Breath of the Wild Superfan rants about Tears of the Kingdom for 170 Minutes...

Watch Live: / limcube
0:00 Intro
2:57 Praise
1:00:10 Critique
2:32:39 Hopes

[@Syntox]

The story inconsistencies with NPCs not remembering Link is purely to make sure the 6 people on Earth who never played BoTW don't feel "left out"

[@FullyOnVolks]

A trend of the modern world always catering towards the weak and unworthy

[@Nelland]

It's really strange isn't it? The game marketed itself as the "BoTW Sequel"

[@nabil.19]

@@Nellandit’s not a sequel at all clearly, the divine beasts just up and left

[@dylanherron3963]

As someone that couldn't care less about Nintendo, Zelda, Mario, etc... Welcome to the fucking club boys. Imagine, your favorite IPs are used for branding purposes alone, and have no merit to the integrity that the IP used to carry? Wow. Imagine. It's almost as if gaming as a whole has woken up to the cash cow that it is, where companies and shareholders are totally aware of the fact we'll buy it anyway. I'm a former Blizzard fanatic. You guys are juuuuuuuuust fine if this is the first inkling of your fandom going "Hey, wait a minute!" This comment, brought to you by "Holy Shit I'm fucking Jaded lmao" Edit AGAIN: No, I'm not actually making fun of you guys, just to clarify. We all gamers, man.

[@nabil.19]

@@dylanherron3963 just learn to pirate everything cause some companies don’t deserve the money

[@Scharfster]

one of my favourite "themes" is the one when you enter the depths while diving, the BWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHH

[@Limcube]

So True

[@lmnt66]

The lack of continuity from and contradictions to BotW in its story, lore and world made me feel a weird disconnect with TotK's Hyrule. It doesn't feel like the same Hyrule a few years later, but more like an alternate timeline.

[@m1r4828da]

Yes!! It’s strange to me how, when you’re visiting the regions, the champions and others greet Link like they haven’t seen him in years (or at least a while). Maybe it’s just me, but I assumed he would’ve had SOME interaction with the other regions/races/champions between BOTW & TOTK??

[@lukeshioshio]

Lack of continuity? Did you never find Tarrey Town? Even without that, every major civilization has continuity, so many characters return aged with character development. "Lack of continuity" is such a joke.

[@thescorpion2758]

@@lukeshioshioNone of the NPCs from Breath of the Wild remember you and they treat you like strangers. Only major story characters remember you. There's even one quest where you help a couple get together and start dating in BOTW but in TOTK they don't remember you despite you helping start their relationship in the first place.

[@jaydenc367]

Eh there is no lack of continuity from or contradictions to BOTW in it's story, lore or world. It does tbh, it really doesn't feel like that.

[@jaydenc367]

@@m1r4828da not really they do seem to know him. And he did.

[@samandrew2]

As a casual player who's finished both BOTW and TOTK I feel like I'm one of the few people that actually feel like BOTW was better. To me, even though the abilities are better in TOTK there is SO much wasted space. Caves, the depths feel like mining places, not real to be experienced map expansion.

[@knp01]

Same. I finished ToTK, packed it and booted BoTW. Outside of final fight with Ganon, I don't see myself replaying it. BoTW- I've just starded 3rd time on Master Mode.

[@56ty_]

Agreed

[@kingsway731]

Agreed

[@created3612]

Not sure if I completely agree but I do understand the people who share this sentiment. TotK is extremely bloated and suffers from way too much unrewarding and repetitive content, and the game being too open nature. What’s keeping me from outright saying Botw is better is how TotK did boss fights and the dungeons, those were the highlights of the game to me.

[@jacobfamily4544]

For a sequel, TotK had an awful lot of tutorials; and I don't like that 2 are required. BotW only needed the 1 tutorials and let the player loose. That made for a very memorable experience. Contrast with TotK where the game doesn't hold your hand like OoT/MM/TP/SS do but it still tries to guide you. Another thing that annoyed me is that even as far east at Faron, the game tries to make you go northwest. Just because of that, I did everything I possibly could in the east first before going to the desert, and finally finishing Hebra last. Hebra was a great region in BotW, in TotK they really did a disservice to that region.

[@l0ss322]

My biggest gameplay gripe has to be the horrible implementation of the sage powers. The only one that you can reasonably use is tulin's but running after the sages on the battlefield to activate the power is one of the most frustrating experiences in the game. I ended up having all sages except tulin deactivated for 95% of my time playing. If only they used a wheel menu like for the abilities... they could've literally put the 4 sage abilities in the rune menu instead of map, amiibo, camera and autobuild. It would've made everything much more streamlined and easy to access. The way it is, the sages were extremely underwhelming compared to the champion abilities in botw which were all much easier to use and more useful over all too.

[@knp01]

In theory you can whistle for them to come to you... but what if you want to be stealth? Sages are such let down in this. Iwish we had something like in BoTW or mabe in bewteen where pressing button longer summons them to Link.

[@Limcube]

i cant believe i missed that in my Notes, you are 100% correct imo

[@recogniseman]

Totally agree. Should have been part of the abilities menu and get rid of camera map amiibo and auto build definitely!

[@jaydenc367]

It isn't implemented horribly as the powers are pretty good it's how you activate them that's implemented horribly.

[@ericwindsor339]

that's actually an amazing idea, they could have put the 4 sages powers in the directions that they are relative to Lookout landing so that way it's easier to remember which one goes in which wheel direction. Would have been way WAY better than what they did here

[@jackiemay147]

Unfortunately, ToTK feels like an attempted redo of BoTW. It should’ve never been a separate game. It’s a good game objectively, I get why people like it, but if you’ve played BoTW you literally feel burnt out on ToTK within a few hours. I still haven’t finished it yet. ToTK is the first Zelda game I can say feels like a cash grab. They wanted to ride the popularity and success of BoTW, rather than focusing on making a good game. There’s just simply not enough new content to justify this game existing, ESPECIALLY considering how many f*cking years we waited for it.

[@garyantonyo]

It feels like the problems that most people have with TotK's story are things that surely would have obviously come up when making the game. These are all things that just had to be willfully ignored right? It's just baffling that any game studio would put out a game so polished and then go and completely put next to no thought on polishing the narrative aspects of the game. It feels like Nintendo leads specifically said to the devs "if you mention any issues about the story you are fired, do not bring that shit up i seriously do not give a shit" because there is no way that this many problems would otherwise slip through the cracks. its just absurd

[@ShelbyJueden]

I think the TOTK story, when it was BOTW DLC, was originally meant to explain why Calamity Ganon exists but their aspirations got too big, and left that behind when they made it a full game leaving some plot holes. Everything outside of the main game is so under developed, the NPCs inconsistently remembering link, how much time has passed, the depths and sky islands, sheika stuff being replaced by zonai, it wouldn't hurt the story at all for them to be missing if it was just a BOTW story DLC with new temples. Also, Nintendo saying there will not be DLC for TOTK hurts a lot since it doesn't have master mode. This game needed it more than BOTW since it is easier and would have been more impactful to get gold tier enemy drops for fusing.

[@YoshiPink]

i‘m so sad that they didn‘t put master mode in exactly what u said having fusable gold enemy loot would go hard and it just feels incomplete without them it stopping at silver enemies feels weird if there is no way to get the golden ones if they were there in the previous game i loved master mode in botw it was a great way to get to replay the game and probably also would be a fun way to replay totk I still hope nintendo just says nevermind and does it anyway

[@Mystician13]

​@@RealbluesparkFNvery much so

[@RealbluesparkFN]

Wut?

[@speedude0164]

It sounds crazy to me though that Nintendo would have Calamity Ganon as Breath of the Wild's main villain, then GANONDORF as just a DLC villain to explain Calamity Ganon's origins. That definitely feels like a storyline that deserves a full game.

[@zacharybradford3324]

The way I see it, so much time has passed since Breath of the Wild that the NPC’s have seen Link quite a few times between that game and TOTK, if you think about it. I agree that it’s weird that the Divine Beasts and Sheikah Tech was not really touched on, but it does make sense that there wouldn’t be some grand “oh I remember you Link” moment after the amount of time between the games

[@dillischill5600]

that comment from Nintendo about the Sheikah tech is a real slap in the face to the community in particular. It feels like they’re mocking us for caring about the game and it’s details when they clearly didnt at all. What a joke from one of the biggest game companies in the world. Nintendo should get so much grief for this.

[@Limcube]

I also think its a bigger deal than people have made it out to be, especally because in the previous Interview with Famitsu they said again that they thought everything through and fans need to figure it out.

[@timmy3441]

Honestly, none of this surprises me haha. This is the same developer that made Wind Waker and clearly established it in the prologue as a sequel to Ocarina of Time set 100+ years in the future in a flooded version of its world in the future. And yet... when I first finished Tower of the Gods and was sent underwater to actually *see* this preserved version of old Hyrule... why did nothing down there even remotely resemble anything I'd seen in Ocarina of Time? Where were the recognisable landscapes? 13-year-old me peeled my eyes, looking for something, *anything* off in the distance which was familiar. But there was nothing... just a generic pathway surrounded by empty green fields and cliffs. While it confused the hell out of me at the time, in the years since, I've asked myself: would it have taken *any* extra dev time to even put in bare minimum effort to even *partially* shape the landscapes to look like somewhere familiar from OoT? Of course not. Even something like having Lon Lon Ranch appear in the distance would really have gone a long, *long* way to make the connection betwen games believable. Ever since then, I've essentially adopted the attitude: if even the devs themselves don't care about this, I can't really bring myself to care about it either. I'll just take each game as its own disconnected story, and that's fine. But yeah, it no longer surprises me when a game barely recognises another, because over the years I've come to realise that it's par for the course for the Zelda team, and it doesn't bother me anymore.

[@richardmahn7589]

@@timmy3441 Hadn't thought of that about Hyrule being underwater and all that in Windwaker.

[@Snakeybloo]

i saw a lore video about it, what they thought happened is that some shrines were deconstructed and most of them were destroyed by ganon because even though he used them once link found a way to bring them back and use them once again to destroy him

[@whosahassa]

It was difficult, but I did finally accept that Nintendo does NOT care--about their own creation or their fans. Money, that's what they're about.

[@beatsado6529]

One thing about the story is they tried to make it so that you didn't have to play BOTW to understand TOTK. I think they were wanting it to be a sequel, but so many elements, like the story, the gameplay abilities, they work by themselves without needing context from the last game. Nintendo made a new story, and tried to get rid of all of the existing story elements from BOTW so that TOTK could still make sense. By doing this, Nintendo shot themselves in the feet by not having a cohesive story throughout TOTK.

[@liarwithagun]

From what I understand, it is a Nintendo policy/mandate to have most franchises have "one-off" stories that are fully self-contained. So that might be why they decided to go this terrible route and make a sequel that isn't a sequel that is a sequel.

[@amandaslough125]

​@@liarwithagunThat does not lead to such terrible writing like this. You can acknowledge previous events to show time passing even while focused on a new current story. You can enjoy Wind Waker and Twilight Princess plenty as standalones without playing Ocarina of Time first.

