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Fabulous review, buddy! If Tears of the Kingdom is as good as the production values and critiques in this review, it will indeed be a game for the ages. 10/10.
In regards to the cooking, there is actually a sort of "cookbook". When you select an item you want to cook, there is an option called "Select for Recipe" that opens different recipes you've made already, and you can quickly choose one and it will pick the ingredients for you. The game never mentions it so it is easy to miss.
I don’t see this in my BOTW game now? Can you explain? I assumed you meant when Link has ingredients in his hands? Or is there another way to select items for cooking I’m missing? Also tried googling “select for recipe BOTW” and nothing comes up. Can anyone help? I don’t think this is a thing? Unless I’m dumb and you mean tears of the kingdom?
The 8 hour detour thing has been my entire experience with the game so far. I was trying to gather ingredients for porridge to give to someone in Kakariko and I ended up doing half the Zora’s domain quest line instead. I was trying to catch a horse and I went cave diving for 3 hours instead. I was trying to reach a tower but I did two shrines, four korok puzzles, and helped two npcs instead. I loved BotW’s exploration, and I still revisit the game when I just want a relaxed exploration, but the sheer density and variety of TotK makes it look like it might be my favorite Zelda game.
Very easy to get lost In this game , however it’s still fun.. similar experience for me I was trying to get to karakiko village and stumbled on several different side quest, caves , shrines, and depths to explore 😊
It' looks exactly the same... Lol bar the time of day. There's only so much power you can squeeze out of a turd... They also copied the vehicle mechanics shamelessly from banjo and kazoo ie nuts and bolts. Anyone who has played that game knows the vehicle mechanics are exactly the same down to how you build the vehicles
I just want to say, I've seen a bunch of the reviews on this game and you approached it the most like a gamer. I constantly say "Can I cheese this?" and the way you handled the 2 types of audiences was 👨🏻🍳👌🏼
I’ve recently started BOTW for the first time and every time I come across something that looks even the slightest bit difficult, I am asking myself, “can I cheese this?”
It' looks exactly the same... Lol bar the time of day. There's only so much power you can squeeze out of a turd... They also copied the vehicle mechanics shamelessly from banjo and kazoo ie nuts and bolts. Anyone who has played that game knows the vehicle mechanics are exactly the same down to how you build the vehicles
@@iliilliliiliilliliiliillil9137 I was going to ask about a Switch Emulator. Are they decent? I want to play Breath of the Wild but don't own a Switch.
@@pedrochevez2090 since writing this comment i have found that in Tarrey town you can pay to un-fuse weapons and get the items back rather than destroying them, good for using high damage monster parts until they almost break, getting them back and fusing them to another weapon. also getting gems off of magic rods from wizzrobes
I'm probably in the minority here but I really like fuse and weapon durability. Without them I'd just go through the game with one weapon consistently, but these mechanics force me to approach things differently. Like, there's a high level enemy ahead but I just broke my last bow so I need to go in and melee, or I only have low level melee weapons so I need to try throwing bombs, etc. I particularly disagree with saying fuse is a pain in the arse and makes weapon creation worse - I really think it makes weapons breaking less annoying as it's so easy to make new / better weapons. I do see your point that, like your cooking example, a cookbook or smithing guide or something would be useful to automate some of this stuff once you'd done it a few times! Or even a menu where you can select two items to fuse without the dropping stuff on floor part. Great review as always!
I think the weapons could stand to have a little more durability, but I’ve also very much adapted to the playstyle of weapons as consumables and I think it does work in it’s own way. Good weapons feel just a bit more valuable when you have to think of them more as a finite resource and pick and choose when to ”spend” them.
Fuse gives me so many options for powerful weapons that I feel happy to jump into combat instead of shying away and saying "I don't want to break these swords..." I won't spoil where but there's a whole gauntlet of enemies, getting stronger and stronger, and even though I was a low-power Link I was able to succeed thanks to being able to fuse my enemy's weapons and the parts they dropped into powerhouses. It isn't about whether or not the weapons break, its about whether or not you're willing to break them, and Fuse makes me more than happy to break my weapons and craft new ones for my exact needs at any given moment.
@@CEDEREL That was the moment I truly fell in love with the Fuse system. I was underpowered for that but survived because of being able to use the Lynel's own parts against them. Blew my mind, having come from a 100% shrines run of BoTW just a few days before. Its so much better.
I’m on the final stretch. I haven’t beaten the game yet but I’m maxing everything out before I go in. This is the greatest game I have ever played. Ever. It is astonishing. The story, which I’m sure you weren’t allowed to talk about, is excellent. The combat is excellent. The physics are excellent. The graphics are beautiful (artistically). The game holds up a respectable framerate for how impossible it is. The sense of adventure is real, it’s there. I have forgotten my life completely in this game. I have never ever felt this before. I am a go-getter. I love working and going out and being social. And Nintendo is keeping me glued to my seat for just another fight, just another seed, just another shrine, just another lightroot, just another day of this incredible world. This meticulously crafted love-letter to gaming. The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is the greatest game I have ever played. Ever. I don’t know if I will ever feel this again. Ever single gamer MUST play this game. They just must.
FYI: fusing a weapon grants a strict one-time +25 durability. You can’t reset it and there’s some edge case behavior when fusing weapon on top of another weapon, but +25 durability is the general rule
I did not know it was a one time thing that sucks, I found it out earlier when I fused to a breaking sword and it changed from red to normal I was hoping that was repeatable.
One thing I really love about Ascend is that Nintendo knows that a vast majority of the playerbase have already done the climbing all over Hyrule in BotW. Ascend just lets you skip one of the big time-sinks to let you do the newer fun stuff
For getting to higher ground around Hyrule, Ascend (and Rewind on falling rubble) have saved me *so much* climbing time. It’s nice not having to change into the Climbing Gear all the time
I am surprised in the best way every time you recommit to being spoiler free. That first play through is the closest thing to real magic, and I’m glad to see how much that’s cherished and respected❤
@@ajbickford312 WELL SHIT. I got the game in mail yestrday and was waiting on my last amibo before starting. skipped his spoiler section. But yeah i new runes were a bit spoilish.
Also a tip for people low on food supplies, there's a small forest on satori mountain with a lot of apples and golden apples, like 200 if you get all of them. Close by there's also a pond with a lot of birds so a bomb arrow can get you about 10-15 meat. Apples are not the best food but its a good base if you just want to make power up foods without using better ingredients
@@lycanthrogenic979 No, it's not a legitimate complaint because it gets you nowhere. Nobody is changing the crafting because it's a core mechanic of the game and the game is all done and finished. So that means instead of uselessly complaining, go ahead and admit the game is not for you and move on to the next thing, let other people enjoy what they like. Idiot.
personally, Fuse solves my problems with weapon durability. Seeing a camp full of high level mobs will make me want to find a way to kill them, because even if all my weapons slots are full, I can store all their horns and parts and bits in my inventory and just fuse them with random sticks at any time. It's like a huge backpack full of weapon parts that I can reach into after big encounters that eat all my current weapons. Like I'll come across a big boss fight, go through all my powerful weapons, but it's no big deal cause I can just go chop some trees and use black bokoblin horns to get em all back. And this makes me want to engage with all the enemy encounters to further deepen by backpack of enemy loot. This is helped a lot by botw's enemy scaling, I can come back to old areas and get higher level parts to bring into new areas I haven't explored yet.
Yep. BOTW's biggest problem with durability was that it always felt like unless you were fighting the strongest foes, that you would just be wasting resources fighting weaker enemies so most instinctively begin to avoid monster camps. Whereas in TOTK, even if you use up some or all of a weapon's durability, you get far more out of the encounters than in BOTW. Fighting a bunch of enemies and using your weapons might get you one or two good weapons in BOTW if they had good gear, or you might get worse gear than you had, but in TOTK, their horns and other materials can be used to turn even poor weapons into great ones. And these can be fused onto weapons at any time.
The depths reminded me a lot of finding the underground sections in Elden Ring, opening the map, and freaking out at how large it really was. Thought the overworld was already insane, so to have another layer just kinda broke me HAHAHA
@@walkingthroughworlds Sadly, I think it is just a coincidence. BotW and Age of Calamity talk about how Ganon came from under the castle, so the idea that the evil is underground was there from the start. As for Elden Ring, I haven't played that (not personally my type of game), so I can't speak for that. But I'm still willing to bet it was a coincidence. Or I'm a dumb dumb and Nintendo / FromSoft talked about each other's games since they don't compete lol
@@walkingthroughworlds probably Skyrim's Blackreach inspired both. Huge underground maps aren't unique to Elden Ring or Tears, although these two examples are certainly the most ambitious and well done in recent memory.
the most impressive thing is that the depths are actually darker than anything in elden ring. I did the lost woods quest line early in the game and let me tell you, jumping from tree to tree in total darkness with gloom hands stalking my every step just bellow was NOT my idea of a Zelda game
When it comes to this series I’m just impressed. It’s held to a standard where people expect a metacritic score of at least 95 - which is rediculous - and yet they manage to pull it off every time. Here they once again exceeded expectations, and I can’t wait to put 150+ hours into this
@@BenjoCovers Zelda runs at 30 fps, has terrible graphics, gameplay is outdated with no story and very cookie cutter combat. I understand a 80 maybe but I have zero clue how these games get the same amount of praise as games like rdr2 or GoW
Interesting, I loved the cooking system and really enjoy just. Taking time to cook links little meals and watching him hum and get so happy is really rewarding to me.
Thanks! I’ve been with you since the beginning, and I must say that the way you edit and articulate your videos is a masterclass! Here’s to the years to come👏👏👏
I’m only halfway through the review, but I’m reminded again why you’re the absolute GOAT reviewer. Your writing is impeccable, your vocabulary is perfect, your speech is eloquent yet concise, and you know exactly what is important to focus on. I’ve not found a single reviewer whose opinion seems to match mine so often, nor have I found who’s always objective and honest, even when it might be controversial. You’re a cut above the rest Ralph. Aussies often punch above their weight on the world stage, and you’re no exception. Thanks for all your hard work mate. Cheers
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 I get you bro. However, you’ll never agree with anyone 100%, and everyone makes mistakes, but Ralph continuously puts out enough great content that his small missteps are easily overlooked IMO. If you give him the chance he’ll win you back. Plus I love to support smaller channels like this. I’ve given up on the big gaming media channels.
Actually, this is a huge problem. It means you can't trust these people, they'll bend over for large corporate who infamously "give free stuff to whomever bends over regardless of the truth". and to see him destroy JS "for PC" while extending a substantial level of tolerance to this one is sus to say the least. Especially when the company is literally one going AFTER PC GAMERS ESPECIALLY for emulating their games.
Every frame of this game looks like an impressionist painting, it’s truly stunning and just how BoTW was, one of the best looking games ever made. It shows how clever art design triumphs over graphical horsepower. The switch is not much more than a calculator at this point but has some incredible looking games which is entirely down to the skill of the developers.
25:00 you can cook meals when you select an item and the recipe from the menu. It automatically picks the items and you just have to put it in the pot so you don’t have to keep selecting the individual food and parts
That is true, but if you want to make MANY meals all at once, that's still not an option (like... What do you do when you have 40+ apples that you want to turn into meals?). That, and honestly, having a variety of meals is helpful (since buffs override each other), so... Manually making each meal still is often the best option.
I finally got to watching this after going in completely blind to Tears of the Kingdom and hitting credits north of 130 hours. Gotta say this is an outstanding review of the game as a whole and I agree with everything you said. What a legendary game.
right. its not filler. doesnt drag out the point. very informative and thought out reviews/reactions to the games in a mostly objective manner. i particularly like the formatting he does for the videos. you can tell there’s actual structure to the talking point and theres a bit of depth to teach bullet point
Still can't wrap my head around why he was banned from a certain popular forum (ResetEra), it's kind of doing a disservice to his near perfect reviews...
