• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

Spoiler The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Pre-Release Spoiler Discussion Thread (Tag Story Spoilers)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reader mode
Awesomegames23 said:
@Meelow is it cool with you to give my post, #2310, a threadmark with something like, “Spoiler Tag Rules” since the game might be leaking in like 5-6 hours. Some guy who got the Sword and Shield game(s) and streamed them about a week before release is saying he is going to stream TotK soon.
Click to expand...

Yeah! How do you do it?
 
0
Yeah this sounds great! I think the only thing missing which I wanted was underwater areas/swimming but it sounds like this has been packed out with content so I can’t complain haha
 
0
Shiba said:
I will say that looking past the new info and exciting, performance is still a worry as it looks like frame drops are far more recurring than BOTW, even simple fights seem to have some notable drops.
Click to expand...

If your benchmark is the leaks, I'd wait for actual switch hardware footage before making the claim. But for sure, the game does have frame drops mostly when you use an ability, go in and out of menus and during explosions
 
0
I'm not following any of the spoilers - especially not story spoilers - but if anyone knows where the hell the 4th shrine is on the Great Sky Island let me know, lol. I keep passing over the bloody map marker and can't tell whether the shrine is above or below me. I've just beaten that guardian that transforms into a cube.

EDIT re performance: I'm playing on Switch itself and there are def frame drops. Not enough to bother me, but I've seen two bad ones so far. The visuals are a far bigger issue for me - coming from XSX open world games it's just shocking how muddy and low-res everything looks. I'm sure pixel peepers will be able to say all the ways it's visually advanced from BotW but aside from a bit of a res bump it really does look the same. Immediately wished I could be playing this on the next Switch, but waiting would spoil everything.
 
0
Just read through this thread and a lot of mixed thoughts

Has there been any confirmation if that leaked map is all we have? Very disappointing if after all the marketing that the tutorial island is the biggest one we'll explore

I had a strong suspicion that 5-6 dungeons total was all we're gonna get, but a bit disappointed to see it confirmed. Fantastic to hear that the dungeon theming is a bit more distinct though. Do we know what the final dungeon is because please I really hope it isn't Hyrule Castle again.

Have we figured out what caves are? Are they like shrines and puzzles or just Bokoblin camps or something? Apparently there are hundreds of them, which is exciting to hear.

Feel like a lot of the popular speculation like underwater, Minish, moon, etc all don't have any confirmation and probably don't exist in the game. Stuff like Minish and the moon seemed like a stretch to begin with so I hardly feel disappointed, but the lack of a basic Zelda concept like underwater after a second attempt at this map would be very disappointing.

By far the most exciting addition and one that shatters most expectations is the Depths. My only real concern is whether the area is as aesthetically diverse and has as much stuff to do as the overworld. If the depths all look the same with the dark cave aesthetic, a lack of major terrain changes/shrines/caves and a sparsity of NPCs and villages, it could get old fast.
 
Thinking some more about the leaked sky island and underground maps...

Assuming that this is the final map with no further additions it's interesting that there are large stretches of sky that are completely devoid of any floating structures, for example the entire area around the canyon in Tabantha Frontier that leads up to the Forgotten Temple or most of the Gerudo Desert. Even if we take vertical space into account, the islands aren't even close to the size of the overworld unless there's another level above it that we haven't seen yet.

It makes me think that the sky island plane isn't meant to be this huge interconnected world like the surface was in BotW. You most likely won't be able to start on the structure above Eventide Island and go all the way to Hebra without touching the ground until much later in the game once you've gotten several upgrades, if at all. Rather, these seem to be more "pocket-sized" areas with a more traditional and restrictive design ethos akin to older Zelda titles and in some way like (literally) open-air shrines.

The depths seem to have the complete opposite approach that is closer to BotW including several large structures. However, the chasms, dark/light mechanic and malice pools will ensure that navigating the depths will be rather different from the overworld. The map also seems to suggest that there are some closed off areas that can only be accessed from the surface so we will have to take that into account as well. Frankly, the fact that they just added a BotW-sized map and completely downplayed it in the marketing is absolutely nuts.

