Tears of the Kingdom Review | Mindless Fun in a Mediocre Adventure
I was so disappointed with Tears of the Kingdom that I felt the need to step away from the usual content to make a review on why Tears of the Kingdom is not particularly good.
Why Tears of the Kingdom’s bridge physics have game developers wowed
www.polygon.com/legend-zelda-...
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
0:56 What Breath of the Wild Was Missing
6:26 The Great Sky Island
9:02 Ultrahand: It's Hard to be Creative
12:48 Fusion & Weapon Breaking
16:36 The Many UI/UX Issues
23:40 Onwards to Lookout Landing
28:37 Exploring the Surface
41:09 The Sky is Boring
44:18 The Depths are Shallow
51:36 Shrines
54:56 Regional Phenomena & Disappointing Dungeons
1:02:15 The Story is Garbage
1:08:05 What's Wrong with Link
1:12:24 Ganon without the Castle
1:16:32 I Do Not Care for the Physics
Its pretty clear to me that this game would've been better if Zelda transformed into a fast and reliable public transportation system instead.
What do you mean, out of curiosity?
@@JCSuperstar777 It was meant sarcastically. lol
Spoken like a true urbanist
also needs 7 elevens for weapons
She literally did though u just can’t use it.
Ah yes the infamous imprisoning war cutscene x4. What made them think this was okay???
That part
Alcohol.
And I thought I was seeing things😂
making 4 icecream flavors of ganon in BOTW and people buying it in record numbers, that's what told Nintendo it was Okay to make TOTK the way they did.
@@WeeG-bwc77lemon flavored Ganon was the best. I unintentionally made it the hardest by doing it the last my first go .
What you talked about in the last segment of the video got me thinking... I've heard people say over and over that "TotK makes BotW look like a tech demo", but I'd argue that TotK is the real tech demo, a showcase for their fancy new physics engine - it's neat, it's fun, it's genuinely impressive on a technical level... but it's not properly utilized in this particular game, I'd argue. You can't just graft a completely different mechanic to a game that was in no way designed around it to begin with, and expect it to work. It does make for a nice showcase to play around with I suppose, but an actual game with a coherent design philosophy it does not.
Yeah, it's certainly no Half-life 2. That game had a fancy physics system AND a proper story campaign on top of that. Valve didn't abandon what Half-life 1 was about just to create Gary's Mod.
This is actually a really fair point, but I think the new mechanics have to do with the whole point of the game. There is almost never an "Intended solution" Your free to be creative, to build, to do whatever you see fit. You aren't required to use all these new mechanics all the time, its more of just an option. If you do decide to use it, its there for you to fool around with. Although some mechanics seem a bit out of place when it comes to the game, Its up to YOU how to figure out how to make it fit, to experiment, and do what you want when you see fit. Id say the shrines utilize this quite well, as they let the player choose. You could make an advanced contraption to press a button, or just shoot a bomb flower at it. They aren't stopping you.
@@OChunks I do agree that the new mechanics do complement the developers' intentions of making a very free-form do-whatever-you-want kind of adventure game, and I do think a really compelling game could be designed around that (the shrines really give glimpses of that kind of game's potential). However, when you implement that kind of extreme freedom in a game with objectives and obstacles of traversal, you start butting up on the whole "dominant strategy" conundrum, that pesky little issue deeply rooted in our psychology where players tend to optimize the fun out of a game when given the opportunity, and oh boy does TotK give players a buffet of just those opportunities. What makes games interesting, challenging, and compelling (to me, at least) are their boundaries, specifically what you CAN'T do, and working around those boundaries with your limited range of choices to complete an objective. The broader and less defined those boundaries are, the more a game starts approaching sandbox territory. Sandboxes can be loads of fun, but they in and of themselves are not games by definition, as they have no rules, goals, scores, or objectives (beyond what the ones playing in it set for themselves). This is why I implied TotK has an incoherent design philosophy. As mentioned in the video, it's like it doesn't know if it wants to be a sandbox or an adventure game. On the one hand, like its predecessor it has objectives and it has obstacles between you and those objectives, but on top of that it also has these sandbox mechanics that can trivialize many of those obstacles, often to an absurd degree. For example, why take the time to traverse this string of sky islands to get to the temple when I can just build a hover bike out of two fans and a steering stick and just fly over it? Why take the time to solve this intricately designed shrine puzzle when I can just use a rocket shield to blast over it? Most all of these obstacles are presented as though they have an intended solution, but then make those solutions obsolete with its sandbox mechanics... so why even suggest any solution at all? Personally, I rarely ever felt clever or creative when "solving" these puzzles like this, I felt like I cheated or that I was exploiting a design flaw or developer oversight. And deliberately keeping myself from just going the easy route is not exactly fun, either. We as humans are wired to do what we need to do as efficiently and succinctly as possible, which is why we tend to optimize the fun out of games when we discover exploits or glitches. The primary role of the game designer, I'd argue, is to balance a game to ensure that one choice isn't objectively better than another, or if it is then it needs to come at some cost (such as being expensive or difficult to pull off). Maybe this is one reason why many people (myself included) felt underwhelmed by TotK - those of us that see it more as trying to be a structured game find that the sandbox elements, while fun in and of themselves, hinder its challenge as a game, trivializing obstacles and puzzles that would otherwise be fun and engaging. I could go on and on, but I'll just stop there. This game is so baffling in so many ways, it's actually kinda fascinating. I love to pick it apart and try figuring out what the thought processes were behind it. Tl;dr - Sandbox freedom tends not to mesh well with structured objective/obstacle based game design, and TotK tires to be both.
Well, whatever floats your boat. Its not a game without flaws, I just personally don't mind those flaws.
@@user-hz1mq4qf5b For the most part I don't mind them either, oddly enough (I say having sunk 160+ hours into it so far). That rambling was mostly from an analytical game design perspective, and isn't even my biggest gripe with the game.
The theme song for Tears of the Kingdom should be Mad World: All around me are familiar faces, Worn-out places, worn-out faces, Bright and early for their daily races, Going nowhere, going nowhere...
Fire!!🔥😂
"you can watch the scene immediately AFTER Sonia is assasinated and then watch her BE assasinated" - been there, done that
same, why would they do this
well the game does tell you that there is an order to the memories in the forgotten temple, I also watched some memories out of order because I'm dumb and I didn't pay attention to the dialogue perhaps they could have locked the memories in order regardless of the geoglyph you found
I found it interesting. I was like "Oh shit, who's this dead bitch? Was she important? Now I want to know more about the story!" it was pretty funny though, having the first thing I see of her being her lifeless body
"You didn't pay attention? Fine, we'll ruin the story for you." That's NOT how you make a game dude 😂
@@coloradodafronteirathe game is literally an open world game, I shouldn't get my game ruined just because I explored a certain area after another one, that's dumb
Why build a private vehicle when we already have a next to perfect fast transit option? Hyrule is highly walkable.
Can anyone answer why there was even sky islands in this game? In skyward sword, the entire reason for the sky was because the surface became way too dangerous and it was a NECESSITY. To this day, there is no reason for the sky islands existing in this game. Also, Ganondorf for hundreds of thousands of years was able to create literal world-ending calamities on the surface of Hyrule in his mummy state with raurus hand suppressing his malice from his chest. Simply by leaking out malice over many years, he was able to create this level of destruction, so much to the point that the Sheikah had to create giant-like artillery that’s sole purpose was to combat these calamities. In tears of the kingdom, Ganondorf is free, fully free, nothing is holding him back anymore… and NOTHING happens to Hyrule. NOTHING!!! Life goes on even better than it did than breath of the wild on the surface and Ganondorf is just chilling out on some underground tree root…? You’d have thought it to be 101 logic for Ganondorf to have decimated the land, FORCING the need for a callback to skyward sword in which the lands are moved up to the sky and the surface is simply too dangerous to navigate. But no, Ganondorf is free and does nothing with it. All that happens is a few SpongeBob holes open up the surface to give way to a barren wasteland beneath the ground. So why are the sky islands present? Zonai? Well, why did the Zonai bring them down? Doesn’t make sense does it. Quite incredible how this game ended up the way it did. I’ve never seen direction so uninspiring in any Zelda game before ever. Also, why are the Zonai and Sheikah tech connected? Doesn’t even make sense. Why can we teleport to light roots and Zonai shrines? Just doesn’t make any sense man. My least favourite Zelda before totk is twilight princess because it was the only one that didn’t feel like it brought much new to the series, like an oot2, but twilight princess at least has some really cool “things” in the Zelda series: boss music, creative 3D bosses, combat mechanics, city in the sky, dark theming (the twilight melody is unsettlingly beautiful), very cool items, and as many love the most: Midna. But tears of the kingdom, what does it even bring to the series? A building mechanic that 100% won’t be there in the next game? It has less of an identity than twilight princess. It’s just like some sort of demo that Nintendo created to brainstorm the possibilities of a breath of the wild sequel, it doesn’t even feel like it is THE promised breath of the wild sequel. In my mind, I’m still awaiting a breath of the wild sequel that just never gonna come now…
It's good to see people getting over the honeymoon phase with Totk or just straight being able to think a bit. Your complaints are so true and valid, because you only need to use your brain for like 5 minutes to think a handful of problems this game has, yet most people don't even try to think about it critically, because it's Zelda and the sequel to Botw and it has to be the best game ever. I fully agree with you, except for Twilight Princess, which i didn't play yet
@blackdust7353, owner and player of every Zelda game here, Tears of the Kingdom is the most disappointed I've been with any Nintendo game, ever. It would be different if this game had a 2 year development cycle and they were like, "hey look this is just a BotW remix you guys can play while we work on the next main game (and I know covid most likely delayed development), but that's not what happened. TotK had the longest development time of any other Zelda game and the highest ever price tag. All of the complaints that have been brought up are valid as far as I'm concerned, but for me it's even worse. The game is flat out ugly to me. Fused weapons that aren't esthetically compatible look so stupid. A giant Boulder on the tip of a sword? A spear fused to a claymore? It looks dumb. The surface looks dumb covered in giant hieroglyphics. The casms are ugly. The esthetics of the zonai is a million times worse than the sheikah to me. The original shrines were far more visually appealing than whatever the hell they were going for in TotK. Horns look awkward and mostly unnatural on enemies. It's all a mess.
@@kevintown311 Hey, i'm completly with you there man. I hate Totk for what it is so much, that i don't even think i'll ever play it again. There is so much wrong with it, that i'm confused on how so many people can defend it. One of the arguments once was "the game feels so alive. Just stand in a town and you'll see." That was in Botw already, Genshin has this, Red Dead Redemption definitly has this and Monster Hunter World, although not even an open world game, is the most alive game i have ever played. If Botw had not existed and Totk was the first and only Zelda in this kind of style, i think it wouldn't even be a big issue. But the fact that this game is basically Botw all over again with at least 70% of the games world, mechanics, etc copied over, how in tha living fuck did this game take them 6 years? Surely fuse and ultrahand, although impressive, didn't take that long to implement, the depths are yawning emptieness as well as the sky, Dungeons are just Divine Beasts in a different coat of paint and i guess there are few differences on the surface like the lava around Eldin being gone. The story surely didn't take that much time. Enemies doubled in their amount, but all of them feel weak to just shooting an arrow. There is no new weapon category?? I would live to know where all the development time was invested in, because i still think Totk would have been better just staying and releasing as the dlc idea they had. Make it two dlcs for depths and sky and you're done
Couldn't agree more with all what you guys say, TOTK is a mess, boring, uninspired, overpriced DLC like game which is way way way waaaaay worse than BOTW (maybe wouldn't be if BOTW didn't exist, but it did), I haven't finished TOTK because I hate the Ultrahand, it annoyed me too much to keep playing it. Performance is also crazy bad, I really don't know what they did 6 years (sure the physics are impressive but more a useless and for many players distracting because u are forced to use it all the time) but what else ? BOTW was started by zero, gosh they even made their own engine for it, and from the first day to release it took less time than TOTK took 😮 I wasn't expecting the best Zelda nor something significantly better than BOTW but mannnnn for me TOTK is a 8/10 but TOTK isn't even a 5 😅
you and me brother
My personal issue with TOTK was how it advertised itself as a "direct sequel" to BOTW yet proceeded to merely have references to the game yet play like the game never existed at all. I would have liked to know at least what happened to all the technology: the Guardians, the Divine Beasts, the towers, the shrines, etc etc, but we, or at least I haven't, seen anything else that directly hints the idea that BOTW's story existed outside of Riju having a mention of being Gerudo Town's new chief since Urbosa or that Sidon and Link have been on a massive adventure before that garners the need for a statue built for them! Basically, I just hate that there's no direct connections, even through offhanded comments, despite it being advertised as a sequel. It just feels like they took BOTW's map, stripped it from BOTW and instead just used it for its own new timeline whilst adding small references to BOTW similar to how Zelda games will add small references to previous titles. Edit: Not to mention the fact that it feels like Link is just completely unknown once over! For the man who literally wielded the Master Sword and Bow of Light against a threat as massive as Calamity Ganon, both figuratively and literally, it feels like he was brazenly forgot about the world outside of characters who are part of the narrative.
