• 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.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

Discussion BotW vs TotK: Which tutorial area did you enjoy more? (tutorial area spoilers only)

Which tutorial area did you enjoy more?

  • Total voters
    162
JorgenRaft

JorgenRaft

Chain Chomp
I'm curious as to what everyone thinks in regards to this.

As far as my take, I definitely preferred The Great Plateau. I had a lot of fun on The Great Sky Island, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't lower my excitement a bit (which was absolutely undone once I was able to actually play the game after this segment).

  • It had a bit of sequel-itis, having a ghost walk you through 4 shrines to eventually get an upgrade.
  • It was much more linear, given its donut shape where it encouraged you to circle the island in a certain step by step fashion.
  • I think it was the place where the game ran the worst so I was worried it was going to be like that consistently throughout (luckily it's been a mostly smooth experience since, and looking back I assume all that foliage condensed into one area didn't help).
  • The pacing was a bit odd, requiring you to get 3 Lights of Blessing to open the Temple of Time door only to get there and have Rauru tell you "oops you actually need another one to open this additional door as well." And then you have to back track and then use a Zonai Wing to fly back to the temple like you already did after the third ability.

Again, I want to reiterate that I still had a lot of fun in this area playing with all the new abilities, and that my hype was well met once I left the tutorial. It was more so everything else that kind of hampered my excitement a bit. I know a lot of people are saying BotW seems almost irrelevant to go back to play after playing TotK. While I don't agree with that, I do think most of us can appreciate how well BotW set the standard for this new kind of Zelda experience. I just hope they spice it up more next time!

So, which did you enjoy more?
 
0
There are a few things Breath of the Wild did better than Tears of the Kingdom, and the tutorial is one of them. The Great Plateau is a microcosm of the rest of the world map, and aside from the first shrine it is completely open to how you approach it. The Great Sky Island by comparison is a bit more linear (or at least strongly guided) and doesn’t encourage you to wander off the intended path to explore as much. It’s also basically the same environment through, aside from some caves and a cold area.
 
The great plateau was a microcosm of the full BOTW experience, The sky plateau was a largely linear walk through what's new, even if I'm sure you could change order if you really wanted, it sure felt like there's a much more intended order this time around.

It's amazing how much they nailed the BOTW tutorial honestly.
 
As I mentioned in the OT, Great Plateau.
It was perfect to me, while the Sky Island felt more linear and with worse performance to me.
 
0
For how incredible Tears of the Kingdom is, the tutorial section is a really bizarre miss.
 
0
They’re the same quality to me. It’s more challenging to go out of order in totk, but you can still do it. And while BotW was more of a surprise, and felt more fresh, totk is more fun on its own because the things you are doing are more interesting.
 
I honestly thought both were by far the worst parts of their respective games. I seriously considered dropping BOTW because of how much I wasn’t jiving with the tutorial. Both games get infinitely better once you reach Hyrule proper.

But TOTK’s I think throws a bit too much at you with some of the vehicles and other stuff, and has some poor signposting towards the end, in addition to somewhat misleading the player on what the sky islands are gonna look like throughout the game. So begrudgingly I’ll give this to BOTW.
 
I'm actually going to say TotK, the way it guides you with the little robots felt more natural an integrated. I actually had to stat BotW twice because at some point I just was completely lost and didn't knew how to get to some parts.
 
I think the only time I've felt a little underwhelmed while playing TotK so far was revisiting the Great Plateau part of the map, probably because it was such a highlight in BotW.
 
0
If there's one thing BotW has over TotK is the tutorial area.

Great Plateau is near perfect to introduce the players to the game's mechanics
 
Last edited:
I don't fully remember how I felt going through the great plateau, but the great sky island actually kind of annoyed me. Really high highs, awesome setpieces, amazing visuals and clever aha moments, but I ended up going backwards to complete some stuff, realized I couldn't teleport yet, and had to backtrack a bunch. Also not sure what the point of the lower snow section was, went there first and it was a waste of time/also backtracking
 
Great plateau. But it had all these new things going on. Great sky island isn't bad. Plateau was just so great to explain the game in mini version.
 
