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Discussion Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom

Which was better?

  • Breath of the Wild

    Votes: 117 41.5%

  • Tears of the Kingdom

    Votes: 165 58.5%
  • Total voters
    282
I enjoyed Tears more than BOTW as it fixed a few of things I disliked, and I loved the tone of the Hylians and their spirit of adventurousness. The ending was amazing and there was tons of stuff to do along the way, with Ultrahand revitalising Zelda dungeons for me. Was I supposed to make a ladder out of mine carts and ascend through the ceiling in the fire dungeon when I couldn’t be bothered with minecart puzzles? I don’t know, but it felt great.

But I still thought it was heavily flawed. The story having happened to more interesting characters in the past, given to you in cut scenes you randomly stumble upon, isn’t a particularly interesting way to do the ‘big things happened long ago’ that invokes curiosity. As it was, the tiny amount of story TotK has for a 90 hour game, I had stumbled on its single key twist barely a few hours in. Then everything else just added a little context, but that was basically it, the entire story. There isn’t enough depth to it to make ‘digging around for the answers’ hold together for 90+ hours. The sky crystal quests were repetitive for all the freedom they offered, and the depths just stopped appealing to me once I understood how to explore them, only to find very little of interest.

All in all, I feel like Tears is just as grandiose and experimental and packed with strong ideas as BOTW, but suffers from some of the same issues. I still preferred Tears and enjoyed it all the way through though.
 
Irene said:
Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild are two sides of the same coin for me, both using a similar open-air format with some pretty foundational mechanics and systems that they build upon, yet despite their similarities, they reach for vastly different experiences, and while I definitely agree that Tears is "BotW but more and better", I can also see eye-to-eye with "BotW is better than TotK BECAUSE TotK is 'more and better', which is to its detriment." I truly think that they are that different, when it comes down to what kind of experience, tone and overall sense of a progressing and evolving adventure they both offer.

Breath of the Wild is a mysterious, alluring adventure that has you waking up in a post-apocalypse, it's a lonesome and desolate experience (not unlike Shadow of the Colossus) where it's you and the world. Its - comparatively to Tears - a stripped-down and powerfully serene experience. You're free to explore to your heart's content, scavenging for supplies to survive the harsh environment. At the same time, It's an exciting and liberating adventure, the discoveries feels magical and fantastical due to how they're contextualized in such a stark difference to the aimless wandering. And at the same time, it's a madcap physics playground that allows you to break up the pacing with fun and inventive shenanigans, which is a much-needed contrast to the stark minimalism that defines the exploration loop.

Tears of the Kingdom, meanwhile, is a class reunion. The kingdom is populated and comparatively lively, and the landscape, significantly shaken up by the Upheaval, is waiting for you to rediscover it, rather than indulge in a serene exploration loop. Landing in Hyrule isn't the overwhelming feeling of treading into wholly uncharted territory, it's the even more overwhelming feeling of getting torn apart, wanting to eagerly visit every single inch of the map, wondering what has changed. It's an active experience rather than a passive one, where the game is frontloaded with systems, mechanics and resources that all contribute to the feeling of revisiting something that is now bigger and denser. (not unlike Grand Theft Auto) A larger space is also given to the inventive shenanigans, and rightfully so: in this new iteration of Hyrule, everything is already explored, so why return if not to take part in all the brand new, exciting and exhilarating methods of exploration the game offers you?

And I personally - pretty vastly - prefer what Tears has to offer to the formula. As magical it was to first map out the vast land of Hyrule for the very first time, the feeling of returning, of coming home again, was all the more intoxicating for me. The way that I was immediately filled up with a to-do list when I set foot in this new kingdom was overwhelming in all the most positive and ecstatic ways. I just couldn't wait to retread old grounds. And the changes to the overworld are more than enough for me to feel like it's all worthwhile - the Hebra blizzard, the Zora sludge, the caves, the towns and their new quests... it was a feeling unlike any other to just.. return again.

