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StarTopic The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |ST| Linkin' Parts (Please Tag All Spoilers)

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(Ability spoiler) Huh, so Sidon’s ability is the shield ability of this game, but it also lets you soak yourself. Which is super useful to get the stat boost for the Zora weapons. Aside from that it seems rather more situational compared to the other three abilities I got.
 
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An interesting trend I’ve noticed is that many people who have played 70+ hours and beaten this game will post a bunch of criticism on social media only to end the post with something like “That said this game is amazing, 10/10.”

I think this shows that the game experience is more than the sum of its individually analyzed parts.
 
Jbone916 said:
An interesting trend I’ve noticed is that many people who have played 70+ hours and beaten this game will post a bunch of criticism on social media only to end the post with something like “That said this game is amazing, 10/10.”

I think this shows that the game experience is more than the sum of its individually analyzed parts.
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This is something a lot people in the enthusiast/terminally online gaming discussion groups have trouble understanding. A game's quality isn't defined by the number of flaws, but rather the magnitude of its successes combined with its degree of focus on those successes.
 
And it’s definitely the weakest temple. Now I actually loved having another sky island to frolic around in, and the bubble gimmick was fun. But the temple puzzles were so simple, and apart from using Sidon’s shield to defend yourself against a wall of flame, his ability doesn’t really get used creatively. Which might be a consequence of his ability being more limited compared to Tulin’s and Yunobo’s. The layout of the temple itself was way too simple, too. Honestly this should have been the “first” temple.

Mucktorok, though, is the second most fun temple boss I’ve fought. What a goof. Or should I say goop? A goofy goop-er.
 
I finished the game about a week and a bit ago at 150ish hours with all shrines, light roots, armor pieces, sage's wills and side adventures complete (I had 11 days off work).

At first, I was quite underwhelmed by the game due to how similar it was to BOTW in both its map and main quest structure but by the end, it really blew me away. It has so many amazing moments and the scale of the world and the depth of it's mechanics are so mind-blowing. Beyond this, despite being a big advocate of 90s/00s era dungeons, I was really happy with the approach they took in this game. While not as lengthy and winding of dungeons of old, they were all really awesome set-pieces with a great sense of atmosphere (the gerudo section made me so happy - such a peak zelda setpiece) despite the streamlined design.

It feels weird to say because of how formative the run of games of Ocarina to Twilight Princess were for me as kid and teenager but I think TOTK may be the best game in the series. It embodies every core value I loved about the series growing up and realizes them better than the old games could while also just having really fun systems and gamefeel. It has great setpieces and epic moments in the main quest and amazing "aha" moments when exploring (caves!). The combat can be actually challenging and enemies can be legitimately threatening. It's peak Zelda.
 
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The Depths and the Sky Islands have had some of the most memorable moments for me and I think they perfectly complement the world of BotW but neither is really a substitute for the surface map, nor is it trying to be. I think that is also quite apparent from the way they are incorporated in the gameplay loop and the story.

The overworld map of BotW is very cleverly designed in the sense that it constantly draws your attention to a variety of things, with certain objects having a weaker and others having a stronger pull, or "gravity" as it was described in the CEDEC 2017 talk:

3a646a4cc45c8b3cdd25b24277a8be6af8f5b47a.jpeg


It's through careful distribution of this "gravity" that the designers manage to gently guide players, keep them engaged and also sometimes distract them throughout their adventure. TotK added several new things like the caves that have their own gravity, plus they rearranged some of the older objects or changed their functions (towers) to guide players differently from BotW. And I think the underlying issue with the Depths and the Sky Islands is that they are meant to be "objects" ("oh, look at this chasm, let me jump in there", "oh, I wonder how I can make it up to that sky island" etc.) yet also have their own "gravity distribution" within their respective layers. It's not like there's nothing there and they bring some new stuff to the table, but compared to the surface there's simply not as much to catch your attention or to do. If you were to do a similar chart like the one above you'd probably come to the same conclusion.

