Tears of the Kingdom : Copying Success

[@you_mad]

the Japanese voice acting is GREAT. Protip, never play a Japanese game on english voice settings.

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

I’ve seen this type of comment around a lot, so I’m gonna use you as an example to explain why I don’t agree. I don’t speak Japanese. I speak English. Therefore as an English speaking reviewer I think it is somewhat my responsibility to cover the english voice acting, rather than just completely ignore it. It’s an aspect of the game that I can, and should put my input on, because it’s something that I can judge. After seeing all of these types of comments, I realize that I probably should have specified that in the video, so I’ll just pin this comment to help better express my views.

[@you_mad]

@@MrGoof-if8rb understood. I never thought of it that way as I'm a native japanese speaker. However as you said during the video voice acting is serious business in japan. The English actors feel forced and cringeworthy I feel due to how forced they seem, where as if you speak Japanese, the voices are really good

[@UltimateTobi]

My rule of thumb is that I play (or watch) media in its native tongue with German (my language) subtitles. In this case I played in JP with ENG subs, but will do with GER subs as well. I also played the Xenoblade series in its orig. JP with GER subs. I think it's the best way to enjoy it, because it conveys the original tone, and I can match what I read with that easily in my mind.

[@mr.b89]

Only time this doesn't apply is for Resident Evil and fromsoft medieval fantasy games

[@Matt-wy4jp]

Cant really enjoy the better voice acting if you cant understand it

[@everygamersdream72]

I just love how Ganondorf's master plan is to mischievously ruin Zelda's reputation while sitting in a hole in the ground waiting for someone to come kill him.

[@k1ngkaos252]

Link shows up right as Ganon fully recharges. I like to think the whole game is a recharging war in who can recharge faster

[@chasemman]

@@k1ngkaos252Totally makes sense too. None of the regional phenomena are things that outright destroy the population, more weaken them. Feels like ganondorf is prepping to finish everyone off himself. I do wish Nintendo showed more of him throughout the game to help emphasize that point, sometimes he can feel completely disconnected from the story to the point you forget he’s the reason everything bad is happening. 🤦‍♂️

[@APsGTG]

@@k1ngkaos252an uncharged ganondorf can create world ending calamities, but a free ganondorf has to recharge?

[@VikSun14618]

@@APsGTGin botw ganondorf isn’t a person as much as a force of nature, one that nearly took over when the calamity first hit, and has been ceaselessly waiting for the final whimper of Hylian life to die out. Then Link collects all the koroks and receives a pile of shit 😊

[@56ty_]

@@APsGTG takes calamity ganon ten thousand years to recharge. Now, 5 days in game last 2 hours in real life. Let’s say an average play trough is 100 real life hours. That makes the time from Ganon being freed from Raurus seal to its reincarnation around 8/9 months in game. Honestly, it makes sense. I don’t see a big problem there.

[@noob_jr_2sjrkc]

Lurelin Village was the point that I could no longer pretend this was a good game. Not only do they CLICKBAIT players with pirates, they attempt to rehash Tarry Town by rebuilding a village that already existed instead of building something new, which completely misses the point of why people loved Tarry Town. Any other game company would get lambasted for a sequel like this.

[@56ty_]

Bro who hurt you? 😂

[@pitshoster401]

Tarry Town itself sucked too. BotW's most praised quest in a game full of fetch quests... is a quest that is just a series of fetch quests lmao

[@israelwilson4022]

@@56ty_Lurelin village, did you not read the comment

[@moustachio05]

​@@56ty_bootlicker

[@SeasoningTheObese]

My dumbass that they would bring back the old Gerudo pirates from Majora's Mask, complete with the dual sword girls. Nope, just another Bokoblin camp.

[@TopMostFlavor]

They should have done major geological shifting like moving a town way over to the west or something...making giant rifts in the ground and affecting the mountains...which would give a way to make depths openings too. Cant believe they didnt do this, they basically just took certain locations and deleted stuff or added stuff.

[@APsGTG]

And it took 6 years lmao

[@paperbeatsrock_]

I particularly dislike that one of their ideas to tacitly show the effects of the upheaval was just to add a bunch of boulders everywhere. It just makes Hyrule look very, very messy.

[@allozabd]

​@@paperbeatsrock_while interesting in concept I disagree, TOTK takes place a few years after BotW so it wouldn't make sense for great geological shifts and towns to move. If TOTK wasn't a sequel, it would make more sense.

[@APsGTG]

@@allozabd it’s a video game not a real life documentary. They can imagine up anything they want, they could’ve made the whole world purple and given some viable narrative reason as to why. They should’ve done that for the value of making a better game

[@amandaslough125]

​@@allozabdLink still helps create Terry Town in a few days. You're telling me Hudson with his whole company couldn't have rebuilt at least a few of those ruined towns spotted across the fields and we only have the Lookout as an actually new town?

[@Corpsecreate]

Fully agree with this video. Additionally, parrying is more difficult to perform and has higher risk, but the reward is smaller than a flurry rush. There's just no incentive to go for the parry over a flurry rush.

[@arcanaz6583]

At least in BOTW, parrying allowed you to reflect guardian lasers. in TOTK, its a completely useless move.

[@vivid8979]

@arcana Parrying disarms enemies (Granted you're using Hylian Shield or a powerful enough one) allowing you to steal their weapons or use it against them... If you have a modified shield that will add the effect.. Lynels can be AI locked if you can parry consistenly and is easier to headshot.. Spoiler.... Ganondorf cannot Flurry rush you if you parry him... So saying Parrying is useless is a total lie or a major lack of knowledge regarding the matter... Also.... Most importantly parrying enemies looks badass and a proof that you mastered the game already...

[@osu-osu-osu]

​@@vivid8979parrying is useless BECAUSE it has so little reasons to use it. Are you aware of what you are even saying?

[@Jdudec367]

Eh no? Both are difficult to perform and have good risk. The reward really isn't smaller than a flurry rush it's just as big really. Eh there is a incentive if you wanna stun a enemy and knock them back for a second.

[@Jdudec367]

@@arcanaz6583 Nah it really isn't useless in TOTK.

[@jonathanwilliams1271]

I could absolutely understand the map being the same if it meant saving time. If this were a game that took a year like Majora's Mask, or even two or three, I would be okay, if a bit disappointed. However, this game took longer than any Zelda before at over six and a half years, the sky and depths were NOT good and meaningful side content, and there's simply no excuse when 90% of the work for this game was done in 2017.

[@mjamiep12]

It makes you wonder right? How long would it have taken to make the game the way it should have been? 10 years? I still can't wrap my head around the time it took to make this game (and still be lack luster). I get the feeling that future games will have huge gaps in production, and let's face it, we're not getting any younger.

[@56ty_]

I know right? The Zelda team can’t keep up with what Sony, Microsoft and everyone else is publishing. I think Nintendo is doomed 😂

[@imhopelesslyaddictedtofent4266]

Covid definitely hurt the production

[@batbutchasing]

I enjoyed exploring because I only played like 2 playthroughs of botw 5 years ago and I forgot 90% of the map besides the villages and labyrinths I think it's mostly people that have hundreds of hours of botw that have a problem with the map 😬

[@epicgamner1139]

@@mjamiep12 i personally blame covid

[@jwk427]

9:45 - Exactly! I assumed the Great Sky Island would be open for exploration like the Great Plateau was. So, when it told me to go to the Temple of Time, I chose instead to explore the entire island first - going clockwise through the cold region rather than counterclockwise toward the Temple of Time. I did end up taking the cave you mentioned to complete the loop. In BOTW, such exploration was rewarded with good weapons and secrets that you would not find sticking on the main path. In TOTK, going your own way results in constant resistance because the landscape isn't built for movement in any direction. Since it's linear, you're stuck either continuing around the ring or having to backtrack your exact path. By the time I got all the way around to the Temple of Time, I had learned that this game was going to be more on-rails than BOTW and not adapt well to creative sequencing. This was proven again when an NPC (Impa in the hot air balloon) told me to use my paraglider to get down... even though I hadn't unlocked the item yet! TOTK just assumes you're going to follow the given path and doesn't reward you with fun alternate dialog the way BOTW does. Compare this to meeting King Dorephan in BOTW when you avoid talking to Sidon. When you sequence break, the game changes the dialog to match what you did. It's one of the reasons I like re-playing BOTW.

[@a_person4742]

The paraglider thing happened to me too

[@thomasw9286]

I can't agree. Besides the tutorial area. I felt less on rails in totk, than I did in botw

[@IIITrunks]

Will probably add to this but to add to your reused map point People were saying "its not that bad because now you get to see how Hyrule has changed" And my major issue with that is theyve cared so little about tying this game to BOTW in any meaningful way that most of the changes are actually frustrating and dissonant to BOTWs story. How is there a giant chasm in Gerudo desert? Why are some swamps lakes now or some characters remember you but others dont? The most egregeous of this for me is the ruins, like Hyrule castle. I get that you couldnt restore the whole castle in the few years since BOTW. But nothing was done to the castle and I cant help but feel cheated that the castle is in ruin from a Calamity 100 years ago from the first game, which this game goes out of its way to ignore. Like the guardians that caused this damage just dont exist anymore. The game isnt actually interested in showing you how the world has changed in any compelling way.

