Poll of the Day > I'm going to replay all the Zelda games in release order this year

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've completed my third dungeon (Divine Beast Vah Naboris). It's very strange, I know I've played through BotW at least a few times before, but I remembered almost NOTHING from that dungeon aside from the boss and the mechanism to rotate different sections of the Divine Beast. It also felt like in order to access parts of that dungeon that I needed to cheese the physics system a bit, but maybe I was just missing something. The boss was definitely the hardest in BotW so far, due to the very quick reflex timing you need to parry its attacks, but with strong weapons the fight is over before it really becomes a bit challenge.

The background that Urbosa provides in a cutscene after you finish that dungeon is probably the most interesting plot point in the game so far. She reveals that she knows that Ganon was once a Gerudo, and therefore feels obligated to help put a stop to him. She also reveals that she's aware of Nabooru from Ocarina of Time, and acknowledges that the Divine Beast is named after her. That last point is obvious to the player, but it's nice that they show that characters in the game understand the significance as well.

Additionally, I've earned the Hylian Shield and unlocked three Great Fairy Fountains. There are only two towers left to unlock as well. A lot of the towers have been much easier to climb than I remembered. I especially remember the Ridgeland tower and the Akkala tower being difficult, but...they really aren't, even without using the Revali's Gale ability.

All I have left is the fourth dungeon on Death Mountain, finding the remaining memories, and then defeating Ganon. I probably only have about 5 or so more hours left in the game, so I might actually finish it soon!

I'll end this post with this very interesting location. As much as I don't care for Skyward Sword, including the springs from that game is a really nice touch and helps anchor this game to previous titles, even ones like Skyward Sword that don't get acknowledged very often.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/060ee167.jpg

You gonna do the DLC for BotW, too?

Revelation34 posted...

I did the bird third.

I was told ahead of time that the bird power was the most useful by a longshot so I made a point of doing that first. And yes, bird power is best in both games.

Salrite posted...

I was told ahead of time that the bird power was the most useful by a longshot so I made a point of doing that first. And yes, bird power is best in both games.

I went in mostly blind. It was pretty much an impulse buy since I didn't like the idea of durability but figured since it was only $30 I might as well get it. I had to go back to the lightning boss since I went in way "underleveled".

Revelation34 posted...

I went in mostly blind. It was pretty much an impulse buy since I didn't like the idea of durability but figured since it was only $30 I might as well get it. I had to go back to the lightning boss since I went in way "underleveled".

You see, I never had that problem. In fact, in my experience I became overleveled way too quick which is one of the major issues I have with these games. Every enemy in the game was max tier before I even made it to the first Divine Beast because the "hidden exp" maxed out just from killing a few lynels.

I really wished they would have done more to curb this in TotK but it seems like it's actually worse. I made a point not to kill too many enemies too soon and I STILL was seeing Silver Bokos within a couple hours of play.

Salrite posted...

You see, I never had that problem. In fact, in my experience I became overleveled way too quick which is one of the major issues I have with these games. Every enemy in the game was max tier before I even made it to the first Divine Beast because the "hidden exp" maxed out just from killing a few lynels.

I really wished they would have done more to curb this in TotK but it seems like it's actually worse. I made a point not to kill too many enemies too soon and I STILL was seeing Silver Bokos within a couple hours of play.

I didn't start killing the lynels until much later in the game.

Salrite posted...

You gonna do the DLC for BotW, too?

Nope, I remember not being too impressed by most of the DLC side quests.

I've made it to Goron City and just rescued Yunobo. Prior to doing that, I've also unlocked all the towers and found all the memories. It's really now just a matter of completing the fourth dungeon and then heading straight to Ganon.

The memories are a great way of revealing the story piece by piece, but I wish they did a bit more with them. Some of them don't serve much plot purpose. I get that the main point is to show how Zelda initially didn't like Link, but slowly warmed up to him as she realizes that he isn't holding her inability to harness the power of the Triforce against her, despite his immediate success by earning the Master Sword thus fulfilling his end of the prophecy. I just wish there was more meaningful plot development, that's all. I can't really hold this against BotW, since pretty much every other Zelda game has had a similarly poor story, but it just feels with how incredibly polished the rest of BotW is, that it should also have a much more solid story.

One of the memories is in an immensely disappointing buzzkill location: just outside the ruins of Zelda's room in Hyrule Castle. In order to get there, I had to infiltrate to the top of Hyrule Castle, and even made it to the front steps of the Sanctum, literally just a few feet away from entering the final boss room. This absolutely ruins the pacing of the game, and takes away from what should be a climatic final sprint to Ganon, experiencing the ruins of Hyrule Castle for the first time. I got the Hylian Shield from the castle earlier, but at least that was in the lower area far away from the final boss. I get that Nintendo probably wanted the player to get all the memories after all of this, and thus experience both of the endings to the game, but the ending without all the memories isn't different enough or interesting enough to warrant doing that.

One last complaint I have is how rain makes climbing impossible. I was fortunate enough not to encounter this until I was trying to access the twin shrines on top of the Dueling Peaks mountains, at which point it started raining without rain even being in the forecast on the bottom right of the screen. I have no clue why they made this a thing.

Still, despite these concerns, BotW remains an absolute top tier Zelda game. I have an idea of where I'll place it on my ranking list, but I'll save that for when I finish the game, hopefully soon.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/05efe013.jpg

And I've finally finished Breath of the Wild! What an incredibly long but also extremely great game. This was an absolutely revolutionary step forward for the Zelda series, after nearly two decades of remaining relatively stagnant. The combat system remains rooted in the Z targeting system that Ocarina of Time introduced, but the dodging and parrying system completely refreshes it. The extreme amounts of damage that enemies do is also a very welcome change, especially after Twilight Princess where few enemies do more than half a heart of damage.

