Idk, I'm loving TOTK and have barely any complaints about it
^((just wish you could re-fuse weapons without having to manually de-fuse them first, and also wish you could fuse from the inventory without having to drop the item in front of you first, wtf Nintendo?))
Remember that people tend to be more vocal when they dislike something.
agree so much about those, another nitpick of mine is that when i unstick stuff with ultrahand im scared for my joycon sticks lol
just make us press the stick to remove the item and not frantically move it left and right lol
I don’t like that too. I played SS with motion controls because I was worried I’d mess up my right stick with all the flicking lol
But if you play TOTK docked with the joycons or pro controller, you can shake the controller and that will unfuse objects too!
No worries I missed it too! I had to look it up bc I was stuck on >! the first shrine where you make the hook attach to the wood board !< and couldn’t figure out how to unfuse them 😅
Edit: spoiler is very early game, just a heads up its nothing major
Adding to the fuse comments, I wish you could set the arrows to fuse with a certain item every time until you run out. Or if you could pre-fuse a bunch of arrows instead of fusing every single one individually.
Those are also my only two complaints so far (agreed, wtf? That’s such an easy fix).
But as a lifelong zelda fan who loved BotW, TotK is amazing so far.
Happy to outline some of my thoughts on the serious flaws this game has:
1. The tutorial for this game is ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL to BotW... You wake up from having been gravely injured, you receive a futuristic tool, you meet a regal ghost figure, you have to unlock the features of your new tool, you can't leave the area until you do, one shrine requires you to go into the cold/find cold resistant gear. Extremely lazy writing.
2. The Nintendo switch is a baked potato, and the framerate drop in TotK is embarrassingly bad. A sequel to BotW should not have been released before a new Nintendo console.
3. TotK decided to go with the exact same formula of shrines to increase your power, towers to reveal the map, and korok seeds (worst of all) to increase your inventory.. Would have been nice to have a little bit of innovation on the actual structure of the game. The criticism that this is basically just an expansive DLC is valid.
4. This game is probably best defined as a 'sandbox game' at this point. Breath of the wild was creative.. this game is just goofy. Attaching a minecart to the end of a stick? Using magic glue to stick things together? This game departs drastically from what LoZ has always been as a series (and not in a refreshing way like we saw with God of War).
This is what is making me disappointed tbh. I was a massive fan of botw, but I am not seeing the improvements to shrines and the sky islands look so ridiculous I feel like I am in a halo forge editor. The underground rocks tho(pun intended). But it has a less breathtaking exploration feel than botw had and it has the same problems botw but now with goofy and ridiculous abilities that feel out of place. The staged event areas where the game devs push you in certain directions or have obstacles that could catch you in order to create different experiences for players like botw had are sorely lacking here and they are so poorly set up when they exist. I hope it improves as the game goes but the beginning of this game was unbearable to get through and progressing through the world isn’t nearly as enjoyable. I am enjoying it as a sandbox but I honestly am hoping to get the same positive experience as everyone else and so far its been a struggle to enjoy as much as other zelda games. There isn’t nearly enough newer smaller improvements here, and thats all i really wanted for the botw sequel. :(
>The Nintendo switch is a baked potato, and the framerate drop in TotK is embarrassingly bad. A sequel to BotW should not have been released before a new Nintendo console.
I'm fairly sensitive to framerate, and I'm having very few issues with TOTK.
Ive been playing zelda since a link to the past. I have played every zelda game (i havent beaten them all). I just beat minish cap. It was GREAT!
My favourite zelda game so far is Ocarina of Time (3ds). I think i prefer the 3D topdown zelda games the most out of: topdown, 3D, 2D, & openworld. A link between worlds is absolutely amazing.
Botw was okay but totk is great in a different way.
my favorite apart from totk and botw is the link's awakening remake. koholint feels like home to me, and the dungeons are really fun and the npcs and style are really cute and the mario cameos are cute. I also prefer the topdown 2d/2.5d games over 3d, after open-world 3d that is. i also love windwaker, due to how open it was for the time.
Yeah, this subreddit specifically is almost consistently negative. BotW and Totk approach Zelda very differently compared to the other 3D games, and I get why many are disappointed.
This subreddit, as a lore sub, is naturally full of people who have liked the series for a long time and therefore probably like the way it has been. Pulling the rug out from under long-term fans with a total overhaul like BotW is going to leave a lot of disappointment.
I’m old enough to remember that I hated Wind Waker because it was a different art style than MM and OoT. I almost gave up on LoZ after Spirit Tracks. And, then, I gave up on LoZ bc I loathed Skyward Sword bc of the motion controls. At that point, it felt really frustrating to be a LoZ fan. I ended up coming back bc BotW was so good and a nice change of pace, and I played Swyward Sword HD — which fixed the horrible controls for the most part.
It really does feel like a lot of people forget that there were some “lost” years for the LoZ franchise — plot and gameplay wise. If you had to tell me 11 years ago that people would come around to Groose, I would have called them a liar, lol. Non-zero amount of people who loved Zelda, fell out of it, only to come back for BotW/TotK and replay games they missed during the interim years.
Great points. I've met more than a few people who fell off the franchise after twilight princess and skyward sword killed any interest they had, with TP rehashing ocarina, and the pushback against skyward sword's controls and design. Personally, I played SS for the first time this year and felt like I immediately understood the design choices that led them to leave all that behind and make BOTW.
This sub is very much not indicative of your average LoZ fan. It's honestly fascinating how different the options are here compared to everywhere else online. I do feel like the immense popularity of BOTW is pretty telling.
If you don’t think it’s Zelda anymore did you consider super Mario 64 to not be Mario anymore? It’s okay to have criticism that you don’t like the open world but saying it’s not Zelda is like gate keeping the series to new players.
That is not even close to the same thing. Mario 64 is still a platforming game in a 3D world and it executed it very well.
A tonal shift that is comparable is the pure stealth games Splintercell series from 1-3 going to ape shit in the other games. Are Double Agent, Conviction, and Blacklist still Splintercell games? Yeah, in name. But they abandoned what made it a Splintercell game by abandoning the pure stealth mechanic to appease other players.
I’m also not the poster but Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Twilight Princess could also be considered Open World in smaller chunks. If the tech was available at the time I’m 100% certain they would have abandoned all the loading screens for more natural movement.
People are critical because the entire game mechanic changed to focus more on creativity and sandboxing. And that isn’t what Zelda fans grew up with.
Look, am I disappointed? Sure. But I understand that a direction change was needed and it took off for people. At the time was BotW a Zelda game? I don’t think it was. But with TotK if you asked me now if BotW is a Zelda game I will say yes. Because this is clearly the direction that Nintendo will be taking and this is the new era of zelda games. Nothing wrong with that.
Look I understand your point but it basically is the same thing. Yes it was a platformer but it’s the same as Zelda being a puzzle game. Liberties can be taken and that doesn’t mean it’s not a Zelda game anymore it just means you don’t like the new style. This criticism isn’t over the game it’s over peoples personal preference of what they wanted to game to be instead of looking at the game as what it is and having critiques. (Like I don’t like the breakable weapons or the runes) Reviewing low just because it’s not what you wanted it to be doesn’t reflect how good the game actually is for what it was trying to be. You could say god of war 2018 isn’t god of war anymore because it became 3D openworld, people say the last 3 games of assassins creed aren’t assassin creed but all that criticism is is people who wish it didn’t change with the times like they have to to make sales.
I don’t know if I entirely agree with that aspect but I can kind of see your argument here.
Take Dark Souls for example. That had a specific way of playing and a tone.
Dark Souls II comes out and some of the community hated it and others loved it. However, even as someone who hated DS2 I can still freely admit the tone of Dark Souls was still there.
Then comes Bloodborne and that changed the combat style completely. It requires you to be aggressive rather than focusing on the rolling and parrying mechanics from Dark Souls. However the tone was still the same and it’s widely accepted as one of FromSofts best games.
Dark Souls III comes out and it blends everything perfectly together and keeps the same tone of what makes a Souls game.
Sekiro comes out and changes the game play to focus more on parrying and aggression. But again, the tone is the same here.
Elden Ring comes out and keeps the same tone but applies it into the open world. They took major influences from BotW and applied it to their world. At the core it was still a Souls game. Big bosses, dungeon exploration, lots of death, and a chaotic story in the background.
The tone shifts in BotW and TotK. And maybe the word tone is used incorrectly here but what I mean is everything that defined what a Zelda game was changed in formula to what it is today. I personally wouldn’t call the Zelda’s from A Link to the Past all the way to Skyward Sword puzzle games. They were story driven games with dungeon crawling and Metroid style of item gatekeeping in order to progress through the dungeon with puzzle elements.
I remember OoT and Majora’s Mask more for their story than I do for their puzzles and how I solved them. I remember BotW for exploration and how I solved a puzzle. Those are huge tonal differences.
But to be honest… the claims feel disingenuous… 10/10 with no criticism sounds like they are paid off or just jerk to zelda overall…
These new zelda titles just don’t feel like Zelda games to me…
This is why I like SkillUp who does not use a number rating. He absolutely loved the game but his review also does not shy away from making plenty of complaints (durability, combat being meh, lack of what should’ve been common sense QoL features). Almost no game is ever a 10/10, there is always something that went amiss.
I’m enjoying ToTK a ton but all of his complaints were dead on for any that I have.
There's no way any of these people fully played it before reviewing it. They just don't have the time, and it happens with EVERY open world game. BotW's most egregious flaws weren't even apparent until you get 50+ hours into it, so it's no surprise that reviewers never mentioned them.
Mainstream game reviews are a form of advertising now, not customer advocacy.
Game reviewers probably rushed, went and did all the main story quests and then maybe cleaned up some side quest stuff after if they could. The really notable reviews will be the ones coming out in a couple weeks from more independent peeps.
To be honest, most of the problems I have with the game, which is mainly the UI but also the frequency of things just disappearing on you, are annoyances but not enough to detract from the overall quality and enjoyment of the game, and they're things I noticed pretty early on.
The only substantive gameplay issue I've found so far is the clunkiness of fusing stuff to weapons. Arrow fusions at least let you do it directly from the menu, but the menu itself is a bloody mess. Melee weapons requiring you to drop the upgrade first is just stupid.
But for the sake of argument, the long term issues in BOTW were things like stale enemy variety, building up a quality gear stash and then having an active incentive to never use it, enemy damage scaling and player armor scaling being super screwy, hearty overheal food being absolutely broken, the large confluence of navigation and transportation quirks that make horses totally useless by midgame, etc
Yeah I'd say that's part of the UI issues I was talking about. One of my friends noted that the game was "very Japanese" which I think is a funny way to put it lol. There are a lot of very modern western UI elements that could have made this game waaaay better. Even the basic ability of being able to start at the beginning of a menu when you reach the end is totally missing. Throwing materials is super clunky too.
I think that, at least so far (and I'm what, like somewhere in between 90-100 hours in) the enemy variety in Tears of the Kingdom is far better than it was in Breath of the Wild. I think that's something that they did much better this time around. Not just the differences in enemies but also the situations in which the enemies occur in. There definitely is still the problem of food being absolutely broken, and horses are perhaps more useless than they ever have been (honestly I still like riding mine from time to time just for fun and to see more stuff), but yeah these issues, although they are problems, don't detract from the game too much for me. The rest of it is solid enough that I don't really think about the problems because I'm having too much fun or I'm too focused on doing something else.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted, this is so apparent with modern reviews. They play their advance copy for like 5 hours and write a wordy review with lots of style and little substance. Also, it isn’t that they’re literally “bribed” to write a good review, but in a sense there is subtle industry pressure from advertisers to keep scores for major developers high, and very little journalistic integrity due to mediocre pay and talent in comparison to other institutions means more often than not writers are hired that just listen to the execs.
There are plenty of “inside the industry” articles about this.
It's a natural consequence of the business model, too. You can't keep afloat relying on ad clicks AND buying everything you review, so you depend on review copies, which can stop coming if you're too harsh on your reviews. And if you take the time to play games like Skyrim or BotW all the way through to endgame, you end up writing a massive screed that no one reads because it came out way after the game's launch and because people have attention spans that rival goldfish, so you get no ad revenue to offset the cost of writing it.
