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As someone who didn’t like BoTW very much, ToTK is great

Mondai

Member
I’ve shared my disappointment with BoTW here before , I still think it’s a pretty boring game after a few hours but ToTK, I think, is one of the best games ever made. To me ToTK is what BOTW should have been since it improves on BoTW on so much stuff for me (better dungeons, better shrines, better mechanics) it so much more enjoyable to explore even if it is the same map for the most part , it just feels a lot better to me than BOTW. I can see ToTK win game of the year easily. For anyone else who was disappointed with BOTW and decided to give ToTK a chance, what’s your experience with it been?
 
my experience has been the opposite, actually. i've played/replayed botw & loved it, but after a couple dozen hours & 1 dungeon, i'm not getting into totk very much at all. really dislike the fidgety building stuff, & preferred botw's combat difficulty & shrines. purely subjective, but i think the sequel simply lacks the heart, & the impact, of the original...
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
yeah getting kinda sick of this sudden BOTW was a beta that game fucking blew any open world away when it came out..
it ruined horizon for me and any other "open" world games for years to come.. the only game that nailed it after botw was elden ring.

is totk an even better game? yes
why? it's even more open.
 
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Luipadre

Member
my experience has been the opposite, actually. i've played/replayed botw & loved it, but after a couple dozen hours & 1 dungeon, i'm not getting into totk very much at all. really dislike the fidgety building stuff, & preferred botw's combat difficulty & shrines. purely subjective, but i think the sequel simply lacks the heart, & the impact, of the original...

This is me. I got bored really fast. Im still gonna finish it one day but only playing the game when i feel like it
 
my experience has been the opposite, actually. i've played/replayed botw & loved it, but after a couple dozen hours & 1 dungeon, i'm not getting into totk very much at all. really dislike the fidgety building stuff, & preferred botw's combat difficulty & shrines. purely subjective, but i think the sequel simply lacks the heart, & the impact, of the original...

Agreed.

I like both games but redoing shrines and exploring gets old and dull
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I personally I always liked BotW and it was easy for me to be excited for TotK but even with that I'm liking TotK waaaaay more than I anticipated.

These guys absolutely nailed the sense of exploration and adventure
 
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Majukun

Member
it's a very different game than botw...the main gameplay loop is completely turned upside-down, and still have to decide if i like the change or not (but i do recognize that you can't just make a botw2 and expect to have the same impact, let alone using the same map.

it's definitely a "denser" game, that instead of letting you explore and forge your path, likes to pull you continuously in different directions and allows you to jump from one side of the map to the other thanks to the verticality and new machines...gone is the game of currencies and weapon management of the first game though...as long as you engage powerful monsters often, you'll never run out of good weapons...and now you just need a gemstone (a rare but not that rare drop) to access all the elements, instead of having to carry a weapon of each just in case--you can even make mining tools out of stuff from the ground...

I keep playing the game so for sure i'm liking it, but i think that at the time botw caught me more.
 

Mozzarella

Member
I loved Breath of the Wild but yeah Tears of the Kingdom is better, i guess now i am obliged to downrate BoTW a bit, since TOTK is just the same but better in every way.
 
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RobRSG

Member
I think that TOTK won me because of the new abilities and how the towers work now. It is so much easier to traverse that finding shrines and other stuff has been really enjoyable.
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
I’ve shared my disappointment with BoTW here before , I still think it’s a pretty boring game after a few hours but ToTK, I think, is one of the best games ever made. To me ToTK is what BOTW should have been since it improves on BoTW on so much stuff for me (better dungeons, better shrines, better mechanics) it so much more enjoyable to explore even if it is the same map for the most part , it just feels a lot better to me than BOTW. I can see ToTK win game of the year easily. For anyone else who was disappointed with BOTW and decided to give ToTK a chance, what’s your experience with it been?
Not that I was disappointed per say with botw but I didn't love it as much as everyone else and started to turn on it slowly as it kept getting claim and then elden ring came out and I thought botw was more of a joke as time went on.

This though is much much better. It's jam packed with stuff to do. The quests are more interesting and although not as the level story wise of most open world games there is a lot less repetition.

