I always thought the sense of loss associated with leaving the plateau behind was on purpose. It kind of reflects what Link is feeling when he learns about his past and the mission that lies before him.
@Rather Not No. These TH-camrs talking about random theories like how the tears of the kingdom represent the inner conflict of Zelda rather than a simple collectable are overthinking it.
@@AnAmericanMusician They’re not overthinking either. The title always represents something more than an item. There’s a ton of symbolism in Zelda games and it tends to be intentional.
Don’t forget: the Great Plateau also had a Stone Talus. It wasn’t anywhere near the Shrines, but it was there, so you could see that this game may throw big enemies at you with little warning as you explore. In particular, it’s interesting that the Talus isn’t in a big, round, open space that screams “this is a boss arena”
Prior to BOTW being released, 95% of the footage we saw of the game was from the Great Plateau. I was so excited to see what else was out there past the plateau that I rushed through it and got on my way to the rest of the world. My second play through I spent more time on the plateau and explored it more thoroughly and discovered just how much I missed and how much it had to offer.
I did almost the exact same thing. To the point rhat i didnt even find the warm doublet , the stone talus, or the spot that shows u can use trees as a bridge. I legit missed so much cool shit accidentally because i wanted to get thru it
On that note, I wonder if most of what we’ve seen of TotK is the starting area… Definitely not 95% of what we have been shown appears so, but perhaps still a majority.
@@jasonnewberyI made a ton of stamina elixirs to climb over to that area you were supposed to get to via the tree lmao, so I never learnt that but managed to not learn anything and be a dumbass at the same time
That's exactly how I felt with the great plateau. I could play the first one or two hours so many times without getting bored of it, just because that zone feels so good to explore! I don't know what it is, and in some way, I like that area being an "enclosed zone" where you first need to get the paraglider to exit it, even tho the rest of the game is open world. It feels very nice!
It sure does! Another appeal of the plateau for me is that you can see the rest of Hyrule all around you, so you constantly wonder what might lay on the horizon and where you want to go when you are finally set free ^^ The idea that the plateau is already so incredible and vast, yet your adventure barely even started!
I'd argue there is a simple explanation for that: activity density. The plateau has the best density of activity in the game, hunting, enemies, shrines... The rest of the game is amazing, but doesn't come close until locations like Korok forest, the dark area, or the castle... But all of those have difficulties that make them not as balanced or "fun"(relative chill vibe of the rest of the game) as the plateau, especially evident when roaming the Hinox mountains in the SE, portions of the desert and highlands, many spots lack shrines, enemies, or resources, the plateau has just the right balance of everything appropriate for your level of resources.
@@michaellane5381 yeah maybe that works too. i just loved the feeling of "survival" that zone had compared to the rest of the game, and yeah many other areas are so open and so empty at the same time... i hope tears of kingdom has more stuff going on, specially if they implement a caves system and more npcs around
@@bubblemage agreed, tbh in BotW my only real complaints with map design are the caves in the SE have such great caves for fortification or random huntable creatures and the NW has such an epic cave system with only a single shrine(there are like 4 unique ones that I think all have shrines, the hot spring, the underground pseudo-ruin, the great skeleton for the sidequest next to a shrine, and the giant "snowshrooms" with a shrine but nothing to do in those areas except for the last one however all of that is generic huntables and enemies without compounds.
I actually wished the game had portioned of its landscape with key items more. While the open exploration is neat, I still like the classic “key item -> new areas” Zelda formula. Was expecting a hookshot or other mobility items later in the game like the paraglider.
12:34 despite having seen this moment dozens of times, i still can’t get over that weightless feeling and awe the scene instills. hands down one of the most effective ‘opening’ scenes in a game.
I'm also excited to go back to the great plateau in TotK. Seeing it not as a tutorial, but as a later section in the game sounds awesome. Maybe the temple of time is being rebuilt, or the plateau is in even more disarray. Maybe there's a big monster infesting the plateau and the plateau becomes a dungeon of sorts. Maybe it's just an empty place meant for you to recollect on the past of the previous game like in RDR2. Whatever it is, it sounds exciting.
I honestly think it will be the Great plateau again, but it'll be floating and broken up at different levels, and have access to caves etc this time, so you can get used to the "up and down" expansion of exploration the game introduces. It'll probably be the reason it was raised so much in the first place.
The Great Plateau floating up into the air would be amazing, and could seemingly lend some evidence to the theory I think I first saw from NintendoBlackCrisis that the great plataeu and Lost Woods at one point in time swapped places.
You can see the Great Plateau and the Temple of Time in the most recent teaser though, right where they always were. And with the exception of Hyrule Castle, the floating islands don’t appear to be chunks of Hyrule ripped from the surface.
im watching this video much later than it was uploaded but i just want to say its so impressive how spot on you were about the introduction to tears of the kingdom
I really hope that the Great Plateau is brought back in some way. Not necessarily as an opening again. More what was left behind. I said in my most recent video that I feel it's the BEST opening to a video game EVER! But feels like for the rest of the game it leaves behind a lot that had potential to work with. Mainly the Temple of Time, perhaps it'll be expanded in TOTK or brought up into the sky! But I'm not too confident there xD. I'd love it though! The opening of TOTK is so intriguing because it could be literally anywhere. The caves, the sky and maybe even in Hyrule itself. All with different likelihoods of course but all possible! For me, I think we will be starting our actual gameplay in the Sky, probably waking up too! Everything else around that, I have no clue 😅 I really enjoyed this video, great work Don! (P.S - the greatest flaw being it is too good, is an amazing quote!)
Something I really want is to restore the main entrance to the Plateau. The stairs that are now blocked by rocks and water. Plateau entrance, Tample of Time, Akkala Citadel and Hyrule Castl are the places that I would pretty much appreciate to see them restored. Of course there are many more like Lanayru Promenade, but those are my top 4
Ah the Great Plateau. It was so well done that you could spend hours and hours in there and once you've "beaten" it (did the shrines etc.) and explored it fully, it'll leave you satisfied and the game could almost end there, but no. It rewards you with a far larger map and game to explore. I love this game and I can't wait for totk
You talking about the Plateau “peaking early” makes sense to me, and I figured out a big reason why (at least to me) that is: always having the Paraglider. One of the coolest things in the opening area was not only figuring out how to solve puzzles or climb to certain tall places, but ALSO how punishing it was if you messed up. Some may disagree with me on this, but I think that giving you permanent, constant access to the Glider after the Plateau is a major reason why the sense of exploration became a little too linear and simple after that; instead they either had to make things just way taller to combat stamina, or make rain and no ways to combat it. You can always save yourself from fall damage; you can always cross large portions of land or water; you can even learn to wind Bomb and perpetually keep yourself airborne as long as you have the right food prepped. And even using the very detailed mechanics of horses feels largely decentivized because the player can likely get somewhere faster just by climbing, then gliding straight towards their destination instead. This is why I’m currently doing a run where I’m arbitrarily limiting my glider uses. Link is only allowed 1 time where he can activate it since the last time he was in a “safe area”, like a tower, shrine, town, pre-spawned campfire, fairy fountain, etc. although still having the glider is basically necessary for certain things, being restricted on how often you can use it and then being “grounded” until you return to a safe place changes a lot about the exploration. Climbing the Twin Peaks, for example, forced me along different routes than I would usually go because I couldn’t just go from one side to the other as easily. Using horses was incentivized a lot more. Climbing DOWN things, which you never think about worrying about outside the Plateau in the normal game, becomes a completely new challenge and puzzle in itself. I know it’s basically possible to do a full run without the glider at all, but even just by severely limiting it (for example, I’m going to try doing Eventide with no glider) makes the game a lot more interesting. Hunting the dragons is significantly harder too, for example, because you might ordinarily glide to them, shoot, and then glide again, but under these restrictions it is far different. But that’s why, regardless of how Tears of the Kingdom does things, I am so happy the engine of the first game is returning for this one. One of the great things about BotW is not just it’s game design, but ability to impose even oddly specific restrictions on yourself and most things still being possible.
