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

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balgajo said:
I don't think they want to milk BOTW formula as much as they did with OOT. Of course open air is here to stay but they are totally free to come up with a new structure and have a lot of creative individuals to do so.
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A month ago I'd have agreed, but with how much TotK copies from BotW verbatim I'm a little less sure :p.
 
browneyes84 said:
In terms of 'same theme, same music, same entrance animation', I don't have see the issue but I guess they could vary that up in the next game, but shrines are basically traditional Zelda dungeons just distilled to one room at a time. If you don't enjoy doing them then I question how you enjoy Zelda games at all? Lose them and you lose a big part of what makes the series what it is.
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There are two problems with this. The first is that you can't do a traditional Zelda dungeon "one room at a time". The contents of the dungeons have changed drastically over the series and were completely unimportant in the beginning, the entire point of the concept is that it's about a larger interconnected space. Even the really watered down ones where navigation is basically a non-factor, like Forbidden Woods or something, are able to use their length to develop ideas over the course of the level like a Mario game. Shrines do not have the time or space for this, usually only having like two or three variations of a single puzzle, and are much weaker for it. You'll often encounter a bunch of shrines in the same area dealing with the same set of mechanics, but they're really limited in what they can do with increasing the complexity or bringing ideas together because they can't have any expectations on what the player has or hasn't done before and in what order (and to be frank the game still has a lot of problems with this anyway, but I'll get to that). The switch to shrines (or for that matter, the similar little platforming diversion rooms in Mario Odyssey) is like the reverse of the increasing complexity and sophistication in the level design of games like Galaxy 2 and Tropical Freeze. Instead of longer levels weaving multiple mechanics together in as many ways as possible, here are shorter ones that can do only the bare minimum with them. In this sense I consider it an inherently stifling format and a complete design downgrade from what came before.

But there's also the factor that they are often not designed like a Zelda game at all. What I mean by that is, Zelda was never built like a puzzle game in the past. Similar to Mario, it tries to make sure you understand how mechanics work before asking you to really use them, so a lot of its puzzle design is simply recognizing where and how to apply that. Even in older games, the level of blind experimentation was kept pretty low, with the GB/N64 games probably being the peak of it. Quite a few shrines on the contrary resemble the sort of logical leaps a puzzle game is built around. This was a thing in BotW's shrines as well, but TotK really doubles down on it with the building stuff. The puzzles are generally quite simple, but rely on withholding important knowledge from the player. For many "build a device" shrines, you have to guess what might work (a process not helped by the occasionally fiddly nature of the game which can make even the intended solution inexplicably fail if you placed an object just a tiny bit off) and you keep trying until an idea eventually succeeds. This is how most level-based puzzle games seem to work, in my experience, like Baba Is You for example. I personally hate this kind of design, and find it nothing but frustrating regardless of how fast I find the solution. And building mechanics aside, Zelda has just never worked like this. Not 100% of it was fully intentional, because there are quite a lot of tutorial moments for recurring mechanics that are completely missable for some reason, but I have to assume they were also okay with that.
 
balgajo said:
I know a lot of people will disagree with me but I bet Nintendo will ditch the shrine concept for next game. It's really difficult for the new game to feel fresh if shrines are the main meat again. I don't think they want to milk BOTW formula as much as they did with OOT. Of course open air is here to stay but they are totally free to come up with a new structure and have a lot of creative individuals to do so.
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It will be fascinating to see what they keep and what they get rid of. It almost seems like they carried over so many aspects of BotW (shrines, koroks, towers) because they didn't really know what made it sell so well and they didn't want to stray too much from a winning formula. If I had to bet though, I would say Shrines stay, at least for one more game. No matter what I think the map size will be similar, or big enough to warrant lots of fast travel points, and having fast travel points without a little puzzle/challenge would be a step backwards.
 
Stilt Village said:
Instead of longer levels weaving multiple mechanics together in as many ways as possible, here are shorter ones that can do only the bare minimum with them. In this sense I consider it an inherently stifling format and a complete design downgrade from what came before.
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Can't this instead be classed as a different design, rather than a downgrade? The nature of big openworld design means it needs to be populated with things for the player to do. Lots of bitesize challenge shrines don't allow for rising complexity that's true (although some still do), but they do offer a way of breaking up the landscape with a different type of gameplay experience in addition to everything in the openworld itself.

Just because most are quite insular and standalone doesn't mean they're not often fun. I guess you could have say instead of 150 shrines, 15 and make them longer and more involved, but obviously that's not the direction they went.

Stilt Village said:
But there's also the factor that they are often not designed like a Zelda game at all. What I mean by that is, Zelda was never built like a puzzle game in the past. Similar to Mario, it tries to make sure you understand how mechanics work before asking you to really use them, so a lot of its puzzle design is simply recognizing where and how to apply that. Even in older games, the level of blind experimentation was kept pretty low, with the GB/N64 games probably being the peak of it. Quite a few shrines on the contrary resemble the sort of logical leaps a puzzle game is built around. This was a thing in BotW's shrines as well, but TotK really doubles down on it with the building stuff. The puzzles are generally quite simple, but rely on withholding important knowledge from the player. For many "build a device" shrines, you have to guess what might work (a process not helped by the occasionally fiddly nature of the game which can make even the intended solution inexplicably fail if you placed an object just a tiny bit off) and you keep trying until an idea eventually succeeds. This is how most level-based puzzle games seem to work, in my experience, like Baba Is You for example. I personally hate this kind of design, and find it nothing but frustrating regardless of how fast I find the solution. And building mechanics aside, Zelda has just never worked like this.
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I can see what you mean, but it's a byproduct of the huge potential of Link's new powers in the game. A more trial and error approach can't be helped given the things you can do in this game. Sure it doesn't feel like 'traditional' Zelda puzzle design, but imo, who cares? If I want that, I can play any of the other 18 games in the franchise. I'm fine with them trying new approaches.
 
Me: planning to finally pay Tarrey Town a visit

Also me: end up spending my evening combing for lightroots in the Depths

On the bright side, I completed an armor set, which is pretty neat.
 