Weapon durabity has been fixed to a proper level ( when you do it right). The ui has been tweaked and the world is a lot lot less empty..there is something to do in this game no matter what mood you're in.
Feeling creative? Build something. Feel like a challenge? Go to the depths and challenge a collpseum. Feel like wondering around aimlessly? There are korok seeds to find, stables to find, shrines to uncover.
Feel like something epic? Do the main tears quests
Feel like something light? The stables side quests are great etc.

It's botw on steroids. And I love it. I never thought it would reach the level of elden ring for me but I think I may prefer it.
 

Neff

Member
BotW's map suited its design mandate perfectly. Since the game was more or less entirely horizontal, it could stuff the horizon with content. It didn't matter where you stood, your eyes were constantly alerted by equidistant distractions both small and significant.

TotK isn't like that of course. In addition to the game being broken up between numerous planes, its shrines, quests and points of interest are hidden a great deal more than they were before. And because we're still using a map of the same size, that means there's a lot more wandering around with less moment-to-moment content to discover than before. Thankfully there are more ways to traverse the environment, but it still can make the game feel lonely at times compared to BotW.

It's my only complaint about the game. In every other way, it's leaps and bounds better than BotW. More exploration, more variety, more problem solving (both vague dialogue hints and geographical puzzles), more bosses, more enemy types- it's truly incredible. While it'll never replace ALttP in my heart, I have to admit that it's pretty much the ultimate Zelda game.
 
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GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
BOTW is likes the fat drunk brother that the parents gave less favouritisms to than the golden boy TOTK (Mark) screw you Mark

gets the crud outta town

oh-yeah-mrw.gif
 
BOTW feels dull and lifeless now

Its the Wish version of TOTK and I'm nevers evers going back
It was always dull and lifeless. I'm in the same boat as OP. TOTK is phenomenal tho. Exploring is probably the best of any game I've ever played. Combat is still pretty damn mediocre tho
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
my experience has been the opposite, actually. i've played/replayed botw & loved it, but after a couple dozen hours & 1 dungeon, i'm not getting into totk very much at all. really dislike the fidgety building stuff, & preferred botw's combat difficulty & shrines. purely subjective, but i think the sequel simply lacks the heart, & the impact, of the original...

I was concerned about it too, like too much reliance on the new mechanics and the islands, but actually once you get down to lookout landing you can really play it as mostly a BOTW-like experience, if you want to. I think the sky islands were overplayed in the marketing, they don't make nearly as big an impact, most of the adventuring is on the ground so far. In fact the start of the game feels completely disconnected from the main game once you get down to the ground. I like the aesthetic of the sheika shrines and tech better, but I think TOTK is just so much more expansive with a lot more to do, it feels more alive and epic.
 
I was concerned about it too, like too much reliance on the new mechanics and the islands, but actually once you get down to lookout landing you can really play it as mostly a BOTW-like experience, if you want to. I think the sky islands were overplayed in the marketing, they don't make nearly as big an impact, most of the adventuring is on the ground so far. In fact the start of the game feels completely disconnected from the main game once you get down to the ground. I like the aesthetic of the sheika shrines and tech better, but I think TOTK is just so much more expansive with a lot more to do, it feels more alive and epic.
i agree that the sky islands are as much a marketing ploy as anything else. but it's the depths that i have maybe my biggest problem with. the area's huge, & it's ugly as hell, & i have no desire whatsoever to spend hours in it. what some seem to find scary is, for me, just incredibly tedious...

at ground level? it's fine - but, i don't know, the more simplistic story, mechanics & overall nature of botw, imo, just felt much more comfortable? more 'zelda'?...

to the point of me boxing up my switch today, & going out & trading in some gameboy games for a gamecube. glad you & others are enjoying totk. me, i'll be spending my time with ocarina & windwaker...
 
Combat that makes you go to your menu every few seconds to be compelling is not good combat. In your opinion it has a high skill ceiling, but Nintendo makes sure the game can easily be beaten by casual gamers
Well, that's kind of the implication of the term ceiling - it can be played by many but the "ceiling" for higher achievement is way up there. Melee is another good example of this.

