With Echoes of Wisdom they pretty much removed the flaws of the Story from Tears of the Kingdom regarding Story Progression and I love the way they did, instead of the Goddesses saying everything over and over, they each say something different depending on the order in which you meet them after beating a dungeon
If there were a better way to better TOTK story, Nintendo should’ve given us the opportunity to play Zelda while exploring Hyrule in the Era long past. Echoes of Wisdom is an open clarity that a playable Zelda possible for this and the future of the LoZ franchise.
EoW is essentially the anti-ToTK in terms of the its story structure, and I love it for that. It’s not the best story, I wouldn’t even call it good it just kinda exists, but it does everything from respecting past lore and actually building upon it, to the world actually developing as you progress through the story. My gripes with EoW story; I feel like they could’ve done Tri better and maybe have given Zelda a character, but my main thing is the amount of dialogue, it should be cut down. Other than that I wouldn’t change much.
@athorem Fair. I really enjoyed it Breath of the Wild because it was fitting for this Link (being that he had amnesia and needed to get back his memories and all that) and the events of each memory was for the most part its own isolated event rather than a traditional narrative with a linear progression (so you could view them in mostly whatever order you found them in), but yeah this type of memory searching storytelling only really worked for Breath of the Wild because it was made with the above mentioned things in mind (unlike Tears of the Kingdom with its much more linear narrative). And doing the memory search storytelling with the above mentioned elements again would probably just make the new story too similar to Breath of the Wild (because it would then need an amnesiac Link again), so it's probably best to leave it behind
I feel like TotK was a humbling experience for the devs. BotW was so successful that they didn't see the flaws in it and the need to address those flaws, so they double downed on everything. More shrines. More Korok seeds. Keep weapon durability but add more monster parts that you can now fuse with. More memories. In some ways, they did improve on the system with having more gamey mechanics than BotW, but they also made the annoying elements of BotW even more annoying. Item management and the quick menu is such a huge pain in TotK because of having more things to manage on top of having to think about fusing and building things from materials. And they triple downed on that with Echoes of Wisdom, showing they see absolutely nothing wrong with this system. The irony is that BotW is a break from the Zelda conventions by throwing away what isn't needed for this new type of game. And yet TotK is just copying the new convention that BotW created. By being like BotW, TotK goes against the philosophy of BotW's development. I hope they realize this and they don't just make BotW part 3.
The vast majority of us long time Zelda players like the changes they made with BotW and they improved on those in TotK. I don't have a problem with weapon durability for the same reason I don't have a problem with needing to pick up more ammo for weapons in Doom. It makes it possible for you to get access to some extremely overpowered weapons early in the game. The only way to balance that is to limit the uses through ammo or durability. It's certainly better than how most games do it where you can't swing a sword simply because your experience level isn't high enough.
@@davidaitken8503 I'm a long time Zelda player. I personally didn't have an issue with weapon durability. The issue was that it makes combat pointless. No point using your weapons on enemies when they break and give you worse weapons. The difference between this and getting guns in Doom is that the guns don't break. You just need ammo. And it's a linear action shooter where you have to kill to progress. BotW and TotK doesn't require you to fight basically anything to beat the game. If you can just run away and actually be better off, why fight? RPGs get around this with experience. Your reward for BotW and TotK is that the enemies become harder when they come back. TotK halfway resolved the issue by using monster horns to fuse with. Stronger monster give stronger horns to make stronger weapons. That in itself isn't an issue. The issue is how cumbersome it is to actually fuse things you have in your inventory. You have to select the item, drop it, equip the weapon you want to fuse, select fuse, target the item, and press your sword button. That is 6 steps to fuse a single weapon. It would've been easier to just have a fuse option in the menu itself.
@@ShallBePurified There is a hidden RPG system that basically starts dropping better versions of those weapons the further you get in the game. That is why the Royal Broadswords you come across later will have a +26 tacked onto them or other modifiers. There is an obvious reason to fight enemies in BotW and TotK. It's fun! Anyone that goes around avoiding enemies all the time because they don't think it matters and then gets bored because of it is an idiot. Full stop!
@@davidaitken8503 This hidden RPG mechanic isn't good enough to be rewarding. It's taking the control away from the player and the game giving you what it wants by chance. Also, a newcomer would not know about this mechanic. These games are designed for intrinsic motivation, that you do it because it's fun. It lacks extrinsic motivation, which gives you a reward for doing something. Intrinsic motivation isn't a bad thing, but there's a limit. At some point, it is no longer fun. I already have full inventories of royal weapons. Enemies become an obstacle to avoid rather than a challenge I want to engage with. This pseudo RPG mechanic of giving you better weapons is not an incentive to engage with the game, because you have no agency over it. Saying someone getting bored of the mediocre combat system is being an idiot is idiotic.
@ShallBePurified What are you talking about, "by chance"? There is no 'chance'.The Royal Broadswords you get throughout the game will continue to improve over the ones you get early in the game. You don't understand any of this and you're clearly just a mindless TROLLBOT repeating uninformed talking points. You haven't played the game. You are a program.
the story would have been fine if it had taken place in the time that zelda was transported to. would have also given them an excuse to modify hyrule even more. the player should have witnessed the events first hand instead of memories. but that would require some linearity and we couldnt subject the player to that now, could we
I agree. It would have been much better to have been able to explore the world of that era instead of just a recycled and slightly altered version of the game world that we'd already seen in BOTW. So far Nintendo hasn't given any indication of any upcoming games in the Zelda franchise for the switch 2 console. Perhaps we'll find out more when the next direct is released in a couple of months time?
Allowing for the final boss to be reachable from the start of the game was the biggest crime of these games, because that single decision dictated how the rest of the game had to be designed and developed, to account for the fact that at any moment the player can go and beat the game. Every dungeon, every quest, ever collectible, therefore amounts to nothing substantial as it doesn´t contribute whatsoever to the ending. Sure, you can halve Ganon's health with the divine beasts, and sure, you get the sages fighting with you, but beyond that, the ending is identical regardless of if you do the dungeons or not. IF there was a good and bad ending depending on if you do the dungeons or not (such as Zelda remaining as a dragon vs regaining her true form), then there could be wiggle room there for this, but it would still be flawed if nothing else changes. In past games, and most recently EOW (which maintains the ALTTP formula while retaining the freedom of exploration and gameplay experimentation of these newer entries), had the dungeons be absolute, unskippable requirements for the end-game, even going as far back to the original zelda for the NES, where you MUST obtain the 8 triforce shards BEFORE being allowed access to Ganon's Lair. BOTW's story, to compare it to OOT, essentially starts the game as if you woke up 7 years later (in this case 100 years later), gives you the dungeons to complete in any order, but instead of being mandatory to reach the final dungeon, you can just skip to it and beat the game without them. What is insanely ironic is that, while with the memory system and the way they went with telling the story in these games is more "Open", they restrict themselves in what they can do from a writter's perspective. Restrictions, like story structure divided in story arcs, open up the door for so much creativity and story potential. There's a reason so many stories have the "Hero's Journey" structure: because it works, it has worked since the dawn of humanity, and will continue to work till the end of time. Stories have a beginning, middle and end. What BOTW and TOTK did was make the middle optional and meaningless, like adding a post it note at the end of chapter 1 of a book that said "you can just skip to the last chapter from here". And of course, as you mention in the video, the second biggest flaw story-wise is not having the story center around Link. Games like OOT, TWW, TP, SS, etc had Link go though a journey of growth and self discovery (AKA his HERO'S JOURNEY), where he goes from this ordinary life to become a hero battling powerful demons to save the world. Heck, TP even game the Hero of Twilight his own leitmotif (the ballad of twilight), which plays in moments that highlight Link as a character (be it saving someone like Colin, gaining the upper hand and/or defeating a boss, learning a new sword skill, riding around Hyrule field...) To me, EOW did things flawlessly by marrying the open nature of the wild era games, while retaining the story linearity of traditional Zelda, and I pray to every possible god of the vast multiverse that Nintendo learns from this game and applies it to future entries.
If we’ve learned anything from the BotW/TotK era, it’s that linear does not equal bad. If you can go straight to the final boss from the moment you leave the tutorial area, that makes the majority of the game feel like little more than side content, so progression is virtually nonexistent. Some freedom is cool, but it needs to be balanced out with meaningful structured content, which BotW and TotK are sorely lacking.