I totally agree with you. When I first started the game, I was waiting for ANYONE to mention like, where did the Sheikah towers go? Where are the guardians, Divine Beasts? Why does it suddenly feel like none of the Champions from the last game matter at all, even though they had so much time dedicated to them before? It feels like a weird parallel universe to BoTW. To me, it feels like ToTK retcons a lot of things in BOTW... if Zelda was sealed as a dragon for 1000s of years, how was she also sealing the Calamity for so long? Maybe there can be two Zelda's in one time line, but having time travel makes it so complicated.
First off, are we criticizing the marketing or the game? Then, saying no one remembers link is blatantly false. Yes, not everyone does, but there is no guarantee they met him in the first place. Even then, it’s common practice to leave details behind to better welcome the newcomers. Honestly if your problem is “where did Sheikah towers go”, you’re admitting the game is a 10/10
@56ty_ I suppose I am criticizing the marketing and not the game. Your explanation on why people may or may not remember Link makes complete sense. The game is still ultimately really good in most aspects; I just unfortunately happened to sour my own experience for it with what I expected. I'm thinking of picking it back up again soon, though, so that I can appreciate it for what it is
@@CrimWare honestly I’m sorry, I know how that feels I’ve had the same experience. Let the marketing and the expectations ruin the game for me at first. It’s very difficult to leave botw behind, it’s unique feeling and mechanics. But once you do you can judge totk for what it’s actually trying to do. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll like it, but at least you’ll have a more honest opinion of it.
It seems like way too much time passed to make "Where did the DBs go?" a relevant question. I thought that the game would play a year after, but then I met that Gerudo girl in Tarry Town and she's like at least 5. People have likely forgotten what it was like with the DBs around by now.
Im so glad you touched on Link. No one really talks about him and just how his lack of any expressions for the main story kinda kills the mood. Its awful to feel something for Zelda and for Link to stand there and express nothing. The most he'll express for her is whenever he is attempting to save her from danger which is, to me, the bare minimum (like you'd think hed let anyone fall to their doom? He's not an awful person it really is the bare minimum lmao). Ive always liked the moments in games where Link will express how he feels *outside* of heroing. In SS you meantion Link banging on the crystal but the moments after hurts when he couldn't do a thing to save her you see his expression go grom desperation to pain as if he were about to cry, at the end of Spirit Tracks Link and Zelda reach out to hold each other's hands as Links squeezes hers to comfort her, or in Wind Waker after Tetra learns her identity she sorrowly apologizes to Link telling him how shes sorry that Link got wrapped up in Hyrule's mess but he puts his hand up nland smiles as if he were telling her "it's okay" or "I don't mind". Moments like those shows Link's feelings outside of heroics. Link is a hero, we know hes going to save someone we know he will save the day. Its expected so that's why saving Zelda isnt enough to show his true feelings. He'll save anyone, but how he reacts to situations is what matters. I have no doubt Link cares about Zelda, but to what extent? I'm not sure. He doesnt grieve over her at all. He learns the truth and stares at her like how he always has. And this game also really makes him look bad on top of that. I feel as if it's unintentional but it's hella messy. Like Zelda says hes always by her side and whether she is exaggerating that statement or not whenever he talks to people she knows, they talk to him as if he's a stranger or knows nothing about her ot both. If he's always hanging around then what is he doing? I know this is for the player because *we* wouldnt know, but if Link is always around her its weird how *he* wouldn't know. Heck the people who are always barging into her home everyday dont know who he is. Even if they dont live together he probably visits every once in awhile? Idk its inconsistent writing on the games end. Theres also how Link wont tell ANYONE the truth until a certain point in the game if you see the memories early which just makes him look bad no matter how you slice it. I know for a fact Zelda loves him but the inconsistent writing and Link's lack of expression does him no favors.
Thank you for saying this I try telling people this all the time but they don’t listen. I hate the fact that Link in botw/TotK was designed so that the player could feel they are link which could be a reason for his lack of expression and personality however it’s so stupid as in games where Link was expressive I felt they were more relatable. Even in ocarina of time which had limitations of the n64 he smiled and reacted like when the deku tree sapling erupted and after escaping the castle with Zelda even down to his text options you get a clear glimpse of Oot Link’s personality and in every 3D Zelda alongside spirit tracks each Link has a clear and distinctive personality. It baffles me why a game that took 6 years to make forgot to include the simple and make a personality for TotK Link
Big agree
I saw someone put the ... lizard divine beast mask on him (the goron one is the only one I keep forgetting the name of). Link is such a dumb robot it made all the cutscenes make more sense.
This
It's hard to treat Link as a "self-insert" character if he doesn't react the way I would. Yeah, if you do all of the tear memories and the Master Sword BEFORE you complete the sage quests, then Link knows exactly where Zelda is. If I were there, I'd at least tell Purah and the sages. However, Link doesn't tell anyone until the story demands it (he'll at least tell Impa if you find her after getting the Master Sword, but like the video said, nothing comes of that). Also, I actually got pretty emotional when I saw Zelda's sacrifice and thought it was one of the more powerful scenes I've seen in a Zelda game, so to see Link barely react to it really brought me out of the experience and provides another reason why I don't think that the idea of a "self-insert" character makes sense.
The sky islands are so copy & pasted that I thought my game was broken since the zonai dispensers aren’t showing up on the map despite me having found and used them Turns out it was 3 “different” identical sky islands which all had the exact same layout….
Breath of the wild is the anti-metroidvania. Nintendo need to realise that they have completely abandoned the hard ore Zelda fanbase for something that is essentially an entirely different franchise.
They know, the just don't care because they're making more money than ever now.
Breath of the Wild earned its success deservedly tho, a KEY part of it working is so much in that game being absolutely new and discovering the world and gameplay as you go. ToTK had a CLEAR way for another success - use all the assets but bring us a brand new world like Majora's Mask did, ideally with new gameplay like diving or hookshot and actually LIMITING the freedom a bit (climbing everything is a PROBLEM at this point)
Honestly, seeing how toxic most modern Zelda haters are, they did the right thing lol
@@56ty_ I’ve seen a lot more people being toxic when people try to critique modern Zelda. Everyone has the right to love the new games and I had a lot of fun with both so I won’t say they are BAD. But they simply have more quantity than quality. And it honestly is kinda sad/dissapointing when you do wait years expecting quality similar to older zelda games and instead getting so much filler content that you don’t even feel very joyed to do
@@56ty_ But yeah if you think “the right thing” was to get rid of the original fanbase that made Zelda even relevant in the first place, then you would fit right in with the money hungry folks at nintendo making games that will sell more but not stay true to what is actually “Zelda” almost at all at this point
It's become clear to me that if they want to continue with this formula, the worlds need to be way smaller. It's almost impossible to fill a world with stuff to do when it's so expansive, leading to 99 percent of the game being dead air. Instead of working to actually populate the world, they chose to waste their time with the sky islands and Depths which are just as surface level as the returning map.
At least Hyrule doesn't look like a video game level. It feels like realistic world precisely because not every square meter is dedicated to gameplay.
@@BrianStorm742 That would be fine... If The Legend of Zelda wasn't a game franchise. If I'm buying a game, it's for gameplay.
@@challengerjakku1943 exploration is also a kind of gameplay. I'm personally way more put off by for example Genshin Impact's Teyvat, which is an immersion-breaking mishmash of puzzles and challenges that never lets the environment be.
Spot on. I'm nowhere near finishing BOTW, and have no intention. The Great Plateau I enjoyed but after that it diminished quickly, is its the same thing spaced out with repetitive encounters. I like it some ways, but it turned out to be a time waster more than anything. And TOTK, is just much more of it.
There being space in-between is the point. If Link manages to run away from a Guardian he doesn't necessarily walk into the next encounter.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and bolting a 100+hour adventure onto a 100+ hour adventure that plays just like it did just that.
Honestly, if it played just like it it would be bad, but the fact that it plays just like it and the only interesting part of the map (not the depths or sky) is literally the exact same world as the previous game is unforgivable.
This game doubled down on everything I hated about Breath of the Wild. It’s so repetitive and boring. Also, mechs, motorcycles and jet skis don’t belong in Zelda. I miss the magic, and well-paced adventure.
I loved and finished Breath of The Wild, but I quit Tears of The Kingdom out of sheer boredom at the second temple. I think the biggest disappointment with TOTK was the total incoherence of its world. One of the main criticisms against BOTW was the relative emptiness of the world. But in that context, it made a lot of sense, since we were in a post-apocaliptic scenario, the kingdom was in ruins, and there were relatively few survivors. And Link, just waken up after a 100 years coma with no memories felt as lost in this new age, as we the player. Everything was rather bleak (with a Zelda-like charm), but it. made. sense. There was an overarching mistery, an overwhelming danger, and traumatized people dealing with loss and trying to slowly rebuid while being pestered by monsters. You understood the situation, how things got this way, and what needs to be done to make it better. Wheres TOTK is a jumbled mess of ideas, pretty nonsensical story beats, and its world doesnt make any real sense. Just random "cool" shticks that do not make a coherent whole, neither storywise, nor worldbuilding-wise. It's BOTW designed by commitee.
I played BoTW like a Zelda game and it made sense. I can't play ToTK, it would make no sense... It can only be played as a sandbox game which sadly isn't my thing 😅
Glad people are beginning to talk about the issues with this game. I was flabbergasted with how unfocused and shallow the design was when I played it
me too - hope we‘ll see the old formula again
The honeymoon phase has ended, and the rose tinted glasses are off. Over the last couple months people are finally starting to look at this game with a critical eye myself included. What I generally see is that most people agree how impressive it is that they got Ultrahand to function as well as it did... But how shallow and repetitive the rest of the game is.
@@johnjones8438 not even necessarily 100% the old formula, but using the best of both worlds would imo be perfect. but we desperately needed a SMALLER world, more limitations, new gameplay (underwater exploration!!), great dungeons and a tight story. meanwhile ToTK mostly does the complete opposite.
Same here. Everyone praising it so highly when released that I decided to restart it, maybe I was missing how “amazing” it was, but after my second play through my opinion hasn’t changed at all. …it seemed, to me at least, a cluster of so much yet added so little.
People did the same with BotW, so I really want to know where you people see all those people that only praise the games. Heck, "traditional Zelda fans" do the same tired complaining since 2017.
