Snug this is great and all but I'm afraid in making critical comments against a zelda game you are officially no longer a zelda fan and have to turn in your zelda fan card :(
The Sages were just such a big disappointment for me. And hey, the concept of them was so cool, you can rock up to an enemy camp with your small army and they wreck everything... Or you, with your 5 friends, could take on a lynel together. Except no: they do shitty damage, are super useless and I could fit all the times I used Riju's lightning bolts into one of these 30s switch recordings. Again, it was such a cool concept, especially in a game that's supposed to be about the power of friendship. You could've had side quests on upgrading your sages, team attacks, an actual use for Sidons water puddles... I just turned them off halfway through my playthrough and was really disappointed thinking about what could have been.
@@Stamway 100% agree! Was very disappointed they were ghost spirits too. Why can’t me and my actual friends walk around?? I only ever had the bird one activated so I could fly through the sky easier.
The damage they do isn't that bad though and how are they useless? They really aren't and they have no cooldown either. I mean they are already rather strong for what they are and they have no limit for how much you can use them either unlike the champion powers in BOTW.
An even bigger crime about this version of Ganondorf is that Nintendo got the absolute GOAT of voice acting, Matthew Mercer himself, to voice Ganondorf and then they waste him on the most boring iteration of the character
TOTK took everything I disliked with BOTW (which I did not like) and decided to do nothing with it lol. Unfortunately I called this back when TOTK was announced and I sadly have to face the fact again that the mainline games just aren’t for me anymore
I feel that i actually dont like BOTW either but TOTK fixed pretty much all my issues with the first the only think I didn't care for in tears was the story but tbh Zelda stories were never the reason I got the games anyways.
@@DrMonkey1224 Yes. The final shot of the initial reveal trailer was virtually identical to botw, and the logo styling was literally identical. It was so obviously just "BOTW but 2d". Like it was clearly made to grab fans of that style of Zelda. Like "hey look, it's the same thing again!". Seems the only ones who caught it were people hoping for different.
Echoes of Wisdom feels like a perfection of everything TotK was *trying* to do. Freedom and creativity that's intentionally designed and doesn't feel cheap as opposed to making a blank canvas for the player that's so huge that you just kinda... *hope* the player finds out a solution to problems without hitting any frustrating snags.
@@hellpwn3391 every game has problems. can we not do this every time? people were saying Tears of the Kingdom had no problems when that game came out and now we're commenting on an almost hour long youtube video about how disappointing TotK was. Your favorite game has problems and mine does too, enough with this honeymoon phase nonsense
@@athorem well, yeah, you just made it sound like all problems are equal and that echoes of wisdom doesn't really do anything to improve the series. My argument is that TotK's problems are so big that it practically bars itself from being a true Zelda title and Echoes of Wisdom not only corrects it but is able to use its mechanics at the same time. Progress without erasure.
"Sometimes it feels like you're being punished for being invested in this franchise" YES! THANK YOU! THAT'S IT!! For years now I've been told to "let go of the past" and to stop wanting Nintendo to hold back on their creativity because I dislike what they've taken away and changed with a franchise that I've literally spend 21 years of my life loving and investing my time in. When Nintendo retcons the franchise and then tells me I was stupid for caring about the stories of the games they made, and the timeline they also made, it hurts, it really does.
The developers themselves have said that the dungeons in ToTK are "Divine Beast style". Play TP I beg you, get to Arbiter's ground, or that freaking city in the sky M.C. Escher painting...
i don't like skyward sword map at all but the dungeons and story were top tier. Also the motion controls were wonky but when they worked they felt so fluid and fun
Majora’s Mask is the greatest Zelda game of all time. Skyward Sword has the worst overworld and travel mechanic in the entire series and it’s not even close. Plus we had to deal with the flimsy motion controls for the first 10 years of its existence before the HD remake finally came out just three years ago. I would rather sail the ocean in Wind Waker than to ever spend one more second flying in the air in Skyward Sword.
Never have I been more confused by the amount of 10/10 ratings a game has. Pretty early on in TOTK I realized the game wasn’t great, and whenever I brought that up in the first weeks of release people thought I was nuts
@@Ghoats to me the moment was when Purah gave you the 4 points on the map, saying each region had some phenomenon you need to investigate. In my head I was like, *“so… Breath of the Wild again? Surely not, maybe there’s a twist, maybe you have to visit the 4 corners and gain some strength before the “true” game begins and the story gets more involved. There’s no way it’s just the 4/5 “””dungeon””” setup as last time with tons of mediocre shrines then the final boss right?”* and that’s what it was. I still don’t know how this took 6 years of development
@@xuto2693 Nah, they are absolutely different, even if only subtle ways. BotW is a much more natural exploration based experience, and much more relaxed. I started questioning if I truly enjoyed BotW after playing TotK for 150 hours. I dropped TotK, got a fresh copy of BotW on my Switch, and absolutely loved my time BotW again similar to the first time by just casually exploring as I feel like it. If you want to do stuff like upgrade your gear in TotK, you can't just find a fairy and give her rupees. You have to find the proper NPC to get things going, find the "lost" NPC in a nearby area to each fairy to do a quest to get them back to a point they want to rejoin the music troupe. Then you have to do a quest to get the troupe to the fairy under increasing stupid circumstances without destroying, losing, or tipping their carriage. Hestu was also beside the main road to Kakariko, and essentially unmissable unless you somehow managed to never, ever take that road the normal way to the village. Possible, but seemingly unlikely. In TotK, I did go to the tower Hestu is near "the wrong way," and approached it from the NW, then ever saw the barely noticeable trail he's near. I had to look up how to find him so I could ever upgrade my gear slots
I think what I would love to see, is a compromise between the ideas of Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom. With some Link Between Worlds sprinkles. -Keep the open world and give you the necessary items to let explore MOST of it. -Keep the narrative structure of A Link Between Worlds, in a way that lets you visit any new dungeons, but just ones that are during a “story arc” that let you progress on a normal narrative. -When you get new dungeon items or rent a few, it lets you explore new areas of places you’ve been before like Skyward Sword or what Metroidvanias do. Hope this makes sense. While I have enjoyed this game, I really wish we could see the narrative structure of old games back… for the 3D games (Echoes of Wisdom shows there’s still hope for top down Zelda games). Nice video Snug. Hope you’re doing great.
The Metroidvania aspect needs to come back, at least in 2D Zelda. It would be cool to bring it back in 3D Zelda but idk how well it would work in a world the size of BotW... I'd like to see them try though.
Tears of the Kingdom convinced me... that Twilight Princess is the best Zelda game. TP has the most robust design, offers the most gameplay variety, and has the most sophisticated story and characters of any Zelda game. Sure, it built on Ocarina of Time's foundation, but it did so with the highest level of professionalism and polish the series has seen yet. The open world Zeldas have brought me to crave that again: the quality visuals, quality story, quality dungeon design of TP. Quality over quantity.
I tried so hard to like these games. I deadass 100% botw and I MEAN 100% all armor, all upgrades, even the amiibo armor, every korok, every shrine, all quests, etc. and y'know what? I regret wasting my time doing that. ToTK is literally a lazy cash grab with almost no substance that somehow took 6 years. Botw was fine as a concept, even if in execution it was middling. But everyone, including the devs suddenly thought different = good and forgot to make actually entertaining, fun games. I 100% botw because I had always felt soso about it and wanted to give it a fair shake. After totk came out, i played for a few hours, realized it was literally a glorified dlc, that didnt attempt to solve 90% of the previous game's problems, hell even introducing a ton of new ones, and stopped. Both it and breath of the wild are not worth your time. Most of these open world schlock games aren't. Literally play any other zelda game or just any game that is actually fulfilling and impactful, like Xenoblade or Oneshot. More content does not always = good. I'm probably done with the series going forward since Echoes kinda confirms to me that the passion is gone and the series is just going to be open world garbage for, however long Aonuma stays with it I guess. How the mighty have fallen.
I feel like the reason I enjoyed breath of the wild so much when it came out was because at the time so many other games were doing open-worlds way worse, so breath of the wild felt new and shiny and polished in comparison. By the time it got to totk though the unfixed issues were more visible. I didn't realise how much I missed traditional dungeons until Echoes of Wisdom which im so glad to see doing well!
If BOTW and TOTK had been a new IP instead of Zelda, they would have been great. The boring dungeon problem would have been annoying, but less glaring if it wasn't being compared to every other amazing game that came in the series before. I did have personal nit picks about some things, like the way that there's supposed to be 100 years between the past and present in BOTW, but when you go around collecting memories the locations look exactly the same, so it ruined my immersion into the story. Then they did it even worse in TOTK, by completely changing Hyrule, then showing cutscenes from 1000s of years ago, taking place once again in the current map. It was rage inducing. Also, Zelda's voice was particularly cringe(it reminded me of the Ember Island play Katara, who was supposed to be a caricature except Zelda was serious) and always pulled me out of the immersion again, making me irritated and bored instead of feeling whatever emotion they were looking for. It's a sequel game, too, but boy, I hated that the guardians and beasts were not there or spoken about at all.
My personal theory is that they were creating a game called "Breath of the Wild" (without the Zelda!) for the WiiU. They wanted an Open World game with some Minecraft elements for the Nintendo. But the WiiU flopped and when the Switch was announced, they needed a household name to release it alongside the Switch. And so they took the almost finished game called "Breath of the Wild" and slapped the minimum of Zelda lore into and onto it (that's why the story aspect is so weak) to guarantee many sales for the Switch. That's my personal head canon why these games are so different from all other Zelda games and I agree with you - had they made a new IP, I would have preferred it much more.
@@awsome182that’s nice and all but breath of the wild was always a zelda game, it was announced in 2014 and was supposed to release on the wii u all the way back in 2015. It ended up being delayed so much that it released on both the wii u and switch in 2017
I think the issue is kind of twofold here. The designers were kinda bored doing the same thing all the time [which is fair if you're doing the same thing all the time since Aounuma took over). and other consoles (and people) going gaga over BIG OPEN WORLD ADVENTURES. (because this has been going on in EVERY game/genre, it's not just a zelda issue). things need to be 3D! Open World!! More This!!. (on top of I think a lot of very loud minorities screaming how BORING Skyward Sword/Linearity was - oh the irony). As well as - as much as it was brandied a sequel they wanted people to be able to play this first. [hence why NO one remembers you outside of the champion people and they barely touch on that. Im surprised Sidon remembers you are BFFs) For the most part I think BoTW/ToTK is the culmination of every game. - but they still can't figure out how to make it ALL work out. they want the freedom [ie: no linearity] and because of that the story (which i think ToTK's would have been. epic-amazing) suffered so much. It's like learning the big storyline beats in Skyward Sword/Twilight Princess/Windwaker (my personal top 3 games) - but discovering the climax .... first. I was a mess at the end Skyward Sword because i felt. EVERY ASPECT of that goodbye to my core because we spent 70++ hours with these people. now imagine that as the first "memory" you find. it's out of context. you have no idea what's going on, why it means so much that "Thank You." is so important to Fi. none of that. it's just "Peace out" that happened to me in ToTK. i got the two most emotional pieces of the ToTK story soo early and out of context that.. i kinda knew what was happening, and it took out the entire emotional punch out of the story. [that and the fact that Ganondorf is basically.... nothing here. he's not OUR Ganondorf, he's just A Ganondorf and he just also wants to be bad - which is important because Ganondorf up that point had always been the same one). these little things mattered before. so I don't get why it stopped mattering then. as a system Nintendo decided years ago to "Not be part of the game wars". I think in some aspects - they need to apply that rule to Zelda. don't be something that you are not. Don't chase to be an open world Elden Ring wanna be. just be ZELDA.
