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[Hugare]

The game is much better than BotW, but still very flawed

It's funny to see people that said that BotW was a 10/10, then saying "oh, they fixed the weapon degradation system with Fuse now!".

So how could BotW be a 10/10 while having such an integral part of the game being "broken"? People were wearing rose-tinted glasses since it was the first open world Zelda.

All the powers are better than the first game, traversal is better, story is better (well, its there now).

But still, exploration is not rewarding, story is still meh (and badly acted), pacing isnt great, sidequests are bad, enemy variety is still pretty poor and etc. They had some cool ideas (it has the best traversal in an open world game that I've ever played), but they still have so much to improve.

What I really miss in these open world Zelda games are reasons to explore. Fuck shrines, give me sidequests with interesting characters, interesting stories to develop the whole world of Hyrule way more.

I'm playing BG 3 and I dont even know what are sidequests or mainquests there, 'cause the quality is so high throughout.

I havent felt this way about side content since TW 3. BG 3 is still a gamey ass game, but you feel totally immersed in that world because there are stories and interesting people everywhere.

 

[simpatico]

Linko Zeldoozie Nuts and Bolts was pretty cool, but I'd rather have a more straightforward Zelda experience.

 

[Evil Calvin]

I bailed after 6 hours or so. It's a slog. Not sure why everyone is whacking off to this. It's ok but not GOTY.

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

I don’t think so.

The only similarity between the BotW beasts and TotK temples is the ‘find 5 activators’. Are you saying you’d prefer all temples in TotK looked identical and all used an identical puzzle gimmick? If not, it’s a clear improvement.

While I disagree regarding the powers. The fact that you call the powers “super powered versions” of the last games also imply they’re clearly improved and have more utility.

I’d view having more, as well as more varied, traversal options as a clear improvement. Especially with the added verticality. Ascend alone is amazing.

I’ll leave it at that since I think it’s pretty obvious a lot more than adding bosses were improved.

I think you missed my points entirely. I clearly said I’d prefer larger full sized Zelda Dungeons instead of what BotW/TotK provide.

Also the powers are more versatile but inversely make the puzzle solving easier. Which is neat the first 10-20 times but it just gets boring faster.

Things weren’t improved they were added on too and make the game arguably less interesting unless you really like building random stuff.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

The game is much better than BotW, but still very flawed

It's funny to see people that said that BotW was a 10/10, then saying "oh, they fixed the weapon degradation system with Fuse now!".

So how could BotW be a 10/10 while having such an integral part of the game being "broken"? People were wearing rose-tinted glasses since it was the first open world Zelda.

All the powers are better than the first game, traversal is better, story is better (well, its there now).

But still, exploration is not rewarding, story is still meh (and badly acted), pacing isnt great, sidequests are bad, enemy variety is still pretty poor and etc. They had some cool ideas (it has the best traversal in an open world game that I've ever played), but they still have so much to improve.

What I really miss in these open world Zelda games are reasons to explore. Fuck shrines, give me sidequests with interesting characters, interesting stories to develop the whole world of Hyrule way more.

I'm playing BG 3 and I dont even know what are sidequests or mainquests there, 'cause the quality is so high throughout.

I havent felt this way about side content since TW 3. BG 3 is still a gamey ass game, but you feel totally immersed in that world because there are stories and interesting people everywhere.

I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding BG3 and how it has, for me, redefined what side content needs to be. We should be ever so lucky if Nintendo decided to get that deep with Zelda. However, this is Nintendo we're talking about so that is a very unlikely outcome.

Nevertheless, I don't understand why the weapon degradation system is broken, any more than the difficultly level of Souls games?

The weapon degradation is frustrating to be sure, but it keeps encounters fresh and difficult. At times, in ToTK, having the master sword felt too powerful.

 

[Hugare]

I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding BG3 and how it has, for me, redefined what side content needs to be. We should be ever so lucky if Nintendo decided to get that deep with Zelda. However, this is Nintendo we're talking about so that is a very unlikely outcome.

Nevertheless, I don't understand why the weapon degradation system is broken, any more than the difficultly level of Souls games?

The weapon degradation is frustrating to be sure, but it keeps encounters fresh and difficult. At times, in ToTK, having the master sword felt too powerful.

When I was at the water temple, I only had shitty weapons that were breaking with 1-4 hits when fighting the boss.