[@1mwls]

Great video, I'm 63 and have played every Zelda game to the end. This is the first time I ever lined up at a release date to get my copy. What a great experience, People from my age down to 12 years old. An about 40-year-old guy was there buying it for his dad. Absolutely love the game, So I don't do any glitches haven't got the talent or reflexes of you young speedrunners I'm a purist casual player.

[@the1ofus]

Most wholesome comment ever

[@corgikun2579]

that's really cool! not everybody can pull out those speed running techniques, I'm younger and the only one I can do is the whistling and running

[@Limcube]

Thats amazing too read, at the end of the day zelda connects us all and that lovely

[@zacatkinson3926]

Purist?

[@1mwls]

@@zacatkinson3926 It only means I don't use any glitches.

[@AM-vk7qx]

it all comes down to this game feeling more like a redesign of botw rather than a sequel

[@victorthevictorian]

I'd say the first 20-30 hours of TotK were the absolute best. After that, the initial feeling of positive overwhelm that you described so well started to fade. After 50 to 60 hours, things just started to feel repetitive. After 70 to 80 hours, playing could sometimes feel like a chore. This is what my experience felt like, at least.

[@kailemon7096]

I think everyone was experiencing the giddy excitement in the beginning simply because the GSI was actually a great starting area and that we also had 6 full years to imaggine how good the rest of the game was gonna be. Honestly after I met Purah and saw the 4 locations to go to I was already annoyed how similar it was to Botw. Doing the tasks kinda revived it I guess ands then finally beating was really nice as well. But right after that, my motivation absolutely tanked and there was no way I was 100%ing the game. And this is coming from a person who 100% botw and was already so incvested in the lore and speedrunning of it. It's quite sad that I only have 1/4 the amount of hours into the game compared to botw when in theory it had well over twice the amount of land to cover.

[@TheInfectous]

mate you're playing a game where the vast majority of content is simple puzzles and novelty exploration because the game is intended for a very young audience. No shit you're getting bored after 50 hours. I feel like a lot of nintendo fans don't really realize that they've grown up and the company is still making for children, oftentimes they're still fun games but in the end they're designed and made for a children's perspective. That means that they're going to be highly repetitive and simple in nature, the story isn't really going to amount to anything and that's okay. It's great actually, it's wonderful that for a single medium there is one company that isn't using children exclusively as an easy market to sell garbage to because they don't know any better.

[@victorthevictorian]

@@TheInfectous I get where you're coming from but I don't really agree. Nintendo is definitely well aware that most Zelda fans/players are at least in their 20s, that's why they developed BotW in the first place, to market to that huge mainstream audience of players. BotW may be kid-friendly in some aspects, but it is definitely not targeted towards children, nor is TotK or any other main Zelda title in the last few decades. Plus, I'm not that big of a fan of BotW, but I do have to give it credit for its overworld, since it did keep me busy for well over 200 hours exploring the whole map. Given how TotK reused that map and didn't add any significant content to actually be explored, 60 hours of playtime is nothing. I have more hours in Twilight Princess and that game isn't nearly as big as TotK.

[@victorthevictorian]

@therealgirl3295 I enjoyed BotW a great deal on my first playthrough, but in retrospect I definitely agree with you. None of the exploring you do actually amounts to anything. Same in TotK.

[@countryboyred]

I felt exactly like you but on a much shorter timescale. First 10 hours- amazing. Next 20, starting to feel repetitive. At 30+ I put it down and haven’t played it in months. For reference I put over 200 hours into botw and never felt burnt out.

[@creativevisiongaming]

My issues with TOTK, 1. I don't care about any of the new characters because the flashbacks are not fleshed out enough. 2. Not enough Ganon 3. No underwater exploration 4. Temple bosses are too easy

[@brimstoner982]

Temple bosses were such a pushover. The only one I liked was queen gibdo but the rest were lame af.

[@Barquevious_Jackson]

The Mucktopus was horrible. Just running him down was impossible with the awful controls of the game and the SLIME!

[@creativevisiongaming]

@@Barquevious_Jackson Are you serious, that was the easiest boss as long as you use water.

[@Barquevious_Jackson]

@@creativevisiongaming I was using water. I had like dozens of Hydrants and a ton of battery. He just didn't sit still long enough for me to catch up.

[@creativevisiongaming]

@@Barquevious_Jackson did you use a hydrant shield or just set up hydrants? There’s the king’s scales, chuchu jelly, all the water fruit, Sidon. There’s so many water attacks that make this super easy

[@incius8341]

I've thought a lot about what was bugging me about totk. I've settled on this; totk added many new mechanics like ultrahand, fuse and ascend all of which to expand the traversal system. Now, what was botw's best traits? Most would say the exploration and traversal, right? So, Nintendo decided to ignore any and all of botw's undeveloped areas to instead rework one of botw's star features and reuse the map. -Exploration (same map) -traversal (building/more paragliding) -Combat (untouched) -Story (untouched) -Shrines (untouched) -Koroks (added sign guy) -Enemy variety (untouched) -Dungeons (untouched)

[@say1074]

totk imo is just okay and kinda fun? Botw was a whole vibe, Totk feels like a watered-down, diluted version of it. The skills in Totk make it seem like you're pulling off cheats, making everything a breeze. Whether it's battling, exploring, or conquering, Totk falls short on the rewarding and meaningful scale. Your character, items, and skills are so overpowered that you end up just cruising through, not really having to think or manage much. Losing weapons is not even a worry anymore because you always get more than you lose. So, the whole prep thing before exploring or tackling camps is kinda missing. Honestly, I hate to be a downer, but that's just how I feel. There aren't any puzzles that make you scratch your head, also the lore is inconsistent and a bit shallow. It's like Totk is missing that special sauce that made Botw truly special

[@jimmutennodesu]

I really did wish for something like Skyloft, but we kind of got nothing but puzzles (and mini bosses) in the sky. No Lumpy Pumpkin, no bamboo sword mini game guy, no weird Beetle hideout. Skyward Sword’s sky islands had more personality, and people complained then that the sky in that game was basically empty. TOTK felt even more empty, even if it was absolutely gorgeous up there.

[@gandalfthegrey]

Different but related, it would have been cool if Skyloft was in the game.

[@ShmankyTube]

Best music: The title theme. Story problems: • Why doesn't Rauru tell Link about Zelda when Rauru first meets Link in the Sky Island? • Why doesn't the robot who gives Link the Purah Pad tell Link what it knows about Zelda; we saw in the cut-scene that the robot was there when Zelda transformed. • Why does eating a magic bean turn you into a dragon? How did Zelda put the sword into her hair and keep it there? • Why do we keep getting told that the Master Sword is essential to defeating Ganon? In the intro cut-scene when Link was at his strongest and Ganon was at his weakest, the Master Sword was not able to stand up to Ganon's power. So why should it at the end of the game? The Master Sword isn't even needed to finish the game until the last hit. • Why did Link not bring a shield with him at the beginning? Why would he raise his sword against some slime? • How is Ganon a threat when he is miles underground alone in a cave? Just leave him there. • Ganon is built up to be a major threat, but when you go down to fight him he's just a Samurai sword fighter, which I think any skilled warrior could take on; it didn't have to be Link and the Master sword was not needed, and in my first play through I didn't get the Master Sword until we got up the sky and the game gave it to me. • When Ganon ate his magic bean and turned into a dragon, how is he still a threat? Just leave him to fly around as a dragon for all time. He shoots around some red fireballs that I suppose are intended to make him seem to be a threat, but if Ganon has "lost himself" when becoming a dragon, as we're told, is it even ethical to kill him? • When Ganon eats the magic bean, he says his intention is world domination. But how would he achieve that as a mindless dragon? • When Ganon ate his magic bean, he takes Link into his teeth, but I guess he forgot to chew. Oops. • How did Ganon kill the queen? How did he get behind her? You can't even analyze the story properly because it doesn't make sense. • Why didn't Rauru and the queen restore Zelda earlier? • How does Zelda being close to the Master Sword restore it? If she becomes a dragon does she still have that restorative power? Why not leave it in the forrest with the Deku tree and live out her life in the past. • Did Raura and the queen know that Zelda would safely fall into water? • Why doesn't Rauru restore Link's arm when he meets him at the Big Door? • Was there no one in the castle when it was raised up? Why hadn't the castle been repaired? • The Rito area has a major storm, but there's no wind blowing Link around. There is a huge amount of snow falling but not much accumulation on the ground. • When you complete the Rito quest, they say they will be searching for Zelda. Where? Behind trees? Under rocks? The only thing I liked: Where Zelda was. I did not like this game at all. Nintendo sold us the same game at full price. They added sky islands, an underground, and gadgets, but it's essentially the same game, by which I don't mean the world and the game engine, I mean you're going around to the Rito, Zora, Goron, and Garudo to help them with some problem, then going to the castle. Shines again; towers again; Koroks again; stables again; memories again; it's all the same thing. It didn't make sense that the topography of the land would change between the two games. The Zonai gadgets were tedious and I avoided using them as much as possible. The Zonai devices weren't even essential to anything in the game. At the top of the volcano the game just gives you the combat airship because it knows players won't be patient enough to build it themselves. Fusing was tedious and having a big rock on the tip of your sword looked so goofy. This game was a major disappointment to me. If Nintendo tries to sell us Breath of the Wild a third time I won't be buying it.

[@Limcube]

I never even considered your first Question, he might not know that Zelda is a Dragon yet but he clearly knows she appeared in his Timeline and he just says nothing.

[@SailorCheryl]

Thank you! Got the same opinion! Iam so annoyed that everybody is hyping this game so much, it's a 6/10 at best, a Copy&pasted clusterfire. Why did it take them 6 years? It's aggrovating... But they know how to bait with trailers... The first ones for totk were Bad though and raised suspicion, but they managed to do a good final trailer, that showed all the memories of the game, Just like BotW trailers did. ^^ compare the final trailers of both games, even THAT structure is a Copy&paste of BotW. Zelda lost me...

[@vellichor7676]

1:39:22 I have another issue with the story to add. Ganondorf is meant to be a titan, a true presence; before the game came out, I imagined towns occupied by Ganon's forces, the world dark with evil, the Gerudo King oppressing everyone in Hyrule with fear. But, no. Spoiler Alert: Ganon remains underground the entire game. Hell, he is still lying down from where he fell at the beginning!! None of the "local phenomena" really have anything to do with Ganon. Sure, we have the fake Zelda wandering around, but ultimately, Ganondorf's presence is never truly felt. He could have been replaced with Random Boss #1, some generated enemy. I wanted his return to be akin to Voldemort, where the Dark Lord's return sent terror throughout the land. Insofar as Hyrule is concerned, though, Ganon might as well not even be back.

[@amandaslough125]

​@@user-jl7xj5iz9kImagine there was a dungeon inside the Great Deku Tree and purging the evil inside _that_ cleansed the forest.

[@trapadvisor]

Nah go back and watch the trailers. He’s barely the focus of any of them, in trailer 2 he’s talking but he’s not the main focus. The combat is. Ganon is just the guy pulling the strings from the background. Also ganon caused all the local phenomenon what are you talking about?!

