Tears of the Kingdom Critique - A Legendary Disappointment
2024 ж. 19 Мам.
237 414 Рет қаралды
Spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom, and minor Elden Ring spoilers for two hidden levels.
/ feebleking21
My Email: feebleking21@gmail.com
Introduction 0:00
The Depths 2:44
Enemy Variety 4:21
Flurry Rush 9:30
Healing 11:03
Weapon Durability 14:02
Weapon Movesets & Controls 15:33
Summons 17:19
Quantity Over Quality 18:13
The Sky Islands 19:38
Vehicles are Boring 23:32
Side Quests & Caves 26:25
Shrines 28:22
“Long Form” Dungeons 34:36
The Story 42:05
The Ending 45:00
Not Enough Zelda; Not Enough Breath of the Wild 49:13
Conclusion 53:06
48 of the 152 shrines are Rauru's Blessing treasure chest shrines. About one third of all total shrines are blatant padding that you access by dragging a crystal from point A to point B.
Peak gameplay 🗣🗣🔥🔥
So? 1st, you don't _nearly_ have to do all of them, hasn't that struck a cord? 😂 Secondly, the 1:3 Blessings ratio is actually very smart (as opposed to you - but hey, you try making a game that sells over _20 million_ then smartypants lol), as it means roughly 1 in 3 of them directly involve the Overworld. And your generalisation is again mind-numbingly daft: as so many, say the Courage Islands does not involve ''dragging a crystal''.
hey bro all the lynels are under stables and the colo
Whats truly sad is I can garuantee none of these mfs actually watched the video or played Zelda in the first place besides totk/botw.
@@purpleplasma4824 Imo is a shame, because I think that BotW case could be more torelable as It tried to innovate the formula, and I was expecting the Next Game to polish that innovation. Thats why ToTK is way less torelable, because in all cases It took BoTW weak points and made more noticeable/worse.
Mans about to get crucified 💀
rightly so imo lol
@@KaueBR89f you didn't even finish the video it came out 20 min ago
Don't crucify him with the koroks 😂
@@killadrill finished it. By the end he basically dismisses any opinion that goes against him. He suggests people are crazy to think this game is a 10/10. So let me get this: he is allowed to say other's opinions are wrong, but we can't say the same about his own? And I am not even saying that. He can dislike the game, but his attitude is like: everyone is wrong, this game is poopoo and soon everyone will see it.
We’re here to witness it in real time
it's even worse when you remember what nintendo managed to do with recycled Ocarina bits in 2 years and they waaay overestimated my enthusiasm for transporting koroks
MM was different and wasn`t really as impressive as what TOTK managed or had covid shit either
@@jaydenc367 majoras mask was way more impressive and has aged incredibly well. It introduced the transformation mechanic a *new* world, a different progression structure, a cohesive story, all things created in less than a year. TotK failed to do even one of those things in 6. Elden ring had covid too and created a far better game. Zelda devs got lazy.
@@FullyOnVolks I disagree it really wasn`t. Transformation is cool but fusion and ultrahand and ascend is way more impressive especiallyn in a open world zelda game setting, it changed a lot of a huge world as is, and a different progression structure? MM is "go to areas do thing and eventually reach dungeon and beat boss and get thing or reach person needed for endgame plot" just like OOT, and TOTK had a cohesive plot too but it didn`t rely on side quests for a interesting plot and story like what MM kinda does, and again it was over a year. So no it did at least one of those things. Elden Ring is different with how it was developed. They didn`t get lazy at all, that is just wrong and disrespectful and shows your ignorance on the development process.
Fusion and Ascend are literally not impressive at all. Fusion just adds stats and occasionally modifies damage type to weapons, and shield fusions are all very straightforward in a technical sense. Ascend is so unimpressive that it was literally a development tool they used when creating the caves that they decided to keep in. Ultrahand is a fairly interesting system that is probably robust on a technical level, but that alone does not justify SIX ENTIRE YEARS of dev time, especially given it's not completely unique, similar systems have existed in other games, albeit less robust@@jaydenc367
@@jaydenc367Thanks for showing what delusion is. MM>>>TOK
Yeah, saw the fusion/ultrahand showcase in the trailer and immediately thought: “Oh no, I bet they poured all of their resources into fusion and not into enemy variety, weapon variety, dungeons, combat changes, or good and plentiful side quests…”
and you were right lol
Fusion is dogshit. It really doesn't change the way you use weapons, and it makes you pause the game even more than botw, I didn't even think that was possible. It also makes you look goofy as hell.
I swear nintendo could make a a totk sequel where they take google maps data, replicate the earth and place random camps everywhere and people would say it's a masterpiece because of how much content it has. 10,000 korok seeds!
And when you collect all 10,000 Korok seeds, you get... two turd piles, instead of just one.
@@MarilynMonRoverOnce I found that out I didn't bother finding anymore koroks. How you gonna give me a piece of shit for 900 shits?
@@NRalterthey claimed that it was some sort of lighthearted joke, but I was like "yeah, the only joke is whoever designed this stupid reward". It reminded me SO hard of the 1 million roses "reward" in We Love Katamari.
@@MarilynMonRover As much I hate the Internet for the bad things we get out of it. Knowing the hidden rewards of some of these games save so much time, blood, sweat and tears for us who don't got time for mediocrity
@@NRaltersoooooo true.
The only thing here I disagress with is that totk has a better story than botw. This is not at all true because of at least in botw, getting one memory before the others doesn't spoil the entire thing. As well as this the fact that they turn Zelda back into hylian after being a dragon contradicts what the entire story had set up about "there is no way to return" and removes any kind of emotional impact Zelda's transformation originally had.
+ “the name Ganondorf, it gives me pause” you just spent 100 years sealing a being named “Ganon”. Story was way worse than BotW, not to mention the goat baphomet Zonai
My only real criticism of the game is that the sky should have been more densely populated with locations that actually had lore. I wanted to see Zonai temples and hell maybe even a couple of town ruins I would have much rather each región have its own large sky island that had narrative significance rather than the Tiny challenge islands we got. The depths were super cool in my opinion and I rather liked them although I wish each section had its own specific enemies.
Agreed
I agree totally, they marketed this game as if the sky islands were going to be the focal point of the game. The depths was a pleasant surprise though which I’m not mad about at all.
The depth felt very empty tho…like there isn’t a lot to do in here and most of the time I completely forget it even exist
I was exploring the great plateau and the akkala parts of the depths which were pretty interesting
One of the key to BOTW and TOTK's feel is "emptyness".... if they added too many island, the sky would've looked ugly... and "that one weird island in the distance" would not have felt the same... What is true tho, is that the discoveries are often a tad underwhelming..
Some reviews said that Tears of the Kingdom made breath of feel like a prototype, but honestly I think Tears feels far more like a prototype than Breath of the Wild did. Breath of the Wilds main draw was the feeling of exploration, having limitations on how you travel is what made it feel like an epic adventure. Tears on the other hand adds in all these traversal options to by pass exploration..... on a map designed for exploration......... The mechanic is undoubtedly incredibly, but it feels like it's in the totally wrong game. Had Tears been set on a different Hyrule, with far better combat, far greater enemy variety, smarter armour upgrade system (you didn't mention it in the review and my god it was terrible in Breath and still terrible now) and a far more involved story, then Breath would have felt like a prototype. Tears feels like it's a prototype for the ultra hand concept stapled onto Breath of the Wild. It's an incredible mechanic, incredibly designed, that never should have been a part of the Breath of the Wild franchise. I honestly can't see it return in a Zelda game again unless it's extremely limited.
As an average totk enjoyer, I surprisingly do agree with most of your points and get where you’re coming from with them. While I don't find the game outright terrible, hearing your thoughts have opened my mind to things I haven't realized are true, such as the small amount of innovation outside of the new abilities.
a reasonable person👍
The thing that really really hurts in both totk and gow5 are how we expected something much better and more fantastic, the expectations were wild. Both these new games took the magic I had playing the old ones and killed it. I would come back to either of the previous games, but because of the new ones, I just won't.
@@ozaiobee Whatever you say in your Fairytale World, 'Mr Perfect'.
@@netweed09what are u even talking about. People have opinions
@@FullyOnVolks Ok, maybe that last one was too much, but what I meant is to that other guy; is someone who Loves Tears of the Kingdom and only has a few bits of criticism for it (not an hour long moan) ''not a reasonable person''?? Think about it. He's just playing on a wind-up lol.
I give this review a 10/10
Really made you feel like you were watching a review.
This is my favorite video on the channel and it has the most dislikes lol
@@feebleking21 stating truth is hard very so with big thing like zelda (+ the saxophone hype)
@@user-yo2vd5op9g it's not objective truth mate, everyone has their own opinions
@@RedBoko2017 true misspoke
I thought ToTK was quite boring. Hate the building aspect and preferred the abilities from BoTW. Depths were also very repetitive and boring.
i guarantee you that 90% of the negative comments were from people who said to themselves: "well, i had fun!" ... and thats how far the majority of the human race has come in critical thinking
If I pay 60$ for something and the game is just really fun. LIKE really fun. what else would we need to say? It's a 96 on metacritic right now. So it seems that you're nothing more than a moron or a bad faith actor. Pick one and I'll agree.
the only people that like totk are gen z casual morons that think shit like playing fortnite for 1000 hours plus is peak gaming
Fr, you'll notice if you ask any of them to tell you why they will fail to give any real explanation
@@LilacMonarchyep, they’ll either insult you or say “well I liked it!!! 👶🍼🚼”
@@lawless7859”what else would I need to say” you cannot critically think? You can’t explain WHY you like something? You are the example Zhamp just provided and it’s probably why you got offended LMAO
When you mentioned the Water Temple and ascending into the fire room… I didn’t do that. I just had Sidon protect me with water and walked right through. Then you put a platform on the switch and it turns the fire off.
Ah yes, using the heat immunity will turn Link immune to the fire too, like in BotW.
I ascended as well. My friend fused her shield with a metal plate of some kind and walked through that way.
Yeah I just used the water shield as well
i used a stake shoved into the wall. i am einstein
Idk why he didn't think of the other obvious solution; use something to block the fire with ultrahand
why didn’t they just have us time travel 10k years like you said that would’ve been amazing
Because I don't think we would have been able to commit war crimes to the koroks
"Imagine if Elden Ring did this" is a great summation of my feelings about TOTK.
It's a good comparison considering that there both open world and if elden ring had any these issues people would tear it apart for it
@@danieln7591of course they would what can you do in Elden ring apart from combat can we be serious lol
@@danieln7591Any basis for that, or just salty contrarians mad popular game is popular? I mean, From Soft is great and I love them, but.. so do most people? And the praise is pretty universal despite increasingly large missteps and dilution with every Soulsborne game. Nobody “tore it apart” for that and again, almost universal praise aside from a nitpick here and there and contrarians like a lot of the folks whining about this game by revising history so that a universally acclaimed game is unfairly shit on, while pretending that what you’re doing to this game is being done to a different one as proof that.. this game has it too easy? When there’s practically an entire industry on KZhead centered around people who literally have not played this past the first shrine actively being against it because reasons. Too many people being like “I quit during the tutorial because I knew the whole game would be the same” when, if they’d finish the tutorial, they’d almost immediately realize the game is almost entirely reimagined and not “the same”. But hey, “me hate popular thing” is just kind of the way of things lately. People think contrarianism is a replacement for actual, informed takes. Not even saying this game is perfect. Building can be a nightmare, time consuming UI, annoyingly low dynamic resolution, climbing *still* makes half the game redundant and let’s you skip most puzzles entirely, etc. It’s hardly a perfect game, I just wish people who don’t know wtf they’re talking about would get a clue.
i feel like elden ring did a lot of things better than totk. Underground included.
Oh, that Dark Souls rip off?? I mean, it's a good game but its not hard when you're basically riding off the Legendary Dark Souls series. But Elden Ring somehow managed to make their enemies the most poorly and lazily designed of all: a skull head on a centipede - eh?? It's just laughable slapdash for the sake of ''looking evil and wrong'' but it's simply bad, uninspired enemy design. They're not fooling anyone sensible with that crap lol.
what dissapointed me was after couple of hours and doing the first story dungeon I knew what the rest of the game would look like and from then I lost motivation to even finish the game
you haven't even played the game, all the dungeons have their own unique feel this time and, no matter what you say, the vast majority of people are against you
@@RedBoko2017……
@@inforelatedtv yes?
