fight up. Classic zelda games would pull the camera out a bit more for fights for this, but the botw engine just keeps the camera fully up link's ass the entire time, makes it a lot harder than it should be. 1/10

-- Water temple

This part was a rollercoaster because I went from the worst temple straight to the best, the water temple honestly kinda just does everything right where the fire temple did everything wrong. the climb up to it is honestly arguably even more fun than the wind temple, it makes such a great use of abilities unique to this game. Flinging up waterfalls w the zora armor and using those cool floating bubbles was such a wonderful change of pace from the last temple. The whole temple is really nicely paced, has some really unique puzzles, and the enemy placement makes a good bit more sense. Boss fight here's not bad, not quite as creative as the wind temple boss but a really fun design and decently fun fight! My only complaint would be that some of the quests leading up to it are a liiiittle bit overly tedious with how back and forth they are, but that's not a huge deal and doesn't really put any real strikes against the water temple itself. 9/10

-- Lightning temple

This one's basically the definition of mid to me, it doesn't do anything offensively bad, but it's not doing anything as creative and fun as the water temple either. I think the design of this one is very "classic zelda" and that kinda unfortunately works against it imo. It doesn't really feel like it's doing anything particularly interesting with the zonai powers, and with the lack of classic zelda items it's not really doing anything interesting with its base puzzles either. Just some really bog standard light puzzles. The boss is one i also feel was, unfortunately, fucked over by the camera. I really wanted to like this boss, I really like the designs for the gibdos in this game and think the bug theming is so cool. Unfortunately anytime I was targeted on the thing (which was most the time because the arena is so big) and it did that slam attack it would whip the camera around in way where I basically couldn't see anything, It made the fight a lot more annoying that it otherwise would have been. 6/10

-- Spirit temple

Barely even a temple, the puzzles to get the mech suit for mineru were just time consuming and annoying, robot fight was kinda neat once i got past the controls. Not much more to say. 4/10

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok this is mostly going to be rambling about Tears of the Kingdom, but I'll at least briefly mention a couple other things I keep meaning to say something about and not getting around to.

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League was surprisingly good and deserves its own post because it does some unexpected things.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is still mixed but overall more good than bad and generally has similar positives and negatives to the previous Theatrhythm games and Melody of Memory (which is better as a game than any of the Theatrhythm games even if it still has some issues too).

The Outer Worlds is...a game. I totally forgot I started it at some point, and it hasn’t made a huge impression on me in the first five hours or however long.

Cadence of Hyrule is great for a while and does a lot of things right, but there’s a kind of frustrating spike in difficulty near the end, and I’m not sure if I’ll bother finishing it.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed is already GOTY 2023 for me, even if 99% of other people will say it’s TotK. Some day I’ll get around to that XC3 post...

Anyway, as someone who liked a bunch of things about Breath of the Wild but found enough frustrating about it that it took four attempts at playing the game to make it past a single Divine Beast and then give up forever, Tears of the Kingdom brings almost all the same problems along with it but mitigates them enough that I’ve finished a temple without giving up on the game and stopping playing for several months a single time so far.

The really short version is that I think everything in Steph Sterling’s soon-to-be infamous review is true and accurate, and the main thing I disagree with is that at least based on my enjoyment of actually playing the two games I’d have to give BotW an even lower score. Come at me, haters please don’t actually and go do something more fun like playing the game you like so much because I’m glad you’re enjoying it

Yes I’m 100% one of those people who thinks weapon durability has never been a positive thing in any game I’ve played (with the possible exception of certain Fire Emblem games) and Skyward Sword introducing a stamina meter to Zelda was a mistake. I’m happy for people who think they add something to the game for them, but for me they're actively anti-fun and constantly interrupt me when I’m trying to engage with all the neat systems the game has. Please just incentivize me to try new things by rewarding me positively for doing it (see: XC3 and in particular Future Redeemed) instead of punishing me for not playing the game the way you want me to.

Thankfully new additions like weapon fusion and ascend go a decent way to mitigate the frustration I have from stuff like that. I can skip a lot of the tedious climbing, and between avoiding most combat and gooping items together I’ve never had a shortage of actually decent weapons since like halfway through the tutorial.

