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Pre-Release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Pre-Release Discussion Thread

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Hot take
I am not a huge fan of curry. It seems like people either love it or hate it, but to me it's decidedly mid. It's like one of the most inoffensive things that you can make, that will almost always taste pretty good, but never excellent.
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Also @chocolate_supra
I am sorry my liege of dirtiness. For beating BotW on the Wii U, you are the narliest one of this forum. Nigh, you are the chosen one.
 
Lozjam said:
Hot take
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See but what type of curry have you tried? Each region's curry is wildly different so one night seem bland to you while another hits the spot.

Lozjam said:
Also @chocolate_supra
I am sorry my liege of dirtiness. For beating BotW on the Wii U, you are the narliest one of this forum. Nigh, you are the chosen one.
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HandyDigitalCoypu-size_restricted.gif
 
chocolate_supra said:
See but what type of curry have you tried? Each region's curry is wildly different so one night seem bland to you while another hits the spot.


HandyDigitalCoypu-size_restricted.gif
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I have tried Indian Curry, Japanese Curry, South Korean Curry. Indian curry is definitely my favorite out of all of them, but still. It tastes inoffensive at its worst, and merely alright at its best.

I suppose I haven't tried British curry, but let's be honest here. It's not like the British have improved any recipes since the country was founded.
 
Lozjam said:
I have tried Indian Curry, Japanese Curry, South Korean Curry. Indian curry is definitely my favorite out of all of them, but still. It tastes inoffensive at its worst, and merely alright at its best.

I suppose I haven't tried British curry, but let's be honest here. It's not like the British have improved any recipes since the country was founded.
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Oooooh okay, gotcha. So you are experienced. The only one I've had that's not on your list is Thai curry, which is my favorite and I find it really flavorful but it also needs to be pretty dang spicy for me to be satisfied with it. So ymmv on that one, dunno.
 
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Hot take - the phrase 'I love curry' has so little meaning when considering how many types of 'curry' there are and how different they all are, flavor, texture, protein, etc. Might as well just be saying 'I love food with sauce and spices'.

Also I cannot possibly pick a favorite among them. Having Japanese curry tonight because it's so damn easy to make with a box of my friend S&B.
 
Charamiwa said:
I'm not really joking around myself. Thread is a big bummer right now.
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Gotcha.

Well, BotW's Hyrule is my second favorite overall game world behind Xenoblade 1, my absolute favorite to get lost and spend time in, and I actually felt homesick for Hateno probably a year or so after finishing the game. It's part of what inspired me to go back and do another playthrough. And then another. Hateno is actually one of the first places I wanna check out in TotK to see if they've built it further out.

I'm blown away that I went into the game not liking the idea of any weapon types that weren't "sword," only to end up mostly using spears and the bow because both felt so good, especially with the motion aiming of the bow. I got to a point where I felt most comfortable doing combat on horseback with a bow. And it still "felt" like Zelda, which was what I was afraid weapon choice would goof up. I had nothing to worry about. Absolutely fantastic systems they built for combat, can't wait to see the wild stuff it looks like they're doing with the Arm in TotK.

I loved how most of the Divine Beasts were built in a way to where Hyrule is still out there while you're scaling and exploring them. Really helps keep that sense of being in a vast Hyrule going, that even when you're in these dungeons you're still in that same world. I'd love to see more dungeons like that in TotK, that are open to a degree to keep that sense of place.

I hope that helps. 👍
 
Magic-Man said:
There's a few reasons why I'm not a huge fan of Hyrule, but I understand that it's all subjective.

1. All the biomes in the game are generic, other than one area (Rito Village). There's not a whole lot to them. I'd actually use Mario Odyssey for inspiration here. The Sand Kingdom has a beautiful village, pyramids, and an icy cave. Meanwhile, the Gerudo Desert is a barren wasteland. It's boring. The Wooded Kingdom has a garden industrial area and a dark section underneath. The woods in BOTW are just basic woods. There's nothing to the biomes in BOTW.

