Spoiler The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Spoiler Thread

[Síriocaz]

I just learnt that Sidon has a fiancée and I feel quite hollow right now.

 

[BozPaggs]

Does anyone else feel like there's a few too many Rauru's Blessing shrines? Like I know there are more overworld puzzles/challenges for shrines but I do feel like I'm missing out on puzzles when I get 4-5 blessings in a row.
Maybe I'm misremembering BotW but I didn't think it had nearly as many.

 

[LiC]

Rant: It brings me no joy to confirm that TotK's story sucks.

Spoiler: Rant

The treatment of Zelda in this game is awful. It's hilariously, calamitously bad. At least in BotW it was just, okay, she's not a character at all, with the memories being merely backstory. That left me unsatisfied because I felt she could have been a character. In TotK, she's now already an established character -- and one they showed us all the way back in 2019 -- but after the prologue they use time travel bullshit to reset the board just so everything can be as much like BotW as possible, no Zelda in the actual story, and all to culminate in the dumbest plot twist* I can think of in a video game in recent memory. Both because it's an insulting waste of the character, done in an embarrassingly similar way to BotW (basically cryosleep again in order to maintain something in status quo until Link can show up to deal with it), and because as a functional plot detail it's just mind-numbingly stupid. The Master Sword, which you don't even need to beat the game, just needs to be restored by her turning into a dragon and sticking it in her head! Something which isn't even that good as a weapon in-game! And it actually has the same stats as in BotW! That's worth Zelda basically killing herself just so Link can have his special glowy sword back. Again, BotW's non-character of Zelda was frustrating, but at least from a purely plot and motivation standpoint, she went into cryosleep to prevent the imminent destruction of the entire continent and death of everyone on it, by physically restraining the monster that was trying to kill everyone. In this game? Broken sword needs a spa bath.

* Which it isn't, since they beat you over the head with what's going to happen right out of the gate. And then they were apparently unconfident that all the clumsy foreshadowing would be absorbed by the players, since they felt a need to replay a montage of all of it in the last cutscene.

This is a failure on every level of storytelling. Character, plot, story, theme, and execution. I'm forced now to acknowledge now that Zelda team's writers just aren't very good.

Even beyond the issue of Zelda herself, TotK's storytelling is so bad, it makes BotW's look good. At least in that game the memories were explaining how the entire world got into this state and showing you some unique scenes with each of the Champions. In TotK there's nothing to explain except Ganondorf and the stupid fucking dragon twist. For Ganondorf, you get two or three decent cutscenes with him, then the same one boring thing happening in all the sage cutscenes except Mineru's. And that one would have at least been cool to see, except that all the other crappy versions of it plus the tear cutscenes have already spelled out exactly what happened beat by beat, so by the time you finally get to see Rauru grab Ganondorf, I'm just like "okay, finally" and all you really get is a few extra seconds of action plus the weirdly calm conversation Rauru has with him.

Many other aspects of the game are still near perfection. I'll just have to calibrate my expectations for story in future Zelda titles much lower. It's such a shame because the storytelling in games like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess was very simple, but totally effective. In BotW I felt like they had the excuse of the game's new and experimental structure causing them to go with the less-than-optimal but understandable approach using the memories for backstory, and the story in the present linked together with it decently well. In TotK, it's actually gotten significantly worse, and there's no excuse anymore, they either deliberately kept an approach that hamstrings them despite having time to iterate on it (because of the aforementioned mentality of intentionally keeping things the same as BotW where it wasn't even a matter of time and effort), or they're just incapable of doing any better. Neither possibility bodes well for the future.

Edit: Since I forgot to mention this during the rant, I do want to say for the record that I think the "present" story in TotK is still good. Not great -- characters like Purah, Robbie, and Josha are underutilized, among other issues -- but good. The "regional phenomena" storylines are the strongest, as they were in BotW, but that's more driven by gameplay scenario than writing. There are refreshing moments and characters in various quests, side and main. If they had just made Zelda a shop NPC in Lookout Landing and deleted the memory cutscenes from the game -- or maybe just made them solely about events transpiring between Ganondorf, Rauru, Sonia, and Mineru -- I don't think I'd be complaining beyond reiterating my disappointments about Zelda from BotW. Obviously this is a low bar and I'd have really preferred they do much more with Zelda, but it's a low bar they spectacularly failed to clear.

Side rant: It's funny to me that people complained about the time travel bullshit in Age of Calamity like it undermined BotW's story. If that's from the pedantic perspective of caring about "the canon," well, I find that kind of thing really obnoxious in fan discourse, but you can you have your opinions. But if we're talking about actual story and storytelling, um, what? Age of Calamity using time travel was a way to salvage and unify the world and characters of BotW from the crappy memory system and "and then they all died offscreen" bullshit that underpinned that game's lore. It's just straight up a better retelling of BotW's own backstory. Almost nothing even changes about the Calamity plot due to Terako's presence until the midpoint when the future Champions show up, which is the time-travel fix-it moment that I could understand being contentious, but that's even not the premise of the game which got some people mad originally. And that twist serves two purposes: one, get those characters in the story, because it's a Warriors game that wants a big and varied cast and it's a waste not to have them when people like and remember them from their BotW segments, and two, they felt the need to justify why history would change and the Champions wouldn't get killed by the Blights, ironically because of trying to cater to exactly that pedantic fan "plot hole" mindset. It's fanservicey, but it's a Warriors game, so what do you expect. I think it could have been done a little differently, but regardless of that point, it doesn't stop AoC's story from being simply strictly better than BotW's (let alone TotK's lol), and that very much applies to Zelda as well, to bring this full circle. No, not the fact that she's a playable character and can beat up enemies because I think punching equals agency or whatever. I could write an entire other post about it, but AoC understands Zelda's character in a way that the mainline game's writers just don't. Or rather, they do, as after all they're the ones who wrote it originally, but they just completely disregard it at every turn where it could be impactful, because they're bad writers.

 

[manfromthedam]

Finished the main quest yesterday, and after the awesome first two trailers, year-long delay, and bonkers reviews and user impressions, I was ready to utterly love this game and set my doubts about the reused map and assets aside. But, in the end, it really is BotW but again.

Some of the things they reused completely puzzle me.

• Shrines work exactly like the old ones. Loading screen, not themed to the region, completely artificial puzzle test chambers. This was an obvious point of improvement for BotW.
• Korok seeds - intensely repetitive in BotW, bafflingly similar in TotK (the regular ones).
• Memories. You cannot build a narrative arc when the story can completely spoil itself by seeing it in the wrong order. They just did it again.
• Dungeon talk. In BotW the champions all had the exact same script because the game didn't know which Divine Beast you'd do first. In TotK we see the same event happen 4 times with minimal changes.
• Outside of Lookout Landing, a small fort, all towns just return with the exact same music. The town music were the tracks that got the most playtime in BotW and were the first ones to have to get at least a new arrangement, but they're just here unchanged. The regional phenomena towns have different music when stuff's bad, but after fixing it you get rewarded by the town returning to same-old status.
• The main quest has us visiting the exact same regions & talk to (largely) the same people. The game only started to feel like a sequel when the Spirit Temple hit, and after that it's on to Hyrule Castle again and the final boss sequence.