The fourth dungeon I completed, Divine Beast Vah Rudania, was probably the most straightforward of them all. The boss was also definitely the simplest in terms of mechanics (it just felt like a standard battle, not really much for gimmicks). I've always felt that the game tends to push you towards Zora's Domain and Rito Village before either Gerudo Desert or Goron City, so it's strange that this dungeon was the least complex.

Infiltrating Hyrule Castle was very quick, but I mostly attribute that to knowing exactly where to go from previous playthroughs. I always make us of the Zora armour to climb waterfalls, makes getting to the top of the castle very quick and easy, and you get to avoid all the traps in the stations that deploy Lynels on you in a confined space.

The design of Calamity Ganon is easily the most terrifying thing in the series. My only complaint about it is that it makes it hard to really relate it as being Ganon. Even the second from, Dark Beast Ganon, seems too off of what Ganon usually is, although it does look quite similar to a form he had in Twilight Princess. I also wish that there was some dialgogue or something attached to it, to provide a motive or something.

Still, the very significant highs of Breath of the Wild overwhelmingly surpass any criticism I can throw at the game. By no means is the game perfect, but it remains a masterpiece nevertheless. When it launched, I remember being glued to it non-stop for days. I even remember drinking coffee late at night to keep me awake to keep playing, there has NEVER been another game that I ever did that for, and this game launched at a time in my life where my interest in gaming had greatly diminished. I've often felt that Breath of the Wild marked a moment where I finally felt that The Legend of Zelda was back.

It's extremely tough to place this on my ranking where I'm going to place it. However I can't objectively sit back and pretend that Ocarina of Time, despite being a beyond S tier game, is still superior to this. If there's anything that Ocarina of Time does better, it's the dungeons and items. I'd say it's held the throne long enough.

I'll begin Tears of the Kingdom right away tonight. Only it and Echoes of Wisdom (which I haven't even purchased yet) remain. I know that TotK is going to take an extremely long time, as I will require myself to complete all the dungeons, collect all the tears, as well as earn the Master Sword, just as I have with BotW.

Here's my updated ranking:

1. BotW
2. OoT
3. MM
4. ALBW
5. ALttP
6. TP
7. WW
8. OoS
9. OoA
10. SS
11. PH
12. MC
13. LA
14. AoL
15. LoZ
16. FSA
17. ST

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e6e7d1ff.jpg

faramir77 posted...

The memories are a great way of revealing the story piece by piece, but I wish they did a bit more with them. Some of them don't serve much plot purpose. I get that the main point is to show how Zelda initially didn't like Link, but slowly warmed up to him as she realizes that he isn't holding her inability to harness the power of the Triforce against her, despite his immediate success by earning the Master Sword thus fulfilling his end of the prophecy. I just wish there was more meaningful plot development, that's all. I can't really hold this against BotW, since pretty much every other Zelda game has had a similarly poor story, but it just feels with how incredibly polished the rest of BotW is, that it should also have a much more solid story.

This is why I feel BotW handled it way better than TotK. I much prefer the focus on character development and it suits the design of the open world game far better. We already know what happened, but seeing the events leading to it and the details surrounding the people who mattered made it much better. Watching Zelda's internal struggle was heartbreaking.

Compare this to TotK that was exclusively plot-driven and caused the character writing to suffer for it. Expecting the player to gain all the pieces to the plot in the correct order in a game that you can approach in any direction just doesn't work. And it didn't really amount to much anyways, the plot twist could be seen a mile away.

I agree with everything else you said, though. Rain was a scourge in that game and the way they answered this in TotK was done really well. Also, yeah, it seemed like they were both trying to treat Hyrule Castle as a point of no return, but also not. Pushing you to explore in the middle of your adventure, but also making it clear that it's the final stretch so you'd better be prepared. Real shame that there's literally no warning for triggering the final battle either. I actually did that on accident my first playthrough.

adjl posted...

I think you're approaching that opinion correctly (at least, as much as one can judge an opinion objectively). It doesn't necessarily make it a worse game overall or for a first playthrough, but it does mean it doesn't hold up as well on replays because it's more reliant on the sense of wonder you get exploring cool new areas for the first time. That ended up being a point against TotK for a lot of people, because having explored BotW's Hyrule relatively recently, exploring the same world again didn't really have the same lustre (I didn't mind, but I also haven't played BotW since I beat it shortly after launch, so the world wasn't exactly fresh in my mind going into TotK).

Yeah, I've been saying for a while that a lot of the negative response to TotK was driven by the lack of replayability of BotW, and people comparing TotK to the first play experience of BotW not to the replay experience of BotW.

Though, as much as it's not wrong to say that TotK should be expected to measure up against a replay of BotW and not a first playthrough because of how it's structured, it's also not wrong to say that building the game to compare to a replay wasn't a great idea. The choice to reuse so much of the same world means that anyone that played BotW recently simply isn't going to have as much fun exploring TotK as somebody who hasn't played BotW (or played it several years prior), and while it worked out fine for me, I think there's room to call that a mistake.

In that vein, I'm expecting TotK to be a considerable slog for TC because he just played through BotW and therefore there's going to be very little new exploration fun to be had from TotK.

adjl posted...

Though, as much as it's not wrong to say that TotK should be expected to measure up against a replay of BotW and not a first playthrough because of how it's structured, it's also not wrong to say that building the game to compare to a replay wasn't a great idea. The choice to reuse so much of the same world means that anyone that played BotW recently simply isn't going to have as much fun exploring TotK as somebody who hasn't played BotW (or played it several years prior), and while it worked out fine for me, I think there's room to call that a mistake.