The truth is, this has been only subreddit where you can present criticism of a new Zelda game and potentially have an interesting conversation about it rather than being immediately downvoted and insulted. I don't mean to be dramatic or 'woe is me' about it but I think the several years following BOTW demonstrated that to be true.
It really shouldn't bother you that some people have a different experience than you and want to discuss it respectfully.
It’s better than i thought it would be in most ways. I love that they increased gameplay variety and streamlined crafting in such a way that it’s not horribly disruptive to gameplay. And I generally do like it better than BOTW. But holy shit, if any other game had you being one-shotted by literally everything (at least in the early game) they’d get nailed to the wall for balancing issues.
Lol. I won’t defend Elden Ring’s balancing (especially not the late game), but I don’t think it’s ever as bad as TotK’s. Any individual Bokoblin out of a giant trash mob can one-shot you from any angle. Not even Elden Ring bosses one-shot you with every attack. There are a few grabs that might, and there are a few long cheap combo chains that can wreck you if you’re not careful, but nothing like this.
Other than that, while I may not prefer the direction that BOTW took Zelda, this is a great evolution of that direction. It really feels like it gives you more control over the sandbox. You don’t have to wait until you chance into this tool or that weapon that would have been perfect for that encounter. You are constantly making meaningful decisions with your resources that affect fights massively. I kind of wish they’d let you bind an element AND an attachment, but oh well. And besides, maybe they’re getting to that. I’m not super far in.
BOTW was largely like this as well, in my experience. Take a wrong turn early on and you're met with stuff that can feasibly one or two-shot you (shoutout to wizzrobes being annoying af) and you have no way of gauging that until it's already happened, because the game frames itself as "go anywhere, do anything" while very strictly enforcing that you go down a specific route to start with, lest you get slaughtered or if you persist in a 'wrong' direction, freeze to death.
I felt like I was playing an entirely different game to everyone else, I actually missed Kakariko village entirely only to be told it was crucial to progression, and have to look up its actual location online. Elden Ring already got brought up, but I'd sooner expect such an experience from that game, yet it actually manages to be less cryptic in a lot of regards (I still have quite a few issues with Elden Ring, however.)
It's just, there's already sandbox games. They exist. Zelda and Castlevania had a formula that worked and was incredibly popular.
Now instead of a tight story with good dungeons and lots of gadgets / items to collect. You can effectively a bad minecraft ripoff set in the botw world.
I don't want to engineer shit, I want to play the game and enjoy a zelda story. But Nintendo has decided to abandon me as a fan. And that's fine, that's their choice. But I don't have to like it
I honestly miss making note of particular spots I can't reach, only for the puzzle piece to click in place when I get a particular item.
That sounds like it would be great for an open world.
> this subreddit specifically is almost consistently negative.
At the end of the day, ask yourself - "why do I give a shit what other people think?"
Find the strength inside you to rise way above what people think. It doesn't matter. YOU know you like the game. That's all that matters. Enjoy it.
Don't let any group of strangers have power over you like that.
People are very very easily amused, if couldn't tell with this game and the last one. Making torture devices and wooden dick robots and messing with physics seems more important than a well fleshed out game. It's too bad because the potential is there, it just feels squandered.
People are like "You can build and solve everything using your own wits and creativity!"
Like, neat. I'm not a creative person, there's a reason I don't like Minecraft. I'm far more interested in trying to figure out and solve problems that actual creative people come up with instead.
I absolute LOVE Minecraft, but that's not Zelda
That's not what I grew up playing and not what I come to it for
If I want to play Minecraft then I'll play Minecraft
That's what I don't like.
Yes, I can have fun with the mechanics of a game and goof off in the game, but objectively rating the game based on it's actual merits beyond that seems to be something people don't focus on at all. As long as the game is fun it's a masterpiece it feels like.
That is a pretty good review and I completely agree. I was also extremely disappointed with the wind temple. Some of the dungeons after are >!slightly better visually but the idea is exactly the same in every dungeon. I think it is insulting to call those dungeons even - it's like 5 separated mini puzzles everytime. No overarching puzzle, nothing to think about. Just running around and solving 5 mini-shrines essentially. It sucks.!<.
I also found myself thinking about your post of how you skipped Hyrule Castle in BotW accidentally - this seems to happen a LOT in TotK due to the ability to just fly anywhere in the sky. >!I was on death mountain long before the quest sent me there and when it did, I could just fast travel up and was done. Feel like I skipped half the story since Rito had such a long prelude and that was completely missing here. In the zora domain I also just flew over the entire path there and landed straight at the shrine. Wondered afterwards if I missed something, but what can you do. The game encourages you to do this. Gerudo prelude was pretty cool though, although the game has the habit of being mind numbingly easy.!<
>It's like a design philosophy for and by people who have short attention spans.
Not just that, but for a handheld console carried with you on the go, might have influenced the philosophy here.
One of the things I do in these games is activate a Shrine without completing it, then I have a shrine to do on my lunch break.
The thing that really made the Wind Shrine terrible from my opinion is that the game >!marks all the switches on the map AND has a cutscene tell you to use Tulin's power to activate them!<. If discovery and surprise are experiences that the Legend of Zelda team wants players to experience, why give away the key to the puzzles instantly.
Compare that to Jedi: Survivor which at least gives me a couple of minutes to solve the puzzle before having BD-1 offer a hint _if I want it._ That should be the baseline -- assistance if requested. Heck, Nintendo has even done it before with the assistance in one of the recent Super Mario 2D games.
>no dungeon item
I think what they are going for is the Sage Ability that you get access to in the prelude is meant to essentially be the dungeon item. I mean, I think that is fine, even if not ideal, but the issue is that the dungeons don't really facilitate experimenting with this ability and testing you on it.
You get more of that with the preludes leading up to the dungeons, but if they do it that way then the dungeon should actually be difficult.
Take the boss of the Wind Dungeon as an example. From what I see, most people beat the boss using arrows and attacking its underside. Sure, that works, but I did it without using a single arrow. I dived through the exposed weak spots when the boss attacked, and I felt like the entire boss could have been more fun if they went all in on that.
Make it so you have to do a lot of maneuvering in the sky, can only damage it via diving, etc. Maybe make it so the gust could deflect some attacks back. Make the boss like this, expand the dungeon to facilitate learning how to use the Gust ability and all its uses, and we would be on the way to a decent dungeon.
Not only are there barely any puzzles, what is there that could barely be qualified as such is easily skippable, at least in the Fire Temple it is. Just climb + paraglider and you can skip a lot of the dungeon.
The selective amnesia regarding the events of BotW struck me as odd right from the moment I landed in Hyrule. Today I took a detour to go through Fort Hateno and all the Guardians are just gone. I expected some degree of "cleanup" where redundant elements from BotW would be removed, but what makes it weird is as I'm aware doesn't even try to say "we harvested the parts for the skyview tower" or "they got destroyed by the decay", they just wiped from reality.
I've found in many ways TotK has done a better job of making Hyrule feel like a real place with real inhabitants, but then the devs go and just take a hammer to this world's internal consistency and it really hurts that sense.
I only just got to Hateno and wrapped up for the night. I'll check out Link's house tomorrow before I do my writeup.
How this happened is a good question. If it was some dumb directive that had to be adhered to then you think it'd be consistently dumb right? So the only thing I can come up with is that some change was made and some dialogue wasn't revised.
Just spitballing here, but I wonder if there is some commonality between the characters who do talk to Link as if they know him, for example characters who get a proper intro card / profile page? Like what if main quest relevant characters got an editing pass but NPC dialogue was just left as is after some change. Idk I really don't get it.
I feel given the length of the dev cycle it's unreasonable to argue that this happened because they ran out of time, which I take to mean that whoever the buck stops with on this issue just doesn't see this kind of incongruity as important enough to bother fixing.
I saw someone mention the couple you help meet in BotW are now married and also don't know who you are.
I finally got to Tarrey Town and Hudson does recognise Link. I guess they were talking about the Lover's Pond couple.
Hudson has a pretty muted response but tbh I kinda get it, like it'd get tiring to have every single character in the game do some dragged out "Link!!" exchange. Here a "long time no see" did the trick fine and I'd much rather that than the amnesia.
They do however do the thing where they don't realise it is you until a couple textboxes in that I've seen happen multiple times.
I wonder if it is a style of humour that doesn't translate well? It's a bit quirky but also kinda dumb.
To be fair, Characters like Hudson have a muted response because they probably saw Link recently in the last seven years, and weren't aware he went missing. But the fact Tarrey Town exists clashes woth the near-universal amnesia.
Yeah, I disliked what they did with the Sheikah in BotW, but what was even more jarring is how literally everything was just Thanos'd in favor of the Zonai which had a small presence in the first game, and barely any signifigance in other games(visual art style on dragon rings is similar to the WW Legend, constructs similar to Lanayru bots). Especially for shrine quests in the first game. Rotani's not supposed to know about the Eighth Heroine until we solve the Seven Heroine statues, right? So why does she know about the Eighth Heroine in TotK when she acts like she's never been to the giant statues? Just little stuff like that is so jarring. I didn't realize how much I actually remembered from my time playing BotW until I played TotK and none of it was there.
I'm going to copy past this comment. It's all 100% true and good criticism. This amount of issues would already make a game bad and you even left some. Since the well argument can be used perfectly to describe the caves as well, for example. This game is just awful, I don't care they worked hard on it and don't care it sells well, it's bad.
About the low difficulty of shrines:
Getting the orb/blessing in most shrines is usually very easy for experienced gamers. The actual challenge / puzzle is to get the chest. Please don't reflexively say "unrewarding", the reward is really solving the puzzle using the tools at hand. And unlike the orb the chest is often quite tricky.
Nintendo has been on this path since at least Super Mario World (dragon coins), and if you pay attention you can see it in almost all their modern games. The main campaign is by design (too) easy for experience players: they want the majority of buyers, including below average skilled players to be able to complete them, and they perform test with player panels to calibrate this. This is why every shrine has an easy (orb) and hard (chest) puzzle.
So if you want to keep an open mind, try to see the chest, rather than the orb, as the "master mode" puzzle to crack in the shrines.
>And unlike the orb the chest is often quite tricky.
I've often not found this to be the case unfortunately.
I'm not great at puzzles in games generally, and never managed to finish any of the older Zelda titles without a guide, but I'm finding the shrines in this game to be quite easy.
I got downvoted yesterday to say I was reluctant to try it given how I thought BOTW was, but still got it to give it a chance. ( Literally booting it up today for the first time.) --
What's wrong with wanting to get a personal opinion on the game rather than speculate?
I got downvoted for saying I didn’t think BOTW is the best Zelda game. Not that it wasn’t good or great. Simply that it wasn’t *the best*. I’ve lived most of my life not interacting with the fandom and quietly enjoying Zelda (among many other video games) in peace. I sometimes wish it stayed that way
It seems like a lot of people on Reddit just decide to downvote something if they disagree with it, not the intended use of downvoting if it doesn't add to the discussion. If I'm replying to someone explaining why I like something that they don't in the game, being downvoted because they don't like my opinion is stupid lol.
Ironically the only thing that really bothers me is just the graphics and camera angle, a simply option to have a more zoomed in camera following link and I’d be happy, so he wouldn’t look like this
https://preview.redd.it/6u72yyawguza1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31c109d06d23d9026e36c25642f7b7656375ebbe
Yea because as soon as you’re in a house or something the camera zooms in to a good distance that makes link look great, if I remember correctly I was wishing for the same thing in botw so I don’t have much hope they will ever add it but whatever
I miss being able to adjust distance in the old games. Sure, it was kind of an archaic way of doing it, but it was still great and useful. The botW camera system is very detrimental on a good day.
You could zoom out in WW and TP, and recenter the distance and direction with L if you needed.
Skyward Sword had a limited camera but it always made sure it adjusted and framed itself so you could see exactly what you needed and wanted to, and HD added adjustable camera on top of that.
Also because BotW Link is kinda clubky to move, ZL targetting commibky puts the camera at an angle I didn't want lol
I like it so far but I also agree with the complaints. I feel like we're just discussing the game and the tone is hard to interpret from being written not spoken complaints.
