As much as I loved Tears of the Kingdom, I had a nagging feeling that it wasn't as good as Breath the entire time. Hopefully, with this video, I put to rest my feelings and explain them as best as I can.
Patreon: / plandiss
Twitch: / plandiss
Additional footage sources: shorturl.at/cAGN5
0:00 | Intro
1:46 | Chapter 1: Plateau v. Sky Island
9:21 | Chapter 2: Exploring and Discovering the New World. Again.
16:41 | Chapter 3: Zelda was always about the Plot. Right?
20:42 | Chapter 4: Puzzle & Dungeons
25:12 | Chapter 5: The Combat
29:19 | Chapter 6: Banjo Kazooie: Tears of the Kingdom
(JJJreact)
The thing that absolutely killed totk for me is the fact that the great sky island is the biggest sky island in the whole game. It should function as an introduction to the sky island system, not the only island with anything of value.
Yeah, besides 2 temples and the GSI and a handfull of shrines there is pretty much nothing to do in the sky so I almost never went there which is a shame
The problem is the hardware, it was always going to be the hardware. They had to limit the scope in every way and cut corners everywhere or else the game would fry every switch it ran on. totk has the same exact issue as cyberpunk did on PS4 & Xbox one. That's embarrassing as heck for nintendo though because totk is a nintendo exclusive made for hardware that could never handle it properly. They should have just made botw premium (30 dollar) DLC and left totk to come out for the switch 2.
@aspromonte5179 That's bullshit lmfao. The switch could definitely handle bigger sky islands. That's what LOD is for.
@@aspromonte5179no its not. They already made it clear that they reduced a lot of sky islands because it was repetitive. Only pc bois think hardware is the bottleneck
Obviously Skyward Sword has many Sky islands unlike TOTK
There really is something special about that first playthrough of BOTW that I don't quite think TOTK managed to match. And I think it's because BOTW with all the freedom it gave you, it also restricted you in a way that every achievement felt very satisfying. It made you proud every time you climbed a mountain. I remember reaching the top of Dueling Peaks and feeling like the best thing I've ever done in a videogame. But then you pick TOTK, you build a motorbike with two fans and ... ¡BOOM! You're on top of Hyrule Castle in two minutes. I felt too overpowered in TOTK to feel proud of my achievements... that's why I keep BOTW a little bit closer to my heart than TOTK.
I just started playing botw again after beating TOTK to compare, and even though the game feels way more empty relative to TOTK, something about it just feels better to me.
@@chasetuttle2780 I did the same (the DLC, Ballad of the Champions) and I agree, it just feels better. One thing that stood out to me was how much FRRAKING COOLER the weapons are in BOTW (they look like abominations in TOTK due to fuse), and the Devine beasts actually limiting you movement (climbing) and feeling like actual puzzles (although still lacking compared to classic 3D).
@@saxoman1 I agree the puzzles in the divine beasts were just better and more creative. I understand people’s gripes with them that the areas all looked the same and stuff, but I still liked them better than the temples in TOTK. Most of the temples in TOTK were honestly kinda lame. The only one I kinda liked was the lightning temple.
@@chasetuttle2780 I much prefer BotW's emptiness. The gameplay focus was navigating the world. Much better than 1000 variations of trite content like "Help this guy hold up his sign," or "Help this overpacked Korok reach his friend a million miles away."
@@quibquiberton4184 yeah there was a lot of copy paste. They definitely filled the world with stuff to do but it started to feel a little annoying after a while.
I think the thing I was most disappointed by was the sky. It was hyped up in all of the trailers as the big new thing that was going to set totk's world apart from botw. Then the Great Sky Island is this huge place with lots of nooks and crannies. There are a bunch of NPCs (even if they are just constructs) and even some caves to explore. But all of the other islands end up just being the same few repeated ruins with maybe a sky crystal. Even the more interesting islands are still copied a few times, like the big spheres or the diving challenges.
Completely agree, the sky islands being so samey really killed my motivation to explore any of em. And really the sky islands that do exist still feel too few in number. If there was more diversity and maybe just more in general it would've been a lot more interesting.
@@Plandissthey could have at least mixed up the terrain a bit instead of use the same orange and brown palette everywhere
I thought the sky isles would be home to a lot more plot or quests that might be connected. The labyrinths' sky portions felt alright (though kind of rinse-and-repeat after all 3), the diving thru rings challenges were fun... but I was anticipating something more rich in the sky as far as storytelling or characters, maybe even true settlements/little villages. That may be just me though. And exploring the depths... not much fun aside from maybe the Master Kohga quest but even that he basically gives you the locations of exactly where he'll be next.
@@Plandiss they should have had multiple larger sky islands because the gsi being the only large one (except maybe the water temple but that's a stretch) is a massive missed opportunity)
“At first I thought The Depths were a really cool concept, and they are on the surface.” I see what you didn’t do there. 😁
Clever
I’m mad disappointed that the Sky Islands weren’t more expanded upon. Their design and color scheme really contrast so well from the ground. And even inspire a more parkour style of gameplay instead of speed traversal. Plus they were like one of the first things they showed us in marketing! Hot take, but I think they should’ve massively scaled down if not COMPLETELY foregoed the depths in favor of expanding the sky’s. Because outside of the shock value of it, The Depths are sooooo boring.
Recall being used the least???? That was my absolute favorite ability
I agree recall is amazing i don't get why he's saying it's the worst
Well, it's cool, but you do essentially just use to make an elevador most of the times, and revolis gale was a lot better for that
same
@@Luizanimadothe main boon of it is that recall can be used in shrines
@@thatminer7174 I think recall it's pretty much only used on shrines, I can't remember a lot of moments I used in the world to ne honest. I think I used a few times on those rocks that falls, and I remember using it to get a zonai thing that felt from the island, with it was pretty cool, but I don't know, generally I think I agree that this recall mechanic was not very well used in this game.
The only gripe I have with this is about recall. It's so so useful if used with creativity. One of my most used abilities and the one that lets you cheese a lot of stuff. In fact I think it's so good that it kind of hurts the game, it's a bit broken imo
that's the whole point it's fun to cheat in the game -the creator of zelda
@@Effos I know thats the point. But even designing something like that has to be done in a certain way. The fun with cheating in a game like this is to figure out clever ways of doing something you're not supposed to and then be rewarded for your creativity. And at least in my experience a lot of times recall just allowed me an easy get out of jail card. For example, let's say you're playing a game about a thief that has a good variety of tools to infiltrate a place and to pick locks and whatnot. Recall sometimes felt to me like just having all the keys of said place I'm supposed to infiltrate. I'm cheating I guess, but not in a fun way. I loved totk but I feel like it deserves some critique. Being allowed to solve puzzles in so many ways is crazy good, I just feel recall disencourages creativity by being such a good tool that often you don't need to think on more creative ways to get out of a situation. That said, it's my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe others have another perspective and that's fine
@@arielcerecer142 👏👏👏
The only thing I don't like about TOTK is the Sage Abilities just being inconvinient to use (apart from Tulin while gliding, or Yunobo while driving a vehicle)
Literally also my only critique
Ya, that and the depths is kinda boring. Like once you’ve seen a couple mines and roots that’s pretty much all it is
💯 agree the only one that was useful was that bird I think his name was tulin
Yea same, i just started playing without them lmao
So, virtually there's no thing you dislike, because the sages abilities are literally optional. You can turn it off
See everyone else cheesed through the entire fire temple, but despite being so addicted to the ascend ability that I kept accidentally thinking of ways to use it in OTHER GAMES I played, it literally never occured to me to try to use ascend to skip parts of the temple. And since I was stupid enough to play it exactly as intended, I really enjoyed the fire temple... Edit: maybe you didn't upgradeyour battery, but I think most people did
I didn't even realize that there was an intended way to play it. I just ran around until it was finished. Were there puzzles in that one if you played it the way they expected you to?
Fr, it was actually my favorite temple. The setting and ambience was very cool, puzzles were nice too and I liked the vagon mechanics. I get that if you cheat, it's not fun, but like, don't cheat??? I dunno
@@alexfernandezvargas8044it's hard to even tell what constitutes as cheating though lmao. I'm pretty sure ascending into a room is the intended way to solve one of the terminals in the wind temple, so you can't just decide not to use one of your abilities
Husband is playing TOTK having NEVER played BOTW and he said the world feels so big that it makes his head hurt. He played the sky island, came down to hyrule and went to the depths and was so overwhelmed that he hasnt played it since he did the first traverse of the depths.