In that vein, I'm expecting TotK to be a considerable slog for TC because he just played through BotW and therefore there's going to be very little new exploration fun to be had from TotK.

I found that there was enough new in TotK to see me through a first playthrough, while I've been unable to drag myself through a replay of BotW despite a couple of attempts.

faramir77 posted...

Nope, I remember not being too impressed by most of the DLC side quests.

I've made it to Goron City and just rescued Yunobo. Prior to doing that, I've also unlocked all the towers and found all the memories. It's really now just a matter of completing the fourth dungeon and then heading straight to Ganon.

The memories are a great way of revealing the story piece by piece, but I wish they did a bit more with them. Some of them don't serve much plot purpose. I get that the main point is to show how Zelda initially didn't like Link, but slowly warmed up to him as she realizes that he isn't holding her inability to harness the power of the Triforce against her, despite his immediate success by earning the Master Sword thus fulfilling his end of the prophecy. I just wish there was more meaningful plot development, that's all. I can't really hold this against BotW, since pretty much every other Zelda game has had a similarly poor story, but it just feels with how incredibly polished the rest of BotW is, that it should also have a much more solid story.

One of the memories is in an immensely disappointing buzzkill location: just outside the ruins of Zelda's room in Hyrule Castle. In order to get there, I had to infiltrate to the top of Hyrule Castle, and even made it to the front steps of the Sanctum, literally just a few feet away from entering the final boss room. This absolutely ruins the pacing of the game, and takes away from what should be a climatic final sprint to Ganon, experiencing the ruins of Hyrule Castle for the first time. I got the Hylian Shield from the castle earlier, but at least that was in the lower area far away from the final boss. I get that Nintendo probably wanted the player to get all the memories after all of this, and thus experience both of the endings to the game, but the ending without all the memories isn't different enough or interesting enough to warrant doing that.

One last complaint I have is how rain makes climbing impossible. I was fortunate enough not to encounter this until I was trying to access the twin shrines on top of the Dueling Peaks mountains, at which point it started raining without rain even being in the forecast on the bottom right of the screen. I have no clue why they made this a thing.

Still, despite these concerns, BotW remains an absolute top tier Zelda game. I have an idea of where I'll place it on my ranking list, but I'll save that for when I finish the game, hopefully soon.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/05efe013.jpg

Wait what?

adjl posted...

In that vein, I'm expecting TotK to be a considerable slog for TC because he just played through BotW and therefore there's going to be very little new exploration fun to be had from TotK.

Man, I'm worried about that for myself, not gonna lie. I've started TotK and so far (about 3 hours in) I'm not feeling that way quite yet. We'll see if that changes by the time I get far enough into the game to make a first real update.

Revelation34 posted...

Wait what?

There's that little forecast icon in the bottom right that shows upcoming weather. When I started climbing the mountain, the forecast only showed sunny and cloudy. But then at one point mid-climb, it started raining with no warning, and I slid down the mountain. Even while raining, the forecast didn't acknowledge that it was currently raining. Super weird, but that's what happened.

faramir77 posted...

Man, I'm worried about that for myself, not gonna lie. I've started TotK and so far (about 3 hours in) I'm not feeling that way quite yet. We'll see if that changes by the time I get far enough into the game to make a first real update.

There's that little forecast icon in the bottom right that shows upcoming weather. When I started climbing the mountain, the forecast only showed sunny and cloudy. But then at one point mid-climb, it started raining with no warning, and I slid down the mountain. Even while raining, the forecast didn't acknowledge that it was currently raining. Super weird, but that's what happened.

Maybe I did notice it when I played. I just don't remember it right now.

faramir77 posted...

There's that little forecast icon in the bottom right that shows upcoming weather. When I started climbing the mountain, the forecast only showed sunny and cloudy. But then at one point mid-climb, it started raining with no warning, and I slid down the mountain. Even while raining, the forecast didn't acknowledge that it was currently raining. Super weird, but that's what happened.

Yeah, the weather forecast is for your current map/weather cell, so whenever you cross a boundary you can run into unexpected weather (and the forecast doesn't always update immediately). There was one cliff I ran into fairly early game which had clear skies at the bottom and torrential rain at the top, with the weather changing abruptly halfway up. So I just set the game aside and waited it out.

The big change from BotW to TotK is that instead of climbing 90% of the game (BotW), youre instead flying or falling to 90% of your exploration (TotK). Its surprisingly a massive change, even if youre exploring the same areas.

I kind of got the vibe that the whole "slip down cliffs when they're wet" thing was implemented as a diegetic way to force you to follow the ground route to Zora's Domain instead of being able to climb/fly over the obstacles, then they just had to put it everywhere else for consistency's sake. In the approach to Zora's Domain, it worked really well as a mechanic, but everywhere else is was more annoying than anything.

I appreciated how TotK handled it, giving several ways to bypass the issue (including just building something to get you over the slippery cliff) and applying the concept in caves to create a very organic navigation puzzle. The biggest problem it had in BotW was that when it started raining, you were just SoL if you needed to climb and had to wait it out. That's not a challenge, that's just wasting the player's time for the sake of "realism." In TotK, though, rain became a problem that you could solve, with "wait it out" only being the answer if you were totally unprepared and/or chose not to do anything more interesting to solve it.

adjl posted...

I kind of got the vibe that the whole "slip down cliffs when they're wet" thing was implemented as a diegetic way to force you to follow the ground route to Zora's Domain instead of being able to climb/fly over the obstacles, then they just had to put it everywhere else for consistency's sake. In the approach to Zora's Domain, it worked really well as a mechanic, but everywhere else is was more annoying than anything.

