The Problem With Tears of the Kingdom's Story
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ย. 2023
- As the continuation of Breath of the Wild's epic journey, Tears of the Kingdom faced high expectations, but its unconventional narrative approach sparked mixed emotions among longtime fans and newcomers alike. In this video, we explore the intricate layers that make Tears of the Kingdom a captivating, though lore-demanding, addition to the revered Legend of Zelda series.
This video is one of 3 that participated in our Zelda Month 2023 celebration.
Check out the rest of the videos that break the ins and outs of TOTK here: • Zelda Month 2023
Let's Talk Games Together: theswitchclicks.carrd.co
#TearsoftheKingdom - เกม
23:02 Such a moment does happen if you reach the Demon Dragon without the Master Sword. It's an awesome moment.
I actually made a completely new save file just to beat the final boss without the master sword (which was quite the challenge) and to experience that epic feeling of using the master sword to it's fullest potential
I disagree. Having the Master Sword cutscene in that moment basically creates a huge gap in the pacing of the finale that I think it's not worth it just to check that box.
I have to pin this.
That was completely my fault for not doing proper research to see if there were any secret alternate endings to the game.
The alternate Master Sword scene does indeed check off all four boxes, and I will say it is the absolute best Master Sword scene out of the whole franchise. What makes it even crazier is that it would still be considered canon because it gives you the final memory.
Thanks for pointing this out!
- Nathan
yeah that happened to me i completely given up on finding the master sword on my own so, i rushed to the boss fight and to my suprise the sword was waiting for me on a dragon and not any dragon it is zelda's dragon soo i got duoble twisted u can say
TOTK's story just screams to me that it was something of an after thought. I get that the Zelda Team puts gameplay first as a priority for the development, but this is the largest internal development studio at Nintendo, with an enormous budget to work with, and the longest development time in Zelda's history... And this story was the best they could come up with? It's just sad that the most engaging part of the story for TOTK comes in the form of a trailer that released before the actual game ever released. Also thank you for bringing up how immersion breaking it can be have Link not react to anything. I can project myself onto a character that talks, reacts, and engages with characters around them. What I can't project myself onto is a character that has all the stage presence of a plank of wood.
Honestly my biggest grievance with the story was just Zelda turning back into a human at the end . The memory scenes made such a big deal out of not being able to turn back and losing your conscious mind only for two ghosts to undo it with MaGiCaL pOwErS. It would be sad, yes, but either commit to it or don't.
I know right? They could have at least added some sort of final dungeon where we go and remove the stone ourselves or something. Not the greatest thing. but it's infinitely better than whatever the heck they did there. 😂
@@GizmoAlysthat would’ve required soul, creativity, and effort.
@@FullyOnVolks 🤣
The tea memory explains how it happened, how do people miss this?
They cannot end the story like that for the same reason that aoc couldn't have the "reach moment", here it is summarized by reggie fils aime on what makes Nintendo different:
" ...and link will never lose hope"
Thank you for talking about just how great the presentation is in AoC. I'm so sad all the cutscenes we got with Master Kohga in this game had no voice acting, especially with how iconic he was in AoC. I personally feel like every returning actor in that game did a better performance than in BotW, so I guess they had much better voice direction.
Even though the story in TotK sucks, if we had good performances, it could have at least made it more fun to sit through
I wholeheartedly agree. The presentation was at least the one thing I was hoping would carry over from Age of Calamity.
- Nathan
I was actually really confused, because his acting was so good in AoC that I forgot he wasn't voiced in BotW and was left wondering why he wasn't talking
My hot take: the obvious solution to the Master Sword problem is something fans wouldn't like and Nintendo isn't brave enough to do: the Master Sword should not be accessible before the final battle. The Light Dragon should present it to Link during the climactic final confrontation with Ganondorf, which would A) check off every box on this list, B) prevent people from being spoiled by pulling it, and C) solve people's issue with the sword being underpowered compared to its narrative strength. Make it an endgame weapon that only unlocks once you've reached the end of the story. This prevents it from breaking the weapon-durability gameplay loop until the postgame and prevents it from being out of place in the narrative.
Honestly, in an open world setting, I’d much rather the sword be a cinematic item and feel powerful than a useless woodcutter like it is in Botw and Totk. Good take
Or…
Just remove the paper mario sticker star durability mechanics…
I think the issue is in both BOTW and TOK is the focus on the story is always on the past. Nearly every cutscene or voice actor involved scene is in the flashbacks. BOTW on the dead champions and Zelda fretting over her powers. TOK about Zelda's experience in the past. The stuff happening in present day hyrule is paper thin. Link finds some mcguffins and goes after Ganon in the castle.
I kind of get why- because Link is basically just a silent protagonist or a near silent protagonist so they made the focus of the story on Zelda and the Champions/Sages. But the problem is- none of them are around for present day hyrule stuff. So the story is basically already over by the time Link wakes up in both games. All that's left is killing Ganon.
Its like if Lord of the Rings was a game, and the entirety of the game, you're playing as Frodo- already in Mordor and you get flashbacks to Aragon/Gandalf/Fellowship stuff in collectables you find. But all that's left is dropping the ring in the volcano.
I think the way they do it in BOTW is great because it makes sense in the context of the story and you already know the outcome of the story in the past which allows the memories to focus on Zelda’s character development, this is great because it means that the order that you watch the memories in doesn’t matter because each memory serves the purpose of building Zelda’s character and the characters of the champions
Whereas in TOTK, they treat the memories as a way to find out what happened to Zelda, so right off the bat the problem here is that we don’t know the outcome and the story is a larger scale one which means that watching it in the wrong order (which is all but guaranteed unless you somehow know which ones to see first) would hinder the experience and purpose of looking for the other memories, also there is no character development whatsoever in the memories, you can easily see this when you compare the champions to the sages, the former group have clear personalities and stories of their own which are revealed and expanded upon in memories and in their diaries, whereas the sages are just “we must fight Ganondorf” and “Oh no we lost, my ancestor you must take him down for us”
@@fellowpassenger_54-67 I liked BOTW's story. It wasn't the greatest Zelda story ever, but it felt very fresh, very unique, and competently crafted. I really felt for all of the Champions, and knowing that they were all killed inside their respective Divine Beasts really added a sense of sadness and tragedy to the Divine Beasts. They felt like living, moving landmarks of that tragedy, and being able to free their spirits from the different Ganon Blights and having one last talk with them felt very fulfilling and meaningful.
The Temples in TOTK had none of that impact. The story overall didn't have any of that impact. It kind of sucked.
its ironic that if you leave the master sword alone and get to the demon dragon without it you gain point D but lose point C.
Its funny you mention that you can find the memories out of order because i saw the “ganon at hyrule castle” scene before the “ganon sending molduga at hyrule” scene and thought that i was seeing it in order only for it to be the opposite and it made me take the story much less seriously once i knew this💀
Yeah, I really wish the game made it more clear on how you would find the chronological order.