Okay the strength of the creativity and "immersive sim" aspect is exactly what i want from more video games, and i don't think there is enough AAA games that lean on that, so i'm very glad it's such a strong aspect of a new release of one of the most iconic video game franchise.
You can separate fused weapons by either doing it in your inventory (which deletes the material), or you can pay 20 rupees in tarry town and get both items back. You can also repair any weapon by feeding it to a rock octorok. If you upgrade armour more than once and take advantage of set bonuses you can become almost unkillable. Not to mention all of the combat zonite devices you can make and then auto-build into existence. Also, there is a recipe list, you select it after choosing any ingredient you have cooked before. Now the only issue is the framerate, but it's literally a world more than double the size of elden ring running on a smart phone...
I was one of those that didn't finish the other game. I probably got 2% in. The weapon durability was a big factor for me, but also the open nature of the game left me stumbling into places that were way above my equipment level. I think the game could have had a little bit more structure while preserving the creativity. I always wait for the skillup review now and appreciate the detail here. I think I'll pass on this one. Link to the past and ocarina of time will still be my jam
I love how skillup can hardly contain the glee in his voice when talking about this game. sounds like it made him feel like a kid again, can't wait to play it.
You know someone's a good reviewer when they can review a game they love, with extreme positivity, and still help you understand the game's probably not for you.
Agreed. I like a more guided experience. I love everything about Elden Ring, and just can't bring myself to pick it up now that I've been away "from what I was doing" for more than a month. I don't remember what I was doing, where I was going, what my goals were, what my built was supposed to be, etc. I haven't touched BOTW in a solid year and a half for the same reason. The more dense world sounds great, but without a little more guidance I just don't see myself loving TOTK the way I do…idk. More mainstream open worlds.
@@coleG112 That’s because mainstream open worlds are meant to hold your hand like a baby and point you in the direction you’re meant to go since you lack any desire to actually explore.
Easily one of the best reviewers / journalists on the platform. Thank you for the continual high quality content you push out! Appreciate the crap out of you man!
@@itsty-ler It’s shameful. People out there actually work. This man probably hasn’t seen the sun in months because he’s glued to his screen playing games.
What an excellent, balanced review! Thank you for making this! A couple small corrections for the random TOTK new-comer that hasn't played the game yet (don't bother reading unless pretty new to the game). 1) If you accidentally fuse the wrong item to a weapon/shield, you can correct the mistake by unfusing it in the equipment menu. The item you unfuse will be lost, but the weapon will remain in the inventory and can be fused with something else. 2) There is a cookbook-like feature that can speed up item selection when cooking. I tend to use a small handful of different meals/elixirs and carry multiples of each. Simply select the meal you want to repeat and there is an option to cook it again. If only a box would pop up that lets you enter how many of that meal. BONUS TIP for the early game (like, less than 10 hearts) . . . do all your cooking on the night of a blood moon, specifically between the hour of 11:30pm - 12:30am; if you are cooking meals that only heal (no buffs), use only 1-2 ingredients per meal for maximum efficiency cuz each meal gets 3 bonus hearts. For example, if you cook a single apple, it will heal 4 hearts. But 2 apples cooked in the same meal will only give you 5 hearts, 1 heart per apple plus the 3 heart bonus. 3) Building with Ultrahand can also be made much faster if you trudge through the early quests from Robbie/Josha at the
I love watching Ralph review games even if I have absolutely zero interest in ever playing them. I didn’t like BOTW, and TOTK looks like just more of that, but I’m happy that fans got a win here. His reviews are just so damn informative and entertaining that I can’t help but watch them.
Wait…you didn’t like BOTW but instead of trashing is and the sequel, you are wishing the fans of the game well? I don’t think you understand how internet negativity is supposed to work! 😮 Seriously, though, respect. 👍🏻 I feel the same way. Games like Elden Ring are not my thing, but I can totally understand why people would love them, and I’m glad it works for them. Why do we have to hate on things that aren’t out taste? 🤷🏻♂️
@@scubasteve2189 Because this and BOTW are bastardizations of The Legend of Zelda franchise that so many know and love and have for many years. This isn’t a “win” for fans. It’s ANOTHER gigantic L for actual, TRUE fans.
@@holleringsmith3837 There we go, THAT’S the seething, ridiculous negativity we all needed. 😉 I hate to tell you this, but BOTW and TOTK are going to be the most successful Zelda games of all time, and two of the most successful GAMES of all time. I appreciate your gate-keeping attempts, but the fans and the non-fans have spoken. They are great games. 👍🏻
Not to diminish how good it is... But this should absolutely not have taken 6 years. Same map, engine, graphics, animations, game design, gameplay loop etc. That's what takes up the bulk of development time, which is why BotW took 6 years. TotK is great, but 6 years is far longer than it should have needed to simply add on top of the formula.
@@obrgrs2547 not at all considering Covid which led to big delays. Also some of the things they did with this seamless world and physics based gameplay take a huge amount of development time. People just take it for granted. Much more complex world and physics based gameplay than something like the Horizon games.
I used to love Zelda games on Gameboy color as a kid but now this is exhausting! Its a great game but I don't think I will ever played because of the massive world and time investment. To make it worse, 2023 had so many freaking games come out and I don't know when to find the time to play them all. Its crazy what the pandemic had created and led to 2023. I have a headache thinking about it. I have not even played Breath of the Wild either.
Traditional dungeons being present in the game is what i missed so much in Breath of the wild and kind of left me indifferent towards it , to hear Tears is both a return to form and takes the best what Breath had to offer got me INCREDIBLY EXCITED - Good Review Ralph :)
@Angry Sushi Yes, as someone who has been playing the game seeing everyone on social media take what Nintendo said in the interview out of context and run with it has been frustrating. They were just talking about visual design.
I actually really enjoyed the combat in botw but im not a like dark souls fan either. Maybe I could be though if I got really into it. I enjoy the easy uncomplicated responsive combat anyway, but its not very deep.
Not once in the video does he parry with the shield, flurry rush, battle with a vehicle or use the more useful arrowheads to handle groups of enemies. It's still not brilliant but nowhere near as basic as he makes it look.
Oh damn when the music hits at 5.45. That was so well cut into it. Thank you so much for the reviews! It’s always hit the mark and honestly one of the most accurate and honest reviewers out there. Followed you since laymen and will continue supporting your every single video!
I've noticed that so many of skillups videos have a moment where the music kicks in and your just like WOW. The final fantasy 15 is the most memorable next to this for me.
16:53 is the feeling a Dungeon Master has when they planned this whole cool dungeon/story arc for their campaign and the players find a way to circumvent it all
I would say that a minor criticism that wasn’t mentioned here would be the lack of increased enemy variety compared to the first game. If you subtract all the enemy types from Breath of the Wild and look at the ones that are actually new here, that are not derivative of the enemies from the first game it’s not a super notable increase. A minor criticism for some but it definitely bother me a bit after I explored more and wasn't getting the diverse enemy variety I was hoping for.
Never even thought of using ascend on the boss constructs, the way I've been doing it is wait for the attack where he throws 4 blocks at you then hop on the block and hit recall.
First, you can undo the fusion with a material, although it will destroy it. Second, with the food, there is an option, if you press x at the materials menu you can select a recipe to automatically grab all the ingridients. Also it tells you what you lack to make it.
When you select an item you want to cook, there is an option called "Select for Recipe" that opens different recipes you've made already, and you can quickly choose one and it will pick the ingredients for you.
Bruh 99% of the map is recycled from botw lmao. Even an extension like blood and wine sold $15 gives you a new world to explore but apparently it's too hard for a $80 AAA. Yeah amazing first party devs for creating a dlc then selling it at full price
@@mordor1779 Not 99%, as there are the sky islands and the entire underground. Also not $80. Also not a DLC. Damn, every part of your comment was objectively wrong. You should try liking things (or at least being honest with them), it would make you a happier person.
Man what a glorious effort from Nintendo. I’m just finishing the tutorials and headed back to the Temple of Time, but I’ve already had several really rewarding moments while exploring Great Sky Island. So pumped to get down to Hyrule and start my journey!
Great review but there are a few things wrong: 1. You can unfuse weapons. Open the inventory, select the weapon or shield, press A and select "Destroy fused material." It will restore the base weapon to it's unfused state (at the cost of destroying the material that was fused to it) 2. There are cooking recipes now. After cooking a meal that meal is saved in the recipe book. To recook that recipe again (let's say you want to make the same dish 5 times) simply cook it once, then open the inventory, the last item you selected should be active again, hit A, then "Select for recipe" and then the recipe you just cooked will be selected, simply hit A and all the necessary ingredients will be selected again. Drop into the pot, hit X to skip the animation, then A to confirm new food, then open the inventory and repeat. You can rapid-fire cook meals this way very quickly once you memorize the button combination after maybe the 10th time you've done it.
@bingly bingler im not speaking for 100% of the industry of course. but oh boy where do i begin... 1)gameplay wise. nowadays they prioritise graphics rather than gameplay. 2)scummy/greedy practise(lootboxes, locked content behind paywall that is clearly shouldve been included in the full price original game(im not talking about proper dlc but clearly cut content published as dlc)) 3) sky high price but not money worth value(heck i dont mind paying 500 if its worth it. but sadly i very rarely able to agree with nowadays pricepoint with the quality we're getting. 4)to prolong game time, they added tedious grind etc to give the illusion that their game is "long". im not talking about games where you do have to grind as its premise such as mmo etc. basically now whenever i play games, most of the time it feels like i need to "work" if you get i mean instead of having fun(might as well go to work for real and earn some money extra hahaha). 5)broken games at launch. where is quality control like old times? we pay that much out of our hard earned money and we get that kind of broken unfinished games just because they have a deadline to meet? using school as an anology, if we rush to finish an assignment and submit it(naturally the quality is bad), we will get an "F". but the gaming industry seemingly has no repurcussions giving those kind of "quality" product to consumers. they used to have QA tester, bug testers for games. nowadays "WE" the consumers who pays full price are the beta testers. (maybe they do but with whats happening nowadays they might as well dont. seems like it). the list goes on.. of course this is 100% my own opinion and i do not stand for everyone. to each their own. but personally i'm really on the verge of quitting gaming as a hobby entirely and thinking of looking for other hobby which makes me really sad because i love gaming. but for now im still barely hangging on due to some good games although rarely. in a way im really glad you asked my opinion on this. never got to share my take on this to someone else. glad to be able to "vent" a little bit i guess. its like, to me, its a growing tumor(getting worse and worse) but i cant seem to leave it alone, like how you never leave sick family members. because i grew up with gaming. its helped me through dark times. some people might disagree on some of my points though and thats okay. this is just what i felt. I appreciate you my guy for asking me the question hahaha feels better. have a good one 💪🏻
@binglybingler2598 I see it as a dark age because the best game of the generation came in late 90s and 00s. PS1, N64, PC. etc. Today...You rarely get a masterpiece of a game. Rarely. It's like innovation and creativity is just not the same as it used to be in the golden age of gaming. You often have nice graphics but kind of shallow games where you feel robbed after paying 60 dollars for them. I'm not saying good games won't come out anymore...But its rarer. I feel that gaming is really about what might make the most money these days, and studios are less interested in creating a innovative gaming experience like they did back in the day. Games of my childhood were things like Resident Evil 1 & 2, Silent Hill, Zelda Ocarina of Time & Majora Mask, Smash bros, Turok, Duke Nukem 3D, Half Life 1, etc. Even to this day I don't feel any modern game comes close to the innovation those games created back then. I mean the games I'm most waiting for are FF16 and Diablo 4, and both look somewhat basic and lackluster compared to FF7/FF10 or Diablo 2 back in the day. They're just not able to reproduce the same masterpieces.