Another positive is the ability set this time around. It’s a bit weirder on the surface, but they complement each other well and feel a lot less janky to me. Half the time with stuff like stasis I felt like I was fighting against the game trying to get the correct angle and momentum, but the new set of abilities pretty much always does what I want it to and lets me do all sorts of silly things in ways that don’t even seem like they should work at first. The game is at its best when I’m just messing around with that stuff to invent and solve problems in unusual ways.

And then the game is at its worst when I have to do combat of any kind. I can tolerate it better than in the previous game, but I’m still not a fan. I’m still reluctant to use my best weapons or any items I don’t have a reliable supply of, and the controls are still wack. You cannot convince me that run on B and jump on X isn’t crazy or that not being able to remap them is a good idea. I’m also still not a fan of the half dozen popup menus for changing weapons or selecting items or whatever because while they do technically work they’re so awkward to use and would really benefit from a third hand. Finally the N64 controller’s true purpose is revealed.

And speaking of menus, the menus still kinda suck too. Why is every food ingredient and every rock and every bug and every plant and 7000 other things dumped into a single tab instead of having sub-categories? Why is every single one of them available in the popup menu for attaching them to arrows or throwing them or whatever with apparently no way to at least favorite things? Why are there no options in the options menu like changing the volume (ideally with music/voice/sound effects separately adjustable)?

And why is the map? Why can’t I reveal stuff on the map just by going there? Why after the map is revealed is there no way to tell which parts of it I’ve been to already and which ones I haven’t (especially annoying so far for tiny random sky islands)? Why do I have to mark every stupid little thing on it by hand? I am playing the game on a computer, and my map exists on an in-game computer. Computers are supposed to deal with this crap for me so I can do something fun instead. And this is coming from someone who drew their own maps for the NES/SNES games on graph paper and actually enjoyed it.

A lot of these things aren’t huge deals on their own, but I’ve been spoiled by the vast number of quality of life features in XC3 and its DLC recently, and the little things add up. And I know there are people at Nintendo who know how to address these things because literally people from Monolith worked on both BotW and TotK, just not on those specific parts of them as far as I understand (mainly with building the open worlds because they already had previous experience doing that).

On the plus side, even if I’m a little underwhelmed by the story and storytelling (thanks again for ruining everything for me, Monolith), it was immediately much more engaging to me than BotW’s was. Wow, there are actual characters with motivations and stuff right off the bat. Neat! No offense to anyone who liked Calamity Ganon and the Calamity in general, but that was the least compelling antagonist in a Zelda game since probably the NES for me, and I’m glad they’ve taken a bit of a different approach this time. We’ll see what I think if/when I get further through it, but so far it’s at least better even if I don’t entirely love it.

I dunno, it’s something I guess. There’s just enough there for me that I’m still going, but it sure is good at discouraging me from doing stuff that would be lots of fun for me with minor tweaks. But hey, at least locking on to enemies actually follows them with the camera again now, so that’s nice. You know, that feature they literally invented for Ocarina of Time and nearly every 3D game anyone’s made has used since then but then they decided not to in BotW because...reasons?

In conclusion, it seems to be a great game for many other people and a decent but frequently frustrating one for me, but shifted a bit more toward decent and a bit less toward frustrating than the previous game. I’m still not convinced either one of them is a Zelda game though. They feel like something totally different to me with a vague Zelda theme overlaid on them. Oh also the puzzles are much better this time around so far. So that’s nice and more Zelda-y. And maybe we’ll get a Musou game out of it again in a couple years like we did last time, which would be nice because Age of Calamity was the best Zelda game since A Link Between Worlds (not counting remakes and stuff).

[tuliptiger]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[unironicironic]

Tears of the Kingdom ramble go brrrrr

Okay so goes without saying but this will have spoilers. If you'd prefer not see any spoilers then scram and go watch someone play the game (I personally recommend Quinbobin, dude's energy is fucking immaculate, he's not done with the game yet but he's in the last stretch)

But man I just wanna ramble about TotK, I'm still debating on replaying the game to really soak in more but it's been marinating in me thick skull for a bit and man do I have a bit I wanna say

