Tears of the Kingdom Lore Is Not Interesting

[@ratatoskr6324]

I don't know why I said it came out 10 months ago. Obviously it has not.

[@creamofthecrop6743]

I just wish you were wrong about the rest of the video.

[@SolDizZo]

I just searched "Tears of the Kingdom is a retcon" and all the videos I find are "It's Not a Retcon!!!" etc. Kinda frustrated how Nintendo let all of these people down and all we have left is copium. Exactly like my copium for Metroid Prime 4. At this point I assume whatever we eventually get for MP4 will not be worth it.

[@kabrozkabroz]

@@SolDizZo Well it's definitely a retcon of the whole lore (or at least in TOTK universe?) but I once saw someone declare it retcons botw and I don't think it retcons botw much at least

[@signa8]

at some point, someone is going to watch this and it will have been 10 months.

[@themoviecritic1092]

@@SolDizZo Idk MP4 seems like it could be. I mean, look at Pikmin 4

[@Vsauce596]

It was so dissapointing how the first teaser back in 2019 seemed so story focused and nothing in the game even came close.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

No truer words have ever been said 😥

[@pitshoster401]

They did the same exact thing with BotW's final trailer back in 2016

[@erenyeeagah204]

same but kind of expected i cus the final trailer for botw seemed jsut as story focused and we all know th ethat games story turned out

[@UndyingNephalim]

@@pitshoster401 Indeed they did. BOTW's final trailer was extremely cinematic and made the game look very heavily story driven, and the game was not at all. I swear the internet has half the memory of a goldfish.

[@pitshoster401]

@@UndyingNephalim tfw even TotK's trailer was just a dlc for BotW's

[@alexanderackerman3807]

I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece of a story in this game, but I at least expected it to be consistent with breath of the wild. I never got immersed in the TotK world because the story and world building were so poor that I was completely taken out of the world every time some important npc didn’t recognize me, or some major landmark changed, or the game acted like I had never did something that I did many times

[@lemmy154]

so you complain abot this game looked dlc, but when they built it different you act like hey no this is supose to be the same thing as the same as the past game

[@SeeMyDolphin]

@@lemmy154Nintendo fanboys trying to understand the most simple principles of storytelling be like:

[@lemmy154]

@@SeeMyDolphin so?

[@ACW-dn9wb]

​@@lemmy154So, you clearly didnt understand buddy boy.

[@lemmy154]

@@ACW-dn9wb yeah i dont undertsand the crybaby complains

[@firestarex3544]

What drives me crazy is that TOTK's story is, literally verbatim, BOTW's. Evil invades Hyrule, the king gathers skilled individuals from the four tribes to assist him, they fail, and then Link cleans up the mess years later. IT'S LITERALLY THE EXACT SAME STORY.

[@justarandomguyontheinterne681]

thats literally Ocarina too. and Twilight Princess, and windwaker.

[@hylianflower9681]

I 100 percent agree, like the intro is exactly the same and even king rauru views zelda as a daughter lmao, in his lil ghost spirit go play in these shrines just to explore the EXACT SAME WORLD. They had nothing interesting in the depths besides the fire temple. Only unique thing the whole game honestly.

[@hylianflower9681]

​@@justarandomguyontheinterne681i see you going around defending totk but i can tell you that is NOT ww, oot, or tp at ALL.

[@coffinmyface4237]

That's every Zelda game, the difference is in the nuance, if you tell a story in their most basic components every thing is bad, it's not fair criticism.

[@hylianflower9681]

@@coffinmyface4237 those games do not start with the king of hyrule telling you to save zelda. It starts with a personal goal, to save your sister, your best friend, the villages children, or to find yourself because youre not actually kokiri. Botw has its own beginning as well, the complaint is that totk is EXACTLY the same as botw, yet completely disregards the whole events and world building of botw, despite being IN THE SAME WORLD. Thats what i said, thats what i meant. I can explain it to you, i cant understand it for you.

[@VoltaDoMar]

"Somehow, the Sheikah technology disappeared."

[@chrisdiokno5600]

You could say a lot of stuff was broken down to rebuild

[@pg9193]

@@chrisdiokno5600 yeah but the game didn't lol

[@UnknownSpooky]

I swear Fujibayashi really ought to be ashamed of that answer

[@chrisdiokno5600]

Not everything has to be stated outright, some stuff can be inferred@@pg9193

[@Keyatzin]

Just thinking of a certain pair of Scientists that spent over a hundred years of their lives to researching the Shiekah technology . . Just for all that technology to suddenly vanish . . And they just shrug and move on.

[@RationaLess]

We had 6 years to gaslight ourselves into thinking the developers care about the lore as much as the players do

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

This is why I stopped thinking about Zelda lore a long time ago. It's all surface level and theorists head canon 90% or more.

[@RevaliHeeHo]

​@@BaldorfBreakdownsThat's why I think I will step aside from the franchise.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@RevaliHeeHo You're gonna skip out on great games because the lore isn't good enough for you? To each their own, I suppose.

[@FeedMeSalt]

Great game? Yeah if you are 12 or it's 2002. Sure these recent two titles have been creative but I don't really enjoy them beyond a few hours. I actually never finished BOTW legitimately. I got to the master sword, and then put it down for over two years because the frame rate+lack of challenge kinda put me off. I played OOT and Majora's as a kid, the worlds blew my mind for the time. Twilight princess was going places. But the others for the most part are good. I wouldn't say great. The world of majors mask is so incredibly emotional and I'm not just letting myself be blinded by nostalgia. I emulate it and run it a few times a year and have for most of my life. I will never replay the recent titles. Let alone finish them. But, that's all subjective. I'm competitive by nature and also mentally lazy. If I can brute force something over thinking about it, I will. I will optimize the fun out of everything if possible. One of the reasons I love most of the souls games and things like shovel knight. And why overwatch in the beginning captured me so heavily. I was forced to think I wasn't allowed to get lazy or fall into repetitive optimization. And games like the original Zelda titles going back past the 90s prevented that as well.

[@RevaliHeeHo]

@@BaldorfBreakdowns Nah, the story and lore of the series is why I loved it, but after TotK's success it's very clearly that Nintendo won't change its mind. TLoZ is no longer for me.

[@EtherPump]

15:41 They were able to use old saved data from BotW like your stabled horses, It could've been so cool if they also used the save data from BotW to affect how npc talk to you. Say you completed Hateno, as a returning player they'd greet you as Link, asking how've you been or whatever. As a new player you'd be treated as a stranger. Wouldn't have solved all problems but could have been better.

[@jennakins98]

Mass Effect did it years ago and it was really cool to experience! Some NPCs that you helped in side quests will send you letters letting you know how they're doing in following games, or you meet them again and get an update, or they don't notice you but you notice them talking about their lives and you can tell it was influenced by you. If Nintendo had shifted their priorities a little they could have done something like this or even better easily.

[@spyro115]

@@jennakins98 Well, seeing as how TOTK is the latest open world Zelda game, i hope it's the last cause i couldn't finish TOTK cause of the DIY and puzzle heavy content, got bored.

[@ravenvd3444]

They did this with the oracles games and the password system, so its not like the technology doesn't exist, its just a huge missed opportunity for no reason

[@markigirl2757]

@@spyro115 Agreed. Open world is only cool if the story build in was interesting but the lore in this game was convoluted...

[@spyro115]

@@markigirl2757 And i recently just found out that TOTK is going to be the last open world Zelda game, i'm glad.

[@jaffinator2166]

In an interview, one of the creators was asked outright what happened to the Sheika technology. He said that after Calamity Ganon was defeated, it all sunk back into the ground and the citizens of Hyrule shrugged as they were "used to seeing" weird things. I feel that sums it up the lore problem perfectly.

[@amxterxsu138]

so the divine beasts just melted into the ground too, huh?

[@spyrochrisgaming]

Do you have a link to that?

[@jaffinator2166]

@@amxterxsu138 according to the explanation, yes.

[@jaffinator2166]

@@spyrochrisgaming I can’t find the exact link but part of that interview is in the video

[@znerd3664]

That still doesn't work because we GO underground a lot in this game and don't see a shred of Sheikah tech Also doesn't fix ratatoskr's point that the ganon problem wasn't solved yet so why would the Sheikah tech peace out The only bit of credit I will give the devs is that the true ending of BotW did hint that the Sheikah tech was going away with Zelda's line about vah ruta not working... but that still doesn't actually answer any questions

[@ColeMartin-m5v]

It’s honest crazy that wind waker connects to ocarina of time better than totk connects to botw

[@pitshoster401]

Wind Waker also does a far better job at portaying a "post-apocalyptic" world than Breath of the Wild tbh

[@unmeiartist]

Reading this made me so sad

[@5-Volt]

This right here is the reason WW is my favorite in the series. They did it so well with subtle hints in the story & the rearranged music themes. It literally gave me chills when I realized Forest haven's music was Kokiri Forest & Windfall was Kakariko.

[@raze2012_]

I've said it 100 times and I'll say it 100 more: the Hyrule Historia timeline was a mistake. People will theory craft whatever they want, but making an explicit public timeline seemed to pigeon hole devs who traditionally never wanted to build a fully fleshed world. Hyrule isn't Tamriel, and pretty much every entry after Skyward sword shows there's no interest in making a Tamriel. Even this "direct sequel" seems to not want to be a sequel. What did we gain from this being 5-7 years later rather than an alternate timeline where Shekaih didn't mass produce tech? Or just its own thing? Less accusations of map reuse? No one really cares, given the sales.

[@n.b.4409]

I absolutely agree. I don't think of the Hyrule Hystoria timeline as canon and I don't think there is any canon at all. Just developers making references for fun and making the timeline to mask as a lore-heavy franchise without having to do the actual work to make something thought provoking.@@raze2012_

[@zerochill4096]

What makes TotK feel more odd is how Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity treated the lore of BotW with far more respect and expanded upon it compared to TotK. It's just very weird how a spinoff that's technically a sequel to the OG Hyrule Warriors puts more effort into storytelling and connecting the lore than what should be the direct sequel to BotW

[@xinpingdonohoe3978]

That's the exact wording I feel. AoC respects BotW more than TotK does. From that, you'd assume that AoC is in the same timeline as BotW and that TotK is in a different branch, but no, it's the other way round.

[@KyleEvra-15]

I noticed that as well a damn spin off title cares more about telling a story than their own Creators did.

[@darrenfleming7901]

I genuinely think the developers spent all their time coding fucking legos into the game and then ran out of time to actually design the game around it.

[@Sarah_H]

One of the things that stung the most on my first playthrough was Harth talking about Tulin's wind gust ability. He says, quote: "And the way he can create winds at will? That's a trick I've never even heard of anyone else pulling off". As if Harth and all of Rito Village weren't huge fans of Revali in the last game, who was renowned for his archery as well as his creation of Revali's Gale. And how the Champions' arms were themselves *cheapened* in this game by 1) having them be used by the ancient Sages in the cutscenes of the Imprisoning War, and 2) having them be made by and for just about anybody, less so with the Lightscale Trident and Urbosa's arms, but the Boulder Breaker being used as a test of smithing skills and the Great Eagle Bow being casually remade after Teba gives his to Tulin makes them feel CHEAP and NOT AS SIGNIFICANT as they felt in BotW. These are no longer personalized weapons unique to the Champions who wielded them (and who are specifically mentioned in the item descriptions), they are heirlooms that have been wielded by EVERY generation since the founding of Hyrule. We got all of this new Zonaite gear in TotK, WHY IN THE WORLD could we not have had a new set of unique Sages' weapons?? And why do certain armor pieces and weapons from BotW have totally different origin stories now??? 11:13 Hudson is about the only NPC in Tarrey Town that still knows Link. When we first get there and walk in on him and Rhondson arguing, he says "look who it is! It sure has been a while. You know, thanks to you, Tarrey Town is doing real good". Kapson, the elderly Zora who was around 100 years ago and who knew/knew of Link because of his status as a Champion and his relationship with Mipha/Zora's Domain, who was brought to Tarrey Town by Link in BotW, **doesn't fucking know him in TotK for some reason** 16:55 "even though every piece of evidence that they had put so far seemed to point to that" "Subversion for subversion's sake! Best you didn't see THAT coming!!"

[@BlanexBlz]

The more I try to break down totk story wise and the more I try to replay it... it just gets worse. Them I go replay botw and the sense of wonder and mystery multiplies. I don't think I've ever seen a sequel elevate the prequel like this.

[@zeddessell]

In one of the memories, Zelda says that even Ganondorf's name makes her feel uneasy for some reason, but she can't quite pin down why. As though Zelda completely forgot about Calamity GANON from the 1st game. In another memory, Zelda mentions that Link once saved Hyrule from "a great evil", specifically not mentioning Calamity Ganon by name. People got paid to write that.

[@Sarah_H]

@@zeddessell Symin in Hateno school: "Listen up kids here is a history lesson about the Calamity that happened 100 years ago, and here is a screen depicting the Calamity of 10,000 years ago" Impa at her house: "Kids these days don't believe the Calamity actually happened, but you and I know better, don't we, Link?" Champions' weapons, which were wielded by the Champions who piloted the Divine Beasts which were constructed to combat the Calamity: *exist* The Turning Tide, a statue made to commemorate Link and Sidon's battle against Vah Ruta, a giant machine built to combat the Calamity: *exists* King Dorephan: *has a scar on his head that he got from a battle with a Guardian, robots that were built to combat the Calamity* Fucking Link: *is technically over one hundred years old because he took a long nap in a restoration pod because he almost died in the Calamity of 100 years ago* Zelda: 👁👄👁 "The wha?"

[@zeddessell]

@@Sarah_H I really, really hate that whole "the kids these days don't believe the Calamity was real" angle they went with for that School quest. Like, Calamity Ganon re-awoke only, what, 5 or 6 years ago? Heck, the kids in Totk are HUGE fans of Zelda, did none of them care where she came from or what she'd been doing before she showed up in Hateno? How does any of this make ANY sense?! Totk genuinely has the absolute worst world-building I have ever seen in any piece of media. It's not just poorly written-it's been meticulously precision-engineered to shatter all sense of immersion and believe-ability at every possible opportunity.