Just based on this my knee-jerk reaction is similar to everyone else's: The depths seem to be a much bigger deal than the sky islands. Frankly, I'm also a bit disappointed that none of the island clusters come close to the Great Sky Island in size (I guess the name gave it away...). But I think it makes more sense to think of the three planes we know of as three maps that will play out very differently from each other and all embody different aspects of Zelda gameplay. It's the most exciting revelation to me so far.
 
Gutanoth said:
The size of the sky, if this is really all there is, is a huge disappointment to me.
Click to expand...
Why do you think, because:
What I understand from the previewers was that the size of the sky island are almost that big as the floor level.
Also:
  • Underground as big as the mainland
  • 150 Shrines (more as botw)
  • 100 Caves
  • Extra special shrines beside the 150
  • 7 dungeons but not confirmed yet.
 
Advator said:
Why do you think, because:
What I understand from the previewers was that the size of the sky island are almost that big as the floor level.
Also:
  • Underground as big as the mainland
  • 150 Shrines (more as botw)
  • 100 Caves
  • Extra special shrines beside the 150
  • 7 dungeons but not confirmed yet.
Click to expand...
The sky islands being as big as the floor level doens't seem to be the case, does it?
 
0
Lugia667 said:
size isn't everything and other areas more than make up for it anyways
Click to expand...

yeah I think even best case scenario people were expecting something maybe along the lines of an underground a bit bigger than the size the sky islands look to be and sky islands a bit smaller than the underground looks to be

just so happens that they got flipped
 
I never expected the sky islands to be comparable to the surface in Hyrule, given its nature. They are designed more as puzzles than as terrain to explore. But even with that in mind, that map of the sky seems too little. Hoping that there is a second tier of the skies, the heaven, where there are some meaningful islands and maybe even a town.
 
Lugia667 said:
size isn't everything and other areas more than make up for it anyways
Click to expand...

I like the aesthetics of the islands waaaaay more than that of the undergound. For a game that focussed the marketing mainly on the islands, I was hoping to have way more islands to explore.
 
Gutanoth said:
If you clump all the sky islands together, they don't even fill up the skies above the gerudo desert
Click to expand...
That doesn't make sense as those are vertical alligned as well. The map doesn't provide you a clear view on how big it actual is. That said, no one expect to be as big as the mainland. Which is good, i don't want to fill my sky where the sky isn't visible because of islands. In the begining of the game, you'll fall from a far far height. This means that the height or the vertical alligned islands can be more than we think. The right awnser is just : i dont know...
 
0
Just wait until the game comes out before judging the islands by a 2D Map. There is always enough time to be disappointed afterwards. No need for narratives like "misleading advertisment".
 
Do we know how many new towns there are? Avoiding most spoilers
 
0
A lot of the most prominent islands are so vertically stacked that they appear as tiny squares here (such as the large Sky tower things).

The sky does definitely look sparse still and I'm holding out hope for another layer on top, but the map is definitely not fully representative of the total sky island size
 
Underwhelming sky map? Tears of the Kingdom 🤝 Skyward Sword!

(emphasis on the map for totk, I concur that it's much more than meets the eye)
 
0
The part of the prerelease discussion where I dipped out was a month ago where Skittzo and others were claiming the sky islands would amount to 80-90% of the ground area, and that you could tell that from the footage we've seen. When others pushed back the consensus (measured by "yeahs", lol) was firmly against us.

The discussion moved to "vertical levels and z-planes" and I was like, no thank you. Funny to see that we're back to that argument having seen the map.

I'm playing the game and looking out into the sky - it's just as sparse as it looked in the trailers, and that's exactly what the map reflects. Yes, there are some heavily vertically stacked islands, but there's no way that can make up for the general sparseness to the point that there's 80-90% of the playable ground area.
 
after they essentially doubled the size of the overworld seeing people still complain about sparsity is...something.....

This game isn't lacking content, at all
 
Last edited:
I'm in the middle of a class and all I can think of is this game. Think I'm gonna rent it to play it closed to launch as there's no way for me to have savings for buying the game or a voucher, and even if it got into sale which will happen in one year at the earliest it'll still be really expensive.
 