This is the one thing I want the most out of the next Zelda game. Totk’s story was bad in every aspect, from having the entire story told through memories, to having “plot twists” like Sonia’s death be so obvious, to retconning the entire established Zelda timeline, to the characters being the most 1 dimensional characters possible(Ganondorf whole character is literally “I want to rule Hyrule just because), to the writers literally just letting Zelda turn back into a human even though they stated there was no way to reverse draconification and it completely ruining any impact the story could’ve had. Just tell a simple story that we can actually play through and I’ll be happy
While I agree that the memories in totk caused a less active experience of the story, Ganondorf’s motivation runs a lot deeper than a lust for power. According to the Japanese version, his ultimate goal is to rule hyrule as what he deems to be a “true king”. He realizes that his best chance of reaching this goal is through deception rather than brute force after his attack on the great plateau fails. He seeks to ambush queen sonia to get her secret stone, which is able to amplify a user’s power 2x. Once he kills Sonia, Ganondorf says that his hostility stems from Rauru’s condescending and arrogant attitude. He believes that it is unjust that Rauru considers that the power of the secret stones inherently belongs to him. His power is amplified much more than should be possible when he obtains the secret stone. The ancient gerudo sage(likely named nabooru) reveals that through his deluded attachment to his goal he was likely able to transcend the boundaries of his power. This was a short summary, here’s a video that explains it better: th-cam.com/video/B8hgj6ETkK8/w-d-xo.html
I think the same guy also made a video that explains Zelda’s de-draconification. Essentially, she was able to transform back to normal due to the fact that Sonia has the power to reverse time and that Rauru has power over light (zelda being the light dragon). They were able to use their abilities through link, much like how the champions were able to give link abilities despite being dead
@@OlyOly-l7lThat’s a great theory and all but if they don’t ever bother to explain things in the game - it’s all just fan fiction. I think people were expecting more answers in TOTK but actually just got more bread crumbs and even more unexplained changes that apparently took place since BOTW.
There are several things that I do not agree with, but I am going to focus only on the ending, the scene in which the dragon of light returns to be Zelda, to understand what happened you have to look at two scenes, first in the attack of the Moldora by Ganondorf, in this scene to amplify Rauru's power and repel the Moldora, Sonnia and Zelda stand behind him with their arms extended, the second scene is the one in which Sonnia pushes back a cup before it falls, Sonnia tells Zelda that to return something to its original state you have to use the memories of the object, the word memory here is key, because Link during the game is collecting Zelda's memories, that is why in the end they return it to its original state with Rauru and Sonnia amplifying (like in the Moldora scene) the power of recoil through Link, there are no script holes, it is explained, perhaps it is better understood in Japanese
@@OlyOly-l7l : That implication is made clear in English too, and I think what they should have done was have more debate between Ganondorf and Rauru, since it seems clear they disagree on the rights and duties of a good ruler. We know what Ganondorf's probably thinking here, but it would be incredibly interesting to see him actually defend his opinions on the matter. Plus, it would provide a good reason for Rauru to entertain the idea of allowing Ganondorf to be nearby despite his suspicions toward him.
It needs better everything. Literally every aspect of past Zelda games were done in a better way. Dungeons, Bosses, Side Quests, Story, Rewards, Exploration, Weapons/Tools, Creativity, Combat, Enemy Variety. And most importantly they were all distinct from each other, and fixed the issues of former titles by doing massive overhauls, they didn’t address the problems in the most minor ways possible.
With TotK, I was really hoping we would play as Princess Zelda in the Distant Past and Link in the Present, experiencing both eras and a more fuller story. That way we could have gotten to know the old Champions of the Distant Past instead of just having all 4 of them repeat the same message to Link in the Present after each boss fight.
All they have to do is split the game up into Acts. In Act 1 you have access to 3 dungeons that oh can tackle in any order. When those art done, there’s a related cutscene and opens up Act 2 which has another 3 dungeons. Then another related cutscene and you have the final dungeon/boss. Although I guess if you’re only going to have like 4-5 dungeons you can’t do that. Because choosing between 2 things isn’t much choice.
I feel like they need to nerf Links abilities for the next game, he is overpowered and it makes the open world too easy to traverse and also makes an active story difficult to achieve. I want the return of classic dungeons and Items, and I want them to split the regions into "open zones" like the Great Plateau, or to a lesser extent, the Great Sky Island. You can explore and unlock the map over time and after each dungeon you could use the item that you just found to explore previous "open zones". It could take less than half the game to open the world up fully, but I think it could help with exploration and have an active story. It can still be an open world game, but more grounded and "Zelda-like" in my opinion.
If we’ve learned anything from the BotW/TotK era, it’s that linear does not equal bad. If you can go straight to the final boss from the moment you leave the tutorial area, that makes the majority of the game feel like little more than side content, so progression is virtually nonexistent. Some freedom is cool, but it needs to be balanced out with meaningful structured content, which BotW and TotK are sorely lacking. That’s why I find the Switch era of LoZ to be very underwhelming.
What frustrates me about TOTK is there was loud criticism of BOTW's approach to story. Some people defend it, but plenty of people expressed their disappointment. But in TOTK, it seems like Nintendo heard none of the criticism and said, "let's just do the exact thing again (high fives exchanged)! I was like... ya'll really didn't get any feedback about this in BOTW?!
Same. It's annoying that we constantly see all this pretty fanart and stuff of Breath of the Wild showing them together experiencing parts of the world, yet that isn't actually the experience we got in either game.
@@theoaremevano3227 Because it's implied off-screen they did and do travel together. Unfortunately Nintendo doesn't want to actually *show* that for xyz reason.
I think you accurately described the issue with the story being disconnected. The main thing that bothered me about the story segments shown in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom was that moment of exiting a cool event, only to sort of be dumped back out into the world with none of that going on. Part of the fun of an event is the aftereffects. In something like an RPG, I greatly prefer it when, after a major event that SHOULD affect the characters, they actually talk about it and show how that event affected them. That's why the disconnect hits so hard, especially in a pair of Zelda stories where there are some remarkably dramatic events. The only one that actually connects is finding out about Mipha, because there are significant effects that carry over into the future moment you're in as you see the effects of her dath on the Zora. Overall, the stories made me wish I could have stayed IN those events I was watching instead of playing this other game.
Zelda really needs to focus on storytelling. Breath of the wild, and especially tears of the kingdom was basically laughable. The voice acting was cringe, and the story development was very very lackluster compared to any RPG that’s being made around the same time. I truly think even though the game is nearly 20 years old, the twilight, princess was the peek of Zelda storytelling
I don’t think the story concept is perfect, but I agree with that general sentiment The execution and method of storytelling being the main issue As for the story, I think it had a lot of greatness, not perfect, but quite good. The story of the sealed “corpse” of Ganondorf awakening is an excellent start, Link losing his arm is a cool concept Link returning the master sword to the past to be restored, Zelda, being sent to the last becoming an immortal dragon There is some creative and interesting stuff to work with for sure, but certainly could’ve been better
hoping for a more final fantasy/twilight princess art style with a linear cinematic story. that and open world together would be the perfect zelda game for me.
..... I kinda want to have a game with the limited weapons but if your want a gimick, link essentially have a absurd numer of moves with the few weapons he has... think like a fighting game or a tales game... and.... TOTK and BOTW took artstyle and tone from Ghibli... the next one should borrow from Berzerk and/or dark fantasy. It worked super well for dark souls.
The memories mechanic work well as side content. As some extra lore rewards you can find because you explored. It shouldn't be the main way to tell the story
What's funny is that years ago, before BotW, I was making a Zelda fangame - a sequel to OoT - and my solution to retain nonlinearity within my limitations was to plan out a memory-collecting system. I even called it Dance of Remembrance. I could call myself prescient for choosing that method, or say that it must be common sense and I just did the sensible thing. But you could also say that I was untrained and young, working with tools far more limited than Nintendo has at their disposal, and they really should find a more creative solution than a young, inexperienced fan would come up with.
Long time LoZ player here. Would love to see a more linear story with a new main villain as well. Perhaps more of a tandem style game where you play as Link and Zelda through multiple mainline dungeons together to advance. Could be like PoP - The sands of time playability where each character has strengths and weaknesses when navigating each dungeon based on their skill sets. Both Zelda and Link could each get an item per dungeon where link gets an item to allow him to move more freely each time once he acquires it and Zelda does as well. Those items together could then also slowly open up areas of the overworld as well. Story could be more around how each character acquires new knowledge through collecting these items or through unique interactions they have while being the primary character in dungeon/ game advancement. The overworld could still be as sprawling as BoTW but with areas only accessible once new items are collected. Would be fun to see them navigate Hyrule together and have the ability to switch between Link or Zelda at will too.
I think a linear narrative in an open world zelda is possible. It almost seemed they were going that way in totk with the introduction of ice walls, but they quickly subverted it. I think that while you "could" technically go anywhere you shouldn't be "able" to go anywhere. The character should have limits to how long he can swim, how high he can climb, how long he can stand the cold, the heat and even how many enemies he can take on or how strong one enemy is until he eventually finds the upgrades, weapons and gear to overcome these challenges and these upgrades should be rewards gained only in specific areas within the story and hard to reach places. And dungeons should be "dungeons", no shortcuts or bypasses utilizing ALL the tools you've gained up to that point. Eventually towards the end of the game traversal should allow you to go almost anywhere, with this less inhibited traversal being a kind of reward of its own, the ability to finally reach that rare treasure, that challenging enemy. They came so close but but gave you too much to do whatever you want whenever you want it.