Oh my god and then in that final tear/memory when Zelda takes it upon herself to swallow her secret stone despite the many warnings from Mineru that if she's to do that, there's no guarantee she'll be able to return to her former self. That takes alot of guts to do, throwing yourself away knowing fully well that you may never be the same after if there's even a sliver of hope that things can turn around and your people will be safe. The buildup was something else entirely, it starts of fairly calm, with it having bits and pieces of the BotW/TotK ost, a little of her lullaby sprinkled in, and then builds intensity as the scene goes on. Kinda like signifying that, again, she's doing this all for her kingdom and for Link. When she finally swallows the stone, it cuts to silence (save for the ambience), which kinda jars you and makes you see that hey, something's about to happen. As she begins to go through the draconification, it starts strong with her lullaby, progressing further and further into sounding more and more sinister, dark, going silent again as she tells Link to protect everyone and holy SHIT if that doesn't give you goosebumps I don't know what will. While I'm on this, I might be just reading into it too much but it almost sounds like her screaming (albeit kinda distorted) underneath her roaring as the dragon that second time she roars. Almost like that was the last bit of her in there, before she finally "lost herself" as Mineru warned her that she would

Tbh just about all of it was god tier imo. The visuals, the characters, all of it. Were there some things that could've been improved? Ofc, there's no real perfect game but fuck did this one come close

I could go on and on about just about anything you throw my way about TotK, but the real star of the show (to me anyway) is the soundtrack and all the little details in everything. I've always believed that the main three things that make or break something is the characters, the plot/story and the soundtrack. I've also always loved when there were these little details that gave whatever media it is a little more oomph. And DAMN did TotK have a banger of a soundtrack and was it packed with details

One of my favorite lil details with the soundtrack is when you're through with the Tarrey Town quest, you're able to make a house for Link, right? Cool cool, you get to do a bit of a Sims type beat, which that in itself had me giving mad props to Nintendo. And folks have been getting hella creative with their layouts, I saw this one person make their house look like the triforce if I'm not mistaken? It was cool as hell, there's a good bit of freedom. But the detail, if you listen real closely, the song that plays when you've got your house up and you're meandering around inside, it's the theme for when you're inside a building in Ocarina of Time. We already knew that there's gonna be lil nods to past games since in BotW there was a shitton already but they really bumped that up a few pegs in TotK

Another one of my favorites is in the cutscene where Rauru uses his power to keep Ganondorf on lock, as he's telling G-Money that eventually Link will come whoop his ass and to "remember his name," the main fucking Zelda theme starts playing which honestly just adds so much more fucking power to that cutscene and it had me tearing up hearing the main theme playing in the background. On that same note, in I think the last phase of the fight against Ganondorf before he swallows his stone, there's a huge throwback to BotW and you get those lil motifs of the blight battles

Yet another, at the end when you're going to catch Zelda after she turns back into her former self, the main theme for TotK is going. Cool, strong, fucking awesome right? As you get closer to Zelda, her lullaby starts playing and oh my godddd I was a mess, but then you throw in the main Zelda theme after as you're prompted to catch her and at that point you can see why the game is called "Tears of the Kingdom." Because it makes you cry, alot. At that point it's like you're coming full circle, before now you'd never failed to save Zelda, you'd always saved her before until now when you failed to catch her in the beginning. So with it starting with you not catching her and then ending with you catching her, it's like you're making up for that failure and I absolute adored that

Kinda on the same note about the soundtrack, I think the other temples (minus the spirit temple) had the same sort of thing going but I definitely noticed divine beast/past champion themes going for the wind temple. It's not that obvious until towards the end when you've got most of the terminals, then you start to really hear motifs to the Vah Medoh theme and Revali's theme

SPEAKING OF I noticed Tulin taking on a very slight Revali-ish attitude, even the npc's had noticed and took note of it. And if you think back to Age of Calamity, in one of the cutscenes, Tulin tells Revali that he wants to be just like him once he's older, while yes I know AoC isn't technically canon it's a cute as hell thing I noticed and can't help but have a huge ahh smile on my face thinking of. Lil Tulin's growing up, and he's starting to take after his role model, fuckin adorable

There's a shitton more lil details and references but I'd be here all day if I were to attempt to mention them all

While there's def a good few positives for this game, there's also a couple negatives imo. It's mostly just personal issues but I'm sure a few folks might agree with me

So first up, why did they have to call them secret stones? It's so damn hard to take things seriously that way. It makes it sound almost like some children playing pretend. Literally anything else could've been good, much better than secret stones. Especially because the same ol phrase gets repeated over and over again when the new champions/sages learn about what happened all those years ago. It gets so repetitive man