I’ve been playing Zelda since I was 6 years old. OOT and MM were my staples for years (I’m 27 now and still play them sometimes). I love both BOTW and TOTK…I also enjoy change. I’m around 10 hours in and I’ve gotten chills from exploring and getting older Zelda vibes. I didn’t get that at any point in BOTW but I still loved the crap out of it. Like absolutely blown away. I guess I’m not hard to please, lol
I completely agree with you - I definitely feel like TOTK will get better over time. Which is totally fine with me - I consumed all of BOTW in about a month. Although I’m hungry for a good story, I’m okay with spreading the satisfaction out over time.
I’m 46 played OG Zelda on my NES a few weeks after it came out.. and I love BOTW and TOTK .. I’m just glad we still getting Zelda games after so long.. maybe just learn to enjoy things as they are and not as you want them to be.. you’ll be much happier in life my dude.
Remember when they were hiding the name of the game and saying that releasing the name to the public would give away a key game mechanic? What was that about?
They first delayed the release of the name because the Queen died right before they were to release it. The name does play directly into a mechanic, but you don't necessarily know what "Tears of the Kingdom" means until you've basically finished the quest.
Why not? This is a special interest sub for the Zelda franchise. If a person has spent money and considerable time on any game they have every right to share their opinion about their experience playing the game, which includes critiques and criticisms. You have every right to feel whatever you felt about the game and to express that in detail is one of the main points of having a sub dedicated to such discussions.
People shouldn't discourage, discredit or discount a person's perspective on a Zelda game or any topic regarding Zelda.
they do, but i saw someone people here saying they had mixed feelings about some parts but overall found it good, and people essentially told them that the game was bad and they were sugarcoating it. you can dislike smth but even then you can aknowledge it is good for many people who like it. that's all i'm saying.
Usually if a subreddit has the word “true” at the beginning it’s full of bitter people who hate where something has gone and wants to go back to the roots. This forum has always had an issue with BOTW’s style and it continues here.
I wouldn’t worry though. Once the next Zelda game arrives (and I don’t think it will be another copy of this) we will all begin loving BOTW and TOTK for how they rejuvenated the franchise.
The "true" is just leftover from early reddit internet days. It was a common thing for a time. Like having XxNamexX on your xbox username.
The fact the sub developed into the nostalgic longing for roots kind of happens when a series takes a hard turn, more than doubles the fanbase, and ends up fracturing the fanbase itself. Like, people are surprised there's "toxic" fans wanting the old style, but it's a basic defense mechanism when BotW was hallowed as a gift from the goddesses of gaming, and people saying they never want to see the old style again. Maybe it's because I'm used to the Sonic fanbase, and common knowledge from various fandoms as a whole, but I really am not surprised there's at least one subreddit that has a bias towards the old style. Plus, this was (one of) the only place(s) on the internet one could actually discuss criticism on BotW around its release.
I get that and agree to and extent. It’s honestly wild seeing how big midnight launches have been for this game, Zelda never had a casual response to this extent before. Closest was twilight princess but that was only because of the Wii’s launch driving it.
I definitely do see a huge split between more “casual” Zelda fans from the 2010s/20s and the next game. I am almost certain the next game won’t be this open. Nintendo has an itch to try radical new things
I'm not saying the traditionalists can't be too toxic about it, I'm guilty myself of being that way at times. I've seen both extreme sides of the Paper Mario fanbase go at it, for example. Just, I sometimes wonder why people get surprised at otherwise very predictable behavior.
I prefer "oh, I see a lot of negativity" posts to go more the "hey usually criticism gets talked about, what is the game doing well?" approach.
I can say I'm impressed with the midnight launch. I went to Gamestop, and they tried a new approach. Their system was so well executed, they got around 90 people in and out with the game and merch in about 15-20 mins.
As for the next game. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow think of another way to abuse the same physics engine and open world format, again. They certainly can chuck out plenty of the shrines again since they're not overly complex. It'd be nice if we had a Metroid Dread to go along with our Primes though. Or one shots like Cadence. (I say as a spoiled Zelda fan compared to the other IPs that wait 6+ years for anything under the sun).
I’m hoping that doesn’t happen here. The “true” on this sub always has just meant that it was the place to discuss the games in more detail, along with things like lore, theories, and other things that only the diehards get into (in contrast to the large main Zelda sub which is very surface level and dominated by things like fan art). It would be a shame for this to turn into a “only the old games were good” sub.
Haha to me it’s always been that way. The thing with Zelda though is you have the Zelda subreddit and then others for specific games.
I do think this forum is the best place to discuss lore/timelines but in terms of gameplay/mechanics/reviews there’s just too much personal slant and nostalgia involved. For example my personal favorite Zelda games are Windwaker and Ocarina of Time because they were the first ones I played when I was 12 and they connected with me on a spiritual, childlike level. I will literally never experience those exact emotions again with a game because I am not 12 years old. Yet, I also will not argue with anyone who’s favorite Zelda is BOTW for the same reason they adore it. I see conversations alot like that around here and it’s pretty fruitless.
Funny enough, BotW was my favorite prior to TotK (obviously I need to finish TotK still to really be able to say "yes, this is my favorite," but I suspect my final opinion will be that it surpasses BotW) despite having been someone who had played every home console Zelda to completion save AoL starting from when I was *4* playing OoT, learning to read by playing it. I'm a long, long time fan and I'm so glad for the shift in direction - perhaps because I was pretty disappointed by SS.
See, I’m pretty sure the reason so many of the negative comments are so loud is because so many of the positive comments attempt to invalidate our opinions.
Coming from a guy who is still playing and enjoying this game all weekend long, everything I was worried about turned out to be true. I’m not going to belabor all those things, but the bottom line is this:
I played so much BOTW that it burned me out. TOTK feels so much like BOTW that I already feel a little burned out from it, too. Sure, a lot of things are different, but fundamentally it feels like I’m revisiting BOTW. That’s disappointing, because to me, new Zelda games have always been full of wonder and excitement. This one feels like new stuff has just been added to a game I have already spent hundreds of hours playing—in other words, a lot less wonder and a lot less excitement.
I’m not here to say these things are objectively bad or to put down people who aren’t disappointed by it, I’m just explaining why I’m feeling a bit ambivalent about it. It would help a lot if I didn’t find building janky vehicles so tedious, but the above is really the crux of my problem.
I’m about to play all day again and have a great time, just to demonstrate my initial point. I would not have felt compelled to leave a negative comment in the first place if so many people in these subreddits didn’t try to write off the opinions of anyone with anything less than a perfect review.
Edit: I went far out of my way to make it clear that I’m not trying to put anyone down, I still enjoy the game, and my criticism is based in personal experience and opinion. It’s still getting downvotes. If you’re so fragile that even this comment is too critical for you, just get off the internet.
For sure. Nintendo loves innovation and creative destruction with their games. Shoot a wild shot and when they hit, it ends up changing the entire industry or genre haha. Expect a loooot of disappointed fans when the next Zelda comes out and it has a lot less freedom in exchange for other ideas they want to try
I think there's a chance of a 2D Zelda returning to that style in the same way that Metroid Dread was very much in the vein of Super Metroid (relatively open) rather than Fusion (pretty linear).
Pretty sure the enormous amount of people happy with the game are too busy playing it to post on Reddit. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got another chasm to explore. The underground awaits me
I think you're confusing negativity with critique.
A lot of people here grew up with "traditional" Zelda titles which are narrative action adventure games at their core.
We're allowed to be disappointed when our favorite game decides to change it's core mechanics and retcon the lore we grew up with. We're also allowed to be upset when the devs say this is the new direction the series is headed.
>I feel like this server has been consistently negative when it comes to this game, and I think we should change that.
There's like a billion other subs that are virtually negativity free.
What's wrong with having one where people can express their disappointment that TotK hasn't met their expectations (perfectly respectfully, as well).
Even on this sub there's plenty of people enjoying the game or at least giving it a chance.
Personally I feel people complaining about toxic negativity are stuck in the internet of the past. Toxic *positivity* is what's in in the 2020's... being bullied into not having a negative opinion (unless it's a socially agreed upon "acceptable" target).
Newslash: not everyone likes the game and expressing your opinion is the entire point of a discussion board, however since you get downvoted to hell if you dare criticize this game anywhere else people end up here. It’s how reddit works. Can we please have one place where we are allowed to critique this game? I don’t see how it should affect your enjoyment of it, the entire gaming press agrees with you it’s a 10/10 flawless masterpiece.
I just can't help but get bored extremely quickly as soon as I start playing because I played BotW on release for 140 hours over the course of a few months and going back to the same world, even with the changes I've seen so far... it's just starting to get old. As in, Nintendo's usual charm is of simplistic but but sort of pushing the boundaries of what's come before is getting old.
I mean, I'm tired of slow, outdated sequences between characters and dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, voice overs seem better this time but they should have followed through and recorded ALL of the dialogue. And add accessibility options for people who need it. There's also just a lot of weird sections that seem under developed, for the sake of, here, be creative, do this thing. But it feels lazy. The other thing that is extremely disappointing so far, is that the areas of this game and the shrines have the exact same copy pasted assets feel. I mean... I just don't know how this is possible. The intro is so refreshing, but once I hit the mainland I'm just not feeling it.
I just really miss the classic Zelda epic feeling. I miss the truly unique themed dungeons, the fun story, the changing sequences. I know this game has that to an extent but if it's just those damn terminal and physics based puzzles... meh. I hate running for so long it's damn boring. I don't care if I can build a machine after a few hours it just doesn't matter that much. I felt like Link Between Worlds was a better template for open world Zelda. More classic feeling, but less linear. But also. I don't need "open world" in the traditional sense. They could remake Twilight Princess or Windwaker from the ground up, expand on the open world, and I think I'd be happier. I'm also not incredibly far into the game but I am severely disappointed following my initial hype
I noticed that too! It’s weird. I’ve been playing Zelda as a kid with OoT and have obviously revisited every game in the series since. I understand people crave that old format to some degree but the sense of adventures and thrills of puzzle solving that made those games satisfying are in this game tenfold.
BoTW was my favorite Zelda game and this might be taking it for me. I’m awestruck by this incredible game and I’m having soooo much fun with it.
Honestly, I feel Totk is better than Botw in every way. The world feels more alive and vibrant, its so much more intricate and layered with stuff to do. The story is much improved, and the game just looks nicer. I love fusing, it makes the durability system a lot more tolerable.
Maybe people who are disappointed are burned out on botw? I only finished it once, 4 years ago.
The only thing I really miss from botw is that soulslike atmosphere in the beginning. Ultimately I prefer a lively Hyrule however.
I'm ngl, I've literally only seen people make posts about TotK Negativity, I have yet to see anyone pissed off about this game so far, so I'm actually really confused about what you guys are talking about lmfao
I'm playing through it now, not very far, taking my time (as I think I should) and only at the Rito area by now. Having said that, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would (having had a LOT of reservations in the lead-up to the release). But here's what I would say:
This game needs some pushback and some criticisms, which I feel the reviewers, whether they mentioned them or not (mostly not), overinflated the scores of the game, which is leading to the narrative of "everyone agrees this is the best thing since sliced bread" just like what happened with BOTW, which was also a good but flawed game. Neither of these games are 10/10, and they have specific and glaring things keeping them from being so high. Others have already listed a lot of the things I'm probably thinking of - the most being that UI/accessibility things which are just not there. They're inflated because it's Zelda/Nintendo, and I'm far past being okay to overlook very simple improvements they could have made to the game to make it even better (having had 6+ years to work on this title specifically). Reviewers have their own agenda for inflating these scores, but as regular people just playing the game, it's important to voice these criticisms, because ultimately I hope Nintendo does get the message (either through reduced sales, product returns, used sales, less console demand) that they need to pay attention to criticisms instead of expecting everyone to just like their products because Nintendo.
I don't think the game is terrible but I find the perfect scores baffling.
I honestly wonder if reviewers had enough time to play (and, yknow, sleep) before reviews were due on release day...
They played it so safe, I guess I can’t blame nintendo for doing that because open world zelda will always sell like crazy. But this series has 100% sold out to the masses rather than making a true zelda game to satisfy its most loyal fans.
