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Was Tears of The Kingdom Successful?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ส.ค. 2024
- It's been over a year since the game released, but would you call it a success?
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Timestamps!
Intro - 00:00
Sales - 00:59
Story - 02:02
How New Did It Feel? - 04:10
Conclusion - 09:14
Outro - 11:05
#zelda #tearsofthekingdom #nintendo
![Why Rauru's Kingdom Wasn't FIRST (ft. @wizcatcheslightning ) [TotK THEORY]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Gajk1u4Qt20/mqdefault.jpg)
Im over 600 hours in. Working on koroks and medals. I got my $70 worth and still playing. I’d say a success.
Years ago gamers like you and me convinced ourselves that time = value.
I think we did ourselves a huge disservice.
@@ianomalley6100 Unless the 600 hours that they spent playing was boring and tedious and annoying, (which if it was, I doubt that they would have kept playing), I'd say that in this case time does = value.
@@swigglyforce5215 unfortunately we have to assume that a good time was had in order to come to this logical conclusion. I wasn't going to risk affording the assumption.
Hunting koroks doesn't have to be a waste of time but from what I've gathered, the majority of players didn't spend their time that way, or didn't want to.
An anecdote: I found all the light shrines in the underworld. Why? I have no idea. I wasn't having fun while doing it so why did I do that?
Just an anecdote though
@@ianomalley6100 I have 150hrs in the game and just beat one temple so far. I lighted up the root in the depth just to see things better. I had no fun just to light them up but more pain. That doesn't necessarily affect my unprecedented 150hrs game play in TOTK at all. Half of the time I was building my cruise and sailing in the sea or along the river. Building my tree house at the seaside and enjoying the view. Doing a sea diving on the tree house anytime I want. Running around with the kids, ringing the bell when they are coming to school. Investigating all types of wood trunks and how rafts vary from trunk to trunk. Doing waterfall jumping at different locations with different rafts. Fire my fireworks at night on land or in the sky. Light up the villages and monster bases. Dragon ride for space traveling. That's only a small portion of the fun part of this game. If you want to beat the quest one by one, TOTK may not be that more fun than other best 3A games. If the players are curious and creative enough, then they will have the most mind blowing gaming experience ever.
@@ianomalley6100 i have fun exploring and seeing what the programers created
Looks over at the 10 million sold in three days, my 560 hours playtime, and the 96 meta critic score…
Probably yeah.
People didn't paid 70 bucks for this game for his quality, but bc was hyped AF, people even was hyped for finding koroks, again.
Also the biggest marketing points are the weakest on the game, the Skylands are like ⅒ of the entire map. XD
Flopping smoke sell.
Plus: what do you do for 560 hours?
Like, do you just put the game aside and do other stuff, bc I don't get it.
@@thebluerodriguez4085 so because you didn’t enjoy the game, no one else could’ve possibly enjoyed it more?
There’s an absurd amount of stuff to do here, and just because you had a bad time with the hame, doesn’t mean most others thoroughly enjoyed it.
@@thebluerodriguez4085 Your experience seems to be yours alone. I had (and still have) a blast with this game. The underground is comvat oriented, sure, but people don't give the sky islabds enough credit. The first few hours alone are centered around them, then you get those big sphere islands, diving challenges, big construct challanges, and a TON of unique one's too. Mirror puzzles, water puzzles, big hidden dragon bosses. I've named 8 different activities to do in the sky alone, and I didn't even mention the dragon head island, or the mazes, which are PACKED with hidden secrets and treasure. In your own words, for 1/10th of the game, I'd say the sky has a lot to offer.
Your playtime really doesn’t gauge the success a game that’s just how much you played it, and metacritic is most of the time just fanboys ranking their favorite game ever 10/10 just because, so that also isn’t really a valid gauge of success. I also remember almost every journalist at the time not even being able to talk about the flaws of the game or else they’d be eaten alive by the Totk fanboys, so honestly the only thing I’d say is a concrete fact of success is sales, but even then it sold 20 million copies and has barely sold since
@@PixelPikmin your logic is blowing my mind
20 *million* copies.
That is a breakout success no matter who you are, well except rockstar.
And seriously mate, you are watching a channel who is quite fond of totk, so I don’t know why you’d be here, except to tell other people why totk is “a bad game, actually”, or somehow not a Zelda game.
And if that is your position, I would sincerely recommend you watch Liam triforce’s video on botw
The game was clearly a success, but it also had some serious problems that could have been addressed. The story, while good, was told in such a way that detracted from it in my opinion. The memories are not a good method to convey the story.
I think it would have been more interesting to make Zelda playable in the past with the powers used in the first game. It could be presented similar to Link falling into the dark world from previous game, except the world isn’t dark and he isn’t actually traveling into the past. The Depths can be made significantly smaller to add locations for this past Hyrule and a lot of these locations can be reused as sky islands in modern Hyrule. This way, the story can be told through more gameplay elements and a bit less cut scenes, while hopefully still having some.
The tricky part would be making switching between Link and Zelda not awkward. It’d require puzzles tailored for the Shieka Slate to be added in addition to the puzzles tailored for Rauru’s arm. Might be odd for people who didn’t play BotW, but I doubt many people who played TotK didn’t also play BotW
Finally someone who understands that there is a difference between the story told and the method of it being told. I personally really liked the story but as it was the case with BotW I dont like the memories in there current form. The least they should have done is make them a small gameplay section with around 5 min and the cutscene afterwards. With this the player has the feeling to live through the story instead of watching it in a stupid flashback cutscene. This is actually my biggest criticism for both games
I really liked the idea of Link sending the master sword back in time to zelda, so I would've really liked if they had more moments like that where you can interact with Zelda in the past, which could've made it so there's some gameplay in the past
Honestly I think it was a waste we didn't have more map areas with story connections as well, like why were the pirates just devoid of story other than rescuing 1 village and an island? They should have had a pirate Lord sub-boss with ties to Ganon or knowledge about him, a sub-boss in Akkala and Hyrule field questline for horseback fighting would have been welcome as well, with Tabantha ruins, Or Typhlo having a quest as well, it sucks we get the super-friends together and basically have only fetch quests, a final boss, or saving one village to do and NOTHING on any map other than the final boss area gives us cutscenes or established interactions otherwise.
I think the memories worked just fine in Breath of the Wild because they focused in on only what they needed to convey. The memories were about Zelda's failure to unlock her sealing power and the consequences that followed. We got an excellent look into who Zelda is, why she failed, and how she stepped up in Hyrule's darkest moment.
It was a story that was able to be conveyed in snapshots. It also helped that the Calamity happened within living memory, and there were people who were, at most, a generation separate from the actual event and could tell stories of the Calamity itself to Link
Tears' memories, however, tried to convey a completely different era of Hyrule, tried to tell the stories of Rauru, Sonia, and Gandondorf, and tried to convey the story of a war that brought Hyrule to its knees.
That story needed more than just snapshots in order to really be told and because the events happened so long ago, there were no NPCs to help fill in gaps.
We learned a lot about the Calamity by traveling the scarred Hyrule and talking to the people who live there. We know nothing about the war for Hyrule in the era of its founding, and that lack of knowledge really hurts the narrative.
The other problem is the Yiga and the depths... Why are NO researchers actually in the depths? A trap needs believability, for that matter why not just leave us researchers below some chasms as transport to the surface who use special balloons for "slow travel" back up out of the chasm? Rescuing people is basically an above ground base exclusive for no reason, why do we never see researchers trapped on sky islands for that matter?
In terms of sales, of course it did well.
But the story and gameplay feel less like a sequel and more like an alternate Breath of the Wild, they barely even MENTION anything from Breath of the Wild despite the many similarities. If you show anyone Tears of the Kingdom that doesn't know Breath of the Wild exists, they would have no clue it's a sequel.
It feels like it's what they wanted BotW to be, but for whatever reason they couldn't do it, so they did it as a "sequel"
If it were to be a sequel that had surpassed BOTW, TOTK should’ve included a playable Princess Zelda and allow players to explored more of the Imprisoning War era from her own POV.
That was what hurt me the most in my experience with TotK, the discontinuity and disconnection with BotW.
The game suffers because it tries to create its own identity under the shadow of what was its prequel. Eliminating all the components that defined it by its own, and ignoring the plot gaps that it left after doing so.
@Nyespro the biggest problem is how is it that everyone in game seems to not know who link is? Only a handful of characters seek to remember him
@@Kirkieb Apparently they outsourced a lot of writing this time to a group called "qualia writers" who may have no had sufficient context as they didn't write botw. This on top of aonuma and fujibayashi having had an irrational fear that it would alienate new players to reference botw too much
Why was age of calamity a better game story wise than totk?
If only those developers shared some insight that could've improved totk and if anything aoc 2 will probably be a better game.
Honestly I might be biased bc LoZ is my special interest and never ending hyperfixation, but my only issue with it was how little we ended up needing the Skylands. They really hyped them up in all the trailers and teasers I feel like but then I'm the actual game we HAVE to go up there.. maybe three times? And there just weren't many. I think I got my hopes up thinking they'd go and treat it like Skyward Sword where there were whole towns and such on the Skylands so I was just disappointed when they ended up being tiny land chucks with maybe some fruit and a chest on them(for the most part). That being said I still love the game and would play it a million times over again until I can 100% it
I think you really hit it on the head with “the sky islands and depths were cool, but lacked story”
The exploration in BotW was epic because it TOLD a story, the story of the great calamity. Now we have the story in a world we’ve already explored, and exploration in a world without story. It felt disjointed. I wish there had been more NPC’s and maybe some actual civilizations in the depths and sky islands.
My immediate gripes are that The Depths needed more variety and The Sky Islands needed to either be bigger, or just simply have more of them( Why couldn't we have gotten an Abandoned Skyloft). The secondary maps just felt lackluster. I liked the story, but we all were thinking about Demise Returning.
No Skyloft doesn’t make any sense. It would have been so cool. Can’t believe they didn’t do it.
@@boowho817 we could’ve got a zonai village
@@boowho817 yes. I wanted more life in the depths. Maybe a settlement or two and a new race of Hyrulians.
Nintendo needs to make a sequel to Age of Calamity since Ganondorf’s body may exist in this alternate timeline Terrako has created.
I doubt we’ll see Imprisioning War game anytime soon since the series is over with
Please don't
They do that and they'll destroy any sense of logic with this franchise after severing the timeloop which allowed Zelda to travel to the past in order to create "Calamity Ganon" and trigger the events of Breath of the Wild.
@@javiervasquez625well said.... This timeline has now been set, any other games within this timeline have to stay true, or not tbh... It is the Devs decision at the end of the day. But I do agree with you, AOC2 could mess the timeline up unless it abides by the Zonai history, not easy to do when 2 triple A games have been released already and AOC was released before TOTK was even in the making.....