It will be interesting to see which Zelda elements from either of the two Zelda formulas win out over time. At the very least I doubt they'll keep using the Divine Beast type dungeons for much longer.
Just wanted to point out that BOTW came out well before Elden Ring... So it's more like Elden Ring is trying to be more like Zelda, not the other way around
I'm not a fan of the new Zelda formular, so I'm kinda satisfied that the second game with this formular didn't get that much love as the first one, which I also passionately disliked. Regarding the question if BotW and TotK are good Zelda games, all I can say is... No. Not in my opinion. Each to their own, but I personally think that both are bad Zelda games.
I think TotK is a genuinely good game but it looked and felt so similar to BotW that I really struggled to see them as two separate games. It was more like an early access game going 1.0 or a large expansion.
well tears of the kingdom was supposed to be DLC FOR Breath of the Wild - then they realized there was too much stuff, so they made it into a new game. (but i honestly think they forgot.... it was gonna be DLC, and forgot to be a bit more creative)
I don't like the idea that Zelda has to be doomed to be an immortal dragon. I would prefer that Link bring her back with the Triforce, but that she become a Hylian/dragon hybrid and that Link doesn't get his arm back and has to keep a prosthetic one. It ends with them getting married and the credits roll.
I agree with everything you said except people except people knowing who link is. More people recognized my link from spirit tracks despite being a different character and set 100 years after windwaker. While botm timeskip was probably less than 5 years
Okay, having finished the video I can wholeheartedly say: I actually agree with everything you said! Especially the story and being a sequel part. While I had fun and a good time playing TOTK, there were several instances where I asked myself if this really is a sequel or more of a soft reboot. There are so many callbacks to BOTW (and also previous games in the franchise), but only when it's convenient or can evoke nostalgia to cover up for bad story or design choices?? It kept bugging me a lot. And yes, I'm commenting a 2nd time. Hope it helps boost the algorithm 💜
What truly gets me is that it's not even that Ganondorf is mean to Zelda. Ganondorf uses Zelda's likeness because it's convenient, but they don't have any direct conflict! They don't even exchange a whole word in the past! The only dialogue they have is Ganondorf calling her Zelda as a mummy, and her being surprised at the fact he knows her name, and it happens in the first five minutes! Zelda being sent back in the past and having to become a dragon and Ganondorf and Rauru having their weird pissing contest has literally no correlation plot-wise, as you could remove one thread without any consequence on the other, and I'm still gobsmacked this was considered shippable.
I think it is still good overall. Not as good as the others. For some reason, a lot of other Zelda fans always have to think one way or the other. A Zelda game has to be a masterpiece or it sucks and should be forgotten. There's no in between for some reason.
Dude i literally remember getting flamed in comment section after comment section for expressing my dislike for Ganondorf in this game😭 im so glad to hear you validate that!! Like his design is one of the best we've ever seen! (Twilight and Hyrule Warriors being my other 2 favorites if we're talking designs alone ofc) but character-wise hes just so blegh
Worst part about the storytelling is that Nintendo assumed that you wouldn't try to engage with any aspect of the story all at the same time. If you do engage with it all at the same time, you end up wondering why no one knows that Fake Zelda is fake and why you've heard about the demon king and secret stones multiple times
I love botw/totk but echoes of wisdom felt like enlightenment as a Zelda game with a perfect balance of classic and modern Zelda design. Grezzo seems to really understand what the fans want and I hope the next mainline 3D game can learn a thing from EoW
@@PixelPikmin I’m playing on hero mode and it’s definitely one of the harder Zelda games so I disagree lol And I typically almost never die in Zelda games, I do permadeath runs. If anything the only easy thing are the puzzles
I love tears of the kingdom. It's my second favorite Zelda game next to Twilight Princess. But I can see where you're coming from all your points and even agree with like half or more of them. I guess how you interpret the game and how much you care about the negatives can determine if you like the game or not. Great video as always!
I dont know if this is a hot take but the music sucks which had a huge impact on how I experienced breath of the wild. I dont remember any single piece or melody. I realize this was intentional but i think it impacted the heroic feeling that zelda stories have. I didnt feel like a hero. The hyrule warriors spinoff did a better job of that!!! Another factor, Botw felt like a survival game with a zelda coat of paint....not a zelda game with a survival coat of paint.
I watched the whole video despite disagreeing with pretty much every complaint, I see where most of these come from but I don’t agree with them. BOTW and TOTK are among my favourite games of all time, I was expecting TOTK to be BOTW on steroids and that’s exactly what I got, the very few issues I had with BOTW were resolved and the only thing I found genuinely worse was the way they handled the sage’s abilities. BOTW’s dungeons were, and still are, brilliant in my opinion, the Sheikah theme repeated on all four of them never really bothered me since I always found their layout and puzzles really well made, but it’s indeed something I wished they improved in TOTK, and they did it, each dungeons theme is perfectly thematic with region it’s located in; the same goes for the boss fights, which were one of my few issues with BOTW, they made them more unique and interesting in theme and design, and I loved the way you can use Link’s powers and other game mechanics to fight them. I was blown away at sheer amount of new stuff they added to map in TOTK, and I’m not even talking about the Sky Islands or the Depths, I’m talking about the regular Hyrule map: they literally doubled the density of stuff you can find, there’s new stuff to discover everywhere and for someone like me who knew BOTW map really well it was extremely rewarding to go back to the places I knew so well from BOTW and find new stuff to explore and secrets to unveil. In my first playthrough of BOTW, when I reached the credits for the first time I had an exploration percentage on the Sheikah Slate around 50%, when I first reached the credits in TOTK I had around 90% exploration percentage, that’s just to give you a measure of how much I felt incentivized to explore and how rewarding it felt to me. On the story I simply disagree with you, I think it was good, and it has some of the coolest moments I’ve seen in a videogame, especially the final boss which is, in my opinion, among the best final bosses in gaming. I don’t understand what else you wanted from Zelda’s character, her entire development was done in BOTW and there was no reason to erase it completely and doing it again; instead the game made the right choice with her, and doubled down on her strength of will, a strength that this time allowed her to resist not just a 100 years, but for thousands of years and to overcome the loss of her humanity when Link needed her aid the most. The memories in TOTK are not about Zelda, they are about Raaru, a king whose arrongance brought the destruction of his kingdom and the death of his wife, and how his sacrifice united with Zelda’s was the key to bring hope to the future and atone for his mistakes. Unlike BOTW, TOTK’s story focuses less on character development and more on actual events and is infact a bit more linear in some parts of the story, but that doesn’t mean there’s no character depth or progression at all. This type of story does indeed benefit more from a completely linear story progression to avoid the “Link knows where Zelda is but he doesn’t tell anyone” stuff, but this particular setback didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story. Now that they have explored this non linear type of narrative, I wish to see them try to do a new linear story in an open world setting, just to see what they come up with. I think the best part of these types of video is seeing different opinions and perspectives, like the fact that you hate the Shrines and didn’t want them to come back while I absolutely loved them and wanted to come back in TOTK. Keep up the good work man, I loved the video even if we have different views!
Thank you for this comment!! It is so fascinating to see people like yourself who just have the complete opposite opinions to me. Thank you for engaging with the video and disagreeing while still being civil and interesting!! This was a sick comment so thank you for sharing and watching!!
As a botw & totk hater I am always happy to find complainy videos. Agree with everything complained about~! It's gotten even worse now that I'm playing Echoes of Wisdom which shows that you can make an open world Zelda game well without abandoning all the things that make the Zelda franchise what it is. I dearly hope that Nintendo never goes back to botw.
Im just looking back at dungeons like stone tower temple and city in the sky like wtf happened LOL. The fact that we can just climb walls in dungeons now is insane. You can basically skip every puzzle in the fire temple because of that. I'm glad Echoes of wisdom is slowly going in the right direction again for me personally. Even has some pretty cool lore after totk almost ruined my interested in the entire story lmao. Like dawg when I saw memory cutscenes returning in tears I couldnt believe they were serious. Especially after that sick ass intro. Echoes also has some problems but if the next 3d Zelda is more like that I'd be happy with it
Imo BotW and TotK are great Video games, fun for sure, but not great ZELDA games. I miss themed dungeons, items and weapons leading to solving new puzzles and gaining access to new areas. A nice fishing hole. More bizarre lore. Characters and just overall charm. The last 2 games got some of that right, just not the complete Zelda package we'd expect. Experiment with new mechanics and styles for sure but don't lose what made ppl like it in the first place.
BOTW vs TOTK is an interesting comparison for me. Some people will say 'TOTK is glorified DLC' and some will say 'TOTK is BOTW with more' but I feel this is overly simplistic and don't really adhere to either statement. In some ways it's a step forward from BOTW. Yet for every step forward it makes a misstep or sometimes sidegrade for me. And while I appreciate things like the improved enemy variety (even if I miss Guardians a lot), the better visual variety in the dungeons etc, a lot of the core mechanics either weren't improved ( The bosses look more distinct but aren't any deeper mechanically imo), or I like more in BOTW. (I prefer the Runes and Champion Abilities over the arm abilities and sage avatars etc.) Ultimately while I appreciate a lot of what TOTK did, it still falls short to BOTW for me. Despite BOTW itself also being an imperfect game with issues.
Everything you said: YES. Love the vid! I'm not going to say they're the worst Zelda games because Windwaker and Zelda 2 exist. But people consider these two (botw/totk) to be the best of the best in Zelda and Innovation, and they're not. Let's face it, most people are just driven by nostalgia and because it has ZELDA in the title. Both games have a lot of problems, and both games have better things that the other, but the thing in story... Nintendo really needs to stop that idea of giving 'simple stories' in the saga bc we are in a modern era of games, and people care. The mess they did in totk...awnn nahhh lmaooo
I never really thought about any issues I had with Tears of the Kingdom after playing it, but with watching this video it definitely points out some great points and I totally see the complaints and why, it felt like a great game but still definitely had its issues. Overall great video!