Sky Islands and Depths are cool new locations, but the missed opportunities there are staggering. Sky Islands only have one biome, and are essentially little puzzle islands. After you've seen a few you've seen them all. The Depths are my favourite part of the game because they feel so new, but feel very sparse in content. Caves are also there, and are an appreciated, though quite monotonous, way to liven up ye olde map.

It kinda feels like they didn't have the budget they had for BotW, and found a way for the core team to do more of the heavy lifting by having the designers recontextualise BotW with new systems. Those new systems are awesome (even though I personally dislike many Ultrahand applications), and it's a very Nintendo thing to do, but ultimately led TotK to feel like BotW On Steroids.

Let's do a few positives as well, because I'm sounding like a grumpy green muppet at this point.

• Dungeons are an enormous improvement, and even though they don't reach Skyward Sword levels of awesome, they're quality - in particular the Lightning Temple!
• Exploration is much more fun with how more lively Hyrule feels, with NPCs and little stories tucked away in many places. Being able to dive down from a sky island into the Depths and Ascend through the Depths to a mountain top is a thrill.
• Combat is made much more risky due to higher damage output for enemies, requiring the player to use Fuse to survive. TotK is a great Fantasy Archery game as a result.
• The ending is a trip - diving underneath Hyrule Castle, going deeper and deeper, music intensifying, and having a multi-tiered showdown with a truly awe-inspiring ending sequence in the overworld was very satisfying.

We'll see how my thoughts are in a few months, when the dust has settled, but even though I greatly enjoyed myself the past two weeks, I can't give it as glowing a recommendation as I would've liked.

 

[Horror Kid]

I still love the game after 140 hours but there is also a constant little feeling of disappointment.
I think there is a lot of wasted potential in different aspects of the game (mainly the variety of sky islands and a lack of flying enemies).

On the other hand it is easy for me to imagine how to improve on this game (in contrast to some other statements I have read), so it should be easy for Nintendo as well. They are probably more limited by staff/time=money than by ideas.

I am maybe in a minority in this but I wish they hold their breath on the experimental side on their next game, just reuse all these cool systems they created and put more energy into story/world building.

 

[space_dragon]

I wonder how many times Nintendo changed the title for this game. Tears of the Kingdom sounds cool, but the memories make it seem like the title should have been Tears of the Dragon (even more awesome, imo). That would also line up with why they said the title would be a spoiler. Tears of the Kingdom doesn't seem that spoiler-y to me, but Tears of the Dragon does. Thoughts??

 

[Suswave]

I just learnt that Sidon has a fiancée and I feel quite hollow right now.

we all know it’s comphet

 

[Irene]

(mainly the variety of sky islands and a lack of flying enemies).

I have to agree on the sky islands.

First island cluster: Zonai dispenser! Flux construct! Shrine quest! Thing that shoots you away! Sundelions and stambulbs! Puzzle! Old map or Sage's Will!

Fifteenth island cluster: Zonai dispenser... check. Flux construct... check. Shrine quest... check. Thing that shoots you away... check. Sundelions and stambulbs... check. Puzzle... check. Old map or Sage's Will... check.

It did, however, create the effect that whenever you found something that stood out, it became all the more impactful because it broke the formula up a bit. Loved the laser hole island and the mirror puzzle in the death star island.

 

[Phendrift]

I was someone who had complained about Shrines having the same aesthetic throughout BotW but… I have to say it actually bothers me less in TOTK despite the implementation of them being exactly the same. For two reasons

1) Themed dungeons. On a macro scale, the dungeons being unique aesthetically adds a lot to variety and memorability. Part of of the problem in BotW was that dungeons AND shrines all had that sheikah aesthetic and they were the only interior areas you visited in all of BotW, which brings me to the second reason…

2) Caves. Maybe I’ve gotten lucky, but caves add so much. They’re essentially fulfilling a similar role to shrines (bite sized challenges as a reward for exploration) and contrary to what I see people saying… they are themed! And varied! Yesterday in Eldin I found caves all filled with lava and integrated into the Eldin environment

• one was a giant lava chamber with tons of minecart paths
• one had cooled lava platforms dropping from waterfalls that I had to recall or make bridges to explore fully, complete with a unique armor and an ancient ruin that opened up once I nabbed that that gave me a riddle for another cave hidden somewhere else
• one was a minecart shooting gallery minigame hosted by a duo of gorons.

I went to one Gerudo one so far and it was filled with quicksand currents, Gerudo architecture and the yellow rocks of the Gerudo region as opposed to the grey ones found in the grassland caves. I’ve done a couple of caves on the beach, and one was filled with water and actually had an NPC that needed me to ferry him across it. The other had a shrine that was flooded and I couldn’t enter, I stopped there for the night though, but I’m assuming I have to do something about that!

So yeah, I think the caves compliment shrines very nicely and make shrines feel less like they’re bearing a ton of the burden of being the “rewarding bite size interior environment” you find. And that between dungeons and caves, the samey aesthetic of the shrines is much less of a bother to me.

Oh and shrines themselves still are themed, as they were in BotW. The architecture of them doesn’t change, but Eldin shrines have lava and fire puzzles, Gerudo has electric puzzles, I did a Zora one on the way up to the water temple that uses those water bubbles and Zero G.

It also helps that the shrine aesthetic itself (especially the blessing shrines) is really good.

 

[Djehuty]

How can you genuinely believe this, he's nothing. He's evil for the sake of evil. He has no goal no ambition no actual reason for why he's doing anything at all. The presentation may be good but the actual writing is the worst he's ever been.

I think it’s an issue of totk that will rear it’s head later, it’s all presentation , works now when there’s hype but 3 years down the line afterwords it doenst do anything, ganondorf won’t be looked back o fondly, totk ganondorf makes oot ganondorf look like a well developed character, at least it’s better than to ganondorf, he didn’t even have a boss fight, just a playable cutscene pretty much and came out of nowhere in the story.

 

[PT Fan]

Almost 85 hours according to my snitch Switch and I just found out the Lightroots in the Depths come from the Shrines in the surface. My mind was blown!
I can now basically use the shrines I've done to find my way around the depths in search for the Lightroots. Sweet.

 

[xaszatm]

It’s funny how the hands goes from “ah crap!” to “sweet one the best bows in the game!”

 

[POE]

I have a question people:
Wasnt Ganondorf and Ganon supossed to be the same being?

 

[Starphanluke]

I have a question people:
Wasnt Ganondorf and Ganon supossed to be the same being?

Calamity Ganon is implied to be caused by the malice/gloom pouring out of Ganondorf's body over time. So in this continuity, maybe not exactly the same being. But connected. The origin of malice/gloom is Ganondorf's connection to his Secret Stone.

 

[Brock Reiher]

I have a question people:
Wasnt Ganondorf and Ganon supossed to be the same being?

Calamity Ganon is OoT Ganondorf reduced to pure malice, Totk Ganondorf is a different guy

 

[Horror Kid]

It did, however, create the effect that whenever you found something that stood out, it became all the more impactful because it broke the formula up a bit. Loved the laser hole island and the mirror puzzle in the death star island.