The intro to TotK is probably the best intro a Zelda game has ever had. Where you get your powers in TotK feels more organic and designed, the lead up is way more atmospheric, the location more mysterious, the visuals much more interesting and the powers themselves are also much more interesting. I'm including the opening sequence all the way up to the descent.

If the game was dropping frames in that intro though, you're either on a launch Switch or you need to do a hard reboot of the console. I've noticed that people just use sleep mode forever and the Switch has enough games with memory leaks that doing that becomes a huge issue with games running far worse than they should or in some cases in older games like Cars 3, they don't even launch.
 
Lord Azrael said:
Also not sure what the point of the lower snow section was, went there first and it was a waste of time/also backtracking
Click to expand...
I've seen people get stuck in that section. The robots have some already crafted boats you can use get across the river, but then you can't get back. The only way forwards as far as I could see was to chop down some trees and make a dodgy ladder to go upwards. Which is a lot to expect of a new player who hasn't yet gotten used to physics and ultrahand. Even amassing the logs you need requires you to cart a bunch of logs with you upwards.
I actually went back and built the ladder and took a picture for someone, but they still couldn't pull it off and ended up restarting the game from the beginning.

I don't understand why they withhold fast travel. I suppose so people can learn to use the glider. But there were better ways.
 
0
I like the puzzle setpieces of the Sky area and general vibe, but overall it can't top the Plateau in terms of being a microcosm of the rest of the world. The Plateau is so much more organic in terms of gameplay, it doesn't feel like a tutorial at all. Where in Totk, it very much does feel that way.

The great sky island is also the most complex and largest set of islands. Which... isn't great. After you've left, there's not much reason to return, at least I haven't found any yet. In general the sky just feels so underbaked compared to the rest of the new areas. It's a lot of the same shit Skyward Sword had, small single islands with a chest on it or something.

The pacing was a bit odd, requiring you to get 3 Lights of Blessing to open the Temple of Time door only to get there and have Rauru tell you "oops you actually need another one to open this additional door as well." And then you have to back track and then use a Zonai Wing to fly back to the temple like you already did after the third ability.
Click to expand...

Yeah I really didn't appreciate this. Completely unnecessary.
 
Last edited:
TotK was always gonna have its work cut out for it because making a tutorial that's both approachable for new players and useful for returning players was going to be very tough. Great Plateau was definitely better and more memorable just by virtue of it being the introduction to this core style of game, whereas TotK's was an introduction to this particular game's special new mechanics.
 
Both are by far the worst Zelda intros but the Sky Island is better due to being from a better game with more interesting mechanics and a more interesting setting. I don’t think that the Great Plateau being a microcosm of the whole game does it any favors. The fact that it’s isolated from the rest of the game makes it very lame and artificial honestly, what’s the point of making an open world Zelda with some Zelda 1 callbacks when it can’t even properly recreate “it’s dangerous to go alone, take this”. In Zelda 1 it literally lets you free in the world, in BOTW while you do have the old man at the end of the day you have no reason to return there, you need to go through it for the game to start. While The Great Sky Island is isolated, it feels more part of the world than the Great Plateau because it’s not the only sky island out there. You can return to it for many reasons, when I did I missed a cave and some armor. You can also use the gacha machine or make a plane with a glider to go much further from that point that you ever would from the Great Plateau. I think you can go back to trade the minerals as well? Either way it’s a place with a lot more purpose than the Great Plateau, it being more linear doesn’t affect much in the grand scheme of things
 
0
Skittzo said:
TotK was always gonna have its work cut out for it because making a tutorial that's both approachable for new players and useful for returning players was going to be very tough. Great Plateau was definitely better and more memorable just by virtue of it being the introduction to this core style of game, whereas TotK's was an introduction to this particular game's special new mechanics.
Click to expand...
Agreed with this. How special the GP was will never be able to be replicated because it had to introduce everyone to something brand new. The type of exploration BotW (and now TOTK) provide in general.