So I had no choice but to die, restart, left the temple, go find some good materials to fuse, then come back to fight the boss (that got killed easily, 'cause I now had too many great weapons lol)

To me that's bad design, imo

I'm not a huge Souls fan but I've finished some (Bloodborne, Elden Ring and DS 2) and the difficulty was always fair. Got killed 'cause I had to "git gud".

Never had to die in order to farm materials to build weapons, otherwise I would have no chance beating the boss.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I've still not gotten around to playing it, but the reception does seem to have been more muted compared to BotW. Inevitable, I suppose. BotW was a massive shake-up and everything about it was new. It's hard to have a similar impact with a game where only some things are new.

I wonder where they'll go with it next - another sequel in the same vein would still likely do decent numbers, but would people want another iteration on the same core gameplay? Fatigue might come into play. I'd be more excited to see them do something completely different - something on a slightly smaller, tighter scale. A late Windwaker sequel with all kinds of physics-based water mechanics would be absolutely my jam.

 

[Robb]

I think you missed my points entirely. I clearly said I’d prefer larger full sized Zelda Dungeons instead of what BotW/TotK provide.

Also the powers are more versatile but inversely make the puzzle solving easier. Which is neat the first 10-20 times but it just gets boring faster.

Things weren’t improved they were added on too and make the game arguably less interesting unless you really like building random stuff.

No you didn’t, what you did was change the conversation to something else. What you said was:

I got it because I saw so many people say it improved on the flaws of BotW. Well the only thing I found it improved on was the Dungeon Bosses

A direct comparison to BotW, not prior Zelda entires. But it seems you agree with me that the dungeons are improved over BotW, same with the powers etc. so I guess we agree.

Adding on to existing things is the entire point of making a sequel. Are you trying to say that adding to an existing mechanic is not an improvement if it makes the mechanic better? It sounds to me like you’re trying to argue that Ultrahand (being able to grab any object with any attribute) is somehow not an improvement over Magnesis (being able to grab only objects with metal attributes)? And that’s without even considering all the other things you can do with Ultrahand that you couldn’t with Magensis.

 

[ReBurn]

No. But I haven't played it.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I've never been the creative or legos type person. So I'm just duct taping things together has crappy and quick as possible to get the current thing done.
It's also cause I don't have a lot of gaming time these days. Can't sit around tinkering without making progress.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I have TOTK and haven’t even gotta chance to start it yet due to my backlog, but isn’t this the curse of most huge, lengthy, fetch quest-filled open world games in general?

 

[tr1p1ex]

I have TOTK and haven’t even gotta chance to start it yet due to my backlog, but isn’t this the curse of most huge, lengthy, fetch quest-filled open world games in general?

yeah it's like complaining chocolate isn't vanilla.

 

[amigastar]

IDK i just can't get into the BotW style Zeldas, I miss the old ones with real dungeons.

 

[Neff]

Yeah kinda. I put hundreds of hours into BotW, finishing it several times, but I'm still only two dungeons into TotK. It's a genuinely brilliant game and several huge leaps better than BotW, but ultimately it just isn't different enough. A new map would have helped massively, which it desperately needed and deserved imo. After having adjusted myself to all of the game's new abilities and concepts, I just don't feel like its going to continue to surprise me anymore. I will go back to it because I was enjoying it, but I'm not gripped by it like I should be. I'm normally glued to a new Zelda and play nothing else until it's finished, but I've been giving time to FFXVI and SF6, and even found a gap in my schedule to start a new game of Dark Souls II. Considering Starfield is coming next month it might be a while before I go back to Hyrule.

I think the game is objectively amazing but being very much botw all over again hurts it.

Pretty much.

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

No you didn’t, what you did was change the conversation to something else. What you said was:

A direct comparison to BotW, not prior Zelda entires. But it seems you agree with me that the dungeons are improved over BotW, same with the powers etc. so I guess we agree.

Adding on to existing things is the entire point of making a sequel. Are you trying to say that adding to an existing mechanic is not an improvement if it makes the mechanic better? It sounds to me like you’re trying to argue that Ultrahand (being able to grab any object with any attribute) is somehow not an improvement over Magnesis (being able to grab only objects with metal attributes)? And that’s without even considering all the other things you can do with Ultrahand that you couldn’t with Magensis.

