I couldn't finish Tears Of The Kingdom

I couldn't finish tears of the kingdom. I was super stoked for the sequel to breath of the wild, and probably got around 20 hours of gameplay in before I rage quit and wrote a 9 page essay that turned into a 21 minute video.
I'll likely finish it eventually, but right now I can't be bothered. Let me know your thoughts on the game in the comments!
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:58 E3 2019
1:53 It's All About Zelda
5:15 Sweetening The Deal
7:47 A Tragic Reveal
11:21 Deafening Silence
14:12 What Could Have Been
15:32 A Reasonable Acknowledgement
18:15 A Compelling Alternative
19:18 Getting Over It
#tearsofthekingdom #zelda #zeldatearsofthekingdom #animation #videoessay
#tearsofthekingdomreview #videogames #fypシ #explorepage #totkvideoessay

[@XenoX]

If Link cried at the final tear, I'd be head over heels with this story. I think really big factor is that like BotW link: nintendo chose NOT to let him emote. Why not let him feel frustrated after failing to save zelda? Where is expressive Wind Wake/Twlight/Skyward link??? But yeah, spot on video - the story is good but just disjointed in spots and it's sad to see it for how loud and epic it is

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for kind words!! 💯 ON LINK SHOWING EMOTIONS 😭

[@butterspike680]

Right? They didn't have to go all the way, but if they did something simple like Link falling to his knees or clenching his fists (which they did in BOTW), it would've been enough for me, but not even Link, who was the closest person to Zelda, showed any emotion to the revelation. Like what the fuck.

[@XenoX]

@@DucksAreYellow Absolutely! Like other comments have pointed out, curious to know how you'll feel after you beat/if you beat the game

[@DucksAreYellow]

@@XenoX I'll definitely make another video :) I'm also going to be streaming the rest of my playthrough here on the channel! :D

[@RAMZ020187]

That’s because speedrunner link is BoTW and ToTK’s canon link, there’s no emotions, only death.

[@josephcross8464]

All that could have been fixed (or at least make more sense) if they just added a bit of dialogue where Impa swears Link into secrecy about Zelda's fate. Because I mean, having the recently revived kingdom effectively lose its leader for good would cause quite the uproar, especially in a time of crisis. They'd rather keep the people with at least some hope of seeing their princess again, and buy them some time to solve the current crisis before appointing a new leader.

[@DucksAreYellow]

RIGHT??? totally agree

[@littlefox_100]

Nah, she knew he wouldn't say *ANYTHING........*

[@idiotwithacrayon5751]

or even some dialogue or notion from link that he is overwhelmed by the knowledge and refuses to believe it

[@idiotwithacrayon5751]

thats what i choose to believe head canon

[@eliadams3711]

But link doesn’t talk anyways so that would be pointless

[@Tomasz0216]

I think it would've been better if some of the tears were locked by the sage story line.

[@DucksAreYellow]

💯💯💯

[@terrafix1430]

Or at least the final one

[@zetsubanned4308]

Or just make the story play linearly despite what order you get the tears in. What percentage of players got like the second-to-last tear first and had the entire thing spoiled early on? Definitely happened to me.

[@iron_archer]

I was literally BEGGINGGGGG for link, after catching zelda, after searching for her for so long and finally being able to save her, after reviving her from a thousand years of being a beast and not herself, TO JUST FUCKIN HUG THE GIRL, GOD. JUST HOLD HER GODDAMNIT.

[@coryfreake9070]

It was the exact opposite for me. I mean, he's kind of her emotional support animal for all of BotW and TotK. We see Link consistently comfort her but we don't see Zelda ever do anything close to that for Link. Link honestly feels more like her therapist than friend because of how neglectful she is to him.

[@flanger001]

"A warm, loving embrace"

[@coryfreake9070]

@@flanger001 "I woke up surrounded by something warm" -Original translation

[@MarouaneTF]

​@coryfreake9070 how is she neglecting him when dhr literally sacrificed herself twuce just for link to even have a chance at defeating teh calamity and ganondorf

[@coryfreake9070]

@@MarouaneTFEmotional neglect is what I meant.

[@BaselardFE]

I wish they had let Link emote like... at all after viewing all the memories. The most important person in his life is a dragon, and all we get is :o followed by :|. Having Link break down or cry after all that would have been INCREDIBLE

[@ELdonutking-1111]

tbh that would be great, but link is kinda forbidden from showing any emotion at all, isnt he? like thats why he never speaks, he is too devoted to his role to have emotion

[@andrerey29]

I read the book "Creating a Champion" there nintendo explained that they planned for link to be a vessel for the player. Even though I understand this, this is such a dumb decision as link has ALWAYS been its own character. In every Zelda game Im playing as link, not an avatar.

[@rexthewolf3149]

⁠@@andrerey29It makes even less sense in BOTW and TOTK as you can’t name Link in these games. One of the biggest things games do when the give you a vessel is to name them. Link should be a character in these games because he’s clearly not a player avatar.

[@auraguard0212]

I wanted Link to fold over and cry after realizing Mipha loved him in BOTW.

[@connieandmoosearebothverycute]

yes i couldn’t finish it either!!

[@ordon_lament]

thing is, I accidentally completed the "find the fifth sage" quest WAYYYY too early and after the "crisis at hryule castle" quest, Purah acknowledged that I met Mineru and she told me everything and that I have the fifth sage, so if there's dialogue for that, why is there nothing for the ACTUAL STORY

[@TrevorSmithy]

this also happens if you have the master sword (although only after the crisis at hyrule castle) It's definitely frustrating to have so many NPCs wonder "where's the master sword" when link is literally holding it in front of them (especially when BOTW already acknowledged it once you acquired it)

[@DrawciaGleam02]

"accidentally completed the "find the fifth sage" quest WAYYYY too early" Uh, how??

[@Epsilon001]

I think what hurt more was that you could do the dragon's tears out of order thus spoiling yourself for the little story that is there, just like they did in BoTW which sucks tremendously and could have easily been fixed by not assigning specific memories to those tears instead unlocks them in order.

[@SoupyMittens]

i got the dragon tear that showed puppet zelda assasinating sonia before i even started doing dungeons, completely spoiled the entire game

[@atlas956]

it could have been such an easy fix too… after every dungeon, new tears drop. no explanation whatsoever, everyone wonders where they came from. but after the castle fight, the white dragon flies directly over the castle and Link, alone, sees how the tears drop from the dragon. he goes to tell impa, purah and the sages, who immediately urge him to go look at the last memories. the finals memory falls onto that little spiral island, Link has a small mental breakdown, and that‘s it, no one got spoiled ahead of time.

[@zatchbell5678]

​@@atlas956so simple, and so logical. Tells me the devs must not care very much

[@Iisho]

Luckily I found the tears in a way that didn't spoil things too badly. However, my friend picked up the game some time after I did so I made sure to give them the tears in order as to not spoil themself.

[@givmi_more_w9251]

@@atlas956 That still would contradict the whole 'becoming a dragon makes you lose yourself'. If Zelda is basically gone, why does she 'cry' to tell us what happened? It's also why the moment in the final boss fight was so 'okay, NOW you decide to help, after trying to kill me when I pulled the sword? Why didn't you help me against the bosses in the sky?' I know many might consider that nitpicking, but to me the whole draconification was a pure ass-pull, and a bad ass-pull, not properly explained, and the stakes of 'Zelda is gone' are destroyed in the end anyway. But if you let that go, I agree, that would have made the whole Dragon Tears quest so much better and at least wouldn't have left me so frustrated with the whole 'okay now I know what happened but literally nobody cares, the game doesn't react, why did I pay 70 bucks for this.'

[@austinmiller2170]

This is how I felt exactly. Throughout a lot of the NPC dialog, I was just imagining Link screaming "NO! SHE'S A DRAGON!" Maybe Link was just too depressed to tell them. Edit: to make matters worse, I had already pulled the Master Sword out of a dragon when I first heard mention of " draconification" in one of the early geoglyphs. That basically told me where Zelda was before I even finished the quest.

[@colin3ds1]

Memories having flashbacks to other memories you may not have gotten yet completly defeats the purpose of being able to find them out of order Either go all the way or give me a more linear path

[@SuperAlchemist1]

Yeah I did the same, get the master sword, where I had a thought and went “wait no… she didn’t” then I finished the dragon tears and saw her turn, and that broke me

You're pretty slow if you didnt already understand what happened from the moment draconification is first mentioned. Also, the way you speak of Link is completely out of character for him

[@sonicuzumaki]

@yeah the “NO SHE’S A DRAGOK” is definitely something he wouldn’t say. But at least a reaction would have been nice. The man just stares then leaves lol

@@sonicuzumaki that's all he ever does. Stares and leaves

[@SpiderT16]

Honestly Im more upset that there is no explanation for the disappearence of all the old shika and devine beasts. Not mentioning the little to no mention of the champions in botw.

[@DucksAreYellow]

RIGHT?? OR HOW THE VILLAGERS OF HATENO VILLAGE DONT RECOGNIZE LINK EITHER? there’s a lot to pick at, unfortunately :/

[@SpiderT16]

@@DucksAreYellowIm not even gonna talk about how they got rid of the mipha statue

[@realhighduck]

@@SpiderT16 Actually, the mipha statue was simply relocated to Ploymus mountain.

[@PunsandPixels]

@@SpiderT16 the relocated it, I actually thought the changes were beautiful. They also changed the messages on the murals that surround the way up to zora’s domain! They are now told my Sidon. Also I found a lot of mention of the champions but it involves talking to npcs. I found one stable that wanted a photo of Daruk and went on saying how he was one of the champions. One quest for the school involves taking a picture of the great calamity prophesy from botw. Another npc in gerudo mentions how she was the protector of the previos ruler of the gerudo, aka: Urbosa. I’m sure there’s more, I haven’t talked to everyone. I do agree it would have been cool to see some remains of the guardians in the depths of the castle since they were supposedly buried underneath the castle. But they did repurpose the guardians in the building of the towers, and there is still one on top of hateno village.

[@Tomanomanous]

The fact that Bolson doesn't even seem to recognise or remember Link either 😵‍💫

[@Kuro00neko]

In the part where you said that Zelda could have been another support, She's actually the first Sage you'll meet, she shared her powers to you in the form of the skill recall

[@DucksAreYellow]

This is technically true- I do wish they dove a little deeper into that power gift/cutscene though.

