The future I want for Zelda games

[@ratatoskr6324]

Misspoke. Botw sold 30 million not 300.

[@BrokeNSings]

Its still massive.

[@imaheadout2639]

@@BrokeNSingsyk what else is massive?

[@OlovPennerud]

​@@imaheadout2639pp

[@Dante-uj5pc]

@@imaheadout2639 no?

[@knockupwood]

​@@Dante-uj5pc low taper fade

[@mitchellradspinner4491]

Very much not a voice cast issue but voice direction. Multiple people in the cast are phenomenal in almost everything else they do.

[@thetraplord1564]

Agreed. The cast was quite good in age of calamity, it's totally a direction problem.

[@_elynas]

Also the script is pretty bad too

[@SigmundFrorg536]

Yeah, Matt Mercer is a good va, it's just that the script and directing sucks, plus I don't think he really fits the role either.

[@Jacob-ew2fs]

Classic case of the correct take being in the comments. Granted I agree with a lot of the other points in the video.

[@Veo87]

Yeah, I was thinking that too. The issue is probably more with the direction than the actor. The problem for me was mostly the sound of the English voices. Zelda's voice sounded super forced, like she doesn't naturally speak that high pitched, but she's forcing it for some reason. Mipha was even worse with that. This made them sound grating to listen to.

[@deedeedeedeedeedeedeedeedeedee]

You can tell the "climb anywhere, do anything" design is making it very difficult for them to make good puzzles

[@56ty_]

False. Bad puzzles have been around since 1986. Linear Zelda games have worse puzzles on average

[@hudsonweaver130]

@@56ty_ Hard disagree. Games like Phantom Hourglass have some of the most creative and engaging puzzles in the series, yet that game is very linear. ToTK's shrines felt worse to me than BoTW's. Games like SS or TP have dungeons like Sandship or Lakebed Temple that are in ways a massive interconnected puzzle that requires advancing in certain parts to get to other parts.

[@TheRealPSKilla502]

@@hudsonweaver130 Fun fact: The last 3 dungeons in PH can actually be done in any order, but it doesn't hurt the story structure

[@ProjectionProjects2.7182]

@@56ty_ Oh really? What makes linear Zelda puzzles bad exactly? 🤨

[@56ty_]

@@ProjectionProjects2.7182 a puzzle is either good or bad. It has nothing to do with linearity

[@TheMigBoist]

It's a small thing, but I hope Nintendo makes Link left handed again in future. It's a little detail that I always liked, and getting rid of it takes away some uniqueness from his design imo

[@Frederic_104]

100% Felt like Link lost all his soul when he became right handed.

[@Xoulrath_]

My kid said the same thing. She appreciated that nod being a lefty herself.

[@GerstnerBoi]

Hard agree with this one. There is hope since Link was left handed in echoes of wisdom.

[@Ertain1]

I agree.

[@FireRED-c8u]

Who tf cares?

[@phillystevesteak6982]

I think one thing you're overlooking about dungeons is that classic zeldas like oot had a unique mechanic the dungeon was based around (which centered around an item that you found, such as the boomerang or the iron boots). This dungeon item would often then go on to open up exploration opportunities in the world (like being able to boomerang a heart I couldnt reach before out in the world). This needs a return, as it provided a strong sense of pace and progression

[@Silas_MN]

absolutely. the progression of dungeons, dungeon items, greater overworld exploration is a core part of what makes zelda good imo

[@jeffboy4231]

yeah but that just wouldn't really work with the formula of botw, and unless they change it drastically it won't return. in botw you have complete freedom to go anywhere and even do the final boss as the first thing, that outright clashes with the idea of getting progression items in dungeons that would also help you explore more tho we kinda already got "items" from dungeons, the champion abilities, they helped out but never unlocked smth that you couldn't do before. that's the only thing they can do

[@Bunnibunnibunni]

@@jeffboy4231 the pros from that outweigh the cons imo, we def need a return to a feeling of progression. botw and totk feel sooooo boring when all the reward you'll ever get is a piece of heart or stamina

[@jeffboy4231]

@@Bunnibunnibunni i think that's just completly subjective and what you think about that is just dependent on if you rather like the journey or the end

[@phillystevesteak6982]

@@jeffboy4231 You're right that in a fully sandbox environment it would be impossible. I, for one, am not a fan of the breath of wild design philosophy, which throws all of the base mechanics at you up front it. Makes the entire experience feel samey. It makes starting a new game feel less fresh

[@PaulM68322]

I actually can't believe they had a broken Masterword and a fusion mechanic and didn't put two and two together where you keep the Mastersword all game and fuse to it. You could slowly upgrade the sword over time by slowly repairing it, and then you would only be using up the materials and not the weapon.

[@vanilla8956]

About menuing: When Wind Waker HD came out on the Wii U the devs were very boastful in interviews that they believed that it was the best example of the value of the Gamepad can add. And honestly I could agree. It felt great being able to swap items and use the map so seamlessly with it. When Miyamoto and Aonuma showed off BotW as a Wii U exclusive in real time, they showed off how the gamepad allowed for menuing like WWHD. Then BotW releases on Switch and Wii U, and the Wii U version has had all of it's unique menuing removed, as to not make it too competitive with the Switch version. The point is that BotW's over reliance on menuing was essentially an unfortunate accident. An unfortunate rushed job due to uniquely bizarre hardware optics. Yet, after it's historic success, they have decided to completely double down on it. Triple down on it even in Echoes of Wisdom. It feels like their thought process legitimately only goes as far as "menus were like this in the game that sold the best, so let's just replicate that" which worries me.

[@MilkJugA_]

This is a good point. It was supposedly a mistake, but they just kept going with it. It really makes the games just feel like mass-produced content that doesnt actually have thought put into it

[@Jonassoe]

Yeah there are good things and bad things about the open air Zelda games, but Aonuma and his team seem to have a really hard time figuring out which is which.

[@Silas_MN]

@@Jonassoe and the worst part is they don't think there's a difference, it's all good to them

[@jeffboy4231]

i mean, i can't really think of a system that would work that much better? unless you had a gamepad lol

[@MilkJugA_]

@@jeffboy4231 no timefreeze when going through weapon menu and/or gamecube twilight princess circular menu design. could also restrict weapon inventory slots even further, but have weapons drop more frequently when fighting enemies. the hilariously huge stockpile of items and weapons combined with a literal one dimensional menu makes it a slog, these things are somewhat solutions

[@michaelfidler6223]

The pirate takeover of the beach village is when it really started to set in the what I was hoping for wasn’t gonna happen I was so excited to fight some pirate I was hoping for a pirate ship dungeon. Same with the deku tree when you had to jump in his mouth I was certain it was gonna be a dungeon nope same mini boss both made me sigh and made it hard to get excited about unexplored areas

[@troykv96]

I think it would have been surprising if the pirates that appeared weren't demons, it could have created very curious questions, which I don't know if Nintendo wanted us to make, because it could be an outsider or making a non-Yiga human enemy faction. But it could have been fun without a doubt... Though, I believe even if they wanted to stick with the demons, I could have liked that the Bokoblins and Moblins were not only more thematic (having pirate attires and swords instead of clubs), but accompanied with enemies that are exclusively fought in boats, basically the boat equivalent to gibdo's being an unique enemy from the desert.

[@Preston241]

Agreed. It’s weird to even describe bokoblins as pirates. They’re little more than animals. Are they really raiding the coast and seas for booty? How did they even build their ships?

[@Unf0rget]

I put that area off because I didn't want to waste anything new. Then I burned out because game too big and never went there. Finding out its just more bokoblins was disappointing.

[@ShadowWizard224]

And by the time you save the village it literally goes right back to how it was in the last game. No differences at all. They even reward you with what? Oh yeah a stupid dance at the end that lasted like 5 seconds 😂😂 Same thing with the rito, goron, zora, and gerudo. They all go back to the same exact way they were in the last game with no differences at all. Besides maybe the tunnels beneath the Gerudo. But Exploring these places doesn’t feel as memorable or impactful as exploring them the first time around especially Hyrule Castle and Tarrey Town. I thought they could have recycled the surface a lot better with different dungeons and challenges but instead we get caves that all look the same with no reward at all for exploring them because the last 90 or so bubblefrogs don’t even get you anything. I wish these games actually rewarded you for exploration but they don’t and that’s my biggest issue.

[@MilkJugA_]

its really funny how the game apparently had a year of its development just being polish and bugfixing, yet fundamental issues like the most boring pirate takeover that feels like a fanmade mod of just spawning some enemies in an area remained unchanged

[@-Sparagmos-]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1878">31:18</a> the issue is not with the actors, it’s the direction they’re given. Matt Mercer is a great actor.

[@vanilla8956]

John Krasinski is also a great actor, but that doesn't mean he would be a good casting choice either. Being a great actor doesn't mean you have the range to do any role perfectly. And Matt just doesn't fit.

[@kabrozkabroz]

No offense to Ratatoskr but most people in these Japanese media adjacent communities just assume Japanese is the only good voice acting ever and just immediately write off any and all dub va

[@coreyacts]

@@kabrozkabroz the french dub is my favourite for botw, it feels like they were given more freedom to actually act and fit the tone of the original scenes by being more lenient with timings for mouth flaps and such, as well as the voice casting for zelda especially my favourite, her voice fits so well

[@scrapox217]

@@kabrozkabroz FFXIV has one of the best english dubs out there. Better than the Japanese dub of the game. With that said to prove that I'm not biased against English dubs: The English voice acting in the Botw duology sucks.

[@omensoffate]

@@scrapox217dawntrail says no.

[@boshwa20]

Rewatching a twilight princess playthrough made me realize how much i miss a more varied sword combo Hell, why doesnt BoTW and ToTK have a finishing blow????

[@godly_potatoe69xd19]

This kinda reminded me of how we get yiga powers in totk and then it ends up just being a ground explosion

[@spandi23]

@@godly_potatoe69xd19 My first thought when I got that power was "Oh sick, whats the next Yiga power?"

[@PixelPikmin]

I just got done replaying Skyward Sword last week and you’re so right. I loved all of the things you could do with the sword and it made Botw’s combat kinda feel weird

[@tezereth]

Playing elden ring made me realize how weak the swordplay in BotW and TotK. Only 3 weapons type, with so limited moves you can do, is crazy given how big of a company Nintendo is.