To me, this feels like another victim of the "linearity=bad" trend of recent years. Making a game no linear has advantages for people that is really creative or just wants to play a game without focusing on stories and cutscenes but it also has disadvantages like the ones you mention like no progression and, for those who care, normally worse plots.
I used to say that I don't have a strong preference either way when it comes to linear or non-linear games, but with the recent trend being non-linear games full to the brim with mediocre content my mind is changing. I still think that a non-linear game can be really good, but now if I see a game being marketed as non-linear I am more likely to assume that it has low quality content.
@@robertgamer3112 There are some really genuinely great non-linear open game experiences out there...but unfortunately most of them don't seem to be interested in being more than a collection of random side activities. So it's hard to get excited about anything claiming to be open-world now, since so much of the time i'm disappointed.
@@ZeroKitsune I dont like when games striaght up block you from going out of order. But it should have areas you cant get to without certain items, things you need to advance the storyline. OOT did this pretty well. There's a clear intended order but you do have a lot of flexibility in where you go. Just not everything is available right at the start. The fact that you visit Kakariko Village multiple times but there are different things to do at different points in the game.
@@KnightmessengerWatch 'beating Majora's Mask in a single cycle " here on KZhead and you will see how open MM actually is, in fact i'd say that MM is not very linear at all too.
@nonewingedren4303 and the sidequests are actually rewarding. They dont give you 1 of 921 metal pieces that can be added to one of 2,397 different weapons, so it lasts 2 hits longer before breaking. Or some random fruit that recovers half a heart.
everything, just everything about this essay hits the nail on the head. TOTK is a game that tries to double down on BOTW, but lacks the originality that made BOTW enjoyable rather than repetitive. Every other element from story to combat, to dungeons falls woefully short of the quality seen in previous Zelda games. Similar to what you said at the end it feels like a game that cant decide if it wants to be a sandbox crafting simulator, or an action adventure Zelda title. Now that the honeymoon phase is over and the rose tinted glasses taken off I honestly think that TOTK is one of the worst games in mainline Zelda history. the only impressive thing is the fact they took a mechanic like ultra hand and got it to work as well as it did. Everything else just disappoints. I hate that the story feels like an abridged version of a larger tale, and conflicts with itself depending what order you discover it in. I hate that combat is just easier, but more tedious thanks to fuse, and otherwise shows zero improvement. I hate that enemy variety and pacing is still laughably terrible for a game as big as it is. I hate how repetitive everything you discover through traversing the overworld is. I hate how dungeons only show minor improvements thematically, but are still some of the worst dungeons in Zelda history. And i really hate that Link is just a god damn plank of wood who doesn't show any emotion or expression. If BOTW set out to change the Zelda formula TOTK has already ensured that it's worn out its welcome. I do not want to play another Zelda game like this. I'm sick of the memories, sick of the lack of new items, sick of sacrificing a well told story in the present for the ability to go everywhere and rush the final boss right from the get go. As a life long Zelda fan whose played every game in the series TOTK is beyond disappointing. It's a game that's as vast as an ocean, but as shallow as a puddle.
Was waiting for somebody to make this video. I'm having fun messing around in the open world but man, they really do strive to put disappointment around every corner in this game.
THANK YOU. I actually beat the game and then tried to walk around and found.. literally nothing enteraining. How did they make ToTK dramatically worse than BoTW? Shoulld've been a DLC. This game is sad, half-assed crapshow. Even the cutscenes feel silly. "OMG, FOXIAN PEOPLE" - bruhw tf. No
Same story here. I absolutely adore BOTW, one of the greatest games I've ever played right next to tomb raider and prince of persia. I loved the music, the sound design and the explorasion. I really enjoyed riding a horse in this game. TOTK tho.... Feels so much worse on so many levels. Like, ok, the abilities are kinda well-intentionted within the game world, but overall... It feels so cheesy, like, why they didn't make a dragon quest builders-type of building mechanic, like Link has to build some new towns in Hyrule and some siege machines for attacking hyrule castle eith ganondorf in it but no, we got some dumb lego duplo mechanic. Honestly, i feel like Eiji Aonuma pissed on my face and then got Zelda pregnant, that's how i feel after playing like 20ish hours of this game
Ah, and riding a horse in TOTK is so meaningles now since the bridges collapsed and some obstacles are preventing the horse from going further. Like, such an almighty ultrahand ability and you can't even fix some stupid bridge to Rito village?!
@@yurikoshokugan4395 I don't see how TOTK feels worse at all. It doesn't really feel cheesy. Why not make building part of the exploration and puzzles instead? It isn't a dumb lego duplo mechanic. That sentence doesn't even make sense lol.
@@yurikoshokugan4395 No it isn't and not all the bridges collapsed only some did and no...they can still go through most areas. Well yeah that works differently.
The fact that all the sages respond exact the same. "Whoa. The zelda i saw is actually ganon and zelda is still missing? WILD." WHAT!? Pirates. I thought we'd see ACTUAL pirates from wind waker or something.
It's ridiculous how lazy they were with totk. It's easily the worst 3d zelda
The fact that you said the fact that shows the fact that you didn’t really need to say the fact that
@@menstesticles lAzY.
@@NuiYabuko they were. No effort was made to fix a lot of botws problems like the healing system. No effort was made to make the dungeons better, they are still bland with no interesting puzzles in them. The new caves and depths are lacking variety in terms of biomes and actual things to do. The sky is way too empty and has too many repeat crystal shrine transport challenges. The tutorial island is one of the few interesting places but as a tutorial, it feels more dragged and aimless than the great plateau did The increased number of shrines only worsens the issue of puzzles being spread thin and being too short. The reused overworld means exploration is way less interesting as you already know the layout of the world and there are only a few large changes. The enemy variety issue is still very prominent and throughout the game you fight the same bokoblins and lizalfos just like botw. The new enemy types are only found in specific locations so they aren't enough at all. The story is probably the worst of any mainline zelda with very weak character motivation (especially zelda and ganon) and lack of continuity with the previous game, specifically the fact that nearly everyone doesn't recognise link, even people that you're required to meet in that game. A very specific issue that everyone points out is the repeated cutscene after every dungeon which was an awful decision. Another issue is one that it shares with botw that I didn't realistically expect them to fix was the voice acting which makes me actively cringe while watching it and is the primary reason I instantly change the language to Japanese. The new abilities is probably the best aspect of the game but I wish they had a new world or new areas that could take advantage of them properly.
i think it would've been way better if the new sages used their own stones to help restore Zelda it would've made the choice of saving them far more impactful
1000% agreed. There could have been an ending where she remains a dragon, but the "true" ending would require collecting all of the stones to restore her. Then again that kind of reward would also mean the rest of the story wouldn't be so shallow.
Maybe to maintain the theme of sacrifice they could give up their stones to restore her. I mean, they’re the mechanism by which one becomes a dragon, I feel like they should also serve a role in the restoration of a dragon. I also think a satisfactory ending would be to make Sonia’s time powers be a larger part of the story and then at the end, they could write it as her using a more powerful version of Recall. Too bad Sonia is such a nothing character in the game and it doesn’t really make any sense that her spirit is just casually lingering around still (or even Rauru’s for that matter since we literally watch him pass on in the beginning of the game). Any sort of explanation or foreshadowing for how Zelda turns back to normal would’ve made the conclusion better than it just happening by random, though personally I think it would’ve been far more impactful if she remains a dragon by the end.
I know right. But instead, this entire time, rauru and Sonia decided to let Zelda stay imprisoned in the dragon state lmaooo. This whole time they could’ve freed her but just didn’t want to.
Here's the catch to that. I haven't done a dungeon, nor do I intend to do a dungeon in Tears of the Kingdom. How does the game end instead?
@pretends2know iirc you can still just beat the game normally when you reach Ganons are you have to first fight a few dozen wave of enemies and then the bosses show up. if you have the sages they'll fight them for you but if not, you have to fight every boss 1 on 1, then you can reach Ganondorf
The issue with the story of TotK is that it doesn't show progress from BotW. It uses the exact same story structure as BotW. In between BotW and TotK, we got 4 Xenoblade games, 5 if you want to include Future Connected, all which shows progress in how well the writers and developers tell the story and each game having a unique story hook, that also acknowledges continuity between games and creates a very satisfying narrative payoff for people who care about the lore connecting the games together. TotK is basically telling us, they don't care about the lore. Sheikah shrines are gone because fuck you. If you don't play for the story, then TotK would be a pretty amazing gameplay experience. But it feels insulting for people who expected them to actually expand on the story from BotW. Age of Calamity dropped the ball, but somehow TotK dropped it harder.
I can forgive Age of Calamity because it was basically an indie developer and a non-canon story. But TOTK dropping the ball in all the ways it does is unforgivable. They had 6 YEARS and didn’t have to create the map nor the engine for gods sake! 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
To be honest I think at this point I would have totally rather taken age of calamity to have been parallel timeline connected in continuity with tears it would have given us some of a more interesting twist then what ever the F actual tears of the bore snooze 😴 for non fans gave us ugh 😑
Dude From Soft released both Sekiro and Elden Ring, both GoTYs. And to top it off, the released Armored Core 3 months after ToTK, so about 3 whole @$$ games. Edit: Capcom has had about a billion releases. Valve released their own portable console with a bottom load of games released. Like, 2 Final Fantasy mainline games and a dozen spin offs came out. Cyberpunk: launched, tanked, and got fixed in the meantime. I don't even know where to start! Nintendo's Zelda team are slow, and don't know how to make a proper Zelda game anymore. And yes, slow!! Not meticulous, not focusing on a "finished" product, just sluggish. Because what's the point if a game is finished but is in no way living up to its potential? They need writers, they need narrative and lore developers, they need to pay attention to things like that if they want to retain that AAA status.
@@samf.s.7731this! A "random" dude on youtube could create a more coherent and impactful story than the whole ass Zelda Team at Nintendo. The many reviewers that point that out, mostly offer adequate solutions that would easily fix many of the totk's issues. Throughout my playthrough I was wondering how this game went through all the instances of overview and still have so many flaws in all the big and little details... Hire a damn lore youtuber if it's so difficult, at least they care about the story, ffs!
Honestly I appreciate Age of Calamity more now after playing Totk.
No it's not like Super Mario Galaxy 2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 had all completely new levels. I'd say Tears of the Kingdom is more like the green star mission in Galaxy 2, the levels are exactly the same but everything is rearranged into different places.
That is the best comparison I've ever read! ^^ thank you! It feels like they released super Mario Galaxy again, but with green stars. Nintendo used to release completed games in the distant past. Now, so many games feel like unfinished... BotW and Totk should be ONE game instead of two. They really made us pay 155$ dollars (DLC included) for one experience.
@@SailorCheryl I've got a better comparison. Tears of the Kingdom is basically Breath of the Wild Second Quest
@@hist150project5 also good one, but isnt a second quest always harder? :p Totk was even easier than BotW
Apples to oranges, and fundamentally different game design/philosophy. SMG2 and Majora’s Mask for Zelda could NOT have gotten away with the very same maps because the areas are far more constrained. For TOTK they instead had to change the game experience more than the layout, but even then I’d say the physical differences really do add up over time, particularly with the landmarks in my opinion.
@@cheke_hs Actually I think it's the other way around. The old Zelda games could get away with reusing the map more because they were less about raw exploration and more about quests, dungeons, and puzzle solving, usually wih the overworld feeling like a giant interconnected puzzle. That's why A Link Between Worlds was able to reuse the map of A Link to the Past and still feel like a fresh game. The story is different, the dungeons are different, all the puzzles are different, even though the general structure of the world is the same as A Link to the Past it feels like a different map because the structure of the interconnected puzzle is completely different (and stuff like the renting system and wall merging really changes things). BotW, however, is less about the interconnected puzzle design (the world is hardly a puzzle at all given the ability to climb anywhere) and is much more about raw exploration and not knowing what to expect when exploring the unknown. This kind of design is seriously harmed by reusing the map. Tears of the kingdom mostly felt like replaying BotW to me because I already explored this world. Nothing is a mystery anymore, I know what lies in every part of the map. Sure the shrines/dungeons, quests, and story are all different from BotW, but honestly all that content in both games is pretty poor, especially compared to old Zelda games. What made BotW interesting was the exploration. which is almost completely absent in TotK (yes the sky islands and depths are new, but the depths is an extremely empty wasteland with the same exact topography as Hyrule but inverted, and the sky islands are so small and sparse and the best one is literally the tutorial).