Very interesting challenge you got there. Wish it was part of a Hard Mode or something similar. I tend to cheat here and there if i make up my own rules and a part gets too tedious.
Agreed on that point. I often felt as I skimmed the clifftops that 'huh they really look like they planned this area to be entered from the ground, following that road right into an obvious lynel.... welp...' and continued on my way because there really wasn't any good reason not to take advantage of the traversal options. Unfortunately with my life feeling more and more restrictive in terms of time to sit around and mess with games, I kind of need a game to work its best magic without the need for self-imposed restrictions, so I hope TotK can address that. :)
@@theoaremevano3227 tbh that just sounds like you’d like more of a linear but nice game like TP or SS. Not to say TotK won’t be enjoyable! But you talking about things like the path that leads to the Lynel, feeling almost like a missed encounter opportunity when you can just go around it; I feel like TotK will be EVEN MORE open than the original. Perhaps certain islands can only be reached by doing things in a set order? But at the very least, I imagine exploring the majority of normal Hyrule will be similar mechanically to the first game, simply because it’s the same open map and engine; and thus it may not necessarily be able to “fix” that problem and give more scripted encounters. That said, I still think they’ll improve on the open world formula: it just will still be pretty open world and not very linear
@@Diamond_Aura : I do love both of those games, almost as much as Majora's Mask. :D I think that the best 'solution' for TotK would be to adjust the balance between rewards to make it objectively more beneficial to go after enemies, and also involve combat trials more in the dungeons. The main reason I skipped, say, the lynel at the foot of Mt. Lanayru was because I'd already killed both the one near Zora's Domain and a more powerful one in the badlands. With the novelty of such an encounter gone, only the tangible reward mattered, and I wasn't after anything it would have given me, and no reason to smash weapons on a weaker one.
One thing you gain out of the negative you brought up is when you replay the game, there will be even more areas to explore than if you were to hoof it on the ground everywhere your first playthrough. What a wonderful sandbox. When two players can play and enjoy the game in such different ways is a testimony to how well the game was designed.
Coming back to rewatch this before TotK, and while you were mentioning the similarities between the four shrines and the divine beasts, I remembered that the old man's hint to go to the Temple of Time is to make an X between the shrines and find the intersection. If you do the same thing with the locations of the Divine Beasts, the center falls right where Hyrule Castle is located. Genius.
Still my favourite tutorial in the series, can’t wait to see what TOTK does with its opening, and how it will bring us back into the world while soft-resetting Link. Great video as usual 🫡
I always thought it would be cool if TotK caries over your items from BotW for the opening, but you lose everything after encountering Ganondorf. I guess if you never played BotW, it would give you a default set of items. After being disarmed, Link would be dropped into a tutorial area where he learns to use the green arm.
Aaah the Castlevania symphony of the night approach. Start out like a god and then get smacked all the way back to level one again after the first few minutes. I like that idea. Not sure if they would be able account for the stuff you colelcted on your BotW save, but if it's possible... why not. I definitely want my house back! I paid good money... and... woodbundles for that place ^^
A really interesting idea i never gave any thought to. BotW had the best tutorial in any game hands down mainly because you couldn't even tell it was a tutorial. Really interested to see how TotK handles it.
Exactly; General consensus says that the best tutorials are usually the ones that don't even feel much like tutorials. DOOM 2016 comes to mind for me with it's opening level as it disguises teaching the player the mechanics of the game through just how fun and seamless the level is when compared to the rest of the game.
Ngl it would be insane to see if the paraglider is a mid-game item you get. The mecha-loftwing could be a more early game item that lets you get to the bottom from the sky, and is also not as controlled as the paraglider (so a straight line once deployed). You could still go anywhere, but without the paraglider, would require you to be a lot more map oriented for a little.
I remember playing for the first time and thinking that the great plateau was the map and still being amazed. Then you get the glider and the whole world opens up and I was even more amazed
Hope they can find a good balance in creating a training area that is great in both your first playthrough and the rest of them. I remember the first time I played Ocarina of Time and being at the Kokiri forest and the Great Deku Tree for the first time, it was really magical, but in my next playthroughs, Navi was annoying because I knew what I had to do next, and there was no way to avoid her...
Indeed. Second playthroughs have been a bit of an issue with Zelda games sometimes, since Nintendo refused to let you skip things or implement a chapter select of sorts.
The peak moment for me was riding my horse around the track of the old ruins of lon-lon ranch in the rain for the first time and hearing Epona's song subtly works its way into the musical score. It was at that moment hearing that song riding around that track made me realize it was lon-lon ranch, and as it dawned on me, I felt like a 10 year old kid again playing OOT for the first time again. The other peak was meeting the in-game personification of Robin Williams for the first time that nintendo intentionally put in to honor his memory :(
I do love the idea of starting out high above Hyrule after Ganondorf reawakens, able to look down and wonder what he hell is going on down on the surface. I always got a good feeling from Link returning to the Temple of Time after drawing the Master Sword and standing there in the darkened room with Navi wondering "but have seven years really passed?" I do agree on the game as a whole not ramping up much from the starting area. The problem was really just that most of the individual features and challenges out in the world were still a bit limited in size, theme and scope, only broken up by how many of them there were to find. I think when you escape the starting area of the sequel, you'll probably descend either to the Great Plateau, to see how things have changed and maybe find people gathering and building there, or into a very hostile situation to show how much more dangerous it is on the surface now.
My most memorable moment in breath of the wild was also in the great plateau when I was exploring and scavenging for gear for the first time. I wasn’t sure what the game had to offer so in my head I made the old cabin house where the old man was my first “base” thinking that this was going to be my main home for a good chunk of the game. I remember when I found my first outfit, old sword and my first bow. It felt immensely rewarding. The plateau was very interesting to explore like nothing I had played before. It was a unique magical experience that lives rent free in my head. I just hope that Tears of The Kingdom is even better or at the very least lives up to Breath of the wild.
The Great Plateau is what made me believe that I was going to turn into a Zelda fan. Breath of The Wild's complete journey turned me into one. I've gone back and played so many of the older Zelda games now and I've been completely in love with the series. So grateful for experiences like this😩
Great plateau is a Great tutorial! I spent many hours exploring it and loved every minute of it. On my second playthrough I was done in under an hour (I'm not a speedrunner) :) I also absolutely loved how they built the story line. Link wakes up somewhere with all his memory lost, so now it's a huge quest to figure out what happened and what to do, and you have to experience all this exactly as your character does, which makes for such a full immersion in a gameplay: you literally know exactly as much as Link does at any point in time. Neat!
I think that what BOTW gets right, especially in the tutorial, is the fact that it's so similar to real life. All the games I had played before that were either innocent, like Animal Crossing, or had some "gamey-mechanics" to them: you can kill an enemy one and only one way, you can't burn a torch until the game says so, the trees are there just for aesthetics. BOTW is different. A lot of things work just like in real life, and the game doesn't stop you from learning it the hard way either. And you learn about all of this through the first few hours, which is why I believe that this is the part where the game shines.
If you hack the glider and do a random shrine or 4, he’ll still appear when you go back to a plateau shrine! Oh, also if you complete 4 before the 1 cutscene, you see the 4 old man fuse with the 1 old man, just before disappearing and leaving behind 1 old man, and placing 4 shrines old man at the temple. It’s funny to see them clip through one another, lol
My prediction is that we'll be stuck in the sky a bit longer than the Great Plateau segment in BotW. Because the longer returning to the surface is held off, the grander it will feel when you're finally allowed to go there.
That's one thing I feel the Final Fantasy 7 remake did completely wrong. In the original, when you finally make it out of Midgar and see the world open up before you, it was the first time since OoT's Hyrule Field that I felt a sense of awe and wonder. Since FF7R is being released via chapters, that awestruck moment will never happen. Even when the next part is released, the buildup is crushed by that transition being spread out between two games. It's sad.