Yeah the game is a MAJOR disappointment, and that’s coming from someone who has Botw in their top 10. Although it’s almost unrecognizable as a Zelda game, I still enjoyed it a lot. But Totk did everything Botw did but again, and all of the problems in Botw were amplified. The two new worlds are extremely barren, the dungeons are divine beasts but with elements, they barely added enemy variety (Oot has more enemies than Totk and it came out almost 30 years ago😭)even more of the shrines are just blessings, and probably the worst story in the franchise. Hope the next game is more like Oot with a focus on dungeons and a smaller world because these games prove quality >quantity
@@ash8244 and you are clearly 12. I can't stand these games and have played zelda for 25 years. Breaking weapons, terribly boring, garbage story, empty world, nothing-burger non-dungeons. Get real kid.
this is why I'll continue to support you from afar, your videos are so well scripted and edited, it makes me feel like I'm investing in something truly special. this video was incredible, and I can't wait to watch ur next video ;)
Very nice video. As someone who didn't like Breath of the Wild, I extended an olive branch towards Tears of the Kingdom and just made the best of it; No hate, no disappointment, no love. I actually recommend checking out the Ys games! Particularly, Ys VIII which picked me up when Zelda moved on BUT the newest one comes out at the end of October. If I were to describe the series It's like if Zelda and Final Fantasy had a baby who likes high octane rock music. I'd love your thoughts! Game on Snug!
I genuinely think ToTK is epic as is BoTW. Only things that let it down are the actual story, and less fleshed out story, with weaker dungeons. We swapped out the smaller more condense games, for larger and more spread out ones. That’s it.
I've played almost every single Legend of Zelda game that's ever existed and 100% a large portion of them, several of them 10+ times. BotW is the first one I didn't finish and I'm not talking about 100%, I just stopped playing mid story. One day I'll go back but haven't felt like it. It was very whimsical, until it wasn't. Open world was an awesome concept, but so much of it felt very repetitive.
Great video! Totk is one of my favourite games of all time, but I recognise a lot of its faults and do think the series should move closer towards what it used to be. For the love of god make good dungeons again lol. Still, I’m someone who loves just existing in games, and that means that no matter the flaws I’ll always be drawn to these two titles, being able to stand amongst grass gently swaying in the wind as those orgasmic piano notes play intermittently :). Also that final Ganon fight. Mwah. Greatest boss in the franchise imo.
aww man! not sure if i can get myself through a vid like this as a totk lover (despite knowing its many, many flaws it was my first New Zelda Release since i only got into the series with botw, and the things it got right for me it got really right), but i am genuinely sorry it was a disappointing experience for you :( maybe i’ll put this on when i’m doing something else with my hands so i won’t be constantly getting on my keyboard in the comments. for now, twilight princess solidarity, and i hope this comment boosts you in the algorithm at least 🤝
BAHAHAAH thank you for this take!! If it means anything, the title and thumb are a bit hyperbolic (for that youtube algorithm which I am a slave to 😪) and while the video does have a lot of complaints about TOTK, I also say a lot of nice things about it. But if it'll break your heart too much I completely understand!! Twilight Princess solidarity forever 🤝
and yet Fallout New Vegas is still 10x the open world game BOTW and TOTK are. The world responds to your actions, your weapons aren't made out of tin foil, you get good rewards, there's more interesting locations and characters to discover like crazy things that could just slip by you if you don't take the time to notice all while still telling an interesting story.
The thing why the story in BotW, while not very deep, works and not in TotK is very simple. In BotW we already know jow the story ends. The Champions die when trying to control the Divine Beasts and Zelda struggles with awakening her powers but when she does, she saves Link and is still fighting against Ganon when you wake up. So finding the memories not in chronological order is no issues, because you only learn how the events enfolded and led to the known "end". In TotK, you don't know how the story ends. You don't know what happened with Zelda. So finding the tears/memory not in chronological order can actually spoil your entire gaming experience. You can find the tear, which reveals what happened with Zelda and her sacrifice, right at the beginning and yet the game acts as if you didn't. Everyone wonders what happens with Zelda and Link just stands there and acts as if he has no idea. It simply makes no sense.
Loved your commentary on this one! And I was so thrilled to pause and zoom in on that collection of comments at the end and OOH THERE I AM! Looks like I’m famous now. 😌 Also the style of this vid is so clean and polished! I’ve been watching for years so it’s so great to see your hallmarks bloom so much over time. It’s always exciting no matter the subject matter!
This video was surprisingly way more positive than I expected it to be based on the way you've been talking about it (and the intentionally inflammatory thumbnail and title for that good ol' algorithm)
I stand by very controversial take. Link should have spoken in this game. One word, at only one point, one perfect moment. I say this based on a moment I had, I left the dragon tears to about midway through the game so I had seen the Light Dragon a few times, I made it my mission to get the tears in order based on the pattern on the Temple wall, so I got the whole story in the right order and so with the last tear and the reveal that Zelda was the Light Dragon and Link finally learns this, he should have looked to sky and cried out her name, he should have said "Zelda".
Always a joy to start the day off with some Snug on Zelda! Really nuanced and smart take that I think even this game’s most hardcore fans will be able to appreciate. You do such a great job justifying your criticism, especially with the “it’s not that type of game” segment. Also holy smokes the EDITING man! You’ve always had a really unique style but this is IT. I think you’ve perfected this blend of on camera and voiceover, there are so many visual gags that had me rolling. (The rewind edit was so sick I’m so jealous lol) Keep doing what you do man the ceiling for you seems nonexistent ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
One thing about TotK that makes some sense, and seeming "they didn't want it to feel tied to BotW," if you don't have BotW save data on the same system as TotK, then a lot of people will act like they don't know who Link is, because canonically within that system, you didn't interact with them previously. Basically, if you played BotW on WiiU, you were absolutely screwed by that in terms of continuity. At which point, they really shouldn't have done that, and just made everything canonical regardless.
As much as I love Tears of the Kingdom, I can't deny the flaws. The only issues I've had with Tears was the boring and unremarkable dungeons and the way the champions were done; I feel like I have to activate the abilities I don't need to get the one I want. Other than those flaws, I still love Tears.
It is not called "Tears of the kingdom" because of the secret stones. It's called "tears" of the kingdom because of the tears Zelda shed as she was transformed into a dragon that contain her memories that you pickup. Along with the kingdom of Hyrule's tragedy. Even Zelda's makeup in the past has literal tear shapes to make it even more blatantly obvious.
I didnt like BotW so TotK was an easy skip for me. I have been loving EoW. Feels much more like the Zelda series I have loved since I was 4 playing it with my parents because I couldnt read yet.
I enjoy replaying BotW and TotK a lot with challenge and theme runs, but TotK is absolutely the weaker of the two for so many reasons, the most drastic of which being lore. They didn't answer any question either game posed, and butterfly effect'd/retconned so much other stuff it's crazy. If BotW took tons of inspiration from Miyazaki films, TotK took a lot from the Evangelion "Shinji rant". We got an anti-slip mechanic and the ability to get arrows for days, and a better build-from-scratch house mechanic (aside from Granteson being a nuisance), and that was it for quality of life improvements that if they'd been in BotW would've made TotK superfluous. BotW had the better Champion abilities, better power-ups, the Master Sword got more respect even before the Trial DLC, and it made sense to have a world that felt so empty with Guardians still running amok. Of course in that case you'll be reduced to the four main story hubs and three (four after you build Tarrey Town from scratch) smaller towns plus a few stables. TotK was supposed to be a years-later rebuilding effort that shouldn't have felt (let alone BEEN) even emptier than before, especially with the Sky and Depths already being crazy empty except for enemies. Even the memories were done better. And to top it all off they've even changed its timeline placement, which also affects Age of Calamity's already in-universe alternate universe in a hilarious way. Not to mention no DLC to help alleviate the many problems. I'll continue to enjoy both, but man if they couldn't have done so much better. Can't wait to play Echoes and see what things could've been like if we'd gotten to play Zelda's time travel butterfly effect hijinks instead of seeing Ganondorf's "Oh my god that is a face for RADIO!!" laugh through a flashback.
Totk was meant to be dlc that was likely going to be wildly different than what totk turned into. Them they decided to expand it to a whole game, it couldn't carry it's own weight, and so they just went with a complete retelling of the same game. Which is twice they've done that now. They're allergic to meaningful design.
I would have REALLY LOVED if tge totk memories were playable, imagine, some of the memories is literally a hyrule warriors type game when you fight, a different playstyle when in a memory that's not a fight, TOTK had so much potential in its memories, BUT WHYYYYYYY
I mean every memory would be a linear type mission, it would really help the player as he takes a break from the open world and be a little linear, sometimes like a tell tale game
Great video overall one thing I wanna point out is you criticize Totk for having Zeldas sacrifice mean nothing because at the end she's okay. Couldn't we apply this same logic to Twilight princess since in that game Zelda sacrifices herself to save midna then just shows up at the end if you got an explanation I'd love to hear but otherwise great video
I personally never felt like that was an issue because Zelda isn't the focus of that story, Midna is. I absolutely agree that the game doesn't explain what her sacrifice means and that it makes it strange to just see her at the end of the game (the manga does this part of the story so much better) but Zelda was really just a tool to tell Midna's story, so I never let it bother me at least. I didn't bother playing totk, but from waht Snug explains in this video it seems like Zelda is the only real focus of this story, so having her wear thick plot armor like that does sound like a dud.
@@damndanielcruz6754 yeah pretty much what savememoon said. Zelda’s sacrifice in twilight princess is a strong story beat because it moves Midna’s character profession forward. It’s the first time someone from the light does something so selfless for someone of the twilight. Before and after that moment Midna acts different and kicks off her realising she has to fight for the people of both worlds. Zelda turning into a dragon feels like they came up with the idea first and worked backwards and it doesn’t feel satisfying in this games narrative.
