I did it on his first fireball attack.I've watched people on YouTube fight Ganondorf. I noticed that the person I watched didn't realize you can send Ganondorf's gloom attacks back at him with the Master sword.
Personally, I figured that out late in the fight but I thought I should have figured it out earlier. I decided to see if other people realized this, but I watched 6 or 7 videos of people fighting Ganondorf and only 1 other person figured this out (that I've seen).
Did you folks know you can send Ganondorf's gloom attacks back at him?
Besides the game implying there is a certain character who says this explicitly.Did I miss something or was there no correlation made between the Calamity Ganon and Ganondorf?
TotK is written as if there’s this evil being hiding dormant below Hyrule castle and that before the gloom, it hadn’t really caused any issues.
You’d have thought the Calamity would have been mentioned in discussions between Rauru and Zelda but nothing.
Something like:
“Ganondorf might have been subdued below the castle, but his power has been causing Hyrule problems for generations”.
Even Ganondorf himself wakes up with seemingly no knowledge of the Calamity.
I guess you could argue that the Calamity is Demise’s curse in its purest form and that Ganondorf is a separate individual born of that curse and therefore the connection isn’t quite as direct as Calamity Ganon = Ganondorf.
I agree. And the sad part is that I think the plot is cool as fuck, just an execution problem.I don't really feel strongly about BOTW or TOTK's story, they're by far the weakest parts of either game and the worst stories in 3D Zelda. The games are great fun to play but the only scene that really affected me at all emotionally is Mineru leaving in TOTK.
Besides the game implying there is a certain character who says this explicitly.
You need to talk with impa after having all memories I believe. She says something about the calamity being Demon King malice.Which part?
Give me the dialogue.
Idk, I see everything you listed as a huge McGuffin. A fucking cool McGuffin, but a McGuffin nonetheless.Besides the game implying there is a certain character who says this explicitly.
I agree. And the sad part is that I think the plot is cool as fuck, just an execution problem.
Hero losing and friends dying 100 year ago - Fucking cool
Hero awakening after being recovering for 100 years from a severe injury - Fucking cool
Some kind of evil energy become conscious and attacking Hyrule when accumulating enough - Fucking cool
Zelda blocking this evil herself for 100 year - Fucking cool
Source of energy being below in the castle, sealed for thousand of years - Fucking cool
Which part?
Give me the dialogue.
Saw this gamexplain video recently and it is really on point to my own impression.
A lot of points from this video really fells like a conversation I had with this friend right after we played it. And he was one of the privileged few people who played the game without playing BOTW.
Btw, this same friend felt that Totk was the best thing ever as how challenging it was the Wind Temple. Then after reaching all terminals he noticed that he couldn't interact with neither of them and discovered that he needed to go back to Rito village to trigger the quest and bring Tulin with him, doing everything to again. After that onwards his opinion on the game turned a 180.
Recently I had a conversation with my younger brother and he really disliked Fire Temple. The only Zelda game he finished was BOTW and he was used to the BOTW way of doing things and never considered the intended way. Actually he never noticed the track switch. He flew over things looking for the map marks and got over with it. Curiously Fire Temple was my first and I made a post sometime ago saying "Zelda is back baby" which aged really poorly....XD
In that occasion I was having a good time with fire temple because I didn't noticed how I could skip all the stuff (brain hardwired to the old zelda way) with the abilities I had.
You brought Dishonored, and curiously it's one of my favorite "recent" games. Whatever the path I choose there is good gameplay and moments waiting for me. No frustrating fail state like GTA and RDR or regret of my choice like open air Zelda.Watched the first minute of that GameXplain video and found the framing so obnoxious I had to turn it off. So I can only assume that they talk about this as well lol.
I have a lot of thoughts about the design philosophy of the open-air approach and I'm a little bit in agreement with Dishonored-director Raphaël Colantonio that BotW and by extension TotK play with immersive sim tropes but don't fully commit. In a MinnMax interview he used the segment in BotW where you need to enter Gerudo City to illustrate his point: You really only have one way to enter (by dressing up as a woman) and the simulation stops when you try to do it differently. It flies in the face of the "do anything you want the way you want it" approach that is incorporated in almost every other element of the game. Now I didn't stop playing the game like Colantonio did but as a fellow fan of immersive sims I find stuff like that a tad bit disappointing.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with a game breaking its own rules as long as there is a satisfying trade off like when it tries to illicit a specific reaction from the player. I didn't expect the game to allow me to snipe Calamity Ganon from across the map just because the physics system technically makes it possible or whatever. I go down, get cutscene with the Champions firing at Calamity Ganon and fight it 1:1. As a player you just sort of accept certain limitations and I'd say that for 99.9% of the people Breath of the Wild still works despite those roadblocks. It's rather elegant in its simplicity.