If Ganondorf did exist in that alternate timeline, the circumstances of his imprisonment would be totally different because, in this timeline, the events leading up to Zelda travelling to the past to aid in the Imprisoning War never happened. The timeline we were presented in TotK is a closed loop/predestination paradox, and *ANYTHING* happening in contradiction of that established timeline would *DESTROY* the timeloop, like the Champions surviving, the Calamity being defeated early, and Link never having to take a 100-year nap
All of that happening means that BotW could not have happened as it did, which means that the Calamity would have never damaged Hyrule Castle enough for Ganondorf to start leaking Gloom into the world, and without the Gloom leaking out from the castle, Zelda and Link would not have had a reason to go underneath the castle, so Zelda would have never found Rauru's Secret Stone and travelled back in time. So she wouldn't have been there during the Imprisoning War, wouldn't have delivered the Purah Pad/warp functionality to Mineru so there would be no warp pads in Zonai architecture, there would be no Puppet Zelda because Ganondorf would have never seen her (and he wouldn't have known about Link or the sword that seals the darkness, either), and, most importantly, the Master Sword would never have been shattered, so Zelda would have never needed to become the Light Dragon. The Great Sky Island would never have been raised because no one would have been there to tell Rauru and the Sages that a Hero would awaken there one day, so the Zonai Temple of Time would still probably be on the Great Plateau. The geoglyphs and the hidden geoglyph map in the Forgotten Temple would not exist because the Light Dragon, who shed the tears that would become the geoglyphs, never existed, either. Not to mention that Link and Zelda would probably have just died of old age by the time BotW was supposed to have happened, since Zelda never needed to hold back the Calamity for 100 years and Link never had to go into the Shrine of Resurrection (died of old age or would have been much too old to go do any Hero business)
My feelings toward TotK are mixed and I don't exactly know why. If you were to ask me which one is objectively better in certain factors, it would be TotK across the board.
Better story (the Zelda twist had me absolutely floored), more fun mechanics, the side-characters are more involved (Sidon you will always be my beloved), more means to experiment, more outfits, more things to do, more enemy variety, etc.
I can say all of this in good faith. But for whatever reason, the game didn't leave me as awestruck and thirsty for more as BoTW did. It didn't even leave me with this content feeling satisfaction. When I finished it, it was just "I'm done...Ok now what?"
Maybe part of it is that TotK answered too much and didn't leave enough open ends for more fun speculation? BoTW had so many mysteries scattered around the world, enough for people (like me) to speculate and overthink about.
TotK? Not so much, surprisingly. Maybe that's the part of it that's missing for players like me. The world is no longer as mysterious as it used to be. We've done everything we can. And, personally, I'm very much ready to move onto another Hyrule.
Ironically, we still don't know next to anything regarding the Zonai such as from where did they come from, what lead to their extinction and how do they relate to the Golden Goddesses and the existence of the Triforce. With both Aonuma and Fujibayashi dismissingly stating they're "moving on" from this iteration of Hyrule in order to focus on the next iteration it seems to me as if Nintendo has no interest in telling a complex and nuanced story rich in Lore and detail with their only interest at work been to make a fun game for pure entertainment.
Both of these are my feelings exactly. It's clear in the Zelda community in YT how fast everyone has moved in from ToTK. Nintendo set up the premise of the Zonai in BoTW as being a barbaric but magically-skilled race that resided in Faron long ago that left these huge megalithic structures. Whereas in this game, they're a much more civilized race with advanced technology that resided basically in central Hyrule and whose ruins are aesthetically distinct from those in the Faron region and Typhlo Ruins, but also would've never been found if it not for the events that set up the premise of the game. It's clear that the idea of the Zonai from ToTK wasn't the same as them from BoTW.
The same goes for the lore behind the Eighth Heroine in the Gerudo region. They set up a fascinating premise in the first game to only answer it in the most boring (IMO) way possible in the next.
It's this contradiction and ambivalence to the way they address the lore that frustrates me and no doubt the community of other Zelda theory YTers and why they've all moved on from it.
@@tossingturnips For your first point there are no contradictions in the Zonai lore. Think about it if you looked at cave men and said that they couldn't have existed because they are not as advanced as modern day humans you would be laughed out of the room. What your not seeing with the Zonai lore is that your looking at two different eras of the Zonai civilization.
For your second point they did answer the eighth heroin question that came from Breath of the wilds but the answer is deeper than you realize. Your disappointed with the answers given because you only take them at face value and don't bother to look deeper for what this answer means for the connected lore.
For your third point I don't know what "ambivalence" means but I have yet to find any true contradictions within the games and manuals the only true contradictions I've seen are in the other official sources. The lore has gotten too deep for most theorists to keep it organized and as a result they say that its shallow and contradicting and that the developers don't care they say these things because they can't see the story in front of them because they only see the parts they look for.
@@darkdagger5237 Except that the entrance to the construct factory at Tobio's Hollow being a sleek piece of "new" Zonai architecture that was covered up by the "older" style seen in the rest of the Faron region in BoTW. So, yes, it is a contradiction.
I played the Eighth Heroine side quest, so I know the explanation they gave. However, it fits in with their handling of the Zonai. They set up something grand that has implications of something possibly deeper, but no, it's some random male. If it's deeper than that, as you imply, I'm open to hearing it.
Lastly, ambivalence is the lack of care or indecisiveness towards something. This is how I feel Nintendo is handling their own lore, which really wouldn't have required a lot of effort to make it fit more neatly. Or better yet, don't address it at all, as that's how many excellent Zelda theory videos were made in the past. If you haven't seen any contradictions, I recommend looking into Bandit Games' recent videos on it or the one-year retrospective by CaptBurgerson where he and other Zeldatubers discuss the inconsistencies with the same.
So true, when I finished the game I just felt disappointed. The game started out so well with so many things to do that I thought the new discoveries would continue to come, but after the beginning it felt like nothing new was added. For example the depths, when I first started exploring the depths I thought there would be a load of new fun discoveries and enemies, but in reality it was essentially a copy and paste of the overworld but with even less to do.
Yes it was a success.
Regarding reusing the map, what I find funny is that going back to Twilight Princess's release a lot of people were excited to realize it's more direct connections to Ocarina of Time and trying to extrapolate and match OoT's map into TP's and ecstatic when managing to find locations that mapped 1:1, and now for some getting another look at a world that we know became a problem.
Honestly I liked it better because now I cared about this version of Hyrule from the get go, as soon as it started I wanted to know what had happened in different places, what have become of the house I bought, what happened to the town I help build, how were the characters we got to know, etc. If anything I would have liked for the timespan between both games to be a bit larger to put in more changes, but keeping the same world was a plus for me.
Demon King?... Secret Stones?... Imprisoning War?... lol. Same cut scene every time lol.
Personally, I loved both BotW & TotK. I do believe both are successful. I loved exploring the same world and finding the differences. However, I agree the sky islands and the depths are both lacking overall. Sure they had their cool points, but definitely needed something more.
And while I didn’t mind the story - I wish it took place in real time, instead of doing a whole time travel trope and making us unravel the story that already took place. And don’t even get me started about the copy/paste flashbacks after you beat a boss…..they could have just done so much more with a story told in the present instead of memories of the past.
And while I love Ultrahand, I feel that ultimately took away from the overall enjoyment of the game. Once the hover bike was shared online, you could literally skip entire sections the way the game creators wanted you to play them - and made horses pointless. I kind of wish Ultrahand was the final ultimate power, making you play the game it was supposed to be played first, then gives you the ability to play it how you want after you’ve already beaten the game.
And while I do wish there were more traditional dungeons and less shrines - that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the game. I will say that while I do go back to finish exploring the depths and find/complete all of the shrines, it’s not very often anymore. Considering I know the outcome of finding all of the korok seeds and shrines, it just doesn’t give a lot of replay value after getting just enough to progress.
So sure there are faults - but the game itself is an incredibly amazing & successful game. It just could have been elevated to a whole other level had they done a few things differently.
I do think a lot of the Zelda theorists put too much of their own theories into what TotK “should” be and were disappointed that their expectations weren’t met.
Instead of giving us the depths, I wish they would have given us a bigger world out there. They could have kept the cave system and it would have been fine. We all know there are things outside of the map borders. I wish they would have expanded to the west, and north and maybe the east…that would have been so much cooler. Then they could have had sky islands all over the entire world. A bigger world could have lent itself to more traditional Zelda temples/levels!
I also wish they would have tied the sky islands back to Skyward Sword. While it doesn’t bother me that BotW and TotK are so far in the future of the timeline that they have their own lore, it just really would have been more infinitely cooler had they actually just tied things together with the past games/lore. I think they should have ditched the shrine thing again, and just gone with actual levels.
That’s ultimately my wish for the next major Zelda game. Give us the same basic functionality of BotW & TotK - like fighting mechanics and climbing/stamina. But give us a more traditional flow. They can make the levels be undertaken in any order, IF you have enough stamina to make it through a certain area to counteract not getting the item from the level needed to progress. So like let’s say if you played the game in the order the developers want you to play through: to get to level 3 you’d need to get the hook shot from level 2. BUT, if you did a few shrine quests your stamina could be raised (or cooked a meal to increase your stamina), you could make it past that section to take on level 3 without beating level 2 first. The item would help get through things easier in the over-world, but is only needed in the level it is found in. So you could theoretically take on the levels in any order and keep that open world feel.
I completely disagree with the idea horses are made useless by ultrahand, I use them all the time, just because you have the option to fly over the whole map doesn't mean you have to, it's mostly useful post-game or on repeat playthroughs
@@Irish_Enderman: I’d say you’re in the minority then. Horses are only good travel for flat terrain. They don’t go up or down steep vertical terrain Hover bike is literally good travel anywhere - both horizontal and vertical. Can be used in the depths and in the sky islands. The hover bike is just infinitely a more useful means of travel.
@@darth_smooth81 yes it's more useful, but horses are more fun, as I said, you don't need to fly everywhere just because you have the option, I only use my hover bike when I need to go quickly, like when hunting for koroks or monsters to get the monster medals or when in the depths because the terrain there is a nightmare to cross on land sometimes
@@Irish_Enderman: to each their own. In BotW horses were the way to go. Because they were the only way to go.
However, in TotK: The entire point of Ultra Hand is to play the game how you want. I think a hover bike is easier to conjure up (store it as a saved build to build at any time as opposed to having to go to a stable to check in and check out a horse). No, I don’t HAVE to use a hover bike - but why would I CHOOSE a horse over a hover bike when it is better than a horse in every way?
100% Yes commercially. Meh in terms of community
Edit: guys I'm not saying that the overall Zelda community didn't like the game, I'm just saying it failed to create a community of it's own
And criticly its got an agregate of 96
You’re basing the community in hateful minorities on Twitter, the game literally has critical acclaim from the gaming journalism, devs and fandom
@@chillswany I'm not saying that the Zelda community doesn't like the game. Almost everyone, including me, loved the game but it failed to make a community of it's own. BOTW had such a big community around it for years but the community around TOTK faded in about half a year. I'm not saying that the preexisting community didn't like it, I'm saying that TOTK failed to make it's own community
@@chillswany I do think it's a bit of a stretch to call anyone who dislikes the game as a hateful minority. There will always be those who don't like a game. I personally didn't care for TOTK, but I loved BOTW and had high hopes for it. I'm glad the game was successful and that most people liked it. What did you think of the game?