Better yet, they could have written it more like BotW.
- Nathan
Well apparently if you do the Impa side quest at first which leds you to the first memory and to the Forgotten Shrine from BOTW which shows you glyphs that is the order of memories to follow.
However, I did not do that and looked up online when someone mentioned memories and order.
Considering you can do anything at any order I do wish the memories played in order instead of seeing anyone at any point by mistake.
EDIT: Oh never mind. Just got to the point where you mentioned it in the video. My bad.
Dungeon cutscenes are copy/paste of each other, and the content that should be done in a particular order doesn’t restrict you from doing out of order(even before reaching a dungeon), so you end up knowing a crucial piece of the story and every other character doesn’t get the message because link can’t tell them.
That gets delved into in a deeper way via the group stream chat between Bandit, Ratatoskr and Maze. ❤️
Age of Calamity is SERIOUSLY underrated. Even if you don't agree with the story itself, you can't deny the execution was PERFECT. I got chills multiple times throughout the course of the game.
Another AoC enjoyer! 🍻 Flippin LOVE that game. Let us celebrate our meeting by engaging in some AoC online co-op gamepla-
It was perfect until the time travel stuff. They should’ve given us the original story & put the time travel stuff in a DLC or vice versa
Part of the problem with giving us the original story is that the game would be cut down to half its size and there wouldn't be as many large-scale battles. Saving the rest for DLC would almost be making the base game a cash grab.
- Nathan
@@FullyOnVolks I personally liked the time travel stuff... Mostly because I legitimately wasn't expecting it aside from Terrako at the start of the game. When Sidon, Yunobo, Riju, and Teba showed up it was HYPE because that was the last thing I would have expected.
Plus, I like the character interactions between them that would otherwise not be possible if not for the time travel.
@@lasercraft32 The time travel was absolute HYPE.
Instead of showing us what we already knew (especially cause we already got a good majority of the context and emotional bits outta the way) they shook it up by giving us not only a new alt. ending but a happy one.
To be honest, TOTK Master Sword pull was crazy good IMO
Age of calamity was the best warrior game I played. I grinded so much n such a great story n cast to play as.
I've also grinded the game to death! It is absolutely amazing!
- Nathan
Dynasty Warriors is the mother of all warriors games. ;)
i agree with you 100%! finally some validation. i thought i was crazy with the disappointments i had about totk's lore, story, storytelling, continuity, etc.
Happy to meet someone who shares the same thoughts!
- Nathan
Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed these points about the story.
I do have Age of Calamity, and I enjoyed every single bit of it's story. I know it's a "meh" story, but I THOROUGHLY enjoyed it and I kept wishing for more. One of the things it does very well is play to your emotional connection to the sages and other characters. Meanwhile, I literally couldn't care less about the sages in TOTK, and I don't care to remember them as people, but just as tools in the rare moments I do actually pull them out.
And the horrible presentation in TOTK is why I get burned out of it in a way I never did with BOTW. BOTW story wasn't great but ironically, despite the world being more empty, it felt more alive.
I still thoroughly enjoy TOTK for it's gameplay, but it manages to make me ask the question "do I really wanna keep playing?" after a while. BOTW just made me want to keep being in that world... and AoC straight up makes me wish there was more of it.
Everything you said pretty much sums up my feelings about these games.
- Nathan
Same here man, every time I get tired of playing totk I get myself some refreshing hours of playing Botw. The sequel couldn't hold the hype
I still miss Sooga and wish Tears had another sword master like him.
Ya know what’s silly, is that I feel the complete opposite about both of the games BotW and ToTK and because I didn’t feel that way about BotW I find all the things said about ToTK like the ‘story sucks’ or ‘exploration is less trivial now’ idk, I just blatantly disagree with it because of the fact that I had a more fascination with this world that was being expanded upon even just but a little bit then all the others out there who were looking for more, the story doesn’t suck unless you didn’t like it then yea it does, the exploration is easy now yes and it still manages to be just as open or fun when you go back to all the places you explored already in BotW, and tbh this is my first time being vocal about this, but it honestly just weirds me out because I’ve enjoyed my time way more on TotK then I have with BotW where as in BotW it was all kinda just fight large robot spiders for any fun action or a large centaur which is pretty easy to fight if you know the basis of the combat and that was kinda it for all post game things especially when you didn’t wanna collect koroks lol, anyways, in ToTK there’s several ways to change how you would go about playing around in the world and seeing that alone just makes me have my eyes more on TotK then BotW’s exploration ever could’ve, and yes, now I want to collect all koroks, but in TotK :] just wanted to express my feelings or opinion and not looking for any response tbh but thanks for reading if you have
I would add that there is no real character arc for Zelda or Link in this game either. In BOTW Zelda grew after she learned to open up and believe in herself which ended up saving the day. In TOTK Zelda "sacrifices" herself, but there was no real character growth by doing it because she never really grappled with the idea of self sacrifice.
Despite the grandness of the final fight and Zelda's speech abt the Master Sword, the stakes felt sorely lacking. And every mention of Link trying desperately to find Zelda made it worse! Bro is completely expressionless! Absolutely no expression at all! Ever! (Zelda is only slightly more expressive, but I had it in a dif language so the VA might've done the leg work.)
I just couldn't help but think "this wishes it was Skyward Sword" the entire time I was playing. They try to make such a big deal abt Link going to the ends of the earth to find Zelda, but it never actually feels like that.
Yeah, that's the other thing I felt was missing from Tears of the Kingdom. There was a bigger sense of urgency in Skyward Sword that TotK couldn't replicate.
- Nathan
I've got a bit to un pack here with this.
Regarding how Tears handles finding visions vs Breath's memories. Talking to Purah and Josha, they'll point out the region of where the first geoglyph is and I'm pretty sure the order they recommended corresponds to the order of the geoglyph memories. Impa will be there and she'll talk about how to use the access the geoglyphs and the forgotten temple. In said temple, to see the order, all players need to do to figure out the order is match the pictures on the wall to where they are on the map replica. I picked it up better than finding one random painter who I might not assume is important and him pointing out places I haven't been to on based on pictures of random places. You can't miss Purah as she gives you the main quest all together. And only Impa knows how to use the geoglyphs.
