People get mad that the only reward for getting all the Koroks is just a giant golden crap... Missing the _entire point._ The reward being complete crap is the devs saying "you really didn't need to do all this." You're not _supposed_ to try and get them all. They have that many so that its easy enough for any player to get enough without struggling to find them all. I'm always a completionist for games I like, but even I refuse to even attempt getting all the Koroks. Its just not worth it just to see that percentage indicator reach 100%
Imo it’s fully worth seeing that 100%. I’ve done literally everything you can do besides the koroks (still chipping away at those lol) and I only have like 70% completion, it’s ridiculous but I get it’s that way on purpose so I don’t get mad or blame them for it. I feel like true completionists know they’re not the target audience for these games and do it more to explore everything the game has to offer than expect some reward at the end of it all.
@@sphinxiguess I really do understand this I was a completionist in the past, because I wanted to get everything out of every game I played, before I bought a new game. Because I was kid with limited finances. Then I got a job and earned my own money, so making a game last as long as possible was less important, and my enjoyment of just playing and having fun became more important. Thoug I still only buy a new game after I feel I'm done with the current one. I swore to myself to have as little of a backlog as possible (a backlog of games to play just stresses me out).
I hate this logic. Why spend so much time and resources developing something I'm not supposed to play? What's the point of wasting time on something the player's not supposed engage with? That effort would've been better spent on something more worthwhile. Why is "you're not supposed to get them all" even a valuable lesson? They could've just made fewer seeds with more reward. No one's missing the point but you, since you don't seem to understand the complaints in the first place.
This series has always been one that encourages you to 100% complete it. It's one of the things that make this series what it is, without that it's not Zelda anymore.
Something he dosent talk about is how the Koroks are literally children, their puzzles are easy because your basically playing hide and seek with a 8 year old
That's a fair in-universe explanation but if you don't enjoy the puzzles because they're to easy, simple, or repetitive that doesn't really change anything
In what sense are they children? In the Lost Pilgrimage Tasho asks you to follow her son Oaki; so, what the heck is going on there? Is gigantic Hestu a child? Because he abandoned 900 if his child friends to a game of hide-and-seek that he got bored with. (Remember, the first Korok you find is astonished that Link isn't Hestu, there's only one explanation for that.) These "children" are fashioning complex carved stones and stacking them in the middle of nowhere while casting iron blocks to be part of the puzzles. I don't buy it.
@@frenstcht i feel like the stone blocks and iron blocks are done with, uh, magic?? especially since when you complete the puzzle, the iron ones turn into stone blocks!
I actually love the Korok puzzles. Did you know that the sound design helps you find those flower chains you have to hunt down? The puzzles and the "Yahaha!" is itself the reward once your storage opens up to a helpful level.
I'm pretty certain the developers did not have completionists in mind when designing the Koroks. The average person is not going to come anywhere near finding all of them! Nor do they want or need to. The reward for getting all of them was probably a final thought of, "What if we actually do have some crazy fans who find all of them? We should give them *Something* . Shouldn't we?" This was a great video. You deserve more likes!
I genuinely enjoy the “I need to find my friend” koroks! I always stop what I’m doing when I hear their little call. They are fun and sometimes surprisingly challenging. Not a fan of the dandelions, so I don’t do those.
What the developers should have done was NOT have Korok seeds contribute to the map progress bar. It should have just taken into account the total number of slot upgrades.
but why not count it when it does fill out the map? maybe they should've balanced it better with koroks counting for a lower percentage than things like shrines, but idk, you don't have to 100% the map screen
@@johnywuijts917 That's a trash argument. If players are not meant to collect all Korok seeds, then they should not count towards map completion. That way players could 100% the game and just find enough Koroks for all the inventory expansions. But with the poor implementation, it's impossible to fully complete the game without collecting all Korok seeds because the map screen will not say 100% until you've collected each and every single one of them.
@@thenonexistinghero it is the MAP completion, therefore it tells you what percentage of the MAP you've completed. "fully completing" the game is just something we made up and chose our own definition for, if koroks didn't count towards map completion, I'm pretty sure people would still count it towards game completion, just like how they count full armor upgrades
Yyou cannot complete any game without collecting all collectibles. That is what it means to complete it. What you can do, is reach 100% of something defined by the game. Hollow Knight for example has specific checks count as a % and some collectibles do not count. BotW and TotK have only map completion, aka every symbol and area you can have on your map. If you have collectibles markers, they should definitely count for the percentage of your total map completion. There is a reason it only appears after beating the game. You are nit supposed to focus on it. Also there is a minimalist 100% run for both games (which reminds me I should check up in that), where someone does all the work of reaching 100% map completion while not doing as much as possible. So no armor unless required, no weapons unless necessary and then if they break he can never pick them up again, etc. Just to show how separate map completion is from actually completing anything.
That last category are not complaining, though 😂. It makes me smile every time I hear that Ya-ha-ha, and I’ve been playing these games for literal thousands of hours. I did find them all once in BotW, but I haven’t cared to in TotK yet. I might one day, but I might not.
@@bigprovos12 There's A LOT that take over a minute, like almost all of the ones where you have to bring them to each other. And you also have to spend a lot of extra time searching for them and looking for them. If someone's done everything in the game other than collecting Koroks... then they can count on spending a good 40-50 extra hours of just finding all of the remaining Koroks and that's with a guide.
they are intended as a currency, but implemented as a collectible. Koroks are finite and hand-placed. they do not respawn, they do not drop. this fact alone effectively communicates to players with a tendency for completion that you ought to attempt finding all of them. it's poor design.
I'm well aware that the Korok seeds were meant to be abundant so that players wouldn't struggle to find enough for getting more inventory space. I was aware of that when I 100% completed BotW (twice, once for normal mode, and once for master mode), which is why I don’t really feel like it's fair to put that against the game. Same thing with TotK: it took me over a year to complete the game (though I did take a 9 month break from it at one point), 100%, every armour upgrade, Korok seed, and map location. But I don’t hold that against the game, because I chose to do that.
I'm on a 100 percent run for every zelda on switch, started it in January. I'm counting nso games but not spinoffs. It's fun to do 100. I put in 95 hours on Tears back when it released then dropped it for now, but I'll go back to it in my run that I'm doing. There are many challenges people find for these games, people don't need to criticize others for how then enjoy the games. Lots of people in the comments seem to be doing so. 100% is no different than a speedrunner or 3 heart challenge players alternate way of enjoying the game.
I think it’s obvious that Korok completion is optional. But they do count for 100% completion on the map screen, while monster medallions do not. Basically the point of Koroks is to squeeze a little more life out of the game once it’s over. It’s not about the Koroks themselves, it’s about discovering every inch of this huge world and interacting with this world in every possible way.
yes, exactly, 100% of the MAP completion. the only reason it counts towards that is because it is displayed on the map, getting 100% map completion just means you discovered everything, it doesn't mean 100% game completion. for example treasure chests could also be counted towards game completion, since they never respawn so getting all of them is possible
Once I have enough weapon slots to comfortably accept boss fights or raid big camps, I only collect korok seeds on the way to something, if I'm bored and have time to kill. If I'm just exploring and goofing around without any objective, then yea, let's hunt some koroks for a bit.
So 2 things that stood out to me in thus video. At one point you say there are over 1000 seeds to collect. That's wrong, there are exactly 1000 seeds to collect. Also, you say the game doesn't track your total number of korok seeds. This is also wrong, every loading screen gives you your total, every shrine you enter, every fast travel point it'll be on screen next to how many rupees, spirit orbs, and shrines you have found.
it tells you what you have found, it doens't tell you how many there are to find. If you didn't have the internet it would be almost impossible to know how many koroks there are
I did like 3 100% runs of BoTW (2 in MM), I never cared about getting stool for a reward, I cared about being able to 100% a game I loved to the core... so for me the reward was pointless... I did it because I could and I was proud of it...
It would have been great to have a few fortunetellers who could help you find everything. One who is very cheap, but the directions are a riddle in itself. One who is expensive, but basically pinpoints you where to look and what you need to do. And the third one is a healthy middle ground between the first two fortunetellers.
Do you mean the korok mask that shakes when you’re close to one? Because that does the job. As for competing the whole game 100% you inevitably have to use a guide on a game of this size or waste a lot of time.
The reason for the amount of seeds is so the average player can max their inventory w/o finding all the korocks. I’m mid-video while typing this. It’s interesting we came to the same conclusion.