Botw was good. This game is like botw. I think that the sales were just because of hype, but people are starting to get sick of playing botw again.
Need a Paper Zelda JRPG in TTYD style.
It's pretty much confirmed that Breath of the Wild will get an improved version on Switch 2, so it's pretty safe to expect that Tears of the Kingdom will also get an improved version. Tears of the Kingdom was already a technical marvel, so imagine what a Switch 2 version will be like
So you want more about a game that we already spent more than 8 years (copy and paste) seen it, but now in…4k or 60fps? Lmao
As I have been getting more into loose leaf tea lately, for my drink of choice during this video I had an earl gray tea with a splash of oat milk.
For me, one major thing about the Tears of the Kingdom is how different the atmosphere in Hyrule is. People greet Link and are happy to see him. They know his face, they know his name and have a friendships with him. I LOVE fighting together with the monster control crew, not because it's an actual fighting challenge, but because it feels so good to see Link with other people. I find the sages powers quite annoying but I still bring them out to battle sometimes, because Link is not fighting alone any more and I want him to know that T___T
Breath of the Wild was so emotionally devastating because it's main theme was about the complete destruction that had already took part, it was beyond the players control. You were just left with the aftermath. Tears of the Kingdom is about building new things (literally!) and working together with others.
To me, I know the game was a success, but I didn't care for it. The inconsistencies mentioned at about 8:50 are a bigger problem because this game was billed as a direct sequel. Unlike previous games, even if they were a sequel, they were set in another area where inconsistencies may have been easier to write off. Guardians are just gone. Anything mentioned in BOTW is erased. From a game perspective it makes sense. From a chronological perspective it doesn't. Which is why TOTK fell flat for me. It was also my introduction to the series, and meant a lot to me. So hearing something is a sequel, and beloved characters like Kass are gone and barely acknowledged, it felt like a slap in the face. But I appreciate the video as always. Have a great one!
Edited to correct the time stamp.
I think it would have been cool to find leftover Guardians in old forts and places that havent been cleared out by Link/Hyrules militia.
No need to change how you fight them compared to BotW or anything. Just callbacks to the remnants of the previous game.
BotW was also my first Zelda game but I absolutely love TotK, it's slightly annoying all the sheikah tech just disappeared sure but I don't really mind, I assumed the guardians at least were just all destroyed sometime after ganon was defeated, the games are years apart, plenty of time for link and crew to have gone around hyrule clearing out the last remnants of the guardians
My only issue with this game is that the champions aren't mentioned at all besides the mipha statue up on the mountain beside Zora's Domain, and Kass is mentioned to have left hyrule by like 1 line of dialogue, which if that's the case I suppose it makes sense they don't mention him much but I would've loved to see him in TotK
this here. I liked the game, but it just did away with so much of BOTW. Can it even be called a sequel?
@@SebastianEncina agreed. I heard someone refer to it as a second take or a rewrite of the story instead of a sequel, and that feels like a better comparison. For example, Ganon's malice is now gloom and has different properties? It was fine as is. It hurt you in BOTW and now affects you more cuz he's resurrected. That's fine.
@@Irish_Enderman like Daruk's protection and Yunobo. Can he do both things now? He can't? Why? That was what he did!
And I'll still miss the guardians and Kass, even if it makes sense why he's gone.
Feels weird to say but I think Tears of the Kingdom could have benefited from putting Link in the past, allowing big changes to the map, while keeping Zelda in the present.
I loved Tears of the Kingdom while I was playing it and avoiding other people’s reviews and play throughs. I got really into it and felt just as immersed in the world as I was in Breath of the Wild, if not more. Then I started watching other people’s videos on it, after I finished the main story, and was confused. It was a great game. Not perfect, nothing is, but an exciting and immersive experience. What I got the sense of is the same thing that happened after the Oracle games and Majora’s Mask came out; burnout from a retreaded formula. This discourse has happened before, and Majora’s Mask was actually quite controversial and outright despised by some fans. Either way it’s difficult to simply enjoy something caught in the cross hairs of the internet rage mob today, so I’ll replay it a year from now. Y’all need to chill
I invested 300 hours in to my first play through and had a phenomenal time. Hell, it’s my current favourite game of all time. I understand some of the criticisms but so much just clicked well with me and most complaints are nitpicks and the highs of the game easily overshadow them. IMO, an absolute success!
My biggest gripe with totk was how repetitive it felt from botw. I didn’t take any issue with the world (except the sky islands, which I wish just was… more), but the tutorial section of the game felt EXACTLY the same as botw. At first it actually turned me off. Once I got out of that section tho, I started loving it. But it makes it feel impossible to revisit botw again because it feels like an overall improvement, gameplay speaking. As for the lore, I personally think we just need to give the game time. Let a few more Zelda games release and then take another look. I believe that at some point, the zonai will make a return in the Zelda series, like the Rito and Koroks did, and perhaps a future game will give us a lot more. Even games that don’t directly contain them or other aspects of wilds era games may give us indirect clues that can retroactively help us make more sense of the story, kind of like how the timeline split gave Oot more significance lore-wise or how skyward sword explained why we keep reliving these same stories. Just my take
It sold well so as a product sure it was successful.
As a story experience tho; meh.
I’ve seen a lot of franchises move away from their core elements, basically watering themselves down for more mass appeal and I feel that’s happening here.
Personally I found the old zonai lore from botw way more interesting. I feel that all the new lore surrounding the zonai just feels rushed. It feels like they made them important in an attempt to manufacture grandeur.
Additionally I think the shrines and koroks are a complete detriment. A lot of people have argued to me that “we’re not supposed to find them all unless we’re tryna 100%”. But to me its so copy/pasted that I feel like they are wasting precious developmental resources in making that many of them. Resources that could go into making the story better. A plot we can actually take part in, instead of getting everything told to us through memories
Agree agree agree agree, zonai were so much more interesting in botw and they f it up. In terms of Kologs, they're not meant by developers but why so many in the first place, it's so stupid, they could cut down the required amount to upgrade or idk, like u said, invest development in other areas
@@joshvolk5832 You're 💯 right!
I've had ToTK for a while now and still haven't completed it. I avoided any and all spoilers, but had the misfortune of playing the story missions in the worse order possible, with the one where Zelda draconifies first, and where Sonia dies second. Knowing that Zelda was the light dragon flying around and chasing a shade I knew wasn't her was frustrating. And having Sonia die when I didn't even know who she was took all of the weight out of the moment. The rest of the story was just "revealing" things to me that I already knew, which makes it hard to finish, even if the mechanics and world are fantastic.
I was in a college debate where a team was asked a specific question to which they avoided by asking and answering their own. Our team knew that they had not anticipated the angle so they just gave up and went with what they practiced.
I feel like the writers gave up especially on the finding Zelda and understanding the hoax angle. I too was so distracted that Link knew the truth but his mute introverted arse would not tell the world the truth lol (I know he can talk btw). They structured the open world without making branches for people to experience the results of their actions or inactions we all just get the same conclusion regardless.
Your statement about unraveling the Zelda mystery made me realize that that’s one of the things I disliked about the game.
My only problem, other than no hearty durians, is that it's in an uncanny valley of familiarity. So much is different and still the same. I had massive cognitive dissonance with that and how few people remember Link and how many do.
Its my second favorite game of all time and my favorite Zelda game by a large margin. Mostly because of the unique mechanics that gave players even more freedom and options than BOTW. It's ability to challenge its players to find creative solutions rather than the one and only solution is such a welcome evolution for the series and I'm here for it. Hope this is the kind of game we get as we approach the next generation of Nintendo consoles, allowing the Zelda team to push this style further than the Switch ever could.
It’s still the only Zelda game I’ve played (And I’ve played a lot from NES to Switch) that I haven’t bothered finishing. And I’m in no rush to. To me it just wasn’t different enough from BOTW which I adored.
I guess I'm in the minority here. I thought it was goty. Phenomenal game. Amazing mechanics, amazing story, loved re-exploring Hyrule. Best master sword pull. Such a fun Ganon series of fights at the end. I liked that it was familiar but still had a lot to discover. Going to revisit places from botw and constantly being surprised to see the changes was its own type of discovery. I loved everything about totk. Still playing it to this day.
Most thought it was game of the year but then hype passed.
One thing that came to mind in terms of reusing the world. A Link Between Worlds (and potentially Echoes of Wisdom) reuses a lot of the overworld as A Link to the Past, yet I don’t hear anybody complain about that. I can’t help but wonder if the larger time gap made a difference. What if Tears of the Kingdom came out 10-15 years after BotW with a few unrelated Zelda games in-between? Would we all have felt differently about the reuse of that version of Hyrule?
Well also LBW brought in a bunch of new stuff that was different from ALTTP, new lore and areas, and characters and music, TOTK doesn't really do any of that
3:30 It was a good story but poorly done, and that's what pisses me off as well as the fact that since Link was left behind to clean up the mess while Zelda had to deal with the Imprisoning War. This game and BotW take you out of the action that shaped the situation to begin with and we don't get to hang out with Zelda at all where a spin off warriors game did better.
This Ganondorf is the most generic when it comes to personality and depth.
The ending outcome is cheesy as hell which I hate, while this Zelda and Link deserve a happy ending, reverting an "irreversible" situation with "ghost magic" just left a sour taste in my mouth.
Lack of fun new stuff to see in Hyrule, the sky islands and depths were copy pasted and repetitive with no cool lore dumps like zonai journals.
The fact the story can be seen out of order if you're not paying attention to the order of the glyphs in the main map room in the forgotten sanctuary.
9:55 yeah it's ARTSTYLE not it's gameplay/story.
One simple little fix that would've changed alot would've been making Link go back in time WITH Zelda, have either Zelda be the main protagonist OR keep Link but have Zelda help him out in puzzles making Co-op a possibility, and have the story be about Zelda and Link finding the triforce to fix and strengthen the master sword to defeat ganondorf BEFORE he kills sonia (or just make the scene play out that he just knocks her out instead of killing her).
With this small change the land of Hyrule is changed dramatically due to it be in the past where millennia upon millennia has changed the map entirely, they could still bring in the sky islands and depths but have them more populated or something.
This game gets a 5/10 from me, out of the 440 hours I will prefer to play older games over ToTK, I haven't had an "itch" to play it again since I completed it.
I'm glad you're out here still spreading the good word of TotK. I'm with you, I can see the things that bother people about it but I just personally don't care enough about those things for it to affect my love for the game. I'm 2 100% playthroughs in with 1000 hours in the game and I'm going to definitively agree, total success. It sucks that so many people were so disappointed
I personally think it was succesful, and its one of my favorite zelda games, And it had so many things I loved, but also it wasn't perfect and it did have some things I didn't really like.