I have a similar experience to your husband, except I put in hundreds of hours into BOTW yet still need to take breaks from TOTK. I still haven't beaten the game. TOTK can definitely be overstimulating with the sheer size of the map haha
I haven't beat it either. I used to get up and play BOTW with my daughter for hours. Now we play some TOTK but we both go days without touching it. I can't even tell you how many times i played BOTW. I knew the map like the back of my hand. Another problem with me is that i don't care to explore places i've already seen. And to my husband, it's TOO big. He likes the shrines but audibly groaned when i told him how many their are. lol @@fruitjuicyyy1088
@@fruitjuicyyy1088 For me one the biggest differences is that BotW is like going out into a garden and lifting a bunch rocks to see if there is anything under them, and in TotK all the rocks are screaming at you that they need to reach their friend.
I'm curious to know what his response would be to BotW
Fucking DAMN 🤣🤣 Poor fella. I don’t blame him though.
I wish there were more fleshed out locations like hateno village. I just feel like there’s a lot of empty space. Especially in the sky and depths.
I implore you to replay the Fire Temple, the skipping is dumb but if you go through without skipping it's the only dungeon in the game with comparable length to anything in the old games.
You spoke out loud all of my opinions while playing this game. My main additional gripe is that this took longer to make than BOTW, they said they took a year to polish it, and yet it still feels like a half baked game.
It’s better you got more to do in totk
And btw is more a bata totk like they probably made it to see if they liked an open world zelda game then made it an entire new game and what I mean by that is different from other open world games
I admittedly have a hate boner for totk and its many flaws, but do remember in fairness that its development was caught in the middle of the pandemic and the Japanese work structure being upended by it in particular from what I heard So the development time always has to be taken with a grain of salt. Though the lack of UX polish they were ok with was baffling
i think botw folks are bored coz of the same map, it's not new, there is no sense of discovery. But for me who just played totk, this game is soooo fun lol
As creative as it could be with building, I feel like your point was well made because as much as I felt I could do, I was much less incentivized to do it. I grew bored pretty easily and I was very disappointed with the "dungeons". I got the master sword early on in my first playthrough without guidance. I actually think Tears made me appreciate Breath much more because I realized that I didn't love BOTW but I did happen to replay it a few times. I could never do that with TOTK.
I agree with a lot of what you said. Breath is above Tears. The erasure of Shiekah tech was also a major issue, even if they werent as prevalent in this game's story. Speaking of which, Ganondorf's presence in the story was very miniscule despite his reveal to be a major selling point. And on top of that, so were the sky islands, but outside the Great Sky Island, they were so small I almost didn't want to explore them. And when I did they had basic copy/paste structure. The only real highlight from Tears for me was the depths, and even then learning it's just a reflection of the surface was a huge letdown
I definitely played this game way differently than you did. I never found all 120 shrines in BoTW, so the light roots being hints for shrines felt like a very helpful hint. I also think playing through the game slowly (I am around 150 hours, and only fought Gabon at about 130 hours) made the process of exploring a lot more rewarding. I definitely understand most of your criticisms, but I think some of them are problems more specific to you and your play style.
Yeah i don't understand why he's making all of these critiques when he literally only spent 50 hours beating the game.
@@Effos Man, if 50 hours in a game isn't enough to determine whether it's for you or not, that's the developer's problem, not mine! Especially with less time for leisure as we get older... That being said, I did finish TOTK, and although I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as BOTW, its a damn good game!
@@Effos you think 50 hours of gameplay is low? Bruh, most of the time you're just farming shit or killing a mf bokoblin for the 10,000 time to get his stuff, or walking through a desolated land wich most of players already explore in Botw, you can't judge the players for found the same world they already seen for 80+ hours boring, this is a sequel.
Ok so what you're saying is that we need to spend 80 hours in complete boredom and then we can actually enjoy the game? If that's your view on the game, then totk would be utter garbage. If someone spent 50 hours of their life on something, heck if someone spent a single hour of their life on something they do for fun, it should be fun, and if the reviewer feels this way after 50 hours that is very much a valid opinion
Buuuurrrrnnn
I did the Zora area first and I didn’t have any issues with insanely overpowered enemies for my level. Mostly just the first two levels of constructs and an occasional third.
Yeah but that temple was complete asscheeks
I did Rito then Gerudo on my second playthrough. No issues with Gerudo.
I had some issues since i went there first before even getting any great fairies but half of the problem was that the low gravity thing everywhere threw me off so much while fighting it kept getting me killed. There is really no reason why they had to make the low gravity controls so unresponsive
I figured the great sky island would have been open just like the great plateau was. So my first playthrough I actually went the wrong way around before getting to the first shrine because I didn't realize I was supposed to actually follow the point on the map. Lol oops 😅😅
Rewind is the best ability tbh, if you go into play TOTK and keep “use recall more” in your head, you’ll have so much fun fr
I have had a couple weapons fall off cliffs and that has helped a lot recovering them, heck jumping between recall and ultra hand helps you carry anything up cliffs (like koroks when the flight went south) and it's so helpful.
Everything became a puzzle once I realized the versatility of recall!
Oh shit the shooting star rolled off the cliff and into the river.......... RECALL BABYYYY
From the beggining Recall was my favorite mechanic, but most of the time a lot of the puzzles just became using recall to make something go up and down in the air and then i jump or other things like that, but it was way more fun than building.
The second I saw the thumbnail I thought “YES SOMEONE ELSE GETS IT” Totk has so many concepts that had incredible potential to be unique and different than BotW plot-wise and thematically, but instead they did everything the same just in a different font, more of it, and mostly worse than BotW.
Bro what
Agreeeeee.
@@commondog3956 I respectfully dislike you
swear we did not play the same game
Give a concrete example of something that was better in BotW.
I can't imagine how many people disliked this video lol
only one
right now its 86 likes to 43 dislikes, so a 2:1 ratios of likes to dislikes
I keep forgetting some people can see the number of dislikes ☠️
304 *likes* 122 *dislikes*
Fan boys. That’s why
My biggest problem was that TOTK felt way more repetitive and tedious than BOTW (also BOTW was greater fun to explore - especially with the point on sky view towers enabling the skipping of land)
Yeah, TotK's story is the biggest problem for me. It focuses _HEAVILY_ on it's overall plot rather than it's characters which leads to them being forgettable and bland(it doesn't help that TotK's entire plot is just a mashup of other Zelda stories). Zelda feels like a Mary Sue with all of the Lucky Clover Gazzette quests, Rauru doesn't really have that much in personality besides caring about his kingdom, Ganondorf is just evil for the sake of being evil, and if you're going to do that with your antagonist you at least have to make them an active one. Sonia just seems like a mother figure for Zelda and no real character after that. Mineru was bland and didn't really have any memorable aspects of her character. Yunobo just felt like a cliche character arc in BotW and it's pretty clear that the writers had no idea on where to go from where BotW left of on him. Sidon is exactly the same as BotW which makes me wonder why he's even such a big focus. Tulin and Riju are probably the only returning characters that were actually _improved_ .
@@coryfreake9070 The plot and characterisation in modern Zelda games are so lame. Hell, it felt like Mario Sunshine had deeper characters than TotK.
That's because breath of the wild was repetitive as well. The only thing was when breath of the wild was new so was the world. By totk the freshness of the experience has well worn. There's definitely some mechanic elements that are more advanced and interesting in the new one. Although they still failed to make the world richer with a good reward system. You can explore 'new' terrain only so many times.
Like the most contrarian opinion ever. No, not even an 'opinion' , just plain wrong & contrarian. 😂 _''especially with the point on sky view towers enabling the skipping of land''_ ~ the fudge?? Tears literally shoots you a mile high in the _Sky._ If you really want , you can simply dive back onto the Sky Tower for free. Literally what the heck do some people actually think (or actually play the games) before they type thier nonsense lol??
These two games are just too similar after all. I've played about 25 hours of BOTW before TOTK and after 6 years and a $70 price tag I've expected quite a bit more new stuff. After another 25-30 hours in TOTK I was less and less motivated to continue playing. However imagine the reception if they skipped BOTW in 2017 and they released a combination of that and TOTK around 2020-21. It would have been absolutely mind blowing. I don't even understand why they removed certain aspects of BOTW completely. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like a sequel when there is literally not even a single thing that references the guardians and other Sheikah tech. No traces of the massive divine beasts either. Somebody commented that there could be a Nintendo policy for this so those who didn't play BOTW won't feel left out of something but it doesn't really make sense to.
30:20 you do realise you can upgrade the battery right? I had like 32 battery’s by the time I finished the game.
lol yeah, I thought the same thing. I do agree with a lot of the complaints he had but yeah you can definitely upgrade the battery to last up to a couple minutes even. Also recall became one of the easiest ways to cheese most puzzles.