I guess I'm lucky in that both new layers clicked for me but there were definitely ways to improve them. Some examples:

  • Both the Depths and the Sky Islands desperately needed some sort of camps or settlements with NPCs for Link to interact with. There is a depths exploration team led by Josha that seems strangely absent from the actual depths, only a few tents here and there. I also really would have liked a village in the skies inhabited by constructs.
  • Most of the interesting locations in the depths are mines and at some point I was wondering if the Hylians put them back into operation but it sadly never happened. It'd have been a nice way to give the player an incentive to go back into the depths not just to unlock lightroots. The way the depths are structured now, you basically have to beeline to the next lightroot, unlock the surrounding map and then maybe find a chest.
  • Speaking of, it'd have been much nicer to get some more original rewards down there. That they just reused the amiibo content like this was a bit overwhelming.
  • Enemy variety is a bit of a mixed bag. Absolutely love the gloom enemies and boss rematches in the depths, would have loved more than two new enemy types. The sky islands are a bit of a let down, mostly because there's only one flying enemy type which is a complete pushover.

All that said, it's difficult to fault the game for not doing everything I wanted and more when I've been playing for 85h already but so it goes.

The caves though? I've enjoyed them immensely, with no reservations. I guess there could be more Bubbul Gem rewards but I didn't really need that incentive to explore them. Earlier I found two unique armour parts in caves that were almost like small shrines. Cool stuff.
 
Regarding the last 2 memories, which one should I go for first?
The one that will come when pulling out the master sword orr the one from the dragon tear in akkala?
 
I must not be finding enough caves , because I feel like most of the caves I find are just a couple rooms linked together with a bubbel frog in one of them. A couple have had shrines inside, which is cool, and a couple armor pieces, but they have always felt fairly minor to me (other than the Hyrule Castle Secret Passage, which is awesome)
 
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The last 30+ hours I've loved. Though I will say I'm starting to get a tad disappointed with how many of the sidequests are basically fetch quests. Like I thought the islands where you have old Hylian script would be solved by the research sidequest requiring Link to learn Hylian. Which would be cool! Then everytime you go across the scripts, you can read them yourself. But nope. You just take pictures of each script and take them back to the researcher.

Kind of the same with the Sky islands/caves. They're still probably my favorite addition, butttt i'm a little surprised by how little original things there seems to be. Caves in particular I think kind of suffer from this, they're more vibes than actually great additions a lot of the times, they basically just give you mining materials that you probably already have. Of course not all caves and sky islands, though. There are some cool unique ones.
 
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Warlord said:
Regarding the last 2 memories, which one should I go for first?
The one that will come when pulling out the master sword orr the one from the dragon tear in akkala?
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Do Akkala first, pretty sure that is the 17th memory and the sword memory is the last
 
Jbone916 said:
An interesting trend I’ve noticed is that many people who have played 70+ hours and beaten this game will post a bunch of criticism on social media only to end the post with something like “That said this game is amazing, 10/10.”

I think this shows that the game experience is more than the sum of its individually analyzed parts.
Click to expand...
I think it's just a lot easier to articulate what you don't like. Gushing praise usually ends up sounding kinda generic. Especially when people are imagining just how much better certain aspects could be and get excited about that. There's more motivation to share possible ideas for improvement or expansion.
 