[@ShadowWizard224]

These games do have some cool fighting mechanics like flurry rush and shield parries which always feel extremely satisfying to pull off. But once you get used to it the fights become extremely tedious with the same move set and pattern every time. Like instead of having items we now have abilities.

[@ChEEsEmc]

potions or fairies being the only healing was so peak, it worked so well, especially in dungeons where it was easy to balance where players get the healing

[@goblez5900]

I like getting hearts from pots and grass too. But I don't like having to stuff 500 durians into my mouth.

[@inkterp5322]

Legit even if they just made raw materials not edible it would help

[@KoenRH2803]

Another problem I have with it is that TotK is often at odds with its own philosophy. The devs wanted to sacrifice everything for freedom and openness, like anything could be hiding around any corner at any time. The problem to me is that almost EVERYTHING besides the freedom to go where you want is tied to some kind of unnecessary predictable repeating formula: shrines and their rewards - all the same, the story beats within every region - all the same, the terminal structure of all dungeons and the way the story resolves - all the same, mechanics within the depths and sky - all the same. On my first playthrough that magic was gone after the first region and became almost a chore towards the last. such a waste, I don't know why they so badly want to keep formulating everything.

[@spandi23]

I didn't know why I liked the gerudo desert section the most in ToTK but I think it was seriously the gibdos, it was a nice bit of variety when the rest of the game just pastes the same enemy

[@Sam_T2000]

it’s definitely the most unique region, for various reasons 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@lucashummel5952]

I like it the most too and I did it first expecting all of them to be super cool too. They were cool just not at the same level

[@natesamadhi33]

the temple there was the closest we got to a traditional temple, with some interesting build-up. Nothing else in the game came close to it.

[@renren47618]

The desert part was the best part of the game, it was the most interesting story wise, the area had interesting changes and the temple actually felt like a Zelda temple.

[@theoaremevano3227]

I liked them, but was a bit let down by how easy they were to cripple. Initially, I thought back to their legacy and stunned them with a bright fruit, and was extremely satisfied by the fact that it worked. However, when I later found out that not only does lightning also work, but basically everything, including a little splash of wawa was enough to break them. Really takes the gas out of a satisfying solution when you find out practically anything would've worked.

[@jerryogpack]

Remove the ability to just pause and go into a menu and recover all of your health with food, it makes the fights way more dynamic

[@SeasoningTheObese]

But then they'd have to make a combat system that wasn't ass.

[@paczka695]

@@SeasoningTheObese Skill issue

[@WackyJacky500]

All they need to do is add a fullness meter. Add meals to a hot button and after 2 or 3 meals, you can't eat anymore....more immersive and don't need the menu during combat.

[@SeasoningTheObese]

@paczka695 The issue is needing no skill at all. There's nothing to get good at when there's a total of 8 enemies, and they don't really do anything to you.

[@WackyJacky500]

@@SeasoningTheObese Couldn't agree more....the enemy variety on BotW and TotK was some of the worst I've seen in modern gaming. Absolutely terrible.

[@Jonassoe]

Funny thing about TotK is that the tutorial island, Great Sky Island, was like a miniature classic Zelda game unto itself. You need to beat "dungeons" (shrines) to unlock new abilities in order to progress and unlock new areas. And funnily enough it might actually be the best part of the game. If the whole game had been built up like the tutorial area, but with a few bigger dungeons instead of a myriad of tiny shrines, and if you unlocked new abilities and weapons in those dungeons, it would have been a much better game.

[@Drstrange3000]

That was sadly one of the best parts of the game :/

[@GeddyRC]

That was exactly my complaint about BotW, except it was the Great Plateau.. that first part was one of the few things I liked about the game.

[@shanesimons8987]

Totally agree

[@PixelPikmin]

This is so true! I wrote this long review of Totk earlier this year and one of the main things I had when talking about the Great Sky Island was a good outline of how a modern Zelda game could be, but Totk just took structure and threw it out the window

[@blossom357]

Great Plateau was also easily the best part of BotW. The part where you chop down a tree to cross a chasm is brilliant and a potential sign of things to come for the whole game. Environmental puzzle solving? Hell yes. But then the game gives you a glider and you're never required to do anything so inventive again. Tragic. I hate both climbing and gliding.

[@TheLeetCasualGamer]

Problem that never gets brought up. Giving all tools at the beginning ironically loses that sense of interconnection. Interconnection is a buzz but to define it, when areas rely on each other. So it's when in order to get to area A, you need what you to get what's in area B, which what you got in area A is need for area X. If Nintendo is not dropping open world, I at least want them to drop the abilty to literally do everything. Not only does it allow more atmospheric set pieces to settle in, it allows more satisfying discoveries. I just sort of imagine this large variation of LttP Eastern palace where you climb large scale stairs while fighting off stone soldiers to reach a dungeon.

[@GeddyRC]

See this is exactly what I said when BotW came out and got called a boomer. Then TotK comes out and everyone’s complaining about exactly the same thing even though there is zero (ZERO!) difference between each approach. They’re the same exact thing - a starter area where you get all your abilities. Life is a big circle. It does feel validating that the consensus seems to finally acknowledge this shortcoming. Funny thing is that I liked TotK more, purely because Ultra Hand is awesome.

[@NottSaying]

@@GeddyRC I think there were two reasons behind those kinds of arguments in 2017. First, as stated in this video, there were a lot of new players who only experienced BotW and enjoyed it, and didn't understand the quality of past titles. Second, BotW went completely against the Zelda norm in too many ways to count, just to try something different. I can tolerate the bad story and dungeons of BotW because I understand that this was the first time doing this. Many people (myself included) only realized the full extent of the flaws after TotK came out, which doubled down on the worst aspects of its predecessor rather than fixing the problems that the new approach had made.

[@Road_to_Dawn]

THANK YOU! That's what I've been saying!! There's no sense of progression because everything you need is given to you at the beginning of the game. I miss getting permanent new pieces of gear and equipment that would change the way I interacted with the world and solved puzzles. But with the way the new games do it, there's basically no puzzle-solving needed to get where you want to go, no set order to do things, no "you earn the right to discover this location because you accomplished this thing and the other thing". I feel like Nintendo forgot that walls exist for a reason.

[@Excalibur5k]

Been saying this since albw. Once you got the ability to buy all the items from ravios shop, it just becomes alttp with an "unlock all items" game genie code. Is that what people want? Zelda games with a mandatory "unlock all items" cheat?

[@goblez5900]

I want a full 3D metroidvania Zelda where dungeons are labyrinths, and you only unlock them piece by piece as you acquire items. Like you only do half a wind temple, and fight a boss only for the rest of the dungeon to flood and you have to go do the Zora quest to be able to hold your breath for long enough to explore it. Interconnected dungeons would bring meaning to an open world.

[@legs-sama8116]

Tired subject but there is a keen difference between the quality of a voice actor and the voice direction they are given. Most of them are probably excellent voice actors given meh direction.

[@davidbeer5015]

A simple example of the difference: Roger Craig Smith’s Sonic in Sonic Frontiers vs in any other Sonic thing he’s done

[@Lucrei.]

Yes, but what that doesn't change is the fact that the voice acting (as part of the product) is shit no matter what caused it

[@davidbeer5015]

@Lucrei. While…yes, it doesn’t change that people have issue with how the voices in the game are done, that difference can affect how feedback is presented. If you just say “it’s bad” then that doesn’t give much feedback, and is the type of info that *could* lead to good VAs getting canned, or other wild decisions. If you can recognize and direct the feedback toward the direction, then that is info that can be better taken in and acted upon and the VA given better direction or allowed more room. It’s a similar issue to the dungeon feedback from BotW. So many people just said they aren’t dungeons/don’t feel or look like dungeons, with that being about where the feedback ended. So the aesthetic was improved and the idea presented of “it has dungeons now!”. But it didn’t change the structure, which was at the core, at least imo (and in a way, made it worse because you no longer had the “no climbing” limitation the Beasts had). Being able to focus one’s feedback can greatly help both discussion points and decisions based on that feedback. Itv points out where a true issue might be and can potentially help reduce the “throw out the good with the bad” decisions.

[@Lucrei.]

@@davidbeer5015 yeah that's fair, as this video is rather explicitly saying "this is what I hope they do" versus simply "this is what is wrong" I take issue with people nit-picking people's expression incessantly, but that is a valid point

[@amountless0]

Elden Ring with puzzles would go fucking crazy

[@tonysladky8925]

I don't want to just keep suggesting every classic series that's hit a slump should just be revived as a Soulslike, but you know between this comment suggesting a Soulsborne Zelda and my constant pining for a FromSoft Castlevania game, I'm not actually seeing bad ideas...

[@billhighwind]

Been saying this. All they need to do is look at ER, then Zeldafy it. I also think climbing everything should go and paraglider should go, give us grappling hook and hookshot upgraded late game.

[@obsolescentmystic2527]

Elden Ring with Dark Souls 2 environmental design in legacy zones

[@Kevo1492]

Stop trying to turn zelda into ds games

[@midnalight6419]

It's very zelda one. Difficult open world with dungeons you can access early. And there's even required traversal items to get around

[@PenneySounds]

What gets me about the combat is that even Ocarina of Time has a more complex combat system. In OOT, you can control horizontal, vertical, and diagonal swings, and even thrust. All of these change how you approach combat. And then there's the combat system in Twilight Princess. Absolute perfection. How they managed to rewind all that progress and end up with the most primitive combat system of any 3D Zelda game is beyond comprehension.

[@samlee6749]

Classic case of jumping randomly from one idea to another with no structure. The old Zelda's were as near to perfect games as you could get but they had to try and 'change' things and ended up ruining it.

[@KevZ7.]

I get why english-speaking people have complains with BOTW/TOTK VAs, but I think it's important to note how great of a job the others official dubs are doing, especially japanese, french and latam ones As a native of one of these 3 languages the voice acting was a joy to listen to in the 2 games

[@SeasoningTheObese]

The English cast had terrible direction. The voice quality was good, it just sounds like the director walked in and said "Ok everyone, do your best anime voice, you get one take, I don't do work"

[@mykal4779]

what is latam?