@@RedBoko2017 just because the vast majority likes the game it doesn't make my opinion wrong. I never even said it was a bad game but just for me the story aspect felt like botw all over again. I played the game over the past 6 months a lot tho, I am just saying it is not a thrilling experience for me like everyone else claims
@@EarthshakerOnamazu well the numbers speak facts friend, You're a small and vocal minority, just stop and look for a moment. And yet you have the audacity to call the vast majority of Zelda fans AI.
If I had seen this video when it came out, I would’ve thought you were being uncharitable and vitriolic. Now, 6 months after the game’s release and after I myself have dunked ~200 hrs into the game, I think your criticisms are mostly correct. Consider my rose-colored glasses removed. Nintendo had a lot to deliver, and while I think they added new features that are both desirable and fun for awhile, I ultimately agree that they dropped the ball with totk. They had 6 years to do it right, but instead they chose quantity > quality and gave us a game where we invent our own fun (which is a design choice that makes for a good minecraft game, maybe, but makes for a bad Zelda game imo).
Yes, I was one of the people who saw all of the problems right away, and I was crucified for pointing it out. Then over the weeks and months, people started to see what some of us saw right away. It really is just a reskinned BOTW which puts in such MINIMAL effort when it comes to missions and story. It honestly feels like one of those reskin user mods for a game where they throw in a bunch of stuff that doesn’t really fit, but they just thought it would be “cool”. 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
@@scubasteve2189 Same, I was shit on repeatedly for not enjoying the limitless possibilities of the "sandbox"
For me, it was a repeat of how I felt with botw. First I adored it for all of the potential it had, then I began seeing cracks that led to me pushing through the story for any meaningful content, then after beating it, I reset to find something worthwhile in the side content, then I quickly lose interest until I hate the game for what it replaced and how toxic the post botw fanbase is. Botw is not a recreation of zelda 1 either. Everything about old zelda that I liked was present in zelda nes and lacking in botw
@@Spartan1312constantly not called creative for not playing it a specific way in order to make it more challenging or criticizing the paper mario sticker star durability mechanics that add nothing whatsoever but weapon grinding
@@Spartan1312What people don’t understand is that “limitless solutions” are only as useful as the complexity of the puzzles. If puzzles are incredibly basic, it doesn’t matter how many tools you have. You could have 500 ways to light a torch, but at the end of you don’t feel intelligent (and thus satisfaction) for doing it because it took no thought. All of the shrines that require zonai only feature exactly what you need to complete it, and nothing more. And since a ton are indoors (where personal zonai aren’t usable) there really isn’t any experimentation possible anyway. If you can make anything else that happens to beat that shrine, it’s not because they made it that way. It’s more like you glitched the game to your advantage. Because it’s a bunch of tools in a physics engine, and you just so happen to find a very roundabout way to circumvent them.
It was just a cash in. Same game, only a few sky stone platforms, I won't call them locations. In the words of AVGN - "What were they thinking?"
It’s a cash grab “ that’s what they were thinking . It took them like 12 years to make botw . It began its life on a console and didn’t finish until that console died . They definitely need more time to see these flaws , if we players saw them they should have too
Something went seriously wrong in development. You can tell the devs didn’t enjoy making this game. It’s why they’re not making dlc despite the amount in sales it would make.
But they did make a DLC.... It's Tears Of The Kingdom 😅
How hard could it have been to make something like “flurry rush arts” where you get different TYPES of attacks to do after flurry rushing. Like age of calamity. Some that explode, some that do electric damage, some that put link the air. Instead of just mashing y over and over and over again. They had SIX YEARS.
The devs put said six years into much bigger ideas, the sky islands, the depths, the dungeons, all the new enemies and the building system, they aren't going to take the effort to implement puffjig7143's random flurry rush idea that he got salty about.
then just play age of calamity
@@RedBoko2017 quiet nintendrone consoomer
Not something you touched on, but one thing that really annoyed me with this game was how little it respected the player when it came to the real core of this style of game, which is exploring the world. You find one great fairy, she marks on your map where all the others are. You start exploring the depths, you can pay the statue in Lookout Landing poes for him to tell you where all the bargainer statues are. You first start the game, and someone marks off on your map where all the great sages are. I get that in the era we've been in for decades now where someone could go look all this up online that they need to adjust how they approach exploring, but the fact they removed the option to explore for myself and find things on my own from the game was really so disappointing. To me Breath of the Wild was a game about exploring, and Tears of the Kingdom took all that away. They made exploring the new zones tedious, and they just kind of told you where so many of the games' secrets are
I’m honestly fine with that. No reason to scour a map I’ve already fully explored a second time to get the upgrades I want.
It did respect them when it came to that though. Yes which makes getting upgrades and stuff less tedious, and finding the great sages should be marked like how the champion and divine beast stuff was in BOTW, and the bargainer statues stuff is optional to know. They didn`t remove the option to explore for youself though. How did TOTK take any of that away? Nah they made them feel fun to explore, they didn`t tell you where they are at.
@@jaydenc367 when you know exactly where these things are because they're marked on your map, you can make a beeline straight to them. The bargainer statue marks on your map where the others are, the great faeries mark on your map where the others are, meaning they did take away the explore and find them aspect of this part of the game. And in the case of the great faeries, it's not optional. You can't choose to have the first one not tell you immediately where the others are. I found in general this world felt like there was just less incentive to exploring it then breath of the wild.
@@anthonydelfino6171 For main quest stuff though that makes sense and it may still be difficult to get to them. Not really you still find them but with the great fairy fountains they are just prevent repeititvieness from you already finding them in BOTW so you can upgrade your armor quicker. I disagree, the incentive was just as great if not better then in BOTW.
I miss when Zelda was more than a Minecraft reskin slapped onto a generic open world.
I think minecraft reskin is a bit of a stretch lol
6 years for this is such a disappointment. It’s just BOTW 1.5. Majora’s Mask did so much more as a sequel in a fraction of the time
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
IMHO the devs spent a copious amount of time getting ultra hand to work. Which to their credit does work incredibly well for a game like this. The problem is that ultra hand runs counterintuitive to nearly everything else about the game. As a traversal mechanic it's either too tedious to design unique vehicles or it breaks exploration with things like 2 fans and a steering wheel. As a combat mechanic aside from fusing it's far to impractical. In the time it takes someone to build a Bokoblin smashing Mecha Godzilla contraption (as impressive as it may be) that could clear out a fort when set loose. I could clear out 4 forts + a couple encampments with a couple sticks with horns attached to them in the same amount of time. So little effort was put into any other aspect of TOTK. The story is more grandiose, but it's paper thin, disorganized, and can't even follow it's own continuity from the game it's a sequel to. Combat pacing and enemy variety is still practically non existent. Dungeons are a slight improvement over BOTW, but still some of the worst in all of Zelda's history. And all the new areas are embarrassingly repetitive and loose they're charm after a couple hours. The Legend of Zelda is my favorite franchise and i welcomed a lot of changes BOTW brought to exploring the overworld. TOTK was an opportunity to reincorporate more of the fun elements like dungeons, real time story, enemy variety, and more from traditional Zelda titles into the new open air formula introduced by BOTW. What we wound up getting was the worst of both worlds. A game that continues to disregard the core elements of what makes a zelda game feel like a zelda game, and exploring area's that have either already been tread upon, or loose they're charm almost instantly.
You hit the nail on the head when the story of TOTK could had took place 10.000 years. The game could had been much better and given Nintendo that excuse to completely remake the world of Hyrule but nah that would had been too much work.
you have it all backwards, nintendo didnt want an 'excuse' to completely remake hyrule, they were looking for and excuse NOT to completely remake hyrule. It was a terrible decision.
Honestly, it’s shocking how Elden Ring made the ENTIRE game feel fresh and exciting to explore. Ik people defend the weapon durability system by saying it would incentivize exploration or use of different weapons. Then we have Elden Ring, which lets you invest in any weapon, with the ability to customize it with effects on hit and the skills. Enemies dropping armor sets/weapons/crafting materials also are a boon. There’s a mountain of stuff to find WITHOUT a durability system at all. Same thing can be said about Bloodborne too.
Elden Ring was also made at least 2 years faster than TotK
@@user-hs9ge3cj9p i kinda went overboard with the “Elden Ring made everything feel fresh” point. It’s one game where as Totk is the sequel. Even still, The amount of Enemies and bosses FAR exceeds Totk. Puzzles are the bosses themselves really. Dodging, Parrying, Stance breaking. Elden Ring can’t even be bothered to give up on Lore and different biomes. So much environmental storytelling helps boost the replay ability. The Bosses (while I think some are overhyped like Melania and Morgott) never get boring to refight.
All of you are missing the point totk is a technical achievement and it's true to the premise of the first Zelda even tho the game offers a great variety of gameplay the true marvel is in it's ability to showcase new forms of assimilating code mechanics to enjoyable experiences Every Zelda brings either an updated version or a deeper horizontal progression system Elden ring is much more complex when creating their system compared to Zelda but ultimately rely much more on immersive experiences than technical achievements even tho each game franchise brings a total different experience
@@NoName-hj6cs The sky is was a massive part of the early trailers, but what is it used for? Less than 40 shrines and SOME puzzles and boss fights. The Depths could’ve saved some more new enemies/ puzzles. For it being an atmospheric scene the first time, it sure loses that with time. I’m still fighting the same Boko’s/Moblins. I don’t mean to say they aren’t a fun challenge, but fighting mostly the same enemies that don’t have any variety, gets boring. Why will I bother exploring the rest if I know what’s down there? I do like the Construct Factory as a mini-temple. Weapon durability isn’t an issue, but the way it is now makes the game TOO frustrating. The legacy weapons are more souvenirs, because the White Sword of the Sky or Dusk Claymore will just break WAY too easily. Why does the Biggoron sword have acceptable durability as a base weapon? Because some master smither made it? Fierce Deity’s sword and the Six Sages sword break earlier than some basic rock people’s sword. Totk is a great game, but it isn’t a MONUMENTAL game, I can see Botw being one, it still has some of its faults. Those faults I can look over, as it WAS the first open world Zelda game. Totk had 6 years of Dev time with an established world and it just feels like a NG+. Elden Ring has given exploration a real reward, go to a random Tower in Caelid and you get a Godslayer Greatsword. Check all the item pick up prompts, you might find a neat sword or a crafting recipe. One is combat focused yeah, but the depth have NO puzzles aside from the Mineru temple. Unless there are some in those very few places I didn’t go through. Totk is a solid 8/10, but that is the best it gets. It’s enjoyable but it still has a lot of its issues
I can't stop thinking about how many possible ways there would be to make this game better. This really was the worst possible outcome that I feared it would be when they announced it'd use the same map.
Exactly. Not only was this game trash, but the POTENTIAL it had. The ways they could’ve innovated. The fact they had SIX YEARS. In another timeline this game was known as the best video game of all time and the Zelda “of the” series is the staple king of gaming
I was willing to accept a reused world in favour of the vehicle mechanics, because that concept is still rare and cool in and of itself. But they didn’t create any interesting puzzles or challenges so all those tools (and intuitive controls in building them) went completely to waste. It also doesn’t help that not only do vehicles disappear within a short range, but land vehicles control terribly after we just got a vehicle that controls great with the Master Cycle in BotW’s DLC. It’s literally a downgrade to use any custom-made land vehicle, and not even because of the battery limitation. It just doesn’t traverse the terrain all that well (in isolation or comparatively). You’re literally better off getting a horse or walking. Especially when it’s reusing BotW’s map which was built in mind with you just walking, so interactable things/objectives are relatively closer than a vehicle would be useful for. Especially when they also cost materials. Outside korok seeds, vehicles are only useful in the overworld as flying machines being used for backtracking or traversing between two points where you haven’t unlocked the fast travel option yet.
@@FullyOnVolks What do you even play to back up those dreadful and laziest of 'opinions'?? Some random anime stuff and a copy pasta of 2 TOTK trailers?? Weird!