And on top of that, Tears gets to have its cake and eat it - The addition of the sky and the depths still gives it enough new uncharted territory to give you that wonderful new feeling of entering dangerous and untouched territory. You're free to explore to your heart's content, scavenging for supplies to survive the harsh environment - too! It's a class reunion, but with the same kind of magical sense of discovery just casually stapled on top of, and underneath, the old Hyrule. When all three layers works in context with each other, it makes for an exploration loop that treads old and new ground simultaneously, and it drives you forward, keeps you playing until sunrise. It's the perfect expansion of an even more perfect world.

And that is completely without mentioning Ultrahand! Traversal - and partially also combat - is nothing short of revolutionized in the game, with a genius new mechanic that puts exploration in a context that is refreshing and astoundingly powerful, a way for the game to set itself apart from its predecessor even more, double down on the playground aspect and come out all the better for it. It is pure, distilled joy and an incredible sense of game design magic. It's just marvelous to build something that actually works and makes you pull off a miracle stunt. (But equally marvelous to produce a spectacular failure)

Playing Tears of the Kingdom was - hell, is - an experience I'll forever treasure. I was here again. I was home. I've missed you, friend. So much.
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Amazing post, definitely articulates the difference in vibes between the two.

I’ll also add that while BotW nails the lonesome, melancholy feel that permeates the entire world and experience, TotK lacking that doesn’t mean it’s a slouch in the atmosphere department at all.

It just kind of decentralizes from an overall tone like that and makes the general overworld feel like home, and instead tons of different areas have their own potent atmosphere that are pretty different from one another.

Themed dungeons coming back is a big part of it, but the Sky and the Depths also have their own vibe and extremely unique soundscape. Hebra and Gerudo especially lay it on thick during their regional phenomena in a way that BotW never really did and kind of make the entire lead up to the dungeon feel like part of it and a wholly unique and curated experience. Thunderhead/Dragonhead Island too.

In that sense it’s closer to past games in the series, but maintains that more rich and subtle approach BotW had to its atmosphere in pretty much all of these starkly different areas.

I made a post on ERA focusing on how great the OST alone is for the entire Wind Temple quest, and how much that contributes to curating a cohesive and standout tone for that singular stretch of the game.
Phendrift said:
I could make a thread about how amazing the entire Wind Temple quest is in TOTK, but I'll focus on the OST since the OST award is what's being debated.

View: https://youtu.be/Qgd2ZUAyDh4?si=hZMDytNnfoPa9x5R

View: https://youtu.be/zelcOqgOXvM?si=0vZGZ29WzrnEPEG_

View: https://youtu.be/4WxPg6PeWxo?si=_Gml-PK-tdL2PKlj

View: https://youtu.be/Cm7yYgFjRo4?si=Eol9YTgw0d5S8eSl

And of course Colgera


the entire section is so atmospheric, boosted by an amazing and cohesive collection of tracks that sell the atmosphere, build up on eachother, dynamically change based on your progress. The Wind Temple part is my favorite personally, but really all the dungeon quests do this and go a long way to making you feel the unique dungeon atmosphere before even entering it.
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And that’s without even getting into the visual design of the blizzard coating the entire region, seeing the Frozen Rito Village which sees a region in a much more extreme condition than BotW ever portrayed, finding the glimpses of fire that point the way to the caves, before ascending the rising island chain as those ships swirling come into view and you near the foreboding eye of the storm.

TotK not maintaining BotW’s uniform tone doesn’t mean that it didn’t show how the Zelda team are still expert vibe curators. In some ways I’d argue the varied and standout tones in different parts of Tears are even more impressive.
 
Not everything added in TOTK worked out - the islands were a bit of a damp squib I thought, but it still takes BOTW and expands upon it in interesting ways. Ultrahand is incredible and completely in keeping with the freedom and emergent gameplay both games promote.

I'll grant that BOTW is more revolutionary/innovative/whatever, but I think TOTK is the better game.
 
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It's really interesting how impressions here vary this much. My girlfriend is currently playing through TotK, and I've convinced her to play BotW afterwards (she hasn't played it before). I'm curious to see how she takes to the game.
 