[@magau3698]

@@DucksAreYellow when she recalled the master sword. It literally showed you what it is and how important it will become

[@chainbladeallience]

Zelda has both time and light powers, recall is a good reflection of that time power, but her light power is woefully underrepresented even in the story. I want to believe she was intended to at least be a companion sage, but maybe never made it past planning or (god I hope) is withheld for dlc?

[@CainLupus]

​@@chainbladeallience The Master Sword is her light representation, she's the one who empowered it

[@DucksAreYellow]

5head Cain over here 🧠

[@sirflimflam]

I had this exact experience and it was gut wrenching, watching link partake in some form of weird self torture where he intentionally doesn't tell anyone the one detail everyone needs to know. I didn't lose the will to play but I was definitely rolling my eyes around every corner, watching, WAITING for the moment where everyone is finally up to freaking speed. I had only finished two dungeons before unlocking the last tear, so having to go through the song and dance of WHERE'S ZELDA?! THERE'S ZELDA!! WHY IS ZELDA DOING A BAD?! with everyone was a huge miss on Nintendo's part. There NEEDED to be some contingency in place in people got all the tears ahead of time. At the very least, to for the epitome of the easiest solution, they could have just withheld the final tear until later in the story so at least there was some plausible deniability. It's almost like they never expected people might be very interested in what happened to Zelda or something?? I kind of get the feeling the whole dragon's tears system was a bit of a last minute change, not intending to reveal as much as it ended up revealing originally, because it doesn't flow with the rest of the story _at all_. Like you said, the dungeon questlines literally could have had minimal alternatives to acknowledge the fake because everything they say is just "Oh no Zelda's over there we gotta help her!" instead of a possible "You fake what are you doing to our region!! get back here!!"

[@DucksAreYellow]

“WHY IS ZELDA DOING A BAD” 😂😂😂 I completely agree hahaha

[@jalnyx]

iirc in botw the ending is different slightly with zeldas dialogue if you have all memories unlocked..? idk why that wasnt a thing here, like if you complete the tears quest that theres no comments about it from anyone else etc

[@literaryloser4470]

The dramatic irony in Japanese fiction gets so old and so cringe especially in this game. It feels like I'm fucking watching Dora again. "OMG WHY IS ZELDA DO THE NO-NO! CAN YOOOOU FIGURE OUT WHY ZELDA DO THE NO-NO!?" Then you find out it's not her and they're like "HOORAY ZELDA NO DO NO-NO!! WE DID IT! WE DID IT!" Like, you don't need to even get past the first cutscenes of the game to know it's not her or not what her intentions are. Its such a brain dead plot that honestly is such an offense to not only BOTW really good plot (however faultering), or the series as a whole, but also fiction itself. Like, the fact that the plot's so 2head and the characters play so hard into it yet wandering Beedle could fucking figure it out is so insulting. Can we get past the same 12 tropes in fiction and get to making actually good stories? One reason of 127474 why I dropped this awful game

[@sergiobricenos]

Some games (early 2000 JRPG games) handle these kinds of issues like this. 1) you solve the side story quests before the point in the main quest with the confrontation with the "evil" ally: they are exposed as illusions, or doppelgangers. 2) you dont: they are revealed to have been just puppets of the main villain. Either way the story takes a turn. I think it was possible to get this level of detail in earlier JRPGs because narrative was detailed oriented, while the basic gameplay and progression remained the same. All they needed to do was change some dialogue and give different quest rewards. For a game like TotK, if they took that approach at every turn, you would probably need a bigger cartridge and wait until 2027. Edit: one example that comes to mind is (though not a JRPG but a Japanese action game) Castlevania 64 (and it's sequel of course). Each character (2 in 64 and 4 in the sequel) gets 2 to 3 final bosses. These bosses and their motivations change depending on certain factors in the game. You can't just make each storyline canon. You can't even make any path on each storyline canon at the same time. It's not different endings that I'm taking about, it's different building ups to each ending.

[@Troutington2]

Does anyone know what the song playing in the background around 12:23 is?

[@Hooy-Jaymay]

The ending of Phantom Hourglass genuinely made me bawl my eyes out as a kid. Bellumbeck's fight and Linebeck's conclusion to his story and his wish was so perfect. It's been a long time since a Zelda game made me feel that way.

[@phykoha]

I didn't finish the Dragon's Tears quest before doing the dungeons, only really doing geoglyphs if I ran into them. But I do agree that it's really weird that Zelda, a very important character and the one driving the story forward, is disregarded in so many ways. "Oh man, Zelda's a dragon? Weird... Anyway-" Like. PLEASE react. Your princess, the lady y'all adore so much, is a fucking dragon. PLEASE SHOW EMOTIONS.

[@DucksAreYellow]

GO 👏 OFF 👏 👑👑👑

[@sabrinam.8006]

My headcanon is that Link never told anyone because he doubted anyone would believe him, or maybe he doubted it himself

[@nickosman1556]

link never told anyone because a fake Zelda is roaming everywhere

[@MediaMunkee]

I had a similar reaction to Tales of Symphonia back in the day, regarding a certain character whose soul is forcibly separated from their body, effectively leaving them a mute, shambling sleepwalker. It's treated with this great dramatic gravitas, as you'd expect, and then is resolved with all the fanfare of a hamster farting and the main PC's reaction is literally, "Oh hey, your soul came back? Cool. Anyway..." I dropped the game like a moldy sponge about 10 minutes later because that pissed me off _so_ much. This is an RPG we're talking about. I'm sure as hell not playing it for the scintillating gameplay of menuing and watching numbers go up. It didn't bother me as much in TOTK because at least the game is fun, I'm sadly quite conditioned to Zelda being a cardboard cutout macguffin of a character and her VA has done nothing to endear me to this iteration, but it was still infuriating from a story perspective to not only have every character wonder aloud about Zelda and keep falling for Fake Zelda, but to not even be able to investigate the final Kakariko Ring Ruin after finding the final tear. And for what? To keep the presence of a fifth sage under wraps until you've helped the first four? *Who fucking cares???*

[@timohara7717]

mane f the story i just like doing the depths no paraglider

[@James-xb7qc]

Now, if this annoys you. Don't do the teacher quests in Hateno village. the one of them is a history lesson when the children dont believe the history of the princess, the hero, Ganon and the Master sword. Not once, even when talking about what happened during BotW, does the teacher mention "oh yea by the way Link and Zelda are the Heros from 100 years ago and oh would you look at that, Link has the master sword with him."

[@DucksAreYellow]

LOL STOP

[@OHHHHUSBANT]

Nintendo writers were on drugs creating the story and forgot it was a supplement and fell over in od

[@Tomanomanous]

Agreed. It would've been nice if they added some more easter eggs and acknowledgement for those of us who poured hours into BotW instead of pretending that the lore of that game almost never existed.

[@givmi_more_w9251]

OH YES, I even asked my boyfriend to refrain from doing the quest until he has the Master Sword, because I though 'Suuuuuuuuuuuurely if Link stands there with his big magic sword it will be acknowledged ... right ... RIGHT?!'

[@cortster12]

I loved the reveal, but I also hated the fact no one acknowledged what I found out and I couldn't tell anyone.

[@DucksAreYellow]

THIS 👑

[@bluejay2509]

I just remember staying with Zelda for, an embarrassing amount of time even after getting the Master Sword. It was such a heavy emotional moment. And it confused me to no end that Link refused to tell anyone about it until the very end, you'd think he'd be screaming through the roof because everyone (Rightly for not knowing anything) accuses Zelda of all these evil acts, but he just lets them slander her??

[@kingkuroai5387]

"A Reasonable Acknowledgement" was well put together. I agree the few lines here and there would help, I also was quite frustrated when nobody acknowledged the dragon tears questline.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words! Sorry to hear you had a similar experience, at least we can commiserate together 😂

[@frostwarrior9937]

I felt this way but to a lesser degree. After completing the Dragon's Tears quest, I immediately went and asked if any of my friends completed it yet but obviously not saying the name of the quest to avoid any spoilers. At least that way I was able to have some meaningful reaction to the discovery from the people around me.

[@DucksAreYellow]

That’s true, that actually helps a lot. I had a buddy finish it the same night as me and we just whines about the lack of integration and vented to each other about it. Definitely helped. Difference is he kept playing and I quit and made this video 😂

[@joshuafallgren8498]

Yeah I agree, the disconnect between what we know and what the npcs know is annoying but it just was never a real problem to me idk.

[@jslaughter95]

@@joshuafallgren8498 but it doesn't make any sense why anyone but Link would know, maaaaaaaybe him telling Purah and Impa. I also disagree with the idea that the story isn't connected with the game at all because it clearly is, even if it is in it's own separate main story like the sages part was, but even that is still connected because you literally cannot progress the game's story forward until you do that story line. This guy is honestly just bitching just to bitch, this game was incredibly well made and mind blowing just how much fun it is, for him to claim he quit the game entirely just because he was big mad about things not going the way *he* wanted them to go is just being a child, and since he hasn't even finished, a child who is misinformed

[@joshuafallgren8498]

@@jslaughter95 It kinda does make sense to tell the sages. As they have been attacked by and in some cases are taking orders from a fake zelda that link knows is fake, not telling them is irresponsible. Also he's allowed to complain about any aspect of the game he dislikes. I agree with you that the game is great and that story is overall very good and interconnected with the gameplay.

[@Maerkith]

​@@jslaughter95 I finished the game, still loved it, but definitely did not live up to its potential or even anywhere close

[@stinky_dookie]

Npc's also have dedicated rain dialogue, such as "How did you get here in such slippery weather". Which confuses me more, why would they prioritize having rain dialogue over impactful dialogue about this massive discovery you just made? Its super disappointing, but imo the ending of the game makes up for it, and I really think you should finish it

[@DucksAreYellow]

Totally agree 👑 I’ve heard the ending is awesome! I’m thinking about streaming the rest of my playthrough on the channel- interested to experience it for myself! :D

[@kingkrysen]

The ending is terrible

[@WhyUHaf2BeMad]

eh idk the ending was what ruined it for me, i was already unimpressed with the rest of the game and the ganon fight and dragon ganon was such a let down

[@aspuzling]

The reason is that it is nowhere near as simple as changing a few lines of dialogue. If you want it to feel convincing, you need to change hundreds of lines and also some cut scenes too. Once you start to develop multiple parallel versions of the game the complexity when it comes to testing every possible combination just explodes. The fact is that you are playing a linear game with very loose player constraints. The compromise you have to be able to accept is that the story can be told out of order and thus no longer make sense.