[@gabe5918]

@@trapadvisorNah that’s cap

[@trapadvisor]

@@gabe5918 im laying out blatant facts

[@Peekul1]

Your air tarrey town example is nice. You're right about the if the details were filled out a little more, it would improve the experience. a sky village would have been great

[@dearthofdoohickeys4703]

The well known Japanese game developer Masahiro Sakurai made a point about video games that I feel applies to TOTK. Basically his point was the more a game has specific mechanics, the less broad appeal it has. The possibilities behind zonai constructs and fuse weapons is amazing…..but I never needed or wanted that. I don’t need 7 different types of fusable fire arrows, I’d rather have normal fire arrows. And I feel this phenomenon applies to a lot of aspects to the game. There’s lot of new toys to play with, but it’s still the same game. Don’t get me wrong TOTK is a great game, and it will have its devoted fans, but I think BOTW offered a more enjoyable experience and to more people.

[@speedude0164]

I feel that. It took me a while to get used to the Fuse system and I feared this game wouldn't end up being my cup of tea if it was gonna rely on Fuse so much. Especially as someone who doesn't care for the weapon durability system and would rather be free to use whatever weapon I wanted whenever, Fuse kinda made that problem worse as I now had to put so much more energy and thought in the system. I did get used to it in the end and ultimately I'm very satisfied with Tears of the Kingdom, but I see myself getting sick of this format really soon if they stick too closely to it.

[@A-RonHubbard]

Honestly you can play through the game without even using fuse at all. Lately the only viable challenges in the game to me are self-imposed challenges... And that is not only pointless, it's also not fun.

[@speedude0164]

@@A-RonHubbard That's kinda always been a thing with these games as the point is to let you approach any challenge however you want. Tears of the Kingdom kinda amplifies this by giving us more crazy options. I especially feel like the next game should nerf slowing time with the bow to only work for one shot, as getting in the air and spamming arrows is not only optimal a lot of the time, but not nearly as fun.

[@roxlife8173]

This is a WEIRD take, it doesn't make much sense either.

[@ash8244]

Totk is superior to botw in every way, I say this as a person who LOVED botw, I just love it slightly less after totk

[@mariocisemusic]

47:10 I can’t stand it when Zelda games do this. The worst offender imo was the battle music constantly interrupting Midna’s Lament in TP. Such a mood killer. Aside from that, the buildup to the wind temple is amazing-chills every time!

[@Mechadeuce]

I did 4 separate 100% playthroughs of BotW (2 regular, 2 Master Mode) with over 1000 hours in it, and have done one 100% playthrough of TotK with about 350ish hours in it, and quite frankly, I don't have much desire to do another. This game just doesn't seem as fun to replay, especially after putting nearly 1400 hours into this world. I also _really_ don't like the story, and was quite annoyed at how it affects BotW's. Turning what I thought was the same Ganondorf we always knew just corrupted by his own malice into some jabroni nobody has ever heard of was a very stupid decision, and any and all things relating to the secret stones and/or the Zonai was, to quote Revali, Just asinine... …and where is my -man- bird Kass?

[@RipVanFish09]

I think the reason they removed the damage value on the master sword icon is to make it seem a bit stronger than 30 damage. In botw, you could get weapons that were 3 times stronger than the base damage master sword, which made players not really use the master sword as much. If you don't have that damage value shown, you would assume the sword that seals the darkness would be a bit stronger than 30 damage, so you are more inclined to actually use it.

[@amandaslough125]

Isn't that a nerf from like 45 in BotW?

[@YDLOG]

@@amandaslough125it’s 60 in botw

[@speedude0164]

The sword is kinda weird in TotK. If I understand correctly, it does 30 damage normally, 45 damage in the Depths with the same durability, and 60 damage against Gloom enemies (which is only like the Phantom Ganons and Ganondorf himself) with infinite durability. Maybe they hid it so people wouldn't jump in the Depths and be like "Man, 45 damage? This sword sucks!".

[@RipVanFish09]

@@YDLOG In breath of the wild, without dlc stuff or without being near malice, the master sword does 30 damage.

[@satellachannel6423]

LOL Fans: "Where is the Sheika stuff?" Nintendo: "magic... dont ask"

[@richardmahn7589]

Not only how Rauru knows how time travel works (1:09:00) and if this is a closed/open loop, how do they know sages will hang around for thousands of years after dying to talk to a new guy in Link's time to become a sage? And why do they have to wait for a certain temple/boss to be beat to even give the stone? Does Ganondorf somehow have them locked in the temple?? Also two other things odd about Zelda going to each sage in the past and asks them, when the time comes, to help their sage in the future: 1) I doubt every dead person is hanging around or has the power to do this. If poes are ALL the deceased people, they seem pretty limited. And since poes can move on, how does Zelda know sages won't move on before the time of Link? And 2) why don't these sages just hand down their power generation after generation until it gets to Link's time? Usually that how it works...power is handed down and they have to hope it will be used in the right way, and given to the right people, and can protect the people/country at each time. That irked me when Zelda knew exactly how it would work. That means Zelda could have died and still stuck around to help Link in the future instead of turning into a dragon, but appeared in some vision or ghostly form?

[@keyboardcowgirl69]

my problem with durability is that it was a hassle in botw but felt like it fit, in tears i now need to go through like 2 more menus and a ton of button presses just to get a weapon to the level of viability that literally any weapon in botw had, ive had so many fights where i need to stop and drop random monster pieces and awkwardly finik around with fuse while a lynal is trying to neuter me , feels like they just dont think when adding anything to this game, just put it in, why not i guess

[@opticalsalt2306]

I find the durability extra offensive in Totk, because of the immense lag switching between weapons, you can really tell this game is pushing the switch too hard

[@colecube8251]

absolutely agreed. additionally, they also ruined, what to me was, the best part of the system. In botw, when your weapon was about to break you could throw it at an enemy. This would cause them to drop their weapon. So you could run over, pick it up, and smack them with it till they're dead. This system was awesome and fun as I'm sure you are aware if you've played the game. But in totk, you can't do that anymore because most of the time the weapon the enemy is carrying is bad and does very low damage. So you have to pause the game, scroll through the menu, drop the thing you want to attach, pause the game AGAIN, switch to fuse, and FINALLY fuse it to your weapon. They turned something instant into a 10 step process... I hate them for it

[@paulryan220]

I agree the interface is far from ideal, but Fuse makes weapon durability so much more enjoyable and organic that I couldn't imagine saying it fits in BOTW but not in TOTK. Fuse does wonders in actually making fighting enemies feel worth it and makes experimenting with different weapons so much more enjoyable.

[@colecube8251]

@@paulryan220 I don't really get why people say it makes enemies worth fighting... like I'm genuinely curious please help me understand. To me it has the same issue as in botw. You have better weapons than what you would get by fighting the enemies. Many times I've had inventories full of fused silver boss bokos, silver lynels, talus', and level 3 flux constructs', that fighting regular enemies would end up giving me worse weapons, which is the same exact issue as in botw. I like fuse for the experimenting it brings, that's great! but other than that idk, it seems very similar to botws system

[@paulryan220]

@@colecube8251 I agree that it becomes somewhat superflouos later on in the game, but it's awhile before the game reaches that point; plus, was I always in need of Silver Lizalfos or Moblin horns, so camps of silver enemies were often still worthwhile to fight even late in the game. There's also horns for bosses which are almost ALWAYS worth fighting. Gleeoks, Flux Constructs, and especially Lynels always had the potential to create extremely strong weapons. Bosses like Gleeoks also added elemental powers to your weapons, they were still worth fighting for even if you had strong horns of other enemies. It's not a perfect system, and like you said, its biggest flaw is that regular enemies become harder to justify killing late in the game, but Fuse makes weapon durability interesting throughout the entire game consistently even after it hits its peak.

[@robuxyyyyyyyyyy4708]

My biggest problem with tears of the kingdom is nintendo patching out glitches, especially when there's no dlc coming

[@TheRealSerpentine]

Hopefully they won’t shut down a multiplayer mod if one comes out.

[@YuviOwO]

​@@TheRealSerpentine They probably will because they don't like fan made mods that nintendo "could not" do themselves or don't want to do, also the modders are basically fighting against nintendo because they don't want people to use their game engine for free just to make something that some fans enjoy more than the vanilla game and that all for free on an emulator that also is free to use for people who know how to set it up. So i kinda understand nintendos way to deal with mods but it's also sad for those who worked hard.

[@robuxyyyyyyyyyy4708]

​@@YuviOwOThen they should add mod support, then

[@NX721]

Which is why we are holding back from announcing new glitches

[@abaddon5420]

My switch auto updating my game to 1.12 kinda killed the game for me, I can't do the cool glitches like the easy sort dupe or the autobuild slide glitch. I'm not saying I need glitches in order to enjoy a game, but the reason why botw kept pulling me back was because of how fun the glitches were. Still a great game imo

[@cocoacave2474]

1:28:00 This was the moment where I told myself "Well, looks like they don't care about worldbuilding and story at all. So I won't care about it either". This is such a shame, this lazy explanation dragged the overall enjoyment I had with this game. Imo a story should also serve as motivation to play and finish the game. A bad story, worldbuilding or lore tarnishes the overall experience I have with a game

[@ZzKevZz]

Especially in a high fantasy game.

[@RNGuice]

Okay so before I even start the video I just wanna state my personal biggest gripe with TOTK (not that it matters). So my biggest thing with the game that makes me genuinely like it less than Breath of the wild, is just how much better and how much worse it is overall than it’s predecessor. To explain let me give a couple of examples. In Breath of the wild the cutscenes with the champions are all very different, mainly due to the fact that it builds on the already established relationships these characters had with link and it gives a proper conclusion to all of them. In TOTK you get the exact same cutscene four.5 times in a row and it’s so frustrating because they could’ve done LITERALLY anything else, but no. In order to make sure that your experience wouldn’t be different they had it play the same thing. Why couldn’t they have the game do a check where the game plays one cutscene if you do one and then a different one if you do another and so on and so forth. It’s the same song and dance with the tears as well. In Breath of the wild you have the memories. They give you all the memories in order which is nice, but another thing that’s nice is that all the memories don’t really spoil anything because the plot doesn’t center around any unsolved mysteries. They’re all just there to tell different parts of the same story. It has it own flaws but still, not a bad system to have the story itself work with the actual act of getting the memories. However in TOTK they for some reason still feel the need to have the same setup with the memories even though the story doesn’t set up for it very well. They did try to remedy this my giving you a map of them all in order, but not only is that map slightly difficult to interpret, it also doesn’t actually do much to fix the problem. Because the problem with the “memories” in TOTK is that if you go out of order then you just spoiled yourself. I thankfully did not do that, but a lot and I do mean a LOT of people did. I could go on for a while, but I think I’ll just leave it at those two things for now.

[@kruews]

Thissssss. What makes it even worse is that in Botw you had to actually find the memories, they were more engaging on the first playthrough bc they required you to explore and investigate the landscape. In Totk they are LITERALLY just giant glowing pictures on the map that you can see from miles away. Such a strange choice for an adventure title, not sure why they even chose to bring the memory mechanic back when that was one of the biggest complaints in botw (and they at least made sense in that game)

[@ZzKevZz]

Also, in order to even find the map you have to come across and talk to Impa, and she is easily missable cause she's so tiny and way out in the field in front of the stable. I didn't miss her, but I easily could have when you get distracted so easily at the beginning of this game.