I didn't find Elden Ring dense at all. Quite the opposite. It was: Roam around wide open Dark Souls map, kill stuff, find dungeon, kill stuff, go to legacy dungeon, kill stuff, explore next section, kill stuff, find dungeon, kill stuff ... It was a monotonous slog with two exceptional looking areas: The Capital and Limgrave. Tears benefits from all of its variation and charming characters, story, and locales.
You are indisputably one of the best journalists covering games. I have such a massive amount of respect for your integrity, honesty, and keen objectivity. There's many out there, but none quite doing it the way you do. All my friends just refer to you as "Alex's dude in TH-cam". I usually know I'll enjoy your recommendations, and I love that even when you strongly recommend a game, you still remain pointed and objective enough to inform your audience that even if it is a great game, it may not be for them. Keep it up, man! Appreciate your videos as always.
Well said mate. I honestly don't know another game reviewer that I trust at this point. Even when I disagree with Mr Skillup, he's put in enough context and objectivity that I know why and whether I'll feel the same way. What a legend.
24:55 The cooking was stream lined with the addition of the recipe system. You click on recipes and you can see everything that you’ve made so far with a specific ingredient. Then you click on what you wanna make and it’ll add everything you need to your hands automatically. (As long as you have it in your inventory of course) And you can skip the cooking animation by pressing X. I think you missed that Skillup? Lol
Wasn't a fan of BOTW and That spoiler section really didn't sell me on the game, gonna pass on this one. Thanks for saving me $70! Incredible review as always!!!
I don’t get it when people say this game is ‘reused content’ and didn’t need 6 years. this is a game about using abilities to interact with the world. link doesn’t have his old abilities so the entire world needed to be redesigned to consider link’s new hand powers. Not only that but above and below have been added , the world of hyrule has developed beyond what we saw in BOTW, and there is a swathe of new content for players to enjoy. It couldn’t be dlc because it is literally a sequel
Gotta admit, I'm *really* disappointed to hear they didn't do much to address the weapon durability issues. I normally don't mind durability systems, but BotW's was so aggressive that, when combined with the clunky menus, it ultimately caused me to bounce off that game pretty hard. I have to imagine it's the same here. I think it might be a deal-breaker for me.
@@lightdarksoul2097 Sure. But I still need to go into a menu a bunch to do that. It's frustrating because I could think of several ways just off the top of my head that would still keep weapon durability as a concept but make things way less obnoxious to interact with. For example, what if they designed it so there was only one sword, one axe, one spear, etc. This "base" item would *never* break, but the stuff you fuse to it would. So you would still have a durability system, but you would always have access to a weapon without needing to scroll through 50 inventory slots to find what you want. Alternatively, they could change how Korok seeds work so that instead of just opening up more inventory slots to scroll through, they upgrade the base durability of items. So you could carry less shit, but the shit you were carrying lasted a lot longer. Just something. Anything other than they've got. It's just so awful to use right now, especially on the Switch controller (which of course, you can't really remap, because Nintendo Knows Best(TM)).
With fusions, weapons have around twice the durability of BOTW weapons and can reach higher attack values, which ultimately make them last a lot longer than weapons do in BOTW. And hard disagree on having less slots vs more durability. The game throws weapons at you like candy so the thought of ever being in a situation with no weapons isn't ever on my mind. But being in a situation where I need a specific weapon or something did happen a lot early game. With only so many weapon slots, you basically have no room for weapons with special non-combat related roles like torches. Furthermore, the weapons you do have would be relegated to mostly one task and you would always near an edge where if it broke you would be screwed and have to find another weapon to take it's spot. Far more likely people would specifically just replace the weapon, leading to wasting more weapons than the system does now. They would likely wonder why they only have so few slots when there are weapons everywhere. Whereas the system in TOTK allows you to have multiple weapons for the same role, so if you are fighting a boss that you should be using "hammer" type weapons on and your hammer breaks, then you can pull out another, and you can afford to have a slot dedicated to the more niche weapons this way.
@@chriswinchester679 yea, i agree. The durability is one of two deal breakers. The other one is it being on a switch. Game looks cool (gameplay wise, not graphics, those look meh, tbh). Zelda isn't a system seller for me personally, especially not for a 6 year old handheld. Gotta wait for a "switch 2" because from what i've seen the other games are horrid in terms of fps and resolution.
After finishing the game. I personally feel that they addressed it. With the amount of fusable attack modifiers, you can make lets say a common sword in to something as strong as those late game sword. It is also a good reward system for refighting monsters since their loots have a purpose in making new weapons on top of the weapons they drop. You will always have weapons on you no matter what unlike BOTW were its hard to find a substitute after breaking a strong weapon.
I still hate weapon Durability.. it just discourages me from ever using my weapons.. they sit around in inventory. Any game that discourages using items is a bad design.
I wouldn't be able to play this as I play everything at 60fps, with very few exceptions. That being said, hold crap. 16GB, runs on an underpowered Nintendo Switch, is portable, has 2 full open worlds, as well as the sky isles so like 2.5 open worlds in *one* game, has a massive, feature dense ground level with Mega crap tons to explore and collect and kill and do. There are AAA games on PS5 for $70 that don't come close to this scale and density. Bravo. If only Nintendo would release some more powerful console now and let it really shine at more consistent frame rates.
I’m really happy that the BotW fans have got this. I’m enjoying the hype. But I really hope they make just one streamlined Zelda game. Even if it’s just for me 😂😩 i miss them so much. These games just feel like Ubisoft games to me. I’m just a bit fatigued on ‘sandboxes’
All this and not one pre-paid DLC, no online required, no micro-transactions, no season pass, battle pass, bus pass or whatever pass they make up to take your money. Thanks Nintendo.
Props to ppl who enjoy it, but personally it looks... fine? Nothing about it makes it look that amazing to me. But props to those who like zelda and i hope you enjoy it!
I am really puzzled we all kinda collectively agreed that poor performance in video games is something that needs to not be a thing but we are giving nintendo a pass here because we know their hardware is shitty. Something rubs me the wrong way how we are rightfully not recommending games like jedi survivor but because it's nintendo 25 fps average is fine and expected and gets a 10/10. We are going to have a 25 fps game of the year in 2023 arent we...that sucks.
Nintendo is milking their nostalic zombies willing to put up with shitty core mechanics and bad performance. They even reused all of the assets from the previous game and they don't care. It's insanity.
It is amazing. Ever since I was a little kid playing "The legend of Zelda: A link to the past" (still one of my favorite games of all time), the Zelda franchise has consistently for decades produced some of the best games in every single generation.
but it has minor performance issues, which means in my opinion, it should not be a 'very strongly' recommended game. I would still recommend it, but I definitely wouldn't rate it as a must buy since I feel for that category, it must be stellar in every category, including performance.
@@urazz7739 minor performance issue can be outweighed by just how damn good the entirety of the game is though. Strongly recommend doesn’t mean perfect so your standard is unreasonable
I'm maybe 10 hours into the game, watching this review, and I hear you talking about stuff and I'm just like WAIT YOU CAN DO THAT??? the amount of interactivity between objects in this game is insane
I was always going to get TOtK, but this review is the first I’ve seen that makes me wish I could stay out of work today just to begin playing it. Phenomenal job on getting your points across. I didn’t even have to watch the spoiler section to get crazy excited to play this. Perfect review
I'm already at 30 or more hours of playtime and I've managed to maybe get to around 20% completion of the main quest. The reason for that is exactly what SkillUp explains in this review, you're on your way to an objective and suddenly there's something peaking your interest and all your momentum shifts towards that. The game is filled to the brim with that stuff and I love it. It doesn't feel overwhelming or forced. Basically the whole game can be described with that monkey sees something neuro activation meme, that's basically this game. It is, for me, one of the best games I've ever played and I'm not even finished yet lol
"Given how deep and flexible Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical sandbox is, its combat sandbox feels very one-note and unsophisticated in comparison." Hang on, I've gotta contest this--in BotW and TotK, the combat sandbox IS the mechanical sandbox. What makes it work so well is that all the tools at your disposal in the mechanical sandbox have use and application and dimension within combat as well.
What he means is it doesnt matter if you charge in with the master sword, or just bomb them from a safe distance. You will win becuase the enemies are dumb and youve fought them 1000 times Fallout 4 had the exact same problem with the combat system being the same, So they gave players the option to make the game more difficult. Totok still doesnt give that option.
@@Vanished584 TotK does have the option for lowering difficulty: equip lower defense clothing. Silver enemies will beat you in two-three hits and their movements are way faster than normal enemies so it gets intense. Also, you're thinking too much in terms of what you have to do to win, rather than the systems the game offers to make it *fun* and creative. Which is where BotW/TotK succeed in spades and is the big reason we still get crazy combat compilations out of BotW over six years later.
I disagree about weapon durability. It seems weapons are fragile in order to force the player to repeatedly experiment with the Fuse mechanic. The game is like Silly Putty: its systems are squishy - not constant - to support constant creativity and experimentation.
Sounds like a hard pass for me to be honest. I get why so many liked the prior game, but all of the issues that I had with the previous game are still present here. I'm glad people are enjoying the game, but exploration just for the sake of itself doesn't satisfy me. Breath of the Wild felt empty to me because the few side quests that existed were mostly uneventful, and not a single one held a candle to any of the quests seen in Majora's Mask. In addition, there weren't any nice rewards to look forward to. More health? More stamina? New armor set? But that big shiny sword you got broke after 20 hits. Everything you've shown here just says this game is more of the same, just neater powers and tricks to solve puzzles, but otherwise business as usual.
Really disappointed to hear that they doubled down on the weapon durability, that was by far the worst part of breath of the wild, especially on master mode when you have breakable weapons combined with enemy health regeneration. That being said, I'm still unbelievably exited for this game to come out tomorrow
They didn't double down. They made it 10x worse. Now you have to access 3-4 menus to fuze a new weapon mid combat. Weapons break in 2-5 hits and enemies 2-3 shot you. Insane.
@@sconnolly88 don’t listen to this guy lmao. Weapons do not break after anything less than 25 hits after fusing, and that’s the minimum. People are just complaining when the entire point of the durability system is to have link constantly switch weapon types through battle. I don’t know how people would also go into battle with non-fused weapons LOL. Makes zero sense. Every time I fight I have 7+ fused weapons with good damage. People wanna hate just to hate.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to the Zelda franchise. All the little things like cooking, weapon durability and the overwhelming distracting and inviting world kinda let me loose interest in the story - I never finished breath of the wild. (Missed the castle and final boss fight) but after this review I am considering buying the game - possibly after I have written this comment. Thanks again for a superb review. Love the content and I will always recommend your channel with the words:“ this is the only review you need to watch“! Thx mate ❤
I find recall to be pretty underated, as it can break plenty of the puzzles in half. In momentum based Puzzles, you can completely stop an objects momentum by using recall on it and cancelling it immediately. If you need to build a ramp to get up to a higher place, you can just lift up an object with the Ultrahand, put it back down, get on it and then use recall to use it as a makeshift elevator.
No 2 games in the history of games have been so overhyped! If they didn’t have the Zelda name I 100% guarantee you they would be nowhere near as praised and lauded like the best thing ever, they are average at best!