[@megamillion5852]

@@mykal4779 Latin America(n).

[@megamillion5852]

Huge respect for addressing the French dub. I used to go with Japanese in BotW to assist with the immersion of the characters speaking "Hylian," but I when I changed to the French dub, I knew I was never going back. It does everything so right that it's hard for me not to believe the characters just sound this way.

[@Veo87]

@@SeasoningTheObese Yeah, Zelda and Mipha have these high-pitched voices that sound super forced. They don't sound natural at all, which makes them grating to listen to. I don't understand why the directors went with those voices. I'm sure the actresses themselves could have done a fine job with more natural sounding voices.

[@kanaria-cu3uv]

I hate how in tears of the kingdom, I have to chase down a companion and interact with him/her just to use an ability most of the time you don’t even know where they are during the confusion of combat and when you do find them, they choose to run away from you, it is so fucking annoying

[@jeffboy4231]

yeah i honestly don't get why they didn't do it the same way botw did. have it be within context. so that when you hold out your bow and press A the thunder ability activates

[@viljamtheninja]

Incredibly frustrating. Hell, Mass Effect pulled off a wider set of friends with more complicated abilities and did that perfectly.

[@fysics5375]

The one thing I think is truly worse from TotK compared to BotW.

[@Goolix_Aero]

I just turned them off immediately as soon as I realised they function like followers totally ruining the whole atmosphere of exploration. Sometimes I turned Tulin on when I needed a mid-air boost but that was it.

[@mkjjoe]

Yeah one of the many things that show they had tons of ideas to throw on top of BOTW, but somehow couldn't figure out how to tune properly. As usual, to me the core issue is that they bloated the scope probably because out of pressure to out-do BOTW, though executed in some of the worst ways.

[@Limcube]

I need to make a video like this ive put 100dres of hours of thinking into this topic and I agree with many of your takes as you would probably figure. Thanks for the Video!

[@PatrickWard4]

What nintendo seems miss is that rules and boundaries actually make challenges much more engagement and fun, because you have to work within the confines to creatively solve a puzzle. If you can cheese your way through the fire template using ascend like i did, then most of the temple design becomes meaningless. What makes chess fun isnt that players can move however they want, it is that they CANNOT move however they want, the restriction makes chess both challenging and rewarding. I just played through ALttP again, and was blown away at much variety each dungeon had, each boss, and special characters within those dungeons that do not appear anywhere else. There are so many unique characters. Each boss is so fun, because they are all different and interesting.

[@Mirage475]

There are both sides to this argument. At the moment the Zelda team is trying to find the balance with structure and openness. The good thing about this, is that the Zelda team is VERY receptive to fan feedback (TP literally exists because of it). I think they are going to keep listening to fans to strike the right balance. I think the next 3D Zelda will be something special.

[@auginetic]

​@@Mirage475 it will probably be 10 years before we see it, and to be honest no I don't think they're that receptive especially not to their long time fans now that BotW is kind of the expectation with the new fans

[@Mirage475]

@@auginetic I disagree. Many changes were made to address criticisms in botw within the scope of doing a direct sequel that was mechancially similar. Sidequests, caves, and dungeons were all improvements to address content concerns. Now the overall idea of openness vs linearity is going to be something they have to continuously work to find a balance with. EoW showed they are trying to strike that balance with linearity with dungeon design slowly returning to it's older format. Going forward I would like shrines to be the more open puzzles, while caves could be more linear lock and key style like older titles. I think the next game will arrive sooner than you think, but I have faith they know what people's main complaints are.

[@Drstrange3000]

I find it interesting that a lot of people cheesed through the fire temple, including myself. It was one of the most frustrating and poorly designed dungeons I have played in. What a headache.

[@XanderVJ]

​@@Mirage475Neither TotK nor EoW make any attempts to fix BotW issues. Seriously, I hate that level of coping. If anything, most problems have gotten worse, not better, because in most cases they keep doubling down. Specially when it comes to puzzle solving. EoW has the exact same problems as its two open world predecessors, being able to do anything with two or three echos you can easily get in the first few hours. Even the supposed linearity of the dungeons is half-baked at best, and not real at worst (I'm looking at you, Water Temple!). Seriously, I'm baffled that you or anyone else sustains that thought for even half a second.

[@ridori7376]

I don't think the voice acting is necessarily a problem with the actors, rather it's the VO direction that I think sucks. We know from many interviews with Elden Ring voice actors that Miyazaki is highly particular about his direction. He gives a lot of feedback and makes them do a LOT of takes before they settle on one he likes. That's how we got the downright incredible voice acting for Igon in the DLC, and all the others as well. Voice actor performances are only as good as the direction they're given allows them to be. As you said Matt Mercer is a great voice actor with a lot of range that has given us amazing performances in the past. If even HE sounds like a generic boring bad guy as Ganondorf then I don't think it's fair to blame all the other voice actors for their performances. Zelda in particular I feel is being directed to do a fake high pitched tone that doesn't fit the actress' voice at all, which is why all her dialogue is so painfull to listen to. It would be like hiring Michael Caine to play Alfred but telling him to act like an anime girl. Of course it's going to be awful, even if he's probably one of the best actors alive today.

[@radagussy]

Was about to come comment this too. Zelda’s voice actress ironically sounds better Age of Calamity than in BOTW and in some scenes in TOTK which is more proof it’s a direction issue and not an actor issue. I think Nintendo just doesn’t have experience in knowing what a good director is for voice acting vs a bad one especially for their English translations which are arguably the most important. Link not having a personality at all in the English translations but having a personality in the Japanese menu feels related to this as well idk how

[@lukeyost7566]

Matt Mercer is by far the most overrated voice actor… he sounds the same in practically everything and sounds like a DUB voice actor not an actual voice role

[@radagussy]

@@lukeyost7566 having a recognizable voice doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the range or talent to do this specific role better if given better direction. Your comment gives me the vibe you’re one of those weebs who plays games like this in Japanese no matter how good the English voice acting is so your opinion is irrelevant

[@LaserFace23]

​@@lukeyost7566I agree with you, Matt Mercer is basically just the new Troy Baker, where he's basically put into everything because he's got a nice and deep voice. Unfortunately, while Troy Baker is able to capture some of the subtleties of the characters he plays, to the point where it actually becomes acting rather than merely voice work (like in the recent Indiana Jones game where he genuinely sounds very close to Harrison Ford), I haven't seen anything from Matt Mercer where I can say that he gets those subtleties down and makes me forget I'm just listening to Matt Mercer.

[@lukeyost7566]

@@radagussy the comment below gives a great example in Troy baker… so I’m not just a, “weeb”

[@rossini472]

I also think optional dungeons that aren't telegraphed to the player would be amazing. Imagine stumbling upon a dungeon with a unique boss at the end!! That was one of my favourite things about echoes of wisdom!

[@natesamadhi33]

Yup, and giving us secret items that are still helpful.

[@Psychx_]

I would very much love to once in a while see a Zelda game that honors its roots again and catches the art direction, feel, atmosphere and dark tone of OOT, MM and TP.

[@auginetic]

this is the core of the problem I think. if we consider top down and 3d separate genres, why can't we separate the 3d games into two categories, one being linear and more traditional and the other more open world? Nintendo has the money to have multiple teams working on different games

[@CaptainAtria]

"Roots" Ocarina of time is the 5th game in the franchise and is almost unrecognizable from the formula of link to the past or zelda 1

[@Geostelar4920]

@@CaptainAtria The 5th game in the franchise of over 20, and what many people think of when you speak of Zelda and like...AlTTP is actually really similar to OOT in terms of story structure and what you do OOT just expands on it

[@PhoenixRiseinFlame]

You speak of “roots” but, if anything, BOTW and TOTK are far closer to the open world experience of Zelda 1. Far more than OoT

[@Psychx_]

@@PhoenixRiseinFlame I should have expressed myself more clearly because I meant the "roots of 3D Zelda".

[@leon3589]

I cannot express to you how I miss Zelda. The feeling of getting the new Zelda game, and playing it for the first time. The adventure I was about the set off to. The art, the story, the quests, the characters. I could forget about everything in that moment, and just experience something that existed only in Zelda. I miss that a lot.. And while part of it was just the nature of childhood, if I pop Skyward Sword (a hated one at the time), I will relive that. I feel like whatever Zelda does it just needs to recover that feeling for me.

[@SLAMTUCKER]

Nintendo is apparently done with classic Zelda but what burns me is that all the Zelda clones are just not as good. I've had an itch I've been wanting to scratch from Skyward Sword 13 years ago and I'm now realizing if this next game doesn't do it, it'll never happen.

[@grantopo]

​@@SLAMTUCKER Have you tried Tunic? Closest to that feeling imo

[@Etienne.6329]

It won't. You're just not a child anymore. That's the harsh truth and has nothing to do with game design.

[@SLAMTUCKER]

@@grantopo I haven't. I looked into it, and was kinda on the fence about it. I guess I'll give it a shot, thanks.

[@SLAMTUCKER]

@@Etienne.6329 This is just patently false. There are simply no games like old school Zelda being made in any significant number. And if it's about the special feelings you have as a child, guess what? I feel that sense of wonder playing old games for the first time nowadays (if they're great) or new games. I hate this argument, "reductio ad nostalgiam."

[@alexadelaide]

I would still consider ocarina to be an “open world” for all intents and purposes. Why is it necessary to open it further than that? Being able to go in any direction is why I play Minecraft, not a game with any kind of plot

[@viktorthevictor6240]

Good point

[@CorichCortex]

I wouldn’t mind a linear game like Ocarina of Time for future titles but I also enjoy BOTW/TOTK open world as well.

[@viktorthevictor6240]

@CorichCortex I love botw for what it is, and I can forgive its flaws. I can't forgive totk for repeating those flaws. The next open air zelda should have a smaller world with more focused design.

[@ApexEater]

Just make real dungeons with real traps and puzzles. Make the plot very linear and the overworld very explorable for farming up to defeat the dungeons.