I feel like TotK actually informs us exactly how the Dev team screwed up in development if we examine the game in detail. It feels like at one point the ambition was to make a section we play as Zelda that was scrapped early on when the cutscenes were already scheduled. Later it seems like the plan was to use the Forgotten Temple for more and possibly required gameplay but again they cut it for time and data. The temple memories were all made like placeholders because they couldn't agree on anything unique, which is a shame. I agree with the comment remarking on tear execution being the issue and i think the way it should have been activated is for tears fully unlocking cutscenes to be sequentially unlocked in the forgotten temple council room that housed a hologram projector.
The story doesn't need to improve, we just need to experience the story in real time and feel like we're affecting the story and the story is affecting us.
What really should happen Is Link And Zelda going back in time 100 years ago to Stop Ganon BEFORE everything was devastated, Especially they're friends but there can be an Uncovered Story to How Ganon Was Born
@@davesgamerworld It is a Spin Off Title that let's you watch an Alternate Story where a Mini Egg Guardian travels back in time to prevent the Outcome of the Calamity
The best way to solve the story issues is to give the monolith team more involvement on the story instead of just map making/UI/gameplay work, the environmental storytelling that they put in is already really good but the main writing is disconnected from it Monolith already has the experience making the perfect storytelling for open world games and the open air formula The future sight idea is cool but it would feel cheap for Zelda because Nintendo already did that exact concept so well with XC1 Zelda really needs to adopt more of Xeno's storytelling to fix the issues but just taking whole concepts is only gonna feel like weaker rehashing
I wish the next Zelda game doesn't take place in Hyrule. We had two massive games, with the biggest version of the kingdom we ever saw, I think it's time for us to explore a new place to give us a breath of fresh air. A new formula, in a new kingdom, with a new mithology, enemies, bosses, or even another dimention, like Termina or Lorule. I love Breath of the Wild, but now with Hyrule Warrior and Tears out, I think I got tired of this era of Zelda, it's time for something new, especially because, well, these last two I mentioned didn't had the best stories in them.
I want to be clear that I really liked the storylines from both botw and totk. They’re grandiose and have that ghibli feel to them, the beginning and ending of Tears have to be some of my favorite in the series they’re so epic. But they need to put more effort into the telling of the story for the next game, the good of the old games was living the story as it went in these games you are told the story.
I remember when both these games came out, the people were saying that these were the best zelda stories, and how great Zelda the character was, I was really expecting these scenes to happen. So I was a bit dissapointed when I learned how the story happens without the player, in BoTW this is still more engaging because the character is amnesic, but in Tears is just kind of boring. I like collecting the memmories but I feel less engaged.
In gameplay this really hurts Zelda and Link relationship more. Since the champions story is ingame, we get a chance to meet them and spend time with them. But with Zelda we hardly get a chance.
Another difference btw BoTW and TotK in tearms of story is that in BotW you cant really spoil yourself since, you already know how is going to end, Zelda is at the castle defending Hyrule with her powers, so the order doesn't matter that much. But in tears, the story progression is more relevant.
totk has singlehandedly ruined all of the zelda timeline, story, and even botw, it wouldve been cool to see them expand on botw, but instead they retconned it, just like EVERYTHING else. pathetic garbage.
In what way was something retconned? As far as I know we never see how hyrule came to be, all we know is at some point hyrule just popped in to existence. So yea possible that the Zonai were big contributiors. Then the existence of Ganondorf. Honestly demises curse probably isn't that easily sidestepped so it probably moved on to cause trouble with a new host. And even if it was not originally this way it isn't the first time something changed between games, like remember when the master sword allowed toon Link to use it even though the game before it clearly stated you need to be an adult to use it. The only retcon I can think of is the rito existing in the past. There are some theories suggesting that there a 2 different ritos and the one we see in the new games aren't wind waker rito. But that isn't confirmed so this is the only thing there isn't a good explanation for.
I’m so glad about Echoes of Wisdom. You can see that the writers on the team actually care about Zelda lore, and the game is still open world while telling a story better than botw AND totk
Whoever Nintendo is going to have direct the inevitable Zelda movie needs to be involved in games so there is more cohesion. They need to work on building out Ganon and the rich cultural depth of the Hyrule world. The history of the story is that Link doesn't say much and the world is deep enough to make that a cinematic moment. Imagine a scene where ganon crushes links throat in the movie and that pairs with a fight in the game you have. Give cinematic ganon 4th wall abilities. Ganon looks at the audience and says "no restarts" or "couldn't pull up the menu fast enough huh?"
Monolithsoft was there to help make the BOTW open world great. I would suggest Monolithsoft take care of the next Zelda story too, but tbh, I’d rather Monolithsoft not waste their time.
Story is an issue with Zelda, sometimes fire emblem with engage. Not only those but I think Nintendo needs to take better care of story across the board. Xenoblade story is a massive step above everything else with modern Nintendo… I don’t need everything to have the fanciest stories but at least keep the fanbase intrigued and speculating for a long time.
7:28 Depends what they mean by “presented”, if they just mean “being out of order sucks because the scenes are written sequentially and need to be viewed that way to understand”. But the story itself, even told in order, just isn’t good. You get a surface-level understanding of these characters, I don’t recall if there’s even a character arc, no one’s particularly interesting, the guardians disappear for no reason, the “Imprisoning War” is just a few people in a single room, and Zelda “changes back” when there’s no real reason to other than “because status quo”. Same with goat guy (I forget his name) being able to become a ghost, and for as long as needed. There isn’t anything interesting going on with characters that I can recall.
Give us a story that we can actually experience as the player instead of it taking place thousands of years into the past. Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom stories suffer because of it. I don’t want to experience the aftermath of the story. I want to experience the actual story for itself when it takes place. And if you are going to have Zelda time travel she should at least be able to communicate and help Link in some way while the player is playing the game. I also think the next game should have a brand new villain.
I would like to step away from Ganondorf and that whole thing. Maybe even hyrule. And I don’t think we need different temples in different element… water, fire, air… throw out the whole formula.
The way the memories work in TotK and BotW is like Season 4 of Arrested Development. Only S4 of AR was awesome and Botw and TotK was boring and uninspired.
Totk: *has a better story that botw * "Fans": " ZELDA NEEDS A BETTER STORY ORTHE SAGA WILL DIE!" Echoes of wisdown: *literally has the best story of the entire saga * Fans: "the next real zelda needs a better story or the saga will die! 😢😢😢,😫😫"
People say MonolithSoft graphics programmers should help Pokémon, but I think considering Zelda already has Monolith devs working on 3D Zelda, get Monolith’s Xenoblade writers to help out Zelda. You know how many cried to Xenoblade 3?
It needs an *INFINITELY* better story. TotK's story is bad, Fs with pre-established key lore aspects, absolutely shatters all the Master Sword's reputation, unga bunga buff Dorf with little to no ambition other than "me strongest there is" uninteresting, nearly everyone forgot who you were despite this game taking place a mere 4-6 years after Wild, Rauru existing is an insult, no Fi, no breaking of the Demise curse despite it being falsely hinted being the case what with all the Skyward Sword PR this game got (I distinctly remember Skyward Sword being advertised as heavily linked to TotK somehow which, again, is misleading as on Nintendo's part), no dog petting, no hookshot spiderman swinging with the physics being suuuuch a driving factor in these newer Zelda games, no underwater exploration instead a damp dark smelly overgrown cave can't see jack, COLLOSAL missed opportunity to hitch the princess with her handsome knight in shining armor, no stakes since Zelda's sacrifice was reversed giving the story little to no agency or consequence, Link as a protagonist felt nonexistent feels like everyone else was the star of the show not the guy who's saving all their 🫏s, no Link backstory before any of this went down aka no Arryl 2 or Granny 2 aka NOT WIND WAKER, didn't make me cry like Twilight Princess, dungeons are STILL NOT dungeons (pulling a couple levers to open a door and then be treated with literally the same copy-paste cutscene at the very end with each champion? Yeah naw), sky islands hardly anything worth noting although they are pretty asf to look at, I was expecting a totally NEW revamped endgame super Saiyan master sword golden tier 4 legendary new hilt new everything but naw same design with a booboo scar and hilariously less powerful... hoverbike autobuild pales in comparison to THE Master Cycle As a game, sure, it's leagues above BotW but BotW will never be topped as a one-in-a-lifetime *experience* TotK was an overblown $70 DLC and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Mid.
For the next 3D Zelda game, I hope we get a sequel of TOTK where Zelda and Link (accompanied by the Sages) travel together byeond Hyrule's borders by sea to visit a foreign country with it's own monarchs and kingdom, different settlements like Yona’s Zora Domain, and new races. But crafted a much more linear and narrative story with serious topics like the cycle of war and peace, how it reflects the world and Hyrule’s millennia of suffering, taking the proper lesson of past history, and Zelda vowing to breaking the cycle while coming to terms that not rest of the world live up to Rauru’s eternal peace. Thus, Link and Zelda journey together throughout foreign lands as they tried to establish a new kingdom of Hyrule as formed alliance with other neighboring kingdoms.
