The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - May 12th, 2023

[PeteWorrell]

You couldn't max out both stamina and hearts in Breath of the Wild either even with DLCs.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Sure, but TotK started with you maxed out at both. That means the game ends with Link not fully recovering both his stamina and health.

 

[Turin]

Apparently there are "no plans" for TOTK DLC? That is a terrible decision.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Apparently there are "no plans" for TOTK DLC? That is a terrible decision.

You can spend like 500 hours in this game before you do everything. They squeezed a ton out of this series already between the two games and I’d rather they get started on the next one.

Master Mode was ass anyway.

 

[PeteWorrell]

You would think people would respect the fact that a company that could have milked a game via DLC, decided against it because they don't have anything to add.

In a world where so many companies would have milked this to death via locking content behind paywalls and DLCs; the honesty is refreshing.

 

[Turin]

You would think people would respect the fact that a company that could have milked a game via DLC, decided against it because they don't have anything to add.

In a world where so many companies would have milked this to death via locking content behind paywalls and DLCs; the honesty is refreshing.

They definitely have stuff to add lol. The background behind the sages and the stones is non existent. Breath of the Wild didn’t “need” DLC either but was better for having it.

 

[PeteWorrell]

They definitely have stuff to add lol. The background behind the sages and the stones is non existent. Breath of the Wild didn’t “need” DLC either but was better for having it.

Welcome to Zelda. They have been leaving stuff unexplained in the series way before the days of DLCs.

Nintendo are a gameplay company first. They pursue new ideas and concepts and then write stories to make the players explore the worlds they create.

People still try to make sense of the Zelda timelines to this day but it's a waste of time. There are a lot of contradictions throughout the series and so many questions that will remain unanswered because they simply never had any bigger plan.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Welcome to Zelda. They have been leaving stuff unexplained in the series way before the days of DLCs.

Nintendo are a gameplay company first. They pursue new ideas and concepts and then write stories to make the players explore the worlds they create.

People still try to make sense of the Zelda timelines to this day but it's a waste of time. There are a lot of contradictions throughout the series and so many questions that will remain unanswered because they simply never had any bigger plan.

I’ve seen the Reddit posts of people complaining about the timeline and what not. It’s such a clear afterthought in the game development I’m not sure why people are so bothered by it.

 

[PeteWorrell]

I’ve seen the Reddit posts of people complaining about the timeline and what not. It’s such a clear afterthought in the game development I’m not sure why people are so bothered by it.

I have no idea honestly. Nintendo games are not known for their writing and they have been that way for decades. Their core philosophy is trying to make fun games while trying to introduce new concepts and ideas. Everything else comes after.

 

[kingsboy11]

For me its fun to think about and theorize, ultimately the timeline is not what makes the Zelda games great. But to be fair, Nintendo does it to itself when it constantly makes references to its previous games and creating the lore the way that they did. Its natural for people wanting to place these games in a particular order.

Although with BotW and TotK it appears to me that they've either given up trying to place these in a timeline or are sort of rebooting the timeline.

 

[PeteWorrell]

For me its fun to think about and theorize, ultimately the timeline is not what makes the Zelda games great. But to be fair, Nintendo does it to itself when it constantly makes references to its previous games and creating the lore the way that they did. Its natural for people wanting to place these games in a particular order.

Although with BotW and TotK it appears to me that they've either given up trying to place these in a timeline or are sort of rebooting the timeline.

I think that they make references as some form of fanservice or easter eggs.

In Breath of the Wild, Urbosa makes a reference to Ocarina of Time by saying that Ganondorf was apparently a Gerudo which is the first game he appears as a humanoid and where the Gerudo first appear too. You then have Zora lore making references to Ruto and her relationship with the Link of that game.

But you also have something like Mikau lake which is the name of a character from Majora's Mask which happens in Termina which is a parallel dimension to Hyrule.

So i just enjoy stuff like that without overthinking it.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

BotW takes place 10,000 years after a previously unmentioned battle with Ganon, which in turn seemingly happened after any other game in the series. BotW, to me, was pretty clearly a soft reboot of the series with everything else relegated to a nebulous mostly forgotten age of legends that lets Nintendo pick and choose what they use.

TotK in turn features the foundation of the Kingdom of Hyrule, but I think it might portray a later Kingdom rather than the one(s) featured in earlier games, tbqh. In other words, the flashbacks might've not been to prior to Skyward Sword. My head canon is that it's referencing something that is simultaneously in the distant future of the earlier games but the distant past of the main time of BotW/TotK while still referencing certain things familar to the past, like another imprisoning war.

BotW/TotK might be set tens of thousands or more years after even Zelda 2.

 

[S E P H]

Just started playing this for the past two weeks and it has been so much fun. Way harder, but so much better than BotW as of now. I should say that the combat feels like it took a big time step back in terms of fluidity, but the introduction of hand elements makes it a lot more fun if that makes sense. I love putting eyes on my arrows or construct horns on my swords.

Anything I should know now or things I should get that will help me in the future? From what I learned in BotW, I am going after my stamina wheel first.

 

[robertmac43]

Anything I should know now or things I should get that will help me in the future? From what I learned in BotW, I am going after my stamina wheel first.

I also just started with this one (finally)... Going all in on Stamina to start, which I did not do during BoTW.

 

[S E P H]

I also just started with this one (finally)... Going all in on Stamina to start, which I did not do during BoTW.