Recently caved and bought Elden Ring since I figured it would carry me a bit towards the release of TOTK. Oh man... there is so much in ER that could be utilized in TOTK. I especially felt the legacy dungeons were some great examples of nonlinear dungeon design that I would love to see Zeldafied in TOTK. Exploring Stormveil gave me the same feeling as BOTW's Hyrule Castle. Would make an awesome video imo going over what TOTK could learn from ER.
I like that every few videos you update the graphic of your name at the start of the video, and the fact that it almost always includes some geometric flair makes my strange brain happy. Oh, and the video is excellent as always.
May I recommend Zeltik? Oh and as for more "obscure" channels. QuestWithAaron would be right up your alley. CaptBurgerson has made some amazing Dungeon analysis videos lately. Oh and the guy who made that beautiful documentary about Ocarina of Time's subtext has uploaded a brand new video on his second channel about Majora's Mask. It's called: "LINE BY LINE (Majora's Mask True Story)"
This has me so nostalgic for the first time I played botw omg. and I agree a lot of the magical feeling of the game was really set up and attributed to how it felt to explore the great plateau and the game mechanics for the first time. Truly the best tutorial ever.
I´ve felt the same way about the Great Plateau: It is an ingenous tutorial. As an example: the game casually guides you to the Old Man's axe to the road down the hill. With the first Bokoblin between some trees. If you grabbed the axe and take some misses swinging it, you will accidentally cut down a three: teaching you almost accidentaly about that mechanic
The best thing they could do is have Zelda giving Link battle tips while he fights ganondorf in the first section, then he gets knocked out and whatever. If she gives him battle tips, it'll give old players a chance to show what they know from the first game and new players a chance to learn key mechanics in a fun way. When he gets knocked out and sent to the sky area, it could go the same way it did with the great plateau.
I thought it was evident we would start right after link gets attacked and absorbs the hand - it a neat way to explain why link is back to 3 hearts and one stamina wheel
That is EXACTLY how I felt about the plateau when I first played. I get so much nostalgia thinking about it and I wish more than anything I could relive that before I knew how to windbomb and BLSS and all that crap. Thanks for the nostalgia. :)))
I think the underground will be the first cutscene of the game and the game will fully start when he wakes up on a sky island with the new hand, and the sky island he wakes up on will be the great plateau of totk. I think whats gonna happen is, after ganondorf wakes up and zelda falls, the green hand is gonna maybe carry link over to a floating island, cause the castle rising might have pierced the cloud barrier that hylia made in skyward sword, and then the hand will fully merge with link as he wakes up (as seen in 0:42 in the second trailer) And hes gonna put his clothes back on and then open a big door that shows off the sky islands in a little cutscene (as seen in 0:42 in the 3rd trailer). In the tutorial i think the hand might be like out of power or something so link will have to find some things to power up the hand, which will then make the hand be able to create a new paraglider or something, and it could make the hand be able to help link get from island to island.
16:54 I also feel like that! I always missed this part where you had to fight with improvised weapons and 3 hearts and got to explore things for the first time. I can't even explain it better than that, it felt so good.
My brother and I are lifelong Zelda fans, we got the switch day one specifically to play BotW. I remember in the build up to the game he absolutely devoured videos of people playing the demo. So much so that he noticed that while the weather as a whole changed, there was a certain part of the map that was always covered in clouds. He pointed it out to me and said "I wanna go there first". And then he did as soon as he got off the plateau. Went all the way up the path to the gerudo highlands first thing to do, died of cold, went the other way and beat the Vah Naboris and the thunder blight Ganon first, before even visiting Impa. All because some clouds caught his eye. And I love that the game allows such wildly diverse first experiences with it
I remember tackling the Great Plateau for the first time and dying within 10 minutes... That'll teach me to take on a bunch of Bokoblins while waving a tree branch around
Why am I liking the way of your talking about my favorite game series? Half way through and I’m still invested in your clarification of Zelda game play…bravo sir bravo
Before BotW was fully revealed at E3 2016, I wished it would have been an even more open-ended adventure. In my imagination, instead of having a tutorial area like the Great Plateau and instead of initial quest markers that King Rhoam's ghost gives, you would have been set into the world with no specific directions. You would instead have to gather clues on your own and slowly obtain objectives as you find relics and ruins, and encounter other people.
I've probably played through BOTW 5 times since day 1, and it is still a blast and very addicting! The best part is being able to play how you want after the intro. Currently doing a master mode no deaths, no fairies or grace, no fast travel allowed and gonna aim for 100% before TOTK arrives.
Oof, no deaths AND without fairies or grace? Power to you! I would not be able to pull that off. Even if I got good, I just know I would mess it up at the last second
@Monster Maze I've had to restart 4 times so far, usually early game if I mess up, but I play a lot more cautious now and have hit the point where if I don't actively die (before dlc at least), I wont. If I have time after beating it 100% I might try a challenge run without 100% no gold hearts or stamina, and no eating during combat, no deaths or fast travel. I'd be insane to do 100% with those self imposed rules! No fast travel or deaths is very fun even on normal mode though!
My first playthrough was on MM. It was fun, but the enemies are way too spongy. Even with top-tier gear, with buffs, some things felt like less of a challenge, and more like a tedious chore. Especially the one, or two instances where they take your items away.
Nice vid; well done as always. I particularly liked the combination of an awesome Zelda theory accompanied by Xenoblade Chronicles 3 music. BotW and the XC franchise are some of my favorite games of all time, and Xenoblade in particular (as compared to BotW specifically, not Zelda as a whole) has some of the greatest video game music I've ever heard. Can't wait for TotK as well as the new XC3 hero and story later this year. 😎
Fantastic video MM. I can remember getting the goose bumps coming out of the chamber onto that plateau: Got them today, remembering as you talked through it. The plateau is exactly how I’ve always wanted Zelda to be… I’m pumped for TOTK, I think Nintendo have more magic up their sleeve. I think the sky island entry is going to be magnificent like the sky islands in Avatar (Pandora) I think they are really holding back on the epic scale of the sky islands… I think it will blow us away with awe of scope and scale…
Something I think could turn out really cool is if the tutorial begins on a sky island, when you jump off, in the few minutes it takes to reach the surface the credits could roll. I've always though it's really cool when a game incorporates its credits into the normal gameplay.
i somewhat enjoy playing without the paraglided available. while the glider makes exploration nearly infinite, having to find a good route between the different areas on the plateau instead of just finding a high point and gliding off proves for a pretty interesting challenge
Fun fact on TTP, in an interview with some of the design team said that its opening section was much shorter but a few months before launch Miyamoto told them to extend the length because he felt players would need longer to get used to the motion controls. So they rushed to add extra content at last minute which is why there's unfinished rooms and events still in the launch build for the village.
Personally I hope we get a combination.... A start in the caves following a set path, followed by a cutscene leading to us being dropped on a sky island tutorial with minimal resources.
I think that's the best compromise. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I hated the plateau on my 1st playthrough. It didn't teach me anything. I'm not the kind of person who is good at self-teaching. My 1st Zelda game was OoT and I greatly appreciated the training and tutelage from the NPCs. The Old Man didn't really explain things to me. The 1st combat tutorial takes place in Kakariko Village, several hours into the game.
I don't think that BotW peaked with the Great Plateau. Yes, it's amazing and one of the best tutorial areas in the game, but for me, I spent so much time on it that when I was finally allowed off, there was this excitement at growing past it, like the training wheels were off. I saw how big the Plateau was when exploring it, and then looking at its minuscule size compared to the rest of the map, I was completely overwhelmed. But every time I explored something new, every time I felt "done" with an area, it brought a sense of accomplishment. Immediately after completing the Plateau, I was nearly incapacitated by the choice paralysis, unsure of what to do, but as I slowly dominated more and more of the map, I truly felt like the master of the world, the Hero of the Wild. That was way more exhilarating than an intellectual acknowledgement of the perfection of the tutorial.