Gotta love it when this man drops a positive review on a game you’re looking forward to. Now the only thing I have to worry about is if I wasn’t a digital or physical copy😅
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is amazing, having so much fun playing it, super addictive, the graphics are beautiful and colorful, the sky area, underground, surface of Hyrule, the map is massive and a joy exploring it for hours, so much fun and stuff to do, absolute masterpiece 👏👏👏👏
I was surprised to see that BOTW was criticized more than once during this video . ( open world ruins not having as much to see, shrines becoming repetitive and boring with the same aesthetic ) Yet BOTW got a 10 as soon as it came out ? Let’s be honest the combat system in Zelda needs updating , Link needs to become an interesting protagonist, and the story needs to revolve around something interesting other than saving Zelda. Am I the only one who wants to see the series improve in these ways ? I feel like we are getting mediocrity from the franchise and it could be a lot better . But Zelda has such a strong brand & special place in everyone’s hearts ( including mine ) that we automatically give a high score to the games that release . Skyward sword would’ve gotten a 10 if it wasn’t for the shitty wii controls. Does anyone think the same ?
Skyward Sword did get 10s, near enough across the board when it released. It still sits with a 93% average rating on Metacritic, with multiple 10s from the big name companies. One company even said "Every moment is a joy. " Zelda always, literally always gets the most biased reviews on release, until the cracks show, as it did with botw.
You’re not the only one. Botw’s combat was the weakest of any Zelda game I have ever played and it doesn’t look like this game has improved it much. Who cares if you have all these awesome weapons and equipment if the combat isn’t satisfying to engage with? It ruins the entire experience for me since so much emphasis is placed on finding new weapons, just to end up breaking them in encounters that aren’t much fun anyway.
Well, weapon durability was the deal breaker for me. It's not the weapon breaking itself that is the issue, my issue is needing to open a menu to swap weapons MID COMBAT. If I need to open a menu to SEARCH for something on the middle of combat, I'm out. I'm glad this is a good game, but it's definitely not for me.
@@btd0ja finding a weapon I'm comfortable with the moveset, with appropriate power level because weapons in this game are a resource and resource management is important, it's not just go through the d-pad. If durability was at least large enough or with a clause that it can't break mid combat, so you have to swap in between combat encounters, I'd be completely on board. The way it is, it's just not for me, and that's okay, not every game needs to appeal to me.
Been a long time since i've been this torn on whether or not to buy a game. I got about 20-25 hours into BOTW, did 1 and a half Divine Beasts, and then decided that i just wasn't having enough fun and dropped it. The dungeons weren't a dealbreaker, nor was the "empty world". The weapon durability fucking sucked, and the controls combined with some of the more awkward combat encounters made me feel like i was - at worst - playing some eurojank trash instead of a Zelda game. I know i will not like the combat in TOTK, so i have very little urge to buy this game based on that. And yet everything else about this game looks like it significant improvement on BOTW...
When seeing of the sky isles. I always wondered if that was the only additional bit to the game on top of BoTW’s original map. Seeing that in the spoiler section is really amazing. Seeing how they add all these zones and only being 16gb gives me vibes of the gold/silver/crystal Pokémon games on the GBA cartridge able to hold the Johto and Kanto regions at the time. They really know how to pack it in a game over at Nintendo.
Honestly I think this is where the switch being a weak system helps. They have no reason to pack in super bulky high res textures or high res models that eat up storage space since the switch wouldn't be able to run the game fast enough anyways. Instead they can keep the resolution and poly counts smaller which cuts down a lot of the games bulk on the disk.
Now that I've finished up my own video (going up in a few hours), I'm going through and looking up the reviews I skipped pre-release-this one in particular is really fantastic, one of your best. Hell, there are a few points in here where I'm thinking "damn, Ralph got there before me!" So this is part congratulations on an excellent video, and part apologising for any unintended similarities between mine and your vids, haha. Keep up the great work!
One thing about weapon churn, you actually can unfuse items, and, while I still have more testing to do, every time you fuse you get more durability back. Ie, you can use a weapon to the brink, unfuse it, then fuse soemthing else onto it to get more life out of it. I dont know yet the full extent of how far this can be pushed, but this should be able to keep weapon churn down.
18 Hours to go until the copy is in my hands.... I literally cannot wait holy shit. Keeping clear of any spoilers, shutting off all curtains and lights and im spending my whole weekend in this game.
Nintendo being Nintendo. Still bad cooking experience, still weapon durability problems, and still the lack of traditional themed Zelda dungeons. Nintendo just doesn't give a damn about feedback. I know how Nintendo pulled off the graphics technically. Look at the torches and the fire it's all pixelated and all the shimmer, that screams FSR. The game is rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling it.
@@natediaz1863 ofc not, you literally just gotta fuse your weps before you fight, same way you would cook food before a fight. People complaining about having to fuse constantly mid battle are clearly not cooking mid battle when they run out of food so it makes no sense.
@@natediaz1863 Weapon durability is actually a bit more manageable in this one unlike what the review claims. You can unfuse parts from their weapons for 20 rupees in Terry Town and keep the parts to fuse onto a new weapon, meaning once you get a powerful fuse item you can pretty much keep it forever as long as you don't allow the weapon it is on to break completely. Sure, it is still a bit of a hassle to unfuse the weapon and fuse the part to a new one, but it is still way better than losing a great weapon entirely. As it stands getting a good fuse weapon can allow you to turn a 2 damage stick into a 46+ damage weapon, maybe way higher, I don't know for sure yet. Strongest fuse item I have found so far gives plus 44 damage.
@@Def_Not_Batman I don't think you have to play it, no. While it is a sequel, everything should still at least mostly make sense if you haven't played botw. Would still recommend checking botw some time though.
It’s unfortunate the hang-ups you mention are still present in Tears of the Kingdom; they’re the reason despite me giving BotW a chance, I ultimately dropped it. But hey, to each their own. I’m sure it’ll do well and people will enjoy.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the video. If you want to set up your own website (and get a discount while doing it), hit this link for more info: www.squarespace.com/skillup
Hey can you confirm if there is a save transfer.
People on the emulator said horses and a few other things transfer over
this video will mark gaming history!
BLOATED OPEN WORLD
Fabulous review, buddy! If Tears of the Kingdom is as good as the production values and critiques in this review, it will indeed be a game for the ages. 10/10.
WAS it six years?!?!
In regards to the cooking, there is actually a sort of "cookbook".
When you select an item you want to cook, there is an option called "Select for Recipe" that opens different recipes you've made already, and you can quickly choose one and it will pick the ingredients for you.
The game never mentions it so it is easy to miss.
I never even knew this wow
I don’t see this in my BOTW game now? Can you explain? I assumed you meant when Link has ingredients in his hands? Or is there another way to select items for cooking I’m missing? Also tried googling “select for recipe BOTW” and nothing comes up. Can anyone help? I don’t think this is a thing? Unless I’m dumb and you mean tears of the kingdom?
@@neville2308
Yes you're being dumb, OP is talking about ToTK
@@neville2308 its in the new tear of the kingdom game. Several reviews mentioned this
@@neville2308 They mean this is a new feature in TOTK.
The 8 hour detour thing has been my entire experience with the game so far. I was trying to gather ingredients for porridge to give to someone in Kakariko and I ended up doing half the Zora’s domain quest line instead. I was trying to catch a horse and I went cave diving for 3 hours instead. I was trying to reach a tower but I did two shrines, four korok puzzles, and helped two npcs instead. I loved BotW’s exploration, and I still revisit the game when I just want a relaxed exploration, but the sheer density and variety of TotK makes it look like it might be my favorite Zelda game.
Very easy to get lost In this game , however it’s still fun.. similar experience for me I was trying to get to karakiko village and stumbled on several different side quest, caves , shrines, and depths to explore 😊
Banjo and kazoowie nuts and bolts comes to mind 😂
Legends in your saved file says the dying woman waiting for your porridge is still waiting...
Short attention span simulator?
It' looks exactly the same... Lol bar the time of day. There's only so much power you can squeeze out of a turd... They also copied the vehicle mechanics shamelessly from banjo and kazoo ie nuts and bolts. Anyone who has played that game knows the vehicle mechanics are exactly the same down to how you build the vehicles
I just want to say, I've seen a bunch of the reviews on this game and you approached it the most like a gamer. I constantly say "Can I cheese this?" and the way you handled the 2 types of audiences was 👨🏻🍳👌🏼
Bruh the Japanese just built different! Sony n Nintendo fookin killing it yo!!
I’ve recently started BOTW for the first time and every time I come across something that looks even the slightest bit difficult, I am asking myself, “can I cheese this?”
this game is shit tbh, story suck, gameplay is uhhh just barely decent enough, combat is boring, this is the definition of overrated.
It' looks exactly the same... Lol bar the time of day. There's only so much power you can squeeze out of a turd... They also copied the vehicle mechanics shamelessly from banjo and kazoo ie nuts and bolts. Anyone who has played that game knows the vehicle mechanics are exactly the same down to how you build the vehicles
@@hasan1980hbwell people love game so what can you do? It's a great game!
This man is the only one who can get me to sit through a 30+ min video of a game I don’t even have the proper console to play it on.
download an emulator
Mood
@@iliilliliiliilliliiliillil9137 that's the plan!
@@iliilliliiliilliliiliillil9137 I was going to ask about a Switch Emulator. Are they decent? I want to play Breath of the Wild but don't own a Switch.
@@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968 Ryujinx and Yuzu work great for TOTK and BOTW.
you can actually un-fuse weapons from the Inventory, and there is a cookbook in the meal tab of the inventory as well. both easy to miss but useful
Thank you! I was wondering about being able to unfuse materials or other weapons from a weapon, not once thinking to check the inventory menu lol.
@@pedrochevez2090 you can unfuse, but the secondary part is destroyed, you only keep the base weapon
@@pedrochevez2090 since writing this comment i have found that in Tarrey town you can pay to un-fuse weapons and get the items back rather than destroying them, good for using high damage monster parts until they almost break, getting them back and fusing them to another weapon.
also getting gems off of magic rods from wizzrobes
Yea idk he just says they aren't in there not that he hasn't found or doesn't know if they exist now he sounds weird
Well there is a cookbook, but you still have to manually grab each item right? You can’t just select a recipe and have it be cooked?
I'm probably in the minority here but I really like fuse and weapon durability. Without them I'd just go through the game with one weapon consistently, but these mechanics force me to approach things differently. Like, there's a high level enemy ahead but I just broke my last bow so I need to go in and melee, or I only have low level melee weapons so I need to try throwing bombs, etc. I particularly disagree with saying fuse is a pain in the arse and makes weapon creation worse - I really think it makes weapons breaking less annoying as it's so easy to make new / better weapons. I do see your point that, like your cooking example, a cookbook or smithing guide or something would be useful to automate some of this stuff once you'd done it a few times! Or even a menu where you can select two items to fuse without the dropping stuff on floor part. Great review as always!
I think the weapons could stand to have a little more durability, but I’ve also very much adapted to the playstyle of weapons as consumables and I think it does work in it’s own way. Good weapons feel just a bit more valuable when you have to think of them more as a finite resource and pick and choose when to ”spend” them.
That was one of my favorite parts of Dying Light.
Fuse gives me so many options for powerful weapons that I feel happy to jump into combat instead of shying away and saying "I don't want to break these swords..."
I won't spoil where but there's a whole gauntlet of enemies, getting stronger and stronger, and even though I was a low-power Link I was able to succeed thanks to being able to fuse my enemy's weapons and the parts they dropped into powerhouses. It isn't about whether or not the weapons break, its about whether or not you're willing to break them, and Fuse makes me more than happy to break my weapons and craft new ones for my exact needs at any given moment.
the panicked fusing between lynels using their remains on four hearts in that one coliseum is a new highlight for me
@@CEDEREL That was the moment I truly fell in love with the Fuse system. I was underpowered for that but survived because of being able to use the Lynel's own parts against them. Blew my mind, having come from a 100% shrines run of BoTW just a few days before. Its so much better.