The solution is plain and simple: just create more well written stories, and stop hiring writers that don’t have much experience and aren’t good writers!
@ Never said the writers of breath of the wild didn’t have much experience. What I meant was that the recent writers within Zelda games don’t know how to write very good stories. And Tears of the Kingdom is a stark example.
Hot take... I seem to always bring these to your videos-sorry if it’s annoying! That said, I don’t think the story in Tears of the Kingdom is bad at all. It’s simple, just like the stories in Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, etc. You might not like the way the story is tied to the memories mechanic, but that doesn’t mean the story itself is bad-it just means you don’t like the vehicle for the story’s progression. When it comes to Zelda stories, there are really only two that stand out as "great": Majora’s Mask and Link’s Awakening. These games are unique within the series and known for their depth and themes, which is why they’re often celebrated for their storytelling. The rest of the games in the series are much more reductive and straightforward, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I find it surprising that we've been okay with simple Zelda stories for so long, but only now are people calling it a problem. My final point is this: Zelda games are more about strong moments than about cohesive or complex narratives. Think about it: Twilight Princess has that iconic moment of Link and Epona on the Eldin Bridge, showing his growth and strength. Skyward Sword has that heartbreaking scene where Link finally catches up to Zelda, only to lose her again. And Tears of the Kingdom has Zelda sacrificing herself and Link catching her-powerful moments that show both characters exercising autonomy and redeeming past failures. The Zelda series excels at delivering these impactful, unforgettable moments. We don’t remember the stories as much as we remember the moments-and that’s okay! Zelda has never been about intricate plots; it’s about giving players memorable experiences that stay with them. Hot take over.
zeldas usually have interesting lovable characters with at least a little bit of depth, even smaller ones like telma from twilight princess or tingle in ww and Majora's mask. All the new characters in totk are uninteresting and static. The story lacks the usual zelda charm.
@@dummyyogurt5375 Tulin is uninteresting and lacks charm? Josha isn't a lovable new character? Come on. There are plenty of valid critiques for BotW and TotK, but saying the games lack interesting characters isn't one of them. Both games offer plenty of memorable and engaging characters. And seriously-Tingle? You used Tingle as your defense for depth? He's one of the most polarizing figures in the Zelda series and far from deep. His whole character revolves around greed and living out a bizarre fairy fantasy as a middle-aged man obsessed with rupees. He's literally one of the shallowest characters in the series. And Telma? Ok, I think you chose a character at random because she has very little relevance to the story and not very memorable besides two obvious reasons.
Misleading title… the gripe is with how the story is experienced rather than the quality itself. Also tbf it’s not like they took the easy way out and created a Hyrule without character. There are still very intentional details in the map and character dialogue.
it's both. Botw had interesting characters and an amazing character arc for zelda. totk's new additions are either cardboard cutouts (Ganondorf wants to rule.....because reasons, and the sages of the past have no personality) or have no character arc (rauru and sonia). They don't even have zelda in character ; she's a huge nerd in botw and super interested in technology. Tell me why she wouldn't be glued to mineru's side the entire time she was in the past, learning all about the zonai's technology. The current sages also have nothing going on. This game's writing is abysmal. It's quality is 75% of why it's story is so bad. Botw's memory thing made the story a little less enjoyable, but people still liked it because it was good.
@ I don’t quite agree. By that I mean I’m not disagreeing wholeheartedly with your statements but rather the conclusion you’ve come to. Zelda is someone likely be interested tech… but she’s stuck in the past and there’s a lot going on, I don’t think it’s exactly fair to say she’s written out of character. This happens all the time irl. Ganondorf is Ganondorf. What more reason do we need? A living prophecy destined for power. And the sages do have their own lives. You just seem to think their stories aren’t engaging enough. They’re not focused on for that much. I don’t believe you need every character fleshed out to make a good story. I’m not tryna say it’s the most magnificent story either. I can’t think off the top but there’s definitely things I didn’t care for. The world is vibrant and has a lot of soul… people have careers discussing it. Everything in good story doesn’t need to be spelled out imo. I don’t these games have dropped the standard in Zelda stories. Last thing. I think it’s fine if you dislike or even hate these games, I just don’t agree your points as I’m sure you’re probably shaking your head reading this.
Zelda Botw/Totk already have a good story (for those who really understand it), maybe what it needs is more mini-stories, if every time you find a kolog, it tells you a story about the place where you find it, Zelda Botw/Totk would be perfect games, besides Zelda is more of a lyrical experience than a narrative one, I recommend the video "The Poetry of Breath of the Wild" from the channel Writing with Andrew
The problem is that you don’t get to experience the actual story for itself which makes the experience less special and memorable. Why would I care about the great calamity or the imprisoning war if it all took place thousands of years ago and it’s already over? A good story should show and not just tell.
That would be cool if we got to pick a race or Avatar as a hero. And also like maybe download Memories or something of past Heroes. Your right they need a epic story. Echoes of wisdom story was good
I can understand why fans want a story in light of OOT and Twilight Princess, I for one really enjoyed the narrative of Twilight Princess, which enhances the gameplay somewhat… BUT traditionally, as in the original The Legend Of Zelda, the game is meant to be a “miniature garden” to explore and discover. When I first played BOTW, I was a little disappointed in the narrative but on going back to playing The Legend Of Zelda ( the first Zelda title I played back in the early ‘90’s ) … it clicked, BOTW had gone back to the roots of the franchise somewhat… sure the dungeons weren’t set up in the same manner but we got over 100 mini dungeons and basically 5 Devine beasts and the trial of the sword along with the DLC. I think BOTW is a masterpiece and made very good use of the memories to coincide with the story and experience in real/present time. TOTK faulted in using the same narrative as BOTW … with the only real connection to Link, is discovering what happened to Zelda and the Sacrifice that she made to bring the Master Sword back to Link. I think it is possible to have an open world/ open air game with a story that plays out in a similar way to more story driven titles.
ToTK had one of the most shallow and rather boring narrative in any of the Zelda games. It’s built up like it has this immense scale to it but it just feels like a rehash of BotW. The coolest part imo was Zelda’s sacrifice, but they removed all the weight from it by magically bringing her back at the end. The player has no agency in the story, you just go to the four points on your map and fix the problems and beat the bad guy in the middle. And he’s evil because he’s just evil. Without a doubt the worst iteration of Ganon, lacked any actual motivation.
I agree, both BOTW and TOTK are exceptional games, perhaps two of the best. However, I wouldn't put that down to the story, I think the gameplay drives the quality in those games
With Echoes of Wisdom they pretty much removed the flaws of the Story from Tears of the Kingdom regarding Story Progression and I love the way they did, instead of the Goddesses saying everything over and over, they each say something different depending on the order in which you meet them after beating a dungeon
If there were a better way to better TOTK story, Nintendo should’ve given us the opportunity to play Zelda while exploring Hyrule in the Era long past.
Echoes of Wisdom is an open clarity that a playable Zelda possible for this and the future of the LoZ franchise.
EoW is essentially the anti-ToTK in terms of the its story structure, and I love it for that. It’s not the best story, I wouldn’t even call it good it just kinda exists, but it does everything from respecting past lore and actually building upon it, to the world actually developing as you progress through the story. My gripes with EoW story; I feel like they could’ve done Tri better and maybe have given Zelda a character, but my main thing is the amount of dialogue, it should be cut down. Other than that I wouldn’t change much.
I think the memories mechanic might be one of the most universally disliked things about the new Zelda games now
it worked well for one game and its meh a second time. a thrird time tho would be actual trash
It was pretty decent in Breath of the Wild though
@ it was new at the time so it was ok. But it should have never become part of a formula
I thought it wo ked really well for botw
@athorem
Fair. I really enjoyed it Breath of the Wild because it was fitting for this Link (being that he had amnesia and needed to get back his memories and all that) and the events of each memory was for the most part its own isolated event rather than a traditional narrative with a linear progression (so you could view them in mostly whatever order you found them in), but yeah this type of memory searching storytelling only really worked for Breath of the Wild because it was made with the above mentioned things in mind (unlike Tears of the Kingdom with its much more linear narrative). And doing the memory search storytelling with the above mentioned elements again would probably just make the new story too similar to Breath of the Wild (because it would then need an amnesiac Link again), so it's probably best to leave it behind
I feel like TotK was a humbling experience for the devs. BotW was so successful that they didn't see the flaws in it and the need to address those flaws, so they double downed on everything. More shrines. More Korok seeds. Keep weapon durability but add more monster parts that you can now fuse with. More memories. In some ways, they did improve on the system with having more gamey mechanics than BotW, but they also made the annoying elements of BotW even more annoying. Item management and the quick menu is such a huge pain in TotK because of having more things to manage on top of having to think about fusing and building things from materials. And they triple downed on that with Echoes of Wisdom, showing they see absolutely nothing wrong with this system.