It's awesome right? There's a great video by IGN where they analyse the many design choices and subtle guidelines of the plateau. Not sure what the title of the video is but, I guess you can look up "IGN Great Plateau". They didn't mention the Divine Beast part, but they do cover a lot of things I didn't know about it.
thats exactly what i have been thinking, this area they have been showing in the teasers, this is the new plateau, and you need to complete the first dungeon before you can return to the surface
I think TOTK will start at Link's house with Link asleep, and Zelda wakes him up and they go to see Impa in Kakaroko Village, and they head off toward the Zora Domain, via the slope where we saw them at the end of BOTW. I think shortly later they will find their way underground.
It would be cool if the underground scene from the trailers was underneath the Great Plateau, and then Link first ascends to the sky island tutorial from there. Kind of linking the old tutorial area to the new one. And/or maybe the Temple of Time plays into how Link first learns how to enter the sky islands for the first time. Either way, amazing video!
Thank TrollSquad56 for that. He modded his own Sky Island into BotW... the absolute legend. He was kind enough to share some screen shots for my thumbnail ^^
It took the segue for me to realize I completely ignored part of the title and only noticed GREAT PLATEAU. So I was content and ready to just listen to a video about the botw version.
This game is so well designed. I am blown away with all the subtle things they did that you really don't notice unless you take a look back. Yet the design is all so simple. You have a goal and get distracted by neat stuff. That's as simple as I can explain it because that's about as simple as IT IS. This game is a complete masterclass of design and yet is still so simple. The zelda team should be extremely proud of themselves for crafting such an amazing and accessable experience.
I'm personally hoping that you don't start with the paraglider, and that Nintendo doesn't make it _hard coded_ to not allow you to experience the rest of the game without it. :V Like you can force any regular casual player to go get it before moving on, but let me break the game just a little bit to go on without it. Let me do my paragliderless runs!
Not having the ability to glide gives many more opportunities to be creative and utilize the physics system, and you really only get to truly experience that on the Great Plateau.
Nintendo did do an opening like BOTW's before and it was the one that got me into gaming... Super Mario 64... Which your most welcome and I always get a smile on my face when seeing you have uploaded!
I think that people may be underestimating how important underground stuff will be. I have a pretty strong feeling that with what we've seen it will be important as well, so I imagine if we do get a tutorial on a sky island (or closer of them) we will have some underground tunnels connecting otherwise longer ways around, but safer if they decide to make the tunnels treacherous. Maybe they'll even mimic the plateau and throw in a Talus? Either that or they have us start either before the beginning cutscene, traveling to Ganon's corpse, or after, of Link escaping the area. He may have to desperately run to escape and maybe even fight his way out (which would be a great thematic contrast to the first time you leave the Shrine in BotW) and then we are introduced to the world from there and we possibly get sent to a sky island in some way I can't conceive. That or the entire initial tutorial takes place underground and they only teach us how to get to the sky islands but not as heavy on the tutorials on them. I think your idea works better but overall it all depends on how big of a role the sky and underground will both play in the game. Personally I like the idea of the game teaching you the basics in a pre-Ganon travel with Zelda, and then after Ganon's attack we get stuck on the sky islands and learn the basics of how those work and we maybe see new mechanics or more expansions on what was already presented pre-Ganon, new or old. Theres a lot of potential here but honestly they can't really top the plateau without taking an entirely different approach, but for me playing the pre-Ganon section would be enough
I honestly could see them pulling a Majora and just having the opening of the game be a gameplay segment within the cave with Link following Zelda, and then a proper tutorial area after the big event with Ganondorf happens.
The tutorial will be in the sky, where you must find the pieces to a glider, which you’ll have to craft before you can leave. Crafting is one of the core mechanics, and will need to be emphasized, since it’s a new addition to BOTW
The song at the end of the video is from Age of Calamity, isn't it? Talking about AoC.... I remember your AMAZING videos about AoC before it came out. The game itslef turned out to be completely different than what your videos guessed, but I still love them. I have watched them a lot of times, all of them. Something tells me that your guesses here will be.... well, how should I put it? 100% wrong? hahaha LOL I hope the game itself is so unique that it surprises all of us lovers of The Legend of Zelda. As always, thanks a million for creating a super-enjoyable video. Keep up the great work, MM!
I wish I had discovered more of the great plateau upon my first playthrough. My first playthrough I did explore a little and experiment, but after I was on my way that was it. My second playthrough, rushed through it. My third and most recent? Probably the most time I've taken with the great plateau. I came back to the game after purchasing the DLC and I was reminded why it's my favorite game of all time, so I'm taking my time with this third playthrough. Exploring more, getting all shrines and the DLC items, etc. I discovered so much I had missed, including the very surprising Talus that caught me off guard like it was my first playthrough all over again. The great plateau is so perfect. It did so much right and it's probably the greatest area in the entire game.
![The Evolution of Hyrule [Part 1] - Zelda Theory](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/P9shOnebEaQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Happy Tears of the Kingdom Year everyone!
Is that a zonai swirl?
I'm so excited for when it gets released.
@@waldilks N.. no... why would you think that?
You jinxed it, totk 2024 confirmed
@@DeeVect noooo 😭😭😭😭
I always thought the sense of loss associated with leaving the plateau behind was on purpose. It kind of reflects what Link is feeling when he learns about his past and the mission that lies before him.
@Rather Not nah
@Rather Not thank you! I love Zelda theories but it seems like some people really act like this is a real lol
@Rather Not No. These TH-camrs talking about random theories like how the tears of the kingdom represent the inner conflict of Zelda rather than a simple collectable are overthinking it.
@@AnAmericanMusician They’re not overthinking either. The title always represents something more than an item. There’s a ton of symbolism in Zelda games and it tends to be intentional.
@Rather Not this is literally a zelda theory channel, that's the point of theories. Go be an ass somewhere else
Don’t forget: the Great Plateau also had a Stone Talus. It wasn’t anywhere near the Shrines, but it was there, so you could see that this game may throw big enemies at you with little warning as you explore. In particular, it’s interesting that the Talus isn’t in a big, round, open space that screams “this is a boss arena”
I still remember the shock I felt when the Talus rose to fight me !
Indeed, the Talus was an amazing (and a bit scary) surprise
WAIT WHAT??? Where????
@@harleymyers2682 I think it's close to the forest?
r we just not gonna talk about the lynel that spawns in the great plateau in master mode
Prior to BOTW being released, 95% of the footage we saw of the game was from the Great Plateau. I was so excited to see what else was out there past the plateau that I rushed through it and got on my way to the rest of the world. My second play through I spent more time on the plateau and explored it more thoroughly and discovered just how much I missed and how much it had to offer.
I did it very similarly.
I did almost the exact same thing. To the point rhat i didnt even find the warm doublet , the stone talus, or the spot that shows u can use trees as a bridge. I legit missed so much cool shit accidentally because i wanted to get thru it
On that note, I wonder if most of what we’ve seen of TotK is the starting area… Definitely not 95% of what we have been shown appears so, but perhaps still a majority.
@@jasonnewberyI made a ton of stamina elixirs to climb over to that area you were supposed to get to via the tree lmao, so I never learnt that but managed to not learn anything and be a dumbass at the same time
@@Snowmanly7 I kinda of don’t want a trailer anymore
That's exactly how I felt with the great plateau. I could play the first one or two hours so many times without getting bored of it, just because that zone feels so good to explore! I don't know what it is, and in some way, I like that area being an "enclosed zone" where you first need to get the paraglider to exit it, even tho the rest of the game is open world. It feels very nice!
It sure does! Another appeal of the plateau for me is that you can see the rest of Hyrule all around you, so you constantly wonder what might lay on the horizon and where you want to go when you are finally set free ^^
The idea that the plateau is already so incredible and vast, yet your adventure barely even started!
I'd argue there is a simple explanation for that: activity density.
The plateau has the best density of activity in the game, hunting, enemies, shrines... The rest of the game is amazing, but doesn't come close until locations like Korok forest, the dark area, or the castle... But all of those have difficulties that make them not as balanced or "fun"(relative chill vibe of the rest of the game) as the plateau, especially evident when roaming the Hinox mountains in the SE, portions of the desert and highlands, many spots lack shrines, enemies, or resources, the plateau has just the right balance of everything appropriate for your level of resources.
@@michaellane5381 yeah maybe that works too. i just loved the feeling of "survival" that zone had compared to the rest of the game, and yeah many other areas are so open and so empty at the same time... i hope tears of kingdom has more stuff going on, specially if they implement a caves system and more npcs around
@@bubblemage agreed, tbh in BotW my only real complaints with map design are the caves in the SE have such great caves for fortification or random huntable creatures and the NW has such an epic cave system with only a single shrine(there are like 4 unique ones that I think all have shrines, the hot spring, the underground pseudo-ruin, the great skeleton for the sidequest next to a shrine, and the giant "snowshrooms" with a shrine but nothing to do in those areas except for the last one however all of that is generic huntables and enemies without compounds.
I actually wished the game had portioned of its landscape with key items more. While the open exploration is neat, I still like the classic “key item -> new areas” Zelda formula. Was expecting a hookshot or other mobility items later in the game like the paraglider.
12:34 despite having seen this moment dozens of times, i still can’t get over that weightless feeling and awe the scene instills. hands down one of the most effective ‘opening’ scenes in a game.
I'm also excited to go back to the great plateau in TotK. Seeing it not as a tutorial, but as a later section in the game sounds awesome. Maybe the temple of time is being rebuilt, or the plateau is in even more disarray. Maybe there's a big monster infesting the plateau and the plateau becomes a dungeon of sorts. Maybe it's just an empty place meant for you to recollect on the past of the previous game like in RDR2. Whatever it is, it sounds exciting.
Yeah, the Temple of Time ain't getting rebuilt anytime soon.
I honestly think it will be the Great plateau again, but it'll be floating and broken up at different levels, and have access to caves etc this time, so you can get used to the "up and down" expansion of exploration the game introduces. It'll probably be the reason it was raised so much in the first place.
I hope it floats upwards. I'd love to see some changes to Hyrule's existing geography
@@MonsterMaze I hope it will be very pretty terrain and free world
The Great Plateau floating up into the air would be amazing, and could seemingly lend some evidence to the theory I think I first saw from NintendoBlackCrisis that the great plataeu and Lost Woods at one point in time swapped places.
You can see the Great Plateau and the Temple of Time in the most recent teaser though, right where they always were. And with the exception of Hyrule Castle, the floating islands don’t appear to be chunks of Hyrule ripped from
the surface.
I expect it's going to be hateno village, with link half retired. It'll be more story oriented than exploration oriented
im watching this video much later than it was uploaded but i just want to say its so impressive how spot on you were about the introduction to tears of the kingdom
I really hope that the Great Plateau is brought back in some way. Not necessarily as an opening again. More what was left behind. I said in my most recent video that I feel it's the BEST opening to a video game EVER! But feels like for the rest of the game it leaves behind a lot that had potential to work with. Mainly the Temple of Time, perhaps it'll be expanded in TOTK or brought up into the sky! But I'm not too confident there xD. I'd love it though!
The opening of TOTK is so intriguing because it could be literally anywhere. The caves, the sky and maybe even in Hyrule itself. All with different likelihoods of course but all possible! For me, I think we will be starting our actual gameplay in the Sky, probably waking up too! Everything else around that, I have no clue 😅
I really enjoyed this video, great work Don! (P.S - the greatest flaw being it is too good, is an amazing quote!)
Oh for sure! I was too busy on my own edit to watch yours, but now that I'm done I will give it a good watch!
@@MonsterMaze I hope there's a mission where we have to do something to restore the Temple of Time!!!!
Something I really want is to restore the main entrance to the Plateau. The stairs that are now blocked by rocks and water.
Plateau entrance, Tample of Time, Akkala Citadel and Hyrule Castl are the places that I would pretty much appreciate to see them restored. Of course there are many more like Lanayru Promenade, but those are my top 4
I dont think we go to the sky yntil after the castle rises
I feel like the ending of Tears of the Kingdom could be set on the Great Plateau. Bringing the entire duology full circle.
Ah the Great Plateau. It was so well done that you could spend hours and hours in there and once you've "beaten" it (did the shrines etc.) and explored it fully, it'll leave you satisfied and the game could almost end there, but no. It rewards you with a far larger map and game to explore. I love this game and I can't wait for totk
You talking about the Plateau “peaking early” makes sense to me, and I figured out a big reason why (at least to me) that is: always having the Paraglider. One of the coolest things in the opening area was not only figuring out how to solve puzzles or climb to certain tall places, but ALSO how punishing it was if you messed up. Some may disagree with me on this, but I think that giving you permanent, constant access to the Glider after the Plateau is a major reason why the sense of exploration became a little too linear and simple after that; instead they either had to make things just way taller to combat stamina, or make rain and no ways to combat it. You can always save yourself from fall damage; you can always cross large portions of land or water; you can even learn to wind Bomb and perpetually keep yourself airborne as long as you have the right food prepped. And even using the very detailed mechanics of horses feels largely decentivized because the player can likely get somewhere faster just by climbing, then gliding straight towards their destination instead.
This is why I’m currently doing a run where I’m arbitrarily limiting my glider uses. Link is only allowed 1 time where he can activate it since the last time he was in a “safe area”, like a tower, shrine, town, pre-spawned campfire, fairy fountain, etc. although still having the glider is basically necessary for certain things, being restricted on how often you can use it and then being “grounded” until you return to a safe place changes a lot about the exploration. Climbing the Twin Peaks, for example, forced me along different routes than I would usually go because I couldn’t just go from one side to the other as easily. Using horses was incentivized a lot more. Climbing DOWN things, which you never think about worrying about outside the Plateau in the normal game, becomes a completely new challenge and puzzle in itself. I know it’s basically possible to do a full run without the glider at all, but even just by severely limiting it (for example, I’m going to try doing Eventide with no glider) makes the game a lot more interesting. Hunting the dragons is significantly harder too, for example, because you might ordinarily glide to them, shoot, and then glide again, but under these restrictions it is far different.
But that’s why, regardless of how Tears of the Kingdom does things, I am so happy the engine of the first game is returning for this one. One of the great things about BotW is not just it’s game design, but ability to impose even oddly specific restrictions on yourself and most things still being possible.
Very interesting challenge you got there. Wish it was part of a Hard Mode or something similar. I tend to cheat here and there if i make up my own rules and a part gets too tedious.
Agreed on that point. I often felt as I skimmed the clifftops that 'huh they really look like they planned this area to be entered from the ground, following that road right into an obvious lynel.... welp...' and continued on my way because there really wasn't any good reason not to take advantage of the traversal options. Unfortunately with my life feeling more and more restrictive in terms of time to sit around and mess with games, I kind of need a game to work its best magic without the need for self-imposed restrictions, so I hope TotK can address that. :)
@@theoaremevano3227 tbh that just sounds like you’d like more of a linear but nice game like TP or SS. Not to say TotK won’t be enjoyable! But you talking about things like the path that leads to the Lynel, feeling almost like a missed encounter opportunity when you can just go around it; I feel like TotK will be EVEN MORE open than the original. Perhaps certain islands can only be reached by doing things in a set order? But at the very least, I imagine exploring the majority of normal Hyrule will be similar mechanically to the first game, simply because it’s the same open map and engine; and thus it may not necessarily be able to “fix” that problem and give more scripted encounters. That said, I still think they’ll improve on the open world formula: it just will still be pretty open world and not very linear
@@Diamond_Aura : I do love both of those games, almost as much as Majora's Mask. :D I think that the best 'solution' for TotK would be to adjust the balance between rewards to make it objectively more beneficial to go after enemies, and also involve combat trials more in the dungeons.
The main reason I skipped, say, the lynel at the foot of Mt. Lanayru was because I'd already killed both the one near Zora's Domain and a more powerful one in the badlands. With the novelty of such an encounter gone, only the tangible reward mattered, and I wasn't after anything it would have given me, and no reason to smash weapons on a weaker one.