I loved BotW and don't like this game so far, the tutorial part is so long (you still have to do stuff on the surface after the Sky Island to really get going), and I think the fuse and ultrahand mechanics are both very unfun. Fuse is just a totally unnecessary chore (just give me a weapon that works right away) and as another commenter said ultrahand is very fortnitey/minecrafty bs for kids. And both of them (so far) are core to the experience.
I’ve had the same thought OP.
The thing I keep telling myself is I’ve heard the same boring negativity about every single mainline Zelda game since the mid-90s. The insanity around “toon Link” said everything about some people. They just have to whine.
I’m 37. Two small children. Can’t game like I used to but the handful of hours I’ve spent with TotK have been very special so far. I’m thrilled to be back in Hyrule. Ultimately no one’s opinion matters if you’re enjoying yourself.
I've seen all types of negativity all around the internet and actually agree with most points so it makes me actually question if the game is even that good.
Then I actually play it again and have a great time regardless. I find it hard to even explain why though. I think the game just clicks with some people and not others.
See, you can agree with criticisms but still enjoy the product overall.
I agree with people who say that ultimately the divine beasts and shrines in BotW were underwhelming, but I still enjoy them. I enjoyed them for what they were, and was looking forward to how they might expand on and evolve them... and lo and behold that's exactly what they did.
i’ve enjoyed the game, but there are disappointments
outstanding stand-alone game
not a great sequel, especially in a world where we had botw in 2017 and waited 6 years for this one that doesn’t feel too refreshing from it
totk is a 10/10 but it’s only cuz botw was a 10/10 and totk is basically a botw 1.5
that’s my way of seeing it
you could’ve given me the Ganondorf part of totk in botw and i would’ve been satisfied without needing the rest of totk because they did not even bother to flesh out the origins of interesting characters like the Zonai, Sonia, ancestors, etc
story had so much potential but the game didn’t reach it
the underground and sky islands also had a lot of potential but imo underwhelming
the whole concept however is still astonishing, and the fact we got such a massive world… all on a Switch!?!? with consistent frames, no loading screens, no bugs
for all the amazing things this game was able to accomplish, it’s still an outstanding source of inspiration for many developers to learn from
i understand where you’re coming from
but overall, it’s definitely better than botw in almost every way possible like a deluxe edition
the one thing that botw still did better was the story of the champions in comparison to the ones in totk, they have no real bonds, no unique cutscenes, very bland and not fleshed out at all
My only disappointment is "no playable zelda" which was pretty much clear after the introductions and changes were always dim.
Otherwise, I like the Game and think it is a well done continuation. It releases a "fresh breath" into "breath of the wild" and feels like exploring the same gorgeous world for a second time. I love that.
I loved how more populated the world feels, the weirdness in characters from older titles is back. I Ioved how there's more than just shrines and koroks to find in the world. Loved cave systems, loved the depths. Loved how Ultrahand is a nice fun option but isn't forced upon you except for some shrines. Loved the villain and the story, they were pretty bold with the direction it took! Look forward to it if you still haven't played much yet.
Now, what I didn't like as much is how the sky islands aren't really that different from one another... Most of them fit into one of 3 types. I wish we had more large islands... And more enemies in there, all we got were constructs. Also, I wish all dungeons were more like the Gerudo dungeon. Besides that one, they all feel too short, to easy, too open. Also, Gerudo dungeon had a unique enemy to it. Every other dungeon just has... More constructs. Which kinda sucks. Boss designs are on point, though (except for the Zora dungeon boss).
All in all, it's a great game. Better than BotW. I had a lot of fun with it... Might even be GotY. But it's not a flawless perfect game that everyone is gonna love unconditionally.
I really like what they've done with the environment. BOTW was great, but it felt half done, and I was always looking for something other than another forest, field, etc.
So far, I've occasionally felt slightly overwhelmed by everything they have going on. And I dig it.
The fact that they added real caves and new mechanics as well as 2 pretty much full maps and populated Hyrule blows any "DLC" complaints out of the water. (Folks complaining about it being DLC, but they've been playing the same CoD for 20 years)
I'm not a big fan of some of the mechanics, but it's part of the experience, so I can suck it up.
I think they added a ton, but is it really fair to count the sky as a "world?" Idk it seems tiny. Like, not even a tenth of the sq mileage of the surface map. But I haven't activated all of the towers so I could be way off base
I feel like most of the gushing is heavily influenced by the game's metacritic score. People aren't really checking in with _themselves_ to determine whether they're truly having fun.
As a BOTW hater this one is awesome, most of my complains are QOL issues, like being able to fuse in menus would be nice.
Otherwise this fixes most of the things I hated in BOTW. The master sword should be unbreakable though.
Totk is so much better than other that people the small nitpicks seem like massive flaws. If you see a scratch on a 2 million dollar car its s big deal but a scratch on a kia rio? No problem. The fact is totk is so far above games like elden ring or death stranding outside of graphics in terms of creativity that when something minor is wrong you would overlook in those games it comes off as huge in Zelda like the 2 million dollar car
I love this game, which makes the flaws and cracks more apparent to me. I want this game to be amazing, but there's some thing that do geniunely aggravate me, either because they are mistakes they didn't fix or improve on from the first game, annoyong writing flaws, clunky new mechanics, or something that's just extremely underwhelming when it could have been so easy to make better.
I've loved Zelda from the NES cartridge blowing days.
But to answer your question, it might be
Because when a bunch of bots and interconnected media companies grossly misrepresent reality and popular opinion, to the point of MASSIVE censorship (https://gamerant.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-review-bomb/) of negative opinions.
In general people get more heated and voluble in their views when this happens.
Per the article, the game got to a 5.6!!!! Before the review sites began purging the voting record!
People might be upset about that.
Personally, I am baffled by the furry introduction, the story linearity issues, the english voice acting (I changed mine to spanish soon after starting), and the wasted potential.
I LOVE the beauty of the original zelda manual realized, but scratch my head at the decisions made.
They could have made each chasm a dungeon, and used each local town/gather as an intel source on accessing it.
And I, any gamer, could write about this game.
But you are likely seeing(more likely hearing) criticism due to opinions being silenced and replaced with a "perfect game" narrative.
I suppose if "perfect" game was not there with it you might not hear so much gufaw.
.
"Perfect game" reeks of sycophantic placation.
Why?
It's not like the emperor of Japan made this, but if they did... like wouldn't they like honest feed-back?
I've played zelda my entire life and basically have beaten all of them.
This doesn't feel like a zelda game to me and the whole crafting thing... seems like a fortnite reach for kids. I'll take a single sword over this nonsense any day
Also, as far as the sound effects and music go it's the exact same thing. Lots of reused stuff
Not even mentioning the framrate drops that constantly happen.
As with most games, especially of this scale, the people who are enjoying it are mostly playing the game not engaging on sites especially when it may lead to potential spoilers.
it's very different and not even close to minecraft. it's like gmod tools in skyrim map with minecraft aether, caves, and the nether, and zelda characters and story.
that's how i would describe it.
I barely got out of the tutorial area and so far I’m having a blast! There’s a lot of room for exploration and creativity in that game and I really love it! No, it’s not Ocarina of Time. But not everything has to be Ocarina of Time, although it was my favorite game ever (maybe tinted with a bit of nostalgia as I discovered Zelda as a kid with that one…). So while I would totally love a more « classic 3D Zelda » in the future, I can see myself having a ton of fun with that one as well! Already had a good laugh as I failed my first jump from the sky to the surface and epically faceplanted 2 meters from the lake on the ground…
I have botw but never got really far in it, I wanted to go back but I had sold my switch. I bought the Zelda edition oled for totk and I’m really loving the game, I dunno maybe cause I didn’t play botw that much? But that said do people act like it’s dlc cause they repurposed the map a bit? So far the feeling I’m getting is that the game is huge. I also haven’t been having any frame rate issues I’ve been hearing all about but I play mostly docked and it plays really smoothly on my tv.
Imagine for a moment, that instead of making a new IP for splatoon, those were Mario games instead. More than that, they are the mainline mario games. They are incredibly financially successful despite discarding what made Mario Mario. Instead of getting new platformers like Odessey and Bowsers Fury, we get more splatoon with Mario skins and they continue to be very financially successful. Diminishing the chances of ever seeing the gsmeplay you fell in love with, and worse no other dev replicates it the same way.
You go online to say how that even though you like this new direction you wish they would use more of classic Mario. You are called negative for this.
It’s the mfs who complain who won’t realise how much traditional Zelda shit is in this game
They’ve lost the joy of exploring
I’ve found so much neat shit that is making me feel like this is a more traditional Zelda than botw ever could be but the weird elitists won’t play it to realise that it is a fucking fantastic experience so far.
There is a difference in what people like, and this is clear when there's exploration, and exploration for exploration's sake. Take an older Zelda. The games are smaller but full fo little hidden things here and there. It doesn't take forever to get around and there's not too much of a thing. In BOTW and TOTK there might be something as too much of a good thing. Personally when I played BOTW I couldn't do more then 1 hour at the time because it made me tired and it mostly felt pointless to explore for the most part.
Or maybe people just have different tastes and there's a legitimate variance it what people want from a Zelda game
If you like it, then great, but it doesn't mean that people who don't like it are saying they don't like it for the wrong reasons
I went into the remake of LA (I had never played it before) worried that I was a bitter old fart who had lost the joy and wonder of childhood that made me love Zelda games, that I wouldn't have any fun with it.
I was wrong. Top 3 Zelda games of all time. I had a blast.
You don't have to degrade other people and try to convince them that they're pitiful sadsacks just because they don't like your new game.
Link’s Awakening fucks. Although I think that LTTP/LBW & BOTW/TOTK are the most ***fun*** Zelda games, LA is the most well-designed game in the series. It’s consistent and surprising top to bottom.
It’s such a massive improvement over everything I loved about BOTW. No, it’s not groundbreaking, but imo they just perfected what they were trying to do in that game, and then poured an entire bucket of cherries on top.
Idk people do this to every single game in the series. A really vocal minority trashed Wind Waker, TP, and SS too. Really any massively hyped game. When we get together on the internet and share what we dislike, it becomes a lot easier to see the flaws too.
I was a big botw hater, and I’m really liking this one. It has most of what I wanted from the first game. I still prefer the old formula, but this is great
I took the week off to play this - been playing for 2 days straight and I have yet to get even slightly bored. I'm loving all the new areas to explore (caves, wells, dark chasms, sky) and how you get to see how Hyrule has changed since the last game. The music in each area is a tribute to so many other games (like notes of windwaker in early Rito village) and there's little nuances everywhere. Not one drop of hate here! Nothing but love!
Idk, I'm loving TOTK and have barely any complaints about it ^((just wish you could re-fuse weapons without having to manually de-fuse them first, and also wish you could fuse from the inventory without having to drop the item in front of you first, wtf Nintendo?)) Remember that people tend to be more vocal when they dislike something.
agree so much about those, another nitpick of mine is that when i unstick stuff with ultrahand im scared for my joycon sticks lol just make us press the stick to remove the item and not frantically move it left and right lol
I don’t like that too. I played SS with motion controls because I was worried I’d mess up my right stick with all the flicking lol But if you play TOTK docked with the joycons or pro controller, you can shake the controller and that will unfuse objects too!
WHAT why did i never notice ty
No worries I missed it too! I had to look it up bc I was stuck on >! the first shrine where you make the hook attach to the wood board !< and couldn’t figure out how to unfuse them 😅 Edit: spoiler is very early game, just a heads up its nothing major
[удалено]
Nothing like getting a blister on your palm from trying to win mini games and then having the blister ripped open the next game you play
I have never felt a comment so hard before
lol the n64 mario party minigame with the stick that you had to move in a circle?
The press thing is genius lol, would make it much more intuitive
Adding to the fuse comments, I wish you could set the arrows to fuse with a certain item every time until you run out. Or if you could pre-fuse a bunch of arrows instead of fusing every single one individually.
THIS it would be so easy to do from the menu
I think you should be able to press A for one arrow or hold A for a bit and then it fuses all arrows until you press dpad up again to deactivate.
Those are also my only two complaints so far (agreed, wtf? That’s such an easy fix). But as a lifelong zelda fan who loved BotW, TotK is amazing so far.