One thing I like about this game has been the reception by fans. While critics have given their bizarre perfect scores, a lot more of the fans have been reacting to the flaws compared to the release of BotW. I remember searching for videos critical of BotW and there were very few of them early on, yet for TotK there are already a lot more just a few months after release. Even casual fans I've spoken to online have mentioned that it dramatically failed to capture them the way BotW did and they lost interest usually within a week or two. I hope this reaction will cause Nintendo to rethink and change course to get back to making good games.
The game already made them bank. Their head is too far up their ass to get any changes from them
It puts breath of the wild to shame.
No lol. There is a small sections of people who don't like the game. The overwhelming majority love this game.
Aonuma and Fujibayashi won't care as long as their boring korok turd collecting simulators continue to rake in money from the lowest common denominator.
I remember I kept checking KZhead for critical videos on release week and there just weren’t any. Glad to see at least a few have cropped up.
Not so good at putting it to words as you, but I have developed a growing disappointment going from botw to tears, much for the reasons you mention. I also think I'm permanently cured when it comes to breaking weapons .. sharpening and improving is ok, but ... so I returned to the witcher III again. Thank you for this video.
Bros the type of dude to buy a box of fruity pebbles, count and separate each piece by color then complain there’s not enough red flakes in it.
The review is like: "If this game is like Elden Ring then it will be better" There's some valid points don't get me wrong and I agree to some of them... But the feel of the review is like a sarcasm just because of the abundance of Elden Ring comparisons.
@@vivid8979 I think the comparisons are valid, as it's the only other game that reaches the same level of community hype and praise as these recent Zelda games. Both games are considered by many to be perfect. However, when you put them side by side, it becomes obvious both BoTW and TotK can't be perfect, as they are far inferior to Elden Ring. Take off the nostalgia Nintendo fan-boy glasses and you'll realize it.
@@jordanbates4621 you could also say that Else Ring is not perfect because of all the constraints and lack of many aspects present in TotK.. not to mention the quality of it's delivery. If both companies learned from each other and pushed the craft forward.. THEN we could probably have a real masterpiece
@@vivid8979 it’s very hard not to compare breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom to one of the best open world games we’ve ever gotten. What you’re saying is that we should never compare a game to another game that does anything better? I think Elden ring is the perfect game to compare to this one to show how an open world can be done, right. He’s making valid criticisms about this game and then following up with what could be done better and how it has been done before.
@@Mr_Sunday_Gary Making comparisons to games that are vastly different in terms of mechanics and what they are trying to do then basing your critique in those comparisons are just very flawed imho... The only thing they have in similar is that they are both Open World.. It's like comparing Fifa and Madden just because they're both Sports games... The bias is strong with this one which makes the review ingenuine..
Don't remember going under the Water Temple. Just used Sidon's water shield to get through the fire barrier.
...im so fucking dumb
I just used a hover platform from my inventory and blocked it.
I need my brain checked
@@HallowedGreaves same here bro. I’m an idiot
@@LORDBEAR272 there's a hover platform right behind the fire that's within ultrahand range. That's definitely the intended solution
Imagine if they decided to make the game all underground, instead of going to the skies again. Would've added to the whole Zonai mystery, and added some more dungeons.
Omg sooooo true, I'd love that so much
Yeah, my thought was what if they had only sky and depths, with some reason to avoid the surface outside of specific story beats. Same Kingdom, theoretically the same map in a way, but a fully new experience, while still giving atmospheric variety.
I honestly don't understand how so many people acted like it's 10/10. On my very first playthrough, heck from the moment I started walking on arouns the sky island I knew something was wrong. This game never failed to dissapoint me with everything. It was ridiculous how we had to wait so long for this? I mean what justifies the wait? The building mechanics? This game didn't need building mechanics, I barely even used it. I would've much prefered them put effort into other parts of the game
Same. It was mass psychosis and NPC sheeple mindset people who felt that because it was a Zelda game, it must be good and so they should have no critical eye.
Tears just seems like a big DLC package for BOTW.
It was supposed to be, actually, so it kinda makes sense
Pretty sure devs out right said this in the interviews prior to release. Started as a dlc and got so big it became a sequel.
They basically just used the depths to hide amiibo treasure. That’s the extent of the purpose the depths served. The sky served to hide maps that would lead you to these amiibo pieces in the depths. In short, the sky and depths are obsolete and offer nothing to the actual game because you can literally skip the entire depths and it wouldn’t affect how your journey on th surface plays out. Nintendo also decided to inconvenience the player just so they can avoid resembling anything remotely similar to “old Zelda”. Example, instead of an item subscreen that would make using abilities and items so much easier and more convenient, they consolidated those abilities into armor, a never ending chain of consumables to scroll thru mid swing in combat, and the sages. You have to run up to a sage during combat and press A to activate the ability you want. This is actually so horribly implemented, it’s universally agreed upon that everyone turns off the sages. Imagine your ToTK biggest advocate , turning off a major combat mechanic because of how useless and poorly implemented it is. This is classic Nintendo stubbornness , just so ToTK doesn’t have anything linking it to what an old Zelda game would have despite how perfect it was. Nintendo has sacrificed quality for the pursuit of being different. And this is seen all thru out the game in so many areas. ToTK is IMO the worst Zelda game of all time and as far as overall let downs go, the biggest of all time.
Definitely the worst 3d game.
@@tombadil64 not at all
@@jaydenc367 It's not even a competition in my mind. What do you think is the worst 3d game?
No they serve having a lot of exploration too. No the sky serves other rewards and unique resources too. NO they aren't obsolete and offer a lot to the game, more stuff to see and find new mini bosses and enemies and locations, even if they are optional they are still good. Not true. Abilities as armor is something old Zelda games did too though like Ocarina of Time, but yeah it could be more convenient. Not everyone does that in fact the abilities thmeselves are well implemented and are useful...activating them though not so much. They aren't useless or are fully poorly implemented. Nintendo hasn't done that. Not really. Well I mean...that's just objectively wrong especially when you include the first 2 Zelda games and Phantom Hourglass.
@@tombadil64 Honestly...it may still be WW tbh.
I really enjoyed early game shrines because they were out in the open so you had to do a puzzle in the shrine. Once those are done and you're doing cave and sky shrines, they almost exclusively are crystal challenges or just reward you with a blessing for finding it, no puzzle required.
because findin the crystal and getting it to the shrine is the puzzle.
@@rwbyistrash603 and doing it over and over again sucks
@@rwbyistrash603 carrying something isn't a puzzle, there's nothing to solve
@@Fluffy6555 It is when they're on completely separate islands. Theres multiple ways to go about doing it, just like the shrines. And you say that as if theres a shortage of normal shrines, or lots of sky shrines like that.
@@rwbyistrash603 the sky shrines are mostly that and I don't consider the solutions very creative. They either have a shooting platform or materials to build a wing.
Your "Zelda Feeling" statement really hit home. The success chime from the OG game being played when I just put the round peg in the round hole always seemed a little hollow in BOTW. I wonder how many of the dev team played NES Zelda as a kid. It took me like three years to complete it as a kid. I haven't played TOTK and likely will not.
Despite not caring much for BotW, I went into TotK from the perspective that vehicle-crafting is a cool idea, and that could make reusing the same map worth it/palpable… I would still say don’t buy it because outside maybe the first few hours where you’re really limited, it doesn’t do ultrahand justice. The puzzles/challenges are so basic that you never have to think beyond your initial solution, which is basically always the best. Not to mention the indoor shrines will only have exactly what you need (and the indoor shrines don’t allow you to use your personal zonai stash). Most of the zonai (pieces used to craft vehicles/contraptions) will go unused because they’re either not useful, necessary, or needed. It was the main draw to seperate this game and it’s not even used well.
When you say “ I’m not afraid to disagree with everyone and get downvoted” you’re giving away the plot.
so
The more honest I am the more people tell me I am lying. I am not a grifter. The most popular video on my KZhead channel is me praising Vinland Saga. I obviously don't need to be negative to get views, I just think this game is a colossal disappointment. Tears of the Kingdom is easily the worst game I've covered besides DS2 Scholar of the First Sin.
@@feebleking21 mmhmm
@@feebleking21 dont stop king
@@davidgreene9627*They're
I love this game!! I’m not mad at all if people disagree. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just feel sorry for anyone who was looking forward to this game & it let them down. I had super high hopes for this game & it’s better than I could’ve imagined so I’m super happy!!
Yeah how I feel tbh. The game might not look great to me but I'm glad people are enjoying it.
Don't get me wrong I enjoy this game very very much it's even on its way to become one my favourites but I'm baffled how it got so many "perfect" reviews. Where is objectivity? How do these people not notice any of the flaws? Elden Ring is my absolute favourite game ever but even that is far from perfect IMO. There is a conspiracy that Nintendo pays people to give at least 90% score for their biggest games and it's getting more and more beliveable. Nintendo is a company with basically infinite money to develop games and after 6 years of development this all we get after BOTW? The same lackluster melee combat, literally the same map with the Depths and the Sky added which are not exactly huge efforts, the fusing, building mechanic and new enemies and bosses here and there? Excuse me but why is this game 70 USD exactly? How does this cost the same as Jedi Survivor?
I have put 150+ hours in TOTK and I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. There is so much to do that It’s overwhelming at times. Having played Elden Ring too, TOTK has me wanting to spend the whole day playing which I can’t say the same for Elden Ring. There is just so much more complexity to this game. I TOTK isn’t perfect, but it certainly is a game I haven’t enjoyed this much in a very long time. I mean, this is what Zelda always has been, a unique experience. Thank you!
There are better video games. horizon dawn, the witcher 3 that do what this does better.
@@valentinvas6454 its think its because of the creativity the mechanics offer, one of the reasons botw was so good was because of the climbing mechanic since it allowed you to traverse and scale almost any object you wanted and now you can go and build zonai devices to fly around, use rewind, ascend, fuse and so much more and go in your own direction of the game without it not being interesting. this is just my opinion though
Should have been a dlc honestly
The amount of downvotes just goes to show how many "gamers" are okay with subsisting on shit as long as they are told it's chocolate.
Or maybe some people just don't agree with the criticisms and enjoy it despite some KZheadr not enjoying it
@@xiggles And that's great that they enjoy it, but the fact that they either actively deny problems exist OR admit they exist but then reee at anyone for bringing them up, is quite an indictment. Like, some of my outright favorite games have some substantial flaws--I know they have flaws, I wish the flaws weren't there, I wish a sequel would come out and fix the flaws, but I still enjoy it anyway. These are not mutually exclusive positions--you don't have to blindly hate everyone who criticizes something you like.
@@BWMagus I'm responding to a comment that says I'm "subsisting on shit" because I disagree with a youtuber. You're a great example of the issue I'm pointing out, this is your second reply to me because you're so upset that I like a game you don't. No matter how subjective a review is, Someone out there is gonna take every word some guy says as gospel and attack anyone who disagrees. I never said the game was perfect or above criticism, I'm just sick of being told I'm not allowed to like a game that is genuinely really well-made in my opinion because they watched a video of some guy passionately trashing it.
I like this game, but this brought up many valid points. My only real issue for this game would be that the story questline is a bit short and ganondorf isn't very involved in any of them. Feels like there could have been a lot more they could have done, but I still like the game overall. 👍
there's definitely a lot to like and dislike. The overworld feels almost pointless to explore... there's little it can offer you aside from more breakable weapons, bokoblins to fight... shrines, whatever. If you see something interesting, chances are its just another shrine, which wasn't really that fun for me. It was cool to find new monsters like the frox or gleeok which promptly whooped my ass lmao. There's definitely some new interesting things to explore in the overworld so its not entirely pointless to explore but it just felt pointless for me to do anything else but the main story first. That was my general experience, im sure other people probably like to explore more than I do.
The story is short because they wanted to encourage exploration. Xenoblade games were story focused but they also encouraged exploration and had better world design. Not saying totk is bad but it's not my kind of game
@@nobody4062 I disagree, the overworld has a lot to offer and explore, weapons, armours, stat upgrades, resources, etc. Not really....there is way more then just shrines.
@@jaydenc367 i suppose there is, but i hate the feeling of doing a quest and already knowing that your reward is going to be rupees or a shrine or some materials. I don't like fighting a cool new enemy only for the reward to be the same old stuff I've gotten before. I guess its because I already beat the game, got most of the outfits and became a big stronk chad link. I don't find the quests to be very interesting and the enemies worth beating after you get on top. And koroks suck lmao. I liked making my own house though. Once you get through all the interesting quests, it makes the world more barren, dont you think?