2. The animals and enemies stay nearly the same across every biome. The only area I can think of with unique encounters is the Gerudo Desert, with the Molduga and sand seals. The same enemies is copy pasted across every other biome, just with a different color scheme (and not even that half the time).

3. The shrines are completely separate from the game world, which is a HUGE missed opportunity for some great environmental puzzles and structures. For example, the dungeons in Elden Ring are connected to the game world. It feels more cohesive.

4. There's a lack of unique settings/encounters. Don't get me wrong, there's a few here and there (Thyphlo Ruins, Yiga Clan hideout, Eventide Island, the target range near Rito Village), but there's not nearly enough. Sometimes I don't want a shrine. I want an interesting location with unique enemies and mechanics. This actually ties into my previous point. Imagine if the shrines were their own unique locations.

5. The towns suck. Super basic, with no interesting structures or unique locations (sense a pattern here?).
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This is exactly the kind of stuff I was trying to get at earlier, glad some other people agree. Really, I think Botw did just enough so that you could reasonably go through the first half of the play through with little fatigue. But by the time you reach every corner of the map, you realize that there simply isn't uniqueness to the areas of the world. Mario Odyssey was a great comparison, my favorite thing about that game is the sheer variety in world concepts. Obviously here, everything needs to be connected but man being honest with myself I just don't find the standard grassy areas and forest all that appealing after a while. They're definitely great at first, but it does wear thin. There are even pseudo swamp areas with run down towns but even those just start blending in for me, I don't know. This is kind of the reason I'm a little concerned about reusing the map of the first game, because, it does have a lot of potential in terms of the amount of time they may have allotted in the mechanical aspects of the game, we're in the same hyrule here, with the whole ruined wilds aesthetic. Granted, we have seen a very limited amount of footage of the sky islands, but what we have seen is that they continue that same type of aesthetic just in sky form. I absolutely love the art style and ruined structure thing in botw, but it does feel like we've been with it for quit a long time at this point. It's just that I think about hmm, what if this was an entirely new land with strange villages, architecture and inhabitants. And it just seems preferable on a surface level. I can't pass judgement though, because obviously there's a lot they haven't revealed so far. I will say though, I do think the actual structure of the world is brilliantly designed, after climbing over basically everything and existing for so long in it I know the world map pretty damn well, especially for a game I haven't replayed.
 
Magic-Man said:
There's a few reasons why I'm not a huge fan of Hyrule, but I understand that it's all subjective.

1. All the biomes in the game are generic, other than one area (Rito Village). There's not a whole lot to them. I'd actually use Mario Odyssey for inspiration here. The Sand Kingdom has a beautiful village, pyramids, and an icy cave. Meanwhile, the Gerudo Desert is a barren wasteland. It's boring. The Wooded Kingdom has a garden industrial area and a dark section underneath. The woods in BOTW are just basic woods. There's nothing to the biomes in BOTW.

2. The animals and enemies stay nearly the same across every biome. The only area I can think of with unique encounters is the Gerudo Desert, with the Molduga and sand seals. The same enemies is copy pasted across every other biome, just with a different color scheme (and not even that half the time).

3. The shrines are completely separate from the game world, which is a HUGE missed opportunity for some great environmental puzzles and structures. For example, the dungeons in Elden Ring are connected to the game world. It feels more cohesive.

4. There's a lack of unique settings/encounters. Don't get me wrong, there's a few here and there (Thyphlo Ruins, Yiga Clan hideout, Eventide Island, the target range near Rito Village), but there's not nearly enough. Sometimes I don't want a shrine. I want an interesting location with unique enemies and mechanics. This actually ties into my previous point. Imagine if the shrines were their own unique locations.

5. The towns suck. Super basic, with no interesting structures or unique locations (sense a pattern here?).
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Imagine forgetting about the fire ostriches on Death Mountain.
 
Charamiwa said:
Hey I have an idea to get us excited for TotK, let's just shit endlessly on BotW.
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Bruh, botw has an 97 on metacritic, has sold 30 million copies, won IGN's greatest game of all time event among with multiple others, etc, etc. Its legacy among the general populace and average gamer as one of the GOAT's is sealed. No need to get butthurt that not 100% of people agree, there's no opinion on Earth that will be 100% supported.
 