[@chrislevack405]

Jesus STOP POSTING 7 PARAGRAPHS. My god... if you can't get your ideas out in 20 words or less, STFU!

[@TheBrixHub]

BotW's mysterious approach to its world, such as all the ancient civilisations and that mysterious Zonai tribe from the Faron region really had me hooked because of how deliberately vague things were kept. It's so strange that they rewrote the Zonai into this ancient high-tech godlike race of creatures, and retconned the faron tribe into an afterthought

[@RunePonyRamblings]

Because BotW had an ancient tech-god civilization, therefore TotK needed a _new_ ancient tech-god civilization. They probably just used the name "Zonai" because that's what all the KZbinrs were obsessing over. They didn't think about it, and they don't care :(

[@jilp2002]

​@@RunePonyRamblingscry harder

[@xDARKSHADEx]

​@@jilp2002it's okay, you are loved, you can relax now

[@henrimemelord]

totk was originally dlc for botw so they needed something to replace the shiekah tech

[@Doodoovessel]

@@jilp2002it’s ok you can talk to us dude, no reason to be edgy. What’s going on in life?

[@poenpotzu2865]

Another gripe I have is the insistance of the permanence of Draconification. Mutliple times they state it is a forbidden act that is permanent. I understand recall can undo it by time magic logic but it feels so cheap. Their is no actual sacrifice; the ending being all happy go lucky felt unearned. Other example like wind weaker and Twilight princess has bittersweet endings because it stick with its internal lore and storytelling. Wind Waker we get attached to the King and we get sad when he drowns which fits the thematic element of moving onward. Twilight princess, Midna leaves because of the consequences. Ganondorf's proxy war basically ruined Twili and Hyrulean relations. Midna leaves and we feel sad.

[@justarandomguyontheinterne681]

Alchemy is the key and answer to why that was busted. Link became a living triforce. all the elements that create the world flowed through him. what is the triforce? the point that the golden goddesses left this world. Look up Zelda Alchemy.

[@hylianflower9681]

For real! If zelda had to sacrifice herself, all that crying i did when she swallowed it wouldnt have felt like i was manipulated. I wish she had stayed in the sky, and it would have truly been the legend of ZELDA, the princess who SACRIFICED HERSELF to save not only her own people but everyone over the course of 10k years AND PLUS and now serves as a dragon who is a deity among naydra and farosh and dinraal

[@Leonkennedy19992]

Fi leaving because she fulfilled her purpose and had to be in the mastersword in case there is evil once again was the saddest for me

[@thekiss2083]

To be fair, Zelda's sacrifice in TP was reversed even faster with no negative ramifications for her (it was a bad plot device there and in TOTK)

[@memeboi6017]

I mean, even BoTW had a bittersweet ending, yes, the kingdom is saved and that’s all great. But it’s not like there will be some big celebration, this isn’t the big dance at the end of RotJ, it’s a somber “it’s over” and that is all. Everyone still is well and truly dead, and all that can be done is rebuild. Tears on the other hand simply has “oh hey everything’s good again YAY” beyond like, the maybe 30 people who might have died due to falling off sky islands.

[@VaatiVidya]

See all these problems could be solved if they'd just bring back Vaati Nvm don't sue me Nintendo

[@tgfnc]

Nintendo is only allowed to bring Vaati back if they bring you in to voice him. You would *basically* be able to sue them if they didn’t. We will make NO concessions in this department

[@gabisabrina8257]

oh shoot it's Vaati.

[@vvmurphyvv]

Can't wait for the 3 hour Armored Core lore vid

[@ThatGuy-ky2yf]

​@@vvmurphyvvArmoured Core 6 has superior lore to ToTK FACT

[@maurymalkovich8117]

Vaati should come back

[@cru3lw0rld_96]

If they wanted to make a game where the NPCs don’t recognize Link at all, they should have just sent Link waaaay back into the past. It also would have been a good excuse to revamp the map COMPLETELY. And the story could have been much more interesting since there would have been an active villain instead of just having Ganondorf sitting, waiting to take his L.

[@fl0w1009]

great idea! sad how this very plausible idea, esp within the bounds of time travel in this game…and Nintendo couldn’t weigh the cost-benefits to see this probably wouldve been better, bc it was different and wouldnt have needed to worry about continuity with BOTW 😓

[@MorganaShmorgana1828]

Or even better, they should have just made a new Link and Zelda and did whatever they wanted. Totk Link and Zelda have almost no connection to BoTW because we don't really fully see the effect of Zelda's character development from botw in totk, and Link isn't even really a character in those games so he could be anything in a new universe.

[@erikn.9180]

such a simple idea yet so much better than what nintendo did, literally couldve let us explore old hyrule with zonai and the sum ruins not being ruins

[@BladeSerph]

Honestly having it flipped where link gets sent to the past and working with the past sages, Rauru and Sonia to defeat past Ganondorf and the miasma from `future` ganondorf causing a major shift would of been mostly a repeat of hyrule warriors age of calamity`s plot but would perfectly works to explain the zonai tech, a older & unexplored Hyrule, plus said Zonai tech actually looking more like the ancient guardian tech from Breath of the wild. Plus Link would of made use of his own secret stone that would of gave link a `power of bonds`, which could of been a combination of Sage abilities and what he got with the Zonai arm in the tears of the kingdom, by actually putting REAL importance todo the fking Sage temples to unlock more abilities then effectively everything you need right from the start (since many i believe would agree, most Zonai hand mechanis invalidated Sage abilities between Hover Bikes, Spring & Rocket shields, make-shift shields, bomb launchers, lightning rod attachments and many more. Which just to tie in the Triforce properly, Link could of had his `secret stone shattered` near the end of the game and result in the Triforce of Courage Awakening on his hand, while using the fragments of the stone & the power remaining in it to reforge the Master Sword, while keeping it still in your inventory as the `back up weapon` by having it simply be a 0 attack shortsword you cant throw, but could still fuse items to it to temporarily `empower it`, with once you reforge it, could of had the benefit of multiplying its dmg bonus when fused with something AND give additional durability for the material to boot to last longer. This would make a perfect loop to have Link join the Sages, Rauru, Sonia & Mineru to take a final stand against Ganondorf who could snatch Sonia`s secret stone in the fight, power up, turn into a desperate struggle to fight him & Rauru would seal him With finally Sonia would make use of the Sages & Mineru`s secret stone to send Link back to his original time. This would put Link just in time to start the REAL final boss fight, with a unsealed, weakened and angry Ganondorf who you originally had to fight alongside Rauru, Mineru, the past sages and Sonia giving support in various means, while this time taking a page from Ocarina of time and you are limited to just the `Empowered` Master sword since everything but the Master sword & the cloths on your back were left in the past and you would get the Sage abilities back temporarily for Phase 2 and the Final Phase, which could of had Ganondorf in his `dragon form` instead of being a slightly boring wind glide chase, could of had it be riding Epona and chasing after G-Dragon across the hyrule plains, using Zelda`s Bow of Light to knock him down, attacking his face, being forced into the air after a few rounds and then paraglide drop to deliver a final blow while avoiding miasma blasts or so. Honestly apologies on the ramble, but its just way too much missed fking potential which they could of easily jus reused the breath of the wild map still, just give it more `ancient look` and have a better way to justify the under-utilized sky parts and could of really just scrapped the abyss portion since outside of being a treasure trove of resources, the spots where two Sage `dungeons` were shoved in and a boss-refight zone, it has nothing much to it, especially when you ignore the fact a very over-extended bunch of `challenges` that would push you to get treasure maps on the sky or land to find them in the abyss, only to then need to do it three more times for a full set, only to then need to chase a frik ton of resources to upgrade them so the defense stats would be `tolerable` with enemies scaling up as you progress in the game. Honestly it would of been nice if they just had armor give special properties and had no defense stat at all in the game and took a more generalized approach with tools and weapons being used more for the properties then it just turning into a fetch quest simulator to cheese the hardest stuff to get the most broken stuff, yet enemies scaled up so ridiculously much you burn those resources up for a reward that barely amount to much, since some of these enemies just giving resources that amount to effectively `worst` then what you just wasted to kill them with. Kind of no wonder the ability to duplicate items was likely so beloved so you could circumvent the giant pain of a upgrade loop where no matter how stronger you got your character, enemies would just scale up and force you to repeat the pattern instead of letting you power up some base STR stat so you could just use sticks to deal with canon fodder and maybe use monster parts as a fuel for a bike then deal with it cluttering your inventory, because you likely maxed out the rupees or cant bother to go thru the tedious process of disposing of resources you have no real use for and cant do something like burn excess of lower tier stuff to get higher tier stuff like some gacha game would do.

[@cru3lw0rld_96]

@@MorganaShmorgana1828 This is a great idea! It makes me so sad cause I genuinely love this game still, but this story is a mess in terms of the continuity of BOTW & the franchise as a whole

[@Obeliiix]

"They didn't think of it and they don't care", best summary of TotK tbh.

[@catalyst539]

I read this comment as he said it.

[@Vanished584]

your profile picture is legendary.

[@creatorsfreedom6734]

well the Writer of the Franchise did pass away

[@Obeliiix]

@@creatorsfreedom6734 Really?

[@creatorsfreedom6734]

@@Obeliiix I could be wrong as I read a news article back in 2021 that someone who wrote the game's story passed , not this game

[@1996Stein]

It makes me so upset that such a poorly named mcguffin like Secret Stones replaced the Triforce's role in the story

[@dreamgood130]

I swear not enough people are holding Nintendo accountable for such a generic boring name like secret stones. There’s other examples of that type of naming in the game as well

[@catalyst539]

“secret stone” “secret stones” Jayusus Lightroot, they’re terrible at naming macguffins that aren’t the Triforce or Master Sword. I mean, I can’t think of a better name than “Elemental Magatama” but at least I’m actually trying. Nintendo just hears whatever the first guy to submit his idea said and rolls with it. It’s laughable.

[@SagittariusAyy]

Yeah, no, they should NOT have been called “secret stones”

[@Isuream6331]

Just. Name. Them. SACRED. STONES. IT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH MORE SENSE

[@paprikachu8042]

@@catalyst539to be fair, the Lightroots are just the names of their corresponding shrines in reverse. Which you can argue in itself is a lazy naming system but it works thematically. But yeah everything else…“secret stones”… god I cringed so hard every time I heard it.

[@robco17]

The biggest bummer to me about TOTK was that it made me feel like playing all of BOTW was a waste of time. To elaborate, right before Tears came out, I went on a several hundred hour playthrough of BOTW with the aim to do mostly everything. It was both exhilarating and fascinating to explore all these places and meet all these people and then theorize and imagine what they'd be like in TOTK. How would they change? What do they get up to in the next couple of years? Then TOTK drops. I have a lovely time exploring the starter island for 6 hours, then not 5 minutes sooner than I've touched the surface, I ran into an NPC named Garini. In BOTW, you and him work together to unlock the mystery behind a shrine near Lurelin Village. Yet, he makes no mention of that and treats you like a complete stranger. I didn't think much of it at first, and just continued on with the game. But as I went on, exploring towns, stables and seeing all these familiar faces, I came to the realization that nearly everyone thought they were meeting Link for the first time. These were people whose lives Link dramatically affected, forged bonds with, and always had some special moment with them. And next to none of that is ever referenced by anyone? It may have been presumptuous of me to expect some kind of payoff but it felt like a slap in the face. Most of those several hundred hours were spent doing things with and for these people, so the lack of any payoff or just recognizance made me feel like none of it mattered and I wasted my time. Like did nothing besides fixing the Divine Beasts and beating the Calamity even matter? Throw in other stuff like there being no explanation for the Sheikah technology and Divine Beasts going missing, and it's clear Nintendo really dropped the ball when it came to lore and contuinity from BOTW. I still had a good time with the game, but these issues really left a bad taste in my mouth. And I don't really think they would've been hard to address. Like have Purah say something like "oh yeah, the divine beasts with their job complete, said a final goodbye and blipped away". Or give returning NPCs a dialogue option about what they've been up to and referencing what Link did for them in BOTW, doesn't even need to be more than a single line. Just feels like a missed opportunity that would've made me and surely others happy.

[@lenk8374]

Playing BOTW right before TOTK was your downfall. The long wait in between games was a critical part. I made sure that once I was done playing BOTW back in 2018 that I wouldn't pick it back up to ensure things were fresh

[@zatchbell5678]

​@@lenk8374that's stupid for a freaking sequel.

[@Mcl_Blue]

​@@lenk8374you say that like it fixes any of the issues

[@Cheesehead302]

@@Mcl_Blue It's almost like you shouldn't be punished for playing a franchise's games lmao. If the sequel was too cheap to feel like you're truly doing significantly new and unique content, did it really accomplish it's job as a sequel? Honestly, I really think it just brings up the discussion about the poor replay value these game's carry. I praised botw as my favorite game ever from day one. But never even got off the plateau in my second playthrough. Once you find how the progression is, how almost everything is pointless beyond idk maybe the main quests at best, then why should you replay it? I like replaying something like Elden Ring because there is actually a required path for progression to an extent, beyond just "you can go directly to the final boss and end the game." I digress.

[@btchiaintkidding7837]

​@@lenk8374 okay i get that u like how the new zelda game distances itself from the past lore or timeline that you see as "messy" or convoluted, if thats what then just say it so and leave it at that. cuz otherwise you are looking like an absolute sm00thbrain m0r^n with reply like these ffs. oh no, player played the earlier game recently preparing for the direct sequel, lmao what an id^ot. "consume product, forget n move on, get excited for consuming the new product, dont think too much, give us money fk you"

[@tally.klecko]

I always kind of that this feeling of slight “emptiness” when playing TOTK that I think I tried to suppress - almost a clinical feeling. What really just put the nail in the coffin was playing my first souls game, Elden Ring. This game changed how I felt about video games. I can’t tell you how many quests, stories, and dungeons disappointed me. When I beat the game and reflected on my play-through, I don't know what took 6 years. TOTK is amazing design... but not good art. I long for a new Zelda with more depth and that darker mysticism you'd find in older Zelda games.