As for the content of the Tears visions vs Breaths memories. In Breath, the memories have the problem of Link being silent leading to awkward and limited converstations feeling expository dialogue with the people he interacts with. His reason for being silent is not in the memories. In Tears visions, it felt genuine and unlimited when Zelda is with other talking characters. I also felt less like was in the past but with a different perspective. Also the framing of restoring Links memory isn't important in the grand scheme of things like the mystery of Zelda's disappearance is. Sure we get context on why Link and the World state. But it never felt like we're learning anything that can help us. And when we do see the order of the memories, there are just as many gaps leading to more questions. Tears has gaps but it felt like all the important stuff was covered and answered that didn't require more questions. And only two memories refer back to previous ones. As for the twist, they had their cake and ate it too they had their take and ate it too they showed the dragon, and made the reveal either the master sword or the final tear which could be context as to why how she transformed. Its arguably not spoiling anything and the final tear could be the context.
Regarding the sage writing vs the champions writing. While yes, the original champions and the backstory were fairly developed in Breath compared to the past sages. I'd argue Tears was right to focus on present day sages and make them more involved rather then focus on past ones that died before we met them because it didn't lead to dissonance between our involvement in the present vs our un involvement in the past like Breath did which Age of Calamity fixed. I didn't feel the past sages needed development. Also what we get in the present day aren't as formulaic as Breath's. The conflicts in regions are all the same in Botw. A divine beast threatens the region some way, go stop it with only the desert and Zora's domain showing for it. Tears conflicts are of the same source but different causes and effects that those regions suffering. And the map and music reflects it.
Regarding Voice Actors. Them voicing characters in only in cutscenes and not in gameplay was supposed to be that way. We could look at the direct storytelling and focus on other parts of the game in Tears. Though I do wish the supporting characters had more cutscenes in them. Or that other characters in those cutscenes should've been voiced as well outside the visions. Though Christina's voice samples were in Hestu, when he danced. As for the new VA's they got. Also props for Chris, Cherami and Matt. And I don't know if Patricia's got better or if Zelda's grown, or if I'm more used to it but I felt it natural this time.
Those are my counters.
The memories in TotK don't even make narrative sense. In BotW, Link lost his memories and how he goes about regaining them makes sense, he has a picture and finds that area in the hopes that it'll jog his memory. There is literally no real reason or meaning for memories to even exist in TotK. We just needed one, where she was and what happened to her. The entire story in the past really didn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things since it didn't really affect or amount to anything. Link gaining HIS memories wasn't just flavor, getting them all HEAVILY implies that that he's remembered everything and more specifically who exactly Zelda is to him. And I don't see how you DON'T see how the memory structure spoils what happens in Hyrule Castle when the game acts like it's a big reveal when it never was.
@@dave_the_slick8584 I kind of disagree. While yes, the style in which the memories were done might have been sub-optimal, they were important for the story. They're giving context on what Zelda did in the past, why she cared so much about those people, the efforts she went to to not only help Link in the future, but also Rauru and Sonia whom she KNEW were going to lose, but she tried regardless.
After all, the memories aren't meant to be Links this time around. They're Zeldas. Manifested through her tears.
That said, I would've preferred if we got those cut scenes when obtaining the secret stones from the sages. It could've solved a) the problem of getting them out of order to an extend, because they could've put two or more together, and maybe the later memories where shit gets real after Hyrule castle which you'll do much later in the story unless you genuinely go out of your way to do things out of order and b) it would've stopped the dungeon endings from being so repetitive. I'm thinking maybe a well in every dungeon that was built after Zeldas transformation and maybe a tear of hers falling down there - leading to the initial building of the temples in the first place.
All that aside, I think some criticisms are a bit unfair. The game never so much as even suggests you go get the master sword five minutes into playing, hell it won't even let you into the lost woods which should be clue enough. If some players are hell bent on doing things in their order, not the one the game is suggesting, you really can't blame the writers for people getting things a bit mixed up. The only valid criticism about people discovering things accidentally I can think of is dragonhead island being accessible from the get go. I didn't stumble there because I could tell that felt like a story element the minute I stepped foot on this thundering thing and dipped because I'm paranoid as hell about spoiling myself, but I can see how people would accidentally do that dungeon too soon and that's a pity.
@francoperalta5986
Apologies for the late response, but here's what I have to say about this.
I already mentioned in the video that it is possible to discover these cutscenes in chronological order.
Once again, with the optional nature of how the game plays out, players can accidentally miss the beginning portion of the glyphs if they straight-up ignore Purah or don't pay attention to what she says.
As for how Breath of the Wild did it, that was a bit of an editing mistake on our part. What I had meant to include there (instead of Pikango the painter) was the Sheikah Slate gallery containing those Memory photos, as the chronological order of those memories could simply be discovered by navigating from the top row, left to right, then proceeding down to the next rows.
In terms of the Memory comparisons, I never specified in the video about why Link was silent in the past. That was already stated to be because he was undergoing a lot of pressure, but that's irrelevant to this topic. What we do get to learn in Breath of the Wild is how the relationship between Link and Zelda evolved overtime, but the amount of gaps is beneficial for that exact reason. Rather than telling a story from start to finish, it only picked the most significant moments that would describe the relationship between the two, even if the context of the scenes felt much more like filler than actual substance.
Tears of the Kingdom's memories experienced those flaws of discoverability as I mentioned earlier. There's simply too much to predict that there's almost no reason to actually watch the rest of the cutscenes other than to provide confirmation of something being foreshadowed or referenced almost too often or too clearly to miss. The whole point of discoverability would be to ask more questions, not think of the answer. If you watched the Memory of Zelda meeting Mineru, and then you watch the final Memory of Zelda's message, I think it's rather reasonable to think that you'd already know what happens to Zelda even without watching Zelda's transformation.
As for the dungeon quests, the past Sages not needing development is something I can agree on, but why have them at all in the first place? As I stated in the video, these four present-day Sages would've already done what they did even without the motivation of the past Sages. They had a Champion they already looked up to, and they clearly were already involved in leading Hyrule when they were helping Link free the Divine Beasts. The past Sages simply had no real reason to exist in this game.
Finally comes the voice actors. I highly recommend you play Age of Calamity to understand what I'm talking about. One of the most crucial things to note is that during gameplay, voice actors didn't read out their lines entirely. However, they didn't grunt or moan either unless it was a reaction to an attack. They verbally spoke out words like "right!" or "I see!" or "What!???" and it brought so much more life to the gameplay experience. Furthermore, this type of gameplay already exists in BotW and TotK when interacting with the Sages, so why not do it for the rest of the game with NPCs such as the Monster Control groups?
Don't get me wrong, I love the new cast members... but even they didn't have as much screentime as I desired, except for Matt Mercer. Patricia as Zelda was better than before, I'll give her that. She had a lot that she already improved when she was doing voice work for Age of Calamity, so this was a step further.
Those are my counter-counters.