Speaking of champions, it seems a bit like they completely forgot about the past champions and the calamity. Like nobody mentions it, save for a couple npcs for side quests, and there's no memorials from what I can tell aside from the occasional stone Zelda dedicated to the casualties, Mipha Court in Zora's Domain, and some other things but that's just about it. I get that eventually life goes on but something about them seemingly forgetting entirely about them just rubs me the wrong way. And the divine beasts, what happened to them? I've heard a couple theories that it was because they were afraid another calamity would take place and they'd get possessed all over again so they took them down, which makes sense but it'd have been so cool to see them just in the background somewhere with the scenery, withering and decaying to the sands of time. Of course they wouldn't have to be explorable, but it would've added so much more oomph imo

And don't even get me started on some of the dialogue. I mentioned the stones thing, but there was some other lines that just, eurgh. Prime example is from none other than Ganondorf himself. At the end when you go to give him a good beatdown, he goes on this sort of monologue. Which is all fine and dandy, he's a villain after all, that's what villains do. But then he goes and says shit like "weak, peace loving cowards" and that "the world should be shrouded with darkness and not bathed in insufferable light"?? That makes him sound like an angsty teen trying to sound cool and edgy, I physically recoiled a bit. Not your finest moment, G-man.

Last but def not least, they really missed out on bringing back malice. I dunno, I just feel like calling it gloom really takes away from the overarching darker tone of the game. Like having it be called malice again would really sell that TotK is a bit darker, malice sounds more life threatening and harmful. Meanwhile it being called gloom just sounds more like you're describing how the weather's gonna be that day. Plus I just think malice spawn sounds much cooler than gloom spawn by a long shot

Overall tho pretty solid game. I rate it an Uncannydorf out of ten

[science-lings]

So because I like to be really complicated, I've decided to throw my favourite part of pretty much every Link's design (ofc the ones that actually change the design - looking at you Toon Links) at you. Idk, I'm an overachiever and I love gushing about one of the best character designs in video game history.

Obviously with the 8-bit designs, all there really is are artworks and the manuals to go off of because Link is a collection of tiny squares with 4 max colours. TLoZ and AoL are the same character so to be honest, I just love his earthy tones and facial features. Big nose rep. Goes for ALTTP, LA, and OOT as well tbh.

Speaking of ALTTP, that pink hair he has in-game is literally one of the best thing Nintendo has ever done.

A lot of child Links have this, but the baggy boots introduced in OOT are literally everything. I want to wear them every day of the rest of my life. The Oracle games also give him the flared lining and I would die to have them. Peak footwear. And the bracers Adult Link gets add so much to such a simple design, it's literally unreal.

The Four Swords games were cute with the bright colour swaps. I'm so mad they drew the artwork for the game in the Toon Link artstyle. Seeing artwork for it in ALTTP's art would have been so cool like what came on the European box art. The Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass came and introduced the most adorable Zelda artstyle. Like he's just a cylinder and I love him so much. It's a bit like FS(A) where he just got so much more colourful too. Spirit Tracks gave Link this cute engineer uniform that I cannot get over. Ever.

Twilight Princess. I'm sorry but he's just a whole hunk of man right there. The darker graphics went so far for him, his outfit was so detailed at the time and he's got such a masculine presence if you know what I mean. Oddly enough, there's so much I like about the design, it's so hard to put what I like into words other than 'a lot'. Sorry, I know it's not very helpful ^^;

Skyward Sword Link had such an amazing emotional range. He said absolutely nothing, but you could tell exactly how he felt, but unlike WW/PH/ST etc Link, his facial expression were really toned down and gentle. The most intense emotion he's ever had was fighting a god. Love that about him.

So I know ALBW technically shares ALTTP/OOA(/S) design, so I want to highlight the one thing that's different which is the giant, chunky bracelet he wears. Something about that makes me so happy for some reason.

Triforce Heroes' biggest accomplishment was the alternate outfits. Those boys literally strutting around in a forest in full gowns and costumes like it's nothing is literally peak fashion. Style over practicality any day.