TotK, as much as I love it, feels more slapdash in its execution for a variety of reasons. On one hand it doubles down on the open-air stuff and gives you more tools to overcome or even circumvent certain roadblocks. But it also tries to combine it with the more linear and scripted segments of the previous games which require you to hit certain flags much more frequently. If you do that but don't do much to account for different approaches, your players are much more likely going to feel cheated when the game stops you even though you were playing it by its rules. The Rito segment with Tulin that balgajo mentions is a perfect example of this.
That isn't necessarily an argument for less freedom, though, as there's plenty of other segments where making use of the tools the game gives you can lead to great experiences. I bring this up a lot but one of the most memorable parts of TotK was when I skipped the Kakariko quest to clear the Thunderhead Isles entirely and went up there by myself, blindly glided through the storm and landed in the Dragonhead Island. Literally a top 3 Zelda moment for me. If I went through the trouble of going up there and the game stopped me that would have completely ruined the moment. The Tulin stuff didn't happen to me but it sounds a bit like that.
If they continue down this path I hope they pay more attention to these outlier cases. Obviously a matter of taste but I find that they enrich the games.
Dishonored is a funny one because while I like it for many reasons, my experience with it was the complete opposite. I haven't played Dishonored 2 enough so maybe they did it differently in that game but I found the first one so incredibly easy to cheese and break that it completely trivialized the game's challenge, more so than BotW or TotK. Add in generous quick save and it's like playing a game with save states.You brought Dishonored, and curiously it's one of my favorite "recent" games. Whatever the path I choose there is good gameplay and moments waiting for me. No frustrating fail state like GTA and RDR or regret of my choice like open air Zelda.
Well there's a marked difference between Dishonored and those games-- Dishonored isn't open world. It's open-level/wide linear, and while there's a healthy number of choices, the experience would still be more guided.Whatever the path I choose there is good gameplay and moments waiting for me. No frustrating fail state like GTA and RDR or regret of my choice like open air Zelda
I love love love Dishonored, but this is true haha. That said, that's just how these games are. Open-ness means allowing players to cheese stuff. Definitely a tough act to balance.I found the first one so incredibly easy to cheese and break that it completely trivialized the game's challenge
OMG a friend of mine did this on accident while chasing star fragments. Happened to land in the exact room she needed to in order to activate the sage quest. Went ahead and did the sage quest, ran around with her for a serious chunk of the game, and then when Purah mentioned the final sage she immediately followed up with ".......oh I see you found them already?"I bring this up a lot but one of the most memorable parts of TotK was when I skipped the Kakariko quest to clear the Thunderhead Isles entirely and went up there by myself, blindly glided through the storm and landed in the Dragonhead Island. Literally a top 3 Zelda moment for me. If I went through the trouble of going up there and the game stopped me that would have completely ruined the moment.
Oh yeah, for sure. I'm not saying that as a negative, it's more a natural consequence of it being so committed to following through with its concept. It's basically Thief with superpowers so you end up with a lot of tools that are the equivalent of stackable boxes in Deus Ex. Plus, there's a narrative reason for Corvo getting all those tools and powers and having to decide how he uses them. But from a purely mechanical perspective it's extremely unbalanced, which can also be really fun.I love love love Dishonored, but this is true haha. That said, that's just how these games are. Open-ness means allowing players to cheese stuff. Definitely a tough act to balance.
Did the same thing! There was this giant storm in the south and I just wanted to know what's hidden there. And it really wasn't easy at that point in the game for me flying there wrt Zonai parts and battery.That isn't necessarily an argument for less freedom, though, as there's plenty of other segments where making use of the tools the game gives you can lead to great experiences. I bring this up a lot but one of the most memorable parts of TotK was when I skipped the Kakariko quest to clear the Thunderhead Isles entirely and went up there by myself, blindly glided through the storm and landed in the Dragonhead Island. Literally a top 3 Zelda moment for me. If I went through the trouble of going up there and the game stopped me that would have completely ruined the moment. The Tulin stuff didn't happen to me but it sounds a bit like that.
I have to say that when I discovered it was related to a quest I got a bit disappointed. But after some reflection and considering how, since Twilight Princess, I'm tired of those chores before a dungeon that was for the best. Especially considering that, except maybe for the Goron one(I liked the drug addicted Goron...XD), I was not fan of the pre dungeon sections.Conversely, I've seen many people who did the Thunderhead Isles early who feel disappointed or cheated that they sequence broke accidentally.