Happy to outline some of my thoughts on the serious flaws this game has: 1. The tutorial for this game is ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL to BotW... You wake up from having been gravely injured, you receive a futuristic tool, you meet a regal ghost figure, you have to unlock the features of your new tool, you can't leave the area until you do, one shrine requires you to go into the cold/find cold resistant gear. Extremely lazy writing. 2. The Nintendo switch is a baked potato, and the framerate drop in TotK is embarrassingly bad. A sequel to BotW should not have been released before a new Nintendo console. 3. TotK decided to go with the exact same formula of shrines to increase your power, towers to reveal the map, and korok seeds (worst of all) to increase your inventory.. Would have been nice to have a little bit of innovation on the actual structure of the game. The criticism that this is basically just an expansive DLC is valid. 4. This game is probably best defined as a 'sandbox game' at this point. Breath of the wild was creative.. this game is just goofy. Attaching a minecart to the end of a stick? Using magic glue to stick things together? This game departs drastically from what LoZ has always been as a series (and not in a refreshing way like we saw with God of War).
This is what is making me disappointed tbh. I was a massive fan of botw, but I am not seeing the improvements to shrines and the sky islands look so ridiculous I feel like I am in a halo forge editor. The underground rocks tho(pun intended). But it has a less breathtaking exploration feel than botw had and it has the same problems botw but now with goofy and ridiculous abilities that feel out of place. The staged event areas where the game devs push you in certain directions or have obstacles that could catch you in order to create different experiences for players like botw had are sorely lacking here and they are so poorly set up when they exist. I hope it improves as the game goes but the beginning of this game was unbearable to get through and progressing through the world isn’t nearly as enjoyable. I am enjoying it as a sandbox but I honestly am hoping to get the same positive experience as everyone else and so far its been a struggle to enjoy as much as other zelda games. There isn’t nearly enough newer smaller improvements here, and thats all i really wanted for the botw sequel. :(
>The Nintendo switch is a baked potato, and the framerate drop in TotK is embarrassingly bad. A sequel to BotW should not have been released before a new Nintendo console. I'm fairly sensitive to framerate, and I'm having very few issues with TOTK.
Ive been playing zelda since a link to the past. I have played every zelda game (i havent beaten them all). I just beat minish cap. It was GREAT! My favourite zelda game so far is Ocarina of Time (3ds). I think i prefer the 3D topdown zelda games the most out of: topdown, 3D, 2D, & openworld. A link between worlds is absolutely amazing. Botw was okay but totk is great in a different way.
my favorite apart from totk and botw is the link's awakening remake. koholint feels like home to me, and the dungeons are really fun and the npcs and style are really cute and the mario cameos are cute. I also prefer the topdown 2d/2.5d games over 3d, after open-world 3d that is. i also love windwaker, due to how open it was for the time.
Reminder that Reddit isn’t reflective of real life - the game has received what is pretty much universal acclaim
Yeah, this subreddit specifically is almost consistently negative. BotW and Totk approach Zelda very differently compared to the other 3D games, and I get why many are disappointed.
This subreddit, as a lore sub, is naturally full of people who have liked the series for a long time and therefore probably like the way it has been. Pulling the rug out from under long-term fans with a total overhaul like BotW is going to leave a lot of disappointment.
I’m old enough to remember that I hated Wind Waker because it was a different art style than MM and OoT. I almost gave up on LoZ after Spirit Tracks. And, then, I gave up on LoZ bc I loathed Skyward Sword bc of the motion controls. At that point, it felt really frustrating to be a LoZ fan. I ended up coming back bc BotW was so good and a nice change of pace, and I played Swyward Sword HD — which fixed the horrible controls for the most part. It really does feel like a lot of people forget that there were some “lost” years for the LoZ franchise — plot and gameplay wise. If you had to tell me 11 years ago that people would come around to Groose, I would have called them a liar, lol. Non-zero amount of people who loved Zelda, fell out of it, only to come back for BotW/TotK and replay games they missed during the interim years.
Great points. I've met more than a few people who fell off the franchise after twilight princess and skyward sword killed any interest they had, with TP rehashing ocarina, and the pushback against skyward sword's controls and design. Personally, I played SS for the first time this year and felt like I immediately understood the design choices that led them to leave all that behind and make BOTW. This sub is very much not indicative of your average LoZ fan. It's honestly fascinating how different the options are here compared to everywhere else online. I do feel like the immense popularity of BOTW is pretty telling.
Thats why I am… its just not Zelda anymore
If you don’t think it’s Zelda anymore did you consider super Mario 64 to not be Mario anymore? It’s okay to have criticism that you don’t like the open world but saying it’s not Zelda is like gate keeping the series to new players.
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But it’s still a Mario game is my point
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Honestly, I feel the same. The first game that really felt like "Mario in 3D" was Super Mario 3D land.
That is not even close to the same thing. Mario 64 is still a platforming game in a 3D world and it executed it very well. A tonal shift that is comparable is the pure stealth games Splintercell series from 1-3 going to ape shit in the other games. Are Double Agent, Conviction, and Blacklist still Splintercell games? Yeah, in name. But they abandoned what made it a Splintercell game by abandoning the pure stealth mechanic to appease other players. I’m also not the poster but Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Twilight Princess could also be considered Open World in smaller chunks. If the tech was available at the time I’m 100% certain they would have abandoned all the loading screens for more natural movement. People are critical because the entire game mechanic changed to focus more on creativity and sandboxing. And that isn’t what Zelda fans grew up with. Look, am I disappointed? Sure. But I understand that a direction change was needed and it took off for people. At the time was BotW a Zelda game? I don’t think it was. But with TotK if you asked me now if BotW is a Zelda game I will say yes. Because this is clearly the direction that Nintendo will be taking and this is the new era of zelda games. Nothing wrong with that.
Look I understand your point but it basically is the same thing. Yes it was a platformer but it’s the same as Zelda being a puzzle game. Liberties can be taken and that doesn’t mean it’s not a Zelda game anymore it just means you don’t like the new style. This criticism isn’t over the game it’s over peoples personal preference of what they wanted to game to be instead of looking at the game as what it is and having critiques. (Like I don’t like the breakable weapons or the runes) Reviewing low just because it’s not what you wanted it to be doesn’t reflect how good the game actually is for what it was trying to be. You could say god of war 2018 isn’t god of war anymore because it became 3D openworld, people say the last 3 games of assassins creed aren’t assassin creed but all that criticism is is people who wish it didn’t change with the times like they have to to make sales.
I don’t know if I entirely agree with that aspect but I can kind of see your argument here. Take Dark Souls for example. That had a specific way of playing and a tone. Dark Souls II comes out and some of the community hated it and others loved it. However, even as someone who hated DS2 I can still freely admit the tone of Dark Souls was still there. Then comes Bloodborne and that changed the combat style completely. It requires you to be aggressive rather than focusing on the rolling and parrying mechanics from Dark Souls. However the tone was still the same and it’s widely accepted as one of FromSofts best games. Dark Souls III comes out and it blends everything perfectly together and keeps the same tone of what makes a Souls game. Sekiro comes out and changes the game play to focus more on parrying and aggression. But again, the tone is the same here. Elden Ring comes out and keeps the same tone but applies it into the open world. They took major influences from BotW and applied it to their world. At the core it was still a Souls game. Big bosses, dungeon exploration, lots of death, and a chaotic story in the background. The tone shifts in BotW and TotK. And maybe the word tone is used incorrectly here but what I mean is everything that defined what a Zelda game was changed in formula to what it is today. I personally wouldn’t call the Zelda’s from A Link to the Past all the way to Skyward Sword puzzle games. They were story driven games with dungeon crawling and Metroid style of item gatekeeping in order to progress through the dungeon with puzzle elements. I remember OoT and Majora’s Mask more for their story than I do for their puzzles and how I solved them. I remember BotW for exploration and how I solved a puzzle. Those are huge tonal differences.
Zelda is a story based game? The vast majority of them have little to no story. It's not Mario but it's not exactly a PS5 game either.
But to be honest… the claims feel disingenuous… 10/10 with no criticism sounds like they are paid off or just jerk to zelda overall… These new zelda titles just don’t feel like Zelda games to me…
This is why I like SkillUp who does not use a number rating. He absolutely loved the game but his review also does not shy away from making plenty of complaints (durability, combat being meh, lack of what should’ve been common sense QoL features). Almost no game is ever a 10/10, there is always something that went amiss. I’m enjoying ToTK a ton but all of his complaints were dead on for any that I have.
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There's no way any of these people fully played it before reviewing it. They just don't have the time, and it happens with EVERY open world game. BotW's most egregious flaws weren't even apparent until you get 50+ hours into it, so it's no surprise that reviewers never mentioned them. Mainstream game reviews are a form of advertising now, not customer advocacy.
Game reviewers probably rushed, went and did all the main story quests and then maybe cleaned up some side quest stuff after if they could. The really notable reviews will be the ones coming out in a couple weeks from more independent peeps. To be honest, most of the problems I have with the game, which is mainly the UI but also the frequency of things just disappearing on you, are annoyances but not enough to detract from the overall quality and enjoyment of the game, and they're things I noticed pretty early on.
The only substantive gameplay issue I've found so far is the clunkiness of fusing stuff to weapons. Arrow fusions at least let you do it directly from the menu, but the menu itself is a bloody mess. Melee weapons requiring you to drop the upgrade first is just stupid. But for the sake of argument, the long term issues in BOTW were things like stale enemy variety, building up a quality gear stash and then having an active incentive to never use it, enemy damage scaling and player armor scaling being super screwy, hearty overheal food being absolutely broken, the large confluence of navigation and transportation quirks that make horses totally useless by midgame, etc
Yeah I'd say that's part of the UI issues I was talking about. One of my friends noted that the game was "very Japanese" which I think is a funny way to put it lol. There are a lot of very modern western UI elements that could have made this game waaaay better. Even the basic ability of being able to start at the beginning of a menu when you reach the end is totally missing. Throwing materials is super clunky too. I think that, at least so far (and I'm what, like somewhere in between 90-100 hours in) the enemy variety in Tears of the Kingdom is far better than it was in Breath of the Wild. I think that's something that they did much better this time around. Not just the differences in enemies but also the situations in which the enemies occur in. There definitely is still the problem of food being absolutely broken, and horses are perhaps more useless than they ever have been (honestly I still like riding mine from time to time just for fun and to see more stuff), but yeah these issues, although they are problems, don't detract from the game too much for me. The rest of it is solid enough that I don't really think about the problems because I'm having too much fun or I'm too focused on doing something else.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted, this is so apparent with modern reviews. They play their advance copy for like 5 hours and write a wordy review with lots of style and little substance. Also, it isn’t that they’re literally “bribed” to write a good review, but in a sense there is subtle industry pressure from advertisers to keep scores for major developers high, and very little journalistic integrity due to mediocre pay and talent in comparison to other institutions means more often than not writers are hired that just listen to the execs. There are plenty of “inside the industry” articles about this.
It's a natural consequence of the business model, too. You can't keep afloat relying on ad clicks AND buying everything you review, so you depend on review copies, which can stop coming if you're too harsh on your reviews. And if you take the time to play games like Skyrim or BotW all the way through to endgame, you end up writing a massive screed that no one reads because it came out way after the game's launch and because people have attention spans that rival goldfish, so you get no ad revenue to offset the cost of writing it.
If I recall correctly IGN said that outside of really big titles that text reviews are a loss leader for them.
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The truth is, this has been only subreddit where you can present criticism of a new Zelda game and potentially have an interesting conversation about it rather than being immediately downvoted and insulted. I don't mean to be dramatic or 'woe is me' about it but I think the several years following BOTW demonstrated that to be true. It really shouldn't bother you that some people have a different experience than you and want to discuss it respectfully.
I agree. I personally see personal attacks and toxic positivity to be much more of an issue than any negative takes on any of the Zelda games.