Those are definitive standouts with a few others.
They should have used the laser diving more. Like have the Yiga clan put some lasers into a chasm and you have to dodge them while descending.

 

[JR436]

Honestly, I think Ganondorf has always got by on his presentation than any specific qualities to his character. And no, Wind Waker is not an exception to this. Introducing an air of tragedy to his plight doesn't change the fact that he's still a power hungry prick.

That's not a problem as far as I'm concerned. But if you're going to have someone who is unapologetically evil, then you better damn make sure they're entertaining/engaging. It's what separates his lesser appearances (Twilight Princess springs to mind) from anything else.

 

[Phendrift]

I have to agree on the sky islands.

First island cluster: Zonai dispenser! Flux construct! Shrine quest! Thing that shoots you away! Sundelions and stambulbs! Puzzle! Old map or Sage's Will!

Fifteenth island cluster: Zonai dispenser... check. Flux construct... check. Shrine quest... check. Thing that shoots you away... check. Sundelions and stambulbs... check. Puzzle... check. Old map or Sage's Will... check.

It did, however, create the effect that whenever you found something that stood out, it became all the more impactful because it broke the formula up a bit. Loved the laser hole island and the mirror puzzle in the death star island.

I honestly think just one town in the Sky would’ve alleviated any disappointment in it for me.

Because when you think about it… there really is a lot up there. There are two whole story dungeons (and lead ups) in the sky. I think people subconsciously group those with the land because the quest starts in the villages on land and you’re guided there? Idk, but I think Nintendo viewed those as significant parts of the Sky experience.

On top of that, you have

• The Great Sky Island
• the three Sky Labyrinths
• Dragonhead Island
• Lightcast Island
• Zonaite Forge Island
• the Skydive challenges

As significant deviations from the formula. If they just threw a town in there I don’t think I’d have a problem with it at all, even travelling the formulaic ones is a fun gameplay loop still what with the gacha machines, as well as the old maps and sages wills to seek out.

I also do understand the concerns from the interview about it getting too cluttered. When you look at the map itself, it looks pretty sparse, but I was in Akkala yesterday, looking from the islands there back toward Lanayru and Central Hyrule and it was pretty busy visually.

 

[Mango]

Calamity Ganon is OoT Ganondorf reduced to pure malice, Totk Ganondorf is a different guy

Impa says they're the same if you visit her after you've done all the memories. So we know Calamity Ganon and ToTK Ganondorf are the same but there's nothing to strongly tie him to Traditional Ganon(dorf)

I think it’s an issue of totk that will rear it’s head later, it’s all presentation , works now when there’s hype but 3 years down the line afterwords it doenst do anything, ganondorf won’t be looked back o fondly, totk ganondorf makes oot ganondorf look like a well developed character, at least it’s better than to ganondorf, he didn’t even have a boss fight, just a playable cutscene pretty much and came out of nowhere in the story.

Honestly, I don't think this games story will be remembered as fondly as BOTWs. It has more working against it overall.

 

[Brock Reiher]

Impa says they're the same if you visit her after you've done all the memories. So we know Calamity Ganon and ToTK Ganondorf are the same but there's nothing to strongly tie him to Traditional Ganon(dorf)

Doubtful. Maybe in the sense that they're both reincarnations of Demise, but otherwise Ganondorf should recognize him.

 

[POE]

Doubtful. Maybe in the sense that they're both reincarnations of Demise, but otherwise Ganondorf should recognize him.

She says it very clear: they are the same.

 

[Horror Kid]

The old maps are such a nice addition in principle. But to me they are also wasted potential.

They should give some clues how to open a small room with the treasure chest inside, not just marking it with X on the map to pick it up. I know, part of the challenge is to get to that X in the depths but it is very disappointing to find a map and it just says 'you have already found the treasure'.

There are these two caves in dual peaks where one contains the solution in the other (pressing certain buttons). I liked that a lot.

Why can't the maps say (in a more poetic way):

• shoot an arrow at noon through ring 4 (out of 10)
• clean statue 2, 5, 8 of the sludge
• light torch 2, 3, 7, 9 on fire
• let the electric current flow on lane 1, 6 and 7 (filling them with water or metal weapons so they conduct better)
• little cages with fruit in it and you have to cook (burn) certain ones
• offer a star fragment at the sacrificial bowl

And other variations.

This way it is not impossible but very unlikely to obtain the treasure. I would mark it on the map with a symbol if I'd find it before I have the map and come back after I received it.

It would feel much more rewarding. I know they want the player to tackle almost everything in any order but some gating would be welcomed by me.

 

[Goht]

Finished the main story tonight. I gotta say I'm disappointed that the final area below the castle was just wave after wave of enemies. Combat is my least favorite part of the game. And it wouldn't let me warp out pre-Ganon to resupply food and potions. But thankfully he only took me two attempts. I disliked that whole sequence until the final dragon fight, which was very cool. The plot was typical Zelda cheese--no complaints there.

I'm being negative but I still rate the game 9/10. I just wish the temples and the final area were as great as everything else.

About 59 hours to credits. 93 shrines.

 

[Goht]

What was that Ganon health bar? lol

 

[PixelKnight]

Finished the main story tonight. I gotta say I'm disappointed that the final area below the castle was just wave after wave of enemies. Combat is my least favorite part of the game. And it wouldn't let me warp out pre-Ganon to resupply food and potions. But thankfully he only took me two attempts. I disliked that whole sequence until the final dragon fight, which was very cool. The plot was typical Zelda cheese--no complaints there.

I'm being negative but I still rate the game 9/10. I just wish the temples and the final area were as great as everything else.

About 59 hours to credits. 93 shrines.

You could put a purah pad warp point down after all the combat and before Ganon. That’s what I did, warped out and resupplied (I wasn’t expecting quite such heavy combat on the final run either).

 

[Goht]

You could put a purah pad warp point down after all the combat and before Ganon. That’s what I did, warped out and resupplied (I wasn’t expecting quite such heavy combat on the final run either).

Huh, I had no idea you could place custom warp points. If I died a couple more times I probably would have googled it lol

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

What a finale, what a game

 

[POE]

AFAIK nobody in-game draws a connection between Ganondorf I and Calamity Ganon.

Impa does, and she says they are the same.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Huh, I had no idea you could place custom warp points. If I died a couple more times I probably would have googled it lol

It's an expansion for the Purah Pad

 

[Maronic03]

I just learnt that Sidon has a fiancée and I feel quite hollow right now.

He's happy, be happy for him.

 

[takriel]

What a game. It truly washes over the smaller and bigger nitpicks because in sum it's just so good.

 

[Brock Reiher]

She says it very clear: they are the same.

Again, in the sense I said sure. Otherwise that can't be true

 

[manfromthedam]

Just saw all the memories, that was affecting and interesting. An improvement over BotW for sure!

Also what the game misses in meditative quality compared to it's predecessor it makes up for in sheer fun.