The things I did like are:
1. The dungeons. I think the dungeons are a perfect mix of totk and botw dungeons, and I think it perfectly fits the open world. There are some that could've been better (the water temple mainly) but overall I really loved them and I loved how they all had references to past dungeons and bosses. The lightning temple was my favourite and I love how it brought back the mirror shield mechanic but changed It up a bit to fit the open world style. I also love how they brought back the gibdos for the lightning temple, just like how there are gibdos In the arbiters grounds in TP. Also the wind temple heavily reminded me of so many different dungeons, like snowpeak ruins, and the sandship, and the city in the sky, and the interior also kind of reminded me of the water temple from TP. And I love how unique the spirit temple/construct factory felt, while also kind of reminding me of the shadow temple. Also a lot of the puzzles in the dungeons were so good. I just love the dungeons.
2. The story. Many people seem to hate the story, and Ive also heard some people say that the story is a mixed bag where some of it is amazing while some of it is also awful, but I personally disagree. For me, the whole story was amazing from start to finish. And a lot of people are kind of upset that it contradicts a lot of stuff from older games, and also it doesnt really connect to older games that much, but I feel like a story doesnt need to connect to past games to be good, and I think totk's story stands on it own without past lore, but also just because it doesn't mention a lot of things and it contradicts a lot of things, doesn't mean it isn't connected at all. The whole thing about zelda stories is that you theorize about the connections, and theorize about the plot holes. Its always been like that. Like with twilight princess, it contradicts wind wakers already established lore since hyrule isn't flooded at all, and ganondorf is still alive, and the spirit of the hero still exists, and it never really directly mentioned past games, but people didn't just call it a retcon, instead they theorized about how maybe the reason the hero disappeared in WW is because Zelda sent him back in time as seen in oot, and that caused a timeline split, and maybe twilight princess is in the new timeline that was created. And then that was eventually confirmed in the official zelda timeline, and I think there's a chance that in the future there will be a game or book which will do the same thing with totk. Maybe the new masterworks book coming out soon will do that.
3. The gameplay. The mechanics are so fun to mess around with and you honestly don't even need to do the main story in order to have fun, cause you can spend hours building cool things with ultrahand. Also stuff like recall really makes puzzles so fun. Also a lot of the sage abilities are so helpful and cool, like tulin's wind gust, and Mineru's construct which you can literally ride. The gameplay is something that makes totk feel very different to botw, cause sometimes I play botw to see how different it is to totk, and it feels so weird to play without having all the abilities and stuff.
But the things that I didn't really like are:
1. The storytelling. Even though I loved the story itself, the way it was told could've been better. Totk uses the same memory system from botw, which I don't really like since it makes it feel too similar to botw, but also the memory system worked for botw because the memories don't really tell a specific story. It's just a collection of moments that you don't need to see in order. But with totk, the memories show a whole story that has plot twists and you kind of need to see it all in order. Also with memories, you can just binge them all, and because of that, most people I've seen play the game end up knowing pretty much the entire story before they even do their second or third dungeon. I wish they found a way to make the story's pacing better. Them just using memories again just felt a little lazy.
2. The general vibe of the game. Idk if anyone has said this before, but I personally feel like the vibe of the game was kind of inconsistent if that makes sense. Some of It feels really dark, like the beginning and the end of the game, and when sonia is killed, but also the rest of the game feels a lot like botw and doesnt really have that same dark vibe. I kind of wish the whole game felt more dark, and felt more like the beginning and the end. And it would have also made it feel more different to botw. I wish the whole game felt more like the original 2019 trailer tbh. I also think it would have had more of that dark vibe if more of the game and story took place in the depths. Pretty much all of the memories take place on the surface, but then suddenly the imprisoning war memory takes place underground, so its like how the hell did the story even escalate to the point where they had to go underground? It just feels very random to me and I wish they made it more consistent.
Ive said the things I do like and don't like, but theres also something which I both like and dislike at the same time if that makes sense, and that is:
The world. The sky and depths are gorgeous, and I love exploring them, especially with the depths. The depths has that same vibe which I wish the whole game had, and there are so many cool areas and it feels fun to just explore them. But they also arent perfect, because they don't really come with much stuff. Especially the sky. I don't necessarily think that the sky is too small, but most of the unique sky islands are part of the great sky island, so you explore it all at the beginning of the game, which doesnt really leave that many other sky islands to explore afterwards, and most of the islands that arent part of the tutorial are just copy and pasted. And with the depths, even though I love it and it definitely does have a lot of unique places, and a lot of interesting mysteries, it too just feels like it doesnt have that much variety. There are unique places like the central abandoned mine under the great plateau, and the spirit temple, and the area under death mountain, and so many other places, but it just doesnt really feel like enough, as most of the structures in the depths are just the same copy and pasted uninteresting mines, and the environment of the depths is all exactly the same except for under death mountain. I wish it had snowy areas and sandy areas and grassy/foresty areas. In fact, when you do the master kogha boss fight in the abandoned gerudo mine, he says "I only lost because I got sand in my eye" but that line doesnt even make sense cause there's no sand there... Its just the same mushroom trees and rock and purple grass. That master kogha quote makes me wonder if they originally were planning to make the depths more diverse but just gave up. I wasn't expecting totk's world to be as big and diverse and interesting as botw's since its a sequel, but I still think it could've been better.
Overall, I love Totk and I think it definitely succeeded, and the problems I do have with it don't take that much away from how much I love the game. I can sort of understand how a lot of people don't really like it, but I personally just disagree. Also, this might be a little random, but I feel like a lot of the zelda community has gotten kind of toxic due to Totk. A lot of the time when I try to explain why I like totk, and its story, I get so many people saying that Im just coping and I should be ashamed for liking it because I'm just excusing nintendo's lazy behaviour. In fact someone literally once posted 7 REPLIES on a youtube comment I once made where they kept just saying that I'm coping and that I need to stop being a snowflake who's too scared to handle the reality that totk is "objectively bad", and I need to just accept the truth. The toxicity has honestly made me not want to be involved with the zelda community much, because its just so negative and depressing now. Anyway sorry that this was super long but I just wanted to go on a bit of a rant 😭
Again people expected TotK to have dungeons, especially with the promo videos, and it did not. TotK is around 15gb? when they have 32gb cartridges. They could have fitted a lot more explorable/puzzle elements/dungeons to typify buying this version.
Improvement but far off
It had dungeons. So did botw.
@@tumultuousv It had short caves
@@tumultuousv "dungeons" lol
TOTK is like Resident Evil 7 and 8 where it introduces things that leaves the fandom with more questions rather than answers and it's obviously done intentionally. And I honestly think that people should've expected this considering the confusion that is the Zelda timeline.
I'm still upset that i couldn't find Skyloft 😭
Otherwise, i love it
Ultrahand alone is a technical achievement that game designers and programmers are going to study for years-- if not decades.
That alone makes it a success imho.
I also seriously recommend watching their GDC presentation. It's amazing just how intricately it was all programmed. It really, really is.
I agree TotK was a huge success. What I've noticed is the more you got out of Breath of the Wild, the less you got out of Tears of the Kingdom. I enjoyed both games a lot, and sure I didn't play TotK for as many hours as BotW, but the fact that TotK engaged me as long as it did despite me still being burnt out by how much I played BotW is astounding.
The only people I see saying the new game wasn't a success I pretty much only see in the above category.
I absolutely loooove it! People are fickle! First it was the best game ever now they are bored! After many play hours all games are boring! But it’s a piece of art! Let’s just say it! It’s beautiful! It was like playing a studio ghibli film. Perfection! I’ve only done one run through so lots to do next.
I’ve been thinking long about why TotK left a bad taste in my mouth, besides not liking the story and think it’s too big for its own good. But most of all I found out that it’s because all parts of this game feel extremely disjointed for me, which killed any emotional attachment I normally have to a Zelda game. The mechanics feel slapped on and make you able to play god without feeling earned or in line with the rest of the world. It has a story but to be fair most of the interesting bits happen in the first few minutes of the game, the rest is just randomly slapped on points of interest. The gameplay feels so “mechanics” based, combined with a surface level story that doesn’t respect its own lore makes me not able to immerse myself and turns an adventure into a chore to go from one predictable (repeating) story beat to another. I really wanted to love this game
I agree! The mechanics didn't feel natural and even dozens of hours in I was still pressing the wrong button because there were SO many options. And the ghost abilities were disjointed with having to chase them down to do anything, not to mention their soulless eyes. The tears scattered randomly around the map made spoiling what little story there was didn't help. I wish the memories would be told in order, regardless of the glyph you found a tear in, so that later the different symbols would make sense as a whole, instead of a particular memory.
@@KyraHogue I agree with all you said! It kind of feels like there were too many separate teams working on parts of the game that were trying to innovate a little too much. And in the process it lost cohesion and just felt like “content” instead of a piece of art. I hope this is not the new normal for the series, like it is for many other western games.
I enjoyed TotK, and I definitely think it's a great game, but i was personally disappointed by how it handled the Zonai. It felt like the game was retconning the lore from BotW. I know that Zelda games don't really try to have super consistent lore, and that's fine. The whole redo of the OoT scenario didn't bother me, that's kinda just par for the course. But I was disappointed that a direct sequel didn't agree with the game it followed.
NEW HG VIDEO! LIFE IS GOOD AGAIN!
WOOOO!!
For me it was a great game! I can't believe they made the BOTW world even bigger! Also all the abilities were awesome especially recall! Of course I will always have a few little nick picks about certain things but compared to them how they upgraded BOTW amazes to this day ❤️!
Perhaps it's because of my specific brand of autism, who knows, or because I love botw/totk Zelda and her relationship with Link we get hinted at, that is emotional and I really love, but I genuinely liked the story itself and genuinely still enjoy the majority of the gameplay. For the most part, I'm happy with what I got. The game obviously isn't without flaws, but those have been beaten to death. I first played oot and grew up on all consoles, so my love of totk isn't "forced likeablitiy due to regret/fanboyism" or being just a "new zoomer fan". I genuinely like the game.
I’m between 600 and 700 hours in I love this game I’ve played it a couple of times it’s just wonderful I enjoyed the story, the mechanics literally everything I thought it was an amazing game and I love building things!! As someone who’s played all the Zelda games except Spirit Tracks I loved it! I played BoTW for about 120 hours when compared to ToTK I’m still playing it!!
I thought it was a good game overall. But I do like BoTW better. One of the main attractions in TotK is using Ultrahand. And I really disliked using Ultrahand. Look, I know I'm in the minority on this. It just felt so slow and clunky, and I never got used to it like most people. It felt slow and clunky the entire way through the game, and I mostly felt frustrated while using it. Every time there was something that I had to solve using Ultrahand, I internally sighed. I also got autobuild late because I missed the side-quest for it at first. Still if given the choice to replay one of the games, I'd replay BotW over TotK because Ultrahand is just a detraction for me. I also didn't enjoy exploring the Depths that much. It just felt too repetitive. I did have a bit of a problem with the reused overworld landscape not feeling new enough at times, too. Anyway, I'd give TotK a 8/10 for me. I'd give BotW 10/10.