I’m on the final stretch. I haven’t beaten the game yet but I’m maxing everything out before I go in. This is the greatest game I have ever played. Ever. It is astonishing. The story, which I’m sure you weren’t allowed to talk about, is excellent. The combat is excellent. The physics are excellent. The graphics are beautiful (artistically). The game holds up a respectable framerate for how impossible it is. The sense of adventure is real, it’s there. I have forgotten my life completely in this game. I have never ever felt this before. I am a go-getter. I love working and going out and being social. And Nintendo is keeping me glued to my seat for just another fight, just another seed, just another shrine, just another lightroot, just another day of this incredible world. This meticulously crafted love-letter to gaming. The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is the greatest game I have ever played. Ever. I don’t know if I will ever feel this again. Ever single gamer MUST play this game. They just must.
Exactly how I felt with Elden ring
FYI: fusing a weapon grants a strict one-time +25 durability. You can’t reset it and there’s some edge case behavior when fusing weapon on top of another weapon, but +25 durability is the general rule
I did not know it was a one time thing that sucks, I found it out earlier when I fused to a breaking sword and it changed from red to normal I was hoping that was repeatable.
So the durability mechanic is still shit... Noted
Seriously? 😂😂😂
Think I can refuse over and over but guess not. This shit is probably meant for kids, seeing how you can build and shit. 😂
@@kg888 Its most likely a Glitch that ended up being in the game as "feature" and never fixed it
So basically if I unfuse and refuse inwont get that plus again?
One thing I really love about Ascend is that Nintendo knows that a vast majority of the playerbase have already done the climbing all over Hyrule in BotW. Ascend just lets you skip one of the big time-sinks to let you do the newer fun stuff
For getting to higher ground around Hyrule, Ascend (and Rewind on falling rubble) have saved me *so much* climbing time. It’s nice not having to change into the Climbing Gear all the time
23:58 - Actually you can reverse it, you just have to go into your inventory and hover the weapon you want to unfuse, and pick the option to do so
Technically no, the option is 'destroy fused material'
honestly kind of funny he got through an entire playthrough without realizing that haha
There is also an NPC that will unfuse a weapon or shield for a fee without destroying.
Nope you lose stuff doing it
@@beeektur how do you in know
I am surprised in the best way every time you recommit to being spoiler free. That first play through is the closest thing to real magic, and I’m glad to see how much that’s cherished and respected❤
idk man, im like half way thru the game but this video is still having a lot of spoilers, had to stop watching after 4 min
@@BenjoCovers Same here, immediately into stuff I haven't seen.
This shit is not spoiler free in the slightest
@@ajbickford312 WELL SHIT. I got the game in mail yestrday and was waiting on my last amibo before starting. skipped his spoiler section. But yeah i new runes were a bit spoilish.
Congratulations on having a top 20 trending review! I've always thought all your reviews deserved to be trending.
Also a tip for people low on food supplies, there's a small forest on satori mountain with a lot of apples and golden apples, like 200 if you get all of them. Close by there's also a pond with a lot of birds so a bomb arrow can get you about 10-15 meat.
Apples are not the best food but its a good base if you just want to make power up foods without using better ingredients
I still can't deal with this crafting stuff. Feels like chores.
Instead of bomb arrows, take a board or something else that floats put a fan on the back and a shock emitter on the front
@@nogoodhandlesavailable that just means the game is not for you, simple as that.
@@sept09 it's a legitimate complaint and they're free to express it, simple as that
@@lycanthrogenic979 No, it's not a legitimate complaint because it gets you nowhere. Nobody is changing the crafting because it's a core mechanic of the game and the game is all done and finished. So that means instead of uselessly complaining, go ahead and admit the game is not for you and move on to the next thing, let other people enjoy what they like. Idiot.
personally, Fuse solves my problems with weapon durability. Seeing a camp full of high level mobs will make me want to find a way to kill them, because even if all my weapons slots are full, I can store all their horns and parts and bits in my inventory and just fuse them with random sticks at any time. It's like a huge backpack full of weapon parts that I can reach into after big encounters that eat all my current weapons. Like I'll come across a big boss fight, go through all my powerful weapons, but it's no big deal cause I can just go chop some trees and use black bokoblin horns to get em all back. And this makes me want to engage with all the enemy encounters to further deepen by backpack of enemy loot. This is helped a lot by botw's enemy scaling, I can come back to old areas and get higher level parts to bring into new areas I haven't explored yet.
Yep. BOTW's biggest problem with durability was that it always felt like unless you were fighting the strongest foes, that you would just be wasting resources fighting weaker enemies so most instinctively begin to avoid monster camps. Whereas in TOTK, even if you use up some or all of a weapon's durability, you get far more out of the encounters than in BOTW. Fighting a bunch of enemies and using your weapons might get you one or two good weapons in BOTW if they had good gear, or you might get worse gear than you had, but in TOTK, their horns and other materials can be used to turn even poor weapons into great ones. And these can be fused onto weapons at any time.
The depths reminded me a lot of finding the underground sections in Elden Ring, opening the map, and freaking out at how large it really was. Thought the overworld was already insane, so to have another layer just kinda broke me HAHAHA
@@walkingthroughworlds Sadly, I think it is just a coincidence. BotW and Age of Calamity talk about how Ganon came from under the castle, so the idea that the evil is underground was there from the start.
As for Elden Ring, I haven't played that (not personally my type of game), so I can't speak for that. But I'm still willing to bet it was a coincidence.
Or I'm a dumb dumb and Nintendo / FromSoft talked about each other's games since they don't compete lol
@@walkingthroughworlds probably Skyrim's Blackreach inspired both. Huge underground maps aren't unique to Elden Ring or Tears, although these two examples are certainly the most ambitious and well done in recent memory.
the most impressive thing is that the depths are actually darker than anything in elden ring. I did the lost woods quest line early in the game and let me tell you, jumping from tree to tree in total darkness with gloom hands stalking my every step just bellow was NOT my idea of a Zelda game
When it comes to this series I’m just impressed. It’s held to a standard where people expect a metacritic score of at least 95 - which is rediculous - and yet they manage to pull it off every time. Here they once again exceeded expectations, and I can’t wait to put 150+ hours into this
*15000 hours you mean.
These games are so outdated it’s wild they get praise
@@8Bit-Tunes whats dated? mobile games lol?
It’s insane. They’ve been setting the standard since 1986, just imagine the level of responsibility that means making these games.
@@BenjoCovers Zelda runs at 30 fps, has terrible graphics, gameplay is outdated with no story and very cookie cutter combat. I understand a 80 maybe but I have zero clue how these games get the same amount of praise as games like rdr2 or GoW
Interesting, I loved the cooking system and really enjoy just. Taking time to cook links little meals and watching him hum and get so happy is really rewarding to me.
Sorry but that's pretty sad
@@10pmmemes88 Why is it sad? I take joy in the feeling of caring for someone. Plus link is so cute with his little humming.
You are a sad strange little man
@@10pmmemes88 you're being weird dude.
@@asf8648
My girlfriend felt exactly the same. Women gonna wom. In a good way.
Thanks! I’ve been with you since the beginning, and I must say that the way you edit and articulate your videos is a masterclass! Here’s to the years to come👏👏👏
I’m only halfway through the review, but I’m reminded again why you’re the absolute GOAT reviewer. Your writing is impeccable, your vocabulary is perfect, your speech is eloquent yet concise, and you know exactly what is important to focus on. I’ve not found a single reviewer whose opinion seems to match mine so often, nor have I found who’s always objective and honest, even when it might be controversial. You’re a cut above the rest Ralph. Aussies often punch above their weight on the world stage, and you’re no exception. Thanks for all your hard work mate. Cheers
Idk I can trust his combat expertise after that horrid, factually wrong take he had on MHR wirebugs.
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 I get you bro. However, you’ll never agree with anyone 100%, and everyone makes mistakes, but Ralph continuously puts out enough great content that his small missteps are easily overlooked IMO. If you give him the chance he’ll win you back. Plus I love to support smaller channels like this. I’ve given up on the big gaming media channels.
Nothing is more of a relief than skill up making a positive review
Shill up*
@@drumnbassdan Are You upset that we actually got a good game for once?
Actually, this is a huge problem. It means you can't trust these people, they'll bend over for large corporate who infamously "give free stuff to whomever bends over regardless of the truth". and to see him destroy JS "for PC" while extending a substantial level of tolerance to this one is sus to say the least.
Especially when the company is literally one going AFTER PC GAMERS ESPECIALLY for emulating their games.
@@samf.s.7731 or maybe..just maybe…he actually just liked the game😱
@@samf.s.7731 You're mad that criminals are being caught. Think on that.
Every frame of this game looks like an impressionist painting, it’s truly stunning and just how BoTW was, one of the best looking games ever made. It shows how clever art design triumphs over graphical horsepower. The switch is not much more than a calculator at this point but has some incredible looking games which is entirely down to the skill of the developers.
Yeah that tutorial where the tree shadows bug out is so beautiful. Go play Elden Ring where you get visual clarity and smooth frame rate. Not 20fps
@@bevanmcnicholl2525 Elden Ring has problems with both visuals and performance though lol, you could've given a better example
I love when game developers can be influenced by others' work and it's a win for all parties.
Blood moon. Shooting stars are from terraria. And i love it
There is no enoigh of terraria in people s live
Not really. All we get is a sea of samey type games that have nothing unique or interesting to offer.
@@unlimited971 terraria hardly invented those simple concepts…
🔥💩🔥💩🔥💩🔥💩🔥💩🔥💩
@@unlimited971 terraria didn't create those things dude
25:00 you can cook meals when you select an item and the recipe from the menu. It automatically picks the items and you just have to put it in the pot so you don’t have to keep selecting the individual food and parts
Maybe they added this in a later update?
@@DF-ep3kk nope lol, he just didn’t use it.
That is true, but if you want to make MANY meals all at once, that's still not an option (like... What do you do when you have 40+ apples that you want to turn into meals?). That, and honestly, having a variety of meals is helpful (since buffs override each other), so... Manually making each meal still is often the best option.
I finally got to watching this after going in completely blind to Tears of the Kingdom and hitting credits north of 130 hours. Gotta say this is an outstanding review of the game as a whole and I agree with everything you said. What a legendary game.
Ralph, I want to say you're honestly making some really great content. Keep it up dude. I look forward to every video you put out.
right. its not filler. doesnt drag out the point. very informative and thought out reviews/reactions to the games in a mostly objective manner. i particularly like the formatting he does for the videos. you can tell there’s actual structure to the talking point and theres a bit of depth to teach bullet point
Still can't wrap my head around why he was banned from a certain popular forum (ResetEra), it's kind of doing a disservice to his near perfect reviews...
Okay the strength of the creativity and "immersive sim" aspect is exactly what i want from more video games, and i don't think there is enough AAA games that lean on that, so i'm very glad it's such a strong aspect of a new release of one of the most iconic video game franchise.
You can separate fused weapons by either doing it in your inventory (which deletes the material), or you can pay 20 rupees in tarry town and get both items back. You can also repair any weapon by feeding it to a rock octorok.
If you upgrade armour more than once and take advantage of set bonuses you can become almost unkillable. Not to mention all of the combat zonite devices you can make and then auto-build into existence.
Also, there is a recipe list, you select it after choosing any ingredient you have cooked before.
Now the only issue is the framerate, but it's literally a world more than double the size of elden ring running on a smart phone...
I was one of those that didn't finish the other game. I probably got 2% in. The weapon durability was a big factor for me, but also the open nature of the game left me stumbling into places that were way above my equipment level. I think the game could have had a little bit more structure while preserving the creativity.
I always wait for the skillup review now and appreciate the detail here. I think I'll pass on this one. Link to the past and ocarina of time will still be my jam
Same. The item durability was so annoying I rage quit and sold my switch because of it.
@@sellcryptonow6806 wow you seem like a grown up, congrats lol
I understand not playing a game you don’t vibe with, that’s fine, but you sold your switch in anger over not liking ONE game? Good lord are you 12?