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It breaks my heart to say it, but TotK can't touch BotW. It doesn't even come close for me.

TotK is at the same time extremely ambitious, and utterly derivative. It takes BotW and tries to turn it into a formula - I still can't believe how much they pointlessly recycled, and how many of BotW's pitfalls they didn't fix or aggravated.

Even the biggest point of feedback from BotW - the dungeons - isn't properly picked up on. The only way in which TotK's dungeons are better is that they look and sound nicer. Otherwise they're just Divine Beasts again but worse as there's no overarching control mechanic this time around. None of these are remotely in the same league as even Skyward Sword's starter dungeon, let alone all-time greats like the Ancient Cistern.

While in BotW it could be argued that Shrines were in part dungeon replacements, in TotK this doesn't hold true at all. BotW Shrines were part of the narrative and aesthetically made sense, even though they were repetitive. TotK Shrines are both disconnected from the narrative, have the exact flow BotW shrines had - and I already did 120 of those! - and mostly hinge on messy "make your own fun" Ultrahand scenarios.

The new runes don't hold up under scrutiny either - Fuse is mostly a clunky extension of the menus, Rewind is neat but highly specialised which misses the point for these supposedly all-purpose powers, Ascend is a fascinating traversal tool but is also highly contextual and specialised, which leaves Ultrahand - a frustratingly clunky crafting system that results in ugly looking contraptions that don't fit Zelda at all.

TLDR: BotW is not only a more convincing work of art, it's also the better game because of it's consistency. TotK, while technologically exceedingly impressive, is a confusing hodgepodge.

Despite a truly incredible main theme, TotK has the least interesting 3D Zelda soundtrack. It can't hold a candle to the likes of SS, BotW or TP.
 
I feel about BotW/TotK almost the same as I do about Mario Galaxy/Galaxy 2. I cherish the experience of playing the first game for the first time and immersing myself in a new, unfamiliar and coherent world but find myself preferring the sequel that refines and adds to it, even if it does feel more messy overall. BotW and G1 haven't been "ruined" by TotK and G2 respectively but I think they're better experiences on the first playthrough and get progressively worse the more time you spend with them. It's fun and meditative to hike around in BotW but I'm almost dreading a replay because I fear that my experience will be the same as with Galaxy where I felt more lukewarm about it. I'd rather just hold onto that nostalgia. Conversely, I'm constantly itching to go back to their sequels because they're overall just more engaging mechanically. The only reason why I haven't started a new save in TotK is because I'm still holding out for a Master Mode update.
 
Looking purely at the base, TotK is simply the better game, more fleshed out.

But the truth is, you need both.
They're both a lecture on how similar, yet different you can create an open world and gameplay around it.

Personally, if you want me to pick one, i go with TotK. The expanded world, the vertical gameplay, the caves, the improved dungeons are things that edge it out for me.
Heck, even the underground is a thing of beauty and genius. I was a bit so-so on it after a while during my initial playtimes, but with my current playtime, spending most of the time underground in order to clear the map ... it clicked. Part survival sim (as you can't just refill your resources as easily as on the overworld), part "BotW-gameplay-hardmode-lite".
 
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I’ve said it before, but reading discussion here about how the two games relate to eachother - the more I think about it, the more I feel like Nintendo intentionally made TotK as BotW’s version of the “second half, post-master sword” part of a Zelda game that the older games used to follow.

The parallels are strikingly similar. There’s a tonal shift, you go back to old areas facing new (usually even more serious/dark problems), new dungeons pop up in those areas, gameplay gets more complex with more options, the scope opens up and your game world expands.

Hell even story-wise, the post-master sword part of OoT starts with Link meeting a character named Rauru and being instructed to go seek out the sages, who end up being people he’s met before in the first half along with one new character. That’s quite literally TOTK lmao.