[@Physicalchemistry15151]

It was the engine. They used a different one rather than the Havock.

[@tally.klecko]

@@Physicalchemistry15151 All of my criticisms are due to the engine?

[@sfrert2759]

@@Physicalchemistry15151That’s not an excuse to be so lazy in the lore of a goddamn OPEN WORLD.

[@augustday9483]

Elden Ring is absolutely dripping with lore and environmental storytelling from every nook and cranny. Definitely a huge juxtaposition compared to Nintendo's nonexistent story.

[@Evelyn_Rose1151]

That’s funny that you used the word “clinical” because that’s exactly how I feel. It feels detached. Clean. Botw felt lived in and full and real

[@Echohoody]

Another weird part of the game that I know the developers had to literally turn a blind eye is during one of the side quests at the school where the teacher is literally recapping events of BOTW, with Link standing there, yet they do not acknowledge he did all the things in BOTW, they just gloss over it.

[@beardalaxy]

Link may as well not exist.

[@csengemuschitz2593]

THIS!! OMG!!!! AND THEN IMPA LITTERALY ASKS LINK IF HE KNOWS ABOUT THE ANCIENT CALAMITY???

[@beardalaxy]

Furthering my previous point, Link is supposed to be the player avatar. It made me feel a lot more detached from the game to see that none of my previous achievements mattered to anyone, apparently.

[@pacebro0119]

real. I caught all 900 of those poops only to be forgotten 😭

[@robnhood1416]

The game developer was busy creating stupid gimmicky stuff such as creating random vehicles .

[@JustPokey]

TotK is a game that entirely engrossed me for the 2 weeks after it was out. While playing it i thought i was playing my goat game. But then i finished it and it had no staying power whatsoever.

[@CompleteProducer84]

Yes this is exactly what happened to me too, but on a quicker scale. After the first day, I was posting “This is the greatest game ever made” in multiple KZbin comments sections. Once I got used to the new abilities, found out that the Temples weren’t much better than Beasts, discovered that the sky Islands and depths were mostly uneventful, and found out the bosses offered NO challenge, it suddenly became a massive disappointment that I didn’t even finish.

[@HANIMEME]

exactly the same thing happened to me, I finished the boss fight in hateno village and thought it was very provoking fun and amazing, i then finished the great plateau and then never played the game again.

[@motorolla17]

literally same (im still replaying save me)

[@firenze6478]

Just like botw

[@FluffyMustache]

I will always find it interesting why people have such different experiences. It had like the exact opposite effect on me. Don’t get me wrong, I love BotW, but I just thought of TotK longer, and I still think about the game weekly, even though it has been out for ten months.

[@Seoul_Soldier]

I was treated as an insane person by my friends for hating TOTK's lore. Thank you for this video. I feel far less insane now.

[@ivanm8682]

Fortunately, my friends agree with me, but the other day I was discussing the game with a dude who thought it was one of the best sequels narratively-wise, and I said “really? Even after the developers’ explanation to what happened to the Sheikah tech (which wasn’t even provided in-game) was “it disappeared”?” Lol

[@robnhood1416]

The worst part of the modern Zelda fandom is they'll always pointing at "good sales" as indicator of great game. The game developer seems to have similar mindset when it comes to deflecting criticism. Soon or later they'll implode by continuing in this path. There were times when people think a franchises as big as Star wars or Marvel cannot fail despite making bad movies, until at one point people stop being a blind sheep and close their wallets.

[@maliciousbugman]

​@@robnhood1416wanna counter the sales defense in a really funny way? Bring up the fact that OoT has a higher metacritic rating than BotW and TotK (99 vs. 97/96). Sit back and watch those "fans" short circuit in real time and scream at you about why OoT's score doesn't count.

[@robnhood1416]

@@maliciousbugman and I also rate every other Zelda games higher than BOTW and TOTK. The current Zelda developers has an obsession of making Master sword weaker and weaker and more useless. If sales is what matters, then COD beat tons of classic great games. Its an equivalent of saying Britney Spears "Baby one time" is better than most album because it sold 30 million copies.

[@maliciousbugman]

@@robnhood1416 correct, sales are a weightless metric for quality. I don't quite rank the new Zeldas at the bottom (Skyward Sword still exists), but they're pretty low; TotK much more so. And we all know the best album ever made is _Avalon_ by Roxy Music.

[@aidanvanstraaten8251]

The retconning of botw is really what peeves me. The present day story in botw was very light, so it’s not like there was so much backstory between link and bolson, for example, that it would have been confusing to newcomers if they knew each other. Also there are a ton of random npcs in lookout landing that know you, that you never met in botw. So why do so many npcs that you should know, not know you?I really just cannot understand why.

[@YasugoLiehu]

“We don't want people starting with the sequel to feel alienated or confused because they made the conscious decision to start with the sequel, so we're going to give every character amnesia in order to gaslight, alienate, and confuse the people stupid enough to start at the beginning and expect the sequel to have any continuity whatsoever.”

[@tsuki3752]

right? frankly, even if link didn't buy the house from him in hateno, it makes no sense for him to NOT know link anyway, as the video brought up, since link knows hudson and zelda aka link's employer and maybe girlfriend DID buy the house... it's so mind-boggling. also, legend of zelda has never held the hands of those who did not know the lore before going into maybe, wind waker or twilight princess. wind waker is basically an advertisement for ocarina of time but they still did it well, so... why does it matter now? especially when it's a DIRECT sequel... i really feel like they just didn't think about it and are lying about this being a reason at this point.

[@parrot998]

The thing that drives me nuts is that they already have an in universe mechanism to explain everyone not knowing Link... Just make him a different incarnation of the hero than the one from BotW... Wouldn't even really need a timejump because it's been heavily implied in some of the games, most notably A Link Between Worlds, that different incarnations of Link can be alive at the same time. I don't think it's too rediculous of me to say, don't make it a direct sequel if you don't intend it to be a direct sequel...

[@MxPokirby]

It just manages to make you feel like you have zero impact on this world you're supposed to be THE hero for. They try to pull the "Oh, Link doesn't want recognition for his heroism because yadda yadda" except he's gaming's icon of The Knight In Shining Armor, he's not fucking Batman working from the shadows.

[@papa_NCF]

I think Scott the Woz made a great point in his video, when he talks about how giving Link amnesia and having him recollect these memories worked in conjunction with the mechanics of the game and made so much sense for the worldbuilding because the whole world was so vague and mysterious. But in TOTK nothing mechanically is changed (except the hand powers) yet they still keep the same type of gameplay. You're going around finding these "tears" but it just doesn't work cause this time you don't have amnesia and you're not even recollecting memories, you're getting visions from the past from Zelda. It's less like you're discovering it on your own and more like you're being told exactly what happened. Plus this "mystery" about what happened back in the day with Rauru and the imprisoning war is meant to be some big mystery but to anybody above the age of 5, you can make a pretty good assumption as to what happened. There is no "mystery" in TOTK, it's all either really predictable or it's just straight up told to you.

[@pilgrimspromise1132]

Why are you a 90s cup

[@papa_NCF]

@@pilgrimspromise1132 cause it looks cool

[@walls_of_skulls6061]

Yeah I saw Zelda at the castle and when she ignored link I said to myself “oh neat it’s ganon pretending to be Zelda” then had to play along the whole game while it pretended to develop the “mystery” (if you can even call it that)

[@roar104]

It didn't work the first time in BotW either though

[@Drew_2152]

When I think of BOTWs theme I think of loss and remembrance but I can’t exactly think of TOTKs theme and sometimes I don’t know how to feel about the world because the theme and the world are what make each other good. I mean gameplay wise it’s good but story wise I don’t know what to think of the world.

[@timmyman9677]

I love how Ganon in BotW was this Eldritch Horror who had all ready succeeded in destroying Hyrule through phantom manifestations of his hatred. By comparison, TotK Gandandorf is a prankster at worst, to a minor inconvenience at best. He makes some holes and starts cosplaying as Zelda so he can do nothing more than be a nuisance.

[@MegaVirus700]

It's sad but also really unintentionally funny. From Ganonforf's perspective, he woke up, one shot some random guy that had the only tool to rival his power, and realized his job was basically done, so he just sat back and pulled a few pranks.

[@Mr._Galaxywide]

@@MegaVirus700 A tool that was SUPOSED to rival his power (I guess all the other games +10,000 years did a smidge of were and tear)

[@Yokai_Yuri]

But whatever the Calamity Ganon did was thanks to Ganondorf, after all Calamity Ganon is a creation of Ganondorf

[@lemmy154]

?

[@Seifersythe]

What was so cool to me about Calamity Ganon was the idea that after thousands and thousands of years Ganon's immortality and evil had caused him to decay into a force of nature. No one remembered who was or where he came from but he still persisted, no longer sentient. There was nothing left of the man who was The King of Gerudos but his raw hatred that was so enduring that it had become an almost fundemental force of the world. That's compelling. That's a cool fate for one of the most iconic villians in video games Instead in TotK they turned Calamity in a shadow and made Actual Ganon into just some guy. That's so much less intresting.

[@SpookeyGael]

It's a bit sad that the Kirby series has a vastly more consistent continuity and depth in its lore than the Zelda series

[@ThatGuy-ky2yf]

Kirby is based. Return to Dreamland is one of the GOAT platformers imho.

[@minty9959]

thats because kirby stands on business

[@pilgrimspromise1132]

I thought it was hilarious how much of a frenzy Reddit got into how about all the possible lore during. totk development. Of course it would disappoint Zelda games have never been terribly story rich

[@iamLI3]

@@pilgrimspromise1132 twilight princess is....

[@LealFireball]

​​@@iamLI3 It may seem so but it really isn't. When Koizumi had some influence over the lore of the series the games were more connected and the few that he directed are the richest in narrative. TP still has some remnants of that but it was the first one to start to stray away from it, you can tell how the farther away you are from the start of the game the least interested it is in weaving narrative that connects to the past beyond vague set-dressing. Even the self-contained story goes to the trash after the master sword is collected.

[@Ronin11111111]

A tremendous amount of effort went into the ultra hand/fusion system and it was apparently at the detriment of everything else. Not meaning other aspects like lore were made lazily, but everything else was subservient to the open world and Gmod mechanics. The semi-complete disregard for events in BotW (probably) for "not wanting to confuse newcomers" is the worst. I don't see how it would effect the game negatively at all to have Link be the famous hero he should be. Sales? That's on marketing. New player retention? How would be a bad experience to play as a famed hero who everybody knows? Any NPC quest that had connections to BotW could've had a dialogue at the start something like this: "Hey Link! It's me ___! Remember" "No" "Short recap" "new quest dialog". It would have made this a truly unique entry in the franchise.

[@leviticusprime4904]

Kinda reminds me of fallout 4 in a sense

[@spudermoth]

Botw didn't have necessary good lure either and it was extremely forgettable, so idk why people are so whiny about it. People will always have something to complain about, i guess.

[@halkon4412]

@@spudermothThere’s a different between mid lore and self-sabotaging lore.

[@spudermoth]

@halkon4412 Sure, the lore has issues, but focusing on these issues basically goes over all of totks other flaws. As much as i love it, the shikah technology disappearing isn't even a lure issue: its just basic nintendo logic. No, the main issue is that they *had this content developed* and decided not to keep it for some reason. The other thing that ratoskr ignores in his attempt at lure superiority is the depths and even the dungeons just being extremely lack luster. Like i was expecting link to the past dungeons, not dungeons the size of the beasts from the original botw. If the dark world served more of a purpose then just being filler and a place where you fight the yiga clan leader over and over, then this game could actually be good. For now, though, it's judt a place you use to find shrines because the light roots are the bottom of every ow shrine.

[@Simpls.1]

I think it mainly boils down to the fact that Nintendo are too lazy to make the lore consistent and would rather retcon previously established lore. Still a great game, it just has lack luster lore.

[@dekufiremage7808]

When I first heard Ganondorf talk about Rauru in the opening cutscene, I was floored because I thought Nintendo was taking it in the direction that this Ganondorf is still the same guy from Ocarina of Time, it's just been thousands of years of the same cycle and all of it is bleeding together for him at this point. Was disappointed when it was just a new dragon goat man.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

I felt the exact same way bro. Nintendo really dropped the ball with that opportunity.

[@TheWTFMatt]

all gannondorfs are reincarnations of demise, so based on the lore they are all the same being, just reincarnated

[@ACW-dn9wb]

@@TheWTFMatt Except this time its the first actual reincarnated Ganondorf. All the others were the same guy who lived through multiple games. And those were either sealed, died and stayed dead, or were the same person ressurected in a future game. All still the same Ganon, until now.

[@dekufiremage7808]

@ACW-dn9wb Mostly true, though FSA Ganon was an actual reincarnation instead of being a resurrection or breaking out of a seal. But yeah every other game up until Tears of the Kingdom it was the same dude the entire way through since OOT.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

@@dekufiremage7808 But like Ratotoskr amd BanditGames said, we dont talk about that Ganon lol

[@Ashtonyss]

The fact that TOTK doesn't even tie back into BOTW felt honestly insulting to me as a fan. They built up so much history and character across BOTW and Age of Calamity, and TOTK felt like it was punishing me for caring. TOTK did so much right, but the story of the game took me out of it so much that it kind of ruined it for me a bit.

[@Zelink108]

Age of Calamity was a bit of a ripoff, it was hyped up as a prequel to BotW, only for that “JK it’s time travel FanFiction” bullshit to happen. I was expecting AoC to tie in and have a lot of connections to TotK especially Astor, whom many theorized was the fortune teller mentioned in BotW, but Astor ended up being a complete *waste* of character with no real backstory and detail.