Magic-Man said:
Yeah, just simple enemy/animal variety between biomes would do a lot for general game feel. Make me afraid to enter an area because of the animals there. Have high level enemies with high level loot as a risk/reward scenario. Not simple sword/shield/bow enemies either. Have some attack me from the sky. Some breathe fire or ice. Others lay traps or hide themselves (not using camouflage either). The Hinox, Guardians, and Lynels are great examples of this, but they're everywhere in the game so they lose their impact.

Have me stumble across a structure, think it's a puzzle, then lock me inside with a unique enemy. Statues can come to life. That's not a tree you idiot now run. Oh shit that's a dragon IT'S HEADING RIGHT TOWARDS ME FU-
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OK but like, these exist? Wizzrobes attack from the sky, Lizalfos have fire and ice breath. The variants are also typically locked or at least generally to specific areas too, iirc

I mean there could be more done to differentiate said areas, I suppose, but it's not like this exact variation doesn't exist
 
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Doomedtacox said:
Bruh, botw has an 97 on metacritic, has sold 30 million copies, won IGN's greatest game of all time event among with multiple others, etc, etc. Its legacy among the general populace and average gamer as one of the GOAT's is sealed. No need to get butthurt that not 100% of people agree, there's no opinion on Earth that will be 100% supported.
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I've been following this game discourse since day one, don't worry I know all about its reception and the common criticism leveled against it over and over. It hasn't changed since 2017 (actually shitting on the world design might be a new one, baffling to me). It just feels so damn pointless, nothing new is being said, nobody is coming up with never before seen criticisms that will alter the discourse in this thread... It just mean that I had to read pages of the same tired discourse at a time where we're so close to a brand new game in the franchise. And by the way regurgitating the things we love about BotW would be just as tiring, but thankfully we don't have to worry about that it seems.

If that's really vital for some of you to get your very original takes in now of all time then I guess no problem I'll leave you guys to it and just hope for Nintendo to show more of the game, not because I want to know more but because it might actually make Zelda discussion bearable again.
 
Magic-Man said:
There's a few reasons why I'm not a huge fan of Hyrule, but I understand that it's all subjective.

1. All the biomes in the game are generic, other than one area (Rito Village). There's not a whole lot to them. I'd actually use Mario Odyssey for inspiration here. The Sand Kingdom has a beautiful village, pyramids, and an icy cave. Meanwhile, the Gerudo Desert is a barren wasteland. It's boring. The Wooded Kingdom has a garden industrial area and a dark section underneath. The woods in BOTW are just basic woods. There's nothing to the biomes in BOTW.

2. The animals and enemies stay nearly the same across every biome. The only area I can think of with unique encounters is the Gerudo Desert, with the Molduga and sand seals. The same enemies is copy pasted across every other biome, just with a different color scheme (and not even that half the time).

3. The shrines are completely separate from the game world, which is a HUGE missed opportunity for some great environmental puzzles and structures. For example, the dungeons in Elden Ring are connected to the game world. It feels more cohesive.

4. There's a lack of unique settings/encounters. Don't get me wrong, there's a few here and there (Thyphlo Ruins, Yiga Clan hideout, Eventide Island, the target range near Rito Village), but there's not nearly enough. Sometimes I don't want a shrine. I want an interesting location with unique enemies and mechanics. This actually ties into my previous point. Imagine if the shrines were their own unique locations.

5. The towns suck. Super basic, with no interesting structures or unique locations (sense a pattern here?).
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To be honest this is a problem with open world games in general, and how most of them are pretty grounded. I mean you’re comparing it to a whimsical platformer with much more leeway for environmental variety

I think if we get a new “kingdom” in a future Zelda game, it’ll fall into the same trappings really. I mean look at Spirit Tracks, the brand new land link ended up in after Wind Waker was… the exact same biomes lol. Even Majora’s Mask, noted for being a bizarro universe to OoT tonally was also… ice land, desert land, ocean land, swamp land.