I appreciated how TotK handled it, giving several ways to bypass the issue (including just building something to get you over the slippery cliff) and applying the concept in caves to create a very organic navigation puzzle. The biggest problem it had in BotW was that when it started raining, you were just SoL if you needed to climb and had to wait it out. That's not a challenge, that's just wasting the player's time for the sake of "realism." In TotK, though, rain became a problem that you could solve, with "wait it out" only being the answer if you were totally unprepared and/or chose not to do anything more interesting to solve it.

Yeah it was stamina issue too. Even max wheel would run out on some cliffs.

That's intentional design. Making cliffs too high to climb without a certain level of stamina serves to gate that area based on your progression, either keeping you from it entirely until you get enough stamina to make it or offering that as a reward for progressing and upgrading your stamina. If a cliff is too high to climb even with max stamina, that means you're meant to find a different way up there (or brute force it with stamina food).

I did a "No Fast Travel / Permadeath / Master Mode" run of BotW, and let me tell you, it really changes how you approach the game. A lot of the methods of cheesing certain situations go out the window and you need to learn efficient climbing techniques and make better preparations. You can't just yeet yourself out of a bad situation whenever you want.

Salrite posted...

I did a "No Fast Travel / Permadeath / Master Mode" run of BotW, and let me tell you, it really changes how you approach the game. A lot of the methods of cheesing certain situations go out the window and you need to learn efficient climbing techniques and make better preparations. You can't just yeet yourself out of a bad situation whenever you want.

I will never do a no fast travel run in any game.

Still no update, but hopefully soon! Work and life have been busy lately.

adjl posted...

I kind of got the vibe that the whole "slip down cliffs when they're wet" thing was implemented as a diegetic way to force you to follow the ground route to Zora's Domain instead of being able to climb/fly over the obstacles, then they just had to put it everywhere else for consistency's sake. In the approach to Zora's Domain, it worked really well as a mechanic, but everywhere else is was more annoying than anything.

This was one of my biggest gripes with BotW. So often it would start raining while you were scaling something and you had no choice but to abandon what you were doing or just sit on some ledge half way up a mountain and wait several minutes IRL until the rain stopped. One of those instances where "realism" in games only serves to waste people's time or annoy the player.

man101 posted...

This was one of my biggest gripes with BotW. So often it would start raining while you were scaling something and you had no choice but to abandon what you were doing or just sit on some ledge half way up a mountain and wait several minutes IRL until the rain stopped. One of those instances where "realism" in games only serves to waste people's time or annoy the player.

It's not even realistic since it's not going to go from completely sunny to raining a shitload all of a sudden unless you live in a tropical area.

I've seen exactly that happen more times than I can count, and eastern/Atlantic Canada is about as far from "tropical" as you can get without actually being in Antarctica.

man101 posted...

This was one of my biggest gripes with BotW. So often it would start raining while you were scaling something and you had no choice but to abandon what you were doing or just sit on some ledge half way up a mountain and wait several minutes IRL until the rain stopped. One of those instances where "realism" in games only serves to waste people's time or annoy the player.

I actually tried to make sense of the rain patterns and see if I could deduce when and how it happens, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out anything consistent. Obviously there are some areas where it's more prominent or just locked into perpetual rainfall, but I've had many times where it's seemed that I'm straddling the border of rain and sunshine while that border is shifting erratically. The rain will stop and start again multiple times in a matter of seconds and it's extremely frustrating.

adjl posted...

I've seen exactly that happen more times than I can count, and eastern/Atlantic Canada is about as far from "tropical" as you can get without actually being in Antarctica.

I decided to let sleeping dogs lie in this case.

adjl posted...

I've seen exactly that happen more times than I can count, and eastern/Atlantic Canada is about as far from "tropical" as you can get without actually being in Antarctica.

I'm guessing you don't see the sky go from blue/clear to grey/overcast and back again in seconds just by stepping back and forth over a line in the pavement.

BotW, if you're on a weather zone boundary, you can switch back and forth between clear to the horizon and overcast to the horizon just by stepping back and forth. In the real world, if you are on a rain boundary, you can see rain falling nearby before you step into it...

It's been one year since I made this topic. I've made very slight progress in Tears of the Kingdom, but not enough for a real update still. I think I just need a break for a while, it's too samey compared to BotW which was already insanely long.

Still no progress. Haven't felt like playing lately. I'll keep this topic bumped until motivation returns.

Haven't played anymore at all. I did purchase Echoes of Wisdom though, got it for like 25% off. I won't play it until I get around to finishing TotK of course.

It's against the spirit of the challenge, but you might be better off breaking release order and just doing EoW now and coming back to TotK later. I'm not at all surprised that you're having trouble finding the motivation to play an exploration-focused game right after playing an equally exploration-focused game that had you exploring the same world, and I think forcing yourself to stick to the order in spite of that is liable to burn you out from finishing.

I'm going to stick through with the release order, but I'll definitely admit that motivation to play this one has been super low. It has nothing to do with the quality of Tears of the Kingdom, but just fatigue from playing BotW, which is extremely similar.

That being said, it's finally time for my first real update. I've put upwards of 10 hours into the game so far, but I'm not even at the first dungeon yet. I've focused on a bit of exploring, mostly to collect some things that might motivate me to play more. I've unlocked 4 Skyview Towers so far.

First, the story starts pretty strong. The game makes it clear from the start that this is a direct continuation of Breath of the Wild. The sky area that serves as a tutorial does a fair job of introducing the new abilities, but something about it felt a bit too bland.