Also, I haven't seen others disappointed with this game mention this with the ending, but I was/am still irritated by it. On top of the undragoning happening out of nowhere, Raru just turned a Zelda capable of flying into a human, non-flying Zelda high up into the air and effed off. Within that one moment, Raru cared and didn't care simultaneously. Just that one scene contradicted itself in a way that felt emblematic of the entire game. I hate that ending so much
throughout the whole game I kept trying to tell myself “this is a new game just be happy” because ngl this game really just feels like 70 dollar dlc that some fucking how took 6 years to make and longer than every other zelda game before it
For the scope of this game and for how well it worked on release, I feel 6 years is a reasonable amount of time. You only need to see how many people in the credits are dedicated to testing to have a slight idea of the effort this game took, even leveraging BOTW assets.
You ungrateful bastard. How dare you not like everything about this game!? 😂
@@salsaelegante But in that same time frame, the devs gave us OoT, MM, TWW, and TP - four absolute masterpieces, all unique and distinct from one another.
@@hanburgundy4317 that is not true. We are talking about TOTW taking 6 years, while you are saying we got OoT and TP in the same amount of time. OoT released in 1998, and TP released in 2006. That’s 8 years even without considering the time it would have taken to make OoT, which for what I can find it was 2 and half years. So 10 years in total for these 4 games. Also MM development lifecycle was horrible as per interviews with Nintendo employees, which is something important to consider in the time it took TOTK. It sounds like it was a healthy work environment, and as a developer I hope that was the case. So of course you can make multiple masterpieces in less time, but probably it was at the cost of a terrible schedule and work pressure. This is why I say 6 years is reasonable for a working product like TOTK.
@@salsaelegante No. There was one year between OoT and MM yet both games felt distinct. Six fucking years between this and BotW and it doesn't feel distinct.
Your criticism of the game perfectly sums up my own grievances with it, well done. Adding insult to injury is the fact we had to wait 6 whole years for this thing! Majora's mask released two years after Ocarina of Time (with a little more than a year of development time) and, while it reused the same engine, character models and assets from its predecessor, it proposed an entire new world, a new story, new and more challenging dungeons and three entire new gameplay experiences in the form of the transformation masks which introduced new and engaging ways to explore the world and navigate the dungeons! It could've have stopped there, but it doubled down with many side quests, which dove deeper into the characters' emotions, backstories and motives, fleshing out the world even more and making the overall experience much more impactful and satisfying... Waiting six years for such an underwhelming, disappointing and borderline boring experience is inexcusable, and it doesn't help that I am expected to put that many hours into the game for my reward to be the least engaging story ever made in Zelda, including Tri Force Heroes and Tingle rosy rupeeland, and the cheesiest, laziest, most boring ending ever. This game, while technically very impressive, is inexcusable... adventure game of the year, ladies and gents!
Could you name an action/adventure game released this year that is better than Tears of the Kingdom?
@@Fiucha8893 You're right... it probably got the award because it's the only adventure game released in 2023 XD More seriously though, I am pretty sure an indie studio somewhere has released something that feels more like an actual adventure and less like a chore. Not much of an ordeal...
@@omicron3012So you couldn't name one could you? Lol "inexcusable"... Grow up
@@SkySoFew Sorry for not paying attention to each and every game which came out this year. And yes, I stand by what I said. After 6 years of development, the end result is extremely underwhelming. Now that the honeymoon is over, more and more people agree with this.
@@SkySoFew arbitrarily restricting the game quality comparison to only TotK and 2023 releases will obviously enable you to get a self validating answer, but that limited framework for comparison is obfuscating the foundation for majority of TotK critiques: how it fails to compare to older games.
I didn’t like botw and hoped maybe they would change the things I didn’t like about it in totk…nope they actually doubled down on most of them wtf.
Most people liked BotW and wanted a similar thing but with improvements made to the weak aspects of BotW, combat not being encouraged by the systems, dungeons being a bit weak design wise and the boss fights not being great. On those aspects TotK improves a lot on BotW. Funnily enough, the people wanting a more linear experience akin to older games is actually a very vocal minority, they do exist but they aren't nearly as numerous as one would think.
@@imatiubut dungeons are weaker, way way weaker, the combat is the same so they didn't listen to the botw fans but added stuff no one asked for
I was afraid in 2015 when I saw a man-ponytailed Link running around Hyrule, climbing Ubisoft towers to unlock the map, as an MGSV idroid was used to find to-do chores... I was afraid the core of Zelda had been thrown away, the music (leitmotif), the dungeons, the story, and in many ways the characters. My fears were realized with BOTW, and Nintendo was told by record millions in sales that throwing away the Zelda canon was a good thing to do. That made me even more fearful. Cut to 7 years later, post-TOTK's release, and I think I was right to fear what Nintendo was doing to Zelda. There's nothing there now, just collectathons, consumerism, and meaningless references...
And to make it worse, the type of game that Zelda once was is basically extinct now. They threw away Zelda's entire identity to court an audience who never cared for it before and it worked. I can't overstate how much I loathe that it worked.
or maybe the game is popular because its a good game and revolutionized open world games
@@pitshoster401 Couldn't be more of an arrogant elitist, right?
@@NuiYabuko you call me an arrogant elitist but you didn't call me wrong. Very interesting!
I’m surprised you didnt mention this game being expensive. That’s another thing that’s pretty bad with this game.
I paid $70 for this game! And I’ve heard some people paid even more for this game! What a rip off.
@@aneeshsrinivas9088 I think the game is like this is bcs of that 70$ price tag, they added so much bloat into it so everyone thinks they got their money worth. this game is a definition of quantity over quality
The game had such an easy way of forcing the player to use Ultrahand and threw it away immediately after introducing it. Link loses an arm. Therefore, he wouldn't be able to climb, glide or even swim efficiently. He wouldn't be able to use two-handed weapons or bows. Ultrahand would be necessary for both travel *and* fighting. Not to mention the supposed corruption inside him that doesn't debuff him at all. No stamina drainage or ceaseless health decrease? What was the point in introducing that when it's never a problem or even a plot point? I also don't find Fuse interesting at all. The developers took away elemental items and buffs (like Long Throw) that were in BotW, solely to force the player to use Fuse. If things that were in the previous game need to be eliminated to justify a new mechanic, it isn't needed, imo.
Yeah, Links corruption still being present apparently everytime you use the blessing-orbs at a goddess statue made me wonder if I would eventually die or sacrifice myself to save Zelda, but alas nothing happens really. Somehow I get the feeling TotKs' final version was hastily put together and eventual sideffects of the Gloom corruption that in my mind definitely should've been an issue were left out for timesaving reasons. Same goes with a lot of the larger sky islands that Nintendo apparently, according to an interview, left out because they thought it was too cluttered.
For real. If you told me that the original TotK had been completely scrapped in say, 2020-2021 or so for whatever reason, and what we have now was a desperate rebuild with a max of two years' actual development, I'd believe it.@@avon_c6199
The buffs weren't removed. They're in this game, too.
For me Ultrahand is the most annoying thing Nintendo ever invented it broke the game for me tbh
One of the things I have complained about repeatedly with this game is how it's basically a masterclass in game padding. It's so full of filler content that it's ridiculous. It truly baffles me that people are saying "ZOMG GOTY 10/10!!!!"... I'm like "omg are you drunk"...
It’s an excellent example of “more ≠ better”.
To reference Nerrel's review, people were calling this GOAT before the game was even out lol
@@Charnutboy I swear, Nintendo fanboys are annoying lol
@@bucknasty69 As someone who used to really love Nintendo...yes, yes they are.
As someone who love BOTW, and it’s my favorite game of all time, you might be surprised that I totally agree with you! For some reason, BOTW never feels forced like this, or feels like tedious busywork. I STILL replay it, do every single shrine, etc. and love every minute of it. I just can’t bring myself to keep playing TOTK after I finished it once. It’s so tedious and feels pointless for some reason that’s hard to put my finger on. 🤷🏻♂️
"A central mechanic should not be optional" YES! This was such a huge stacked complaint of mine from the game. It wasn't until the last dungeon that I felt that the mechanic intertwined with the story, but it was too small and too late
I dont think we're gonna see a return of the classic Zelda formula going forward... I really liked Breath of the Wild for what it was, a breath of fresh air and the best world to wander around and explore. It was not a good Zelda game, but it was Skyrim of the Colossus by Studio Ghibli with Zelda references, and it was awesome. Tears of the Kingdom is just a fat DLC, and not a very good one. Most of the new stuff is boring (copy-paste sky islands, floating maze, empty depths), i dont care about physics wizardry or building my own aztec monster truck and the story was unexciting despite some wasted good ideas. I'll always be a "Zelda fan" and i'll look at the next game with great interest, but i'm not sure i'll play it either. Wandering a last time around this kingdom in ruins is a fitting farewell.
I don't think BotW was good even by its own merits tbh
It won't it has been said in an interview before totk came out
You have no idea what DLC means or even constitues if you really think TOTK is aything like that. We got DLC for BOTW and it brought in next to no fundamental changes to the gameplay or the landscape. Also lol at the “not a good Zelda game” when in reality you’re just not fond of the new formula. They needed to change course after Skyward Sword (easily the most linear 3D Zelda) and it only made more evident how radically different BOTW and TOTK are.
I hate it when people say "not a good Zelda game" just because it's different. Things change over time, and the classic Zelda formula was getting overused. What Breath of the Wild did was a needed change. Do you imagine how boring videogames would be if they were all the same?
@@Fiucha8893 We are on the same page. You know what i mean by that; Not a good Zelda game if you consider what the strenght of the serie has been until now; meticulously crafted puzzle boxes (opposed to the open-ended "traversal challenges" of the new games) and linear path. Like, 95% of the serie until now. It's not about the quality of the new formula it's about what to expect from a well known brand name. If you expect the classics, BotW/TotK are not good. It's like saying Hyrule Warriors is not a good Zelda game. It's true from a certain point of view. Again my rant was not about the new games being bad, it's about not liking what they've done with Tears of the Kingdom. I'm not happy with this game. It's not enough and it's not the right path going forward in my opinion. BotW was fresh, great hit. They made it because the classic formula was becoming stale. Good move. Six years and they made the same mistake than before; "Ho the last game was a hit, let's make it again but with some gimmick" and it's boring again.