Lord Azrael said:
I think it's just a lot easier to articulate what you don't like. Gushing praise usually ends up sounding kinda generic. Especially when people are imagining just how much better certain aspects could be and get excited about that. There's more motivation to share possible ideas for improvement or expansion.
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When a game is really really good it is easier to point out flaws because they are few and far between.
 
rolled credits today—incredible. like, really really exceptional. can finally unignore the spoiler thread too
slide's said:
ok I've got a compendium question: I failed to take a photo of the (Zora quest spoilers) Sludge Like, and since I haven't found anywhere else to fight it, I decided to buy the compendium entry from Robbie. I bought the entire remaining "enemies" category, which had 5 entries available for sale, but it only filled in a few regular enemies, leaving blank the one mentioned above and a handful of (what seem like) bosses I haven't yet fought.

any chance anyone knows if it'll be possible for me to get that entry? maybe after finishing the game? I'm not sure if I'll even go for a complete compendium anyway but I knew I missed that photo as soon as I won the fight and it's been driving me nuts ever since lol
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and for the countless people wondering the answer to this: yes, you can purchase the one-off compendium photos for 500 rupees each after finishing the game
 
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Rolled the credits after 125 hours and my completion rate is sitting at about 67%. Given how huge the game is, I'd say that's pretty good! But I will now focus on doing all quests and adventures.

Speaking of which, I must have missed picking up about 30-40 sidequests, which is crazy. I have no idea where I'll find them. I guess I will have to ultimately resort to a guide.
 
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I've got a question about getting this game's version of the Champion's Tunic:

If I go to the throne room in Hyrule Castle to get it, will any story beats happen? Don't wanna waltz in there and suddenly I'm fighting Ganondorf or something.

EDIT: Got it. Disregard this question!

Also:

...even if I hadn't have been spoiled by Twitter, I think that the upgrade materials for the Champion's Leathers being "Silent Princesses" and "Light Dragon Scales," would have clued me in on what might happen...
 
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Oh god I've officially crossed the "100 hours or more," mark on my Switch Profile Page.

I haven't even done 3 regional phenomena yet and pretty much all of the bottom third of the map is still almost completely untouched (bar me having to go down there to visit Stables).

This time with Elden Ring I was finishing things up. God damn.
 
Attaching eyeballs to x3 bows is very satisfying. Especially when you’re fighting Gleeoks.

Plum said:
This time with Elden Ring I was finishing things up.
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Thanks for the reminder, I definitely have to play Elden Ring sometime. Probably next year though, TotK is gonna use up all my energy for massive open world games for the year haha.
 
Just finished the opening side quest in Tarry Town ❤️

I can't believe how enormous this game is. It's giving me The Wind Waker vibes when it comes to charm and whimsy, but also feels like Majora's Mask in the amount of NPCs, the world feels so alive.
 
It only hit me now that the Colgera theme is Dragon Roost Island. When I first heard it I thought it was the TotK main theme, they're actually a bit similar.
 
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browneyes84 said:
Tarry Town
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I’m excited to get to Tarrey Town, and Akkala in general. That and the Gerudo Desert are the only regions I haven’t touched yet. I’m thinking if I should (quest spoiler) finish up the Kohga quest before going to Akkala.

Had a lot of fun doing sidequests in Zora’s Domain, though. The fearless adventurer Zora from BotW managed to get to the sky, what a madlass.

Also: even the NPCs think the Yiga are dumb. Freaking Yiga.
 
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finally rolled credits after 175 hours. what an adventure that was, I loved every part of it and it genuinely made me feel like a kid again. my favourite parts have to be the Gerudo and Zora quests, but all the main quest sequences were delightful and memorable and the world was a lot of fun to explore again.

vague finale impression, nothing specific!: it was very big on the spectacle (which is a positive for me), not particularly challenging, but the kids who grow up with this game are going to have immense core memories of it! overall I thought it was really good.

in the end, I had 69% completion, with all shrines completed, all caves/frogs visited, and something like 20-30 quests unfinished from the list
 
I think I'm going to finish the last dungeon and then do whatever story to finish the game today. Definitely won't be the end of me playing the game anytime soon but I wanna lurk the spoiler thread lol.
 
Just tackled a really cute and fun Proving Grounds shrine where it gives you a bunch of Homing Constructs, so you can sneak around, fit them with weapons, and unleash them on the enemies. Got Got one kitted with a Beam Emitter and it destroyed half the enemy forces. I definitely have to play more Zonai gacha to get more of those.
 