[@wunder4402]

Im so glad I've finally found these kinds of videos

[@kyuii2642]

the depths and the sky islands were disappointing. the tutorial area was the best area in the sky and none of the other islands were even close. as far as the depths go, there was no reason to have the same enemies as the surface. wasted chance to have enemies like skulltullas, stalfos and darknuts back.

[@toast7969]

for real! When I did the sky tutorial I was so excited. I kept thinking "omg this is great and its only the tutorial...I can't wait to see what they come up with the rest of the sky." Thats as good as it gets. Sadly once you do the tutorial youve seen the entire sky. Same environment, same feeling with the music, same trees.....one of the biggest disappointments with the game.

[@rozza105]

I was really hoping for the underground to be SPECIFICALLY for Re-deads, Darknuts, etc. But no, we only get 2 areas (That I know of) in the whole game where the "Gibdos" are a minor inconvenience

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

@@toast7969 I only watched a letsplay of tears of kingdom, didn't play it, but that's also how I felt with both the tutorial island and the first few times the youtuber went in the depths. I was like: ''wow, if there's already so much cool stuff this early on, I wonder how much more there will be later?'' and then I slowly realized that I had already seen most of what the sky and depths offer because they copy and pastes things significantly more than the botw world, which also had too much copy and paste for my taste.

[@Robopup325]

I hate how they don’t care for the lore. Gameplay is subjective, user experience is subjective but when the story of a direct sequel has nothing to do with the original story wise other than a few small points, and otherwise disregards the original story (not to mention the other games in the series, the triforce is apparently weaker than all these secret stones) there’s a problem.

[@wert556]

Its Miyamoto. What you expect? 😑

[@algar6616]

I pretty strongly believe that they didn’t give the master sword a damage number because knowing it’s strength too specifically would cheapen the effect of having the “most powerful sword in the world”. I wasn’t aware that it’s damage was 30, but if i was and saw how many other weapons were stronger it would take away from its allure and also somewhat challenge the narrative

[@Jokerxeno1]

I really dislike how the initial hype of tears of the kingdom made botw "fans" zelda "fans" nintendo "fans" all just throw breath of the wild into the trash and discarded such a special game, just because of hype. "Botw is completely useless don't even play it tears of the kingdom makes it unplayable". I have said since he beginning, and I will continue to say, that breath of the wild is a masterpiece painting, and tears of the kingdom is drawing on that masterpiece painting trying to make a new masterpiece, that it utterly fails at doing. Botw stand the test of time, tears of the kingdom has been out the 6 months and the cracks have leaked so badly. I'm just happy that the honeymoon phase for it is over

[@richardmahn7589]

Just today got this video recommended in my KZbin feed, almost 2 weeks after. This brought back memories just remembering how much I was dedicated to following you every day for those 200+ days of your Limcube+ channel and Discord server. I don't think I paid attention to anyone else's theories & discussions as much as here. And yet on May 12, that is when I totally turned off social media/Internet so I could play, until somewhere around the beginning of July. I so badly wanted to watch live Limcube's play throughs and be a part of the community I knew so well, but then even that seemed too risky for me to enjoy the game on my own without spoilers or even tips & tricks on how others do things. So sadly I never got to share my hype. Anyway, not sure what I'm rambling about, but great to see this review and kind of hear a conclusion of thoughts on all that we speculated about.

[@robuxyyyyyyyyyy4708]

40:14 The funny thing is that if you get a tower without the surface map (it takes lots of fuse entanglement and zuggle and recalling before loading a save) it still shows the surface map getting filled in

[@s3eriousbl9ck26]

20:35 there's actually a drawback to that change as well. You have a set amount of shots you can loose whereas the old Bullet Time let you shoot as many as you could within the time of the stamina wheel. That means with a fast enough bow you more than likely can get off more shots the old way. It really shows when shooting the GEB. Now that's not that bad considering we can fuse to arrows enhancing it's damage, giving it homing properties, elemental properties or all 3

[@Drakenwild]

One thing that I really like is that they teased Zelda's fate since I think either trailer 1 or trailer 2 because they ended it by playing Zelda's Lullaby with the instrument that the dragon theme is played on. I cannot believe no one caught on.

[@desktop-ini]

My biggest criticism is the lack of postgame. At the end of the game after you defeat the demon king and see the ending cutscenes, the game just goes back to before the demon king’s army fight and all you get is some very minor things. What I want is a proper postgame, even if it’s just a separate mode with a different save file attached.

[@mkjjoe]

It was a fairly frequent complaint in BOTW but concretely it would be such a mess to adapt the world and gameplay, for a mode that fewer players would get to experience less often. Zelda is free, does she tag along? that's better for a new game, does she stay in the castle with a couple lines of dialogue? that's frustrating after all this time looking for her. What about the blood moon? it's also an extra burden to not step on elements they had started to plan as a sequel. TOTK seemingly doesn't have that last issue but the rest is the same. We can imagine different kinds of post-game, but the one they have is basically a huge list of completion, to instead focus on a sandbox with a clear start and finish.

[@amandaslough125]

That's never been a thing in the series honestly.

[@ZombiedWolf]

If TotK stayed as DLC like it should have, it would have been decent post game material.

[@mkjjoe]

@@ZombiedWolf What would that DLC have been? They precisely went for a complementary experience because it couldn't be contained in BOTW's base game. Would they just add islands and a diving mechanic? Core abilities that overlap with existing ones? No ultrahand? How do they justify it in-world, when clearly it needs Ganondorf and the upheaval as its own story... I understand not being satisfied by what we got, but there's confusion about what DLC could be. We know about the Witcher 3 massive DLC but that plays very differently from how BOTW was structured.

[@ZombiedWolf]

@@mkjjoe Well firstly scale the game back. TotK is way to bloated/padded with several things already done in BotW. No reason to make people do that again. The depths doesn't need to be as big as it is. Just keep the areas with the Spirit temple and Fire temple. Same with the Skylands. The only main ones you need are the tutorial island and the lightning with Mineru. IMO you don't need all the new abilities, and keep only one or two. I find Ultra just to be a gimmick so get rid of that and probably just keep fuse and recall. If these smaller world changes can't be done in game then have it be a separate mode you pick from the menu.

[@theoriginalchuckler9594]

I think that BotW did nigh everything better. The coherency of the world design, the story, the gameplay loop, the movement tech, the exploration, the atmosphere... TotK is way too overbloated. So much content, but none of it really means much. They should've either A) Cut the Depths and focus entirely on the Sky or B) Scale the Depths down. Not even to mention the retreading of going to each region, then Hyrule Castle, but this time going below it! Wow! And the memories suffered abysmally due to how they were constructed. And gigantic opportunity missed to finally have 3D playable Zelda. ( Musou games don't count. ) I swear, it feels like I'm having dèjà vù everytime I play it. It lacks it's own flair. Imagine a game set in Lorule or something! Anything *different*. Could've introduced bulblins, bubbles, tektikes and a bunch of other enemies, but no. Severely lacking in originality and undercooked. It is just a sandbox builder. And the building controls make me want to throw my controller against the wall. Overall, it suffers from bloat and a distinctive lack of identity. They should've gone with the MM approach.

[@knp01]

If only tehy sent Link to the past instead of Zelda... What new they could have done with the overworld map and they underworld, which would be actually used and operated...

[@ultimatedumbass4640]

I agree Knuckles

[@alexmotogna]

About the fact that sheikah tech disappeared, I always thought that it went underground because it is build to face the calamity and then goes back underground. In botw they find the divine beasts underground and towers rise up too, meaning the after the first calamity they also had gone underground. Honestly the sheikah tech dissapering didn't bother me since it was kinda explained from botw already, but I agree this is kinda lame.

[@Randomperson-rk7xl]

Didn't the old king of hyrule order to bury all the skeikah tech some time after the calamity that happened 10000 years ago because he was terrified of their power? I remember reading somewhere in botw that his order caused the split between sheikah and is the reason why yiga clan exists.

[@nerdinleather]

I was under the impression that it was all scrapped for parts to build the new towers or that it was uniformly destroyed by the upheaval

[@MigueUgartechea]

Where the FUCK is Kass?

[@Limcube]

True and real

[@adrianmadsen5551]

Good rant. My biggest problem with this game is the lack of restriction. You can get anywhere you want just by summoning one hover bike. There is always a correct way (and a bit more interesting way) to beat a puzzle, but why bother when you can basically skip all of them, for example by shooting a bomb arrow at a large switch for an easy and unsatisfactory solution. I absolutly despice how surface level the puzzles are here. I imagine this is also why some people say botw and totk aren’t good zelda games btw. The core of zelda is exploration, combat and puzzle solving. If you butcher one third of zelda then i don’t blame people for calling it a bad zelda game. I wished this game would blend botw with the other zelda games but maybe next time. Also the climb up to the wind temple was my favorite part of the whole game. It was perfection

[@Mystician13]

I'm currectly replaying botw for a third time and i think that the feeling you get while playing it is much better than playing totk

[@s3eriousbl9ck26]

It is. I went back not too long ago and felt so free compare to TotK

[@user-xo5zu1lw2w]

@@s3eriousbl9ck26 after finishing totk i said to myself i don't think this game gonna age well compared to botw. and i still feel like this. i think as time goes on more people will realize how flawed totk really is.

[@scubasteve2189]

I’ve replayed BOTW probably 15+ times total. It’s my favorite game of all time. Since I finished TOTK, I have tried to replay it from the beginning 2 or 3 times now, but I always get bored or frustrated after about the first shrine. However, I have replayed BOTW 1.5 times since then, and enjoyed every minute of it. 👍🏻

[@adamadam367]

A time stamp of when the criticism starts would be much appreciated for a video of this length. Edit: Okay so after the first hour the actual criticism starts.

[@Limcube]

Thank you. I added Chapters to the video now

[@masteryoda8219]

I think it's awesome that you made a video like this. There's a lot of conflicting positive and critical emotions to be had about this game, and you explained that dichotomy very nicely. One part I personally disagree with is your take on the Gerudo town defense section. I thought that quest fit very well with the style of the Gerudo, being a race of fierce warriors and all. I wish there were more interactions like this between Link and the other races of Hyrule. This is the first time we see a larger group of people, and not just an individual or two, come together with Link to accomplish an objective. Imagine if Link and Sidon led a group of Zora on a quest to exterminate a bunch of sludge-likes or unique Lizalfos or something threatening the kingdom, that would feel so epic. That Gerudo town defense made it feel like you were truly accepted among the Gerudo, not just "oh there's that voe who helped the chief again." That's just my two cents.