I find it silly that you point out the battery life being an issue at the beginning of a playthrough. I always viewed it as the game muscling you into exploring the depths where zonaite is found. Obviously the game never pushes you to the depths until after the first dungeon. However, gaining knowledge of where zonaite is plentiful before the game prescribes is a reward for exploration. And then you upgrade your battery and explore the depths with crazier and crazier vehicles. Upgrade battery, use new battery to upgrade battery. I went my whole playthrough on like 6 energy wells. I avoided the depths (because fighting kohga is the only story down there) so I used my horse on the surface. Any time i used zonai devices, the puzzle or traversal never felt impossible on the surface. Every sky island that isnt just a boss platform can be reached easily enough by paragliding. It felt very closely designed to allow link to get almost everywhere with only the base stats. The places you cant reach easily typically have harder challenges. Your energy well supply is the gate for those harder challenges. Having a high battery means you have explored the depths. Your skill and link’s stats are tested progressively. And of course, supplementing weak battery with zonai overcharging is an alternative option to higher power. A simple reward for looting decayed constructs. With that all said, excellent video. I agree with most everything else you spoke about. The most annoying feature in this game is the sage ability activation, and the most disappointing was the depths. It IS a masterpiece. Just not a 10/10 best game ever made. Critics busting nuts at nintendo IPs for existing has ruined a lot of people’s ability to think critically. The game is pretty and fun enough to make me ignore my issues with it. Its issues do not weigh it down.
Legit i don't get what his point is when he replies with "you can easily skip fights and exploration early game with these devices" when he dedicated a whole section of the video saying that zonai devices are useless and default battery energy is too small. Like...what?
@@EffosThe video is just full of badly constructed and often contradicting arguments. It mostly seems like clickbait. Almost none of his points hold any water.
I think the battery system was fine, the real problem with Zonai builds is the randomized system through which you get parts. For example, some times I just want something like fans and steering sticks, but I end up wasting half my zonaite getting cooking pots and balloons because you can't "pay" for specific parts until you fully upgrade your battery.
temples are still better than boring divine beast. and the order you do them is up to you I started with gerudo it was hard with only 6 hearts but still had a blast keeping trying to beat it. The side quests in botw are pointless and boring, in totk they are much better. I had a lot of disappointment during my first botw playthrough. in totk they were replaced by smiles and laughter bc of I was messing around with the physics and abilities, in general there’s is just soo much more things to do that make botw seems like a demo.
@chuckmann7127 if you look on the map it will tell you want parts specific gumball machines dispense. Certain ones only give certain parts.
I know that, but when I only need 2 out of the 5 parts in each machine, I end up wasting a bunch of material on parts I don't need.@@tatu9805
5x Large Zonaite Charges almost guarantees you'll get a decent amount of every parts in that specific machine... You need to play the game's economy and in thia game it's really easy to just get everything... Maxig your battery completely removes that randomness and a great reward for maxing your battery as well since you can buy any part you need.. Unless you are overbuilding Zonai devices then that's a different problem..
The problem is large charges are rare and are important in upgrading your armor. Again, the problem still remains that I could use 5 rare items and only get 5 of the common item I want in return.@@vivid8979
I agree with a lot of this. Especially the exploration part. BOTW was so fun to explore. As much as they tried to give you more stuff to do in the over world of TOTK, it just felt like I’d already seen it. And I was disappointed by the lack of things to explore on the sky islands or in the depths. TOTK is still a great game, but I prefer BOTW.
Me at 30:00 exsuce me what yes you can upgrade the battery
Why didn't they add more NPCs living in homes who Link could just talk to? The land would've been much richer that way. Instead I'd go to familiar spots and see nothing going on
At least TotK and BotW were not unplayable broken messes like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, holy crap I never playing those again.
There are a couple things I disagree with, I did not feel like the game was as linear as you made it out to be. I went to the Gerudo first, and yeah it was kinda hard, but it didn't feel like I should just quit and go to the Rito instead, I then proceeded to do zora, mineru, goron and Rito last. I never felt punished for my order, I actually felt rewarded as things were made easier by the resources now available to me, but the game also scaled the strength of the enemies to my level, when I did finally do Rito, the wind temple had soldier IV patrolling. As for the battery, you can upgrade your battery to have up to 16 full batteries, and there's a zonai suit that reduces your energy consumption, and since upgrading I rarely use my horse. I feel like the main point of Zelda games isn't necessarily exploration and discovery, but exploration and puzzle solving, which this game had so much of, and the game encouraged you to try and cheat its own puzzles. I think the developers knew the puzzles would be too hard to make cheat proof, so instead they made them cheatable so you can have fun doing it however you want to. Lastly I had 3 friends out of 4 that I know that played the game, and just ran the whole time, not as a challenge, but that's just who they are, they hardly even sprint because they want to make sure they don't miss a thing, so no not every gamer chooses to take the easy path and fly everywhere, I know I do, but I'm sure there are a lot of others like my friends. I think you made some good points too, like having to click on the sages is terrible especially since Riju is a cc fighter but her ability is for ranged. These were just my main counter arguments to your video, the whole thing is overall very well done so good job with that.
Agreed with cheating the puzzles, in the shrine with the rails where you ride them with platforms I just had fun tony hawk style riding them with shield surfing. I love how you can literally fuse a cart to the shield for a SKATEBOARD!
Hoes mad...
Totk is very linear, there was a moment I found a dungeon, but I couldn't do anything there, because the game has a right way of being played, you have an order to do things, and that kinda sucks. Botw also had sort of an order, but it was more subtle, so it didn't break the game in any moment.
@@Weg64bro is making a counter argument and you say he’s “mad”
@@Luizanimadolike where???
The novelty is gone, so it was never gonna scratch that explorers itch the same way. But I still really like the game. Even though I was expecting an entirely new world with traditional Zelda dungeons underground. The first trailer made me think we were going to ride dondons while exploring caves underground with Zonai settlements. There was Zonai tech and stuff, but not the way I imagined it. I also pictured the depths to be less mushroom landscape and more cave like.
Nice editing on the video, was pretty seamless, I’m impressed
Glad to know I’m not the only person that prefers Breath of the Wild a lot more over Tears of the Kingdom
i've never played botw? sounds boring when i hear people say that they don't have zonai, and link right hand abilities. no fuse? wtf lol please sell me botw coz i might get it just to see how its better than totk. i wonder if all the botw fans just dislike totk just cos of nostalgia.
@@ivespoken8902 Some people just like different things and have different opinions
@@circuits17nightmare28 ok so you think it's not worth it for me to get botw then? gotcha! cheers!
I started a second playthtough of Tears of the Kingdom, and I definitely plan a third one
I disagree about what you said about recall. If you use ultrahand to move something to where you wanna go, and then move it back, you can get on the object, use recall on it, and it’ll take you straight to where you wanna go. It works vertically and horizontally - whichever way you moved the object originally. It is incredibly useful, almost feels like cheating. Another use is saving fallen items. If you accidentally drop something or make something fall, quickly activate recall. Once that’s done, time will freeze, and now you can use recall on the object to recover it. As you recover it, you can also help yourself out with ultrahand. Anyway, I could go on and on about how I outright cheated so many sections of the game by just using recall in combination with ultrahand.
I played through BotW like a dozen times. Each time, I refined my order and after four or five playthroughs, I exclusively did master mode. That way I had to be smart and get armor upgrades and be prepared to take on the Ganonblights in the divine beasts. The way that the fairy fountains are designed in TotK, it doesn't let you go them out of order. In BotW, while the game tries to get you into Zora's domain and do a final tutorial by going through that gauntlet of Lizalfos, it's actually better to do Rito first, especially on master mode, but the way the game is designed, is that new players are unlikely to reach the Rito zone early because the Ridgeland Tower is very difficult to do and guardians are around the entrances to the area. This is unless you go to Gerudo Desert first, then pivot north and cross the highlands, possibly after Master Koga, or you can just climb over the Yiga hideout. Also, I disagreed with your assessment that new players are supposed to find the Rito second in BotW. I went to Zora's domain, and I saw a Goron there and wanted to know what the Gorons were doing. Then when you go the Gorons, you see a Gerudo walking around and you want to know what is going on with them. Then in Gerudo town, you see both a Goron and Rito there, and the Rito tells you where their village is. I did Zora > Goron > Rito > Gerudo on my first run. But for master mode, I do Rito > Zora > Goron > Gerudo and think that is the optimal order. Some players were really interested in that giant bird in the sky and got to the Rito earlier. I'm rambling a bit, but BotW was nuanced, and I really liked that. You really had to figure out the optimal plan. TotK isn't encouraging me to play again in a different way. TotK was an experience with some moments, I'll give it that. Early on, the ultra hand and zonai device system seemed really cool and was like nothing I had ever seen before. But I feel it distracts from the game having focus.
nah
I completely agree with all that you said and it was really well written. I still haven't bought tears of the kingdom and are on the fence about it should I?
@@lemonking3851if you got money for a game get it yeah it’s fun but if you’re having fun with whatever your doing rn don’t the only other game I would say that’s gonna be better than this this year is Spider-Man 2 which isn’t coming out until like a month from now
@@lemonking3851Yes man, its s glorious.
