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theot3rulesofhyrule · 8 months

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on one of my posts someone said that totk is a sandbox game, and sophitia-of-hyrule (i hope its ok to mention) answered to it that that is its problem, the world doesnt feel real

and yeah, i think that is another big reason why the game felt so weird to play; botw, at least to me, holds such a special place in my heart in part bc i never felt so ... immersed in a world of a video game before, of course i felt immersed in others too, but never to this extend, botws world, as "empty" as some may see it, felt incredibly alive to me, i felt like i was there their usage of stylized designs with incredibly fantastic sound design, usage of very little music at time and overall the enviroment and how it worked with its world and characters felt so good to be in

im not saying totk did none of those things, it took alot from botw afterall, but there is a strange sense of disconnect between the player and the world, the glue mechanic is impressive to pull off like that in a game that big (albeit id much rather have a smaller one with actually interesting stuff in it instead of monster camp 783), but i think it also made it feel much more .. "gamey"

like as i see it, the shiekah stones abilities in botw where fantastical to be sure, but i feel like they balanced it a bit more, sure using the stasis to launch yourself across the map is pretty silly and weird to consider in the games world, but it still seemed balanced out with the rest of it, and totk tips the balance its hard to explain but while botw (not trying to make it seem perfect bc its not but im trying to get the point across) also did the "obvious thing placed there to serve the player and aid in a puzzle", i feel like it did it more subtle- you could go somehwere and see a boulder you know you can move with stasis or magnesis and it may or not may be a part of a puzzle, but it didnt feel out of place, it might as well have been just a boulder lying there

in totk it feels like much more overtly telling you "this is a puzzle for you, the player, here do the puzzle"? which is also connected to the thing with the whole sandbox aspect of it, in botw most things you could do stuff with where jsut part of the world, there was a denialability to it if it was solely there bc of the player, which is much less there in totk

like take the material you find on the surface or in the underground, the material deposits i thought where something like people are trying to build houses now in their effort to rebuild hyrule and while that is somewhat of what the game TELLS you it is, its pretty obvious its really only there for you to play with like those colored wooden blocks you had as a kid when i first got to the surface i found one of those material thingy and tried to build a simple house from it as a shelter from the rain and thunder, maybe i was to dumb for it, but im pretty sure the parts couldnt even be built into a basic one; i assumed that these deposits would either be part of a bigger quest where it gets rebuild over time or that youd have to build the right thing with it and it gets a proper model you cant take apart again, but as soon as i went a few steps too far away it just reset itself like i was never there, and sure i know thats kinda what has to happen bc the game cant save every pebble i moved, but i still thought it would be used for soemthing else

but it didnt, i know there a sign that says its a material thing for people to use whenever, but is it actually? they have a firm foundation around them but then not even a roof that could shelter people or .. the material from rain? if the people in hyrule cant even reattach one wheel back to their wagon whats the use of deposits like this? you give me the ability to build anything .. and then not let me build anythign that lasts, aside from what, a handful of building blocks for your 'own' house (since zelda steals yours lmao) that you are very limited on how many to use and barely has any options to glue it together without some part being exposed and the sign guys signs? the houses you rebuild in Anglestedt (lurelin?) are just the middle wood beam (doesnt it even somehow turn into and alive tree again after landa goes to town on it?) and that felt like the most substantial thing you can do

similar goes for the material things in the underground, it sticks out like a sore thumb moreso than any of the other sonau structures, yes its a 'material deposit', but it really is just a box of toys, you can tell me it isnt but i know that that is just what it is-

actually the sonau tech in general just feels extremely .... toy-y, and i know i have talked about it before but again, in botw, it was a balance between high tech and sort of mediaval "low tech", but done just right and integrated well enough that it doesnt feel weird; now in totk its the same world but suddenly all of the integrated stuff is gone and replaced with essentially a reskin of the same thing, but the game itself, including the people in it, suddendly both forget that previous one existed and all get obsessed with the new thing and PRETEND it was always there

literally rockets, wheels with suspension, stearing wheels- all that stuff is just, you know its there just for you to play around with, its even stored in essentially an in game gacha maschine! there is no denialability to it anymore, does it make sense in the world? does it feel right? who cares! play with your toys!