I was talking about it improving on the flaws of BotW, not the mechanics. It added to the mechanics but didn’t do anything to significantly improve on parts of the game that were lacking. The powers in BotW were good, but the dungeons weren’t. They focused on the powers in TotK, and the Dungeons were barely just slightly better, but would’ve been fixed completely if they were actual classically large dungeons like older games. I’m not changing the subject, my point has been the same since my first post in the thread.

Everything is focused on the toolbox in TotK, which is fine, but i wish there was a more interesting game to go along with it. I really wanted to like it, but I just don’t care about finishing it (did 3/4 regional phenomena). I don’t care about fighting Ganondorf for the 100th time, which I never thought I’d be saying about a Zelda game. For the first time a Zelda game is too derivative of a sequel for me to not get bored of it.

 

[Spyxos]

I'm usually very critical of games, even the ones I like a lot. But with Totk, except for the fact that the weapons still break too quickly, I didn't notice much negative.

 

[RCU005]

RCU005​

Member​

I’m heartbroken, leave me alone

 

[ssringo]

Ascend is just a loading screen masked as a traversal option.

 

[Fbh]

I've never been the creative or legos type person. So I'm just duct taping things together has crappy and quick as possible to get the current thing done.
It's also cause I don't have a lot of gaming time these days. Can't sit around tinkering without making progress.

To be fair I'm the same kind of person but I think the game could have done more to actually push you to be creative.
They always give you a very obvious and very in your face solution to everything, so unless you actually want to spend 20 minutes coming up with a creative solution you can always just take 2 minutes instead and still get it done.
Of all the shrines I did there was maybe 1 or 2 where the solution wasn't instantly obvious.

Like I don't know some character wants me to take him somewhere but his carriage is broken. But the game just puts 4 big wheels on the ground like 10 feet away from it, of course I'll just attach those to the carriage and be done with it. Technically I could spend 15 minutes building some flying contraption but that's just spending more time to a accomplish the same task and you'll get the same useless reward anyway.

But I recognize that for some players coming up with a creative solution is the whole point. I guess I'm just not that type of player.

 

[EverydayBeast]

It’s a respected franchise that had the temples return, tons of action and one of the best villains of all time returning, personally the sky islands, depths, and hyrule were perfection.

 

[Thabass]

Nope. Half the fun was building shit to traverse.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

To be fair I'm the same kind of person but I think the game could have done more to actually push you to be creative.
They always give you a very obvious and very in your face solution to everything, so unless you actually want to spend 20 minutes coming up with a creative solution you can always just take 2 minutes instead and still get it done.
Of all the shrines I did there was maybe 1 or 2 where the solution wasn't instantly obvious.

Like I don't know some character wants me to take him somewhere but his carriage is broken. But the game just puts 4 big wheels on the ground like 10 feet away from it, of course I'll just attach those to the carriage and be done with it. Technically I could spend 15 minutes building some flying contraption but that's just spending more time to a accomplish the same task and you'll get the same useless reward anyway.

But I recognize that for some players coming up with a creative solution is the whole point. I guess I'm just not that type of player.

I'm glad they didn't make it harder to get the tasks done. As cool of a mechanic as I think it is, I think it gets annoying.
I've taken a step back from TotK to play FFXVI and just thinking about that stuff has me not in a hurry to pick it back up again.

 

[PatientGamer]

It's a great game, but not GoTY worthy in my view. The publisher/developer gets a pass for things most other developers would get flogged for.

 

[Robb]

I’m not changing the subject, my point has been the same since my first post in the thread.

I disagree. You said the only improvement compared to BotW was the bosses. Yet here you said:

and the Dungeons were barely just slightly better,

So obviously even you think the dungeon were indeed improved as well.

To me it just seem people look back at BotW with very nostalgia-tainted glasses. It’s difficult to find a single thing that’s not improved upon. I mean, maybe that one thing is not exactly what you wanted, but I bet it’s still way better than it was in BotW.

Anyway, I’ll stop being picky. I agree with you on the dungeons, I want them to go back to the classic dungeon style as well and imo they should’ve reduced the amount of shrines and just put some of them in the dungeons instead. I’m not sure why they feel the need to keep that ‘press 5 buttons’ design - it’s too simplistic.

 

[touchfuzzy]

No, I think it was magnificent.