Since they’re two separate full games with a huge gap between their release, it’s obviously a bit different, and that’s where the “does TOTK make BotW obsolete” vs. “is TotK too similar” comes into play. But I can just as equally see an argument that they’re two halves of a whole and I could even see them bundled together in the future. Which feels weird to see given how utterly massive each game is. It just thematically works and is in line with series traditions.

I don’t know, I just keep coming back to that idea over and over when pondering the relationship between the two games.
 
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Definitely Breath of the Wild. It's just such a refined work in almost all its aspects.

On the other hand, Tears of the Kingdom is what you get when you throw gourmet meatballs at the Mona Lisa. It's the Mona Lisa, but yummier!

It's engrossing but in a way that leaves me feeling exhausted after a session, like the difference between drinking wine because it's tasty and drinking it because of an alcohol problem. It's just such a noisy game with everything vying for your attention constantly. Even Koroks shout at you now.

It also leans into many of the things BOTW was praised for minimising in open world games: map clutter, grinding, follow the quest marker, checklists, collectathons.

Higher highs, but offset my lower lows, often correlated with literal lows.
 
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Phendrift said:
Tears fixed everything I wanted fixed from BotW and expanded it more than I even thought possible, I’d be lying if I didn’t say Tears.
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That's exactly what I feel too. Tears is not just "an extension", they change things that needed to be changed. And what TOTK add is not just "more content", it's unique gameplay mechanisms that are brillant and impresive by themselves, not only as a sequel.
 
botw shrines are better on average. Still think TOTK wins out because of the amount of content and the cool abilities you have.
 
I'd be lying if I didn't say that I had more fun with Tears of the Kingdom than with Breath of the Wild. But my vote goes for the second just because how much of TotK is directly taken from BotW, which goes beyond what is typical for a sequel, being honest. Seeing the changes in the world was a great adventure but is dissappointing that there isn't a single new village besides the initial one or that the overworld bosses are the same three that there was in BotW + Gleeok.

I don't know, I really loved TotK, it is one of my all time favorites. But what it brought to the table isn't comparable to BotW. BotW was a genre defining experience that amazed the world and kept people talking for years. Tears is a fantastic sequel with an impressive physics system and a lot of content, but doesn't have the same impact.
 
The problem to me is that they really feel like one huge mega game when I think about them, TotK doesn’t feel like the sequel to botw but more like the continuation of botw, it feels like the post game of botw where after finishing the game it opens up the world but instead of more content it’s literally another game.
I also feel like the 2 game strength are opposite to each other, the main strength of botw is the open world and exploration, finding new places and cultures and just going where you want, the story is also perfect for this type of game.
Instead I think the main strenght of TotK is in it’s main quests and moment to moment gameplay, all the challenges and quests created for the game are incredibly well made and put link and the player into amazing scenarios just like the traditional 3d style, while the exploration feels less important and more like a playground and less like a world to explore, the story is weaker than botw but it has an amazing ending.
It’s tough and I could change my opinion in the future as I consider this 2 games my favorites of the Zelda series so it’s pretty much a choice of what’s my favorite Zelda game ever. I think I respect BotW more as I think it achieved something incredible from start to finish, TotK is a messier game but more fun even if it has a bit too many things derivative of BotW.
Right now I give my vote to BotW but I wonder if in the future I could change it up with my second playtrough of TotK (I’ve beaten BotW 3 times against the only 1 time of TotK).
 
AngryAlchemist said:
I'm not really sure. It's been so long since I played Breath of the Wild, and while I remember loving most of it, Tears made me appreciate Breath of the Wild even more. So I couldn't really say which one I prefer without going back to them both one more time.
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Personally, when I was playing TOTK, I said to myself: I can't get back to BOTW after all these upgrades to the gameplay! But after months of not playing Tears, like a sort of accidental "detox", I think I can go back to it, and then to Tears.

Stilt Village said:
Tears of the Kingdom takes the weapon system and makes it functional beyond the Great Plateau, has vastly better core abilities even if personally the building is largely a negative, and most importantly, it doesn't rely entirely on shrines and koroks as the only meaningful end goal for everything. The extra variety of just having more types of objective does so much for the game, even if the shrines and koroks themselves are arguably worse content this time. ...And even if ending up with like 8+ different currencies to collect is a bit of a ridiculous situation in itself.
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My sentiments exactly. Which is why I feel that BOTW elevated the series, but TOTK elevated BOTW.