Once on the surface, Hyrule itself feels both familiar and different than it did in BotW. The overall map is the same, but quite often I encounter landmarks that feel totally different than they did in BotW. It's a bit disorienting, but not a problem given that this game SHOULD feel different.

The amount of shrines that focus on tutorial stuff is disappointing. I get that the game needs to be approachable to people that never played BotW, but it feels borderline offense to have to complete shrines that explain basic control mechanics.

Another issue with appeasing new players is that game seemingly can't decide whether or not it really wants to be a continuation of BotW. The story started strong, but often you'll encounter characters that straight up don't know who you are, as if you didn't just save the world from the Calamity just a few years earlier. The Calamity itself is rarely spoken of, which also seems very odd.

I've also taken some time to explore The Depths. This region is incredibly boring and disappointing, but the treasures scattered around it make it worthwhile to go straight to those locations. I purposely went straight to all three pieces of the Skyward Sword outfit, since I want a more classic Link appearance, and those pieces are the easiest to collect all three for. I wish they did more with The Depths, like at least making it a modern comparable to the Dark World from ALttP.

As much as it sounds like I'm complaining, TotK is a solid experience. The abilities are entirely better than the ones from BotW and the game's embrace of the physics engine is very entertaining. I'm hoping to maintain more consistent progress from here on.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/99fb4977.jpg

I've been really wanting to play TotK again, but I know that every time I do, I spend so much time exploring every little nook, then get distracted for a while and when I finally do come back, I've forgotten everything I've done and feel like I need to start over again. The game is just too damn massive.

I am soooo sick of doing the Rito questline.

faramir77 posted...

Another issue with appeasing new players is that game seemingly can't decide whether or not it really wants to be a continuation of BotW. The story started strong, but often you'll encounter characters that straight up don't know who you are, as if you didn't just save the world from the Calamity just a few years earlier. The Calamity itself is rarely spoken of, which also seems very odd.

I've also taken some time to explore The Depths. This region is incredibly boring and disappointing, but the treasures scattered around it make it worthwhile to go straight to those locations. I purposely went straight to all three pieces of the Skyward Sword outfit, since I want a more classic Link appearance, and those pieces are the easiest to collect all three for. I wish they did more with The Depths, like at least making it a modern comparable to the Dark World from ALttP.

These were my biggest complaints with the game. The focus on a linear plot runs completely contradictory to the open world approach of the gameplay. I actually gave myself huge spoilers for endgame plot the first time I played because I just wandered into the wrong area. They give you the ability to approach the game in any order but expect you to somehow experience the plot reveals in a linear fashion. Also, I found that the character development that I really appreciated from BotW was squandered in TotK. Like you noticed, there is no consistency with who knows you and who recalls the events of the game that it is a direct sequel of. The director himself gave half-assed excuses about it when asked why all the ancient technology is suddenly gone. "Oh, I guess it just served it's purpose and disappeared".

And it's very frustrating because the game IS a significant and objective improvement mechanically. It is incredibly fun to play and experience. But as someone who highly values plot and character development, which at the very least is cohesive, it was difficult to experience. I won't spoil things, but the game makes a major plot point abundantly clear from miles away but patronizes you when it suddenly makes the "reveal" with flashbacks as if you didn't pick up on all the clues yourself.

Also, I hate to break it, but if you're expecting any sort of lore on The Depths and what its significance is, it never comes. This was probably the thing that pissed me off the most. I was hoping maybe DLC would come in the future to expand on this and provide some explanation, but the director's like "There's nothing left to say, no DLC". It's basically just there for the sake of padding the game with content. It's barely mentioned by any characters and provides very little in regards to benefit or resources other than the mandatory upgrade material you need to grind for.

faramir77 posted...

I've also taken some time to explore The Depths. This region is incredibly boring and disappointing, but the treasures scattered around it make it worthwhile to go straight to those locations. I purposely went straight to all three pieces of the Skyward Sword outfit, since I want a more classic Link appearance, and those pieces are the easiest to collect all three for. I wish they did more with The Depths, like at least making it a modern comparable to the Dark World from ALttP.

I really liked the Depths at first, with the whole concept of navigating a risky area with poor visibility, the gloom effect placing a soft limit on how much you could do in any given expedition, and having to progressively light it up. The fact that there was really only one biome, though, meant it pretty quickly became a drag and there stopped being anything really worth exploring. As soon as I had enough Zonai charge to sustain a hover bike for a useful amount of time, I gave up on cautiously exploring on foot and just flew to each lightroot and didn't feel like I missed anything. There just wasn't enough variety to keep things interesting long-term.

It's a pretty stark contrast with Xenoblade X, where getting the flight module for my Skell has been super convenient but has also made me feel like I'm missing out on a lot of interesting details that are worth exploring, so I'll often deliberately navigate to places on foot just for the experience. Fortunately, TotK's overworld is still worth exploring in more detail, but the Depths were definitely a bit disappointing.

adjl posted...

I really liked the Depths at first, with the whole concept of navigating a risky area with poor visibility, the gloom effect placing a soft limit on how much you could do in any given expedition, and having to progressively light it up. The fact that there was really only one biome, though, meant it pretty quickly became a drag and there stopped being anything really worth exploring. As soon as I had enough Zonai charge to sustain a hover bike for a useful amount of time, I gave up on cautiously exploring on foot and just flew to each lightroot and didn't feel like I missed anything. There just wasn't enough variety to keep things interesting long-term.

Honestly, this may have been to the games benefit. I don't believe doubling the size of the map would be approachable if it had as much detail as the surface. The fact that you can fly past most of it and experience everything you need at least makes it less of a chore.