[@zXd12]

Have you tried to play Tunic ? I think its a very good cross point between the "figuring out how the world works" of Outerwilds and the gameplay of a Zelda game. It also has a quite deep lore, a very good ost, on top of being a very cool speedgame. Also, something I think you did not talk enough about (probably because you didnt have this problem during you first playthrough) is how much rigid the Expected story line is. A lot of possible orders to do the main quests in are absolutely not taken into account, its not limited to knowing that Zelda is sus, you could litteraly watch the last tear cutscene and grab the mastersword before doing your first dungeon, and absolutely nothing would change before you come back to lookout landing after completing the first 4 dungeons. I feel that there is a very clear "canonic" way to go through the main quests, and as someone who didnt, I would have liked to know that what I was doing would result in a suboptimal experience before going to Thunderhead just after grabing the mastersword when I had only done 2 dungeons.

[@Limcube]

Ive heard good things about it and im aware of the Journal premise, ill have to give it a go eventually

[@Drakenwild]

My current standing idea of where the Zonai came from is that they arrived from outside of Hyrule for an unknown purpose and built their civilisation there. As you said, between the Shrines and a bunch of other evidence, I do not believe most of the Sky Islands to have existed before Imprisoning War (the odd ones out there being Water and Wind Temple). If you look at the panel of the mural which depicts arrival of Zonai, the Zonai is seen standing on a Wing rather than an Island, implying they travelled. But yeah, I agree with you, even though I was able to distill a lot of information on the Zonai from what little we've been given, the worldbuilding in this game is extremely self contradictory and generally lacking.

[@shybie2798]

These are very valid criticisms kinda makes me giggle that my biggest gripe is the lack of Teba and Cass like is TOTK anti-dilf bird? 😢😢😢

[@shybie2798]

@@user-jl7xj5iz9k the D in dilf means Dad And we dont know if Ganondorfs a dad. So we have one dilf compared to two we had in the previous game. Bit of a downgrade tbh

[@richardmahn7589]

Gripe 1: The problem with the Depths giving you so many outfits, especially outfits from different Zelda Games/Links is the upgrading of them, which I can't help but do, was a pain! Cost so much and too much grinding, as Limcube stated. Even using duplication glitches to get money and parts, trying to figure out the right amount took time, lol. Gripe 2: I really really hoped, even if we couldn't play Zelda, that we'd have a type of time travel were things change, and not just at the beginning (debatable if Zelda did something to change time/land to help Hyrule/Link fight Ganondorf or not with the Islands/Sword) but as we progressed, we could send things back to Zelda as we did the Sword and see then things change in the land. I love that kind of time travel & game play. Gripe 3: The Sky Islands didn't play a big enough role. Other than Sky Islands, and a quick trip to Dragon Head Island, they weren't necessary. I really had hoped that unlocking a path to defeat Ganondorf would require getting to multiple sky islands and doing/getting things, and to get to those islands, flying there would require upgrades or finding falling rocks to ride back up. But no, most falling rocks didn't give any more purpose than a few that you can ride up to a small island with a chest. /smh

[@Apollyonof666]

The way you speak of tge use of music is spot on. Its draws you in/on/forward soo well.

[@McGyna]

critiques for speedrunners were 100000% on point especially with the pacing. it should be said that people can start at 6:39 in RoA to avoid the intro sequence but you still need 16-17 min to complete GSI, so it doesn’t change much. love your vids!

[@fatguy338]

I like to imagine the tarry mine points to some sort of ancient spiritual town-ness to the tarrey town location. I know thats a huge reach, but it also lends a greater sense of importance to the different tribes settlement places and the tarry town location is fundamentally a place for all of them to come together.

[@ladyannabolina]

I agree with you about all the lore. It's weird for none of it to make any sense and for the explanation we received to be the equivalent of "just because lol." It seems to me they would have been better served by taking a leaf out of Elden Ring's book and having a fantasy author like George R. R. Martin collaborate on the story to keep an eye on consistency and themes. I don't expect A Song of Ice and Fire level intricacy in my video games but it's nice for it all to exist in a system that makes logical sense.

[@BhaiLogKaAdda]

I think the gameplay overall is very solid. Except for the sage accessibility options. Tulin and Yunobo are great, since the game knows when you wanna use their powers and let's you use them with ease. But, with Riju, it's just frustrating to walk to her each time and activate her powers. I just ended up disabling her for most part of the game. I did think of something they could have done to solve this issue. It might be better for ease of use if you could just activate her powers with the press of a button (Let's say X) remotely while Aiming Down Sight. You might even see a small image of her avatar with a progress bar if her powers are refilling and not ready yet. With Sidon, I don't have a lot of complains, but again, what if you could just equip and draw your shield, then press a button and have Sidon walk up to you give you the protective orb. I'm not saying these solution are in any way the best solutions. I'm sure the developers even thought of these during production. Wish I could playtest the game with these changes and see for myself. But, all in all, I absolutely love TOTK, it'll be a game that'll forever remind me why I love games.

[@NSletsgoooooooo]

It’s always a good day when limcube posts

[@robuxyyyyyyyyyy4708]

I remember when I first got off I was messing around with arrow fuses and shot a flame emitter near a bokoblin and there was an evermean and I felt primal fear

[@nanachi5177]

this mirrored a lot of my thoughts with the game exactly especially the music section! probably my favorite zelda ost at this point

[@randywilliams6248]

I dunno, after besting BotW and getting ready for this game, I really expected more out of it. To be honest, I can't stand the building mechanics. It was neat at first but to me personally, it got old real quick. I feel the same about fusing as well, the fact that I have to go into a menu, drop and item on the ground and then pull up another mini menu to fuse an item got old extremely quick to me. I also just felt like there was nothing going on in the game, the world still felt empty, not as bad as the first game but still..... I really expected more out of it, especially after the wait and it becoming a full fledged game instead of DLC. Again at first, even the depths was awesome but it just got boring to me. There's things scattered here and there that are interesting, I find it great that they kept it hidden for so long and the technical end of it, keeping track of all of your self created lights, etc. But it's boring.

[@sfrert2759]

It wasn’t empty in botw.

[@randywilliams6248]

@sfrert2759 yes it was lol.

[@sfrert2759]

@@randywilliams6248 Not as empty as you made it sound.

[@trentongd6271]

I really appreciate this video. It was really nice being able to think back about my fond memories and listening to yours. I have 2 major issues with this game. 1. I think Zelda is going in the wrong direction. I know these games are supposed to be “breaking the conventions of Zelda” but there are some things that need to be changed. The fact that we aren’t getting good classic dungeons is a CRIME. I played through Ocarina of Time before the release of totk and was like, damn. These dungeons are what Zelda is all about. I was really anticipating good dungeons for this game so it hurts to be let down. Besides the dungeons these games and Zelda games moving on in the future NEED more linearity. Like you were talking about at the end of the video, there should be closed off sections that only become available after getting a certain item. Like the hookshot! I really hope Zelda moving forward will apply these things to create the truly perfect Zelda formula in my opinion. But at the same time I’m scared none of that is going to happen and we will continue to go down the path of obsolete dungeons and not enough linearity. 2. Why. The. Fuck. Is there no master mode? I definitely regret being super naive and just assuming that this game would eventually release master mode. I mean why not? Nintendo can make their money and I can have an excuse to play this masterpiece again. There is now a hole in my heart knowing that I’m pretty much done with this game. I really anticipated a good master mode playthrough…

[@ash8244]

Hey look another person who wants oot remade 6 million times, so many fake zelda fans in these comments.

[@ireallydontknow1214]

In future Zelda games, I do want special items back. I always loved getting the grappling hook and suddenly being able to go so many more places. In addition to game progression I also want some sort of post game!! Thanks for the three hour rant it made my work day fly by (I actually didn't even realize I missed my lunch break till my boss told me I had to eat lol). That being said I loved totk, but I haven't been able to pick it back up since finishing it the first time, I'm sure I will eventually. In the meantime, I haven't been able to put down Sea of Stars and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

[@Limcube]

That’s on my backlog right now it looks great

[@crazyaz]

I agree with so much of what you said. This game was amazing on first play through, and I would love to relive the wonder of those first few days after launch. Unfortunately, I just haven’t been able to get as invested in TotK after that because the game treats you like you’re dumb and blatantly disregards events in BotW, which I am already very invested in. I would absolutely love a game with this version of Link and Zelda that rewards you for paying attention to small details and gaining an understanding of the world. I’m not sure that will happen because Nintendo wants the game to be super accessible to kids, but an older-pitched more thoughtful game would be awesome.

[@Apollyonof666]

Been waiting for another video from you. Im gonna enjoy the next 170 mins 😁

[@Memo-yh4nc]