BotW was literally a game-changer for Link's design in almost every way. I have no idea how Nintendo managed to completely change the design down to the fundamental GREEN of the Links before him to this cerulean blue and still keep the essence of what made Link a Link. And although Nintendo loves to go back on it in other material, I absolutely ADORE that they made his features so round and softly shaped, especially his eyes, compared to other Links. Nintendo will never take away how absolutely gorgeous that man is now they've achieved it. So we don't know much about TotK yet for obvious reasons, but he now sports literally the most revealing outfit in the franchise (other than him literally being half naked in BotW) and the fact it's paired with long hair is literally what I've been waiting my entire life for.

So yeah, I've probably made this so much more complicated, but there is literally so much I love about each Link, it's hard to choose my favourite overall features (except the boots, I love the baggy boots).

This is actually incredibly helpful thank you! I think one of the things I'm struggling most with the design is his hair, like he goes from a medium dark brown to pink to platinum blonde to bright yellow to almost orange and like... it's hard to make a decision lol. I do want to include bits of every game, whether that be with little accessories (like kinstones or belt buckles or jewelry) or more major features.

I am absolutely convinced on his schnoz though, he deserves a big pointy nose. It's going to be fun to try to balance some of his more harsh features with a lot of the softness we see in many other games, like he always has intense eyebrows (even in toon mode), but he also tends to have a baby face.

[connectwired]

Since I have no other place to go for this, I want to start out by saying that Nintendo needs a refresh. By doing a refresh with games and hardware, expectations can be thrown in a new direction, and speculation can be all the more fun. That said, what we want and need differs from how Nintendo views, so what I say should be taken lightly unless stated otherwise. I'm VERY open-minded, so I may go on and on, and I'm also open to criticism on the things I think about.

First off, the next console. I believe it'll stay relatively the same as the Switch but with the best internals they can get their hands on. They'll probably update the Joycons a bit and reintroduce the standard D-pad, or they may take the Steam Deck approach and glue them on. The standard will have a higher quality OLED screen to compete with others and possibly better sound. Not much more I could think of but it's enough to compete for next gen and try to bleed into the future gen. It opens up the possibility for more open first party games as well as more intricacy and design, increasing the odds for success (most of the time). Third party games will run better too.

Next, let's talk games. 2D Mario has been refreshed with Wonder, Zelda with TotK and BotW, Pikmin is still going, and Metroid... we don't know what's happening there, but it did have Dread. Mario Kart is still going strong, but there's only so much left they could do until they run out of options for one game. Smash is dead for now, but that's a topic for later with Mario Kart. Animal Crossing is iffy, as the player base has likely been halved since release; I know I don't play it anymore, and I've heard that it's got several issues that I agree with.

I want to go in depth about the state of Mario. Mario fans will be feasting soon with Wonder and RPG, and I'm one of them. Super Mario RPG is, if you couldn't tell, my favorite RPG, and I'm incredibly ecstatic for the remake. I have faith it'll sell well and be given the recognition it deserves. The music and graphics seem phenomenal in the remake, and everything seems like how we viewed it in the original; our minds were brought to life with this game.

Next is Wonder, which is an interesting beast I would love to tackle. The art style is amazing and a big step from New, just as much as the soundtrack is. It's all soft and colorful while remaining fast and enjoyable; such an appealing game hasn't happened for 2D Mario in over a decade. I love the new voice lines - despite Martinet possibly being replaced - and the new sound effects are great too. It's so experimental yet seems to be promising.

3D Mario games are pretty much due for a new game at this point. We haven't seen one since Bowser's Fury, which was only about half a game, if that. The last full game was Odyssey all the way back in 2017. It's understandable why it would take so long, but at least throw us a hint once the new system is revealed. It would be cool for it to be inspired by Wonder, but I could see it branching off of Odyssey or Galaxy too.

Super Smash Bros. should be getting a new game within the next 5 years. Whether it be a reboot, Ultimate Deluxe, or a continuation, I'm certain it'll be good. If they reboot the series, I imagine they'll keep a handful of characters and add a lot of new ones while also making completely new movesets for most fighters. Ones without new movesets would obviously have some changes though. The stages have a chance to be completely new. A continuation would likely cut some of the roster while adding new ones and do the same with stages. A continuation could be Deluxe but with different features and a new story. There are lots of debates about what characters would get in no matter what way they take, but I think the few that are locked in are Geno, Shantae, Sans, and possibly Cuphead. Personally, I wish Springtrap and Reimu would be in too, but sadly I don't believe they would. Same for Goku who will never be in.