I think the only reason I didn't do them early was because a Zeldatuber was insistent that people shouldn't go there until the story told them to.
Different strokes, innit, but for what it's worth, I would have loved stumbling into there early, I don't care about the story lollol
(Doesn't help that the mech sucks and the whole thing is TOTK's answer to the Wind Waker's Triforce fetch questions.)
At least they could give more challenging options for veterans players to commit to them before starting a new save file. Unfortunately they offered hard mode as a DLC (and it sucked a lot) and it seems that it will be the case again. And no way I'm replaying Totk again just to have a hard mode, even with more options. It should be a first playthrough thing.Matthewmetosis actually said it the best: players don't actually want complete freedom, they want to cut down trees to build bridges. They just want the ability to do cool things that change their method of thinking but they don't want a complete game-breaking thing from the jump. To the point where the Dishonored director's example of Gerudo town isn't the one I would use, but maybe the ability to lose 15 hearts in a single hit, hit pause and immediately eat a gigantic meal or change your armor on a dime, trivializing the fight, in a way (I also acknowledge that BOTW/TOTK aren't the only games to do this, but maybe something like Monster Hunter or Souls using a real-time healing animation, giving the action more risk).
TOTK was definitely harder on the whole though. Took a lot longer to get to the level of comfort I was at within the first maybe 5-7 hours of BOTW.At least they could give more challenging options for veterans players to commit to them before starting a new save file. Unfortunately they offered hard mode as a DLC (and it sucked a lot) and it seems that it will be the case again. And no way I'm replaying Totk again just to have a hard mode, even with more options. It should be a first playthrough thing.
TOTK was definitely harder on the whole though. Took a lot longer to get to the level of comfort I was at within the first maybe 5-7 hours of BOTW.
I think I agree with this. But for a long game it didn't make much difference for me. By the time I had enough hearts to avoid 1 hit KO and enough random fruits game became too easy.TOTK was definitely harder on the whole though. Took a lot longer to get to the level of comfort I was at within the first maybe 5-7 hours of BOTW.
I felt like this too. It felt they were tutorials to some devices to prepare you to a moment that never arrives. I didn't finish all though. When I lost interest I had around 110.I felt the shrines were way, way too easy.
Obviously tuning puzzle difficulty must be hard. But I've long said that the shrine format allows the team to make really hard shrines without blocking progress. And yet,
I posted here at some point but because of that I thought the Zelda chasing in Hyrule Castle was part of the ending sequence...XDOMG a friend of mine did this on accident while chasing star fragments. Happened to land in the exact room she needed to in order to activate the sage quest. Went ahead and did the sage quest, ran around with her for a serious chunk of the game, and then when Purah mentioned the final sage she immediately followed up with ".......oh I see you found them already?"
Don't worry, this mirrors my experience exactly. I like more linear progression so I tend to avoid big, obvious stuff until the narrative tells me I'm supposed to go there (otherwise it feels like I'm doing it "wrong" even if the game is built to be open), so I had a feeling the thunderhead was a dungeon and left it alone. The Depths, though, I explored like mad because I wanted to fill out the map (a minor obsession I get in games where that's an option), totally ran into the Construct Factory early, explored that and the shrine and everything, and left when nothing came of it. I also didn't very much like the mech because having it follow me around was a step too far in terms of immersion. Was just so big and distracting.Am I the only one in existence who didn't do the Thunder Isles early? Everyone's making me feel dumb for not taking more interest in that storm.
I did however find the Construct Factory way early. I crawled over every inch of that place looking for a way to get it going only to eventually give up in frustration. The steward construct's words meant little because I hadn't found Dragonhead Isle. I even returned there several times to see if there was anything I missed.
So when I finally progressed to Dragonhead Isle, I got it, but was more annoyed than wowed by arriving back at the goddamn Construct Factory again.
So essentially what didn't happened with @Dardan Sandiego is exactly what happened to me. So rather than being a top 3 moment, for me the Fifth Sage sucked balls. (Doesn't help that the mech sucks and the whole thing is TOTK's answer to the Wind Waker's Triforce fetch quest.)
It's a thing that happens when people have very different opinions from the majority and really want to express it. I get it, if you have a platform like a forum or especially a popular Youtube channel, you want to express yourself because you feel disjointed or at odds with the majority of people. You want people to understand you.Watched the first minute of that GameXplain video and found the framing so obnoxious I had to turn it off. So I can only assume that they talk about this as well lol.