The goal would have to be specifically aiming for weird environments - which is why I always wanted a “dark world” of BotW’s Hyrule or something along those lines. Something that provides an surefire excuse to get really weird with the environments. At least in terms of structure, the sky islands are giving a bit of that what with all the Death Stars and mechanical islands we’ve glimpsed

That being said, agree with the complaints about creature variety and all that.
 
Charamiwa said:
I've been following this game discourse since day one, don't worry I know all about its reception and the common criticism leveled against it over and over. It hasn't changed since 2017 (actually shitting on the world design might be a new one, baffling to me). It just feels so damn pointless, nothing new is being said, nobody is coming up with never before seen criticisms that will alter the discourse in this thread... It just mean that I had to read pages of the same tired discourse at a time where we're so close to a brand new game in the franchise. And by the way regurgitating the things we love about BotW would be just as tiring, but thankfully we don't have to worry about that it seems.

If that's really vital for some of you to get your very original takes in now of all time then I guess no problem I'll leave you guys to it and just hope for Nintendo to show more of the game, not because I want to know more but because it might actually make Zelda discussion bearable again.
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This complaint just feels kinda pointless on a discussion thread for the new Zelda game. I mean, the entire reason I joined this forum earlier today was I haven't put much serious thought into my general feelings on ways they can/ possibly have improved Tears. Highlighting issues with it is a key way to see what you want improved. Maybe you've seen these same arguments regurgitated a lot since 2017, but me personally I haven't really put much thought into until recently. I just began to wonder, why haven't I been able to complete a replay of the game? And then thought of criticisms for me personally. You're welcome to skip past the discussion, you don't have to engage until there's actually new info on the game. But idk, don't what the big deal with restating opinions is when that was what lead to the creation of the original game in the first place. Idk, I don't see the problem discussing it when it seems like there are a lot of people with similar feelings and a lot of people with opposite feelings.
 
Charamiwa said:
I've been following this game discourse since day one, don't worry I know all about its reception and the common criticism leveled against it over and over. It hasn't changed since 2017 (actually shitting on the world design might be a new one, baffling to me). It just feels so damn pointless, nothing new is being said, nobody is coming up with never before seen criticisms that will alter the discourse in this thread... It just mean that I had to read pages of the same tired discourse at a time where we're so close to a brand new game in the franchise. And by the way regurgitating the things we love about BotW would be just as tiring, but thankfully we don't have to worry about that it seems.

If that's really vital for some of you to get your very original takes in now of all time then I guess no problem I'll leave you guys to it and just hope for Nintendo to show more of the game, not because I want to know more but because it might actually make Zelda discussion bearable again.
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This is the sequel we're talking about, of course people are gonna bring up what they hope is improved
 
We have no tolerance for the use of "woke" as a pejorative against progressive elements in media. You are receiving a ban for three weeks. - PixelKnight, Aurc, Derachi
zamto said:
If tears of the kingdom becomes the most disappointing game this year it’ll be so tragically funny.
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No way, that award belongs to Forswoken.
 
Nintendo please don't learn anything from ER other than enemy variety please

a. Grinding for runes to level up was tedious, felt like a chore.

b. Could't freely use weapons and armors I found because my build did't allow me to, which felt stupid and unrewarding, Wanna use those cool gears? better go grind for more runes or respec. Ughhh!

c. An open world visually stunning but lack of interactivity (can't even swim in ER, one of the most basic environmental interactions in any open world game)

d. Dungeons, caves and catacombs with little to no puzzles, besides some minor puzzle solving, all I could do was combat, loot and combat more, felt super repetitive and boring.

e. No towns with normal NPCs, everyone's either crazy or wants to kill you. Normal NPCs have no routine either, they all just act like quest machines, only appear in designated places for players to progress quests. You don't really see them actually moving around doing their own things. Such a dated open world design.

If not for the epic boss fights in the legacy dungeons, I don't think I could even finish the game tbh, one of the most disappointing gaming experiences I had last year.
 
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When TotK was announced in 2019, the pitch of "here's some more botw! Same link and Zelda, same artstyle, same hyrule, some extra stuff!" was appealing, because BotW was great and a sequel sounded cool.