GSI does exactly what it needs to with being somewhat of a linear ring to show you the new mechanics introduced in TOTK. It’s much more focused on those because they’re much better and more involved than BotW’s runes. It’s a playground for them specifically, because they’re new and very involved.

They both have slightly different design goals because of that
 
I adore the Great Plateau and think it is the greatest tutorial ever, and some masterful game design

On the other hand I actively did not enjoy the tutorial area in TotK, and it took until I finished it and started the game proper for me begin enjoying it
 
Great platou feels so perfectly crafted that an entire game could be made in this one place and I wouldn't mind

In contrast I got frustrated with the Sky Island. It didn't feel as fun to explore, it very guided and the little twist of not having enough light orbs to open a door wasn't done well.
 
I'm apparently in the minority but... iIt's definitely the Sky Island. And not even close. Loved the various robots telling you what's up, loved the "guided tour"-vibe combined with actually having to figure out what the fuck just happened after you encountered a skeleton in a cave and passed out. There's a sense of urgency and a more personal note. "Where the hell is Zelda? Where am I?!". Only thing I didn't vibe with as much was having to get back and earn a heart piece but thinking about it on a more meta level, I actually like how it teaches you about increasing your health and quick travel.

I prefer things to have structure, the Great Plateu just throws you out of your bed and then doesn't bother with you anymore.
 
im actually shocked that people prefer the great plateau. The sky islands are so brimming with energy that i didn't feel like it was even a fair comparison lol.
 
The Great Plateau by a wide margin for me. It felt more like a small world that could’ve been another company’s whole game. The Sky Island felt too disjointed by comparison. Plus since BoTW was first, there was a lot more trial and error when it came to learning some basics that just wasn’t going to be replicated in a sequel.

I will however add that you’re 4th note isn’t entirely correct because I don’t remember using the Zonai Wing after the 3rd shrine and I have a friend who didn’t use it at all and had no idea what I was talking about when I brought it up. You can just fast travel after completing the 4th shrine to get yourself closer to the Temple of Time which I guess is what he did.
 
julian said:
I will however add that you’re 4th note isn’t entirely correct because I don’t remember using the Zonai Wing after the 3rd shrine and I have a friend who didn’t use it at all and had no idea what I was talking about when I brought it up. You can just fast travel after completing the 4th shrine to get yourself closer to the Temple of Time which I guess is what he did.
Click to expand...
Right you could yeah, but it was to a Shrine that would still end up being a bit of a walk to get into the Temple of Time again. Not sure exactly which is faster, though. It was a lesser part of that 4th point in either case.
 
0
100% the Great Sky Island. It leans far more toward my preference to Zelda games: A more guided, linear, focused experience where you still have to solve problems and figure out how to get around, but it feels more like you're solving problems that were specifically created to be solved if that makes sense, and I like that a lot more. Sort of a giant open-air shrine.

Not that the Great Plateau was bad, far from it, but I like the Sky Island a lot more.
 
My personal vote is the Great Plateau. I like how straight off the bat the world feels open, while the Sky Island is a tad more guided. It’s also difficult to divorce my stay in the Great Plateau from the novelty of experiencing the mechanics of BotW for the first time.

On that note, it’s been fun seeing my girlfriend, who hasn’t played BotW, have a blast playing TotK and figuring out stuff like needing warmth-inducing food in cold areas. I might convince her to play BotW and see how she compares the two.
 
Definitely a bigger fan of The Great Plateau. It felt like a mini open world practice area rather than a series of tutorials like The Great Sky Islands. Not that there wasn’t cool stuff in TK’s tutorial, like the boss robot and climbing into some weird places, but it’s not really representative at all of the rest of the Sky Islands for better and for worse.
 