 

[Vantell]

Holy shit that ending was epic. Really enjoyed the game more thanks to the story that was being told. I didn't like the story as much in the background with BotW but TotK was very different. I still have a lot to explore but wanted to know the ending and such and yeah, that was dope. My two cents about the final fight:

Spoiler

The idea that Zelda lost all her mind body and soul due to changing into a dragon and still feeling the need to save Link and fight the Demon Dragon is just a small tear moment

 

[LukasManak22]

Just completed 20 minutes ago, ready to talk about everything

 

[hologram]

Just completed 20 minutes ago, ready to talk about everything

 

[LukasManak22]

For me it tops BOTW, the Ultrahand is amazing, not to mention Fuse which is literally something else. Dungeons were good and overworld is greatly reused, I get why they wanted to go there, the passing of time is apparent especially with some NPC's.

Negatives include: Lookout Landing is only one new town? What a letdown, I really felt that game based on sky would have a sky town or something so that's weird. Not to mention that sky islands are probably not what many people hoped, the Great Sky Island gives you the idea that there will be islands like this, with some type of bigger exploration but there aren't, except for some. The one big ladder-like island is only for challenge, the other one only has shrine in it. Obviously I never expected that sky will be 1:1 Hyrule map, that was apparent. But if they added 2-3 islands as big as Great Sky Island it would be great.

I don't mind them reusing some music like Stables, but freezing OST being the same is a letdown, the same goes for towns, no-one probably expected to be entirely new OST, that would not make sense, but at least some new arrangements could have worked. Some villages have different because before you make a dungeon but that's it.

I barely explored Depths, but I like how the lightrooms in there are shrines on surface, makes so much sense.

 

[Mango]

The more the game sits the more negative I feel towards it to be honest. I figured I'd write out my complaints:

Spoiler: Long list complaints

-no new towns, less in fact since Lurelin is destroyed initially.
-Borders of Hyrule are identical, didn't even do anything unique with the border canyons to the north and west.
-none of the towns have really been expanded much at all. With more NPCs than BOTW you'd think there'd be a lot of expansion but over all with Kakariko being destroyed partially by rings and Tarrey Town restructured to fit new buildings, theres more town shrinkage than growth.
-lots of poor continuity issues, even with BOTW.
-Sky feels barren and more or less pointless to explore and the Depths largely only lead to Amiibo armors that were already in BOTW.
-Complete refusal to elaborate on what happened to the Sheikah Tech or how many years have passed.
-At most there's like four new weapons. Most of them construct weapons. Same with bows and shields, and to compensate for fuse things like the elemental weapons and arrows are gone. The Sheikah weapons are also gone as are most of the Yiga weapons.
-Again very little in terms of new clothing, they focused on bringing all of the BOTW clothing back, so we've only got like five new outfits.
-Since the game prioritizes fusing weapons the interesting bits and pieces of lore and world building that came with weapons and made finding new weapons so great, are mostly gone, not that it matters because most of what you find is from BOTW.
-No new weapon types. Would have killed them to have at least one?
-The world being repurposed hurts the overall world-building. The backstory of BOTW was relatively recent, so each and every set of ruins told a story and helped build up the past, that doesn't work here, which contributes in the story feeling shallow. At best you have the depths and the sky to contribute to the world building for the past events, but they don't do a good job at all.
-The story of this game actively makes me like BOTW less. This is a super personal take but the confirmation that ToTK Ganondorf is also Calamity Ganon is kinda gut-wrentching. The line in the 2017 trailer from Impa that went:

"The History of Calamity Ganon is also the History of the Royal Family of Hyrule."

Was always so cool, it felt grand to have seen that history and been a part of that history through playing all the other games, but now that I know she's referring to this Ganondorf, it's nothing, I don't care anymore, it's gone from being a sentimental line that made my sense of fandom swell to being a throwaway nothingburger.

-The dungeons are largely just ok. The Lightning Temple and Wind Temple are great, as far as BOTW dungeons are concerned, but the other two are awful, and the fact that they insisted on keeping the "find five things" gimmick is just all out annoying. It's not enjoyable to be thrown in a big room with bite sized challenges on each side of me and told go do these super quick things. It doesn't scratch the itch for an actual dungeon.
-The story I feel is overall a mess, but more annoying is how its functionally the same story of BOTW just shuffled around:

• Link wakes up from almost dying
• Is guided through the intro by the ghost of a significant King.
• Learns a general idea of the plot and where Zelda is at the end of said intro
• Meets with one of the major Sheikah members.
• Another member offers to upgrade his Sheikah device.
• Has to track down memories and go check on the four regions.
• Memories detail a battle in the past that was all but lost, and was only won through great sacrifices.
• Each region requires you team up with a specific member of each race and do something so you can interact with and receive something from the person from the past.
• Ganondorf is sealed at the end of the memories and Zelda sacrifices herself.
• Once you get everything the game guides you to the master sword which requires (assuming you don't know where it is) to interact with the Deku Tree, and to then have a certain number of Sheikah Zonai shrines completed to pull it.
• Go to Hyrule Castle to defeat Ganon(dorf.)

Like could they not have created a different structure to the story or did they write the story last minute...? It just feels so painfully identical to BOTW.

I don't know, it's like it's a good game, but nearly everything I was excited for when I found out sequel was being made just never came to fruition. I wanted to see rebuilt towns, tons of new weapons/clothes, both new and from the series past. I wanted to see towns expanded, I wanted new mechanics to alleviate weapons breaking, like blacksmiths or at the very least shops to buy weapons. I wanted to see expanded borders and to explore a little bit beyond Hyrule. I wanted a lot more, but overall what we got just didn't feel worth the wait. It almost feels like they spent the whole six years tweaking the abilities, but like they aren't even that fun, ascends finicky, recall I honestly always forget I have, and Ultrahand and fuse are clunky at best.

 

[xaszatm]

-lots of poor continuity issues, even with BOTW.

Ok I'm going to be honest, I do NOT understand the issues with continuity people keep bringing up. Nothing in TOTK really contradicts anything in the older games unless you are a stickler for minute details that those older games don't match 100% anyways. Nothing about this feels like a reboot or a retelling of OOT, nothing about this feels like a disconnect from BOTW (like, I think people forget that to like most Hylians, Link is just some random guy who showed up and did a weird task for him, why would most people remember him? And others DO remember Link). Like I keep seeing this "proof that this is a unique timeline separate from even BOTW" and I'm just scratching my head in confusion.

-Sky feels barren and more or less pointless to explore and the Depths largely only lead to Amiibo armors that were already in BOTW.

This feels incredibly reductive. Auotbuild plays a heavy role in the Depths and you find a bunch of schematics and tools down there to help you with them. It's also the area where you get stuff for Ultrahand and its mechanics. It even has a base usage because it's where you find Puffshrooms, Muddle Buds, and more bomb flowers.

-Complete refusal to elaborate on what happened to the Sheikah Tech or how many years have passed.

Purah in a journal states that she used old ancient Shekiah tech for her tech. The fact that the Yiga also is in old Shiekah sites seems to indicate that they also stole the equipment for their own devices. As for why it didn't say so blatantly...I mean Purah does mention this when talking about the tower but also it's not important? Those things rose up in the ground only recently so it wouldn't have been a big guess to think they went back down, especially concerning the Great Plateu side adventure.