But that was four years ago. Botw was now six years ago. Replaying botw a few times means that more of is gameplay doesn't have the same automatic appeal as it did back in 2019, and AoC already gave me more of its world and characters.

What made TotK appealing in the first place doesn't hit the same way four years later. After six years I'm hungry for a big new Zelda experience, and so far Nintendo just aren't showing me what's new. "Remember those goofy YouTube videos about people glitching minecarts into the sky? Well now that's a core part of the gameplay loop" is new, I guess, but I'm not really into it. Just because those videos are fun to watch doesn't mean it'll be fun to play. Right now it feels like a delayed two year later sequel, and we're going to have to wait even longer for the real new experience.

Im sure there's probably things about this game they could show that would change my perspective here. But so far they've been in no hurry to do that.
 
I really love seeing how diverse the opinions are in this thread. I think there's a lot to learn from what others value in their gaming experiences.

---

Also, anytime I hear that the sky islands are not going to add that much in terms of explorable area it makes me wanna work harder at finishing that island compilation I promised! 😅

Truth be told, I've gone through a number of procedures lately and have been on some pretty heavy pain meds, making it hard to have the energy for this project. It sucks though because I'm just sitting right now on 54 high definition images of sky islands from marketing screenshots, the last trailer, and title reveal teaser.

To report on the progress of this project: I've compiled all the images I need, ran them all through an AI upscaler, and did some map shenanigans using the 3D model of Hyrule made by "v7x" on Sketchfab, which allowed me to identify a lot of the sky islands and where they're at.

I still have more sky islands to locate and identify, and I wanna go through and enhance the images further to get the finer details to show up. Regardless, trust me when I say (as someone who has probably looked at sky islands a little bit too much!) that in total there's way more 'surface area' to explore than you'd think.

Also, I posted this in the spoiler thread a couple of days ago, but u/CryZe92 of Reddit managed to make this really awesome chart where they found the rough size of the great plateau's equivalent in the sky (basically what we think is going to be TotK's tutorial area as a sky island).

 
Decoyman said:
I'm not particularly fond of Elden Ring's open world design. I like it visually but the game's topography is a weak spot for me. On top of rarely ever feeling like I can create my own route to multiple points of interest, it does a less-than-optimal job highlighting points of interest that aren't legacy dungeons. Catacombs is something that feels like you only find by pure accident.

Zelda related: I'm watching a friend play BOTW blind for the first time right now and seeing them jerry-rig a faux-"motor" to a raft by using Magnesis and a treasure chest is pretty funny and novel to look at.
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One of the more quietly disappointing aspects of Elden Ring was the field level design. Coming from FROM, I expected best in class stuff, but what we got was merely above average. While they may excel at crafting intricate dungeon-like environments to explore, I think they're pretty clearly outclassed by Monolith when it comes to large outdoor spaces. To me, Elden Ring has several things that create/exacerbate the issue:
  • Torrent is way too convenient to use all the time. There's almost no reason for you to go on foot because they designed Torrent to be agile enough to reach almost anywhere in the game. This leads to you mostly darting from place to place on horseback. You can also see this in how flat everything is. Most things you are interested in finding are at the edges of the level geometry:
  • Almost all things of interest i.e. the caves, catacombs, and mines have entrances that are built directly into the side of cliff faces. This means that you can find most of the side content in the game by simply running alongside the edge of any cliff you find. You even have 'repeating' level design in each area where, if you follow the side of the area, you'll always find some random path leading you down a bit to a catacomb. Since this the Zelda thread, I'll contrast with Shrines, which are free standing structures, meaning they can be found anywhere. Backed up against a cliff, out in the middle of a field, in the middle of a forest, etc. This is probably the biggest strike against Elden Ring's level design for me.
  • Lack of player movement options. You can walk, run, jump, and ride Torrent, which is pretty limiting to the level design. You can tell they they were aware of this, too, because they kind of try to work around it in some instances, and its telling that those are some of my favorite pieces of level design in the game. For example, there's a pretty cool 'oh shit' moment early on in the game where you enter a cave and come out the other end on an island you couldn't access before. Another time it happens and you find a new Divine Tower you couldn't access before, which feels amazing. There needed to be much, much more of that.
Lirunia of the Lakes is the worst example of what I've described above. It's huge, flat, and almost nothing of interest is found in the center swamp portion which makes up like 70% of the level geometry.