[@memeboi6017]

@@Zelink108yeah, honestly I wish we could have actually had the bad ending, Nintendo just hates the idea of their characters actually losing anything.

[@Zelink108]

@@memeboi6017 They could have just had the what if alternate reality story be post game content for AoC while the main story was still the canon one.

[@memeboi6017]

@@Zelink108 yeah

[@ToxicPea]

@@memeboi6017 not necessarily, which is a good thing mind you. Here’s a list of some tragic Nintendo characters from recent memory: - Paper Mario; permanently loses Bobby after he sacrifices himself in OK - Fecto Elfilis; war-hungry planet-buster gets split in half and is thus unable to escape its prison of torment for at least over 30+ years, only to die mere moments after escaping in Kirby FL. - Arven; successfully heals his beloved partner but ultimately loses any chance of reuniting with his deadbeat parents without closure in Pokémon SV. - Kieran; spends months training with the single-minded goal of beating the player and becomes a selfish jerk in the process, only to lose to the player in front of his entire school, losing his position as Champion. - Sidon & the rest of Zora’s Domain; still grieving the loss of Mipha, one of the few times continuity in TOTK is done well.

[@Ghost-Toast819]

The worst part about totks lore is that fans came up with far better things for the lore than what we ended up getting.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

And they didn't even need to think past 5 mins on how the story couldve unfolded. Ive heard countless fan storylines that this game couldve had. And Nintendo took 6 years to shit out one that doesnt even reference its last title? Smh

[@rarbnif2332]

The lore in both botw and totk definitely leaves more to be desired like I don’t think the triforce is even mentioned once throughout both games.

[@thisnameanothername2156]

technically we see the triforce (or at least its symbol) on Zelda's hand when she seals clamantly ganon

[@ultimate9056]

​@thisnameanothername2156 the fact that they show that and then do absolutely nothing with it is baffling

[@thisnameanothername2156]

@@ultimate9056For botw I don't think it is that bad that nothing as done with it, just because there wasn't much needed to be done with the triforce, in totk its much worse as the triforce maybe gets written out of the story

[@tsuki3752]

@@thisnameanothername2156 agree. in botw it kinda makes sense since link has no sign of the triforce and hasn't done anything to activate it (since it seems like his doesn't activate much from previous entries i've seen), ganondorf is underneath hyrule castle, and zelda spends (basically) the entire game trying to awaken her powers. however, in totk, it only makes sense for zelda, alongside researching zonai and the history of hyrule and all that, would make sense for her to question the triforce and why she saw the triforce on her hand. and what it could indicate, and things like that.

[@songsofthehero_]

@@thisnameanothername2156 the triforce appears to be reduced a dinky little sealing power in botw, it only appears on Zelda's hand when she uses it

[@thehakiguy7006]

I was so disappointed that there was no explanation for where the Divine Beasts went. I loved that aspect of BotW, and all they did to pay homage to them were some damn helmets. It’s like no one in the world even knew they were there at one point despite how important they were to each region. They could have made them extra dungeons in the depths. I love so many aspects of the gameplay of TotK, but you’re right. No effort was put into making the lore interesting for the fans that made the first game successful.

[@Sarah_H]

Sidon even says, after you complete the Water Temple, find the Vah Ruta Helm and are wearing it when you talk to him again, that the Helm is "the same helmet that the Sage of Water was wearing" in the cutscene. Like idk how fishpeople vision works but it is VERY CLEARLY not the exact same helmet, nor even made by the same civilization. At least the spire above Rito Village is still referred to as Vah Medoh's Perch

[@thehakiguy7006]

@@Sarah_H They refer to it as Vah Medoh’s perch, but act like they have no idea why it’s called that. It’s just so jarring. If nothing else, they could have at least been scene pieces that were no longer active after attacking the calamity. It’s almost like an alternate timeline where almost nothing in the first game actually happened.

[@chrisdiokno5600]

You could headcanon that thye were broken down into parts

[@Sarah_H]

@chrisdiokno5600 IIRC the travel medallions at the base of the Skyview Towers are the same as the ones that were in the Divine Beasts, but then there's the issue of...there were only four Divine Beasts, where did they get all the other travel medallions from? From the presumably dismantled Sheikah Towers, which is also probably where the central blue tubes in the Skyview Towers came from? But those medallions didn't have the same design as the travel medallions in the Divine Beasts

[@megamillion5852]

The big hit for me came with the malice/gloom discrepancy. While I still haven't beaten the game, all the feedback on the lore doesn't give me hope that there actually is some kind of meaningful explanation as to what makes gloom different, or why nobody seems to acknowledge its connection to malice. The devs seemingly wanted a new name...because. TotK's writing is so callous in this regard that I can hardly believe Nintendo's best thought it was acceptable for release. It's writing that seemingly hates you for investing in certain concepts.

[@NotaWalrus1]

You remember that moment in Twilight Princess when Wolf Link clears the twilight for the first time, and when he returns to human form he is wearing the signature green tunic, and the Light Spirit tells him about how it belonged to an ancient hero? That was a beautiful moment. TP was my first Zelda game so I didn't know about OoT but I got the feeling of something deeper, and someone who played and loved OoT looking at that must have reenacted the Leo pointing meme. Now you can find that tunic in a random chest in the depths. And you can also find the tunic of the hero of time. And it means nothing. It's a meaningless easter egg. Nevermind that they're supposed to be the same tunic, that's not important. What's important is that they placed those two tunics there just for cheap nostalgia bait and to fill a chest. There is no meaning. There is no depth. There is no lore. There is only meaningless references. They expect me to be happy about receiving the Goddess Sword as a reward from a sidequest, when if I played Skyward Sword I would know that sword is the very same as the Master Sword and so it has no meaning for it to be here, and if I didn't play Skyward Sword then I wouldn't even get the reference, now would I? So I ask: who is this for? Is there anyone doing the Leo pointing meme at this?

[@minty9959]

these games made too much money in 10 years zelda is just gonna be Gmod

[@lenk8374]

Unless you realize that these relics were the subjects of legends you heard. Like all legends there are bits of truth and much that isn't. Personally it's exciting to see that there's a physical reality to some of these legends and makes me wonder at what their true context was.

[@NotaWalrus1]

@@lenk8374 I know their true context. I played through their true context and I understand it well enough to tell that their inclusion here is a meaningless reference meant to pad a chest that would otherwise contain a large zonaite chunk. I know because they're all found in identical chests in identical chambers within copy-pasted structures scattered randomly throughout the depths, and some of those chests instead contain zonaite because they ran out of old DLC armor.

[@zatchbell5678]

​@@NotaWalrus1i agree. It's really sad for real fans.

[@pitshoster401]

​@@minty9959its already gmod now

[@harperna3938]

It would've been so cool if the Depths were full of possessed/gloomified Sheikah technology. Would make them suitably dangerous after the first 10 hours have passed.

[@randomname9723]

Like why the hell did this not happen? So obvious, so great, would help the lack of variety in the depths. Imagine exploring the ruins of the Divine Beasts with some new special challenge? Imagine if there were like one or two spots with functioning guardians? Totk is the best game ever to still have fallen so short of what it could have been.

[@xinpingdonohoe3978]

​@@randomname9723 right. It's not like the Sheikah weren't in the Depths. The Gerudo Tower extended all the way down a Chasm to the Depths. Kihiro Moh had the pedestal for his orb in the Depths, at the bottom of the primary Yiga Chasm. One of Mineru's Constructs, the Mining Construct, even seems to have a job digging for Ancient Blades in the Depths.

[@craig-machine8137]

I really didn't like TOTK, and I think a really big reason for that was I felt like there were no secrets to find. Like in BOTW there was the mystery of the leviathan skeletons, discovering the dragons for the first time, and the lord of the mountain. I don't think TOTK really has anything like that, everything is just so... bland. Like I think the depths were a huge waste of time because there's nothing of interest down there, like it's impressive in terms of scale, but scale isn't enough. I thought "Oh a huge dark cave, there's got to be something crazy hidden down here", and then there wasn't. No secret monsters, no secret areas. It's just a world with nothing of note in it that wasn't carried over from BOTW.

[@emptyset1312]

I think the Depths were very interesting for the first few hours you spent down there. The oppressive darkness forcing you to use Brightblooms to proceed. Powerful gloom-infested enemies that you needed to be careful in approaching since they could nullify your ability to heal. Froxes being a big intimidating unknown before you know what they are and how to deal with them. Yiga hideouts presenting novel enemy encounters that require somewhat different approaches than normal monster hideouts. The sparse outposts of Zonai tech giving you opportunities to build stuff. But then once you get a feel for the Depths... it's just more of the same for the entire game. There's almost nothing unique down there. I guess there's the coliseums, which are vaguely interesting. And there's the Flux Constructs, but those are in the sky too. And there's the boss rematches, which I guess are KIND OF cool the first time you encounter them, especially Colgera? But for every 10 interesting things on the surface, there's MAYBE one interesting thing in the Depths.

[@a_person4742]

​​@@emptyset1312go under satori mountain in the depths. But ye everything else is very repetitive and empty

[@abbyooooo]

yes!! I found every single light shrine in the depths bc I thought MAYBE then something interesting will happen. All you get is a stupid badge that literally doesn't do anything. Just an accessory in your inventory.

[@ShadowWizard224]

The Yiga Clan side quest was pretty fun but other than that I only go to the depths to collect resources but not because I enjoy it or find it interesting. The fire temple also had a great atmosphere.

[@Maideneer]

“No secret monsters, no secret areas” Out of all the comments who just complain for the sake of it because it’s fashionable to do so, since every human being on earth is impossible to please nowadays, this is the worst of it. You have Frox’s, Colosseum’s, 34 Yiga Schematics, 31 Old Map finds, Mines aplenty to get Crystallized Charges and Zonaite to power up your battery reserves, Bargainer Statues, a Spirit Temple, a Fire Temple, Poes, the Master Kohga story quests, finding Lighroots…what exactly do you want here? Most of this is optional anyway. So if you want it, it’s there for you. If not, skip it. Like an a la carte restaurant menu. Sure some of it is grinding, but it’s what you make of it. People complaining about lore and everything else under the sun need to move on. It’s a video game, just enjoy it for what it is instead of tearing every single piece apart for the sake of piling on.

[@navpun1989]

Yea, I was talking to my sister after beating TotK and told her "You know, this really sucks...but I think this is the first Zelda game I legitimately dislike." I've been a fan forever, used to burn CDs of remixes of the music back when I was a kid. It really sucks knowing that I'll likely never see another Zelda game like the ones I grew up loving again. But hey, I still have the old one's around to replay on the regular.

[@Leonkennedy19992]

I feel the same. I loved zelda games so much as a kid that i named my daughter after the series. Dissapointed to know she will just grow up playing nintendo open world games with the zelda in the title instead of a Zelda Game

[@TigerTabCat1]

I completely get you man. I’m in the same boat. I’ve realized I’m a fan of certain Zelda games rather than the series at this point, especially if this is the direction they keep going. Ocarina of time, majoras mask, and twilight princess were magical to me.

[@charlodynatimberheart4860]

The simplest solution would be to just have the NPC's greet link as if they recognize them, while also having natural dialogue that indicates their role. Like, here's one off the top of my head. When you told to Bolson he could've said something like "Hey, Link! I was just doing some routine structural integrity observations on the house we sold to you." Boom. problem solved.

[@Echohoody]

I think you and Bandit hit it right on the head. There’s no incentive/ inspiration to do lore videos because clearly they’ve already stated that they do not care. You, NBC, and Monster Maze, already spotted this early in your long podcast highlighting all the lore issues. Not sure how TOTK will go down in history but for now, it’s basically just good for gameplay content.

[@Jdudec367]

I dunno...there are a lot of mysteries and lore stuff and they may still care. Not just for gameplay content, it's a great follow up storywise to BOTW too and it's great to see everyone years later.

[@Mattjazz47]

This reminds me of Fire Emblem Engage for the same reason.

[@wertydeluxe1405]

and gameplay content wasn't even the highlight of breath of the wild.

[@Mattjazz47]

@@wertydeluxe1405 Of Course not but people who kept championing gameplay as the only important thing for Zelda clearly ignoring how Nintendo advertised the game in the first place.

[@wertydeluxe1405]

@@Mattjazz47 I'm sorry? can you try to rephrase that.

[@connormccarthy2745]

A story that's trying to be "for everyone" will always fail. It can't be for the old fans and the new fans and those who care about the lore and those who don't without leaving a few people/ideas behind. They were too greedy and it backfired, and all I have to say is... Well, good

[@randomname9723]

Thing is I absolutely 100% guarantee that 99% of new fans would still appreciate lore and story carried over from previous games

[@mh6276]

I also think that they could provide you with context for things in TOTK that have a connection with BOTW by giving you a sort of bible (an in game book) that everyone gets, like a book containing info about what happened in the previous games to fill new people in on it

[@darrenfleming7901]

I mean, there's a way to navigate this and Nintendo just completely misjudged it. It's not like they actually had to make the story like this to please casual players. Casual players largely don't engage with the lore beyond the general aesthetic of the game and no matter what will be much more clueless and much more happy to be clueless than Nintendo estimated. Taking this hand-holdy approach and making everything as shallow and on-the-nose as possible isn't something they needed to do to please a certain audience, it's just a bad decision for the game.

[@okasart]

The creators don’t realize what made Breathe of the Wild compelling is a complete wonder for the world we were brought into. We got just enough answers we were satisfied with the game but there was always more questions we wanted answers for Tears of the kingdom gave me no sense of wonder. Sure the first few hours I was in awe but directly after I got off the “new plateau” I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t feel like I was a part of something bigger. I felt like I was playing the sand box version of breath of the wild. Creative mode, but that only holds interest for so long. It got so fudging boring after not even three hours

[@frostycane5134]

Exactly

[@darrenfleming7901]

Crazy enough, when I was going through the Great Sky Island I kept thinking "these puzzles are cool but I can't wait to finish the tutorial and see everything else the game has to offer" and now looking back I realize the Great Sky Island was the most captivating part of the whole game.