We can elaborate that it's been 4-7 years from context but also...why does this matter? Why do we need the specific year this takes place? It takes place in the future just far enough where people have moved on to focus on the present, and even then we still get references to the past game.

-At most there's like four new weapons. Most of them construct weapons. Same with bows and shields, and to compensate for fuse things like the elemental weapons and arrows are gone. The Sheikah weapons are also gone as are most of the Yiga weapons.

...The Shiekah weapons are in the game. They are the Yiga weapons and they are found in various places.

-The world being repurposed hurts the overall world-building. The backstory of BOTW was relatively recent, so each and every set of ruins told a story and helped build up the past, that doesn't work here, which contributes in the story feeling shallow. At best you have the depths and the sky to contribute to the world building for the past events, but they don't do a good job at all.

...what? The backstory of BOTW involved a period 100 years ago (the standard for most 3D games) and 10,000 years ago. There is a ton of stuff both old and new in the game. ToTK's emphasis in on the Zonai, but also how it's fighting against the current threat. There are active teams wages battle against the monsters to varrying degrees of success. There are teams being sent out to do a bunch of stuff to fix Hyrule. That's the story, we're 4-7 years into the future and Hyrule is focusing on the now mostly.

-The story of this game actively makes me like BOTW less. This is a super personal take but the confirmation that ToTK Ganondorf is also Calamity Ganon is kinda gut-wrentching. The line in the 2017 trailer from Impa that went:

"The History of Calamity Ganon is also the History of the Royal Family of Hyrule."

Was always so cool, it felt grand to have seen that history and been a part of that history through playing all the other games, but now that I know she's referring to this Ganondorf, it's nothing, I don't care anymore, it's gone from being a sentimental line that made my sense of fandom swell to being a throwaway nothingburger.

I mean...you still are? Like, BOTW explicitly calls Calamity Ganon "the latest of reincarnations". The time period where Zelda is sent back ISN'T the war 10,000 years ago. It seems all those other games still happened? I don't know, you seem to be taking these words far too literally and attaching meaning where none exist. I still believe that every game happened because the games still reference older games beyond the amiibo clothing.

Ganondorf HAS reincarnated before, it's incredibly rare but it happens. Why is having him reincarnate again such a shock?

-The dungeons are largely just ok. The Lightning Temple and Wind Temple are great, as far as BOTW dungeons are concerned, but the other two are awful, and the fact that they insisted on keeping the "find five things" gimmick is just all out annoying. It's not enjoyable to be thrown in a big room with bite sized challenges on each side of me and told go do these super quick things. It doesn't scratch the itch for an actual dungeon.

Ok, I'm going to be really honest, as someone who replayed OoT, MM, and TP...I'm really struggling to think of ANY dungeon that was long, complicated, or even difficult in relation to ToTK. Everyone talks about them as if they're these vast hours long dungeons and I think the longest I ever took to complete one was at most an hour. That's about as long as I've spent doing ToTK's dungeons.

I don't know, it's like it's a good game, but nearly everything I was excited for when I found out sequel was being made just never came to fruition. I wanted to see rebuilt towns, tons of new weapons/clothes, both new and from the series past. I wanted to see towns expanded, I wanted new mechanics to alleviate weapons breaking, like blacksmiths or at the very least shops to buy weapons. I wanted to see expanded borders and to explore a little bit beyond Hyrule. I wanted a lot more, but overall what we got just didn't feel worth the wait. It almost feels like they spent the whole six years tweaking the abilities, but like they aren't even that fun, ascends finicky, recall I honestly always forget I have, and Ultrahand and fuse are clunky at best.

Ok, that's your opinion but also like...the audience clearly isn't on your side here. People love the new abilities and all the crazy shit you can make. And all of them are gaming miracles that most game developers are in awe of.

And like, we did get new mechanics to alleviate weapons breaking. You don't seem to want to use fuse but I never upgraded any of my weapons slots because Fuse just changed how I dealt with weapon degradation. It's the one area where I have like 23 seeds that I haven't spent any.

 

[Common Knowledge]

The only odd thing (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong; I haven’t actually completed the game yet) between BotW and TotK is that seemingly no character makes the connection between Ganondorf and Calamity Ganon directly. Like, I get the connection is blatantly obvious in the context of the games that having the game bring it up may be pointless, but I don’t think there’s any character at any point that’s like “hey, who would’ve known that the evil force terrorizing us for the past 100 years was actually born from a 10,000+ old mummified corpse of a man underground!” The games treat CG and Ganondorf like they might as well be entirely separate entities. For a game that’s a direct sequel it does little to explicitly tie itself in-universe into the context of BotW, even if for the player it’s obvious. It’s just weird even if it’s ultimately not a big deal.

 

[neon]

recall I honestly always forget I have

with all due respect, this is a skill issue

I mean...you still are? Like, BOTW explicitly calls Calamity Ganon "the latest of reincarnations". The time period where Zelda is sent back ISN'T the war 10,000 years ago. It seems all those other games still happened? I don't know, you seem to be taking these words far too literally and attaching meaning where none exist. I still believe that every game happened because the games still reference older games beyond the amiibo clothing.

Ganondorf HAS reincarnated before, it's incredibly rare but it happens. Why is having him reincarnate again such a shock?

What I didn't like was the implication that calamity ganon was just Nudorfs malice leaks. Removes a lot of impact and meaning imo.

Goes from 'This is the monstrosity that Ganondorf has been reduced to over the endless cycles of reincarnation' to basically an unconsciously formed 'Phantom Ganon' that got really really powerful.

Theres nothing wrong with Nudorfs existence inherently though, I just dislike how they handled the connection.

Ok, I'm going to be really honest, as someone who replayed OoT, MM, and TP...I'm really struggling to think of ANY dungeon that was long, complicated, or even difficult in relation to ToTK. Everyone talks about them as if they're these vast hours long dungeons and I think the longest I ever took to complete one was at most an hour. That's about as long as I've spent doing ToTK's dungeons.

water temples (and oracle of ages as a whole) are the prime extreme examples.

although lets be real here, while I do disagree with the fantasy of these super complex and long incredible dungeons being the norm pre-botw, the average was still more complex than totk. (on a unrelated tangent, I do like how these dungeons play out in totks context and I don't think the simpler design is inherently a bad thing)

 

[xaszatm]

The only odd thing (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong; I haven’t actually completed the game yet) between BotW and TotK is that seemingly no character makes the connection between Ganondorf and Calamity Ganon directly. Like, I get the connection is blatantly obvious in the context of the games that having the game bring it up may be pointless, but I don’t think there’s any character at any point that’s like “hey, who would’ve known that the evil force terrorizing us for the past 100 years was actually born from a 10,000+ old mummified corpse of a man underground!” The games treat CG and Ganondorf like they might as well be entirely separate entities. For a game that’s a direct sequel it does little to explicitly tie itself in-universe into the context of BotW, even if for the player it’s obvious. It’s just weird even if it’s ultimately not a big deal.