The irony is that BotW is a break from the Zelda conventions by throwing away what isn't needed for this new type of game. And yet TotK is just copying the new convention that BotW created. By being like BotW, TotK goes against the philosophy of BotW's development. I hope they realize this and they don't just make BotW part 3.
The vast majority of us long time Zelda players like the changes they made with BotW and they improved on those in TotK. I don't have a problem with weapon durability for the same reason I don't have a problem with needing to pick up more ammo for weapons in Doom. It makes it possible for you to get access to some extremely overpowered weapons early in the game. The only way to balance that is to limit the uses through ammo or durability. It's certainly better than how most games do it where you can't swing a sword simply because your experience level isn't high enough.
@@davidaitken8503 I'm a long time Zelda player. I personally didn't have an issue with weapon durability. The issue was that it makes combat pointless. No point using your weapons on enemies when they break and give you worse weapons. The difference between this and getting guns in Doom is that the guns don't break. You just need ammo. And it's a linear action shooter where you have to kill to progress. BotW and TotK doesn't require you to fight basically anything to beat the game. If you can just run away and actually be better off, why fight? RPGs get around this with experience. Your reward for BotW and TotK is that the enemies become harder when they come back.
TotK halfway resolved the issue by using monster horns to fuse with. Stronger monster give stronger horns to make stronger weapons. That in itself isn't an issue. The issue is how cumbersome it is to actually fuse things you have in your inventory. You have to select the item, drop it, equip the weapon you want to fuse, select fuse, target the item, and press your sword button. That is 6 steps to fuse a single weapon. It would've been easier to just have a fuse option in the menu itself.
@@ShallBePurified There is a hidden RPG system that basically starts dropping better versions of those weapons the further you get in the game. That is why the Royal Broadswords you come across later will have a +26 tacked onto them or other modifiers. There is an obvious reason to fight enemies in BotW and TotK. It's fun! Anyone that goes around avoiding enemies all the time because they don't think it matters and then gets bored because of it is an idiot. Full stop!
@@davidaitken8503 This hidden RPG mechanic isn't good enough to be rewarding. It's taking the control away from the player and the game giving you what it wants by chance. Also, a newcomer would not know about this mechanic. These games are designed for intrinsic motivation, that you do it because it's fun. It lacks extrinsic motivation, which gives you a reward for doing something.
Intrinsic motivation isn't a bad thing, but there's a limit. At some point, it is no longer fun. I already have full inventories of royal weapons. Enemies become an obstacle to avoid rather than a challenge I want to engage with. This pseudo RPG mechanic of giving you better weapons is not an incentive to engage with the game, because you have no agency over it.
Saying someone getting bored of the mediocre combat system is being an idiot is idiotic.
@ShallBePurified What are you talking about, "by chance"? There is no 'chance'.The Royal Broadswords you get throughout the game will continue to improve over the ones you get early in the game. You don't understand any of this and you're clearly just a mindless TROLLBOT repeating uninformed talking points. You haven't played the game. You are a program.
the story would have been fine if it had taken place in the time that zelda was transported to. would have also given them an excuse to modify hyrule even more. the player should have witnessed the events first hand instead of memories. but that would require some linearity and we couldnt subject the player to that now, could we
I agree.
It would have been much better to have been able to explore the world of that era instead of just a recycled and slightly altered version of the game world that we'd already seen in BOTW.
So far Nintendo hasn't given any indication of any upcoming games in the Zelda franchise for the switch 2 console. Perhaps we'll find out more when the next direct is released in a couple of months time?
Allowing for the final boss to be reachable from the start of the game was the biggest crime of these games, because that single decision dictated how the rest of the game had to be designed and developed, to account for the fact that at any moment the player can go and beat the game. Every dungeon, every quest, ever collectible, therefore amounts to nothing substantial as it doesn´t contribute whatsoever to the ending. Sure, you can halve Ganon's health with the divine beasts, and sure, you get the sages fighting with you, but beyond that, the ending is identical regardless of if you do the dungeons or not. IF there was a good and bad ending depending on if you do the dungeons or not (such as Zelda remaining as a dragon vs regaining her true form), then there could be wiggle room there for this, but it would still be flawed if nothing else changes.
In past games, and most recently EOW (which maintains the ALTTP formula while retaining the freedom of exploration and gameplay experimentation of these newer entries), had the dungeons be absolute, unskippable requirements for the end-game, even going as far back to the original zelda for the NES, where you MUST obtain the 8 triforce shards BEFORE being allowed access to Ganon's Lair.
BOTW's story, to compare it to OOT, essentially starts the game as if you woke up 7 years later (in this case 100 years later), gives you the dungeons to complete in any order, but instead of being mandatory to reach the final dungeon, you can just skip to it and beat the game without them.
What is insanely ironic is that, while with the memory system and the way they went with telling the story in these games is more "Open", they restrict themselves in what they can do from a writter's perspective. Restrictions, like story structure divided in story arcs, open up the door for so much creativity and story potential. There's a reason so many stories have the "Hero's Journey" structure: because it works, it has worked since the dawn of humanity, and will continue to work till the end of time.
Stories have a beginning, middle and end. What BOTW and TOTK did was make the middle optional and meaningless, like adding a post it note at the end of chapter 1 of a book that said "you can just skip to the last chapter from here".
And of course, as you mention in the video, the second biggest flaw story-wise is not having the story center around Link. Games like OOT, TWW, TP, SS, etc had Link go though a journey of growth and self discovery (AKA his HERO'S JOURNEY), where he goes from this ordinary life to become a hero battling powerful demons to save the world. Heck, TP even game the Hero of Twilight his own leitmotif (the ballad of twilight), which plays in moments that highlight Link as a character (be it saving someone like Colin, gaining the upper hand and/or defeating a boss, learning a new sword skill, riding around Hyrule field...)
To me, EOW did things flawlessly by marrying the open nature of the wild era games, while retaining the story linearity of traditional Zelda, and I pray to every possible god of the vast multiverse that Nintendo learns from this game and applies it to future entries.
If we’ve learned anything from the BotW/TotK era, it’s that linear does not equal bad. If you can go straight to the final boss from the moment you leave the tutorial area, that makes the majority of the game feel like little more than side content, so progression is virtually nonexistent. Some freedom is cool, but it needs to be balanced out with meaningful structured content, which BotW and TotK are sorely lacking.
This is the one thing I want the most out of the next Zelda game. Totk’s story was bad in every aspect, from having the entire story told through memories, to having “plot twists” like Sonia’s death be so obvious, to retconning the entire established Zelda timeline, to the characters being the most 1 dimensional characters possible(Ganondorf whole character is literally “I want to rule Hyrule just because), to the writers literally just letting Zelda turn back into a human even though they stated there was no way to reverse draconification and it completely ruining any impact the story could’ve had. Just tell a simple story that we can actually play through and I’ll be happy
While I agree that the memories in totk caused a less active experience of the story, Ganondorf’s motivation runs a lot deeper than a lust for power. According to the Japanese version, his ultimate goal is to rule hyrule as what he deems to be a “true king”. He realizes that his best chance of reaching this goal is through deception rather than brute force after his attack on the great plateau fails. He seeks to ambush queen sonia to get her secret stone, which is able to amplify a user’s power 2x. Once he kills Sonia, Ganondorf says that his hostility stems from Rauru’s condescending and arrogant attitude. He believes that it is unjust that Rauru considers that the power of the secret stones inherently belongs to him. His power is amplified much more than should be possible when he obtains the secret stone. The ancient gerudo sage(likely named nabooru) reveals that through his deluded attachment to his goal he was likely able to transcend the boundaries of his power. This was a short summary, here’s a video that explains it better: th-cam.com/video/B8hgj6ETkK8/w-d-xo.html
I think the same guy also made a video that explains Zelda’s de-draconification. Essentially, she was able to transform back to normal due to the fact that Sonia has the power to reverse time and that Rauru has power over light (zelda being the light dragon). They were able to use their abilities through link, much like how the champions were able to give link abilities despite being dead
@@OlyOly-l7lThat’s a great theory and all but if they don’t ever bother to explain things in the game - it’s all just fan fiction.
I think people were expecting more answers in TOTK but actually just got more bread crumbs and even more unexplained changes that apparently took place since BOTW.