Which makes you wonder, what will the next 3D Zelda do to the series?

I feel like, gameplay-wise, the series has peaked with BOTW/TOTK. Sure, there are some details they can tweak here and there, but it's just that: details. No overhaul needed (at least, from what I can appreciate). Yes, there's the "issue" with dungeons, but if Tears waved a bit back to traditional dungeons, I think the next 3D Zelda will also pivot back to traditional Zelda dungeons (especially with the barrage of traditional Zelda content we might get in the coming years: new or remake of 2D Zelda; WW and TP HD Remasters).

I feel like the next step for 3D Zelda is to keep upping their narrative, but, it's a difficult thing to do with open-world games, plus Nintendo's approach is more about the gameplay, and less about the story (nothing wrong with that).
 
TotK for me.

BotW = A warm, delicious slice of apple pie
TotK = A warm, delicious slice of apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream
 
I spent a lot of time with both. I had knee jerk reactions to the removal of typical dungeons in BotW. They also removed a lot of progression elements. Zelda was a metroidvania before castlevania was a 'vania'. Losing the emphasis on that design got an emotional reaction from me that BotW takes the brunt of.

BotW was also a skeleton compared to TotK. The latter just feels fleshed out, and complete. TotK doesn't go back to 7 progression items, 8 dungeons. In fact, it doubles down on the BotW design. TotK didn't remove weapon damage (even the master sword!)... they go even furthur. That said, for whatever reason it just works. I really love the game.
 
TOTK feels like BOTW DLC (that inexplicably took 6 goddamn years to make) and didn't address most of BOTW's glaring issues (shallow dungeons, weak plot). So I'll take BOTW.
 
Prophet64 said:
Restraint of the Wild > Tears of the Menus
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TOTK getting even worse from a UI perspective is even more baffling. BOTW wasn't great to begin with yet they somehow made it worse instead of improving.
 
Octavian said:
TOTK feels like BOTW DLC (that inexplicably took 6 goddamn years to make), so I'll take BOTW.
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I wonder if something happened during those “inexplicably” 6 years that had a significant effect on game development across the globe?

Damn, this thread is embarrassing already.
 
Jbone916 said:
I wonder of something happened during those “inexplicably” 6 years that had a significant effect on game development across the globe?

Damn, this thread is embarrassing already.
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even if you throw out a year of development time that's still 5 years for a same engine sequel with massive amounts of asset reuse. MM was made in less than 2 years and is a better, more original game.

obviously development times are longer because games have to be more complex and larger in scope nowadays, but bigger = better. and hell, the respawn Star Wars games prove you can make a same engine sequel, during covid, and still have a more efficient development process/turnaround time (3 years)
 
Octavian said:
even if you throw out a year of development time that's still 5 years for a same engine sequel.

MM was made in less than 2 years and is a better, more original game. obviously development times are longers because games have to be more complex and larger in scope nowadays, but bigger = better. and hell, the respawn Star Wars games prove you can make a same engine sequel, during covid, and still have a more efficient development process/turnaround time (3 years).
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MM devs were crunched to hell and back to meet that deadline. We really should not be encouraging that type of behavior by using it in comparisons such as these imo.
 
Jbone916 said:
MM devs were crunched to hell and back to meet that deadline. We really should not be encouraging that type of behavior by using it in comparisons such as these imo.
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if MM wasn't crunched (do we know this for a fact?) the game still would've only taken 2-3~ years to create, not 6.
 