I think you nailed the intended order of BotW. That game was so well designed.
I got most enjoyment out of revisiting each village and doing side quests in them but I always dreaded doing main story. I did not like the formulaicism behind the dungeons (go to these points that are EXPLICITLY MARKED on the map and hit them). Oh and once you defeat the boss that is easier than fighting regular enemies, you get to watch a masked sage tell you the same thing as the others. Funnily enough, while I've seen many people dislike the Construct Facilty+Spirit Temple, I enjoyed that one the most, including its boss. I enjoyed exploring caves or even the depths more than doing the dungeons or exploring the sky and spent a lot of time in there early on, which is why batteries were not an issue for me. I was completely fine with building stuff, even if I only used it pragmatically, rather than to mess around. Oh, and I assume there's already been enough people commenting this but I used Recall A LOT and think it's ridiculously overpowered. While I like the greater enemy variety this time, I thought it still wasn't great enough and I especially missed the Guardians from BOTW. I feel like it would've made sense to have some kinda Construct substitude for those, even if far less present, especially since there were already enough Constructs on the surface that the people in the world never really seemed to care about (in my experience anyway). And no, I don't count the random hand encounters as a substitute. If I had to say which game I think is better, I'd definitely still go with TotK. For me, it just offers way more (especially in regards to side quests, which was my main source of enjoyment, other than the final boss). However, while playing it I also noticed that I'm progressively craving a classic Zelda game again with classic item progression, rather than another Open World game. I strongly miss the classic 3d Zelda era. So yeah, if another Open World Zelda were to be announced one day, I'd be more afraid of having the same issues with it than looking forward to it based on BotW+TotK.
Hm, skipping through most of the simpler generic ''I found Tok bowwing / Ultrahand bends my bwain'' comments - I actually found yours an interesting and a Level-headed read. 👍 For me the Spirit Temple was a bit lacking on upfront size and Complexity of features: but it was unique in it's very mode of Discovery, and approach to reach it being _part_ of the Dungeon itself! Not my favorite (I default to the Lightning one sorry lol) but certainly, intriguing.
@@netweed09 Yeah, I actually enjoyed the Lightning temple a lot as well, though there's a chance that may have been due to it being my first dungeon in this game before the dungeon gameplay as a whole became repetitive for me. My main personal complaint was the visual dust effect making the dungeon a bit rough to look at but not sure if that's mostly just me. I did appreciate that the boss was much less of a pushover than the others, though in my playthrough that obviously made the others more disappointing. Edit: Though, thinking back, I wasn't disappointed with Colgera being easy since the game very obviously wanted you to go there first, which I vehemently refused to do.
@@alvalynsis I mean, for sure! The Temples meant a lot for me: they showed that Mr Aonuma was willing to blend this 'new Format' with the old. It's not a total 1:1 for the Dungeons and 'no Masterpiece', fine. But that there would have made a balanced, Good video from this guy but nope of course he has to add that edgy sauce in there and toss in the ''BotW waz betTer'' - which is a plain ridiculous opinion lol. Anyway, contrarians will always use -ve bait.
@@netweed09 I mean, it depends how you choose to compare BotW and TotK with another. You can either choose to compare them in a bubble with no outside factors. In that case, I would agree as I would not really know how to argue in favor of BotW over TotK. However, it's far more realistic to compare games based on factors outside of that (example: open-world games that have come out in the meantime and may have raised the standards). With that in mind, I don't think it's edgy per se to think less of TotK than of BotW. I know for a fact that I did not enjoy Tears of the Kingdom in the same way I enjoyed Breath of the Wild back then for a good amount of my playtime. My tl;dr on TotK compared to BotW would basically be: I think It's better but I didn't enjoy it as much for a lot of my playtime.
My biggest question is WHY did Nintendo change the dungeon formula to 5 terminals??? That was the BIGGEST mistake I just can't figure out!!!
what is the game being played during the outro/patreon bit from 33:42
Kingdom Hearts 2
33:55 DLC was confirmed to be unlikely coming
This is actually a well-crafted critique video. The amount of TotK dick-riding in the comments is both expected and hilarious. Ya'll have nothing better to do than call a person's love of BotW over TotK "wrong". Many of you praised BotW to high-heaven until TotK came out and were all but willing to throw it under the bus as a "beta version of TotK". 😂 Anyway, your opinions are valid, great vid! ^^
There are things about the game that annoy me but I would still say it's a very enjoyable game and I've spent hundreds of hours playing it. I haven't even finished the main story, it's nice just running around the depths activating light roots or working on side quests while you explore the world. The game is so good it makes me forget about real life for a bit.
TBH after playing TOTK, I don't think I can ever play BOTW again. The pure gameplay improvements upon it, would make this "climb a mountain for five hours, oh no now it rains, I'm stuck" experience simply obsolete. The new ways you can traverse Hyrule are so numerous, even the inclusion of ascend, makes things so much better for me. I do agree about TOTK having big issues with stories, dungeons, and even the sky and depth though.
I think that instead of having battery, the upgrades should have been to how many Bruce’s you can attach to one thing. That way if you wanted to make a death machine, you’d have to invest a lot of time into farming “power” or whatever, but if you just wanted a bike or something, it would be quite easy to make. You could also include something where certain devices have to be unlocked, such as making the cannon be behind a power wall. So you’d have to upgrade the amount of attachments, and the types of attachments will also have to be unlocked. Then shrines would be a good preview of those devices that you don’t have unlocked yet.
AHH I just got to you talking about the story plot for totk and I completely disagree with you haha. It worked for botw and does NOT work with totk. The memories expanded on the characters in botw. It gave link and zelda character arc which they’ve never had in a zelda game. It brought a unique element of emotion that is brought through watching the memories even tho you already know how the story ends. It contexualizes each location and gives you a reason to care about them. And shows you bits and pieces about each character that you’re working with as you do each regional quest. Totk does not do that. Because they brought a bunch of new recycled characters that never had as much going for them as the champions or Zelda’s father. Sonia and Rauru are weak characters, that are just there to get the point of the past acrossed. The only aspect I liked about the past was ganondorf. I thought zelda being there was boring and all it did was waste my time. I figured out she was a dragon in the fourth memory bc they just straight up tell you. And none of the other memories build upon it. It just felt like they were repeating the same thing in each one. Especially when they pull that she’s there to learn her secret powers of time travel. And then I felt completely disconnected from the past. When I thought the whole point of the game was to make you feel connected to it. But the only way I felt they did that was the fact zelda was there. The sages were recycled versions of the champions and Sonia and raurus whole existence made no sense because the first people to found Hyrule was a previous version of link and zelda. And lastly. This story has no character development for link and zelda except for their relationship being canon. Botw Zelda’s development as a character came from her always being told who she needed to be and didn’t know how to get there. She identified way more with the techy side of hyrule because it was something physically there that she could understand. Then when it comes down to it her lack of understanding her spiritual side costs a lot of death surrounding her. Her father the champions almost link. This is why it worked for botw. Everything that surrounded these events had to do with the characters and their development. Although it didn’t directly affect them in the present the memories show you why it matters to link and why he need to do this now. In totk they tried to apply this aspect of the memories into the story and it just didn’t work because the only point of her being there was so she could become a dragon. It had nothing to do with her development or the characters around her. “She sacrifices herself” with zero consequence. The story ends happily, but with no consequences to the rules totk made for the sake of the game. She can’t even remember being a dragon and their life goes straight back to normal. Anyways. My personal opinion is the story line was the weakest aspect of the game, it had a lot of good parts to it and cinematic moments. But those are the parts I didn’t like about it. I however really enjoyed the game tho, but the story frustrated me a lot.
Very few games are actually masterpieces. I feel like Tears is more like a fantastic dessert after the mind-blowing main course. It can and does hold up on it's own as a great experience, but it works a lot better as a continuation and a joined experience with the previous one, which is the main star.
Some fair points but your part about the story and progression had me confused, even with the correction at the end. It's about as clear in TOTK as it was in BOTW that the main objective is to destroy Ganon(dorf), and where BOTW also invited you to seek Impa for a longer path, in TOTK you're invited to figure out where Zelda went. There are tougher enemies in some areas but the main paths will typically have similar enemies (besides gibdos in the desert) and they scale the same everywhere at the same time. My complaint for the story structure is that it kept the non-linear compromise of memories despite relying more strongly on linear story telling. It made some things awkward, the worst for me being to clear the Spirit Temple with other temples and memories left to do. That's why it's nice that they regularly pushed us to specific locations to progress the main quest. Whether revisiting Hyrule feels compelling or not is a different issue IMO. I agree about the empty skies and repetitive depths. Not necessarily about Zonai devices, I can see how there's a blurry line where the gimmick breaks the world, but I can't go as far as saying it doesn't belong, and I had too much fun to claim the game would be better with less of it. Also Building Mineru's construct is obviously the "dungeon" part of the Spirit Temple, the lead up started from the Dragonhead sky island. 21:40 "compared to any modern Zelda title"... wdym by modern? 32:15 "unlike what everyone believes / no masterpiece" but that's a bit fallacious and shallow though, plenty of us address flaws and "masterpiece" as well as 10/10 mean nothing without context. IMO no chance for the next main line Zelda to be on time for Switch 2 if it's to be expected within 2 years. Also we just learned no DLC is planned for TOTK.