@@nobody4062 Ok I get that...still it had a lot of good interesting rewards too. Well I do tbh. Eh...not always tbh. I mean...I dunno really.
I feel like Nintendo took all the criticism with lack of story and and recycled enemies in the first game and basically just doubled down on all of that. Like "remember the story that wasn't there and the same enemy camps that nobody likes? Well we have a lot more of that for you and we'll throw in some janky building mechanics to make it even more tedious". Thanks Nintendo, this was the exact opposite to what I was hoping for in this game 😂.
It really does feel like every problem I had with BotW has either been doubled down (bad rewards for quests, enemy variety, storytelling) or kinda sidestepped (weapon durability works differently now, it's STILL a pain in the ass though; dungeons have more visual identity, but puzzle design-wise they're arguably even worse than the DBs). The ONLY problem I feel they did improve on were the dungeon bosses.
Same with the korok seeds and shrines. What? You think that solving 120 shrines and finding 900 korok seeds was tedious and lackluster content? Don't worry, we've put plenty more of it in our new game. That's the freedom, baby.
@@Hilipinapixili How every problem? Rewards and enemy varierty is better. Puzzle wise and weapon durability has improved too.
@@jaydenc367 Rewards are most definitely NOT better, made worse by the fact that most of the armors you find happen to be the same ones that were in BotW, making them feel less exciting. Sidequests are still not worth doing for the most part barring some exceptions, just like in BotW. Finding a weapon in a chest is still as disappointing as it was in BotW because of the weapon durability system. Speaking of which, the changes added to the weapons are interesting because it FEELS like they should make the game better, but in my opinion they actually make it worse. The monster material fusion actually pushes the player to engage with the monsters this time, but this brings up two of the problems that are still prevalent: Monster variety and uninteresting melee combat (and also the fact that weapons breaking still feels just as obnoxious as before and is as much of a pain in the ass as it was in BotW, nothing has changed here). Yes, there are like 2 or 3 more enemy types sprinkled in this time around; this doesn't change much, and the fact that you're pushed to actively engage with them actually makes the lack of enemy variety be even more prevalent in TotK than it was in BotW, where at least it could be more easily ignored in favor of the game's strengths. TotK pushing you to fight them, while good in theory, actually makes these problems harder to ignore. Puzzles in TotK live and die by the Ultra Hand mechanic. 99% of them are reliant on it, making it an all-or-nothing kind of deal. Personally, I found Ultra Hand to be a cool concept that was clunkily, awkwardly and half-assedly implemented. The contraptions you could make were cool, but them disappearing and having to grind for materials to blueprint them again made them more pointless than they should have been both from a utility AND creative standpoint. With the exception of the Thunder Temple, dungeons are way less cohesive than in BotW, which were already decidedly mediocre to begin with but at least felt like clever little puzzle boxes. Shrines for the most part are along the same lines except they revolve around the Ultra Hand this time around. There's an awful lot of shrines with no puzzle at all in them though. The idea is that finding the shrine is in itself the puzzle, which is fine... until you realize most of them are just the same puzzle of bringing the crystal to the shrine with minor variations, making the implementation STILL feel lazy despite of the concept being valid.
I'm a 90s baby and played Zelda games since a link to the past. I found both botw and totk disappointing for lacking the ability to draw me into the game past exploration alone. I enjoy exploring new places but can get distracted them to the point I'm disconnected from the story which is why i play Zelda games. I absolutely hated that the majority of story in both games where pushed over to memory cutscenes. I miss the draw from Zelda games like Ocarina of time, twilight princess and windwaker that make me want to see what's next. Discovery is fun but once you discover everything what makes you want to replay and rediscover it if theres no good storyline to make it worth going back?
"It's not the size that matters, but how you use it" wise words
You're putting your channel on the line lmfao respect
I would agree if his points were correct
@@coltnigh308 and they are
@@mihaimercenarul7467 read my comment on this video
He’s 100% right though. It’s repetitive, boring, a slog-fest. If they’re gonna use the same map then they should at least have great dungeons… but the dungeons were sucky
When I’m talking to people that defend Zelda TOTK, I can’t tell if they are either the insecure, low-expectations type of people that would date a girl who continually cheats on them because they are having low self-esteem and honestly don’t know any better, or if they are just paid commenters, and are paid money to pretend like the game is great. But it’s bad. TOTK is bad. It’s unacceptable that dungeons from games from 25 years ago in 1998 (Zelda ocarina of time) are way better than today.
I find it interesting how different our play styles seem to be. For example, I found myself rarely using the traditional combat system. I almost always used some combination of the environment, materials in my inventory, and my bow rather than close quarters combat. The way you described the combat system does sound rather monotonous, but it never bothered me because that isn't how I engaged with the game. Part of me wonders if a not insignificant part of our differing levels of enjoyment stem from our different play styles. A game that lets you decide what systems to engage in and how can lead to experiencing practicality different games. Edit: Since I don't feel like I fully got this point across in my comment I wanted to clarify this here. I can see why someone who separates the puzzles from the combat could find either uncompelling. But I find issue with separating those two. I never took issue with the simplicity of the combat system because I viewed each encounter as it's own unique puzzle. And what that puzzle looked like depended on everything from what kinds of enemies there were, if they were hostile to each other, their weapons, my weapons, my materials, the environment, and if I had any kind of time sensitive factor like a cold resist effect wearing off. None of that changes how interesting the explicitly included puzzles or combat system are, but it does greatly change the actual playing experience.
He said himself: "I don't really care about games that give the player ultimate freedom with no real direction on what to do with said freedom" Why is he playing TOTK, then? 😂😂
@@manuelalejandrogonzalez8517 Dark souls fan thats why
@@joungjk7203 Ey, don't generalize us souls fans like that, we aren't all idiots who can't see the value in any other kind of game and want to compare every game we play to it even when it makes no sense.
@@Koijn2K Yeah I know everyone not like that Im a dark souls fan myself but I just dont go into TOTK expecting Dark Souls level of combat. The combat experience is drastically different. All the complaints he had was just him wishing the game was more dark souls
Great point honestly. It really took long for me to get TotK (I hated BotW it was so empty and boring). I was never going to be the guy that would build stupid shit. Or sit half an hour thinking about the most creative solution to a puzzle so that I could film that and post it on Twitter for likes. But as I began I slowly just started and tried to play this game like I did any Zelda of the past. Exploring the world, visiting all the unique cultures in the game, fixing the local problems and progressing toward and through dungeons with a boss a the end. Nothing was a beat by beat copy of older Zelda game design. And yet it felt and looked like playing a Zelda. In the end by finding a certain way to play this game I found my enjoyment. It certainly helped I got this game to run for 8K+ with lots of mods and quality of life cheats tho 😂 Anyway the game is amazing I think. And thats coming from a BotW hater and massive TotK sceptic all the way until launch. Its absolutely a very unique open world, theme (Zelda always was with its fairy tale angle) and the way it does the main story design (and some of the side adventures). Its unlike any other good game and that gives its an extra point. But by no means is this the perfect game 😂 And I would honestly maybe even dispute the 10/10 and 97 meta critic scores this game has gotten. Maybe 85/87 is more like it (in contrast BotW is a 65 in my book so yeah..)
I wonder how many of the five thousand people who disliked this video even watched past the first second before pausing, disliking, and leaving purely because of the title.
So fun fact, my young nephew gave up on this game because he found it really boring. He's beaten Breath of the Wild several times, for what that's worth. And before any retards make any baseless accusations, no, I didn't put any ideas into his head. He came to the conclusion himself.
I think TotK would be better if the whole game only took place in either the sky islands or the depths. Creating an entirely new map with new races so it just doesn't seem like BotW2.
I think you mean BOTW 1.2. 🤦🏻♂️
When Purah marked the 4 locations on my map for the temples, and it was the same 4 spots as the last game, I actually just sat there for 2 minutes with my jaw hanging open. I couldn’t believe they were so lazy. 😳
@@scubasteve2189 True. People rail on Overwatch 2 for not adding much of anything to the game, but when zelda does it it's Goty material.
@@sulex3491 I beat the game. And there really isn’t that much of a change in new content.
😂 Erm,, have you been in the Depths since 2019?? It _is_ 'Botw2' , actually confirmed Officially as ''The *Sequel* to a Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild''. Jeez, how do you people come up with _Wild_ opinions like these. Just for the sake to make dissonance and hate?! 😂
Great video. And you perfectly capture my feeling at the end: how on earth did this game get such an overwhelmingly positive response? Are we in a different universe? Where up is down, water is dry, and Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece? I'm glad that the reception to the game has soured since you made this video, and people are much more open about the flaws now, but the consensus is still *wildly* off in my opinion: Tears of the Kingdom is, in many respects, an outright *bad* game. And even in this hour long video you still didn't even mention some of my issues with the game. The shameless copy-pasted amiibo costumes are the main exploration reward in the depths; those silly, forgettable, trivially easy to obtain gimmicks in the previous game are copy-pasted and morphed into primary rewards. The entire memory story can be *completely* ruined by getting them out of order, and this happened to *countless* players. The sage ability UI is utterly abysmal, and in general the sage abilities are a huge downgrade from the champion abilities. The house building is a great idea executed horrifically. Cooking and upgrading your clothing items is still a tedious chore. They have the cheek to pretend they've fixed climing while it's raining, and tease you with a very long side adventure with the lucky clover gazette it will take you hours to complete, only for it to turn out you STILL slip when it's raining even with the new armour set. The four regional phenomena copy-paste not only the final end-of-temple cinematic, but the *entire* story structure is almost identical across all four, with the exact same tedious narrative beats. The game tricks you into thinking caves are worth exploring because of bubbul gems, until you realise the rewards for bubbul gems are just the same old useless crap you get from everything else. There are many places on the surface that look like they should be something, but end up being nothing, because they *used to* be cool in BoTW but they had no new ideas for ToTK. Link has absolutely no personality. Half the NPCs you interacted with BoTW randomly forget you ever existed, and there is almost no explanation to where all the Sheikah stuff goes, nor any proper acknowledgement of any of the events of the previous game. Zelda is dumb as a rock not being able to figure out who Ganon is. The Great Sky Island is the exact same idea as the Great Plateau, copy-pasting a bunch of ideas that had no need to be copy-pasted, and doing a worse job of it. Then there's the thing that probably frustrates me the most, partially because nobody seems to be bothered by it as much as I am. The unforgiveable disunity between the memories and the main story. If Link gets a single memory, let alone figures out Zelda is a dragon, he knows Zelda is in the past and the search for her is pointless, and the player is forced to simply watch him say *nothing* while the *entire narrative of the game* revolves around NPCs searching for Zelda, risking their lives for Zelda, and getting tricked by Zelda. Link knows it's all BS, the player knows he knows, and yet nothing is said. Link is apparently a sociopath who gets pleasure out of watching people waste their time and risk their lives for no reason, because it would take him literally no effort at all to tell them and there is no reason for him to keep the info to himself. And meanwhile, as the player, you are forced to spend all this time going through a story and sitting through cutscenes that you know for an absolute fact are completely pointless. The devs actually somehow thought it was remotely acceptable to ship the game like that, and they got away with it because apparently most people think there's no issue. It bothers me so much. Tears of the Kingdom is a bad game and I hope more and more people begin to realise it, because if this is the quality standard we can expect from Zelda moving forward, then the franchise is frankly dead to me.
I wanted to get the video out quickly when it could still get views, but if I spent another week or two the video could have been twice as long. I'll probably talk about it more in another Zelda rant video, maybe around the next Zelda game release. One hour isn't enough time to get every complaint in.
@@feebleking21you should make a part 2. Look at how many views zeltiks video just got. People do not like this game and they want voices to affirm them.
And mrwho, we are 100% in a world where up is down, good is bad, and bad is good. Look at the world today for affirmation of that. Isaiah 5:20
The way I see it TotK is getting all the long overdue criticisms that BotW somehow dodged. A sequel to a terrible game that doubles down on everything that made it terrible won't just magically double back around to being a good game. As far as I'm concerned anyone who shouted down criticisms for BotW and pretended it was perfect got exactly the "sequel" they deserved.