[@Jdudec367]

Nah they cared a lot about typing it to BOTW in meaningful ways,ehno most changes are good and make sense really. Why is ther a giant chasm? Enviormental change over time and the upheavel. Same with the swamp lake stuff. And huh? Characters that should remember you uuaully do. I mean that stuff makes sense too really....that all takes a lot of time to work on still. I mean those guardians technically don't exist anymore. It is though and it does that.

[@Zythryl]

@@Jdudec367can you name the environmental changes that cause those things, or are you really gonna be like “idk man, erosion”

[@Jdudec367]

@@Zythryl Not just erosion but the upheavel and everything Ganondorf has done too.

[@The_hot_blue_fire_guy]

@@Jdudec367 by the way, where did all the stuff from BOTW go? The towers, the shrines the guardians? Did it all just go poof or what? Because that would be the dumbest way I could think of too explaining why the old stuff isn’t around anymore. It’s not like it’s been decades since the events of BOTW, so what really happened with all the technology from BOTW? Is this even in the same universe? Or is TOTK someone alternate reality where the events of BOTW never happened?

[@Jdudec367]

@@The_hot_blue_fire_guy I've explained this before actually, it depends on what it is exacty. The shrines likely wen back into the ground since they fulfilled their purpose, the towers were taken down and some of their parts were reused in the new towers, guardians were scrapped for obvious reasons, etc. Well it really didn't all go poof it isn't that simple really. Well we still see sheikah technology in TOTK so it isn't all gone really. This is the same universe. Nah it being a alternate reality wouldn't make any sense.

[@rewskiem5700]

I hate how many of the rewards are just just reused from botw. I appreciate that the dlc and amiibo exclusive clothes and weapons are now available to everyone, but it really made exploring feel way less worth it when the reward was almost always something I had already gotten in the previous game. I think the worst offender is the phantom ganon set being the reward for the labyrinths. You had to go through challenges on all three levels of the map, and all you get is reused armor (which isn't even great armor anyway) from botw. Also completely unrelated, but I really wish that bullet-time wasn't in totk. Once you get full stamina, pretty much every miniboss can be killed by just jumping off of a ledge and spamming multishot bows on their weakpoints. Imagine how much cooler the Colgera fight could have been if time didn't slow down. You would have to actually put effort into aiming your shots while avoiding its attacks, instead of just gliding close to it and the spamming arrows in slow motion.

[@amandaslough125]

The coolest way to fight Colgera is to sky dive through it.

[@Words-.]

Agreed agreed. the reward reuse was so annoying to me, I didn't explore the depths and I hated the mazes because I thought, what's the point? And yeah, bullet time is busted imo.

[@lilylollielegs34]

I used the amiibos to get the glider skins and ended up with most of the sets already. When I found out you could get them I was so annoyed coz it made those quests feel pointless. I wish they changed it so the amiibos just gave you the glider skins

[@56ty_]

You have a problem with people who didn’t buy the botw dlc having access to those costumes? Did I read it correctly?

[@rewskiem5700]

@@56ty_ I don’t have a problem with it being available in totk, I just don’t like that most of the rewards are just reused from botw and the dlc. It makes it feel like exploring is pointless if I’m likely just going to to get armor that I already had in the last game.

[@athorem]

I don't think it was purely the hype that made this game a disappointing follow up to BotW. I didn't really get swept up in the pre-release hype and I could still see that they learned absolutely no lessons from BotW. It's expected of a developer to improve on the flaws of the previous game and they didn't do that here

[@dillonrostorfer202]

They definitely improved many aspects of the game it was a lot more fun than BOTW IMO and that’s the most important thing for me.

[@ash8244]

They improved everything from botw, botw is obsolete if you've already played it. Totk is superior in every way

[@Cheesehead302]

What blows my mind is I've seen it claimed that "totk perfects botw" and I'm just there thinking, it does? In my experience it seemed like the majority of stuff that was a major issue in Botw (story, repetitive open world tasks like shrines, bad UI, lack of unique enemies, lack of unique rewards, etc, etc) are still major issues in this game, it's just they upped the scale of it for some reason. Like sure, there is some smaller stuff improved upon, but a lot of it is just beat for beat the same problems. I'm more understanding to Botw because of how much of a jump and unique change that was for the series, like, at the time, the repetitiveness of the shrines didn't bother me much because they were just and excuse for me to continue existing in the world. 6-7 years later though in a sequel that reuses the same map from last time? Its pretty unforgivable in my eyes. Having the same exact progression system which at the time just fealt like it "got the job done for the new formula" in this game is monumentaly disappointing. At a very early point I begin filling fatigue, like, okay, we're doing THIS again and there is going to be very little else in terms of content besides shrines. So much more I could and have gone into elsewhere, but coupling that with dungeons that were hyped as "traditional themed dungeons" before release and turned out pretty much the same and some times worse than divine beasts, the depths and sky offering nothing significant that you don't also experience in the overworld, the (in my opinion compared to something similar like Elden Ring) really lack luster enemy variety and broken combat, you have a sequel that somehow gives off the same "getting used to the water" vibe that Botw gave off, only that was a completely original game made from the ground up, and it completely changed how the games in this series work. It's just really disappointing to me, like, I can't even say that it's TECHNICALLY a poorly made game but it completely exposed the flaws of what I thought was an unfailable formula and made me tire of Botw, which is a game I thought was my favorite of all time at release. All I can say is I hope they're a bit more reflective this time on criticism, because this style of game can still be a winning direction for the series imo. Hone this stuff in, have more gated off areas with specific requirements to get through, more unique items, more unique monsters, fortresses, etc etc and I truly think a great balance can be struck. Once again with the elden ring comparison, stuff I'm talking about is like the dectus lift medallion. There are multiple ways to unlock access to that area, all of which they give you clues to uncover. But it doesn't feel like you are completely gated off, because the game gives you a huge piece of land to explore, several options, dungeons, bosses etc to do even if you are blocked in that area. Like I really don't think the average player that wants full freedom would be completely devastated if they couldn't go straight to the final boss from the beginning of the game. Like, it's novel that's an option, but you know what else is cool? Uncovering a world as you go, actually having a path of progression that isn't just "explore these copy pasted mini structures and enemies for no real reason beyond what else are you going to do?" Like, I get it, the freedom aspect is a lot of the appeal. But they've done it twice now. I think it's okay to start refining the absolute freedom to absolute linear spectrum at this point. The complaint originally was that a game like skyward sword is completely rail roaded down 3 very distinct paths. The games don't have to be that level of extreme, all I'm saying is, have some structure, have a lot of freedom. It's the best of both worlds.

[@athorem]

@@Cheesehead302 Great comment. You articulated the point so well that I don't have much that I can add. Dunno where the Zelda series is going to go from here but they gotta make some major changes to keep me interested. I'm with you, I'm also tired of Breath of the Wild now.

[@ZaiDrizzleDrop]

@@ash8244 man you sound delusional

[@kurama8037]

Totk was a huge let-down for me too, which is crazy for a game thats been in development for 6 years with an unprecceedented amount of re-used content. I'm glad you made this video to truly show how bad this game ended up... Side note, I find it absurd that along with weapon durability remaining with glaring flaws, there also weren't any new weapon types in general!

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Haha, wow I didn’t even think about that! That is actually pretty lame that they didn’t add any new weapon types, I totally should have put that in the video.

[@jonathanwilliams1271]

1:07:40 Excellent breakdown of the Snowpeak dungeon, it's such a shame that Nintendo hates TP so much, we'll never get a game like it again.

[@56ty_]

Yeah.. unfortunately they were cornered into making a darker Zelda game. They probably hated every minute of development 😂

[@squiddler7731]

56:07 I'll happily criticize them for you, lol. So the thing that made lynels so fun to fight in the first place is the wide variety of options you have for taking them on. At first they're this impossibility strong enemy that you have no idea how to even approach, but eventually you start to learn their attack patterns and find ways of dealing with them. You can flurry rush their attacks, parry their charge for an opening, and get a headshot with a bow to open them up to a mount for extra damage (something that the game can even set you up for with their fire breath attack). All of these things take skill and practice to execute, so even knowing how to fight them it's still not a free win. The problem with Gleeoks is that there is no depth to fighting them like there is with Lynels. I tried literally everything, but the only practical way of taking down a gleeok is by entering bullet time with a bow, shooting the heads, and wacking it a bunch when it falls. You can't parry it's attacks back like with guardians or do anything with melee weapons while it's flying, and you can't even attempt to come at it with your own flying death machine cause a gleeok will just erase it, you have to do this one thing or else it's absurdly hard if not impossible (some people have fought gleeoks without a bow and the strategy involves precisely sniping each head with like 15 pre-prepared spears instead, it's absurd). Once you can consistently activate bullet time, all the fight boils down to is target practice and pokemon type match-ups to do more damage to fire/ice heads, and with keese eyes you don't even have to aim well either. Though I will also say that the gleeok horns are kinda sick as a fuse material. It'll completely replace the blade of a weapon with a blade of fire/ice/thunder which looks incredible, and it's the only elemental effect that never runs out as well. Debatable whether or not it's worth the hassle though.