[@OFCRKAY]

It’s crazy how much I agree with you. I remember playing through TOTK and feeling so let down by the “temples”. I knew they wanted to make the open world and shrines the center of the game so they made the temples simple and less significant. But I lamented and questioned why can’t we have an open world AND good dungeons/temples. I explained to everyone I knew that Elden Ring was an open world with big, intricate, themed dungeons with amazing mini boss and boss battles. Throughout this video I kept thinking about how much of what you’re saying can be simplified down to “please take notes from Fromsoftware”. Which is exactly what Nintendo should do. One more comment: I recently made a diagram of the path a player can take for OOT and DS1. They follow a similar flow to EOW according to your description. You start with one goal and part-way through the game the goal changes. There is also branched paths that the player can take at times. In DS1 you can choose to go to the bell above or the bell below. Then after you ring both bells you can choose which of the 4 Lord souls to go after, in any order. OOT starts off more linear as kid link but after you get the master sword and complete the Forrest temple you can choose between fire/water then between spirit/shadow. Which is a tried and successful use of restriction and freedom. It’s all got me thinking about how FS was inspired by Zelda games. They picked things that worked and innovated/improved on that those things.

[@Merp9]

Wind Waker fixed this issue, they had the best of both worlds. They had a huge open world, but the main dungeons were is a specific order. All the next Zelda game needs to do is just give the abilites in a certain order

[@Weatherman4Eva]

My issue is that botw/totk don't "feel" like youre playing the legendary Hero of the franchise. You might as well be some random bum picking up a stick and fighting your way to earn better loot so you can beat the bigger bad guys and pick up even better loot. You just feel like any ol looty rpg type character that happens to be pretty strong and happened to pick up the "main character" weapon which in this case is the sheikah slate

[@Preston241]

Absolutely. At no point was I Link. There’s very little in the game that feels like a Zelda game even.

[@MrSiggismund]

Finally someone who thinks that as well. That was one of my main problems with BotW and TotK.

[@megamillion5852]

I never understood this take, but from a story angle, I guess it doesn't help that this version of Link isn't grounded in any humble beginning like the others. He was just always great, and always destined to be great. It's very flat when compared to the underdog nature of OoT Link's origin, or the lazy islander of Wind Waker's.

[@-cody-9691]

Tacking on to this: Minish cap - Smiths Apprentice, TP - farm hand, ALTTP - literally just a kid who accepted the duties of his uncle who dies in a castle sewer. Humble beginnings are a staple of Link's character, and part of what made the player feel like they were becoming The Hero. It's kind of the point of the whole "Hero's reincarnated spirit" that link is having to rise to these new greater-than-himself-challenges when he's been sort of normal his life up to that point.

[@soulkibble1466]

@-cody-9691 a common theme with Link too was that he was also a pretty laid-back and sorta lazy guy who'd prefer taking naps or lounging around. Hence why many of the games usually started with some character waking him up because he overslept.

[@goosewautier]

In my opinion Miyazaki should direct the next Zelda as well as every other game. We must invent cloning for this very purpose.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Miyazaki Presents: Checkers

[@joesheridan9451]

Elden ring is the Botw of souls though and a lot of people hope they go back to the more focused, non open world games

[@iambob300000]

@@joesheridan9451 If he directed a gritty, linear non-open world Zelda game it would be GOTY instantly.

[@iopklmification]

TotK and the original BotW trailer were inspired by Princess Mononoké, so it makes perfect sense

[@goosewautier]

@ a tag team of both miyazakis even better. Hayao and hidetaka

[@williamhardee8863]

It just sucks because I know there’s a lot of people who don’t like the classic 3D Zelda formula because they did it so much, but my first ever Zelda game I played was Twilight Princess. I was too young when Skyward Sword came out to be actively looking forward to that game’s release, so the first 3d Zelda whose release I was able to anticipate was Breath of the Wild. It sucks because this is literally my favorite series of all time, and I’ve never been able to look forward to a new Zelda game coming out that actually has the elements in it that made it my favorite series to begin with.

[@Mirage475]

It's tough. People are more likely to complain online than to give praise. So lots of people are going to reminicse about the old style of Zelda compared to saying how much they love the new style. With that said, never assume the Zelda team isn't listening. Your first Zelda game TP was made out of response to fans wanting a more mature Zelda. Look at totk too. They had much better side quests, caves, and tried to have better dungeons. They are always trying to appeal to as many fans as possible. And the next 3D Zelda I think will reflect that goal too.

[@zero-pl3tt]

@@Mirage475 Yeah, i remember a time when people online were hating on the classic 3D Zelda formula, especially after Skyward Sword, which definitely influenced the direction the team took with Botw, kinda funny we've looped all the way back to people being nostalgic about that game and the older formula in general.

[@XanderVJ]

​@@Mirage475 TotK doubled down on BotW, it didn't improve shit. Side quests are just as bad, caves get boring extremely quickly, and dungeons are objectively worse than the divine beasts. If you think they are better just because they added a shallow coat of paint to make it look like they cared a damn about old fans feedback, you have some serious media literacy work to do.

[@williamhardee8863]

@@zero-pl3tt I think it’s two entirely different groups of fans who have completely different views on the Zelda series and why they like it. When we were getting traditional 3d games, the loudest voices were the ones who were sick of them, now that we aren’t getting those games anymore, the loudest voices are the ones who never had a problem with the formula to begin with and wanted them to keep going in that direction.

[@Road_to_Dawn]

I empathize with you, totally. I'm coming at it from the other side, being that I grew up on Zelda and have been around to witness almost every Zelda game's release. I grew up on Link's Awakening and the Oracle games, and I've played every Zelda that's come out up through BotW. Zelda was always something I was excited about, always eager for the next game. I miss having that anticipation, looking for news about another Zelda, because BotW was the last one I was excited for, and I ended up hating it and not finishing it. It became my least favorite Zelda, and as soon as I saw that TotK wasn't doing much to fix my complaints, I began to think the series was over for me. But I'd like to at least try Echoes of Wisdom to see how I feel how well it handles its ideas, and I've always preferred 2D Zelda to 3D Zelda anyway.

[@Karp_Dominion]

I know that Phantom Hourglass is such a hit or miss with Zelda fans, but I think it epitomizes the feeling of freely exploring while also being on the story’s rails. I really miss the feeling that you get from old Zelda games that was very much so missing from BotW and TotK.

[@Road_to_Dawn]

Wind Waker had that for me too. It was open enough that you could check out most of the islands at any time, but it was also structured to where you had to accomplish things in order to access more. It was just the right amount of "open" for me. It's interesting to me how WW is my favorite 3D Zelda, and then BotW is my least.

[@megamillion5852]

There is so much that can be said about the failures of the Wild Era's combat. It's as if all of BotW's base systems were judged solely on the experience in the Great Plateau, when beyond that, it becomes clear how quickly everything falls to stagnation. Some fans insist that the game has great combat because of how complex it can be when broken, but for as genuinely impressive as those techniques by players like Kleric are, I think it speaks to the game's faults that it must be so greatly exploited (and pull away from the intended experience) in order to substantiate this idea. The best weapons are evidently single-handed types, as they give you access to shields, parrying, and provide overall decent coverage with little or no sacrifice. Spears almost don't matter unless the enemy also has one, in which case, you're better off having a shield ready for when they do that sudden poke move, then closing the distance is no problem. Heavy weapons, as you noted, are the absolute worst for wasting your time - and don't particularly sell the power they're meant to convey. Now, all of this is relatively fine while on the Great Plateau, since the strengths are more clear against weaker enemies who can't touch you because of your spear, or die quickly against a heavy hit, but the game expects this to keep being fun the same way once they reach the point of damage-spongery. Why, then, in a game partially about Link's past as a knight, are there no obtainable additions or modifiers to the moveset? Twilight Princess did this, and it was only further capitalizing on the mechanics first implemented in Wind Waker. It would've been so easy - hell, obvious - to have a quest surrounding the “Royal Guards' Scrolls,” or something, detailing forgotten wisdom in the form of combat techniques, found in locations that tell the stories of those who left them behind. Think the Guardian husk in Eldin that was implied to have been defeated by some mysterious traveler. It's just endlessly baffling to me that the first canonical interpretation of Link as a knight actually has the least flexibility to show for it. Another suggestion is that Nintendo could've repurposed the old format to Skyward Sword's sensibilities. Essentially, the directional based inputs and enemy design could be done without a reliance on motion.

[@IOwnKazakhstan]

I honestly don't know why echoes of wisdom is treated as a spinoff. For all intents and purposes it's a mainline zelda game. And it's pretty much exactly what everyone's been asking for since BOTW came out, and no one's talking about it. People have been asking for a game with <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1764">29:24</a> "Linear dungeons, linear story, but, a free and open world between them.", and dude, that's literally what echoes of wisdom is. They really should have hyped up the game more because I didn't buy it for a while thinking it was a gimmick game but it's not at all. I personally think the formula they used for echoes of wisdom is as close as you get to what people want the "future of zelda" to be. Open world, but still linear and story driven. If they find a way to scale this up to a TOTK size game I think it'll be great.

[@Pencilman246]

I was about to say… people are pretending like the most recent Zelda game isn’t exactly what people have been asking for. It’s a traditional Zelda with dungeons and story but you have abilities that let you explore the entire map from nearly the beginning. And, like other “linear” Zeldas, you have a choices on which dungeons to do first without ruining the story. You also get new abilities with each dungeon that add to the Metroidvania feel. I think Echoes of Wisdom threads the needle very well but nobody wants to talk about it because they’re still mad at Tears of the Kingdom. I’ve always preferred the 2D games anyway because of their emphasis on creative puzzle design over combat.

[@natesamadhi33]

you pretty much answered your own question in a way; because of EoW's design-choice, it doesnt feel as "big" and "grand" as TOTK/BOTW. and also, EoW wasnt marketed as heavily as TOTK/BOTW was either, so the hype/fanfare isnt there like before.

[@ThatGuy-ky2yf]

Dungeons also aren't as good as the ones in Zeldas prior to ALBW

[@matheusdalbem6605]

Zelda "fans" don't carte about those games, they just want to bitch about what they think the games should be based on their half-baked knowledge on the medium and terribly corny ideas.