[@stinky_dookie]

@@aspuzling Never said it was simple but considering how much work they clearly put into other areas of this game, some dialogue addressing these massive discoveries you're making would make sense

[@RizzRobe]

I felt the same way, but it had a much different effect on me. I actually began to play more aggressively - spending any free time I had playing the game, furiously so that I could reach the end and try to save Zelda. I actually realized that Zelda had become the Light Dragon even before finishing the Geoglyph questline - purely by accident. I had visited the Deku Tree who gave me a quest marker and said that the Master Sword was on the move. Obviously, tracking it's movement it was pretty clear that the Master Sword was with the Light Dragon. And when I landed on the Dragon the first two things I noticed were the first two notes of Zelda's lullaby being played on an erhu and the Dragon's hair. That's when I found out. It was crushing. I didn't have a cutscene or anything to tell me, it was just me in real time starring at the Master Sword imbedded into the Silent Princess's head. Unfortunately, at that point, none of my friends playing the game had gotten that far yet so ... much like Link - I couldn't talk about it with anyone. So ... I felt the same frustration ... it just manifested in a different way. I was very happy with the ending though in the end, but I actually agree with you that this story is too powerful and meaningful to have been handled this carelessly.

[@galaxsija4591]

I had a similar experience.... All this nonlinearity for the sake of nonlinearity made a complete mess of the story and any potential impact it could have.

[@educationalporpoises9592]

Depends on play style. My experience was the same as yours… but I’m not very good at figuring out stories from context clues, lol. I thought the Light Dragon was just a friendly dragon that Zelda befriended in the past and entrusted with the Master Sword. It wasn’t until they mentioned draconification that I knew what happened, and even then I thought “maybe the memories will show something different… maybe.” So when the memory of her draconification was shown, I felt extra bummed since it confirmed what I previously hoped wasn’t true, and blew up my denial.

[@bonyeni]

This.

[@givmi_more_w9251]

Glad I wasn't the only one who picked up on the first two notes of the lullaby. That's why I always shut off the sound when I played while my boyfriend was around and he hadn't yet started. He didn't notice anything though, lol, ,neither the lullaby, nor the green eyes.

[@overlordshadow7773]

100% agree with you, it really frustrated me when none of the NPCs acknowledged the fact that Zelda was a dragon. I know I'm just repeating what you said but it is a frustrating matter.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Hey man that’s why I made this hahahaha we can all whine and vent together 😂 It’s validating to hear other people go through the same thing lol. Super frustrating for sure

[@leontriestoart]

Wait why exactly would they know shes a dragon unless link told them

[@overlordshadow7773]

@@DucksAreYellow Also, in my opinion, you are not going to be disappointed by the ending at all !

[@overlordshadow7773]

@@leontriestoart Well that's my bad, what I wanted to say was the fact that it annoyed me that Link couldn't tell the NPCs

[@ethanlensing9217]

Maybe they’re saving it for dlc or something (I hope)

[@reagan_k1873]

I haven’t seen anyone talk about this yet and you put my exact thoughts into words!In-game, I imagine that Link can’t bring himself to tell everyone what really happened to Zelda knowing it would break their hearts :( Great work on this video! I loved the animations :)

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words!! And ya they would definitely be heartbroken for sure

[@chainbladeallience]

This is my head canon now, thank you. Hopefully we get a dlc remedy expanding this quest. 🤞

[@1Shinzou]

Problem is this is only a headcanon to fix Nintendos horrible integration of this into the story. Like he said, it would have been so easy and considering how perfect the rest of the game is this flaw just feels unnecessary

[@GeorginaJungle]

This is a much better explanation for Link not telling people. Link has no proof nor can he himself be sure what he saw through these tear memories was even real. For all he knew he was dreaming, after experiencing one he even snaps back into reality once it's over as if in a trance, or dream. It would make sense why he would only feel comfortable telling Impa about it because she was already investigating these Geoglyphs and would believe it. He couldn't be sure if he was dreaming though especially if he saw Zelda himself or heard someone say they just saw Zelda in the present. Considering how many people claim they recently saw Zelda it shouldn't be surprising that Link might doubt the visions he experienced at the Geoglyph locations and might want to bite his tongue about Zelda being a dragon.

[@1Shinzou]

@@GeorginaJungle thats a really good explanation actually

[@Randomiz7]

I personally prefer the original champions than the ‘new’ ones. I liked how the champions had different personalities, Revali would be the frenemy, Mipha would be the nice healer, Urbosa would be the strict ‘mom’ of the champions, and Daruk would be that fun type of uncle. While now Tulin, Yunobo, Riju, and Sidon don’t really have that. I still like the characters, but I’m not as intrigued by them. One thing that bugs me is when I have to get near the sage in order to use them. In BOTW it was just by a button. A lot of the cut scenes in the dungeons are the complete same. It’s basically hearing the same story 4 times. I don’t see many people saying this, so I might be the only one. Plus do people not know Link is the knight? Seems odd when they don’t even know who Link is. Overall I still love this game and it’s one of my favorites (along with botw)

[@videoket]

Great game, but I 100% have the same concerns as you. I watched a streamer (DeeBeeGeek) and when he got to Mineru he said “Secret Stone?” immediately because he was expecting the same scene for the 5th time. C’mon, Nintendo. 🤦

[@givmi_more_w9251]

Tulin as a sage because he stopped being a dumb kid for 5 seconds irked me to no end (I like Tulin, he's a fun little guy, but sage material he is not when you got Teba). It should have been Teba, but even whoever greenlit that continuity-error of a story was not braindead enough to remember Teba is shown to be able to carry Link on his back in BotW, which would have made the ascent to the boat moot. The others I can see as sages, but what also irks me is that Yunobo has lost Daruk's protection. Riju keeps Urbosa's fury as it is inherited (which makes me question where are Urbosa's descendants ... just like where is Rauru's and Sonia's child, as they had to have one already, otherwise Zelda couldn't be here ... ugh) Agreed on the lack of personality of the 'new champions' overall. But for me, the ancient sages are worse. Not only are they completely blank slates, but the 'ancient sages' if you watch the cutscene where Zelda turns into the dragon, they all watch her turn. They know what happened, yet still say nothing (bit of a theme). It doesn't make sense to leave Link in the dark about it -- at least after the last temple the sage could say something like 'Zelda ... she's still alive ... don't be fooled by the illusion'.

[@Megalania1]

@@givmi_more_w9251 honestly I refuse to believe the writers were the same as botw they seem to just forget everything about what happened the previous game and all of the champion descendants personalities are either there but butchered heavily or either completely wiped from existence. And abilities removed for example like you said yunobo in the first game is shown to have Daruks protection but magically that’s disappeared somehow as he never uses it incompetent writers it has to be it annoyed me so much as I was looking forward to this game as well.

[@angeladunnangiedraws]

This bugged me so much, too. You're definitely not alone in being majorly disappointed by 1. The lack of Zelda, and 2. The lack of acknowledgement once you learn. I hope that you'll find the ending worthwhile, once you go back to it!

[@givmi_more_w9251]

LOL, the ending just makes everything so much worse. It's so contrived and removes any emotional impact it has.

[@hardyjoe4278]

Spent two games wondering where the Triforce was...

[@victoriahansen4028]

19:56 saying you feel cursed with the knowledge of knowing zelda is the dragon hit home for me. I finished the tears quest after i completed my first temple. I was so drawn in by the memories that i just kept seeking them out. I wish they would have incorporated zelda more in the game afterwards. I liked the saving zelda quest you posed. Would have been an amazing part if the main quest

[@taylorlambert8478]

I really love your take on this, having played through all the main story myself and now continuing to play on the path to 100%, I do truly love this game, but because I completed the dragons tears quest after the 4 main dungeons and went straight to the fifth, it never really crossed my mind that it wasn't brought up more. Having Zelda in the world either as a companion/playable character that is with you throughout the whole game, or just having her follow you round to certain key locations along the story would of been so fun, especially being able to build on their relationship. Once again great video! This deserves a lot more attention!

[@DucksAreYellow]

You’re very kind, thank you! I wish I did the tears after the 4 dungeons like you lololol. AND GO OFF ABOUT THE INTERACTABLE ZELDA BUT THATS WHAT IM SAYING WEVE BEEN ROBBBEDDDDD 😭

[@d73w80]

Zelda as a companion would have been amazing! You already have the sage spirit squad hanging around with you, Zelda could have definitely been implemented

[@jimnfl7134]

@@DucksAreYellow Well, give it time. Game has not even been out for A DAMN Month yet.

[@cheddarsunchipsyes8144]

@@d73w80as what? A dragon? She can’t be a regular person bc of the story. And we all know you can’t actually finish the game bc it reloads you back to your previous save. Annoying but necessary, how would you play in a world without monsters? Not to mentions remaking the whole amp to be without gloom would be a nightmare for the developers

[@chaoslegends7959]

@@jimnfl7134 Mabye there will be a DLC with zelda included 🤞

[@jakedub58]

Apparently in the Japanese version, one of Zelda’s lines can be translated to “our house”

[@kiratastic7048]

I think if worst came to worst, they could have just… locked the dragon tears quest until you did the fight at the castle. It’s a lazier decision yet *still* better than what they actually did.

[@johannassburg]

I agree and honestly think they should do this in a point update lol but they don’t care about the narrative enough

[@hardyjoe4278]

I don't like how they made it easy to find them. The memories in BoTW were interesting because you had to find them. In ToTK, they are easily seen while in the sky...