[@fishyperil2153]

What if I told you that you can simply fuse a bunch of lasers to a hover stone, pick it up with ultra hand, equip the magic armor helm that has been dyed yellow to make Link transform into SSJ3 Goku (not required but you're definitely missing out if you dont do it) and then perform a "kamehameha" with the fusion you just made that will utterly obliterate the Gleeok ?

[@QuintessentialWalrus]

I wouldn't say you NEED bullet time to snipe Gleeok heads with arrows, it's doable if you're good with gyro aim. Other than that, fully agreed. Gleeoks are easier and less interesting to fight than Lynels once you've figured out HOW to fight them, which is something you only need to do once.

[@sonicthomasgamer]

Mounting the lynels and attacking them doesn’t take away from your weapon’s durability as well

[@SeasoningTheObese]

I did the Desert dungeon first and said "Wow, they really brought back real dungeons!". Huge egg on my face.

[@dennis8832]

The toxic positivity surrounding this game around its release really turned me off Nintendo games in general. I remember you couldn't say one bad thing about this game or breath of the wild, and I think it's all hurt actual feedback that Nintendo needed to hear. Instead they assumed everyone just wanted the same thing but again.

[@markusrichard410]

I knew this was going to be another Metroid Dread-esque situation, where the hype for a sequel outshone any realization that these were not the great games that many thought that they were

[@HunterStiles651]

This comment made me realize that the entire Zelda franchise is an object lesson on how important innovation is in video games, namely how innovation is what separates a good game and a great game worthy of being called "The best". If you ask any Zelda fan what their favorite Zelda game is, they'll likely either say Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild. These two games have nothing in common save two things: they were a massive departure from everything that came before and they spawned a ton of sequels that aimed to copy their success but nearly everyone agrees fell short of the mark. You see this same issue with Pokemon. Everyone's favorite generation of Pokemon is the one that came out when they were 10, because they're all the same damn game with different bells and whistles. The only thing that really separates one Pokemon game from another is nostalgia. You even have people saying they unironically think Gen VI is peak Pokemon now.

[@lilylollielegs34]

Yeah same thing happened with Animal Crossing New Horizons… both are franchises I grew up loving and now just feel watered down ☹️

[@notoriousbagel2486]

@@markusrichard410What’s wrong with Metroid dread?

[@markusrichard410]

​@@notoriousbagel2486 Lol how ironic that you ask me that on a day I'm doing a playthrough of Dread. There are multiple things that really bug me with Dread, the music, certain bosses, etc. But the one that really undersells the whole game is the EMMI, for a game called Dread they sure don't invoke the fear the creators were hoping they would.

[@darlenetito2868]

I clicked the video for the rant, but I stayed for the 1:31:55. It was therapy.

[@jacobguinn]

How is this the first video bro what

[@kellevichy]

Majora's Mask is how you reuse assets. This... is not.

[@Jdudec367]

Nah this is how you reuse assets.

[@Hegaems]

if you wanna reuse the entire game then sure, this is it

[@Draezeth]

​@@Jdudec367Have you played Majora's Mask?

[@Jdudec367]

@@Draezeth yep

[@Jdudec367]

@@Hegaems It didn't reuse everything though clearly.

[@knatkniht]

Dont forget how the divine beasts were literal puzzlebox dungeons, with you being allowed to control their various parts. They also had really cool setpieces too.

[@clonetrooper2003]

If you are reading this, Mr. Goof thank you for finally calling out rauru and sonia for the garbage characters that they are

[@a_person4742]

Literally. 6 years and they add 4? characters. Rauru, Sonia and Mineru are basic "nice self sacrificial characters" + mineru is supposedly smart. And ganondorf is somehow LESS characterised than his 1998 version! At least then we could visit his hometown, meet his mothers and hear how multiple characters speak of him smh. To quote Yunobo i believe "all we know about him is he's super strong and bad news"

[@clonetrooper2003]

@@a_person4742 IKR not to mention how ugly rauru is!!!! Why isnt he a red haired humanoid barbarian?!!?!!

[@clonetrooper2003]

IKR not to mention how ugly rauru is. Why isnt he a red haired barbarian@@a_person4742

[@Squimblink]

Yeah the story was super boring and interesting purely because Sonia and rauru are boring characters

[@clonetrooper2003]

@@Squimblink boring and ugly

[@paperbeatsrock_]

Massive ups for the huge credit list at the end, lots of people don't give credit but you went above and beyond. Awesome.

[@KendoPicaro]

Biggest issue with the game is that 99% of the sky islands and the depths had nothing to do with the story. Matter of fact the Zonai guy says the great sky island was even on the ground in the past so all the other islands must have been too but now that they are in the sky it means nothing and the same for the depths where Ganondorf just happens to fall down there but doesn't do anything to make it his domain like it just dark. What this does for the game is it makes the already explored hyrule from BOTW mundane to the point it could have been a loading screen but to content that is non existent like a tiny sky island with a gacha machine or a mine in the depths. If they had more expansive sky islands showing zonai culture and history ( weapons, tools, gadgets, etc) and a depth that showed Ganondorf gearing up for his final assault with gokoblin bases like the pirate hideout from LOZ:WW or the Gerudo Fortress from LOZ:OOT something that shows Ganondorf isn't just chilling.

[@daablurg3482]

Honestly I love totk but I do feel like botw is a superior game in that it gives you a different feeling than totk, although it might also be because I have 350 hours plus in botw still great video that has lots of opinions other people don’t like to mention.

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Honestly I feel like totk can be a very enjoyable game if you just run around and look at what’s new, which I feel like is what a lot of people did. But if you are really familiar with botw like I am, and try to do everything then it definitely starts to become boring. I completely agree with you on botw, it definitely captures a certain feeling that totk loses by slapping a bunch of new stuff onto the same map.

[@ash8244]

Totk makes botw look like a tech demo, so no

[@daablurg3482]

@@ash8244 I don’t think you got the point of my comment

[@muhammied]

​@@ash8244i couldnt disagree more

[@Kittzu]

I could spend an extra 2 hours expanding on every issue with the game that you brought up and add a few more. Good video, been binge watching these critiques since they've finally been popping up the past month, loved one of the zelda youtubers straight up admitting they were wrong and apologizing for being part of the problem. I brought these issues up on release week and boy were there a lot insults and mocking going around for anyone voicing them. Shame I had trouble finding it, since I had even checked out few videos with even less views than this in the last month. I think it was the choice of search words, this time I used the word "copy" rather than "critique" or "rant." I think you need to find a way to include some useful search words somewhere.

[@windwakerplayer64]

Which zelda youtuber are you talking about? I'd love to know because i was in the same boat with you criticizing totk near release

[@gabe5918]

@@windwakerplayer64Yeah i wanna know too

[@lilylollielegs34]

I hate the backpack koroks. I don’t enjoy the building so I just tagged them all as I came across them and never ended up doing more than the ones in the tutorial 😂

[@rewskiem5700]

Holy shit that’s exactly what I do.

[@56ty_]

This madman did it… he cracked the code. CIA, do your thing

[@TheLocalJester21]

I do them depending on the distance if it's not too far I atach a rocket to them and blast off but some of them ask you to take them to like the other side of the f*cking continent and I ain't changing MY path just to get 2 korok seeds

[@LeFizolof]

I do the same.

[@halt1931]

holy shit. I thought I was the only one. Everybody tells me it's an amazing game, and I do agree, but not what it could have been. They say the map tripled in size, but... the depths are boring and a single biome with next to nothing to explore, and the sky has, like, four unique islands and the rest are copy pasted. The only rewards in the depths are armour sets from BOTW amiibo, and the only rewards in the sky are maps to said armour sets, and items that can make sages have higher stats. Which is okay, but nothing too exciting. BOTW was amazing to me because of the exploration and sense of discovering something new, and to me that's where TOTK dropped the ball hard. It has some high moments, like the ascent to the Wind Temple blew my mind because it was my first temple, but the temple itself was basic by Zelda standards, and just another shallow "find five doors to five terminals" like the divine beasts were. If the game had been in a new world, like a different kingdom, that sense of awe and new discovery could have been there all the time, like it was in BOTW.

