Current Events > Replaying Breath of the Wild...I think I might prefer it over TotK.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Tears of the Kingdom is much larger and has more activities to do, which is nice. But I'm replaying Breath of the Wild and it just reminds me that it feels like a better experience. I think it's the fact there's not a lot of verticality in your movement which allows you to get to know the world better and properly explore it. It feels like an actual journey. Of course, this is before you get Revali's Gale, but even with that it's just powerful enough to not take away from that feeling of exploration, IMO.

Meanwhile TotK gives you such overpowered abilities and is far more focused on verticality that the world feels more like a giant playground for you to quite literally fly around so fast in. Which is fun in its own right but exploration doesn't feel as good, IMO. The towers are also quite literally designed for you to very easily reach the next tower and reveal the whole map very quickly, while with BotW the towers are just vantage points to find places of interest and it's up to you to make your way to them.

There's a couple of other things about TotK that kinda harms itself too, like it tried to have a more prevalent story while still keeping BotW's openness and it REALLY doesn't work. Also those overpowered abilities make the shrines and dungeons worse in my eyes. Like the majority of the shrines are "build this thing we want you to build and use it" and like half the dungeons can be broken with Ascend and building flying machines.

BotW is a far, far superior game to TotK.

As someone who has completed BotW 100% three separate times, and currently going through a 100% completion of TotK, I definitely think BotW was the better game overall. There are some nice QoL improvements in TotK to be sure, but personally BotW just did it for me more.

Ill always prefer the towers in TotK over the towers in the BotW. Being launched into the air is unforgettable and so fun every single time

BakonBitz posted...

I think it's the fact there's not a lot of verticality in your movement which allows you to get to know the world better and properly explore it. It feels like an actual journey.

ToTK obviously assumes you've played BoTW and are already used to the old map.

TotK improved on the enemy variety and allowed for more combat options, so that eeks it ahead for me.

Admittedly, no master mode is an inexplicably odd choice.

Kisai posted...

ToTK obviously assumes you've played BoTW and are already used to the old map.

I get that, but what of the new players who jump right in? Which they also very obviously designed the story around given there's so little references to its previous game.

TotK provides a vastly different gameplay feel despite sharing the same world, but it's not something I found super engaging.

honestly, i played most of TotK like BotW, you really dont have to lean into the building mechanic much at all. you can treat the building as a major component or just an added spice to the gameplay, there's nothing forcing you to build a hover bike or a killer robot if you dont want to.

the only thing i'd say breath won out on was story. neither game had a great story, both of them had far less story telling that i want in an rpg, but tears felt contrived compared to breath. the functional removal of all sheika ruins honestly made no sense.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Frankly, neither did enormous spider mechs with friggin laser beams.

TotK would be a lot better if it hadn't used literally the same map. That really hurts it

I think TotK is an objectively better game, but I like BotW much, much more.

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It's funny because I think that was actually in their initial concepts where Guardians were actual creatures, but they decided on something like a mechanical spider because it would've been too far leaned into "horror."

Yeah the land exploration is completely broken in TotK with the use of any flying contraption (even if you don't use the hoverbike); which is honestly fine, because you've already explored Hyrule proper in the first game. But still, that was a disappointing sensation to realize that I was just combing TotK's regular map out of obligation rather than genuine discovery (and the sky and underground wore thin too quickly to really make up for this).

solosnake posted...

TotK would be a lot better if it hadn't used literally the same map. That really hurts it

This is why it came up short for me. I could have very well liked TotK more with a completely new overworld, but it just had too much familiarity. BotW is one of my favorite games ever, but so much of TotK just felt like going through post-game content despite putting more time in it.

BotW was a slow burn for me but I ended up enjoying it.

TotK I could never get into. Only picked it up a couple times.

BotW is better but I wont play either of them again as it's too long of a game.

It's like OoT vs Majora's Mask. MM had some unique mechanics but felt off in comparison. Not a bad game, but not as good as the first.

Philip027 posted...

Frankly, neither did enormous spider mechs with friggin laser beams.