0
Am I wrong or was something said about the map maybe changing as you play? I wonder if there might end up being more sky islands or something like that. No one is very far into the game yet.
 
Sky Island size worry completely faded when we got the Depths confirmed for me.

I’m sure everything up there has a purpose and will be engaging, and if you wanted straight up more land to explore, they just doubled BotW’s map size underground lol
 
Cubs017 said:
Am I wrong or was something said about the map maybe changing as you play? I wonder if there might end up being more sky islands or something like that. No one is very far into the game yet.
Click to expand...
I also wonder this given weve seen some sky islands in and out of shots. But no one has answered whenever I asked.
 
0
Lugia667 said:
after they essentially doubled the size of the overworld seeing people still complain about sparsity is...something.....

This game isn't lacking content, at all
Click to expand...
If they added 100 more tests of strength, we could say:

Hey, the amount of shrines is almost doubled, this game isn't lacking shrines, at all

Which is the same as saying people complain about sparsity of sky islands and then using the underground as an argument.

I was looking forward to a lot of sky islands to explore. Not a lot of dark, gloomy, moletunnels to explore.
 
The sky islands are their own thing. The level design in the sky is very structured and filled with puzzles. Trust me when I tell you that you'll want the whole sky filled with islands no more than you would want the ocean surface filled with islands, it just doesn't make sense for the medium through which you're traversing.

Everything I've seen about this game so far suggest that the developers have given a lot of thought to its design, and while I can't say for sure until I play it, it seems to be a masterclass in open world level design, and each layer of the game world was designed for a different purpose. I am so excited to play this game!
 
I'd like to see more of the Depths before fully celebrating. If it has the exact same visual style throughout, and the rewards aren't compelling, then it's gonna be hard for me to care much.

Not saying both of those are true, I seriously doubt they are, but I'd like to see more nonetheless.
 
Thunder84 said:
I'd like to see more of the Depths before fully celebrating. If it has the exact same visual style throughout, and the rewards aren't compelling, then it's gonna be hard for me to care much.

Not saying both of those are true, I seriously doubt they are, but I'd like to see more nonetheless.
Click to expand...

The Depths (and traversal in and out of them) seem to be the Zelda equivalent of Elden Ring/Souls gameplay. I imagine people will spend more time there during the end game or will spend the majority of their time there if they prefer a challenge. A lot of it seems optional.
 
The Sky Islands (speaking more from previews than anything, I'm lite-leak) seem like a genius integration of the "world is a dungeon" kind of gameplay that Skyward Sword mastered.
 
Also, I see people counting dungeons based on what's labeled a dungeon in the game's files, but that doesn't mean much to me. There are a lot of set pieces that I would consider to be dungeons for my purposes.

There's at least one floating labyrinth that I saw that was basically a dungeon; you had to activate 4 terminals, it had a shrine, a really cool boss fight with incredible music, and involved traversing to the depths to complete. The lines are blurred when it comes to dungeons in this game, even though we do have real dungeons this time.
 
Magic-Man said:
what if you're bad
Click to expand...
I mean that goes without saying

totofogo said:
what if shrine quests cause ground to be violently ripped out of the surface creating further changes to the original map and expanding the sky

checkmate
Click to expand...
In all seriousness, there is one thing I don't get about the sky island map:

Where is Hyrule Castle?
 
brainchild said:
Also, I see people counting dungeons based on what's labeled a dungeon in the game's files, but that doesn't mean much to me. There are a lot of set pieces that I would consider to be dungeons for my purposes.

There's at least one floating labyrinth that I saw that was basically a dungeon; you had to activate 4 terminals, it had a shrine, a really cool boss fight with incredible music, and involved traversing to the depths to complete. The lines are blurred when it comes to dungeons in this game, even though we do have real dungeons this time.
Click to expand...
huh..interesting
 
Reader mode
Status
Not open for further replies.
Staff Communication
Does your post contain any story spoilers? Please err on the side of caution and use spoiler tags before posting it. Failure to do so may result in being banned from the thread.
Last edited:


Back
Top Bottom