[@zeddessell]

One godawful thing about this game you never got into is the atrociously bad drop-rates on some of the items, the biggest offender being the elemental Lizalfos tails. I once tried to farm for these things, and I ended up killing THIRTY-EIGHT Icy Lizalfos just to get ONE tail. And you literally need like 70 of the things to fully upgrade your armour, and that's just for the Ice ones. It's seriously THAT bad. Item duplication glitches are pretty much mandatory to 100% this game, otherwise you literally have to spend like 100 real-life hours mindlessly killing the same useless grunts over and over and over again. The elemental Lizalfos tails have a cool unique effect when you fuse them to your weapons, but the game punishes you for doing this because of how stupidly rare they are.

[@firestaranimationsofficial]

And then Nintendo _scrambled_ for a full week after launch, trying to patch out dupe glitches. It was hilarious to watch.

[@zeddessell]

​@@firestaranimationsofficial There's a bug in Totk where if you fuse anything to the Master Sword, it's durability permanently glitches out and it can never be restored back to max durability. There's also another bug in Totk that means the transfer of your horses from your Botw save file will never, ever work if your Botw save file was played on Master Mode difficulty. Neither of these massive bugs got patched, but all of the fun and harmless item-duping glitches kept being removed.

[@frewtlewps1152]

Breath of the Wild felt consistent with its design centered around freedom. Tears of the Kingdom feels like an awkward mix between freedom and linearity. I hope that the next open world Zelda takes place in a new world, and has a world design similar to Elden Ring. BoTW has a world that sprawls outward from its center, while Elden Ring has world that’s starts from Point A and ends at Point B. I believe that this change in world design can help create a perfect blend of traditional and open world Zelda styles. I also believe that this change in world design would improve the story and dungeons. The next game shouldn’t have shrines and instead should focus on dungeons that you find in the over world, similar to how you can find the Construct Factory without story context. The story should take place in the present, so that everything you do feels significant and progresses the story.

[@APsGTG]

It’s crazy to think that Elden ring and Tears of the Kingdom were built in the exact same timeframe. Elden ring being built from the ground up mind you. Tears of the Kingdom being built and using the same engine and entire world from its prequel.

[@56ty_]

Yeah it was always pretty dumb to ask for more linearity. Precisely why they SHOULDNT FOR THE LOVE GOD copy something ER does worse: the linear overworld.

[@TheTwilitHero]

I really wish they would go the Xenoblade route and make smaller chunks of open world. Like how Twilight Princess was, but way more fleshed out.

[@RP-mp4ow]

"Why is the sequel to the best selling game in the series WORSE!" Hear hear!

[@RNGuice]

REAL!!

[@TheRealNintendoKid]

It's not. It doubles down on a lot of BOTW's mistakes, of which there are many... But it also improves a lot of them too, even if honestly not by a whole lot, it was enough to finally dethrone Link to the Past as my favorite Zelda game, and it made me feel like a kid again. It captured a very similar essence of wonder, adventure, and exploration that the first game did back in the late 80s/early 90s. Not QUITE the same, because you don't have to actually search for the dungeons, which I think was a huge mistake, especially down in the depths, for various reasons.

[@RP-mp4ow]

@@TheRealNintendoKid ok. Glad you had a good time. I thought the game sucked overall

[@dillonrostorfer202]

Bet you played for over 50 hours though which you would t do if it sucked…

[@RP-mp4ow]

@@dillonrostorfer202 you've never wasted time before and regretted it?

[@rnelson1415]

I've noticed that Tears seems to do better among people who haven't played BOTW, and I can see why. I never got to play BOTW, and experiencing the freedom in exploration in TOTK got me feeling like a starry-eyed child. I've become pretty disenchanted with it since then obviously. It's so incredibly repetitive, and once I beat the main story quest, there's no rewards worthwhile to push me to do all the shrines or collect more seeds or explore more caves.

[@QuintessentialWalrus]

The funny thing is, I feel like people who play TOTK first would also be missing out on the experience of seeing what's changed. Granted there aren't ENOUGH changes for my liking, but the ones that are there can lead to great moments. I always liked it when I visited a location expecting to see one thing and getting surprised by something new because the developers knew I'd play right into their hands. It kinda just feels like there's no ideal way to experience TOTK because you're missing out on part of the fun if you did OR didn't play BOTW first :/

[@rnelson1415]

@@QuintessentialWalrus playing through TOTK made me wish I had played BOTW, because it's been years since a game made me feel that way. Pushing me to see what's over that next hill or reaching that tower off in the distance. But for some reason I couldn't get past the 4 opening shrines in the great plateau before losing interest and I just can't understand why 😭 I wish I had more time to experience the world and see the changes but now it feels like it's too late. There seems to be a consensus that TOTK is better in almost every way

[@Depths17]

I didn't like how they were able to save zelda from being a light dragon at the end. I absolutely knew they'd find some way to save her and go with the happy ending but the way it happens just felt too quick and easy to me. And way too convenient too, like right after you defeat ganon shes back? How? They made it seem like swallowing the stone had irreversible effects. Saving her could have been its own mission imo. Theres others who became dragons too and its not explained why they cant get a second chance like zelda has

[@neroblanc281]

This!!! The arm also gets me like- yeah that's just back and in perfect condition, bye bye cool powers! They could have removed the arm entirely and made link an amputee if they really wanted that arm gone but he just .. gets his og arm back with no damage or weight to it. It was fucked UP by gloom at the start but nope, status quo gotta be maintained

[@mitchellkresge9446]

If there’s one thing I’m taking away from this video, it’s that they should’ve cast you as the Great Deku Tree

[@israelwilson4022]

Now that the hype has died down I’m glad I’m not the only one that went “wait, this is it? I already did all of this 6 years ago”

[@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow]

I’m so glad people are starting to shit on Totk. It’s a great game I had so much fun, but in context of it being a sequel, 70 bucks, and 6 years of cooking it really feels incredibly boring and copied. We aren’t getting master mode, or any more content. I really do this this game was a scam

[@renren47618]

Their "we did everything we had to offer, therefore TOTK isn't getting any DLC" sounds like a bs to diguise the fact that with TOTK being confirmed by them as a game that was made with BOTW DLC concepts... It was just a 70$ DLC with a wacky Minecraft mechanic and that's it. Or Anonuma genuinely thinks that by bloating the game with barebobes two new maps, more Shrines and Koroks and adding the new mechanics it's already "different enough" Yeah, it does feel like a Scam(let's not forget how the final trailer was extremely story focused and they gaslighted the fandom with dungeons return.)

[@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow]

@@renren47618 I waa close To throwing my fucking switch across the room when I heard that “we’ve figured out all the fun you can have in this world” I’m honestly speechless. It’s so obviously wrong that it actually has me scratching my head. Like just the addition of a master mode with the golden enemies is enough; which would be so cool since we get to use monster parts a lot more

[@56ty_]

Who hurt you lol

[@ScatterBrainedYouBetterFollow]

@@56ty_ big baby couldn’t stand someone talking shit about their favorite product!!

[@primarinite]

A little late to the party here but I wanted to leave a comment expressing how good of a critique this is. You hit pretty much every exact thought I've had. The cracks really started to form for me by the time I reached the second dungeon, and that realization that I wasn't going to be enjoying the game going forward really soured the rest of my experience, to the point where I finished it feeling miserable, disappointed and frustrated. First off before I start airing out my own grievances with the game, I do want to come to a slight defence of the Colgera fight. The fight IS a lot better if you do the intended way, which is to divebomb onto its weak points, rather than shooting them with arrows. I wouldn't say it's a phenomenal fight even with this (tbh most of my enjoyment from it comes from the atmosphere doing most of the heavy lifting), but it was my personal favourite moment of the game regardless. And this could still just be a personal taste thing, considering I despised every second of the Spirit Temple, including the Seized Construct. You covered pretty much everything I wanted to say on gameplay, so I want to hit a little bit more on the story side of things. I feel like even if the memories aren't the best way to tell a story, they at least had a more reasonable purpose for existing the way they do in BotW. They're non-intrusive and independent, and as such are built around the open world. And considering we're helping Link, a character we control, fill in the gaps of his memories, it does feel more personal and like we're involved in it, rather than whatever the hell TotK was trying to get at by having us go through Zelda's lived experience when we're so disconnected from her. And it's honestly appalling that the game pretty much punishes the player for exploring by having parts of the story be spoiled for you if you go outside the intended order. And I've seen people defend this by saying that you should just do it in the intended order, which is a baffling defence since that defeats the entire purpose of it being open world. And honestly it's such a joke that the game tries to force an emotional moment in the bonus ending by having Zelda recount her fond memories of the ancient sages when we barely even got to know them ourselves. It misses the mark entirely, and the fact that they tried to replace the champions, characters that still get a ton of love from fans to this day, with characters that don't even have faces, let alone personalities or even names, is honestly insulting to the former's legacy. I feel like what really hurts is that there's nothing I can get from this game that I couldn't get from BotW. Sure there's more to do, but what good is it if that new stuff isn't engaging? The sky islands and depths were boring to me and I did not like ultrahand whatsoever, the latter of which cuts especially deep because that mechanic is most of the gameplay. If I wanted to play a version of Hyrule that didn't have it's beautiful landscape marred with chasms and falling pieces of sky islands, I would play BotW. If I wanted to play a story that, while admittedly still kind of subpar, had a much more likeable cast that made it enjoyable for what it was, I would play BotW. If I wanted to play a game where the unique abilities (runes and champion/sage abilities alike) were more fun to use, I would play BotW. This game doesn't even feel like it wants to be a BotW sequel. Of course it borrows a lot from it's predecessor, but it doesn't want to give credit to what bore it. And I'm not saying that TotK needs to be an exact replica of BotW, I wanted TotK to have it's own unique identity alongside it being a sequel, but it just lacks confidence in being a sequel and feels rather... shallow because of it. And it just failed to completely recapture the magic of BotW. Despite 100%ing it multiple times at this point I can still go back and enjoy BotW as if it were my first time. Meanwhile I 100% completed TotK once and I'm ready to not touch the game again for a very long time. After I finished TotK and was sorely letdown by most of what it had to offer, I went back and gave AoC another chance after not really liking that upon release either, and I enjoyed it so much more the second time. I really hope the same happens with TotK in a few years, because I wanted to like it so badly. Anyway sorry for such a lengthy comment lmao, this game gets my brain working into overdrive with how many thoughts I have on it. Also side note: loved all of the TP comparisons, that game is so special to me