Tarrey town is still the best. So many memorable moments, fun interactions, and cool customization unlocks.





 
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Hit the 90h mark today.

I want to start a new save but I also want to wait for a potential Master Mode/DLC announcement. Decisions, decisions...
 
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Romancedawn said:
Thankilydankily!

80 hours in and just finished my second boss. I am so in love with this game!!!!! I've avoided so much Youtube and podcasts these last few weeks. I haven't been dropped into a game this blind since I was kid. I am constantly amazed at these new enemies and locations I'm finding.

Edit: Question 2. 80 hours in and I have only 1 Energy Cell. How do I upgrade these?
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the minibosses you fought in the Depths, drop crystalized charge, small that equall 20 to your battery count and huge crystalized charge that equall 100, plus the Zonaite/large Zonaite you can use to buy the crystalized charges on the forge Contruct on Great Abandoned Mine, after you defeat Master Kohga)
 
Nearing the end of the main game, got like 175 korok seeds, 85 shrines, most of the outfits but holy there are so so many outfits.
 
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I'm loving all the Gerudo region in general (the temple is my favourite, love the ambience when you first arrive, the city and the NPCs are great, the sidequests too), but specially the caves. It has probably the best caves of any region in the game, I'm having a lot of fun with them.
 
Credits have rolled. This was an incredible game.

110 hours (overtook Splatoon 2 on my top row)

152 shrines completed = 47% of the game finished!

Special thanks to everyone that offered me tips or answered my questions. @Dardan Sandiego @Djehuty @Weebos You are all great people!
 
Just to touch on the BotW memory vs TotK geoglph discussion from a page or two ago I'll throw my hat in and say that I definitely prefer it in this game. Ironically enough I have just played on my Switch version of BotW (I bought and played the Wii U version at launch) for the first time in years and saw that along with not completing the divine beast main quest by not talking to Impa (I have now done so!) I also haven't seen all the memories on this version, not even close as I have 6 left to find. I think my 2018 self just thought well I have seen them all already so what's the point you know?

What's interesting though is that the 6 I have viewed are easily discernible as to their location. I'm looking at some of the other 6 like what the heck? One is just a picture of some trees I guess, so that narrows it down to 80 different places or so. One is a spring, OK cool, so where is the spring? And then the horse statue, a unique location sure and you'll know it when you see it, but heck if I know where to even begin to look for it based on just the picture.

So I'm gonna do what many people do/did and just look for a guide. Funnily enough, I attempted to type 'The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Memories' into Google and the moment I type the 'm' for Memories it actually recommends 'memory locations' before it, and if that's not an indication of how many people just gave up on this I don't know what is.

Conversely in TotK, you won't have that same issue as the geoglphs are so large, but I disagree that the entire system has been trivialised. At least a few of them, the slate glyph in particular, took some exploring/skydiving recon work to locate them, and I definitely enjoyed the descent to them from on high as you looked to locate where exactly the tear's location was, it made excellent use of the sheer height of the game in a way that BotW's memory locations didn't make much use of anything rather than the camera I guess? There is also the story reason why the memories are what they are and how they came to be whilst I can't remember if there was a reason as to how the memories in BotW came to be..?

So yeah that's my 2 cents. I also don't mind unlocking the memories out of order, I don't think anything in particular was 'ruined' for me but maybe I just got lucky?
 
And the credits are rolling. What an amazing journey. Not sure I'm totally down for what they put my girl Zelda through but damned if it wasn't epic. Much bigger fan of the final showdown than I was in BOTW. And I've still got so much to explore and do just couldn't wait any longer to see the resolution. They delivered. I feel like such a softie; I was crying like a baby by the end.
 
Lugia667 said:
Is there a list of all sidequests anywhere? I have 114/139 done and I have no idea where the rest are
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Same.
I think I will search around myself until the guide book comes out mid-june and put that to good use.