- Nathan
@@TheSwitchClicks I don‘t have much to add as I don‘t fully disagree with you there, but I feel like I have to mention that having the old sages was actually necessary for giving a source to the secret stones the new sages would get. While they 100% would have aided Link in his quest regardless, the secret stones they got from their predecessors gave reasoning as to why they could suddenly fight alongside link in spirit form and subsequently provide him with new powers (this was easier in botw due to the champions already being spirits as opposed to living people). While techincally the old sages weren‘t needed as characters themselves, they needed to exist for the new sages to find a secret stone. Otherwise just any random person could‘ve stumbled across them, or Link could‘ve just collected them himself, making the individual new sage meaningless. This way, they had a means to connect the characters we already knew to the past Zelda was trapped in without relying on chance for the four people we‘d already met in botw to find those VERY story relevant items by pure luck and coincidence themselves.
what both BoTW and TotK have lacked for me, story-wise, is the sense of loss that earlier Zelda games had. Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess - all involve Link discovering that he must be the hero, but stepping into this destiny means the death of his previous life and who he was before. To me, this common theme is the spirit of Zelda is all about. I think that Link and the player knowing from the start that he is the Hero makes the story less engaging and immersive. The gameplay might not be linear anymore, but the plots are now much more linear than they used to be. Maybe it's because I'm in my thirties now, but I feel BoTW and TotK don't have the theme of lost childhood underpinning the plot that the earlier games did. I will always love the Zelda series for how it made me feel playing as a kid or teenager, but I think the magic of how the stories was told isn't there anymore. I don't know if I'd fall in love with Zelda if the open world games were my first experience of it.
I think a great way they could flesh out some plot lines is by making a Hyrule Warriors: Imprisoning War. In cutscenes and battles that take place in the past, we can learn more about Ganondorf, the Zonai, the ancient sages, and get to experience those battles. In the present, the story could focus on Link and his allies trying to end the criminal activities of the Yiga, find Kass, and who knows, maybe introduce followers of Ganondorf thought to have died in the Imprisoning War.
MajorLink animated series. It’s got thousands of likes in 2 minutes with its 6th episode teaser. RwanLink’s videos too. Same with Danny Kage.
I tried to give normal sentences but TH-cam kept deleting my comment. they are awesome
@@Makkaru112 So what exactly were you trying to say?
I would be 100% on board with another Hyrule Warriors, and one that is set during TotK's Imprisoning War. However, I do feel like there's just not enough content to run with unless the game was a sequel to Age of Calamity, which is something they probably won't do.
- Nathan
All of those animators are extremely talented, and I nearly balled my eyes out watching MajorLink's series. I do wonder if any of them are interested in making an anthology series for the BotW-TotK time gap.
- Nathan
The phantom Ganon twist is also ruined if you did the spirit temple early. :(
I unfortunately also did the Spirit Temple early...
- Nathan
What would have been cool is if a previously difficult boss came in after getting the master sword, and the power of the master sword made it ridiculously easy, and then the devs could upscale the difficulty of the game afterwards
This was what most other Zelda games seem to do. The Master Sword would deal double the damage, but the enemies would also have double the health. I know in BotW and TotK, there is a hidden EXP system to determine difficult, but I'm not sure if the Master Sword adds a significant amount of that XP.
- Nathan
I just wanted the Master Sword to be more special in utility than it was in BOTW. For all the hype of it getting broken, I assumed that it would be relevant to the game, like you having to do something to fix it. Instead it's essentially fixed before you even leave the tutorial and you just have to find it. So I thought "Okay, it's supposed to be stronger now, maybe it'll be better than the joke that it was in BOTW."
Nope. Literally the same, except now since the thing that triggers the glowing effect (gloom-based enemies) is exclusive to the depths, it actually comes off worse than before. Not to mention fusing doesn't really do all that much to fix its durability issues. And they had the nerve to try to hide its damage output from you on top of that. Thanks to a glitch you can see that it's still 30, so not only is it the same as base BOTW's Master Sword, but it doesn't even get the neat buff it had in the DLC.
This leads me to believe that they had initially planned for the Master Sword to be exclusive to the final boss, especially considering the alternate Master Sword scene that occurs right before the final boss plays almost the exact same way.
- Nathan
I’ll never forgive Kohga not having his voice
I had the absolute perfect story telling experience with this game. I happened upon all the memories nearly in their direct order. I learnt about Zelda turning into the Light Dragon the way the game intends, by you finding all the all the memories and watching the secret 13th one. Despite this I still had no idea you could ride on the Dragons in this game, so I never went up there to reclaim the master sword, and assumed it had to be acquired somewhere else. Much later, I save Korok Forest and the Great Deku Tree marks the location of the master sword on my map. To my surprise, the point was actively moving and I had no idea what it meant. Upon tracking down the dot, I see that it's none other than the Light Dragon. I get blasted into the sky and land on their back, in complete awe that I'm on the back of a dragon to begin with. I had already been spoiled about the Master Sword requiring stamina in this game instead of hearts so I had that ready and I begin the amazing master sword sequence, and getting Zelda's true final message. At that point I was more than ready to take on Ganon at Hyrule Castle, which turned out to just be a giant time waster but the trek of finding the fifth sage was way more impactful having seen all the memories and finding Mineru was more more heartfelt as if she was the final remnant of Zelda's will in the past clinging on. After all of that I was definitely more than ready to take on Ganon for real, the Dragon battle sequence is probably my favorite victory lap in any game ever. Zelda's sacrifice being undone with no effort kind of sucked. Typically you'd want your character to have lost something in the process of being given a second chance but Zelda both got to get back to the present, while fixing the Master Sword, without any consequence at all, she wasn't even vaguely conscious as the Light Dragon so it's not like the incomprehensible time she spent as it mattered it was nothing more than a dream to her. Which isn't even a new concept for her she spent a hundred years keeping Calamity Ganon at bay which I would assume she was more conscious for but even that didn't really phase her.
And that kind of began to sour the other memories looking back. Even if Zelda didn't know this was a closed time loop situation she is still now directly responsible for literal millenniums of evil and misfortune at the hands of Calamity Ganon. Which is definitely not something the writers took into account at all. Or maybe they did, after all akin to how her dragon sacrifice mirrors her sacrifice in Botw, her being responsible for Ganon at all mirrors how her obsession with Sheikah Technology led to their entire kindgoms demise and the death of all her friends and loved ones. If the parallels are intentional which now I can't help but feel they are, that just makes this story worse. It's completely derivative of Breath of the Wild's, but worse in every possible way.
All of that is unfortunately the case of the trying to write an independent story while being a sequel. I can definitely agree that it's worse, and that dramatic irony pointing towards the lack of correlation between Calamity Ganon and Ganondorf was just too painful to bear for me. She could have stopped it then and there, but she simply remained to be a mere bystander until it was too late. This is the same Zelda who also decided to stop being a bystander when Calamity Ganon struck, and while she was too late to save her friends, she made a sacrifice that actually made much more sense.