[@primarinite]

Sorry I have another essay to write (this game frustrates me to no end) but I'm coming back to this a few hours later because I wanted to share some great points about the game design that occurs after the tutorial that my girlfriend brought up that I forgot about while writing my initial comment. She's in complete agreement (as am I) that the tutorial itself is so much more railroaded and clunky in design compared to the Great Plateau. We both had a lot of difficulty with navigating our way around it on our playthroughs. As for after the tutorial, she dislikes how handholdy the game gets with directing the player. In BotW, after completing the Great Plateau, you're advised to go see Impa right away, but you don't have to go directly to her. You can free all of the Divine Beasts before even meeting her. In TotK you're advised to go meet Purah and you pretty much HAVE to go to get the paraglider. Locking such an important item (inconsistentcies with BotW aside, which I've tried to keep that complaint to a minimum here because everybody has already brought that up when discussing the game) behind a required story objective, when the point of the game should be to give the player as much control as possible, was stupid imo. There's also the problem with the game outright telling you what order to go in for the main four story objectives. Of course you don't have to follow that order, but it breaks the immersion. BotW did subtly hint that you should do the Zoras first, but it only did it through the overworld design, as it would make sense that you would come across them first if you did go meet with Impa right away. It never directly said "GO TO THE ZORAS" as the first objective like TotK did with Rito Village. I know these points are only talking about the beginning of the game but I feel like it sets the tone for how the game talks down to the player so much all throughout. I also want to comment that I feel bad about comparing this game to BotW so much as, like I said, I wanted this game to be able to stand on its own, but I don't think it's unjustified. As a sequel it should be building on what BotW established, and I feel like in some aspects it did okay with that, but it also took away too much in others. It just felt like a far inferior experience of this Hyrule to me.

[@Jdudec367]

I mean...if you do the BOTW memories out of order it can spoil stuff too. And getting Zelda's memories still has you feel like you are figuring out mysteries like what happened in BOTW with those memories. I mean...it punishes them no less then Botw's memories and you seeing them out of order. But like...you still may have questions if you see them out of order so you gotta collect them to watch them in order. I mean no...not when it's of the Zonai ones, that works as we did get to now them ourselves. Eh...did it? No they replaced them with their descendants really which works and isn't really insulting tbh. I mean...I would argue the new enemies, caves, sky islands, the depths, fuse, etc is all engaging really. Well I disagree I like them all and even if Ultrahand is pretty important it isn't most of the gameplay but it's a big part of it really. I mean....the sky islands add to it tbh and so do the depths and it adds more to the enviorment really. I mean...I think TOTK has a decent plot same with BOTW. I dunno about more fun....like Cryonis is like the least fun of the abilities tbh. I disagree it does and compared to like MM it actually connects the story as a sequel. Wdym it doesn't want to give creit to what bore it? I don't see how it lacks confidence, again compared to the last 3D Zelda direct sequel it connects a lot more to it's predecessor and even explains why you start out with only 3 hearts. I disagree, like the magic is kinda different but it is there it's it's own magic though. Wow...glad to hear you ended up liking AoC now, I hope the same does happen with you and TOTK really.e

[@Jdudec367]

@@primarinite Eh...I dunno, the Great Plateau IS better but the great sky islands didn't feel that railroaded and it really didn't feel clunky tbh. But there can be some difficuly navigating around that I get but I wonder if that is intentional or not. I mean it really isn't more handholdy. Yes you need to do that to get the paraglider....but you technically don't need it to beat the game, that and in BOTW it told you that you will get the paraglider for completing the tutorial too which TOTK didn't make clear, so I don't get how that is more handholdy. I mean I don't agree mainly because technicaly you can beat TOTK without the paraglider especially with all the zonai stuff really. It really doesn't break immersion and there is no real order the Rito were just the first one mentioned. Eh....it doesn't say which one to do first but it does give a suggestion, BOTW does it too even if more subtle. I dunno...I don't see how it really talks down to the player tbh. Fair....I thought it mostly added instead of took stuff away tbh. Huh I thought it was honesty better but eh agree to disagree. Also holy crap Susie Deltarune-

[@soulkibble1466]

I think the biggest flaw to this game is how it's a sequel that you don't want to jump into after finishing the first game since you'll get burnt out immediately on the repetition unlike Majora's Mask that basically assumes players to have already played Ocarina of Time and doesn't really beat around the bush when you start it.

[@brianyismymiddlename1566]

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned this, but what makes the copies of each sage cutscene even more relentless is the fact that the cinematography is the EXACT SAME for all four cutscenes. Each cut to a new frame is mirrored in all cutscenes and, although I admittedly don't agree with all opinions in this video, I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that these cutscenes should not be anywhere close to this identical, even perhaps taking the approach of sharing pieces of the mystery surrounding Rauru's sacrifice or the main story with the player instead of what it was. As I said, I don't agree with everything you said but I love hearing various opinions of the Zelda games, as I do with any franchise, so thank you for your potentially 'controversial' video :)

[@Busted_Drones]

This is really validating. The whole time playing something was nagging me, feeling of "why am i doing this again? "and once I broke the economy with the duplication glitch and battledrones, kinda gave up with it. I still enjoy my time with the game, doing the pirate raid with a flying fortress raining death from above was the most fun I have had on the switch in good while. but definitely not a favorite zelda

[@chambeet]

The Depths and Sky islands are copy-paste garbage. Full stop. The more I played the game, the madder I got. I still liked the game a lot, but Breath of the Wild was the far greater achievement. It was far more innovative and it created almost the entirety of the things that Tears built on.

[@Maria-lb5uq]

I know that not everyone likes Skyward Sword but man... I miss playing a Zelda game where I actually care about the characters and the story. I remember when Zelda was always a step ahead and almost feeling guilty when I had to turn off the game

[@randychristensen1028]

Holy shit. Like, for your first video, I'm absolutely blown away. The amount of research, script writing and just genuine effort you put into this video is incredible. I honestly have no idea how this isn't a long time pre-established channel On that note, I agree with pretty much every single thing you talked about. Sages, the Depths, sky islands, temples, combat, caves, literally nearly every single detail. One thing you brought up that I hadn't thought about prior was how the shrines were placed about Hyrule in BotW compared to TotK. They definitely didn't place them about the surface world with as much care the second time around. You even pointed out the fact that some landmarks were built for the shrines (one that always stood out to me was the island in the middle of Lake Hylia) For me personally when comparing TotK to Elden Ring, I tend to cut ER slack on the copy and paste tunnels/catacombs/caves because at least in Elden Ring, some of the later catacombs actually make me think about the layout of them and keep a mental map of rooms I've been in. Also, the combat in Soulsborne games is umatched by any other action/adventure game. Period. It's so good it makes me want to go to them all and fight every enemy. I also have a huge personal issue comparing the 2 games myself. I played ER for the first time in the month leading up to TotK's release and let me tell you.....coming off the heels of ER made TotK even more of a massive disappointment than it probably would've already been The only thing I figured would be fair to mention about the rain climbing armour is that when the whole set is upgraded to level 2, it gains the ability of complete slip resistance which is really nice Couple of side things to also mention. Your Great Deku Tree voice in the background talking about some sort of sauce I think? during a cutscene made me laugh my goddamn ass off 😂 same with when you decided to restart the video for a moment. Also, playing all 4 dungeon cutscenes at the same time really made me realize how fucking long they are Thank you for this video. I'm definitely looking forward to anything else you make in the future

[@badluckhybrid]

Lol, there is a secret joke in the 4 dungeon cutscenes. I didn't notice it at first, but it's there at 1:53:37. Also, the part about the sauce during the deku tree voiceover was a reference to this meme/video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6LHd4GbebyNetksi=93Wtdgl13u821S2h

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Thank you! Regarding your comment about the combat in the Souls Borne series, while I certainly think it's great, I don't think it carries the entire games for me. Not that it necessarily does for you either, but it doesn't make what I might think is boring more interesting. The combat in Bloodborne is probably my favorite in the series, but that still didn't stop me from getting bored playing through all of the chalice dungeons. At a base level it's enjoyable, but there also needs to be some good level design to compliment it as well, at least for me, although I will say they would probably be way more boring if the combat wasn't half as good as it is. Also, I had no idea about being able to get complete slip resistance for the froggy armor! It doesn't completely negate all of my complaints about the rain or the set, but it is nice to know that you can remove slipping with it.