TotK bar none. i have no reason to ever replay BotW now and i absolutely love that game.

it seems many's complaints with BotW often start with the story aspect - truly, i think the story in TotK is absolutely better than BotW. yes, it is lame that they reused and repackaged the memories storytelling and i do feel like they certainly could've done more, but to act like BotW is a better story is silly. it is more original just by the fact of it coming before TotK, but TotK's is better and has much higher highs.

in the end, i feel like TotK showed that the zelda team is learning how to make an open-world game with better thought out 'linear-zelda' tropes. can't wait to see what they do next in that evolution.
 
meatbag said:
You can't really compare development times in the N64 era compared to now.
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okay, I'll put it like this: TOTK having an unprecedentedly long development time for a same-engine/asset reusing sequel was incredibly disappointing for how samey it ended up being. They could have made a better, more original, tighter scoped sequel in less time (without crunch), ala MM.
 
Octavian said:
TOTK having an unprecedentedly long development time for a same-engine/asset reusing sequel was incredibly disappointing for how samey it ended up being. They could have made a better, more original, tighter scoped sequel in less time (without crunch), ala MM
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Fair enough, we'll have to agree to disagree on TotK feeling same-y though, I find it a clear improvement over BotW
 
TOTK gets way too lost in the sauce for me. Very busy game that likes to grind to a halt and takes away a lot of what made the open world ideas of BotW work. Still a great game with lots to enjoy, but I enjoyed BotW's balancing act more. BotW is a game I found very flawed, but came to really respect how it came together overall. TotK is a game where I can respect a lot of the individual pieces of it, but it comes together in a way that I'm kind of frustrated with more often than I'd like to be.
 
If Tears didn’t reuse as much stuff it would probably be my favorite Zelda game despite other issues I have with it. But as it is, it’s just too disappointing compared to botw, which I already had issues with to begin with. Tears is more fun to play moment to moment, but it doesn’t come together and fumbles some of its most crucial elements. They shouldn’t have set it in the same world, but since they were clearly dedicated to that idea from the beginning they should have pushed the differences much further.

There should’ve been more dungeons, and the most important ones should have been in different locations, not specifically tied to the exact same towns as before. There should have been more towns. At least two new ones on the surface and at least one in the sky and the depths. Should have been waaaaaaay more new enemies, bosses, armor sets, weapons, etc.

The perfect example of how annoying their approach to Tears was is in the labyrinths. Go through old content in a newish way that’s fun enough moment to moment (but still could’ve been way better with some real puzzles and enemies). Then fight the same boss from the tutorial area, only to be rewarded with armor that is from the previous game? That just leaves a huge sour taste in my mouth that won’t go away. Then they say do it two more times.

Yes, ultrahand is cool as hell, but I’ll never be truly satisfied with these games as long as they continue to have these issues. So I gotta go with BotW just because of how disappointing Tears ended up being.
 
BotW is a 10 while TotK is like a 9-9.5.

Could say way more but the gist is basically BotW is wonderfully paced while TotK gets a bit too bloated.
 
manfromthedam said:
While in BotW it could be argued that Shrines were in part dungeon replacements, in TotK this doesn't hold true at all. BotW Shrines were part of the narrative and aesthetically made sense, even though they were repetitive. TotK Shrines are both disconnected from the narrative, have the exact flow BotW shrines had - and I already did 120 of those! - and mostly hinge on messy "make your own fun" Ultrahand scenarios.
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I agree that TotK felt like it could've grounded some of its gameplay elements (shrines etc) into the narrative more, something that BotW totally nailed.

If anything, I think BotW matches TotK when it comes to the told story, and even edges out TotK when it comes to lore and worldbuilding. BotW made its 120 mini dungeons, 4 main dungeons and memory flashbacks weave into one another beautifully, tying everything into the Sheikah and their lore. An advanced civilization who at the height of their power built these imposing machines, which then came to be resurrected only to fail to defeat the Calamity, which brought the world to a post-apocalypse where it all hinges on you, the player, to save the day by undertaking their trials. When taken in as a whole, it makes sense, and makes the journey immersive and believable.

TotK sort of stumbles here. The shrines are all there for reasons. The dungeons are there for reasons. The Zonai made fans, springs, pots, wings and sleds for reasons. Every video game requires suspension of disbelief, and few games are completely free of some kind of ludonarrative dissonance, and TotK is no different than any other game here. It's just that unlike BotW, it requires you to do so more frequently, to the point of it feeling strenuous at times.