- Nathan
Although say what you want about age of calamity's story, it's actual cutscenes were incredible. It had some great fight scenes and great sequences in general such as the second last mission where every single race has united on Hyrule field. To this day when I play the final boss of aoc I get chills, with totk I get no chills
This is a really well made video. You clearly took a lot of time crafting this and put a lot of thought into your script. While I may not agree with the majority of your arguments, I still appreciate the work you did to bring these thoughts forward. Well done.
Thank you! It's always better to have a diverse range of opinions out there. That's why every Zelda fan can keep talking to each other.
- Nathan
glad to see another fan of AoC story that also think it's better than TotK's. although the story is not exactly a prequel and more like just another timeline split in the past, AoC's story is more connected to BotW than the supposed direct sequel.
we don't really mind the champions got saved in that one, because they are good characters, unlike the old sages with the masks. it's even kind of insulting that they have the same voice actors with the champions imo...
all in all, I hope in the next game they would do better at storytelling and more balanced just like you said. thanks for the video!
I'm always happy to meet another Age of Calamity fan who understands and appreciates the game for what it did, rather than what it failed to do.
- Nathan
The hype for the game was better than the game itself for me. I enjoyed a lot of the gameplay, discovering nwe locations and things, and zelda story in the past. But the rest was a little underwhelming. I miss the champions, kass, the guardians, a story that continued botw story without changing the past. But I guess I was misguided by my hype
It's quite ironic that the game that ended up changing the past did so much more for the Sages than Tears of the Kingdom did.
- Nathan
Not even Teba’s voice actor came back for totk, which I can’t believe! Just him grunting like everyone else, they really did him dirty there
Someone on the design team for "Breath of the Wild" I can't remember who said "We don't just want to do additive game design we want to do multiplicative game design where every feature must serve multiple purposes that play off of and effect each other." I think that philosophy not only carries the risk of having something be less than the sum of it's parts and their rigidity to stick to that philosophy kept a lot of good design from being implemented and the verity and contrast of the game suffers for it but more importantly they completely ignored this philosophy and fallowed it to a T in the worst possible way for the story not only is the story treated like a collectible in the world but it's also completely separate from your actions and that's not even getting into the quality of the story itself.
The thing I really liked about TOTK was the fact that (at least for me) the world felt so incredibly fresh and new despite having played BOTW. I REALLY loved the fact that I was able to go underground and into wells (when I accidentally fell into a well the first time, my brain exploded, lol). And I loved how the dungeons (despite how lacking they were) were a part of the landscape rather than something that felt separate to the overworld. However, yes, I would agree with a lot of points in the video.
BOTW's story progression in an open world game made sense and I love how it create emotional connections with the characters ESPECIALLY zelda, but I still felt it lacking in gameplay and of course dungeon design. Although there were quite a few shrines in both games that had puzzles that were phenomenal and creative, I would just like to see them implemented in full on dungeons.
And games like Ocarina of Time and Twilight princess left me yearning for the exploration and fun game mechanics we see in TOTK and the level of connection we feel with the characters in BOTW. But of course they more than made up for it in terms of story, dungeons/puzzles, and replayability (and the fact that they weren't as overwhelming, lol).
All that to say that I think TOTK, BOTW, and past Zelda games each have something they lack in but excel in other areas. I hope that Aonuma and the team focus on balancing out all of these aspects one day to create the ultimate Zelda experience. And I truly think they will be able to achieve that.
I couldn't have said it any better myself. The possibility and the resources are all there, we just need to hope they can make it happen.
- Nathan
It wasn't fresh.
Took the words out of my mouth. TOTK could have been great but.....
regardless of how people felt about the master sword cutscene, i loved it just from the sheer badassery from it.
like.
you're pulling a legendary, demon-slaying sword blessed by the goddess herself out of the head of a FUCKING DRAGON'S HEAD
Banditgames gives a very nice live stream regarding these last two instalments and it’s coming from a lifelong zelda fan too. His criticisms were very fair.
After trying to play the game properly and being disappointed once again by the overuse of flashbacks to see the story rather than experiencing it first hand and by lacking any items from Breath of the Wild such as Link's house, money, champion abilities, Sheikah abilities and the horse bike, I decided to simply item duplicate supplies to have enough strength to find and defeat Ganondorf without knowing where he was and that was fun in itself but such a hollow experience.
I also did not like how so many NPC's did not recognize Link despite just being saved by Link not that long ago, it is such a middle finger from Nintendo.
After finally finding Ganondorf's lair and having a hard time after reaching the silver lynel i kept on duplicating the essentials in the middle of battle and I gotta say seeing each boss for the first time since I skipped directly to Ganondorf it was a bit much, my biggest struggle was the water boss since I did not know how to damage it which I found stupid so I ended up looking it up and was disappointed once again on its stupid solution.
Anyway, the Ganondorf fight was easy and lacked any substenance so all my six hour effort after getting off the skies was a waste of time.
I played on Japanese so I did not suffer through the awful English voices, something i still do not understand as to why people play on English for any big major release.
All valid points, and I agree with 98% of it. I actually liked AOCs effort way more than TOTK. I wished they marketed it better, but I digress. If they just give us DLC and connect dots I would be happier with TOTK.
Even with DLC, I wonder how much they could do to redeem the game.
- Nathan
I would like them to bring back Kass, and maybe say he was off learning about the old sages and give us some more details about them. I felt the sky islands were too repetitive and maybe they could add in a bigger sky island or more secrets In the depths that give us more depth into the old sages. I just felt empty and a little hurt they didn’t even give us master mode.
The whole game i was grilling my tv whenever purah started talking about Zelda.
" I told you already, ZELDA IS A DRAGON!! Why wont anyone listen? Where's Impa?!!"
Lol
12:51 nintendo only *publishes* those series. Monolith and int systems have put a lot of effort into improving those aspects of their games over 20 years, while nintendo is just getting started. I think the main issue is that the people directing the voice actors and the writing team do not have as much communication as their subsidiaries' teams do. If there was the feedback of "this line is stilted and doesnt work" sent to the writing team and that kind of back and forth, maybe the story would have hit better
Honestly i think this video convinced me that this game could use 2-3 DLC rather than 1(we are supposedly getting zero), as personally i maintain the game needs a MM with golden Lynels and other higher tier enemies/finish off the old weapon replication items for a DLC like the OG lynel maces for DLC 1.
DLC 2 i would like to see a story with a Tear/quest componet for each ancient champion in the depths, like Champions ballad, but more for insight into their time with Rauru and perhaps some kind of armory reward after a quest in the depths like a legendary champion weapon ability, perhaps leading to the constructs openning a new GSI scale Island in the sky with high level challenges to upgrade the Hylian Shield or something?
Considering characters like Kass, who was previously integral to The Champions' Ballad DLC, is absent in this game, I think his disappearance could be acknowledged in a DLC for the very purpose of giving us a bigger backstory for these ancient Sages.