To be fair, the characters never hear the word Ganondorf until very late in the game (confirming Link is an asshole who won't share information /s) so it's not like they could compare that directly. As for Malice/Gloom, I guess the two are just different enough where most wouldn't make the connection even though at some point someone probably should have. As for Zelda, despite having knowledge of Calamity Ganon, a name is an incredibly flimsy piece of evidence to go demanding action.

 

[Stilt Village]

Ok, I'm going to be really honest, as someone who replayed OoT, MM, and TP...I'm really struggling to think of ANY dungeon that was long, complicated, or even difficult in relation to ToTK. Everyone talks about them as if they're these vast hours long dungeons and I think the longest I ever took to complete one was at most an hour. That's about as long as I've spent doing ToTK's dungeons.

They're small, is the biggest thing. Compare the map for Stormwind Ark to Sandship from SS for instance, both are ships but Sandship has an extra floor and a lot more rooms and floorspace in general. I've only been to two, maybe the Zora or Gerudo dungeons are drastically larger, but I doubt it. They don't really need to be any larger when all that's in them is five locks.

 

[Mango]

@xaszatm

Spoiler

You know I just wanted to air my grievances not argue.

-The Ancient Sheikah weapons are missing, not the modern ones, tho to be fair I've yet to see an Edge of Duality so probably a few modern ones are gone too. Moreover unless I'm mistaken it's never explained why the ancient tech including the weapons intentionally designed by Robbie to combat the Calamity are missing. Yiga (the one handed weapon that was shaped like a circle and the Duplex bow,) and again unless I just missed them, Korok based weapons seem to be gone too. They may be in the depths but that creates a narrative mindfuck, considering the depths only became accessable due to the upheaval, so unless every race of Hyrule has used the same weapons for 10,000++ years it doesn't make much sense for any modern day weapons to be down there. Basically any regular weapon you could find that wouldn't make sense to rust they seemed to have axed, because they want to force fuse so damn much.

-Continuity issues more or less pertain to stupid stuff like they arbitrarly placing a natural cave entrance right at the entrance to the Akkala Citadel, which makes no sense. The caves were exposed due to the Upheaval, yet the Citadel is man-made, the inside of it shouldn't be a cave. You'd think they'd have taken the effort to I don't know make that particular cave more citadel like. The same weird things happen with them arbitrarly placing Zonai ruins below where Shrines once sat. Zonai ruins presumably from the extremely far past before the Sheikah Shrines were built, yet that again creates a mind boggling scenario where it would have been impossible for the Sheikah Shrines to have existed in the same spot considering they all have elevators that dug straight down. But it goes deeper than that because real basic stuff like I don't know just simply having the characters remember the existence of the Sheikah Slate would have been preferred over them acting like the Purah Pad, a much lesser device is some grand invention. Moreover in regards to the tech disappearing, yeah it would have been nice to have some level of story on how or why. BOTW is built around the ancient Sheikah tech, the Sheikah are the most important race to BOTWs Hyrule, randomly ripping it all away just to slap in Zonai themed stuff feels lazly executed in terms of story. If the towers lowered, tell me, if the shrines disappeared, tell me, of the Shrine of Resurrection was ripped aparted and destroyed by Yiga, tell me that, don't just let me guess.

-World building. BOTW has two eras it focused on, 100 years ago, the bulk of its story, and 10,000 years ago a ancient legend. The ancient legend doesn't matter much to modern Hyrule, but the era before the Calamity 100 years ago is massively important to BOTW. BOTW is after all a post apocalyptic game, so everything in Hyrule is a part of its world building. Every burned building, every broken fountain, every nearly fallen bridge. Even the many scattered corpse of Guardians, it all works together to build the world up. However even more than that, since the era was so recent it's something most of the primary characters experienced, so we get lots of first and second hand accounts of the era, which again all adds to the world-building. TotK has none of this, primarily since the bulk of its story happens in the ancient ancient past. There's next to nothing on the surface that really relates back to or build up the world from the Era of the Imprisoning War. What mostly exists is just a bunch scattered sky island pieces that don't do much narratively because we've no context for them other than the ability to look at the designs and tie them to one specific race. The sky and depths are better, but not by much. Both are mostly barren, and the ruins you do find lack a much of any importance. The only real piece of world-building I could personally find was one construct stating that young Zonai used to test their diving skills at the tall vertical sky islands. That's it. Moreover, having every mine you find in the depths be named after what's above it, is like the opposite of world-building, since obviously I doubt that's, in-universe what they were actually called during the hayday of their operations, as it makes no sense to have an abandoned Tarrey Mine, or an abandoned Kara Kara Mine, since those are likely names that came about long after the Depths stopped being used by anyone.
-In regards to Ganondorf, BOTWs story is as follows:
'Ganondorf becomes Calamity Ganondorf and thrn multiple versions of Link and Zelda appear to fight him, untill eventually Hyrule got fed up and built giant robots and kicked his ass'
The terminology of "Calamity Ganon" was never clear, so it left a lot of wiggle room to possibly imply that "Calamity Ganon" was just a name given to Ganon overall, and the multiple incarnations of Link and Zelda Impa was referring to was the rest of the timeline. With ToTK it's now:

'Ganondorf becomes Demon King, and over time him Malice creates Calamity Ganon and then the rest of the original set of the events'

This leaves little to no wiggle room and seems to imply that Calamity Ganon, regardless of whether regular OG Ganondorf and Ganon existed between the backstory of ToTK and BOTW, is exclusively only ToTK Ganondorf. This of course doesn't even get into the fact that a Ganondorf before OOT is stupid both narrative and conceptually. OOT served as the human Ganondorfs origin story and there was nothing wrong with it, and outside of FSA, which only required a Newdorf because it's story got rewritten last minute, Ganondorf was never meant to have multiple incarnations. The whole point was that he's too stubborn to die, that even if his body is destroyed the same evil man from OOT would persist on. Suddenly just making a new one because they're scared of placing the game on the timeline is just silly.

As for your comparison of dungeon length, you're comparing replaying a game and playing though dungeons you're familiar with to a game that just came out. It's not subjective as to whether or not the BOTW are shorter and simpler, they just are. They're one big room with four or five tiny rooms stapled on to them.

 

[Lugia667]

alot of these continuity issues are REALLY heavy nitpicking imo. Calling ultrahand clunky is also completely unture to me imo. It's easily one of the most intuitive building mechanics ever made

 

[bellydrum]

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that pressing R when “dive to Zelda” appeared might be the biggest and most emotionally loaded button press I’ve ever done in a game.

Please let me tell you about the final button press of the emotional powerhouse that is Rime

Spoiler

I curled up into a ball in my beanbag chair and snot cried

 

[LukasManak22]

You can't pet the dog

 

[Horror Kid]

I agree with Mango in many points (some are not that important to me, like continuity issues).

The more I play, the more I am disappointed about a lot of wasted potential.
To be clear, I still love this game. BotW is my favorite game of all time, so I for sure don't have a bad time with TotK.
Some moments were the best I ever had in video games. I am still in awe of all the systems in place and the freedom Nintendo gives the player to tackle each situations. The buildup and temple in each region is a big step up from BotW. Sky diving never gets old, I love the feeling. The light/dark mechanic can be very exciting at times...and so on.