That much is obvious and without a guide there is no way to actually know how many there are. I just wish they'd tell you how many you need. And the "oh, this time being me Mmore" is also annoying since it's not even the same for the sword and shield pouch. And you still need over 500 which is quite a lot still
I really don’t understand the mentality of wanting to 100% complete a game, and then groan and complain that you have to complete this self imposed challenge.
@kemanebel9018 OP said they didn't understand the mentality of completionists who don't like korok seed completion. This user who replied is a completionist. They're trying to inform the OP of their experience. You need to learn to read. Also, completionists who like 100%ing a game understandably could achieve this in almost every other zelda title prior to totk and enjoy it. 100%ing ocarina of time was fun and It also had similar mechanics. But in a game where there are over a thousand seeds over the largest zelda map to date compared to 120ish spiders in OoT's map is a huge difference. They did not make totk with completionists in mind, unlike their other zelda titles, but still had a completionist achievement and it isn't achievable to nearly all completionist gameplayers. Completionist gameplay is fun for some. But this title has made it near impossible which isn't fun for completionists.
@clay because most game devs will take the time to pick and choose what qualifies an achievable completion status in a game. That's why completionists enjoy that mentality. They could have had the game not include korok seeds to count towards a 100% game, but instead inventory slots if they intended there to be so many korok seeds that they never intended the gamer to find them all. Stardew valley did an excellent job at balancing what a user needed to 100% the game but it didn't actually require every single piece of the map be touched, every item be sold, etc. They made the completionist achievement ACHIEVABLE.
I actually found them all. It's kinda its own reward and the poop not only is funny and another korok seed but there's nothing at that point of the game that could make a difference. It was way more tedious than necessary, I guess they wanted to show off how big the map is, but some were well hidden enough and you can use the mask to find them.
I got pretty frustrated early in TotK while exploring. I'd come across the ones you have to escort to their friend, but couldn't build anything yet. It finally changed when I found the one in north Hebra, on the way to the labyrinth, which had a steering stick nearby. After that, those koroks and the Addison sign puzzles became my favorite parts of the game, if you take the challenge of building something unique to that situation it's really pleasing to play with. The other ones are basically a different kind of treasure hunt, but I do agree that BotW didn't quite have enough variety in that regard. Also, I never realized you could lift those rocks with ultrahand, never even considered it. :P
While there is no specific counter for the koroks like we have for the hyrule compendium, on loading screens(ex. when fast travelling) there is a number that displays how many koroks youve collected. Just something im not sure if you implied it or not in the video.
1:16 im probably that Even in room that has nothing, i go through every corner of it However i often ignore searching for koroks and avoid the "bring me to my friend" koroks, but i need to explore every sky island
I appreciate that you understand and empathize with the different perspectives! The entire time I was going "me" at *both types* while also going "well yeah of course" about developer intent. For me, it's because 18 mainline Zelda games before hand set expectations and habits. Whereas brand new IPs with clean slates are different. I can shut those habits off for other open world genre games. Zeldas rewarded me for taking that time to find everything or backtrack to inaccessible areas when I get new items and abilities. It felt satisfying, intuitive, and natural to find everything and see everything. I'm going to miss how that felt like an overarching puzzle in its own right. I felt I intimately experienced the world rather than merely traveled it beyond taking in the sights and atmosphere. If everything is accessible the moment I clear the tutorial then that doesn't feel like Zelda gameplay with or without korok design telegraphing that I shouldn't want to complete it. We got a taste of the "you don't have to" with Skulltulla House in OoT when the eldest family member emphasizes he'll be fine if you don't lift the final curse but at least OoT's UI informs you of whether you cleared an area of Skulltullas. Of course, I do honor their intent on emphasizing exploring nature and having freedom because Miyamoto cites exploring natural landmarks and old shrines as a kid for the inspiration. So in a way, this seems like a dream realized. And I'm not saying I need linearity and hand holding whatsoever. I just miss taking notes on what suspicious objects require me to return with new abilities. I also miss structure to my options- several regions, at most, only require you to pass through them to finish the game I probably should see if Master Cycle makes travelling more relaxing and streamlined in next playthrough but.... iEchoes of Wisdom might satisfy my needs but if dungeons are like TotK shrines where too much cheesing and too much options takes away the satisfaction then I'll have to just move on to other games and accept that I'm not a target audience anymore. Oh well🤷
Thank you! The point of these big open worlds is to accommodate different playstyles in addition to providing a different experience with new replays. However, it is an accomplishment to 100% regardless but you'll most likely burn yourself out.
Always encouraging to see someone offering a positive, respectful view of something they feel is underappreciated - really well explained. Something to consider though is that this defense might be overlooking a third category: the casual player - someone who isn't rushing through the game, but isn't going out of their way to find Korok seeds either. For us, it's not that Korok's aren't a fun addition to the world, but rather that they frequently take the place of a more rewarding discovery. As you spend seeds to expand your inventory, they become less and less valuable. Yet as you say, they're so numerous that they don't seem to become any less common. And when considering that they require far more time and effort than opening a simple chest which also tends to have a far more valuable reward, then it becomes disappointing to keep exploring only to find something that you've seen a dozens of times before and no longer have a use for - even if you don't bother to collect it. If nothing else, removing the cutscene that plays after every Korok puzzle would make it so much smoother for FOMO, completionist and casual players alike to incorporate Korok's into their respective gameplay flows without dominating it so much.
Other than the upgrades to inventory I think if would be cool if you could use the seeds including the one from Hestu to plant in certain spots kinda like a homage to Wind Waker where you help to replant the forests of Hyrule to essentially help the land recover and heal from the great calamity, but only after you have maxed out your inventory slots. Sometimes giving something another use other than what it's mainly for helps to make things a little more fun or worth it to some people.
I agree that the idea is more just to have a lot of them all over the place so players can find a good amount no matter what they do, the problem is there will always be people who want to find all of a thing if there's a finite number of something and the fact that they contribute to the map completion percentage encourages said people even more. As someone who did "100% complete" a lot of Zelda games before, it is kind of strange to think I may never do that for Tears of the Kingdom because I do think it's my new favorite in the series, but at the end of the day I guess that dissonance doesn't really mean anything. In the future I guess there's even more they could do to discourage players from feeling like they should find all of them, like having the puzzles tied to a currency like the Secret Seashells in some of the handheld titles which are simply replaced with rupees once you've found enough to acquire all the rewards. In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask they also had little puzzles in the overworld but they just produced fairies or rupees so people probably didn't feel like they were obligated to find and do all of them. I do think something like the shrines or bubbul gems are a more manageable collectible to try and go after, and probably part of the problem with the Koroks is also the fact that they truly can be anywhere with very little sense of if you've found them all in an area or not unless you use a guide. This was much worse in Breath of the Wild where they didn't even have those little arrows pointing to them so they could technically be at the top of any tree. Exploring the entire map is fun, but feeling like you have to climb every hill and tree individually just to check if they have something to "100% complete" the game is less so for a lot of people, even if it's really a self-imposed challenge. Ultimately I love the open air Zeldas and I don't really agree with many of the criticisms, even the ones I do agree with I think are overly magnified more than they deserve to be by those who don't like them. But perhaps there are more ways they can encourage players to not be so worried about completing everything 100%. I also see people complain about "grinding", but you don't really need to do that either unless you want four stars on every single armor set, which really isn't necessary and if anything probably makes the game too easy. The game encourages that even less than it does finding all the Koroks, so I guess there will always be people who feel like they have to do every single thing, but there are still more ways to discourage it. Maybe they could do what Rockstar sometimes does, like in Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, and have a 100 percent checklist that isn't actually 100 percent, so players can feel like they fully completed the game and got the reward for it without actually combing the entire map.
This is also why every sage you get repeats the base lore story, so no matter which order you do things, you get the main thrust of the plot. And it’s part of why shrines are always about the same overall difficulty, the devs don’t know when you’ll do which shrine so they can’t ramp up difficulty too much for any particular shrine.