So yeah, while FROM is still probably best in the industry at designing levels overall, I think they've got some work to do on their field design.
 
GamerInHeart said:
Nintendo please don't learn anything from ER other than enemy variety please

a. Grinding for runes to level up was tedious, felt like a chore.

b. Could't freely use weapons and armors I found because my build did't allow me to, which felt stupid and unrewarding, Wanna use those cool gears? better go grind for more runes or respec. Ughhh!

c. An open world visually stunning but lack of interactivity (can't even swim in ER, one of the most basic environmental interactions in any open world game)

d. Dungeons, caves and catacombs with little to no puzzles, besides some minor puzzle solving, all I could do was combat, loot and combat more, felt super repetitive and boring.

e. No towns with normal NPCs, everyone's either crazy or wants to kill you. Normal NPCs have no routine either, they all just act like quest machines, only appear in designated places for players to progress quests. You don't really see them actually moving around doing their own things. Such a dated open world design.

If not for the epic boss fights in the legacy dungeons, I don't think I could even finish the game tbh, one of the most disappointing gaming experiences I had last year.
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Those RPG mechanics you're describing (levelling up, grinding to level up, character builds limiting your equipment) are the worst part of Souls games, I agree.

I think BOTW as a whole was a big middle finger to that RPG philosophy. You can tell it ticked off a certain pocket of players when people still can't come to terms with the fact that weapons in that game break after a few minutes of combat, as opposed to being something you grind upgrades for so it can do +50% damage.
 
One thing I knew I wanted in the BotW sequel was og Zelda bosses lurking in the overworld; mainly after seeing their names pop up across Hyrule and thinking how cool it would be to encounter something like Dodongo out in the wild.

Got to say I was pretty chuffed to see Gleeok guarding the bridge in the last trailer. Neat.
Dardan Sandiego said:
Searing hot take, but I just like the vibes in BotW's world.
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Vibes-based gaming is pretty essential in today's world I think.
 
GAWD I'm so ready for enormous underground biomes.

brainchild said:
I wish people could just accept the fact that some of us just literally don't give a shit that you can approach a goal a billion different ways or play in a sandbox. That isn't appealing to every Zelda fan, and certainly not to me.

I'm going back and forth between BOTW and Skyward Sword and I'm enjoying Skyward Sword a lot more and it's just because the design philosophy is different. I want gameplay with purpose, not user generated content. I don't want to rely on my imagination, I want well-crafted level design with clear authorship and intent from the designers. I still enjoy BOTW, but its replayability doesn't mean much if it's boring most of the time. I don't have that issue replaying traditional Zelda games.

That being said, I understand that my opinion is just my opinion and don't try to convince other people that their opinions are wrong just because their tastes are different.
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As someone who adores both BotW and SS, but came from it from the opposite angle (BotW first - it got me back into the medium even!), I can see where you're coming from. I think both games focus on a single core aspect of the Zelda experience at the expense of the other: BotW is The Overworld Game, while SS is The Dungeons Game.

Personally BotW clicked so much for me because I enjoy the exploratory aspect of Zelda more than the puzzle-solving aspect. BotW's feeling of player agency is enormous, and the developers seem to have been exceptionally mindful of respecting the player's time and intelligence. It's a very humble game, in that sense.

SS worked for me afterwards because I knew BotW was awesome, and I was able to let go of my need for The Overworld Game.

Interestingly, my favourite part of both games is when they touch upon the strengths of the other: SS' Sand Sea is more exploratory than the rest of the game (if only in feel, because essentially it's still linear), while BotW's Hyrule Castle is a wide-linear dungeon.