But on the other hand, it IS incredibly boring so what all you actually do have to explore is still a chore to experience. I suppose treating it as another dimension for resource gathering would be the best approach? But as a completionist, I had to make a point of activating every single Lightroot.

But I do agree that it really should have done more to be visually distinctive down there because it's way too repetitive. The lavafalls under the surface hotsprings was really the only thing that added variety. It's quite obvious that a developer accidentally made an inverted map and thought it was cool so they just added it as a feature.

Salrite posted...

Honestly, this may have been to the games benefit. I don't believe doubling the size of the map would be approachable if it had as much detail as the surface. The fact that you can fly past most of it and experience everything you need at least makes it less of a chore.

But on the other hand, it IS incredibly boring so what all you actually do have to explore is still a chore to experience.

Yeah, it's a tricky balance to strike. Make a map that big with tons of detail to explore, and you end up bloating the game to the point of being overwhelming and diluting the main story too much. Make a map that big with few interesting details, and you end up exploring just to tick boxes and not actually enjoying the process.

I almost wonder if they wouldn't have been better off making the Depths smaller, perhaps doing something like Minecraft's Nether and scaling everything down by some factor, but that runs into issues with the whole "jump in a hole and seamlessly enter the Depths" thing that's really cool, thematically speaking. Maybe fragmenting it into smaller chunks would have been an improvement, but that risks having the same problem that sky islands had (that is, that they just don't amount to a meaningful amount of content).

Salrite posted...

I suppose treating it as another dimension for resource gathering would be the best approach?

This has got me thinking about the idea of expanding the Zonaite mines into full-on base building/factory sim territory. Ultrahand could be used to repair existing mechanisms to get them running autonomously and building the mining equipment out to gather from resource patches. That would create an incentive to explore to find those resource patches, opportunities to solve mechanical puzzles or puzzles around dealing with patrolling enemies, and would provide a steady stream of Zonaite to support experimenting more with Ultrahand contraptions instead of having to farm it manually.

That sort of idea does risk overwhelming the actual game with a minigame, though, so it might be a bit too ambitious.

Salrite posted...

But I do agree that it really should have done more to be visually distinctive down there because it's way too repetitive.

Indeed. People will sometimes whine about "empty open worlds" when an open-world game doesn't give you a copy-pasted bandit camp every ten feet to reward your exploration efforts, but I personally find that seeing something cool is enough of a reward to encourage exploration without needing to dip into direct gameplay rewards. The Depths just didn't have that, though, which is a big part of why they started out interesting but ended up becoming a slog. Between the darkness making it hard to make out scenery until you'd already been through it and the fact that all the scenery looked the same, there wasn't much room for sightseeing.

adjl posted...

This has got me thinking about the idea of expanding the Zonaite mines into full-on base building/factory sim territory. Ultrahand could be used to repair existing mechanisms to get them running autonomously and building the mining equipment out to gather from resource patches. That would create an incentive to explore to find those resource patches, opportunities to solve mechanical puzzles or puzzles around dealing with patrolling enemies, and would provide a steady stream of Zonaite to support experimenting more with Ultrahand contraptions instead of having to farm it manually.

That sort of idea does risk overwhelming the actual game with a minigame, though, so it might be a bit too ambitious.

I really like this idea. Like, really really like it. But like you say, it could really become overwhelming in a game that is already incredibly massive. I liked the home building we got in Akkala and would have really liked to see more of it be utilized in a meaningful way, so having base building in The Depths would have worked really well. Incorporate it into a side quest to populate The Depths for the Zonai Research Team and provide increasing benefits. But I could see it ending up like settlement building in Fallout 4 where it becomes too large of a focus on the game overshadowing a lot more important things.

Yeah, given that the game already arguably does too much to distract the player from the main story quests, turning the Depths into some kind of The Incredible Machine/Satisfactory crossover game would probably be a bit too much, as much as I also really like the idea (the factory must grow).

Even just taking a page from Xenoblade X (three guesses what I've been playing lately) and mimicking the whole probe setup thing would also have worked, just setting up different stations (possibly on lightroot sites) that interact with each other to produce Zonaite and other resources depending on how you lay them out. That gives a clear incentive to explore the Depths to find all of the nodes, but doesn't necessarily take over the rest of the game because once you've tinkered enough to find a setup you like, it's pretty set-and-forget.

Having some sort of passive zonaite income would be interesting, but it wouldn't fit with the apparent design intent - that players dip into the Depths periodically throughout the game, exploring, harvesting zonaite, and upgrading their batteries until they hit the cap near the end of the game.

Give players a passive income, and that just encourages idling and otherwise killing time while accumulating resources and either ending up overpowered when you actually progress the game, or having the game balanced for players leaving their system running unattended for a few days, and effectively requiring players to either do some sort of exploit or grind in order to be at the intended level.

I do suspect that both Tears and Breath are designed with the intention/expectation that players will only tackle a fraction of the content and so the games aim for a suitable density of content rather than a target total amount of content.

rmsgrey posted...

Having some sort of passive zonaite income would be interesting, but it wouldn't fit with the apparent design intent - that players dip into the Depths periodically throughout the game, exploring, harvesting zonaite, and upgrading their batteries until they hit the cap near the end of the game.

Give players a passive income, and that just encourages idling and otherwise killing time while accumulating resources and either ending up overpowered when you actually progress the game, or having the game balanced for players leaving their system running unattended for a few days, and effectively requiring players to either do some sort of exploit or grind in order to be at the intended level.

I do suspect that both Tears and Breath are designed with the intention/expectation that players will only tackle a fraction of the content and so the games aim for a suitable density of content rather than a target total amount of content.