@@Snugboy alright bet ty for the elaboration I hope this video goes well and I look forward to future videos and forgive me but I forgot to say in my orginal comment but have an amazing day 💚
As much as your views on the story are correct, I personally experienced it as a telling of Zelda going through the horrors of being put in a time before a tragedy, and being stuck just watching everything play out, regardless of her input in it, and taking a desperate measure to make sure she saves the world in her own time. Yes the cutscenes with the sages were repetitive, but they were all Zelda's attempts at making sure Link would be able to stop Ganondorf in his own time, everything was being put on his shoulders, and she did what she could to make sure that he was not completely alone. The very last things being her putting the spirit of someone who can recount everything to Link in her Purah Pad, and powering up the Master Sword so that he can actually use it to fight Ganondorf, who broke it with a fraction of his power. When I saw that final cutscene of her being turned into a dragon, I was like "Yes! THIS is the Legend of ZELDA! I am just her little knight who will deliver the final blow to the big baddie, but SHE made it all possible!" Though the game doesn't go into it much, Zelda, the girl who is a nerd for history and research, had been transported into an ancient time, and sacrificed her ability to do the plethora of research and talking to people from the past, AND finding a way to get back to her time without taking that drastic measure, all because she believed in Link. I will say, I think the execution of this in the form of memories, spread out in a random order, were not the best, or very good at all, I got the Master Sword early through just kind of being curious about the Korok forest, which was rewarding to figure out in its own way. But the TEARS I would have shed, seeking out Zelda in the sky, specifically knowing it was her, would have been a 10/10 experience, i just was unlucky I guess. I also dislike the cop out at the end where they brought her back, I think it would have been way more interesting for Link to recount what happened to Zelda to the supporting characters, and for everyone to kind of mourn her loss, and then perhaps celebrate her hand in saving everyone in a few cutscenes. It bugs me that they always have to go for that HAPPY ending, but I guess the story just isnt meant to be that complex, it's a Nintendo game at the end of the day. But also, it was really nice just being able to get her back, reach out and actually grab her hand, and catch her. Again, it could have been executed way better. Anyway, I really enjoyed your video, I have been looking forward to it, I hope you have enjoyed hearing my perspective, have a good day. 😁
@@iRicky1237 thank you for sharing your perspective!! I really enjoyed reading it. that’s a very interesting angle to view the story from and I really like it, however I agree that it’s just not executed well enough for a take even like that to make sense. thanks for watching!!!
It would of been way cooler if Link got to make a wish to the Triforce to bring her back. Instead of just the king and queen using their power through Link. He gets one wish and uses it to save Zelda
Took me 5 hours to realize I'd seen it all and never finished botw. Didnt buy totk when I saw it was just gonna be the exact same thing but with even more pointless slop. Won't buy eow because I realized from trailer 1 it's the same thing again.
@@xuto2693 As some who was also disappointed by totk (Not so much by botw, for their first open world game the flaws felt fair to me) i can definitely say that Echoes of wisdom absolutely is not the same thing again. I was sceptical too but the game really surprised me. Yes, it shares a lot of similarities with botw/totk when it comes to mechanics etc but it's not a world full of copy pasted stuff, it's actually decent. Also proper dungeons, even individual minidungeons, Story isn't playing out in the past etc.
@@xuto2693 Botw took me 3 years to complete because I got bored so many times that I stopped playing for months and played other games instead. Totk took me 1 and a half year because of the same reason
I pretty much agree with all of this. I think ppl hate on botw a little too much. I LOVED IT. What disappointed me in BOTW was the last dark beast Ganon fight. He looked so cool and scary and the fight was a complete joke. Then I hated the credit scene where they just showed pictures. I was looking forward to them showing the towns ppl rebuilding their lives like in almost every other Zelda game. It really left a bad taste in my mouth. TOTK fixed a lot of issues but I agree there came more issues 2. I didn't care for them using the memory system again. It did bring a tear to my eye when she turned into a dragon. The cave system should of been in BOTW day 1. And I agree the sky islands suck. There's hardly anything up there. The depths was cool but after doing about half the map I just started building devices so I could fly around fast just to complete it. Also same problem with botw. The dragon fight at 1st looked incredible but was ultimately lame as hell. Same thing with the ending. Catching Zelda falling felt so good. But then it just ends. She says almost nothing after. I wasn't expecting then to kiss or anything but come on. And those ancestors giving you the same backstory again and again is LAME. It seemed like the game was unfinished in a way and they just said "it's good enough". I'm nearly 40 so I grew up playing the retro games and on. I'm used to a more linear flow. While I loved the freedom to explore I miss the more linear gamestyle as well. I hope they make it happen but I doubt it. I have done multiple play throughs of botw but honestly don't see myself doing totk over again.
@@athorem There’s only so many times I can have my sword swing in the wrong direction cuz the wiimote calibration was off or something before I check out entirely.
seriously man, this was A VERY INSIGHTFUL video and i can't thank you enough for delivering very wellon this video subject, but you WOULD BE SURPRISED IF I TOLD you about the fact that there is a very fendamental reason as to why tears of the king dom is the way it is which HAD BEEN analysed, to understand my point you better watch the video "The Question No One Asks Shigeru Miyamoto" and trust me, it'll give a much better understanding in regards to the developers were trying to do with tears of the king dom, also don't forget to give your openions about the video in a reply
I personally have bigger qualms with the future in the present. Where it feels you are rounding up a Disney show of characters, its so cartoony to a fault.
This happens all the time with popular mainline titles of most video game franchises - this game was honestly a lot more publicly divisive when it first launched, and while I really enjoyed it, I also couldn't really replay it for the same reasons Snugboy outlined above.
26:44 I feel like a janitor cleaning up after a mess, instead of witnessing the action firsthand, same AND especially with TotK. This is why I liked Age of Calamity which is a spinoff of the main game and yet somehow felt more personal cause we were fighting the calamity firsthand. While I doubt it, I kind of hope they make a spinoff of TotK and give us ZoL: The Imprisoning War or something like that. 29:53 HE'S NOT A GOAT, HE'S A DRAGONOID, what goat has sharp teeth and scales? 30:36 Only the most prevalent characters know you, everyone else still treats you like a stranger which is vexing especially in Hateno village. 35:07 The biggest thing they could've done to make the biggest change to the game is send Link back with Zelda into the past, that way Link can be there to protect Sonia before Ganondorf kills her, they defeat Ganondorf and stop him before the Imprisoning War begins. Plus, that means the map would've been altered enough to FEEL new, we would've had Zelda with us which could've led Nintendo to making co-op-based puzzles, Zelda helps out in fights by staying afar and using magic of some sort like a support mage, etc. 35:40 The reversing is what pissed me off the most, do not tell me its irreversible then undo it with something stupid situation such as force ghost magic shit, while I do want a happy ending for THIS Zelda and Link in particular considering the crap they've went through, I want to feel like I earned it. The game that I think came closest to a perfect mixture of open world and proper story was A Link Between Worlds, new cool wall merging mechanic, the important items are there but now are behind Ravio's rental system which you can pay him and just straight up buy them, the little squids that you collect help you upgrade your stuff, and the story is pretty decent with Lorule and how Hilda will go to extreme lengths to save her kingdom even if screwing yours over. Give us more of those games Nintendo. Also Twilight Princess is one of my favorites.
Tears Of The Kingdom was meant to be one game. Both Breath of the wild and Tears Of The Kingdom story was meant to be ONE story told in 2 or 3 parts to make the story and gameplay interresting. BUT bc they needed to lunch the game bc it's been to long so they lunch Breath Of The Wild taking away stories elements from Tears of the Kingdom and both games became BIG sandbox empty games
I’ve played these games one after the other I bought a switch oled and botw with it, 6 months before tears of the kingdom. I got tears and can say that tears is far superior in gameplay and story. It gave us something that connected up to older stories from TLOZ. Botw was amazing cause it was unique because it was the first time in that world and the story was good but very different than anything we’ve ever seen
People don't like totk because it's too much like botw which they love, but also love eow which is just...basically the same damnthing again. They're gonna keep doing botw until it stops printing money like cod or pokemon.
My ranking of 3D Zelda 🛡️✌️ #1 Majora’s Mask #2 Ocarina of Time #3 Breath of the Wild #4 Twilight Princess #5 Wind Waker #6 Skyward Sword #7 Tears of the Kingdom
Snug this is great and all but I'm afraid in making critical comments against a zelda game you are officially no longer a zelda fan and have to turn in your zelda fan card :(
@@gruwidge oh so it’s like that huh
The Sages were just such a big disappointment for me.
And hey, the concept of them was so cool, you can rock up to an enemy camp with your small army and they wreck everything...
Or you, with your 5 friends, could take on a lynel together.
Except no: they do shitty damage, are super useless and I could fit all the times I used Riju's lightning bolts into one of these 30s switch recordings.
Again, it was such a cool concept, especially in a game that's supposed to be about the power of friendship. You could've had side quests on upgrading your sages, team attacks, an actual use for Sidons water puddles...
I just turned them off halfway through my playthrough and was really disappointed thinking about what could have been.
@@Stamway 100% agree! Was very disappointed they were ghost spirits too. Why can’t me and my actual friends walk around?? I only ever had the bird one activated so I could fly through the sky easier.
The damage they do isn't that bad though and how are they useless? They really aren't and they have no cooldown either.
I mean they are already rather strong for what they are and they have no limit for how much you can use them either unlike the champion powers in BOTW.
An even bigger crime about this version of Ganondorf is that Nintendo got the absolute GOAT of voice acting, Matthew Mercer himself, to voice Ganondorf and then they waste him on the most boring iteration of the character
TOTK took everything I disliked with BOTW (which I did not like) and decided to do nothing with it lol.
Unfortunately I called this back when TOTK was announced and I sadly have to face the fact again that the mainline games just aren’t for me anymore
I feel that i actually dont like BOTW either but TOTK fixed pretty much all my issues with the first the only think I didn't care for in tears was the story but tbh Zelda stories were never the reason I got the games anyways.
Hell I tuned out of EoW in the final shot of the reveal trailer and it was 1:1 just BOTW again.
Its all the game is now, just feels so empty.
@@xuto2693you tuned out because of an establishing shot?
@@DrMonkey1224 Yes. The final shot of the initial reveal trailer was virtually identical to botw, and the logo styling was literally identical.
It was so obviously just "BOTW but 2d". Like it was clearly made to grab fans of that style of Zelda. Like "hey look, it's the same thing again!".
Seems the only ones who caught it were people hoping for different.
Echoes of Wisdom feels like a perfection of everything TotK was *trying* to do. Freedom and creativity that's intentionally designed and doesn't feel cheap as opposed to making a blank canvas for the player that's so huge that you just kinda... *hope* the player finds out a solution to problems without hitting any frustrating snags.
THIS
That game has its own problems. But its enjoyable. Its going to take a while for them to figure out this new era of Zelda
@@athoremThe game's great, what big problems are you talking about lmao
@@hellpwn3391 every game has problems. can we not do this every time? people were saying Tears of the Kingdom had no problems when that game came out and now we're commenting on an almost hour long youtube video about how disappointing TotK was. Your favorite game has problems and mine does too, enough with this honeymoon phase nonsense
@@athorem well, yeah, you just made it sound like all problems are equal and that echoes of wisdom doesn't really do anything to improve the series. My argument is that TotK's problems are so big that it practically bars itself from being a true Zelda title and Echoes of Wisdom not only corrects it but is able to use its mechanics at the same time. Progress without erasure.
"Sometimes it feels like you're being punished for being invested in this franchise" YES! THANK YOU! THAT'S IT!! For years now I've been told to "let go of the past" and to stop wanting Nintendo to hold back on their creativity because I dislike what they've taken away and changed with a franchise that I've literally spend 21 years of my life loving and investing my time in. When Nintendo retcons the franchise and then tells me I was stupid for caring about the stories of the games they made, and the timeline they also made, it hurts, it really does.