It's not too bad, I finished the first temple (well, the first temple for me anyway) and even though it was a huge chore*, the hand elements you get make it so much easier to get around and climb. They fixed a lot of the issues I had in the first one, but getting at least 2-3 upgrades on stamina makes it a lot easier.







* spoilers: For the people who played the Wind Temple and climbing all the way damn up.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Haven't played it in a few months, as my five year-old son started playing games himself in December and is all about Mario Kart 8, but starting to develop an inch to come back to TotK. No clue if it'll be to wander in my current save file or if it'll be to start a new one, though.

 

[x Tame Impala]

TOTK is a more polished and detailed game than BOTW but I had more fun playing BOTW by far. I liked the narrative simplicity set in a huge and diverse open world that you have to interact with as a core gameplay mechanic. It has just the right amount of survival game + open world RPG + fun combat elements in it and it was balanced perfectly IMO.

TOTK suffers from being on an almost identical map so even though the depths and sky islands are fun there’s not a sense of wonder or purpose exploring Hyrule. Had BOTW never been made and they only released TOTK, I’m certain I would’ve enjoyed TOTK more than I did BOTW (if that makes sense).

 

[LT]

The Depths are new and fun but very monotonous and rather difficult to get around in. I stopped trying to unlock every lightroot because it was too annoying and frustrating.

 

[Soedy]

The Depths are new and fun but very monotonous and rather difficult to get around in. I stopped trying to unlock every lightroot because it was too annoying and frustrating.

It really made it way easier once I used the overworld map on the mini map when exploring the depths. But I agree, they are a bit monotonous.

 

[Andrei79]

The Depths are new and fun but very monotonous and rather difficult to get around in. I stopped trying to unlock every lightroot because it was too annoying and frustrating.

I thought the depths were the anti-BotW. In BotW, I wanted to explore every area thoroughly. Everytime I went to the depths, I was eager to leave. It's a boring area and way too vast for no reason. It was a really poor design choice to make them that way. It seemed like they tried to artificially make the game bigger than it actually was. I kind of wonder if they shouldn't have gone for a different dimension instead, with a completely new map.

 

[LT]

I thought the depths were the anti-BotW. In BotW, I wanted to explore every area thoroughly. Everytime I went to the depths, I was eager to leave. It's a boring area and way too vast for no reason. It was a really poor design choice to make them that way. It seemed like they tried to artificially make the game bigger than it actually was. I kind of wonder if they shouldn't have gone for a different dimension instead, with a completely new map.

It would've made way more sense to me if the depths mirrored the sky islands instead of the entire map.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

I thought the depths were the anti-BotW. In BotW, I wanted to explore every area thoroughly. Everytime I went to the depths, I was eager to leave. It's a boring area and way too vast for no reason. It was a really poor design choice to make them that way. It seemed like they tried to artificially make the game bigger than it actually was. I kind of wonder if they shouldn't have gone for a different dimension instead, with a completely new map.

This is exactly my thought. The whole point of BOTW is that you see something funky in the distance so you go to investigate. In the depths, you literally can't see anything unless you light it up. I never cleared out even close to the entire depths because of that.

 

[x Tame Impala]

This is exactly my thought. The whole point of BOTW is that you see something funky in the distance so you go to investigate. In the depths, you literally can't see anything unless you light it up. I never cleared out even close to the entire depths because of that.

Agreed. As well as traversing the world was a more intimate experience in BOTW. In TOTK you can build a hoverbike that costs like 9 zoanite and get anywhere you wanna go. Kinda sucks the soul out of the world when you no longer have to climb and glide your way around.

 

[S E P H]

TotK is like a trillion times better than BotW. I have done 3 of the 4 temples so far and now I am exploring around and trying to do some of the major sidequests like upgrading my purha pad. I am having so much fun with everything except about 30 to 40% combat battles which is a complete joke and some physics world stuff when it comes to making objects. Combat is so much of a joke at times that I never get frustrated as I would have with other games lol. Besides the jokes, it is a huge step backwards for Nintendo which prides itself on gameplay over anything else (which is what makes it weird considering how bad it is in TotK).

The problem with BotW is that it's just completely barren, so large with nothing to do in large parts of the map. The wells and caves so far in TotK have added so much depth to it and actually made exploring fun and with a purpose. BotW had none of this. E: Also, the shrines are so much better in this game than BotW, I love that you have to use your brain and make objects to beat the shrines. Not that BotW was way different than this, but it turned out to be a lot more convoluted and boring.

Kinda sucks the soul out of the world when you no longer have to climb

Do you like wasting 30% of your time climbing when playing the game one day? I rather not, especially considering how f***ing annoying the wet rocks are. I still climb a lot, but there was way too much in BotW that it got to the point of being Pejorative Slured.

 

[S E P H]

The Depths are new and fun but very monotonous and rather difficult to get around in. I stopped trying to unlock every lightroot because it was too annoying and frustrating.

It was funny to me because I didn't realise why I kept getting so many bright seeds in the first 1/4 of the game and then I did the fire temple and I found out that the "depths" is a thing lol. Yeah, makes sense why I have like 600 bright seeds now, which is about 300 more than my second most item. I haven't found it too monotonous yet, but I think I will eventually get this way the more I play it in the future. I definitely do not plan to ever finish it because some of the lightroot placements that I have experienced so far have been ridiculous. Not ridiculous as in hard, but ridiculous as in time-wasting where I lose interest. I wish they spent the amount of time making the depths in more detailed sky islands instead.