Some thoughts I’m gonna write down and I’ll keep editing this comment as I keep listening: The game tries hard to steer Link towards Rito Village, and because it does that, I actively avoided going in that direction and instead went literally anywhere else. Rito Village ended up being the last main area I went to for the regional phenomena, but so many friends were hyping up that climb and the dungeon/boss to me that I had very high expectations when I finally started the climb up. Even with super high expectations, the climb up the islands did not disappoint in the slightest and exceeded all expectations all I had. It’s hilarious that Nintendo didn’t learn from Midna’s Lament and the enemy music got in the way of a banger soundtrack. “Zelda games aren’t about the story” Hearing that triggers me so much yes. One of Zelda’s big appeals has to do with the story too and it’s memorable characters and moments. And you’re right when you criticize the people who say that by encouraging them to push for a better story. Something I want to point out about the time travel thing is that it gets really confusing if you think about Age of Calamity. I don’t want to type out a full thing about it but it is very confusing to think about and doesn’t really make sense. Because how could Zelda go back in time and even do the events which lead to Calamity Ganon’s creation… if she never goes back in time. Maybe she’d go back in time even in the AoC timeline but it’s still really weird and doesn’t make sense. My own theory for the Zonai’s origins has been that they were the original Skyloftians who didn’t come down to live in the surface and stayed up there. They eventually became the Wind Tribe from Minish Cap, who eventually became the Oocco from Twilight Princess, who eventually evolved into the Zonai. The stuff about them being descended from Gods might just be their own ideas of themselves and false conjecture. That’s the short version of the idea but I could probably type and make a full 20 page theory describing this idea. Purah being Mineru’s descendant would have been so cool. I’d never thought of that before. Nintendo could have just made one cave, maybe under Hateno, with some destroyed Guardians and Guardian parts on shelves. Would have explained literally everything about the missing Sheikah Tech. It’s sad that they put zero effort into that explanation. I just got a mental image of Link laughing and trying to hide a smile at Yunobo who’s running after fake Zelda when he knows everything already. That was a mental image I was feeling at that time when I playing through the game myself. The realization that the Depths mirrored the surface was one of the most satisfying “Ah ha” moments in gaming. Of course, we don’t get any lore for any of it so it’s really sad. I also noticed the weird anomaly with having a Terry Town mine when the village was only just constructed. I don’t have anything unique to say about the Sky Islands. You felt exactly the same way I did and talked about all of it. Actually, I do want to mention the Labyrinth’s. The first one was so amazing. The way that you have to go through all three layers of Hyrule in this three step stage was so fun. It was also really fun for me particularly because it was the second sky island I visited after the GSI, so Sky Islands were still new and exciting for me. But the other two end up being bland repeats because it follows the exact same formula. When I visited my second one, I activated the shrine in the Sky, then said to myself, “I’ll just do this later”, because I was more interested in beating up the Yiga I knew were in Robbie’s old lab. I only got around to doing that Labyrinth like 20 hrs later. Doing the Desert Defence quest as your first main quest was really good. I had like 5 fire fruits and 3 shock fruits going into that fight with no flame emitters. Having to use Riju and managing when and which enemies I fired at while using her cooldown was super intense and fun. I can definitely see it being tedious once you have like 200 bomb arrows in your inventory lol. I actually loved the lead up to the Lightning Temple itself. That pure moment of “WTF!” when you first walk into Gerudo town will always stay with me. That moment when I just stopped moving and just slowly panned the camera around in disbelief to the empty, abandoned town, only to get jumpscared and yelping IRL after I noticed the Gibdo walking towards me, which only furthered the mystery and horror of what happened, was incredible. When I was doing the Fire Temple, my third dungeon, I decided to change my game to Pro Mode because I wanted to turn off the minimap and try to find the gongs on my own. I also decided to not just climb up the walls. So the Fire Temple was fun, but also really unfun. Because just knowing that I could cheese the puzzles so easily made the dungeon feel so unfun. You’re right when you say that they should have just banned the extra zonai devices and climbable walls. Idk if I’d say it’s just you. Me and most of the people I’ve talked to would use bullet time to cheese fights, even if we used different methods to enter it, and those friends aren’t speedrunners or anything. Even casuals realize how broken bullet time is. I’m guessing they removed the Master Sword damage number because they realized how underwhelming 30 dmg is compared to other weapons in the game. Like, you’re not going to get impressed getting the sword after having an inventory of 60 dmg weapons. The paraglider not being given after the GSI and only at lookout landing is actually not just a speedrun issue to me, but a straight up design flaw. Botw prided itself on allowing players the freedom to go anywhere and do whatever they want after finishing the tutorial. You can just ignore Impa for the next 10 hrs if you really want to, like I casually did first playthrough. But Totk insists on the player following the story and going right to Purah. It felt like it killed the momentum of the game. I had just finished the GSI, excited to explore the revamped Hyrule. No, you’re actually soft forced to get the paraglider and go to lookout landing. Very disappointing and it kind of spits in the face of Botw’s principle of freedom and exploration by forcing you to ignore the newly opened world and go to Purah. Unpopular opinion, but I can understand Nintendo patching the duplication glitches. A lot of people were abusing the glitches and just getting infinite supplies and completely cheesing collection quests, combat, and builds. It was defeating the purpose of the game which revolved around being rewarded for exploring and being smart with your resources. No need to be smart with your money or do the compendium when you can just duplicate diamonds and buy the entire thing in 5 minutes. No need to be smart with combat when you have infinite bomb arrows. Duplication banning felt fair. What was sad was banning stuff like Fuse Entanglement, which just created a new fun way to explore the world, but I guess if they’re patching one thing, they’re sort of obligated to patch everything. I know that something that I was personally hoping to see from speedruns of this game were creative uses of builds. At the moment, we just make the wing autobuild thing and fuse entangle a rocket to your shield and that’s it. We don’t really make many interesting builds with Ultrahand in the speedrun. I really hope to see more developments in the future with more unique builds for more fun glitches and fast movement options, especially as more players play on the newest version and can’t use the older glitches. Yeah. This game and Botw did some amazing stuff, but they do need to bring back some classic Zelda formula aspects like better dungeons and a more linear narrative. I really liked the ideas you shared about the Mineru Door example. Wind Waker kind of does this with how you’re given hints to where the Triforce is but you need to explore and figure out how to get them. The Cabana Deed quest comes to mind and another Triforce hunt like objective in an open world would be so fun. Thank You for talking for 3 hours. It was honestly really fun to listen to while I’m doing some other boring busy work/driving. Hopefully I’m not boring you with my own long rant here.

[@angelos_triforce3436]

Thanks man I really enjoyed reading through thus it really added to the experience of watching this vid :) for me personally I have played every zelda and I play it for the emotional story and deep lore. Botw had really deep lore, more of it than totk; people were making theories about botw for ages after it came out but there just isn't as much to theorise about and it's not as interesting due to the fact that nintendo cane to this game with a perspective of gameplay > story leaving underbaked explanations. I woukd have preferred the game if they took ultrahand out and instead had a deep story that felt like a journey and unfolded in the present with zelda at your side. I'm currently 14, I have been looking forward to this game since I was eight, and breath of the wild was a fundamental part of my childhood and development. Totk was a really fun game but it unfortunately didn't focus on the aspects I play zelda for, so it was kinda a disappointment for me. However I'm more excited than ever for the next game where we will most likely have a new map , art style, and combat. Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts 😊

[@LordVerdo]

I really enjoy Tears of the Kingdom from a gameplay perspective and it felt like Nintendo really succeeded in bringing elements of new and old Zelda together. With that said, there was truly so much potential for the story. And I think storytelling never needs to be overcomplicated to be compelling. But once time travel is involved, it would get tiresome as a written to make a practical solution. Nevertheless, that aside, my major issue with the story is the lack of continuity between BOTW and TOTK. Most NPCs have no knowledge of Link, the Champions are almost hardly mentioned (save for Mipha), Ganondorf has baseless motivations, Calamity Ganon seems to have zero direct connection with Ganondorf, the Shekiah tech vanishes (along with the divine beasts) with no explanation, there is no triforce involved, Zelda getting transformed out of her dragon form without any explanation made her sacrifice lose weight within the story (not to mention it was said dragonification was permanent), the zonai are heavily underdeveloped as a race, and the major events of the story happen in the past (which was, for me, a major issue with BOTW's story-telling).

[@knp01]

I wish it was link sent to past, not Zelda. He fights the war then and Zelda is tasked with bringing him back to present. Or even they both are thrown back and have to work together but Zelda can only turn Link back, so she sacrifices herself and restores the sword. It would work so much better. It would give them new map, let develop Zonai better et all. And it wouldn't be an issue "where is Sheikah tech".

[@user-nj6ye5kd9r]

@@knp01I would agree, it would have been better if link was the one who was transported back in time. It would have been so fun with the new map and the different people

[@knp01]

@@user-nj6ye5kd9r And we could have gotten inhabited depths instead of this bareland. That would also be cool. (but we wouldn't have gotten the Yiga quest, and it was one of my faves, haha)

[@josephcastle3872]

@@user-nj6ye5kd9rThe only problem is that probably would have made the game less interesting and fun to play in a lot of ways. I doubt there would have been as many new things about the map in totk if Link was traversing the past instead of what we got.

[@mishoniwanniman8321]

@@knp01 I been sayin this shit to myself for as long as I can remember. this thread makes me feel so validated lol. Zelda and Link being transported back in time together would've been spectacular. Not only because we'd be far more involved in the most compelling aspects of the story, not only because it would've legitimized the nigh disconnected approach they took with TOTK in regards to aspects of BOTW like the Sheikah tech, but also because the observable Hyrule would be SO much more interesting. The prospect of exploring altered versions of the places we already know with new environments, NPCs, and quests, as well as historic, pristine versions of BOTW's destroyed ruins and villages like Deya Village, Tabantha Village, Mabe Village, and so on is exceedingly compelling to me.

[@HawkeGaming]

Really cool video so far. I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing yet, but here are some of my thoughts on some of the things you've mentioned about the story: I think all the skylands used to be on the surface because they all have similar technology keeping them afloat. The Zonai may must've come from much further up, they may even be aliens. I believe the lightroots grew from the shrines instead of the other way around. The Depths also seem to have some magical property that makes it shift to mirror the surface. Rauru and Sonia made the shrines to seal away monsters that kept reincarnating. This could have been Ganondorf's doing as we know he had gloom powers before the secret stone, but it also could be some other reason. That's why the shrines have the same spiraling green energy as Rauru's seal on Ganondorf. I think the remaining sages may have been the ones to oversee the skylands being raised up, but Zelda and Mineru set up the technology to do so. Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh are most likely draconified Zonai as for each dragon there is an armor set with their horns. The item descriptions of these sets say they were used in ancient rituals, most likely the same rituals Mineru refers to when talking about Draconification. I think the link to the goddesses is either a 'coincidence' (just like almost every sage sharing a name with their OoT counterparts) or the three were linked to the goddesses themselves. As far as where the Zonai came from, it's a mystery. Though I like to think they evolved from the Oocca :P

[@colecube8251]

see the problem with the game, to me, is that all of this is just "I think". They added so many new questions, and yet they didn't explain any of it. And that, is the biggest problem with this game. I remember watching the trailers, and playing through the great sky island, and having so many questions about the upheaval, ganondorf, zelda, the world, the characters, etc. And at no point were the majority of my questions answered past a surface level. this game may have a better "story", but botw beats this game 10:0 on worldbuilding and the execution of that story

[@HawkeGaming]

@@colecube8251 Yeah, but that's just how some games are. Take Elden Ring for example. I personally would rather have a deeper story with room for imagination than something clearer but all surface-level.

[@colecube8251]

@@HawkeGaming I agree with you to some extent, I just think the marketing and opening cutscene set up an expectation that the game never delivered on. If the game didn't act like it was going to be very lore and story focused (like what botw did) I would forgive it much easier

[@KoenRH2803]

The funny thing is that the lead up to the wind temple gives us a taste of what the game could be like if it would be more linear. The way the music and tension builds are only possible because there is an intended way to play that part. It’s perfectly tailored to make you get the chills and grand feeling of wonder. Imagine if the whole game (and story) was made like that. But from interviews it seems the developers can only see the value in creating more “freedom” in coming games, which make sad and fear that the franchise will further lose its magic (at least imo). It feels like they want to make this transition because it’s making money and they don’t care about respecting the franchise and the foundation of it’s story/lore, history or things making sense at all.

[@zachary_smith84]

As odd as this sounds... are the shrines in TotK linked in some way like they were in BotW where if you could out of bounds in one, you could enter another? If so, that could potentially make the speedrun less of a pain, assuming the community discovers a solid way or set up to do so.

[@alexsoundstuff]

i feel like with the time travel narrative they really missed the mark. this direction gave the huge opportunity to play as zelda alongside all of the zonai characters and old champions; the potential to really flesh out their characters to a great extent. imagine if rauru and ganondorf's fight were more of a mid-game boss? some kind of gameplay loop where there were timeframes that get switched when you hit certain story markers would've made this games SO much stronger. start as link and go through the introductory sequence as usual, hit the first temple and when introduced to that old champion you begin a section of the old hyrule storyline as zelda. this game's story falls flat on its face because its the characters who drive a story. the introduction, buildup, climax, and resolution of a story can only be felt if it develops characters the player feels invested in. and tbh, i cant give a damn about these characters if the only time i see them is through like a dozen cutscenes. (not to mention those old champions) it feels like this is a sequel made not because there was a story to tell, but simply because the last game was a massive success. and when pretty much everyone was expecting the story to be one of the big things this iteration delivered on its a MASSIVE disappointment. even if the gameplay is great, this was meant to be the sequel to breath of the wild. why would you make a sequel with a half-assed storyline?

[@maxdayton614]

All the music surrounding the wind temple was so phenomenal. By the time I had completed the wind temple (my first dungeon) I was convinced this was the best Zelda game of all time. None of the other temples lived up to the wind temple for me though.