Giving Zelda a refresh was needed, but look, fans and critics alike shamed the franchise for repetitive, monotonous game play and story but lo n behold BotW and TotK kinda fall victim to the same blight. Me personally, had no problems with the simple story of saving a Princess and a kingdom that was threatened by a great evil. I don't love BotW as most people do but was open and enjoyed some aspects of the game. My hope was that TotK would take what worked in BotW and what works from previous titles, mesh it into one game and boom! Masterpiece. And maybe that's my fault for having that expectation but as you said, the trailers made it seem like both games was going to be Link's greatest adventure yet. And I agree, it was VERY misleading and I also feel like Nintendo knew what they were doing and it honestly feels kinda of scum-bagish and grimy. It's giving con artist. Now I'm not so sure if I want the next Zelda title because Aonuma has stated this is going to be the formula for Zelda titles in the next few decades. Maybe my time as a Zelda fan has come to an end which sucks because it's my favorite game franchise but I'm not okay with getting rid of elements that made for a good game only to incorporate a bigger map, minecraft mechanics and essentially telling players to create their own fun because they simply can't be bothered to do it. This isn't self check out at Walmart, I gave YOU, MY money for a good time on a game and what I got was a $70 dlc expansion pack. My only saving grace for TotK was Ganondaddy and thank God, he was hydrated for the final boss fight. I may have prolonged it more than I should have🥴🥴🥴 I agree with this video and others that critique TotK. And I understand no game is perfect, everything has its flaws but this.... Tears of the Tedious. Tears of the Player. Tears of my Wallet. Tears of my Youth. Tears of wasted time
Tears of Nintendo's New A**hole man I salute you. "It's giving con artist" MHM
They choose pleasing journalists that don't even like videogames and the vocal minority of the Zelda fandom instead of the actual Fans. I really like Skyward Sword actually but i do recognize its flaws, and none of them are because of the Zelda formula but decisions that they made on that specific game. The ideal direction that TOTK should've taken was giving self contained events in each regions that reward you with perhaps the Tears memories but in a fixed Order regardless of where you start and end, and these self contained events being something similiar to MM's story, add more MM style side quests and there goes. Give the game actual dungeons too. With that you can have the new Open-World Formula AND a meaningful story and gameplay, not Building Laser Dicks Another option would be sending Link to the past (non intentional joke) along with Zelda and have this game be in past Hyrule and give It a more linear main storyline or idk. Just give the players who like Dungeon and Story + actual Zelda stuff, what they want. Unfortunately, Anonuma finds the old formula and apparently anything that remotely was from It "restrictive" and he wants to change everything, at some point, Zelda will become a whole new Generic Open-World RPG IP by Anonuma with Zelda skin and the fandom will just accept it. That's really sad because Zelda used to be my favorite game series before discovering Xenoblade, but now, it seems like the last true Zelda game was Skyward Sword, and since TOTK didn't fixed BOTW's issues, i like it less now, which is unfortunate.
Yet Another Gamer
Lol, this is amazing. Of course an urbanist creator would be one of the only people I've seen on youtube who agrees with me about this game. Great vid!
42:20 Except, it's not a "secret" dungeon. It's just a story mission you can do early if you know about it or if you happen to stumble upon it. Not to mention, it's probably the weakest/least interesting dungeon in the game. I've even seen some good arguments for it to have been cut from the game entirely. Nevertheless and if anything, I think this dungeon further supports your argument that the game needed more "wow" content for the player to discover. Because where you have the only worth wow dungeon to be found is really just a story beat and isn't that good anyway says a lot about how much more care needed to go into the subject and how much the game suffers because of it.
@Frank_West That segment wasn't fun at all. Not sure what's worse, that or moving the statue eyes
@@neonmajora8454 for me personally that pre-Spirit Temple segment WAS actually fun as hell and easily the best part of the game - and that's coming from someone who was majorly disappointed with ToTK
I remember whne I first started this game and saw I still had the broken Master Sword on the Great Sky Island. I thought, "oh cool, do I have a base weapon that can't break that I can use to fuse stuff to?" And then the Master Sword "ran out of energy" and was gone from my inventory...buzzkill #1, and then it gets sent back in time...oh...well that's unfortunate.
I'm a zoomie, pretty young, but have started playing the older classics. They still hold up and I much prefer them to BotW/TotK
Listen zoomie.....millennial here. Ocarina of time. Enough said.
listen millenial, this is another gen Zer, Ocarina of Time 3D is the way to go. and A Link to the Past is one of the best games ever. These new zeldas couldnt hold a lighter to the classics.@@sickaddiction8065
@@sickaddiction8065link to the past too🙌🙌
Tell me that you're hunting for likes without telling me that you're hunting for likes.
As a fellow zoomie, I have to say that while I find it interesting to listen to/watch discussions about the five 3d Zelda that followed the old formula, I didn't enjoy Twilight Princess that much, and Wind Waker I couldn't even finish. Breath of the Wild got boring after a while, when I realized how repetive it was getting, but at least it was quite fun for the first 30-40 hours. I've tried Minish Cap and Link to the Past for 2d Zeldas and I had the same experience. I finished Minish Cap but didn't feel entirely satisfied with it, and I could not bother doing the entirety of a Link to the Past. I'm a big fan of Metroidvanias, so the main Zelda formula feels like it should appeal to me, but somehow it doesn't.
Why doesn't Purah de-age her sister?? Why?? Seriously, why wouldn't she not do it?? I doubt Impa enjoys being old, weak and frail. Why wouldn't her little sister wanna help her?? Who wrote this garbage?? You think I'm kidding??
wasn’t her deaging an accident though.?
it was an accident to de-age to a toddler, not to de-age entirely@@calmv_
A great extrinsic reward would be legendary weapons that dont break (maybe not so powerful but at least durable) or like in previous zelda bottles that fill for healing. Which would at the same time fix the broken endless healing in the pause menu
You mean finding your 200th pot with an apple in it or korok seed while exploring another samey ruin or corner of the map wasn't compelling? Surely you jest. /s
because this is totally what you do in these games
Allegedly in botw development they playtested the very-fun hookshot and the director requested them to remove it because "no we CAN'T bring that back because we aren't doing Zelda things this time" then ditch the master sword cowards 🤔🤔🤔
The hookshot invalidated their slow and boring climbing system so they opted to literally remove fun in favor of tedium lmao
If that's true, then that explains SO much! You can tell BotW but even more so with TotK that devs did whatever they could to take out any traces of anything that remotely resembles previous Zelda titles. And it's a shame. Because elements were there but they weren't utilized correctly. And that's exactly what people wanted, more so fans but Nintendo has received so much hate for sticking to the "Zelda formula" they don't want to keep elements that can and have worked in previous titles. Like, take Rauru for example. He could have been a GREAT assist character that accompanied Link on his journey. Sure it's been done before but he'd be a new face, a new character that gets fleshed out and we could even learn more about the Zonai and his people - why they came to Hyrule and established dominion but nope! Because it's a "Zelda thing and we're not doing that anymore!" 😅 that's so terrible
Nintendo has a weird obsession with tedium. They hate it when players just, do a thing. "I'm tired of this spirit orb cutscene, Nintendo-" "THAT'S TOO DAMN BAD"
They might as well have ditched the master sword. After 10,000 years of growing strong and stronger, it does…30 damage. 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ Good lord. It’s bad enough they had the constantly breaking swords in BOTW, but then they doubled down on it in order to force you to use Fuse, which is even WORSE. So then my one saving grace was that maybe if I can get the master sword early, at least I can have a decent weapon where I won’t have to use the stupid fuse power. Nope. 🙄🙄🙄
It frustrates me that a weapon introduced in the third game (and not even the most powerful sword in that game) is now the most hyped up weapon in all of the mainline series (save MM). Same for the shield introduced in the fifth game that _also_ wasn't the best.
You NEED to do more game reviews. I was actually surprised to navigate your channel and only seeing this one review of TOTK. The video was entertaining and I enjoyed watching this. Please consider doing more reviews!
I do plan to make other game reviews. It just depends on if I feel strongly enough about a game to talk about it at length.
The gameplay mechanics in the game are some of the best I've ever experienced but in future games they seriously need to drop the formula where shrines and koroks make like 2/3 of all content available.
I played BOTW & TOTK back to back, and yes this is the #1 issue that destroys these games. Right after I finally got all of the shrines and some of koroks in BOTW, I boot up TOTK and got a do it all the fuck over again, traversing the same goddamn map on foot most the time to grab 1 at a time is a disgusting amount of time waste. It's SO checklisty and tedious. It's also not a thing you can just ignore or else you have dogshit health/stamina and inventory. i'm fine with these existing as the puzzles in the shrines themselves can be fun, but they should each give you like 4 instead of 1, the grind could be cut down to a quarter of what it is now and it would still be a long game - How the FUCK did no mainstream critics point out how tedious col
@@b1thearchitect401 in my experience it was way worse in Botw, because there really was barely anything else to do. in Totk I kept switching through the levels (sky/ground/underground) constantly while always having some distinct point of interest and never really went out seeking shrines actively, just completed those I came across anyway. But still, I wouldn't be happy if they kept the same exact formula for the next game.
I had a lot of fun with this game, at first. Eventually, though, it was like accomplishing an agenda. This video is well articulated and makes excellent points. One of the best out there. I remember trying to fight enemies using Zonai devices because I felt like I *ought* to - to do justice to all the work the developers did.
Great review! This video sums up my impressions of TotK pretty well. Lack of progression, poor story, indifferent Link. Tiresome weapon durability system that almost made me quit the game for how tedious it is. Funny that almost any of the many suggestions coming from the fans about how it could have been fixed or improved is so much better than what we got. I caught myself thinking that my overall impression of BotW was much better, even though it lacked some good additions from TotK, such as the caves and new enemy types. What's for TotK, I wouldn't be that hard on some parts, the game was incredibly fun at times, but... what bothers me the most is that it costs 70$ while reusing the map, the gameplay schemes and almost everything from BotW and STILL sold in insane numbers, establishing the "new Zelda formula" that strives to be an open-world sandbox rather than a good adventure game. We can only hope that Nintendo brings something truly new next time. Thankfully, the older Zelda games are still with us.
It’s funny how a lot of games are super hyped when they’re released, and everyone is like “amazing! 10/10!”. Then a few months pass and people are able to see things more objectively, and the flaws start getting talked about. Anyway, personally I found BOTW completely enthralling… even on the third play through. I like TOTK, it’s fun… but BOTW had a better story, and I seldom found myself bored, like I’ve experienced in TOTK. Even in the third play through I was still discovering things. Turning the mini map off provided a new exciting challenge. Hot take; BOTW is a better game. I didn’t mind the breaking weapons at ally like everyone complained about. It kept me trying new weapons and using them strategically.
Where does that narrative all over the comments come from? People complained before the game was even out. "See things objectively"? Everything is only opinions.
@@NuiYabuko I didn’t see anyone complaining before the game came out. But I definitely found the “tutorial” phase of the game to be a grind and not enjoyable at all. Whereas in BOTW I enjoyed every second of it.
"mislead by the trailer", that's exactly what it is, Nintendo baited us again with the samey structured final trailer which consisted of all the memories and made us believe, we get something we wished for. This game felt like an insult to me, like Nintendo doesn't care about anything anymore despite all the wishes we had after BotW. It feels like a "f*ck you"-slap in the face, a Copy&pasted dumpsterfire, which is only possible because of fanboys that buy and support anything, no matter it might turn out to be. I feel betrayed with tears of the Kingdom. I 100%ed this game, always hoping for a highlight. There is no other game that copied clearly the same gameworld! Iam so annoyed, that this game got scored so high and 90% of people aren't any disappointed. It was definitely my last zeldagame...
@@Fiucha8893it did, they just added tedious garbage and added more shrines and koroks to pad out the world, wow! This game will definitely surpass the classics for years to come lol!
@@angelgarcia4641 And changed major locations like the castle and the Death Mountain, added the sky, the depths and changed the way you interact with the world. Only the terrain is the same as Breath of the Wild, almost everything else in the world has changed.
@@Fiucha8893 the sky is empty, and the depths are repetitive, the only “interaction” is the use of zonai devices in some locations, literally the only thing that stopped me from throwing this game in the trash is the final boss fight with ganondorf, which is the best final Zelda boss to date and even beats windwaker’s fight
@@angelgarcia4641 You got a great point here. I honestly had a lot of fun traversing the sky islands, but all of them are so tiny. Having one or two "big" sky islands (like the size of the Great Sky Island, more or less) would have improved the sky a lot. With the depths, I aggre that they may get a little bit repetitive, since the landscape is the same everywhere except for the Death Mountain area. But I think the stuff you can get down there makes up for it. The depths are where you get all the zonaite, plus they are filled with useful Bomb Flowers (I know you can also get those in the surface, but there are a lot more in the depths), Muddle Buds and Puffshrooms. The best weapons in the game are also found in the depths. Then there's the colliseums and the boss rematches (which honestly I don't care much about, I didn't like the dungeon bosses that much) and all the retro armor from other games. The landscape is repetitive, but exploring the depths is so rewarding that it didn't matter for me, although I understand why other people may have complaints about that. The depths would have been perfect if there was more visual variety.
