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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |OT|

Nydius

Member
The depths are interesting - it's so unlike other Nintendo games, really creepy down there. Stumbling towards some distant light in the gloom.
The Depths are interesting for a few hours. Until you realize that “stumbling toward some distant light in the gloom” is all there is to it.

There’s really nothing interesting down there outside of story beats and the Master Kogha side quest. Large swaths of open, empty space with a handful of enemy encampments and Yiga forts here and there.

Once I realized each Lightroot corresponded with a surface shrine, the main reason I bothered with the depths was to locate shrines I hadn’t yet found.

As for being something Nintendo’s never done before, the Dark World in LTTP would like to have a word.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
The Depths are interesting for a few hours. Until you realize that “stumbling toward some distant light in the gloom” is all there is to it.

There’s really nothing interesting down there outside of story beats and the Master Kogha side quest. Large swaths of open, empty space with a handful of enemy encampments and Yiga forts here and there.

Once I realized each Lightroot corresponded with a surface shrine, the main reason I bothered with the depths was to locate shrines I hadn’t yet found.

As for being something Nintendo’s never done before, the Dark World in LTTP would like to have a word.
I think it has a lot of good treasures and is essential for battery increase.
 

ChazAshley

CharAznable's second cousin
Just finished the game last night - originally wanted to hold off on the main storyline stuff, but after doing the memory quest - needed closure and went through. Good straightforward end game. Probably too easy for people even for people who put in 30-40 hours into the game.

My final rating 9/10 - some of these reasons being similar to all y'alls critiques:

Random thoughts:

+ Amount of content is mind boggling - 100 hours in, main quest done - but still feel like I'm not even halfway done. Say what you will about DLC this, I think it was worth $70
+ The thrill of discovery is still there - similar to BOTW - but to a lesser extent. Less on the exploration aspect (not a critique, but the towers really remove the need to actually walk around everywhere), but more on the fun interactions that you have with fusing and seeing what they can do.
+ Although it can be frustrating to some, not being able to figure out how to solve certain puzzles but creating your own jank way of getting to your goal is funny. I found myself saying, "goooooood enough for me" even though it wasn't the intended solution.
+ I love Ascend
- There's something off with the fighting in this game. I'm sure they shrank the headshot hitbox for the enemies so thats harder, but I feel like it's not as exact as BOTWs for some reason. Flurry dodges seem harder to do as well. Perhaps it's just me.
- Wish there was a better way to light up the depths, instead of throwing/shooting light seeds everywhere. Still loved the depths though in the beginning - the creepiness was awesome. The first time I saw the tree enemies was not on the overworld but in the depths - so that freaked me out like crazy.
- Companions as stated numerous times - there must be a better way.
- Dungeons were an afterthought - honestly felt like busy work where it was less focus on the puzzles, but finding where the puzzles were and then just doing the theme.
- Because of the less frequent spawns - feels a little bit more grindy
- They really need to change/add to the voice actors for the NPCs - their repeated grunts and ah's are annoying.

But despite all these things - just had too much fun in the game. Do I want another BOTW style Zelda? I definitely had fun with this game, but I'm done with this style and would love a more linear Zelda. Perhaps... if they had an open world and traded in the shrines for 8 solid traditional dungeons, that'd be cool.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
‘You can’t take that out there.’
arthur-fist.gif
 

SegaManAU

Gold Member
I need to work on my parry a bit more. Got smashed by Ganon.

I'm re-assessing my health options, weapons and tactics before I try again haha
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
I like the Hero of Time outfit, but they all look sharp! Love them being included.
I prefer the cap of the wild as it retains links haircut, so i need to choose a set which matches that color.
But i agree, it is great that they included all outfits. Kinda wish they included the Hyrule Warriors one too.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
Last night spent 40 minutes making some weird ass climbing contraption with some poles in a shrine, climbing up a giant gear, then using recall to push the platform back up to where it needed to be.

Thinking back on it I just needed to use ascend a couple times :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Jesus christ im a moron
 
Beat the game and while I enjoyed it largely throughout, it’s a bit disappointing to me since it retains all the same flaws as BOTW, retains the same overworld and yet the areas it does introduce simply aren’t compelling to me.

The new powers are better, but I found that they limited how interesting the puzzles could be. The dungeons are a massive disappointment, the combat has not improved, the basic structure of the game is largely the same, and the companion design was not well implemented. The fuse system and durability is tedious, the armor and upgrades largely trivial.

On the positives, I found the story to be quite well told and the bosses were easy but rather fun. I liked the Zonai history and intrigue that brought to the game.

