It almost didn't feel like a dungeon to me, more like some independent puzzles and a boss fight.
Holy shit, that's awesome.
That was exactly my question and I think the answer is no, Link is a homeless bum
That's okay.
BotW also had lead up segments to the divine beasts, which were also across the board way better then the dungeons themselves, but apparently BotW had "no dungeons". If anything it just goes to show how TotK vastly improved the lead up to dungeon segments, but then ultimately let down with the dungeon structure itself.
Yeah, but the Divine Beast leadups were more like boss fights to me.
Ironically the most primitive scene of Ganondorf dunking on child Link in OoT was one of the biggest scenes of interaction the two characters would have outside of the finale for most of Zelda's run as a series.
More like:
To me, the lead-up is a clearly separate, independent part from the temple. You even get the name drop and a chekpoint at the start of the temple and there's a clear separation of gameplay motifs. Classic dungeons had everything and it was all part of the "dungeon" experience. There were different arcs inside the dungeon, were the first part could be finding the dungeon item, the second part using it to investigate all the dungeon and the last one solving the main dungeon puzzle and the bossfight. All of these parts featured exploration, platforming, puzzles and combat. There may even be other special events like mid-bosses to further mark the pacing. They were different chapters of a story. However, the current approach (I've only beaten Rito and Zora) groups all similar gameplay aspects in and separates these groups, so in the end it's like the first chapter of the story is a Youtube video and the second is written in a book. In classic dungeons the whole was more than the sum of its' parts, so in TotK when you sum those separate parts they add to be less than a classic dungeon.
uhhh what? Odyssey was widely praised and the only reason it didn't win goty was due to BOTW
Yeah who knew that giving you an objective and then proceeding to make it as hard as possible for you to achieve it by littering your path with as many fun distractions as possible was the secret to making two GOATs in a row.
it did
The "problem" is that people want the physical dungeons you reach at the end to be separate spaces that are longer and more complex. But between BotW and TotK it seems like this isn't something the devs are very interested in and that they aren’t really that attached to the idea of traditional dungeons as much as some fans are. Even pre-BotW they played with some of these ideas and TotK takes it even further. If this is the template going forward it’s more likely that they will continue experimenting with the concept of dungeon-like spaces that are more open and organically built into the world. Not everyone has to like it but it seems like wishful thinking that they will revert course for some reason.