[@Robin-lg6mz]

Tbh Elden ring felt more like classic Zelda than botw to me, idk why

[@GreatWhiteElf]

The dark souls formula, is almost exactly original zelda. Just with many improvements and additions

[@somponz]

the dungeon design is actually good thats the difference

[@robertspeedwagon982]

Contrary to Nintendo, Fromsoft kept the more "contained" style of level design the previous game had with Legacy Dungeon, which for the most part work similarly with Zelda dungeons (except you have a bunch of fights instead of puzzles to progress).

[@boshwa20]

@@Robin-lg6mz Nah, Dark Souls 2 felt more like Zelda

[@godly_potatoe69xd19]

@@boshwa20yeah especially the dlcs and brighter art design, as well as the structuring of the dungeons and more inside segments, I can see that, I think ppl just shoot straight to elden ring because it’s generally seen as better

[@reachthroughreality]

Zelda has always been a puzzle based Metroidvania. If you can solve puzzles anyway you want to and go anywhere you want, what's really left?

[@firenze6478]

Thank you! So sick of people spouting that “It’s just like Zelda nes.” Zelda nes is also a metroidvania that has areas that cannot be unlocked without certain progression. If anything, elden ring is like zelda 1.

[@5.99USD]

That is an extremely nonsensical and dumb take to have considering the first Zelda game came out before Metroid and Castlevania even existed.

[@firenze6478]

@ what is your point? Zelda being older than Metroid doesn’t disprove anything, it just means that it should be called the Zeldavania formula instead

[@KazuyaKujo-Kun]

@@5.99USD I hope you can respect that Metroidvania is being used as an article of terminology to refer to the ideas that define the gameplay.

[@5.99USD]

@@KazuyaKujo-Kun Why are you referring to the gameplay style with the names of games that didn't create the gameplay style?

[@Cheesedragon117]

You're so right on the whole gameplay section. Modern Zelda is going stir-crazy from freedom.

[@nuggie4huggie23pp]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="250">4:10</a> YOOOO when I first played TotK I remember asking over and over “do these Mfs really not understand that that thing clearly isn’t Zelda?”😂😂

[@tylerherr4288]

i love skittybittys reaction to the phantom ganon armor lmao literally everything wrong with totk is summed up in that one skit lmao

[@DouglasWalters-b1r]

I don’t. The individual sounds like a 12yo yet to hit puberty.

[@ultimate8948]

Same, I had to rewind a few times because of how it just caught me off guard lol

[@chrisrey0018]

@@DouglasWalters-b1rcry about it, we hate totk!

[@mkjjoe]

@@DouglasWalters-b1r the tone and lengthy video made it repulsive to many, but they had very relevant points throughout the video

[@Snowstorm...]

It's kinda depressing seeing videos like this where people just describe what I wanted BOTW 2 to be like when I first played BOTW on the Wii U. I've been waiting for them to do all of this since 2017 and instead Zelda has basically been stagnant for the last 7/8 years

[@Lucrei.]

It's been such a bad time for Zelda fans that had no issues with the old formula When you think about if we've really been waiting since 2011 and Skyward Sword

[@goblez5900]

Zelda became a ubisoft game 😔

[@tonysladky8925]

What I want from the next Zelda: 1. Not a continuation of BOTW/TOTK. They're fine (-ish), but A. they have a lot of baggage in the fandom, B. we've spent a lot of time in that aesthetic already, and C. we're going to be on new hardware, so we should see something new. Even if it's still a big open world with similar mechanics to BOTW/TOTK, a different look and a different iteration of Hyrule will go a long way. 2. Serious old-school dungeons. Give us a mix of combat and puzzles. Give 'em distinct, cohesive theming in terms of architecture, enemies contained within, treasure, bosses everything. And give us a mix of combat and puzzle challenges in the dungeon. Don't just make enemies that get in your way when you're trying to flip a switch or something; those rooms where the door locks behind you and you have to beat a tough fight to get out are classic Zelda. Also, my personal preference: make changing the dungeon layout a major part of their traversal. I'm talking stuff like the twistable hallways of the Forest Temple or the big central pillar of Snowhead Temple. 3. Bring back Dungeon Items. You've kept a Hookshot out of my hands for far too long, Nintendo. Honestly, I think you could go a long way towards achieving this by just spreading out the acquisition of whatever the new game's equivalent of Shiekah Slate and Ultrahand powers are. Instead of giving you all or most of them in the tutorial zone, giving you one per dungeon would do wonders. Re: Menus I wish I could convince developers that having a lot of options isn't the same thing as having meaningful options, nor is it the same as verisimilitude. Like, if I can fuse a fire crystal or a fire fruit to my arrow and get a fire arrow either way, there's no good reason to include a menu to choose which of those items I use when I just want a fire arrow. Modern Zelda has a serious menu bloat problem, and I think the problem is that fundamental mistake. Obviously, there are some parts of the open world and experimentation experience where you want players to look through their whole inventory and try mashing different items together, like building a boat or a rocket shield or whatever. But I think at a certain point, the developers have to say "The player is just looking for a ranged fire attack in this situation. We should make getting that as simple as possible."

[@jeffboy4231]

dungeon items would destroy the entire idea that botw and totk have. they will not return unless they change the formula all together. also there is obviously a reason on why you choose which item you choose to use for fusion??? some items are more rare or you just have less of them.

[@joshuahart153]

Dungeon items can still work. Basically you make them necessary for the dungeon, and useful but not necessary in the overworld. Let’s take the hookshot for example. You can add the hookshot in a dungeon that requires you to use it to stick to walls and traverse gaps that would be impossible otherwise. In the overworld, you can use it to latch onto and scale walls and cross gaps more quickly, but it’s never made necessary to reach something. This maintains their design philosophy while also including classic dungeon items.

[@kreenbopulusmichael7205]

I think the worst part about dungeons is that the solution is so obvious.... just make the Sage power something you get in the middle of the dungeon instead of at the end, and then make the second half of the dungeon require the power in some way like the old days, easy peasy. its actually amazing to me they didnt do this, it was such an obvious solution to the complaints of BOTW

[@have_a_good_day420]

*PREACH!!!* I could have written this myself word for word. I'm so glad someone finally agrees with me and is not a BOTW/TOTK fanboy. I couldn't agree more 👏 💯

[@cocob0l0]

I’m pretty sure, especially taking into account that they’ve confirmed TOTK will not get a DLC, that the Era of the Wild is over

[@3X3NTR1K]

Wish fulfillment ahead! - The flashback based lore could have salvaged easily. Have each memory or tear be a kind of key item you collect, which not only has requirements to access properly (having all the previous ones) but that can also trigger alternate dialogue for Link when possessed. And for the tears specifically, just *imagine* if instead of a cutscene we were playing as Zelda and walking around the area talking to everyone present. How much more lore could have been stuffed into the game that way? More than enough! - Imagine if breaking weapons actually had progressive benefits. It would have done wonders to have even something as simple as a "weapon exp" mechanic that increases the durability of a given weapon type every time you break one of them. That could be expanded in many other ways: special attributes for that type; special abilities with them granted by mastery; improving Links core stats as total mastery improves. And there are a lot of other ways to make that kind of consumable based system feel satisfying in every way WotW/TotK seriously lacks. - And fusion! So many ways they could have made it work, feel and look better. For one off the top of my head; replacing multiple arrow fusions with instead fusing the bow itself once and/or replacing arrows with fusable quivers would have made a world of difference. Add at least some nuance to how fused equipment works (change more attributes than just strength or a bit of typing) and looks (don't REPLACE the base weapon all the way down to the damn hilt!). - Autobuild? Require actually using parts that can be converted to what you need. Zonai parts can be exchanged for others, stone metal or wood cohld be reshaped, and it would pull parts from the nearby environment before your inventory. ...I won't get started on the sages. They needed a 100% rehaul. God I wish it was possible to mod these games in any meaningful way.

[@ryanames4168]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1685">28:05</a> regarding the post-dungeon cutscene, i really see no reason for them to do the same exact cutscene over again instead of telling the story of the war from different perspectives, it comes off as really rushed and half-baked and this really disappointed me.

[@wowitsfrostygames155]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1213">20:13</a> nah remove durability but for one reason: it actually does put a damper on every reward you get. what i mean by that is, i go through the effort of doing something, and it rewards me with a shiny new weapon. sick! ah but wait, if i use it itll break eventually and my reward is just... gone. at the very least stuff should be repairable even when broken. but i remember my first playthrough, and weapons were always the worst rewards because i knew in the back of my mind this reward is only temporary. meanwhile, i remember the first time i found the greatsword in elden ring, and the absolute joy i felt as slamming strength instead of life into my levels despite the consequences of doing so. so yeah remove durability. cool swords should be the BEST rewards next to new fashion, and its kind of ruined with durability.

[@firenze6478]

Yeah, durability sucks in non-survival games

[@rainbowkrampus]

I liked the durability, it forced you to be versatile and learn to make the most of anything to hand, rather than just mindlessly grabbing a favorite weapon and using it for everything. The whole premise of the game was using whatever was to hand and not becoming overly reliant on any one thing. Like, if you were running around and grabbed a Royal Greatsword early, you would never need anything else the rest of the game. You'd never find yourself, say, dropping weak metal weapons in a thunder storm in order to blast enemies that pick them up with lightning. You'd just unga bunga with your strongest weapon every time and never put any thought into anything. Then you'd be complaining about how boring the combat is (Zelda combat has always been boring) and how it doesn't build on the game's mechanical motifs.

[@firenze6478]

@@wowitsfrostygames155 KZbin!!!!GOOGLE!!!! STOP ERASING MY FKNG COMMENTS!!!

[@firenze6478]

@@wowitsfrostygames155 one day we need to mass sue google and KZbin for constantly erasing our comments for no reason

[@jhank0cean]

​@@rainbowkrampus You're missing the point of the comment. The weapons & armor can be repaired. While not specifying how, it makes it impossible for you to continue using the item. As in original Dark Souls games you had to repair weapons at a blacksmith. Not something you could do on the fly. Keep durability. Allow repairs. Having something you worked for disappear entirely is just overall a stupid concept.

[@bullphrogva1804]

Food can still heal, it just has to be a healing over time that gets interrupted if link takes damage.