 

[MiguelItUp]

I disagree OP. I don't think it's "all over the place", I actually think it has this cohesive feeling of exploration. Whether or not it's worth the time to do this quest or that quest is negligible. But I feel like the entire game is full of things to devote time to. Same with BotW. Are there similarities from BotW? Of course, and a whole lot of them. But TotK did add enough extra to make it feel even more interesting for those that enjoyed BotW. If you didn't enjoy BotW, then you won't enjoy TotK, and maybe it's just not for you. That doesn't mean the game is incredible or awful, I just think that it isn't for you which is something that happens to everyone.

That being said, I also don't think it's the "game of all time" or whatever. I think BotW and TotK are both great games and takes on the Zelda IP. I'll admit at first I really didn't care for BotW, but when it eventually clicked, much like my situation with the Souls series, it clicked in a big way. I ended up loving both BotW and TotK. The stories are eh, and so are some other things. But looking at what the original Zelda on NES was, and reimagining it, I feel like BotW and TotK nail that same vibe. It's pretty neat.

 

[Balducci30]

I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding BG3 and how it has, for me, redefined what side content needs to be. We should be ever so lucky if Nintendo decided to get that deep with Zelda. However, this is Nintendo we're talking about so that is a very unlikely outcome.
Nevertheless, I don't understand why the weapon degradation system is broken, any more than the difficultly level of Souls games?

The weapon degradation is frustrating to be sure, but it keeps encounters fresh and difficult. At times, in ToTK, having the master sword felt too powerful.

i don’t think a lot of games will have BG3 esque side content - because that whole game is built off mimicking tabletop rpg’s - the reactivity, choice, consequence - that’s basically what the game is. The actual gameplay is not really comparable to something like zelda

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Tears of the Kingdom was a joy to play through. I actually enjoyed the fact that Nintendo didn't try and reinvent the formula from BotW. So tired of playing an awesome game only to have the sequel be completely different. I'm looking at you Halo... I have some complaints with TotK sure but those complaints do not come close to changing my opinion of the game overall. Im not a huge fan of weapon durability, especially for unique weapons that you can't use again after they break. I also thought Nintendo would listen to the complaints about not having enough dungeons in BotW. Clearly they didn't listen. Massive lost opportunity by not having an actual spirit temple. I found the entrance to it early on in my exploration of the depths and was pumped to eventually get to go through it. Then it turns out to be a much smaller puzzle of piecing together parts for a sage. Boo. That was the first moment in the game where I was genuinely disappointed. otherwise I thought the story was far more engaging than BotW.

When I was at the water temple, I only had shitty weapons that were breaking with 1-4 hits when fighting the boss.

So I had no choice but to die, restart, left the temple, go find some good materials to fuse, then come back to fight the boss (that got killed easily, 'cause I now had too many great weapons lol)

To me that's bad design, imo

I'm not a huge Souls fan but I've finished some (Bloodborne, Elden Ring and DS 2) and the difficulty was always fair. Got killed 'cause I had to "git gud".

Never had to die in order to farm materials to build weapons, otherwise I would have no chance beating the boss.

You can leave a dungeon anytime you want simply by fast traveling to another shrine or location. For whatever reason I got massively confused while trying to get through the fire temple. I left and didn't come back until I had completely uncovered the depths and done a bunch of other exploration lol. The only nuisance was having the sage interrupt my travel if I ever got too close to the fire temple. "Hey I've been waiting for you!" Yeah go away lol. For the water temple you could simply jump off the edge and sky dive to the ground.

 

[TheMan]

Haven’t given it much if a chance. That said my son, who loved botw, hasn’t played much of totk because it felt too samey. That was my impression as well although I’ve only played like 30 minutes. Not really compelled to play more though

 

[Mossybrew]

I bailed after 6 hours or so. It's a slog. Not sure why everyone is whacking off to this. It's ok but not GOTY.

Yeah I find these last two Zelda games really odd. Like, they are kinda fun to mess around with for a few hours, but I find once you've played for around 10-15 hours they just get boring, playing starts to feel like a chore, you feel like you've experienced what the game has to offer long before you finish. To each their own I guess but these games are mildly entertaining diversions, nowhere near GOTY material.

 

[LakeOf9]

Honeymoon over?
I see similar takes for pretty much all modern Nintendo 1st party games a couple months past launch.

You see this kind of thread for pretty much every game a couple months after launch. In a few months we'll have people calling BG3 overrated

EDIT: OP's post history about TOTK is very telling

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

I disagree. You said the only improvement compared to BotW was the bosses. Yet here you said:

So obviously even you think the dungeon were indeed improved as well.