Mario Kart is the only thing left on my mind, as it hasn't had a new game in about 10 years, less if you count Tour (but who would; it's a live service mobile game based on Mario Kart 7). It needs a new game very soon after the DLC is done, but there's one question that everyone has: where do they go next? I think they could take the Sonic R route and have it be more open world. Mix that up with all of the items in Tour and maybe some new stuff inspired by 2D and 3D Mario, and you've got something magical. Doing something like Double Dash and having two drivers per kart would be cool too. The roster needs an update as well, but Tour has added plenty of characters over time. They could bring back all characters, and if possible, add a separate menu for costumes and alternate colors. Tracks could be more based on games and even the recent movie. I would love to race around in something like Beach Bowl Galaxy or a fire flower field.

[ganondoodle]

was watching another totk video and through that found out what the reward is for completing koltins quests, honestly im not really surprised but also baffled and it really just shows, once again, that totk kinda does exactly what you shouldnt do in a sequel imo.. double down on all the bad stuff of the previous title

at this point i have talked about various problems in detail but i just keep realizing over and over just how much of the wrong lesson they seemed to take from botw, they recycled almost everything from botw by changing some paint or some words, made a giant game even bigger and filled it with boring and tedious busy work that has mediocre to insulting rewards EVEN MORE than botw

game too big and empty? make it TWICE as big, change barely anything about the map of the previous title and the new added map(s) is ONE biom that almost everywhere looks the same and even emptier with little to do

too many krogs? MAKE IT MORE and double down on the literally shit reward bc its the SAME just with one more stack of shit

too many shrines with short puzzles? ADD EVEN MORE and make them even shorter and easier to complete, alot of them not even involving a puzzle and multiple being an utterly out of place tutorial that could have been explained to you in a single text box

rewards in the overworld being mostly either a krog or a shrine which gets repetetive with shrines being ALOT and krogs being wayyy too many? add even MORE shrines and EVEN MORE krogs, but now add over a hundred of caves to it that all get repetetive after just a few of them and you only do them for a shrine or a currency you have to collect to get one cool looking but pretty bad to use armor set and a piece of cloth for your parasail that you can only use one of at the tiem and to switch have to go back to a specific NPC, theres ghost lights to collect which only serve to yet again buy one armor set from a set of NPCs and ar meaningless afterwards, the light roots dont require you to do anything but walk to them and the reward for finding them all is a "you did it" sticker that doesnt even stick (its useless)

weapons break too quickly? well make the weapons you can find even worse to force you to fuse a material to it so its at all usable BUT IT STILL BREAKS and when it does it breaks not JUST the weapon but ALSO a material, materials that you will need for now EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE armor upgrades too, weapons cannot be rewards anymore either bc they will always have to be fused with something to make them stronger bc none is strong on its own- this also applies to THE MASTERSWORD, something ALSO complained about that it still 'breaks' even after empowering it through the DLC in botw, and now it cant even BE empowered (bc no DLC) unless you fuse soemthing to it (to. the. MASTERSWORD.) EVEN THO EMPOWERIGN THE MASTERSWORD IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF ZELDAS ULTIMATELY MEANING- AND CONSEQUENCELESS SACRIFICE !!

the dungeons were to samey and simple? make them look different but keep the core structure (activate terminals in completely seperate from each other "puzzles", fight boss) while also makign them be even more skippable (climable walls, the ceiling jump ability- something the titans DIDNT have) with incredibly easy bossfights that end with an embarassing copy and paste scene that hits you over the head with long known and obvious information over and over

people didnt like how the story was so detached from everything in the present? well, make the story and the present EVEN MORE detached from anything in the present, so far in fact that there is literally no connection to it aside from zelda who is the only connective thread and is also only treated as such (she is as personality lacking as sonia as soon as shes yoinked into the past) and the suddendly and out of nowhere intruduced architecture and history that wasnt a thing in botw but is treated like it was always there

people didnt like how far botw was detached from all other zelda games? ok totk is not only FURTHER detached from those it also completely detached itself from its on predecessor :)