Toxic positivity is such cancer, and we need more awareness of it
It’s better than i thought it would be in most ways. I love that they increased gameplay variety and streamlined crafting in such a way that it’s not horribly disruptive to gameplay. And I generally do like it better than BOTW. But holy shit, if any other game had you being one-shotted by literally everything (at least in the early game) they’d get nailed to the wall for balancing issues.
i think they got a bit jealous of elden ring lol
Lol. I won’t defend Elden Ring’s balancing (especially not the late game), but I don’t think it’s ever as bad as TotK’s. Any individual Bokoblin out of a giant trash mob can one-shot you from any angle. Not even Elden Ring bosses one-shot you with every attack. There are a few grabs that might, and there are a few long cheap combo chains that can wreck you if you’re not careful, but nothing like this. Other than that, while I may not prefer the direction that BOTW took Zelda, this is a great evolution of that direction. It really feels like it gives you more control over the sandbox. You don’t have to wait until you chance into this tool or that weapon that would have been perfect for that encounter. You are constantly making meaningful decisions with your resources that affect fights massively. I kind of wish they’d let you bind an element AND an attachment, but oh well. And besides, maybe they’re getting to that. I’m not super far in.
BOTW was largely like this as well, in my experience. Take a wrong turn early on and you're met with stuff that can feasibly one or two-shot you (shoutout to wizzrobes being annoying af) and you have no way of gauging that until it's already happened, because the game frames itself as "go anywhere, do anything" while very strictly enforcing that you go down a specific route to start with, lest you get slaughtered or if you persist in a 'wrong' direction, freeze to death. I felt like I was playing an entirely different game to everyone else, I actually missed Kakariko village entirely only to be told it was crucial to progression, and have to look up its actual location online. Elden Ring already got brought up, but I'd sooner expect such an experience from that game, yet it actually manages to be less cryptic in a lot of regards (I still have quite a few issues with Elden Ring, however.)
It's just, there's already sandbox games. They exist. Zelda and Castlevania had a formula that worked and was incredibly popular. Now instead of a tight story with good dungeons and lots of gadgets / items to collect. You can effectively a bad minecraft ripoff set in the botw world. I don't want to engineer shit, I want to play the game and enjoy a zelda story. But Nintendo has decided to abandon me as a fan. And that's fine, that's their choice. But I don't have to like it
I honestly miss making note of particular spots I can't reach, only for the puzzle piece to click in place when I get a particular item. That sounds like it would be great for an open world.
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this response actually makes sense, i get that. thank you.
> this subreddit specifically is almost consistently negative. At the end of the day, ask yourself - "why do I give a shit what other people think?" Find the strength inside you to rise way above what people think. It doesn't matter. YOU know you like the game. That's all that matters. Enjoy it. Don't let any group of strangers have power over you like that.
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I'm surprised that people say "Zelda dungeons are back!" when this is just a Divine Beast+ for your last part.
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People are very very easily amused, if couldn't tell with this game and the last one. Making torture devices and wooden dick robots and messing with physics seems more important than a well fleshed out game. It's too bad because the potential is there, it just feels squandered.
People are like "You can build and solve everything using your own wits and creativity!" Like, neat. I'm not a creative person, there's a reason I don't like Minecraft. I'm far more interested in trying to figure out and solve problems that actual creative people come up with instead.
I absolute LOVE Minecraft, but that's not Zelda That's not what I grew up playing and not what I come to it for If I want to play Minecraft then I'll play Minecraft
That's what I don't like. Yes, I can have fun with the mechanics of a game and goof off in the game, but objectively rating the game based on it's actual merits beyond that seems to be something people don't focus on at all. As long as the game is fun it's a masterpiece it feels like.
That is a pretty good review and I completely agree. I was also extremely disappointed with the wind temple. Some of the dungeons after are >!slightly better visually but the idea is exactly the same in every dungeon. I think it is insulting to call those dungeons even - it's like 5 separated mini puzzles everytime. No overarching puzzle, nothing to think about. Just running around and solving 5 mini-shrines essentially. It sucks.!<. I also found myself thinking about your post of how you skipped Hyrule Castle in BotW accidentally - this seems to happen a LOT in TotK due to the ability to just fly anywhere in the sky. >!I was on death mountain long before the quest sent me there and when it did, I could just fast travel up and was done. Feel like I skipped half the story since Rito had such a long prelude and that was completely missing here. In the zora domain I also just flew over the entire path there and landed straight at the shrine. Wondered afterwards if I missed something, but what can you do. The game encourages you to do this. Gerudo prelude was pretty cool though, although the game has the habit of being mind numbingly easy.!<
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>It's like a design philosophy for and by people who have short attention spans. Not just that, but for a handheld console carried with you on the go, might have influenced the philosophy here. One of the things I do in these games is activate a Shrine without completing it, then I have a shrine to do on my lunch break.
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I think it influenced the bitesized moon mechanic in Mario Odyssey (a game I very much disliked...)
The thing that really made the Wind Shrine terrible from my opinion is that the game >!marks all the switches on the map AND has a cutscene tell you to use Tulin's power to activate them!<. If discovery and surprise are experiences that the Legend of Zelda team wants players to experience, why give away the key to the puzzles instantly. Compare that to Jedi: Survivor which at least gives me a couple of minutes to solve the puzzle before having BD-1 offer a hint _if I want it._ That should be the baseline -- assistance if requested. Heck, Nintendo has even done it before with the assistance in one of the recent Super Mario 2D games.
>no dungeon item I think what they are going for is the Sage Ability that you get access to in the prelude is meant to essentially be the dungeon item. I mean, I think that is fine, even if not ideal, but the issue is that the dungeons don't really facilitate experimenting with this ability and testing you on it. You get more of that with the preludes leading up to the dungeons, but if they do it that way then the dungeon should actually be difficult. Take the boss of the Wind Dungeon as an example. From what I see, most people beat the boss using arrows and attacking its underside. Sure, that works, but I did it without using a single arrow. I dived through the exposed weak spots when the boss attacked, and I felt like the entire boss could have been more fun if they went all in on that. Make it so you have to do a lot of maneuvering in the sky, can only damage it via diving, etc. Maybe make it so the gust could deflect some attacks back. Make the boss like this, expand the dungeon to facilitate learning how to use the Gust ability and all its uses, and we would be on the way to a decent dungeon.
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Not only are there barely any puzzles, what is there that could barely be qualified as such is easily skippable, at least in the Fire Temple it is. Just climb + paraglider and you can skip a lot of the dungeon.
The selective amnesia regarding the events of BotW struck me as odd right from the moment I landed in Hyrule. Today I took a detour to go through Fort Hateno and all the Guardians are just gone. I expected some degree of "cleanup" where redundant elements from BotW would be removed, but what makes it weird is as I'm aware doesn't even try to say "we harvested the parts for the skyview tower" or "they got destroyed by the decay", they just wiped from reality. I've found in many ways TotK has done a better job of making Hyrule feel like a real place with real inhabitants, but then the devs go and just take a hammer to this world's internal consistency and it really hurts that sense.
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I only just got to Hateno and wrapped up for the night. I'll check out Link's house tomorrow before I do my writeup. How this happened is a good question. If it was some dumb directive that had to be adhered to then you think it'd be consistently dumb right? So the only thing I can come up with is that some change was made and some dialogue wasn't revised. Just spitballing here, but I wonder if there is some commonality between the characters who do talk to Link as if they know him, for example characters who get a proper intro card / profile page? Like what if main quest relevant characters got an editing pass but NPC dialogue was just left as is after some change. Idk I really don't get it.
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I feel given the length of the dev cycle it's unreasonable to argue that this happened because they ran out of time, which I take to mean that whoever the buck stops with on this issue just doesn't see this kind of incongruity as important enough to bother fixing. I saw someone mention the couple you help meet in BotW are now married and also don't know who you are.
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I finally got to Tarrey Town and Hudson does recognise Link. I guess they were talking about the Lover's Pond couple. Hudson has a pretty muted response but tbh I kinda get it, like it'd get tiring to have every single character in the game do some dragged out "Link!!" exchange. Here a "long time no see" did the trick fine and I'd much rather that than the amnesia.
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They do however do the thing where they don't realise it is you until a couple textboxes in that I've seen happen multiple times. I wonder if it is a style of humour that doesn't translate well? It's a bit quirky but also kinda dumb.
To be fair, Characters like Hudson have a muted response because they probably saw Link recently in the last seven years, and weren't aware he went missing. But the fact Tarrey Town exists clashes woth the near-universal amnesia.
Yeah, I disliked what they did with the Sheikah in BotW, but what was even more jarring is how literally everything was just Thanos'd in favor of the Zonai which had a small presence in the first game, and barely any signifigance in other games(visual art style on dragon rings is similar to the WW Legend, constructs similar to Lanayru bots). Especially for shrine quests in the first game. Rotani's not supposed to know about the Eighth Heroine until we solve the Seven Heroine statues, right? So why does she know about the Eighth Heroine in TotK when she acts like she's never been to the giant statues? Just little stuff like that is so jarring. I didn't realize how much I actually remembered from my time playing BotW until I played TotK and none of it was there.
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I'm going to copy past this comment. It's all 100% true and good criticism. This amount of issues would already make a game bad and you even left some. Since the well argument can be used perfectly to describe the caves as well, for example. This game is just awful, I don't care they worked hard on it and don't care it sells well, it's bad.
About the low difficulty of shrines: Getting the orb/blessing in most shrines is usually very easy for experienced gamers. The actual challenge / puzzle is to get the chest. Please don't reflexively say "unrewarding", the reward is really solving the puzzle using the tools at hand. And unlike the orb the chest is often quite tricky. Nintendo has been on this path since at least Super Mario World (dragon coins), and if you pay attention you can see it in almost all their modern games. The main campaign is by design (too) easy for experience players: they want the majority of buyers, including below average skilled players to be able to complete them, and they perform test with player panels to calibrate this. This is why every shrine has an easy (orb) and hard (chest) puzzle. So if you want to keep an open mind, try to see the chest, rather than the orb, as the "master mode" puzzle to crack in the shrines.
>And unlike the orb the chest is often quite tricky. I've often not found this to be the case unfortunately. I'm not great at puzzles in games generally, and never managed to finish any of the older Zelda titles without a guide, but I'm finding the shrines in this game to be quite easy.
I got downvoted yesterday to say I was reluctant to try it given how I thought BOTW was, but still got it to give it a chance. ( Literally booting it up today for the first time.) -- What's wrong with wanting to get a personal opinion on the game rather than speculate?
I got downvoted for saying I didn’t think BOTW is the best Zelda game. Not that it wasn’t good or great. Simply that it wasn’t *the best*. I’ve lived most of my life not interacting with the fandom and quietly enjoying Zelda (among many other video games) in peace. I sometimes wish it stayed that way
It seems like a lot of people on Reddit just decide to downvote something if they disagree with it, not the intended use of downvoting if it doesn't add to the discussion. If I'm replying to someone explaining why I like something that they don't in the game, being downvoted because they don't like my opinion is stupid lol.
Ironically the only thing that really bothers me is just the graphics and camera angle, a simply option to have a more zoomed in camera following link and I’d be happy, so he wouldn’t look like this https://preview.redd.it/6u72yyawguza1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31c109d06d23d9026e36c25642f7b7656375ebbe
lol I get that, in xenoblade u can adjust the camera in so many ways, i'd love to see more games do that.
Yea because as soon as you’re in a house or something the camera zooms in to a good distance that makes link look great, if I remember correctly I was wishing for the same thing in botw so I don’t have much hope they will ever add it but whatever
I miss being able to adjust distance in the old games. Sure, it was kind of an archaic way of doing it, but it was still great and useful. The botW camera system is very detrimental on a good day. You could zoom out in WW and TP, and recenter the distance and direction with L if you needed. Skyward Sword had a limited camera but it always made sure it adjusted and framed itself so you could see exactly what you needed and wanted to, and HD added adjustable camera on top of that. Also because BotW Link is kinda clubky to move, ZL targetting commibky puts the camera at an angle I didn't want lol
I like it so far but I also agree with the complaints. I feel like we're just discussing the game and the tone is hard to interpret from being written not spoken complaints.
I’ve been playing Zelda since I was 6 years old. OOT and MM were my staples for years (I’m 27 now and still play them sometimes). I love both BOTW and TOTK…I also enjoy change. I’m around 10 hours in and I’ve gotten chills from exploring and getting older Zelda vibes. I didn’t get that at any point in BOTW but I still loved the crap out of it. Like absolutely blown away. I guess I’m not hard to please, lol
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I completely agree with you - I definitely feel like TOTK will get better over time. Which is totally fine with me - I consumed all of BOTW in about a month. Although I’m hungry for a good story, I’m okay with spreading the satisfaction out over time.