The developers themselves have said that the dungeons in ToTK are "Divine Beast style".
Play TP I beg you, get to Arbiter's ground, or that freaking city in the sky M.C. Escher painting...
Twilight Princess still best Zelda game in my opinion. That is also next to Skyward Sword
You find another Skyward Sword enjoyer: 🤝
i don't like skyward sword map at all but the dungeons and story were top tier. Also the motion controls were wonky but when they worked they felt so fluid and fun
Semi open world and best dungeons...Yes.
Skyward sword used to be my favorite until i replayed twilight orincess again. Now i feel the same as you
Majora’s Mask is the greatest Zelda game of all time. Skyward Sword has the worst overworld and travel mechanic in the entire series and it’s not even close. Plus we had to deal with the flimsy motion controls for the first 10 years of its existence before the HD remake finally came out just three years ago. I would rather sail the ocean in Wind Waker than to ever spend one more second flying in the air in Skyward Sword.
TOTK is "BOTW plus more stuff", not "BOTW minus the bad stuff"
I keep saying this and people really seem to struggle coming to grips with it.
And plus more bad stuff😭
I mean eh...it did improve stuff like the weapons and it added cooking recipes too
totk is all flash, no substance. def agree with you.
Totk was phenomenal but felt more like a BotW remake. It was definitely the most disappointing but i do still forever love it
Never have I been more confused by the amount of 10/10 ratings a game has. Pretty early on in TOTK I realized the game wasn’t great, and whenever I brought that up in the first weeks of release people thought I was nuts
i was having fun until i reached the wind temple and i realized i paid for the same game twice
@@eanderson9599 For the same reason botw is so loved.
Its the same f*ing game.
@@Ghoats to me the moment was when Purah gave you the 4 points on the map, saying each region had some phenomenon you need to investigate. In my head I was like,
*“so… Breath of the Wild again? Surely not, maybe there’s a twist, maybe you have to visit the 4 corners and gain some strength before the “true” game begins and the story gets more involved. There’s no way it’s just the 4/5 “””dungeon””” setup as last time with tons of mediocre shrines then the final boss right?”*
and that’s what it was. I still don’t know how this took 6 years of development
@@eanderson9599 yup, was still hard coping when i saw that. blows my mind how so many people meatride a game with absolutely no substance or character
@@xuto2693 Nah, they are absolutely different, even if only subtle ways. BotW is a much more natural exploration based experience, and much more relaxed. I started questioning if I truly enjoyed BotW after playing TotK for 150 hours. I dropped TotK, got a fresh copy of BotW on my Switch, and absolutely loved my time BotW again similar to the first time by just casually exploring as I feel like it.
If you want to do stuff like upgrade your gear in TotK, you can't just find a fairy and give her rupees. You have to find the proper NPC to get things going, find the "lost" NPC in a nearby area to each fairy to do a quest to get them back to a point they want to rejoin the music troupe. Then you have to do a quest to get the troupe to the fairy under increasing stupid circumstances without destroying, losing, or tipping their carriage.
Hestu was also beside the main road to Kakariko, and essentially unmissable unless you somehow managed to never, ever take that road the normal way to the village. Possible, but seemingly unlikely. In TotK, I did go to the tower Hestu is near "the wrong way," and approached it from the NW, then ever saw the barely noticeable trail he's near. I had to look up how to find him so I could ever upgrade my gear slots
Glad I'm not alone.
You're damn right, cuz it dangerous to go alone, so take this!
you're noticing this now??????? Where have you been for the past 6 months??? 😭😭
I think what I would love to see, is a compromise between the ideas of Skyward Sword and Tears of the Kingdom. With some Link Between Worlds sprinkles.
-Keep the open world and give you the necessary items to let explore MOST of it.
-Keep the narrative structure of A Link Between Worlds, in a way that lets you visit any new dungeons, but just ones that are during a “story arc” that let you progress on a normal narrative.
-When you get new dungeon items or rent a few, it lets you explore new areas of places you’ve been before like Skyward Sword or what Metroidvanias do.
Hope this makes sense. While I have enjoyed this game, I really wish we could see the narrative structure of old games back… for the 3D games (Echoes of Wisdom shows there’s still hope for top down Zelda games).
Nice video Snug. Hope you’re doing great.
The Metroidvania aspect needs to come back, at least in 2D Zelda. It would be cool to bring it back in 3D Zelda but idk how well it would work in a world the size of BotW... I'd like to see them try though.
OK, so you just want more botw. That's really it. And that's what they'll keep doing. There is no compromise.
Tears of the Kingdom convinced me... that Twilight Princess is the best Zelda game.
TP has the most robust design, offers the most gameplay variety, and has the most sophisticated story and characters of any Zelda game. Sure, it built on Ocarina of Time's foundation, but it did so with the highest level of professionalism and polish the series has seen yet. The open world Zeldas have brought me to crave that again: the quality visuals, quality story, quality dungeon design of TP. Quality over quantity.
I tried so hard to like these games. I deadass 100% botw and I MEAN 100% all armor, all upgrades, even the amiibo armor, every korok, every shrine, all quests, etc. and y'know what? I regret wasting my time doing that. ToTK is literally a lazy cash grab with almost no substance that somehow took 6 years. Botw was fine as a concept, even if in execution it was middling. But everyone, including the devs suddenly thought different = good and forgot to make actually entertaining, fun games. I 100% botw because I had always felt soso about it and wanted to give it a fair shake. After totk came out, i played for a few hours, realized it was literally a glorified dlc, that didnt attempt to solve 90% of the previous game's problems, hell even introducing a ton of new ones, and stopped. Both it and breath of the wild are not worth your time. Most of these open world schlock games aren't. Literally play any other zelda game or just any game that is actually fulfilling and impactful, like Xenoblade or Oneshot. More content does not always = good. I'm probably done with the series going forward since Echoes kinda confirms to me that the passion is gone and the series is just going to be open world garbage for, however long Aonuma stays with it I guess. How the mighty have fallen.
I feel like the reason I enjoyed breath of the wild so much when it came out was because at the time so many other games were doing open-worlds way worse, so breath of the wild felt new and shiny and polished in comparison. By the time it got to totk though the unfixed issues were more visible. I didn't realise how much I missed traditional dungeons until Echoes of Wisdom which im so glad to see doing well!
@@boccibee hey bocci bee guess what
@@Snugboy hey snug boy what's up
If BOTW and TOTK had been a new IP instead of Zelda, they would have been great. The boring dungeon problem would have been annoying, but less glaring if it wasn't being compared to every other amazing game that came in the series before. I did have personal nit picks about some things, like the way that there's supposed to be 100 years between the past and present in BOTW, but when you go around collecting memories the locations look exactly the same, so it ruined my immersion into the story. Then they did it even worse in TOTK, by completely changing Hyrule, then showing cutscenes from 1000s of years ago, taking place once again in the current map. It was rage inducing. Also, Zelda's voice was particularly cringe(it reminded me of the Ember Island play Katara, who was supposed to be a caricature except Zelda was serious) and always pulled me out of the immersion again, making me irritated and bored instead of feeling whatever emotion they were looking for. It's a sequel game, too, but boy, I hated that the guardians and beasts were not there or spoken about at all.
My personal theory is that they were creating a game called "Breath of the Wild" (without the Zelda!) for the WiiU. They wanted an Open World game with some Minecraft elements for the Nintendo. But the WiiU flopped and when the Switch was announced, they needed a household name to release it alongside the Switch. And so they took the almost finished game called "Breath of the Wild" and slapped the minimum of Zelda lore into and onto it (that's why the story aspect is so weak) to guarantee many sales for the Switch.
That's my personal head canon why these games are so different from all other Zelda games and I agree with you - had they made a new IP, I would have preferred it much more.
I just don't think the devs like old Zelda anymore. Like they hate everything about it but still want to make "Zelda".
@@awsome182that’s nice and all but breath of the wild was always a zelda game, it was announced in 2014 and was supposed to release on the wii u all the way back in 2015. It ended up being delayed so much that it released on both the wii u and switch in 2017
I think the issue is kind of twofold here.
The designers were kinda bored doing the same thing all the time [which is fair if you're doing the same thing all the time since Aounuma took over). and other consoles (and people) going gaga over BIG OPEN WORLD ADVENTURES. (because this has been going on in EVERY game/genre, it's not just a zelda issue). things need to be 3D! Open World!! More This!!. (on top of I think a lot of very loud minorities screaming how BORING Skyward Sword/Linearity was - oh the irony). As well as - as much as it was brandied a sequel they wanted people to be able to play this first. [hence why NO one remembers you outside of the champion people and they barely touch on that. Im surprised Sidon remembers you are BFFs)
For the most part I think BoTW/ToTK is the culmination of every game. - but they still can't figure out how to make it ALL work out. they want the freedom [ie: no linearity] and because of that the story (which i think ToTK's would have been. epic-amazing) suffered so much. It's like learning the big storyline beats in Skyward Sword/Twilight Princess/Windwaker (my personal top 3 games) - but discovering the climax .... first. I was a mess at the end Skyward Sword because i felt. EVERY ASPECT of that goodbye to my core because we spent 70++ hours with these people. now imagine that as the first "memory" you find. it's out of context. you have no idea what's going on, why it means so much that "Thank You." is so important to Fi. none of that. it's just "Peace out"
that happened to me in ToTK. i got the two most emotional pieces of the ToTK story soo early and out of context that.. i kinda knew what was happening, and it took out the entire emotional punch out of the story. [that and the fact that Ganondorf is basically.... nothing here. he's not OUR Ganondorf, he's just A Ganondorf and he just also wants to be bad - which is important because Ganondorf up that point had always been the same one). these little things mattered before. so I don't get why it stopped mattering then.
as a system Nintendo decided years ago to "Not be part of the game wars". I think in some aspects - they need to apply that rule to Zelda. don't be something that you are not. Don't chase to be an open world Elden Ring wanna be. just be ZELDA.
It will be interesting to see which Zelda elements from either of the two Zelda formulas win out over time. At the very least I doubt they'll keep using the Divine Beast type dungeons for much longer.
Just wanted to point out that BOTW came out well before Elden Ring... So it's more like Elden Ring is trying to be more like Zelda, not the other way around
@@yaderkunsama9454 thanks for the correct. but i think the sentiment sort of fits if you get what i was trying to say
I'm not a fan of the new Zelda formular, so I'm kinda satisfied that the second game with this formular didn't get that much love as the first one, which I also passionately disliked.
Regarding the question if BotW and TotK are good Zelda games, all I can say is... No. Not in my opinion. Each to their own, but I personally think that both are bad Zelda games.
If you truly think this, you don't understand what Zelda is even about.