There are several things that I do not agree with, but I am going to focus only on the ending, the scene in which the dragon of light returns to be Zelda, to understand what happened you have to look at two scenes, first in the attack of the Moldora by Ganondorf, in this scene to amplify Rauru's power and repel the Moldora, Sonnia and Zelda stand behind him with their arms extended, the second scene is the one in which Sonnia pushes back a cup before it falls, Sonnia tells Zelda that to return something to its original state you have to use the memories of the object, the word memory here is key, because Link during the game is collecting Zelda's memories, that is why in the end they return it to its original state with Rauru and Sonnia amplifying (like in the Moldora scene) the power of recoil through Link, there are no script holes, it is explained, perhaps it is better understood in Japanese
@@OlyOly-l7l : That implication is made clear in English too, and I think what they should have done was have more debate between Ganondorf and Rauru, since it seems clear they disagree on the rights and duties of a good ruler. We know what Ganondorf's probably thinking here, but it would be incredibly interesting to see him actually defend his opinions on the matter. Plus, it would provide a good reason for Rauru to entertain the idea of allowing Ganondorf to be nearby despite his suspicions toward him.
It needs better everything. Literally every aspect of past Zelda games were done in a better way. Dungeons, Bosses, Side Quests, Story, Rewards, Exploration, Weapons/Tools, Creativity, Combat, Enemy Variety. And most importantly they were all distinct from each other, and fixed the issues of former titles by doing massive overhauls, they didn’t address the problems in the most minor ways possible.
With TotK, I was really hoping we would play as Princess Zelda in the Distant Past and Link in the Present, experiencing both eras and a more fuller story. That way we could have gotten to know the old Champions of the Distant Past instead of just having all 4 of them repeat the same message to Link in the Present after each boss fight.
All they have to do is split the game up into Acts. In Act 1 you have access to 3 dungeons that oh can tackle in any order. When those art done, there’s a related cutscene and opens up Act 2 which has another 3 dungeons. Then another related cutscene and you have the final dungeon/boss.
Although I guess if you’re only going to have like 4-5 dungeons you can’t do that. Because choosing between 2 things isn’t much choice.
I feel like they need to nerf Links abilities for the next game, he is overpowered and it makes the open world too easy to traverse and also makes an active story difficult to achieve. I want the return of classic dungeons and Items, and I want them to split the regions into "open zones" like the Great Plateau, or to a lesser extent, the Great Sky Island. You can explore and unlock the map over time and after each dungeon you could use the item that you just found to explore previous "open zones". It could take less than half the game to open the world up fully, but I think it could help with exploration and have an active story. It can still be an open world game, but more grounded and "Zelda-like" in my opinion.
If we’ve learned anything from the BotW/TotK era, it’s that linear does not equal bad. If you can go straight to the final boss from the moment you leave the tutorial area, that makes the majority of the game feel like little more than side content, so progression is virtually nonexistent. Some freedom is cool, but it needs to be balanced out with meaningful structured content, which BotW and TotK are sorely lacking. That’s why I find the Switch era of LoZ to be very underwhelming.
What frustrates me about TOTK is there was loud criticism of BOTW's approach to story. Some people defend it, but plenty of people expressed their disappointment. But in TOTK, it seems like Nintendo heard none of the criticism and said, "let's just do the exact thing again (high fives exchanged)! I was like... ya'll really didn't get any feedback about this in BOTW?!
I would like Link and Zelda to travel together more often than less
Same. It's annoying that we constantly see all this pretty fanart and stuff of Breath of the Wild showing them together experiencing parts of the world, yet that isn't actually the experience we got in either game.
@@theoaremevano3227 Because it's implied off-screen they did and do travel together. Unfortunately Nintendo doesn't want to actually *show* that for xyz reason.
I think you accurately described the issue with the story being disconnected. The main thing that bothered me about the story segments shown in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom was that moment of exiting a cool event, only to sort of be dumped back out into the world with none of that going on. Part of the fun of an event is the aftereffects. In something like an RPG, I greatly prefer it when, after a major event that SHOULD affect the characters, they actually talk about it and show how that event affected them.
That's why the disconnect hits so hard, especially in a pair of Zelda stories where there are some remarkably dramatic events. The only one that actually connects is finding out about Mipha, because there are significant effects that carry over into the future moment you're in as you see the effects of her dath on the Zora. Overall, the stories made me wish I could have stayed IN those events I was watching instead of playing this other game.
Zelda really needs to focus on storytelling. Breath of the wild, and especially tears of the kingdom was basically laughable.
The voice acting was cringe, and the story development was very very lackluster compared to any RPG that’s being made around the same time.
I truly think even though the game is nearly 20 years old, the twilight, princess was the peek of Zelda storytelling
Story progression is one of the only things I think I'd change in totk.
Needs a better story that happens while you are playing! Definitely tired of finding flashback from another story that I’m not part of.
I don’t think the story concept is perfect, but I agree with that general sentiment
The execution and method of storytelling being the main issue
As for the story, I think it had a lot of greatness, not perfect, but quite good.
The story of the sealed “corpse” of Ganondorf awakening is an excellent start, Link losing his arm is a cool concept
Link returning the master sword to the past to be restored, Zelda, being sent to the last becoming an immortal dragon
There is some creative and interesting stuff to work with for sure, but certainly could’ve been better
Agree. It's execution that is the main problem here
hoping for a more final fantasy/twilight princess art style with a linear cinematic story. that and open world together would be the perfect zelda game for me.
..... I kinda want to have a game with the limited weapons but if your want a gimick, link essentially have a absurd numer of moves with the few weapons he has... think like a fighting game or a tales game... and.... TOTK and BOTW took artstyle and tone from Ghibli... the next one should borrow from Berzerk and/or dark fantasy. It worked super well for dark souls.
The memories mechanic work well as side content. As some extra lore rewards you can find because you explored. It shouldn't be the main way to tell the story
What's funny is that years ago, before BotW, I was making a Zelda fangame - a sequel to OoT - and my solution to retain nonlinearity within my limitations was to plan out a memory-collecting system. I even called it Dance of Remembrance.
I could call myself prescient for choosing that method, or say that it must be common sense and I just did the sensible thing. But you could also say that I was untrained and young, working with tools far more limited than Nintendo has at their disposal, and they really should find a more creative solution than a young, inexperienced fan would come up with.
Long time LoZ player here. Would love to see a more linear story with a new main villain as well. Perhaps more of a tandem style game where you play as Link and Zelda through multiple mainline dungeons together to advance. Could be like PoP - The sands of time playability where each character has strengths and weaknesses when navigating each dungeon based on their skill sets. Both Zelda and Link could each get an item per dungeon where link gets an item to allow him to move more freely each time once he acquires it and Zelda does as well. Those items together could then also slowly open up areas of the overworld as well. Story could be more around how each character acquires new knowledge through collecting these items or through unique interactions they have while being the primary character in dungeon/ game advancement. The overworld could still be as sprawling as BoTW but with areas only accessible once new items are collected. Would be fun to see them navigate Hyrule together and have the ability to switch between Link or Zelda at will too.
I think a linear narrative in an open world zelda is possible. It almost seemed they were going that way in totk with the introduction of ice walls, but they quickly subverted it. I think that while you "could" technically go anywhere you shouldn't be "able" to go anywhere. The character should have limits to how long he can swim, how high he can climb, how long he can stand the cold, the heat and even how many enemies he can take on or how strong one enemy is until he eventually finds the upgrades, weapons and gear to overcome these challenges and these upgrades should be rewards gained only in specific areas within the story and hard to reach places. And dungeons should be "dungeons", no shortcuts or bypasses utilizing ALL the tools you've gained up to that point. Eventually towards the end of the game traversal should allow you to go almost anywhere, with this less inhibited traversal being a kind of reward of its own, the ability to finally reach that rare treasure, that challenging enemy. They came so close but but gave you too much to do whatever you want whenever you want it.
possible but the game hour spent likely to be less than 30 hours due to less world exploration
The biggest problem with memories is they are out of order based where you go
I feel like TotK actually informs us exactly how the Dev team screwed up in development if we examine the game in detail.
It feels like at one point the ambition was to make a section we play as Zelda that was scrapped early on when the cutscenes were already scheduled.
Later it seems like the plan was to use the Forgotten Temple for more and possibly required gameplay but again they cut it for time and data.
The temple memories were all made like placeholders because they couldn't agree on anything unique, which is a shame.
I agree with the comment remarking on tear execution being the issue and i think the way it should have been activated is for tears fully unlocking cutscenes to be sequentially unlocked in the forgotten temple council room that housed a hologram projector.
The story doesn't need to improve, we just need to experience the story in real time and feel like we're affecting the story and the story is affecting us.
What really should happen Is Link And Zelda going back in time 100 years ago to Stop Ganon BEFORE everything was devastated, Especially they're friends but there can be an Uncovered Story to How Ganon Was Born
The Hundred Years Back in Time was already in Hyrule Warriors age of Calamity, and I loved the idea
@Chris-gx1ei Age Of Calamity Is A Alternative Series Right?