[@clonetrooper2003]

Excellent video my guy. Thank you for ripping apart rauru and sonia for the garbage they are@@MrGoof-if8rb

[@huxin4283]

totk got better reviews than elden ring. instead of making comments and yt videos why dont u just make a negative review instead if the game is so bad

[@mythosinfinite6736]

Just a quick side note for writing: "exasperated" is for when you're exceptionally tired. The word you're looking for is "exacerbated," which means something is made significantly worse. Fantastic video, just wanted to let you know for the future. 👍

[@KevZ7.]

I don't really agree with what you said about removing voice acting in the next zelda games just because the english one feels bad. The other dubs, especially the japanese, french & latin spanish ones are really good and I don't think it's fair asking for it to be remove just because one country team couldn't do a fully decent job

[@56ty_]

Bro I don’t blame the devs not wanting to listen to fan feedback too much when this is what fans come up with.

[@KevZ7.]

@@56ty_ yeah for real, like some criticisms are fair but I feel like some people are pushing it when it comes to finding bad thing to say about this game. The number of english-speaking zelda fans I have seen genuinely wanting voice acting to be gone for the next game just because of the english voice acting when the 7 other official languages in the game are totally fine is crazy

[@johnjones8438]

also hate that nintendo patched the duplicate glitch, cause i hate grinding for things like in rpg‘s and always was a fan of zelda games u could explore them without grinding for anything

[@blackchickiedee7]

It was unnecessary to do so. Especially in an interview Aonuma said that the new abilities in TOTK were based around pushing boundaries and wanting players to essentially "cheat" in the game without being punished. Soooooo, you want us to cheat in the game but fixing a duplicate glitch that isn't hurting anyone or the game is an issue? Okay Nintendo....

[@johnjones8438]

exactlty! 👌

[@Squimblink]

The fact that it's not a glitch people are complaining about and only affects people for the better, and yet they still choose to patch it instead of actual issues is ridiculous

[@Cat36613]

The patch of whistle sprinting is a true crime

[@Aktedya1-jt7vw]

Such a shame that a video this well made isn't more popular. I really like that you actually gave the facts to back up your statements. I don't dislike the game, but you perfectly summed up why Tears feels so...not Nintendo. At least, for me.

[@APsGTG]

It’s picking up views now, give it a like and it’ll get more traction

[@amandaslough125]

​@@APsGTGI'm certainly trying to help.

[@DuskPustules]

I agree with nearly everything in this review but when people say ganondorf in twilight princess had no build up, I'm confused. He was shown in the cutscene after the arbiters grounds, confirming him as the main villian of the game. He then appears later acting as a God of the twilight realm using zant as his pawn. Zant is seen to be a barely functioning maniac in his boss fight and then midna effortlessly defeats him at the end which shows how powerless he is without the aid of ganondorf

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

I think what doesn’t make sense is how he gets resurrected off screen and is all of the sudden just in Hyrule Castle. I don’t think the arbiters grounds cutscene sets him up as the main villain either, it’s more of an explanation of how Zant got his powers.

[@DuskPustules]

@@MrGoof-if8rb I do think there should have been an explanation of how he came back, the same eway there should have been one for zeldas comeback but I do think zant wouldnt have been fit for a main villian and his mental instability when you get to the palace of twilight is one of my favourite parts of the character. Ganondorf and zelda both didn't get a proper reason to come back at the end

[@badluckhybrid]

I might not agree with everything he has to say, but I can see why he believes what he does. I feel like this deserves a lot more attention.

[@Halfendymion]

Oh my god your Deku Tree voice was actually so much better

[@adamfajita305]

I’m not even 2 mins in and I can already tell you this is better than most retrospectives of this game that Ive seen, keep it up, you’re gonna be huge

[@BriarBeeBenson]

Same here! He states his view clearly and doesn’t spent 5 minutes trying to defend him just having a differing opinion which is refreshing. This is his is FIRST video as well and the audio already sounds really great! Editing style is sleek, the intro is clear and concise! I’m already enjoying myself! I’m so glad this popped up on my recommended!

[@DevilNeverKnows]

it was only when you mentioned Sage's Will 45 minutes in that I realised how boring video games have become. I remember playing Risen as a child and finding a piece of a broken sword with a description that says if I find the other piece I can reforge it, and I wanted nothing more than to find the other piece. But when I found a Sage's Will in ToTK, I was just overwhelmed by how monotonous it would feel to explore all the sky islands and try to remember to mark every single one that I'd been to just so I knew not to go back. I ended up not bothering, I didn't upgrade a single sage

[@exotericidymnic3530]

There are so many lessons that Nintendo could have learned from BoTW but they chose to learn none of them.

[@ShallBePurified]

Something I learned from Kit and Krysta's podcast is that Nintendo has a big ego. They think their games can do no wrong. Until it suffers in sales or reviews. TotK suffered neither so I don't think they'll learn from this either.

[@Multipurpose_Bagel]

I played BotW twice to near-completion years ago; once on Wii U (👁👄👁) and once on Switch. I then played TotK when it came out last year. I just replayed BotW recently, but just did a "condensed, self-made, linear" playthrough: - Completed the Great Plateau - Spent 20 minutes saving and reloading to unlock the Twilight Princess outfit with an old Smash Bros Link amiibo - Already began collecting wood for Tarry Town off and on throughout, and enough seeds for a few expansions, but nothing substantial - Never collected or used other outfits besides temperature-related ones and the snow and sand boots - Unlocked each tower, did some shrines, amounted some extra hearts (once I had enough for the master sword I didn't bother doing anymore; only activated them for teleporting if need be) - Never upgraded stamina - no towers need extra stamina, and it made climbs and combat gauntlets more interesting - Did the 4 divine beast quests; got the Master Sword between after 2 - Collected the memories in chronological order as I went - Completed Tarry Town - Bought Link's house - Wrapped up the Castle and Ganon with ~15 hearts This BotW playthrough took about 30 hours. If I do TotK again, I'll definitely do something similar. I liked it a lot, but it's lows were very low, so cutting out the fat and playing in a linear way like this might be enjoyable. Also, I like how at 1:38:05 Link's Steering Stick movements fit into your sarcastic frustration lol On the voice acting, it sounds very anime to me, which is not a compliment. Nothing against people who enjoy anime, but that's not what I want to be reminded of when playing a Zelda game.

[@knight-of-aether]

One of the worst things about TotK, to me, is how the main characters have no personality, and only take action in service of the plot. Rauru, Sonia, and Ganondorf are as flat as cardboard in every scene they're in, and Zelda herself only shows a little of her passionate, research oriented personality in the intro, when she's getting excited about history and archaeology - then as soon as she's transported to the past, even that disappears. Even in the intro, she only talks about the Purah pad in the context of it being easy to use, implies that she considered leaving it behind, and later on hands it off to Mineru seemingly without a second thought. In BotW's memories, we saw her traveling with the Sheikah Slate, trying to figure out how to unlock a shrine, and generally being obsessed with learning the secrets of ancient technology. In TotK, you can translate a tablet in a side quest that says she had fun riding a construct... that's about the extent to which they remembered her prior characterization. I think the way the memory system was utilized also has a lot to do with this painful lack of character depth and agency. In BotW, the main plot was extremely simple, and the memories mostly existed as a way to show the Champions interacting in small, interpersonal moments and build a connection with the player, making you want to help them. In TotK, the memories are entirely focused on showing the main plot (with the exception of the tea party scene), leaving the characters no room to breathe and sacrificing any development they might have had. And the plot itself is just so badly written, they have to be really stupid for it to even happen at all. From Rauru's arm just letting go of Ganondorf and Zelda getting distracted by his stone and ignoring the freaking mummy in the intro, to her neglecting to tell past Rauru and Sonia about any of that later on. I've seen people talking about how the main story writing was outsourced to a mobile games workshop (Zelda Lore YT on twitter posted about it a while back), and while that's depressing, it honestly makes sense. Apparently Nintendo just doesn't care anymore.