@@Fiucha8893 "Rito Village but now it's snowy and empty" "Zora Domain but with some mud (wait...didn't we do that last game)" "Goron City but it's...420? wait what did we even change for this one"
First Zelda game I’ve abandoned early on. I didn’t even get to the first “divine beast” or whatever the equivalent is in TotK.
I got slightly further and the only thing you missed out on was unlocking the dungeon which imo was better than the dungeon with its segmented design.
Same.
It's about time people came to their senses. I knew these videos would not only began coming out, but also having a healthy, HONEST, like to dislike ratio. These games are not that great after the first 20% of the game.
Hell yeah, dude. It's important that people are honest with themselves. I thought I was alone in this when I thought the game was just boring overall. Dude, I have NOT played it since late May. I don't think I can bring myself to finishing it..... It's just too boring.
I find it kind of crazy that major critic outlets are still so enamored by these types of enormous open worlds that they continually entirely ignore all their structural flaws, insane amounts of padding and copy/paste gameplay, etc.. and give them 10/10's. I just recently got a switch and played BOTW after hearing for years from critics it's one of the greatest games of all time, I played it recently and to be fair, I mostly enjoyed it, but I also found it really ran out of steam after about 40-50 hours when you finish the main quests and finish the majority of shrines. Sure there's another 100 hours of tedious bullshit to do and boring side quests but there's almost 0 incentive to do so. I had the exact same experience with Elden Ring, it was fun for 30-40 hours, then it completely ran out of steam and made me miss the linear, hand crafted levels of Dark Souls or Bloodborne. TOTK seems to have just doubled down on the size and creative abilities while fixing exactly 0 of the structural or pacing issues of BOTW, hoping that people will fuck around with physics and abilities to create their own fun. I admit it's impressive how dynamic the game is and how large it is, but there's definitely a strong lack of urgency or really anything to push me forward. Moral of the story, open world games need to get smaller, denser and more interesting on a moment to moment gameplay and storytelling level rather than just doubling or tripling the world size and calling it a day. Really baffling these games keep getting 10000/10 from every reviewer
@@b1thearchitect401these open world games look boring and tedious as real life. Yes it may be more realistic but for something that is supposed to be escapist fun, I dont want something to feel like a job I'm not getting paid for.
So now not liking the game is equated to "being honest"? Stop being so weird and accept that maybe people actually got into Zelda and liked it for its new take on the series. You're not objectively right, your opinion isn't important in the grand scale of things, and you, just like everyone in this video, is in an echo chamber throwing a tantrum over a videogame series having a new take on the formula.
@fuiger seems a bit upset calling the kettle black about people complaining being an echo chamber when most comment or talk about how surprising they find it that most people they listen to sing praises without commenting on any of these issues that many people have with the game. The positive side is the echo chamber. It's not like the game has 99% negative reviews, there's only a handful of negative takes from big channels or outlets
I agree with all the points you have mentioned! I finish the game after beating Ganondorf. Haven't touched it since. Still have a lot of quests and koroks seeds, shrines and upgrades I have to get but I lost interest really. Also have only checked maybe 40% of the depths. Same with the sky islands.
Same! I was already often frustrated with the puzzle designs but the story and especially it's ending disappointed me so much that I have not found the energy to pick the game up again after the final boss. My depth map is still mostly unexplored, I didn't fight a single Gleeok, I barely touched the sky islands after I realised there is nothing up there, I found maybe 15ü korok seeds in total and I never even tried out creative fusions or builds. And I don't see myself ever trying to do those things in the future. The story can be summed up with "They don't care so they didn't think about it" and I can't find the good will to care on behalf of the devs.
I think the end sums it up perfectly. It has impressive physics, but if you don't care for that, it is just boring quickly. The game is a tech flex sandbox, rather than an adventure game.
Exactly. It honestly doesn’t even look like a Zelda game.
I didn’t need BOTW 2.
good summary - everything in TOTK makes the things that were new in BOTW more tedious.
When I first read their names "Kotake and Koume" names written in the Gloom Weapons Phantom Ganon wields, and a small cutscenes of the two Gerudo Masked figures in two Dragon Tear memories, it really caught my attention that Twinrova is coming to coming in to TOTK as the game's boss. That was my hope to see this iconic Legend of Zelda villain after 25 years of being absent since Ocarina of Time and 22 years for the Age of Seasons/Ages, Sadly it didn’t happen. Nor didn’t we get to see Ganondorf’s origin of who he is before becoming the Gerudo King, what is his true desire other than conquering Hyrule,exploring his in depth of his character, and how did the Ancient Sage of Lightening (possibly Naboris) become aware of his dark ambitions. Let alone give his surrogate mothers more screentime since they are treated as cameos. If Fujibayashi & Aonuma had reconsidered their decision to cancel the dlc for TOTK and had any plan, a story expansion and Twinrova boss battle for Link and the Sages to faced with is the kind of inspiration they need.
I'm a lifelong zelda fan & only think the breath of the wild series only took away the 2 best things that made zelda very good. Dungeons & Dungeon items. Breaking weapons doesn't make sense to me either. Earning the items originally was way more satisfying knowing you always have it & can even open up new parts of the game.
Something I wish to add about the Depths is the reward for finding all of the lightroots, because this was when I started to really not like this game. I was fine up until that point and felt good about the game. But I got the last lightroot, and it gave me nothing. It pretends to give you something.. by giving you a medal.. but the medal does nothing and so is effectively nothing. Older Zelda games never had anything nearly as tedious as the lightroots, but they certainly had their tasks that involved something basically like "get all 100 things". However, take Ocarina of Time for example, they gave meaningful rewards. Ocarina of Time has you collect 100 skulltulas. As you collect these skulltulas you are rewarded with: Adult's Wallet, the Stone of Agony, the Giant's Wallet, 10 Bombchus, a Piece of Heart, and Unlimited Rupees. All of that!!! Imagine if all you got was a message saying "good job". Wind Waker does have a special case: figurines. You collect all of the figurines by taking photos of the characters, enemies, bosses, etc. and there isn't really a meaningful reward for it. However, I will say that at least it is FUN. It is fun to try and get photos of the bosses, getting the one-time missable photos, and seeing your room fill up with figurines. Also, you do not have to go out of your way to do it; you can do it as you progress naturally through the game, whereas with lightroots you have to spend hours and hours in the Depths flying from one lightroot to the next. It is pitch black, boring, repetitive, mindless, and tedious. That's it for my rant. Just wanted to add some more about the lightroots.
You really shouldn't have expected a good reward for doing anything at all. Didn't BotW teach you better?
Totk simply proved that botw was empty and repetitive because nintendo was lazy, not purely because it added value to the setting.
TotK was just boring to me. It would have been better to just give Link a set of weapons you slowly obtain (Spears, Swords, Daggers,etc) and have him improve them through a blacksmith and maybe learn some new moves that's unique to each weapon type. That would have been so much cooler. And if we HAVE to have a weapon degradation system, just have the weapons get weaker and go to a blacksmith to fix it again. You know what? Just make it like Monster Hunter's weapon system! Something like that! Anyway, this game made me just question myself whether or not I like Zelda games anymore. I remember playing BotW and thinking it was "okay" overall. I also remember asking myself if I'd like another Zelda just like it. My answer: "EH..........".
I recomend finding a Metroidvania to play, or a Zelda like, like Okami or the indie Blue Fire. If you find yourself liking those, you don't actuallly dislike Zelda. You dislike the developers taking Zelda out of your Zelda game. (Arguably the BotW knock offs like Genshin or Phoenyx arguably even do the glide happy open world better to).
@@amandaslough125 Ha ha ha! I’ve actually played Okami and Fenyx Rising and I LOVE those games!
Hhhhhhhhhhhhh yessssssss I found my people! Ōkami, dude, favorite game ever, it's so beautiful
@@slowpoke8585Okami is a masterpiece, one of my favorite games of all time, it's really sad how we'll never receive a sequel to it tho.
@@jace_d*virtual handshake with another fellow Okami enjoyer*
Damn, it's like you were in my head. I hope Zelda team listens to these types of complaints and notice the drop off in sales and word of mouth positive discussion on the game all falling off a cliff by this point when making the next game
They had 6 years to listen to BotW's biggest criticisms and instead they just ignored them to add in a Nuts & Bolts ripoff.
agreed. Nice pfp i gotta play that game, mischief makers isnt it@@pitshoster401
@@MacenWyeah its Mischief Makers lol
@@pitshoster401 Sadly true. How much dev time did they lose to making Ultrahand? I mean, I'm sure recall also was an insane amount of effort, considering they basically had to store like 20 seconds of history for every moveable object in the overworld at a time, that's even more of a technical marvel to me than ultrahand and fusion (which is just limited weapon/shield ultrahand). It's neat, but such a genuine waste of time that they could've easily spent refining the issues people had with the game and released the game years ago and been well on their way to the next Zelda. Instead they just did their own thing and even made some problems worse. So frustrating as a fan, especially one who only found ultrahand to be just "okay" mechanically, at best. At worst, it breaks the very game they designed it for.
Didn’t both of these Zelda games sell better than any of the previous games? And review just as good if not better? You go to where the most money is and besides a very vocal minority, the critical reception for both Botw/ToTK is better than 99% of games released and if it wasn’t for BG3 being incredible, Tears would be winning most GOTY awards and so there’s nothing indicating that either will improve by making a new traditional Zelda game, even if they weren’t adamant they currently have no creative interest in making another one of those games.
the lack of character animation in link during climactic moments of the narrative is so asinine to me. link's been able to emote convincingly since the ripe old year of 1997 so what in god's name happened over at the house of the 'tendo to make them think "yeah it's cool if his face looks like a default mii at all times." i've heard some people claim this was due to the technical limitations of the switch which is just... not true? like, that's nothing? of all the strange creative choices in totk this is the one that gets me the most. having a protagonist who is reactive and expressive could potentially have been the load-bearing wall that saved the mediocre story from collapsing in on itself. it wouldn't have made the game perfect, but it's such a small thing that would have gone a long way. if link doesn't care about his journey and his friends, why should i?
A lot of people say it's because they're going back to their roots with having Link be a blank slate. The "link" between the player and Hyrule. But then Nintendo themselves contradicts this by having botw be the first zelda where you can't change his name, thus cementing Link as his own person. It's probably mostly due to adding voice acting, but then why not lean into it? Why accept that Link is a developed character in everything BUT individual, expressed emotion? It causes a weird dissonance that sticks out like a sore thumb.
@@jennakins98 That is your opinion. Seeing how Successful these games are, I think I'll stick with Nintendo's 'opinion's, thanks. As also agree with them. Things do not have to totally 'make sense', especially just how _you_ want it. Link is Link and the Dungeons are back in good fashion. Amazing you don't touch on those facts , probably will state they're 'boring'.
The "technically limitations of the Switch" argument is entirely countered by the existence of Xenoblade lol. Xenoblade 3 had some amazing facial animations. You can really feel the despair.