- Nathan
Look how bland and copy paste the divine beasts were in both BOTW and TOTK…. (Sorry to reference him again but i was just inspired to mention it because of something you said in the video: Banditgames did a great video recently that explains it way better than me
Say what you want about the divine beats. At least they had actual spirits of characters waiting for you at the end instead of shit ass duplicate cutscenes
And the Champions were much more connected to Link than those Sages were.
- Nathan
@@clonetrooper2003 that’s what I’m talking about. Watch the entire group stream chat between Bandit and Ratatoskr and Maze
@@clonetrooper2003 it’d be way cool if it went with the spirit of Nausicca with the excavated calamity by a certain group was wheeling around until it hatched ((too early and fell apart prematurely))
@@TheSwitchClicks DING DING DING CORRECT ANSWER
I really wanted to see more Sheikah tech and learn more into the Divine Beasts. To me, the fact the Zonai stuff replaces it makes me feel betrayed. And their official response is “they simply disappeared when the Calamity was beaten”?! Pathetic! BotW is iconic thanks to the Sheikah machines and such, something I think TotK should’ve kept. The Constructs in TotK are pathetic in comparison.
But, yeah, I feel like this game is just reskinned BotW with no care put towards trying to make it feel like a sequel. All of it just pissed me off. I would have loved if they made the sequel more like AoC, including more into the Champions, their modern day selves becoming the next pilots and Ganon recognizing Link and Zelda from their fight with Calamity Ganon. But this game just failed on all of it.
That pretty much summed up my feelings for this game. I beat it and have no reason to go back to it. But I am on my 5th run of BOTW. :-P. I will say though that I didn't mind Zelda's character this time around, I like Sonia as a character and wished she had more time. But my biggest gripe is having Zelda turn back to normal at the end. When it was stated heavily that it is a one-way ticket and you can't change back.
"Choices have consequences, Zelda! Link has the Master Sword but you remain a dragon forever!." A little play on Pagan Min's words to Ajay Ghale at the end of Far Cry 4.
My main criticism about the ending was how the Sages were handled during the fight with Ganondorf and the Demon Dragon. Before TotK released, I was hoping that Link’s friends would directly fight Ganondorf alongside him, and when the ancient sages task the new sages to fight the Demon King, you can imagine how hyped I was to have this prediction come true. While I was grateful for the time I had with Link and the Sages fighting Ganondorf 6 on 1, I *was* disappointed when they got knocked out halfway through the only phase where they fight him directly. I would have preferred having the Sages continue to fight Ganondorf in the next part of his Demon King phase even if the phantoms are dealt with. If they’re defeated, just have Ganondorf restore his health. Even with the Sages, the third portion of the fight would still have been challenging. Alternatively, have him summon Hollows from Age of Calamity that take the form of the four sages (Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon, and Riju) and a dehydrated Phantom Ganon to keep the fives sages occupied, since it would be hard to take them out when Ganondorf starts attacking more aggressively. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Sages were left in the Depths during the Demon Dragon fight. As amazing as the ending was with Ganondorf’s death, Zelda turning back into a hylian, and finally catching her was, the Sages being stuck in the Depths during all that was too distracting and sadly soured the ending for me. The developers could have handled that so much better by showing a cutscene of the Sages escaping the chasm, cheering Link on during the fight with the Demon Dragon, congratulating him as the Demon Dragon nears his end, and then (if you’ve awakened all five of them) rejoin with Link as he and Zelda gaze upon Hyrule Castle.
I didn’t even 100% TotK w/500 hrs into it. I immediately stopped playing with 1.2 update nerfing dupes. It is beyond insane that there is only 1 spawn point on the map for voltfish, and without duping I refuse to farm for materials to farm for more materials to farm Gleoks. I don’t even care to play it just to finish the game to see the ending……
I really only enjoy watching honest negative reviews of TotK now……
Age of Calamity is so good, thank you for defending it :D
Totk should have been an expansion like Blood and Wine in Witcher 3, totk does not have much replay value, I completed it, I have not gone back to it ever since, BOTW however Ive played 3 times
They were never ever NEVER EVER going to have a story where the bad guy kills everyone in the game except a handful. They were never going to have a game where the player "loses'; It is ridiculous to think otherwise. Age of Calamity gives the player a good "test" of what it was like through an alternative timeline- It really is a stroke a genius and shows how incredibly stupid we all were for expecting a 1:1 story.
That would be fine if Nintendo didn’t deceive us by advertising it as a direct prequel to botw, they should’ve at least been honest about it being an alternative timeline so that players wouldn’t feel cheated when the champions get saved
There are good ways of subverting expectations, lying to the customers and cheating them out of a tragic story isn’t one of them
All a calculated part of the surprise---go watch people's playthrough of "that" part of the game-people loose their friggin minds...You don't thin the entire thing builds up to that exact moment when it slows down and the player thinks they are about to fall??? come on.. I do think they should have forced the player to do Mipha/Daruk first,,it just seems to have more emotional weight; although i suspect when making it they figured both options had equal emotional import.@@fellowpassenger_54-67
This is pretty much why Age of Calamity has never failed to impress me. I've spent hundreds of hours in this game, and that plot twist still gives me chills every time. I greatly appreciate it for expanding the "world of Breath of the Wild" while not having such a heavy impact on Tears of the Kingdom. I would have loved for TotK to acknowledge this game's events though.
- Nathan
I have some strong gripes on TOTK and its not so sequel feelinf, and how they completely ignored it's BotW connection. It doesnt feel like a sequel, it feels like a cheap remake, the gameplay and other stuff is good, but I dont like how the weapons feel like Im putting together animal parts all the time, and there is so much I dnt like about it. TOTK is awesome as a whole, but its bad in the story, like... really bad., and throws away a lot of the efforts of BotW. I can go on and on about how I feel about it.
It kind of almost forces players to play BotW to find out what happened, when the whole point of TotK was so new players didn't feel obligated to do so. Definitely a wasted effort, both for new players and returning players.
- Nathan
13:42 also omega force made age of calamity, and they have tons more experience than nintendo. Not defending them, but it is true
I AM YOUR ANCESTOR FROM A TIME LONG PAST!
I’m all here for the AoC love
I haven’t started the video yet as of typing this, I only saw the thumbnail and idk man, for me there were tears shed, quite alot
totk isn’t the best zelda story but man it does have its shining moments
I will admit, I nearly cried when I played through the finale. It was the one part of the story that genuinely got me hooked from start to finish.
- Nathan
the better game play improvement they coud have is make zelda and link duo game play character like in God of war
It's strange to think that we still have only one mainline Zelda game where Zelda herself was prominently playable throughout most of the game, and that was 14 years ago.