But on the whole? This game is hugely bloated and there’s little incentive to do all it has to offer because it’s just not that good or rewarding.

I definitely want a return to classic Zelda. Smaller map, meaty dungeons and upgrades, more mature style and tone. I don’t need Zelda to be 20 hours of meat filled with 80 hours of semi-required fluff and busy work; give me 30-40 hours of focused, compelling design. For all the hate Skyward Sword gets, I enjoyed it more than I did TotK.
 
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SegaManAU

Gold Member
90 hours. Just finished today.

Amazing game and my GOTY so far.

Going to take a break from it for now. It's been nothing but Zelda since it launched.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
After a bit over a hundred hours, it's fair to say I really enjoy the game but it also has some pretty big faults. On the plus side, the sheer amount of stuff to do makes wandering around compelling in a way that BotW never really was for me - I ran out of interest in that game around 30 hours in - and the greatly increased enemy variety helps things feel fresh. I'm not especially interested in the classic armours or weapons, but they add to a more interesting variety of rewards than everything being a shrine. On that note, the shrines are also generally more compact and better for it, as well as the variety of challenges feeling greater. The Ultrahand mechanic, even if I'm not someone who feels inclined to be especially inventive with it, is also incredibly impressive and can be quite entertaining. Ascend, too, is a nice addition which is a rare example of the game cutting down timewasting.

On that note, the downsides. This feels like a game which takes an inordinate amount of time to do a lot of small things, and almost always puts extra steps in your way. This can be small things that add up, like the text in shrines taking forever to disappear or having to skip multiple short cutscenes upon collecting a Blessing, or bigger things, like having to visit two locations to convert zonaite into batteries. The controls can be idiotically cumbersome (and having a dedicated whistling button beggars belief considering how many vastly more essential functions could have done with it) and not without the occasional glitch, like the glider very intermittently not opening on the first button press or Link's movement sometimes spazzing out for a split-second (there are conditions that tend to trigger this, but I can't remember what they are). The amount of farming is also insane and if it weren't for the item duplication glitch when it came to building up my battery specifically, I might well have largely ignored the depths, which are agonising slow to traverse and illuminate without being able to build a vehicle to greatly speed things up.
Autobuild
should have been more easily accessible given its importance in the same way that dumping Hestu out in the middle of nowhere and hoping players stumble upon him is insanity, just as it was in BotW. A friend was getting frustrated with the game so I sent him a list of things to do to get him properly into the game, and the list kept getting longer and longer. It seems most people are more than happy with it but to me the game has a very big barrier for entry before you can start enjoying it fully, sometimes requiring cheating (item duplication) to make surmounting it more bearable.

As I said, I really like the game but it does seem to get in its own way quite a bit. And most of the dungeons/temples and their associated bosses are still a bit rubbish, only now the powers you get from them are largely useless as well.
I definitely hate the unnecessary anxiety inducing time some minor stuff like the unskippable shrines text, I'm a very anxious person in general so that makes me get mad each time it's repeated twice.

But that's something I can deal with. The sages skills though... Why such a perfect game like this has literally the worse user experience of any game I've played ever regarding this feature? BOTW did it well, they just had to build upon it. Sometimes I trigger two skills without realizing before I could pick an item... I've also taken screenshots of moments where the AI stops far away for some reason or takes the longest possible way to reach me. It's just so badly designed I'm shocked how Nintendo even passed this on testing. They are too unfeasible at every level of usability that I'd started to ditch them completely if it wasn't for those rare moments they actually work, I just don't want to go to menu to enable them each time.
 
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Forth

Neophyte
This game has ruined gaming for me, especially Sony's AAA games like FW and Days Gone, I just can't go back to those games anymore.
Personally I now think they would have worked better as being far more linear.
TOTKs physics, freedom, interactivity and movement is what every open world game should be from now on.
This is without a doubt, the best game I've ever played, the hours just fall away when I'm in this world and I really hope the DLC does it justice.
 
are all pieces of armor part of a 3 pieces set or there are some spares in the game?
There are 30+ sets, comprised of 3 pieces (and all but one give a set bonus if wearing all pieces upgraded to +2), and almost as many "one-off" costumes (almost all headgears, with one armor that takes all 3 slots).
 
I finally beat my first Gleeoks! I killed the Thunder variants in both Akkala and the ruined coliseum. I tried a Flame one a while ago, but it seemed to create a very hot environment around itself and I didn't have the gear to resist that... although, if they act like the Thunder ones, that effect might disappear once you've shot the heads and it's down?