people didnt like the memory system? ok make it WORSE then, its a linear story now that you can ruin by seeing even one out of order, they are super short and dont give you anymore context to anythign than the things you could figure out yourself or were already told really, instead of giving you views into a characters personality you get to view a basic plot summary of a story that is so flavorless and predictable i knew what would happen from the start yet acts like its being vague and cool that i felt like i was beign treated like a literal toddler

too few enemy types? well, we will reuse the old ones EVEN MORE thant before over twice the map and the new ones that are there are either utterlly irrelevant to change up the gameplay or largely feel like the old ones just with a paint job (constructs), the griocks looked cool at first but are just a more annyoing version of the lynels (who feel like an actual duel, akin to a proper boss)

even the things that were adressed, or attempted to, didnt fully work, like the bosses ARE more unique, but also still so incredibly easy and ALSO have multiple duplicats just sitting around in the underground despite them being supposedly the root of the problems of the regions (i like refighting bosses, but id rather have a character that lets me choose ok i wann fight this one again and teleporte me into a vision or sth- also the most fun fights arent even part of it (koga) )

the rain complaint got a new effect type to counteract it, which ... doesnt work well, you need specific materials to make potions with that effect which you also need to upgrade the only armor set wit hthat effect that ONLY works once you upgrade it (i think ... i dont know how high i got it but if even the full upgraded set doesnt negate the rain effect i will not be surprised either lol) also it adds just yet another effect type that spams your inventory and you dont really need .... or i might be the only one that saw no value at all in the "attack up when hot" new type of effects bc it felt so specific and situational while also having a way better option (just make it a standard attack up thing?) at least in my eyes-

... ill stop here .... this got longer again didnt it O-o

[lord-radish]

Oh yeah I finished Tears of the Kingdom. I'll talk about the story in a future post, this one should be fairly spoiler-free aside from mechanics.

First of all, I made a post back when I started the game about how I don't want Breath of the Wild to be displaced by Tears of the Kingdom. I don't think Breath of the Wild should be seen as a glorified tech demo - not only for the effort that went into making that game in the first place, but because it devalues what that game did on its own merits.

Having played Tears of the Kingdom, I can safely say that the slow, calm, melancholic vibe of Breath of the Wild is kind of gone. Like it still exists a little bit, you're still clambering over hills and gliding over valleys between human settlements, but between the three biomes and the Gloom chasms everywhere and the new creation feature, everything's a lot busier and it's harder to sit back and take in that sort of atmosphere.

That being said, Tears of the Kingdom is incredible. It's jam-packed with story and gameplay functions that are a lot more robust than Breath of the Wild. It takes the wide-open nature of that game and busts what was already a groundbreaking sandbox game wide open, increasing verticality both ways and giving you unprecedented locomotive tools to get around.

I was thinking about Jak and Daxter because I've been revisiting the Snapcube streams of the first game, and as much as I love that game, I realised that it had finally hit a set of limitations that made it "old" in my mind. Like, Jak and Daxter is an incredible open-world platforming game. We're talking a seamless open world that looks and runs fantastically. That game has better tech for rendering shadows than most games have had for the past 20+ years.

But then I thought about Jak doing Ascend, and in comparison to Tears of the Kingdom, Jak and Daxter just seemed rigid in comparison. And that's fucking nuts, because JnD is one of the most fluid games ever! But something like Ascend breaks the mold.

The creation system is unbelievable. The powers set a new precedent for freedom. Like seriously, fucking Ascend? They give us physics powers that let you stick physics objects together and make bikes and cars and ladders and springpads and all this crazy shit - they give us fucking FLYING MACHINES, WITH STEERING - and THEN they add a power that lets you DIVE THROUGH THE CEILING TO GET ON TOP OF ANYTHING IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING GAME????????? That's genuinely unbelievable.

I played 75 hours of this game. For me, that was enough. Getting to the ending was a bit of a slog, but it came after like 70 hours of total, unabashed fun and freedom to do what I wanted. I could have finished the game in like 40 hours or less if I rushed, but that would have hurt my experience with the game. I ebbed and flowed according to my own whim, and it took me all the way through Tears of the Kingdom.

I don't know how Nintendo keeps doing it, but they keep setting new standards for the open world genre. It's close to being a masterpiece on all fronts.

So after this, what do I think they should do next?

Personally? I don't think I have a third BotW-like left in me.