True, but I will say that the game already has a huge problem with becoming overleveled way too quick. I'd go out of my way to avoid fighting higher tier enemies just so I don't inflate my "EXP" too quick and I still end up with Silver Tier enemies and max tier weapons before I even make it to the first dungeon while pretty much going straight for it. It really sucks that the only way to slow progression is to play worse and die more.

I've made quite a bit of progress but not going to provide a real update quite yet, just keeping this bumped as usual.

I agree with what a few of you mentioned about the inconsistent plot and the Depths. I remember watching a YouTube video not long after I first finished TotK that described the game as being a "flawed masterpiece" and honestly that's pretty accurate.

Yep. It's an excellent game and I had a great time with it, but it does have a few major issues.

rmsgrey posted...

Give players a passive income, and that just encourages idling and otherwise killing time while accumulating resources and either ending up overpowered when you actually progress the game, or having the game balanced for players leaving their system running unattended for a few days, and effectively requiring players to either do some sort of exploit or grind in order to be at the intended level.

That's a risk, but you can work around it in a few ways. Add a cap to the amount you can store at a time that means you need to spend it periodically (Xenoblade X does this with Miranium, in that you can generally only store 1-2 hours' production at a time and need to devote part of your generation setup to increasing your storage), design the mechanic so there are frequent opportunities to upgrade such that idling wastes a lot more of your potential than playing actively would (most factory sims do this), have some sort of anti-idling mechanic (like the game automatically pauses after X minutes without new inputs)... It is a tricky balance ("Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of games"), but it's not impossible. The challenge is to make the optimal way to play also be fun.

Though it's worth noting that if setting up an auto-generation setup to farm zonaite has the potential to make the player overpowered, farming manually also does, which is kind of the problem this idea is meant to solve. Farming zonaite just isn't that fun, even framed as periodically dipping into the depths to whack a few rocks and not doing circuits of optimized farming routes. This idea aims to establish it as something different from the gathering process used for every other resource in the game (most of which are used in much smaller quantities than zonaite), that's thematically consistent with the ancient mining equipment found in the zonaite mines in the depths, makes use of Ultrahand in interesting ways, and reward Depths exploration with gameplay beyond "here's another identical rock you can hit." Again, making this minigame too robust risks overwhelming the rest of the game, but I do like the idea as an alternative.

Granted, I'm saying this as somebody who's played Factorio for 1400 hours. My affinity for factory sims might not be applicable to general audiences.

adjl posted...

That's a risk, but you can work around it in a few ways. Add a cap to the amount you can store at a time that means you need to spend it periodically (Xenoblade X does this with Miranium, in that you can generally only store 1-2 hours' production at a time and need to devote part of your generation setup to increasing your storage), design the mechanic so there are frequent opportunities to upgrade such that idling wastes a lot more of your potential than playing actively would (most factory sims do this), have some sort of anti-idling mechanic (like the game automatically pauses after X minutes without new inputs)... It is a tricky balance ("Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of games"), but it's not impossible. The challenge is to make the optimal way to play also be fun.

It sounds like you're on the verge of inventing the clicker/idle genre in the middle there...

If the problem is that farming the required amount of zonaite isn't fun, the easy solution is to reduce the amount required to what remains fun to gather.

I believe the design intention with the Depths is that it serves as a break from doing stuff on the surface/skies - so you come across a rift, dive into it, explore for a while, igniting lightroots, harvesting zonaite, maybe fighting bosses or clearing a Yiga base, then return to the surface. The problem, as with the game in general (and Breath of the Wild), is that there just isn't enough variety to sustain the full length of the game - though the design intent may be that most players only actually explore some fraction of the game world - most (maybe all) of the towers, maybe 2/3 of the shrines, or maybe less, maybe a similar fraction of lightroots, all the geoglyphs, and, of course, all the dungeons. There probably still isn't enough to the core gameplay to support that, but it's a lot closer than when you're looking at getting every shrine, lightroot and sidequest. And getting every korok seed would be a sure sign of someone with too much time and not enough games on their hands...

rmsgrey posted...

It sounds like you're on the verge of inventing the clicker/idle genre in the middle there...

There's a strong argument to be made that factory sims are idle games, just without offline progress. There's a core difference in design philosophy in that idle games expect you to spend a significant amount of time just waiting, whereas factory sims do not (while certain steps require a defined amount of time to pass, the expectation is that you use that time to do other things in-game and not just wait), and I think that difference means they can't truly be conflated, but fundamentally they both boil down to the idea of setting up the game to produce what you want on its own, with the core challenge being to optimize what the game is able to do with that time.

rmsgrey posted...

If the problem is that farming the required amount of zonaite isn't fun, the easy solution is to reduce the amount required to what remains fun to gather.

Yes and no. There is value in having to work toward the things zonaite unlocks, gradually progressing toward having more batteries, a solid supply of devices, and enough of a stockpile to be able to summon larger blueprints that are fun to use (or just an army of death roombas). That's a big part of the game's progression system, and there's a need to pace things so you don't end up maxing out that progression too soon. Simply scaling down the amount needed would reduce the risk of having to do an unenjoyable amount of farming, but it would also compress the progression timeline.