[@okasart]

@@darrenfleming7901 I agree!!

[@ivanm8682]

@@darrenfleming7901unfortunately yes 😔 I was excited to finish and see how much they had added to the world, what amazing story they had for us or at least to see that we could pet dogs now, only to realize they did NONE of that!

[@jjcreeper7113]

Botw made the zonai seem much more interesting

[@linkeastwood3283]

Breath of the Wild's ambiguity felt so articulate. You can invision how each village was destroyed, the moves made in battle. The implied lore and soft world building fascinated me, but by Tears of the Kingdom I wanted some answers and all they gave us were more questions with little to no clues. Despite doubiling the amount of land barely any location had any implied story about it, it all felt so empty despite the amount to do. Straight up depressing how little thought went into this and a massive insult to the leagens of fans making incredible theroies and clammering for answers.

[@luma4682]

another sad thing are the villages from part of hyrule. It would be cool climbing a mountain and found a person with a family up there with quest and npc lore also hyrule town rest without people sadly,

[@nabilian2145]

All this and somehow people still defend the game

[@mutoneon]

@@nabilian2145It’s a game, dingus. If you want lore read Tolkien, Herbert or Jordan.

[@ale.2p284]

'Leagens'? I think you mean 'legions'.

[@twinzzlers]

​@@nabilian2145Because it's a genuinely good game

[@brandonbernard1570]

Something I really respected in Metroid Dread is that they considered all the past games’ events, even if it wouldn’t be entirely obviously to newcomers. The big plot twist is even more effective if you know the character traits of a character introduced in Fusion.

[@colossalweeb]

I mean metroid is and always has been one linear narrative (other than prime and other m which are prequels) zelda is not. It's barely a narrative. And always has been.

[@WolverineBatman]

​@@colossalweebBut Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel.

[@colossalweeb]

@@WolverineBatman yeah tears of the kingdom continuity to botw is wack. But honestly that's Nintendo's fault for making it a sequel in the same world with the same characters. That's never been done before, they've done old characters in new worlds like majoras mask, the DS games, links awakening and oracle games and they've done old worlds with new characters with a link between worlds. What they did with tears of the kingdom is unprecedented and I think there's a reason for it (it sucked)

[@seacliff217]

Metroid handles continuity in the way people believe Nintendo handles Zelda's continuity.

[@JosephJohns-xi1qb]

@@colossalweeb They're more midquels. All of them as far as I know take place after Metroid/Zero Mission with Other M between Super and Fusion.

[@malikevans634]

It really hurts, knowing you love something more than those who created it.

[@HANIMEME]

that is incredibly painful to hear

[@godly_potatoe69xd19]

I feel like it’s not that they don’t love it and it’s more that they don’t love it for the same reasons we do so they decided to focus on pure gameplay mechanics to the point that even the world they are used in suffered

[@ELDENLORD89]

@tbnwontpop8857Unfortunately this is Nintendo and they know their base consists of fans that will lap up anything and 10 year olds. They don’t make games for people that care about lore. Every new iteration is basically a soft reboot to not scare new players.

[@Guy-cb1oh]

And they were rewarded hansomely for not caring about it anymore.

[@DeadpoolX9]

bro look at the sonic and berserk fanbase or even the star wars one. When that starts happening the fans just take what works/what they loved from the original series and make their own version of it which courts the original fans who are now alienated and hopefully forces the original series to up their ante (jurys still out on that part but point still stands. If you don't give fans what they want, they will MAKE what they want and leave you behind)

[@iamalaser4185]

Yes! I loved this game up until the very end when I realized so little of the cool lore stuff would be paid off in the story. Its a facade of cool lore that doesn't seem to have any meaning beyond being a colorful background

[@minty9959]

the story got so disappointing the further i got in that by the end I almost didnt care at all

[@ElJosher]

Yep, it was hype all throughout, then the ending came and ruined it. The plot and how it was constructed are just bad. At least botw has a simple narrative to introduce us to this new world. But totk has a hodgepodge of contradictions and dumb ideas that destroy the foundation that botw set.

[@thebaronlouis8619]

I feel like more NPCs recognized you in BOTW after a gap of 100 years then recognized you in TOTK after a gap of maybe a couple weeks. It's been 6 years since BOTW, but the prologue under Hyrule Castle isn't that long before you wake up. And why is the tunic you wear at the start hidden in the throne room? Zelda apparently already gave it to you, so why does it go back to where she hid it after the tutorial ends?

[@akiranara6404]

The tunic in the castle is a replacement Zelda intended to give Link as a gift. The tunic Link has in the opening is the original, but it gets totaled by Ganondorf's attack and never shows up again. Which, considering that Ganondorf fucked up Links arm so bad it had to be replaced, makes a lot of sense.

[@ja4039]

The next Zelda needs two things, clearly: a compelling story and improved dungeon experience. These are two sides of the same coin that have to do with the reinstatement of some level of linearity, and a deemphasis on TOTAL open-worldedness. If they don’t want to be constrained by lore, they can do what they want - make new lore, but just make it deep.

[@whywright2663]

And get tid of weapon break design, tears of kingdom has no excuse for it as the sheer amount of versatility and nuance weapon combination brings to the table is enough to lug around an entire arsenal....

[@ash8244]

@@whywright2663 cry more, skill issue

[@whywright2663]

@@ash8244 unnecessary game design is unnecessary still, and no amount of childish sayings will change that.

[@Sarah_H]

I'm replaying the game and taking notes on where the game tries to send you in efforts to figure out a more linear "story mode", because after my first playthrough I was MAD AS HELL when I got all the Dragon's Tears and discovered the big twist/gut punch, but then did Regional Phenomena and had to put up with Link's selective mutism on where Zelda really was. Like NO! That's NOT her! Why are we following an obvious impostor into the caldera of a very-recently-active volcano! I'm up to Mineru's questline right now, but so far: The game aggressively steers us to Rito Village/the Lucky Clover Gazette after we get the paraglider, then towards Goron City, then to Zora's Domain, then to Gerudo Desert, then Crisis At Hyrule Castle happens, and from there we're directed to investigate the Ring Ruins in Kakariko Village in the hunt for the Fifth Sage. Muzu mentions at this point that he's begun an inquiry into the geoglyphs and actually tells you locations of ones you haven't gotten to yet, and he suggests that you talk to Impa to learn more about them, BUT by this time the game is pushing you REALLY hard to go find Mineru, who will then tell you to visit the Deku Tree to retrieve the Master Sword, who then puts the tracking ping on the Light Dragon, but pulling the Master Sword *before* you've viewed all the memories will RUIN the Zelda twist. So I'm having a hard time figuring out where to fit the geoglyph quest in with the Mineru questline so nothing is preemptively spoiled and the momentum of the story at this point is preserved; without the added context of the Dragon's Tears memories, Critical Decisions only speaks about some vague forbidden act that we don't know about yet, so going to see the Great Deku Tree to get that cutscene, and then pivoting to investigating the geoglyphs after completing Find The Fifth Sage would be the best way to do it IMO (while also making it so we cannot interact with either the Tears or the Master Sword up until the story needs us to, so we can't ruin the big twist too early)

[@goodmanwiseman303]

They won’t do either of those things.

[@ZenJestr]

TotK is a fun game that absolutely slaughtered my love of the series. that interview where they said the Sheikah tech just disappeared was the final nail in the coffin for me. it's crazy how Zelda used to be my favorite game franchise and I now look at it like an ex who you discovered never loved you, just put up with you while you practically worshipped them.

[@Wild_Tink]

Exactly how I feel. I grew up with twilight princess and oot. Fell in love with it. The lore especially, while it's not much it was still interesting and Nintendo felt like they cared about it as well kinda especially with skyward sword. Totk killed the magic for me. I found dark souls games to be my new Zelda lol. Honestly if from soft made a game with a lot more puzzles could be pretty cool.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

Except it wasn't actually your ex and you were just worshipping someone you had a delusion of loving you back for literally no reason. Also, you shouldn't be worshipping the people you get into relationships with. That's creepy.

[@DeadpoolX9]

that..... hit too close to home

[@DeadpoolX9]

@@BaldorfBreakdowns Not literally worshipping them but if someone doesnt really care about you as much as you care about them and you're relatively young/inexperienced/possibly damaged, then you get into this loop of trying to make them care about you as much as you care about them which may be construed as worshipping as you build this ideal version of them in your head essentially the more benign verison of "i can fix them".

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@DeadpoolX9 But we're talking about a business. You shouldn't expect them to care about you as much as you care about the things they make to entertain you. Getting upset at the person you've been in love with when you find out you've actually been in a made up, one sided relationship is really sad to me. Especially when that person is actually a business. Regardless of whether you "worshipped" them or not. Do yourself a favor, quit caring about stories in video games and play them for the gameplay. That way, when a story IS good, it'll stand out and make it better. And when the story is either non existent or bad, it won't bother you because the gameplay is good. Kingdom Hearts taught me this lesson a long time ago. The story, characters and basically everything other than the gameplay, sucks.

[@denpadolt9242]

My biggest gripe with ToTK's lore is that the mere existence of the Zonai basically throws a hand grenade into the established body of Zelda lore and theories. Unless you want to make massive leaps in logic, everything Zonai-related in ToTK overwrites the entire Zelda canon in Ancient Aliens-esque fashion, not to mention contradicts everything we thought we knew about the Zonai from BoTW. I genuinely can't picture ToTK anywhere on a larger Zelda timeline than on some funhouse-mirror parallel timeline.

[@KyleEvra-15]

Because it is a Zonai grenade they wanted to destroy everything which explains why they threw it in there and said "Well good 🤞🏽 luck trying to connect all of this to that!, LOL!!!"

[@rondorock2563]

The one thing you never do with any work of fiction is to let the audience conclude that nothing in current lore matters. They might as well have made a whole new game with completely different characters and continuity.😅

[@Chronoflation]

They would've been better off if they did. They could've even just put a 1000 year time skip between the games, a new Link and Zelda who just happen to look similar to their ancestors, and then they easily could've explained everything Link is and isn't familiar with just by it being a new Link. For me, AoC was the only game that cared about the lore, and it was forced to introduce a time travel gimmick with a dumb "cute" mascot character whose unreasonably tied to the plot because they couldn't just tell the story of the fall to the Calamity. But they built up the world in a way that BotW and TotK never could even being far longer games than AoC

[@AT7outof10]

With how long they've fine-tuned this engine, it'd be a waste to not use it again for a few unrelated games.

[@vivid8979]

​@@AT7outof10This engine was used for the new Wii sports and Splatoon 3... Also BotW and TotK sold ASTRONOMICALLY well that even if they burn this engine almost nothing will nothing change... They don't share details about their engine tho and it's most likely that they will use this engine as a basis for their new engine since they already said that TotK's gameplay format will be the basis of the future Zelda games.

[@Cheesehead302]

It's that annoying Nintendo thing where they're for some reason against story sometimes, and I just don't understand it man. Like, all of this talk about immersion into the world because of gameplay experiences, lore should be apart of that. I tend to enjoy things that I can have a solid opinion on/interpret in a certain way. Fromsoftware games for example. At first, I've got no idea what in the world is going on in those games. But then, my curiosity leads me to both replay the game multiple times, think about things, look for hints that have been deliberately placed in the world, and learn about it from what others think. It's just another element of those games that immerse me into the universe, makes me want to play and scrutinize them, etc. Essentially point-blank telling your audience "eh, who the hell cares about story, make your own" is, in my opinion, completely blocking off any discussion, intrigue, or scrutiny that can be had. Do I care about a specific type of architecture, a character who's design in a certain way, or where/why a boss exists if I KNOW that at most the developers just hide Cypher based Easter eggs in the game that relate to nothing? No, I don't. It signals to me that I shouldn't want to engage with the world or find a deeper meaning, this isn't its own universe it is just a video game where video game elements come together to make obstacles for the player to over come. Like I don't even ask for much, just a basic level of continuity or characters that are layered at all would be nice. Heck, a Nintendo franchise that understands this perfectly is Metroid in my opinion. Every release (barring spin offs) is connected in a fashion that's relatively simple, makes sense, and makes me genuinely excited to try and discover the little details in its worlds. Sure, maybe it doesn't exactly promote lore discussion so much, but it does make me curious about what will happen in future games and what worlds they will take place in. A bit of a tangent on Metroid there aside, I think I got what I wanted to say across.

[@sebastianfernandez6146]

@@Cheesehead302definitely, I feel like they got away with the lack of lore for a while but ever since BOTW, the franchise reached a new height of popularity and I hope they’ll fix the mistakes TOTK presented.

[@doyoufloss]

BOTW teased at a greater depth to the world, and early TOTK marketing presented something that seemed revelatory. so, it’s no surprise that the final product was so underwhelming. Some people in the comments are arguing that those who hoped for deeper worldbuilding are foolish for expecting so, but I think the frustration is very justified.

[@Rancor9000]

The fact that we saw Ganondorf’s corpse in the trailer really send a lot of people to theoryland straight away, which makes total sense--why on earth would this be an entirely new Ganondorf like it turned out to be?

[@robinita46853]

I think my biggest problem is that botw left so many unanswerable questions and so it seemed impossible that totk could fill in all of those gaps. The frustration is completely justified and I don’t think folks were being foolish. I remember moments of optimism during the re-release of Skyward, when I saw Ganondorf’s new design, when everyone was exploring all the zonai ruins, it was so cool! I just couldn’t share the hype because botw scarred me. My dissatisfaction with botw’s lore has grown for 6 years and so totk not being significantly better was not a surprise to me because it’s a sequel. That doesn’t take away the pain folks are feeling now.