To me it just seem people look back at BotW with very nostalgia-tainted glasses. It’s difficult to find a single thing that’s not improved upon. I mean, maybe that one thing is not exactly what you wanted, but I bet it’s still way better than it was in BotW.

Anyway, I’ll stop being picky. I agree with you on the dungeons, I want them to go back to the classic dungeon style as well and imo they should’ve reduced the amount of shrines and just put some of them in the dungeons instead. I’m not sure why they feel the need to keep that ‘press 5 buttons’ design - it’s too simplistic.

I’ll just eloborate real quick since I didn’t have time to fully earlier. In terms of visual design and themeing, TotK Dungeons are better than BotW, which all looked samey. Gameplay/complexity wise they’re about the same and neither are very interesting compared to older games dungeons.

I think we can agree that gameplay wise full classic Zelda Dungeons would’ve been what TotK really needed, and I agree I would’ve preferred content cut elsewhere (like 40 less shrines, or less Depths, or something), and dev time put into somewhere between 4-8 real dungeons with more depth to them.

I don’t have rose tinted glasses for BotW. I liked that it shook things up, but it’s not my favorite, and TotK could’ve been one of my favorite Zelda’s if it fixed what I didn’t like about BotW (weak Dungeons and reused/stretched out content).

Good to find common ground though.

 

[Hugare]

Tears of the Kingdom was a joy to play through. I actually enjoyed the fact that Nintendo didn't try and reinvent the formula from BotW. So tired of playing an awesome game only to have the sequel be completely different. I'm looking at you Halo... I have some complaints with TotK sure but those complaints do not come close to changing my opinion of the game overall. Im not a huge fan of weapon durability, especially for unique weapons that you can't use again after they break. I also thought Nintendo would listen to the complaints about not having enough dungeons in BotW. Clearly they didn't listen. Massive lost opportunity by not having an actual spirit temple. I found the entrance to it early on in my exploration of the depths and was pumped to eventually get to go through it. Then it turns out to be a much smaller puzzle of piecing together parts for a sage. Boo. That was the first moment in the game where I was genuinely disappointed. otherwise I thought the story was far more engaging than BotW.

You can leave a dungeon anytime you want simply by fast traveling to another shrine or location. For whatever reason I got massively confused while trying to get through the fire temple. I left and didn't come back until I had completely uncovered the depths and done a bunch of other exploration lol. The only nuisance was having the sage interrupt my travel if I ever got too close to the fire temple. "Hey I've been waiting for you!" Yeah go away lol. For the water temple you could simply jump off the edge and sky dive to the ground.

I know I could, and that's what I did. I fast traveled to another location.

But the problem is not being able to beat the boss with the weapons I had at the time, obligating me to leave the dungeon in order to farm for better weapons

In Souls, you can beat the final boss with your bare hands if you are good enough. In any other game, you have at least one default weapon that you can use.

With that boss, once all my weapons broke, I was screwed. Had nothing left to use against him.

That's bad design

 

[Muffdraul]

All I know is I played TotK for 255+ hours over more than a month before I finally beat the final boss and felt like I'd had enough. I took a couple days off, then FFXVI released and I played that for about 25 hours, long enough to know for a flat fact that I fucking hated it, and next thing I knew I was back into TotK again, mopping up side quests, looking for Addison the sign simp, etc. So if it's all over the place with too much busywork, that's fine with me.

 

[El Muerto]

The gameplay wasnt bad but i hated building stuff as it took way too much time. Using bombs is incredibly frustrating as you have to combine them to weapons. And fusing is awful as you have to toss an item on the ground to fuse since you can't do it in menu. World is too large too with the air and underground maps. The abilities are not fun to use and are incredibly dumb. BOTW is definitely better.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Yeah I stopped enjoying it after a couple dozen hours. I sort of hate the underground area too.

I also just think the combat is attrocious in BotW and TotK, so that doesn't help.

The games just aren't really "For me" I guess. Had enough fun with them to justify a purchase but there's nothing driving me to finish either.

edit: Oh I will add, I really enjoyed the puzzling in the Shrines for the most part in TotK over BotW. That's basically what I focused on for my 1st 20 hours of playing, and ended up finding all of the ones that are just clearly visible and quite a few more hidden ones. Once it started to be really difficult to find puzzles is when I lost interest, as I found the quests themselves really not fun.