I still love TotK's story - I think that it's narrative is better in the moment-to-moment storytelling, and it does succeed in pulling off some amazing high highs that single-handedly carries the entire thing home in terms of impactful plot beats, it's just that it all stands on fairly shaky grounds. BotW's story, meanwhile, is more subdued and intimate, but while it holds up better in most other aspects, it doesn't aim as high and grand as TotK, so the beats it manages to strike, strike more accurately, but not quite as profoundly in my opinion.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
Can’t say I ever think about development time when playing a game. I don’t think it’s going to get any easier for people who approach games this way.
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I don't while playing, a game's standalone quality as art is independent of anything external.

If I'm disappointing in a game, yeah I'm gonna start looking at its development and question why it turned out the way it did. Or be disappointed it took so long for the end result.
 
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Octavian said:
even if you throw out a year of development time that's still 5 years for a same engine sequel with massive amounts of asset reuse. MM was made in less than 2 years and is a better, more original game.

obviously development times are longer because games have to be more complex and larger in scope nowadays, but bigger = better. and hell, the respawn Star Wars games prove you can make a same engine sequel, during covid, and still have a more efficient development process/turnaround time (3 years)
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Yeah, they did that, because those star wars games are nowhere near as ambitious as TOTK. TOTK took so many years because it's one of the most complex interaction systems to ever release on console, and the world and puzzles were made to match, and that's incredibly hard to do. The only reason you're confused is you think it's a low effort sequel or along those lines when it's as far from that as is physically possible.

This being said; I still lean towards preferring BOTW; I'm not a fan of the depths or the sky and while the interactions and abilities are leagues ahead of BOTW, it's really the exploration I remember the game for the most, and reusing the map hampers TOTKs chances in that sense for me.
 
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BotW was more my jam. It evoked feelings that I have missed in gaming and some I have never felt.

TotK was more of that and maybe too much. I have stated in another thread that TotK feels much more like a to do list to me.
In BotW I was just being curious, wandering around, being surprised and delighted very often.

TotK did a lot of bold things with the abilities and I applaud the delevopers for it.
They also added caves and wells which was the main thing missing in BotW for me.
But in the end it was a disappointment for me (on a high level). It lost some magic for me.
 
Tyrien said:
Yeah but BoTW lacks the same things. ToTK is 1.5 basically which is still better in every way. I think the same world is really the biggest point of contention for people but say you played TOTK first and then played BOTW. Those people would absolutely feel differently IMO.

It's a matter of perspective. Many people base their opinions off of impact/how it felt at the time VS. just a more objective comparison. Yes, the same problems still stand. 6 years is a looooong time to wait for a sequel like this when we are used to brand new worlds and art styles and stuff. They decided to strenghten what made the first game good rather than meet us halfway on our expectations. (dungeons/old zelda elements etc)

They are like dabbling in things that zelda fans want. I'm convinced the next game will finally meet us there. -- Rather than only improve the open world stuff and basically become an entirely new genre completely devoid of the zelda dna we miss.
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For me personally it is more the feeling I got when playing through both games. The theme of BOTW with being lonely in a wild world worked much better compared to the very lively nature of TOTK. It felt less fleshed out to me.
 
Octavian said:
Gotcha. Point still stands, MM had about a 1 year crunched dev team, in a healthy environment that'd translate to 2-3 years.

TOTK taking 6 years (5 if you discard a year of productivity due to COVID), that's still ridiculous to me for how unoriginal the game is.
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If you really can’t understand why TotK took so long to make when accounting for:
-a ridiculously complex fusion system that accounts for hundreds of different creations, all with their own physics and functions that need to be rigorously tested to ensure they don’t break the game
-the increasingly longer development times that have affected and been noted by literally the entire industry
-a god damn global pandemic

Then honestly that’s kind of ridiculous. Surely we can express legitimate complaints about the game without resorting to what’s basically 1 step away from ‘lazy devs’ nonsense.
 
lexony said:
For me personally it is more the feeling I got when playing through both games. The theme of BOTW with being lonely in a wild world worked much better compared to the very lively nature of TOTK. It felt less fleshed out to me.
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That's fair. More of a narrative/atmospheric critique. I feel that.