I can't help but think that's ironic coming from the director of Dishonored. While Dishonored did allow for a lot of choices in many simulated environments, it was a game that was so aggressively easy that the ability for multiple choices in any given scenario over time started to feel diluted anyways. Most players would either end up using their overpowered abilities since they were so much more convenient than stealth, or they would try to use stealth only to use their powers the moment they were spotted anyways. I know that the idea of players capping themselves for challenge is pretty popular, but Dishonored is a pretty good example of how you need to balance your players' toolbox, because the whole concept of the game was made pointless by the balancing. Still, that doesn't make his point wrong, nor does that mean Dishonored isn't a fun game.I have a lot of thoughts about the design philosophy of the open-air approach and I'm a little bit in agreement with Dishonored-director Raphaël Colantonio that BotW and by extension TotK play with immersive sim tropes but don't fully commit. In a MinnMax interview he used the segment in BotW where you need to enter Gerudo Town to illustrate his point: You really only have one way to enter (by dressing up as a woman) and the simulation stops when you try to do it differently. It flies in the face of the "do anything you want the way you want it" approach that is incorporated in almost every other element of the game. Now I didn't stop playing the game like Colantonio did but as a fellow fan of immersive sims I find stuff like that a tad bit disappointing.
I think the biggest problem with Tears of the Kingdom was that very little of the basic makeup of Breath of the Wild felt like it was reconsidered. Which is funny, because from a programming and design perspective this is basically impossible given how hard it would be to implement Fuse and Ascend. There were some things that felt like responses to Breath of the Wild criticism, Fuse is sort of a response to weapon durability, there's more story-driven / linear sections, and there's more enemy variety (though I'm not convinced these last two points woulnd't have been true of a sequel regardless). But very little of the actual basic makeup or design. Like, we're two Open-Air games in and we still don't have dungeons that feel as naturally integrated into the world as the Dark World's forest dungeon from ALTTP. You might be able to get to those dungeons before activating story beats, but they still feel like they're populated in their own little corners of the world, rather than actually being in it. We still have a combat system that can quickly shift from being one of the most fun ever made in a third person game thanks to the amount of options at your disposal, the improvisational aspect of your toolset and enemy behavior, and the feedback being the best in the series since the rolling backstab from Wind Waker, to being a terrible combat system the moment you fight anything significanlty high-leveled or anything that feels remotely rigid. When you're supposed to take the combat system seriously as an action game and not as a toolbox system, it falls apart.TotK, as much as I love it, feels more slapdash in its execution for a variety of reasons. On one hand it doubles down on the open-air stuff and gives you more tools to overcome or even circumvent certain roadblocks. But it also tries to combine it with the more linear and scripted segments of the previous games which require you to hit certain flags much more frequently. If you do that but don't do much to account for different approaches, your players are much more likely going to feel cheated when the game stops you even though you were playing it by its rules. The Rito segment with Tulin that balgajo mentions is a perfect example of this.
I partly agree and partly disagree with some of your points but I want to touch upon this passage in particular (because I do agree with it). One possible explanation is that they had to build these new dungeons in a pre-existing world that they didn't want to touch too much. They feel disjointed because they were never supposed to be there to begin with, like the Water Temple's presence barely makes sense. On the other hand, the Thunderhead/Dragonhead plus the Spirit Temple are pretty much what I imagined an "open-air" dungeon to be. There are multiple ways you can stumble upon it and it's built directly into the environment. It's held back somewhat by the self-imposed limitations in structure but otherwise it comes the closest to this ideal imo (even though it's not my favourite dungeon in the game).Like, we're two Open-Air games in and we still don't have dungeons that feel as naturally integrated into the world as the Dark World's forest dungeon from ALTTP. You might be able to get to those dungeons before activating story beats, but they still feel like they're populated in their own little corners of the world, rather than actually being in it.
Saw this gamexplain video recently and it is really on point to my own impression.
A lot of points from this video really fells like a conversation I had with this friend right after we played it. And he was one of the privileged few people who played the game without playing BOTW.
Btw, this same friend felt that Totk was the best thing ever as how challenging it was the Wind Temple. Then after reaching all terminals he noticed that he couldn't interact with neither of them and discovered that he needed to go back to Rito village to trigger the quest and bring Tulin with him, doing everything to again. After that onwards his opinion on the game turned a 180.
Recently I had a conversation with my younger brother and he really disliked Fire Temple. The only Zelda game he finished was BOTW and he was used to the BOTW way of doing things and never considered the intended way. Actually he never noticed the track switch. He flew over things looking for the map marks and got over with it. Curiously Fire Temple was my first and I made a post sometime ago saying "Zelda is back baby" which aged really poorly....XD
In that occasion I was having a good time with fire temple because I didn't noticed how I could skip all the stuff (brain hardwired to the old zelda way) with the abilities I had.