These games are unbelievable on all fronts, but I think this little sub-franchise within the wider Zelda franchise has run its course. Between 2017 and now, we've actually gotten three Zelda games set in this era - Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity may have been a side-game in a different genre, but that's a fully realised game in the same setting as Breath of the Wild.

The games look great, but I think the aesthetic of these games has gone as far as it can go. Story-wise and gameplay-wise, I don't see how they can follow on from Tears of the Kingdom.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm content. I've had my fill. I still need to play that Hyrule Warriors game, actually, but once that's done I think this era of Zelda has done everything it needs to do. What's up next? How are they gonna approach the setting from this point forward? I want to see something new.

[swordswoman97]

Okay having finished the Zora's Domain main quest I have thoughts. Below cut for spoiler reasons and because I have a lot of thoughts.

So Yona. She's sure... There I guess.

Look I'm not the first person on the website to complain about Yona, but I still have things to say. I would however like to preface this with the fact that while I do enjoy Sidlink, it's more in a "oh that's a nice ship" way than an "OMG I SHIP IT!" way. I'm also 100% not a Sidon simp. I get why y'all are so into him, but there are other characters I prefer. However, I definitely understand the frustration with Yona, and I have my own issues with her inclusion.

Now I'm not entirely convinced Yona was included just to spite sidlink ships and even less convinced it was just to spite the people who found him hot. Especially considering, I doubt they didn't see the thirst art for Ganondorf and that didn't stop them from letting the designer go whole hog on making him physically attractive. But I'll admit I can't 100% rule out the possibility that sidlink shippers contributed to that decision.

Instead, Yona almost comes off as just being a narrative shortcut by the devs to try and add some explanation to Sidon not immediately jumping into trying to investigate with the player and possibly to try and make it look like Sidon has changed in the 3-5 years since BOTW which, tbh wasn't even necessary. Zoras live a long ass time, I'd guess somewhere between 300 to 500 years. Sidon and the other Zora not actually changing that much as like people would make sense. In Zora terms it hasn't even been that long. As for the arc thing, you could have gotten the same affect by making Sidon afraid of failing his people or heck, if you wanna keep Sidon's fear of losing more people he's close to, have him know about Dorephan's state and have Sidon afraid that if he doesn't keep the water flowing into that chamber clean, he'll lose his father. Same damn affect.

Then you have Yona herself. For one thing she is so flat. Her only personality seems to be that she's nice and she's in love with Sidon. That isn't a character. Then there's her backstory. While more domains of zora makes sense, it's more the fact that any of these domains are still in contact with Hyrule's Zora's Domain that falls flat. We know Yona and Sidon met before the calamity, but you expect me to believe that any of the other domains kept in contact while Hyrule was crawling with guardians, let alone apparently visited enough for Sidon to not completely or at least mostly forget Yona? Where does she even come from? Across the sea? In the sea? Past the desert? Across that giant bottomless pit surrounding Hyrule on two sides? How did she even get here considering everything else going on?

Plus, one of the new monuments (why were those replaced anyway?) confirms that their marriage was arranged, and makes reference to Sidon viewing Yona as a sister... Nintendo what the fuck?! I don't care if Sidon's feelings toward Yona have become "complicated" or whatever he calls it, Sidon marrying someone he viewed as a sister is fucking creepy.

And then their relationship doesn't even seem meaningful. Now part of it is probably the fact that by the time we see Yona and Sidon interact I was already pretty iffy about the whole thing, but the limited screentime we get with them does not work to sell me on the fact that this relationship is actually romantic. They call each other an almost sickening amount of pet names but that just feels weird due to it. Like, there are times Sidon came off less as actually in love with Yona and more as trying to force himself to be. Like this relationship is way too forced to feel like anything but a slap in the face.

Plus tbh while I haven't finished the game, they might redeem themselves later, Yona is just a part of the growing feeling I'm getting that the devs just didn't consider how things fit into the already established lore. Like, why is Ganondorf knocking around when Hyrule is being founded when Hyrule was very much already a thing when Ganondorf first showed up in OOC. How does Sidon have a childhood friend from another domain with the calamity causing problems for the last 100 years? Why do the sages all have the exact same weapons as the champions? And the same models? Like... were these speeches originally supposed to be given by the champions and they switched it at the last second and couldn't be bothered to make new models? I love this game, I am having so much fun, but this story is just... I have so many questions. I really hope things start making more sense as I get farther in.