Literal braindead opinion. They are as much zelda as any entry
I think TotK is a genuinely good game but it looked and felt so similar to BotW that I really struggled to see them as two separate games. It was more like an early access game going 1.0 or a large expansion.
i agree, it feels like what would happen if botw got an extra year of dev time
well tears of the kingdom was supposed to be DLC FOR Breath of the Wild - then they realized there was too much stuff, so they made it into a new game. (but i honestly think they forgot.... it was gonna be DLC, and forgot to be a bit more creative)
Funny enough. Mario Gallaxy 2 had the same problem 😂
Ye I agree alot I mean if they changed how the story goes a bit then it would have been alot better, I still love it tho
The game in total wasn't great, 6/10 for me. Out of the 440 hours I played, I should not be asking half of that time where the new stuff is?
I don't like the idea that Zelda has to be doomed to be an immortal dragon. I would prefer that Link bring her back with the Triforce, but that she become a Hylian/dragon hybrid and that Link doesn't get his arm back and has to keep a prosthetic one. It ends with them getting married and the credits roll.
I agree with everything you said except people except people knowing who link is. More people recognized my link from spirit tracks despite being a different character and set 100 years after windwaker. While botm timeskip was probably less than 5 years
Fun fact, you have the same hairstyle as Link in Ocarina of Time! How does that make you feel?
@@Luxembourgish it isn’t an accident 😌
Okay, having finished the video I can wholeheartedly say: I actually agree with everything you said!
Especially the story and being a sequel part. While I had fun and a good time playing TOTK, there were several instances where I asked myself if this really is a sequel or more of a soft reboot. There are so many callbacks to BOTW (and also previous games in the franchise), but only when it's convenient or can evoke nostalgia to cover up for bad story or design choices??
It kept bugging me a lot.
And yes, I'm commenting a 2nd time. Hope it helps boost the algorithm 💜
@@Piccadally thank you for watching!!!
What truly gets me is that it's not even that Ganondorf is mean to Zelda. Ganondorf uses Zelda's likeness because it's convenient, but they don't have any direct conflict! They don't even exchange a whole word in the past! The only dialogue they have is Ganondorf calling her Zelda as a mummy, and her being surprised at the fact he knows her name, and it happens in the first five minutes! Zelda being sent back in the past and having to become a dragon and Ganondorf and Rauru having their weird pissing contest has literally no correlation plot-wise, as you could remove one thread without any consequence on the other, and I'm still gobsmacked this was considered shippable.
Anyway, great video Snug!!!!!! Thank you for giving me another excuse to rant at this strange game!!
Oh my god I can’t believe I’ve never even clocked they don’t say a single word to one another what the omg they don’t!!!! That’s crazy!!!!
Kinda fits with the whole theme of making Zelda games sans basically everything that makes a Zelda game a zelda game.
1:30 - I think you already know the answer in your heart.
😌😌😌
I think it is still good overall. Not as good as the others. For some reason, a lot of other Zelda fans always have to think one way or the other. A Zelda game has to be a masterpiece or it sucks and should be forgotten. There's no in between for some reason.
Dude i literally remember getting flamed in comment section after comment section for expressing my dislike for Ganondorf in this game😭 im so glad to hear you validate that!! Like his design is one of the best we've ever seen! (Twilight and Hyrule Warriors being my other 2 favorites if we're talking designs alone ofc) but character-wise hes just so blegh
Worst part about the storytelling is that Nintendo assumed that you wouldn't try to engage with any aspect of the story all at the same time. If you do engage with it all at the same time, you end up wondering why no one knows that Fake Zelda is fake and why you've heard about the demon king and secret stones multiple times
I love botw/totk but echoes of wisdom felt like enlightenment as a Zelda game with a perfect balance of classic and modern Zelda design.
Grezzo seems to really understand what the fans want and I hope the next mainline 3D game can learn a thing from EoW
@@painuchiha2694 yes!! echoes of wisdom feels like the PERFECT balance of the freedom/experimentation from the new games with the Zelda formula of old
As long as the next game doesn’t have echoes (they make the combat way too easy and spammy) then yeah I agree they would make a great Zelda game
@@PixelPikmin
I’m playing on hero mode and it’s definitely one of the harder Zelda games so I disagree lol
And I typically almost never die in Zelda games, I do permadeath runs.
If anything the only easy thing are the puzzles
I love tears of the kingdom. It's my second favorite Zelda game next to Twilight Princess. But I can see where you're coming from all your points and even agree with like half or more of them. I guess how you interpret the game and how much you care about the negatives can determine if you like the game or not. Great video as always!
I dont know if this is a hot take but the music sucks which had a huge impact on how I experienced breath of the wild. I dont remember any single piece or melody. I realize this was intentional but i think it impacted the heroic feeling that zelda stories have. I didnt feel like a hero. The hyrule warriors spinoff did a better job of that!!!
Another factor, Botw felt like a survival game with a zelda coat of paint....not a zelda game with a survival coat of paint.
I watched the whole video despite disagreeing with pretty much every complaint, I see where most of these come from but I don’t agree with them. BOTW and TOTK are among my favourite games of all time, I was expecting TOTK to be BOTW on steroids and that’s exactly what I got, the very few issues I had with BOTW were resolved and the only thing I found genuinely worse was the way they handled the sage’s abilities.
BOTW’s dungeons were, and still are, brilliant in my opinion, the Sheikah theme repeated on all four of them never really bothered me since I always found their layout and puzzles really well made, but it’s indeed something I wished they improved in TOTK, and they did it, each dungeons theme is perfectly thematic with region it’s located in; the same goes for the boss fights, which were one of my few issues with BOTW, they made them more unique and interesting in theme and design, and I loved the way you can use Link’s powers and other game mechanics to fight them.
I was blown away at sheer amount of new stuff they added to map in TOTK, and I’m not even talking about the Sky Islands or the Depths, I’m talking about the regular Hyrule map: they literally doubled the density of stuff you can find, there’s new stuff to discover everywhere and for someone like me who knew BOTW map really well it was extremely rewarding to go back to the places I knew so well from BOTW and find new stuff to explore and secrets to unveil. In my first playthrough of BOTW, when I reached the credits for the first time I had an exploration percentage on the Sheikah Slate around 50%, when I first reached the credits in TOTK I had around 90% exploration percentage, that’s just to give you a measure of how much I felt incentivized to explore and how rewarding it felt to me.
On the story I simply disagree with you, I think it was good, and it has some of the coolest moments I’ve seen in a videogame, especially the final boss which is, in my opinion, among the best final bosses in gaming. I don’t understand what else you wanted from Zelda’s character, her entire development was done in BOTW and there was no reason to erase it completely and doing it again; instead the game made the right choice with her, and doubled down on her strength of will, a strength that this time allowed her to resist not just a 100 years, but for thousands of years and to overcome the loss of her humanity when Link needed her aid the most. The memories in TOTK are not about Zelda, they are about Raaru, a king whose arrongance brought the destruction of his kingdom and the death of his wife, and how his sacrifice united with Zelda’s was the key to bring hope to the future and atone for his mistakes. Unlike BOTW, TOTK’s story focuses less on character development and more on actual events and is infact a bit more linear in some parts of the story, but that doesn’t mean there’s no character depth or progression at all. This type of story does indeed benefit more from a completely linear story progression to avoid the “Link knows where Zelda is but he doesn’t tell anyone” stuff, but this particular setback didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story. Now that they have explored this non linear type of narrative, I wish to see them try to do a new linear story in an open world setting, just to see what they come up with.
I think the best part of these types of video is seeing different opinions and perspectives, like the fact that you hate the Shrines and didn’t want them to come back while I absolutely loved them and wanted to come back in TOTK. Keep up the good work man, I loved the video even if we have different views!
Thank you for this comment!! It is so fascinating to see people like yourself who just have the complete opposite opinions to me. Thank you for engaging with the video and disagreeing while still being civil and interesting!! This was a sick comment so thank you for sharing and watching!!
As a botw & totk hater I am always happy to find complainy videos. Agree with everything complained about~! It's gotten even worse now that I'm playing Echoes of Wisdom which shows that you can make an open world Zelda game well without abandoning all the things that make the Zelda franchise what it is. I dearly hope that Nintendo never goes back to botw.
Im just looking back at dungeons like stone tower temple and city in the sky like wtf happened LOL. The fact that we can just climb walls in dungeons now is insane. You can basically skip every puzzle in the fire temple because of that. I'm glad Echoes of wisdom is slowly going in the right direction again for me personally. Even has some pretty cool lore after totk almost ruined my interested in the entire story lmao. Like dawg when I saw memory cutscenes returning in tears I couldnt believe they were serious. Especially after that sick ass intro. Echoes also has some problems but if the next 3d Zelda is more like that I'd be happy with it
Exactly this. Echoes is also open world but it keeps all the important and fun parts of the Zelda franchise intact, so it can clearly be done.
thanks for the upload, snugboy. this video changed my life for the better.
thanks nadette oce
Imo BotW and TotK are great Video games, fun for sure, but not great ZELDA games.
I miss themed dungeons, items and weapons leading to solving new puzzles and gaining access to new areas. A nice fishing hole. More bizarre lore. Characters and just overall charm. The last 2 games got some of that right, just not the complete Zelda package we'd expect. Experiment with new mechanics and styles for sure but don't lose what made ppl like it in the first place.
They are great zelda games, stop whining about nostalgia.
This series is changing, get over it or stop playing
@@ash8244 They are barely zelda games
BOTW vs TOTK is an interesting comparison for me. Some people will say 'TOTK is glorified DLC' and some will say 'TOTK is BOTW with more' but I feel this is overly simplistic and don't really adhere to either statement.
In some ways it's a step forward from BOTW. Yet for every step forward it makes a misstep or sometimes sidegrade for me. And while I appreciate things like the improved enemy variety (even if I miss Guardians a lot), the better visual variety in the dungeons etc, a lot of the core mechanics either weren't improved ( The bosses look more distinct but aren't any deeper mechanically imo), or I like more in BOTW. (I prefer the Runes and Champion Abilities over the arm abilities and sage avatars etc.)
Ultimately while I appreciate a lot of what TOTK did, it still falls short to BOTW for me. Despite BOTW itself also being an imperfect game with issues.
Everything you said: YES. Love the vid!
I'm not going to say they're the worst Zelda games because Windwaker and Zelda 2 exist. But people consider these two (botw/totk) to be the best of the best in Zelda and Innovation, and they're not. Let's face it, most people are just driven by nostalgia and because it has ZELDA in the title. Both games have a lot of problems, and both games have better things that the other, but the thing in story... Nintendo really needs to stop that idea of giving 'simple stories' in the saga bc we are in a modern era of games, and people care. The mess they did in totk...awnn nahhh lmaooo
I completely agree with you my man, rise up Twilight Princess fans! We will get our sequel someday
I never really thought about any issues I had with Tears of the Kingdom after playing it, but with watching this video it definitely points out some great points and I totally see the complaints and why, it felt like a great game but still definitely had its issues. Overall great video!