One thing you gain out of the negative you brought up is when you replay the game, there will be even more areas to explore than if you were to hoof it on the ground everywhere your first playthrough.
What a wonderful sandbox. When two players can play and enjoy the game in such different ways is a testimony to how well the game was designed.
Coming back to rewatch this before TotK, and while you were mentioning the similarities between the four shrines and the divine beasts, I remembered that the old man's hint to go to the Temple of Time is to make an X between the shrines and find the intersection. If you do the same thing with the locations of the Divine Beasts, the center falls right where Hyrule Castle is located. Genius.
9:20 ''Hours have passed ,,,,, collecting carrots.''
Oh, don't forget a few Birds eggs. 🥚
I loved the great plateau tutorial area. The anticipation of the whole world just waiting out in the distance.
Still my favourite tutorial in the series, can’t wait to see what TOTK does with its opening, and how it will bring us back into the world while soft-resetting Link. Great video as usual 🫡
Thanks bud! Time to catch up on videos by my co-creators ^^
I always thought it would be cool if TotK caries over your items from BotW for the opening, but you lose everything after encountering Ganondorf. I guess if you never played BotW, it would give you a default set of items. After being disarmed, Link would be dropped into a tutorial area where he learns to use the green arm.
Aaah the Castlevania symphony of the night approach. Start out like a god and then get smacked all the way back to level one again after the first few minutes. I like that idea. Not sure if they would be able account for the stuff you colelcted on your BotW save, but if it's possible... why not. I definitely want my house back! I paid good money... and... woodbundles for that place ^^
@@MonsterMaze That is kind of what they did.
A really interesting idea i never gave any thought to. BotW had the best tutorial in any game hands down mainly because you couldn't even tell it was a tutorial. Really interested to see how TotK handles it.
Exactly; General consensus says that the best tutorials are usually the ones that don't even feel much like tutorials. DOOM 2016 comes to mind for me with it's opening level as it disguises teaching the player the mechanics of the game through just how fun and seamless the level is when compared to the rest of the game.
I am worried. I feel like people are going to complain no matter what
Ngl it would be insane to see if the paraglider is a mid-game item you get. The mecha-loftwing could be a more early game item that lets you get to the bottom from the sky, and is also not as controlled as the paraglider (so a straight line once deployed).
You could still go anywhere, but without the paraglider, would require you to be a lot more map oriented for a little.
I remember playing for the first time and thinking that the great plateau was the map and still being amazed. Then you get the glider and the whole world opens up and I was even more amazed
That prediction for the intro segment of the game is so solid that I’d kind of be surprised if Nintendo didn’t go that route
I love the opening music choice. Eryhria Sea is such a wonderful sountrack and also fits the theme of exploration.
Hope they can find a good balance in creating a training area that is great in both your first playthrough and the rest of them. I remember the first time I played Ocarina of Time and being at the Kokiri forest and the Great Deku Tree for the first time, it was really magical, but in my next playthroughs, Navi was annoying because I knew what I had to do next, and there was no way to avoid her...
Indeed. Second playthroughs have been a bit of an issue with Zelda games sometimes, since Nintendo refused to let you skip things or implement a chapter select of sorts.
@@MonsterMaze Why would Zelda have a chapter select?
HEY! LISTEN!
LORD ALMIGHTY is that intro satisfying!!! ugh the design, look, the feel of the animation and sync with the sound. love it every time
The peak moment for me was riding my horse around the track of the old ruins of lon-lon ranch in the rain for the first time and hearing Epona's song subtly works its way into the musical score. It was at that moment hearing that song riding around that track made me realize it was lon-lon ranch, and as it dawned on me, I felt like a 10 year old kid again playing OOT for the first time again.
The other peak was meeting the in-game personification of Robin Williams for the first time that nintendo intentionally put in to honor his memory :(
I do love the idea of starting out high above Hyrule after Ganondorf reawakens, able to look down and wonder what he hell is going on down on the surface. I always got a good feeling from Link returning to the Temple of Time after drawing the Master Sword and standing there in the darkened room with Navi wondering "but have seven years really passed?"
I do agree on the game as a whole not ramping up much from the starting area. The problem was really just that most of the individual features and challenges out in the world were still a bit limited in size, theme and scope, only broken up by how many of them there were to find. I think when you escape the starting area of the sequel, you'll probably descend either to the Great Plateau, to see how things have changed and maybe find people gathering and building there, or into a very hostile situation to show how much more dangerous it is on the surface now.
My most memorable moment in breath of the wild was also in the great plateau when I was exploring and scavenging for gear for the first time. I wasn’t sure what the game had to offer so in my head I made the old cabin house where the old man was my first “base” thinking that this was going to be my main home for a good chunk of the game. I remember when I found my first outfit, old sword and my first bow. It felt immensely rewarding. The plateau was very interesting to explore like nothing I had played before. It was a unique magical experience that lives rent free in my head. I just hope that Tears of The Kingdom is even better or at the very least lives up to Breath of the wild.
starting the video with Erythia Sea's music instantly put the image of having music like it in Tears of the Kingdom. Elite!
The Great Plateau is what made me believe that I was going to turn into a Zelda fan. Breath of The Wild's complete journey turned me into one. I've gone back and played so many of the older Zelda games now and I've been completely in love with the series. So grateful for experiences like this😩
Great plateau is a Great tutorial! I spent many hours exploring it and loved every minute of it. On my second playthrough I was done in under an hour (I'm not a speedrunner) :)
I also absolutely loved how they built the story line. Link wakes up somewhere with all his memory lost, so now it's a huge quest to figure out what happened and what to do, and you have to experience all this exactly as your character does, which makes for such a full immersion in a gameplay: you literally know exactly as much as Link does at any point in time. Neat!
I think that what BOTW gets right, especially in the tutorial, is the fact that it's so similar to real life.
All the games I had played before that were either innocent, like Animal Crossing, or had some "gamey-mechanics" to them: you can kill an enemy one and only one way, you can't burn a torch until the game says so, the trees are there just for aesthetics.
BOTW is different. A lot of things work just like in real life, and the game doesn't stop you from learning it the hard way either. And you learn about all of this through the first few hours, which is why I believe that this is the part where the game shines.
If you hack the glider and do a random shrine or 4, he’ll still appear when you go back to a plateau shrine! Oh, also if you complete 4 before the 1 cutscene, you see the 4 old man fuse with the 1 old man, just before disappearing and leaving behind 1 old man, and placing 4 shrines old man at the temple. It’s funny to see them clip through one another, lol
Seeing how link starts by opening a door in the sky I think it might start off like sky loft did
My prediction is that we'll be stuck in the sky a bit longer than the Great Plateau segment in BotW. Because the longer returning to the surface is held off, the grander it will feel when you're finally allowed to go there.
That's one thing I feel the Final Fantasy 7 remake did completely wrong. In the original, when you finally make it out of Midgar and see the world open up before you, it was the first time since OoT's Hyrule Field that I felt a sense of awe and wonder. Since FF7R is being released via chapters, that awestruck moment will never happen. Even when the next part is released, the buildup is crushed by that transition being spread out between two games. It's sad.
Great choice with Erythia sea theme! My favorite track from that game.
One of my favorite OST's at the moment! Now let's hope for some proper sea exploration in TotK ^^
Recently caved and bought Elden Ring since I figured it would carry me a bit towards the release of TOTK. Oh man... there is so much in ER that could be utilized in TOTK. I especially felt the legacy dungeons were some great examples of nonlinear dungeon design that I would love to see Zeldafied in TOTK. Exploring Stormveil gave me the same feeling as BOTW's Hyrule Castle. Would make an awesome video imo going over what TOTK could learn from ER.
Great video. I love the time and thought you put in to them. Great job Don!!
Thanks Steven! I try ^^
I like that every few videos you update the graphic of your name at the start of the video, and the fact that it almost always includes some geometric flair makes my strange brain happy. Oh, and the video is excellent as always.