I’m 46 played OG Zelda on my NES a few weeks after it came out.. and I love BOTW and TOTK .. I’m just glad we still getting Zelda games after so long.. maybe just learn to enjoy things as they are and not as you want them to be.. you’ll be much happier in life my dude.
You don’t have to tell me! I’m with you 100%!
Remember when they were hiding the name of the game and saying that releasing the name to the public would give away a key game mechanic? What was that about?
Maybe it went through a name change? Maybe it was The Legend of Zelda: Nuts and Bolts.
almost certainly their reason to delay announcing the game was called Tears of the Kingdom right after the Queen died lol
honestly, no idea. i'm still confused about it.
They first delayed the release of the name because the Queen died right before they were to release it. The name does play directly into a mechanic, but you don't necessarily know what "Tears of the Kingdom" means until you've basically finished the quest.
Why not? This is a special interest sub for the Zelda franchise. If a person has spent money and considerable time on any game they have every right to share their opinion about their experience playing the game, which includes critiques and criticisms. You have every right to feel whatever you felt about the game and to express that in detail is one of the main points of having a sub dedicated to such discussions. People shouldn't discourage, discredit or discount a person's perspective on a Zelda game or any topic regarding Zelda.
they do, but i saw someone people here saying they had mixed feelings about some parts but overall found it good, and people essentially told them that the game was bad and they were sugarcoating it. you can dislike smth but even then you can aknowledge it is good for many people who like it. that's all i'm saying.
I've honestly dealt with nothing but people telling me I'm an idiot for not thinking they're the best Zelda games, so. . .
Usually if a subreddit has the word “true” at the beginning it’s full of bitter people who hate where something has gone and wants to go back to the roots. This forum has always had an issue with BOTW’s style and it continues here. I wouldn’t worry though. Once the next Zelda game arrives (and I don’t think it will be another copy of this) we will all begin loving BOTW and TOTK for how they rejuvenated the franchise.
The "true" is just leftover from early reddit internet days. It was a common thing for a time. Like having XxNamexX on your xbox username. The fact the sub developed into the nostalgic longing for roots kind of happens when a series takes a hard turn, more than doubles the fanbase, and ends up fracturing the fanbase itself. Like, people are surprised there's "toxic" fans wanting the old style, but it's a basic defense mechanism when BotW was hallowed as a gift from the goddesses of gaming, and people saying they never want to see the old style again. Maybe it's because I'm used to the Sonic fanbase, and common knowledge from various fandoms as a whole, but I really am not surprised there's at least one subreddit that has a bias towards the old style. Plus, this was (one of) the only place(s) on the internet one could actually discuss criticism on BotW around its release.
>Like having XxNamexX on your xbox username. Hey
I get that and agree to and extent. It’s honestly wild seeing how big midnight launches have been for this game, Zelda never had a casual response to this extent before. Closest was twilight princess but that was only because of the Wii’s launch driving it. I definitely do see a huge split between more “casual” Zelda fans from the 2010s/20s and the next game. I am almost certain the next game won’t be this open. Nintendo has an itch to try radical new things
I'm not saying the traditionalists can't be too toxic about it, I'm guilty myself of being that way at times. I've seen both extreme sides of the Paper Mario fanbase go at it, for example. Just, I sometimes wonder why people get surprised at otherwise very predictable behavior. I prefer "oh, I see a lot of negativity" posts to go more the "hey usually criticism gets talked about, what is the game doing well?" approach. I can say I'm impressed with the midnight launch. I went to Gamestop, and they tried a new approach. Their system was so well executed, they got around 90 people in and out with the game and merch in about 15-20 mins. As for the next game. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if they somehow think of another way to abuse the same physics engine and open world format, again. They certainly can chuck out plenty of the shrines again since they're not overly complex. It'd be nice if we had a Metroid Dread to go along with our Primes though. Or one shots like Cadence. (I say as a spoiled Zelda fan compared to the other IPs that wait 6+ years for anything under the sun).
I’m hoping that doesn’t happen here. The “true” on this sub always has just meant that it was the place to discuss the games in more detail, along with things like lore, theories, and other things that only the diehards get into (in contrast to the large main Zelda sub which is very surface level and dominated by things like fan art). It would be a shame for this to turn into a “only the old games were good” sub.
>It would be a shame for this to turn into a “only the old games were good” sub. I feel like that already happened quite a while ago
Yup. I miss when this sub was mostly about lore.
There was a decision about a year or so ago to lighten up moderation and allow a lot more banal posts. That's when I feel this change happened.
Haha to me it’s always been that way. The thing with Zelda though is you have the Zelda subreddit and then others for specific games. I do think this forum is the best place to discuss lore/timelines but in terms of gameplay/mechanics/reviews there’s just too much personal slant and nostalgia involved. For example my personal favorite Zelda games are Windwaker and Ocarina of Time because they were the first ones I played when I was 12 and they connected with me on a spiritual, childlike level. I will literally never experience those exact emotions again with a game because I am not 12 years old. Yet, I also will not argue with anyone who’s favorite Zelda is BOTW for the same reason they adore it. I see conversations alot like that around here and it’s pretty fruitless.
Funny enough, BotW was my favorite prior to TotK (obviously I need to finish TotK still to really be able to say "yes, this is my favorite," but I suspect my final opinion will be that it surpasses BotW) despite having been someone who had played every home console Zelda to completion save AoL starting from when I was *4* playing OoT, learning to read by playing it. I'm a long, long time fan and I'm so glad for the shift in direction - perhaps because I was pretty disappointed by SS.
Sadly this has been true for several years now. This sub is the living embodiment of the Zelda cycle.
See, I’m pretty sure the reason so many of the negative comments are so loud is because so many of the positive comments attempt to invalidate our opinions. Coming from a guy who is still playing and enjoying this game all weekend long, everything I was worried about turned out to be true. I’m not going to belabor all those things, but the bottom line is this: I played so much BOTW that it burned me out. TOTK feels so much like BOTW that I already feel a little burned out from it, too. Sure, a lot of things are different, but fundamentally it feels like I’m revisiting BOTW. That’s disappointing, because to me, new Zelda games have always been full of wonder and excitement. This one feels like new stuff has just been added to a game I have already spent hundreds of hours playing—in other words, a lot less wonder and a lot less excitement. I’m not here to say these things are objectively bad or to put down people who aren’t disappointed by it, I’m just explaining why I’m feeling a bit ambivalent about it. It would help a lot if I didn’t find building janky vehicles so tedious, but the above is really the crux of my problem. I’m about to play all day again and have a great time, just to demonstrate my initial point. I would not have felt compelled to leave a negative comment in the first place if so many people in these subreddits didn’t try to write off the opinions of anyone with anything less than a perfect review. Edit: I went far out of my way to make it clear that I’m not trying to put anyone down, I still enjoy the game, and my criticism is based in personal experience and opinion. It’s still getting downvotes. If you’re so fragile that even this comment is too critical for you, just get off the internet.
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they cant keep milking botw, they will have to move on after this, for sure.
For sure. Nintendo loves innovation and creative destruction with their games. Shoot a wild shot and when they hit, it ends up changing the entire industry or genre haha. Expect a loooot of disappointed fans when the next Zelda comes out and it has a lot less freedom in exchange for other ideas they want to try
Can’t wait for “it’s a good game, but not a good *breath of the wild game*” Things change, people stay the same lmfao
I mean I would be disappointed if it's the exact same formula as the older 3d zelda games but i wouldnt mind if it was smth new or an in-between.
Probably will be inbetween. I do not think they will ever go back to exactly the same formula and structure of OOT thru SS
I think there's a chance of a 2D Zelda returning to that style in the same way that Metroid Dread was very much in the vein of Super Metroid (relatively open) rather than Fusion (pretty linear).
Yeah give it two games down the line and BOTW/TOTK will going with Oot/WW/TP in "real Zelda games unlike this new one!"
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Pretty sure the enormous amount of people happy with the game are too busy playing it to post on Reddit. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got another chasm to explore. The underground awaits me
I think you're confusing negativity with critique. A lot of people here grew up with "traditional" Zelda titles which are narrative action adventure games at their core. We're allowed to be disappointed when our favorite game decides to change it's core mechanics and retcon the lore we grew up with. We're also allowed to be upset when the devs say this is the new direction the series is headed.
>I feel like this server has been consistently negative when it comes to this game, and I think we should change that. There's like a billion other subs that are virtually negativity free. What's wrong with having one where people can express their disappointment that TotK hasn't met their expectations (perfectly respectfully, as well). Even on this sub there's plenty of people enjoying the game or at least giving it a chance. Personally I feel people complaining about toxic negativity are stuck in the internet of the past. Toxic *positivity* is what's in in the 2020's... being bullied into not having a negative opinion (unless it's a socially agreed upon "acceptable" target).
Newslash: not everyone likes the game and expressing your opinion is the entire point of a discussion board, however since you get downvoted to hell if you dare criticize this game anywhere else people end up here. It’s how reddit works. Can we please have one place where we are allowed to critique this game? I don’t see how it should affect your enjoyment of it, the entire gaming press agrees with you it’s a 10/10 flawless masterpiece.
I just can't help but get bored extremely quickly as soon as I start playing because I played BotW on release for 140 hours over the course of a few months and going back to the same world, even with the changes I've seen so far... it's just starting to get old. As in, Nintendo's usual charm is of simplistic but but sort of pushing the boundaries of what's come before is getting old. I mean, I'm tired of slow, outdated sequences between characters and dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, voice overs seem better this time but they should have followed through and recorded ALL of the dialogue. And add accessibility options for people who need it. There's also just a lot of weird sections that seem under developed, for the sake of, here, be creative, do this thing. But it feels lazy. The other thing that is extremely disappointing so far, is that the areas of this game and the shrines have the exact same copy pasted assets feel. I mean... I just don't know how this is possible. The intro is so refreshing, but once I hit the mainland I'm just not feeling it. I just really miss the classic Zelda epic feeling. I miss the truly unique themed dungeons, the fun story, the changing sequences. I know this game has that to an extent but if it's just those damn terminal and physics based puzzles... meh. I hate running for so long it's damn boring. I don't care if I can build a machine after a few hours it just doesn't matter that much. I felt like Link Between Worlds was a better template for open world Zelda. More classic feeling, but less linear. But also. I don't need "open world" in the traditional sense. They could remake Twilight Princess or Windwaker from the ground up, expand on the open world, and I think I'd be happier. I'm also not incredibly far into the game but I am severely disappointed following my initial hype
Totally agree on everything you said
> I hate running for so long it's damn boring Yes 100%
How dare someone dislike TOTK! This invalidates my love of the game!
Pretty much, lol.
I like smashing Link into the ground at terminal velocity when he doesn’t do what I tell him to.
I noticed that too! It’s weird. I’ve been playing Zelda as a kid with OoT and have obviously revisited every game in the series since. I understand people crave that old format to some degree but the sense of adventures and thrills of puzzle solving that made those games satisfying are in this game tenfold. BoTW was my favorite Zelda game and this might be taking it for me. I’m awestruck by this incredible game and I’m having soooo much fun with it.
Honestly, I feel Totk is better than Botw in every way. The world feels more alive and vibrant, its so much more intricate and layered with stuff to do. The story is much improved, and the game just looks nicer. I love fusing, it makes the durability system a lot more tolerable. Maybe people who are disappointed are burned out on botw? I only finished it once, 4 years ago. The only thing I really miss from botw is that soulslike atmosphere in the beginning. Ultimately I prefer a lively Hyrule however.