@@davesgamerworld
It is a Spin Off Title that let's you watch an Alternate Story where a Mini Egg Guardian travels back in time to prevent the Outcome of the Calamity
The best way to solve the story issues is to give the monolith team more involvement on the story instead of just map making/UI/gameplay work, the environmental storytelling that they put in is already really good but the main writing is disconnected from it
Monolith already has the experience making the perfect storytelling for open world games and the open air formula
The future sight idea is cool but it would feel cheap for Zelda because Nintendo already did that exact concept so well with XC1
Zelda really needs to adopt more of Xeno's storytelling to fix the issues but just taking whole concepts is only gonna feel like weaker rehashing
I wish the next Zelda game doesn't take place in Hyrule. We had two massive games, with the biggest version of the kingdom we ever saw, I think it's time for us to explore a new place to give us a breath of fresh air. A new formula, in a new kingdom, with a new mithology, enemies, bosses, or even another dimention, like Termina or Lorule.
I love Breath of the Wild, but now with Hyrule Warrior and Tears out, I think I got tired of this era of Zelda, it's time for something new, especially because, well, these last two I mentioned didn't had the best stories in them.
I'd love to revisit termina
I want to be clear that I really liked the storylines from both botw and totk. They’re grandiose and have that ghibli feel to them, the beginning and ending of Tears have to be some of my favorite in the series they’re so epic.
But they need to put more effort into the telling of the story for the next game, the good of the old games was living the story as it went in these games you are told the story.
I remember when both these games came out, the people were saying that these were the best zelda stories, and how great Zelda the character was, I was really expecting these scenes to happen. So I was a bit dissapointed when I learned how the story happens without the player, in BoTW this is still more engaging because the character is amnesic, but in Tears is just kind of boring. I like collecting the memmories but I feel less engaged.
In gameplay this really hurts Zelda and Link relationship more. Since the champions story is ingame, we get a chance to meet them and spend time with them. But with Zelda we hardly get a chance.
Another difference btw BoTW and TotK in tearms of story is that in BotW you cant really spoil yourself since, you already know how is going to end, Zelda is at the castle defending Hyrule with her powers, so the order doesn't matter that much. But in tears, the story progression is more relevant.
totk has singlehandedly ruined all of the zelda timeline, story, and even botw, it wouldve been cool to see them expand on botw, but instead they retconned it, just like EVERYTHING else. pathetic garbage.
In what way was something retconned?
As far as I know we never see how hyrule came to be, all we know is at some point hyrule just popped in to existence. So yea possible that the Zonai were big contributiors.
Then the existence of Ganondorf.
Honestly demises curse probably isn't that easily sidestepped so it probably moved on to cause trouble with a new host.
And even if it was not originally this way it isn't the first time something changed between games, like remember when the master sword allowed toon Link to use it even though the game before it clearly stated you need to be an adult to use it.
The only retcon I can think of is the rito existing in the past.
There are some theories suggesting that there a 2 different ritos and the one we see in the new games aren't wind waker rito.
But that isn't confirmed so this is the only thing there isn't a good explanation for.
It will be about goddess hylia and the ancient hero of the ancient hero aspect
I’m so glad about Echoes of Wisdom. You can see that the writers on the team actually care about Zelda lore, and the game is still open world while telling a story better than botw AND totk
Whoever Nintendo is going to have direct the inevitable Zelda movie needs to be involved in games so there is more cohesion. They need to work on building out Ganon and the rich cultural depth of the Hyrule world. The history of the story is that Link doesn't say much and the world is deep enough to make that a cinematic moment. Imagine a scene where ganon crushes links throat in the movie and that pairs with a fight in the game you have. Give cinematic ganon 4th wall abilities. Ganon looks at the audience and says "no restarts" or "couldn't pull up the menu fast enough huh?"
Monolithsoft was there to help make the BOTW open world great. I would suggest Monolithsoft take care of the next Zelda story too, but tbh, I’d rather Monolithsoft not waste their time.
Story is an issue with Zelda, sometimes fire emblem with engage.
Not only those but I think Nintendo needs to take better care of story across the board.
Xenoblade story is a massive step above everything else with modern Nintendo…
I don’t need everything to have the fanciest stories but at least keep the fanbase intrigued and speculating for a long time.
7:28 Depends what they mean by “presented”, if they just mean “being out of order sucks because the scenes are written sequentially and need to be viewed that way to understand”. But the story itself, even told in order, just isn’t good. You get a surface-level understanding of these characters, I don’t recall if there’s even a character arc, no one’s particularly interesting, the guardians disappear for no reason, the “Imprisoning War” is just a few people in a single room, and Zelda “changes back” when there’s no real reason to other than “because status quo”. Same with goat guy (I forget his name) being able to become a ghost, and for as long as needed. There isn’t anything interesting going on with characters that I can recall.
I like the story in totk thanks. Darkest zelda indeed.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Give us a story that we can actually experience as the player instead of it taking place thousands of years into the past. Both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom stories suffer because of it. I don’t want to experience the aftermath of the story. I want to experience the actual story for itself when it takes place. And if you are going to have Zelda time travel she should at least be able to communicate and help Link in some way while the player is playing the game. I also think the next game should have a brand new villain.
It's not the story of TOTK that's bad, it's just the Narrative.
I would like to step away from Ganondorf and that whole thing. Maybe even hyrule. And I don’t think we need different temples in different element… water, fire, air… throw out the whole formula.
The way the memories work in TotK and BotW is like Season 4 of Arrested Development. Only S4 of AR was awesome and Botw and TotK was boring and uninspired.
Totk: *has a better story that botw *
"Fans": " ZELDA NEEDS A BETTER STORY ORTHE SAGA WILL DIE!"
Echoes of wisdown: *literally has the best story of the entire saga *
Fans: "the next real zelda needs a better story or the saga will die! 😢😢😢,😫😫"
NO MORE HYRULE!! What if link returns to koholint island,or literally ANY OTHER LAND!! MY GOODNESS😤🙄☠️🙃❤️❤️
Arriveal that film did come on last month, I watched that.
It's a good one
People say MonolithSoft graphics programmers should help Pokémon, but I think considering Zelda already has Monolith devs working on 3D Zelda, get Monolith’s Xenoblade writers to help out Zelda. You know how many cried to Xenoblade 3?
How much better than TotK can the story get? 😮
its oot recycled and it retcons more than 90% of everything ever. what a garbage story. shut up
@tonedpeter just because it inolves time travelling, it is not OoT receycled 😅
Well for one thing it would have linear progression and not have to constantly repeat itself.
hi TriforceTimes
Gameplay first and story built around it after. That's always been the mantra
Make better stories , why should I care to save this immersive world if it’s a cluster fuck of in coherence?
It needs an *INFINITELY* better story.
TotK's story is bad, Fs with pre-established key lore aspects, absolutely shatters all the Master Sword's reputation, unga bunga buff Dorf with little to no ambition other than "me strongest there is" uninteresting, nearly everyone forgot who you were despite this game taking place a mere 4-6 years after Wild, Rauru existing is an insult, no Fi, no breaking of the Demise curse despite it being falsely hinted being the case what with all the Skyward Sword PR this game got (I distinctly remember Skyward Sword being advertised as heavily linked to TotK somehow which, again, is misleading as on Nintendo's part), no dog petting, no hookshot spiderman swinging with the physics being suuuuch a driving factor in these newer Zelda games, no underwater exploration instead a damp dark smelly overgrown cave can't see jack, COLLOSAL missed opportunity to hitch the princess with her handsome knight in shining armor, no stakes since Zelda's sacrifice was reversed giving the story little to no agency or consequence, Link as a protagonist felt nonexistent feels like everyone else was the star of the show not the guy who's saving all their 🫏s, no Link backstory before any of this went down aka no Arryl 2 or Granny 2 aka NOT WIND WAKER, didn't make me cry like Twilight Princess, dungeons are STILL NOT dungeons (pulling a couple levers to open a door and then be treated with literally the same copy-paste cutscene at the very end with each champion? Yeah naw), sky islands hardly anything worth noting although they are pretty asf to look at, I was expecting a totally NEW revamped endgame super Saiyan master sword golden tier 4 legendary new hilt new everything but naw same design with a booboo scar and hilariously less powerful... hoverbike autobuild pales in comparison to THE Master Cycle
As a game, sure, it's leagues above BotW but BotW will never be topped as a one-in-a-lifetime *experience*
TotK was an overblown $70 DLC and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Mid.
For the next 3D Zelda game, I hope we get a sequel of TOTK where Zelda and Link (accompanied by the Sages) travel together byeond Hyrule's borders by sea to visit a foreign country with it's own monarchs and kingdom, different settlements like Yona’s Zora Domain, and new races.
But crafted a much more linear and narrative story with serious topics like the cycle of war and peace, how it reflects the world and Hyrule’s millennia of suffering, taking the proper lesson of past history, and Zelda vowing to breaking the cycle while coming to terms that not rest of the world live up to Rauru’s eternal peace.
Thus, Link and Zelda journey together throughout foreign lands as they tried to establish a new kingdom of Hyrule as formed alliance with other neighboring kingdoms.