Jesus. I was waiting for Naydra to appear near Mount Lanayru so I could get some claws as part of a side quest when I noticed
the Light Dragon flying maybe 200 feet away, it was super close.
I had never experienced that before, so I decided to go in for a closer look, and next thing you know,
I have the Master Sword.
For context, I have only done two dungeons and half of the memories, so call me crazy, but after that happened, I reloaded my previous save and have now decided to beeline my third dungeon and the remaining memories so I can begin to wrap my head around what just transpired??? And so I can experience that awesome beat again with knowing eyes. Lol
 
Dragoncaine said:
I had never experienced that before, so I decided to go in for a closer look, and next thing you know
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Pretty much had the same experience! I’d launched myself into the air intending to reach a sky island, and saw

the Light Dragon, which I thought was Farosh at first. I chased after it, and lo and behold, the Master Sword was there. And can I just say, the sequence for pulling out the Master Sword is much, much cooler here compared to BotW.

Didn’t reload though. Hahaha, you do you.

HyahHaHa said:
Everytime I start to think I'm pretty good at the combat I see a video like this and realize I'm really not
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Whoever’s doing this kinda stuff have transcended mortals
 
meatbag said:
Pretty much had the same experience! I’d launched myself into the air intending to reach a sky island, and saw

the Light Dragon, which I thought was Farosh at first. I chased after it, and lo and behold, the Master Sword was there. And can I just say, the sequence for pulling out the Master Sword is much, much cooler here compared to BotW.

Didn’t reload though. Hahaha, you do you.
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Hahaha yeah, I totally recognize that keeping my current save wouldn't change my appreciation of the memories I'm about to watch, but I want to see that full scene again knowing everything that I can possibly know about this insane situation. It took a lot of willpower, but I stuck to the old save after completing a couple extra shrines last night!
 
meatbag said:
Pretty much had the same experience! I’d launched myself into the air intending to reach a sky island, and saw

the Light Dragon, which I thought was Farosh at first. I chased after it, and lo and behold, the Master Sword was there. And can I just say, the sequence for pulling out the Master Sword is much, much cooler here compared to BotW.

Didn’t reload though. Hahaha, you do you.
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EDIT: duplicate post
 
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browneyes84 said:
Can't this instead be classed as a different design, rather than a downgrade? The nature of big openworld design means it needs to be populated with things for the player to do. Lots of bitesize challenge shrines don't allow for rising complexity that's true (although some still do), but they do offer a way of breaking up the landscape with a different type of gameplay experience in addition to everything in the openworld itself.
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I mean you could in a macro sense like that yeah, but then I would just say that different style of design is a downgrade. The "nature of open world design" seems to be the source of a lot of my sticking points with both these games, and I often find myself wishing they had just done the "open" part and gameplay revamp without making that whole format shift.
browneyes84 said:
I can see what you mean, but it's a byproduct of the huge potential of Link's new powers in the game. A more trial and error approach can't be helped given the things you can do in this game. Sure it doesn't feel like 'traditional' Zelda puzzle design, but imo, who cares? If I want that, I can play any of the other 18 games in the franchise. I'm fine with them trying new approaches.
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I mean, I said I care because I don't like it, lol. But it's not just because of how complex Link's abilities are now, it's more like inconsistent design principles. In both TotK and BotW, some shrines teach you how they work at the start, and others don't. There's no real template for the exact length or structure of them, probably because they had a lot of different people making them.
 
0
Link 2
Kohga 0

But i appreciate that he's trying to up his game for the second fight.
 
Regional-Phenomena-in-a-nutshell-1686061194841.jpg
 
Did the Zora quest and have now moved on to Gerudo Town, and it is very funny to me that...

...Hudson and his wife are like "yeah we're a little worried sending our child to Gerudo Town knowing they're having problems but I'm sure they'll take care of her." I didn't realise the problem included the undead.

Gliding through the desert and falling into a rift next to a Gibdo spooked me good!
 
I knew I'd feel like this, but after finishing the Shrines and seeing the credits, it's hard to motivate myself to find things to do. I feel like I did all the best side content too. Maxed out the things I can get for certain collectables (except for Korok Seeds).

Might be time to finally sit the game aside and embrace that weird "I miss this game" feeling.
 
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I've finally got most of the parts required for full drone construction

It's exactly as fun as I'd hoped
 
130 hours in now, and if I had a dollar for every time I said "okay maybe NOW I'll go to the endgame" only to continue getting distracted, I'd have enough to buy the Hylian Hood.
 
GenOneCam said:
they are in the game though. a game should be judged by everything the developers chose to put in the game. If the argument is that korok seeds are bad then their inclusion should count as a negative towards the game.
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Sure if the argument is that the puzzles themselves negatively impact the game then I could understand that. I'd disagree strongly, but it's understandable

But the argument I mostly see is that they're repeated and very prevalent. I don't think that's a valid argument against an optional and minor activity

And ultimately I'm going to look pretty skeptically at any argument along the lines of "they should be removed entirely". People are free to have their opinions but that one seems particularly poorly thought out
 
NabiscoFelt said:
Sure if the argument is that the puzzles themselves negatively impact the game then I could understand that. I'd disagree strongly, but it's understandable

But the argument I mostly see is that they're repeated and very prevalent. I don't think that's a valid argument against an optional and minor activity

And ultimately I'm going to look pretty skeptically at any argument along the lines of "they should be removed entirely". People are free to have their opinions but that one seems particularly poorly thought out
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Yeah I disargree. Not about the quality of the Korok seeds as I enjoyed them both in BOTW and TOTK. But as someone who rates Sony's Spiderman very low primarily because of the "optional side content" I just can't agree with the idea that as long as content is skippable it doesn't count. Like I love TOTK but I honestly don't think the depths are very interesting. The fact that I can technically skip it doesn't matter. It's part of the game and it affects how I feel about the game.
 
GenOneCam said:
Yeah I disargree. Not about the quality of the Korok seeds as I enjoyed them both in BOTW and TOTK. But as someone who rates Sony's Spiderman very low primarily because of the "optional side content" I just can't agree with the idea that as long as content is skippable it doesn't count. Like I love TOTK but I honestly don't think the depths are very interesting. The fact that I can technically skip it doesn't matter. It's part of the game and it affects how I feel about the game.
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I get what you're saying, but I think it's also important that said content is minor as well as optional

Not sure about the side missions since I haven't played Spider Man but the Depths are a huge chunk of the game even if they are optional. I totally get why that would affect how people feel about the game. Koroks are like 5 minute distractions tops
 
NabiscoFelt said:
I get what you're saying, but I think it's also important that said content is minor as well as optional

Not sure about the side missions since I haven't played Spider Man but the Depths are a huge chunk of the game even if they are optional. I totally get why that would affect how people feel about the game. Koroks are like 5 minute distractions tops
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True but Koroks are also directly tied to an upgrade mechanic that I feel is hugely important in both BOTW and TOTK. It is great that I like them because I do feel that they are a huge part of the game. Anyway my issue was more about writing off something as being optional as a dismissal of criticism. I feel that games should be judged by everything they choose to include.
 