BUT...
altogether I still prefer my first-time experience in BotW.
That was just magical and so fresh. TotK did not reach these constant high points for me. I think in total there were quite some more special experiences in BotW, IF you played that one first - like many of us did.
Sure, a lot of that is in TotK as well, but you cannot replicate your first time experience.

BotW felt alive and interesting. Discovering every new animal or plant, finding new biomes, discovering stables, visiting each town the first time, was an event. Every new small ruin, Akkala fortress, Typhlo ruins, the seven heroines, Zonai ruins in Faron woods, the labyrinths, the forgotten temple, all this was exciting to discover. Also seeing the divine beasts from afar. Being surprised by a Talus rising from the ground, being fooled by a Yiga Clan member or getting noticed and intimidated by your first Lynel. Witnessing the rise of one majestic Dragon!
I never expected that same level of excitement for the surface in TotK and they still do a very good job with what they added to it (caves, wells and other changes) - but in my opinion, they failed to do so on the sky islands and the depths. Not completely mind you, but in relation to what BotW offered new, it lacks a lot of the variety. I think that's a shame.

If for some stupid reason I had to pick one added feature between

• caves/wells
• sky islands
• the depths

I would immediately choose caves/wells, which is pretty telling.

To me the best additions in TotK besides those and a few of the sky islands is just looking down on old Hyrule from above and the feeling of sky diving (never gets old!) as well as the light/dark mechanic and themed dungeons.

I like the depths in principle (that they are pitch black initially is awesome), but they are just too big and samey.
I get a big copy & paste feeling that I never had in BotW. Almost identical mine buildings, mining sites with monsters, arenas, these platforms for zonai devices, and gloom everywhere…the rest is just grey landscape with a few exceptions.
In my opinion, the depths should be scaled down by 60%. Reduce the repetition, craft a few more unique environments, monsters and scenarios.
As far as I know (I have not completed them), there are three (THREE!) unique creatures in the depths. These fireflies, the small dodongos or what their name is, and the Frox. And I think two new collectible plants (those have cool effects). That's it for an area the size of Hyrule.
There is no change during the day/night cycle and no weather, of course - but this increases the lack of variety.
The Yiga Clan hideouts are fun, but you shoot one arrow at each pilot and they are down. Door opens, hideout cleared. No enemies on the ground, nothing. I don’t know why this has do be that easy… meanwhile I hack and slash 50 times at a silver bokoblin and loose three weapons to kill it. That is just weird.
Otherwise the area is mainly used for (mini-) boss recycling.

Sky islands are much more sparse which is good, but even then your curiosity wanes fast after you have figured out from just looking at the map what each area will offer (shrine quest, starting ramp for your zonai device, shooting contraption for you and your glider, diving challenge, miniboss arena).
There are a few exceptions (in the depths as well) - but they are very few and far between.
Besides the gleeoks, they have ONE regular new flying enemy. This one doesn't even have color variations and is killed by one arrow as well. Why no flying constructs? What a wasted potential for exciting aerial combat. Link has a new animation for it that I never needed.


Some other points:

• I love lookout landing, but otherwise no new towns and very little changes (at least after you cleared the threat in the region) to most of the old ones.
• no further expanding of housing in tarrey town
• Building your home is cumbersome, pretty limited and the end result is devoid of any charme. No trees or plants around your house. No animals. Just a flat grassy surface. This weird guy is standing there all the time, looking at me cooking my meals. Bolson doing his job on BotWs house was much more fun and it was embedded in the world/nature. I like his quest in Lurelin though. Suits him.
• Old maps are just a collectible without any personality. A checklist. If you have found the treasure already, poof – that’s it. Why not have them in a separate quest category, with an explanation, maybe even a riddle how to get to the chest, open a room, solving a puzzle or something else. Let me be Indiana Jones.
• Lord of the mountain on Satori mountain in BotW was this rare mystical appearance during a few nights when you could see the strange light coming from the mountain top. Finding it as well as the only cherry blossom tree in Hyrule was rewarding in itself. Now there are several trees and he comes when you command to show you the caves (like another checklist).
• Blupees in BotW were rare sightings as well. Now there seems to be a plague. They are everywhere (to notify you of caves). These things are lessening the feeling that the world in Hyrule exists without you.
• Great fairies are disappointing similar and their locations somewhat uninspired. Finding them in BotW was an event.
• Koroks were this nice distraction while exploring. They reused a lot of the same ideas and additionally the escort mission Korok shows up waaay too much. I found it rather annoying and distracting. I love the diving from the sky ones, these could show up a little more often and be harder.
• let me pet the dogs.

I know, a lot of it is very nit-picky (I wrote a list that is much longer...) but yeah, it comes down to me having far less magical moments in TotK while exploring and I really think they could have done better with the sky islands and the depths.
Story was fine, personally I liked the more intimate sequences between Link and Zelda in BotW more than this epic tale of a great war (the master sword payoff was really cool though).

It will be my GOTY but I think with all that focus on very inventive mechanics and giving you a playground for it, they lost some of the magic that BotW offered.
I would like them to reuse all the systems and mechanics and solely focus on crafting an exciting new world for the next game.

 

[xaszatm]

@xaszatm

Spoiler

You know I just wanted to air my grievances not argue.

-The Ancient Sheikah weapons are missing, not the modern ones, tho to be fair I've yet to see an Edge of Duality so probably a few modern ones are gone too. Moreover unless I'm mistaken it's never explained why the ancient tech including the weapons intentionally designed by Robbie to combat the Calamity are missing. Yiga (the one handed weapon that was shaped like a circle and the Duplex bow,) and again unless I just missed them, Korok based weapons seem to be gone too. They may be in the depths but that creates a narrative mindfuck, considering the depths only became accessable due to the upheaval, so unless every race of Hyrule has used the same weapons for 10,000++ years it doesn't make much sense for any modern day weapons to be down there. Basically any regular weapon you could find that wouldn't make sense to rust they seemed to have axed, because they want to force fuse so damn much.

-Continuity issues more or less pertain to stupid stuff like they arbitrarly placing a natural cave entrance right at the entrance to the Akkala Citadel, which makes no sense. The caves were exposed due to the Upheaval, yet the Citadel is man-made, the inside of it shouldn't be a cave. You'd think they'd have taken the effort to I don't know make that particular cave more citadel like. The same weird things happen with them arbitrarly placing Zonai ruins below where Shrines once sat. Zonai ruins presumably from the extremely far past before the Sheikah Shrines were built, yet that again creates a mind boggling scenario where it would have been impossible for the Sheikah Shrines to have existed in the same spot considering they all have elevators that dug straight down. But it goes deeper than that because real basic stuff like I don't know just simply having the characters remember the existence of the Sheikah Slate would have been preferred over them acting like the Purah Pad, a much lesser device is some grand invention. Moreover in regards to the tech disappearing, yeah it would have been nice to have some level of story on how or why. BOTW is built around the ancient Sheikah tech, the Sheikah are the most important race to BOTWs Hyrule, randomly ripping it all away just to slap in Zonai themed stuff feels lazly executed in terms of story. If the towers lowered, tell me, if the shrines disappeared, tell me, of the Shrine of Resurrection was ripped aparted and destroyed by Yiga, tell me that, don't just let me guess.