All of your points are somewhat valid, but I personally think that the zonite builds are pretty cool. I use Recall every 30 minutes at least, did the lightning temple first (Cause Lightning.), & passively upgraded my battery 7 times. The exploration at any level was fun cause I had to get off my vehicle to climb/glide/ascend. walking around the surface was still fun cause I didn't want to waste the components for basic travel, & since I didn't have a vehicle & there are some new enemies that could also have armor, the combat was fun, fresh, & challenging. The game isn't bad you make it out to be, but subjectivity is a thing so I'll respect your opinion. I also think you might want to get a new Switch cause I have 0 performance issues.
Its weird how some long time Zelda fans contradict each other. Some bashing Breath of the wild's story for not being linear while others not liking tears for being more linear.
It's almost as if fans aren't a monolith. Who'd have thunk.
@@CrazyTreehuggingElf Idk, maybe because they all agreed when Botw came out and now suddenly they change their minds without coming back to what they said previously.
@@selmabm3409 I don't think so. Some opinions are just louder than others, doesn't mean that everyone agrees on, well... anything, TBH. There might be a general consensus on some things, but even that might change with time. Just remember the Star Wars prequels, what the overall opinion was then and what it is now. Some people might have changed their opinion, but I believe that the majority was drowned in the backlash and didn't bother to speak up until it died out.
@@CrazyTreehuggingElf you could say that in Star Wars case, the love for the prequels today was strongly fuelled by the hatred for the sequels
@@selmabm3409 possibly, and yet there were people who liked them even before the sequels came out. So a consensus wasn't really a consensus even back then, some people just weren't being heard. But I get it, it's easier to just lump fans into a singular category because then there is no need for a case by case, I guess? Like, did this particular creator ever say anything about the non-linear story? If he didn't, why even mention it on this particular video?
If you try to “skip the exploration” then you’ll find yourself missing a whole lot. It’s why I willingly, in spite of having teleportations available, built myself a cart of two fans, a steering stick, a plank of wood, and 4 wheels to slowly traverse the paths to get each stable. On the way I found those Koroks that needed to reach their friend, that hilariously stupid guy that needs his signs held up, a ton of fun side quests like the lucky clover gazette, (the actual stories not the introduction to them) great fairies and the stable trotters, a ton of monster camps that I had a blast figuring out, some out of the way shrines I otherwise would have missed, and I was forced to pass through hateno village which I otherwise would have skipped for another 50 hours, but that ended up triggering some fun side quests and I also got some upgrades to the purah pad. I passed through kakariko village which notified me of the rings, which triggered the fifth sage quest, I passed by tarrey town and was able to check in on Hudson and rhondson, who I discovered had a child and expanded the town, and found some chasms that were useful in that they led directly to a light root almost every time. Then exploration in the depths was even better. It was always clear thanks to the mirror of the surface it had exactly where I needed to go to accomplish the next task there, because I knew exactly what the terrain looked like. If I wanted to get to the next light root, I built a fan glider or attached a rocket to my shield or fought my way through a frox. On the way that magical ability to distract you breath of the wild had returned, and I felt like I was always getting pulled away to do something else, further extending the brilliant hours I was able to spend exploring. The sky islands aren’t quite as good as the advertising led them to be, but they’re still a blast to explore. It was actually just recently that I went through each and every sky island to find the shrines up there, because I had finished all of the shrines on the surface thanks to those lightroots. Running into king gleeoks to test my skills and strength was a fun little random surprise, and the reward of a sages will for getting sidetracked is just perfect. Can’t wait to find all 20 of those, I’ve gotten 10 so far. (Part 3 of 9)
🤓
@@MaplesZz you used that emoji wrong if you want to insult me
@@MaplesZz 🤡🍼 Oh look, it's fun to be 12 years old sumtimes!1
I will say I agree with the arrow system... ugh. Although I think when you re-organize (sort) your inventory, on of the sets has your most recent arrow fuses up top (which I noticed they got thrown there while I was duping items with the glitch) so I think that could be the closest to a favourite system for arrows. Might help there.
It's just not the same, the actual system depends on what you first found, and makes a cicle, if I first found a pepper and I want to inflict fire dmg, I will use the pepper a lot bc it's what i have, so if I found fire chuchus later in the game wich have more impact zone and dmg, they will appear far away from the select column, and it would be very unpleasant to wait till i found the damn chuchu in the middle of a fight, so i just gonna use a pepper wich is faster and the fire gum will be always far. In a favorite items system, I could just choose whatever the hell I want and shoot it freely.
The arrows could be fixed by just having like a favorite tab so you could choose to have alot in those or have very few so you dont have to go through everything
@@thatminer7174 It is there. Kinda. You can sort by the most used.
The fuse system is actually a really good encintive to explore especially the depths with so many powerful base weapons and bombs
I am a massive zelda fan, especially botw. And when u played botw u realize that in totk there arent as many changes as u wished for. I havnt finished totk to date since the overworld did not change enouth for me. Totk is a great game but 90% of its greatness was already there in botw.
Homie is saying what’s in a game he didn’t finish
@@georjoporjo3323 i watched it
Yeah this dude's on crack it's the same game more enemy's more everything he's on to much crack the only thing that might be better is the the abilitys but that's even a stretch
Fr there were a massive amount of changes, you could try to finish and find out for yourself if you want.
@@nilothesage I will for sure
It was a masterpiece in my eyes but we all have our own opinions
indeed we all do have vastly different opinions of this game. i think it was nothing close to a masterpiece. id just say its a decent game , didnt have a good story , bad performance, very repetitive gameplay , i thought the depths were so cool for the first 30 mins and it got boring very quickly. repeated cutscenes and temples all open x amount of locks with sage ability .. the map is very interesting to explore and thats where my first 20 or so hours went but the actual gameplay and story is in my opinion .. terrible
@@WhyUHaf2BeMadI disagree with everything to be honest. But, I did notice the repeated cutscenes too! It made the game feel very weird. It made the characters seem a bit lifeless. But I think they had to do that in case people did the dungeons in different orders. However, it could’ve easily been fixed by just making it so that you get the repeated bit of the cutscene on your FIRST dungeon only.
A lot of this game suffers from “being too open” if you catch what I’m saying.
@@V1Salvo i saw you on anoher video commenting " i disagree" to people who say negative things of totk but you never say why you disagree, btw i agree totally whyuhaf2bemad
Honestly, I totally agree with your thoughts on the short life of the battery! But I feel like the zonai devices being simple in shape (being based on real-world objects) and having more predictable behaviour actually makes for more intuitive design. Love the video though!
I'm happier with Tears when I have a smaller inventory. When I'm not constantly switching outfits, when I'm not constantly scrolling through fuse menus. I think the quick-access fuse menus should've been limited to a wheel of favorites, rather than be the whole menu. For example, for arrow fusing, my 8 favorites would be fire/ice/shock fruits, muddle bud/bomb, gibdo bone, bright bloom, and keese eye. For throwing, my 8 favorites would be the same, except puff shroom instead of gibdo bone, and giant bright bloom instead of keese eye. For dropping, my 8 favorites would be 1 slot for making hammers, 3 slot for making sharp weapons, 4 slots for dropping fire/ice/lightning/healing horns. The sage abilities could've been put on a wheel, but I think they also could've been slightly reworked to be more contextual. Tulin: other then pressing A while gliding, it could also be holding A on the ground. Riju: press A while aiming an arrow, or maybe when your bow is out. Sidon: press A while your weapon is out. Yunobo: press A while shielding / while locked on.
In the context of how the sage abilities are normally presented those are some pretty good ideas! The Sidon suggestion might be a bit too easy to activate but the Riju one especially makes waaay too much sense! Seriously wish it was like that in-game haha
@@Plandiss how often are you pressing A while in combat? The Sidon one would be easy to activate, sure, but I bet it would turn into a useful muscle memory of "shields up" or "beam up" when first entering combat. This would make people use Yonobo and Sidon accidentally in battle for a little, probably yeah, but it would also make people just use them... way _more_ in battle.
The shrines in tears do be way better then breath tho.
Write that again and do it in the English you have been taught in school!