I don't really agree about the menus, though. I get where you're coming from, but I just don't see how this variety of interaction could be handled without some menus since so much is going on.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
I liked BoTW much more during the DLC, I don't know if it was the full stamina bar, extra powers and faster recharges, or just taking my time wandering rather than trying to squeeze out a plot where there was little, but I'd imagine it's the same, the extra mobility and avoidance of some of the drudgery (slow climbing and then finding you're out of stamina right at the top etc)
 
I liked BoTW much more during the DLC, I don't know if it was the full stamina bar, extra powers and faster recharges, or just taking my time wandering rather than trying to squeeze out a plot where there was little, but I'd imagine it's the same, the extra mobility and avoidance of some of the drudgery (slow climbing and then finding you're out of stamina right at the top etc)
That is some of my favorite parts of both games - those early limitations. It's exciting slowly building up my resources and stamina, but not as excited once I've done so. I can understand why someone wouldn't like that though.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Combat that makes you go to your menu every few seconds to be compelling is not good combat. In your opinion it has a high skill ceiling, but Nintendo makes sure the game can easily be beaten by casual gamers

nopes the opposite of what you say heard many complaining its too hard

you can plays the game however you want the options in combats are staggering and casual gamers better makes sure they have lots of bomb arrows or stamima to runs away if they want to explores the dangerous areas Hyrule
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I liked BoTW much more during the DLC, I don't know if it was the full stamina bar, extra powers and faster recharges, or just taking my time wandering rather than trying to squeeze out a plot where there was little, but I'd imagine it's the same, the extra mobility and avoidance of some of the drudgery (slow climbing and then finding you're out of stamina right at the top etc)
The limitation is what makes act of exploring so fun and exciting, I actually have to think and use my tools to traverse its tricky environments, that what makes them fun.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
my experience has been the opposite, actually. i've played/replayed botw & loved it, but after a couple dozen hours & 1 dungeon, i'm not getting into totk very much at all. really dislike the fidgety building stuff, & preferred botw's combat difficulty & shrines. purely subjective, but i think the sequel simply lacks the heart, & the impact, of the original...
KINDA get it, I mean, I feel TOTK has waaaay more content density which makes it basically be an unlimited stream of events/fun every time. Totally nailed it.

But at the same time, the "emptyness" complaint some had with BOTW didn't click with me, I think the blank spaces between events was actually an strength to me, the game is so "zen-inducing" letting me explore with my mind totally relaxed, same feel I got with Ghostwire Tokyo btw... and I think TOKT lacks that... But that's not bad, it's just both games are way too different and have very different approachs each other.

BTW, TOTK is so great that I was burnt out of BOTW, even played it the last time a week before TOTK release just out of "closing the circle" with it (doing what I wanted to do before moving on from it definitely), but TOTK has me hooked, I'm still burnt out of exploration and want to go to main quest but damn shrines and random events are amazing, I'm always like "Oh, gotta go there? fuck it, I'm done for now..." then I'm "damn, can't believe I got here and now can't stop playing" lol.

Still reticent to go to sky and the depts for now frequently, I'll do main stuff and shrines to get powerups and hearts/stamina, play until I'm satisfied, then leave the game while I do/play something else and come back to explore, this game is GIGANTIC, and is so different from BOTW that I don't feel like playing the same most of the time, far from iterative.

Hell, even the map is far from looking alike, most of the time I don't even know where I am even tho I'm supposed to know from playing BOTW so much, specially since coming back to do optional stuff since 2 years ago every now and then after beating it.
 
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nopes the opposite of what you say heard many complaining its too hard

you can plays the game however you want the options in combats are staggering and casual gamers better makes sure they have lots of bomb arrows or stamima to runs away if they want to explores the dangerous areas Hyrule
The only thing that Nntendo made hard in TOTK is that enemies deal a shitload of damage, especially early game with low health. Nothing mechanically makes the enemies interesting or difficult in TOTK tho. It's all just ok. And that is fine. I'm happy they focused on the open world. It's not a gamebreaker for me. It is just the one part of the game that keeps it from being an all-timer for me. Still playing the shit out of it
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
The game is much, much better while still having a lot of the same flaws.

But the good things make the bad things more bearable this time.

It could even end as my goty if spidey 2, starfield and ff16 are not on par.
 
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Forth

Neophyte
It's the best game I've ever played and I don't see anything topping it.
My only disappointment with it is that I wish the Sky Islands were more substantial.
 
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