I'm definitely going to play Echoes of Wisdom, but I'm already worried that using the Echo ability is also going to feel slow and clunky based off what we've seen of the interface.
Also, a bit of a sidenote, but it's not that I dislike creating things. I very much enjoy modelling things in Blender to 3D print. However, even though making stuff in Blender is pretty slow (for me), the thing is the interface quickly stopped feeling clunky after using it for a few hours and the freedom is pretty absolute. Plus getting something tangible out of it in the end is really, really cool. (Of course, Blender doesn't have a physics engine, so that's something TotK has over it, lol.)
I loved the heck out of it, despite everyone's excessive complaints.
The only complaint is that I would've love some DLC.
True. But I’d also be extremely happy knowing that the Zelda team is 100% focused on next gen Zelda. Hoping we can see it before 2028
I personally feel it was a success. Certain areas that could have been improved, but overall I don't feel like my time or money was wasted. A hugely ambitious and enjoyable game that, while not as revolutionary as Breath of the Wild, builds and improves on it in (almost) all areas.
I also agree with you when it comes to the lore. It personally doesn't bother me when it comes to whether or not it connects to previous games or stories, and like you said, previous games have left a lot of things unexplained or even downright contradict each other.
I've only played BotW and TotK so I can't compare the previous games but in BotW: Zelda goes missing and Link has to rescue her, Link has four main challenges then the villain. In TotK: Zelda goes missing and Link has to rescue her, Link has four main challenges then the (same) villain.
The stories in both games, which were very sparse to begin with were diluted further by having such a large sandbox world. I either ignored the story for most of the time, or forgot it was there. The 'stories' didn't flow through and carry the games, they cropped up occasionally to remind me that there was actually a point to it all. TotK had a few new mechanics and two largely empty new areas which made it feel more like an expensive DLC for me. Much was forgotten, even more was nerfed. Throwing a couple of new toys in the same old toy box wasn't worth the price tag.
"Queen Sonia gets murdered and Im only scratching the surface" no no you basically hit the bottom of the barrel with that Totk's story is just that shallow, Totk was a sequel that did not care about those coming back from Botw any questions you could have had coming from Botw was either outright ignored or the answer was so dissapointing you wonder why it was even included, the same goes much of the new stuff any questions you have about the sky islands or the depths are ignored hell the depths are the biggest letdown a massive underground world that could have been cut from the game and you'd miss nothing important and many many more issues I have that I have not gone back to the game since forcing myself to finish it.
Hyrule Gamer: (jumps into ToTK's story)
Hyrule Gamer: (smashes head first into the floor)
Resulting in this video, I guess.
I personally loved this, I feel is a better version of BOTW in all aspects, but like others pointed out, the lore as great as it was, it did became a little bothersome with some contradictions here and there and also, it could have been more flesh out, I feel they could have used more the mechanic where you can rebuild towns after been attacked by Ganon pirates or forces. Like strength their defences and the more you progress the story with the sages you could have incorporated troops or guards to protect towns or make forts and closer you get the end game, the monsters and invasions could have increased creating a great level or replay-ability, something they completely missed the mark.
Also the more you progress in the game the more you can build but it has the same problem that BOTW where you end up with too much of everything where the game becomes too easy. You got enough weaponry and items to take on the Dragons.
They could have fixed themselves on creating new side quests and more rich in lore than adding unnecessary new contradictory lore and flesh more some of the old lore. I would have prefered change the depts for letting you play and explore the past. Fighting the Gerudo as a Hylian trooper or play as Zelda like that you know?
Again, I still love both and I feel TOTK is much better version of BOTW, also I Wish they coudl have give us the Master level to increase the level of difficulty. Increasing the level of difficulty would have made this game almost perfect.
3:10 no we didn't get exactly what we wanted
For me personally I think I just struggle with open world games as big as this. I get overwhelmed and if there isn’t a reason to explore I don’t. In Breath of the Wild I wanted to explore because it told me a story, but in Tears of the Kingdom I got bored after I found all the memories and visited all the areas. I didn’t even end up completing the Spirit Temple. Whereas streamlined games I’m motivated to keep playing to find out what happens. Again, that’s a very personal reason and I don’t think it works as an overall criticism of the game.
I would say that TOTK is definitely a success. There are some stuff that I would have liked to see in the game like some more Sky Islands that had some kind of settlement to them as well as some Sky Island Researchers that you could meet on several of the Sky Islands, but overall I have really enjoyed playing TOTK and I think that not only was it a continuation of BTOW but it did its own thing and that it was able to get people hyped up and want to experience the game
Thank you so much for making this. It's been forever since I've heard someone liking it and not complaining about it. Recently I've heard so many people talk about how the story is awful, that BOTW is significantly better than it or that "IT'S JUST $70 DOLLAR DLC". It's also hard since my only real complaint with it is the sage abilities but other than that nothing bothers me about the game so it annoys me more when people complain about the game and I disagree on almost everything. I agree it has issues but they are not issues for my experience of the game.
Nobody really, actually cares about one person's disagreement on their opinions. The concern is how other people will treat that topic in future conversations. If a negative opinion gets repeated too often, it can become difficult to have any other kind of conversation about that game and share what you like about it, which isn't fun to deal with at all. I know from too much experience.
While I agree with a bunch of Tears' criticisms very much, I'm never inclined to treat it any differently from the other Zelda games I've played or begrudge it for its success. I'd actually still rate this one fairly high, all things considered. I'm more critical of BotW to be honest. Tears sold me on the BotW intended experience more than the first game did and I appreciate that. :)
I never played BOTW but i played through all of TOTK and got a lot of the extra stuff too. I'm thinking about playing BOTW now and I wonder if i will have the same gripes everyone had with TOTK, losing that sense of discovery. A lot of people say they like BOTW better. It should be interesting.
I think Utrahand is so under used. Even with the same world, if players were allowed to rebuild Hyrule after beating Gannodorf. That could open up a lot of DLC. Start with helping each region to rebuild and get bits of the old calamity story and what happened to the Sheika tech. After that the last DLC would allow you to rebuild Central Hyrule, the Castle and let Link and Zelda start rebuilding settlements however the player wants them to look. Of course materials would be limited, and maybe implement a crafting system with new items. X amount of rocks for a stone wall, x amount of wood for a house part. Find NPCs to move in to these settlements. The mechanics are there!
While I played through the main campaign of this game, I was absolutely in love (except for the memories playing out of order which totally ruined the plot twists for me). However, as soon as I finished the main story I lost any motive to explore the rest of the map. For that reason, BOTW will always be a step above because it gripped me until I found every shrine and then some. TOTK did some incredible things and is a worthy sequel, but it hasnt kept me coming back for more.
one thing a lot of people forget one big thing about lore is all of the Zelda games are Legends its in the name. Legends folklore changes over time due to retelling and loss of information. There will never truly be a set timeline. Because all of the games are legends and stories from Hyrule. Each is put forth as a story a myth ect. I loved TOTK Im still playing it and have yet to beat it (I know how it ends cause dont care bout spoilers ect) and overall it and BOTW got me playing Zelda games again. I had back as a kid tried to play but I got so frustrated with puzzles and such I never really played any until these two came out then it brought my interest back to Zelda
i love TOTK and BOTW. Both are extremely fun and i am still playing both. They are both successes. I love the sandbox element added to TOTK, along with the depths area. I feel that when i get to an area that might be hard to navigate, or have difficult enemies to beat, i can be as creative as i want, to build or fuse items together, to figure out a solution that works.
I think it’s a remarkable game, and for all the critical assessment I’ve seen, I’ll never be drawn to that position. I’m still in wonderment of how fantastic it is.
I really wish that they had expanded the sky islands and maybe cut down the depths or at least put more dungeons down there to flush it out more. The fact that most NPC’s from BOTW don’t know who you are was insane. Huge miss on that part.
I enjoyed my experience with TOTK. It was a phenomenal game. I have my gripes with the lore but overall it was excellent. The final battle with Ganondorf was the absolute best fight in the entire series.
I loved playing the game but there are definitely parts of it that feel like a chore like getting the korok seeds.
I loved it at first; I ran around exploring without the paraglider for hours at first just exploring and was excited to do so; the story grabbed me from the get go. then became disillusioned with it and stopped playing for a while, picked it up again and pretended that it wasn’t a Zelda game and didn’t care about doing 100% and had a lot more fun again. So it was successful for me, I just hope they take feedback from fans and push the boundaries in a new direction.
I wonder if Nintendo is happy with the results. Yes TOTK sold well but it failed to become a cultural phenomenon like BOTW did. It's like they made this game because of all the wacky creative things they saw people doing in BOTW but ultimately not nearly as many cared this time. I say that because I think it's very weird that they aren't making any DLC for it. Not even free cross promotional DLC like the Xenoblade 2 update for BOTW. I can understand them not wanting to make an expansion the size of Champion's Ballard but they couldn't even give us a master mode like what the first game had?
The fact that this game sold 20+ million and they just want to move on is strange
Well, how can you make DLC... for a DLC.
@@TheSultan1470 Lol exactly
sometimes making more sence is just better, espesially in this chase as it's meant to be a sequel to Breath of the Wild but it ignored a lot of stuff from Breath of the Wild, like the champions (except Mipha who got her own statue, which I really like) ...least for the most part,
but also I wish they told us why the Divine Beasts are gone and all of the towers the Shrines and cave of resurrection, the story works well in Breath of the Wild, but the story in Tears of the Kingdom suffers a lot more as I literally found the cutscenes in the wrong order and one of the last scenes was one of the first scenes I saw, which kinda spoils the game for the player, finding every korok is still lame (which is why I'm never finding them all) there's also many times where the accend ability isn't very helpful and I found my self missing Revali's Gale
the depht are fine as a concept but was excecuted very poorly, same with the sky islands, once you seen one you pretty much seen them all and there's no reason for you to get back up there after you leave, besides if you wanna find all the shrines...which I did
I always came somewhat back to Breath of the Wild, but since I finished Tears of the Kingdom I haven't really gone back to either game
the Dungeons are better than the devine beasts but not great, in fact the journey to the dungeons (Tempels) are actually much more interesting than the dungeons themselfs
the caves are also kinda boring, the weapons has somehow gotten weaker (at least it feels like it) so fusing them with others things is a must and I miss lighting, fire and ice arrows ...no the actual arrows, you can somehow replicate them with elemental items but it's also very tedious to work with the meny to find your prefer item, like they should've made it 2 - 3 lines instead of one, a newcomber who tried Tears first won't even know it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild and the bulding mechanic just doesn't work for me, I made a flying mashine with 4 wind items and the steering wheel ...cause making it with 2 didn't work out for me and then just used that to get to places
I mean don't get me wrong I still enjoyed the game for what it is, but it's far from one of my favorites. I actually prefer Breath of the Wild over Tears of the Kingdom to be honest, it's still a good game I just don't like the open Air formula as much as the previous games (like Twilight Princess, Link's Awakening etc...)
but after Tears I am worried Zelda will fall into the Paper Mario situation...if you know what I mean, thankfully ...or should I say hopefully it looks like Paper Mario might be going back to it's routes, only the next NEW game in the series will tell
Note: if anyone reply to this, plis be respectful, this is just my opinion
I love TOTK but I do feel like it suffers from too big a scope. They spread themselves out too thin leaving the skylands and depths feeling very empty in comparison to the main overworld (The one we've already explored to death.)