[@trubimos]

@@hardyjoe4278that is because story in botw is secondary, here it’s not. In botw you have all detail right from the start, but in totk the tears must be easy to find

[@MimicksRiot]

honestly your idea for zelda being a companion would be super cute!! i wish they'd do something like that :[

[@DucksAreYellow]

Same :[

[@MimicksRiot]

​@DucksAreYellow it would've made so much sense, since she protected the kingdom for 100 years last game and for this game she could help seal ganon :[

[@MAILBOX_12]

I 100% get you on this, especially with the dialogue part, but I think the story also HEAVILY relies on what order you do the quests. I did the temples first and then the geoglyphs resulting in a much more impactful realization to Zelda’s fate. I wish you got the same experience I did man :( You should also definitely keep playing the game :) I beat the game two weeks ago and still feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words! I keep hearing this sentiment echoed in so many of the comments that the ending is fire, so I’m stoked to see what Nintendo does to bring it all together! I’m thinking about maybe streaming the rest of my playthrough here on the channel if there’s enough interest!

[@bringthecheese9504]

This is exactly why I'm recommending my friends to finish the dragon tears at the end. It goes against the "do what you want" principle of the game, but the story is really made much worse if you do that first.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Agreed 😔

[@uimasterroshi171]

As someone who finished that quest first, I must disagree. After that shocking moment, I was so invested in the story that I literally started to ignore everything else and just wanted to see how it plays out. Until this day I had finished 1 dungeon, the next day I beat the other 4 in one go and beat Ganondorf soon after. I think it depends on the person how this works on you. My plan was exploring everything before i go the final boss area, but that changed because of this quest

[@annabellelynn8614]

Im so glad to see other people who felt the same way >.< wveryone calling it a masterpiece and stuff had me feeling like I was totally crazy

[@Moegivesmelife]

The game is massively popular and a huge success, it’s to be expected that critique like this gets less visibility.

[@scarasriel]

The dragon tears quest is one i only did when i had all four sages so I was still under the illusion that Zelda could be found and I just had to find where she is, only slowly getting the hint during the beginning of the fire sages quest, Zelda wouldn’t purposely harm yunobo like that so I started thinking she was actually somewhere else where I couldn’t find her. That’s when I remembered the dragon’s tears and found them all and immediately got hit in the face with the grief that she was with me the whole time but couldn’t tell me

[@scarasriel]

Not to mention the entire time before then, I would get excited about finding her but be upset when she left and was out of reach. I constantly felt like link in the opening cutscene, being so close to getting her back only to not be successful

[@DucksAreYellow]

TOTALLY- the dragon tears reveal hit me like a ton of bricks

[@scarasriel]

@@DucksAreYellow I really appreciate when I went after the quest because that made my search go from “find bae” to “get revenge”

[@AzazelSylphson]

One neat detail that always stuck out to me (while breaking my heart) is that after you finish the Dragon Tears Quests, Zelda no longer narrates the blood moons. It's not alot, but Nintendo did acknowledge that. I definitely agree that this is arguably their strongest story to date, undermined by poor integration.

[@queenperrytheplatypus458]

What? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it's after you defeat her puppet. I've yet to defeat her puppet, but I've finished the Dragon Tears quests and she still narrates the blood moon cutscenes for me

[@AzazelSylphson]

@@queenperrytheplatypus458 I beat her puppet before collecting all the tears, she still narrated it up until I got the last tear

[@queenperrytheplatypus458]

@@AzazelSylphson Huh, that’s interesting. I finished the tears quest but she’s still narrating and everything. Maybe you have to finish both for her to disappear?

[@givmi_more_w9251]

@@queenperrytheplatypus458 No, I beat the puppet, and after that she doesn't narrate, despite still having tears left. It has nothing to do with the Dragon Tears quest.

[@Matagu1]

I am just pissed that Paya, a chief is not the 5. Sage. Mineru could have told Link dude, you should help me to look for someone i can give my secret stone. Paya could have been a surprise Sage with ability like the Monk or Impa from AoC. After all the Sages ate all Bosses of their people, while Tulin is more like a Prince. Paya is a Chief so why not inhert Minerus Stoine to buff her own ability? Lost oportunity. After all Paya is a Sheikah! Sheikah and Zonai did insane technology and she could feel useful and support Link!

[@AzathothLives]

Also, can we talk about how the geoglyps aren't unlocked sequentially? There is a specific order, which... IDK about you, but I unlocked them as I came across them on the overworld. How hard would it have been to just make it so every time you unlock a tear, it unlocks the next cutscene IN ORDER instead of being locked to location.

[@fransken4412]

You can see the order on the wall in the ruins with the map.

[@AzathothLives]

@@fransken4412 I am aware, but that is now how I explore the map. I'm not going to avoid a geoglyph when I'm exploring just because its not the right one to unlock in order. The first one I found after the tutorial geo was up near the Rito village. Which is where the game points you to go first. The geoglyph had massive story spoilers completely out of order.

[@Kindren]

I didn't have the same experience in the slightest, and I think that has something to do with how I approach open world games in general. There is already a dissonance in the game when you have literal holes in the planet with visibly evil goo/miasma pouring out, but also you have people asking the LEGENDARY Hyrulean knight to "find where those cuccos are laying eggs so I can restock my shop," instead of asking him to focus on his task of finding the country's ruler and fixing whatever this evil goo is about. With that in mind, when I got the first dragon tear and saw Zelda in the past, I immediately went "Okay, that is some main story stuff" and put it off until I had finished literally every shrine, side quest, and scoured every inch of the depths. After I had beaten Phantom Ganon, I finally went to do the dragon's tears that filled in the story, and that seems like it was the intended time for when you were supposed to watch those cut scenes. I think that might have been an even better way to fix the game for you, instead of having the dragon tears available from the start, have the dragon tears show up after you defeat Phantom Ganon and the false Zelda reveal. They could also have the dragon start dropping tears in order, so you don't have people accidently finding the last dragon tear before everything else and spoiling the big reveal. Edit: It would also give Link a little more character if he got this information later, because it suddenly makes sense that he falls into all those Yiga traps because he is desperately grasping for any hint to Zelda's whereabouts he can find.

[@phillnyetheplaylistguy3759]

I didn't run Into this issue at all fortunately. The dragon tear quest was the first one after reaching Lookout landing I acquired , however I did not do it until after the phantom Ganon boss in the throne room.

[@DucksAreYellow]

YOU LUCKY DUCK

[@entwixed3406]

That's the entire point- I don't think the quest was meant to be done first thing-

[@phillnyetheplaylistguy3759]

@@entwixed3406 yeah It kinda felt like the cherry on top that brings it all together. They definitely should have made the dragon tears only appear after the phantom Ganon boss however.

[@entwixed3406]

@@phillnyetheplaylistguy3759 I think the intent was that you'd travel the path as you do the Regional quests, and then the hyrule, and then 5th sage- getting to the master sword one, and well tear 12 just before you get the MS.

[@LeafyPete]

@@phillnyetheplaylistguy3759 Thiiis. I get it goes against the whole, complete the game from any and every angle you want. But, this small adjustment would've made it so it at least had waaay better flow.

[@jasonwarnecke1560]

So the problem is is that most of what you wanted is in there, but you gotta do certain things in a certain order to trigger them. So Link will tell the sages and Purrah about Zelda and the memories he saw, but only after you complete the quest Purrah gave you to go help at the four regions of Hyrule and then investigate Hyrule castle. This will then give you a quest to go to Kakariko to figure out the location of the 5th sage. This is when you will see everyone there learn about Zelda's fate and react and also be allowed to explore the ruins that crashed down around the village. Basically everything is behind specific triggers that need to be done for the game world to acknowledge certain things.

[@DucksAreYellow]

That’s encouraging!! Excited to keep playing and get to this

[@jasonwarnecke1560]

@@DucksAreYellow Some scenes will also play out differently based on what other stuff you've done at the point of trigger. Like the one I mentioned before played out differently for me as the thing Purrah tasks you to do after you finish her first quest I'd already done lol.

[@aj_the_infamous1013]

@@DucksAreYellow also there is a major moment at the very end involving dragon zelda, not going to spell it out in case of spoilers but yeah dragon zelda is needed

[@drivethrupoet]

It's frustrating that they didn't put some more controls in place so we couldn't take on so many quests at once, since it doesn't make for a good story when you get it totally out of sequence. They wanted us to be able to explore an open world but I screwed up the storyline by doing so.

[@Thequotequotequoteq]

@@drivethrupoetI think it would have worked a lot better if you couldn’t see any tears until after your first one with impa. That way you can be led to the forgotten temple where the correct sequence is shown to you before you have the chance to see any out of order.

[@EuphoricPentagram]

The dragon does have a special moment at the end, very touching

[@MABG19981130]

I see and agree with you comoletely in the way they handled this specific story quest, i was also slightly dissapointed by how nobody seemed to react to this fact but to a lesser extend since when i was playing, i was more interested in what to do next in my laundry list, what parts of the depths i should go to, what equipment to unlock you know, more of the game. I was invested in the story, but I wasnt 100% story driven. After finishing the game, i realized the devs were intending you to have compleated every other main quest first since after you get the fifth sage, the next quest is to "find the master sword", and Pura does acknowledge Zelda being a dragon if you have all sages and the master sword, I feel that if they had somehow locked the last tears behind the final sage somehow so that you finding out that the zelda youve been seeing wasnt really her is still a bit more impactful, since the route the devs woulve wanted you to take was, talk to impa begin tears quest - go to wind sage, travel to lightning or fire sage then water sage near the last to uncover the tears as you go thru that journey and also go thru the depths. Then go to the fifth sage, then completeget the master sword. This is also supportes by npcs not seeming ti realize you have the master sword until youre already ready to defeat Gannondorf, who becomes priority No. 1 after fake Zelda has been found out, so the story becomes, defeat Ganondorf, question things later. I really loved this game despite the fact that they mishandled this quest for narrative focused players, especially because you'd think that hyrule castle would be the final destination based in previous Zelda games and such, so youd be more pressed to finish all main story quests first, but thats actually just the middle point in the story, and the game doesnt really do anything to let you know that. I hope you can muster the will to play it again and finish it, because for me, this whole game, invluding the story, characters and ending, were just amazing, and I'm really sorry to hear you had your experience ruined by having this game focus more on player freedom and forgetting about narrative cohesion, which, honestly, i dont see how you can have both, sadly, but i do hope you get to finjsh it soon, if for nothing else than you can close this game's chapter and go clean to the next one

[@DucksAreYellow]

For sure!! I’m thinking I might stream the rest of my playthrough on the channel :)

[@quinintheclouds]

Interesting! I found Mineru by mistake, after doing the wind and water temples, so when I realized way later that there was a whole leadup quest I was like oh... whoops 😂

[@Taro_liam]

Zelda does literally fight with Link in the last battle. It's really awesome

[@starcoin5653]

I have to say this is a quality video, you do an amazing job at making critiques without sounding whiny or obnoxious, and I agree with you on a lot of your points. I feel that this game misses a lot of its emotional beats because of the lack of reaction from Link. It’s the same problem I had with Age of Calamity, where the story is more about the spectacle than about the characters. Still sad that the devs never even acknowledge Link’s family as well.