Awesome to see a new video today. I'm desperately craving new Zelda content, but aside from this channel I can't find anything of quality!
May I recommend Zeltik?
Oh and as for more "obscure" channels. QuestWithAaron would be right up your alley. CaptBurgerson has made some amazing Dungeon analysis videos lately.
Oh and the guy who made that beautiful documentary about Ocarina of Time's subtext has uploaded a brand new video on his second channel about Majora's Mask. It's called: "LINE BY LINE (Majora's Mask True Story)"
This has me so nostalgic for the first time I played botw omg. and I agree a lot of the magical feeling of the game was really set up and attributed to how it felt to explore the great plateau and the game mechanics for the first time. Truly the best tutorial ever.
BOTW changed things for me. I no longer want a game to hold my hand I wanna see and learn as I go. That's definitely part of the experience.
I´ve felt the same way about the Great Plateau: It is an ingenous tutorial. As an example: the game casually guides you to the Old Man's axe to the road down the hill. With the first Bokoblin between some trees. If you grabbed the axe and take some misses swinging it, you will accidentally cut down a three: teaching you almost accidentaly about that mechanic
The best thing they could do is have Zelda giving Link battle tips while he fights ganondorf in the first section, then he gets knocked out and whatever. If she gives him battle tips, it'll give old players a chance to show what they know from the first game and new players a chance to learn key mechanics in a fun way. When he gets knocked out and sent to the sky area, it could go the same way it did with the great plateau.
Love your videos bro bro, thanks for the content while we wait 🙏
I fully expect the area with the giant doors to be our new "plateau" and the game properly begins when we jump into the clouds below
I thought it was evident we would start right after link gets attacked and absorbs the hand - it a neat way to explain why link is back to 3 hearts and one stamina wheel
Indeed, that initial hit from Ganondorf's Malice will surely be the "reset" for Link
@@MonsterMaze. Oh, almost certainly.
That is EXACTLY how I felt about the plateau when I first played. I get so much nostalgia thinking about it and I wish more than anything I could relive that before I knew how to windbomb and BLSS and all that crap. Thanks for the nostalgia. :)))
I think the underground will be the first cutscene of the game and the game will fully start when he wakes up on a sky island with the new hand, and the sky island he wakes up on will be the great plateau of totk. I think whats gonna happen is, after ganondorf wakes up and zelda falls, the green hand is gonna maybe carry link over to a floating island, cause the castle rising might have pierced the cloud barrier that hylia made in skyward sword, and then the hand will fully merge with link as he wakes up (as seen in 0:42 in the second trailer) And hes gonna put his clothes back on and then open a big door that shows off the sky islands in a little cutscene (as seen in 0:42 in the 3rd trailer). In the tutorial i think the hand might be like out of power or something so link will have to find some things to power up the hand, which will then make the hand be able to create a new paraglider or something, and it could make the hand be able to help link get from island to island.
16:54 I also feel like that! I always missed this part where you had to fight with improvised weapons and 3 hearts and got to explore things for the first time. I can't even explain it better than that, it felt so good.
My brother and I are lifelong Zelda fans, we got the switch day one specifically to play BotW. I remember in the build up to the game he absolutely devoured videos of people playing the demo. So much so that he noticed that while the weather as a whole changed, there was a certain part of the map that was always covered in clouds. He pointed it out to me and said "I wanna go there first".
And then he did as soon as he got off the plateau. Went all the way up the path to the gerudo highlands first thing to do, died of cold, went the other way and beat the Vah Naboris and the thunder blight Ganon first, before even visiting Impa. All because some clouds caught his eye. And I love that the game allows such wildly diverse first experiences with it
My patience is waining, I can’t wait! This is fuelling me with patience. Thank you monster maze.
My patience is waning is this entertaining
Really cool video. I hope the new tutorial is going to be as good as the Great plateau with some new stuff sprinkled in here and there.
I remember tackling the Great Plateau for the first time and dying within 10 minutes... That'll teach me to take on a bunch of Bokoblins while waving a tree branch around
Same here! I think I died twice in the first 10 minutes or so. The boko's were probably laughing at me
@@MonsterMaze Larry most certainly did - he's the type to do that 😁
Using Melnath’s shoulder night theme from Xenoblade 3 literally gave me chills while watching this 😂
Such a wonderful OST! It's a crime that XC3 didn't win the best Soundtrack at the Game Awards...
@@MonsterMaze yeah unfortunate, but I was happy enough with the nomination.
In any case, ur song choices are immaculate 👌
Impressive editing. The video always matches with the topic and references.
Why am I liking the way of your talking about my favorite game series? Half way through and I’m still invested in your clarification of Zelda game play…bravo sir bravo
Your Videos are always made with such high Quality, it’s honestly inspiring. Love the Videos :)
Before BotW was fully revealed at E3 2016, I wished it would have been an even more open-ended adventure. In my imagination, instead of having a tutorial area like the Great Plateau and instead of initial quest markers that King Rhoam's ghost gives, you would have been set into the world with no specific directions. You would instead have to gather clues on your own and slowly obtain objectives as you find relics and ruins, and encounter other people.
Because that definitely wouldn't discourage people.
@@NuiYabuko I'm sure Nintendo made the right call when designing the quest structure. This was just my own fantasies. ;p
Yo! Great video MM! I’ve been brainstorming great plateau segments recently too and am really excited to see what they do with it in the end!
When I saw the thumbnail I though 'omg a new totk trailer!', then 'aw it's just a monster maze video' and then 'yay, it's a monster maze video!'
I think you’re opening predictions are spot on man. That makes a lot of sense. I can’t wait to find out.
I've probably played through BOTW 5 times since day 1, and it is still a blast and very addicting! The best part is being able to play how you want after the intro. Currently doing a master mode no deaths, no fairies or grace, no fast travel allowed and gonna aim for 100% before TOTK arrives.
Oof, no deaths AND without fairies or grace? Power to you! I would not be able to pull that off. Even if I got good, I just know I would mess it up at the last second
@Monster Maze I've had to restart 4 times so far, usually early game if I mess up, but I play a lot more cautious now and have hit the point where if I don't actively die (before dlc at least), I wont. If I have time after beating it 100% I might try a challenge run without 100% no gold hearts or stamina, and no eating during combat, no deaths or fast travel. I'd be insane to do 100% with those self imposed rules! No fast travel or deaths is very fun even on normal mode though!
My first playthrough was on MM. It was fun, but the enemies are way too spongy. Even with top-tier gear, with buffs, some things felt like less of a challenge, and more like a tedious chore. Especially the one, or two instances where they take your items away.
Dude, I can't believe you got me excited about a tutorial! 😂
The "Erythia Sea" bgm caught me off guard, but was a totally beautiful addition. Wonderful choice.
Nice vid; well done as always. I particularly liked the combination of an awesome Zelda theory accompanied by Xenoblade Chronicles 3 music. BotW and the XC franchise are some of my favorite games of all time, and Xenoblade in particular (as compared to BotW specifically, not Zelda as a whole) has some of the greatest video game music I've ever heard. Can't wait for TotK as well as the new XC3 hero and story later this year. 😎
Fantastic video MM. I can remember getting the goose bumps coming out of the chamber onto that plateau:
Got them today, remembering as you talked through it. The plateau is exactly how I’ve always wanted Zelda to be…
I’m pumped for TOTK, I think Nintendo have more magic up their sleeve. I think the sky island entry is going to be magnificent like the sky islands in Avatar (Pandora)
I think they are really holding back on the epic scale of the sky islands… I think it will blow us away with awe of scope and scale…
what a stellar video!!! it really helps me appreciate the great plateau so much more!!!
Something I think could turn out really cool is if the tutorial begins on a sky island, when you jump off, in the few minutes it takes to reach the surface the credits could roll. I've always though it's really cool when a game incorporates its credits into the normal gameplay.
It’s always a good day when Monster Maze uploads.