Maybe its not fair to judge a game as what it could've been, but I do think it'd be a lot cooler if Ganondorf's dehydrated form showed up more instead of last minute as well.
Beyond that I don't think the mystery of the Zonai is as satisfying anymore because they didn't give a lot to work with despite the Zonai literally showing up in game along with their technology. We still don't know much about their dead civilization or what happened to them and the whole barbarian idea went out the window. It just left me really underwhelmed even though I like the concept of a magic sky race a lot
I overall don't think the story was that bad, but I wish it had a larger focus on repairing the master sword and less of a focus on the imprisoning war. It's not that I don't like the imprisoning war, I just don't want the same event explained to me over 5 times with little to no new information.
I wish that instead of sending the master sword back in time at the beginning of the game, you hold onto it and restore it through the power of the sages you help awaken. After the final dungeon with Mineru, the master sword could then be sent back in time for Zelda to complete the restoration of the blade. By that point in the game, you would have already found the fake Zelda, so I could see the Dragon Tear quest starting here for the player to figure out what actually happened to Zelda. Upon completing the quest, you'll be able to get the sword from the light dragon.
I know this idea of mine isn't perfect, maybe it's worse than what we got, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I personally think Tears of the Kingdom's story does have flaws, but I don't think it's bad. Great video!
I so badly hope that Echoes of Wisdom gives me the kind of classic Zelda lore that was sorely missed in totk. I love Zelda in all its form, but its world building means so much to me.
It was a great addition to the BOTW storyline. It answered many questions people had about the Zonai from BOTW, myself included. I like the way the 2 games melded together, albeit... People in the game who should know Link, don't know link 😔😶.
The new Wisdom game, I can't wait for, finally Zelda is going to be the protagonist of her own game 🥰
I still think Nintendo could successfully reuse the map one more time. Hear me out.
For this game we go back in time over 10,000 years. The depths are inhabited by Gorons and another new race… maybe a depths version of Zora too as there are some bodies of water.
On the surface, none of the villages and towns that we know are there. It’s mostly wooded, wild, and undeveloped with a few settlements. No ruins.
The sky islands are also there. But not in all the same configurations as the sky islands we saw had been victims of erosion. They are also inhabited by Zonai.
None of Hyrule’s races are united with each other. In fact, they don’t trust each other at all. It is Zelda’s job to be an ambassador to help them unite against a new threat unlike Hyrule has ever seen before.
As for Ganon and the Gerudo. The desert is the most dangerous area of Hyrule as are their corresponding areas in the depths. Ganon’s goal is two fold. One, conquer all of Hyrule for himself. Gerudo and Yiga are everywhere attempting to bring settlements into submission. Two, Ganon seeks the power of Demise. He has heard of the triforce and of how Hylia battled Demise. He knows that somewhere in the depths Demise must be hidden, trapped and waiting to be released.
Can Link and Zelda unite Hyrule before Ganon awakens Demise?
Oh God no 💀 y'all really ok with laziness. People like you are the reason Nintendo can put out anything and still get money. We explored the same map 2 damn times. And the way you present the idea of Hyrule changing is just taking away villages and things which would make the world even more boring to explore lmaooo.
@@mightguy3118 you have no imagination. Hyrule 10,000 years ago would be very different. It’s not encouraging laziness but expanding a world creatively.
10,000 years does change a landscape. Dueling peaks isn’t dueling peaks, it’s one mountain. Hebra Mountain has no chunk missing. Plant and animal life could be very different. Perhaps Death Mountain has never erupted yet so the area around it is also completely different and the reason the Gorons all live underground. Due to never having yet erupted it’s not even called death mountain but is the most fertile area of Hyrule with the highest population of people and one of the largest settlements. Hence the area became associated with Dinraal and power and fertility.
Adding underwater exploration would expand the experience and give even more places to explore, plus it would be necessary because the Zoras keep to themselves and stay underwater for the majority of their lives due to animosity among the races.
Having a civilization in the Faron Jungle would also be interesting. It’s the area of courage for a reason and the people there are survivors and warriors known for unmatched courage due to the rough and dangerous nature of the surrounding jungle. I think adding carnivorous plants would be nice.
It be nice to see the Lanayru Promenade fully inhabited and used and the seat of the area of wisdom. It’s well defended and difficult to enter.
It’s not as lazy as you assume. There would be a lot of changes. Just as Zelda says in the one cutscene…it’s not the Hyrule you’d remember.
@@ewe6096 none of that warrants using the same map for a 3rd time 💀 that's just overdoing it and gonna make fans frustrated. It's still the same map with the same landscape and the same areas at the end of the day
@@ewe6096 Tears of the kingdom tried to reuse the same map and it still felt the same. No new significant changes that made it unrecognizable. I'd rather have a new map than Nintendo just being lazy recycling the same map over and over. If they can put that much effort into trying to change a map we already saw then they can put that much effort into just creating a new original map
The "same map" issue is why I am REALLY hoping they build off of Twilight Princess for the next game.
Build a whole new secondary map set in the Twilight realm complete with new locals, cities, stores, people, etc. in the Twilight with access points across Hyrule for easier access to different locations.
Not altogether different from how they handled Lorule in A Link Between Worlds.
It would also allow open exploration across Hyrule if you want a place to just fuck around while building a more linear narritive into the Twilight areas - thus removing the need to do another set of memories in order to tell the game's narritive.
Commercially, mechanically, visually - fantastic game. Taking the point that the lore doesn't make or break it, they absolutely could have tied it to the events of BOTW more without alienating anyone. I do also feel it was a bit thin to have both the depths and the sky islands. On balance it feels like one of them should've taken centre stage in place of the other?
I do think a lot of peoples issue with the continuity is not that it’s not there, however that most of it is left in to discovered through side quest or NPC dialogue rather than being center front in the main story.
That and certain details are left to us to theorize on. Hell they won’t even give us a direct answer on whether Link and Zelda are in a relationship for crying out loud. What makes us think we’re going to get a direct answer on the Sheikah tech(even tho personally I think they should’ve gave us a direct answer for the tech only because they last time we hear about it is when Vah Ruta is shutting down at the end of BOTW) even some of the side quest with certain NPCs tied to side quest you done with them in the BOTW.
I had a blast playing for tears of the kingdom when it came out how you even did a second playthrough earlier this year. sure it has its downsides but overall I think it's pretty good
I think the game did amazingly in the lead up, story, and how it improves on its predecessor. It's a great game for mechanics, new characters, building abilities, sky islands, dungeons, etc.
But I think it was kinda not good not bad in some areas. Such as the map re usage, little stuff to discover, amount of sky islands, more depth in the Depths, shrines, story execution, and the fact no one remembers Link.
Regardless, I love Tears of the Kingdom, but I feel it could've used some improvement here and there. Of course, that's with anything people make, it could be good or bad, and it might need improvement.
Personally I like Botw and Totk. It had voice acting like modern rpgs and it isnt the same with just text for dialogue. I like the stories of both games. I pre ordered Totk digitally as physical copies were sold out. I think Totk is a great game but NEEDS dlc desperately as when compared to its original it lacks dlc. I hope that other games have dlc like Botw had in upcoming AAA open world zelda games.
For me, I would argue that it was a success. I feel the grumbles about the game come from 2 camps: the wait before release and its nature as a sequel.
Tackling the development time first. We know from developer interviews and footage from prerelease builds that the devs had a horrible time getting the physics engine to behave. Not terribly surprising, physics wigging out and launching crap (in-game objects, NPCs and players) into the skybox stratosphere is so ubiquitous in games that it’s even a plot point in The Amazing Digital Circus, but at the same time it isn’t suppose to happen so stars aren’t given out for keeping things on the ground when that’s where they’re supposed to be.
The next problem is that it’s a sequel. Direct sequels in Zelda are rare, and most Zelda fans know the experience of explaining that to someone with more casual experience with the series. At the same time, this is the first true sequel in the franchise to reuse the same map, and even with the massive expansions made the “new game smell” is just gone for a lot of people.
I think the positive reception from new fans brought in by Breath of the Wild is a good starting metric. For many of them this game blew them away and plenty have expressed bafflement at how more entrenched fans have responded. It’s easy for older fans to feel more elite, having been with the series for longer, but that new blood is necessary if we want to see new Zelda releases in the future. I was new blood when Ocarina of Time came out, we all started somewhere.
Checking on my Switch, Tears is my 3rd most played game, just behind Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild and just ahead of Smash Ultimate and Dragon’s Dogma. I’d say the game’s staying power has made it a success.
-why do all my comments turn into such long reads?
I kinda do, not just from how long we had to wait but the fact pretty much all of Hyrule got a serious refresh: without some of BOTW limitations, collection of materials and arrows is so much easier, making combat easier to plan and tackle. After playing BOTW several times, it became more of a Dark Souls slog than a game to enjoy in some respects. In TOTK the magic skills you get, with their own little unique twists, in my mind keeps the game from being too repetitive or boring. Just like in BOTW I don't think to use them sometimes but it's nice to have when you remember. For now, maybe a DLC (with stuff you can actually utilize BEFORE the boss fight) and some bug fixes would be nice.
I'd love to see more Zonai devices, magic and whatnot but I know that's unlikely if they ever follow up these two games with a proper sequel a third time. For now, I just care that it looks like in Echoes of Wisdom, you can summon a bed wherever you are and maybe, sleep whenever you need to. Almost like camping!
The story was fantastic. I just wish we could have gotten a bit more about Rauru and Sonia. I loved visiting all the old haunts and people of Hyrule. I miss Cass. :( The stupid gloom spawn could have been left out. I dread playing the game because I might come across it. I think I'll just go back and play BOTW again. It's a far superior game. Though I do love all the runes.
100%
I wish we got more of Hyrule from the past but still a great game
Personally, I enjoyed TOTK and I enjoy watching all the different TOTK content. That said, I found myself going back to BOTW. I personally wasn’t a fan of having to build machine to traverse and explore. I enjoy seeing what creations other people come up with but I personally got tired of building stuff cuz I sucked at it. I also wasn’t too keen on having to create my own weapons. While I did finish TOTK, and I did enjoy it overall and definitely loved some of the unexpected elements of it, I have found that instead of reaching to replay it, I’ve go back to BOTW. I love the challenge of combat that the Master Mode brings, I love my mastercycle, and I love the ease of use when it comes to the champion abilities. Also I really missed the guardians when I started playing TOTK.
I loved it. 100% complete 3 months after release. For me it was a success and so was it commercially (2nd best selling Zelda game before it even released).