@chris7921 what are you on about
The shrines in TOTK have no challenge. They’re so easy and a lot can be solved in a minute or two. At least the ones in BOTW had some challenge. The combat ones where you fight the constructs different ways are fun, but that’s about it.
@@bzlujapv I agree that the shrines in TotK are way easier than in BotW, which was a bit of a disappointment.
@@chris7921Hi Chris! The comment you’re responding to is an example of informal vernacular. In the context of a comment on a video game KZhead video, informal language is typical. Insisting on academic and formal English is unnecessary, pedantic, and comes across as rude. That said, the shrines in tears do be way better then breath tho.
Tbh, when you think about the abilities in botw, you basically only use them when it is intended, while in totk, you end up using ultrahand and fuse so much even when it is not intended. This makes a huge difference as in totk it feels like you always have acces to powers, while in botw you kinda just use it when you think you are supposed to.
I've been ignoring the towers as a means of traveling, so the exploration has been great for me! :) But I understand a lot of your sentiments here.
My big problem is that the story felt worse than we hoped, gamondorf motivation in english is just "im evil." And well for example the zonai are way different than everything we knew before, the depths are very empty in story same with the sky. Another problem i had was the repetitive nature of the temple stuff, they all had the same vas as botw champions, they all basically said 1 unique line and thats it. Also incase u dodnt notice, the depths are completely mirrired from the surface, so its well a fun concept but too empty modt of the time.
Nah, I prefer such simple motivation for Ganondorf, I find it refreshing, for him to be unapologetically evil just because he enjoys being evil. You don't always need villains with overcomplicated reasons and gain pity points due some sad backstory to justify their evil actions our media is currently saturated with such villains that it gets tedious, from time to time we need a true villain who will do evil just because he or she wants to and will do it shamelessly without offering pitiful explanations of reasons to gain sympathy, a villain who will just say "I do it because I can and enjoy it" on your face and be proud of it and denying you any justification or reasons while he or she tries to kill you.
The pronunciation of plateau made me laugh each time. I replayed BOTW twice, only because my switch broke and I lost everything. I honestly don't think I replay either of these games again, way too massive to enjoy all that collecting and exploration again
This game is fun if you play it like the developers intended. Using zonai devices, upgrading your battery, use the abilities in unique ways. (Ultrahand together with recall for example). The gameplay loop in the depths is really fun. You fight enemy camps for zonaite, find treasure in mines, upgrade your battery in order to be more overpowered with zonai devices, etc. The game sure has its flaws, but does so much right too.
You touch on nearly every gripe I have with this game. I spent 250h in it but there was a lot of fatigue where there was wonder in Breath. Sure I've explored this world twice already but I could do it again in Breath. Rather glance over stuff to get to where I need to be in Tears. Makes me a bit sad
Although I think it takes a long time to upgrade batteries, thinking zonai devices are useless is extremely foolish. Even if the glider wasnt and option, ground based vehicles are significantly faster than horses, and have better maneuverability
People say Totk is better than BOTW but i found Totk is overly complicated, and I miss sheika slate powers.
I can say that I loved Tears of the Kingdom. But, I think there are a couple of vital flaws that Nintendo made while making Tears of the kingdom. - Tears of the Kingdom Sages are inconvenient, They should have had their own ability wheel instead of having to physically activate their ability. - Items and Resources are terrible and rare to comeby, When we used a "Glitch" they took it away and didn't improve the game. - Breath of the Wild had more inspiration and love considering that it was a new extra addition to our Wii / Nintendo Switch during this time. - Semi-Voice acting. Something that bothered me that if you are going to have people voice a character you may as well continue for all the Dialogue. - Tears of the Kingdom did infact expand the "Map" Traveling between SkyIslands and Depths is nice. But, I feel they were lazy in some aspects. - Optimization, Countless of times do I have periodical Lag-spikes and optimization of frame-rate does not stay consistent even at 30FPS. - I emphasize on resources, Each item you collect is very RNG and even for RP standards, Finding assorted Resources, We run out of those resources too quick for what they put out. I could be hyper-Critique about how the video game is and what Nintendo lacked on... I just feel that Tears of the Kingdom did a lot, But the reason why we got Tears of the Kingdom so early is because they "Copied and Pasted" The previous game. Granted that Tears of the Kingdom was supposed to be an Additional DLC, But became too large of files to be sold as a DLC> So they created (Breath of the wild - Part 2.) Nintendo is lucky that Legend of Zelda is a very popular title and people will buy the game regardless. But, They did not deliver on the mechanics, Optimization, Resource Availability, Enemy Types or give reason that "Tears of the Kingdom" is different than the previous games. I also dislike the Absense of the "Triforce." It was nice to include the Sages in Tears of the Kingdom, But I have a feeling Tears of the Kingdom will have a sequel as it would be foolish to stop the Zelda Series without having a proper conclusion to the infinium story that they've created.
They said that the next game won't be in the same continuity as Botw and TOTK
Totally agree with most of what you said, except that you can upgrade the batteries. A lot. You had two. When fully upgraded and while wearing the (really quite good) Zonaite armor, the batteries last 16x as long as the ones you have. That makes a huge difference. But with that much battery, the game does still suffer from the zonai devices you build being way too powerful as you described.
I never noticed the linear progression in my play through of ToTk. I went straight to the water temple when I started my play through, because that was the first area I went to in BoTW. I don’t remember getting punished all that much. And as I uncovered more Zelda fan knowledge, I visited the Rito village last simply out of spite. 19:00
Ironically the biggest issue with this game is having played botw before. That makes the experience way much worse.
Yeah I guess I would like totk more without botw but still, I personally hate the whole additions like ultrahand so much, I think I would hate the game without botw, with botw I can atleast "not like totk" but still appreciate the base game
I understand your reasoning, but i cannot see myself in there. Your greatest point was that exploring is not fun. Nah man... It is amazing.
For real there's something new everywhere that i hadn't seen in BotW before (i also 100%'d BotW)
@@Effosyeah but there’s no way this game took 6 years and they reused the same map and totk is just botws formula ( spawn in a area you can’t escape until you get 4 shrines that give you 4 abilities and then do 4 dungeons but it’s 5 this time) fusing is kinda cool it makes stuff like elemental weapons and spears just as useable as any other weapon ultra hand is also really cool but ascend and recall are only used in puzzles exploring WOULD BE FUN if we didn’t get the same rewards WE ALREADY HAD in botw for example in the labyrinths we got the phantom Gannon set which takes really long it still can’t be upgraded the depths are empty same enemies as the overworld accept for like 2 and a bug and the sky is mostly just hey grab that gem and take it over here the abilities are also terrible I often just run around with the sage abilities off because they are annoying hitting enemies when I don’t want them to and not hitting enemies when I want them to the abilities as also just terrible compared to botw
I’ve done one temple and have 50 hours already just exploring/ doing side quests. It’ll take at least 30 more for me to finish the game.
Also the depths are not a new map, it's the overworld but reversed. And a thing I noticed was when I got Hero's Path I realised the Lightning Temples interior is only one fourth of the pyramid...
Well-made review listing Totk's different strengths and weaknesses, but after watching it I still don't get what about the game is worse that Botw aside from the exploration. Also I've discussed Totk in multiple different places, all of which semi-private discord servers to be fair, and even the most avid Zelda fans agreed Totk had issues and I didn't see anyone calling it a masterpiece.
The idea is that every single piece of the game's world, structure, story, and etc dampens the core experience to a state lesser than its predecessor. All of the pieces inherently add up to an extremely flawed picture. For an example, the building aspect ruins the combat and exploration by making it so the player stops caring about the content. You can skip doing fights and you can skip over the entire world with these creations so it only hinders the game rather than improves it. Also as an aside the masterpiece is part hyperbole part real. I've seen some people over-hype the game over the aspects I list here which is partially why I was so off-put by my time with the game.
@@Plandissi dont even understand what you're saying man☠️
@@Plandiss You legit said in the video that zonai devices are useless since the starting battery is so low, now you're saying you can easily skip fights and exploration 💀
@@Plandisswhat is blud waffling about 💀
@@Plandiss🤡
I agree with your point and its hard to say it's bad I personally replayed botw more times than I can count and still discovered something new each time but in totk the game doesn't feel as much fun to replay, the depths and sky feel way to empty and most of the surface is the same. also they made amiibos feel useless in totk. Even though adding the sets so people could have the sets without buying the amiibos is good it makes amiibos nearly pointless if you bought them. I feel like nintendo did decent but it could've been better.
The fact you can't upgrade these sets is what i find a little stupid.
My biggest issue with TOTK was how easy it was to discover caves by offering an apple to The Lord of the Mountain spirit... the Zelda team lost focus and added too many workarounds.