similar with shrines, in botw the concept worked bc you had them be shiekah, a group of people long intertwined with the franchise, and made it so these ancients mysterious people built these things to test a hero specifically, each shrine being a personalized puzzle made by the monk inhabiting it, giving their last bit of life to strengthen the hero they saw bc they had visions of the future- again it may not be perfect but it works with long since established stuff and does something new with it, they dont say why they did it the way they did and it works well with them being very spiritual with deep ties to the royal family, all things that can and are complicated and its not hard to believe why they as characters wouldnt tell you everything, or prevent some things if they believe its how it should go

while the sonau ones .... they have no ties to anything of established things (when you could have given them a connection!! easily!!), they came suddendly into this and felt even more shoved in bc there was next to nothing of them in botw and now they basically own the world, its eveywhere and inescapable, even botw wasnt that shiekah focused, and then they also have shrines who suddendly appear out of nowhere, with supposedly it being to prevent mosnters from spawning?? (i dont remember seeing that said anywhere in the game but still .. doesnt seem to work either huh) at the end not an individual monk giving you the last of his life but a statue of the divinely appointed god king and his wifey giving you some lighty orb to combat the miasma in your arm, which CAN work but it just.. adds to this all feeling so much more artificial? putting it together with how strange of a decision it was to erase all stuff shiekah and replace it with a reskin of it and not even give it any connection..

and im not against sandbox games, heck, i LOVE them, but this isnt really a sandbox game .. or at least it shouldnt be, im not saying a zelda game cant be a sandbox game, but you cant make it sandbox while pretending it has a deep story, a sequel to botw no less!

people love to say zelda games have no story that matters to excuse totks baffling writing yet over and over again its proven that the story itself might be simple most of the time, but the characters are what grips people, the themes, the things carefully put into the game hinting to more than is directly told to you, totk doesnt have that, this game is FULL of narrative dissonances and theres nothing to theorize about, botw was full of mystery that hinted at more, that made you think, totk answers it all with "lol its sonau and totally always was", it gives you too many answers like that, drops the few things that were interesting, while also telling you not enough about the suddendly "always where there" race of people (which works way more in a new game, not in a sequel??) to make you care about them nor feel like they should be part of this 'story' but too much to let them be mysterious enough to be intriguing

and again its not like the sonau as a concept, i hate how it was executed, i dont have anything against introducing new tech, but i hate how it was executed

theres a balance to hold in games when you want to make it immersive, i can overlook things and work with stuff thats there just for you bc its a game afterall, i KNOW its a game, im not arguing i want bascially real life, but you cant put a carrot on my plate and put a sign next to saying its a can of yoghurt actually and expect me to just go with it over and over again with all things i dont want reality, i want believability, you can put some yetis that never appear again in one single game and ill go, welp, theres yetis, its not something id be taken aback by even if silly at times bc its still believable; totk constantly breaks my willingness to believe it and its a big part of why it all just feels so .. off, artificial, the longer i played and the more i discovered the more i felt like the NPCs themselves were playing a role, not actual characters, pieces of cardboard put up when i walk by in the game (and i know thats technically whats being done in a game but do yOU GET WHAT I MEAN???)

i am a firm believer that you COULD have made it work, you COULD have retreaded the same ground as botw and made it interesting, you COULD have written a good story with an open world like that, and not even with that much more work even, easily even, at times it was basically one step away from just drawing a single line bc the groundwork was already done with botw

knowing that the devs themselves think theres isnt anything they could think of adding into it really proves that they see it as nothing but a big box of toys and that clearly shows in the game, when botw DIDNT feel like that, even with all it shortcomings, which makes it all the more worse

some people may not care about it, some may laugh about me caring, but i did care, they made me care about all the characters, the world and its theme in botw only to chuck it all away and tell me i shouldnt have cared in its direct fucking sequel.

im not good with words and have trouble translating my feelings into text, theres surely a way to shorten this ramble into something way more coherent but here we are :(

#totk #loz totk #i agree wholeheartedly #There's so much I do like about the game and more I WANTED to like #but this puts into words well the feeling of totk vs botw #BotW is one of my favorite games #totk... is not #I gave it 105 hours... and then I stopped #I was bored. going through the motions and just forcing it #There's so many good ideas. so much room for amazing stuff and there IS amazing stuff #but it's just.. flat. Hollow.#too much new. too overwhelming. and it was too challenging rather than challenging enough #it just feels forced to be a story that it's not or shouldn't be #and. as always. I'm STILL not going to be mad at 'secret stones'. UGH kills immersion for me every. single. time.#*not going to stop being mad at. sorry. i mad

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theot3rulesofhyrule · 1 year

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Having not played for quite a while now- though having played a LOT after launch... I find that My feelings on Tears of the Kingdom lead more towards dissatisfaction than anything else.