 

[small_law]

I didn't burn myself on BotW. I played a lot of it, did almost everything, but stuff like collecting Korok seeds was a bridge too far. I played the master sword DLC and finished it, but didn't touch the champion DLC.

I've been playing the crap out of TotK. I love it, but if I'm honest, item duplication went a LONG way to making the item grind tolerable. I'm not ashamed of it. I can't imagine grinding for all the items you need for some of the highest armor upgrades. They increased the frequency of some items appearing (star fragments, etc.), but other stuff is still a pain in the ass to get to drop.

I'm also not especially happy with how they implemented pristine weapons. You could conceivably spend the entire game without triggering the conditions that get them to spawn. Even then you have to be in the right place and know how goose the game's RNG if it isn't cooperating. I'm not one for hand holding, but the mechanic is obtuse enough so that a little side quest demonstrating how it works would have been nice. It seems like the entire system was an afterthought, like a little bonus for players that discovered what to do with it.

I could go on (especially about how horses are still a pain to use,) but this is one of my favorite games of all time. Five stars, 10/10, game of the year for me.

 

[Raven117]

Yeah. But it’s not like you have to do most of it.

 

[Madserb2023]

While I enjoyed the game, the farming for material to upgrade armored felt inorganic.

 

[xBlueStonex]

As much as I hated BOTW, I was hoping Nintendo would take TOTK in a different direction while expanding upon the original map. Nope. They literally repeat the same exact locations and plot points from the first. I got roughly 10 hours into TOTK before I put it down and had no desire to play it again.

 

[Guerilla Munch]

I finally finished all of the shrines @ 115 hours, haven't touched many sidequests and haven't explored the depths at all. Now that I've beaten the main quest and shrines I'll probably put this game down for a long time.

It definitely started to feel like a checklist game, and the checklist feels way too long. 150 shrines, 150 caves, 150 lightroots, 1000 koroks, and almost none of it is challenging whatsoever. Feels like every obstacle can be cheesed with Link's insanely OP abilities. Ascend + Rewind + ramp/bridge building made the game feel like BotW with a cheat mod.

Also the Guardians in BotW were a far more difficult and menacing enemy than anything in TotK.

Still my GotY so far, but I still think BotW is a better and more cohesive experience, especially with the DLC.

P.S. I'm not ok with my god-tier maxed-out red-maned death-bringer Linky living in a goddamn shipping container cuck shed. What the FUCK were they thinking?

 

[PianistaMacabro]

Everything you gain for exploring is to maintain the break system itself. Its a tiktok logic of rewarding you constantly with micro doses of nothing.
At the end its an enormous game which doesnt say anything. Remember getting the hookshot in ocarina? Thats the real deal with Zelda.....totk would be a great game If wasnt a zelda

 

[ChoosableOne]

I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to those who already played BotW. But for those who didn't, it's an amazing game. I don't understand how the abundance of tasks could be a negative; you can choose not to do most of them anyway. However, I even enjoy doing the Mr. Hudson quests. I love finding korok seeds, doing shrines etc. I don't want to miss any part of it.

I got a bit tired near the end of the game though and took a break, but I'm sure I'll finish the game with the same excitement when I return(probably this week). I really liked its mechanics, world, and story. I didn't have any issues with weapons; I usually have 6-7 alternative weapons at all times. And once you get the Master Sword, that issue is resolved, but I still find crafting weapons more enjoyable. It would've been much better if they made the horse like Torrent(teleportable?), that could be my only critique (I think they added this as a DLC in the first game). Rewards could be better too, yeah.

I couldn't figure out what to say to who easily completes Dark Souls but struggles with the Water Temple boss lol. It's not a hard game but not a cakewalk either. It's just perfect.

It's hard to play botw after it so play totk first if you can. I will play botw one day, with motorcycle dlc, but it won't happen in near future.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

All I know is I played TotK for 255+ hours over more than a month before I finally beat the final boss and felt like I'd had enough. I took a couple days off, then FFXVI released and I played that for about 25 hours, long enough to know for a flat fact that I fucking hated it, and next thing I knew I was back into TotK again, mopping up side quests, looking for Addison the sign simp, etc. So if it's all over the place with too much busywork, that's fine with me.

I know I've put over 200 hours into the game, but haven't checked recently. And I have put off finishing the storyline in favor of finding remaining armors and upgrading the ones I like.

Yeah I stopped enjoying it after a couple dozen hours. I sort of hate the underground area too.