@@netweed09 You're free to have your own opinions, and it's totally fine to disagree with this video and love TotK in every way, but no way are any of the things you stated "facts." You have a different opinion, and Nintendo doesn't have an opinion. Nintendo is a corporation, not a person.
yeah for real i have no idea how that argument even holds water. even looking within the franchise, skyward sword hd has some really expressive character animation. skill issue if you ask me@@ShallBePurified
I agree with most of what you said in the video! Though I think the ending with Zelda turning back is even worse than you explained imo. The one emotionally impactful thing that happens is that Zelda makes the ultimate sacrifice. I saw this close to the end of the game. It finally tug on my heart strings. But then at the end the game goes: “hah, just kidding, that would be extreme right? Sorry we can’t commit to Zelda’s mind basically dying so take backsies! ✌🏻”. It feels like the creators don’t respect their own story and want to please everyone and through that wants to play it safe at every turn.
True! The theme of the entire story was sacrifice but not a single one actually has big consequences. The sacrifice of Rauru isn't that grand because he just came back as a ghost and somehow could still cast magic?? Ganondorfs selfish sacrifice didn't matter either, despite him exploding in a huge destructive looking beam there is actually no destruction of any part of the world, Link sacrificing his arm to protect Zelda just gets unghostmagiced and well Zeldas ultimate sacrifice gets the same treatment. What's the message here? Sacrifice yourself for selfless or selfish reasons because a ghost from 10 thousand years ago will save you?? Not to mention that the secondary theme is community and how it's important to build that up again but once again the final battle is fought alone.
@@lordparrotcat5942 yes exactly! I think the message is: “just sacrifice yourself because in the end it probably won’t matter and you’ll still look cool lmao.” haha.
Agreed, it was the only cool thing that happened the entire game in the plot and it was instantly cheapened because I thought "They're definitely gonna undo this and ruin it" and then sure enough...
Also quitting this game, for all these reasons. It's boring.
I think TTOK is the most blatant example of a sequel (and i mean in any form of media, not just video games) not really wanting to be a sequel, and looking down on it's audience. The world doesn't really change at all between games, the story and the puzzles alike have no depth and are extremely repetitive and requires zero critical thinking from the player, and the justification for both BOTW's gimmicks leaving, and TTOK's gimmicks entering is just, because it happened. Zelda 2, Majora's Mask, and Phantom Tracks, all three build on the world the prior game set up, and at the same time move on and have their own identity. They all begin as soon as the last entry ends, so it's not like Nintendo can't do it, and do it good. I think the biggest issues with TTOK though come from relying way too much on using the prior games mechanics, without really adding to them (or fixing major issues they had), and having the exact same region and villain as the previous game. These other sequels only use a few mechanics from the previous game, but also travel to a completely different region, and MM and PT are the two examples in the series where there is absolutely no Ganon to be found any where. They justify being called sequels, as they use that opportunity to break out and try something unique. TTOK just feels lazy, because they wanted to build this unique physics engine and open world experience, and desperately want to hold onto the same experience as long as possible because taking the series in this direction, and maintaining the same dev cycle as previous games is not at all tenable in the long run. Sure, a lot of care and work went into BOTW, but that's it, it's not TTOK. They put years into making a unique experience, but can't do much else with everything they made and learned from developing it aside from just repackaging it.
They hated jesus for speaking the truth as well
I miss traditional Zelda and I am truly scared that Nintendo will never make another traditional Zelda. Why would they, Eiji Aonuma doesn't want to make traditional Zelda anymore, and Open-air Zelda makes tons of money. Sadly, at this point, I fear my only hope to see a new traditional Zelda is if a third-party developer like Capcom requests to make a traditional Zelda. Boy, those Oracle games were great!
I agree with all of your points, except for the Mario Galaxy 2 comparison haha. Galaxy 2 has completely different levels.
Yeah the comparison would only be accurate if Galaxy 2 had you going back to all of Galaxy 1's levels and getting new stars. Basically Galaxy 2 is more original than TotK lol
Yeah, looking back, I probably should have stuck with the Master Quest comparison.
yeah master quest sounds more fitting, and even then like, master quest was meant to be bonus content in a OOT port (well originally not, but it was released like that at least), totk is sold as a full on new game ^^'@@YetAnotherUrbanist
Totk and botw tried to be oot and majoras mask but they could never
And the mm character models being Reused is literally bc they had 0 time and they worked out fine
Ocarina of Time was followed up with IMHO the greatest game in Zelda history Majora's Mask using reused assets with a rushed development time of under 2 years. Breath of the Wild was followed with IMHO one of if not the worst games in Zelda history Tears of the Kingdom using reused assets with the longest development time in Zelda history of over 6 years.
@@facepwnagewtf It's weird to say but I feel like so many of the best games are made under rushed circumstances by extremely passionate teams... Majora's Mask, New Vegas, and Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines all come to mind
@@Zeldarulah "extremely passionate teams... Majora's Mask" is an extremely funny (not in a genuine fun way tho) thing to say considering how traumatizing the whole Majora's Mask experience was for people who developed it
@@KevZ7. ? Vent pieces tend to be extremely raw and personal in a way that could pass for passionate, at least how I see it. MM having the entire game be around an impossible deadline, the varying desolation and desperation of just about every NPC in it, and having actual 'stressful' (but funny in retrospect, like the deku scrub nightmare and the wedding thing) situations on the dev team be used for game content itself... well, ✨ artful trauma dump ✨ might be traumatic but it's still artful, lmao. Many current rushed (including Nintendo) games wish they could even come _close_ to what MM did.
I'm glad more and more people are making videos on how this game really does feel mediocre
I don't get it, like it really is pretty good.
@@jaydenc367 yes it is objectively a pretty good game, OBJECTIVELY, especially if you never played breath of the wild. But when you have already played breath of the wild, you come into this game expecting them to take what they already had, and build upon it thoroughly with super cool things to do. Plus it is 70 dollars. But it really just feels like we got more tedium and more empty space . Plus the lore was super underwhelming: there’s like nothing interesting in the sky islands, and you spend so much time underground running around and fighting the same malice/gloom powered enemies. WHY ARE THERE STILL KOROK SEEDS?!?
@@ZaiDrizzleDrop True you do expect that, and a experience that can still feel fresh in ways. I disagree, it feels like we got new cool stuff and things to see and find and do and explore, not more tedium and more empty space. Nah the lore is pretty interesting too. There is interesting stuff on the sky islands, enemies, items, side quests, etc. Eh they aren't really all the same enemies and exploring this giant area in the dark is still something. Good question lol yet Korok seeds are still here anyways, I guess to expand inventory space.
@@jaydenc367 SAME F-ING WORLD? That was truly lazyness. Re-used assets, sure, same world, NO.
This is a pretty random video but I super agree with it. As someone who doesn’t really game but enjoyed the N64 Zelda games and then came back 20 years later after getting TOTK interested in getting myself back into video games… I have to say I really don’t like it. The rewards point is so right. It feels like work playing this
Play BOTW. You will be so much happier, and you will actually understand what everyone was raving about. TOTK is a big mess.
I think your point on dispensers and cooking brings up a different point rather than the one you brought up. There are tutorials on the Great Sky Island that explain both what to put in dispensers and how both they and cooking pots work. However, if you don't find the tutorial, then you have to experiment to figure out what they do. This is a flaw of open world games, and was present in Breath of the Wild. They hide the tutorials expecting you to explore and find them, but most players are just going to head straight to the shrines and only interact with the tutorials they find along the way. The NPC at the top of the snowy area should explain how the dispenser works as a fail safe.
The overly easy navigation is something I also noticed. I guess it helps paste over the fact that the overworld is the same, in that you barely interact with it in this one compared to the first, but I'm not sure that's a good thing.
It is.
Well, the whole point of the game is that you're in a familiar place that you already now, but that has changed. The easy navigation is supposed to be a tool for you to skip straight to the places where the changes are (since most changes concentrate in the main locations) without having to traverse an unchanged portion of the map you already know. Theorycally, the easy navigation is a good thing, since it accomplishes what it's supposed to. But does it actually help on improving the game experience? That depends of if you enjoy playing the game that way or not.
@@Fiucha8893 Thank you. 👍💯 I mean, I'm not even sure why people even bother wasting their time turning what they say into 'nitpicks' because they simply are wrong. I'm also so unsure what he meant by ''you don't interact with the overworld''. Eh?? 😂 Link literally _climbs_ the very rocky faces and craggy mountains the overworld consists of!! And that's just 1 level of interaction!
@@netweed09 "Link literally climbs the very rocky faces and craggy mountains the overworld consists of!!" Except for the most part, I literally didn't. To get most places, I just flew in. That's kinda my point. BotW presented you with a wide landscape in which getting around was part of the challenge. Very much "journey, not the destination". As a result, you start to become very immersed in the world, since you have to think to get around in it. A good example is Zora's Domain. In BotW, it's a challenge to get there, carefully hiking along the river in the rain. In TotK, I just flew in. No challenge, no discovery. Just flying my 474 straight into downtown ZD. The end result is that the game becomes more of a checklist than anything. Go here, burn through all the quests, skedaddle. Much like most other open world games. So it lost a lot of the magic for me.
@@Descriptor413 Ah then , why put the 'blame' squarely on Tears? It's just that you don't prefer Open Worlds, by your own admission. Nearly all ipen World games will have the 'Checklist' format, of course as Quests. Or they simply would be forcing you into a linear order of events and that's not how they want these to be designed.
I think this is why I adore Baldur's Gate 3 so much. It's not a truly open world perse, as the game is divided into 3 distinct acts one can't backtrack on, so you feel like you really have to think about the choices you make before proceeding, and the surface of the maps themselves aren't 100% explorable, but at the same time it has a level of freedom regarding player choice and discovery that truly focuses on quality over quantity and I feel there isn't too much bloat regarding the items and ingredients you find in the game, unlike TotK. I think Larian knew what they were doing when they made it so there was a limited amount of space players could actually explore as it helps one stay focused on things that actually matter when traversing. And hell, just the fact that almost every NPC you interact with has dialogue and even a compelling backstory and developed personalities (for some more than others) makes it all the more immersive. And of course, IT ACTUALLY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE STORY AND LORE unlike the Shigeru Miyamoto-influenced mediocre narrative (or lack thereof) that they made with TotK. After having played and completed both TotK and BG3, I realize that huge expansive fully explorable open worlds mean shit when 90% of them are nothing but empty space where 90% of what you do is resource gathering. Hope to god that TotK doesn't win anything at the Game Awards, because it honestly doesn't deserve anything it's nominated for considering 90% of the game is recycled from BotW, even the music. Just the fact that I want to replay BG3 immediately after finishing it with a different character and choices and TotK made me not want to touch it again after finishing it the first time makes it obvious which one has the most replay value and is overall the better gaming experience.
Agreed! Totk is a physics simulator but Bg3 is an actual game with a story. Ofc Bg3s writing has flaws too (like some companions having noticably less content than others) and is considerably buggy at times (they're working on fixing that ofc) but you can really tell the difference between a game that had devs and writers actually wanting to make a game and a story compared to whatever the fuck is going on in "oh yeah the sheikah stuff just disappeared, how? Why? Idk" totk.
Bg3 level design is also very immersive sim-esque. I feel far more freedom of choice in BG3 dungeons and combat than in TotK. Zelda should go back to its root of poorly understood TTRPG. I expected TotK to be a 3d Zelda 1 but it kinda failed.
Given that this video is about video games, it would be interesting to see videos about the urban planning within video games. I'm not talking about dedicated urban planning games like City Skyline, but other games like GTA V and the cities in War Thunder. I'll definitely be building some walkable cities in Minecraft as those are interesting to explore.
I quit the game after about 5 hours of gameplay. It was exhausting to play as everything had so much puzzle pieces and ideas. There was more work than fun.