@@Stephaniepasqualino-de6qy that was the reason I bought it
@@ericyabadabadoo I don't enjoy micromanaging an inventory in a game. It felt like work to me
I was honestly on the fence about this whole Zelda thing, and then you said, “flamethrower shield.” 😳 Fuck it, I’m in! 😂
Haha right? I wanna know if it lowers the shields durability while in use. I mean, if it does I'm still all for it lol
I love how skillup can hardly contain the glee in his voice when talking about this game. sounds like it made him feel like a kid again, can't wait to play it.
Sounds like he got paid hard
@@WakeUp-d1k Salty much?
@@WakeUp-d1k the game is good, if you don't like that crying in the corner is always an option
@@WakeUp-d1k Sounds like you are not the brightest candle on the chandelier.
@@Cye_Pie bloaty much?
You know someone's a good reviewer when they can review a game they love, with extreme positivity, and still help you understand the game's probably not for you.
One of those games where I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy the Skillup review more than I’d enjoy actually playing the game 😂
Couldn’t have said it better myself!!!
Agreed. I like a more guided experience. I love everything about Elden Ring, and just can't bring myself to pick it up now that I've been away "from what I was doing" for more than a month. I don't remember what I was doing, where I was going, what my goals were, what my built was supposed to be, etc. I haven't touched BOTW in a solid year and a half for the same reason. The more dense world sounds great, but without a little more guidance I just don't see myself loving TOTK the way I do…idk. More mainstream open worlds.
21:22
@@coleG112 That’s because mainstream open worlds are meant to hold your hand like a baby and point you in the direction you’re meant to go since you lack any desire to actually explore.
Easily one of the best reviewers / journalists on the platform. Thank you for the continual high quality content you push out! Appreciate the crap out of you man!
No. He quit a real job to play video games all day. Do not support him
@@traviswilson36Did he kidnap your family too ?
@@dominicharris5851 SIMP
@@itsty-ler It’s shameful. People out there actually work. This man probably hasn’t seen the sun in months because he’s glued to his screen playing games.
The ball gargling is wild. Apply to Krispy Kreme so you can put those glazing skills to good use-you’re so talented!
What an excellent, balanced review! Thank you for making this!
A couple small corrections for the random TOTK new-comer that hasn't played the game yet (don't bother reading unless pretty new to the game).
1) If you accidentally fuse the wrong item to a weapon/shield, you can correct the mistake by unfusing it in the equipment menu. The item you unfuse will be lost, but the weapon will remain in the inventory and can be fused with something else.
2) There is a cookbook-like feature that can speed up item selection when cooking. I tend to use a small handful of different meals/elixirs and carry multiples of each. Simply select the meal you want to repeat and there is an option to cook it again. If only a box would pop up that lets you enter how many of that meal.
BONUS TIP for the early game (like, less than 10 hearts) . . . do all your cooking on the night of a blood moon, specifically between the hour of 11:30pm - 12:30am; if you are cooking meals that only heal (no buffs), use only 1-2 ingredients per meal for maximum efficiency cuz each meal gets 3 bonus hearts. For example, if you cook a single apple, it will heal 4 hearts. But 2 apples cooked in the same meal will only give you 5 hearts, 1 heart per apple plus the 3 heart bonus.
3) Building with Ultrahand can also be made much faster if you trudge through the early quests from Robbie/Josha at the
I love watching Ralph review games even if I have absolutely zero interest in ever playing them. I didn’t like BOTW, and TOTK looks like just more of that, but I’m happy that fans got a win here. His reviews are just so damn informative and entertaining that I can’t help but watch them.
Wait…you didn’t like BOTW but instead of trashing is and the sequel, you are wishing the fans of the game well? I don’t think you understand how internet negativity is supposed to work! 😮
Seriously, though, respect. 👍🏻
I feel the same way. Games like Elden Ring are not my thing, but I can totally understand why people would love them, and I’m glad it works for them. Why do we have to hate on things that aren’t out taste? 🤷🏻♂️
Same lol
@@scubasteve2189 Because this and BOTW are bastardizations of The Legend of Zelda franchise that so many know and love and have for many years. This isn’t a “win” for fans. It’s ANOTHER gigantic L for actual, TRUE fans.
@@holleringsmith3837 agree but times have moved on. Time to replay ALTTP
@@holleringsmith3837 There we go, THAT’S the seething, ridiculous negativity we all needed. 😉
I hate to tell you this, but BOTW and TOTK are going to be the most successful Zelda games of all time, and two of the most successful GAMES of all time. I appreciate your gate-keeping attempts, but the fans and the non-fans have spoken. They are great games. 👍🏻
No one should even be remotely surprised as to why this game needed 6 years in the oven
Not to diminish how good it is... But this should absolutely not have taken 6 years. Same map, engine, graphics, animations, game design, gameplay loop etc. That's what takes up the bulk of development time, which is why BotW took 6 years. TotK is great, but 6 years is far longer than it should have needed to simply add on top of the formula.
@@obrgrs2547 honestly
@@obrgrs2547 not at all considering Covid which led to big delays. Also some of the things they did with this seamless world and physics based gameplay take a huge amount of development time. People just take it for granted. Much more complex world and physics based gameplay than something like the Horizon games.
And will run like dog shit.
@obrgrs and you know this exactly how?
I think it’s safe to say Skill up is probably the #1 game reviewer now, he’s reviews just keep getting better and better after every game
never forget he shilled cyberpunk to the next millennium and said it “delivered” in most ways lmao
I used to love Zelda games on Gameboy color as a kid but now this is exhausting! Its a great game but I don't think I will ever played because of the massive world and time investment. To make it worse, 2023 had so many freaking games come out and I don't know when to find the time to play them all. Its crazy what the pandemic had created and led to 2023. I have a headache thinking about it. I have not even played Breath of the Wild either.
That would be ACG or Mortismal.
his review on doom eternal was shit
minus cyberpunk and overly hating TLOU2 in spite of great gameplay sure.
Skillup I love you! Ty for not just throwing stuff we hadn’t seen. I’ve really become a serious fan. Ty for the review.
Traditional dungeons being present in the game is what i missed so much in Breath of the wild and kind of left me indifferent towards it , to hear Tears is both a return to form and takes the best what Breath had to offer got me INCREDIBLY EXCITED - Good Review Ralph :)
Manage your expectations, they are not traditional dungeons they are themed yes but not room to room dungeons with items
@Angry Sushi Yes, as someone who has been playing the game seeing everyone on social media take what Nintendo said in the interview out of context and run with it has been frustrating. They were just talking about visual design.
They're not present in the game. Nothing like a traditional Zelda dungeon is at all back.
Sucks that the combat hasn't improved, but i'm still looking forward to playing this game
I actually really enjoyed the combat in botw but im not a like dark souls fan either. Maybe I could be though if I got really into it. I enjoy the easy uncomplicated responsive combat anyway, but its not very deep.
Not once in the video does he parry with the shield, flurry rush, battle with a vehicle or use the more useful arrowheads to handle groups of enemies. It's still not brilliant but nowhere near as basic as he makes it look.
Oh damn when the music hits at 5.45. That was so well cut into it. Thank you so much for the reviews! It’s always hit the mark and honestly one of the most accurate and honest reviewers out there. Followed you since laymen and will continue supporting your every single video!
I've noticed that so many of skillups videos have a moment where the music kicks in and your just like WOW. The final fantasy 15 is the most memorable next to this for me.
@@LavaLamp_ yea these reviews are done so well. No matter how long they are I always watch it till the end and enjoy every minute of it.
Austin is a genius for sure
16:53 is the feeling a Dungeon Master has when they planned this whole cool dungeon/story arc for their campaign and the players find a way to circumvent it all
Lmfao
There is two doors 🚪 left or right? The party chooses left. I don’t like that 🧐 so I move the stuff behind the right door to the left. 🤣🙌🏻
I would say that a minor criticism that wasn’t mentioned here would be the lack of increased enemy variety compared to the first game. If you subtract all the enemy types from Breath of the Wild and look at the ones that are actually new here, that are not derivative of the enemies from the first game it’s not a super notable increase. A minor criticism for some but it definitely bother me a bit after I explored more and wasn't getting the diverse enemy variety I was hoping for.
Wrong
So instead of 4 enemies we have 6 ?
Huh, IGN praised it for the exact opposite. But also, lol IGN so who knows
Umm I haven't played it yet, but I've counted 7 new ones already.
The amount of asset flipping in this game is really disappointing
I watched a bunch of reviews already, yours easily stands out as the best, well done!
The line when link said
"I'm gonna bring tears to your kingdom" was so strong, i was at the edge of my seat throughout tne entire thing.
Yeah no kidding, when he ended it with _"It's Linkin' time!"_ I started bawling uncontrollably. Powerful stuff.
And then he Linked into Ganondorf
I liked the part where zelda said "Link you must find me" and link replied
"Well excuse me princess".
Brings tears to my kingdom come.
@@unioneye1087 I think you meant he fusioned with him
@@SkullGod69 I also rate the part where link says to Zelda, look at those balistics.
Never even thought of using ascend on the boss constructs, the way I've been doing it is wait for the attack where he throws 4 blocks at you then hop on the block and hit recall.
My goodness. You are the best at what you and Austin do. Please don’t ever stop.
First, you can undo the fusion with a material, although it will destroy it. Second, with the food, there is an option, if you press x at the materials menu you can select a recipe to automatically grab all the ingridients. Also it tells you what you lack to make it.
When you select an item you want to cook, there is an option called "Select for Recipe" that opens different recipes you've made already, and you can quickly choose one and it will pick the ingredients for you.
It's encouraging to know that there are still some first-party developers that can reliably deliver quality every time.
Not every time but Nintendo rarely misses.
Bruh 99% of the map is recycled from botw lmao. Even an extension like blood and wine sold $15 gives you a new world to explore but apparently it's too hard for a $80 AAA. Yeah amazing first party devs for creating a dlc then selling it at full price
@@mordor1779 Not 99%, as there are the sky islands and the entire underground. Also not $80. Also not a DLC. Damn, every part of your comment was objectively wrong. You should try liking things (or at least being honest with them), it would make you a happier person.
BotW was trash and so is this.
@@mordor1779 easy! They're gonna kill you...
Before I played this game, I thought 6 years was long for a sequel, but now I'm so surprised how this game only took 6 years to make
Man what a glorious effort from Nintendo. I’m just finishing the tutorials and headed back to the Temple of Time, but I’ve already had several really rewarding moments while exploring Great Sky Island. So pumped to get down to Hyrule and start my journey!
Great review but there are a few things wrong:
1. You can unfuse weapons. Open the inventory, select the weapon or shield, press A and select "Destroy fused material." It will restore the base weapon to it's unfused state (at the cost of destroying the material that was fused to it)
2. There are cooking recipes now. After cooking a meal that meal is saved in the recipe book. To recook that recipe again (let's say you want to make the same dish 5 times) simply cook it once, then open the inventory, the last item you selected should be active again, hit A, then "Select for recipe" and then the recipe you just cooked will be selected, simply hit A and all the necessary ingredients will be selected again. Drop into the pot, hit X to skip the animation, then A to confirm new food, then open the inventory and repeat. You can rapid-fire cook meals this way very quickly once you memorize the button combination after maybe the 10th time you've done it.
So the “cookbook” does nothing lol. Just says press the buttons you just pressed again. Doesn’t speed anything up.
That transition at 5:45 gave me goosebumps! Such a nice review as always!
Man, it's so good. The one in his Elden Ring review gave me the same goosebumps.
@@goldewayne5320 yep, same!
These are the kind of games that made me dream back in the day.
It’s refreshing to see such a game appear again, in this dark age.
