Board 8 > First impressions of Tears of the Kingdom vs. thoughts on BOTW?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Could only have so many options. As someone who thought BOTW was just OK, I will ask this question again in a month once people have had time to digest, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity to gauge initial reactions.

I like BotW but I'm not huge on it and it's not my preferred style of Zelda. That said my gut impression after the first ~5 hours or so is that it seems like this might just make the first game obsolete. Unless you REALLY hate Ultrahand. The Depths is an extremely cool area but I need to explore it more.

Definitely need more time with it to see the new dungeons and stuff, but I'm expecting them to be on par with the first game (unfortunately).

I might evaluate BotW as better than "okay" but TotK seems much better in lots of ways so far.

TotK feels like they took every complaint about BotW and answered them

HanOfTheNekos posted...

TotK feels like they took every complaint about BotW and answered them

Really conflicted about dropping $70 on it.

I generally dislike open world games and gave up on BotW after 30 hours. I didn't hate BotW, but I thought it failed to carry the spirit of the other 3D Zeldas (All 5 of which I loved).

plasmabeam posted...

Really conflicted about dropping $70 on it.

I generally dislike open world games and gave up on BotW after 30 hours. I didn't hate BotW, but I thought it failed to carry the spirit of the other 3D Zeldas (All 5 of which I loved).

It's open world but you're still gated by lack of abilities and access to parts needed to reach certain places. So you generally follow a similar path to get to the endgame.

I still havent played BotW yet lol

plasmabeam posted...

I generally dislike open world games and gave up on BotW after 30 hours. I didn't hate BotW, but I thought it failed to carry the spirit of the other 3D Zeldas (All 5 of which I loved).

I don't think this has changed. It's building on top of BotW, I don't see much of the old style yet. Big priority to me is seeing how the main story dungeons are. I have heard mixed reviews on if they have significantly improved the dungeoning aspect or not.

One thing that has improved is that once you're out of the tutorial there are multiple main story paths to follow. So there is a lot more intentional direction as opposed to BotW where it was JUST the 4 Divine Beasts which was a disappointment.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

One thing that has improved is that once you're out of the tutorial there are multiple main story paths to follow. So there is a lot more intentional direction as opposed to BotW where it was JUST the 4 Divine Beasts which was a disappointment.

That gives me some hope. I prefer meaningful goals to unfocused exploration. If I want to explore side content, I will (Yakuza: Like a Dragon comes to mind), but I need a meaty main quest/story to care about first.

plasmabeam posted...

That gives me some hope. I prefer meaningful goals to unfocused exploration. If I want to explore side content, I will (Yakuza: Like a Dragon comes to mind), but I need a meaty main quest/story to care about first.

Yeah this is why I thought BOTW was just OK. There was no real goal or sense of progression, so there was no real reason for me to care about exploring. The world was lacking in lore and characters - the Champions and their descendants were great but underutilized - plus there weren't enough things to do.

I also didn't like how weapons broke at such a quick pace even late in the game. They should've made them break slower as you became more proficient and you should have been able to permanently keep one weapon of your choice after a certain point. I've seen people say the Master Sword should've permanently broke and I don't know why they hate Zelda that much. The unrefined cooking system was also rough.

I did like the shrines, but felt that the grandiose dungeons I'd come to know and love were sorely missing. And the world is beautiful, but it just didn't feel like meaningful exploration. It was too mindless, and getting all the toys right away hurt the sense of progression. It sounds like TOTK fixed that by finding the happy medium between classic Zelda and BOTW, which is a good thing.

All this said, I did think BOTW was an 8/10 game - it just doesn't deserve to be in the conversation for the greatest game of all time, since its flaws are very blatant. At least it was a huge improvement from Skyward Snore, which is among the worst games Nintendo has ever made.

Breath of the Wild is an INCREDIBLY front loaded game imo. The first 10-15 hours I played it were fantastic. Then the game never changes at all, and I only really had specific shrines to look forward to and a full like 1/3rd of those are boring tests of strength. Which isn't to say I was totally bored the rest of the playthrough, because a lot of those shrines ARE quite fun.

And the Divine Beasts were alright, but they all had the same aesthetic and the actual mechanics of them were kind of middling at best in comparison to a lot of Zelda dungeons. Hyrule Castle is cool and I've come around on that particular part of the game a lot since but the first time I played the game I saved it for last and was just so over the game at that point I just climbed to Ganon's room and skipped it :\

The overall story and characters were quite good, though, but I agree with the 'under utilized' comment. Especially the descendants. I couldn't even tell you the Rito descendant guy's name he's so forgettable and uninteresting. At least I remember Riju and Yunobo (and obviously Sidon steals every scene he's in).

Tears of the Kingdom so far (played a few hours) plays and feels incredible, I just hope they are able to keep it feeling fresh the whole time. It's too early for me to really give more of an impression than that because it could very well have the same issues.

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention BotW has another issue I could see TotK having for me, and this is a very 'me' problem in regards to my personality type. BotW gives you a TON of tools, but never gives you an actual reason to use them a lot of the time. Yeah I COULD set up crazy rube goldberg machine esque things to take out enemies, but why would I ever do that when hitting them with a sword is both more accessible and faster?

It's kind of the same problem I have with games like Minecraft. I don't particularly see a reason to build crazy big elaborate things when a smaller, functional one works just as well. Any time I've ever played Minecraft I build a small stone house and that's enough for me. I'll try to get myself to do big projects and then I'll just lose interest a portion through because what's the point of even doing it?

Haven't played TotK

Imo BotW is just like MM. It's a perfect game but not a perfect Zelda, in classic definition. Those two happen to be my favorite games in the series for that reason, but I didn't like either for what they did to the series, I did for what they brought to gaming as a whole.

The closest thing there is to a perfect zelda is TP. Or if you prefer 2D games, LBW.

I talk smack on BotW's flaws all the time but I still do really like it for what it is. It just has a boatload of problems that get ignored way too often. 6ish hours into TotK and it seems to be doing a lot to address many of my smaller issues with it but I'll probably need dozens more hours before I can say with any confidence that they've done anything for the rest of them. So far what's here is very promising, though.

I can't believe they just copied the hit game Genshin Impact but did it worse