Also, the comments of people going "Im sorry you feel that way" or whatever, these people definitely want another Zelda game that reuses the same map and has 2 puzzle long temples
i just have absolutely no idea how nintendo just made the same game but with 2 new levels (that have nothing in them) and gmod car building and it took them more than 6 years to throw it out
I honestly believe that the development time went mostly into their physics engine and getting the ultrahand to work exactly how they wanted it to while fixing bugs or crazy exploits along the way.
@@dawsong5208so disappointing. Wish they would have spent that time filling the existing map with proper action and bigger and better dungeons. I didn't mind the same map when announced, I thought a more action-based context for the map would have been really neat. But instead they doubled down on the same exploration without giving a new reason to explore
They didn't, they added a lot of stuff to the overworld and added the skies and depths. They didn't just add two levels (no there is a lot in them did you even explore them?) it isn't gmod car building as gmod car building works different. How did it take that long??? When did they start development? They only said it started development in 2019 and 2022 was basically a extra year of polish so...not including that how long was it really?
@@RP-mp4ow I mean they did spend the time filling it out, that was the point. No they added more reasons to explore and stuff to see and get out of it.
@@jaydenc367 if that was the point, then they missed it
I am definitely one of the people who was in a honeymoon phase with this game, nostalgia really does somehow manipulate and blind your critical eye. The start of the game I still love even though it's basically the start of botw but the change in scenery was enough for me. I thought about all the massive sky islands I'd be able to explore, then I dropped into Hyrule like a game of fortnite and thought "wait I'm already back here?" Later on I noticed just how small the sky islands were in comparison to the starting area and any islands I did find worth checking out were just for the same boss I'd seen a bunch of times and a shrine missing a crystal. Which admittedly was fun the first time, but this game takes fun concepts and overuses them to a point where you're just sick of them..
Jumping back onto Hyrule directly after finishing the updated great plateau felt like a rip off. How hard would it have been for Nintendo to give us a new world half the size of Hyrule or something. That’s where we SHOULD have gone after beating the little tutorial sky island
@@FullyOnVolks I agree, I really thought that the sky islands would play a bigger part. I thought that was their work around for using the same map but still trying to keep it fresh, but alas the sky islands are basically set dressing
@@FullyOnVolks I thought sky island tutorial world followed by jumping into Hyrule worked very well, although the lack of sky island variety definitely felt underwhelming.
I think I was in the honeymoon phase too and it lasted for about as long as the tutorial island lasts. Once back on Hyrule (which surprised me how quickly Link returned to it) I was interesting to learn what changed but seeing the continuity shattered it broke the illusion quickly for me. I would have liked if maybe there were less depths (or more to do in them/more story related) for more sky island exploring with maybe more to learn about the zonai exploring them. A lot goes unanswered though that could be for dlc but judging the game for what it is right now. The why the game advertised being in the sky I thought it'd play a bigger role but I did like the surprise of the depths. Until autobuild which basically shatters the immersion/tension/threat the depths has. I'll take smaller areas with more to do in them than larger once with filler or just empty. I still enjoyed he game a lot but as you said gameplay loops get old, especially ones from BotW.
@@midnightjayR I HEAVILY AGREE WITH BOTH OF YOU. I too was in the honeymoon phase cause of how hype the trailer made me feel maybe it made me feel to hype before I even played the game I was saying it was the best game ever and disliking any video I saw of people hating it, when I saw this video I disliked and got angry but when I got my hands on this game I felt like I was agreeing with most of his points the game is insanely good but it feels weak and a bit stale a few times. Well I don't think I will vote for this game as goty spider man 2 looks promising so its gonna be my pick
Just wanna add my vote to the depressingly small "TotK is disappointing" position. It will never not be frustrating that I had to fight people's nonsense criticisms of BotW AND people's nonsense praise of TotK. I can absolutely confirm from experience that yes, most people don't actually have anything resembling consistent standards and will ping-pong between praising and condemning the exact same thing regardless of context depending on which way the wind is currently blowing. I was 100% behind nintendo using BotW as a foundation for a whole new generation of Zelda games, but TotK as a direct sequel in development for 6 years is flat out not acceptable and has immediately squandered most of the opportunity BotW had to be a soft reset by being a nonsense time travel plot, bringing back EXACTLY the critical issue that turned the Zelda timeline into such a mire of pointless confusion that it warrants a soft reset in the first place. Almost none of the glaring issues of BotW have even had fixes attempted and the new stuff completely ignores player psychology 101 in ways I never would have expected from nintendo, specifically the fusing and zonai devices completely failing to account for the basic motivation to find and employ a dominant strategy. Almost all of the no item shrines (particularly the "stealth" ones) can have their premise completely subverted by just charging in, fusing whatever to whatever, and mashing attack, and greatly reward you for doing so by cutting the time to complete WAY down with no consequence since you lose all items and fully heal at the end anyway. Almost all creative uses of zonai devices are purely for the sake of novelty and surely a more monotonous and inconvenient solution compared to something much simpler, but in either case they mostly amount to busy work assembling it, especially because ONCE AGAIN like with Hestu in BotW, one of the most basic QoL mechanics in the game (autobuild) is locked behind optional content you can spend 90% of the game without because you didn't wander by the right section of map early on. Weapon durability is even more of problem and I am utterly baffled how anyone considers fusing a fix of any description; now instead of one category of loot made a constant and permanent disappointment due to evaporating if I so much as dream about maybe swinging it around for a bit, we have two, weapons and monster parts, and now I have to fiddle about the weapon menu even more and scroll right for 100 life-ages of the universe thru a new, terribly designed "quick" menu to reach the thing I wanna fuse. I can say with no hyperbole that I spend less time in menus in Dragon Age: Origins combat, a party-based real-time with pause strategic RPG than in Totk, a simple hack and slash. Problem solved?
The genius of the original LoZ compared to contemporary adventure cames was that you had two buttons and a d-pad. It had a clean interface without mandatory menu selections to pull you out of the action. BotW weapon durability was weak here, TotK fuse is not a clean interface.
The only thing wrong with your comment is thinking that disappointed people are a tiny minority. Zelda TOTK is simply too messy, with such horrible design decisions in practically every aspect that it's only natural that a significant portion of players start to be dissatisfied with the experience. In a game that has sold some 20 million copies, you can be sure that the number of people dissatisfied with the experience is in the several millions, and the more time passes and the more people get burned by the shallow, repetitive and bad-designed experience, the more the criticism that the "unspecialized" media has completely ignored will start to appear as a significant (perhaps even dominant) position in discussions about the game.
@@jpa3974great comment
@@jpa3974 take a look at the numbers, and you'll see that people who are disappointed in TOTK ARE a minority.
Too long didn't bother to read it. 😝
"My disappointment is immeasurable." Alright, let's _goooo._
Something I did when I got to a Shrine was just activate the warp point, and come back to it later. I preferred unlocking a lot of shrines, and then playing a bunch of them at once. Mostly because it would be a nice checklist of things to do while on my one hour lunch break at work. So I didn’t play the shrines that were leading up to the temples before the temples. So I didn’t know the puzzles before hand. I guess I got a little bit lucky that I decided to play this way, as opposed to how most people play, which is to go into the shrines as you find them
i did em in 12s myself. made it feel like a copium dungeon. lol
My biggest complaint is nintendo heard people complaining about the difficult shrines and korok puzzles and they made all them easy in totk. Since many puzzles can be brute forced you can put your own restrictions to challenge yourself. Take the addison signs, you can complete most of them with a hoverstone, but i have more fun forcing myself to use the wood planks.
and thats exactly what i think this game excels in and makes it a one of a kind game sure you can build a simple basic hovercraft orrr you can make a giant flying boat that shoots lazer beams is ot practical? no. is it fun? definitely. amd being able to cheese stuff is a bonus to me as the way i cheese it is different than the way you cheese it and that sense of community is ultimately what i love about zelda games in general they also added really funny shrines that are like pseudo eventide island shrines and some them are genuinly pretty hard but a blast to plan put how youre gonna approach it so tbh i think this game has a better range of shrines than botw from hard ones to easy ones to ones that give you so many solutions its hard to pick which one to go for
Oh my Titan I didn't even think to use a hover stone
Oh shit! My dumb ass didn't even THINK to use a hover stone! I wish I'd seen this comment a month ago. Could've saved me a whole lotta time! I think Addison is the only Zelda NPC I've ever had such a primal loathing for. Ugh. And as a completionist, I was compelled to do every sign. Every. Fucking. Sign. 🙄😑
Most shrines were stupidly simple in botw anyway. there were only a handful of seriously difficult / interesting ones. And korok puzzles were not difficult and you saw most of them early in the game as its the same handful of puzzles copy/pasted everywhere. They never used any environmental puzzles to find anything cool or interesting, everything either leads to a shrine or a korok seed
The only shrines I absolutely hated in botw was the motion control ones. Hated those
One thing I personally adore in this game is the total lack of a clue of just how MUCH stuff there is when you start a game. To me, the vague familiarity was great, because it helped me feel like Link, returning to a very changed world after a month or so being stuck in the sky and missing a world-changing event. I started adventuring, with a few very clear goals, just like in BOTW, and when i learned more about the story and realized I had no clue what I was actually looking for, I had this moment where i realized that i had no idea where the story was going to go, and that I wanted to travel Hyrule just to see what had changed and whether everyone was doing okay and where Zelda could have been. Gameplay and story merge so much better in this than in BOTW, and I think the team did a great just at making the player feel like Link all throughout the game. Also, I‘m the type of person to 100% games, but do it very slowly over months, so yesterday i noticed that i have 150 hours in TOTK, much more than my 100% BOTW run, and it still feels like I have seen at most half of the game. I love that, that‘s exactly what I wanted. I can see why it‘s disappointing for people who value other things in their games, though.
Agreed. This game does a way better job with its setup than Botw both on a gameplay level and a meta level. Inside the game you can actually see how devastated the world is: Rito is freezing, Gorons have gone mad, Zora are literally dying, Gerudo is cut off from the rest of the world, and that's just the biggest things. Outside the game you've probably played Botw and are just as confused as Link from seeing how much the world has changed, while in Botw the world is supposed to be a post-apocalypse, but from an outsider's perspective it has flourishing flora and fauna and the human settlements also don't seem too troubled from Ganon being around.
But the content is also made to be skipped.. Nintendo, unlike previous interactions, has made everything skippable lacking in "quality". Sure these interactions put a smile on your face, but nothing is necessary.. not the hearts from all the shrines (nor the prize for doing them all), nor the underground or anything in the game, really
Break in some paragraphs please, I have really a small phone to scroll read your comment
@@Big_Dai That's what I hate of this game and BOTW the games are huge but in the end nothing matters. You can go kill the main boss right away. The story has no consecuence with present time events you can just watch the story on youtube and not do it in game and it won't affect your experience. People say exploration is incredible but for what? To get 10 weapons that will break every 10 hits and are not unique so basically exploration is amazing but it really doesn't have any real reward. And I think the fuse mechanic made it worse because now you can fuse 2 random things and maybe make a better weapon than one you found in a chest after exploring for 2 hours. I think the problem with these games is that they have too much freedom and sometimes this break the game.
@@guillermorodriguez3509 I agree, there has to be a way to do this kind of things with a more lasting impact that actually matters
I agree completely with this review, which isnt something I say a lot about reviews online. I always thought it was a mistake to reuse BOTW's map, I was dissapointed before launch and it's the worst to now know all my fears were correct. There's no way they could have reused BOTW's map and armor sets and weapons and still lived up to the hype of a sequel. It just feels like a bad DLC. I might even say the Champion's Ballad was more substantial.