To be fair, Zelda's had eyeball lasers since like, ALTTP. They just weren't attached to something that could walk around.

I've tried to play TotK twice and both times I've stopped after doing the bird boy's dungeon. Had a good time but dont see the game topping that sequence with the blizzard and flying. Really not a fan of the underground stuff either

BotW is superior.

There are some VAST improvements in TotK (QoL, monster variety, better dungeons, etc), but it just feels less polished overall to me. The fuse ability is tacky, I hate the depths, the Sky Islands are way too samey, the map is the same, the story feels like a rehash of the BotW one, too much filler stuff.

I still enjoyed both games, and it is very difficult to go back to BotW after TotK, but BotW is still much more of a classic.

Are people forgetting that BOTW didn't have real dungeons

Cant say I agree, as I like TotK quite a bit more overall. That said, I do like the smaller map of BotW more since I dont like the underground and the sky islands were underwhelming to me.

As opposed to TotK? The 4 dungeons aren't much more expansive than the beasts

McSame_as_Bush posted...

Are people forgetting that BOTW didn't have real dungeons

In retrospect the Divine Beasts are better than TotK's "dungeons." They're a lot better as puzzle boxes and can't be broken, I just wish they weren't basically just like the shrines in aesthetics.

Edit: Guess I should add I mean "IMO" as I'm aware some may find TotK's versions better. I just felt like the Divine Beasts challenged you better with their puzzles.

I actually liked the divine beasts. I wouldnt have minded a couple more of them and more diverse bosses in them, but in terms of their length and ability to have puzzles themed around the movement of the beasts I was a fan.

I also liked the Divine Beasts more than the temples. The movement gimmicks and the puzzles that used them were neat. I would have liked more diverse bosses inside them, but I liked the dungeons themselves.

I like playing TotK more in general though. The new toys are more fun. Of course BotW's first run is uniquely amazing, but TotK is a smoother ride after that.

I also consciously chose not to build a hover bike until I had already seen most everything when I heard how much it trivialized the exploration. And I'm glad I did that. Picking up whatever pieces you find around naturally instead lets you keep experiencing new challenges and trying new things. Nowadays while casually hunting Korok seeds, I do use the bike and broken stuff, but using it early on would have ruined the game for me.

But yeah BotW's story is way better. I liked piecing it all together bit by bit and didn't even mind that the story was mostly backstory cuz I loved the backstory. Zelda had a cool, cruel arc. TotK's story had a lot of repetition and seemed to spoil itself too easily. And also Ganondorf simply overpowering everyone was less interesting than Zelda's struggle with her power and the betrayal from the divine beasts/guardians.

This is actually a pretty well put together critique of TotK that I found myself fervently nodding my head to at several points because it touched on nearly every single thing that I thought was rather odd about the game from watching someone else play it (things that that player mostly noticed too but didn't dwell/fixate on nearly as much as they were playing it). Although it's a whopper of a video at 3 and a half hours, so fair warning there. The video maker also pretty much expects that people won't spend the entire time concentratedly watching it, so they were kind enough to put in an audio cue (the sound of a rupee being collected) whenever they show something on screen worth looking at.

PointCrow did a reaction video to this one that clocks in at (still) nearly 1 and a half hours and still hits most of the main points, if you're wanting something slightly more digestible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4unKwPQMoOA

Breath of the Wild is more consistent overall, but TotK has higher highs. Many things are also just better in TotK (combat, materials, mobility, sage abilities, new armor set perks, refreshing durability with rock octoroks, etc) even if other parts are blah (charging money for armor upgrades, grinding, navigating the depths without a hoverbike, friend koroks, incredibly awful and imbalanced rupee economy compared to BotW, etc).

McmadnessV3 posted...

To be fair, Zelda's had eyeball lasers since like, ALTTP. They just weren't attached to something that could walk around.

Yes, but it's different when it's dungeon architecture. They're basically traps; we expect a dungeon to have traps, they're basically supposed to be there.

As opposed to just... random monstrosities roaming the countryside (with the backstory and environment both showing that there used to be way, way more of them than what you actually see in the game)