[@bullphrogva1804]

Think like World of Warcraft food mechanics.

[@badilostykes]

This would actually be pretty good for healing out of fights, or reward skilled play.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

Or, Limit the amount of food you can carry It's astonishing weapons are limited, but not food

[@Sam_T2000]

need a fullness meter or something, and a much more limited inventory 👍

[@XanderVJ]

​@@jesusramirezromo2037 Food is also limited, or at least, meals are. It's just that the limit is ridiculously high

[@Bova-Fett]

Bro is just describing Elden Ring

[@WackyJacky500]

BotW and TotK had some of the WORST enemy variety I've seen in modern gaming across the board. It was absolutely abysmal.

[@jadcen]

It's insultingly bad. And I mean that seriously.

[@Lucrei.]

It's really bad. ESPECIALLY for Zelda games which have always been incredible in that particular area

[@Anglerbe]

skittybitty (whose TotK vid is clipped several times in this video) brings up the point that TotK literally has fewer enemy types than the original NES game

[@WackyJacky500]

@@jadcen The underground depths is like a full size world map....and there was one unique enemy down there...ONE!! The baby lizard things - and they just get 1-shotted every time! An absolute joke.

[@WackyJacky500]

@@Lucrei. 100%. Look at Echoes of Wisdom...MASSIVE enemy variety. I was like where were all these enemies in BotW and TotK????

[@Jyoryaxx]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="868">14:28</a> When I played TOTK, I went off in a random direction, because you know open world, and I got to Lurelin before doing anything else in the game. At this point the pirates killed me almost instantly because 3 hearts. So I spent a while figuring out how to get rid of them with weird tactics, which I did, and being unintended this was way more difficult then everything else the game has to offer. After doing all of this, I got rewarded with Lurelin village, which I then proceeded to never go to, because it gives you more of the same stuff you'll always have anyway. The way I see it, a large point of open world games is that you might go and do something completely unexpected and end up with a different experience from everyone else, and if you accomplish something you wouldn't be expected to, you find an interesting reward for it. Skyrim does this to some extent, even though there's more to see than to do. But the game that succeeds at this most is Elden Ring. I think a large part of why Elden Ring is so great, is how great the reward is for doing anything. The best reward for accomplishments is story content and cool stuff is a close second. Elden Ring does both of these well, and TOTK does neither at all. Even the bonus chests in the shrines are the same stuff that no one has inventory space for, because no one stops for the Koroks.

[@jeffboy4231]

who tf doesn't stop for the koroks?

[@Jyoryaxx]

@@jeffboy4231 I have never heard of anyone stopping for a Korok after the first hour unless it's to mess with the Korok.

[@Goblinoid-o]

Avoids the method for expanding weapon slots then complains about not having weapon slots loll

[@Jyoryaxx]

@@Goblinoid-o I never run out of weapons. You don't need the weapon slots and it takes 20 minutes to get a single Korok seed, doing the same thing over and over again. Never has it been useful because there are weapons everywhere.

[@Jyoryaxx]

@@Goblinoid-o I never run out of weapons. You don't need the weapon slots and it takes 20 minutes to get a single Korok seed, doing the same thing over and over again. Never has it been useful because there are weapons everywhere.

[@ChrisPTenders]

I think TOTK could have easily had a vastly much better dungeon situation if they just took all the stuff they cooked for shrines and strung it together in the underground space. Rather than peppering shrines everywhere, they could have taken notable surface areas and reworked them into entrances for one big dungeon down below. Each entrance could only allow you to go so far until you discover another dungeon entrance nearby on the surface that will unlock further progress or give you a hint to the location of another entrance. That way we'd be trying to find all the entrances so we could solve the massive interconnected exploration based puzzle of the underground by solving the content from smaller shrine puzzles repurposed inside of a giant underground super dungeon, where solving puzzles will feel like progress because you will get to naturally move to a new location rather than being teleported right back where you started, in an empty open world that we already explored to the fullest years ago. They could use NCP dialogue to hint at entrance locations. They could even have added sky island puzzles that would give us a sure fire option to navigate to entrances on the surface as an alternative to poking around on the surface with a limited perspective. That would solve my three biggest problems with the game: 1. Surface exploration lacking direction and feeling like filler 2. The underground feeling completely meaningless to explore 3. The puzzles being chopped up into tiny pieces and crammed into tiny obstacle course hallways that all look the same and feel like completing them doesn't aid in any kind of exploration goal

[@MrInternetMan]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="805">13:25</a> I'm gonna blow your mind. It's pronounced Skulltchulla. Like skull-tarantula.

[@have_a_good_day420]

"You just blew muh fricken mind!" -George Bush (Karold and Kumar 2)

[@xSilentZeroXx]

That part about the enemy variety really hits the nail on the head in a way that everyone else touching the topic misses the point of. Adding 8(?) new enemies to the game doesn't really matter when they're all just copied and pasted all over the map. It's just more stuff that gets tedious to fight after a while. And I mean, they were barely added anyway, Bokoblins are still 80% of what you fight just like in BOTW. Enemies do a lot to make areas feel unique. Resident Evil 4 wouldn't be the same if the island Ganados showed up in the village and castle, or if the Armaduras showed up on the island. The fact is, environmental hazards in BOTW/TOTK really don't amount to much. Too cold? Put on your anti-cold gear and proceed. Too hot? Put on your anti-heat gear and proceed. It's the same solution. The biomes don't make any difference. The weather kind of does, but it's not even an interesting difference because all they do is hinder you. There's no upside to being in the rain. The optimal play is always to just wait the rain out when possible. So yeah, proper enemy localization would've fixed a lot. Honestly, it really does feel like Nintendo has forgotten how to make games. Because when any other studio releases a game with more than four enemy types (the ones that fail in this regard are best left ignored because they don't really make games anyway), they tend to do this exact thing. It's game design 101. P.S. Nintendo needs to make the bold move and stop putting Bokoblins in stuff, at least for a while. They're too generic and universal. Nintendo has been leaning on them since Wind Waker (Bulblins are Bokoblins, don't even pretend they aren't), and it's only gotten worse.

[@OniNaito]

Skittybitty is absolutely THE surprise out of nowhere legend zelda content creator of the year.

[@KtWaffles]

Actually very true, they are so awesome!

[@ozandis127]

The healing system is the biggest reason I couldn't get into BOTW or TOTK. I just feels so cheesy to max heal at any time with no downside. As long as you have food, you're unkillable.

[@chiragmidha2878]

"if you disagree with me you are wrong 😂😂"

[@Valstrax420]

Botw fans.

[@heyitsyaboi8419]

@@Valstrax420as if there aren’t many detractors that act the exact same way 😭

[@crakhaed]

Human nature in a nutshell

[@BaronSterling]

I would honestly prefer future games stick to just sword and shield, but with a more fleshed-out and in-depth moveset, with enemies designed with that moveset in mind. I would rather they go for Sekiro combat rather than Elden Ring combat.

[@jeffboy4231]

i think you would like twilight princess

[@BaronSterling]

@jeffboy4231 I do!

[@SLAMTUCKER]

I honestly think Ocarina of Time has a fantastic combat style that no game has ever really followed up on. It's so ridiculously fast and all about pokes and movement. The other Zelda games don't really play like it and there isn't another game I can think of that's similar to it. I mean yeah it isn't perfect by any means but I wish they went back to that style and spiced it up.

[@Logicalleaping]

I think if Axes, Spears and great swords where treated as Dungeon rewards to solve puzzles that would be fine. I think Link is the sword and shield guy so thats how it should be but other weapon types could be cool for puzzle solving. Big tree in the way? Use the Axe as the sword can't cut it down. Switch out of reach behind bars? Use Spear to stab through and hit it. I don't think the weapons need to be used as 'weapons' as such. Just look at the Hammer in WW, its basically useless in combat but still fun, its mainly a puzzle solving tool.

[@natesamadhi33]

Yes, and we can upgrade sword techniques/power with new, magical upgrades as we progress.

[@prakash_d_ace]

The future I want for Zelda: She marries Link, they have a child, and their child becomes the protagonist of a new IP.

[@cappy2282]

Lol no!

[@Dante-uj5pc]

Elden Ring DID solve the big Legacy Dungeons in an open world, and its combat is (almost) great. Red Dead Redemption 2 had an awesome story despite being open world. Botw and Totk brought free exploration, and a great physics engine, to the forefront. So we basically need to mix all three of these and we good bruh

[@basementreviewer788]

No ''almost'' about it, ER has the best combat From ever did.

[@jeffboy4231]

@@basementreviewer788 oof that's kinda sad.

[@Mirage475]

@@basementreviewer788 Nah Sekiro Clears it easy. From Soft has their garbage camera still and Elden ring was somehow worse with it.

[@Bunnibunnibunni]

@@basementreviewer788 its literally the same combat that des ds1, 2 and 3 had verbatim. sekiro is the only time fromsoft has evolved on their own formula and made fast based bosses actually interactive

[@UltaFlame]

Part of the problem with totk's post dungeon cutscene and I'm expanding upon your point that they did it that way to make sure you have necessary information after the first dungeon, is that they don't do any check to see how many dungeons you've finished before. This would allow subsequent dungeons to have either a truncated scene - or, in less lazy options, an expanded one. Where each subsequent sage offers more information, potentially because as you release their spirits, already freed ancient sages can appear in future cutscenes. This allows the dungeon quests to deliver something of a story arc. Heck, you can have a sudden story shift happen after beating half of them that requires you to go do a new quest and straight up locks the other half of the quests until you do it, and maybe your third and fourth dungeons are changed by this plot beat? Their puzzles made harder, layouts more restrictive. Then each playthrough could be different and it'd encourage replayability

[@Jyoryaxx]

Celeste is a good example of multiple solutions to a puzzle instead of the same four. The way it accomplishes this is by having the different solutions be in the terrain, with different possible paths, inspired by actual rock climbing, and the play-testers finding ways around the original path. Zelda could do something similar with its own puzzles, by limiting what you can do on your own, but having variety in the tools the environment itself will offer you.