I get why ToTK’s tutorial is more linear, in that there’s a hell of a lot to introduce to a new player, particularly around everything to do with ultrahand if that player didn’t play BOTW first.

I did prefer the Great Plateau, but while the Sky Island is a linear, circular path around it in terms of the placement of objectives, I didn’t travel around it that way. I did a lot of exploring and experimenting and there’s tons of optional stuff to find. So while you can reduce it to ‘you have to do the shrines in a specific order and the path makes a circle’, I distinctly remember the choice being in how to approach the third shrine, and the illusion of choice being one where my path took me all over the place. Where the easiest path is to walk there from the temple, but I ended up going up the ice cliffs and spending time playing around making a huge ladder out of logs.
 
Great Plateau was impressive cause it was a tutorial without feeling like a tutorial. You had a ton of freedom to tackle exploration and the shrines in whatever way you wished. The Great Sky Island on the other hand very clearly signposts where to go and what order to do it in with it essentially being 1 big donut you work your way around.

I think ultrahand was probably what steered the dev team to designing a more linear tutorial cause it's the first new ability you get with a ton of potential applications and has the most of a learning curve to it.

I definitely felt TotK started sluggish with how hands on it was in the first few hours though given the guidance you are also given in Lookout Landing to set up the main quests. After that the game has been bliss but at first I felt they almost took a step back from how freeing BotW felt.
 
The level-design is juste insane in the Great sky island, I can't say the same about the Great plateau. Overall the Great sky island is just much more enjoyable.

I don't think that non-linear segments are better.
 
It's definitely Great Sky Island. I mean, the title drop alone just outdoes BotW hard in my opinion. I got chills.

I find it far prettier, with its zen garden-esque aesthetic that is reminiscent of those beautiful Japanese countryside photographs you sometimes see in postcards. The constructs are cooler enemies than the Bokoblins, and it's lovely seeing the silhouette of the giant, imposing Temple of Time wherever you go - an amazingly designed structure, I adore the look of it.

Game design-wise, it is certainly more linear, and I guess it comes down to which set of abilities you enjoy more, and I far prefer TotK's abilities. Just seeing a bridge poking out, waiting for you to ascend through it, or crossing rivers with a home-made Jenga tower were just moments that were much more engaging to me than, say, making cryonis to reach a chest.

It really nails the more playful, playground-style direction that Zelda has gone through recently, maybe even more so than in BotW, but while still making it feel like a beautiful tranquil place. Really a striking balance.

And that ending... with the story segment of the Master Sword, and then diving down to Hyrule after the cloud barriers lift, like holy fuck, THAT was a game moment to remember.
 
The Great Plateau is a perfect microcosm of what Breath of the Wild is all about, which is to say that it's boring and empty just like the rest of the game. The Great Sky Island is a lot clumsier and lasts way too long, but at least there is a ton of fun navigation and puzzle solving.

If I were to replay the games I would definitely prefer a short BotW style tutorial over the bloated TotK tutorial. But getting through TotK's tutorial is worth it because the rest of the game is actually fun.
 
0
I am really enjoying TotK (maybe more than BotW) but I didn’t really enjoy the intro section nearly as much.

It felt overwhelming honestly and I even felt like I would have understood the new powers as well had I not watched the gameplay demonstration. This is backed up by watching several of my friends play in the tutorial area over the weekend and watching them struggle to puzzle solve.

I think in the long run the new powers are better but the old powers are more intuitive and were showcased in more helpful ways.
 
0
Other than the title drop, I feel like BotW was more impactful. mainly because the whole open world concept was so new. It really hit home that you can explore all this open land at your own speed, and also had some unique gameplay mechanics to learn such as temperature mechanic so you can safely get to the Keh Namut shrine.
 
0
Apparently I'm very much in the minority but the sky island is still probably my favorite part of totk so far lol. Felt like old school zelda for a bit and I liked the 'metroidvania' part at the end. With that said great plateau was also the first experience you get of botw, so it's tied, they are both amazing.
 