I'm not sure what they're vulnerable to, so I just used non-elemental keese eyes; they weren't actually that tough, although I'll need to get some more silver monster horns lol (I was using a silver boss bokoblin horn on either a biggoron, or fierce deity sword 💀). Also, Phantom Armor rocks, too bad you can't upgrade it... ha, who am I kidding, I still havent even started the Great Fairies quest. Not the easiest one to get early, but very good until you can upgrade other armors.
 

Marvel14

Banned
The Depths are interesting for a few hours. Until you realize that “stumbling toward some distant light in the gloom” is all there is to it.

There’s really nothing interesting down there outside of story beats and the Master Kogha side quest. Large swaths of open, empty space with a handful of enemy encampments and Yiga forts here and there.

Once I realized each Lightroot corresponded with a surface shrine, the main reason I bothered with the depths was to locate shrines I hadn’t yet found.

As for being something Nintendo’s never done before, the Dark World in LTTP would like to have a word.
There are a couple of unique monsters that are fun to battle, some cool gear and build plans to find in Yiga encampments and the game urges you to use your own builds to get around as you build battery capacity, which gets easier when you find the mine down there...also the Poes can be exchanged for something but still haven't figured out what. Besides that, Battles are harder against Gloom enemies so more satisfying to complete, attacking mining enemies and getting all their hard grafting is particularly satisfying, finding a skeleton horse is a nice way to completely avoid the gloom and traversing in the smoky dark and infiltrating Yiga encampments with those low red green glow lights is all super atmospheric...and let's not forget the misty statues with sturdier weaponry!

And one of the Temples is down there as well as some constructor bosses....it's less empty than you're giving it credit for.
 
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Jsisto

Member
I hope they really go all out on the difficulty with the Master Mode and any additional dlc campaigns for this one. The huge enemy variety and abilities at your disposal really make it ripe for lots of unique combat situations. I’m talking like, I wanna be put into a situation where I can fight three Gleoks(all three elements)at once. Assuming that wouldn’t crash the game, of course.
 
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daveonezero

Banned
I hope they really go all out on the difficulty with the Master Mode and any additional dlc campaigns for this one. The huge enemy variety and abilities at your disposal really make it ripe for lots of unique combat situations. I’m talking like, I wanna be put into a situation where I can fight three Gleoks(all three elements)at once. Assuming that wouldn’t crash the game, of course.
Agreed. I hope they go a little crazy with it. It’s sort of ripe for a lot of additional content.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
Just played like 8 hours today, it's been a while since I beat the water temple but I decided not to go to the gerudo part of the map, instead did a bunch of quests in tarrey town, kakariko, hateno and lurelin, the fight in lurelin was almost impossible with my current weapons and armor but I managed...

I'm in dire need of better armor tho, any recommendations? I'll be trying to complete the stable missions regarding the zelda sightings tomorrow probably.
 
Just played like 8 hours today, it's been a while since I beat the water temple but I decided not to go to the gerudo part of the map, instead did a bunch of quests in tarrey town, kakariko, hateno and lurelin, the fight in lurelin was almost impossible with my current weapons and armor but I managed...

I'm in dire need of better armor tho, any recommendations? I'll be trying to complete the stable missions regarding the zelda sightings tomorrow probably.
Fierce Deity set if you have unlocked Great Fairies and can upgrade it. Easy to get early, comes with one of the strongest weapons in the game.
Phantom Armor set if can't upgrade. Same basic damage bonus as Fierce Deity, with double the defense. Somewhat harder to get, and all 3 parts are in/near the Gerudo region where you haven't been yet.
 

Hardensoul

Member
Fierce Deity set if you have unlocked Great Fairies and can upgrade it. Easy to get early, comes with one of the strongest weapons in the game.
Phantom Armor set if can't upgrade. Same basic damage bonus as Fierce Deity, with double the defense. Somewhat harder to get, and all 3 parts are in/near the Gerudo region where you haven't been yet.
Sleepwalker Sleepwalker Also Royal Guards set which can be found in Hyrule Castle, if you’ve explored in BoTW it’s still somewhat Similar layout. I was able to upgraded to x3 which is still good for Attack power and Defense. There are also powerful weapons there that respawn after Bloodmoon.

Also take advantage of Bloodmoon if you want to farm weapons or helpful items respawn spots. Use markers!! So many available in game marker stamps!
 
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SCB3

Member
Just finished the game last night - originally wanted to hold off on the main storyline stuff, but after doing the memory quest - needed closure and went through. Good straightforward end game. Probably too easy for people even for people who put in 30-40 hours into the game.