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GenOneCam said:
Yeah I disargree. Not about the quality of the Korok seeds as I enjoyed them both in BOTW and TOTK. But as someone who rates Sony's Spiderman very low primarily because of the "optional side content" I just can't agree with the idea that as long as content is skippable it doesn't count. Like I love TOTK but I honestly don't think the depths are very interesting. The fact that I can technically skip it doesn't matter. It's part of the game and it affects how I feel about the game.
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The struggle is about the importance of completionism. I love collecting Korok seeds, but I've never come close to doing them all. I never even completed my stash expansions. I love finding them though and I'm glad there is such a surfeit of them because it means there's plenty to find and there will always be plenty to find because I'll never get more than 40%. And I'm totally cool with that.

But yeah, the Depths and light roots? Similarly, I don't have to get them all, but it still bugs me. I think it's because the light roots are completionism baiting in a different way. My map being dark in places and having to depend on throwing bright seeds around taunts me.

Korok seeds by contrast, the game almost goes out of its way to avoid completionist baiting. Everyone knows how many there are in total, but does either game ever tell you? I've never completed my inventory so I don't know for sure, but I've never seen Hestu tell me. The total is only displayed on the loading screen and there is no empty spot on the inventory screen reserved for the golden poo (please tell me the golden poo is back). Only the map completion stat bucks this trend and that's only a post-game thing.

I don't think a game needs to be criticised for not being completionist friendly. But if it baits the completionists, then that changes things.
 
Uncle Squingis said:
It will be fascinating to see what they keep and what they get rid of. It almost seems like they carried over so many aspects of BotW (shrines, koroks, towers) because they didn't really know what made it sell so well and they didn't want to stray too much from a winning formula. If I had to bet though, I would say Shrines stay, at least for one more game. No matter what I think the map size will be similar, or big enough to warrant lots of fast travel points, and having fast travel points without a little puzzle/challenge would be a step backwards.
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Yep, at least now they have enough data to understand how people tackled those activities. Let's see what they are going for next.

Judging by my twitter and youtube suggestions it seems that this time the buzz is about the things you build. Near BOTW release I remember a lot of content related to the shrines and the different solutions beside the crazy stuff you can do in the overworld.

manfromthedam said:
A month ago I'd have agreed, but with how much TotK copies from BotW verbatim I'm a little less sure :p.
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Yep, makes sense. Related to the reply above now they will have a better idea how this aspect is contributing to sales and people enjoyment.
 
They've already taken traditional dungeons away and now some of you want them to take the one sliver of a bone they throw us classic Zelda fans in terms of linear level design. I'm fine with people criticizing Shrines but arguing that they should be removed is a bit too far. If they were removed they wouldn't necessarily be replaced by anything and for classic fans who liked them they have even less reason to look forward to a new open air Zelda.

Please let us have our scraps, jeez.
 
I feel kind of embarrassed. I knew when I decided to beat the storyline that I had a few shrines and side things left to do but overall felt I had been at least somewhat thorough. How in the hell did I miss 118 side quests?!? I'm going forward with the new knowledge that I probably missed everything now 😂
 
Glom said:
The struggle is about the importance of completionism. I love collecting Korok seeds, but I've never come close to doing them all. I never even completed my stash expansions. I love finding them though and I'm glad there is such a surfeit of them because it means there's plenty to find and there will always be plenty to find because I'll never get more than 40%. And I'm totally cool with that.

But yeah, the Depths and light roots? Similarly, I don't have to get them all, but it still bugs me. I think it's because the light roots are completionism baiting in a different way. My map being dark in places and having to depend on throwing bright seeds around taunts me.

Korok seeds by contrast, the game almost goes out of its way to avoid completionist baiting. Everyone knows how many there are in total, but does either game ever tell you? I've never completed my inventory so I don't know for sure, but I've never seen Hestu tell me. The total is only displayed on the loading screen and there is no empty spot on the inventory screen reserved for the golden poo (please tell me the golden poo is back). Only the map completion stat bucks this trend and that's only a post-game thing.

I don't think a game needs to be criticised for not being completionist friendly. But if it baits the completionists, then that changes things.
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It is a difficult subject for me to approach specifically because I actually think Korok seeds are a very good example of how to do collectibles in a big open world game largely because of some of the things you mentioned. Like I played a lot of both BOTW and TOTK and I doubt I even got 1/3 of the available seeds in either game. Yet it was enough for me to upgrade my inventory to the point that I felt comfortable with what I had. I also felt that it populated the world with small puzzles that were fun to complete.

Compare that to Spider-man or basically any Ubisoft game where everything is marked on your map where there was almost always no puzzle to complete and it ended up feeling like a chore to collect random shit around the world. It got to the point that I 100% completed Spider-man and I honestly feel like it was a worse experience than if that content was not there. If I had just run through the story I would probably rate the game around an 8 or even 9 out of ten but because I 100% the game I would probably rate it more of a 4 or 5.
 
browneyes84 said:
In terms of 'same theme, same music, same entrance animation', I don't have see the issue but I guess they could vary that up in the next game, but shrines are basically traditional Zelda dungeons just distilled to one room at a time. If you don't enjoy doing them then I question how you enjoy Zelda games at all? Lose them and you lose a big part of what makes the series what it is.
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I think I feel like this because individual puzzles aren't what I like the most. I like puzzles with an interesting context surrounding them. Not just puzzles for puzzles.
Zelda dungeons have this idea of slowly understanding the space surrounding you, the puzzles, the traps and how to navigate. It feels like the player is an explorer like Indiana Jones. Love the feeling of getting lost inside a dungeon and little by little things start to make sense. So I think there's no way to distill this experience picking one of these elements and distributing them across multiple places. Of course if they keep with this shrine format working on the aesthetics can help on making them more palatable.
 
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HyahHaHa said:
I feel kind of embarrassed. I knew when I decided to beat the storyline that I had a few shrines and side things left to do but overall felt I had been at least somewhat thorough. How in the hell did I miss 118 side quests?!? I'm going forward with the new knowledge that I probably missed everything now 😂
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Tell me about it. I knew I barely touched them, but when I was the number I was like OMG!
 