0
I think it's amazing how despite both areas essentially serve the same function - introducing the player to the mechanics and world through exploration - they feel very distinct from each other.

As people have already said, Plateau feels like a more free form experience that essentially lets the player loose to figure things out. Sky Island is a guided tour - though thankfully one which doesn't have a pushy tour guide hounding you.

I find both to be expertly designed tbh. Using the Wing to fly back to the Temple of Time after getting Ascend was a fantastic moment that made me feel clever for understanding where my new powers could take me. Didn't have an issue with the snow area either.

I'm going to just give it to Plateau though. It's just a masterclass in game design - so much so that it was able to guide me with ease despite being intoxicated the first time I played!
 
This is tough. I really loved both. I think ToTK does it more linearly and immersive. So that I'm more of a fan of. However, with BoTW that was just an insane feeling being out there on the plateau. It was breathtaking.

If I had to pick, BoTW was the better experience. But by the smallest of margins.
 
0
GP but only because it is such an impactful experience and you kind of know what is happening when SI does the same thing.

Seriously, BOTW is a masterclass in how to start a game.

Wake up
Get "dressed"
Walk out
You're out in the world and ready to play/learn

TOTK delivers for everybody bought into the lore, the emotional side of the game as set out over BOTW and AOC, so it has its way of doing things. The slow walk intro was very cool and actually very classic Zelda-esque in terms of scene setting.
 
0
I personally feel that GP is better. Even now, I can't forget the feeling of stepping out of the cave and entering a vast and free world, where I could explore at my own will. Everything was guided by my instincts. I spent hours hunting and cooking, climbed snowy mountains with a torch in hand, and explored every corner, collecting mats and finding koroks. Everything was fresh and exciting.

Speaking of GSI, in the first hour, I didn't feel as much enjoyment — or rather, it was the same enjoyment I had already experienced in BotW. They were certainly fun, but it wasn't the same sense of wonder as the first time. I no longer felt thrilled just because I could shoot apples with arrows or chop down trees. In fact, in the initial one or two hours, I even had a strong feeling of "this isn't much different from BotW"...

... until I landed on the ground and the entire game world came alive again. It was then that I had the feeling of "BotW was only a tech demo" xD
 
Great Plateau was a better experience as someone who didn't need a handholdy tutorial, but I believe Great Sky Island is a better tutorial if that makes sense
 
Great Sky is better, much more focused and interesting overall. The way you go up to the snowy area at the top through the caves to descend later all the way down with the zonnai wing is an amazing experience.
 
0
The great Plateau feels more organic in the game world. Yes it‘s a tutorial area, but it‘s also in itself a small open world. You can move much more freely on it. On the other hand the sky island works much better as a tutorial. Game systems get much better explained. For example I know many people that had a hard time to figure out cooking, because they not really kept speaking with the old man. In TOTK it‘s obvious what the purpose of those robots are. Also everything is much more guided and there are many QOL improvements like full screen controls explanation pop ups that makes everything straight forward.
 
0
WestEgg said:
There are a few things Breath of the Wild did better than Tears of the Kingdom, and the tutorial is one of them. The Great Plateau is a microcosm of the rest of the world map, and aside from the first shrine it is completely open to how you approach it. The Great Sky Island by comparison is a bit more linear (or at least strongly guided) and doesn’t encourage you to wander off the intended path to explore as much. It’s also basically the same environment through, aside from some caves and a cold area.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I think it's better. The Great Plateau offers almost all that BotW has to offer, with better progression than the 'main' game as you're actually rewarded and confined. Great Sky Island guides you through the new mechanics and offers some insight in new kind of explorable areas and gives some story handles to hold. Then when you reach the surface you find out that that wasn't even a fraction of what this game is, and what it has to offer, what it changes to BotW and the vastness of it all.

Personally, Great Sky Island feels more Zelda-y.
 
0
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom