Current Events > spicy take: BotW > TotK

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sometimes less is more

Not in this case though

No. Shut up.

nuclear take: LOZ86 > *

Yeahhhh, I kind of agree.

I wouldnt call it spicy at all. Once I beat BotW I was still playing it off and on for over four years.

Im getting close to beating TotK and outside of DLC I doubt Ill pick it up again.

It doesnt make sense in this case to say less is more because these games are specifically designed so that you only have to do the things you find enjoyable

technically every part of these game is filler so the fact that TotK has way more entirely optional stuff to do, when everything in the game is entirely optional, only works in its favor

I think botw was more exciting because the world was new. ToTK has changes, but is still largely the same world. If I played ToTK first it wouldn't even be a contest

I'd have to agree. I like and even love a lot of the improvements TotK has made, but it hasn't grabbed me like BotW did; BotW was literally a 'let the dishes pile up in the sink for a month' experience.

Plus exploration is a key selling point of both games, and the aesthetics of a vast, beautiful world are a big part of exploration; TotK kinda fucks this up with random floating shit perpetually hanging in the skyline and giant oozing holes everywhere.

Garlands_Soul posted...

I think botw was more exciting because the world was new. ToTK has changes, but is still largely the same world. If I played ToTK first it wouldn't even be a contest

I can see that

Experiencing something new for the first time will have a bigger impact than experiencing that same thing but better.

Garlands_Soul posted...

I think botw was more exciting because the world was new. ToTK has changes, but is still largely the same world. If I played ToTK first it wouldn't even be a contest

This is fair, though

i feel like the decision to reuse the same world was ultimately lazy design

totk better

Garlands_Soul posted...

I think botw was more exciting because the world was new. ToTK has changes, but is still largely the same world. If I played ToTK first it wouldn't even be a contest

This is the thought I had when I read the topic title.

I was more in awe of BOTW when I played it, it was just so incredibly different from anything else I had played or experienced. Playing TOTK now it is amazing, but since I have already played BOTW my mind isn't blown like it was before.

Objectively, though, TOTK is better on every metric, I will probably never play BOTW again unless for nostalgia, TOTK just does everything better.

Honestly not a bad take imo even if I did like TotK more and thats just because I liked the final boss more.

focused story on BotW beat the game with 7 hearts, did barely any extras and glad I did because I pretty much never want to go back to BotW after playing Tears. Contributed a lot to the fun of exploring in tears because I hadn't worn out the world in any way. And now thinking back about BotW all I can feel is how much I couldn't do (per powers and mechanics).

masterpug53 posted...

I'd have to agree. I like and even love a lot of the improvements TotK has made, but it hasn't grabbed me like BotW did; BotW was literally a 'let the dishes pile up in the sink for a month' experience.

Plus exploration is a key selling point of both games, and the aesthetics of a vast, beautiful world are a big part of exploration; TotK kinda fucks this up with random floating shit perpetually hanging in the skyline and giant oozing holes everywhere.

Yeah, that's how I felt. There's a bunch of new content that just sort of...messes up everything I liked about BotW's world. There's a ton of fun new things to do in it, but this content for a world I'm already familiar with.

TotK is definitely the better game IMO, it's just that if you played BotW before it tends to lessen the impact the game otherwise would have on you.

Garlands_Soul posted...

I think botw was more exciting because the world was new. ToTK has changes, but is still largely the same world. If I played ToTK first it wouldn't even be a contest

This.

BotW was a fresh new take on the Zelda world, so it was novel experience for players. TotK is technically the better game, but it's just iterating and expanding on what BotW already did.

ChrisTaka posted...

I can see that

Experiencing something new for the first time will have a bigger impact than experiencing that same thing but better.

An underrated component of BotW is that it wasnt just you learning everything for the first time, but Link was learning right along with you. He wakes up having no clue who he is, how he got here or what he is capable of.

None of that exists in TotK, and thats not the games fault. Its to be expected for a direct sequel.

I don't agree or disagree. The one main advantage of BotW is exploring the world for the first time, and that feeling of aloneness when you start. You can look out over Hyrule and have no clue where any of the settlements are.

Champions > Sages

And not everyone agrees here, but the concept of the Divine Beasts was really cool. I'd say I prefer the BotW dungeons because of this. And Hyrule Castle was really epic in BotW.

In every other way, TotK wins.

EndOfDiscOne posted...

And not everyone agrees here, but the concept of the Divine Beasts was really cool.

I'll be honest, in general I did think the Divine Beasts were more cleverly designed than the Temples in TotK. You can bypass so much of the TotK Temples, especially the Fire Temple. I just wish the Divine Beasts had different aesthetics and better music.

Now admittedly I'm only about halfway through TotK at this point and things could change by the end, but I'm not nearly as compelled by the story this time around as I was with BotW. Zelda in particular; in BotW she was actually an interesting character when she was a headstrong yet insecure tech-nerd, but as is often the case she's eventually reduced to a bland archetype who has all her problems solved by praying really hard and having light magic come out. The latter seems to be 100% her character in TotK; between that and past sages over-explaining very obvious things, TotK's eponymous tears are thus far waaaay less interesting than BotW's memories.

The tears also suffer more from being revealed out of order. BotW's memories were more character-building vignettes, whereas the tears are more of a mystery unfolding; so when one of the first tears I discover on my own just happens to be Ganondorf knifing Queen Sonia, it doesn't really serve the intended reveals as well.

EndOfDiscOne posted...

Champions > Sages

I'm on the fence on which game I like more, but the Sage abilities are the one thing I feel is objectively bad.

It's not just the skills themselves, but having to activate them by examining an NPC is just awful. And having four NPCs around you just gets in the way.

Hayame_Zero posted...

I'm on the fence on which game I like more, but the Sage abilities are the one thing I feel is objectively bad.

It's not just the skills themselves, but having to activate them by examining an NPC is just awful. And having four NPCs around you just gets in the way.

Agreed, the implementation of the sages is incredibly clunky. I end up having to turn off all of them except Tulin until I get into a large crowd of enemies.