[@wace9174]

Well they acknowledged his father in botw and why Link stays silent and his bond and love with Zelda and gave characters alot more depth to them and that is one thing I can say about totk and botw that they added a lot of life to chatacters

[@TheBreadPirate]

I love your thumbnails and drawings! And your scripting kept me engaged the whole time. Agreed. I wish people in Hyrule could know about Light Dragon Zelda and help save her.

[@NorthJoestar]

I gotta be honest just having the sages go “wild” is hilarious

[@Tr1s]

Dude keep these coming I’m 100% sure you’ll see more success this was great

[@DucksAreYellow]

That’s very kind of you thanks so much :)

[@dialgafan1063]

I disagree with your more complicated alternative, but you still make a good point about characters making a reasonable acknowledgment of your efforts and you made an excellent video. Thank you for taking the time to do so!

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for watching!

[@pastelkirby]

i played through with a friend and we'd update each other on where we were story-wise (have you beat x temple etc) and both of us were incredibly frustrated with the story in large aspects. it's so frustrating to play through the dragon tear questline just to be narratively punished for it. i think the most painful part is that they could've done so much more. the trailer showing link and zelda together gives off the impression of companionship. making finding her at the beginning of the game the main quest for so long makes it seem like you'll recover her before the final boss. having that gut wrenching realization that she's *not coming back,* only for them to ruin that sense of sacrifice between the game 'forgetting' that you know and the way they handled the ending. to put it lightly, they sugarcoated the absolute shit out of it and cut it short to wrap everything up in a nice little bow. no postgame. i had to go back and play through it again a week later to get the bad taste out of my mouth. watching that final tear cutscene and showing the light dragon was absolutely devastating to me. i went up to her and just sat on her head for a little while, crying. killing the momentem out of that 'side quest' was the most devistating thing they could've done for the story. making the tear quest so much more accessible compared to the main plot.. i just don't understand.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Totally agree. Great write up. I also had a little moment with Zelda on top of the light dragon just to try to soak it up a little better 😭

[@einfachnurda1400]

I didnt see how big this issue is. I did the quest early like you and now I notice that you are absolutely right

[@DucksAreYellow]

Hahahahaha you’re kind. Rip to those who did it early

[@mushroomduck1345]

You get the quest to do korok forest after the spirit temple, and after you do korok forest the light dragon flies closer to the ground, making it easier to obtain the master sword. So, I think the intent was to get the master sword, and consecutively figure out that Zelda is a dragon, AFTER you’ve done the temples. That was the likely intent, so it makes sense, in a way, that link doesn’t tell anyone, he isn’t supposed to know. Of course, Nintendo handled this poorly, as it’s an open world game and you are gonna find Impa almost immediately after the great sky island.

[@awsome182]

And thats the difference between a brilliant open world game with a linear story, like Witcher 3, and a mediocre open world game with a linear story, like BotW and TotK. In Witcher 3, you can play the way you want. Obviously there is some intended path to follow, but you can completely ignore it and play the way you want. The thing is, that Geralts knowledge adapts accordingly. Every dialogue changes, considering if you have obtained a certain knowledge at this point or not, if you have solved a certain quest at that point or not, etc. The world and Geralt himself perfectly adapt to the way the player chooses to play, which helps to keep a linear story functioning in an open world game. The fact that in TotK, Link can find out very early on in the game that Zelda is the Light Dragon and yet still the dialogue never changes for the entire rest of the story until the game wants it to is nothing else but lackluster story writing and development. Even non open world games like Assassin's Creed 2, where you can also find memories in the form of glyphs to learn more about the backstory, were able to unveil the memories in the right order, no matter in which order you find the glyphs. You simply can't put a linear story into an open world game without any form of restriction. A solution for TotK could have been A) no matter which tear you find, they only unlock memories in the right chronological order. Or B) make Link and the world react accordingly, depending on how much you know at this point in the game. It was the same, but not as grave as in TotK, in BotW. The fact that the memories could be found out of order made the story progression so lackluster. What was contributing to this was that the memories were much more interesting storywise than the actual gameplay which made me wish I could have actively played through the memories (which would have also helped me to feel more invested into the story and the side characters) than just simply watch some cut scenes...

[@givmi_more_w9251]

@@awsome182 BotW isn't as bad as we're piecing together what happened, so I kinda give it a pass. And especially if TotK would have been a proper sequel, I think it would have worked just fine. Still a bit lazy, yes, but it would have worked overall. Definitely yes that you should have been able to play through memories, and it would have been nice to have more memories in general, some of them could just be short cutscenes. But the likes of the last memory in Fort Hateno should have definitely been playable.

[@gayasuzuki895]

I’m so glad I gave this video a chance with an open mind, because it brought to light things I’ve felt, but not realised myself. I too have this weird relationship with it, where i log on, do a few quests, run around, and not play it for a few days before rinse and repeat. Maybe if I’m feeling it, I’ll do the main quest to see a bit more of the story as a “treat”. So I was left wondering why I couldn’t play it like I played BOTW, completely immersed and daily, obsessively, because it sure wasn’t the story itself’s fault. I really love what they did with the whole “Zelda became a dragon”, but what I didn’t know, was that I was feeling such a disconnect from the dragon plot, and the beat Ganon plot, that I was having a hard time getting back to a game with a completely flipped storyline once you finish all the dragon ones.

[@localdruglord]

With the 6th Sage thing, Link has the Vow of the Sage of Time, being recall. On his hand everytime he gets a new vow a new thing is put on his hand, He already has the one for the sage of time

[@RyuTama42]

To be fair, the general population doesn’t have much knowledge of the Zonai, dragons, or dragonification. Adults can’t even see the three attendant dragons (the one man overlooking the Kakariko chasms only mentions a gust of wind as Naydra descends right in front of him), so I doubt they could see the Light Dragon. Impa is one of the few who could take that information well. While yes it’s frustrating to realize where/what Zelda is, it’s information that not everyone would accept/believe. “Dragon? What dragon? Link, I know you’ve been through a lot, but saying Zelda is a thousands year old dragon no one can see except you… well… you should probably get some rest.” Would likely be the only form of believable dialogue from the general populace. Not to mention, spreading that information and having people begin to spread it as well, would lock you out of quite a few side quests. And potentially create new ones that would be locked to those that would choose to not share the information. It would essentially make the game impossible to 100%. I do however, agree that a simple dialogue change for Purah/the sages could have worked. Anything beyond that would have really messed with the side stories.

[@givmi_more_w9251]

The Yiga write of seeing Dinraal in the depths in one of their diaries. Not about a hot firestorm, an actual 'serpent'.

[@RyuTama42]

@@givmi_more_w9251 Interesting, I must have missed that somehow. Do you happen to remember which base that entry was in? I wonder if it has something to do with their Sheikah blood and/or their use of magic.

[@Kunter2000]

I agree.The whole problem of not being able to reveal the truth about Zelda's disappearance has bugged me when playing the game too. I guess Link being the silent hero that he is, nintendo could use his introversion as an explaination for, why he rather kept this tragic truth a secret. Does that justify this oversight? No. I still think they used the Dragon Tear quest as a cheap way to replace the memories from "Breath of the Wild". Talking about "Tears of the Kingdom" 's predecessor, that is where the game's story most disappointed me: In continuity. Guardians, divine beasts, shrines, towers and most other signs of shiekah technology have "mysteriously" vanished from the map, the calamity as well as the four Champions' legacy -and to some point even Link himself have disappeared from characters' memories. Of course there are some nods to botw's story such as the ancient dagger fuse material, the shrine of resurrection (even though I don't get how it was completely destroyed in such a short time after remaining untouched by decay for a literal century) and the location of mipha's court (which was built more than a hundred years after miphas death). This, however doesn't save totk from the fact that it's more of a second botw with revamped story and gameplay elements than a true sequel. The entire game follows botw's formula to an extent that you could think totk is just more of the same game. If the Dragon Tears are just reworked memory photos, the Sages are only repcements for the champions. Changing the vocabulary doesn't help either. It adds to the feeling incoherence between the two games. Malice - Gloom, Calamity-Upheaval, Guardian-Construct, etc. there are so many similarities nintendo seemingly tries to hide. The concept of shrines and the four main dungeons in Hebra, Eldin, Ranelle and Gerudo which each grant you a Champion's Ability, or Sage's Vow remains completely untouched. If you already reuuse the enemies and the map of a previous game, it should be clear that other elements like the story should be independent from or even better build on the previous game. All in all "Tears of the Kingdom" is a great game. In most ways, at least gameplay-wise, it is far better that botw ever was. But i didn't want an improved version of "Breath of the Wild". I wanted nintendo to build upon the wonderful story they already created. I'm really enjoing playing the game, but it hurts to see how nintendo's denial of the events of botw's story diminishes the memories I had with that game.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Totally agree with you- well said! 👑

[@givmi_more_w9251]

Hear hear. I didn't mind the reuse of the map at all, in fact I was hoping for it, because I wanted to see how Hyrule had fared, and how everything developed. And to see no development in terms of character or the relationship between Link and Zelda, only for Zelda being disposed of in the present so they didn't have to build on it was just a huge disappointment. They pissed away the wonderful premise, as flawed as it was, from BotW. It was by no means perfect, but the world-building and the universe was beautiful. But no, what the Zelda franchise really needed was another furry race.

[@lorenzamarzolla]

really good insight! I accidentally had the same exact experience as you described with my playthrough, and I'm kind of regretting it. I completely agree with both propositions for how things could have been handled, definitely that was worth considering! Hopefully we'll just get to the end of the game one day and be satisfied with what's an overall amazing game

[@Bassynater2500]

Idk why but the game lowkey burnt me out super early too. I got half the things done that you did and I still felt overwhelmed with “stuff” to do that just detracted me from the story and I felt like I was running errands. I wanna go back and play eventually though.