Anyways, as I've been saying for a while: if TotK reuses Hyrule to flesh it out with reams of meaningful indoor locations on the quality level of SS' dungeons... That's enough to be excited on it's own.

no more minidungeons with the same bloody looks please ktx
carlosfilho said:
I've only played BOTW once. It's my favorite Zelda game and i thought about playing it again, but it's such a huge game that going through all of it again feels like a chore. After finishing the DLC and the shrines, i thought "well, that's it, i think i got all i wanted from this game, it's time to put my attention on something else", and that's what i did.
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I've hundreds upon hundreds of hours in BotW, between my original playthrough, Master Mode, a playthrough with the kid, a three-hearts playthrough etc.. Only in one of those I completed every shrine - the others I approached BotW more as a buffet table; restart, jump off a different point on the plateau, mess around, fight Ganon. For me that works amazingly well (the "audiovisual massage" feeling BotW gives me probably helps too. 🤤)
Magic-Man said:
Hyrule isn't a very interesting world. I'd take most other game worlds over it. The mechanics in BOTW completely carry the game.
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Certain sections of Hyrule feel nigh-unfinished. The Hebra region is a fun snowboarding location, but a slog otherwise. The slopes of Death Mountain - when you're not on the "intended path" - feel like climbing on barren texture maps. The Gerudo Desert section of the game is weird.

That being said, as a whole Hyrule works very well for me. They nailed the landmarks to make it navigable without a map (Castle, Twin Peaks, Death Mountain, cliffsides, cherry blossoms, light shafts etc.), it's got enormous emotional range (comparing Hateno to Faron to Hyrule Castle to Death Mountain...) and there's a surprising amount of thoughtful level design that most players will probably glide over. I hope TotK will improve on the unevenness.

karmitt said:
If Nintendo decided to add more tangible numbers go up I erm...would not be mad. I very much enjoyed leveling up my armor sets, and not allowing us to level up the DLC armor sets was absolute nonsense.
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Something I appreciate from Nintendo's internal games is that they usually try to make progression visible in a non-numbers kind of way. BotW was going into RPG territory with the weapon and armour stats, which I don't mind per se, but if they can find a way to make progression more directly tangible I'd prefer that. So upgrades to regular attacks, amount of arrows shot, new abilities gained etc..
 
Those Hyrule Discovery Journey guides that Nintendo is releasing are so bizarre. I personally wouldn't want people to remember what they played in BotW unless there were massive changes to it in TotK. And from what we've seen it's largely the same.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
Those Hyrule Discovery Journey guides that Nintendo is releasing are so bizarre. I personally wouldn't want people to remember what they played in BotW unless there were massive changes to it in TotK. And from what we've seen it's largely the same.
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Timeskip of a few years and dimension mashup or timeshift stone shenanigans will do that to a Hyrule?
 
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VegiHam said:
When TotK was announced in 2019, the pitch of "here's some more botw! Same link and Zelda, same artstyle, same hyrule, some extra stuff!" was appealing, because BotW was great and a sequel sounded cool.

But that was four years ago. Botw was now six years ago. Replaying botw a few times means that more of is gameplay doesn't have the same automatic appeal as it did back in 2019, and AoC already gave me more of its world and characters.

What made TotK appealing in the first place doesn't hit the same way four years later. After six years I'm hungry for a big new Zelda experience, and so far Nintendo just aren't showing me what's new. "Remember those goofy YouTube videos about people glitching minecarts into the sky? Well now that's a core part of the gameplay loop" is new, I guess, but I'm not really into it. Just because those videos are fun to watch doesn't mean it'll be fun to play. Right now it feels like a delayed two year later sequel, and we're going to have to wait even longer for the real new experience.

Im sure there's probably things about this game they could show that would change my perspective here. But so far they've been in no hurry to do that.
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This pretty much nails my feelings. I’m not part of the ‘TotK is just glorified DLC’ brigade, but the truth of the matter is this is 6 years in the waiting, and 12 years since our last 3D Zelda with traditional dungeons.

Honestly, if the ‘big blowout’ is just the ZOLED reveal and a ten second clip of link entering a structure and opening a chest with a small key/key item in it, that would probably satisfy me until May 12th. Anything that soft-confirms dungeons basically!
 