-World building. BOTW has two eras it focused on, 100 years ago, the bulk of its story, and 10,000 years ago a ancient legend. The ancient legend doesn't matter much to modern Hyrule, but the era before the Calamity 100 years ago is massively important to BOTW. BOTW is after all a post apocalyptic game, so everything in Hyrule is a part of its world building. Every burned building, every broken fountain, every nearly fallen bridge. Even the many scattered corpse of Guardians, it all works together to build the world up. However even more than that, since the era was so recent it's something most of the primary characters experienced, so we get lots of first and second hand accounts of the era, which again all adds to the world-building. TotK has none of this, primarily since the bulk of its story happens in the ancient ancient past. There's next to nothing on the surface that really relates back to or build up the world from the Era of the Imprisoning War. What mostly exists is just a bunch scattered sky island pieces that don't do much narratively because we've no context for them other than the ability to look at the designs and tie them to one specific race. The sky and depths are better, but not by much. Both are mostly barren, and the ruins you do find lack a much of any importance. The only real piece of world-building I could personally find was one construct stating that young Zonai used to test their diving skills at the tall vertical sky islands. That's it. Moreover, having every mine you find in the depths be named after what's above it, is like the opposite of world-building, since obviously I doubt that's, in-universe what they were actually called during the hayday of their operations, as it makes no sense to have an abandoned Tarrey Mine, or an abandoned Kara Kara Mine, since those are likely names that came about long after the Depths stopped being used by anyone.
-In regards to Ganondorf, BOTWs story is as follows:
'Ganondorf becomes Calamity Ganondorf and thrn multiple versions of Link and Zelda appear to fight him, untill eventually Hyrule got fed up and built giant robots and kicked his ass'
The terminology of "Calamity Ganon" was never clear, so it left a lot of wiggle room to possibly imply that "Calamity Ganon" was just a name given to Ganon overall, and the multiple incarnations of Link and Zelda Impa was referring to was the rest of the timeline. With ToTK it's now:

'Ganondorf becomes Demon King, and over time him Malice creates Calamity Ganon and then the rest of the original set of the events'

This leaves little to no wiggle room and seems to imply that Calamity Ganon, regardless of whether regular OG Ganondorf and Ganon existed between the backstory of ToTK and BOTW, is exclusively only ToTK Ganondorf. This of course doesn't even get into the fact that a Ganondorf before OOT is stupid both narrative and conceptually. OOT served as the human Ganondorfs origin story and there was nothing wrong with it, and outside of FSA, which only required a Newdorf because it's story got rewritten last minute, Ganondorf was never meant to have multiple incarnations. The whole point was that he's too stubborn to die, that even if his body is destroyed the same evil man from OOT would persist on. Suddenly just making a new one because they're scared of placing the game on the timeline is just silly.

As for your comparison of dungeon length, you're comparing replaying a game and playing though dungeons you're familiar with to a game that just came out. It's not subjective as to whether or not the BOTW are shorter and simpler, they just are. They're one big room with four or five tiny rooms stapled on to them.

Spoiler

The Ancient Weapons are replaced by the Zoanite but there is an ancient blade that is essentially the ancient arrow that you can attach to things for the same effect. You actually forge them similar to the Batteries. The yiga and korok weapons are there, there just far rarer in comparison since the former has to be bought from the Yiga themselves and the later are found in awkward places in the Lost Forest.

Actually, there's hints that Zonai Tech and Ancient Shekiah Tech are actually far similar and that the later might just be descended from the former. In the Great Plateu, all four old Shrine locations are now Chasms and they all lead to Zonai stations that are clearly meant to link to the Great Central Mine. Furthermore, as mentioned before, you get Ancient Blades from a Zonai blacksmith, similar to how you do the batteries. I don't know if they really need to show more to say that these technologies have more in common. Also...the game DOES tell you the Shrine of Resurrection is stolen by the Yiga...the Yiga are there and have emptied out the place and left a trap for Link. It's also why they're in the Ancient Akala Tech Lab.

This is a problem I have had with people interpreting the story of BOTW as well but no, the story of TOTK nor BOTW is not in the past. It is blatantly in the present. The memories provide context to the current issue but the story is in the present. BOTW's Zora quest is perhaps the most on the nose about it because its story is all about finally let go of the past and focus on the now. The Zonai are important but they will take a backseat because again, the story is on the now. Bad things are happening currently and they in TOTK play a far more important role than the past, because the whole points of TOTK is moving on. Even the Zonai you meet want you to focus on the now and not their past.

I mean, no? Nothing directly states that Calamity Ganon is Ganondorf's Essence. It's currently believed to be the case but like, it's not definitive. Like, if this does take place at the end of any timeline, than Ganondorf is going to have to revive in any case, as he's dead in every timeline. In some cases, he's deader than dead. If it's before...you know, something that has bothered me about OoT is that Phantom Ganon seemingly exists before Ganondorf takes on the form. Furthermore he calls it a ghost he summoned, wouldn't that indicate that some sort of Ganon existed before Ganondorf?

As for the dungeons...I actually only recently played OoT to completion very recently and since my last playthough only got me to Hyrule Castle the first time, I don't think I had hindsight. I still found them mostly simple. Hell, the hardest is the controls for the Water Temple and I'm not entirely sure that's supposed to be that frustrating.

 

[Mango]

@xaszatm

Spoiler

The two technologies should have no connection. They're separated by thousands of years. I didn't know about the construct that sold ancient blades, but now I'm even less happy with the story. Robbie created the ancient arrows according to BOTW. How would some construct just randomly know how to create them?

Overall tho my problem is just how hard it is to find weapons in the game, and that there's less overall weapons. Finding a great flameblade in BOTW was phenomenal, and reading that it was forged by ancient Goron blacksmiths, was even cooler. I wanted more of that in ToTK. More new things with new descriptions but the game actively wants you to fuse stuff, and it's just not fun imo. The novelty wore off immediately, and it doesn't work as a replacement to the genuine sense of discovery from BOTW. At the very least some late game means of de-rusting your weapons would have been nice, but can't have that otherwise players wouldnt use the fuse ability. Thus since we don't have new weapons or a means of de-rusting old ones I really just find myself missing the absent ones.

As for Gdorf, Impa straight up says that the Calamity is the Demon King, they're the same thing in BOTW/ToTK eyes, which like you can say, "oh history got corrupted or whatever, and all versions of Ganondorf are the same in the eyes of modern Hyruleans" but like that is speculative and really just doesn't address the fact that OOT Ganondorf is Ganondorf, there really shouldn't be more than one. It's frankly just messy, and a lot of the personal emotional connection I had playing BOTW isn't there once it was revealed that Calamity Ganon was TotK Ganondorf. Calamity Ganon being some mindless form that is what Ganondorf became after such a long period since OOT is just more interesting than it just being something connected to the Upheaval Dorf.