[@blackchickiedee7]

Whaaaaa??? So Nintendo didn't even make the story themselves?? Whew, yikes😬😬😬

[@56ty_]

@@blackchickiedee7 nah, the story being outsourced was a lie. Don’t believe every dumb comment you see on KZbin lol

[@knight-of-aether]

​@@56ty_ I edited the comment with a source for the claim (thought I replied a couple weeks ago, but youtube apparently keeps eating my replies lol). I'll admit the part about the alleged outsourcing could have been worded more clearly, but most of the comment was about the importance of characterization in a LoZ story, and I find it hard to understand why someone would consider that dumb. But to each their own, I guess.

[@knight-of-aether]

Whew, apparently my reply about the alleged story outsourcing keeps getting flagged/deleted. What the heck youtube. I'll just say, if you're curious, Zelda Lore YT on tw/itter did a thread going into it a few months ago. I don't think I can link it here, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

[@56ty_]

@@knight-of-aether yeah dumb was not the correct term and it’s offensive. My bad. Using false information to prove a point is… not the best though. Shows heavy bias and invalidates the whole comment honestly.

[@Yuti640]

oh my god, i just got the joke with hestu’s gifts, it has another layer in totk

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Huh. I didn’t notice that either. Still think it sucks though :)

[@1996HerreraJohn]

I feel as time goes on this game is gonna get critiqued so hard in retrospectives. I feel people are a bit blinded by this games hype to see how much of a clusterfuck it all really is. I give it a couple years & I feel this game it not going to age well. I don't ever see myself replaying this game. I replayed BOTW twice which already when that game came out I wasn't a big fan of replaying games anymore but that game had charm. It's a shame cause I was really excited for this game and Zelda still is my favorite game series. However, I feel moving forward they should take all 3D Zelda ideas. Balance the open with linear games with new ideas & the series can truly blossom. Even if they decide to keep some of these ideas or decide to use same foundation for the next game I would much rather see 20 huge shrine like dungeons "temples" whatever you wanna call them that are dense & environmentally involved with it surrounding. I would much rather prefer that over something like TOTK where it gives you so much only for a handful of it to be really good.

[@randomedgygamer2191]

Why the fuck did this game take 6 years to make?😂

[@thegreatapathetic9836]

This game punishes you for trying to have any player agency. I was genuinely baffled that the the towers, paraglider, and auto build are locked behind story progression. I was lost and felt stuck on the Great Sky Island for trying to not place markers and do things out of order, and when left the Great Sky Island, it didn’t get any better. I tried to go my own way and make my own fun like in Breath of the Wild, I skipped Lookout Landing and chose to explore the world, I was trying to clear that one monster camp in Hyrule Field that unlocks the tower which was challenging and a bit tedious, but upon clearing the camp, I couldn’t even interact with the terminal. I had the same problem when I discovered the dungeon that unlocks Mineru, but couldn’t interact with anything. Why block content behind story-progression, but still have that content be visible with no indication that you can’t interact with it? At least be transparent with the player about it if that’s what you’re going to do. Edit: on the topic of visual indicators that lead to nothing, there are these Yiga Frog statues that look like Korok puzzles in the game, but are actually part of a quest, and nothing tells you that you can’t interact with them until you progress the quest!

[@ZaiDrizzleDrop]

Man I'm 20 minutes in and I love how honest and direct your being, a lot of people with these videos try to sugarcoat it and call the game a "dissapointing masterpiece" but I love that your being straight to the point. I'm subbed! Oh man I'm an hour and 30 minutes in and DAMN!! Your going HAM on this game! Awesome! I really appreciate you not holding back, and truly saying how you feel, because I am also super frustrated with how boring the game was despite it being 70 bucks! I love this video!!

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Totally agree. It really irks me when people backpedal on criticism to try and not sound sound too “controversial”. I hate how afraid people are of having an opinion.

[@ZaiDrizzleDrop]

@@MrGoof-if8rb Indeed, I can't tell you how many videos criticizing this game start out with the creator clearly covering their ass. Like "I LOVED this game, its a masterpiece, its incredible".....but...and then the rest of the video is them making me believe they didnt love it at all. I'm so sick of seeing the word masterpiece used for games that have no soul. It keeps bringing me back to Videogamedunkey, he made a video on KH3 and pretty much said it was a pile of shit (it very much is) but then in another video reviewing the games of that year he quickly said said KH3, A BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE, and I'm like...."wha?" Kind of makes me feel like he did that so people wouldn't be mad at him. One time Skywardwing posted a video giving his raw opinions on KH3, and they were super genuine and made sense, but he deleted the video and made a "cleaner" one to satisfy people. Its just infuriation that people want to "appease" their shitty whiny audience so much that they dunk their true opinions in a tank full of hand sanitizer.

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

@@ZaiDrizzleDrop I know Dunkey’s humor can be a little hard to interpret sometimes, but he was absolutely joking in that game of the year video. He is pretty openly critical of the things he doesn’t like, and neither does he care if people disagree with him. Also yes the word masterpiece is overused. Very few games are masterpieces in my mind.

[@ZaiDrizzleDrop]

@@MrGoof-if8rb Ok that makes sense, because for the longest time I was like .....he sounded like he HATED KH3, and for him to just drop in "masterpiece" I was so confused, it sounded like he was trying to not infuriate the fandom. But I guess I just didnt see the sarcasm lol, thats funny in retrospect. Yeah I love dunkey, and I'm glad he's one of the people who doesn't shy away from being critical. All in all, awesome video man! I think I'm actually gonna watch it again soon, because its probably one of the most visceral critiques/deconstructions of TOTK I've heard. Its up there with Moxiewotts and Bandit. It makes me happy that people aren't just swallowing the bullshit we've been fed. For the longest time, my biggest worries were "Ok so they had 6 years to make a game in the SAME WORLD, surely the world is gonna be BURSTING with new shit to explore and have fun with, since the foundation is laid, PLUS its gonna be 70 bucks. But the game felt like a chore to play, I just didn't WAN'T to play it anymore, and I kept hearing that the lore and store wasnt interesting or thought provoking, with no consequences, that was something I at least wanted, especially since they said it was darker than Majora's mask. So I just stopped playing, I wasnt having fun, and I'm glad this video shares my frustration. Thanks for making this man!

[@ZaiDrizzleDrop]

@@MrGoof-if8rb Also that Wind Waker Ganon laugh as SO FUCKING COOL, I never really listened to it before since I never owned WW, but its so awesome.

[@TitoRohwedder-my1nh]

Its what I have been saying since before totk was announced. They made a really beautiful world, but it was woefully empty, they NEEDED to put things in it. I am absolutely crushed they wasted that potential.

[@scrappy2082]

59:23 one thing I will say about you bringing up Majoras Mask requiring you to fight Goht again is that unlike other bosses in the series. the Majoras Mask bosses dont have a set pattern. they can be fought in any which way you like, the Odolwa boss being a great example of this. ironically it was the 3DS remake that added in alot of restrictions to the bosses, making it so that you have to complete them in a certain way

[@pitshoster401]

The 3DS remake ruined a lot of things compared to N64 Majora's Mask

[@simonvargas2289]

I died with the deku tree voice. It actually sounds a bit better lmao

[@AmeButCool]

"Recall isn't often used in puzzles" I mean, maybe not through the intended way it's supposed to be solved, but you can cheese damn near every shrine in the game by floating an object in the air with ultrahand, then bringing it back and recalling it while you sit on it. Need even more distance? When you get on it and recall it, grab yet another object to push it out even further beyond what you could reach while you ride the old platform, then recall the new one and repeat. Easily my favourite way to use the two powers

[@happysmilesworldandgames8755]

1:42:55 also, about that, mineru in the spirit temple shows you two cutscenes with a missing cutscene in between She shows you the imprisioning war and zelda wanting to become a dragon, but between those events theres zelda finding the master sword

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

I just sat through all 2 hours of your video but split up throughout the day and some of which while playing the game at the same time as I haven't beaten it. But you pretty much hit all the same points and frustrations I've been having with the game in a clear and no nonsense type of way which I can appreciate your genuine passion and concern with the Zelda series just like me. I've been asking the same question like what the hell have they been doing for the last 6 years if they were allegedly working "diligently" on this game? Either their lazy like you said, they began working on an earlier version that got scrapped and restarted over again mid-way, or they really must have just started in 2019. But even if it's option #3 of beginning work in 2019, that still doesn't explain 3 or 4 years of game development. Now that I have 21 hearts, have played over 140 hours and about to head to the castle this game is nothing more but a glorified DLC of BOTW deceptively repurposed as a retail release and reminds me a lot of Doom 2 back in the day on MSDOS. The game is entertaining for the first 10 to 20 hours or so but quickly unravels into a tedious errand boy fetch quest game with too many side tasks and underwhelming rewards. Some of these missions had me going out of my way for over an hour just to be handed 20 Rupees and two take out meals that I could have cooked myself!? Man please! Also, this might seem silly to some people but it really bugs the hell out of me how lately they have been pushing this idea that Link is right-handed when he has ALWAYS been a left-handed person just like me and Mr. Miyamoto. When I beat this I'm not going to replay it again and if they release another Zelda that's anything like BOTW or Tears I'll pass because the open world fad has run it's course. It pains me to say that as an OG Zelda fan who still owns his original Gold carts of Zelda 1 and 2 for NES that I purchased way back in 1990 and 1991. On a side note I would love to see Adventures Of Link redone on the Switch or whatever new system is to be announced soon. The remakes seems to have been the ones they get right. Thanks for this review! 😎

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

I genuinely think that an earlier version of totk might have gotten scrapped and replaced with what we have now. That first teaser trailer we got in 2019 really feels like it belongs to a different game.