- Nathan
Collab with banditgames - he did one like this recently
th-cam.com/video/gokJNyD8cOM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3LSam4reNXOvw2ZE
🤔
@@TheSwitchClicks what? I’m not intending anything bad. I genuinely thought you guys would make great content together if you haven’t already.
Sorry! Miss-communication through emoji. It happens.
Thanks for recommending us to Bandit! We’d love to work with someone to make a video! - Dakota
@@TheSwitchClicks check out the recent group stream chat about all things recently zelda between him, Ratatoskr and Maze(my shortform nickname for him.) 🤣
Bandit loved BOTW so much that he just wanted TOTK to not be what was rounds out to be a glorified DLC. Many of the Zelda channels after release of TOTK dwindled in content severely which says a lot…. The movie though however will be nice. It won’t be a live action like people are thinking. That too I’m detail is given in the video I mentioned.
Been playing Genshin impact since launch my one critique with TOTK is no voices for half the games quest side quest and adventure quest
I really dont believe the game too 6 years. C word happen and might have delayed it for a few years. Second i dont see them ret🎉uring to the traditional way at all. Seeing as the last two have sold more copies then all the other games in the franchise combined. Things ill like to see is to take more risk with the story. Do the VA, cutscenes all of it. New villian give link a personality. Or if links a stand in for us allow us to dialogs option to imprint or personality. Heck even let us play as zelda or that girl link from hyrule warriors. Lets really take risk
The gameplay from the modern style of Zelda games is perfectly fine. As a matter of fact, I want more of it, seeing as how we've only ever got two games with it.
However, the story-telling definitely needs to go in a different direction. Like you said, more voice acting and cutscenes, as well as a new villain.
- Nathan
I genuinely feel that they did not care about major aspects of this game because they simply focused too much on the new mechanics. This game is BOTW but bloated, which is why I dropped this game and never finished it. It has an overwhelming amount of content, but it’s all underwhelming when experienced. I fucked myself when doing the story beats, like I genuinely got the story in such an order where I was like yeah this is bad. When I got to the dungeons and finished them I just stopped playing, I got to the spirit dungeon side quest and das about it.
I was also initially overwhelmed with the transition from Breath of the Wild to Tears of the Kingdom. The nature and open world aspect of BotW was lost to a saturated world in TotK, almost like it was trying to be an urban environment without being an actual city world.
- Nathan
As a Zelda fan since I was a kid this was the best and most emotional story in the series in my opinion I'll have to say TotK is my favorite game of all time
Welcome to the club! 😊
I'm glad you have enjoyed it. We each have our own favourite stories in the Zelda franchise, but at the end of the day, we're all Zelda fans!
- Nathan
Really? banditgames, RwanLink and MajorLink and Danny Kage, watch them
@@TheSwitchClickscollab with bandit games and discuss his recent video about TOTK and BOTW
Talk about no standards...
The landscape is not the same. it's about 50% different. it's hard to notice the difference until you start toggle between BOTW and TOTK then you an see the difference. I like the game, i just wish there was more to do in the sky islands
Compare the BotW and TotK maps, and you notice it's not even 10%.
I just had the weirdest thought that absolutely would not work, but wouldn’t it be funny if Link used his age of calamity fighting style when he got the master sword back?
I think the different fighting style is more of a gameplay difference rather than lore. The cutscenes of Age of Calamity are much more consistent with BotW and TotK, at least in terms of showing how he's sometimes pretty arrogant in his abilities.
- Nathan
@@TheSwitchClicks yeah, I figured as much. I just think that in-game the mechanics of the master sword are really weak. They needed to revamp it somehow because lord-wise it should be much stronger than the last game.
My hot take is that even the exclusively portable LoZ games are better than tears of the kingdom, they went out of their way to invent their own worlds and still comfortably tied in the most obvious lore as if it belonged there to begin with, but tears of the kingdom fails because it relies too much on copy & paste without the forethought of grounding anything.
There's a lot more creativity that can go through with games like Link's Awakening and Phantom Hourglass, but that's because they were created without the mindset of being direct sequels. I think if the Zelda team wanted to, they could've easily worked with Monolith Soft to create a whole new world to explore.
It seems like they decided to stay in Hyrule because Breath of the Wild simply didn't satisfy their initial vision. I think A Link Between Worlds might have given them a little too much confidence in accomplishing this.
- Nathan
The cdi games had better continuity
The TV show comes in second place!
- Nathan
I get the points you made and agree with them, but no the conclusion, even with this issues the game still holds itself as a better and more complete version of BOTW, and together they can be seen as a bigger game played in two parts
This is something I can agree with. Tears of the Kingdom effectively fixed most of the other issues presented in Breath of the Wild, and I also do believe that playing both (and not one or the other) is a necessity. I just think TotK did not hit its mark in the story aspect largely because of the way Age of Calamity was presented.
- Nathan
This game sounds like Minecraft but no real story that’s not good.
I would still recommend playing it (after playing Breath of the Wild first). While I don't find the story to be the most interesting, it is 100% still very far from the worst game I've ever played.
- Nathan
This was a really fantastic watch. personally, I like TotK, and I've been disheartened by how a lot of Zeldatube has pivoted to complaining about TotK instead of actually discussing it. This video really excellently lays out the issues of the game ITSELF, and EXPLAINS your reasoning, without making it about inconsequential minor lore gripes or overhyped expectations.
I disagreed with everything you said against tears
How so?
Everything?
@@mkjjoe this man’s is LURKING 🤣
So you like the story, hate the gameplay? /hj
- Nathan
To me, full dialogue in Zelda feel weird.
I guess that's why portions of the game still have text instead of voiced dialogue.
- Nathan
The scenario of Tears of the Kingdom is an investigation in which Link must find Zelda.
Link will have to collect clues to link them together and get an idea of where or how to find her. This can happen at any time if the player has found the solution.
So having the tears/memories in a different order is part of the basic intention, which is totally in line with the game's philosophy: to leave the keys to the player to lead his adventure as he wishes. The player can just as easily discover all this without even having discovered a single tear.
Whether you like it or not, it's not the game's problem, but the problem of players who don't like this approach. I'm sorry for those who don't like it, but I loved it, as well as finding it totally coherent and, in my memory, unique for an open-world action/adventure game.
The problem lies here, in my opinion: it's a totally new approach and therefore difficult to grasp. Even in games that claim to be open-ended, we're used to following a story told in the classic way.
I have to say that the discovery format of storytelling works perfectly with the open world gameplay of the modern Zelda formula. I'm in total support of this move and I would love to see it in future Zelda games.
HOWEVER, I believe that Breath of the Wild was the only one of the two that did this properly, because of the way that each Memory was written between each other. Breath of the Wild's memories simply didn't feel linear even if you watched them in chronological order, leaving it very difficult for the player to predict what happens in other memories, and that's why it worked so well with that formula. The only amount of linearity that's apparent is the growing relationship between Link and Zelda, but that aspect of the cutscenes didn't encompass the forefront of what the player would watch, and that's why it doesn't negatively impact the experience.