True. This year has had tons of bangers & coupled with last year I think great games are finally making a comeback.
dark age for the gaming industry indeed
@bingly bingler im not speaking for 100% of the industry of course. but oh boy where do i begin... 1)gameplay wise. nowadays they prioritise graphics rather than gameplay. 2)scummy/greedy practise(lootboxes, locked content behind paywall that is clearly shouldve been included in the full price original game(im not talking about proper dlc but clearly cut content published as dlc)) 3) sky high price but not money worth value(heck i dont mind paying 500 if its worth it. but sadly i very rarely able to agree with nowadays pricepoint with the quality we're getting. 4)to prolong game time, they added tedious grind etc to give the illusion that their game is "long". im not talking about games where you do have to grind as its premise such as mmo etc. basically now whenever i play games, most of the time it feels like i need to "work" if you get i mean instead of having fun(might as well go to work for real and earn some money extra hahaha). 5)broken games at launch. where is quality control like old times? we pay that much out of our hard earned money and we get that kind of broken unfinished games just because they have a deadline to meet? using school as an anology, if we rush to finish an assignment and submit it(naturally the quality is bad), we will get an "F". but the gaming industry seemingly has no repurcussions giving those kind of "quality" product to consumers. they used to have QA tester, bug testers for games. nowadays "WE" the consumers who pays full price are the beta testers. (maybe they do but with whats happening nowadays they might as well dont. seems like it). the list goes on.. of course this is 100% my own opinion and i do not stand for everyone. to each their own. but personally i'm really on the verge of quitting gaming as a hobby entirely and thinking of looking for other hobby which makes me really sad because i love gaming. but for now im still barely hangging on due to some good games although rarely. in a way im really glad you asked my opinion on this. never got to share my take on this to someone else. glad to be able to "vent" a little bit i guess. its like, to me, its a growing tumor(getting worse and worse) but i cant seem to leave it alone, like how you never leave sick family members. because i grew up with gaming. its helped me through dark times. some people might disagree on some of my points though and thats okay. this is just what i felt. I appreciate you my guy for asking me the question hahaha feels better. have a good one 💪🏻
@bingly bingler likewise. thanks for sharing.
@binglybingler2598 I see it as a dark age because the best game of the generation came in late 90s and 00s. PS1, N64, PC. etc. Today...You rarely get a masterpiece of a game. Rarely. It's like innovation and creativity is just not the same as it used to be in the golden age of gaming. You often have nice graphics but kind of shallow games where you feel robbed after paying 60 dollars for them. I'm not saying good games won't come out anymore...But its rarer. I feel that gaming is really about what might make the most money these days, and studios are less interested in creating a innovative gaming experience like they did back in the day. Games of my childhood were things like Resident Evil 1 & 2, Silent Hill, Zelda Ocarina of Time & Majora Mask, Smash bros, Turok, Duke Nukem 3D, Half Life 1, etc. Even to this day I don't feel any modern game comes close to the innovation those games created back then. I mean the games I'm most waiting for are FF16 and Diablo 4, and both look somewhat basic and lackluster compared to FF7/FF10 or Diablo 2 back in the day. They're just not able to reproduce the same masterpieces.
I didn't find Elden Ring dense at all. Quite the opposite. It was: Roam around wide open Dark Souls map, kill stuff, find dungeon, kill stuff, go to legacy dungeon, kill stuff, explore next section, kill stuff, find dungeon, kill stuff ... It was a monotonous slog with two exceptional looking areas: The Capital and Limgrave. Tears benefits from all of its variation and charming characters, story, and locales.
You are indisputably one of the best journalists covering games. I have such
a massive amount of respect for your integrity, honesty, and keen objectivity. There's many out there, but none quite doing it the way you do.
All my friends just refer to you as "Alex's dude in TH-cam". I usually know I'll enjoy your recommendations, and I love that even when you strongly recommend a game, you still remain pointed and objective enough to inform your audience that even if it is a great game, it may not be for them.
Keep it up, man! Appreciate your videos as always.
Well said mate. I honestly don't know another game reviewer that I trust at this point. Even when I disagree with Mr Skillup, he's put in enough context and objectivity that I know why and whether I'll feel the same way. What a legend.
Tell him to get a real job. Playing games all day is lazy.
@@traviswilson36Are you secretly his estranged partner or something?
@@traviswilson36what an odd and garbage take 😬
@@silenceindenialsid9177 It’s lazy. Get off the couch and get a real job.playing video games is not a job.
24:55 The cooking was stream lined with the addition of the recipe system. You click on recipes and you can see everything that you’ve made so far with a specific ingredient. Then you click on what you wanna make and it’ll add everything you need to your hands automatically. (As long as you have it in your inventory of course) And you can skip the cooking animation by pressing X. I think you missed that Skillup? Lol
Weapon durability never massively bothered me. However, the shield breaking when you surf on it did. Like, c’mon man, just let me have that
Wasn't a fan of BOTW and That spoiler section really didn't sell me on the game, gonna pass on this one. Thanks for saving me $70! Incredible review as always!!!
I don’t get it when people say this game is ‘reused content’ and didn’t need 6 years.
this is a game about using abilities to interact with the world. link doesn’t have his old abilities so the entire world needed to be redesigned to consider link’s new hand powers.
Not only that but above and below have been added , the world of hyrule has developed beyond what we saw in BOTW, and there is a swathe of new content for players to enjoy. It couldn’t be dlc because it is literally a sequel
Gotta admit, I'm *really* disappointed to hear they didn't do much to address the weapon durability issues. I normally don't mind durability systems, but BotW's was so aggressive that, when combined with the clunky menus, it ultimately caused me to bounce off that game pretty hard. I have to imagine it's the same here. I think it might be a deal-breaker for me.
Seems like you can just fuse things to your cracked weapon to make it stronger making it last longer
@@lightdarksoul2097 Sure. But I still need to go into a menu a bunch to do that. It's frustrating because I could think of several ways just off the top of my head that would still keep weapon durability as a concept but make things way less obnoxious to interact with. For example, what if they designed it so there was only one sword, one axe, one spear, etc. This "base" item would *never* break, but the stuff you fuse to it would. So you would still have a durability system, but you would always have access to a weapon without needing to scroll through 50 inventory slots to find what you want.
Alternatively, they could change how Korok seeds work so that instead of just opening up more inventory slots to scroll through, they upgrade the base durability of items. So you could carry less shit, but the shit you were carrying lasted a lot longer.
Just something. Anything other than they've got. It's just so awful to use right now, especially on the Switch controller (which of course, you can't really remap, because Nintendo Knows Best(TM)).
With fusions, weapons have around twice the durability of BOTW weapons and can reach higher attack values, which ultimately make them last a lot longer than weapons do in BOTW. And hard disagree on having less slots vs more durability. The game throws weapons at you like candy so the thought of ever being in a situation with no weapons isn't ever on my mind. But being in a situation where I need a specific weapon or something did happen a lot early game. With only so many weapon slots, you basically have no room for weapons with special non-combat related roles like torches. Furthermore, the weapons you do have would be relegated to mostly one task and you would always near an edge where if it broke you would be screwed and have to find another weapon to take it's spot. Far more likely people would specifically just replace the weapon, leading to wasting more weapons than the system does now. They would likely wonder why they only have so few slots when there are weapons everywhere. Whereas the system in TOTK allows you to have multiple weapons for the same role, so if you are fighting a boss that you should be using "hammer" type weapons on and your hammer breaks, then you can pull out another, and you can afford to have a slot dedicated to the more niche weapons this way.
@@chriswinchester679 yea, i agree. The durability is one of two deal breakers. The other one is it being on a switch. Game looks cool (gameplay wise, not graphics, those look meh, tbh). Zelda isn't a system seller for me personally, especially not for a 6 year old handheld. Gotta wait for a "switch 2" because from what i've seen the other games are horrid in terms of fps and resolution.
After finishing the game. I personally feel that they addressed it. With the amount of fusable attack modifiers, you can make lets say a common sword in to something as strong as those late game sword.
It is also a good reward system for refighting monsters since their loots have a purpose in making new weapons on top of the weapons they drop.
You will always have weapons on you no matter what unlike BOTW were its hard to find a substitute after breaking a strong weapon.
I still hate weapon Durability.. it just discourages me from ever using my weapons.. they sit around in inventory. Any game that discourages using items is a bad design.
I wouldn't be able to play this as I play everything at 60fps, with very few exceptions.
That being said, hold crap. 16GB, runs on an underpowered Nintendo Switch, is portable, has 2 full open worlds, as well as the sky isles so like 2.5 open worlds in *one* game, has a massive, feature dense ground level with Mega crap tons to explore and collect and kill and do.
There are AAA games on PS5 for $70 that don't come close to this scale and density.
Bravo. If only Nintendo would release some more powerful console now and let it really shine at more consistent frame rates.
I’m really happy that the BotW fans have got this. I’m enjoying the hype. But I really hope they make just one streamlined Zelda game. Even if it’s just for me 😂😩 i miss them so much. These games just feel like Ubisoft games to me. I’m just a bit fatigued on ‘sandboxes’
All this and not one pre-paid DLC, no online required, no micro-transactions, no season pass, battle pass, bus pass or whatever pass they make up to take your money. Thanks Nintendo.
Props to ppl who enjoy it, but personally it looks... fine? Nothing about it makes it look that amazing to me. But props to those who like zelda and i hope you enjoy it!
I am really puzzled we all kinda collectively agreed that poor performance in video games is something that needs to not be a thing but we are giving nintendo a pass here because we know their hardware is shitty.
Something rubs me the wrong way how we are rightfully not recommending games like jedi survivor but because it's nintendo 25 fps average is fine and expected and gets a 10/10.
We are going to have a 25 fps game of the year in 2023 arent we...that sucks.
Nintendo is milking their nostalic zombies willing to put up with shitty core mechanics and bad performance. They even reused all of the assets from the previous game and they don't care.
It's insanity.
Because one is a portable machine a s jedi survivor is going PowerPoint on high end gaming pcs
id play this on 10 frames and still have fun
I'll watch in a week or so, but will run the whole vid now for the watch time and retention. Keep smashing it Ralph.
Yo what up Jon!! Been watching your channel for years its so cool seeing you here!
It is amazing. Ever since I was a little kid playing "The legend of Zelda: A link to the past" (still one of my favorite games of all time), the Zelda franchise has consistently for decades produced some of the best games in every single generation.
When skillup says in the title “ very strongly” you know its a masterpiece
Elden Ring, Resident Evil. Yep.
well yea that’s why it’s very strongly recommended lol
but it has minor performance issues, which means in my opinion, it should not be a 'very strongly' recommended game. I would still recommend it, but I definitely wouldn't rate it as a must buy since I feel for that category, it must be stellar in every category, including performance.
@@urazz7739 considering the switch is so underpowered the performance is still impressive
@@urazz7739 minor performance issue can be outweighed by just how damn good the entirety of the game is though. Strongly recommend doesn’t mean perfect so your standard is unreasonable
Unlike my dad Skillup never disappoints
my step mom never disappoints
Don't you mean "Unlike me to my dad, Skillup never disappoints"?
@@jesustyronechrist2330 yeah🥲
@@jesustyronechrist2330 Nah I wish my dad was better.
@@jesustyronechrist2330 sounds like he saw his mom with the mailman, UPS man, UberEats driver, contractor, etc and put 2 and 2 together
I'm maybe 10 hours into the game, watching this review, and I hear you talking about stuff and I'm just like WAIT YOU CAN DO THAT??? the amount of interactivity between objects in this game is insane
@Terry Tibbs if thats the case games were a lot better 10 years ago then they are now
@@Hexxonomicon i knew there would be contrarians. also, liking your own comments is pathetic
if im buying a switch now should i get breath of the wild or tears of the kingdom?