I originally played TotK a month after its release and I anticipated an amazing experience with how much my friends praised it and mentioned it being better than BotW or being an amazing game in general But when I finally began to play the game for myself I was waiting for the moment where I genuinely felt excited and in awe like my friends did I immediately started saying how much of a disappointment this game was to me after I beat my 2nd dungeon and my friends were very confused considering I'm a pretty big LoZ fan and BotW was my 2nd favorite game in the series behind Majora's Mask (It still is to this day as I have a big soft spot for it even with all its problems but if I were to go back I'd definitely be a lot more critical) Nothing in the game felt like they improved what BotW did right and I genuinely wanted to stop playing after only having put around 30 hours into the game I pretty much have the same criticisms you described throughout your video Only thing I'd say is different is TotK having a better atmosphere to it than BotW since I actually liked the feeling of the world feeling empty after having been gone for 100 years and no one remembering you I guess the combat would be another thing but I didn't really care for it too much since I'm not into LoZ games for its combat Anyway, I finally beat it after having sunk in 100 hours or so and I said it was the worst 3D Zelda game by far which lead to me being called delusional or told I was nitpicking with my criticisms But weeks pass by and they later began to agree with me and finally understood what I was getting at This game was so frustratingly underwhelming that I needed to experience a good Zelda game and decided to finally play Twilight Princess for the first time Easily in my top 5 LoZ games and it made me remember a lot of the aspects that made me fall in love with the franchise to begin with At this point I believe Nintendo should never attempt another open world LoZ game whatsoever cause none of the magic was there in TotK Just a half baked disappointment that did so little to improve aspects on its predecessor while taking so many steps back at the same time I'm glad there isn't a DLC cause I'd probably dislike it as well considering the rest of the game On a side note: you brought up Elden Ring into the mix when describing what the game should've done One thing I always heard from a friend of mine was he wished this game was "more like Elden Ring" and at the time I hadn't even played a single Souls game Last month I finally got around to playing Elden Ring after beating the Dark Souls trilogy along with Bloodborne and I finally understood what he meant by that after all this time
I never knew you could use ascend to get to the final room in the Water temple. I just used Sid's water shield.
Even as Zelda being my favorite game series and longtime Nintendo fan. This was the first Zelda game I've played that genuinely left me disappointed after finishing it. With BOTW it is was easy to overlook some of these issues because how fun the exploration aspect was & being the 1st in the series taking a big new direction & risk. Keep in mind I put in 115 hours into TOTK because I wanted to get as much as I could from this game and found that only a select few moments really stood out like the great sky island & the buildup up to the wind temple had me ready to overlook a bunch of minor gripes I had found so far, only to be disappointed by the fact the "dungeons" were less complicated than some shrines. Moving forward I hope the Zelda team finds the right balance for Zelda. I would love to see the best off all the 3D Zelda games combined. I feel if they can fully integrate that in a healthy balance with newer ideas the series can truly evolve and blossom.
My fear is that Nintendo will fall into the trap of being afraid to ever "do less"--that they will think every game must be bigger in every respect. Lots of series (movies and games) fall into this, and eventually collapse in on themselves because of it. If they make a smaller, more content-rich game, there will be some NPCs going "Derp, it's not as big as TotK, what a down-grade!" like that's the only thing that matters.
? The _entire_ Goron area and the manner in which it was _Totally_ elevated in both structure (Caves , interesting revamped Layout etc) & story over Breath of the Bland was a joy to discover and behold. Admittedly, less so the Zora area but that was a Sky Island that was really clever. So ,, I really don't know what you were actually doing or which game you were even playing! How are We meant to care or know about what 'you experienced' or your opinions when all you have are 2 random music videos?? Jeez. And of course you'll snap and say ''yOu don't need to be a KZheadrr!1'' 😄
@@therealgirl3295 And so what of Twilight Princess , (aka Ocarina 2.0?) Just ''destroy -Zant- oh sorry , Ganondorf'' again?? But Linear? The Oocca?! Tears is an _Official_ sequel to Breath, many people simply choose to ignore that fact. I only wager that We _should_ have seen more of the Zonai and this could have been easily incorporated into faraway Sky Islands like an small extra Dungeon, a lore Rich ancient Town and a few Zonai wrecked villages.
Something with these open world sandbox games is when people brag about them lasting for hundreds of hours, and while they probably won't admit this but it's true, I know that is the same 5 hours of content repeated dozens of times. I'll admit the main quest and shrines in TOTK are genuine content and offer a good 30~40 hours of true solid gameplay, but after that you are left with the pseudo/filler content; the repetitive crap that makes the game "last" hundreds of hours: koroks, bubbulgems, Addison signs, finding all the armor sets, activating all the lightroots, getting the map to display "100/100%", and grinding materials for upgrades (unless you are one of the lucky ones that used duplication cheats, skipping at least a hundred hours of captivating gameplay the devs desperately want you to endure er I mean experience). I really don't mind this stuff being in the game, but saying the game lasts hundreds of hours is disingenuous when the only meaningful content is like 30 hours long. This is true for many modern open world sandbox games, not just TOTK.
One thing that I think ties a few problems together is the games inability to tackle "emergent player behavior". Essentially, the combination of the games massive freedom, but poor rewards and some very overpowered tools yields an end result where people will find the shortest path possible by default, and that often comes at a cost of ignoring the games own mechanics. Because when you have poor rewards for everything, it wont be worth players time to do something long-winded to get to it. For example, the towers. These are way "stronger" than in BotW, in that they let you travel much further. This subtly encourages players to use them when they want to travel somewhere, instead of engaging with the build mechanic to make some sort of transportation. This also has the effect of players skipping exploration. You will miss all the caves/camps/etc on the way to your target, as you're 5000 feet above ground. So again, the game is encouraging you to skip its own content by way of overpowered tools and poor rewards. There is something similar with ultra-hand too. You could spend 30 minutes building some whacky car to do a job...or you could spend 5 minutes gluing 2 fans and a steering wheel together. I don't think the game was tested to a wide variety of people. It honestly feels like only the developers played it, and of course they wanted to engage with the things that they added to the game.
I think that’s ultimately the fundamental flaw that makes TotK much worse than BotW in my opinion. Despite its flaws, BotW at least knows for the most part what kind of game it is, but TotK is trying so hard to be an open world game and a sandbox game and a Zelda game and a collectathon game that it ends up feeling completely disconnected from itself and ultimately very meaningless.
About the rewards: I can lose the count for every side quest in the franchise with no reward or a crap one, it's part of the game. About the op itens: it's all about your style. In BotW you can in the first 10 min have a Lynel kit weapon and demolish every enemy; in OoT, you can use the Biggoron Sword; in MM you have a lot of OP powers, too. In Twilight or WW you can become nearly immortal and so on. You can play Oracle (after you beat the game, in the 2nd playthrough) with dmg lv3 ring, or don't use it; your choice.
This is something that bothered me a lot as well. When I started playing the game, I saw some clips of cool contraptions people had built or that mech attacking the Talus in the last trailer, and got excited for when I would get to that point myself. But I never did, because there is just no reason for it. You can build interesting vehicles to travel or fight enemies, but there is no point to that, when using the same plane everytime and just hitting enemies with your sword does the same thing more quickly and the game does nothing to incentivice you. I didn't even use something like that prebuilt flame thrower robot, because why would I do that, when I can also just ignore the enemy camp with the same Bokoblins instead? I think this might be a major reason for why the game's reception is so different for a lot of people. If you actually engage with these systems I'm sure there is a lot of fun potential in the game, that can outweigh the reused world and enemies. But the game does a terrible job at getting players to actually experience that. And if you have to actively search for the fun parts of a game, that is bad game design.
@@happyduck1I tried engaging the game on its own terms and got burned. That Goron strength test was one of the few unique ultrahand challenges. My first thought was just strap a bunch of rockets to that metal rock, but I wanted to think outside the box. I used a variety of different solutions, but they all weren’t that effective (I think I only got 2nd). Then I tried that metal rock… and strapped like 15-20 rockets on it (just to test it). It worked and I got first… which was just a ruby, of which I had over a dozen of already. I felt cheated. Not only was the best solution the most obvious, the reward wasn’t even something good like an armour piece or set (new or returning). It taught me that the game doesn’t appreciate/reward creative thinking. It offers a wide variety of tools to boast how “crazy” you can be but like others said there’s no advantage, and it doesn’t feel fulfilling (through rewards or having to think out of the box to complete it). Half of the zonai may as well not exist because you won’t get any real use out of the, in any meaningful way. It’s just a marketing pitch for people to regurgitate but isn’t actually fulfilled in-game.
@@val_halla7768 Nah TOTK knew what kind of game it is, it`s a open world sandbox Zelda game just like BOTW, not a collectathon game and it doesn`t really feel disconnected from itself or feels meaningless.
I'm really glad you made this video, because my "honeymoon" phase is now over, and I really do see this game for what it is. I can't even remember the sheer amount of times I paused my game and said to myself out loud "What the fuck were the game designers thinking?" or "How did this get past play-testing"? The physics programmers did a phenomenal job with this game, and so did the sound design team and composer; however after only 15 hours of playing the game it already starts to feel bland, and the recycled assets really come to light. The Depths are literally just Hyrule itself, just mirrored: it's lazy. Don't get me started on the sky islands. The mechanics are clunky, and absolutely not straightforward : the sage abilities almost made me throw my controller several times, and some mechanics were also impossible to discover by yourself (ie reflection of Dorf's gloom projectiles). The game is also way too big, as BoTW was already starting to exceed the reasonable size a game should be. I really do feel cheated with this game, and I'm glad to not be the only one to think so. Thank you for sticking up for us, man.
True, everyone's smoking copium thinking it's a masterpiece, when in reality, it's a ubisoft game. lol
You weren't cheated bozo, you bought this trash knowing it was just gonna be more low effort shit just like botw
@chrisdiaz3043 Even totk sidequests are like ubisoft level of busyworks where they don't enhance the storyat all or most of the time you don't win good rewards and the npc don't have any other characteristic than needing link to solve basic stuff they can solve on their own especially when the solution is right in front of their eyes.
Seriously. Also, the structure of BotW tied their hands behind their backs to make exploration worthwhile. Weapons durability negated any allure of treasure chests. No exp and limiting upgrading to shrines also gives a sameness to rewards. There was an area of the map I didn't even explore in the same way that I did with BotW- and I don't care to revisit. Combat isn't fun, the puzzles have been negated by the new abilities, and the plot of the game is only a small fraction of the available gameplay. I feel like I enjoyed my time with it in the middle of it. But afterwards, I felt like it should have been better. High points of the game were immediately followed up with disappointment.
@@chrisdiaz3043true everyone is smoking copium because they like the game. But when someone criticize it and call it disappointed you can't disagree with it. Funny how it works huh.
I just find it weird for us to wait 5 plus years on what's basically an expansion of the og game. Like I understand Majoras mask was made on a dare but when you can get more original stuff from a game that took a year to make over one that is the same scenario but 5x the development time kinda makes you ask a few questions.
The only way I've been able to love this game is by tuning out all the observations you made. I agree with all of it. I actively suppress the bad things, pretend it's not bad, and this process is painful XD. The sky and the depths are deeply disappointing. I am especially livid about the depths. Shouldve had relics, references, way more ruins and extremely interesting points of interest -- it was a bunch of MINES. THATS IT. There should've been old disturbing castles and villages you explore. I wanted to find an ancient, busted ocarina somewhere. Could you imagine what they could've done? I hate the sky shrines and there are way, way too many freebie shrines. That upset me. I was upset to find the DLC armor in the depths and there are people out there justifying their location as references to past games. I just won't give Nintendo that kind of excuse. The story? The lore? One word: Zonai. That's it. Everything is about the Zonai. Everything. Oh and I can't believe the copy and paste cutscenes for the sages. They should be humiliated by this. The Sheikah technology "disappeared" too. Humiliating. Zelda stories are already simple enough and they could barely hold this story together. There are so many plot holes a real, professional writer would've caught. Wtf. It is not hard to craft an incredible story along with incredible gameplay. I am fucking SICK of hearing that their philosophy is gameplay first, story second. No. DO BOTH. I don't understand them. I don't get it. It pisses me off. Other games do both, why can't Nintendo do it? I've played Zelda most of my life so yeah I'm pissed because I love the series. They made so many lazy decisions. So many incomplete ideas. So much halfassing. Copy and paste. I think I need to play Elden Ring. I've only watched it on streams a bit. You got me excited about it and now I want to buy and play it. Like you, I am utterly baffled, confused, perplexed, dumbfounded, and extremely irritated that they had six years using the same assets. Something isn't adding up. I don't get it.
Limgrave had more enemy variety than all three layers of the TotK map
Enemy variety is not so big of an issue as bokoblins, moblins and lizalfos behaviour which are neither challenging nor interesting.
@@Ianmar1 i suppose.. maybe this could be remedied by.. I dunno.. adding a few more enemies for variety??