[@ghxsthunt]

this video is so cool what deserves more attention

[@DucksAreYellow]

That’s very kind of you! Thanks so much :)

[@OhDeerLordie]

(I haven't completed the game, but I have completed every main story quest except for 'Defeating Ganondorf' and 'Find the Princess'. I also completed Dragon Tears rather early, I even needed to grind some temples for the Stamina requirement) Typed before finishing the video and reading comments, post-watch edit included below my initial thoughts The way I thought of it is... Link isn't telling people. Only ~2 other people know, Impa and Cado, And Impa hopes that they'll find a way to bring Zelda back. I can understand him keeping this detail from everyone, wanting to find a solution before it comes to light. Imagine what sort of panic or effect that might have on the populace? It was one thing confusing them that there was all of those "Sightings" of Zelda, and I did notice that Link didn't speak up during those times, at the least not about where she was. He doesn't tell Purah that Zelda is the dragon you plucked the sword from. Just that it was on the head of a dragon that flew down the same time the islands did. or any of the other Sages. They believe she's still 'In the past' or, perhaps that she just died ages ago after setting things into motion. And not the horrifying truth. Which is easier to swallow?(heh) That your princess went back and gave you the tools to succeed, or that she's been crying for thousands of years, giving up everything and pouring it into the blade? In my mind, Link's investigating these imposters and also not wanting to give away that he KNOWS. The enemy could be listening anywhere. It knows enough to trifle with the descendants of the sages, some indirectly (Sidon, Tulin, and Riju) by attacking their homelands, and some directly- Giving the corrupted mask to Yunobo. I imagine when we get translations, the Quest Log in Japanese will again act like a personal diary for link, and it might include his personal insights about it. And recall the diaries about Link's personality- He doesn't speak much, except when absolutely necessary because of the burden of duty on him. I think knowing this about Zelda is another burden he's bearing until either it's confirmed theres no hope, and Hyrule can mourn once there is peace, or that she's able to return somehow. Post Video Edit: I want to reiterate what I was thinking before of Link not wanting to voice his knowledge about Zelda, because at the moment without a clear way of how to help her- What if Ganondorf found out about it, and tried to use his influence to harm her. So I could still see that as a reason why he wasn't telling anyone, personally, though perhaps that's a headcanon and how I'm coping. During the Hyrule Castle quest, I was laughing at Ganondorf wagging the puppet infront of you, but I felt in that moment smug- He doesn't know what I know. He doesn't know I've been following his trail of breadcrumbs and it's led me to everything I needed. To each sage, to healing each portion of hyrule. Ganondorf's puppet led us right into him showing his hand and stopping the ruse. It was a rallying point to unite all the sages together But regardless, perhaps looking at it from the perspective of Link's silence as purposeful, a secret he is bearing until focus can be put on it entirely, or that the kingdom can mourn, maybe that will make it easier to swallow? I hope to finish the main story this weekend, and I hope my hunch (And the unfortunate, near unavoidable hints at what's to come in comment sections) comes true, and I'm on track for the 'True' ending, too. And if not, I'd be interested in a 3rd game where we look more into draconification, not just for Zelda but for Dinraal, Farosh and Naydra too. Maybe reforging the Triforce too lol

[@typh2630]

This!!! This is how I see it. Since botw, link has been more than a “self-insert” protag, unfortunately that gets lost in all the English translation for some reason, but that doesn’t change the fact that *he* knows, and bcuz he knows he has to juggle with the notion of should he tell anyone or not. It didn’t feel cheap at all, this is the expected reaction from someone who was “close” with a person that a tragedy has happened to. We don’t know if he’s hurting, contemplating, or in denial and his silence only amplifies that bcuz we *don’t* know how he feels.

[@DucksAreYellow]

This is really well written!!

[@OhDeerLordie]

@@DucksAreYellow Thank you! I hope my thoughts came across well and perhaps helped even just a smidge!

[@OhDeerLordie]

@@typh2630 Yes exactly! Link has generally meant to be a blank slate for you to project yourself onto, especially in the english translation that takes away the personality of the quest log. With how much you can update main npcs on quests this just doesnt feel like something mistakenly left out.

[@uimasterroshi171]

For me it was a bit simpler, I was so sad and devastated that I wouldn't tell that anybody yet and neither does Link :D But yeah I agree with what you say

[@ghsvideosreviews5499]

Having zelda as an companion during my adventures, was what made me love spirit tracks , also it has an adventure anime energy there.

[@ty_does]

It’s amazing how you’re not more popular, you’ve definitely earned a sub today, and I can’t wait to binge all your content before your next vid!

[@DucksAreYellow]

You’re so kind, thank you! I’m streaming the rest of my playthrough here on the channel, so many comments here say the ending makes up for my frustrations so I’m interested to see for myself :)

[@Antnj81]

This video was great and I totally agree with the points made and I feel the same way. I wanted to say though about Link and Zelda sharing a house together, I would actually guessed that it was something different. If they were in a relationship, dialogue would reflect that a little bit more, it would probably be a well-known thing and others around would also comment on it but they never do. My guess is that this is just Link's house and either he is allowing Zelda to temporarily stay there or as one of his closer friends, she decided to she needed to give his house a woman's touch by adding photographs. This would make more sense because the photographs are pictures of her. People don't usually put pictures just of themselves in their own house

[@givmi_more_w9251]

Okay, but why would she get rid of all his weapon stands? If there were still weapons and stuff around the house, I'd agree with you, and I'd concede that there has to be more between them. Still the rest of the game wouldn't reflect it, but ... yeah. But all the characters refer to it as 'Zelda's house'. I can see Link saying 'you can have it, I'll take one of the Bolson cube homes on the other side of the bridge', but that's something you have to add in, and I don't pay 70 bucks for having to fill in the holes in a story.

[@UninterestingPedant]

19:19 but if Zelda were to become a sage companion companion, where would her dungeon even be? It’s not like you could make a narratively and geographically fulfilling quest after finding the fifth sage back up into the sky where this journey first began to a Temple of Ti-OH WAIT

[@flamingsasuke]

I totally agree with your point. This was something that bothered me because I found all the Geoglyphs before even doing the first dungeon. I did not think much about the other Zelda's because I thought she actually temporarily traveled to the present to do some stuff to help out the current. What also really annoyed me was that BOTW and TOTK have always been great about letting players go at their own pace. There are plenty of videos showing how you can just find Sidon at the Zora home if you go straight there instead of running into him along the way. So the fact that I knew where Zelda was but couldn't do anything about it felt really odd. I really have no idea why they chose not to change anything from this knowledge. I do really like both of your suggestions!

[@Takejiro24]

I made a whole Reddit post about this exact problem! It's wild how large this oversight is considering, as you've said, the myriad of other ways the game checks how you've completed the game and it what order. It really does hurt the story and its intended impact for me. Also, loved your alternatives to how this could have been rectified.

[@RedXDtheblob]

This is a very underrated video! Seriously this is so professional xD you need more subs

[@DucksAreYellow]

That’s very kind of you! Thanks so much for the support :)

[@FinalHaunt]

00:18 cracked me up. You got a sub from me. Love your art style

[@DucksAreYellow]

YAY I’m glad I really appreciate it :)

[@JAP625]

@DucksAreYellow you bring up some valid points. I too made it a point to complete the dragon’s tears quest before I completed the dungeons and I found it odd that the game didn’t account for that by having the sages acknowledge this. They also could have had alternate cut scenes for this. Like instead on Yunobo thinking it was Zelda he was seeing he could have said something to the effect of “Imposter stop! We need to talk to you” or to Link he could simply have said “If that’s not Zelda let’s investigate and see who this imposter really is”. Or maybe they even could have locked the Dragon quest until after the dungeons were completed? I’m sure others will tell you that the pay off at the end is pretty spectacular. You’ll get there in time.

[@larhyperhair]

I personally really like zelda stories, Ocarina, windwaker, Twilight princess, even some of the smaller games like links awakening and spirit tracks have had sweeping narratives with fun characters and excellent writing, thats like core to the appeal i feel

[@givmi_more_w9251]

YES. Zelda stories are not some GoT level narrative, they're mostly simple fairytales, but they were functional, the characters behaved logically ... TotK can't even hold continuity with BotW, let alone the Zelda lore. The Triforce is basically just branding at this point.

[@linuxbo]

Yeah! I was having a rough time getting invested in the game. Feels like you put some of my thoughts into words

[@DucksAreYellow]

That was the goal! :D

[@TheAffe7274]

this video is very well made! great work!

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words!!

[@stokes6238]

This video was awesome and I’m definitely subbing, one thing I wanna ask is that you add a song list cause though I know these were songs from the game I don’t remember which so I’d love to see each one and have a time stamp for them

[@baccaborg]

THIS I AGREE WITH SO MUCH!!! I didn’t even realize how little they placed into that quest line until you brought it up when it had been the first quest they give you. Now that it was pointed out I agree completely with what you mean. I hope they at least do a bit more with it in some sort of dlc but that might be wishful thinking

[@shadeofmidna-9897]

I beat the game in ten days and recently got every shrine, and yet I still feel a little empty about a lot of it. I expected that Nintendo would allow Zelda to return mid game, however they just exhiled her from the gameplay yet again, leaving us with an interesting story that we have no hand in. It would’ve even been interesting if you could see ancient Hyrule, but we were denied that as well. They created these interesting characters that leave you on the edge of your seat, only for you to barely interact with them. Tears of the Kingdom was created with the same evolutionary goal as Breath of the Wild, only it has the exact same story structure. Disappointing.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Great write up. Sorry you have that same empty feeling :/ would’ve been awesome for more character interaction, between Zelda and the whole cast. Im currently musing on how cool it would’ve been if the dragon’s tears had Link go back in time and be with Zelda and Rauru...

[@shadeofmidna-9897]

@@DucksAreYellow That's a great concept! Oh, what could've been.

[@frogfox4287]

Fair enough. You're first idea for fixing it would have been nice. That being said, After I finished the tears, I had the knowledge that, in spite everything else, Zelda had given me a task. Use the master sword to finish what they started so long ago. The memories spurred me to beat the game. And I won't spoil the end for you, so I'll stop there, but it worked. I think the ending was as good as it could have been without upending the rest of the game. But you are right. There is a weird lack of acknowledgment of her being a dragon.