No hate to those who love it and enjoy every aspect!!

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely ADORE the original story that has been spun. I think it's intriguing and engaging and more. It's honestly the only reason I kept on playing after my first whole impression was done.

I also like the creativity and many elements of the game. The Depths, for one, have some of my favorite decorative plant life, and the designs of the Stewards I find to be very adorable and wonderful.

I am ALSO aware that the tales in and around The Legend of Zelda as a whole are TRAGIC. It's completely normal for the tone to be so sad and downright dismal at times.

But the game as a whole unit? I just.. so much of it is 'off' and just downright unpleasant for me. For one- one of my least favorite and biggest gripes is why oh WHY are those stones called SECRET stones?! That is one of the WORST possible things they could have been named/translated to. It warps the tone IMMENSELY especially as they're really not all that secret AT ALL. SACRED stones would have been divine and kept the tone much better... or something else. Secret stones is just... that's a "no" from me. Kills the mood every single time.

I don't know if the whole story of the Zonai is explained or revealed in further gameplay- but if it's not and that it's hinted at only a few times and never discussed... it's an extremely frustrating detail. There's always going to be mysteries, but this one had far too many chances to be explained and just wasn't (if it's not, of course... I don't rightly know- I stopped playing).

And then we get into actual gameplay....

I know now that it was a HUGE mistake to play Breath of the Wild right before diving into Tears of the Kingdom. My biggest mistake, in fact. I honestly didn't know how much I absolutely loved that game until faced with something so entirely different, but meant to be a part of it. And the controls... I was so used to my toggles being what they were that the change in TotK I still wasn't used to after over 105 hours of gameplay. I still messed up almost every time I needed to do something.

The menus too are just... there was no rhyme or reason to completely redesign them. Breath of the Wild had some amazing features and I feel the item screens was one of the that should have absolutely stayed. But instead they had a team completely and utterly revamp them. Very unpleasant and clunky to use.

There's also just... SO MUCH to do/keep track of. It honestly feels overwhelming in ways Breath of the Wild never was for me. There's so many quests, sure... but it just doesn't feel like you can take your time at all (or, if you do, like you're WASTING time)- and I HATE the quests that need you to do or be somewhere at a certain time of day... oof. So many shrines I just ignored because no thank you... AND all that stuff you can do? WAY harder. It is so challenging to do not only the shrines, but even basic side missions and quests. I seriously struggle with the poor Koroks because you really have to get it juuuuust right in so many ways. And if you mess up... welp. Be ready to just abandon it until the reset. (Accidently launching a Korok into the ocean when they needed to be up on a cliffside? ... That was some major frustration after the laughed 'oops.' for me T^T)

If it was a few hard challenges and/or tasks here and there I wouldn't be complaining, but the whole game is like that for me. Challenges after challenges after challenges to the point it killed my fun. Don't even get me started on how hard it is to build up Rupees (and I'm an AVID collector of items. The prices and difficulties there collecting enough with those SUCK).

All in all.. I was happy to see the progression of old characters, new faces, and the progression of the world as a whole... and yet they also did me SO dirty.... and Removed Kass- my all time favorite Rito- from the game entirely. Barely a whisper left of his existence. His challenges weren't always the most fun for me in BotW... but I was so happy to do them because I knew I got to see Kass again, progress his story, and I looked forward to the struggles I faced for such a well-written character.

I think I don't like this game because it's meant to be a challenge more than it's meant to really tell a whole, and wonderful (if tragic) story like Breath of the Wild was... and that makes me really sad. I haven't found much of it to be worthwhile enough to keep fighting through more of the game... and that's extra sad.

(also... controversial opinion- I don't like Ganondorf in this one. Something I haven't been able to put my finger on just feels wrong about the whole thing.)

#legend of zelda #loz #the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #totk #loz totk #controversial opinion #text post #long post

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