I agree with your points. The top 2 complaints were the lore and the same feeling of the map. The map complaint never made much sense to me. It's a sequel to BOTW, OF COURSE it's going to be mostly the same. As for the lore, a lot of what I heard is that people weren't happy that it wasn't served to them on a silver platter. I'm particularly disappointed with other youtubers (not naming names, but one of the biggest was my problem), who basically shunned it from the beginning and failed to find much good in it. If this was a stand-alone game, I can almost guarantee that there would be no issues regarding the lore. To me, I feel like people expected way too much from the game and judged it based on what they personally expected rather than judging it on a game itself. That said, it does have flaws, but I just can't understand why others feel like they need to bash it for weird reasons and say the game is garbage. Overall, it was a great experience, but I'm also ready for Echos. I will say though, that the ending needed Zelda giving link a kiss. I mean cmon, after all these years, PLUS her basically overtaking his old house that he paid for on his own, and the dude can't even get a single kiss. Damn 🤦♂️🤣
I think people were adding soooo many things to their Wishlist through theory vids and expectation they fail to see just how good this game is, is it perfect? far from, much room for improvement of certain aspects? def. but everybody has had their collective gripes with EVERY Zelda game past ocarina of time, then time passes and they love each one to bits. remember wind waker and it's backlash, now it is the favourite of many and a classic all together.
I was sooo mind blown by the fact that I had played botw for over 800 hrs, stepped into Hyrule in totk and literally didn't recognise where I landed after that first dive to the surface. before this becomes another thesis instead of a comment, all views are of course subjective, but the game to date is still a 10 to me.
whahah that's what happens when you comment before watching the entire vid, but glad you think the exact same thing 😂👍great vid 💯
my biggest problem with TOTK was that it was too menu intensive
Just a thought... Are the Ooca from Twilight Princess the evolved Loftwings from Skyward Sword?
First zelda game ever I didn’t feel urged or excited to finish. I beat Ganondorf without even finishing all the 4 main areas. It felt too similar to BOTW. I think if mainland Hyrule was destroyed, and the game focused more on the sky islands and depths instead, it would’ve made things feel more fresh, new and exciting. To me, it just felt like BOTW DLC.
Yes, of course. I'm near the 100% for the third time, but this time, glitchless and opening ALL chests in the game.
This game it's one of the best I played in the last 35 years, but have problems, too, ofc. Most of them I resolved with mods; and as someone said, would be better to play as Zelda for a few minutes and even play as Rauru in the fight - the story per si it's good, but the memory system would need at least, to be unlocked in order or would not play, to avoid spoilers (my first memory was the Master Sword shape...)
I agree with you, The Legend of Zelda series creators have always "worried" about the lore last. It's always played second fiddle to gameplay, and just making a fun and interesting game in it’s own right, rather than putting the lore front and center. I think for a lot of long time fans though (myself included) it felt that during the Aonuma directed years, the games felt like they followed a cohesive idea... The lore was there, even if you had to look pretty hard to find it. I don’t think Fujibayashi works that way. I don’t think he really cares how the games work as a unit... I think he only cares about making the most fun/innovative game that he can at that moment. If it contradicts the lore, or makes no sense, I think Fujibayashi very much adheres to the idea of "who cares" the game itself was fun and epic! Which is fine, but for some of us older Zelda lovers that loved finding how Aonuma was quietly piecing the games together in the background, we miss those days.. Even though the new games are certainly fun!
I think the issue people have with the lore isn't just things "not clicking", that's always been a thing for this series. Rather, the problem seems to be that the lore/writing feels sloppy, even for a series that's never prioritized it.
The Zonai are the prime example of this. The Zonai in TotK are quite clearly not the Zonai alluded to in BotW. Why are they now technologically advanced sky people instead of dragon-worshipping jungle warriors? Because the game is about gizmos and they didn't want to make them Sheikah gizmos (probably to make it feel less like DLC), but they still have to fill _exactly_ the same role as the Sheikah, so all of their stuff looks basically the same, but green instead of blue.
And the fact that almost all the Sheikah creations just magically vanished, to be replaced by Zonai ones, just makes it so blatantly obvious that the Zonai in TotK were designed as a mechanical replacement for the Sheikah first and foremost, with absolutely zero thought given to their lore or worldbuilding implications. They probably just called them "Zonai" because that's what the TH-cam theorists were obsessing over. And we don't even get any insight into these new Zonai either, because they're still a mysterious extinct race even when they're literally ruling Hyrule in the unfathomably distant past.
Speaking of, Zelda travelling back to the era of Hyrule's founding, which appears to be one part retcon of SS and one part retelling of OoT, but is apparently the "re-founding" of Hyrule actually, except that doesn't make any sense either because nobody knows about the Master Sword, even though it would definitely be around if that were the case. And wasn't the whole point of BotW to break free of timeline shenanigans? Why are they already doing it again.
The Secret Stones are the most unexplained macguffins in the whole series, despite how important they supposedly are. Ganondorf is the most two-dimensional he's ever been. The story is full of characters making inexplicably stupid decisions, like why doesn't Zelda tell Rauru who Ganondorf is until it's too late? Why do Sonia and Zelda try to confront Ganondorf alone without Rauru or any guards? Why is Ganondorf so determined to defeat Link that he sacrifices everything when this version of Ganondorf has no personal connection with any incarnation of Link?
Then add on top of that stuff like nobody recognizing Link, even though he should be quite renowned by this point. Or how Link is unable to tell anyone that the Zelda doppelganger is fake, or that Zelda is the Light Dragon.
Everything just feels so... _lazy._ Lazy and half-assed. Which is a feeling the series has _never_ given off before, no matter how convoluted or incohesive things could get.
And I think that's why so many have become disillusioned with it.
You seem to take it as a given that the story is excellent. I completely disagree. You list a couple plot points that make the story 'amazing' like Sonia dying and Zelda as a dragon. Plot points don't make a story good, there are plenty of stories you can boil down to basically the same plot points, like Harry Potter and Star Wars, but they are totally different stories and of different qualities. I think TotK completely flopped on the delivery, the writing and a lot of the plot of the story.
They should not have let you see the story in any order you happened upon. It completely ruined it for people who saw the end first, myself included. In Breath of the Wild it was fine because you already knew the end, the story was the leadup to the world you see now and it didnt really matter what order random events happened in. But this was a linear story about Zelda and Gannondorf, and it makes the story incoherent or reveals the whole thing when you see it in random order.
A lot of the writing made no sense. They made Zelda feel kind of dumb compared to her character in BotW, who is supposed to be studious and smart. How she didnt get the connection between Gannondorf and Calamity Gannon and the mummy they saw? And they knew about Gannondorfs plot with a fake Zelda somehow, but then seem completely unprepared when they confront it, with Rauru running in after its all over. And Link doesnt tell anyone about Zelda even though you can find out shes the dragon first thing if you want, and you have to plod through the copy pasted cutscenes and plot in each zone following "Zelda", even though you and Link both know the truth.
You said they clearly gave it their all but those end dungeon cutscenes tell me otherwise. They already got to reuse the entire main world and physics, they shouldn't be copy pasting the new stuff. The sky felt very copy pasted as well, and having most of the rewards be maps that lead to every single Amiibo armor from the old game, that do basically nothing, as the rewards in the depths felt terrible. Like O boy another pair of different green pants I cant even really wear without getting one shot, because now I have no armor stats.
I get your point about the Lore, that in the past they have kind of done whatever they wanted in a game and didnt let the established lore affect it. However, to me it feels different when this game is one of the only Direct sequels in Zelda games past. They chose for it to be a sequel and reuse the same map. Then they throw out most things from the first game like they didnt really want it to be a sequel at all. Characters seem like they don't really know you, except maybe the sages a bit. Somehow all the Sheika stuff disappears and no-one comments or cares. They had all this Zonai stuff in the first game and then kind of ignore that and the Zonai are just hi tech ancients again only they have green tech instead of blue, and there's only 2 of them somehow, even though they just founded the kingdom, and none of the existing Zonai stuff from BotW is referenced at all, like the Faron Region or the mazes. All of this added up and made the game feel hollow as it went on. Instead of feeling like I'm exploring a world, things just ARE so that a game can be played and toys can be fiddled with and glued together. In my opinion they didnt make a cohesive product, just a thin wrapping around Ultrahand and Fuse.Which are amazing dont get me wrong, like people making walking mechs and stuff is hilarious and cool, just like its amazing that people inn Minecraft can make a computer that plays Doom, but the Zelda Nuts and Bolts gets boring pretty fast to me, and doesnt feel like a Zelda game at all. And when that happens, the rest of the game doesnt feel like a worthy Zelda game enough to call it great.
TotK is my favourite nintendo game, period, I loved BotW and I didn't know how they were gonna top it, but I had confidence they could and I was right
This game is amazing, the story was great, there were plenty of changes to the world even ignoring the vastness of the depths, We got the best itteration of Ganondorf we've ever seen, the dungeons are awesome (besides the fire temple, I hate the fire temple), the shrines are a big improvement over the original ones and there's way more, the new abilites add a ton of depth to the game
I've gotten all shrines, all lightroots, monster medals, maxed out the compendium, enough koroks to max out my inventory, and I've got around 250 hours in it
What do you think about the music? (Specifically the ending, the ending in this game is great story wise, but I’m conflicted music wise) Dark Beast Ganon was truly amazing, but I don’t know if Nintendo outdid themselves, trying to get some second opinions.
@@B-ot2xx I generally really like the music of TotK, Colgera's theme, Master Kogha's boss theme, the new versions of the main town themes especially the creepy version of the rito village music ehen you first reach it, the regular battle music, it's all great, I have to say I don't really remember the final boss music super well but I do remember liking it during the fight, although it was kinda weird how calm the final phase music was, but I still liked that song regardless
The best way I can describe it is that Tears of the Kingdom was great, but I feel like we should have had only one game instead of two with BOTW. BOTW feels more like a beta version of a game than TOTK feels like DLC as TOTK definitely feels like a much more complete game overall... better story, characters, game mechanics and much more to explore. I think if we would have just had TOTK with more expansive lore behind it, then the games would feel much more complete. Instead we got two games (which admittedly were both fun to play) that felt like they only had some of the lore filled in and then we have these gaps in the story that don't make as much sense. I don't care as much if they blend with the prior games, but since they were supposed to be sequels, the two stories and techs involved should have been more consistent.
To me it was successful because i had only played 80 hours on botw and only defeated ganon and some shrines like 40 were left to complete and I directly started playing totk after that so I hadn't explored much hyrule so to me it was a great success
TotK was successful commercially, but as a longtime Zelda fan playing almost all of the games, I really don’t care for it. I loved BotW, but felt it was lacking and strayed too far from the Zelda formula. I was really hoping TotK would see some return to that and in some aspects it did, but in many ways it didn’t.