Every time I see someone complaining about BOTW and this new game, I see the same problem. It's too easy. Having a game designed to be time consuming instead of difficult, inherently makes it generic. BOTW didn't have to have every area and enemy adhere to the same starting abilities. The designers COULD have made each area require more unique abilities and leveling necessary to traverse said area. Generic leveling and picking up some magic armor the game practically hands you, is not enough. Skill based difficulty needs to be expanded upon. However, this would have meant a bunch of crybabies would have gotten a "premature" game over, when they got owned wondering into a place they had no business being in yet (or at all if they svcked at games). The fear of backlash from "unfair" gameovers, makes designers produce poor games. Uniqueness and difficulty often go hand in hand. In BOTW, it was cool I skipped 75% of the game and beat the snot out of calamity ganon with no champions to help (thank you some-odd-hundred apples). However, it ultimately was a sign that if you want an open world that isn't "empty" and has good replay, you MUST not fear the possibility of players doing dumb things and getting game over. So long as designers continue to placate intellectual wimps who bombard companies with complaints when they experience their own gaming limitations, games will continue to be painfully generic wastes of time. Because that's all a designer can do to make a game "challenging" when player skill based difficulty is off the table. Add loads of childish busy work. As if the game was designed for 6 year olds prone to tantrums. Which is sadly what they become in a large part. :/
this video is so good. Feeble King and Nerrel have also made great videos about why ToTK was such a disappointment
Remove weapon durability completely and achieve the same goal that weapon durability was aiming for: require different enemy types to require different weapon types to defeat. (eg. correlating elemental weapons for elemental enemies, heavier two handed weapons for heavier enemies, spears for enemies that would require range to avoid taking damage). One tool shouldn’t solve everything, so damage should no longer be the focus of weapons.
What you just described is something that Zelda had been using in every single entry up until BotW, and the only reason why they got rid of it is because they wanted to make BotW “different.”
@@theplinko9840 different doesn't necessarily mean good
@@Key-Knight87 my point exactly
The weapon durability system was a bad idea...ESPECIALLY since the MasterSword got a MASSIVE DOWNGRADE from its once legendary status as being the sword of evils bane, a once thought to be indestructable blade that no evil could touch, to now suddenly needing to "regenerate" because Ganon was somehow able to shatter it. TotK feels like Nintendo is trying to retcon some of the lore here. I mean generally most weapons in either of BotW or even TotK with its item fusing still breaking so easily in what feels like just a dozent hits was a BAD IDEA. I do hope....no....I EXPECT that Nintendo gets rid of this system in the next game and NEVER brings it back. Your suggestions for incentivising the use of different weapons is far better than making everything break.
so what was going on before basically, one enemy needs to be stunned with the boomerang, another can be grappled onto to then attack it, some need ice attacks, some needs fire attacks, all the player equipment matters, but only in certain situations, aka true adaptation instead of "oh nu my 1 stick out of twenty broke, lemme swap" level of "adaptation"
>how do you make a customizable mech boring?! SCATHING lol , but nothing less than tokt deserves.... correct it is a good sandbox game , but not correct it is not a mediocre adventure game , it's just bad....
Please make a second channel for gaming related content 🙏
It's a solid game from a mechanical perspective but other than that, to me.... it falls flat on its face after you spend a few hours in it. It's BotW with a few more bells and whistles.
Thank you for being honest.
The weapons are super boring too. I don't want to create my own, I'm not five, I want creative swords where the only difference isn't just damage. Look at elden ring, every weapon is straight up awesome.
Yeah same I hate how the items change cool pre existing weapons fusing that lynel saber and horn makes my cool Royal armor sword look like ass
exactly, why is it we can't keep a sword like that. And even though we have a few weapons that do cool stuff like lighnting, fire, and ice, we need more unique stuff. Let there be more legendary weapons that don't break. @@frostycane5134
You literally took the words out of my mouth, thank you for making this vid As someone who can appreciate the concept of Zelda being more open-ended combined with the potential this game had to improve on the mistakes from BOTW, I can't help but see the final result as "a team of professionals who worked on the gameplay/world/physics and letting the janitor do everything else" I really hope eventually people realize that linearity isn't outdated game design and that it too has its time and place in balancing gameplay variety
Looking through your videos and seing this just chilling is hilarious
This was a great break down and I agree beat for beat. Botw was a nice change of pace for a stagnant franchise, but more of it felt unnecessary and made me crave for a more traditional Zelda game. The exploration has always been one of my favourite parts in Zelda games but without context, stakes and character development this series is feeling more and more dated. I too started with Ocarina back in the day and it was mind blowing to have a great narrative, characters, places to explore, puzzles, dungeons, side quests, rewards... Botw and Totk make the world feel empty and uninteresting, less magical. For botw I get it, it was necessary and it all fit the narrative of being thrown into the wild to your own devices, but just how we never get a rethread of the main gimmick in past Zeldas we should move away from this fast.
Eh Botw didn't really feel unnecessary. I mean it has context, stakes, and character development. I mean Botw has all that too and more. How do they? The open world in BotW and TotK is much better and less empty then in Ocarina of Time, and it feels pretty magical too. I mean...that main gimmick is still here though.
@@jaydenc367OoT had the excuse of being the first 3d open world. TotK doesn't.
@@grandsome1 Yet TOTK is still a way better open world clearly.
@@jaydenc367 it's like saying that a current year Honda civic is better than a Ford model 1 from 1900. You're basically saying nothing.
@@grandsome1 Not really, when they act like Ocarina had the better stuff then it`s only fair to point out how TOTK has the better stuff.
An urbanist switching it up by getting out into nature - in a computer game.😀
My gripe is no leveling up for foes defeated. You simply are at the mercy of drops to get material to up your armor and weapons rather than yourself. Everything is temporary, and the cycles start again...broken bow wait for the blood moon to get it again to kill foes to break the weapon so you can do it again. It needs more permanent resolutions with more player development.
I had the same issue as you with the ultrahand issue and it made me stop playing the game.
weapon breaking in botw: annoying but pick up a new one and continue combat weapon breaking in totk: annoying. pick up a new one. stop doing combat. look for an object. equip fuse. fuse it. okay continue combat this system is literally WORSE
I still think portal 2 had the most impressive physics system a game could have ever had at its time of release. Valve always knows how to stick it to Nintendo, even in hindsight. 😂 (Yes, I'm referencing the portable console).
I like the simpson's monorail bit at the end Leonard Nimoy and Barney !
I would just like to say, er-a, 'May the Force be with you!'
Age of calamity is a better sequel
Meaningless and Mediocre is a perfect description for both BotW and TotK. I experienced and surmised my BotW playthrough in very much the same way you described TotK. I found exploration largely meaningless absent unique, permanent, and game altering items/ abilities. I love exploration and I basically 100% BotW minus the Korok seeds. I truly found nothing rewarding about my experience. I played 44 hours of TotK, explored some islands, caves, and depth holes, and decided to quit before beating a single dungeon. I could see the writing in the wall, another meaningless game world that offered me nothing. As for mediocre, I think that best describes the combat, shrines, and dungeons. I want to state that for the record, I am a long time Zelda fan starting from ALTTP, but by TP I felt the Zelda formula needed changes. BotW excited me, but what I got was something that I feel failed as an open world game, and a zelda game. Modern Zelda is Zelda in name only, and I personally feel I have played better open world games such as Skyrim, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Metal Gear Solid 5, and Arkham City. I have do not have a sunny outlook for the future of Zelda.
The story is so bad that it is disrespectful to what was presented to the player in the previous game. So while Zelda spent 100 years using her "power" to prevent the Ganon calamity from leaking from the castle and destroying the world, all that time there was another Zelda flying around with a Master Sword stuck in her head? Great Deku Tree, who is able to feel the sword in a dragon's head in the second game, didn't find it strange that there were two master swords in the world? And then that calamity that required so much sacrifice from so many heroes, was actually nothing, because all that time Ganondorf was under the castle in an easily accessible place and he was the real threat. All those things that happened in the last adventure are suddenly no longer important and have been reduced to footnotes... Holy shit... Calling TOTK's story lazy is being too kind. That's the equivalent of literary rape.
Technically yeah, there were multiple time lines and since Zelda had the Master since the beginning of an established Hyrule then events of BotW shouldn't have happened. But that's a whole different discussion because now you have to bring in multiverses and all that 😅 I agree with you though, TotK is lazy writing and Zelda kind of just let everything happen. She had proof and saw murals of Ganondorf getting into power, killing Sonia, but like... she literally doesn't say anything to them. While I was playing I was like, does she seriously not know what's going on? Y'all really put this plot on paper and thought it was okay...
That’s why there’s no dlc, this, for all intents and purposes, was BotW’s dlc. Rigged from the start.
''Zelda flying around with a Master Sword stuck in her head?'' ~ I dunno about you but that sounds a heck of a lot cooler than a moany girl who had her head stuck in a boring diary for half the time, then the other half does a 'rearranged T-pose' with her hands stuck in the air in front of a ball of light. [spoilers?] - not to mention the important and Super-cool part of her _Transforming_ into a Dragon that you totally ignored in your attempt to trash talk Tears. Pff.
It isn't bad and it isn't disrespectful to what was prsented to the player in the previous game. No...the time travel wasn't done yet. There wasn't 2 at the time. No it wasn't nothing, he wasn't under the castle back then...only after him as Calamity Ganon was dealt with. No they are still important and haven't been reduced to footnotes. Not at all it's just wrong. No it isn't the equivalent to that at all.
@@jaydenc367 👍💯 Thank you Sir! Tell those blind haters; educate them (but don't try too hard or you'll end up talking to a brick wall situation!)
I agree to a lot of whats being pointed out here. Breath of the wild was an experience on it's own, so much that I could stomach the other flaws. Tears of the kingdom in comparison just felt a bit...hollow, despite the story elements and voice acting etc.. I felt that I was replaying the same game, with the same grindy mechanics and little by the way of immersive changes to the world, and the suspension of disbelief simply was not enough for me to even complete the game. I could probably go and beat the game now If I wanted to, but I just can't bring myself to use any more time on it, especially when there's other games that feel more rewarding to engage with. It just doesn't feel like the game respect the time I put into it. I felt the exact same about Fallout 4 when that released, that same hollow feeling, the wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle effect. At the end of breath of the wild I felt powerful because I had engaged with both the main game and the DLCs, with the final boss reflecting that (Even if I feel it should have adjusted to my equipment level). I felt progression. Tears of the kingdom does not do that at all for me, and that sucks since it could have improved on the flaws of its predecessor.
Probably a one off but this niche content is your bread and butter! Awesome analysis.
Finally the honeymoon phase is ending and people are ahowing howing boring and mediocre this game is. I dont even agree with rhe sentiment "its a good game, but a bad zelda game". Nah, its just a bad game. Remove the zelda title from it and it would would have been torn apart.
You really wrote a whole paragraph when you could’ve just said “I didn’t like it” lol
@@cheke_hs how long does it take you to type a few sentences? If it's more than a few seconds, I'd be concerned if I was you. Kind of explains you being this games target audience tbh.
@@3sgtecelica Because attacking the person really gives a lot of weight to your argument, right? You just don’t like the game and want to feel superior for that when it’s nothing more than your opinion. Kind of explains your attitude tbh.
@@cheke_hs My brother in christ, YOU attacked HIM first, for writing four short sentences. He doesn't owe you cogent argumentation when you've provided nothing yourself. You're even deflecting to that "opinion" nonsense when he's talking about quality, not preference.
@@VirtualAxiom I attacked him for saying his statement meant nothing other than he didn’t like the game? Lol, sure. And he never provided any argument to begin with, which is why I replied what I did in the first place. What you think he’s saying is YOUR interpretation of it and he didn’t say anything of substance, which according to you (as if you’re some sort of authority) I’m in the wrong for calling out. Talking about “owning” something to someone else in this context is petty and nobody thinks like that. Except you I guess.
A lot of valid points. I been trying to figure out what it is i dident like and most of what you say here is what it is for me.