The problem is two things, in my books:

• Farming zonaite doesn't provide unique gameplay. Exploring the depths to find deposits does, but once you do that and activate the lightroot, it boils down to "fast travel to a spot with rocks, then hit the rocks." That's basically the same as gathering any other ore in the overworld, just on a larger scale (which does itself present some new challenges in that you have more options to optimize a farming circuit, so it's not entirely the same) and with less environmental variety
• Farming doesn't really scale up to meet the increasing demands of more complex blueprints, stifling that form of progression because farming becomes more tedious the more you try to progress. Once you've found some of the more lucrative farming spots and figured out an efficient route, that's all you can do to increase the rate at which you get it, even though you'll still be upgrading your batteries and thereby unlocking the ability to use larger blueprints (which take more zonaite to build) effectively. The net result is that you can use more and more complicated contraptions, but actually building them requires more and more farming, which discourages making anything bigger than a hoverbike

Essentially, if you've got a build that takes 300 Zonaite and you can farm 100 per hour (to pull numbers out of nowhere), the game punishes you with three hours of farming for using that build, and nothing you do can really speed that up (aside from trying to find some parts nearby to reduce the cost). If you've got a build that takes 300 Zonaite and you're passively making 100 per hour, that build effectively has a three-hour cooldown, and depending on how the passive generation system is implemented, you may have opportunities to reduce that cooldown by making a tradeoff with storage (e.g. you make 300 an hour but can only store 300, so you can use that build once an hour and that's it, or you make 100 an hour and can store 900, letting you use the build 3 times but taking 9 hours to fully recharge) or by improving your setup to produce more. It turns it from something you only use when you need it badly enough to justify the tedious farming it will cost you into something you use like a long-cooldown ultimate ability in a MOBA (as a game-changer, with the recognition that it won't be available for a while).

Obviously, these are just broad strokes of an idea and there's a lot more needed to have a full-realized game system, but I do think it would have added a lot of flexibility to ultrahand contraptions overall because the Zonaite cost wouldn't carry the same threat of having to do a bunch of farming if you built something big. Maybe it's just my own resource hoarding tendencies coming through in saying this, but I'm much more willing to spend a resource that I know I'll have more of later than I am to spend one that will run out unless I do something, especially when dealing with quantities that mean it'll take a lot of that something.

adjl posted...

Essentially, if you've got a build that takes 300 Zonaite and you can farm 100 per hour (to pull numbers out of nowhere), the game punishes you with three hours of farming for using that build, and nothing you do can really speed that up (aside from trying to find some parts nearby to reduce the cost).

If you reduce costs so that the build only takes 30 Zonaite, but also reduce how many deposits there are in the world, or how much each deposit produces, so that you can only get 10 per hour, but it only takes 6 minutes out of the hour to harvest that 10 rather than the full hour (or whatever proportion of the time you spend farming before stopping to wait for the next blood moon to respawn the ore), then you have a similar progression through the game as a whole, but much less of your play time is spent on extracting Zonaite.

There's a strong argument to be made that factory sims are idle games, just without offline progress. There's a core difference in design philosophy in that idle games expect you to spend a significant amount of time just waiting, whereas factory sims do not (while certain steps require a defined amount of time to pass, the expectation is that you use that time to do other things in-game and not just wait), and I think that difference means they can't truly be conflated, but fundamentally they both boil down to the idea of setting up the game to produce what you want on its own, with the core challenge being to optimize what the game is able to do with that time.

I'd argue that the fact you'd be expected to actually play the rest of the game, not just dedicate your time to factory building in the Depths means that the resource-extraction fuctions as an idle game rather than a factory sim by that distinction.

faramir77 posted...

I agree with what a few of you mentioned about the inconsistent plot and the Depths. I remember watching a YouTube video not long after I first finished TotK that described the game as being a "flawed masterpiece" and honestly that's pretty accurate.

Zeltik? Yeah, I believe I agreed with most of what he said. But I can't find my comments giving counterpoints on what I disagreed with so maybe it was someone else. Mostly criticism of the weapon durability which I one hundred percent believe is integral to what makes these games work. And also bringing up Elden Ring as an example of how an open world game should be which I strongly disagree with.

adjl posted...

Yes and no. There is value in having to work toward the things zonaite unlocks, gradually progressing toward having more batteries, a solid supply of devices, and enough of a stockpile to be able to summon larger blueprints that are fun to use (or just an army of death roombas). That's a big part of the game's progression system, and there's a need to pace things so you don't end up maxing out that progression too soon. Simply scaling down the amount needed would reduce the risk of having to do an unenjoyable amount of farming, but it would also compress the progression timeline.

The problem is two things, in my books:

Farming zonaite doesn't provide unique gameplay. Exploring the depths to find deposits does, but once you do that and activate the lightroot, it boils down to "fast travel to a spot with rocks, then hit the rocks." That's basically the same as gathering any other ore in the overworld, just on a larger scale (which does itself present some new challenges in that you have more options to optimize a farming circuit, so it's not entirely the same) and with less environmental variety
Farming doesn't really scale up to meet the increasing demands of more complex blueprints, stifling that form of progression because farming becomes more tedious the more you try to progress. Once you've found some of the more lucrative farming spots and figured out an efficient route, that's all you can do to increase the rate at which you get it, even though you'll still be upgrading your batteries and thereby unlocking the ability to use larger blueprints (which take more zonaite to build) effectively. The net result is that you can use more and more complicated contraptions, but actually building them requires more and more farming, which discourages making anything bigger than a hoverbike

I feel like the biggest solution would be to make farming this material fun, which I believe it can be in a way. Every deposit is guarded by a camp of enemies that you have to clear out, and these encampments do have a selection of variations. The problem is that there aren't too many variations and most encampments aren't laid out in a way I personally consider as engaging as they could be. I'd mostly just bait the enemies out and flurry rush them individually until their all dead and then go break the rocks, which is the most tedious part. Also, to bring back to previous criticism, The Depths themselves are just incredibly boring so there really isn't the geographical variety that the surface has.