[@btchiaintkidding7837]

​@@robinita46853 i mean, lore depth can just be implied to a healthy extent to build mystery and intrigue to be appreciated by the imaginative invested player/fans; but thats not what ToTK did. seems like all the sequel did is stamped out all the intrigue, and whatever insight/answers it provided for the lore was absolutely uninteresting and lacked creativity

[@thatjrpganimefanplayerjusi8003]

@@Rancor9000exactly right and since breath I think they were originally going for a Child timeline placement just the way the world structure is and of how much of it breathes of the CHILD honestly tears Ganondorf should have been OOT- Twilight Princess Ganondorf it really should have Just think about the placements they had on him would have made a lot of sense the hand on the chest him being buried away and it would have even made CALAMITY GANON FACE MAKE SENSE AND ESPECIALLY DARK BEAST GANON Now they have no meaning connection at all because F the past of the Zelda series right Nintendo Right right RIIIIIIGHT 🤨😑

[@ProbablyPC]

You think they would of named the secret stones… TEARS maybe?!

[@edythebeast7087]

I called them god tears during my play through

[@sketcher445]

@@edythebeast7087And that could have cool lore implications with them being the tears of the goddesses or something

[@awsome182]

But "Secret Stone" is so much more creative, duh! /s

[@xinpingdonohoe3978]

That was such a weird thing. We were all looking for the "Tears" in the trailer, and we thought we'd found some. But they just weren't?

[@cheergiver]

I can kind of tolerate the Shiekah tech disappearing and some of the other weird consistencies, although you make a really great point about the game caring so little about lore that it doesn’t even branch well from BoTW. The stuff that really irritated me are things like: -The Zonai going from a barbarian tribe to some unknown, unheard of “godlike” race from the sky and being the *first king* of Hyrule. Had they been similar to Hylians I might have been able to do the mental gymnastics to think maybe they were the original people/descendants from Skyward, but no, they had to be goats. - no triforce, changing the lore of the master sword, and the dumb secret stones - Ganondorf’s lore is weird and inconsistent - the nods to previous games, while in the same breath, undermining those connections. - and storytelling style. Looking for cutscenes instead of being part of the story just feels cheap. It felt cheap in BoTw too, but at least that game had a good excuse for it. BoTW would have been better if it started *before* Link died.

[@ThePedroLippi]

How did it change the lore of the Master Sword?

[@ACW-dn9wb]

​​@@ThePedroLippiThe Master Sword glows with the power to repel evil. No evil forces are supposed to be able to even touch the Master Sword, then Ganondorf (tho in a really cool cutscene btw) has red goop and just ignores the preestablished rules, not only touching but destroying the Master Sword like its made of glass. And with something less powerful than the Triforce no less, something the MS has contended with in the past.

[@ivanm8682]

@@ACW-dn9wband even after you supposedly make it even stronger after the trial of the sword in BOTW which is not easy at all 🙄

[@ACW-dn9wb]

@@ivanm8682 Exactly bro. All that hard work and it amounts to nothing in TOTK. Nintendo didn't even bother to carry over data and info from BOTW save data, much less consistentcy with that game's canon. Thats why I modded it to be at max 60 glowing damage at all times in TOTK. I paid for the DLC years ago, i did all the Trial floors, I earned my goddamn full power MS, and I intend to use it Nintendo.

[@Hero_Of_Time94]

Agreed on all points. Stupid ass secret stones which are basically japanese magatama replacing the triforce. Zonai are basically stupid looking goat dragon furries that founded hyrule and for some stupid reason one of these zonai potentially had the ability to use the fucking master sword. All these chinese dragons and heavy oriental themes and music killed zelda for me, zelda has always been about a medieval story with swords and magic. The master sword should have never shattered to some weak secret stones when a fully empowered by triforce ganondorf and even demise could never dream of shattering the sword and yet once ganondorf gets his hands on some stupid stones that came out of nowhere NOW he can destroy the master sword… incredible.

[@lucasotaviom]

it was comprehensible to me that they didn't care, but it was infuriating that they didn't care that the fans cared too much. When I saw that they were retconning things that were so easy to work around and mantain the existing lore, that completely took me out of the game and the modern state of Zelda.

[@mnmmcg3543]

There are next to zero stakes to the story in totk. At least in botw, theoretically Ganon could be released at any time because Zelda was just barely holding him back, but in totk he's literally just chilling under Hyrule Castle doing nothing. I kept waiting for an explanation but never got one. I couldn't imagine that this story would fall even more flat than botw, but I guess that is what happens when you reuse the botw formula after botw already happened.

[@saricubra2867]

BOTW ganon is still the worst Zelda villain for all of the 3D third person games. From OOT/WW/TP Ganondorf, Majora, Demise and Ghirahim to that dumpster fire... BOTW and TOTK don't have the Hero's Journey structure.

[@akiranara6404]

I mean, I think it makes sense. Ganondorf is a literal fucking mummy when the game starts, he needs time to heal. As for why his healing only finishes when you show up for the boss fight... honestly, that's just a standard feature of most games, where you can go faff around and do other things and the story will patiently wait for you to get back to it. Ganondorf happens to have just finished healing when you arrive, no matter how long you took to get there.

[@Hymn_]

@@saricubra2867cuz calamity ganon is literally just a puppet, not the actual dude

[@saricubra2867]

@@Hymn_ Calamity ganon is not a puppet, it's still Ganon.

[@BaronSterling]

The moment I realized that Nintendo completely gave 0 shits about the game's story, while the game and marketing was much more story-focused than BotW, was the moment the game soured for me. There are so many problems with trying to fit this game into the timeline, while the game goes out of its way to place most of its events at a specific point in the timeline -- at the founding of Hyrule. There are so many obvious questions about elements that connect this game to BotW that are just completely unadressed. What is the relation between Calamity Ganon and Ganondorf? Where did all of the Shiekah technology go? What is Gloom and why is it separate from Malice? _What even are Ganondorf's motivations?_ This game has the strangest urge to put on a pretense of caring about its story and its connection to the rest of the series, while simultaneously putting in no effort into its story or connecting to the rest of the series.

[@ShallBePurified]

The opening 10 minutes and the story trailers tricked everyone into thinking TotK would have a great story. The fact the game tried to act like the story is gonna play a big part of the story makes it more egregious compared to BotW.

[@Degdreams]

Well the relationship between Calamity Ganon and Ganondorf actually was addressed, it's just that it's a few lines of dialog and not plot relevant.

[@BaronSterling]

@@Degdreams Where? I've yet to see anything outside of fan speculation.

[@Degdreams]

@BaronSterling Impa says it when she returns to Kakariko. Calamity Ganon was a manifestation of Ganondorf's hatred leaking from his corpse. To summarize: it was just a stronger Phantom Ganon.

[@stuffz1757]

@@Degdreams Impa only says "The Demon King of Ancinet times was the Calamity brought back in hatred manifest" You're inferring more from that.

[@supersaiyankirby]

11:30 this aspect of TotK cracks me up bc Tarrey Town was the one part of BotW i didnt do so when Hudson was one of the only people who recognized me years later i didnt know who he was and got really confused.

[@TrogDH]

"I do not want to know more about the Zonai, I do not care about the Zonai. They are furries, their architecture is boring. They don't seem warlike, nor wise, nor religious, nor... anything. They have the cultural footprint of a Saltine cracker. You would think, given how much time spent exploring is really just time spent finding these stupid shrines, the game would try harder to instill them with any sense of ancient intrigue" There's a great DJ Peach Cobbler video where he sums up the painfully boring lore issues wonderfully

[@ebusive]

I think SO MUCH of the negative reception and criticisms of this game is the fact that it was announced and sold to us as a sequel, but the game itself intentionally made the choice to pretend BoTW never happened, several times. It's as though the developers were personally offended that this game was announced the way it was and went out of their way to make sure that it was everything but. I remember an interview where some dev said that when it comes to this game, and maybe all the other Zelda games, they design the gameplay first and then write the story. This would explain why a lot of story elements don't make sense. I'm honestly fine with that. I just wish they cared a LITTLE.

[@shybie2798]

Ngl seeing Teba on the thumbnail makes me feel kinda validated cause I remember expressing my disappointment over how shafted he felt (since i loved him in botw) only to be met with people who dont care and kinda low key ridiculed me for caring so much. Idk he felt like the face of the many issues i had with totk as a whole. Cause if you think about it, Teba is THE character that actually gave a damn about Revalis legacy. With Teba shafted to focus on Tulin, it kinda gives an implication that Revali is gonna be the first of the champions thats gonna be forgotten. Miphas Sidons sister and she gets her own statue, Yunobo is a descendant of Daruk as well as Riju coming from Urbosa. So its kinda sad to think Revali will be the first to be forgotten in the rito village. Hes an asshole yeah but hes also the only champion not born with any royalty or status. He worked his way to the top and thats kinda sad to see being forgotten ngl.

[@ShallBePurified]

The fact Teba has no spoken lines whatsoever is a crime. Also, it is very jarring when you realize that every scene with the champions only has the champion talking and no one else. It's like they're talking to themselves. The exception is when they all gather together in to fight Ganondorf, where they each get like 2 lines max, which is also very disappointing because they don't really interact with any characters. Age of Calamity actually has way better character interactions than either BotW and TotK. And it's because it's not written by the Zelda team.

[@revali8349]

Yes, I agree it is a pity.

[@A_Dylan_of_No_Renown]

It’s almost certaily just a popularity decision on their part. Teba’s Amiibo sold the worst of all the Champion characters by a wide margin, for instance.

[@shybie2798]

@@A_Dylan_of_No_Renown teba had an amiibo? I googled and all that was available was Revali oAo Also thats really sad to hear cause tbh popularity tends to stunt story telling sometimes And from a personal atance that sucks cause i do like him kinda sucks when you like the lesser popular characters

[@twinzzlers]

I never liked Teba tbh, Tulin was way better imo. As for Revali, he actually recognizes that he'll be forgotten. I think it's more interesting than the hot headed, arrogant jerk will be the first one to be forgotten.

[@Xerain]

The other possibility is rather than not caring, they're being outwardly hostile to the idea of ongoing lore and are intentionally nipping it in the bud so that we don't expect future Zelda games to refer back to BotW and TotK. They'd rather have a products anyone can jump in and play.

[@Veylon]

I hope that's not what they're thinking. Lore doesn't burden a game unless they throw a bunch of mechanics and names at a player without explaining any of it. It's not like the story of BoTW is so complicated that the player couldn't get the gist of it in a two minute cutscene. Any important recurring character can easily introduce themselves and sketch out their history with Link in a couple sentences.

[@internettraveler8666]

Like competitive smash

[@RinkuHeroOfTime]

​@Veylon zelda team listens to criticism so maybe the switch 2 zelda is gonna go back to heavy lore

[@thephalange8630]

So many people played only one or two Zelda games, liked it and moved on. Nintendo needs to understand that people can play a game and not know previous titles and still have fun with a game and the story of the game, while long time players can have even more fun with connecting the dots. They don't have to make a game completely built upon previous titles. Majoras mask; a direct sequel to ocarina, totally its own game, can be played separately without ever even having heard of the prequel. Something like this is what totk should have been.

[@chillchinna4164]

It sucks to watch something you loved go a different direction than you’d like it to. I said it on the last Zelda video, and it holds true on this one. I wish I didn’t have to see so much of the stuff I adored leave on a path I don’t want to follow. This was just another example.

[@minty9959]

it feels like when a youtuber youve followed for a long time changes their style and content completely and your just like wtf

[@highdefinition450]

so true man, this series was my favorite but if it keeps heading into this direction, it probably won't be anymore.. guess we'll see in another 7 years or something, ffs lol

[@scubasteve2189]

The answer to every “lore” question in TOTK is basically “because we needed to set things up like BOTW”. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Why does the master sword get destroyed? Because we need Link not to have it and to go on a quest for it. Why did the sheikah stuff disappear? Because we needed new towers and shrines for this game. Why does Link not have all of his armor that he collected? Because we are lazy and wanted to make the player go find all the same armor over again. Hey, at least we scattered it all into new places! That’s exciting, right? 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

[@cedrolenon]

Quest to fix the master sword that feel like it bearly change and had no impact

[@MxPokirby]

Also the sword breaking literally didn't even matter. Link could've dropped it when his arm got melted, and Zelda could've been holding it (because it's too important to let fall) when she herself fell and went back in time, taking it with her. Same result, minus spitting in the face of people who still care that it's meant to be invincible against evil, and the part where Link somehow sends the (technically still invincible because it has infinite durability) broken sword back in time.

[@breadbaskets2772]

The fact that the sheikah stuff was completely thrown to the wayside and basically palette swapped with the zonai stuff made me completely disinterested with the lore from the start. Like how can all of that stuff just instantly disappear without a trace, theres no repercussions, no one cares anymore.

[@Sam_T2000]

I’m totally fine with each _Zelda_ game, or each iteration of Link, being a completely new and standalone story, retelling the general story of a courageous hero and a wise princess teaming to defeat the powerful bad guy… but if they’re going to try to incorporate each game into a coherent timeline, they really should make it work, and make it interesting.

[@LibertyDino]

Yup. The oracle games and links awakening being part of their own universe would have been fine with me. This connected timeline thing is not really necessary. The mario games don't have connected lore and most people don't care. Gameplay wise totk was so much fun.

[@Player5xx]

I really wish tears had been a sequel the way that link between worlds was to a link to the past. Sure use the same map and engine if you want but don't bother making an actual sequel if you apparently didn't really want to and can't make it make even a little sense?

[@Sam_T2000]

@@Player5xx - _TOTK_ really was $70 DLC… not $20-30 of DLC, definitely a full $70 worth, but it just felt like it added some fun stuff on top of the base game (being _BOTW)_ and didn’t really iterate upon the formula or do anything truly new and different… just a few new areas, some caves, and a few cool, new mechanics.

[@scarmucci1918]

THERE. IS. NO.. TIMELINE !!!! Even the one Nintendo published was created just to shut everybody up about it - but that obviously did not work.