I pretty much hate breath of the wild for all of the same reasons I hate tears of the Kingdom. Both Games are awful.
Lol, you have shit taste. Both are 10/10s
To the people saying to stop criticizing the game: it's the only way we might get a good Zelda game next time
Yeah the game is a MAJOR disappointment, and that’s coming from someone who has Botw in their top 10. Although it’s almost unrecognizable as a Zelda game, I still enjoyed it a lot. But Totk did everything Botw did but again, and all of the problems in Botw were amplified. The two new worlds are extremely barren, the dungeons are divine beasts but with elements, they barely added enemy variety (Oot has more enemies than Totk and it came out almost 30 years ago😭)even more of the shrines are just blessings, and probably the worst story in the franchise. Hope the next game is more like Oot with a focus on dungeons and a smaller world because these games prove quality >quantity
Totk is just BOTW retold with more stuff. Which always baffles me why people who like botw don't like this one.
I hate both.
Congrats you have shitty taste good job
botw and totk overrated af.
Holy shit thank you.
Yeah no, clearly you haven't even played them
@@ash8244 and you are clearly 12. I can't stand these games and have played zelda for 25 years. Breaking weapons, terribly boring, garbage story, empty world, nothing-burger non-dungeons. Get real kid.
this is why I'll continue to support you from afar, your videos are so well scripted and edited, it makes me feel like I'm investing in something truly special. this video was incredible, and I can't wait to watch ur next video ;)
;)))
Very nice video. As someone who didn't like Breath of the Wild, I extended an olive branch towards Tears of the Kingdom and just made the best of it; No hate, no disappointment, no love. I actually recommend checking out the Ys games! Particularly, Ys VIII which picked me up when Zelda moved on BUT the newest one comes out at the end of October.
If I were to describe the series It's like if Zelda and Final Fantasy had a baby who likes high octane rock music. I'd love your thoughts!
Game on Snug!
I genuinely think ToTK is epic as is BoTW.
Only things that let it down are the actual story, and less fleshed out story, with weaker dungeons.
We swapped out the smaller more condense games, for larger and more spread out ones.
That’s it.
I think tears is a better game, and has abetter story, but both of them arent good zelda games. They're too different from the normal IP.
You should make a video about links awakening
the remake or the original? or both??
@@Snugboy both
This just shows how good Echoes of Wisdom is😢❤
I've played almost every single Legend of Zelda game that's ever existed and 100% a large portion of them, several of them 10+ times. BotW is the first one I didn't finish and I'm not talking about 100%, I just stopped playing mid story. One day I'll go back but haven't felt like it. It was very whimsical, until it wasn't. Open world was an awesome concept, but so much of it felt very repetitive.
Great video! Totk is one of my favourite games of all time, but I recognise a lot of its faults and do think the series should move closer towards what it used to be. For the love of god make good dungeons again lol.
Still, I’m someone who loves just existing in games, and that means that no matter the flaws I’ll always be drawn to these two titles, being able to stand amongst grass gently swaying in the wind as those orgasmic piano notes play intermittently :).
Also that final Ganon fight. Mwah. Greatest boss in the franchise imo.
It came the time were I will not be judge for saying that these games aren't perfect... I like them tho, with mods .w.
aww man! not sure if i can get myself through a vid like this as a totk lover (despite knowing its many, many flaws it was my first New Zelda Release since i only got into the series with botw, and the things it got right for me it got really right), but i am genuinely sorry it was a disappointing experience for you :( maybe i’ll put this on when i’m doing something else with my hands so i won’t be constantly getting on my keyboard in the comments. for now, twilight princess solidarity, and i hope this comment boosts you in the algorithm at least 🤝
BAHAHAAH thank you for this take!! If it means anything, the title and thumb are a bit hyperbolic (for that youtube algorithm which I am a slave to 😪) and while the video does have a lot of complaints about TOTK, I also say a lot of nice things about it. But if it'll break your heart too much I completely understand!! Twilight Princess solidarity forever 🤝
and yet Fallout New Vegas is still 10x the open world game BOTW and TOTK are. The world responds to your actions, your weapons aren't made out of tin foil, you get good rewards, there's more interesting locations and characters to discover like crazy things that could just slip by you if you don't take the time to notice all while still telling an interesting story.
The thing why the story in BotW, while not very deep, works and not in TotK is very simple.
In BotW we already know jow the story ends. The Champions die when trying to control the Divine Beasts and Zelda struggles with awakening her powers but when she does, she saves Link and is still fighting against Ganon when you wake up. So finding the memories not in chronological order is no issues, because you only learn how the events enfolded and led to the known "end".
In TotK, you don't know how the story ends. You don't know what happened with Zelda. So finding the tears/memory not in chronological order can actually spoil your entire gaming experience.
You can find the tear, which reveals what happened with Zelda and her sacrifice, right at the beginning and yet the game acts as if you didn't. Everyone wonders what happens with Zelda and Link just stands there and acts as if he has no idea. It simply makes no sense.
Loved your commentary on this one! And I was so thrilled to pause and zoom in on that collection of comments at the end and OOH THERE I AM! Looks like I’m famous now. 😌
Also the style of this vid is so clean and polished! I’ve been watching for years so it’s so great to see your hallmarks bloom so much over time. It’s always exciting no matter the subject matter!
@@Everythingwillsurelybealright Thank you for always showing up!!! It really means the world to me!!! Thank you!!!!!
This video was surprisingly way more positive than I expected it to be based on the way you've been talking about it (and the intentionally inflammatory thumbnail and title for that good ol' algorithm)
all I want is a zelda game where link and zelda are actually canon 😩
me too :(
Not even done yet but this video is great
Snug, I love you. So it hurts me deeply that I will be required to annihilate you for this awful take ...
I appreciate the hesitation tho 💔
I stand by very controversial take. Link should have spoken in this game. One word, at only one point, one perfect moment. I say this based on a moment I had, I left the dragon tears to about midway through the game so I had seen the Light Dragon a few times, I made it my mission to get the tears in order based on the pattern on the Temple wall, so I got the whole story in the right order and so with the last tear and the reveal that Zelda was the Light Dragon and Link finally learns this, he should have looked to sky and cried out her name, he should have said "Zelda".
Always a joy to start the day off with some Snug on Zelda! Really nuanced and smart take that I think even this game’s most hardcore fans will be able to appreciate. You do such a great job justifying your criticism, especially with the “it’s not that type of game” segment. Also holy smokes the EDITING man! You’ve always had a really unique style but this is IT. I think you’ve perfected this blend of on camera and voiceover, there are so many visual gags that had me rolling. (The rewind edit was so sick I’m so jealous lol) Keep doing what you do man the ceiling for you seems nonexistent ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
omg hey xander 👉🏻👈🏻
Loved the format and editing of this video, gave me some good chuckles here and there and I loved what you had to say! Keep it up mate
One thing about TotK that makes some sense, and seeming "they didn't want it to feel tied to BotW," if you don't have BotW save data on the same system as TotK, then a lot of people will act like they don't know who Link is, because canonically within that system, you didn't interact with them previously. Basically, if you played BotW on WiiU, you were absolutely screwed by that in terms of continuity. At which point, they really shouldn't have done that, and just made everything canonical regardless.
Oh I had no idea it was tied to save data that’s so cool!
As much as I love Tears of the Kingdom, I can't deny the flaws. The only issues I've had with Tears was the boring and unremarkable dungeons and the way the champions were done; I feel like I have to activate the abilities I don't need to get the one I want. Other than those flaws, I still love Tears.
It is not called "Tears of the kingdom" because of the secret stones. It's called "tears" of the kingdom because of the tears Zelda shed as she was transformed into a dragon that contain her memories that you pickup. Along with the kingdom of Hyrule's tragedy. Even Zelda's makeup in the past has literal tear shapes to make it even more blatantly obvious.
I think its a joint metaphor. Of both the tears from zelda and the tears that grant powers.
I didnt like BotW so TotK was an easy skip for me. I have been loving EoW. Feels much more like the Zelda series I have loved since I was 4 playing it with my parents because I couldnt read yet.
EOW has so much Totk DNA in its design so this is a braindead take
I enjoy replaying BotW and TotK a lot with challenge and theme runs, but TotK is absolutely the weaker of the two for so many reasons, the most drastic of which being lore. They didn't answer any question either game posed, and butterfly effect'd/retconned so much other stuff it's crazy. If BotW took tons of inspiration from Miyazaki films, TotK took a lot from the Evangelion "Shinji rant".
We got an anti-slip mechanic and the ability to get arrows for days, and a better build-from-scratch house mechanic (aside from Granteson being a nuisance), and that was it for quality of life improvements that if they'd been in BotW would've made TotK superfluous.
BotW had the better Champion abilities, better power-ups, the Master Sword got more respect even before the Trial DLC, and it made sense to have a world that felt so empty with Guardians still running amok. Of course in that case you'll be reduced to the four main story hubs and three (four after you build Tarrey Town from scratch) smaller towns plus a few stables. TotK was supposed to be a years-later rebuilding effort that shouldn't have felt (let alone BEEN) even emptier than before, especially with the Sky and Depths already being crazy empty except for enemies. Even the memories were done better.
And to top it all off they've even changed its timeline placement, which also affects Age of Calamity's already in-universe alternate universe in a hilarious way. Not to mention no DLC to help alleviate the many problems.
I'll continue to enjoy both, but man if they couldn't have done so much better. Can't wait to play Echoes and see what things could've been like if we'd gotten to play Zelda's time travel butterfly effect hijinks instead of seeing Ganondorf's "Oh my god that is a face for RADIO!!" laugh through a flashback.
Totk was meant to be dlc that was likely going to be wildly different than what totk turned into. Them they decided to expand it to a whole game, it couldn't carry it's own weight, and so they just went with a complete retelling of the same game. Which is twice they've done that now.
They're allergic to meaningful design.
I would have REALLY LOVED if tge totk memories were playable, imagine, some of the memories is literally a hyrule warriors type game when you fight, a different playstyle when in a memory that's not a fight, TOTK had so much potential in its memories, BUT WHYYYYYYY
I mean every memory would be a linear type mission, it would really help the player as he takes a break from the open world and be a little linear, sometimes like a tell tale game
Breath of the Wild was already disappointing, TotK was as well but at least the machine building was great
Great video overall one thing I wanna point out is you criticize Totk for having Zeldas sacrifice mean nothing because at the end she's okay. Couldn't we apply this same logic to Twilight princess since in that game Zelda sacrifices herself to save midna then just shows up at the end if you got an explanation I'd love to hear but otherwise great video
I personally never felt like that was an issue because Zelda isn't the focus of that story, Midna is. I absolutely agree that the game doesn't explain what her sacrifice means and that it makes it strange to just see her at the end of the game (the manga does this part of the story so much better) but Zelda was really just a tool to tell Midna's story, so I never let it bother me at least. I didn't bother playing totk, but from waht Snug explains in this video it seems like Zelda is the only real focus of this story, so having her wear thick plot armor like that does sound like a dud.