Masterful analysis and review. Liked and sub. Great work
This is a common issue with people. Nostalgia and constant comparison. This is a sequel to an amazing game and it was equally as amazing. Both games are masterpieces. Your main complaint was basically, exploration. For me, I wanted to explore. I wanted to see how the world changed since the last game. I was genuinely sad to see Zoras domain filled with mud. I was excited to see new caves in areas. All of it was fun to me. Breath of the wild was amazing because of how fun it was just to explore every nook and cranny but this game… this game took what I loved about Botw and made it better.
True, the thing is that the people don't get it, they play totk thinking of it as a sequel, and they are not wrong, but even Nintendo said that they should not see it as a sequel but more as a new game that has nothing to do with botw
Nah bro his complaints aren't due to nostalgia lmao but nice deflection
@@jimjohnson6944 he has some legitimate complaints but he keeps comparing to his feelings of the prior game.
not arguing with a fanboy. have fun in lala land @@Ryans319
Nostalgia bias is real. He lost me when he said having to fight Ganondorf early on
TOTK is an incredible game and is unique on its own. But I'm a really big story person when it comes to video games... and no way TOTK's storyline/lore was better than BOTW's. BOTW's story was so beautiful and heartbreaking and I don't understand how people think TOTK topped that. TOTK barely even mentioned the Champions which we came to love in BOTW, or how Link and Zelda's relationship developed between the time between the two games (since we know that they already had a ton of development shown in the 12 memories). So many great story points in BOTW that they failed to develop upon.. I guess if we don't have BOTW to compare to, then TOTK would be a better game in my opinion. It's just so disappointing to see all of these things I've came to love in BOTW be ignored. And just think about the character development. Who seemed like more developed characters... the Champions, or the Sages? BOTW definitely made me care more about the Champions than the Sages. And Mineru.. though the true ending sent her off with an emotional farewell, personally I didn't think that Nintendo gave her enough character devlopment/insight for me to care as much as I was expected to. And plus.. there's so many things that TOTK doesn't explain about the Zonai. Like why did they suddenly disappear, as said in BOTW? I hope DLC explains all of this, or at least gives us more story/lore to work with. I still enjoy TOTK though and have put over 150 hours into it.
I definitely didn't go over the story with as much care as I might've liked. I agree that the Sages are extremely underdeveloped, especially if you consider how lazily they slapped that imprisoning war nonsense. It felt like they wanted to do something like they did with the Champions, but was much more forced, and that's without taking Mineru into account. I would assume a story DLC will go over the Sages themselves, hopefully like they did with the Champions but considering how the full game went I don't have much hope...
Agreed completely. I get why people prefer the gameplay of TotK, although I do not. But there’s no way TotK’s story is better than BotW’s.
idk about you guys but i maxed out my battery and got all the light roots after the second dungeon. I really enjoyed the building element of the game but i can see how it’d be frustrating if you didn’t know you could use zonai charges lmao.
I agree with you on a lot of things, but I upgraded my battery ALL THE TIME. By the time I finished the game, I had a full bad of blue batteries and a half bar of green ones.
THe temples for me don't start when you get to the actual "Temple", there's always the massive preamble to get there, which I include in the temple solving itselg. I just see the last bit as the boss stronghold. If you look at it like that, the temples are really quite big. Like the Zora temple for me starts when Sidon creates the whirlwind
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I agree having to click on your spirit friend to do stuff is annoying but there are workarounds to the bosses without needing the spirit friends. Colgera doesnt need a gimmick, you can climb the legs of the Gohma, you can use splash fruit/opal/hydrants to clear Mucktorok puddles and use ANY elemental based weaponry for the Gibdo queen. Your criticisms are valid but like BOTW theres always a unintended way that is better Edit: Personal opinion, TOTK cannot support Master Mode because of the way fuse works, you'll just get higher level fuse parts earlier and that just makes the game the same as normal mode albeit you got a jumpstart to work with.
Totk is no means a bad game. But damn the hype up to botw was something else. What sets botw apart from Totk for me, is how botw evolved. To the combat glitches, to the apocalypse-ish feel, I really did enjoy botw much more than Totk. Even though I beat botw, I still wanted to play. Maybe I’m speaking for others also, but if you poured hours into botw, and then try to pour hours into Totk, I got tired and bored fast because it’s the same map with subtle differences
The video is very well produced, but I can’t shake the feeling that a lot of the problems you are expressing come from not engaging with the new features or mechanics enough. You get to upgrade your batteries very easily just by exploring the depths, something you essentially blow off for being too easy to light up while talking about walking everywhere being a slog. As soon as the game takes away your horse in the depths you refuse to engage with creating stuff with zonai devices and exploring. Stuff like that IS what makes TOTK a different game. Also, while the new dungeons are not perfect they are all a step above the copy-paste environments from BOTW.
True, if you play totk as if it is botw it won’t feel fresh and new. You have to embrase that it is a new game with new mechanics.
My problem with this is that creating things to traverse with is clunky in the first place. Sure, it's fun in the context of the (largely) linear Great Sky Island and shrines, but in the broader world you're just going to default to the same rover, or the same raft, or the same balloon, or the same hoverbike over and over again. Doing this same monotonous loop in an environment which practically never changes is a recipe for the opposite of fun
@@mr.m878I just beat the third temple, and I'm only now beginning to realize this. Silly me for thinking that a direct sequel that looks and sounds almost exactly the same could be enjoyed in the same way. It's Mario Galaxy all over again for me.
I was seriously so disappointed when I reached the end of the "Spirit Temple". I dropped down thinking the boxing match was just a test to allow entry to the inside of the temple. That the Spirit Temple was going to be the most challenging and insane temple in the game. But I was so wrong. I think in Nintendo's mind, the Construct Factory was actually the "Spirit Temple" and the Boxing match was the final boss of the Construct Spirit Factory Temple. I couldn't even understand what I was supposed to do in the Fire Temple. I cheesed tf out it tbh. It just felt like a headache to try and understand all the minecart tracks and what not. Water Temple is a very beautiful area but much like the Spirit Temple, I was expecting all the stuff to be a way to unlock the non existent interior of the temple. Although it is my FAVORITE spot to mess around with building. It's a huge, flat, open space. And has the low gravity for wacky fun. I thought the Lightning Temple was pretty awesome but mostly because nostalgia for Desert Treasure in Runescape. And probably a bit of Minecraft. Like looking at it from the Gerudo tower and seeing it's massive size standing out among the barren desert is really cool. Wind Temple was definitely the best in terms of puzzles and build up. (edit) I also really didn't like how many of the shrines were blessings. I've completed every shrine and it felt like there were way too many blessings. I enjoy shrines for the puzzles. And seeing that background as Link enters just felt bad every time. I know they put a boat load of work into this game so I understand they needed fillers. I just wish they would've done a few blessing shrines as puzzles or proving grounds. The proving grounds ones were also very enjoyable. Minus the annoying tutorial ones lol. It's a blast starting with nothing and finding everything you need to overcome your challenge. In BOTW I repeatedly played the trial of the sword because I enjoyed that concept so much. Reminded me a lot of doing the fight caves on Runescape tbh.
Generally agree with everything you said. I got plenty of battery upgrades without particularly trying though. There's a bit of a trade off between saving zonite for battery upgrades or spending it on blueprints which I felt like found a pretty good balance. There's incentive to use the parts that are available instead of just spending zonite, and that leads to more experimentation. Typically after exploring the depths for a while I'd buy a bunch of refined zonite and be able to get a battery upgrade. Over the course of a single playthrough I got I think half the battery you can get (I only got one of the fully upgraded cells) without particularly going out of my way. I took on the final boss around the 100hr mark though. I played the game on and off for about a year, with other games in between.