It really does not help that it is the same world at all. I'd take TOTK's gameplay over BOTW any day though.
 
manfromthedam said:
It breaks my heart to say it, but TotK can't touch BotW. It doesn't even come close for me.

TotK is at the same time extremely ambitious, and utterly derivative. It takes BotW and tries to turn it into a formula - I still can't believe how much they pointlessly recycled, and how many of BotW's pitfalls they didn't fix or aggravated.

Even the biggest point of feedback from BotW - the dungeons - isn't properly picked up on. The only way in which TotK's dungeons are better is that they look and sound nicer. Otherwise they're just Divine Beasts again but worse as there's no overarching control mechanic this time around. None of these are remotely in the same league as even Skyward Sword's starter dungeon, let alone all-time greats like the Ancient Cistern.

While in BotW it could be argued that Shrines were in part dungeon replacements, in TotK this doesn't hold true at all. BotW Shrines were part of the narrative and aesthetically made sense, even though they were repetitive. TotK Shrines are both disconnected from the narrative, have the exact flow BotW shrines had - and I already did 120 of those! - and mostly hinge on messy "make your own fun" Ultrahand scenarios.

The new runes don't hold up under scrutiny either - Fuse is mostly a clunky extension of the menus, Rewind is neat but highly specialised which misses the point for these supposedly all-purpose powers, Ascend is a fascinating traversal tool but is also highly contextual and specialised, which leaves Ultrahand - a frustratingly clunky crafting system that results in ugly looking contraptions that don't fit Zelda at all.

TLDR: BotW is not only a more convincing work of art, it's also the better game because of it's consistency. TotK, while technologically exceedingly impressive, is a confusing hodgepodge.

Despite a truly incredible main theme, TotK has the least interesting 3D Zelda soundtrack. It can't hold a candle to the likes of SS, BotW or TP.
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Respect your opinion but least interesting soundtrack??? I think it’s one of the best imo. Lookout landing theme is going to go down as an hub town all timer.

 
YoboD said:
If you really can’t understand why TotK took so long to make when accounting for:
-a ridiculously complex fusion system that accounts for hundreds of different creations, all with their own physics and functions that need to be rigorously tested to ensure they don’t break the game
-the increasingly longer development times that have affected and been noted by literally the entire industry
-a god damn global pandemic

Then honestly that’s kind of ridiculous. Surely we can express legitimate complaints about the game without resorting to what’s basically 1 step away from ‘lazy devs’ nonsense.
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I understand why I just think their effort was misguided.
 
Concernt said:
BOTW was a revolution in open world game design


TOTK is an expansion pack with notions.

On a basic gameplay level it's easy to say TOTK is the better package but I can't get over how so much of its "good" is actually just BOTW, and how much of what it added, the new temples, the story, the characters, are mostly negatives rather than positives. TOTK's story especially is a case that's just... It's worse than nothing. It's so bad it makes BOTW's lore worse, and that's just an unforgivable realm of bad.
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personally thats where im at with totk now.

it doesn't help they may have one of the worst in game economies I have ever seen, if you don't dupe there is no way you'll be able to build anything creative that does not just get rid of all your resourced immediately. which made my enjoyment of the overall game much lesser, because while I was still doing a lot of new stuff, a lot of the times the best way to play is to ignore all of that and play it like its botw, honestly I think a new map and freedom to change base mechanics (like sprinting, gliding and climbing)will do wonders.

i sound cliche but thye really could have jjshut down zonia dlc wiht ganondrof at the end, its not like totk has a reovltionary story to tell.

i can see the appeal but imo this gamneplay style does not lend well to a heavy assest reusing sequal does as much as something like mario galaxy.
 
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