I’m at 650 and my brain just can’t even fathom that there are still 350 left. I’ve been everywhereeeeeeeee. I’m still looking forward to finding the rest though!
the amount of seeds you need for vital inventory space upgrades to be able to carry all of the utility crap around (fire, ice, lightning, hammer, a few dps weapons a few weak monster fodder) was fine in botw because you could ignore the other two categories the weapon fusing made koroks an unavoidable chore in totk where you now need to worry about a inventory of fused shields with useful effects and shields breaking / being swapped out much more frequently, thus the need to stockpile them and the useful arrow attachments means i used bows 3x as frequently and broke them 3x as frequently i never found the korok mask in botw and had a bunch of weapon inventory upgrades (maybe was stuck at 17 / out of whatever next upgrade costed) and had a very small inventory / wasted very little time searching for them whereas totk its very easy to get the korok mask early and then you're now monotonously scraping every area because you got the notification one is nearby, and you need that cash they honestly just needed an npc who would sell you the seeds still on the map, and let you pick which kinds of puzzles to skip (if you, for example enjoyed doing rock / diving / ascend puzzles it would categorize them and let you buy the ones you hated) or an npc per zone that just sold an extra 5-10 seeds for increasing rupee prices, like the bonus moons you could buy in odyssey to keep playing past a moon gate, rewarding the player for expedience in combat / treasure finding / finding an economic exploit like ores etc instead the rupee sink in this game was buying pointless house pieces
I am definitely a completionist, but I also love the Koroks because I love exploring the whole map, and they help me have something to look for when I am aimlessly running around haha.
I like that they had more koroks than you really needed for max upgrades, it always annoyed me in games with collection sidequests when you need to collect all the items and then you reach near the end of the game and realized you missed one or two of the collection somewhere. And of course you have to use a guide to comb over every single location. With the korok oversupply it’s much more possible to get all the inventory expansions while playing in a more natural, guide free way.
I found all the Koroks in BOTW because it is my favorite game and sometimes I just play it to explore when it’s too hot or cold outside. I wasn’t going to try to find them all in TOTK but my son finds it entertaining and he gets so happy when I find one so it’s a win-win.
I would normally consider myself a completionist, but when it comes to the innumerable Koroks, I doubt I'll come close to finding them all in this vast world. The ones I have encountered have usually been by chance... a suspicious ring of stones, an incomplete structure, a hole to push a boulder into, that sort of thing... 😆 I'm certainly more concerned with trying to tick off sidequests and complete my compendium from all the news weapons and things I keep finding!
The intended reward for Korok discovery is an expanded inventory. Everything else is incidental to their existence, and how many of them you care to collect in the first place. As far as aesthetics go, I find the Compendium much more rewarding to complete, as no two Compendiums will look the same (unless you just buy all the pics).
Thank you for making this video. As a recovering completionist, I take comfort in learning you don't get rewarded past collecting less than half of these elusive seeds. One more reason to give breath of the wild a second chance.
Aside from the inventory upgrades which makes finding Korok seeds worth it, other than this I tend not to spend most of my time looking for them. The reason is is that in my mind with a storyline with a plot is grave as what you find in tears of the Kingdom I kind of feel like I don't have time to look for Korok seeds let alone help a Korok find its partner when there are other more pressing matters to deal with. But that's just me.
That’s not true when you beat a shrine. Before the game goes back to link coming out of the shrine It shows you how many koroks seeds you have collected in the game
But the korok puzzles arent really puzzles? And they aren’t ever very interesting or new. I suspect for a lot of people is they just don’t notice koroks, and then by the point they DO need koroks, its because they’ve ran out of inventory and are tired of not having enough slots. Then they find out how EXPENSIVE it is, so people end up doing a bunch of korok puzzles at once to “get it over with”. Heres a couple of ideas I came up with: 1. Scrap Bubblefrogs and replace them with korok creatures. Players already explore caves, and using those would increase players inventory over time as they explore the map. 2. Give the player a 3rd way of getting korok seeds. Maybe there are evil koroks in the depths, that drop seeds once destroyed 3. Just reduce the cost of upgrading your inventory. Add in some super koroks that give you 5x at a time and you find them chilling in the world, wandering
I agree with this video's point completely. Given you only need about half to max out your inventory in both games, it's clear from how many the devs put in the game that they wanted you to be able to easily find enough to max out your inventory, even late into your play through. That being said, I collected all 900 in BotW, and I plan to get all 1,000 in TotK. I just love the little guys! 😊
Because of how abundant they are in the game, I find them literally everywhere while exploring. And I never feel like I have to go out and look for them actively. Ans that keeps the came enjoyable for me.
Maybe a better way to implement the Koroks would have been to set a lower limit to the number you can collect. Have all 900 Koroks in the beginning of the game to make them easy to stumble across, but when you've collected enough to fully upgrade your inventory remove the rest of them. No more Koroks, no more grief.
I feel like this misses the main complaint about the koroks, the repetitiveness and frustration you touched on it the beginning. It's not FOMO or the puzzles. It's sitting through Hestu cut scenes as you one at a time try to upgrade to hold more weapons.
To be honest, I really just wish that the korok rewards weren't so exponential (weapons/bow/shield slots). I really want to be able to have more weapons or shields on hand (even just to have the joy of collecting them) but before very long, it takes TWENTY FIVE koroks for a new slot? And then some? I don't know, it just got really disheartening after awhile to see how many I'd successfully discovered only to realize I wasn't even halfway to getting a new slot.
As soon as you can get to a sky island and collect 10 sundelions, go directly to Tarrytown and do the little quest to send the kid to Gerudo, that's what the sundelions are for. Once done, go buy 3 shield stands, three weapon stands and 3 bow stands. You don't need any of the other useless building items. Now, you can store all your weapons here and keep a couple of each on hand. YOU can double them up by fusing them, Bows can be fused to shields but otherwise you can fuse weapon-weapon, weapon-shield, etc. when you want those weapons just skip over to Tarrytown get the little goron dude to unfuse them. The bottom line is that using this method you can store 18 of each of your shields, bows, and weapons> How many KOroks would it take to get 18 slots for each weapon and how much mindless searching would it take? Once you have your little 'home' you don't need the Koroks, that's the only thing they are useful for.
Well said. There are many pitfalls in designing open-world games, and I think BotW/TotK do better than most. But one trouble, for players or devs, is seeing an open-world game as a huge, enormous linear game. For better or for worse, an open-world game should be one where ten people can play the same game and have eleven different experiences.
I’m a completionist, I’ve been working towards doing literally everything in the game over the past while (except 999 of all items ofc), and i have the same view on the totk koroks as i did back in botw, I really like them. I like the concept that no matter where you go, there is something to do. At the same time, the fact that the devs give you a literal pile of shit in *both* games shows that they’re aware completionists exist, and it’s a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of saying that this isn’t how the game was designed to be played.
I thought the way they were gonna implement TotK was that it was gonna be a payed DLC for BotW where once you beat the game, Zelda can roam around with you until a cave opens up to the underground of the castle. And that would lead to the Cutscene that transforms the land. Then all of the ground land would be changed due to some of the ground being pulled into the sky. Link would just have a second ability wheel for all his new arms abilities. The Mwlice taking him from full hearts back down to 3 resets his growth, he would no longer have the strengthto wield the Master sword, but would also need to repair the sword, so finiding the sword smith to repair and upgrade the master sword to the butter sword could've been a thing. I saw so much potential for TotK. Turns out it was it's own game. That just ran on the BotW engine... The changes were numerous to the terrain, but the feel of the game, it's basically just a harder version of BotW.
I don't consider myself to be in either category. I do what i feel like doing in the moment. I admit to being a collector. However, I really enjoy finding those little buggers. The yeah ha ha makes me happy. Every time. I even converted my 7 year old niece and nephew. They will request to play the "Link" game and ask me to find a little man. They will then procede to jump around shouting yeah ha ha. It makes us all happy. Their 3 year old brother enjoys it when a rock gets dropped on the korok. I admit to dropping rocks quite often. I also admit to launching a few into the distance in the opposite direction from their lost friends. I just really enjoy finding koroks. 😊
Personally I felt like, when it came to tears of the kingdom, koroks were too large a part of the exploration and discovery of the world because you're already so familiar with this version of Hyrule that there's not much else new to see, and I don't think that's a role korok puzzles can adequately fulfill. It feels like a lot of the approach to the recent games has been to load them up with a bunch of small filler things to do rather than larger undertakings like dungeons or mini-dungeons as before. It's clear this is done deliberately to make the game's content more approachable but it results in a lack of things that feel satisfying to accomplish. Another problem I think people haven't really talked about is that the korok + shrine + side-quest structure has made the rewards for a given task too predictable, removing any fun element of surprise. When you see a korok puzzle, you know you will get a korok seed. When you see a shrine, you know it will give you a spirit orb. A side-quest or chest will probably give you a material, rupees, or a disposable piece of equipment. This makes rewards much less interesting, and you will never be surprised to receive something that meaningfully improves your quality of life in the game.
I think a smaller but more core problem lies under the Korok Seed problem, these two games have super rigid reward structures. Tears is a little looser, but BotW you only get Spirit Orbs from Shrines (some armor is in chests in them yes, but then most of those are just blessing shrines so not really a shrine) you only get Korok Seeds from these puzzles, you only get weapons from specific places etc. For most things in the game that works because it lets you map the game out despite how big it is, but with Koroks being useless after getting half of them it gets annoying seeing them. Even if you enjoy doing the puzzles, getting nothing, and almost worse than nothing, for continuing to do them feels bad. I think a small fix could have been to have them spawn a handful of resources and/or rupees after you got the last one needed for Inventory upgrades, or maybe have them do that for every one of em. Granted resources too become useless rewards [that far into the game] but still better than something telling you you shouldn't have kept going.
I think koroks are done almost perfectly. You need to only find around 40% to max all slots and less than 20% to upgrade each slot 8x. It is only not great for people going for 100% complete.
When breathe of the wild came out, for MONTHS whenever I came across something mildly out of the ordinary, or just something a little bit out of place, I would always be like "that is totally a korok." I literally started seeing the little fuckers in real life.
Koroks are just a side distraction, for me if I see a korok puzzle that's easy I give it a shot. If it's too dificult for a casual playthrough or it takes me too far off the path I'm going I just mark it with a leaf on the map and maybe get back to it later.. 🙂
I collected all Koroks in BotW and I am in the quest to collecting all of them in TotK. Why? Because I like the challenge and it's an excuse to explore every inch of the map. I love to keep track of the Hero's Path and all the places I found on my own.
The best idea I've heard for fixing this is the idea that after you find blank% of the koroks, the concentration of found ones in the forest let the rest of the lost ones find their way back home on their own. That way you can still have it reward you for exploration everywhere, but it still feels finished and satisfying for completionists.
I only care about opening up my whole weapon/bow/shield inventory and that’s it I’m done with the koroks after that unless I see one on the way and feeling like doing it 😂
Korok puzzles are great. And great conceptually. Because the point is. Get the ones you need to expand your inventory slots...and beyond that...just get as many as you want to. Dont need any more though.
I enjoyed Koroks well enough in BotW, there wasnt enough variety to keep it super interesting but they were a good distraction while on my way to a shrine, especially as there wasnt a lot else to do in the game, but I still collected them for the sake of the inventory expansion. I think i ended up with about 400 by the end of my 200 hours? Not specifically hunting them, just exploring TotK i was so disappointed they were back, and with the same lack of variety. I collected the bare minimum to increase my inventory a little but mostly just walked past them because they werent worth my time when there was way more interesting stuff in the game. I think i had just over 100 by the end of my 250 hour playthrough of TotK
Each person enjoys different things about zelda, I enjoy 100 percenting zeldas, but not other games, aside from 1 or 2 here or there. Usually, unless there are missable items in a game, i play through the game normally first to experience the story, Then i go back and do everything else post game for the 100 percent. If there are missables in the game i get them as soon as they become available but then go back to playing normally. Im actually currently doing a 100 zelda challenge for every mainline game that's on switch counting NSO games, but not counting spinoffs, and have done botw already, it takes about 200 hours to 100% using an online interactive map as a checklist.
After the intro of the game… I just tried to turn on all the towers to make my exploration easier… I prefer like that… it was anoying to see some areas of the map… but oh boy I walked, I flied, I climbed mountains to make it possible 🤣😅
I always say I 100%’d the game in the ways that matter: I did all the side quests, all the shrines (and even chests in the shrines), fully upgraded the master sword, did all the DLC (master cycle, etc)… but I’m not finding all those korok seeds - I like myself and value my time too much to be doin’ all that 😅
I think more people are criticizing open world Zelda again because of the announcement of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, alongside what Eiji Aonuma keeps saying about that new Zelda formula: He thinks it's simply better. That means we probably won't be getting any Zelda games with linear/one solution only puzzles like the old ones, and I think both are great, which means I miss the old ones and think they should go back and forth. Going back and forth from these designs would likely even make each game better, because each game has a longer time to develop and can be inspired by the other type of game. Now that Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was shown to ALSO be one of those "solve those puzzles however you want... idk. There isn't a correct solution" type of games, people - including me - are very worried that we won't get another old-school Zelda game until Nintendo realizes that the old and new way are equally good.
I think that instead of using koroks to increase weapons they will just reward you with rupees like 50 or 100 depending on the challenge will be better and avoid the task to have to hunt them down to be able to carry more weapons and just enjoy the exploration and be happy when you discover one by accident and be rewarded for it
But there are many other ways to earn rupees, being able to increase space is their special reward for exploring. And then the bag upgrade would be purchased with money that already has many uses and can be farm.
@@inva88I just feel that if their argument is that we don’t need to collect all the korok seeds but they are needed to increase the ability to carry more weapons, than they are saying that you REALLY need to find them. I think they o would preferred koroks had a different incentive.
Koroks date back further than Ocarina of Time. They're basically dressed up copies of the little guys in Nausicaä. Kodama are the children of old trees. They make the same clicking noise as well.
While I’m pro-korok, I have a legitimate complaint, I think: the leaf mask. You can chalk it up to FOMO, sure, but given that there are koroks *waves hands* around, I feel pressure to always have the mask on during my explorations. The satisfaction of finding a korok > the fun of using the other masks. Which is lame, because it meant I spent 90% of both BOTW and TOTK wearing it, and not experimenting with other toys. My ideal scenario, I think, would be for Hestu to give a passive korok locator tool, or to be able to tag koroks in your item radar thing, after you find, say, 50% of them through regular means. Then the game would essentially be saying, “OK, yep, we see you, you put in the effort. Here, explore widely from now on, but don’t worry about missing anyone while you’re using the Zora helm etc.”
People get mad that the only reward for getting all the Koroks is just a giant golden crap... Missing the _entire point._ The reward being complete crap is the devs saying "you really didn't need to do all this." You're not _supposed_ to try and get them all. They have that many so that its easy enough for any player to get enough without struggling to find them all.
I'm always a completionist for games I like, but even I refuse to even attempt getting all the Koroks. Its just not worth it just to see that percentage indicator reach 100%
Imo it’s fully worth seeing that 100%. I’ve done literally everything you can do besides the koroks (still chipping away at those lol) and I only have like 70% completion, it’s ridiculous but I get it’s that way on purpose so I don’t get mad or blame them for it. I feel like true completionists know they’re not the target audience for these games and do it more to explore everything the game has to offer than expect some reward at the end of it all.
@@sphinxiguess I really do understand this I was a completionist in the past, because I wanted to get everything out of every game I played, before I bought a new game. Because I was kid with limited finances. Then I got a job and earned my own money, so making a game last as long as possible was less important, and my enjoyment of just playing and having fun became more important. Thoug I still only buy a new game after I feel I'm done with the current one. I swore to myself to have as little of a backlog as possible (a backlog of games to play just stresses me out).
@phoenixdowner lol
I hate this logic. Why spend so much time and resources developing something I'm not supposed to play? What's the point of wasting time on something the player's not supposed engage with? That effort would've been better spent on something more worthwhile. Why is "you're not supposed to get them all" even a valuable lesson? They could've just made fewer seeds with more reward. No one's missing the point but you, since you don't seem to understand the complaints in the first place.
This series has always been one that encourages you to 100% complete it. It's one of the things that make this series what it is, without that it's not Zelda anymore.
Something he dosent talk about is how the Koroks are literally children, their puzzles are easy because your basically playing hide and seek with a 8 year old
That's a fair in-universe explanation but if you don't enjoy the puzzles because they're to easy, simple, or repetitive that doesn't really change anything
sweet! knowing that somehow makes the boring game good now! I'll just imagine im playing with a 8 year old
In what sense are they children? In the Lost Pilgrimage Tasho asks you to follow her son Oaki; so, what the heck is going on there? Is gigantic Hestu a child? Because he abandoned 900 if his child friends to a game of hide-and-seek that he got bored with. (Remember, the first Korok you find is astonished that Link isn't Hestu, there's only one explanation for that.) These "children" are fashioning complex carved stones and stacking them in the middle of nowhere while casting iron blocks to be part of the puzzles. I don't buy it.
@@frenstcht i feel like the stone blocks and iron blocks are done with, uh, magic?? especially since when you complete the puzzle, the iron ones turn into stone blocks!
I actually love the Korok puzzles. Did you know that the sound design helps you find those flower chains you have to hunt down? The puzzles and the "Yahaha!" is itself the reward once your storage opens up to a helpful level.
I'm pretty certain the developers did not have completionists in mind when designing the Koroks. The average person is not going to come anywhere near finding all of them! Nor do they want or need to. The reward for getting all of them was probably a final thought of, "What if we actually do have some crazy fans who find all of them? We should give them *Something* . Shouldn't we?"
This was a great video. You deserve more likes!
What could be a reward for players that spend dedicated months and playing for a long amount of time every day collecting koroks... ah yes! *S h i t*
@@t_1cgBragging Poop
Real. Both games are designed to NOT push you into unfun directions with rewards as bait.
@t_1cg yes. Otherwise you're encouraging the thought that you should collect them. You're an idiot for doing it despite knowing that's the reward
I genuinely enjoy the “I need to find my friend” koroks! I always stop what I’m doing when I hear their little call. They are fun and sometimes surprisingly challenging. Not a fan of the dandelions, so I don’t do those.
What the developers should have done was NOT have Korok seeds contribute to the map progress bar. It should have just taken into account the total number of slot upgrades.
but why not count it when it does fill out the map? maybe they should've balanced it better with koroks counting for a lower percentage than things like shrines, but idk, you don't have to 100% the map screen
@@johnywuijts917 That's a trash argument. If players are not meant to collect all Korok seeds, then they should not count towards map completion. That way players could 100% the game and just find enough Koroks for all the inventory expansions. But with the poor implementation, it's impossible to fully complete the game without collecting all Korok seeds because the map screen will not say 100% until you've collected each and every single one of them.
@@thenonexistinghero it is the MAP completion, therefore it tells you what percentage of the MAP you've completed. "fully completing" the game is just something we made up and chose our own definition for, if koroks didn't count towards map completion, I'm pretty sure people would still count it towards game completion, just like how they count full armor upgrades
Yyou cannot complete any game without collecting all collectibles. That is what it means to complete it. What you can do, is reach 100% of something defined by the game.
Hollow Knight for example has specific checks count as a % and some collectibles do not count.
BotW and TotK have only map completion, aka every symbol and area you can have on your map. If you have collectibles markers, they should definitely count for the percentage of your total map completion. There is a reason it only appears after beating the game. You are nit supposed to focus on it.
Also there is a minimalist 100% run for both games (which reminds me I should check up in that), where someone does all the work of reaching 100% map completion while not doing as much as possible. So no armor unless required, no weapons unless necessary and then if they break he can never pick them up again, etc. Just to show how separate map completion is from actually completing anything.
Finding a korok changes the map though.
If you wanna 100% the game, then deal with it. But 100%ing the game is totally pointless anyways
there are fomo people and completionist people, and also people who just have fun finding stuff and dont care if theres a reward or not
That last category are not complaining, though 😂. It makes me smile every time I hear that Ya-ha-ha, and I’ve been playing these games for literal thousands of hours. I did find them all once in BotW, but I haven’t cared to in TotK yet. I might one day, but I might not.
The video said "the people who are complaining usually fall in one of 2 categories". Your comment doesn't relate to anything
Ahhh my people
Even if it only takes you 1 minute to find and solve any single Korok puzzle... Getting them all will still take you 16.6 hours, _minimum_ !
Thankfully most of them only take several seconds if you know what you’re doing when you see the puzzle, but yeah the long ones can be annoying
@@bigprovos12 There's A LOT that take over a minute, like almost all of the ones where you have to bring them to each other. And you also have to spend a lot of extra time searching for them and looking for them. If someone's done everything in the game other than collecting Koroks... then they can count on spending a good 40-50 extra hours of just finding all of the remaining Koroks and that's with a guide.
Simply put, the korok seeds aren’t a collectible, they’re a _currency._
they are intended as a currency, but implemented as a collectible.
Koroks are finite and hand-placed.
they do not respawn, they do not drop.
this fact alone effectively communicates to players with a tendency for completion that you ought to attempt finding all of them.
it's poor design.
I'm well aware that the Korok seeds were meant to be abundant so that players wouldn't struggle to find enough for getting more inventory space. I was aware of that when I 100% completed BotW (twice, once for normal mode, and once for master mode), which is why I don’t really feel like it's fair to put that against the game. Same thing with TotK: it took me over a year to complete the game (though I did take a 9 month break from it at one point), 100%, every armour upgrade, Korok seed, and map location. But I don’t hold that against the game, because I chose to do that.
I'm on a 100 percent run for every zelda on switch, started it in January. I'm counting nso games but not spinoffs. It's fun to do 100. I put in 95 hours on Tears back when it released then dropped it for now, but I'll go back to it in my run that I'm doing. There are many challenges people find for these games, people don't need to criticize others for how then enjoy the games. Lots of people in the comments seem to be doing so. 100% is no different than a speedrunner or 3 heart challenge players alternate way of enjoying the game.
I think it’s obvious that Korok completion is optional. But they do count for 100% completion on the map screen, while monster medallions do not.
Basically the point of Koroks is to squeeze a little more life out of the game once it’s over. It’s not about the Koroks themselves, it’s about discovering every inch of this huge world and interacting with this world in every possible way.
yes, exactly, 100% of the MAP completion. the only reason it counts towards that is because it is displayed on the map, getting 100% map completion just means you discovered everything, it doesn't mean 100% game completion. for example treasure chests could also be counted towards game completion, since they never respawn so getting all of them is possible
Once I have enough weapon slots to comfortably accept boss fights or raid big camps, I only collect korok seeds on the way to something, if I'm bored and have time to kill. If I'm just exploring and goofing around without any objective, then yea, let's hunt some koroks for a bit.
So 2 things that stood out to me in thus video. At one point you say there are over 1000 seeds to collect. That's wrong, there are exactly 1000 seeds to collect. Also, you say the game doesn't track your total number of korok seeds. This is also wrong, every loading screen gives you your total, every shrine you enter, every fast travel point it'll be on screen next to how many rupees, spirit orbs, and shrines you have found.
it tells you what you have found, it doens't tell you how many there are to find. If you didn't have the internet it would be almost impossible to know how many koroks there are
it removes the number you have already upgraded
I did like 3 100% runs of BoTW (2 in MM), I never cared about getting stool for a reward, I cared about being able to 100% a game I loved to the core... so for me the reward was pointless... I did it because I could and I was proud of it...
It would have been great to have a few fortunetellers who could help you find everything.
One who is very cheap, but the directions are a riddle in itself.
One who is expensive, but basically pinpoints you where to look and what you need to do.
And the third one is a healthy middle ground between the first two fortunetellers.
not really, the point is you have to go and look for them yourself, they have so many so you don't have to find them all to get enough
That's why we have youtube😂
Do you mean the korok mask that shakes when you’re close to one? Because that does the job. As for competing the whole game 100% you inevitably have to use a guide on a game of this size or waste a lot of time.
The reason for the amount of seeds is so the average player can max their inventory w/o finding all the korocks.
I’m mid-video while typing this. It’s interesting we came to the same conclusion.
Great minds think alike 😅
That much is obvious and without a guide there is no way to actually know how many there are. I just wish they'd tell you how many you need. And the "oh, this time being me Mmore" is also annoying since it's not even the same for the sword and shield pouch. And you still need over 500 which is quite a lot still
I really don’t understand the mentality of wanting to 100% complete a game, and then groan and complain that you have to complete this self imposed challenge.
You want to complete a game and want that completion to be fun.
@@ghost245353You want to. Clearly the person you are replying to does not. Your experiences are not universal, friend.
@kemanebel9018 OP said they didn't understand the mentality of completionists who don't like korok seed completion. This user who replied is a completionist. They're trying to inform the OP of their experience. You need to learn to read.
Also, completionists who like 100%ing a game understandably could achieve this in almost every other zelda title prior to totk and enjoy it. 100%ing ocarina of time was fun and It also had similar mechanics. But in a game where there are over a thousand seeds over the largest zelda map to date compared to 120ish spiders in OoT's map is a huge difference. They did not make totk with completionists in mind, unlike their other zelda titles, but still had a completionist achievement and it isn't achievable to nearly all completionist gameplayers. Completionist gameplay is fun for some. But this title has made it near impossible which isn't fun for completionists.
@@kemanebel9018 If you're confused by his use of "you", he isn't directing that to OP. He's just speaking generally.
@clay because most game devs will take the time to pick and choose what qualifies an achievable completion status in a game. That's why completionists enjoy that mentality. They could have had the game not include korok seeds to count towards a 100% game, but instead inventory slots if they intended there to be so many korok seeds that they never intended the gamer to find them all. Stardew valley did an excellent job at balancing what a user needed to 100% the game but it didn't actually require every single piece of the map be touched, every item be sold, etc. They made the completionist achievement ACHIEVABLE.
I actually found them all. It's kinda its own reward and the poop not only is funny and another korok seed but there's nothing at that point of the game that could make a difference. It was way more tedious than necessary, I guess they wanted to show off how big the map is, but some were well hidden enough and you can use the mask to find them.
I got pretty frustrated early in TotK while exploring. I'd come across the ones you have to escort to their friend, but couldn't build anything yet. It finally changed when I found the one in north Hebra, on the way to the labyrinth, which had a steering stick nearby. After that, those koroks and the Addison sign puzzles became my favorite parts of the game, if you take the challenge of building something unique to that situation it's really pleasing to play with.
The other ones are basically a different kind of treasure hunt, but I do agree that BotW didn't quite have enough variety in that regard.
Also, I never realized you could lift those rocks with ultrahand, never even considered it. :P
I.dont understand people who would force themselves to collect every seed.
Boredom during lockdown is a strange motivator
Needing something to do to kill time during summer waiting for snowboarding season.
Agree. Feels like masochism lol
While there is no specific counter for the koroks like we have for the hyrule compendium, on loading screens(ex. when fast travelling) there is a number that displays how many koroks youve collected. Just something im not sure if you implied it or not in the video.
1:16 im probably that
Even in room that has nothing, i go through every corner of it
However i often ignore searching for koroks and avoid the "bring me to my friend" koroks, but i need to explore every sky island
I appreciate that you understand and empathize with the different perspectives! The entire time I was going "me" at *both types* while also going "well yeah of course" about developer intent. For me, it's because 18 mainline Zelda games before hand set expectations and habits. Whereas brand new IPs with clean slates are different. I can shut those habits off for other open world genre games.
Zeldas rewarded me for taking that time to find everything or backtrack to inaccessible areas when I get new items and abilities. It felt satisfying, intuitive, and natural to find everything and see everything. I'm going to miss how that felt like an overarching puzzle in its own right. I felt I intimately experienced the world rather than merely traveled it beyond taking in the sights and atmosphere. If everything is accessible the moment I clear the tutorial then that doesn't feel like Zelda gameplay with or without korok design telegraphing that I shouldn't want to complete it.
We got a taste of the "you don't have to" with Skulltulla House in OoT when the eldest family member emphasizes he'll be fine if you don't lift the final curse but at least OoT's UI informs you of whether you cleared an area of Skulltullas.
Of course, I do honor their intent on emphasizing exploring nature and having freedom because Miyamoto cites exploring natural landmarks and old shrines as a kid for the inspiration. So in a way, this seems like a dream realized. And
I'm not saying I need linearity and hand holding whatsoever. I just miss taking notes on what suspicious objects require me to return with new abilities. I also miss structure to my options- several regions, at most, only require you to pass through them to finish the game
I probably should see if Master Cycle makes travelling more relaxing and streamlined in next playthrough but....
iEchoes of Wisdom might satisfy my needs but if dungeons are like TotK shrines where too much cheesing and too much options takes away the satisfaction then I'll have to just move on to other games and accept that I'm not a target audience anymore. Oh well🤷
I’ve found 973 with no internet help. They get exponentially harder to find once you get down to the last 50.
Dang it's a shame you don't have that much subs your videos are fire 🔥 👌
Thanks so much!
Great video! I love Koroks and your perspective enriches the game's experience.
Thanks!
Thank you! The point of these big open worlds is to accommodate different playstyles in addition to providing a different experience with new replays. However, it is an accomplishment to 100% regardless but you'll most likely burn yourself out.
I needed this. I think many players need this.
Always encouraging to see someone offering a positive, respectful view of something they feel is underappreciated - really well explained.
Something to consider though is that this defense might be overlooking a third category: the casual player - someone who isn't rushing through the game, but isn't going out of their way to find Korok seeds either. For us, it's not that Korok's aren't a fun addition to the world, but rather that they frequently take the place of a more rewarding discovery. As you spend seeds to expand your inventory, they become less and less valuable. Yet as you say, they're so numerous that they don't seem to become any less common. And when considering that they require far more time and effort than opening a simple chest which also tends to have a far more valuable reward, then it becomes disappointing to keep exploring only to find something that you've seen a dozens of times before and no longer have a use for - even if you don't bother to collect it. If nothing else, removing the cutscene that plays after every Korok puzzle would make it so much smoother for FOMO, completionist and casual players alike to incorporate Korok's into their respective gameplay flows without dominating it so much.
I like them, finding them is a mini surprise for me.
I don’t want to collect them all for the fear that when I found what I think is the last one, the korok won’t say you’ve found us all
Just finished a Korok cosplay. My attitude toward Koroks changed when I though of them as playing a game with me, not just a thing to hunt for.
Other than the upgrades to inventory I think if would be cool if you could use the seeds including the one from Hestu to plant in certain spots kinda like a homage to Wind Waker where you help to replant the forests of Hyrule to essentially help the land recover and heal from the great calamity, but only after you have maxed out your inventory slots. Sometimes giving something another use other than what it's mainly for helps to make things a little more fun or worth it to some people.
I agree that the idea is more just to have a lot of them all over the place so players can find a good amount no matter what they do, the problem is there will always be people who want to find all of a thing if there's a finite number of something and the fact that they contribute to the map completion percentage encourages said people even more. As someone who did "100% complete" a lot of Zelda games before, it is kind of strange to think I may never do that for Tears of the Kingdom because I do think it's my new favorite in the series, but at the end of the day I guess that dissonance doesn't really mean anything. In the future I guess there's even more they could do to discourage players from feeling like they should find all of them, like having the puzzles tied to a currency like the Secret Seashells in some of the handheld titles which are simply replaced with rupees once you've found enough to acquire all the rewards. In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask they also had little puzzles in the overworld but they just produced fairies or rupees so people probably didn't feel like they were obligated to find and do all of them.
I do think something like the shrines or bubbul gems are a more manageable collectible to try and go after, and probably part of the problem with the Koroks is also the fact that they truly can be anywhere with very little sense of if you've found them all in an area or not unless you use a guide. This was much worse in Breath of the Wild where they didn't even have those little arrows pointing to them so they could technically be at the top of any tree. Exploring the entire map is fun, but feeling like you have to climb every hill and tree individually just to check if they have something to "100% complete" the game is less so for a lot of people, even if it's really a self-imposed challenge.
Ultimately I love the open air Zeldas and I don't really agree with many of the criticisms, even the ones I do agree with I think are overly magnified more than they deserve to be by those who don't like them. But perhaps there are more ways they can encourage players to not be so worried about completing everything 100%. I also see people complain about "grinding", but you don't really need to do that either unless you want four stars on every single armor set, which really isn't necessary and if anything probably makes the game too easy. The game encourages that even less than it does finding all the Koroks, so I guess there will always be people who feel like they have to do every single thing, but there are still more ways to discourage it. Maybe they could do what Rockstar sometimes does, like in Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, and have a 100 percent checklist that isn't actually 100 percent, so players can feel like they fully completed the game and got the reward for it without actually combing the entire map.
They are for up sizing your weapon, shield and bow slots. More you find the more weapons you can carry
My favorite koroks are the ones under rocks because I love the sound they make when you drop the rock on them 😂
This is also why every sage you get repeats the base lore story, so no matter which order you do things, you get the main thrust of the plot. And it’s part of why shrines are always about the same overall difficulty, the devs don’t know when you’ll do which shrine so they can’t ramp up difficulty too much for any particular shrine.
I’m at 650 and my brain just can’t even fathom that there are still 350 left. I’ve been everywhereeeeeeeee.
I’m still looking forward to finding the rest though!
the amount of seeds you need for vital inventory space upgrades to be able to carry all of the utility crap around (fire, ice, lightning, hammer, a few dps weapons a few weak monster fodder) was fine in botw because you could ignore the other two categories
the weapon fusing made koroks an unavoidable chore in totk where you now need to worry about a inventory of fused shields with useful effects and shields breaking / being swapped out much more frequently, thus the need to stockpile them
and the useful arrow attachments means i used bows 3x as frequently and broke them 3x as frequently
i never found the korok mask in botw and had a bunch of weapon inventory upgrades (maybe was stuck at 17 / out of whatever next upgrade costed) and had a very small inventory / wasted very little time searching for them
whereas totk its very easy to get the korok mask early and then you're now monotonously scraping every area because you got the notification one is nearby, and you need that cash
they honestly just needed an npc who would
sell you the seeds still on the map, and let you pick which kinds of puzzles to skip (if you, for example enjoyed doing rock / diving / ascend puzzles it would categorize them and let you buy the ones you hated)
or an npc per zone that just sold an extra 5-10 seeds for increasing rupee prices, like the bonus moons you could buy in odyssey to keep playing past a moon gate, rewarding the player for expedience in combat / treasure finding / finding an economic exploit like ores etc
instead the rupee sink in this game was buying pointless house pieces
Korok mask is essential. I love finding them all
I am definitely a completionist, but I also love the Koroks because I love exploring the whole map, and they help me have something to look for when I am aimlessly running around haha.
that's a good point. they are here only as you need them, they don't need you to find them all.
Awesome Video Bro!
Thanks!
No problem.
I like that they had more koroks than you really needed for max upgrades, it always annoyed me in games with collection sidequests when you need to collect all the items and then you reach near the end of the game and realized you missed one or two of the collection somewhere. And of course you have to use a guide to comb over every single location. With the korok oversupply it’s much more possible to get all the inventory expansions while playing in a more natural, guide free way.
I found all the Koroks in BOTW because it is my favorite game and sometimes I just play it to explore when it’s too hot or cold outside. I wasn’t going to try to find them all in TOTK but my son finds it entertaining and he gets so happy when I find one so it’s a win-win.
I would normally consider myself a completionist, but when it comes to the innumerable Koroks, I doubt I'll come close to finding them all in this vast world. The ones I have encountered have usually been by chance... a suspicious ring of stones, an incomplete structure, a hole to push a boulder into, that sort of thing... 😆
I'm certainly more concerned with trying to tick off sidequests and complete my compendium from all the news weapons and things I keep finding!
The intended reward for Korok discovery is an expanded inventory.
Everything else is incidental to their existence, and how many of them you care to collect in the first place.
As far as aesthetics go, I find the Compendium much more rewarding to complete, as no two Compendiums will look the same (unless you just buy all the pics).
Thank you for making this video. As a recovering completionist, I take comfort in learning you don't get rewarded past collecting less than half of these elusive seeds. One more reason to give breath of the wild a second chance.
Aside from the inventory upgrades which makes finding Korok seeds worth it, other than this I tend not to spend most of my time looking for them. The reason is is that in my mind with a storyline with a plot is grave as what you find in tears of the Kingdom I kind of feel like I don't have time to look for Korok seeds let alone help a Korok find its partner when there are other more pressing matters to deal with. But that's just me.
That’s not true when you beat a shrine. Before the game goes back to link coming out of the shrine It shows you how many koroks seeds you have collected in the game
But the korok puzzles arent really puzzles? And they aren’t ever very interesting or new. I suspect for a lot of people is they just don’t notice koroks, and then by the point they DO need koroks, its because they’ve ran out of inventory and are tired of not having enough slots. Then they find out how EXPENSIVE it is, so people end up doing a bunch of korok puzzles at once to “get it over with”.
Heres a couple of ideas I came up with:
1. Scrap Bubblefrogs and replace them with korok creatures. Players already explore caves, and using those would increase players inventory over time as they explore the map.
2. Give the player a 3rd way of getting korok seeds. Maybe there are evil koroks in the depths, that drop seeds once destroyed
3. Just reduce the cost of upgrading your inventory. Add in some super koroks that give you 5x at a time and you find them chilling in the world, wandering
I agree with this video's point completely. Given you only need about half to max out your inventory in both games, it's clear from how many the devs put in the game that they wanted you to be able to easily find enough to max out your inventory, even late into your play through.
That being said, I collected all 900 in BotW, and I plan to get all 1,000 in TotK. I just love the little guys! 😊
Koroks are so adorable and make me happy! They bring little joys throughout these amazing games!
Because of how abundant they are in the game, I find them literally everywhere while exploring. And I never feel like I have to go out and look for them actively. Ans that keeps the came enjoyable for me.
I am usually a completionist but refused to collect all the Koroks in BOTW and will do so again in TOTK.
Maybe a better way to implement the Koroks would have been to set a lower limit to the number you can collect. Have all 900 Koroks in the beginning of the game to make them easy to stumble across, but when you've collected enough to fully upgrade your inventory remove the rest of them. No more Koroks, no more grief.
I feel like this misses the main complaint about the koroks, the repetitiveness and frustration you touched on it the beginning. It's not FOMO or the puzzles. It's sitting through Hestu cut scenes as you one at a time try to upgrade to hold more weapons.
The bigger reward idea would be easy, more storage slots.
Or heart containers..
This is what I've been saying.
If that's the case, they really should not have made Koroks part of the map 100%.
I got spoiled on the reward before I ever played it, so... some playthroughs, I don't even max out my stash slots, and I've never gone for all 900.
I need a lot of weapons and bows because they freaking break so often.
Thanks for sharing 😀👍
🫡
From my experience, getting 50 to 80 Koroks is all that is really necessary. Also new sub👍
The thing that gets me about Koroks is no matter how many you collect, Hestu won't ever let you fill out your entire inventory slots.
I do it for fun, I love exploring and there's always something happening.
…. Wait… you *collect* Koroks? I thought they were sacrifi- I mean charitable volunteers to the space program?!
To be honest, I really just wish that the korok rewards weren't so exponential (weapons/bow/shield slots). I really want to be able to have more weapons or shields on hand (even just to have the joy of collecting them) but before very long, it takes TWENTY FIVE koroks for a new slot? And then some? I don't know, it just got really disheartening after awhile to see how many I'd successfully discovered only to realize I wasn't even halfway to getting a new slot.
As soon as you can get to a sky island and collect 10 sundelions, go directly to Tarrytown and do the little quest to send the kid to Gerudo, that's what the sundelions are for. Once done, go buy 3 shield stands, three weapon stands and 3 bow stands. You don't need any of the other useless building items. Now, you can store all your weapons here and keep a couple of each on hand. YOU can double them up by fusing them, Bows can be fused to shields but otherwise you can fuse weapon-weapon, weapon-shield, etc. when you want those weapons just skip over to Tarrytown get the little goron dude to unfuse them. The bottom line is that using this method you can store 18 of each of your shields, bows, and weapons> How many KOroks would it take to get 18 slots for each weapon and how much mindless searching would it take? Once you have your little 'home' you don't need the Koroks, that's the only thing they are useful for.
I’m now imagining Chris Pratt just saying “yah ha ha“ in his normal voice
Well said. There are many pitfalls in designing open-world games, and I think BotW/TotK do better than most. But one trouble, for players or devs, is seeing an open-world game as a huge, enormous linear game. For better or for worse, an open-world game should be one where ten people can play the same game and have eleven different experiences.
I’m a completionist, I’ve been working towards doing literally everything in the game over the past while (except 999 of all items ofc), and i have the same view on the totk koroks as i did back in botw, I really like them. I like the concept that no matter where you go, there is something to do. At the same time, the fact that the devs give you a literal pile of shit in *both* games shows that they’re aware completionists exist, and it’s a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of saying that this isn’t how the game was designed to be played.
I thought the way they were gonna implement TotK was that it was gonna be a payed DLC for BotW where once you beat the game, Zelda can roam around with you until a cave opens up to the underground of the castle. And that would lead to the Cutscene that transforms the land. Then all of the ground land would be changed due to some of the ground being pulled into the sky. Link would just have a second ability wheel for all his new arms abilities. The Mwlice taking him from full hearts back down to 3 resets his growth, he would no longer have the strengthto wield the Master sword, but would also need to repair the sword, so finiding the sword smith to repair and upgrade the master sword to the butter sword could've been a thing. I saw so much potential for TotK. Turns out it was it's own game. That just ran on the BotW engine...
The changes were numerous to the terrain, but the feel of the game, it's basically just a harder version of BotW.
I don't consider myself to be in either category. I do what i feel like doing in the moment. I admit to being a collector. However, I really enjoy finding those little buggers. The yeah ha ha makes me happy. Every time. I even converted my 7 year old niece and nephew. They will request to play the "Link" game and ask me to find a little man. They will then procede to jump around shouting yeah ha ha. It makes us all happy. Their 3 year old brother enjoys it when a rock gets dropped on the korok. I admit to dropping rocks quite often. I also admit to launching a few into the distance in the opposite direction from their lost friends. I just really enjoy finding koroks. 😊
Personally I felt like, when it came to tears of the kingdom, koroks were too large a part of the exploration and discovery of the world because you're already so familiar with this version of Hyrule that there's not much else new to see, and I don't think that's a role korok puzzles can adequately fulfill.
It feels like a lot of the approach to the recent games has been to load them up with a bunch of small filler things to do rather than larger undertakings like dungeons or mini-dungeons as before. It's clear this is done deliberately to make the game's content more approachable but it results in a lack of things that feel satisfying to accomplish.
Another problem I think people haven't really talked about is that the korok + shrine + side-quest structure has made the rewards for a given task too predictable, removing any fun element of surprise. When you see a korok puzzle, you know you will get a korok seed. When you see a shrine, you know it will give you a spirit orb. A side-quest or chest will probably give you a material, rupees, or a disposable piece of equipment. This makes rewards much less interesting, and you will never be surprised to receive something that meaningfully improves your quality of life in the game.
I think a smaller but more core problem lies under the Korok Seed problem, these two games have super rigid reward structures. Tears is a little looser, but BotW you only get Spirit Orbs from Shrines (some armor is in chests in them yes, but then most of those are just blessing shrines so not really a shrine) you only get Korok Seeds from these puzzles, you only get weapons from specific places etc.
For most things in the game that works because it lets you map the game out despite how big it is, but with Koroks being useless after getting half of them it gets annoying seeing them. Even if you enjoy doing the puzzles, getting nothing, and almost worse than nothing, for continuing to do them feels bad. I think a small fix could have been to have them spawn a handful of resources and/or rupees after you got the last one needed for Inventory upgrades, or maybe have them do that for every one of em. Granted resources too become useless rewards [that far into the game] but still better than something telling you you shouldn't have kept going.
I think koroks are done almost perfectly. You need to only find around 40% to max all slots and less than 20% to upgrade each slot 8x. It is only not great for people going for 100% complete.
When breathe of the wild came out, for MONTHS whenever I came across something mildly out of the ordinary, or just something a little bit out of place, I would always be like "that is totally a korok."
I literally started seeing the little fuckers in real life.
*at least there aren’t any korok in the depths*
i LOVED the koroks. I got ALL of them in both games.
Koroks are just a side distraction, for me if I see a korok puzzle that's easy I give it a shot. If it's too dificult for a casual playthrough or it takes me too far off the path I'm going I just mark it with a leaf on the map and maybe get back to it later.. 🙂
I collected all Koroks in BotW and I am in the quest to collecting all of them in TotK. Why? Because I like the challenge and it's an excuse to explore every inch of the map. I love to keep track of the Hero's Path and all the places I found on my own.
The best idea I've heard for fixing this is the idea that after you find blank% of the koroks, the concentration of found ones in the forest let the rest of the lost ones find their way back home on their own. That way you can still have it reward you for exploration everywhere, but it still feels finished and satisfying for completionists.
Also as implied it would be a lot more cool if the koroks you find made their way back to korok forest building a community there as you find them.
I only care about opening up my whole weapon/bow/shield inventory and that’s it I’m done with the koroks after that unless I see one on the way and feeling like doing it 😂
Korok puzzles are great. And great conceptually. Because the point is. Get the ones you need to expand your inventory slots...and beyond that...just get as many as you want to. Dont need any more though.
I enjoyed Koroks well enough in BotW, there wasnt enough variety to keep it super interesting but they were a good distraction while on my way to a shrine, especially as there wasnt a lot else to do in the game, but I still collected them for the sake of the inventory expansion. I think i ended up with about 400 by the end of my 200 hours? Not specifically hunting them, just exploring
TotK i was so disappointed they were back, and with the same lack of variety. I collected the bare minimum to increase my inventory a little but mostly just walked past them because they werent worth my time when there was way more interesting stuff in the game. I think i had just over 100 by the end of my 250 hour playthrough of TotK
Your title made me think you had a better way to find them quickly.
Huh, never considered it could be read that way too… Sorry!
Each person enjoys different things about zelda, I enjoy 100 percenting zeldas, but not other games, aside from 1 or 2 here or there. Usually, unless there are missable items in a game, i play through the game normally first to experience the story, Then i go back and do everything else post game for the 100 percent. If there are missables in the game i get them as soon as they become available but then go back to playing normally.
Im actually currently doing a 100 zelda challenge for every mainline game that's on switch counting NSO games, but not counting spinoffs, and have done botw already, it takes about 200 hours to 100% using an online interactive map as a checklist.
After the intro of the game… I just tried to turn on all the towers to make my exploration easier… I prefer like that… it was anoying to see some areas of the map… but oh boy I walked, I flied, I climbed mountains to make it possible 🤣😅
I always say I 100%’d the game in the ways that matter: I did all the side quests, all the shrines (and even chests in the shrines), fully upgraded the master sword, did all the DLC (master cycle, etc)… but I’m not finding all those korok seeds - I like myself and value my time too much to be doin’ all that 😅
I think more people are criticizing open world Zelda again because of the announcement of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, alongside what Eiji Aonuma keeps saying about that new Zelda formula: He thinks it's simply better.
That means we probably won't be getting any Zelda games with linear/one solution only puzzles like the old ones, and I think both are great, which means I miss the old ones and think they should go back and forth. Going back and forth from these designs would likely even make each game better, because each game has a longer time to develop and can be inspired by the other type of game.
Now that Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was shown to ALSO be one of those "solve those puzzles however you want... idk. There isn't a correct solution" type of games, people - including me - are very worried that we won't get another old-school Zelda game until Nintendo realizes that the old and new way are equally good.
This guy joined one day after my birthday 😂
I think that instead of using koroks to increase weapons they will just reward you with rupees like 50 or 100 depending on the challenge will be better and avoid the task to have to hunt them down to be able to carry more weapons and just enjoy the exploration and be happy when you discover one by accident and be rewarded for it
But there are many other ways to earn rupees, being able to increase space is their special reward for exploring. And then the bag upgrade would be purchased with money that already has many uses and can be farm.
@@inva88I just feel that if their argument is that we don’t need to collect all the korok seeds but they are needed to increase the ability to carry more weapons, than they are saying that you REALLY need to find them. I think they o would preferred koroks had a different incentive.
@@ll.5147 you need to collect some koroks, not even half of them for the upgrades. They encourage you to explore, that's the entire point of the game.
Koroks date back further than Ocarina of Time. They're basically dressed up copies of the little guys in Nausicaä. Kodama are the children of old trees. They make the same clicking noise as well.
I've been doing it right then. The koroks are only interesting in way that you at least found something to do in an otherwise empty area.
100%-ing games is one of my favorite things to do. BOTW, TOTK, ER, ERDLC, GoW, Ragnarok, Hogwarts Legacy, etc.
Is Shiggy trolling us lol
I collected them because I f* love the game and I wanna play the game as long as possible
While I’m pro-korok, I have a legitimate complaint, I think: the leaf mask.
You can chalk it up to FOMO, sure, but given that there are koroks *waves hands* around, I feel pressure to always have the mask on during my explorations. The satisfaction of finding a korok > the fun of using the other masks. Which is lame, because it meant I spent 90% of both BOTW and TOTK wearing it, and not experimenting with other toys.
My ideal scenario, I think, would be for Hestu to give a passive korok locator tool, or to be able to tag koroks in your item radar thing, after you find, say, 50% of them through regular means. Then the game would essentially be saying, “OK, yep, we see you, you put in the effort. Here, explore widely from now on, but don’t worry about missing anyone while you’re using the Zora helm etc.”
I just found a korok in the fridge.