I've got a video with the very premise of your first paragraph - working on the rest of the story as we speak!
what a fucking nightmare
They just need to stop relying so heavily on memories and they need to hire better translators
Nah. I mean the way the story is played out isn't amazing, that being memories, but the actual story and plots were really cool
copying oot and retconning botw is so fun! love it.
The concepts of the two open world Zelda game stories are great. The execution of how they tell the stories are simply awful.
agreed
Why would I buy a switch 2 if there’s no new 3D Zelda or smash bros? It’s pointless.
The solution is plain and simple: just create more well written stories, and stop hiring writers that don’t have much experience and aren’t good writers!
did the writers on BOTW and TOTK not have much experience?
@ Never said the writers of breath of the wild didn’t have much experience. What I meant was that the recent writers within Zelda games don’t know how to write very good stories. And Tears of the Kingdom is a stark example.
just to recap you did say "stop hiring writers that don’t have much experience"
@@triforcetimes Okay, I admit, this was a mistake of mine. I should have wrote what I meant. That’s my bad.
Hot take... I seem to always bring these to your videos-sorry if it’s annoying!
That said, I don’t think the story in Tears of the Kingdom is bad at all. It’s simple, just like the stories in Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, etc. You might not like the way the story is tied to the memories mechanic, but that doesn’t mean the story itself is bad-it just means you don’t like the vehicle for the story’s progression.
When it comes to Zelda stories, there are really only two that stand out as "great": Majora’s Mask and Link’s Awakening. These games are unique within the series and known for their depth and themes, which is why they’re often celebrated for their storytelling. The rest of the games in the series are much more reductive and straightforward, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I find it surprising that we've been okay with simple Zelda stories for so long, but only now are people calling it a problem.
My final point is this: Zelda games are more about strong moments than about cohesive or complex narratives. Think about it: Twilight Princess has that iconic moment of Link and Epona on the Eldin Bridge, showing his growth and strength. Skyward Sword has that heartbreaking scene where Link finally catches up to Zelda, only to lose her again. And Tears of the Kingdom has Zelda sacrificing herself and Link catching her-powerful moments that show both characters exercising autonomy and redeeming past failures.
The Zelda series excels at delivering these impactful, unforgettable moments. We don’t remember the stories as much as we remember the moments-and that’s okay! Zelda has never been about intricate plots; it’s about giving players memorable experiences that stay with them.
Hot take over.
zeldas usually have interesting lovable characters with at least a little bit of depth, even smaller ones like telma from twilight princess or tingle in ww and Majora's mask.
All the new characters in totk are uninteresting and static. The story lacks the usual zelda charm.
@@dummyyogurt5375 Tulin is uninteresting and lacks charm? Josha isn't a lovable new character? Come on. There are plenty of valid critiques for BotW and TotK, but saying the games lack interesting characters isn't one of them. Both games offer plenty of memorable and engaging characters.
And seriously-Tingle? You used Tingle as your defense for depth? He's one of the most polarizing figures in the Zelda series and far from deep. His whole character revolves around greed and living out a bizarre fairy fantasy as a middle-aged man obsessed with rupees. He's literally one of the shallowest characters in the series.
And Telma? Ok, I think you chose a character at random because she has very little relevance to the story and not very memorable besides two obvious reasons.
The story was very good in TOTK, the dungeons need improvement
retconning all of zelda is a good story point? yeah sure
why
It would be nice but they dont need to
It just needs fun and great gameplay Nintendo makes games not movies like sony has been doing
This isn't an excuse for console wars bs
@ ~🤡
Misleading title… the gripe is with how the story is experienced rather than the quality itself. Also tbf it’s not like they took the easy way out and created a Hyrule without character. There are still very intentional details in the map and character dialogue.
it's both. Botw had interesting characters and an amazing character arc for zelda.
totk's new additions are either cardboard cutouts (Ganondorf wants to rule.....because reasons, and the sages of the past have no personality) or have no character arc (rauru and sonia). They don't even have zelda in character ; she's a huge nerd in botw and super interested in technology. Tell me why she wouldn't be glued to mineru's side the entire time she was in the past, learning all about the zonai's technology.
The current sages also have nothing going on.
This game's writing is abysmal. It's quality is 75% of why it's story is so bad. Botw's memory thing made the story a little less enjoyable, but people still liked it because it was good.
@ I don’t quite agree. By that I mean I’m not disagreeing wholeheartedly with your statements but rather the conclusion you’ve come to.
Zelda is someone likely be interested tech… but she’s stuck in the past and there’s a lot going on, I don’t think it’s exactly fair to say she’s written out of character. This happens all the time irl.
Ganondorf is Ganondorf. What more reason do we need? A living prophecy destined for power.
And the sages do have their own lives. You just seem to think their stories aren’t engaging enough. They’re not focused on for that much. I don’t believe you need every character fleshed out to make a good story.
I’m not tryna say it’s the most magnificent story either. I can’t think off the top but there’s definitely things I didn’t care for. The world is vibrant and has a lot of soul… people have careers discussing it. Everything in good story doesn’t need to be spelled out imo. I don’t these games have dropped the standard in Zelda stories.
Last thing. I think it’s fine if you dislike or even hate these games, I just don’t agree your points as I’m sure you’re probably shaking your head reading this.
Zelda Botw/Totk already have a good story (for those who really understand it), maybe what it needs is more mini-stories, if every time you find a kolog, it tells you a story about the place where you find it, Zelda Botw/Totk would be perfect games, besides Zelda is more of a lyrical experience than a narrative one, I recommend the video "The Poetry of Breath of the Wild" from the channel Writing with Andrew
I don’t like goat gods in my universe . They need to bring Zelda back to its folklore/euro centric backing .
@@hued2542 It's not your universe, if you want to have your own universe, create it and you may have 40 years of success.
The problem is that you don’t get to experience the actual story for itself which makes the experience less special and memorable. Why would I care about the great calamity or the imprisoning war if it all took place thousands of years ago and it’s already over? A good story should show and not just tell.
@@ShadowWizard224 My best moments in any Zelda game have been given to me by its gameplay, not the story.
That would be cool if we got to pick a race or Avatar as a hero. And also like maybe download Memories or something of past Heroes.
Your right they need a epic story. Echoes of wisdom story was good
I can understand why fans want a story in light of OOT and Twilight Princess, I for one really enjoyed the narrative of Twilight Princess, which enhances the gameplay somewhat… BUT traditionally, as in the original The Legend Of Zelda, the game is meant to be a “miniature garden” to explore and discover.
When I first played BOTW, I was a little disappointed in the narrative but on going back to playing The Legend Of Zelda ( the first Zelda title I played back in the early ‘90’s ) … it clicked, BOTW had gone back to the roots of the franchise somewhat… sure the dungeons weren’t set up in the same manner but we got over 100 mini dungeons and basically 5 Devine beasts and the trial of the sword along with the DLC.
I think BOTW is a masterpiece and made very good use of the memories to coincide with the story and experience in real/present time. TOTK faulted in using the same narrative as BOTW … with the only real connection to Link, is discovering what happened to Zelda and the Sacrifice that she made to bring the Master Sword back to Link.
I think it is possible to have an open world/ open air game with a story that plays out in a similar way to more story driven titles.
Do people even talk about modern zelda anymore? I think this game already killed the franchise.
Could you explain
I personally would love to continue talking, but how if there is no one to talk to?
@@triforcetimes maybe I am wrong but I think people would rather revisit older zelda games than the new ones.
@@JPARnum1I think it's time for a linear zelda by areas and fases instead of a another open world again
@@zyonmdc Here Mr. Money rules
Lore is enough for me when it comes to grand adventure games.
They could have the story in a modern day Hyrule. Kind of like how FF15 did
ToTK had one of the most shallow and rather boring narrative in any of the Zelda games. It’s built up like it has this immense scale to it but it just feels like a rehash of BotW. The coolest part imo was Zelda’s sacrifice, but they removed all the weight from it by magically bringing her back at the end. The player has no agency in the story, you just go to the four points on your map and fix the problems and beat the bad guy in the middle. And he’s evil because he’s just evil. Without a doubt the worst iteration of Ganon, lacked any actual motivation.
The story is alright. What I think it needs more than anything is to go back to the tradition of characters not actually speaking.
How about a Zelda game but set in modern times? A GTA Zelda??
It's one of the best games ever made. TH-camrs get more clicks with controversial opinions, so you see more of that now.
I agree, both BOTW and TOTK are exceptional games, perhaps two of the best. However, I wouldn't put that down to the story, I think the gameplay drives the quality in those games
Boo... yeah yeah yeah crappy story omg you are totally the first person to suggest this BOOOOOOO
Wrong.
no
No, the next game needs better dungeons. Zelda has never had a good story
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the story. I play BOTW/TOTK strictly for gameplay. It’s a lot of fun
Said no one ever.
@@iflgames3245 I say it