Finished the game! I have a fairly big list of thoughts on it, so sorry if it's a lot, haha.

My progress: main story fully completed to credits, fully upgraded Hylian trousers and Hood with fully upgraded Champion’s Leathers, about 120/152 shrines completed, and most of the game’s major side content has been completed. I had originally intended to complete all the shrines, but after so many hours of playing the game, I started to get fatigue from it and I refuse to allow myself to optimize the fun out of video games now most of the time. If I had to summarize my feelings on this game, it would be this: “the most incredibly made disappointing game I’ve played in recent memory.”

THE GOOD:

  • The game’s core mechanics are vastly improved from BotW. Ascend, Fuse, Ultrahand, and Recall are all way more applicable to combat and puzzle solving than their counterparts in BotW were, and they’re all very enjoyable to use. Enemies and bosses provide plenty of alternate solutions to fight other than simply smacking them with a weapon, much like BotW, but this time I feel it was more intuitive to know when to attack with weapons vs. when to use powers.
  • The fact that the game has such a crazy number of interlocking mechanics and physics without completely buckling under itself is kind of astounding. Everything functions pretty well exactly how you would expect and experimenting with different Fusions on your weapons and arrows is very, very fun.
  • Core story dungeons are much more exciting to explore this time, and the bosses are vastly more interesting than different takes on Ganon. I consider everything from the lead-up to the dungeon up to the final boss of the area to be The Level for that area (so I count the ascent up to the Rito ship as part of the dungeon even if it technically isn’t). Thematically, they are all much more interesting than exploring four Divine Beasts. That said, I do feel as though manipulating the Divine Beasts’ unique geometry lead to some more interesting puzzle interactions, whereas TotK’s dungeons are more about being in a place and claiming domain over its layout. I prefer the way TotK did it, but I doubt this game is giving the dungeon-loving folks from older Zelda games their fix.
  • The game is just absolutely dense with things to do. Shrines, caves, story content, side quests, following your curiosity, etc. It really does feel like BotW pumped up to the max in this regard. Very little space on the overworld is wasted and it results in feeling a lot more fleshed out.
  • It really can’t be overstated how impressive Ultrahand is as a game mechanic in an open world. I myself am the “please make the fun for me” type; I am not likely to engage with most games where you need to build things or use your creativity to overcome problems. TotK, however, makes this aspect very accessible and intuitive, so I ended up enjoying it in the end.
  • The four main phenomena around the world are neat in how they end up permanently affecting things until you’ve solved them. BotW had some semblance of this but TotK definitely capitalizes on this more.
  • Shout-outs to Yunobo being an absolute dick, I loved that and kinda wish he stayed that way lol. In general the Goron questline with them just downing nasty rocks is hilarious and good.
  • Visually and aesthetically, it’s beautiful, as expected.
  • The new music is totally killer. Big shout-outs to the boss battle songs and the many, many moments where Zelda’s Lullaby is snuck into cutscenes.
  • The game is filled to the brim with absolutely magical moments. Discovering that Zelda was the Light Dragon was super freaking cool, and after I claimed the Master Sword I just had a quiet moment where I stood atop her and just sorta… Thought about the implications of it, for a bit. BotW and TotK are definitely my favourite depictions of Zelda, and it’s hard not to feel bad for her after the events of these games.
  • That final boss and ending sequence are just incredibly well done. The lead up to Ganondorf is appropriately challenging, and having your Sage buddies by your side in a big battle is really fun. I loved seeing Ganondorf’s health bar look completely ridiculous as it kept extending during his second phase, that shit Owns and I genuinely laughed out loud. It almost made me forget about the things I didn’t like about the game, it’s that good!


THE BAD:

  • A huge takeaway from this game for me: I felt as though both the Sky Islands and the Depths did not earn their inclusion, personally. I feel as though the Depths in particular are the single most disappointing thing in a video game in recent memory. I was so excited to explore it and my mind was kind of blown at first that they made an entire other map underneath Hyrule, but after only a few hours of exploration in there it becomes abundantly clear that there isn’t much to see or do besides farm enemies and zonite, with the occasional Yiga encounter thrown in. There are nearly no unique enemies (basically just the small and big Frox as far as I can tell), a lack of variety in the biomes, very little variety in the settlements and buildings, and overall it just feels very fillery to me. I understand the design consideration with the Depths’ inclusion: it’s a challenging area meant to be consumed piece-meal throughout your experience in order to refresh weapons, upgrade your battery, experiment with Ultrahand and vehicle-making, and break up the pace of exploring the massive and dense overworld. It simply did not work for me, however. It’s one singular biome (technically two if you include the area around Death mountain, which is admittedly a very cool area that I wish there were more of), the visual design simultaneously felt cluttered and too detailed while the physical space felt empty, and in general I simply didn’t enjoy lighting my way through the darkness. I think they were going for a sort of reverse philosophy of the overworld with this: in the overworld, you can look around from up high and pick out points of interest to visit, whereas in the Depths they want you to light up the area, look around, and realize all the cool stuff you missed in the darkness. That sounds cool in theory, but in practice it was incredibly tedious for me. It really, really did not earn its size if you ask me. There is absolutely no reason why the Depths shouldn’t have been constrained to smaller, more intimately designed areas. I found myself tired of the Depths very quickly and I don’t feel as though they were a particularly meaningful inclusion in their current state, beyond the small handful of admittedly cool things that are down there (which, frankly, I would have preferred in the overworld if I could choose).
  • The UI and general usability of this game is pretty oppressive. Doing things require far too many button presses, there’s too much animation fluff (an issue in many, many Nintendo games), buttons overlap with various functions and in general the controls could really have used some simplifying. Cooking is still too slow, leaving a shrine is still too slow, repeated dialogue is everywhere, etc. I really hope things like this can be streamlined in future games because it really adds up to lots of unnecessary tedium.
  • The Sage controls are incredibly clunky. This is one core aspect that BotW handled infinitely better. Having to walk up to them and press A to activate their power (the same button used for picking up items and interacting with most objects) is a head-scratchingly weird design choice that resulted in me rarely using anyone’s powers besides Tulin’s wind. Mineru is a very cool addition, and one I found by accident WAY earlier than intended (which is a great thing, I love that), but she gets in the way of the camera constantly and after a while I got tired of seeing a half-transparent robot in the foreground all the time. Sidon’s ability may as well not even exist, and Yunobo’s ability is actually really fun and useful but hard to activate in the thick of combat. Riju’s is solid because it interacts well with something you’re going to be doing often anyway, which is shooting arrows. I don’t know why these couldn’t have been activated in some other way, either passively like BotW or through some other method like an additional power wheel similar to the runes.
  • There are just way too many things re-used from BotW. I am someone who is 100% in favor of asset re-use in order to save on dev time (I work in an industry that re-uses things A LOT so I get the need for this), but re-using a huge majority of the map and concepts from the previous game is not my favourite approach. I already explored this world years ago, and despite the many, many adjustments and changes to the world, it still reeks of familiarity that makes it inherently less fun to explore for me as someone that played BotW. Not only that, but the concepts on display are similar as well; there are four regional phenomena that need your help, all of which are the in the same locations from BotW, featuring many of the same characters (many of which don’t remember/recognize Link which is a bizarre choice). I would have accepted the map being reused if they had done more to change these core locations. Maybe Death Mountain could have been a snowy mountain in this, and the Gorons are dealing with that change? Perhaps Zora’s Domain could have been overgrown and covered in swamp? I don’t know exactly what the solution to make me happy here would have been. The fact that a game where exploration and discovering is at the forefront of its design philosophy has reused so many concepts saddens me a bit. The way the game is so visually linked to BotW weakens it in my opinion. In addition, there is only one brand new settlement on the overworld (Lookout Landing) while all of the others have undergone very minimal transformation. I think the game changed enough to justify it being a full release of course, but if you ask me, I would have preferred a smaller, newer overworld to the re-used Hyrule here. I want the New Vegas of this style of Zelda. I wanted TotK to be the Majora’s Mask to BotW’s Ocarina of Time, but it’s only kiiind of that and instead goes in the opposite direction of adding more and more, sometimes to the game’s detriment.
  • Adding onto this, there is just way too much re-used music. It’s weirdly non-Nintendo-like to do this, I feel. It adds to that feeling of over-familiarity and is one of the first things that stuck out to me. Also, as an aside, where’s all that saxophone from the story trailer?
  • Lurelin Village was very disappointing. So many characters hype you up in Lookout about the “pirates attacking and claiming Lurelin Village,” but when you get there it’s just regular-ass enemy mobs. I was really expecting this to be more exciting, like maybe some brand new pirate enemies as a minor faction similar to the Yiga or something, and not just more Moblins.
  • The voice acting is just… Not amazing, all across the board. I think Tulin’s voice actor does a pretty solid job (shout-outs to them for also voicing 9-Volt in WarioWare), Zelda’s actor has improved a lot from BotW, and Sonia and Rauru are good. I think Matt Mercer was either a big miscast or his voice direction wasn’t gelling with me, because he just didn’t do it for me as Ganondorf. Weirdly enough, I think he sounds great as mummified Ganondorf, and when he’s got the filter on him as Demon King Ganondorf. Everyone else is just sorta alright.


THE MIXED:

  • I found the Sky Islands to be shockingly devoid of substance. I have them under the mixed section because I don’t necessarily think they have a lot of friction with the overworld the same way I felt with the Depths, but I think there’s so much wasted potential here. After the tutorial area, very few of these offer anything other than battles against constructs (good battles, don’t need quite this many), shrine puzzles where you need to deliver the stone to the gateway (these got old fast for me), and shrines. It just feels weird that these sky islands were such a focal point with the marketing, but after visiting only a few of them you start to notice how much repeat content there is between them. To be clear, I don’t inherently think repeat content is a bad thing, but when the vast majority of the smallest level of the map is repeated it ends up feeling kind of rushed.
  • Very few of the armor sets are new. Most of them are re-used from BotW, and it’s disappointing how few of the old referential tunics have side quests or content tied to them. Maybe it would have been cool to have to fight something from Twilight Princess to get the Twilight Princess armor. I dunno, just something more substantial and more exciting. I have this in mixed because at least most of them are tied to doing something cool in the depths, or from finding treasure maps up above.
  • The story really could have done a better job tying the events of BotW and TotK together. It’s bizarre how many people are meeting Link for the first time, and how many people are just totally over the Calamity from the first game, and how few people are connecting the dots between Ganon and Ganondorf. As far as I can tell, Zelda is the only character to make that connection unless there’s something I missed, and even then, it’s a nice subtle nod in a flashback cutscene. I dislike it when direct sequels take half-measures, as if they’re afraid of being sequels, so this stood out to me as odd. I don’t personally place a ton of importance on the story of Zelda games (ESPECIALLY as they relate to other Zelda games) but in this particular instance they had the chance to go much further with the lore and story between these games and they just kinda… Don’t? I still like what was there but it could have been much more.
  • Being totally honest, even though the dungeons are better from BotW, I still think BotW's Hyrule Castle is the gold standard for how dungeons should be approached in this style of Zelda game and there's honestly nothing really like that in this. BotW Hyrule Castle is an S-tier level, with tons of small puzzles, fun enemy encounters, a huge, sprawling layout that feels like a real, physically lived-in place. I don't think TotK really has anything like that. The dungeons come kind of close, but they don't quite get there.

I am sure there'd be more if I reflected on it further, but ultimately I think it's kind of a fascinating game to talk about because it's simultaneously incredible and also a big bummer!
 
brainchild said:
I'm fine with people criticizing Shrines but arguing that they should be removed is a bit too far. If they were removed they wouldn't necessarily be replaced by anything and for classic fans who liked them they have even less reason to look forward to a new open air Zelda.

Please let us have our scraps, jeez.
Click to expand...
From a gameplay POV the bite-sized dungeons concept is great IMO. And through caves and sky islands they now have the concepts to integrate these sections into the gameworld proper. So I'm hoping we get a more organic feeling form of linear segments in the next one.

I really hope BotW/TotK style Zelda doesn't become a victim of it's own success and they genuinely overhaul the concept, art, music, world design etc. for the next game. TotK has shown that Zelda team still has the tendency to get mired in tradition - this time traditions from BotW. So maybe Puzzle Bunkers are here to stay in their current segmented, artificial feeling form, which would be a shame.
 
Haven't posted here much since I started the game on release. But seeing as how I'm at 170 hours and I beat the game at 135, I guess I'll share some thoughts, stream of consciousness style in bullet points for my fellow ADHD kings and queens and inbetweens

Putting them under spoilers below.