@@pg9193 Adding boring enemies only helps the first time you encounter them. Regional enemy variety might help to give each region a distinct character and make navigqting the map feel less samey.
@@Ianmar1 yeah I dunno where you got "boring" from my comment, but yeah I guess that makes sense..
@@pg9193 The enemy variety isn't actually all that bad. You've got Bokoblins, Boss Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos, Horriblins, Evermeans, Keese, Chu-Chus, Like Likes, Wizzrobes, Octoroks, Lynels, Pebblits, Taluses, Constructs, Flux Constructs, Wolves, Bears, Aerocuda, Bubbulfrogs, Frox, Gibdo, Moth Gibdo, Gloom Hands, Yiga Footsoldiers, Yiga Blademasters, Molduga, Hinox, and Gleeok. Many of these have stal, color and elemental variants which together give the game almost 100 enemy types. Basic enemies will also vary slightly depending the weapon they use. This pales in comparison to Elden Ring with - 155 major encounters (unique mini-bosses or duplicates with variations) - 49 types of wildlife encounters (including the gigantic bears, etc.) - 78 types of humanoid foes (doesn't include variations like spearman / swordman, etc.) - 18 different NPC invaders however it is not insignificant. The problem as I see it is that stun locks and flurry rush are too effective against opponents which take more than one shot to go down, on top of broken armor and healing systems. No one remembers the diversity of enemies because no one developed diverse strategies to bring them down.
I can really agree with the sky islands criticism,I got really disappointed when the main area where you get the 4 shrines was the only largest area in the skies :/
Larger areas are coming in DLC :)
right. i was so bored in the sky islands. the most interesting thing was the challenge for the skydiving armor. and i really dont care enough about the lore to be interested in the ancient tablets either; we all know who Ganon is and who Rauru is already. none of these legends are interesting.
and the copy paste of this one island with the stone-push mechanism .. dude its like the same island 8 times
@@jM-ms8lh what how do you know that?
i shouldn't have to pay 30 dollars for a dlc just to have more sky islands that were advertised as a huge part of a 70 dollar game
I loved this game to death and have over 200 hours in it already but you bring up some good points, many of which I agree with. However ultimately the negatives, for me, were vastly outweighed by the positives. This was a very solid review and I'm glad it exists.
What would you rate it out of 10?
200 hours in 12 days? He who has no life still lives?
@@Skellotronix - It’s been 32 days since the release of TOTK. If you take into account the hours of an average working day and amount of sleep a person gets 200 hours is actually doable without nolifing.
@@bean6803that’s 6 hours a day minimum.
@@Skellotronix you are not very bright huh
I really hate the fact that I’m part of this small group that hates tears of the kingdom. I want to love this game, and it makes me jealous just hearing someone talk about how much they like this game.
People have different tastes in games. If you dont like the game, that's okay!. I don't see why people enjoying the game should make you jealous.
@@Ayoo_Arc I guess its because it makes it difficult to enjoy playing breath of the wild, even though I know I would rather play it than ToTK. I wish I could just love ToTK like everyone else.
The enemy variety in BOTW and TOTK is an affront to God
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
As someone who enjoyed my time with totk and wasn't disappointed with it, I think you have some very good points about the flaws in totk. I can see why you don't like the game and even looking back at the time I spent playing the game, I really did create my own fun with the vehicles. Creating different war machines was extremely fun and it completely overshadowed the shallow combat system because you expect the tank you created to complete obliterate the bokoblins. The way I would describe it is like an open world gmod. In gmod you can create basically anything but there aren't any enemies in the small maps to use your creations on. Totk has a populated map you can use all your creations in so its more rewarding to create thing in it. Totk is basically more a sandbox game then a zelda game.
more a sandbox game? 🤦♀ first the criticism of BOTW was the lack of a typical story and dungeons and unique bosses. so TOTK responds by filling all those gaps, adds 2 new maps, one of which is literally the same size as hyrule, adds a buttload of new combat systems, and people say it's a sandbox game. it's just as much of a sandbox game as BOTW was, except it has a much longer and more interesting story, plus more unique dungeons and other linear content. totally absurd to compare it to gmod, btw. if you were actually playing this like gmod, you would have realized very quickly how absurd the comparison is, since this game has a very low limit on the number of objects that can exist around you, and an even lower limit on how many objects you can attach to other objects. if you drop too many items, the previously dropped items start disappearing. if you attach too many items, the game tells you you can't attach any more. the limits are low enough that you can make vehicles and that's about it. aside from the single house you can build (which has special rules), you can really only build one thing at a time, and nothing you build is permanent. this is just not how sandbox games work. it's pretty clearly an action adventure game, set in an open world, with some relatively surface-level crafting and building frameworks, which serve as an optional (usually) adjunct to the core gameplay loop of traveling to an area and killing enemies. probably half of players will not build anything significant at all except when required to by linear challenges like shrines and temples. the other half are mostly building simple vehicles to traverse the depths more quickly, and perhaps some weapon systems in the early game when they're still strong enough to kill enemies. only a tiny fraction of players are making a real hobby of building elaborate stuff in this game, mostly people on tiktok posting videos of their rube goldberg machines and simple calculators.
@@ToxicallyMasculinelol You made a full essay and I'm not reading that
@@willseamondsson9553but you read the other guys to blow him
@@Frank-vd1ml No this one is longer I have limits Edit: And hi gene takovic
While I do think botw and totk are genuinely good games I much prefer Xenoblade 3 and 2 because of their focus on story and inventive gameplay while also having great open world (2 did it well, 3 not so much). It's nice you enjoy the modern Zelda games I'm just saying their not for me
It is crazy how much someone's playthrough can vary and change opinion. I'm not going to sit here and say the Depths were awesome, but we had very different experiences. I found it thrilling up until about 50 hours in to try and find new light roots. Looking at the surface map and piecing together where I wanted to go, stealthing by pretty much all enemies (no matter how late I got into the game, I did not want to take gloom damage), and navigating the darkness was awesome. I really loved it up until I was about done with my playthrough, which is great with me. If I can like a mechanic for 80-90% of a game and then see it as mid later, I still see that as a big win. Great video, hate You didn't like it as much as you wanted to.
Something I think the Depths needed was a more robust civilization. it was an opportunity to create a new race in the Zelda ethos. Imagine how cool it would have been to discover a crucial lost city with characters/npcs that had a role in the quest or history of the story & some small quests around the depths too. IMHO that was one of the biggest misses. The scarcity of the sky islands didn't bug me as much (just the time to fly/vanishing wing things). The depths though were a great concept to me but not fully executed.
@alex1vid I agree, they definitely could have done a lot more with them, and they are significantly more disappointing once the game is finished. I thought it was really weird there weren't more Zonai NPCs down there in the mines and refineries, something to at least make them seem more believable
Yeah exactly my experience, the first initial feeling of exploring the depths and sky islands was amazing. The feeling I had when I arrived at my first "dungeon" (the Fire Temple) was exhilarating and really felt like they nailed the formula. But once you've tasted the game, you quickly realise it for what it is - an epic 4 week journey that will never compare to the impact of Breath of the Wild. .
@@leesog3203Botw mid compared to totk anyway you slice it
i agree that nintendo should have taken the same approach that they did for majora's mask
I was very afraid this would win GOTY but luckily it did not, I can accept people enjoying it but being game of the year is a step too far.
I was worried about that too. Glad it didn’t happen, but the game still had perfect review stores and mind-boggling sales numbers. Unfortunately, I doubt being snubbed from GOTY is enough to make Ninty learn their lesson.
(copy pasted) I really enjoyed his defense of elden ring boss design and I really enjoyed the video But I have to disagree with yall on this one. For me totk took a somewhat decent game like BOTW and smashed it into pieces for me. It fixed so many of the issues that plagued botw and I personally enjoyed botw so it's personally impossible for me to be dissapointed with a sequel that takes botws great open world design and builds apon it by giving us more areas, more enemies, an infinitely better story (the story is quite repepetetive tho) aswell as a revolutionary physichs mechanic and a item merging system that gives you more freedom and more ways to tackle an open world game than ever before. And while item durability is still a thing, many weapons naturally have more durability AND item merging allows for essentially infinite durability The addition of roaming gleeocks was amazing, adding actual caves to the game, a whole underworld The map has a few more settlements and npcs aswell as enemies variety that fixes alot of the "emptyness" that BOTW had. I liked the sky islands. The way you obtain the master sword is actually quite unique and the master sword actually feels integral to the story Unlike botw. The Temples/dungeons weren't quite traditional, but When it comes to the open world nature of the game along with it's mechanics..a traditional dungeon design simply wouldn't fit. And I think making the dungeons themed along with having different layouts and actual themed bosses was a perfect middle ground for classic dungeon enjoyers and divine beast enjoyers. And don't get me started on The lead up to each Temple The quest that comes before reaching each Temple has got to be the best thing these last two Zelda games have brought to the table The lead up to the temples are just pure insanity and it's amazing. The Tear Memories actually feel more connected to the main plot of the game unlike botw. The game is overall more difficult than BOTW imo I personally really enjoyed the Ganon Fight. No area on the map is the exact same as botw, people were worried the map would be identical to botw but aside from the landmass of the ground map they UPDATED EVERYTHING about it The freedom this game gives you is absolutely innovative to all of gaming and I feel like people are disenginious towards it or viewing totk with the wrong mindset. The only part of BOTW that didint get improved upon in totk was shrines and koroks. But most people on their first playthru dont even have to finish hardly half of them. They get repetetive but the same people who claim its a bigger issue than it is will go and play Warframe all day or MMOs all day or Kill every single repeat copy paste boss in elden ring and ignore their repetetiveness Koroks suck ass tho All in all we got an insane amount of content in totk that kept the feel of botw while also making the game feel fresh and people have the disenginiously brain rot to a degree of thinking this game is just a glorified dlc 😂 So yes if it did win goty I think it would've deserved it. Just like elden ring deserved it and BG3 deserved it. But in reality goty hardly actually matters in the grand scheme of things. So regardless of botw winning goty or not. Or totw winning goty or not. What would really even have changed?
There was a TOTK fanboy that I saw who made 50 accounts to vote it to win so yea I am thankful too most of the new Zelda fanboys got issues.
@@purpleplasma4824facts. Every Zelda game has been criticised like crazy in the past. Remember wind waker. Now fanboys have panic attacks because you call a trash game what it is.
@@FullyOnVolks "Criticism = Bad" - Fanboys probably.
I feel like the ai for the 5 sages suck. Whenever I want to use their powers I try to run up to any of them but they keep running away from me. As much as I love the new abilities, I kind of miss the ones botw had like revalis gale or miphas grace because I could use them whenever I wanted instead of running up to a ai and clicking on them.
THIS ALL OF THIS.
I legit find their powers so fucking useless half the time. I miss our old powers.
the only good one is tulins because it is easy to use in mid air when you do actually use it
@@definitleynotclickbait1234 exactly
@@Medrax23 exactly
It went like this.. nintendo searched "most sold video game of all time" on google and saw minecraft & GTA 5.. they decided to take some elements from those games and make a new game.. a new game with flying cars like gta online and building like minecraft, bcs 8yr olds loves that.. to avoid getting sued by mojang & rockstar they added glue, rewind, ascend & breath of the wild into it and we have tears of the kingdom.
I keep coming back to this review because I feel you were one of the few folks that was pretty honest about this game when it came out. Most other creators didn't even dare
What do you mean by "being honest"?
Yep, even beat Nerrel to the punch, and it wasn't until a few months after release that more and more critical videos about TotK from bigger name YTers/Zeldatubers were being uploaded regularly. My main gripe with this particular critical review is the pretty clear bias towards Souls/ER games and using ER as a benchmark over and over again rather than the Zelda series' own highest standards set previously. That and the slightly whiny tone (I guess to come off as a little edgy being a pioneer in TotK criticsms?), but the TotK-specific points are all there and real.
This whole game felt like a chore so I quit after 40 hours
I quit before finishing the tutorial lol BOTW was 10x the game
I was so excited about exploring the sky just to find out 90% of non-story islands are just platforms for the same boss and repetitive crystal fetch quests ;-;
The Trailer blinded us. Thats how marketing works.