To start, the story was horrible. It’s like they had many ideas for it and changed it everytime they had a new idea. I mean, the 2019 reveal pointed towards Child Timeline, then the opening to the game itself sets you up to believe it’s the Downfall Timeline, but in reality they just didn’t put it anywhere and focused on the Zonai. Almost like they had originally planned something else, but after seeing all the theories talking about the Zonai they went with that and took it WAY too far and just left what they had already made and “work it in” in a really awkward and confusing way. The story was done mainly through memories again which worked for BotW but really hurt TotK. Not to mention it was bad. The Zonai descended from the skies and founded Hyrule despite being a warlike tribe from Faron, Ganondorf is a villain for the sake of being one and has no motive other than “I must rule because that is what a king must do” (literally said something like that towards the end), Zelda has so many chances to tell Rauru and Sonia about Calamity Ganon and Mummydorf but instead fangirls about Link and waits until Sonia is 6ft under to even mention anything. Sonia and Zelda never bothered to tell Rauru about Ganondorf infiltrating Hyrule Castle(?) and I could continue.
They just swapped out the Sheikah tech with Zonai tech (because that’s what they needed, another ancient technologically advanced civilization) and the entire game contradicts the entirety of the timeline including the game it’s a “sequel” to. The Zonai have now been there since the beginning of the timeline (where were they in SS? Why is Rauru a Zonai with Owl Symbolism but an old Hylian man who can turn into an owl in OoT? Does this all retcon OoT? Or is this a new Rauru founding a new kingdom of Hyrule? What happened for there to be a refounding? Why even name him Rauru? If him and Sonia are Zelda’s ancestors, WHERE IS THEIR KID?), the sky islands aren’t floating chunks of land that the goddess sent up, but instead Zonai tech islands placed up there by the sages, the weird time traveling shenanigans (like, Rauru’s Secret Stone was duplicated by Zelda time traveling, but the Master Sword and Triforce wasn’t? Zelda can just live before, during and after her own birth? I mean, the time travel is going by whatever suits the story and the way it works changes. I guess we are to believe Zelda and the Secret Stone duplicated but not the triforce and Master Sword? Convenient). The game barely connects to BotW, a GAME THAT IT IS A SEQUEL TO. I mean, they completely changed what the Zonai were from what we were told in BotW and Master Works (a warlike savage tribe from the Faron region who were “talked about in hushed whispers in Hyrule” to then being the founders of Hyrule itself, apparently going mostly extinct with the exception of Rauru and Mineru, one being the supposed first king which begs the question as to why it was taboo to discuss them. Ganondorf mentioned them and said they were seen in a positive light and not like they were seen as a savage tribe) to places like the shrine of resurrection being a cave with stalactites dropping from the ceiling below the area of where the Sheikah Tech walls and ceiling should’ve been and Stalactites don’t form that quick. I mean, what happened to all of the Sheikah tech? It just disappeared? But not all of it seeing as the Purah pad, new sheikah towers and a handful of other gadgets just didn’t for some reason? Or did they manage to scrap it all? At that point, you’re telling me they went below that one labyrinth and scrapped all the guardians in there but couldn’t rebuild any of Hyrule in the 3 - 7 years since BotW and could only manage Lookout Landing (which is sad)? If it did disappear, why is nobody talking about that? Why did it disappear? If it’s because it had done its job and disappeared, that’s false because Ganondorf was still alive and they didn’t disappear after the war of 10,000 years ago.
Speaking of Ganondorf, why gloom? We established malice in SS and BotW, just to throw it out and call it gloom because it’s red instead of pink? And because of these slight changes and a name change, Link, Zelda and the people of Hyrule are clueless as to what this malice-like stuff coming from beneath Hyrule Castle (where Calamity Ganon came from) is? Also, there’s a literal sign at the entrance saying there’s a Demon King sealed down there but they just missed that on their way down? Beyond that, King Rhoam had to be told by a “fortune teller” that a calamity was coming and not the sign that literally says he’s below the castle? Also, despite making the Zonai be behind all this stuff and being such a prominent civilization, we know so little about them and all the information we have about them across two games is very contradicting.
Imagine what this game could’ve been if they connected it to a timeline and had it be the OG Ganondorf. Him recognizing Zelda, Link and the Master Sword would’ve made it more personal and brought the tensions up. Rauru being the OG Rauru would’ve made for an interesting story and imagine if the story wasn’t done in memories, but in present with flashbacks here and there simply explaining what needed to be explained (not 90% of the story being memories). It just cheapened it by disconnecting everything and making it a new Ganondorf too. Imagine if it was the downfall timeline and after Link’s defeat in OoT, Rauru sacrificed himself to seal Ganondorf and they were placed beneath the next Hyrule Castle after the first calamity immediately formed and got ahold of the full triforce and had to be sealed away in the Sacred Realm kicking off the events of alttp. Every game in the Downfall Timeline being some sort of calamity with the calamities building up bigger and Ganondorf’s anger increasing with each calamity to the point that the calamities become mindless forces of nature that build up and strike every 10,000 years. It’d also explain why Ganondorf recognized the Master Sword but didn’t fear it, because he was never defeated with it. Only his calamities. And that’d still give so much room to speculate and wonder what happened between Zelda 2 and BotW. Still could’ve left a lot to speculate about, especially if they expanded on the lore of the depths and didn’t make the lore feel meaningless and pointless.
Gameplay was literally just a copy of BotW but you could build stuff now and horses were unnecessary including most vehicles that weren’t flying machines. The dungeons were extremely disappointing because you could ascend through most of it or build a vehicle to bypass most of it, they felt like they were BotW shrine puzzles (because TotK shrine puzzles weren’t good) and they weren’t traditional at all. The Divine Beasts were actually somehow better, because at least you couldn’t climb or ascend or build in them (and I’m not a big fan of the divine beast dungeons). They also followed the same 5 terminal system but again weren’t as cool because you didn’t have giant moving parts like the Divine Beasts did. The only good things about them were music, had diverse bosses and the fact that they were at least themed. No mini boss, no dungeon item, no keys, no traditional puzzles that requires a dungeon item (no the sage powers being used solely on the “terminals” do not count nor do the sages themselves since they were annoying and got in the way) and again the puzzles were like shrine puzzles but you could almost bypass most of them with vehicles and/or ascend (and sometimes by simply climbing).
The shrines were worse. So many blessing shrines or “carry the green stone to a location” and the unique ones you did get felt small and like tutorials. The battle ones were cool and a handful of others, but for the most part the shrines were completely lacking and felt lazy. I mean, they couldn’t even bother to name them or even change the aesthetic too much. They still look like dev testing maps and they both have the same ceiling, just one is blue and one is green. Having to do 152 of them after doing 120 (and more counting DLC) in BotW was already a chore, but the fact that they were hardly ever interesting was worse.
The caves were cool, but I really think they could’ve done more with them and made them more diverse with different enemies and aesthetics, like a mossy one or a glowing mushroom one or something. Same goes for wells.
The skies are sad. No Skyloft? Even if it’s just ruins, that’s a missed opportunity. Also no civilization in the sky. The skies were also empty and just copy and pasted for the most part. For what was a big selling point for the game, I’m shocked they dropped the ball so hard there in terms of exploration, lore and overall content.
Depths were shocking at first and made me extremely hyped, until I realized that it was also just a giant inverted dark Hyrule with frox and glowing dragonfly things as the only unique wildlife and enemies down there aside from “gloom” variants of preexisting surface enemies, which I don’t count as new. I count it as a different variant just as a red and blue moblin are different Moblin variants. There’s the occasional ruin, occasional Yiga outpost and a few unique things, but it is mostly empty and copy pasted trash where you can get Amiibo armors and auto build. Just as disappointing as the skies.
Side Quests weren’t good at all just as BotW’s sidequests. Do some mundane stuff for a mushroom, bundle of arrows or a Rupee or something. There were a few cool ones but for the most part it was time wasting nonsense that wasn’t very rewarding.
Ultrahand and the other abilities were cool in theory, but once again a huge disappointment for what was one of the biggest selling points of the game. I mean, you’d spend 5 minutes on a vehicle for it to despawn in 30 seconds and those 30 seconds were enough to cheat dungeons but not enough to really have fun outside of dungeons with. Fuse was great but I never minded weapon durability on anything aside from the Master Sword (which I would’ve still been okay with so long as you could make it indestructible by doing something like the trial of the sword from BotW). Recall was cool, but could also be used to cheat a large majority of the puzzles in the game. Same for ascend, which could’ve had more potential if they crafted more puzzles around it which was one of many missed opportunities.
Koroks and those frogs and stuff are so unnecessary. I can even get the frogs, but MORE KOROKS? Like, did they really have no creativity whatsoever and had to reuse almost everything BotW did?
The surface was almost the exact same, they just fused sky rocks to everything and removed the Sheikah tech and added caves, wells, chasms and moved shrines and towers around. That is essentially it. One of BotW’s bigger selling points was its exploration. That’s not there for TotK and the new places added are hardly worth exploring. I could keep going, but will stop myself here.
TotK would be better if BotW never existed, because then it’d all be fresh and new and only the story would really be the bad thing. But because BotW exists, TotK is devalued because at the end of the day, it’s not a sequel like we had hoped. It was literally just BotW but again. I was afraid it’d be glorified DLC by how little they were showing us before launch and I got SO MUCH BACKLASH for being afraid of that. Now here we are with glorified DLC that was more expensive than the base game and took nearly as long as the base game did in development time. $70 DLC. To all who doubted me, told ya so 😂
If you stop thinking about rewards in game and just enjoy the gameplay as the reward itself, then I guess it can really be fun. Otherwise it can feel really grindy when you explore an interesting area hoping to find a cool armor only to get a Zonai charge.
I agree it was successful. it was a bit lacking in that exploration aspect compared to BoTW, but I was not expecting as much as it did at the announcement of it being the same map. It exceeded my initial expectations.
But even that lack of exploration I would not put as a negative, or maybe just a minor one. it just did other things more. The other games vary in how much exploration there is. ToTK just does less of it (assuming a previous playthrough of BoTW)
For me at least, the reason the lore inconsistencies were a problem in this game where they aren't in the rest of the timeline is because this was supposed to be a direct sequel set in the same world. This is the first time that has been the case. Every other sequel has been in a different world, or had a significant amount of time between them.
what i like the most about botw is how it reminds me of old 2d zeldas, but it was missing an scary underworld, and thats why totk completed that world for me
It was absolutely a successful game. My biggest gripes are the 5 nearly identical cutscenes at the end of the dungeons (they could have made these unique or we could have played them out ourselves somehow to make it more interesting), the lack of variety in the depths, and the cut and paste sky islands. Both locations should have had much larger roles in the story.
I am also still very salty about the loss of the ancient saddle to warp the horses. If all the Shiekah tech is now gone, they could have reskinned it as some other kind of saddle with that ability. I like traversing the world on horseback more than any other transportation and it's super annoying when I have to go to a stable every time to get my horse back if I need to leave it somewhere. They gave us that quality of life change in the BotW DLC and then immediately took it away with this game.
Thank you. You said what I have been feeling. Why is the "inconsistency and gaps" treated so differently than the other games.