My final rating 9/10 - some of these reasons being similar to all y'alls critiques:

Random thoughts:

+ Amount of content is mind boggling - 100 hours in, main quest done - but still feel like I'm not even halfway done. Say what you will about DLC this, I think it was worth $70
+ The thrill of discovery is still there - similar to BOTW - but to a lesser extent. Less on the exploration aspect (not a critique, but the towers really remove the need to actually walk around everywhere), but more on the fun interactions that you have with fusing and seeing what they can do.
+ Although it can be frustrating to some, not being able to figure out how to solve certain puzzles but creating your own jank way of getting to your goal is funny. I found myself saying, "goooooood enough for me" even though it wasn't the intended solution.
+ I love Ascend
- There's something off with the fighting in this game. I'm sure they shrank the headshot hitbox for the enemies so thats harder, but I feel like it's not as exact as BOTWs for some reason. Flurry dodges seem harder to do as well. Perhaps it's just me.
- Wish there was a better way to light up the depths, instead of throwing/shooting light seeds everywhere. Still loved the depths though in the beginning - the creepiness was awesome. The first time I saw the tree enemies was not on the overworld but in the depths - so that freaked me out like crazy.
- Companions as stated numerous times - there must be a better way.
- Dungeons were an afterthought - honestly felt like busy work where it was less focus on the puzzles, but finding where the puzzles were and then just doing the theme.
- Because of the less frequent spawns - feels a little bit more grindy
- They really need to change/add to the voice actors for the NPCs - their repeated grunts and ah's are annoying.

But despite all these things - just had too much fun in the game. Do I want another BOTW style Zelda? I definitely had fun with this game, but I'm done with this style and would love a more linear Zelda. Perhaps... if they had an open world and traded in the shrines for 8 solid traditional dungeons, that'd be cool.
I'd be content with this style of Zelda alternating with more classic stuff like Links Awakening's Remake tbh, I know WW and TP HD are coming to switch at some point, so that will cover that for the rest of the Switch's life
 

Jsisto

Member
Noticed if you wear one of the divine beast masks, the corresponding races sage will also wear it. Cool little touch! As far as I can tell it doesn’t add any additional buff to their abilities, but I could be wrong.
 

ChazAshley

CharAznable's second cousin
Noticed if you wear one of the divine beast masks, the corresponding races sage will also wear it. Cool little touch! As far as I can tell it doesn’t add any additional buff to their abilities, but I could be wrong.
SUPPOSEDLY it shortens their cooldown times and increased atk - but I haven't checked myself - just by seeing some things on twitter
 
I find this game interesting. I am truly amazed the devs got this game running without bugs as much as possible. Really impressive. I think the game takes FAR too long to get going. The original sky island is a huge turn off.

Now, my big issue with the game. The controls are actually TOO MUCH. There is so many menus and systems. Feels like it belongs on a keyboard. I think it is too much, I want to love it, but it is behind BOTW to me, even though it does everything better. I also think this game would have benefited by new hardware, but it wouldn’t change the controls problem.

I think this is controversial, but the next Zelda needs to move away from the BOTW/TOTK model.

Personally, I would like a Zelda that is story driven remake ala Ocarina of Time, or a souls like game. Maybe Zelda II remake as a Souls game. For HD2D, I want to see LTTP remake.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I have done 132 shrines. I finally found some bargainer statues. 3 in the deep. I think I have sky shrines left to get, but I am not sure what shrines I have missed. I know there are 2 in the lost woods I haven't made it to. Other than that I am ready for Gannon.
 
Over a hundred hours in and I finished the story. That moment when she does the thing. The final boss fight. That moment.
The dive to save Zelda. I don't think I've ever felt a moment like that where I'd never forgive myself if I failed the very last sequence of actions.
It's a great sense of accomplishment for me personally, all the work put towards getting strong enough.

It wasn't all peaches and cream though. Plenty of frustrating moments down in the deep and wtf moments when you realize you needed a little bit more of this or that and have to stop progressing and go seek them out to advance. Still, amazing game overall. Loved it, and I'll keep going back from time to time to explore more. I left a lot off stuff undone, but I don't think I'll ever go back to the start and go through the trials and tribulations of getting strong again.

Now I'm ready for FFXVI. Bring it on!
 
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Robb

Gold Member
I’ll consider the game finished now. I’ve done all shrines and light roots.
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Total game time: 120h+

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Easiest 10/10 I’ve ever given. There’s definitely stuff I want them to improve on in the future but every complaint just seems so small in the grand scheme of things. For every negative there’s like 100 positives.
 
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