@@Hexxonomicon bruh did you even watch the review or did you just come on here to angry-comment
@@Hexxonomicon we found the sick fanboy, stop worshipping plastic. this game is a masterpiece and a true push forward in the genre stop hatin.
I was always going to get TOtK, but this review is the first I’ve seen that makes me wish I could stay out of work today just to begin playing it. Phenomenal job on getting your points across. I didn’t even have to watch the spoiler section to get crazy excited to play this. Perfect review
Awesome review without lots of spoilers in the beginning 👏👏
I'm already at 30 or more hours of playtime and I've managed to maybe get to around 20% completion of the main quest. The reason for that is exactly what SkillUp explains in this review, you're on your way to an objective and suddenly there's something peaking your interest and all your momentum shifts towards that. The game is filled to the brim with that stuff and I love it. It doesn't feel overwhelming or forced. Basically the whole game can be described with that monkey sees something neuro activation meme, that's basically this game.
It is, for me, one of the best games I've ever played and I'm not even finished yet lol
"Given how deep and flexible Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical sandbox is, its combat sandbox feels very one-note and unsophisticated in comparison." Hang on, I've gotta contest this--in BotW and TotK, the combat sandbox IS the mechanical sandbox. What makes it work so well is that all the tools at your disposal in the mechanical sandbox have use and application and dimension within combat as well.
What he means is it doesnt matter if you charge in with the master sword, or just bomb them from a safe distance. You will win becuase the enemies are dumb and youve fought them 1000 times
Fallout 4 had the exact same problem with the combat system being the same, So they gave players the option to make the game more difficult. Totok still doesnt give that option.
@@Vanished584 TotK does have the option for lowering difficulty: equip lower defense clothing. Silver enemies will beat you in two-three hits and their movements are way faster than normal enemies so it gets intense.
Also, you're thinking too much in terms of what you have to do to win, rather than the systems the game offers to make it *fun* and creative. Which is where BotW/TotK succeed in spades and is the big reason we still get crazy combat compilations out of BotW over six years later.
Feels good to hear a cheerful and happy Skill Up talking about videogames again, after the disaster that was Redfall for reviewers and the like !
I disagree about weapon durability. It seems weapons are fragile in order to force the player to repeatedly experiment with the Fuse mechanic.
The game is like Silly Putty: its systems are squishy - not constant - to support constant creativity and experimentation.
Sounds like a hard pass for me to be honest. I get why so many liked the prior game, but all of the issues that I had with the previous game are still present here. I'm glad people are enjoying the game, but exploration just for the sake of itself doesn't satisfy me. Breath of the Wild felt empty to me because the few side quests that existed were mostly uneventful, and not a single one held a candle to any of the quests seen in Majora's Mask. In addition, there weren't any nice rewards to look forward to. More health? More stamina? New armor set? But that big shiny sword you got broke after 20 hits. Everything you've shown here just says this game is more of the same, just neater powers and tricks to solve puzzles, but otherwise business as usual.
If this game looks average to you, go play Immortals Fenyx Rising.
Really disappointed to hear that they doubled down on the weapon durability, that was by far the worst part of breath of the wild, especially on master mode when you have breakable weapons combined with enemy health regeneration. That being said, I'm still unbelievably exited for this game to come out tomorrow
They didn't double down. They made it 10x worse.
Now you have to access 3-4 menus to fuze a new weapon mid combat. Weapons break in 2-5 hits and enemies 2-3 shot you.
Insane.
@@sconnolly88 don’t listen to this guy lmao. Weapons do not break after anything less than 25 hits after fusing, and that’s the minimum. People are just complaining when the entire point of the durability system is to have link constantly switch weapon types through battle. I don’t know how people would also go into battle with non-fused weapons LOL. Makes zero sense. Every time I fight I have 7+ fused weapons with good damage. People wanna hate just to hate.
Its to encourage you to use more solutions than just to swing a sword at an enemy. Both games were never about direct combat.
@@XrayTheMyth23you will need to swing it anyway so thats nonsense
@@chron22people dont want to constantly switch
Easily one of the best reviewers online. Eloquent, informative, genuine and authentic, thank you for this wonderful review.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to the Zelda franchise. All the little things like cooking, weapon durability and the overwhelming distracting and inviting world kinda let me loose interest in the story - I never finished breath of the wild. (Missed the castle and final boss fight) but after this review I am considering buying the game - possibly after I have written this comment. Thanks again for a superb review. Love the content and I will always recommend your channel with the words:“ this is the only review you need to watch“! Thx mate ❤
Just bought it :-)
@@carlito3810 you will not regret it I'm 6 hours in it feels more like traditional Zelda in certain ways but brand new at the same time
I find recall to be pretty underated, as it can break plenty of the puzzles in half.
In momentum based Puzzles, you can completely stop an objects momentum by using recall on it and cancelling it immediately. If you need to build a ramp to get up to a higher place, you can just lift up an object with the Ultrahand, put it back down, get on it and then use recall to use it as a makeshift elevator.
No 2 games in the history of games have been so overhyped! If they didn’t have the Zelda name I 100% guarantee you they would be nowhere near as praised and lauded like the best thing ever, they are average at best!
Bla, bla, bla..
Gotta love it when this man drops a positive review on a game you’re looking forward to. Now the only thing I have to worry about is if I wasn’t a digital or physical copy😅
both sold out
I sum it up like this
Breath of the wild is “if you can see it you can go there”
Tears of the kingdom is
“If you can think it you can make it”
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is amazing, having so much fun playing it, super addictive, the graphics are beautiful and colorful, the sky area, underground, surface of Hyrule, the map is massive and a joy exploring it for hours, so much fun and stuff to do, absolute masterpiece 👏👏👏👏
I was surprised to see that BOTW was criticized more than once during this video . ( open world ruins not having as much to see, shrines becoming repetitive and boring with the same aesthetic ) Yet BOTW got a 10 as soon as it came out ? Let’s be honest the combat system in Zelda needs updating , Link needs to become an interesting protagonist, and the story needs to revolve around something interesting other than saving Zelda. Am I the only one who wants to see the series improve in these ways ? I feel like we are getting mediocrity from the franchise and it could be a lot better . But Zelda has such a strong brand & special place in everyone’s hearts ( including mine ) that we automatically give a high score to the games that release . Skyward sword would’ve gotten a 10 if it wasn’t for the shitty wii controls. Does anyone think the same ?
Skyward Sword did get 10s, near enough across the board when it released. It still sits with a 93% average rating on Metacritic, with multiple 10s from the big name companies. One company even said "Every moment is a joy. " Zelda always, literally always gets the most biased reviews on release, until the cracks show, as it did with botw.
You’re not the only one. Botw’s combat was the weakest of any Zelda game I have ever played and it doesn’t look like this game has improved it much. Who cares if you have all these awesome weapons and equipment if the combat isn’t satisfying to engage with? It ruins the entire experience for me since so much emphasis is placed on finding new weapons, just to end up breaking them in encounters that aren’t much fun anyway.
amazing review... The compilations, the soundtrack you chose the way you explain how masterful it is.. Thank you
So it wasn't totk being a dlc
The problem was botw being a demo all along
Great wat to look at it 😂
Well, weapon durability was the deal breaker for me. It's not the weapon breaking itself that is the issue, my issue is needing to open a menu to swap weapons MID COMBAT. If I need to open a menu to SEARCH for something on the middle of combat, I'm out.
I'm glad this is a good game, but it's definitely not for me.
You can literally just hit the direction button to swap weapons. What kind of dealbreaker is that for playing a game?
@@btd0ja finding a weapon I'm comfortable with the moveset, with appropriate power level because weapons in this game are a resource and resource management is important, it's not just go through the d-pad. If durability was at least large enough or with a clause that it can't break mid combat, so you have to swap in between combat encounters, I'd be completely on board.
The way it is, it's just not for me, and that's okay, not every game needs to appeal to me.
Been a long time since i've been this torn on whether or not to buy a game. I got about 20-25 hours into BOTW, did 1 and a half Divine Beasts, and then decided that i just wasn't having enough fun and dropped it. The dungeons weren't a dealbreaker, nor was the "empty world". The weapon durability fucking sucked, and the controls combined with some of the more awkward combat encounters made me feel like i was - at worst - playing some eurojank trash instead of a Zelda game.
I know i will not like the combat in TOTK, so i have very little urge to buy this game based on that. And yet everything else about this game looks like it significant improvement on BOTW...
When seeing of the sky isles. I always wondered if that was the only additional bit to the game on top of BoTW’s original map. Seeing that in the spoiler section is really amazing.
Seeing how they add all these zones and only being 16gb gives me vibes of the gold/silver/crystal Pokémon games on the GBA cartridge able to hold the Johto and Kanto regions at the time. They really know how to pack it in a game over at Nintendo.
Honestly I think this is where the switch being a weak system helps. They have no reason to pack in super bulky high res textures or high res models that eat up storage space since the switch wouldn't be able to run the game fast enough anyways. Instead they can keep the resolution and poly counts smaller which cuts down a lot of the games bulk on the disk.
Now that I've finished up my own video (going up in a few hours), I'm going through and looking up the reviews I skipped pre-release-this one in particular is really fantastic, one of your best. Hell, there are a few points in here where I'm thinking "damn, Ralph got there before me!" So this is part congratulations on an excellent video, and part apologising for any unintended similarities between mine and your vids, haha. Keep up the great work!
One thing about weapon churn, you actually can unfuse items, and, while I still have more testing to do, every time you fuse you get more durability back.
Ie, you can use a weapon to the brink, unfuse it, then fuse soemthing else onto it to get more life out of it. I dont know yet the full extent of how far this can be pushed, but this should be able to keep weapon churn down.
18 Hours to go until the copy is in my hands.... I literally cannot wait holy shit. Keeping clear of any spoilers, shutting off all curtains and lights and im spending my whole weekend in this game.
my guy, its literally BoTW 2 but with more building mechanics.
Saaaame! Lol
Nintendo being Nintendo. Still bad cooking experience, still weapon durability problems, and still the lack of traditional themed Zelda dungeons. Nintendo just doesn't give a damn about feedback. I know how Nintendo pulled off the graphics technically. Look at the torches and the fire it's all pixelated and all the shimmer, that screams FSR. The game is rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling it.
Played 40 hours so far, did a bit of everything. Man, I feel like I only did 10% of the content. There is freshness and surprise everywhere anytime
If you beat the first game, do you think it's a must to play before Tears?
Weapon durability not tarnishing your enjoyment?
@@natediaz1863 ofc not, you literally just gotta fuse your weps before you fight, same way you would cook food before a fight. People complaining about having to fuse constantly mid battle are clearly not cooking mid battle when they run out of food so it makes no sense.
@@natediaz1863 Weapon durability is actually a bit more manageable in this one unlike what the review claims. You can unfuse parts from their weapons for 20 rupees in Terry Town and keep the parts to fuse onto a new weapon, meaning once you get a powerful fuse item you can pretty much keep it forever as long as you don't allow the weapon it is on to break completely. Sure, it is still a bit of a hassle to unfuse the weapon and fuse the part to a new one, but it is still way better than losing a great weapon entirely. As it stands getting a good fuse weapon can allow you to turn a 2 damage stick into a 46+ damage weapon, maybe way higher, I don't know for sure yet. Strongest fuse item I have found so far gives plus 44 damage.
@@Def_Not_Batman I don't think you have to play it, no. While it is a sequel, everything should still at least mostly make sense if you haven't played botw. Would still recommend checking botw some time though.
It’s unfortunate the hang-ups you mention are still present in Tears of the Kingdom; they’re the reason despite me giving BotW a chance, I ultimately dropped it.
But hey, to each their own. I’m sure it’ll do well and people will enjoy.