[@Sam_T2000]

@@scarmucci1918 - chill.

[@memedumpster3684]

Man, I'm glad to see people addressing this. Another example: the past champions' gear. Their locations throughout the Depths SHOULD be incredibly useful clues that tie the world of TotK to the classic games. What an amazing way to draw connections to the distant past! But I didn't get that feeling at all. The feeling I got was that the champions' gear was a basket of shiny easter eggs put into the game to fill the role of "x marks the spot". The scavenger hunt was fun for a time, but it was merely a gameplay element within this single game. The random locations and lack of environmental storytelling around the treasure chests make it clear that there are no lore implications. And when I realized that, I felt so deflated. Such a huge waste of potential connections to past games. So much potential for lore destroyed. Ultimately, I realized what you did... "They didn't think of it, and they don't care."

[@Jdudec367]

I mean I get that feeling. I didn't get that feeling, thy were there for a reason. Nah there is a lore reason too, they all ended up in the depths somehow and fell down there after the old champions died. There is some environmental storytelling though and there is lore implications. Well that wasn't really true. It wasn't a huge waste of potential conections to past games. The potential for lore wasn't really destroyed. Nah they did think of it and do care.

[@rhys7789]

I feel like, at least in terms of worldbuilding, this version of Hyrule worked much better in BOTW because of how vague everything is. When you find interesting places in BOTW, the lack of information lets you imagine that there are interesting stories behind the place. In TOTK they give you enough explanation to reveal that most of the places you are exploring don't have much meaning behind them, or are linked the the Zonai culture which only exists to provide interesting gameplay mechanics. To me, that makes the experience far less immersive

[@minty9959]

the only thing that was under arbiters grounds was a tiny graveyard TvT

[@CompleteProducer84]

How I wish that I could somehow magically play TOTK before BOTW. When I played BOTW, I was just getting back into gaming, and it was one of my best gaming memories. TOTK improved damn near everything from BOTW, but I just didn’t care. I felt like I had already done everything in Hyrule, and the lore, Sky Islands, and Depths couldn’t save it. I didn’t even finish the game.

[@tomedwards6512]

I came back to it after weeks. I just played it without thinking about comparing it to anything, and honestly, Its still absolute perfection.

[@CompleteProducer84]

@@tomedwards6512 I plan to do that too, but after maybe a year or so. I was REALLY hoping to return after the addition of Master Mode in a DLC, but that ain’t happening.

[@cornthdl]

Sadly I agree. Was so hyped. BotW was the first video game I'd played in 15 years, and I played it every day for 2 years practically. TotK is awesome, amazing, so fun...but then it fades quickly. Too much like BotW I guess. That's the only thing I can come up with. I did several playthroughs overa a month or so, but only finished the game once and then haven't played it since. All that time waiting for it's arrival, so excited, and I just can't get myself to care.

[@themoviecritic1092]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't finish the game. I haven't finished the game, but it's not because of the game or anything, I just lack time

[@supersaiyankrillin1237]

Botw shook up the Zelda formula and changed open world design. Even elden ring took inspiration from botw. TotK is a well made and safe game that's not even comparable to botw in terms of innovation and uniqueness.

[@hanavgc4264]

Also they said there was no need for the Sheikah tech so it disappeared; but in the game the towers are made of repurposed Sheikah tech. Why didn’t that disappear?

[@hordern_6607]

I think what is forgotten quite often is that what made breath of the wild's side stories so good is not just the connections to past games, but also the worldbuilding specific to breath of the wild, there are so many little encounters, side quests, and locations that have small stories to tell, hell we got like 10 monster maze videos from one armor set. I think where totk fails is that it's fundementally the same world, and therefore we don't really have any new stories to tell, which irritates me because nintendo added two entirely new areas to the game, the sky and the depths, both of which are pretty much just copy and pasted content. Easily the biggest problem is that nintendo have just straight up ignored plotlines and lore details that were left unfinished in botw, Kass, one of the best and most mysterious characters from the past game? Gone. Mentioned once not even by name. The incredibly cool and high tech sheikah shrines and towers? Gone. Without any real explanation despite a stupid directors note that the people of hyrule just like forgot about them and how they disappeared after calamity was defeated or something. There are many mysteries both small and big that we all hoped would get continued, but it's clear that the higher-ups at nintendo just straight up don't care. I'm just glad the game was at least fun, despite having zero replay value at all. Great vid as always rata :)

[@knight-of-aether]

Absolutely this. BotW had so many great worldbuilding nuggets and ideas that were right there, perfectly set up to explore further in the sequel, but then the devs for some reason decided to make TotK as unlike a sequel as possible and avoid building on or even referencing the majority of BotW's lore, while still retreading the same land. And the new lore they dropped in just feels so random and hollow too... It's frustrating.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

Zero replay value? Because of the story/lore? I guess we're just ignoring all gameplay? Shrines and Temples can be done in any order. You can choose how many, if any, Temples you complete, and that will have an effect on the end of the game. I don't there there is a single puzzle that has only one solution. There's tons of armor and weapons to try out and experiment with and set challenges with. Upgrade health/stamina or armor as much or little as you want to scale difficulty. Only cook real meals, or limit food in other ways for more variety. There are tons of different ways to adjust difficulty or make challenges for yourself in the game. Which translates to, lots of different ways to *REPLAY* the game. The game has nearly endless replay value, Ultrahand alone pretty much does that alone. There's so many possibilities with just building, it's insane. What Zelda games have replay value based on the story/lore? How does BotW give you replay value from the story/lore? Majora's Mask comes to mind, but the overall story and lore don't change. The replay value is in the side stories.

[@Isuream6331]

@@BaldorfBreakdowns Eh, you are right and wrong. They are exaggerating when they say there is zero replay value, because of the reasons you gave. But the bad lore does hurt the game, as it makes the world feel shallow and just generally feel uncared for. What’s the point of a story in a game when it isn’t developed? Look, I’m saying this as someone who really isn’t bothered by this and can just pretend that the characters don’t have the memory of a goldfish, but the fact still remains that there are some people who are disappointed by the lack of lore in a series that clearly had plenty of it, if all of the theory channels are enough to go by

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@Isuream6331 I never said the bad lore didn't hurt the game. Or any of the other things you are making arguments against.

[@markigirl2757]

@@BaldorfBreakdowns they might not care about that stuff as much as u do. I found the buidling stuff a gimmick and a chore when i played

[@rayneishalowe3739]

I would like to send a shout out to all of the theory Crafters who put in work all these years. Because everything they came up with, no matter how out of left-field it was, turned out a thousand times better than what we actually got. 😒😮‍💨

[@fl0w1009]

word

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

Name a Zelda game where the lore is better than what the theorists come up with. Go, go, go!

[@kreiskhaos8516]

​@@BaldorfBreakdownsMajora's Mask and Ocarina of Time both had amazing lore when they were released

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@kreiskhaos8516 But is it's lore as deep as the theorists make it? No. It's very surface level. All the lore is super vague and open to many interpretations. There is no "real" lore. It's all assumption and speculation. Theorists do all the heavy lifting when it comes to Zelda lore.

[@Simpls.1]

@@BaldorfBreakdownsreminds me of fnaf.

[@seatwo948]

What sucks is that Eiji said he wants to take Zelda into a direction where it no longer has story.

[@clonetrooper2003]

Yeah he is like the dave filoni to this franchise. And whats worse is that mario rpgs are coming back so it might get the point whee mario games have better story than zelda

[@94hourzzz66]

Did Eiji really say that? Do you have a source?? I can’t find it ):

[@daniel8181]

He literally didn't but I wish he would so you'd feck off somewhere else. Play alan wake if thats what you care about.

[@clonetrooper2003]

@@94hourzzz66 no but i wouldnt be surprised if he actually said that

[@zacharyhutter9085]

I need a source on that asap

[@makerviewr1cn356]

For me Tears main story problem was the lack of connective tissue to BoTW. From what I can tell they primairly wanted the games story to be suited for those who never played BoTW or forgot some of the events from that previous adventure

[@SkywalkerOne1977]

Or, to not feel like a DLC.

[@stradify1]

Things like this contribute greatly to the weight of a game. Even if I don't understand everything about the story/lore of a game like Elden Ring, for example, I *believe* there are hidden details to understand beneath the surface. Without that belief, that longing to understand something more deeply, an adventure experience feels so hollow

[@bensweeney5878]

What really pisses me off is the fact that we have "rauru, sage of light" who IS NOT the same Rauru from ocarina of time! And we have the imprisoning war that is NOT the imprisoning war before a link to the past! This games "lore" is pure time travel nonsense that makes for a terrible excuse for a retconned timeline!

[@laurensleystra1224]

They 100% did this on purpose. Tease the fans with these things and completley 180 on us. When Ganondorf mentioned Rauru I was so hyped.. only to be dissapointed few hours laters

[@heimidal]

I've been an enormous Zelda fan for my entire life, but I'm pretty much done at this point because they aren't what made them interesting to me anymore. Lore is a big part of that.

[@wuwei473]

Seriously. I know a lot of people hate on the goddesses in OoT but that intro cinematic really drew me into the world when I was a kid and really made me think of the scale of the powers at play.

[@heimidal]

@@wuwei473 exactly. I care a lot about narrative and having big moments fragmented as memories you can interact with to get a disjointed cutscene just doesn't do it for me.

[@ultraspinalki11]

​@@wuwei473People hate OoT's expansion to the triforce with the golden goddesses? I've come across more people hate everything Skyward Sword introduced. Fi, Hylia, Demise, etc. And it had the nerve to set itself as the definitive "origin" story. Ocarina of Time did a FAR better job as the Genesis of the franchise.

[@wuwei473]

@@ultraspinalki11 yeah most people I've met think it's useless fluff. To be fair, the goddesses never show up and are barely mentioned outside of that cinematic. But yeah It was pretty captivating for me at the time!

[@megamillion5852]

​@@wuwei473 I'm always in awe at that cutscene. There's such a palpable love for storytelling in it.

[@thatnerdygaywerewolf9559]

I was one of the fans that missed the stuff BotW took away, but was also hopeful for the future of the series and seeing how it evolves. Now, post-TotK, that hope is largely gone. I liked a few of the gameplay improvements from BotW, but the lore is a mess and 95% of my investment in the game’s world is just a BotW holdover that wasn’t fully satisfied. The story is more of a rewriting than a continuation. It had cool ideas like the depths and sky, but they were both highly copy-and-paste. Etc. Now I know what the “fans who felt left behind by BotW” feel like.

[@Acronax]

To me it was really sad to just notice that nothing that happened in BOTW matters at all, like the sacrifices people made, literally the old sages dying and for what? Like everything was a bad joke, even destroying the most important sword in all of Zelda games at the intro like nothing... it was really dissapointing

[@crimsonsheik198]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who was disappointed with the lore for TOTK. The continuity between both games seems scuffed and I definitely feel like they didn't put as much time into developing that aspect. Felt like a lot of the mystery and intrigue about the setting in BOTW was lost and I still have no idea why they got rid of all the Sheikah technology across the map except for the lab in Hateno. I thought it would have been pretty cool to see remnants of the old towers and guardians around the new map.

[@Player5xx]

People spent the whole first two weeks trying to figure out how the game fit into the overall zelda timeline and I was just sitting there like I'm not even sure this game is related to the one it's supposed to be a direct sequel to.

[@crimsonsheik198]

@@Player5xx I agree. TOTK feels like it doesn't even fully commit to being a sequel to BOTW.

[@janeenschultz8502]

I'm apparently a rare player in that I adore talking to all the NPCs I come across, so I was quickly confused about meeting people I recognized and only some of them recognized me back. I play with my young kids watching and even they had questions. We were excited to see the return of dungeons and ooo'd at the new version of poes even though none of us are big fans of the Depths. I was disappointed at the key-jangling of collectibles with no actual tie to the game and then also disappointed at all the lore going "oh yeah, that was zonai, moving on."

[@Avid_Listener]

The timing of this video is really uncanny. I was literally thinking to myself the other day, "Man why hasn't my youtube suggestions been full of TotK lore videos?" I even went and looked at a few channels I was watching before it came out, and there really wasn't any to be found that piqued my interest. Then I realized I haven't played TotK in over 4 months and never beat it. Video checks out lol.

[@Saintbalor]

Of they'd let Koizumi write this game, not only would the lore have been more interesting, Zelda's role would have had more consequences

[@jamespuso1627]

No joke, heavy involvement from Koizumi might be the only thing that gets me to even play the next one unless they do something crazy and give us a new trad Zelda

[@KingExalted]

Zelda should have stayed a Dragon to give impact on her sacrifice. Turning her back just defeats the entire purpose.

[@pke571]

@@KingExaltedglad someone else thought the same thing. That would’ve hit hard

[@ausgod538]

@@jamespuso1627 That will never happen. Koizumi isnt involved with zelda for more than 20 years and is producer on Mario for more than 15 years.

[@jamespuso1627]

@@ausgod538 No I would be very surprised if that happened. Even on Mario like you said he's a producer, not writing or directing or designing anything anymore.

[@Saidriak]

I was so bummed that they couldn’t do anything Zelda-y in the last two Zelda games. I miss good temple design and story

[@joestromo2592]

There's a WWHD interview with Aonuma where he mentions he wants to make a Zelda game where the player carves out their own story, instead of the devs supplying one. Looks like he accomplished his dream

[@Makkaru112]

I would say the new players that start with TOTK would be driven to play the older games if they actually kept the continuity.

[@ivanm8682]

My thoughts exactly

[@lolpfhor]

This is honestly what was missing in TOTK. BOTW had me scavenging for information about the world, nuggets of environmental storytelling. BOTW took place in a dying world where people were trying to find hope, one that felt like you wanted to save....TOTK just throws it all away and none of it mattered so it can have its new green mechanics. Hugely disappointing game.

[@thebuddhabuilder2662]

add to that, that they could have easily had the new mechanics AND the lore.