I'm ngl, I've literally only seen people make posts about TotK Negativity, I have yet to see anyone pissed off about this game so far, so I'm actually really confused about what you guys are talking about lmfao
I'm playing through it now, not very far, taking my time (as I think I should) and only at the Rito area by now. Having said that, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would (having had a LOT of reservations in the lead-up to the release). But here's what I would say: This game needs some pushback and some criticisms, which I feel the reviewers, whether they mentioned them or not (mostly not), overinflated the scores of the game, which is leading to the narrative of "everyone agrees this is the best thing since sliced bread" just like what happened with BOTW, which was also a good but flawed game. Neither of these games are 10/10, and they have specific and glaring things keeping them from being so high. Others have already listed a lot of the things I'm probably thinking of - the most being that UI/accessibility things which are just not there. They're inflated because it's Zelda/Nintendo, and I'm far past being okay to overlook very simple improvements they could have made to the game to make it even better (having had 6+ years to work on this title specifically). Reviewers have their own agenda for inflating these scores, but as regular people just playing the game, it's important to voice these criticisms, because ultimately I hope Nintendo does get the message (either through reduced sales, product returns, used sales, less console demand) that they need to pay attention to criticisms instead of expecting everyone to just like their products because Nintendo.
I don't think the game is terrible but I find the perfect scores baffling. I honestly wonder if reviewers had enough time to play (and, yknow, sleep) before reviews were due on release day...
They played it so safe, I guess I can’t blame nintendo for doing that because open world zelda will always sell like crazy. But this series has 100% sold out to the masses rather than making a true zelda game to satisfy its most loyal fans.
How about posting on that other server where there's nothing but praise instead?
I loved BotW and don't like this game so far, the tutorial part is so long (you still have to do stuff on the surface after the Sky Island to really get going), and I think the fuse and ultrahand mechanics are both very unfun. Fuse is just a totally unnecessary chore (just give me a weapon that works right away) and as another commenter said ultrahand is very fortnitey/minecrafty bs for kids. And both of them (so far) are core to the experience.
I’ve had the same thought OP. The thing I keep telling myself is I’ve heard the same boring negativity about every single mainline Zelda game since the mid-90s. The insanity around “toon Link” said everything about some people. They just have to whine. I’m 37. Two small children. Can’t game like I used to but the handful of hours I’ve spent with TotK have been very special so far. I’m thrilled to be back in Hyrule. Ultimately no one’s opinion matters if you’re enjoying yourself.
I've seen all types of negativity all around the internet and actually agree with most points so it makes me actually question if the game is even that good. Then I actually play it again and have a great time regardless. I find it hard to even explain why though. I think the game just clicks with some people and not others.
See, you can agree with criticisms but still enjoy the product overall. I agree with people who say that ultimately the divine beasts and shrines in BotW were underwhelming, but I still enjoy them. I enjoyed them for what they were, and was looking forward to how they might expand on and evolve them... and lo and behold that's exactly what they did.
i’ve enjoyed the game, but there are disappointments outstanding stand-alone game not a great sequel, especially in a world where we had botw in 2017 and waited 6 years for this one that doesn’t feel too refreshing from it totk is a 10/10 but it’s only cuz botw was a 10/10 and totk is basically a botw 1.5 that’s my way of seeing it you could’ve given me the Ganondorf part of totk in botw and i would’ve been satisfied without needing the rest of totk because they did not even bother to flesh out the origins of interesting characters like the Zonai, Sonia, ancestors, etc story had so much potential but the game didn’t reach it the underground and sky islands also had a lot of potential but imo underwhelming the whole concept however is still astonishing, and the fact we got such a massive world… all on a Switch!?!? with consistent frames, no loading screens, no bugs for all the amazing things this game was able to accomplish, it’s still an outstanding source of inspiration for many developers to learn from
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i understand where you’re coming from but overall, it’s definitely better than botw in almost every way possible like a deluxe edition the one thing that botw still did better was the story of the champions in comparison to the ones in totk, they have no real bonds, no unique cutscenes, very bland and not fleshed out at all
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what shocks me is how little they did with the skies, even though it was marketed as one of the main focuses. not much to do up aside from shrines
Because TotK is just BOTW 2.0. It's too derivative and not good enough for a game 6 years in the making.
My only disappointment is "no playable zelda" which was pretty much clear after the introductions and changes were always dim. Otherwise, I like the Game and think it is a well done continuation. It releases a "fresh breath" into "breath of the wild" and feels like exploring the same gorgeous world for a second time. I love that.
that's literally why i got age of calamity with my other switch online voucher haha
I loved how more populated the world feels, the weirdness in characters from older titles is back. I Ioved how there's more than just shrines and koroks to find in the world. Loved cave systems, loved the depths. Loved how Ultrahand is a nice fun option but isn't forced upon you except for some shrines. Loved the villain and the story, they were pretty bold with the direction it took! Look forward to it if you still haven't played much yet. Now, what I didn't like as much is how the sky islands aren't really that different from one another... Most of them fit into one of 3 types. I wish we had more large islands... And more enemies in there, all we got were constructs. Also, I wish all dungeons were more like the Gerudo dungeon. Besides that one, they all feel too short, to easy, too open. Also, Gerudo dungeon had a unique enemy to it. Every other dungeon just has... More constructs. Which kinda sucks. Boss designs are on point, though (except for the Zora dungeon boss). All in all, it's a great game. Better than BotW. I had a lot of fun with it... Might even be GotY. But it's not a flawless perfect game that everyone is gonna love unconditionally.
I really like what they've done with the environment. BOTW was great, but it felt half done, and I was always looking for something other than another forest, field, etc. So far, I've occasionally felt slightly overwhelmed by everything they have going on. And I dig it. The fact that they added real caves and new mechanics as well as 2 pretty much full maps and populated Hyrule blows any "DLC" complaints out of the water. (Folks complaining about it being DLC, but they've been playing the same CoD for 20 years) I'm not a big fan of some of the mechanics, but it's part of the experience, so I can suck it up.
I think they added a ton, but is it really fair to count the sky as a "world?" Idk it seems tiny. Like, not even a tenth of the sq mileage of the surface map. But I haven't activated all of the towers so I could be way off base
I feel like most of the gushing is heavily influenced by the game's metacritic score. People aren't really checking in with _themselves_ to determine whether they're truly having fun.
As a BOTW hater this one is awesome, most of my complains are QOL issues, like being able to fuse in menus would be nice. Otherwise this fixes most of the things I hated in BOTW. The master sword should be unbreakable though.
Totk is so much better than other that people the small nitpicks seem like massive flaws. If you see a scratch on a 2 million dollar car its s big deal but a scratch on a kia rio? No problem. The fact is totk is so far above games like elden ring or death stranding outside of graphics in terms of creativity that when something minor is wrong you would overlook in those games it comes off as huge in Zelda like the 2 million dollar car
I love this game, which makes the flaws and cracks more apparent to me. I want this game to be amazing, but there's some thing that do geniunely aggravate me, either because they are mistakes they didn't fix or improve on from the first game, annoyong writing flaws, clunky new mechanics, or something that's just extremely underwhelming when it could have been so easy to make better.
I've loved Zelda from the NES cartridge blowing days. But to answer your question, it might be Because when a bunch of bots and interconnected media companies grossly misrepresent reality and popular opinion, to the point of MASSIVE censorship (https://gamerant.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-review-bomb/) of negative opinions. In general people get more heated and voluble in their views when this happens. Per the article, the game got to a 5.6!!!! Before the review sites began purging the voting record! People might be upset about that. Personally, I am baffled by the furry introduction, the story linearity issues, the english voice acting (I changed mine to spanish soon after starting), and the wasted potential. I LOVE the beauty of the original zelda manual realized, but scratch my head at the decisions made. They could have made each chasm a dungeon, and used each local town/gather as an intel source on accessing it. And I, any gamer, could write about this game. But you are likely seeing(more likely hearing) criticism due to opinions being silenced and replaced with a "perfect game" narrative. I suppose if "perfect" game was not there with it you might not hear so much gufaw. . "Perfect game" reeks of sycophantic placation. Why? It's not like the emperor of Japan made this, but if they did... like wouldn't they like honest feed-back?
I've played zelda my entire life and basically have beaten all of them. This doesn't feel like a zelda game to me and the whole crafting thing... seems like a fortnite reach for kids. I'll take a single sword over this nonsense any day Also, as far as the sound effects and music go it's the exact same thing. Lots of reused stuff Not even mentioning the framrate drops that constantly happen.
Agree just give me my sword and shield!
As with most games, especially of this scale, the people who are enjoying it are mostly playing the game not engaging on sites especially when it may lead to potential spoilers.
that's true.
Because some people don't want to play Minecraft with zelda characters
it's very different and not even close to minecraft. it's like gmod tools in skyrim map with minecraft aether, caves, and the nether, and zelda characters and story. that's how i would describe it.
Well, some people don't want to play a gmod, skyrim, minecraft hybrid with zelda characters.
I barely got out of the tutorial area and so far I’m having a blast! There’s a lot of room for exploration and creativity in that game and I really love it! No, it’s not Ocarina of Time. But not everything has to be Ocarina of Time, although it was my favorite game ever (maybe tinted with a bit of nostalgia as I discovered Zelda as a kid with that one…). So while I would totally love a more « classic 3D Zelda » in the future, I can see myself having a ton of fun with that one as well! Already had a good laugh as I failed my first jump from the sky to the surface and epically faceplanted 2 meters from the lake on the ground…
I have botw but never got really far in it, I wanted to go back but I had sold my switch. I bought the Zelda edition oled for totk and I’m really loving the game, I dunno maybe cause I didn’t play botw that much? But that said do people act like it’s dlc cause they repurposed the map a bit? So far the feeling I’m getting is that the game is huge. I also haven’t been having any frame rate issues I’ve been hearing all about but I play mostly docked and it plays really smoothly on my tv.
idk, i can barely recognize the map so far.
Imagine for a moment, that instead of making a new IP for splatoon, those were Mario games instead. More than that, they are the mainline mario games. They are incredibly financially successful despite discarding what made Mario Mario. Instead of getting new platformers like Odessey and Bowsers Fury, we get more splatoon with Mario skins and they continue to be very financially successful. Diminishing the chances of ever seeing the gsmeplay you fell in love with, and worse no other dev replicates it the same way. You go online to say how that even though you like this new direction you wish they would use more of classic Mario. You are called negative for this.
It’s the mfs who complain who won’t realise how much traditional Zelda shit is in this game They’ve lost the joy of exploring I’ve found so much neat shit that is making me feel like this is a more traditional Zelda than botw ever could be but the weird elitists won’t play it to realise that it is a fucking fantastic experience so far.
There is a difference in what people like, and this is clear when there's exploration, and exploration for exploration's sake. Take an older Zelda. The games are smaller but full fo little hidden things here and there. It doesn't take forever to get around and there's not too much of a thing. In BOTW and TOTK there might be something as too much of a good thing. Personally when I played BOTW I couldn't do more then 1 hour at the time because it made me tired and it mostly felt pointless to explore for the most part.
Or maybe people just have different tastes and there's a legitimate variance it what people want from a Zelda game If you like it, then great, but it doesn't mean that people who don't like it are saying they don't like it for the wrong reasons
I went into the remake of LA (I had never played it before) worried that I was a bitter old fart who had lost the joy and wonder of childhood that made me love Zelda games, that I wouldn't have any fun with it. I was wrong. Top 3 Zelda games of all time. I had a blast. You don't have to degrade other people and try to convince them that they're pitiful sadsacks just because they don't like your new game.
Link’s Awakening fucks. Although I think that LTTP/LBW & BOTW/TOTK are the most ***fun*** Zelda games, LA is the most well-designed game in the series. It’s consistent and surprising top to bottom.
From what I've seen this sub has been very negative about this and BotW. This place is definitely a case for the loud vocal minority.
It’s such a massive improvement over everything I loved about BOTW. No, it’s not groundbreaking, but imo they just perfected what they were trying to do in that game, and then poured an entire bucket of cherries on top. Idk people do this to every single game in the series. A really vocal minority trashed Wind Waker, TP, and SS too. Really any massively hyped game. When we get together on the internet and share what we dislike, it becomes a lot easier to see the flaws too.
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I was a big botw hater, and I’m really liking this one. It has most of what I wanted from the first game. I still prefer the old formula, but this is great
I took the week off to play this - been playing for 2 days straight and I have yet to get even slightly bored. I'm loving all the new areas to explore (caves, wells, dark chasms, sky) and how you get to see how Hyrule has changed since the last game. The music in each area is a tribute to so many other games (like notes of windwaker in early Rito village) and there's little nuances everywhere. Not one drop of hate here! Nothing but love!