@@damndanielcruz6754 yeah pretty much what savememoon said. Zelda’s sacrifice in twilight princess is a strong story beat because it moves Midna’s character profession forward. It’s the first time someone from the light does something so selfless for someone of the twilight. Before and after that moment Midna acts different and kicks off her realising she has to fight for the people of both worlds. Zelda turning into a dragon feels like they came up with the idea first and worked backwards and it doesn’t feel satisfying in this games narrative.
@@Snugboy alright bet ty for the elaboration I hope this video goes well and I look forward to future videos and forgive me but I forgot to say in my orginal comment but have an amazing day 💚
No shit I actually enjoyed EOW more than ToTK.
I think I’m the only link who likes Totk better than Botw
As much as your views on the story are correct, I personally experienced it as a telling of Zelda going through the horrors of being put in a time before a tragedy, and being stuck just watching everything play out, regardless of her input in it, and taking a desperate measure to make sure she saves the world in her own time.
Yes the cutscenes with the sages were repetitive, but they were all Zelda's attempts at making sure Link would be able to stop Ganondorf in his own time, everything was being put on his shoulders, and she did what she could to make sure that he was not completely alone. The very last things being her putting the spirit of someone who can recount everything to Link in her Purah Pad, and powering up the Master Sword so that he can actually use it to fight Ganondorf, who broke it with a fraction of his power.
When I saw that final cutscene of her being turned into a dragon, I was like "Yes! THIS is the Legend of ZELDA! I am just her little knight who will deliver the final blow to the big baddie, but SHE made it all possible!"
Though the game doesn't go into it much, Zelda, the girl who is a nerd for history and research, had been transported into an ancient time, and sacrificed her ability to do the plethora of research and talking to people from the past, AND finding a way to get back to her time without taking that drastic measure, all because she believed in Link.
I will say, I think the execution of this in the form of memories, spread out in a random order, were not the best, or very good at all, I got the Master Sword early through just kind of being curious about the Korok forest, which was rewarding to figure out in its own way. But the TEARS I would have shed, seeking out Zelda in the sky, specifically knowing it was her, would have been a 10/10 experience, i just was unlucky I guess.
I also dislike the cop out at the end where they brought her back, I think it would have been way more interesting for Link to recount what happened to Zelda to the supporting characters, and for everyone to kind of mourn her loss, and then perhaps celebrate her hand in saving everyone in a few cutscenes. It bugs me that they always have to go for that HAPPY ending, but I guess the story just isnt meant to be that complex, it's a Nintendo game at the end of the day.
But also, it was really nice just being able to get her back, reach out and actually grab her hand, and catch her. Again, it could have been executed way better.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your video, I have been looking forward to it, I hope you have enjoyed hearing my perspective, have a good day. 😁
@@iRicky1237 thank you for sharing your perspective!! I really enjoyed reading it. that’s a very interesting angle to view the story from and I really like it, however I agree that it’s just not executed well enough for a take even like that to make sense.
thanks for watching!!!
It would of been way cooler if Link got to make a wish to the Triforce to bring her back. Instead of just the king and queen using their power through Link. He gets one wish and uses it to save Zelda
Let's go!!!!!!! I know it took a lot of time and effort to make this one, you should be real proud man
tea gryff i am your biggest fan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Both Botw and Totk were fun the first 20-ish hours then you realize you've seen everything
Took me 5 hours to realize I'd seen it all and never finished botw. Didnt buy totk when I saw it was just gonna be the exact same thing but with even more pointless slop. Won't buy eow because I realized from trailer 1 it's the same thing again.
@@xuto2693 As some who was also disappointed by totk (Not so much by botw, for their first open world game the flaws felt fair to me) i can definitely say that Echoes of wisdom absolutely is not the same thing again. I was sceptical too but the game really surprised me. Yes, it shares a lot of similarities with botw/totk when it comes to mechanics etc but it's not a world full of copy pasted stuff, it's actually decent. Also proper dungeons, even individual minidungeons, Story isn't playing out in the past etc.
@@xuto2693 Botw took me 3 years to complete because I got bored so many times that I stopped playing for months and played other games instead. Totk took me 1 and a half year because of the same reason
Imagine calling a zelda game "slop"
Just proves you haven't played an actual "slop" game
@@ash8244 Imagine simping that hard for a brand.
I pretty much agree with all of this. I think ppl hate on botw a little too much. I LOVED IT. What disappointed me in BOTW was the last dark beast Ganon fight. He looked so cool and scary and the fight was a complete joke. Then I hated the credit scene where they just showed pictures. I was looking forward to them showing the towns ppl rebuilding their lives like in almost every other Zelda game. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.
TOTK fixed a lot of issues but I agree there came more issues 2. I didn't care for them using the memory system again. It did bring a tear to my eye when she turned into a dragon. The cave system should of been in BOTW day 1. And I agree the sky islands suck. There's hardly anything up there. The depths was cool but after doing about half the map I just started building devices so I could fly around fast just to complete it. Also same problem with botw. The dragon fight at 1st looked incredible but was ultimately lame as hell. Same thing with the ending. Catching Zelda falling felt so good. But then it just ends. She says almost nothing after. I wasn't expecting then to kiss or anything but come on. And those ancestors giving you the same backstory again and again is LAME. It seemed like the game was unfinished in a way and they just said "it's good enough". I'm nearly 40 so I grew up playing the retro games and on. I'm used to a more linear flow. While I loved the freedom to explore I miss the more linear gamestyle as well. I hope they make it happen but I doubt it.
I have done multiple play throughs of botw but honestly don't see myself doing totk over again.
Beta of the Wild
There's a lot of people that liked Breath of the Wild, but didn't want it to kill our classic traditional Zelda.
They should have just brought Vaati back instead...
Echoes of Wisdom was fire 🔥🔥🔥💃💃💃
That’s a funny picture of Skyward Sword
Skyward Sword is one of my favorites to revisit, especially the HD version.
@@athorem There’s only so many times I can have my sword swing in the wrong direction cuz the wiimote calibration was off or something before I check out entirely.
@@AzarathMetreon I recommend giving the HD version a try if you don't like motion controls. Button controls are an option in that version
seriously man, this was A VERY INSIGHTFUL video and i can't thank you enough for delivering very wellon this video subject, but you WOULD BE SURPRISED IF I TOLD you about the fact that there is a very fendamental reason as to why tears of the king dom is the way it is which HAD BEEN analysed, to understand my point you better watch the video "The Question No One Asks Shigeru Miyamoto" and trust me, it'll give a much better understanding in regards to the developers were trying to do with tears of the king dom, also don't forget to give your openions about the video in a reply
While you did the lightning temple first I did the water one💀
LMAOOOO RIP
I personally have bigger qualms with the future in the present. Where it feels you are rounding up a Disney show of characters, its so cartoony to a fault.
I'm glad people seem to be coming back to this game with this opinion, got dogpiled near launch every time i bought up my disappointment online lol
This happens all the time with popular mainline titles of most video game franchises - this game was honestly a lot more publicly divisive when it first launched, and while I really enjoyed it, I also couldn't really replay it for the same reasons Snugboy outlined above.
I love your content! Can’t wait for an echoes of wisdom video in 7 months
LMAO you cooked me there
Eow is gonna go through the same cycle, MMW.
26:44 I feel like a janitor cleaning up after a mess, instead of witnessing the action firsthand, same AND especially with TotK. This is why I liked Age of Calamity which is a spinoff of the main game and yet somehow felt more personal cause we were fighting the calamity firsthand. While I doubt it, I kind of hope they make a spinoff of TotK and give us ZoL: The Imprisoning War or something like that.
29:53 HE'S NOT A GOAT, HE'S A DRAGONOID, what goat has sharp teeth and scales?
30:36 Only the most prevalent characters know you, everyone else still treats you like a stranger which is vexing especially in Hateno village.
35:07 The biggest thing they could've done to make the biggest change to the game is send Link back with Zelda into the past, that way Link can be there to protect Sonia before Ganondorf kills her, they defeat Ganondorf and stop him before the Imprisoning War begins. Plus, that means the map would've been altered enough to FEEL new, we would've had Zelda with us which could've led Nintendo to making co-op-based puzzles, Zelda helps out in fights by staying afar and using magic of some sort like a support mage, etc.
35:40 The reversing is what pissed me off the most, do not tell me its irreversible then undo it with something stupid situation such as force ghost magic shit, while I do want a happy ending for THIS Zelda and Link in particular considering the crap they've went through, I want to feel like I earned it.
The game that I think came closest to a perfect mixture of open world and proper story was A Link Between Worlds, new cool wall merging mechanic, the important items are there but now are behind Ravio's rental system which you can pay him and just straight up buy them, the little squids that you collect help you upgrade your stuff, and the story is pretty decent with Lorule and how Hilda will go to extreme lengths to save her kingdom even if screwing yours over. Give us more of those games Nintendo.
Also Twilight Princess is one of my favorites.
Tears Of The Kingdom was meant to be one game. Both Breath of the wild and Tears Of The Kingdom story was meant to be ONE story told in 2 or 3 parts to make the story and gameplay interresting.
BUT bc they needed to lunch the game bc it's been to long so they lunch Breath Of The Wild taking away stories elements from Tears of the Kingdom and both games became BIG sandbox empty games
I’ve played these games one after the other I bought a switch oled and botw with it, 6 months before tears of the kingdom. I got tears and can say that tears is far superior in gameplay and story. It gave us something that connected up to older stories from TLOZ. Botw was amazing cause it was unique because it was the first time in that world and the story was good but very different than anything we’ve ever seen
Way to snug, boy
Stop with these hate on totk gosh dude 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂these groomers online really be hating when totk is a 10/10 game
People don't like totk because it's too much like botw which they love, but also love eow which is just...basically the same damnthing again.
They're gonna keep doing botw until it stops printing money like cod or pokemon.
Love the vid but I swear I see too many “negative TOTK videos”. Even though I think totk is fantastic and is my favorite 3D Zelda game ever
My ranking of 3D Zelda 🛡️✌️
#1 Majora’s Mask
#2 Ocarina of Time
#3 Breath of the Wild
#4 Twilight Princess
#5 Wind Waker
#6 Skyward Sword
#7 Tears of the Kingdom
This list is suffering an identity crisis.
Not gonna lie TotK did everything I ever wanted from a video game and is still my favorite game ever.
why everytime he says "so" sounds as if he was having an orgasm?
Apparently Nintendo has never heard of semi linearity
Botw still the goat in and totk is such a letdown as a sequel