[@DucksAreYellow]

I’m glad to hear that!! Yeah, I tried to take that approach, but the characters not acknowledging it made me feel like I was head-canoning it and meta-gaming almost. And the 6 year hype waiting etc made the disappointment so real I had to take a step back and vent in a 21 minute video essay xD stoked to hear the ending resonates mostly, tho!

[@robinson582]

Thats great work my friend, I also felt kinda empty at the end... Thanks for the good essay, hope your channel grows a lot!

[@DucksAreYellow]

You’re very kind, thank you so much! It’s really nice to see all the effort resonate with so many :)

[@lordtains]

I agree, and I have an even easier solution.. although some people may have some trouble with it. I always thought it was weird that you could find the memories in any random order. You could find the memory of Sonia dying first, and then the earlier memories, which doesn't make sense. This is easy to fix: whatever geoglyph you find, you get the next memory in line. So you will always get the story chronologically. This makes for a more logical narrative experience. And to solve your problem: you only unlock new geoglyphs once you have solved the temple in that region. So you already have some geoglyphs before finishing any of the temples, giving you some backstory already. But once you have beaten a temple and the area has been freed, new geoglyphs open up in the region, allowing you to progress further in the story. (You may object that the light dragon shed her tears in the beginning, so the geoglyphs were already there for centuries. But you see the light dragon shed her final tear at the end, so why not let her shed tears in the region after defeating a temple?) This means that you'll only know that Zelda is a dragon AFTER you've gotten all the sages AND finished the whole puppet Zelda dialogue. This all makes much more sense narratively. The knowledge that Zelda is a dragon should come last, because it is the biggest plot twist of the story. And after discovering it, you can change all the NPC dialogue to focus on this fact. The problem with this is that it makes the game much more linear, and the switch games have been about nonlinear exploration. But stories are linear; when you try to force them into a nonlinear format, the story will often suffer as a result (and your video is an example of that). I happened to come across Sonia's death as my first geoglyph, and I was like: who the hell is Sonia? In my opinion, this shouldn't happen, and it's pretty easy to fix. The new Zelda's should strike a balance between the nonlinear exploration and linear storytelling. The story needs to be somewhat linear for things to make sense.

[@videoket]

100% agreed. I’m also okay with temples being made of the same non-climbable material as shrines so I get a curated experience.

[@givmi_more_w9251]

BotW worked in the non-linear format with memories being random because a) an amnesiac would not necessarily remember chronologically, and b) we already know what happened, it's more about remembering our relationship (non-romantic meaning) with Zelda and our backstory in general. It didn't feel like I was spoilering myself, it was piecing everything together. And the memory in the forest with Zelda's breakdown still tears my heart apart -- it also shows Link emoting for once. He looks just as distraught as Zelda throws herself into his arms. I can see frustration, helplessness in his expression -- which makes it all the harder to watch. Now TotK obviously doesn't work because we aren't supposed to know what happened yet. Also, the whole 'becoming a dragon is to lose oneself' ... yeah, when the plot demands it. If we want an epic sword pull, the Light Dragon doesn't recognise Link, and thrashes around and tries to throw him off. It also doesn't recognise the threat from the Temple bosses (or the Calamity 100 years ago), but the demon Dragon (with the most convenient underbite in history, or Link would have been bisected), then it comes and saves us, and cooperates, as in it suddenly knows that we're Link and can beat this thing. It also holds off the last memory ... it wants to show us. ... so, is it a mindless beast like the other dragons who are just vibing in the sky and the depths, or is Zelda still there? Depends on what's convenient for the plot at the particular time.

[@tonyperez2703]

I totally agree with this but is anyone else upset that the fifth sage wasn't Paya, Impa, Purah, or another Sheikah???? Such a missed opportunity. Also I totally thought that the Zonai Researcher Tauro was actually a Yiga Clan member and was wondering if they were researching the sages to eliminate all threats to Ganondorf. It even makes sense because you run into Yiga disguised as researchers in the depths!

[@dorkinabubble7772]

Totally agree with your Sheikah sage wishes. I was thinking about the OoT parallels and was trying to figure out which Sage stone Ganon had and then if we would have a Sheikah? At the same time, cause I’m a Miyazaki fan, I really like the Castle in the Sky refs with the constructs. This is all why this game is basically fan fiction fodder for me where I fix all the mistakes 🤣

[@llamadrama1090]

the shiekah didn't exist in distant past

[@tonyperez2703]

@@dorkinabubble7772 Yeah I just wish they hadn't retconned OoT

[@tonyperez2703]

@@llamadrama1090 Yes they did

[@zoomie7]

It's not just the story but the dungeons were so atrocious. I can't understand why they thought "yeah everyone hated traditional Zelda dungeons, right? Let's double down on this decision again and keep them out!"

[@Jiirah]

I went through all of these stages of… emotion… because I found the Tears first too, while filling out the map, because I was excited to see the memories and see what Zelda and Ganondorf were doing (and also confirm/debunk previously thought theories about this Ganondorf) and then it was like… oh. Oh. And I put off doing some of the regional stuff for a while because in BotW, those had the “rest of the story” and when you were done with those… Ganon. So I thought “guess I wanna enjoy more of the game before I wrap up the plot…” and then finally I saw a guide on one of the armor sets mention “locked behind plot and fifth sage” and that made me continue with more enthusiasm. And I’m glad I did. Because it certainly feels like there is more to do for the “main quests” this time around, especially after the Hyrule Castle moment. I briefly thought “wait, this isn’t the end fight, right? Like, that’s in the pit…” when presented with the dialogue and challenges triggered at the castle. I was happy after that, finding more plot to do. I do prefer the Zelda games that have more… “reward of plot/story” behind the puzzles/dungeons (Skyward Sword kept me glued for more plot, happily chasing dungeons for the reward of more Ghirahim and more Zelda). So BotW and TotK are bit… off to me, in that way. I would like the absolute key points to be locked behind an intersection of the main quests, so you know. Help the regions, get a certain number of Tears, boom it unlocks the glue to the next sage. And then maybe THAT unlocks the core Tears related to Mineru and Zelda talking and such. But also like… make sure the Deku Tree has to be helped first, since he gives you a “find my sword” GPS tag.

[@TrashSpace69]

The animation sequenzes in this video look very cool. Good job :)

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words!!

[@velvets8719]

THIS WAS SO GOOD. Seriously can’t believe it only has 1.8K views?? So dumb. This is so well done.

[@DucksAreYellow]

I appreciate you!! Thanks for the kind words :) your comment helps the algorithm so you’ve helped get this to more people already, so thanks x2! 🎉

[@glitch0203]

You wanna know what’s funny? Zelda, if she had to go through that much time since the first king. She just probably saw her father again, same for the calamity, herself in that timeline, and we could’ve seen the light dragon in BOTW, it would make so much sense, at least to me

[@givmi_more_w9251]

And she didn't come to help with the calamity, like she did with the Demon Dragon. Doesn't make a lick of sense. Also, as for not seeing her, the devs will probably hide behind 'well, she's above the cloud barrier, where the dragons in BOTW disappear to after you hit them'.

[@rarkrk2681]

Had the same feeling about the game, and cool ideas btw to solve those interactions... Also like the disappearance of the Sheikah Tech could´ve been solved only with a diary (if devs didn´t want to do aditional dialogues or cinematics to explain).

[@BioAlpha5]

Im workin on a video and did a few livestreams with this info but it does make sense using all the sages elements, Sonia and Rauru too. Its all Alchemy. The Emerald Tablet. Mineru is the 5th Element. like how you mention at 18:38 that is exactly what happened actually. Just wish it was explained more than "Hey Zelda theoriest, Learn Metaphysics, Cosmology, Alchemy, Astrology, Shintoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and a lot more in those areas of research to figure out Tears of the Kingdom." And yes ive been doing so for awhile now lmao Great video! I enjoyed it greatly!

[@stickyriced]

I’m playing tears of the kingdom right now and discovered Zelda had turned into the light dragon a while ago, although I ended up playing through in a way where so far issues you pointed out in your video weren’t as jarring. I totally agree that It would be a great improvement if the characters actually acknowledged the fact the Zelda had turned into an immortal dragon like “guys that’s your princess up there! hello?” However it didn’t personally ruin the game experience for me as there are so many other things to do/play the game for

[@DucksAreYellow]

Stoked to hear that!! There’s so many cool aspects of the game to enjoy the devs did a great job

[@cookiediangelo8511]

You unrealistic idea doesn't seem so unrealistic and actually sounds really cute. Like somehow zelda can send her will to you, and she can't comunicate or anything. Would have been so cute.

[@DucksAreYellow]

WOULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN???

[@chase.y]

such a well put together video 🐣❤

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words!! 🙏🙏🙏

[@oshoucaps]

I am still on the same boat as you at the moments, months later >

[@maxenswlfr1877]

Also I just wanted Link to show any emotion, at all. He just learns his loved one basically died and just immediately runs around to pick up the flowers to make food He's more sad when cooking dubious food than when the princess dies

[@KyleEvra]

Because you are Link. 😂 I FEEL LIKE people forgotten why he doesn't emote much. Just imagine it in your Head. Silly Pronatalist.

[@SylviaCrisp]

It felt so tragic that she lost herself to draconficiation, but as soon as I checked with other NPC's, and the rest of the story, the sinking feeling of knowing where she really was was horrible. I felt this exact same situation you're describing in this video, the exact same feeling. For me, I've lost interest in the game becasue I played too much too quickly. I've speedran botw more times than I can count, but I can't think of much that I'd be missing 100%'ing totk now.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Totally valid :( at least we can commiserate together! Zelda’s draconification hit me like a truck too

[@thepurplejellothing]

I thought when I clicked on this video that you had thousands of subs, given the quality of the video is amazing. Imagine my surprise when I saw that you only have 653 subs. Now its 654 :) Great video, loved your opinions, and definitely agree with quite a few of them. For how large and epic the story looked I was shocked that it felt kind of lacking. I still love the game nonetheless. Just finished it today and I'm on my way to 100% completing it.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Good luck on your 100% journey!! And thanks for the kind words :) the video had 8 views and I had 36 subs on Friday 😅 but kind people like you found it, commented, and now here we are today and my head is still kinda spinning LOL. I’ll be streaming the rest of my playthrough here on the channel, so I’m excited to see what Nintendo has in store for me for the ending!