  • the postgame exploration loop is so satisfying once you have a good grasp on all the different mechanics and systems.
  • I have demarcated spots on my map where I prefer to farm Construct parts, Zonaite, and Poes.
  • making a house is a blast, but man I wish we had more flexibility with the rooms. Namely, adjusting where the ins/outs go. A majority of my time creating my house involved using pen and paper, and trial and error.
  • the endless stream of engineering discoveries feels like this game's version of BotW's chemistry system discoveries. I still can't believe how clever some people are. The recent gyroscope invention is mindblowing.
  • I truly feel compelled to fill out my map with every Lightroot, Shrine, Zonai Device dispenser, etc.
  • I'm going to be finishing all the side quests much, much quicker than I did BotW's, too. I can tell. The first game took me about 5 years to get around to finishing all the side quests and shrines.
  • I fucking love the story, and bafflingly, for a reason I'm still trying to figure out, unlike with Xenoblade 3 I embrace the plot holes and inconsistencies and put the vibes and emotions first.
 
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manfromthedam said:
I really hope BotW/TotK style Zelda doesn't become a victim of it's own success and they genuinely overhaul the concept, art, music, world design etc. for the next game.
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I do too for the most part.

On one hand, I hope one of the things they took from the stretch of 3D Zelda games up to now is that rehashing an original success ad nauseum will give diminishing returns, and getting ahead of that curve is a good thing.

On the other hand, I feel like there are so many things about this game — the characters, the mechanics system, the lore, the vibe, the art style, the physics — that I'm just not ready to part with yet, even after what could essentially be summed up as two parts of a single 500+ hour experience.

I know this conversation has been done to death and my point is nothing new but I want to add my lot to the side that hopes the next Zelda game will embrace the following changes:

Keep from BotW and TotK:
  • same Link, Zelda (I love them so much)
  • same engine, physics, chemistry system
  • same lore continuity

But I would love a new:
  • map (a la Holodrum or Koholint)
  • art style (but only just slightly changed is fine! BotW / TotK are gorgeous)
  • gameplay gimmick (let building make TotK unique)
  • villain and story (smaller scope, more personal or introspective)


You might be able to tell which Zelda games are my favorites
 
0
manfromthedam said:
From a gameplay POV the bite-sized dungeons concept is great IMO. And through caves and sky islands they now have the concepts to integrate these sections into the gameworld proper. So I'm hoping we get a more organic feeling form of linear segments in the next one.

I really hope BotW/TotK style Zelda doesn't become a victim of it's own success and they genuinely overhaul the concept, art, music, world design etc. for the next game. TotK has shown that Zelda team still has the tendency to get mired in tradition - this time traditions from BotW. So maybe Puzzle Bunkers are here to stay in their current segmented, artificial feeling form, which would be a shame.
Click to expand...

Yeah to be clear, I'm fine with (and would even prefer) them evolving to be more organic and regionally/individually themed, but Shrines have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me in terms of scratching the itch for puzzle solving in a linear framework, so if I imagine this game without them, the game isn't nearly as appealing for me, even when considering everything else that the game has to offer. Hopefully they continue to improve them in future games.

Even if they brought traditional dungeons back, I would still want Shrines to stay. If Dungeons are full meals, then Shrines are snacks, neither of which can replace the other as they serve different purposes.
 
Okay, so full story spoilers here.

Might've missed something, but was a bummer to me.

We never really found out why the Master Sword is all lines at its bottom half, like it is in the logo, right?

When Link pulled it out of the dragon, I half expected it to be lined like that, instead it was brand new. Was the lines supposed to, like, be symbolical of when the sword was in the dragon? Was a bummer, because I think the lines on it looks way cool.
 
brainchild said:
Yeah to be clear, I'm fine with (and would even prefer) them evolving to be more organic and regionally/individually themed, but Shrines have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me in terms of scratching the itch for puzzle solving in a linear framework, so if I imagine this game without them, the game isn't nearly as appealing for me, even when considering everything else that the game has to offer. Hopefully they continue to improve them in future games.

Even if they brought traditional dungeons back, I would still want Shrines to stay. If Dungeons are full meals, then Shrines are snacks, neither of which can replace the other as they serve different purposes.
Click to expand...
Completely agreed. I played a big portion of TotK without doing the shrines because I had my fill in BotW. It essentially turned it into a nice walking simulator =P . Only after forcing myself to step inside of Shrines - all the while praying it wasn't a "make your own fun!" nonsense Ultrahand Shrine - did the game come into focus.
 
Irene said:
Okay, so full story spoilers here.

Might've missed something, but was a bummer to me.

We never really found out why the Master Sword is all lines at its bottom half, like it is in the logo, right?

When Link pulled it out of the dragon, I half expected it to be lined like that, instead it was brand new. Was the lines supposed to, like, be symbolical of when the sword was in the dragon? Was a bummer, because I think the lines on it looks way cool.
Click to expand...
I assume it's a reference to
the geoglyphs, one of which is the Master Sword.
 
Pierceyonder said:
Finished the game! I have a fairly big list of thoughts on it, so sorry if it's a lot, haha.

My progress: main story fully completed to credits, fully upgraded Hylian trousers and Hood with fully upgraded Champion’s Leathers, about 120/152 shrines completed, and most of the game’s major side content has been completed. I had originally intended to complete all the shrines, but after so many hours of playing the game, I started to get fatigue from it and I refuse to allow myself to optimize the fun out of video games now most of the time. If I had to summarize my feelings on this game, it would be this: “the most incredibly made disappointing game I’ve played in recent memory.”

THE GOOD:

  • The game’s core mechanics are vastly improved from BotW. Ascend, Fuse, Ultrahand, and Recall are all way more applicable to combat and puzzle solving than their counterparts in BotW were, and they’re all very enjoyable to use. Enemies and bosses provide plenty of alternate solutions to fight other than simply smacking them with a weapon, much like BotW, but this time I feel it was more intuitive to know when to attack with weapons vs. when to use powers.
  • The fact that the game has such a crazy number of interlocking mechanics and physics without completely buckling under itself is kind of astounding. Everything functions pretty well exactly how you would expect and experimenting with different Fusions on your weapons and arrows is very, very fun.
  • Core story dungeons are much more exciting to explore this time, and the bosses are vastly more interesting than different takes on Ganon. I consider everything from the lead-up to the dungeon up to the final boss of the area to be The Level for that area (so I count the ascent up to the Rito ship as part of the dungeon even if it technically isn’t). Thematically, they are all much more interesting than exploring four Divine Beasts. That said, I do feel as though manipulating the Divine Beasts’ unique geometry lead to some more interesting puzzle interactions, whereas TotK’s dungeons are more about being in a place and claiming domain over its layout. I prefer the way TotK did it, but I doubt this game is giving the dungeon-loving folks from older Zelda games their fix.
  • The game is just absolutely dense with things to do. Shrines, caves, story content, side quests, following your curiosity, etc. It really does feel like BotW pumped up to the max in this regard. Very little space on the overworld is wasted and it results in feeling a lot more fleshed out.
  • It really can’t be overstated how impressive Ultrahand is as a game mechanic in an open world. I myself am the “please make the fun for me” type; I am not likely to engage with most games where you need to build things or use your creativity to overcome problems. TotK, however, makes this aspect very accessible and intuitive, so I ended up enjoying it in the end.
  • The four main phenomena around the world are neat in how they end up permanently affecting things until you’ve solved them. BotW had some semblance of this but TotK definitely capitalizes on this more.
  • Shout-outs to Yunobo being an absolute dick, I loved that and kinda wish he stayed that way lol. In general the Goron questline with them just downing nasty rocks is hilarious and good.
  • Visually and aesthetically, it’s beautiful, as expected.
  • The new music is totally killer. Big shout-outs to the boss battle songs and the many, many moments where Zelda’s Lullaby is snuck into cutscenes.
  • The game is filled to the brim with absolutely magical moments. Discovering that Zelda was the Light Dragon was super freaking cool, and after I claimed the Master Sword I just had a quiet moment where I stood atop her and just sorta… Thought about the implications of it, for a bit. BotW and TotK are definitely my favourite depictions of Zelda, and it’s hard not to feel bad for her after the events of these games.
  • That final boss and ending sequence are just incredibly well done. The lead up to Ganondorf is appropriately challenging, and having your Sage buddies by your side in a big battle is really fun. I loved seeing Ganondorf’s health bar look completely ridiculous as it kept extending during his second phase, that shit Owns and I genuinely laughed out loud. It almost made me forget about the things I didn’t like about the game, it’s that good!


THE BAD:

  • A huge takeaway from this game for me: I felt as though both the Sky Islands and the Depths did not earn their inclusion, personally. I feel as though the Depths in particular are the single most disappointing thing in a video game in recent memory. I was so excited to explore it and my mind was kind of blown at first that they made an entire other map underneath Hyrule, but after only a few hours of exploration in there it becomes abundantly clear that there isn’t much to see or do besides farm enemies and zonite, with the occasional Yiga encounter thrown in. There are nearly no unique enemies (basically just the small and big Frox as far as I can tell), a lack of variety in the biomes, very little variety in the settlements and buildings, and overall it just feels very fillery to me. I understand the design consideration with the Depths’ inclusion: it’s a challenging area meant to be consumed piece-meal throughout your experience in order to refresh weapons, upgrade your battery, experiment with Ultrahand and vehicle-making, and break up the pace of exploring the massive and dense overworld. It simply did not work for me, however. It’s one singular biome (technically two if you include the area around Death mountain, which is admittedly a very cool area that I wish there were more of), the visual design simultaneously felt cluttered and too detailed while the physical space felt empty, and in general I simply didn’t enjoy lighting my way through the darkness. I think they were going for a sort of reverse philosophy of the overworld with this: in the overworld, you can look around from up high and pick out points of interest to visit, whereas in the Depths they want you to light up the area, look around, and realize all the cool stuff you missed in the darkness. That sounds cool in theory, but in practice it was incredibly tedious for me. It really, really did not earn its size if you ask me. There is absolutely no reason why the Depths shouldn’t have been constrained to smaller, more intimately designed areas. I found myself tired of the Depths very quickly and I don’t feel as though they were a particularly meaningful inclusion in their current state, beyond the small handful of admittedly cool things that are down there (which, frankly, I would have preferred in the overworld if I could choose).
  • The UI and general usability of this game is pretty oppressive. Doing things require far too many button presses, there’s too much animation fluff (an issue in many, many Nintendo games), buttons overlap with various functions and in general the controls could really have used some simplifying. Cooking is still too slow, leaving a shrine is still too slow, repeated dialogue is everywhere, etc. I really hope things like this can be streamlined in future games because it really adds up to lots of unnecessary tedium.
  • The Sage controls are incredibly clunky. This is one core aspect that BotW handled infinitely better. Having to walk up to them and press A to activate their power (the same button used for picking up items and interacting with most objects) is a head-scratchingly weird design choice that resulted in me rarely using anyone’s powers besides Tulin’s wind. Mineru is a very cool addition, and one I found by accident WAY earlier than intended (which is a great thing, I love that), but she gets in the way of the camera constantly and after a while I got tired of seeing a half-transparent robot in the foreground all the time. Sidon’s ability may as well not even exist, and Yunobo’s ability is actually really fun and useful but hard to activate in the thick of combat. Riju’s is solid because it interacts well with something you’re going to be doing often anyway, which is shooting arrows. I don’t know why these couldn’t have been activated in some other way, either passively like BotW or through some other method like an additional power wheel similar to the runes.
  • There are just way too many things re-used from BotW. I am someone who is 100% in favor of asset re-use in order to save on dev time (I work in an industry that re-uses things A LOT so I get the need for this), but re-using a huge majority of the map and concepts from the previous game is not my favourite approach. I already explored this world years ago, and despite the many, many adjustments and changes to the world, it still reeks of familiarity that makes it inherently less fun to explore for me as someone that played BotW. Not only that, but the concepts on display are similar as well; there are four regional phenomena that need your help, all of which are the in the same locations from BotW, featuring many of the same characters (many of which don’t remember/recognize Link which is a bizarre choice). I would have accepted the map being reused if they had done more to change these core locations. Maybe Death Mountain could have been a snowy mountain in this, and the Gorons are dealing with that change? Perhaps Zora’s Domain could have been overgrown and covered in swamp? I don’t know exactly what the solution to make me happy here would have been. The fact that a game where exploration and discovering is at the forefront of its design philosophy has reused so many concepts saddens me a bit. The way the game is so visually linked to BotW weakens it in my opinion. In addition, there is only one brand new settlement on the overworld (Lookout Landing) while all of the others have undergone very minimal transformation. I think the game changed enough to justify it being a full release of course, but if you ask me, I would have preferred a smaller, newer overworld to the re-used Hyrule here. I want the New Vegas of this style of Zelda. I wanted TotK to be the Majora’s Mask to BotW’s Ocarina of Time, but it’s only kiiind of that and instead goes in the opposite direction of adding more and more, sometimes to the game’s detriment.
  • Adding onto this, there is just way too much re-used music. It’s weirdly non-Nintendo-like to do this, I feel. It adds to that feeling of over-familiarity and is one of the first things that stuck out to me. Also, as an aside, where’s all that saxophone from the story trailer?
  • Lurelin Village was very disappointing. So many characters hype you up in Lookout about the “pirates attacking and claiming Lurelin Village,” but when you get there it’s just regular-ass enemy mobs. I was really expecting this to be more exciting, like maybe some brand new pirate enemies as a minor faction similar to the Yiga or something, and not just more Moblins.
  • The voice acting is just… Not amazing, all across the board. I think Tulin’s voice actor does a pretty solid job (shout-outs to them for also voicing 9-Volt in WarioWare), Zelda’s actor has improved a lot from BotW, and Sonia and Rauru are good. I think Matt Mercer was either a big miscast or his voice direction wasn’t gelling with me, because he just didn’t do it for me as Ganondorf. Weirdly enough, I think he sounds great as mummified Ganondorf, and when he’s got the filter on him as Demon King Ganondorf. Everyone else is just sorta alright.