Just came across your channel and this video was great. Very much looking forward to TOTK. Thanks 👍🏼
i somewhat enjoy playing without the paraglided available. while the glider makes exploration nearly infinite, having to find a good route between the different areas on the plateau instead of just finding a high point and gliding off proves for a pretty interesting challenge
Same here! You feel so much more vurnerable in this massive world without the glider
Fun fact on TTP, in an interview with some of the design team said that its opening section was much shorter but a few months before launch Miyamoto told them to extend the length because he felt players would need longer to get used to the motion controls. So they rushed to add extra content at last minute which is why there's unfinished rooms and events still in the launch build for the village.
Personally I hope we get a combination.... A start in the caves following a set path, followed by a cutscene leading to us being dropped on a sky island tutorial with minimal resources.
I think that's the best compromise. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I hated the plateau on my 1st playthrough. It didn't teach me anything. I'm not the kind of person who is good at self-teaching. My 1st Zelda game was OoT and I greatly appreciated the training and tutelage from the NPCs. The Old Man didn't really explain things to me. The 1st combat tutorial takes place in Kakariko Village, several hours into the game.
This is awesome man you’re definitely onto something with this one
I don't think that BotW peaked with the Great Plateau. Yes, it's amazing and one of the best tutorial areas in the game, but for me, I spent so much time on it that when I was finally allowed off, there was this excitement at growing past it, like the training wheels were off. I saw how big the Plateau was when exploring it, and then looking at its minuscule size compared to the rest of the map, I was completely overwhelmed. But every time I explored something new, every time I felt "done" with an area, it brought a sense of accomplishment. Immediately after completing the Plateau, I was nearly incapacitated by the choice paralysis, unsure of what to do, but as I slowly dominated more and more of the map, I truly felt like the master of the world, the Hero of the Wild. That was way more exhilarating than an intellectual acknowledgement of the perfection of the tutorial.
Woah, I never realised the plateau was a mirror for the divine beasts quest! It's so cool you picked that up!
It's awesome right? There's a great video by IGN where they analyse the many design choices and subtle guidelines of the plateau. Not sure what the title of the video is but, I guess you can look up "IGN Great Plateau". They didn't mention the Divine Beast part, but they do cover a lot of things I didn't know about it.
"seeing a dragon for the first time" That moment when I spotted Farosh from the plateau, so that was also there XD
“Burglary and vandalism… oh and saving the world of course.” 😂😂😂
thats exactly what i have been thinking, this area they have been showing in the teasers, this is the new plateau, and you need to complete the first dungeon before you can return to the surface
I think TOTK will start at Link's house with Link asleep, and Zelda wakes him up and they go to see Impa in Kakaroko Village, and they head off toward the Zora Domain, via the slope where we saw them at the end of BOTW. I think shortly later they will find their way underground.
babe wake up new monster maze video
It would be cool if the underground scene from the trailers was underneath the Great Plateau, and then Link first ascends to the sky island tutorial from there. Kind of linking the old tutorial area to the new one. And/or maybe the Temple of Time plays into how Link first learns how to enter the sky islands for the first time. Either way, amazing video!
Nice video! Also, great editing!
The thumbnail shot looked so legit I thought a trailer shadow dropped 😂
Thank TrollSquad56 for that. He modded his own Sky Island into BotW... the absolute legend. He was kind enough to share some screen shots for my thumbnail ^^
It took the segue for me to realize I completely ignored part of the title and only noticed GREAT PLATEAU. So I was content and ready to just listen to a video about the botw version.
This game is so well designed. I am blown away with all the subtle things they did that you really don't notice unless you take a look back. Yet the design is all so simple. You have a goal and get distracted by neat stuff. That's as simple as I can explain it because that's about as simple as IT IS. This game is a complete masterclass of design and yet is still so simple. The zelda team should be extremely proud of themselves for crafting such an amazing and accessable experience.
I'm personally hoping that you don't start with the paraglider, and that Nintendo doesn't make it _hard coded_ to not allow you to experience the rest of the game without it. :V
Like you can force any regular casual player to go get it before moving on, but let me break the game just a little bit to go on without it.
Let me do my paragliderless runs!
Not having the ability to glide gives many more opportunities to be creative and utilize the physics system, and you really only get to truly experience that on the Great Plateau.
Here in the first hour!
Excited for Tears! Can’t wait.
Nintendo did do an opening like BOTW's before and it was the one that got me into gaming... Super Mario 64... Which your most welcome and I always get a smile on my face when seeing you have uploaded!
Bro, I JUST remembered that TotK is coming in less than 4 months, this game needs to be marketed more.
Soon, soon! The next Direct is right around the corner
@@MonsterMaze I really hope so lol, I need to see more of this game
@@MonsterMaze. It most likely is seeing as Nintendo loves to do directs around February.
I'm so hyped for this game that I actually have a countdown on my home screen.
We have 115 days left
I think that people may be underestimating how important underground stuff will be. I have a pretty strong feeling that with what we've seen it will be important as well, so I imagine if we do get a tutorial on a sky island (or closer of them) we will have some underground tunnels connecting otherwise longer ways around, but safer if they decide to make the tunnels treacherous. Maybe they'll even mimic the plateau and throw in a Talus? Either that or they have us start either before the beginning cutscene, traveling to Ganon's corpse, or after, of Link escaping the area. He may have to desperately run to escape and maybe even fight his way out (which would be a great thematic contrast to the first time you leave the Shrine in BotW) and then we are introduced to the world from there and we possibly get sent to a sky island in some way I can't conceive. That or the entire initial tutorial takes place underground and they only teach us how to get to the sky islands but not as heavy on the tutorials on them. I think your idea works better but overall it all depends on how big of a role the sky and underground will both play in the game. Personally I like the idea of the game teaching you the basics in a pre-Ganon travel with Zelda, and then after Ganon's attack we get stuck on the sky islands and learn the basics of how those work and we maybe see new mechanics or more expansions on what was already presented pre-Ganon, new or old. Theres a lot of potential here but honestly they can't really top the plateau without taking an entirely different approach, but for me playing the pre-Ganon section would be enough
I’m so excited for this new game and all the videos. Breath of the wild got me into gaming and playing it through was such a happy time in my life 😢
Boy I say Boy you're easily my favorite Zelda Tuber, I take the lore somewhat seriously and you present the lore seriously and I respect that.
My only fear is that there is no "ground" but only these floating pieces of hyrule floating in mid-air.
I honestly could see them pulling a Majora and just having the opening of the game be a gameplay segment within the cave with Link following Zelda, and then a proper tutorial area after the big event with Ganondorf happens.
I could definitely see that ^^
The tutorial will be in the sky, where you must find the pieces to a glider, which you’ll have to craft before you can leave. Crafting is one of the core mechanics, and will need to be emphasized, since it’s a new addition to BOTW
The song at the end of the video is from Age of Calamity, isn't it? Talking about AoC.... I remember your AMAZING videos about AoC before it came out. The game itslef turned out to be completely different than what your videos guessed, but I still love them. I have watched them a lot of times, all of them. Something tells me that your guesses here will be.... well, how should I put it? 100% wrong? hahaha LOL I hope the game itself is so unique that it surprises all of us lovers of The Legend of Zelda. As always, thanks a million for creating a super-enjoyable video. Keep up the great work, MM!
i feel like the cliff scene may just be the free falling scene looking at the other islands and hyrule from above
I think the great plateau is gonna be rose into the sky
I wish I had discovered more of the great plateau upon my first playthrough. My first playthrough I did explore a little and experiment, but after I was on my way that was it. My second playthrough, rushed through it. My third and most recent? Probably the most time I've taken with the great plateau. I came back to the game after purchasing the DLC and I was reminded why it's my favorite game of all time, so I'm taking my time with this third playthrough. Exploring more, getting all shrines and the DLC items, etc. I discovered so much I had missed, including the very surprising Talus that caught me off guard like it was my first playthrough all over again.
The great plateau is so perfect. It did so much right and it's probably the greatest area in the entire game.