I am really surprised that some people finished the game in around 100 hours and did so much stuff already (like all shrines^^).
I am nearing 200 hours and I still have a lot to uncover (several wells, 38 caves..., 25 shrines, 20 side quests, light roots in a quarter of the depths, haven't tried a single lynel yet, only one gleeok, and so on).

I really lack focus when I am playing this game :)
 
There’s no way Nintendo doesn’t do a Wind Waker 2 in this style. As much as I’ve played (over 80 hours) I haven’t seen anything with underwater. To me it feels like it’s saved for a fully open air water world to travel on again. I want it too.
 
Ryunosuke Naruhodo said:
Just to touch on the BotW memory vs TotK geoglph discussion from a page or two ago I'll throw my hat in and say that I definitely prefer it in this game. Ironically enough I have just played on my Switch version of BotW (I bought and played the Wii U version at launch) for the first time in years and saw that along with not completing the divine beast main quest by not talking to Impa (I have now done so!) I also haven't seen all the memories on this version, not even close as I have 6 left to find. I think my 2018 self just thought well I have seen them all already so what's the point you know?

What's interesting though is that the 6 I have viewed are easily discernible as to their location. I'm looking at some of the other 6 like what the heck? One is just a picture of some trees I guess, so that narrows it down to 80 different places or so. One is a spring, OK cool, so where is the spring? And then the horse statue, a unique location sure and you'll know it when you see it, but heck if I know where to even begin to look for it based on just the picture.

So I'm gonna do what many people do/did and just look for a guide. Funnily enough, I attempted to type 'The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Memories' into Google and the moment I type the 'm' for Memories it actually recommends 'memory locations' before it, and if that's not an indication of how many people just gave up on this I don't know what is.

Conversely in TotK, you won't have that same issue as the geoglphs are so large, but I disagree that the entire system has been trivialised. At least a few of them, the slate glyph in particular, took some exploring/skydiving recon work to locate them, and I definitely enjoyed the descent to them from on high as you looked to locate where exactly the tear's location was, it made excellent use of the sheer height of the game in a way that BotW's memory locations didn't make much use of anything rather than the camera I guess? There is also the story reason why the memories are what they are and how they came to be whilst I can't remember if there was a reason as to how the memories in BotW came to be..?

So yeah that's my 2 cents. I also don't mind unlocking the memories out of order, I don't think anything in particular was 'ruined' for me but maybe I just got lucky?
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There's nothing wrong with a genuine exploration challenge. If you approach them with the intent to smash them out quickly separate from other tasks, maybe, but if you approach them as intended, which is to explore organically and discover as part of your adventure, they're not particularly obtuse except for one. Here, especially when they give you a map, the geoglyphs are glorified quest markers.

The Spring of Power in fact is an example of excellent design. As you access the photos at Hateno Tech Lab, you also initiate the Robbie's Research side quest. This points you in the direction of North Akkala. When it comes time to go there, on the way, you will almost surely find East Akkala Stable. There, Pikango will give you the hint you need to find the Spring of Power.

The only obtuse one is the Despair memory. Still, Pikango at Wetland Stable will point you in the direction of the grove and since the woodland in the area is quite small, it isn't too hard to find the right spot. It's still a bit awkward though and that is another example of excellent design in fact. By making this the most awkward to find, it makes it more likely that it'll be the last one you find (also being closer to the most dangerous part of the map helps too), which makes it more impactful when you seek out the final memory shortly after.

Similarly, I'd say the second most obtuse is the one in Eldin, which I always find a fun game of triangulation. This is good because it makes it more likely you'll find this one only after getting the Mipha memory. This is important because the Mipha memory shows the connection Link has in his mind between a lover and healing. So when you find the Eldin memory afterwards, with Zelda treating his wounds, it shows how Link is beginning to remember her.
 
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