[@TheObiareus]

Nonlinear storytelling can be done well. Outer Wilds is my favourite example of this, where you are given tiny fragments of the story everywhere you go, and it is up to you to piece it all together and to figure out what to do with that information. Return of the Obra Dinn is also a great example of this, where you have to solve murders by viewing the memories of the victims in the seconds before they died. Memento, though a movie, also does this really well, where you alternate between scenes from the beginning and end of the timeline, slowly moving towards the middle in which the climactic scene takes place and everything suddenly makes sense. The common thread between all of these examples is that they are mysteries of some sort in which the player/viewer must piece together the fragments that they are given. This keeps you engaged, and for video games it can be a great motivation for exploration. BOTW does not do mystery at all, and though TOTK tries to have the mystery of “Where is Zelda?!?”, it does not actually let the player figure this out for themselves and instead arbitrarily locks the information behind the last memory.

[@Etienne.6329]

Yet, it would have been leagues better if it wasn't scattered around randomly with a time bomb over your head.

[@TheObiareus]

@@Etienne.6329 No. Outer Wilds would have been a pretty boring game if it were told linearly, finding Nomai logs and figuring out what they mean is what makes the game fun and is your entire motivation for exploring. As for the sun exploding, yeah it can get annoying sometimes, but it does serve to force the player to explore somewhere new, which keeps the game fresh, and is ultimately necessary as there are time specific events which need to be reset. I will say that the reset is very annoying in the DLC, as you have to backtrack to the same fucking place at the beginning of each loop, wasting a good chunk of your time.

[@keyamazed1038]

Elden Ring with legacy dungeons that are puzzle oriented and not combat oriented. That's really the best starting point they could have. Even Elden Ring understood (mostly) how to balance player freedom with the old Dark Souls style of dungeon crawling and progression.

[@marcoasierrabernal4893]

They need to decrease the map size most of the map is empty or uninteresting anyways and get rid of 100 shrines thing, instead use those resources on creating 5 big complex dungeons.

[@Logicalleaping]

How big are these 5 dungeons? I don't know why we've been getting less dungeons than most games in these last entries. MM had 4 dungeons too but it was also a game made in 2 years not 7. I want to see the classic return of 3 dungeons, story beat, 3-4 more.

[@pyql8399]

Excellent video!! Ι agree with all you said. Three things I really hope to see in future Zelda games: -Bring back the fairy music and file select screen when you start the game. -Either make Epona have a part of the story and be your horse, or don't have rideable horses in the game at all. Maybe a bit extreme lol. Honestly don't mind if you can ride other horses, but I don't like how Epona got shafted as an optional Amiibo that you can kill with no consequence. -All biomes should have a purpose and a place in the main story. Depths and Sky Islands were cool but utterly pointless and had no part of the story, which is still bizarre to me.

[@FunkyDealer654]

BotW was the first Zelda game that got me hooked with the series. Before that, I’ve tried getting into Windwaker, Twilight Princess, and Majora’s Mask. But something about them didn’t click with me for some reason. It was until after completing BotW that has made me interested revisiting those games. And to my surprise, I’ve found myself appreciating and enjoying them after the knowledge I gained from BotW’s freedom. To the point I played almost every instalment afterwards. The stories were more interesting, the puzzles got me engaged to brainstorm about the solution, I really cared for the characters and companions, etc. When TotK came out…I loved it for the first few hours… But for each play session, it slowly became apparent to me that this felt like a step down from not only BotW, but for every 2D and Linear 3D Zelda game I’ve played prior. This was a really good video btw. 👍

[@diamondinmyeye6160]

The thing which frustrated me the most about TotK's story is that it didn't have to be told out of order. If the glyphs didn't have hints to the memory inside, then each could have just led into the next part. It wouldn't solve the problem of being able to not engage with the story, but at least it wouldn't spoil itself.

[@mondaysman5253]

Someone show this video to the zelda dev team, you sir are the voice of the people and I can't help but agree with everything you said in those 32 minutes. Great job 🔥

[@MSDGAMEZ]

I don't mind the open world but I think it needs more stuff filled in the world. Not so barren. Cool side quests and real dungeons you can go into like skyrim or something

[@fysics5375]

Did you not play BotW and especially TotK 😂

[@Reevin]

I remember when i first played botw. The first 'dungeon' i headed for was the water dungeon. When i got there, i was anxious. The game had been difficult so far but i had gotten used to the mechanics. So when i entered the elephant, I couldnt wait to see what kind of beast of a challenge this dungeon was going to be. By the time i got to my third button i realized that was all this dungeon was going to be. I felt that disappointment for many hours afterwards.

[@obviouslyPSM]

To fix the food mechanic link should have a stomach meter where he can only eat so many calories in a given time.

[@TakumiJoyconBoyz]

Genshin Impact actually fixed that very issue at launch.

[@djinnspalace2119]

like minecraft?

[@Hegaems]

​@@djinnspalace2119no, more like terraria where there is a cooldown to consume potions

[@iwannaplayssbb6665]

another totk please, but with structured dungeons where you can't use your skills to cheese them, I honestly LOVED vanilla TOTK, and I'm a classic Zelda fan (been playing since Zelda 2, still have the golden NES cartridge), I'm currently replying it using the Challenge mode mod that adds golden enemies, horns, and unique mini bosses with new weapons and materials to fuse, they also limit the amount of healing items you can carry, and you can only heal from cooked food, meaning you can't just eat 40 apples during battle to heal, they also did a lot of tuning and re balancing that makes the game more fun, I also added other mods that make the game more interesting: -Unique weapons (big goron sword, Dusk Sword, ETC) are unbreakable and have unique modifiers (Dusk sword also serves as a shield and parries always disarm for instance) -Zonai devises do more damage, and last forever (minus rockets and batteries) -Sage followers attack more often, have voice lines, and are no longer ghostly, you can also equip them with your own weapons! it actually feels you are traveling with them! -You can fuse gleeok horns to staves and wands to shoot MASSIVE gleeok fire/ice/electricity balls, this makes Gleeok horns far more useful and also staves and wands -the Master Sword is unbreakable, does 60 damage instead of 30, always heals when you land hits with it, and when you fuse something to it, the material becomes invisible, so you always see the sword and not the horn you attached to it -elemental dragon armors protect you from cold/heat/electricity, other armors were buffed including the cosplay depths armor -moving your stick backwards, left, right or forward will change Link's combo, like in previous 3D games (this is great as it allows you to do sweeping attacks with spears, stabs with two handed weapons and strong slow attacks with knockback with small weapons) if you have a modded switch/ can play on an emulator, YOU GOTTA check the mods available for the game, it's insane how active the modding scene for this game is!

[@ChrisFV]

I feel like the menu heavy interface is because Breath of the Wild was made as a Wii U game first, so a lot of the menu and weapon selection I can see it being designed with the game pad in mind. When it was change to a cross gen title, they had to heavily rework the inventory system, it wasn't perfect but it worked for what they had. TotK was made on the same engine so it was probably pretty easy keeping it that way. So maybe next time they'll rework the system so it isn't as menu intensive as these last 2 games

[@TheLamartian]

They didn't have to rework the inventory system. They chose to make it worse for both versions because the Switch version wouldn't be able to support the pre-existing system of the Wii-U HD Zeldas. They didn't want the Wii-U version of the game to look favorable to the Switch version. This is a lousy decision. The excuse that "TotK uses the same engine and many of the same assets as BotW, so it's okay that the inventory system still sucks" doesn't hold water with me. TotK was an opportunity to correct a mistake. Instead, Nintendo just did the same thing again - made worse with the Fuse mechanics - and then did it AGAIN in Echoes of Wisdom. At this point, it feels like they are looking more at sales numbers and trying to keep a good thing going than anything else.

[@irlshrek]

In programming there's a quote that i think nails it "liberties restrict, and restrictions liberate"

[@rainbowkrampus]

More than anything, Nintendo need to trust players again. That, I think, is why TotK was replete with bizarre choices, a disjointed narrative and what amounted to a series of unsatisfying choices for the player. All of the parts of a good game are still there. But they failed to trust the player to be able to handle a novel reconfiguration of them and the whole thing collapsed as a result.

[@chwethington]

In terms of the cut scene story too, the “freedom” they wanted actually ended up spoiling me for their own story. I was doing the tears in any order I came across them (not the order that’s gently guided) and I ended up coming across the cut scene just after minerus death as my second cut scene.

[@joestromo2592]

People should also focus on Nintendo's new interest with emergent gameplay. Different interacting systems allow novel encounters/situations to arise that even the developers maybe didn't imagine. I think this is the major direction for upcoming Zelda games. Freedom to be creative does not necessarily mean freedom to be overpowered. I'd love to see dungeons like BotW Hyrule Castle, except underground and with more interactive systems.

[@owen-tv9dt]

I agree with this. The overlapping systems make the world feel more mechanically satisfying as the journey becomes less about exploring and more about teaching yourself how things work. There's a lot to learn in totk- certainly more than a zelda's worth of puzzles. Lots of other worlds can be really pretty but a lot of what you see is just set dressing. I mean it's great to have both don’t get me wrong but yeah the pros of this need to be stated more.

[@Hegaems]

They only go halfway of making an immersive sim

[@PaddyLonglegs]

The main problem I had with the open world is the word 'open'. One of my favourites aspects of older Zelda was uncovering nooks and crannys around the whole map that had such a different feel, even the underground cave with a cow in it in OOT. With Breath Of The Kingdom Tears you get the feeling you can see everything there is by just standing on a mountain top and look out, heck most of the map can be seen on the game box cover!

[@blossom357]

What now? I don't even care. This series is completely alien to me now. I will admit, I was excited for the idea of an open world Zelda when Breath of the Wild was first showed off at E3. Especially with Miyamoto teasing "Maybe there's a dungeon in this cave?" But I had no idea what that would entail. It's become an Ubisoft-styled Gary's Mod Frankenstein monster with bite sized shrines that have no personal identity. Elden Ring did a better job at what I imagined an open world Zelda might be than Zelda itself.

[@Christian-w8q]

Remember the tech demo video they had on the Wii U with the refined twilight princess art style? God I would give anything to get a "TP evolved" style game, with proper dungeons, amazing OST, amazing characters, proper dungeon items, etc

[@teero121]

the emulated footage is just beautiful. most nintendo games really "only" need 60fps and a decent resolution boost. the base is already gorgeous but their ancient tech really holds them back.