[@saricubra2867]

BOTW's world was something extremely generic. Wind Waker nailed it like 15 years before.

[@lemmy154]

dissapointing for the 1% of the players 😂

[@Zelink108]

@@saricubra2867 Care to explain what makes it “generic”?

[@Zelink108]

@@lemmy154 It’s way more than “1%”, lots of people, even before the game came out and we got the final trailer, were saying it felt like glorified DLC, not to mention the high pice tag on the game.

[@ComfyO]

Before the launch of TOTK, I replayed BOTW making sure to pay careful attention to all the characters, side quests, and story beats, excited to see how they would continue in the sequel. Imagine my disappointment upon playing it when 90% of those characters forgot who Link is, the side quests of BOTW didn’t matter, and the events of BOTW’s main story are very rarely mentioned. I love TOTK but I feel it could’ve been so much more.

[@VenusFeuerFalle]

TOTK was a disappointment on so many levels...

[@nabilian2145]

Why do you love totk when it did you like that? You people d ride Nintendo on a whole other level

[@FirstRecords204]

​@@nabilian2145because a video game has multitudes of qualities, it isn't singularly defined by any one flaw

[@Vanished584]

@@nabilian2145 The game is fun to play but its not on the same level of quality as botw. Thats a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

[@nabilian2145]

@@FirstRecords204 except this game is flawed in every aspect

[@itachi93674]

I spent 300 hours into this game started in May last year and just finished now March 2024. Yet when I beat the game instead of thinking “ can’t believe I beat the game I’m so sad now” instead I thought “ finally it’s fucking done” I was hyped for this game when they showed the teaser of Ganondorf because I thought that they would somehow connect the lore to previous games like twilight princess, ocarina, skyward sword ect…. Then after playing the game for a while and realizing they didn’t bother connecting any lore not even mentioning the triforce i just lost hype. Not to mention the depths as a hole was unneeded. Like why make a big empty dark opening space to waste time ? At first I thought it was cool then I saw how big it was. It’s just giant time waste they could have spent on building meaningful side quests or fleshing out other characters. Purah and Paya literally don’t do shit the whole game.

[@MediaphusioN]

I think that Fromsoft's games have forever raised the bar (and our expectations) for depth and consistency in worldbuilding and lore. They take it incredibly seriously and spend ages building it out layer by layer. Going back to Nintendo games, which have always been more about gameplay innovation than lore/worldbuilding/narrative, is...revealing. Zelda games might be the most lore/narrative focused of the Nintendo franchises, but I don't think they're even playing in the same league as Fromsoft games.

[@atomicbanana55]

Nah, this is mostly a comparison of Zelda to Zelda, of which TotK is one of if not the weakest entry lore and story wise. A huge reason the franchise got so big was the world it developed and how the stories were handled in each game, even though they always followed the same general formula of the hero's journey.

[@mrinconsistent5951]

Given the resources Nintendo has, I'm not sure what was stopping them from having a tiny group of the writers ensure that things were at least *consistent*. Having mediocre worldbuilding would've been acceptable, but inconsistent worldbuilding is just frustrating because it is not that hard to avoid.

[@atomicbanana55]

@@mrinconsistent5951 Probably greed or laziness. It certainly wasn't time as the game was delayed for a long while.

[@basementreviewer788]

Metroid is the more lore-focused nintendo franchise, not zelda. It's the one that cares about continuity, aswell as consistency between its lore in each game. The prime series has a bunch of text rivalling any dark souls game just about lore.

[@robbieclark1784]

@@basementreviewer788 Facts.

[@silentlore2458]

i feel like monolithsoft should be given a chance at a zelda narrative. Nintendo uses them for world design and art for totk but that's it. However when you look at Xenoblade, you see the intricate mind of Takahashi and his series'. He prioritises the story as a compliment to the gameplay and a focus rather than an extension thrown in. If Takahashi had a chance at zelda, i think it could revive the story and lore we all love

[@ShallBePurified]

I'd rather Takahashi work on Xenoblade 4 than a Zelda story. I can see some of the other writers working on a Zelda story from their experience with Xenoblade, but the big man is too good to be relegated to making a Zelda story.

[@silentlore2458]

@ShallBePurified you're probably right but I'm still curious about it

[@ShallBePurified]

@@silentlore2458 The Triforce will become the Zohar 3.0.

[@silentlore2458]

@ShallBePurified so the triforce will start the trinity of God artifacts which require 3 vassals to activate properly and 3 series acclimated to them

[@wakkaseta8351]

Well there's your problem. Takahashi's philosophy is diametrically opposed to Nintendo's, or at least Miyamoto's.

[@TheZajicekfarber]

TotK is trying to be it's own isolated story, which would be fine if it wasn't a direct sequel to BotW. Outside of a few character moments that require BotW context (say Koga or Sidon), it kinda pretends that BotW didn't happen. Honestly it'd make more if TotK was the prequel where they beat Ganondorf and turn him into Dragon Ganon, thus explaining Calamity Ganon in BotW.

[@justsayin4632]

Everybody keeps saying they “chose” to do or omit this or that. The harsh reality is that, they wanted the “skeleton” of BOTW to make production faster/easier than using an all-new world. This however caused creative constraints. BOTW is the better game for simply being all-new. None of us had ever seen that world before. EVERYTHING was awesome and new. It felt EXCITING to tread into a new territory, not knowing what you’d discover. In TOTK it felt more like a chore to retread the same locales but with minor differences. The sky portions were disappointing and sparse. They missed a real opportunity to make a fully fleshed out Skyward Sword connection. Same with the depths. I’m GRATEFUL there weren’t another 500 koroks hiding in the depths, but the depths overall just felt like Nintendo realizing that the surface world “remix” wasn’t gonna be compelling enough. But it was a band-aid fix at best. Bottom line: TOTK is a GOOD game. It has many elements I actually wish were in BOTW! But BOTW was simply groundbreaking. You were just as “new” to this all-new Hyrule as the amnesiac Link. That created cohesion and congruency between Link and the player in how they approached the world. Truly a high-water mark in the series.

[@Dyrvega]

It’s really weird. I’ve put hundreds of hours into BotW and always loved it and beat it multiple times. Ive only done 2 dungeons in TotK and just do not care to finish the game. I was absolutely loving the game but it just faded so damn fast. The wind temple was an absolute highlight and then played the fire temple and hated almost every second of it. I’ve tried getting back on it a few times and just can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t even say it’s because it is too much like BotW because I genuinely think I could play BotW again and enjoy it. Not sure why but TotK just didn’t hit the mark with me even though it’s more of what I love.

[@NotaWalrus1]

Anecdotally, I have two friends who played the game. Neither finished it. We talked about the game a bit during the post-release period, but we haven't even mentioned it since. We are still talking about BoTW however. Frankly, I think the big sales numbers of ToTK have nothing to do with how good it is, and everything to do with how good BoTW was. I wouldn't be surprised if the next game falls drastically in sales as people tire of this All Freedom All The Time formula.

[@minty9959]

i played botw for hundreds of hours and i think that gave me no reason to beat totk because the world is so similar to how it used to be so why play any more in a world ive already been in so long

[@a_person4742]

The lightning temple and gerudo quests were fun. Water and fire sucked ass

[@Rhaegar19]

@@NotaWalrus1 The all freedom all the time formula isn't even the problem though. See Elden Ring, or basically every MMORPG.

[@NotaWalrus1]

@@Rhaegar19 ah yes, Elden Ring, the game with multiple progression and difficulty gates to overtly and subtly guide the player experience

[@Zolerian]

They could have done they coolest thing by linking BotW with TotK but they just decided not to. And I don't really think anyone won anything through that. If it was for newcomers to not feel left out of the place, which seems to be the most commonly accepted reason, they could have still connected the lore and make people remember Link, I think. You wouldn't feel left out if someone greeted you with "hey how are you?" instead of "hey who are you?" you know?

[@brandonhelcher3691]

Glad Im not the only one bothered by the Secret stones. From what little we know about them they amplify power, not grant new power. For Rauru, Zelda, Sonia, and Mineru that checks out. The sages only seem to gain a copy, which can be excused for gameplay reasons. Then you have Ganondorf. Somehow his 1 stone overpowers 7 others, and allows him to instantly summon an entire army, and outright become the demon king. I could understand if it unlocked Demise's power within him, but that would raise the question of why Hylia's power didn't awaken in Zelda/Sonia.

[@Isuream6331]

Best guess is that it is because only SS Zelda was a direct reincarnation. The rest probably have diluted(?) blood

[@Milo-ur1eh]

You couldn’t have explained it better. An I am sure you are speaking for many die hard fans out there who wished the lore meant something to the directors

[@skakee10]

the concept of calamnity ganon being ganondorf stripped down to a mindless evil over the course of like a million years was so fucking cool but then they wanted to bring him back so now calamity's jus bigger phantom ganon :/

[@Hymn_]

i’m pretty sure lots od ppl believed calamity ganon is like ganondorf’s puppet

[@skakee10]

@@Hymn_ zeldas dialog before the final fight with him very very strongly implies calamity ganon was always meant to just be ganon. she even just calls him ganon when talking about him. like why would she be talking about it 'giving up on reincarnation' if this is still calamitys first life?

[@jiimmyyy]

The Master Sword DLC argument doesn't work because that DLC only brought the sword up to the level of power it was already exhibiting arount characters like Ganon; it didn't make a difference to its power output when facing Ganon.

[@bradshacalypse]

TotK is the ultimate culmination of the "mechanics over aesthetics" game design philosophy. This is what happens when you focus so heavily on some gameplay gimmick, to the exclusion of all other aspects of a game, that the rest of it (a lot of the stuff we the fans actually care about) comes across as an afterthought, if even that. You get this game, a sequel that likes to pretend nothing happened before it, not even the game that directly precedes it, to the point of being immersion-breaking. It renders all the emotional investment in this series one has accumulated over the years completely meaningless... But it's got a cool building mechanic! Look how fun and impressive it is! Isn't it cool how you can glue anything to anything else and it works? What more do you want!? It's like the developers think that the game's mechanics are the major takeaways from we the players, but I would argue that it's not. For example, who played Majora's Mask and thought "Wow, that looping three day cycle mechanic was phenomenal!" and not anything about the surprisingly fleshed out characters all dealing with their own impending doom in their own ways, or the mystery of the world of Termina itself? Save for maybe a handful of game designers and game design enthusiasts, I'd argue virtually no one. The point I'm trying to make is that we as human beings respond to the aesthetics of the game (from narrative aspects like characters, setting, scenario, story, lore, etc. to art direction aspects like visual and audio presentation), not so much its mechanics (i.e. what a game allows you to do), thus mechanics should serve aesthetics rather than the other way around. Yes, mechanics are important, as poorly implemented mechanics can break one's immersion in the aesthetics of a game, but they shouldn't be the focal point. Generally you interact with people and not their skeleton, even though without that skeleton there would be no person to interact with. See what I mean? The mechanics are like the foundational support atop which the aesthetics sit. Nobody goes to a puppet show to see the strings, nobody watches movies to see the cameras and boom mics, nobody visits an art gallery to see the canvases or frames. In much the same way, nobody plays games to interact directly with its mechanics, they play games to have some kind of aesthetic experience, be that to enjoy a story, get immersed in a fictional world, or simply to play around with fun characters. This is why Nintendo's mechanics-over-aesthetics design philosophy is so bizarre to me. Sure, they've made many great games with it, but imagine if they gave just a little more emphasis on the aspects of their games we actually care about. Image how much more beloved The Legend of Zelda series would be if it weren't just a vehicle for new gameplay gimmicks and was an actual living breathing fictional world full of fun and meaningful stories with interesting characters and fascinating lore to piece together.

[@robnhood1416]

Not even a good gimmick. Its actually makes the game looks silly as hell. Creating random vehicles and random weapons from pieces of woods or random metal objects while having an obsession of making Master swords weaker and weaker.

[@bradshacalypse]

@@robnhood1416 You're right, the wacky vehicle and weapon building does make for some serious tonal dissonance with the story (which tends to take itself fairly seriously). It would've worked better in a more lighthearted cartoony Zelda, I would think.

[@Umbra_Nocturnus]

Reading this comment after the reveal of the next 2D Zelda game... which is gonna be a vehicle for some copy/paste-gimmick for the princess to use. I don't think I'm going to bother with that.

[@toristeunebrink5705]

The fact that they said the sheika tech just ‘disappeared’ is annoying not just because it’s a lame excuse but also because it’s clearly not true, as we see repurposed guardian parts making up the new towers and also one old guardian on top of the ancient tech lab. Those would have also disappeared if that was the case. Not to mention kass. I can’t believe they left him out entirely. You could argue that maybe he is visiting another country like where Sidon’s fiancee is from but you would think that at least 1 NPC would say something about him

[@BaronSterling]

8:20 This is such a weird plot point, but it essentially has to be true for any of the lore to fit together properly. But if this is supposed to be a second Hyrule, a new founding... why did they give Rauru the exact same name as the founder of the original Hyrule? Why did they pepper the game with all of these references to previous games if they would've happened an entire lost age ago? You're gonna try to tell me that the ruins of Lon Lon Ranch are somehow older than even the Zonai, really? It's become clear they really just put 0 thought into this story, and it is so painful to watch.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

Thank you! Couldnt have said it better myself.

[@hokton8555]

also why doesnt Rauru know about the master sword, if you only watch the MS scenes in TotK you could easily come to the conclusion that he lived before the creation of it which breaks the whole logic

[@lenk8374]

The fujibayashi statement is vague and just there to put the timeline worshipers at ease. In reality there is not timeline and all the Zelda games were legends told in the world of this one

[@Shinntoku]

It's because it's all cyclical? Like, the whole Zelda franchise is powered by karmic cycles of death and rebirth, with the demon tribe, the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero are stuck in a repeating loop.

[@hokton8555]

@@Shinntoku the whole circle thing is rather a fan interpretation The only real refounding of hyrule was appearently Rauru from TotK