Tears of the Kingdom, on the other hand, went the opposite direction and wrote every memory as if it was a traditional, linear Zelda game. Trying to find out what happens before this or that memory doesn't fit that discovery format, because you already have a basic outline of what happens in those preceding memories, and it makes predictions almost on-point with the actual memory. By placing the linearity at the foreground, the discoverability in this game ends up being more like what sequence-breaking looks like in traditional Zelda games.
- Nathan
I swear you people are getting paid by Sony or something to bash this game. Tooo many people are complaining about a game that you all complained about taking too long to release.
Nathan is a massive fan of the Zelda series and a respected Zelda Wiki staff member. As fans we ultimately want what’s best for the series that we hold dear and as we have no direct connection to Nintendo making videos like this is a fun way to share our ideas. - Dakota
@@TheSwitchClicksI have been a fan since 9 years old. All that I get from videos like these is that nobody wants to progress forward and they just want to keep things the way they are because change is too much for them. I enjoy playing the games for that they intend to be. Zelda is just a retelling of the same story for different console formates. That is how I see it. I understand your points. But it’s funny how y’all convinced yourselves of how this game was going to be just to be disappointed by how it wasn’t what you thought.
I can assure you, I like the modern Zelda games as much as I like the traditional ones. If you haven't already noticed, I made a pretty big emphasis that Breath of the Wild utilizes the open world format very well, where its storytelling was properly designed to fit that formula - Tears of the Kingdom tried to do the same, but fails at doing so.
To put it simply, BotW was written as an open story with linearity as an option, while TotK was written as a linear story with an open air concept as an option. TotK's style fits more of a traditional Zelda game, whereas BotW's style is better suited for a modern Zelda game.
My disappointment largely stems from the fact that Age of Calamity exists and was released after Breath of the Wild, meaning that Nintendo knows exactly what it is and how it was presented, and that Nintendo has done this before, so why not do it again? Why not keep going after taking that next step?
Hope that clears things up for you!
- Nathan
I love Zelda, I paid for this game. This game which practically is just BoTW 2.0
Or perhaps BoTW was the beta version of ToTK.
At the end, one of the two games is a mere draft.
Even Mario Galaxy and Mario Galaxy 2 were more distinct.
well... just because a game took a long time to release, doesnt automatically mean the game will be a masterpiece. Games can have long release-times for many reasons, and not necessarily because the developers/executives are "perfecting" it
You got many good points... but just saying that SpiderWoke 2 is replayable or even saying is a “good” “game”... make you loose all your good points...
😑👎🏼 and credibility.
I missed the part where that's my problem.
Just kidding. I may have miscommunicated in the video. What I had meant to say was that Tears of the Kingdom was still more replayable than games like Spider-Man 2. I would gladly pick TotK over Spider-Man 2 if I had to choose.
However, I also think it's not a bad game. In reality, there aren't many games that I genuinely hate, but Insomniac's Marvel games are up there for me as one of the best superhero games.
- Nathan
So much of the story and game design was just lazy. 6 years for this?
I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the future holds. This is only the second Zelda game with the modern formula, after all.
- Nathan
@@TheSwitchClicks I just read the latest interview with Fujibayashi and Aonuma. They seem somewhat baffled that many fans want a return to a more linear game. “The old formula”. Which they see as restrictive.
Here’s the thing with the new games: Yes, you get a vast, open world where you get to forge your own path, but I think many of us will agree that it comes at the expense of the story.
I completed all of the memories by about 50% through my walkthrough of TotK. That essentially left me with little story for half the game because they’re wasn’t anything left to uncover until defeating Ganon.
I love the physics-based stuff, the weapons, how beautiful the open world is, but I’d trade much of it in to get a proper story back.
such a well made video its a shame your points are highly disagreeable
In what ways?
How so?
Disagreeable
Well, I did say the gameplay was fun... do you disagree with that? /hj
- Nathan
Story was trash. As was the whole game. I can’t believe wind waker was developed from the ground up in 2 years whereas Tears of the Kingdom reusing the same assets took 6 and it’s WORSE than wind waker 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
I don't think I could bring myself to compare the two games. The Wind Waker is one of the best Zelda games ever made, but Tears of the Kingdom was never trying to be like a traditional Zelda game to begin with. 🤷
- Nathan
By far the worst part of the story is the fact that Zelda gets turned into a dragon. No matter the delivery, dumbest plot ever.
And some would argue it's that they make her sacrifice void since it's all resolved and it was all a dream to her... Really the first time I see someone think the transformation was stupid though. But it was an original twist that fits the plot, if anything I'd rather they avoid the heavy foreshadowing.
I would have been fine with Zelda turning into a dragon, if the reason behind it was much better than simply repairing the Master Sword. Her reason for sealing herself away with Calamity Ganon for 100 years was much more substantial and high stakes... and this is the same character we're talking about.
- Nathan
Why?
So, hearing from your conclusion, I can’t call Tears of the Kingdom an experience because of a strangers disappointment with a story? I was rather in love with the story. Because even though it may be basic, a timeless story is still timeless.
This sounds like an odd dismissal of how he justifies his own lack of enjoyment, I doubt he pretends to literally invalidate anyone else's enjoyment. I also don't think this is about the story being basic but its presentation. BOTW's story was even more basic, and the presentation did underwhelm some players because Zelda had set expectations for more linear and epic story telling before, but at least BOTW had a coherent world and story designed all together. TOTK explores new ideas and retrofits them in a structure that isn't the best fit.
@@mkjjoeI ain’t reading allat 💀
@@B-ot2xx That's fine, exposing a dumb take is always good in the end
@@mkjjoe well, I ended up reading it, I guess you can’t see nuances through a screen can you? I’m not saying that his disappointment is “invalid” I’m just saying my opinion is better. And at the end of the day, that’s all internet arguments are lol
Pretty timeless for a time travel story!
- Nathan
Dude you’re overthinking this game. It’s a great game. It’s full of exploration and story. You all spent countless hours playing. No one cares about voice acting.
Mind you, this is only a criticism of the game's main story and presentation, not the gameplay.
I have acknowledged that this game is insanely replayable. As a matter of fact, I'm still playing it right now. If you asked me to restart the game I would almost say yes to it.
- Nathan
I don't think that's a disingenuous way to look at a piece of art. When you really love something, you want to see it flourish. Voice acting may be a small part of gaming, but it still has its own effect on the final product. A game can still be amazing well having its flaws, and wanting those flaws to be ironed out doesn't mean the game isn't great. I don't think look at something in a black and white way is conducive to improvement. Now I don't think nintendo will watch this and actually improve anything, but a man can dream, lol. - Tyler