It would make it for a more tragic approach, which isn't bad necessarily, but redemption of Good is always welcomingBumpy bump, because after my most recent playthrough, I really feel inclined to ask an open question.
How would you all have felt if Zelda didn’t turn back from her dragon form? Like, having an ending where Link and the sages watches her fly into the sky, after helping Link save the world.
If that was the only ending, probably better in some regards? With the distance I have from the game, the big set up is so arbitrary to get to points that I do not like namely that Zelda is benched from the adventure and has to “suffer” (as initially pitched, it’s later revealed to be fine) for an insultingly vast amount of time just so Link’s sword can recover (that still breaks every ten minutes). If there was an actual sacrifice involved I wouldn’t fixate as much on how much that stinks. It would still stink as that core issue I have doesn’t go away, but at least some of the emotions around it I guess would hit better since it had consequence instead of feeling cheap and insulting.Bumpy bump, because after my most recent playthrough, I really feel inclined to ask an open question.
How would you all have felt if Zelda didn’t turn back from her dragon form? Like, having an ending where Link and the sages watches her fly into the sky, after helping Link save the world.
What I would love is something like Ys X or Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Two equal protagonists that you are constantly switching between, as they have different skills. Have Links sword (that upgrades to the master sword) and shield be better for duelling enemies, have Zelda’s bow (that upgrades to light arrows) be better for ranged combat. Have some upbeat banter and some genuine romance growing over time rather than the games always defining the lonely arduousness of the hero. As we’ve seen that in a dozen Zelda games and what’s also pretty lonely and arduous is imprisonment. Whereas the repartee in Spirit Tracks offered a fun lighthearted take on Zelda that isn’t saintly, self-sacrificing Princess, that lets her do stuff and hit stuff and be the butt of the odd joke because heaven forbid she get to do something fun with her mates that isn’t Epic Self Sacrifice or Forever-out-of-reach Quest Goal or both.If that was the only ending, probably better in some regards? With the distance I have from the game, the big set up is so arbitrary to get to points that I do not like namely that Zelda is benched from the adventure and has to “suffer” (as initially pitched, it’s later revealed to be fine) for an insultingly vast amount of time just so Link’s sword can recover (that still breaks every ten minutes). If there was an actual sacrifice involved I wouldn’t fixate as much on how much that stinks. It would still stink as that core issue I have doesn’t go away, but at least some of the emotions around it I guess would hit better since it had consequence instead of feeling cheap and insulting.
Whatever the next Zelda game is one of the things I want most is for her to be treated better. I had hopes for this game that were just dashed in some of the worst ways :/
This is what we're getting in the third Hero of the Wild entry.What I would love is something like Ys X or Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Two equal protagonists that you are constantly switching between, as they have different skills. Have Links sword (that upgrades to the master sword) and shield be better for duelling enemies, have Zelda’s bow (that upgrades to light arrows) be better for ranged combat. Have some upbeat banter and some genuine romance growing over time rather than the games always defining the lonely arduousness of the hero. As we’ve seen that in a dozen Zelda games and what’s also pretty lonely and arduous is imprisonment. Whereas the repartee in Spirit Tracks offered a fun lighthearted take on Zelda that isn’t saintly, self-sacrificing Princess, that lets her do stuff and hit stuff and be the butt of the odd joke because heaven forbid she get to do something fun with her mates that isn’t Epic Self Sacrifice.
I really want something like this for Zelda. It’d be so cool!What I would love is something like Ys X or Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Two equal protagonists that you are constantly switching between, as they have different skills. Have Links sword (that upgrades to the master sword) and shield be better for duelling enemies, have Zelda’s bow (that upgrades to light arrows) be better for ranged combat. Have some upbeat banter and some genuine romance growing over time rather than the games always defining the lonely arduousness of the hero. As we’ve seen that in a dozen Zelda games and what’s also pretty lonely and arduous is imprisonment. Whereas the repartee in Spirit Tracks offered a fun lighthearted take on Zelda that isn’t saintly, self-sacrificing Princess, that lets her do stuff and hit stuff and be the butt of the odd joke because heaven forbid she get to do something fun with her mates that isn’t Epic Self Sacrifice.
If both of those pan out in a third game, I’ll forgive them a good deal haha.This is what we're getting in the third Hero of the Wild entry.
Plus seafaring.
I would have liked the melancholic tone of that ending, but at the same time was a sucker for the super cheesy catch-her-before-she-falls sequence, sooooHow would you all have felt if Zelda didn’t turn back from her dragon form?