Same, I‘m incredibly disappointed in how little new stuff there is for meaningful exploration. Especially since the actual tutorial area is in the sky you would think there are more larger areas like it to explore and have interesting puzzles and enemies in it.
Yep. I don't have an issue with physics/chemistry based puzzles, but they it's like they refused to tap into its potential out of fear surrounding potential lack of tutorialization due to open progression, even though the puzzle mechanics are intuitive as hell. After seeing the light mechanic of the the Lightning temple I was expecting a solar powered electricity mechanic. Or puzzles requiring recall to a line up a moving mirror with a moving, extra stubborn light switch. Or even shooting a crumped ceiling to let a necessary additional light source. Instead I got another brick in the wall... At least that dungeon had global state changes that impacted other rooms. This is a list of underexplored/unexplored puzzle concepts I thought of while being disappointed in the dungeons/shrines: Using recall on a mechanism to redirect water to create a waterfall aka a ladder. Using a waterfall to fill up an empty reservoir Using a water to vertically conduct a current. Magnetism Electromagnets Melting wood/ice protected by water Shattering a submerged object protected by the momentum dampening effect of the water Hyper-buoyant objects used more frequently for slingshot traversal puzzles combined with water level manipulation. Switches that require alternating current (created using recall on a generator) instead of direct current Hot air balloons not working in environments that require goron armor. And then finding a way to circumvent this through global temperature manipulation. Breaking ice to unobstruct wind updrafts Wind powered generators Focusing light to ignite a fire (flammable material behind by a glass or mesh barrier that only light can penetrate) Rubber objects (electrical impedence and disabling circuits in general) Momentum puzzles requiring reducing friction (creating ice, removing sand, removing muck) Mechanical circuits requiring the construction of gears. Clock wise and counter clockwise screw mechanisms. (Cannot uprooted with ultrahand unless unscrewed. Cannot be rotated without leverage on the top stub) Weighted wedges used for breaking durable obstructions. More mechanical advantage puzzles using levers, pulleys and ramps. More puzzles based on creating ceiling platforms to ascend through that utilize chemistry system or movement or momentum.
While a lot of these are cool ideas, it would heavily damage the game's accessibility because not everyone is well versed in physics and chemistry. This would make some puzzles unsolvable for most people. Electromagnets aren't exactly complicated but your average Joe isn't going to know how to make one in this game
@@thestain8004 When I say physics and chemistry, I mean in the same vein as fake version that exists in the game already. The electromagnets could be as simple as a a standalone object that when provided current creates a vacuum effect on metals within a limited max range. That gadget alone is enough to create interesting solutions such as suspending those foldable bridges across gaps beyond your ultrahand range, or launching your self off an objects momentum. But it folds into the idea of fake magnetism in general, since that mechanic if implemented would imply the addition of two objects. A permenant ferromagnet and an electromagnet gadget.
@@llcpd749 ... a what??
To answer your question, I have beat elden ring 4 times, and the thing that comes close to to the spectacle of finding yourself in faraam, or witnessing the beautiful land of limgrave, or even seeing rykard pull a disgusting looking sword from his mouth, is the purah design reveal. Game of the year
I loved TOTK. But I also totally get it because when I started playing this I struggled to get into it. I think this hit all the critiques I had but not enough for me to pan it. The Depths were AWESOME imo... however... how much MORE awesome would it have been if there was yet another community that LIVED there. Like a different lost Hylean civilizations? And the enemy variety was totally spot on. Felt like there were just maybe a few new ones added. For Flurry rush though my problem is it should automatically end when the enemy is dead.
Its nice to hear a critical review from a Zelda Vetran. So on point about the issues and missed opportunities. Personally, this game was such tedium for me. Oh great, the open world I explored for hours in Botw....I have to explore for another countless amount of hours...thats not exploring. Its an echo of a grind fest. Oh, I get to collect and upgrade armor I have already collected and upgraded before...what a trudge. For me it was hardest excecting the build mechanic....auwfully cumberson having to rotate and attach objects, fail and repeat...so many times. Like you said, these are not puzzles...its just busy work. Peace out. Zelda love
This is pretty much the exact same thing I've been saying about the game since the day it released... and almost everyone screamed at me for it. TotK is a shining example of a slog.
@@MarilynMonRover Slog is the right word. It's draining to get through. I had to force myself to play every second of that game past the tutorial section. And I still didn't beat it. It's draining and unrewarding in almost every way for me. Really sucks to see.
I love the game, but i also love to listen to many different opinions… and lengthy youtube videos to chill after a hard day. So cheers to you my friend and thank you. I hope the stans will spare you
something tells me this man doesnt need the stans to spare him... He would prob beat the shit out of them ngl
@@TheOGComfyBoy i hope so 😂
I’m a Zelda “stan,” yet I agree wholeheartedly with his review, especially when it comes to dungeons and puzzles. I’ve never been more disappointed in a game, especially a Zelda game, in my entire life-and I was raised on The Legend of Zelda.
I figured that tears would fix all the shortcomings of breath of the wild but instead we got half fixes instead hoping the next game fixes it
You may not not agree, you may not like his opinion, but you can't say he's lying.
After playing TOTK I now know how my childhood hamster felt exploring the pointless tubes and running on the hamster wheel.
😂 feel awful for laughing at this. Poor hamster 😅
This is exactly how I felt exploring the shrines, couldn't have worded it any better
Just finished TotK and have to agree with most of this. It didn't address the issues I had with the predecessor, and the 'new' content was mostly recycled. The only genuinely new mechanic, the vehicle construction, felt so cumbersome and resource heavy that I ignored it almost everywhere unless it was essential to the task. Honestly, the only feature that I thought was a real improvement was ascend, which could make tedious climbs much quicker. It definitely feels like nostalgia and hype are fueling the reviews right now.
100% agree with this.
One of the things that bothered me was the solution to every shrine/dungeon is to build something. At least with BOTW it would use a few different abilities. In Tears every shrine i completed required the use of ultra hand. Another thing, which is a problem with most modern games, is the lack of music. The plunky piano and a jingle every so often does not inspire a grand adventure. Like the Great Sea Theme, or the Hyrule Field theme do.
Your not alone. I feel like you were very spot on. Personally I feel it’s that they’re chasing the younger generation that likes to just **** about. Things like Minecraft and this new vehicle building stuff “do it your way” just appeals to them more than good story and puzzles that actually challenge you. You also have a guy running the show who doesn’t even like the original game. There is a reason Aonuma talked about changing things so much. It’s not so much he is tired of Zelda formula as it is he hates it. Guy said he didn’t even like original game because kept dying to starting enemies. Not until link to the past when he could go around cut grass did he start to warm up to the series. The man doesn’t want to make challenging adventures. He wants to make **** about simulators. How the heck did he get the job over Koizumi?
Yeah. Nintendo needs to give him his own IP and get him out of Zelda asap.
Koizumi kept making Miyamoto seethe by being based and daring to make his games interesting. Miyamoto also was already friends with Aonuma. Basically it was 100% nepotism that got Aonuma his undeserved position of being "the Zelda guy".
@@pitshoster401I’ve checked out koizumis game-ography. It’s sad how right you are. We were robbed of greatness by miyamoto. Not only in Zelda but in gaming, koizumi practically created Mario galaxy all on his own yet got shifted to staffing and business. Unbelievable
@@FullyOnVolks Miyamoto also got mad at Koizumi for the story in Link's Awakening iirc. Aonuma's talent was (key word: WAS) dungeon design but he was never fit for a leadership role over the whole series imo
The only game company who has mastered relasing the same game with the least amount of effort possible better then Nintendo is EA and thats really saying something
And nintendrones give them a pass for it. They actually praise this mess
I feel like I've played a different game or something than all of y'all here.... never have I played a game sequel and never want to go back to the first one. That shows how good this game is imo. Breath of the Wild feels unfinished in comparison. And the game was basically glitch free in my experience, I got through the final boss 2 weeks ago. And still so much more fun stuff left.
@@royshavrick yeah but an $80 game should not feel like your playing the prior release with a seasonal patch
your sum up at the end perfectly depicts my own opinion about this whole Zelda Totk situation, very good stuff you made. I hope we dont get another money making zelda game again, but with so little people talking about how not good this game was this is kinda not too far to reality, fingers crossed i guess for that not to happen.
Well , you're not going to get that wish because they said they're not going back to the old style. 20 million copies sold and 70% of the people liking this game.
@@Fishermanmike1979 we'll have to see :/
Thank god for a sane perspective on this game.
2:56 the depths quite literally were not a selling point because they weren’t officially revealed until the release of the game
The Depths was a selling point in many reviews, but not in Nintendo's promotional material. However I do see mainstream game critics as a glorified marketing team for large publishers at this point. And if Nintendo's main selling point was the Sky Islands that is also a major disappointment.
@@rjgaynor8 Game reviews came out before the game's release. And most sales of a game take place after a game's release, although a game sells the fastest in the first week.
Ok I fucking adore TotK, BUT! I will say, your reasoning and explanations do make sense, I can understand it, but I can’t share the same view
A respectable response
@@clonetrooper2003 The biggest problem is that people complain that they waited 6 years for the game to come out. But it's really an exageration first of all, 2017+6 = 2023 But the game development and announcement started in 2019 (e3 2019), so you remove 2 years, which equals 4 years then you remove 2 covid years (covid was hard in japan), 4-2 = 2 years you remove a year of development and concecration (idk how to spell that word, i'm not english) to other projects = 1 year the game concretely had a bit more than a year of development. + it's a sequel so idk what people expect.
Very thorough review with lots of valid points - it definitely makes me wonder why I enjoyed it so much despite its shortcomings. I wonder if part of it has to do with how more casual adult gamers interact with the gameplay structure: there's lots to do, but each experience can be consumed in small "chunks." For folks with limited amounts of time or energy, being able to have a meaningful experience in stretches of 30 minutes to a couple hours makes it easy to commit to, and the creativity involved with solving the same problem different ways vs. having to learn an entire new approach frequently allows for a feeling of mastery while still being engaging. That's just speculation on my part, but the perceived approachability of BoTW and ToTK is one of the main reasons I bought and completed both of those, but have never picked up Elden Ring or Souls (though I'd love to one day when I have more time 😁). Thanks for making this!
Good point regarding the limited time, between kids and work my time for games is a rarity! So BOTW (which I sunk over 1000 hours into over a few years) was the perfect open world title for me, and I could measure various successes and points to explore within those limited periods of time. With TOTK I can definitely agree on many of this reviewers points, I didn't fully explore the surface map again because I'd done that a million times in the previous game. The depths, whilst initially a novelty very quickly began to feel stale. I've finished the story and half of the games shrines in 95 hours, and unfortunately am not feeling the excitement or drive to continue much further beyond messing about a bit! I've enjoyed it for what it is at least. As for Elden Ring, loved the look of it, the atmosphere, the art.....but the amount of grinding I felt was probably necessary for me to avoid being killed every 5 seconds put me off, and I sold it 😂 Perhaps I should give it another chance....
This, also I can play with my kid watching and not feel like it gets TMI for her age. Personally I felt like the sky region was one large shrine puzzle. I can game for an hour or 2 at most and I avoid combat. I stealth thru unless I need or have no choice due to blundering into something.
Dose any one have balls? Just cause he says this and that someone's always gonna be bitching for real we're not seven years old anymore games was more interesting when we was young it's facts gtfoi
I agree with most of your points and share your overall sentiment. I was, however, lucky enough to find the Master Sword before finding any of the memories alluding to it. I just so happened to be on a sky island when I saw something very high up in the distance, so I decided to abandon what I was doing to check it out, and it made for one of the most memorable moments I've had in gaming, surpassing even the highest highs of discovery in Elden Ring. I was greatly rewarded for exploring from both a gameplay standpoint (even though the Master Sword is even more disappointing this time around as you said) and from a story standpoint, as I had no fucking clue what just happened and I was suddenly super invested in the story (even though it ended up being disappointing too). I was disappointed but not surprised when I found the final memory and realized they basically just hand the sword to you afterwards. I'm tempted to say I was lucky to have that experience, but it was also a result of me deliberately avoiding story content for a while. Regardless, there was a lot of wasted potential because of how the sword was handled.
I was robbed of this magical discovery moment. I followed the story too much, but otherwise I was feeling lost.