[@TRM520]

I enjoy the Zelda games, both old and new. But your suggestions here pretty much mirror my gripes with the most recent titles. I hope they improve combat; make more complex legacy dungeons; add more unique enemies; improve exploration and quest rewards (whether that be healing item upgrades, new permanent skills, revamping the durability system for more meaningful (possibly upgradable) loot); and tell a more linear story with less memory cutscenes. This is a well-made video that I hope someone at Nintendo sees and takes into consideration for the next game in the franchise.

[@HabituallyTireed]

So I love Zelda, I got back into my love with botw, and had only played twilight princess before that. Botw got me into the lore, the universe and it had me asking so many questions that I also asked when I played other games like oot or Majora's mask. So I was so damn hopeful for totk. I thought wow they're gonna answer some of these questions we've been having for 20 years. Then nope. They just decide to make a bunch of new story, with the same mechanics of botw but somehow more boring. So disappointed.

[@JesuSoup]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1045">17:25</a> I disagree honestly I'm surprised they didn't just do something like what Terraria did. You can eat food or whatever to heal health, but then you just have a timer till you can consume another health regen item. This would be perfect in these games imo, also make the timer not go down when paused ofc, and how long the timer is should scale with how much health an item healed.

[@OfficialOscarinas]

As a fan of the originals, this is a very concise breakdown of the core problems with the new Zelda formula. It's not about railroading the player, its about allowing some authorial intent to provide identity and focus.

[@Yama-qg3il]

bruh seeing Breath Of The Wild in 60 fps with such high res is making me upset at how ass the switsh specs are. Even in machines such as new gen consoles like PS5, devs continue to keep 30 fps as the standards expected performance, and all this ai generated fps and upscaling is ruining the standards too.

[@rainbowkrampus]

You should see it with ray tracing. It's kinda crazy. Tanks FPS though.

[@jeffboy4231]

well the switch 2 i gonna be pretty awesome

[@schikey2076]

@@jeffboy4231 stop believing every rumors you see and wait for official release...

[@justsomeguywhoneverdies9210]

I can agree with your opinion in dungeons. But the linear thing, I think they should keep it as the main quests, and let the players decide if they want to have a linear experience by following the main quest. And if they want to explore the world on their own, they can do that do. The reason why BOTW exploded when it came out and Elden Ring now in many people's opinion are some of the best game ever is because they have the *freedom* to explore the world on their own. Because you can't satisfy everyone, keeping linear experience in the main quest is the best thing they can do. Like there is a reason why most people go to Hateno and Kakariko first, it's because of the main quests

[@Ashlet69]

I loved your critiques. Very thoughtful and well spoken. I feel like a lot of folks go into aggressive hyperbole when they do a negative critique of a game. In my opinion that hampers the value of the criticism. For me, it helps that you know what you want. It makes it easier for me to think about why I agree or disagree with something you said. I think it would be valuable to analyze why we think Nintendo *won't* eschew the open formula. Accepting it as something they simply will not abandon is nihilistic imo. We don't know what the future looks like.

[@newearth9027]

wow never even thought of that but the estus flask idea is exactly what this new zelda formula needs

[@raulio3440]

Funny thing about everything about this, I disliked BoTW for the exact reasons they dislike ToTK, and I liked ToTK for the same reasons people loved about BoTW. I wasn't a fan of BoTW so that's why I loved ToTK more than everyone.

[@OlovPennerud]

Me too

[@DetournementArc]

A few scattered thoughts: • Really feel like the Pre-BotW 3D Zelda formula should remain in the rotation of new games the same way 2D Zeldas do. Would be lovely to get a modestly sized OoT style adventure between big releases. • It might also be a good change of pace to let another studio take a whack at a Zelda the way Capcom helped out with the Oracle games & Minish Cap. Platinum isn't doing fantastic at the moment, but I remember years back, people playing Okami and going "Yea the Clover Studio alums in Platinum now would make a great Zelda." • I'd like to see a Zelda set in a roughly 1910s-1920s world, technologically. Maybe the game could do a Two Worlds thing where one is all this primal magic and the other is basically the islands and towns of Porco Rosso. 15 years ago, I'd never believe High Tech Fantasy would bore me as much as it's starting to, but here we are.

[@brittig8983]

You know it's bad when I was more excited about the Echoes of Wisdom reveal than I was about the TotK reveal. I was hopeful TotK was going to solve some of the issues from BotW, but found it even more guilty of them in several ways. An overabundance of freedom can destroy the perception of progression or challenge. Echoes of Wisdom leaned into the strengths of classic Zelda while still adding fresh elements. I'm still hoping they find a way to bring back that sense of structure, but I'm afraid we're going to have to continue to pray for the B team to put out classic style games instead of having the mainline entries incorporate what made the old games have staying power. When games like Skyward Sword gain a much more positive reputation a full decade after release, it really shows how strong dungeon design is essential for these games. When TotK lost a massive amount of its initially positive reputation less than a year after release, it really shows that we need a real sense of progression. Once you get through the first dungeon, it all just starts to feel the same. They created a system where they stop introducing mechanics after the third hour, there's no difference besides stat increases, and thats just not fun. Finding a new tool in the old Zelda games was a literal gamechanger, and it felt GOOD.

[@Theonly_z_Official]

Yeah although I find echoes of wisdom uncanny and a rip off to Links awakening. And I am still unanswered with: Why is impa old? Why is king Rhoam there? Seriously, I don't even think Impa being old could match anything with king Rhoam being alive..

[@kingcobra6766]

Dude I thought I was only one who didn’t like the fuse ability. I would often times fight enmities without fusing my weapons or use Blue lizard horns or a white Lynel horns cause they were the only fuses that actually looked somewhat ok.

[@theoaremevano3227]

I liked it quite a bit functionally, but I did very much dislike the way many things looked. There are several cases where I just wished they'd change the angle of the fusion so that it looked a LITTLE better. XD And why the hell did one of THE most common high-tier materials (silver bokoblin horns) have to be a weird little noodle with a bud on the end?

[@zelda1571]

I loved it but wish the mechanic had been more embraced, with unbreakable weapons but breakable fusions, so we could get more meaningful rewards in weapons with unique effects and make them powerful with temporary items. The apperance is a seperate issue and I agree that more fusions should look cool

[@Sk4llyWag]

1h clubs and swords do actually have different attack animations, but they're *basically* the same movesets.

[@WadeAllen001]

I personally enjoyed BotW a lot more than TotK. I still enjoyed TotK, but it largely felt derivative of BotW, less like a game all its own and more like a revised and expanded version of what they already made. It didn't really improve on what I thought were BotW's biggest problems, those being a bare-bones story, and too simple, too short, and too few dungeons. And in some cases I thought it actually did things worse than BotW. For instance, TotK had more repetitive gameplay elements (such as helping Addison put up a sign 100 times) and was often more hand-holdy and less exploration-focused (such as how you discover and unlock fairy fountains. Rather than finding them yourself, they're placed on the map for you), the way your sage powers worked was way worse (rather than being a button press like in BotW you have to interact with a companion, which is chaotic and annoying, especially when multiple of them are active), and the story was worse, or at least was delivered worse (like what Limcube mentioned about fake Zelda appearing over and over as if for the first time, or how the game weirdly sometimes acknowledged the events of BotW but also forgot about them or contradicted them). If TotK is any indication of what another open world Zelda game looks like, I hope they go back to the style of the older games, at least for a little while until they can think of some fresher ideas and solve the problems brought about by this design style. Also the next Zelda game should just adopt what Tunic does for healing (which is somewhat ironic because Tunic is inspired by Zelda games). You start with one potion (that once you use is gone until you rest, and resting resets all enemies like a soulslike) and you discover pieces of more potions so you can get up to like 10 of them. Plus you can upgrade the potency of your potions.

[@SLAMTUCKER]

Great video. Agree on just about everything. I think there's basically only one way for the series to make a game worth anything if Nintendo refuses to go back to the older style at all. Basically just make everything Great Plateau/Eventide Island x1000. You constantly have to figure out how to get to places, chopping down trees, rafts, etc. Basically can't fight enemies straight on at all and have to keep using tricks. It would be a ridiculous project and almost certainly wouldn't quite work out but that's basically the only way they can do it. Anyway... what I want is like... 'interstitial' content or whatever. Dunno how to put it. Like in Ocarina of Time, the Graveyard has like 15 things in it, some are easy and simple to do it, some are more involved and need time travel or whatever. But it's just this random area, you don't even have to go there really at all. Along with the much better dungeons and story, this is what I miss the most from older games. Just the weird, bespoke, not codified or refined content and side stuff. Oh, also, Ocarina of Time had pretty fun combat that IMO hasn't really been followed up on properly. Obviously room for improvement, but there really isn't anything like it. It's so fast and all about pokes. I can't even think of a game with similar combat. I just that that style back, jazzed up.

[@blakeblanderson]

Honestly, even having stuff like rupees and bombs as a reward more often would be better than just weapons all the time. Really annoyed me having to constantly get rid of something I wanted to keep just to receive my reward.

[@PixelPikmin]

I think Nintendo needs to scale back the size of the world and find a perfect mix between both styles of Zelda. Give us a smaller world (1/2 Botw size?) with more fleshed out dungeons, side quests, and more enemy variety. The shrines should be retired and instead we get about 8ish main dungeons and a few optional mini dungeons. Also a better story please, Botw’s story was pretty good and interesting because it was told in memories, but Totk is probably the worst story in the series because of the loose storytelling via memories. Games like RDR2 and Ghosts of Tsushima show that you can do an open world game with a linear story/structure

[@franciscosoffia4175]

I was looking for an analysis like this for a month, nice work dude!

[@DJWoozie]

simply taking the loading zones from OOT makes it open world. i hope they learn this when they go to design their next "open air" zelda

[@biggimmicke]

I think armor should have been a significantly more meaningful reward, to the point where fully upgraded armors created entire gameplay styles. The ancient weapon armor making ancient weapons stronger is a start, but i think marrying the stat bonuses of armor with the accessory effects found in Echoes of Wisdom and you would have had a more enticing reward