[@Wolfer02]

I shared your frustration because I finished the tears quest before I did all of the regional things, I think sometime before I did the stuff at Gerudo Desert (which was the last zone). I was determined to get every sky tower before I proceeded and the tears along the way. It upset me that the game basically expects you to find the tears last, and basically before then finish up to the fifth sage probably. They don't really have any different script in case you already know 'hey, that's not Zelda, she's over there(points at light dragon)', or even at least saw the flashback where Ganondorf had a Zelda doppleganger. I feel like Link knowing about at least that and being unable to say 'hey that's not Zelda' is kinda... eeeeeh. I will say the finale is very satisfying, but I know why you're disappointed and I get it. I felt the same to the point that I held off finishing it for a while and just went around and did sidequests instead, sometimes hitching a ride on Zeldragon and hanging out. Felt weird I couldn't tell anyone that she was... alive, though not entirely herself.

[@Yipper64]

11:32 it is really bizarre how after this point its like "well crap I have no idea where she is" as if Link didnt just see her turn into the dragon.

[@HumbleTeller]

The one thing that would've made everything better with Tears is having you go back in time with Zelda at the start. You'd experience the story as it happens, it'd be a completely different map pretty much, and would give more incentive to press through it.

[@Angelica-sq9lh]

Imagine if he finds a way to go back to the past, but he gets there late. Zelda is already the dragon, so Link chooses to transform himself into a dragon to live eternally with her It would be cliche, sure, but I would be BAWLING AT THIS (I haven't played BoW and TotK, but I'm so anxious to get them!!!)

[@kevinmayfield1547]

I went into the game kinda bummed that we lost Zelda again but was like "well nothing to it, let's go get bae back like usual". After receiving the "Find Zelda" quest I immediately went off to try to find the master sword because iconic look, bane of all evil, all that jazz I went for the master sword via the Deku tree, since it meant I can get to the sword faster. I pulled the sword and the cutscene played. And a sick sinking feeling manifested, why was the scene framed like that, what was that cutscene and why was it the last. Then I remembered the guides mentioned I could get the sword another way, the dragon tear's quest. I immediately started going all over to search for the tears trying to find out what happened, hoping that what I thought happened wasn't really what happened and was just one of those fan creepypastas what if scenarios. And then the final dragon tear's cutscene played. And I was crushed. I went to Impa, she said we might have lost Zelda forever and I was in disbelief, no way Nintendo was doing me like this, no way they're letting us see these two characters we love so much, who are already tortured by fate time and time again, get torn apart in such a cruel way AFTER showing us how nice their interactions now are. And then Impa couldn't accept it, I was like YEAH. She said she will look into it, "FUCK YEAH". She said she'll go back to Kakariko, "LET'S GO WE SAVING BAE". I went back to Kakariko and Impa was nowhere to be found. But then there was Wortsworth researching these sky tablets with ancient texts. So I decided to go to all the flower stone thingys to get pictures for him, maybe they'll tell us a way to get Zelda back and that's what Impa meant when she said to research ancient texts. I got all the tablets and Wortsworth deciphered them into daily lives retellings. He was estatic and I was distraught. But surely there's some way so I went to Purah. There wasn't an option to tell her, Link didn't tell her. Link wouldn't tell anyone. And then I remembered Botw was also like this. I got to find out about the champions, I got to find out about Zelda, I got to know how they see Link, how they treated him. And Link wouldn't tell anyone. He wouldn't say anything about how something so precious was taken away from him and he's all alone now. After all that, feeling defeated, I went and stayed on Zelda as she slowly flew around Hyrule. The quests weren't leading anywhere and I could only cope.

[@aniimazing]

i've been trying to find a video of someone talking about this because its been making me feel insane. this is the exact same reason i couldn't carry on playing, and no one i've talked about the game with really understood what i meant saying i shouldn't have rushed through the tears questline. but thats the thing when you make a completely free and open game. if people can play it in whatever way they want they will, which i love, but if theres a narritive experience running along side that there needs to be some boundaries. talking to the characters in the game knowing zelda's fate was painful. i would've loved nintendo to have, at the very least, locked just the last part of the tears quest where you find out zelda is the dragon until after you'd finished the regional quests. it would've made the mystery more interesting, pushed me to keep playing through the other parts of the game and also i wouldn't have to had dealt with the award dialogue about where zelda was. there were other issues i had with the game, but the narrative had such potential, its such a shame it was kinda ruined by something that makes totk and botw so good which is the freedom it gives the player. anyway, thank u for the video

[@ThePedroAmigo]

The one thing I really wish I got was more emotion from Link. He feels like a mannequin half the time.

[@sonicsillies]

right! i started skyward sword for the first time a couple days ago and i am not far in at all but link already expresses so much emotion. i love botw and totk link, but i just wish the game ended with him hugging her or SOME SIGN of affection. its obviously canon so why cant nintendo let him be more expressive 😭😭😭

[@Gogopowerandy]

Well, I think it all comes down to the philosophy about how the character is approached. Remember that the name “Link” is a stand-In for your own (and NOT Link Dees from To Kill a Mockingbird). They state his name in the game for voice-over purposes. But when he doesn’t “speak” or “emote,” my personal thought is that it’s blank slate for what YOU would say and feel. There’s an article from Fox Business that in 2016 Aonuma wanted Link to be androgynous, because Link is supposed to be all players, including you!

[@ThePedroAmigo]

@@Gogopowerandy While I understand that approach, I think that philosophy works best in the older Zelda games, where the story took a back seat to the gameplay (and the characters were mostly pixelated). In the newer, more expressive and detailed games, having Link be the only character who seem like a blank slate in a story full of vibrant, emotive characters make the contrast too strong in my opinion. And it's not like Link has never shown extreme emotions before. In Windwaker, his moods are clearly understood, and he is way more reactive. Granted, windwaker is a more cartoony game, so I understand the more expressive vibe. But at the same time, in Skyward sword, Link also showed more personality than in ToTK. Even if he is supposed to be more stoic, I think it would hace been nice with some subtle animation. If he reacted to the knowledge of Zelda's fate, showing some kind of increased determination to save her, it might have made the player more motivated as well.

[@Gogopowerandy]

@@ThePedroAmigo I agree. While I view the philosophy, it is rather frustrating that the main character doesn’t really react to the world around him. All we have are a “silent” protagonist, and implied speaking (the outstretched arms when he’s revealing something to an NPC).

[@c.nk.01]

@@Gogopowerandyi think it’s so stupid how they keep link as emotionless as possible to let the players fill in the blanks and then remove the one thing that allowed players in previous zelda games to connect to link - the ability to name him whatever you want. link in these games is treated as an actual character with actual thoughts, feelings, and relationships, but he feels like the most hollow, blatant self-insert avatar in the entire zelda franchise

[@UninterestingPedant]

My expensive alternative would be: after you complete Find The 5th Sage and the Dragon Tears quests, you return to Lookout Landing to find Impa and Purah talking to each other while waiting for you to get there (which also fixes the weird issue of them being siblings and calamity survivors who never directly interact with each other across both games). Impa reveals to you that through her research and talking with Purah/Josha/Tauro/etc. they think they’ve discovered that there’s a way to use the Master Sword and the Temple of Time to travel through time (as a fun callback). This starts a new quest named something like “A Link To The Past” where you have to bring some macguffin from the land Temple of Time to the sky Temple of Time to activate this time travel ability. Once you get there, similar to Twilight Princess, you enter into a special dungeon in the past that rewards you with the macguffin. This temple is a bit different though; as the Sage of Time, Zelda is able to manifest a bit of her powers to aid you in this special place, but not fully, so instead of her tagging along as a human, we get her ghostly avatar hanging around us (like the other sages once their quests are done). Once the boss is defeated and macguffin acquired, Zelda’s ghost departs, and you are back in the land Temple of Time with macguffin in hand. You then transport it to the sky Temple of Time, and once you get there, you travel back in time and finally get to meet up with Zelda - only to be stopped by an unknown magical force and forced to watch as Zelda becomes the light dragon, unable to do anything. Reeling from being unable to save her *again,* Link is pulled out of his funk as a new ghost shows up: the spirit of Sonia, who apologizes for stopping him and gives Link a pep talk where she explains that her time powers let her see into the future, and that in order to defeat the Ganondorf, everything had to play out like it did up to this point. She mentions that you have to rescue Zelda in your time, cheekily saying that you have to “recall” you and your friends’ abilities to do so. Offering some final encouraging words, she uses the last of her powers to send you back to your time. Once you get back, you go to Lookout Landing again and catch the group up to date about everything, and we get a second ‘the gang’s all here’ cutscene where they come up with a new plan: using the secret stones ability to amplify powers, the group comes together to capture the Light Dragon and restrain it long enough for Link to use a supercharged version of the Recall ability to wind back the eons and turn Zelda back into her Hylian form. One epic battle and heartfelt cutscene later, Zelda is recovered, and she joins your party in her human form (not ghost Sage form), where she uses her awaken light and time powers to aid you in the fight against Ganondorf.

[@UninterestingPedant]

Mechanically, I’d have Zelda be a long range battler similar to Tulin, shooting light arrows/blasts as she runs/floats along the outskirts of combat (or to be fun, have her teleport around and attribute to her time magic). Her special activation power would basically amount to at-will Flurry Rush against a targeted creature; temporarily distorting the flow of time around them to a near stop, allowing Link to get in close and lay the hurt down on them.

[@-lowquality-3384]

That’s a great video holy crap, hope you get more recognition soon!

[@DucksAreYellow]

I appreciate it! Comments like this certainly help :) I mean the video had 8 views and I had 36 subs on Friday when I posted it so I’m already feeling some recognition already 😂 thanks for the kind words!

[@brodywest8612]

I understand where ur coming from and i do wish they did implement the quest into the rest of the game. Things would've made more sense and it would've been more interesting. Also the ending is good and the soundtrack for the final fight is amazing

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words! I’m very excited to get to the final fight, everyone keeps saying it’s amazing! I’ll be streaming the rest of my playthrough here on the channel :)