I like reading those guides and since I'm optimistic, I like to think that Nintendo wants players to refresh their memories about locations in BoTW so when ToTK comes out, we will see how much things have changed.
 
BloodMoon said:
This pretty much nails my feelings. I’m not part of the ‘TotK is just glorified DLC’ brigade, but the truth of the matter is this is 6 years in the waiting, and 12 years since our last 3D Zelda with traditional dungeons.

Honestly, if the ‘big blowout’ is just the ZOLED reveal and a ten second clip of link entering a structure and opening a chest with a small key/key item in it, that would probably satisfy me until May 12th. Anything that soft-confirms dungeons basically!
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Yeah, I expect there probably is more to the game, and that I will enjoy it a lot come may.

I also think Nintendo know a lot more than I do about how to market a video game, and I expect their approach will work and make them lots of money in game sales. Nevertheless, despite the logic, I'm not feeling the hype right now personally.
 
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Dardan Sandiego said:
Those Hyrule Discovery Journey guides that Nintendo is releasing are so bizarre. I personally wouldn't want people to remember what they played in BotW unless there were massive changes to it in TotK. And from what we've seen it's largely the same.
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We haven't seen shit

But having them coming out at a pace that won't be over until after the sequel comes out is pretty funny. I guess they will switch to weekly for the last 3 or so.
 
Lozjam said:
I have tried Indian Curry, Japanese Curry, South Korean Curry. Indian curry is definitely my favorite out of all of them, but still. It tastes inoffensive at its worst, and merely alright at its best.

I suppose I haven't tried British curry, but let's be honest here. It's not like the British have improved any recipes since the country was founded.
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British curry is essentially just Indian curry though? If you've had a Chicken Tikka Masala, then you've had a "British" curry.
 
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BloodMoon said:
This pretty much nails my feelings. I’m not part of the ‘TotK is just glorified DLC’ brigade, but the truth of the matter is this is 6 years in the waiting, and 12 years since our last 3D Zelda with traditional dungeons.

Honestly, if the ‘big blowout’ is just the ZOLED reveal and a ten second clip of link entering a structure and opening a chest with a small key/key item in it, that would probably satisfy me until May 12th. Anything that soft-confirms dungeons basically!
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I only took some small peeks at the artbook leak thread, but aren't dungeons already soft-confirmed?
 
Imagine talking about British curry without ever having set foot in a Manchester or Birmingham curry house. Pfft!

Anyway, I'm listening to this today and thinking that I'm going to have to find some time to tour BotW Hyrule before Tears comes out.
 
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Mind you, i didn't look at the artbook leaks, but about traditional dungeons in TotK ... i think it's likely that there's (at least more) traditional dungeons in the game.
Not 100% like you know and love them from any previous 3D Zelda, but close to that.

You could see that even for BotW, the team tried to come up and implement dungeons there. What do you think those three "random" big ass labyrinths are?
They're 100% re-purposed from "How can we do 3D Zelda dungeons in the BotW gameplay?"-test runs.

;D
 
Stinky Horse said:
We haven't seen shit

But having them coming out at a pace that won't be over until after the sequel comes out is pretty funny. I guess they will switch to weekly for the last 3 or so.
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We've seen in the few snippets that the topography is largely unchanged from BotW, the question is whether sky islands, underground caverns and additional structures are the only thing they've added or if there's more that they're hiding. Releasing this series now while they're leading up to TotK's release only makes sense to me if they want to refamiliarize people with the world of BotW in order to highlight the differences.
 
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Jencks said:
No. Anyone setting themselves up for ‘traditional’ dungeons is setting themselves up for disappointment.
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Huh? By traditional dungeons what do you mean? Traditional dungeons in the sense that they are themed, have dungeon items, and are a part of the main world are absolutely back. It's pretty much confirmed with the artbook.

For those who haven't seen the leaks and aren't interested in seeing them, just remember that the Zelda team does pay attention to criticism. I mean, I think it's evident in the fact that BotW came out directly after Skyward Sword.
 
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