Oh I loved the depths. The whole environment was so well done and mysterious. A massive underground world to explore obscured by darkness? Yes please.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Oh I loved the depths. The whole environment was so well done and mysterious. A massive underground world to explore obscured by darkness? Yes please.

Yeah a couple of my friends love it; clearly Nintendo made a game that a whole lot of people love.

They just focused on things that aren't up my alley (the fusing/building mechanics aren't really my thing either) and left it so the combat is a chore.

I also think that playing post-dupe bug makes a huge difference. All of my friends don't understand my complaints, but then again they loaded their inventories up with endless materials lol

 

[zeldaring]

The gameplay wasnt bad but i hated building stuff as it took way too much time. Using bombs is incredibly frustrating as you have to combine them to weapons. And fusing is awful as you have to toss an item on the ground to fuse since you can't do it in menu. World is too large too with the air and underground maps. The abilities are not fun to use and are incredibly dumb. BOTW is definitely better.

yea i'm 50 hours in and it's very difficult to enter a flow state in this game. probably need like 120 hours lol but i'm good. people

I didn't burn myself on BotW. I played a lot of it, did almost everything, but stuff like collecting Korok seeds was a bridge too far. I played the master sword DLC and finished it, but didn't touch the champion DLC.

I've been playing the crap out of TotK. I love it, but if I'm honest, item duplication went a LONG way to making the item grind tolerable. I'm not ashamed of it. I can't imagine grinding for all the items you need for some of the highest armor upgrades. They increased the frequency of some items appearing (star fragments, etc.), but other stuff is still a pain in the ass to get to drop.

I'm also not especially happy with how they implemented pristine weapons. You could conceivably spend the entire game without triggering the conditions that get them to spawn. Even then you have to be in the right place and know how goose the game's RNG if it isn't cooperating. I'm not one for hand holding, but the mechanic is obtuse enough so that a little side quest demonstrating how it works would have been nice. It seems like the entire system was an afterthought, like a little bonus for players that discovered what to do with it.

I could go on (especially about how horses are still a pain to use,) but this is one of my favorite games of all time. Five stars, 10/10, game of the year for me.

Man the game is such a grind with cooking and just basic gear for heat and cold climates like im so annoyed by the heat climate right now the near end game that I just want to quit. Like I'm constantly worrying about food to for the heat since I can't afford the gear. It's a 8 at best.

 

[gaming_again]

The game looks awful, visually. Not just technically but aesthetically as well. Everything looks completely washed out, devoid of contrast and i don't think i ever seen any color darker than light gray. The whole trial and error crafting system looks like annoying busywork that i know i will have to use all the time to be able to see all the content. The korok seeds and durability system are also back, the worst aspects of BOTW that i hoped to not have to deal again.

I also can't believe they still didn't manage to find a way to quickly equip armor sets for specific situations. It's like OOT water temple all over again x 100. Which is another thing that adds to the busywork.

So yeah, i don't think i will be playing this one any time soon.

If 12 year old me could hear such a negative viewpoint about a new Zelda game he would die of a broken heart. It agree with you.

 

[zeldaring]

If 12 year old me could hear such a negative viewpoint about a new Zelda game he would die of a broken heart. It agree with you.

I'm playing on handheld so it hide the flaws but God the frame rate is horrible in the sand temple. out of arrows have to go farm some, seriously frick this game, but i'm near the end and gonna finish cause i'm stubborn.

 

[eNT1TY]

I couldn't be bothered to beat, i gave it an honest go (about 30 hours) but it started getting samey and boring. Loved BOTW then but the loop became stale this time around despite the added mechanics, this just felt like an expansion pack. This and Diablo 4 put me to sleep (no not figuratively, like i have full blown dreams during my full slumber) in like an hour of play, no other games do that.

 

[Happosai]

After 100%ing botw back when it came out having to repeat pretty much all of the same shit again was too draining for me. There is some new and exciting stuff but the majority of the game is still the same busy work I was already fed up with. The godawful story being a worse version of the already bad botw plot was the last straw. I took a break for a week and I honestly can't force myself to go back despite the game finally picking up after the miserable first 30 hours. The good bits just aren't enough to keep me going.

Pretty much this. And the fact that the whole fusing bit sums up how they put this game together. You're playing 3 games fused into one which is sorta a downer for a LoZ title: Minecraft, BotW and possibly elements of Skyward sword.