[@wert556]

Wind Temple and Fire Temple made me capture that BIG adrenaline feeling. Diving INTO a Volcano, fire. Lightning Temple felt like an Actual Dungeon. Its dark mysterious and puzzles

[@valkoln8436]

My biggest issue is that they didn’t expand on weapon move sets and combat mechanics. Fuse added a lot, but didn’t change the way I would play the game as much as I would have liked. I’m really into fighting games though, so I may just be biased

[@thephalange8630]

To add to your point of you having maybe played botw "too much" before totk release so you got burned out fast when playing totk, I have not played botw for years before starting totk, and I still got burned out so fast, I just finished the main quest and was done with game after a few days. Haven't touche dit since. So no, that has nothing to do with it, botw is just not really a replayable game to me, due to lack of rewards. The rewards for exploring WAS exploring NEW things and finding out new things. So there was no incentive for me to go back to botw and since totk is so similar, I didn't feel like revisiting it all.

[@FloatingSpaceKitten]

One issue is that no one in the world acknowledges what you’ve done in the past game or the sheikah technology and sometimes people talk down on you! Also when you find out what happened to Zelda the only person you can tell is impa and no one really cares. This isn’t motivating for me to do what I need to do.

[@eddiedead2702]

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people assume the only reason people could possibly have an issue with durability is because people were running out of weapons and intentionally or not, get pretentious about it. No dude. It's. Just. Not. Fun. Combat getting constantly iinterupted to change weapons is not fun. Constantly having to manage inventory is not fun. Weapons getting turned into consumables instead of permanent upgrades is not fun. Having to chuck out a weapon you've probably never used every time you open a chest is not fun. Being disincentivised to engage in combat because the resources you will gain from the fight are worse than the reasons you spent on the fight is not fun. It. Sucks. And the reason fusion sucks is because it exacerbates all of those issues. Fusion is required for viable weapons. Which means more menu fidling and more resource management. Weapons being reduced to base components further devalues them. No longer are they just consumables instead of character upgrades, but now just half a consumable. A mere component. The other component needed to turn them into viable weapons, monster components, are the same materials you need for armor upgrades...so it feels even worse to expend those resources. And on top of everything, fusion just makes everything look stupid. It's a novel mechanic that can introduce some interesting gameplay opportunities, but it is not worth the trade off. Being able to make a skateboard shield is not worth making the weapon system that was already really bad even worse.

[@ART_OFTHEGAME]

24:07 i read ascent was originally just meant for Devs to escape caves faster. They decided to keep it in the game

[@kayetsoi]

I agree to every criticism u have for this game. I am not even exaggerating, everything u talked about I thought about them almost everytime I open the game after I finished the gameplay. Some background of me, I am just a casual player and only got into zelda because of botw, end up being super invested in the game lore and the history behind botw and hyrule, binge watched shit tons of theory and lore video surrounding all past zelda games, bought creating a champion for the same reason. I got especially into the zonai history and I watched the 1 hour documentaries from zeltik and NBC (iykyk) like more than three times each. When I first realised that totk is gonna be heavily focusing on the zonai story I got super hyped up. When I start playing totk, I start realising how much issues I have with the lore, consistency with the timeline and the connection with botw. The zonai in totk is almost nothing like I expected and ofc, my expectation is based on watching all those theory video. I adore every npc from botw, when I found out most of them dont remember me(Link), I was super devestated, and just like all other things u mentioned, made super upset during the gameplay. I tried watching some videos trying to explain some lore in this game, and those just brings up more questions in my part. It just doesn't make sense at all...... like a lot of things. I kept telling some friends of mine and my brother who were playing totk same time as me about my frustration, and in conclusion what they told me is just that we are expecting way too much and way too much based on speculations and fan- made theory, like none of those history are ever confirmed by the developers and it is inevitable that nintendo can in full power just make a story that answer to none of our expetation and call it canon. In my case at least, I had this irrealistic high expectations for this game but end up getting super disappointed. Tbh, I would like to say the developer for totk really was lazy on most of the story writing part, where I honestly felt this weird sense of betrayal. They kinda just created more plot-holes by trying to cover the unexplained stuff in the previous game. Overall I still enjoyed the gameplay quite a lot, but the issues I have with this game is gonna always be on my mind, knowing that it is never gonna be answered. I am just gonna put my thoughts here as none of the people around me ever agreed with me.

[@knp01]

They concentrated so much on the coding they forgot about actual script writing. :/ I think they tried to make this game so accessible to new players, who never played BoTW, that they wiped pretty much everything BoTW related. They concentrated so much on gameloop with new toys, they didn't realise that memory system doesn't work with long story and it's too easy to get spoiled really early with reading tears. (I did, and I'm still pissed about it, haha). It doesn't help that nintendo in general is about gameplay and then story follows (as if)- it works for Mario titles, but Zelda not really. And tehy forgot they advertised this game as direct sequel :/ I didn't really watch Zelda teories, because they all seemed to convoluted or far fetche, but I pretty much agree with majority in this video. And my opinion is - this really should have been a DLC with new runes. Right now it's a really well coded remix of BoTW that I don't think much people really wanted or expected.

[@whimsycole246]

A blood connection between Sonia and Zelda could simply mean Zelda is descended from Sonia's sister, mother, brother, etc etc. It doesn't have to be a direct line.

[@spaghetti3406]

Sonia said that there is a blood connection between herself and Zelda, but also between Zelda and Rauru, hence why Zelda has both of their powers.

[@Peekul1]

Oh man, I did Goron last and it was only then I realized something was up. Idk man these stories are for kids. I was a child when Zelda came out. I didn't play this game and shit my pants when Zelda was found where she was. Lots of streamers did. I was like "oh she's the dragon. Got the sword. Ok. What's next?"

[@ptsebago1]

Great video. Love all your thoughts on it. Music in this game is fantastic although none of it can stack up to Fi's Theme from Skyward Sword. Still one of, if not my favorite song they've ever put out

[@sciez22]

The soundtrack for this game was really something special, especially every time they bring out the Zelda's Lullaby leitmotif. In reverse order: 1 - The ending catch - Hearing the lullaby on full orchestra when you're diving after Zelda and then it turning into the main theme as you reach out to make the catch is just the perfect musical reward for the final battle 2 - Dragon Ganon fight - Didn't catch this one the first time around, but the horns blast out the three notes of Zelda's lullaby when you start the battle. Hearing such a typically calming song played in such a powerful manner gets me every time. Also, hearing the interplay between the Link's saxophone and the Zelda's erhu during the battle is such a great way of showing they're in this together 3 - Light Dragon theme - Again, took me a while to hear it since I didn't get spoiled on the transformation. The Light Dragon theme is a modified version of the normal dragon theme, and Zelda's erhu plays the first two notes of her lullaby before it fades off into the dream. The third note of her lullaby never arrives, like it's been forgotten... 4 - Trailer 2 - They foreshadow Zelda's transformation in the last seconds of the trailer by playing her lullaby on the erhu, which up until then had just been the instrument for the dragons. There are other amazing musical moments too, but I love how her leitmotif evolves over the course of the story. Completely agree about the ending GSI cutscene being amazing. Another thing about GSI that just kills me on replays is when you get the "Find Princess Zelda" quest right after you get the Purah Pad, you camera is perfectly framed so that Light Dragon is flying in the background. Beautiful, and heartbreaking.

[@runik9488]

If I'm being entirely honest, all I'm really salty about is how they still haven't fixed the fuse durability bug on the master sword. It'd actually be a really decent weapon to use if you could keep getting the +25 hits after having fused it once. For how much story significance the sword has this time around it really bugs me that it statistically has worse durability than a fused pristine traveler's sword 🥲

[@BloomPrism_]

It will be very interesting to see how this game is viewed in a few years time. While it was still a great casual experience, I think it's fundamentally lacking in the building blocks needed to have an enduring legacy. Patches will leave the speedrunning community forever fractured. The story inconsistencies will forever soften the impact of any theories that are made. Even things like poor menuing and less glitches make combat spectacles much more limited and repetitive. Most people won't care about the life a game has after their casual playthrough, and that's okay. But there are still many of us who do, and I feel botw had the right elements for people to care about it and talk about it years and years later. But at least at the moment, it's hard to imagine totk being treated the same

[@Limcube]

Thats what im really curious about aswell, how will it age.

[@thishandlealreadytaken]

I've just got the notification that you uploaded this. But nevertheless, welcome back! 🎉I haven't watch your videos since this game came out. I wanted to experience this game 'alone' if you get what i mean.

[@Nova__A]

I really liked some of the ideas you brought up, some that I never thought about, such as how Zelda is somehow related to Rauru despite Zonia and Rauru dying without any kids. My worst experience with TOTK was the structure you talked about, and how it was very similar to BOTW. I first thought that there were three shrines on the GSI. When Rauru told me there was a fourth one, I felt so cheated, I wanted to quit the game. I was hoping that at the very least they would have changed the number of shrines you needed to complete to leave the GSI. It only got worse from there as obviously the Dungeons always had four or five terminals (or whatever TOTK called them to pretend they were anything else), and the boss is very obviously pretty much in the same spot as in BOTW. I think this ruined my experience significantly more than it did other players. I just had trouble enjoying some parts of this game for these very reasons.

[@avon_c6199]

" [...] despite Zonia and Rauru dying without any kids" Something in that regard could've just aswell happened off screen....then again there not being any hints to it, unless we count speculation about the final TotK shrine reward into it, seems a little odd.

[@howdyfriends7950]

great video limcube! I'm about 90% of the way through the vid rn, but so far i agree with basically everything you said. i laughed for like 10 minutes at "the depths are like hyrule chatGPT version", that is such a funny and accurate way to summarize what's wrong with the depths: it's so big and it had so much potential, but it's all just filler. my big question is why doesn't the depths have a single cave? it feels like there's just no geological features and nothing to do but farm materials. i absolutely loved the depths until i spent about 100 hours down there and then i just got so sick of it. then the same thing happened more slowly with the rest of the game, i did basically everything there was to do, and then i just hit a wall, fought ganondorf (which is a trivially easy fight with max hearts and upgraded armor) and then i moved on to other games. i had SO much fun with this game, but there's just nothing to do once you've done everything. i wish there was SOME postgame content, like master mode, master sword trials, a pvp arena, multiplayer mode, master mode, randomly generated caves to explore, challenge maps, master mode, constrained boss rematches like botw dlc where you need to beat waterblight ganon with only a zora spear, shrines with things in them that are bigger than constructs, master mode, the ability to revisit a proving grounds shrine with a higher difficulty, master mode, and last but not least master mode. i really really enjoyed this game, it was fantastic, but without some variable elements in the game, it feels like I've already seen everything there is to see. with that in mind, i think that in order for me to put that cartridge in my console once again, there's going to need to be DLC or a major fan mod. otherwise this will just be another random game that i forget about, then i get nostalgic, dust off my switch, and do another 100% run in 2028

[@howdyfriends7950]

exploration was the best part of this game, but once you've explored and found everything, it's just gone. there's nothing left to explore. combat is the second best part of the game, and unless I'm trying to get a sick lynel combo video, i have already beat everything there is to beat, and with full hearts and armor upgrades you're just way too strong for anything to be genuinely challenging. this game really could've used a repeatable section that's like eventide island or the master sword trials. i think the fuse mechanic would've gone really well with the master sword trials concept imagine doing the master sword trials, being forced to kill an orange bokoblin with a stick, pick up its drops, fuse its horn to the rusty broadsword it dropped, use that reaper to beat a blue bokoblin, use its horn, basically working your way up a sort of tech tree that ends with you using a gerudo claymore and a silver lynel saber horn to take out some vicious gloom gleeok like in age of calamity, they had those monsters covered in malice (malice moblin, malice lynel, malice hinox, malice guardian, the 10/10 names of malice stone talus, malice igneo talus, malice frost talus) then there were elemental lynels, hinoxes, and guardians, there were so many good ideas from that game that they just didn't implement in this one.