tears of the kingdom is not a linear game, i just think it takes a little longer to get into its exploration than botw, but once it does it has way more to offer. (at least read the end if u dont like to read) sure, u can use skyview towers to get almost anywhere, but 1. there are tons of locations u cant just get to with the towers alone and u will still need to do a considerable amount of land travel, and 2. once u find everything obvious from the sky you still need to go back down to the ground and go through everything u missed. the overworld is a very dense map with tons of side quests, cave systems, rewards, and so on so ur barely touching the surface by using the sky view towers to mark points of interest. the skyview towers are for scanning the overworld briefly, but u still need to go down to actually explore it. another thing, the map is still very different. sure, a lot of the major parts of botw's map are still here, but 1. they are affected differently by the main quest line with the regional phenomena and 2. a lot of the things people want are switched around. armors, weapons, etc are in new locations, shrines are in new locations, new korok types were added and are in different locations, the new towers are in new locations (easier to spot but still different nonetheless), and so on and so forth. if ur looking at it in a very surface level way the map is nearly identical, but actually exploring it will show you just how different it is, including the hundreds of new quest lines. the caves also do an amazing job of changing up the landscape by giving you effectively 3.5 levels of the map: the sky, the overworld, the depths, and the cave systems. the sky islands are somewhat lack luster and could be filled with more content, but at the very least they force you to explore more carefully than how u might start out the game only going for skyview towers. they also get u more accustomed to the use of zonai devices which can help with the end game. speaking on the zonai devices, i think nintendo purposefully marketed the game the way they did to through us off. the sky islands ended up not being the most important part of the game, and zonai devices are mainly an endgame thing. even then, its still really easy to buy zonai devices in bulk and u can also pretty easily recharge ur battery while traversing (also encourages exploration as u need to find enemies that drop the charges and ores around the map), so u can still make decent use of them in the earlier stages of ur play through. in my opinion, tears of the kingdom simply focused more on the endgame than botw which is why zonai devices are slightly difficult to get and use when starting out, and i dont think thats a bad thing. i feel like most people didnt find out the lightroots and shrines were connected or every important point on the overworld would have a counterpart in the depths. i guess it can somewhat ruin exploration for the people who did, but 1. it was done partially for the theming of the depths they were going for, 2. even if u did find it out the shrines arent all in easy to spot locations with no set up required, their are tons of shrines that require u to find them in caves or complete them with a quest + the 32 in the sky that have no lightroots in the depths, and 3. the points of interest on the overworld are still vastly different than in the depths. its not like ur going to find one of master kohga's hideouts in the overworld or an exact copy of zoras domain the depths, u still need to explore and figure out what exactly is there. at the end of the day, tears of the kingdom is way more dense and has way more to offer when it comes to exploration than botw. it has more and overall better shrines, way more meaningful quest lines, more types of progression, tons of new map to explore including new cave systems within the overworld, a better story to progress through, better temples/divine beasts, new armors and parts to fuse to your weapons and arrows, and even more i probably forgot to mention. when it comes to the story, that aspect of the game is definitely more linear than in botw, but 1. the story is only one aspect of the game and doesnt represent it entirely and 2. you can complete the huge chunks of the main story in any order and be fine, and, if anything, giving the player an order without forcing it upon them can allow them to gauge what difficulty they might want to start out with. players could also just not realize what order is given (like how i did) and do whichever they want first (i went from the goron to gerudo to rito to zora). at the end of the day, u can still choose what difficulty you want to take on. also, everything you do DOES make it easier or harder to beat ganondorf. completing more shrines and the temples for hearts and stamina, completing the temples to not deal with the bosses when first facing him, exploring and getting accustomed to the combat (especially against phantom ganons) will obviously allow you to more easily deal with him, fighting enemy encampments and getting better weapons AND better materials to fuse them with, etc etc. also, you aren't required to complete the temples to fight ganondorf, completing the temples simply help in giving his location away. sure, its less obvious, but if u literally just go to the castle and fight phantom ganon u will most likely be able to find ganondorf as i feel like it becomes obvious once u do so. its more work, but this final boss was made to be more difficult. the temples definitely arent the best part of the game per say, but they still deserve a little more credit. not everyone immediately thought to just climb a bunch and reach all of the gongs in the fire temple, so even if it is sad that its possible its not like it was immediately obvious, the water temple's boss doesn't require sidon to be completed and the theming of water still stays in tact with the water bubbles and pools you have to flush out, and overall they at least are pretty decent overall. also, the queen gibdo boss can be slightly annoying but you really only have to call upon riju a couple times and the queen's and normal gibdo's attacks are all telegraphed and can be avoided with some thought so it isnt a total nightmare. as for the fifth temple, id say building the body is actually just a part of the dungeon, even if it isnt named as such in the game, so its not like the temple is truly only the boss fight, at least in my eyes. its very clear they just structured the temple differently to give it a different feel, even if it is just like the others in hindsight. also, i dont want to reduce this video to being ONLY why botw is better, but the creator themselves admits that this aspect of the game is better than botw, just felt like saying it. i will admit, the champions forcing u to go up to them and press a is really really bad, but at the very least outside of combat or at the beginning of a battle its really easy to use the abilities whenever u want. plus, dont sleep on mineru, shes basically an infinite free bullet time as long as u stick close. at the end of the day, the sage abilities couldve been done way better, but they still impact ur game a lot more than champions and are overall slightly better, especially with tulin. zonai parts do have obvious use cases, but 1. there are so many types so it wouldnt be as impactful if all of them could do every other parts job, and 2. theres tons of different ways to be creative with them. if anything, them being so specialized forces u to really think outside the box. also, its not like its impossible for u to upgrade ur battery during the early/mid game. it definitely takes awhile but its still do-able, and u can always recharge ur battery. plus, a lot of the vehicles still provide advantages over things like horses and skyview towers, such as just more customization, better and less linear air travel, making it easier to traverse hills and rocky areas with land vehicles, etc etc. the simple fact that some places outright require zonai devices, as either towers cant reach them or horses cant reach them (or the fact zonai devices can go a lot quicker) just shows how they can still be useful. at the end of the day, it was nintendos intent to make them as mainly a fun endgame tool to use that is only somewhat used throughout the beginning. since the endgame is basically the majority of the game, i wouldnt say this is a bad thing. also, the fact zonai devices dont immediately overtake horses and towers goes to show how much they cared about balancing out the different modes of transportation. at least at the start of the game u can test out the more simple forms of traversal before really going ham later on. also, if the creator of this video says that its nearly impossible to use zonai parts in the beginning while also saying they de-value encounters. how does that work? sure, towards the end of the game u can just run in with a vehicle with 15 lasers and mow down mobs, but thats already after u have probably fought those mobs legitimately tens to hundreds of times, it wouldnt be as fun if u were so limited even in the endgame. the hand abilities definitely play a bigger role in the game and make encounters slightly easier depending on the situation, but if anything the fact that the abilities are so much stronger but force u to be creative means that, well, u still need to be creative to fight mobs. at the end of the day, from what i saw it seems like u havent played the game all too much because a lot of the issues brought up are due to the game putting a larger focus on endgame content. its not like the first 50-200 hours of the game are a boring slog, far from it, but at the end of the day the game takes time to build up and truly prosper.
I played over 200 hours in totk and I like it wayyyyyyyyy better than botw
I think having played BotW a lot but 6 years ago, i came into this game with only vague recollections about the map and locations. It became very enjoyable early on finding places i saw before an seeing how they changed, but also realizing i had forgotten so much about the topography that i was often lost. I do agree with the critique about the towers bypassing exploration and obviating the need to use horses. It also meant that i missed out on finding caves and meeting people who would give me hints for armor locations and other quests, so i started to use them far less as the game progressed. Ideally, the ability to throw you into the air so high should have either been gate locked until later or maybe had levels of height that could be improved with quests. My other gripe was that besides the reward for finishing a shrine, there was no reason to read through anything in them. If they had included historical records or even diary excerpts that Zelda wrote, i would have been even more motivated to go to shrines. Missed opportunity.
18:56 I definitely agree with a lot of your points, but. This is not true, I did the dungeons in whatever order and also took time to explore and do shrines in between so I was fairly powerful by the time I got to whatever dungeons I pursued
For me the exploration aspect was totally there. I was excited to go to all of the locations because u know that there’s going to be changed in a super cool way. Also, I was supposed to do the dungeons in that order??? I totally missed that.
Exploration aspect was there for me as well and haven’t spent anywhere near the amount of time shooting myself out of towers as he makes it sound.
I agree with this. With BOTW I was hurrying home to play. With TOTK I would play when I could. It was a lot of fun too but Breath was a masterpiece to me. I hadn't even played a Zelda game since Ocarina but I was instantly hooked.
"you never upgrade the battery!!!" *has a battery upgrade
the depths are just a copy-paste of the surface just upside down. i noticed this when realizing every wall is connected to to a river
Yeah but it's also using only one landscape material so the whole thing is one boring biome
You might want to make a follow up to this where you'd tell us what you would change since you didn't give any replacements for these problems.
Only 50 hours? What a hot take. I love BOTW but I love TOTK even more.
Upgrades batteri goes pretty fast. Just Explorer the Deaths without flying. That way you pick up more shit and raid all enemy camps. Or that’s what I do. As soon as I start using zonal shit down there I miss everything
This video feels like a movie review from someone who slept during the whole movie
50 hours is like... the tutorial. you haven't done much. TOTK Hyrule is a vastly different experience. I am playing through Botw now as well as Totk. Completely different discoveries and experiences on the same map.
Ah yes, because beating the game and doing most of the shrines is “not much.” If 50 hours is “not enough” even though I beat the game, then that is a flaw, not a strength.
@@Plandiss I got like 150 hours and I didn’t even do the fourth temple, must have been speedrunning or something
No offense, but if you're still in the tutorial after 50 hours, then it's definitely a problem of game design (I liked the game but basically too much handholding)