THE MIXED:

  • I found the Sky Islands to be shockingly devoid of substance. I have them under the mixed section because I don’t necessarily think they have a lot of friction with the overworld the same way I felt with the Depths, but I think there’s so much wasted potential here. After the tutorial area, very few of these offer anything other than battles against constructs (good battles, don’t need quite this many), shrine puzzles where you need to deliver the stone to the gateway (these got old fast for me), and shrines. It just feels weird that these sky islands were such a focal point with the marketing, but after visiting only a few of them you start to notice how much repeat content there is between them. To be clear, I don’t inherently think repeat content is a bad thing, but when the vast majority of the smallest level of the map is repeated it ends up feeling kind of rushed.
  • Very few of the armor sets are new. Most of them are re-used from BotW, and it’s disappointing how few of the old referential tunics have side quests or content tied to them. Maybe it would have been cool to have to fight something from Twilight Princess to get the Twilight Princess armor. I dunno, just something more substantial and more exciting. I have this in mixed because at least most of them are tied to doing something cool in the depths, or from finding treasure maps up above.
  • The story really could have done a better job tying the events of BotW and TotK together. It’s bizarre how many people are meeting Link for the first time, and how many people are just totally over the Calamity from the first game, and how few people are connecting the dots between Ganon and Ganondorf. As far as I can tell, Zelda is the only character to make that connection unless there’s something I missed, and even then, it’s a nice subtle nod in a flashback cutscene. I dislike it when direct sequels take half-measures, as if they’re afraid of being sequels, so this stood out to me as odd. I don’t personally place a ton of importance on the story of Zelda games (ESPECIALLY as they relate to other Zelda games) but in this particular instance they had the chance to go much further with the lore and story between these games and they just kinda… Don’t? I still like what was there but it could have been much more.
  • Being totally honest, even though the dungeons are better from BotW, I still think BotW's Hyrule Castle is the gold standard for how dungeons should be approached in this style of Zelda game and there's honestly nothing really like that in this. BotW Hyrule Castle is an S-tier level, with tons of small puzzles, fun enemy encounters, a huge, sprawling layout that feels like a real, physically lived-in place. I don't think TotK really has anything like that. The dungeons come kind of close, but they don't quite get there.

I am sure there'd be more if I reflected on it further, but ultimately I think it's kind of a fascinating game to talk about because it's simultaneously incredible and also a big bummer!
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Oh yeah, the lack of a dungeon like BOTW Hyrule Castle is such a bummer.
 
In terms of shrines, I think one way they've improved is that more of them feature some sort of escalation. But they're still not escalating far enough imo.
While the devs aren't afraid to throw difficult combat challenges or really obscure riddles in the game, the puzzle complexity is turned way down. It's weird. I feel like transporting a Korok takes longer than going through a shrine.

I feel like at least for the optional chests, they should be Rube Goldberging that shit.
 
My brain talking to itself whenever I'm making anything elaborate with Ultrahand

"This is going to work Steve" (name isn't even Steve)

"I know it is, or else I wasted an hour of my life if it doesn't"
 
catonkatonk said:
In terms of shrines, I think one way they've improved is that more of them feature some sort of escalation. But they're still not escalating far enough imo.
While the devs aren't afraid to throw difficult combat challenges or really obscure riddles in the game, the puzzle complexity is turned way down. It's weird. I feel like transporting a Korok takes longer than going through a shrine.

I feel like at least for the optional chests, they should be Rube Goldberging that shit.
Click to expand...
I also had this feeling. I only did around 60 for now. But I thought the puzzles too easy. At least BOTW had some where I felt great for solving. Curiously enough when I did the first shrines I thought they would be more complex. Maybe as they introduce a bunch of devices and combinations they wanted them to be more like a tutorial of what you can do in the overworld. Though the battle shrines are much better than BOTW imo.
 
I do like being able to cheese puzzles at all times though. I gave up on one in the Construct Factory yesterday where you had to get one of the boxes across some long electrified thing. I figured you were supposed to use the lip of the electrified thing and the wheels laying around somehow, after 20 minutes of messing around with no results I just whipped out a balloon and fan and flew across the gap.
 
bellydrum said:
Damn, some people really just do not find being creative fun. I get it not being "your thing" but what's up with the vitriol I've seen so much about this mechanic?
Click to expand...
For some reason making complex stuff in game makes me feel I'm doing overtime on work....XD.
Or that I should be receiving money for this.

I feel like this for simulation games like Sim City nowadays. I used to love them during my teens though.
 
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bellydrum said:
Damn, some people really just do not find being creative fun. I get it not being "your thing" but what's up with the vitriol I've seen so much about this mechanic?
Click to expand...
this complaint is even more stupid considering that every Shrine has an intended solution. At least one that is signposted
 
I still like the shrines quite a bit but I definitely find myself wishing more of them were more difficult, more focused puzzles, or didn’t involve ultrahand at all. But I’m someone who loves constraints and having to do puzzles in extremely narrow circumstances, so I acknowledge that’s more personal preference. I’d honestly love Challenge Shrines in the same vein as the Eventide shrines where the game flat-out disables Ultrahand; almost like Mario Sunshine no-Fludd levels. But I admit that I might be weird :p
 
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