[@howdyfriends7950]

something i REALLY would've liked to see in this game is diversity in the constructs. we got two types of construct and they're both humanoid: soldier/captain constructs, and flux constructs how cool would it have been to see flux constructs made of tetrahedrons, shaped like an upside down pyramid with zonai fans on the top corners and a beam emitter on the tip, which can chase you down and laser you the way a guardian skywatcher could? i loved the improvements to the diversity of enemies they made between botw and totk, but i just wish they did more with the upper end of the difficulty; gleeoks aren't that fun once you have rockets, or once you know the trick with the wing shield. also i REALLY miss guardians, their absence in this game is fucking tangible, i would give anything for there to be more things like that in the overworld that genuinely make you afraid of going to a certain place. first playthrough, having 4 hearts, jumping off the plateau, hearing the piano music, panicking, and then being like "how do i get away from something that runs faster than me and can hit me from 100 feet away?", having to improvise a solution, or just being a god who can consistently parry the laser, both of those add a level of dynamism to the game that is oppressively absent in totk, the ONLY time i felt like that was on my way to hebra, getting spotted by the frost gleeok. every other gleeok, lynel, frox, hinox, etc. encounter was 100% avoidable and didn't do anything to prevent me from going where i wanted to go, or even just making me nervous about getting spotted en route. if this game had flux construct skywatchers that do a big circle around some predetermined location like thunderhead isles, spot you, lock onto you, easily outrun you, and follow you around for a huge radius, that would've made the stealth element of this game so much more valuable, but as it stands right now it's basically a useless mechanic

[@UltimateTobi]

The thing is though, if it's an alternate timeline, people wouldn't know that stuff just appeared, it'd have always been there in that alternate timeline, which is not the case. The mural already existing prior to Zelda going back also excludes option 2 by necessity. This mural wouldn't exist, if Zelda changes the timeline after she goes back. The mural would have to appear after her leaving and "correcting" the timeline, which is not the case. The events already happened, therefor the mural has already been crafted. Which means it must be one and the same timeline Zelda travels back to. If she didn't, then the timeline she left wouldn't have the events happen and therefor no mural being crafted. We, as the timeless observer, can observe this very well. And even *if* she created a new timeline, that would also not explain the small inconsistencies, because what would essentially change? Link would still be mortally wounded and have to fight Calamity Ganon. The Calamity of 10,000 years ago also still happened. So an alternate timeline does not explain those "sudden changes". I think Nintendo just didn't want to "exclude" new players, which is a BS excuse in any case IMO. And yes, Ganondorf knowing their names defeats option 2 entirely, if the mural already hasn't, and you admit as much. Yeah Rauru saying she came from a future that that won't happen anymore is BS, too. wizcatcheslightning and Thinking At Max Volume made good videos on that. He's been wrong on multiple occasions. I think he just wanted to raise Zelda's spirits, because she seemed very down. IIRC Rauru said the shrines were constructed to ward off evil and monsters, not specifically Gloom. But then the question remains, when were the shrines to train Link to combat Gloom constructed or refurnished. Or have they just been that omnipurposeful? The Stormwind Ark story explains that Zonai lived up there (whatever that means), much much higher than the clouds and too high for Rito to reach. That means they must have had some kind of land to live on, even if it's too high up to see. But how high would that have to be? Stratosphere? Maybe Zonai are aliens, who knows. I also think it's a refounding. Fujibayashi hinted at it (it's the first thing that came to his mind when asked; that there could've been a destructive event) and Rauru has a throwaway line saying "At least the last time I checked", implying he's not 100% certain they're the first, or if their Zonai ancestors are first. "It just happened" and yet there's at least one Guardian still existing. So why didn't it just vanish, too?

[@WhelmedCupCake]

there is so many little irritating issues with TOTK, a huge gripe i had was after i found the last tear and learned what happened to zelda, and then go talk to purah and link is unable to say anything?!?!? you still have to investigate all the zelda phenomenon and its clear shes a fake/evil/spirit. and link says absolutely nothing -_- and there is plenty of moments where link is shown to "speak" to characters and explain things. the game looks beautiful, the feeling of skydiving, seeing sunsets and sunrises on sky islands and the way the clouds pass through the islands. the expanse of caves and the depths are amazing. somehow nintendo was able to make exploring and playing the same map a fascinating experience. so many good things, but so many things that should be fixed/added. another gripe i had with the depths, was having the BOTW amiibo outfits scattered through the mines. its nice that they added it, but if you played BOTW and had the amiibos, then it was so unsatisfying finding a duplicate of an outfit. there was some neat easter eggs like where you find the outfits, and i think if you never played BOTW or had the amiibos then this is amazing to find and connect the dots. otherwise since i was using amiibos in TOTK then all the outfits was just an extra 600 ruppees. yay?!

[@StuCheeks]

1:55:16 The pool at Mipha's Court resembles Zora's Sapphire from OOT (the spiritual stone given to Link from Ruto). When I first noticed this from the sky, I thought "I understand that reference. Neat!" Then after a lot more time with the game and time to reflect on the (lack of) story and lore, I realized it was only a reference and nothing more. Still, I do love that area and I think I'm in the minority as someone who really enjoys the Water Temple.

[@bingonight1504]

Does Limcube disable captions on his videos, or is that KZbin? Either way, love your content Limcube! If you are feeling burnt out on zelda speedruns and want to try something else, i would check it out.

[@valkoln8436]

I’m personally sad about no dlc. Like why would they have these patches just to get no new content? Miscellaneous DLC Idea if we were to have gotten any: I personally would have loved for them to add a Low gravity suit which would make Link function like how he was in one of the low gravity zones, but anywhere one the map. And for the set bonus, it would be fun to put links enemies under the zero gravity effect after he performs any move with knock back (spin attack, combo finisher, breaking weapon, etc.) What do y’all think?

[@MafiaCow01]

Great insights you've got. I agree with some, disagree with others, and can ignore some of the negative ones, and this is one of my favourite games I've ever played (along with Subnautica). I found the story incredible, and the moment of Zelda swallowing the stone was so tragic. Like, this is the furthest in the future that the games have been set, making our Zelda having personally lived through from the very beginning of Hyrule to now. I cried in that final cutscene, and it would have broken my heart if the game ended without un-dragoning her. The whole premise is so fucked up. My main complaint with the game was having Link never tell anyone about Zelda's sacrifice until after storming the castle. In my playthrough, finding all the memories and getting the Master sword was one of the first major things I did. So going to Kakariko and being told by some nobody that I can't go to that ring ruin because "Zelda" forbade it was frustrating. Like bro, I know that's not her, why won't you let me tell you that and let me see that last ruin??

[@eddieanderson9399]

I watched this whole thing 6 times straight and completely agree.

[@Limcube]

GIGACHAD

[@TheRealSerpentine]

Bro didn’t stop at one view, he had to get six of em’.

[@dearthofdoohickeys4703]

The video released 5 hours ago, and you watched it 6 times which totals to 17 hours of watching… Math definitely checks out.

[@corgikun2579]

@@dearthofdoohickeys4703 you can watch at 3X, simultaneously in different windows

[@Organised_Gamer]

I'm towards the beginning of the critique and just wanted to react on your mentioning of the inconsistencies between light roots and shrines in the sky. I look at this the other way round: The Shrines of Light provide light to the depths. When a shrine is hypothetically detached from these so-called roots they have sprouted, the roots will simply rot away. Especially somewhere like the depths. Perhaps these roots have grown again within the sky islands. A good analogy would be removing a plant from the ground and putting it in another patch of ground.

[@richardmahn7589]

2:05:48 Funny, I'm playing around just seeing areas I knew very well in BOTW, but only flew into to do a shrine or tower in TOTK, and found a Lynel I didn't notice before, and I even did a shrine right by it! It is that area where in BOTW there is a shrine that has Kass telling you to bring a horned creature (the buck) to the shrine platform, near Kakariko village, now a shrine where you got to match a shadow on the wall with a build (ah, a copy of the snowball shadow shrine! just realized!). Funny that there you have a Lynel to mess with now (but still bucks and does all around).

[@thesis-and-nieces6722]

I thought the sky islands was going to have a civilization of people. I thought all those people concepts in the artbook were people who lived in the sky. But no, they were mainly used for cutscenes, background characters in cutscenes

[@s3eriousbl9ck26]

20:00 think of what you have to go through to replace a pristine weapon without glitches. It's much more work than just replacing one in BotW. In fact, one of the steps is all you have to do in BotW.

[@pika4668]

god this is a good video thanks for the food 🙏🙏🙏 i could listen to people talk about the wild games for ages

[@AkioJunichiro]

1:17:00 For me Zonai comes from 'space' Actual sky islands where on the ground at Rauru times (you can literally see the sky temple of time grounded in one of the memory) but have been sent in the sky after the King Demon fight. The depth was important for Zonai, because of all the effort they put on thoose zonaite mines they needed a lot of fuel for some reasons. => Since you can find other structure than mines : either the Zonai built cities in the depths or the depths are actually Rauru's Hyrule, and the current Hyrule would be a reconstruction (surely in a divine way) after the demon king was sealed.

[@Limcube]

If the sky islands were sent into the sky at some point, why does the great plateau of the past almost look exactly the same structurally now?? Did it just regrow like that lol

[@wert556]

​@@Limcubeyes it's called geo landform. Hylians cam also reform the landmass. You do know that Raurus Kingdom was like..... lord who knows how long.... 15,000 years ago. 20,000? 10,000 years was Calamity so definitely alot more years

[@satellachannel6423]

Hypothesis; the three goddesses Farore, Din and Nayru are Zonai. They use their power to forge the world in a more litteral way than we imagine; godlike powers. And the dragons are the three goddesses. "descending from the sky to create Hyrule" and all that. Another point; the Triforce (made and left behind by the three goddesses) is based on an ancient japanese crest (*Hojo clan) and this crest is supposed to represent three dragon scales. There's many connections, beginning by the quest of the dragons scales to activate the shrines at the springs in Breath of the Wild.

[@Limcube]

That’s really Intersting but does that mean that they are the original Zonai and rauru is thier descendant or are they the same and just ate secret stones at one point

[@satellachannel6423]

@@Limcube Pretty sure this is overthinking and Nintendo just pick cool design elements here and there to make it mysterious, but i'd say zonai and dragons are the same "race" and the dragonification is their thing, a ritual to become a greater being.