[@walterclements9019]

Try the Japanese audio if you ever do another playthrough. Easily better than the English audio

[@awsome182]

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

[@56ty_]

Witcher 3 was outclassed by botw in every major aspect. Deal with it

[@Ganondoodles]

so, i have seen this video many times when it was newer, but recently came back an rewatched it again, made the mistake to look through comments and saw a few were i gotta question if warnings do anything to deter people that just cannot accept any kind of critical look at something they like- since my bitterness about this game came back again anyway i thought ok now im gonna leave a comment (i have so many opinions on this topic oh dear, just to get this out, im not a mindless hater, i am a big fan in fact, we deserve better than this) big time zelda fan (fav ww, second place botw) and totk disappointed me so massively it made me question and worry for the future of the franchise; i played it over 180 hours but after seeing the end i felt empty, baffled and in the end both angry and sad- this game could have been so good, with botw as its base it was so RICH on potential, to combine new and old much better, so many thigns that seemed to connect so well it had to be intentional, things that were right there for the taking, yet they threw it all away, in the end it feels like a fever dream to me- people (largely unfairly) raged about botw (it is not flawless either, nothing is) and called it a tech demo, but honestly totk feels like a tech demo to me, and for my most extreme opinion, i think the whole building mechanic, while impressive, was severly missplaced to use in this game and should have been a spin off instead or similar i played through it in a little over two weeks (didnt rush, took time off work for it too) and i never touched it again, in the end even selling my collectors edition (which was the only one i ever owned) bc i felt so scammed and it kept being a thorn in my side that i spent so much money on it, it might be the only zelda game i truly cannot stand the most i like about this game is the music and sound design, but thats pretty much it, the writing is bafflingly bad and i am especially mad about how they flattened ganondorfs already underdeveloped and underexplored character into microscopic paper thin (im not even gonna mention the english voices, my native lagnuage isnt english anyway but everytime i hear anything of the engl dub i either cringe or laugh bc .... not good- not trying to hate on the actors but it just doesnt work here espeically zelda and gan) and made already long franchise issues of orientalism even worse- i agree so much with you on this video (though i dont like the sky either and found the 'puzzles' incredibly tedious); despite what many people still seem to believe, totk made every problem botw had WORSE (like you mentioned) but i dont think you need me to reiterate all of that the underground alone was such a big let down, like YES the idea and first moment were so cool but then its all empty and repetetive and tedious (and im one of the weird guys who love walking around nigh empty fields- its such a nothing, why do the miasma hands or some other enemy not drag you down into the underground, like the hands in ww but worse?? like thats such an obvious and cool thing to do??) and the fact they not ONLY copy the locations of the weird new shrines (too many so many why are so many) BUT also AGAIN of important points, under any settlement theres a big mine, every important point on the surface is also something in the udnerground and i just .. why why why, after already changing barely anything on the main map WHY would you repeat it bascially a third time AGAIN; you could have done big changes with relatively minimal effort, dry out zoras domain, make them seek refuge in akkala, flood the desert so the entire region is immediately entirely changed in gameplay and feel -(you get the point)- sprinkling some stones around, slightly moving shrines is barely a change at all- another big point for me is how they treated shiekah tech and the (supposedly lol) connection to botw like it was pretty much never there, no one cares, its just LITERALLY replaced by another one, and its ALSO a strange advanced tech from ancient people, that not only hijacked its place and function but also alot of the symbolism (third eye anyone??) with none of the connection (since sonau are a new species out of nowhere and now already gone too) while also cheapening the shiekah in retrospect (clearly the shiekah didnt invent the tech themselves, they just copied from the sonaus, it was aliiiiiiiiens allll along) AND get isnerted into ever crack of hyrule- like yeah im not a fan of the sonau, not bc im against the idea, but the execution of it- like there is SUDDENDLY no spot that is untouched by the sonau (and somehow mostly in prime condiiton despite being older than shiekah tech) its downright creepy but even that leads to nothing- and then the interview in which they say 'lol the shiekah tech just vanished and no one knows why and didnz care to look into it' came out, which was my breaking point, its so stupid and feels like either damage control or a 'lol dont worry about it and give us 70 bucks' (shiekah tech didnt have to be a focus again- you can just leave it lying around non functioning, overgrown, or reused as shelters like the titans??? just gone??? werent they revered as holy in some parts??? huh?? and no one cares??? the shrine of life????????? the thing that saved links life????? just gone??? -tbh finding that location brought me to tears bc i was so devasteted and felt like a cruel joke- and the stupid argument of 'it would confuse players' doesnt work bc ITS A SEQUEL (supposedly, i still dont want to accept that) if you dont understand something bc you started with season 2 of a show then its on you??) not the biggest fan of the new abilities either, like the building was cool at first but just got to be so tedious and annoying over time bc there is no puzzle that can not be broken by it easily with the time reversal especially (even the dungeons.........), too much freedom can be as bad as too much restriction, the ceiling jump was really just a skip button (i get it you wanna move on, but its was rarely used interestingly, and really just a way to skip climbing, which i liked alot, being resourceful about it etc) amd the weapn fusing was funny at first too (like so many things in this game) but i dearly miss actual weapons that are just weapons (bringing a repair mechanic into the game was the most logical fix to the weapon breaking system??) without you having to fuse it too likely valuable material just lose BOTH the (now suddendly sages) ideas ok but why wouldnt you tie it to a second ability wheel ........ its so clunky how it is, im sorry how did it get into the final product to have 5 ghosts run around you, cosntantly dis-and reapearing anytime you even dare to look at a pebble to climb, and make their powers activated by pressing the same button you use for every interaction WHILE most likely CHASING THEM AROUND and them running away from you most of the time AND give them collision so riju, who is MELEE, sticks to the enemy like glue while her power gets canceled whenever she trips- dont get me started on the story, its just plain stupid and uninteresting, its both predictable (in a bad way) from the start while the game treats you like you are unable to think how often it repeats obvious stuff into your face (.....the whole ooooohohoho puppet zelda thing like .... how do even her supposed FRIENDS fall for it, blindly following everything she says and you just have to sit there watching everyone run after the obvious fake one bc you cant say anything), and the end ...... god the end, i hate it so much, it removed even the tiniest bit of meaning or weight the game had, like no matter how epicly you present something, a cake painted on cardboard is still gonna taste like cardboard no matter how well painted- you get told over and over that its irreversible, impa, being one of the only ones you can actually tell it saying sth like oh shes gonna do research how to help and it goes literally nowhere, but WHOOPS rauru just shows up again (after already doing an oh so sad turning to ghost dust scene at the very start- after not telling you shit even when he COULD- even rhoam did that in botw) and magic beams her back, and she doesnt even get to remember anything, heres your pretty prize for stabbing the evil (werent dragons meant to be immortal- .. anyway) woohoo, not even links arm is gone, its just BACK, not even a scarred (dont come at me with hurrduurr its time reversal- i dont care, its still stupid ... or even moreso with that) EVEN when you dont get all shrines "your arm is beyond saving" my butt (big missed opportunity of gviing link a badass shiekah prosthetic and intergrate all the abilities into it-- like a grappling hook???) to the very end i waited and hoped for a twist, a hook, something to make it all make sense or interesting but no, its jsut the flattest zelda 'story' of all time and we truly deserve better than this, for that MONEY no less ..... i apologize for this long rant, i am very passionate about tloz, i could rant for hours and all this comes from a place of love, even if it may not sound like it in text format ( i am working on a giant rewrite and redesign of it all .... i wouldnt do this if i just hated it for no reason), if you do read this all, thank you- and thanks for the video! id gladly watch a ten times longer one too, it feels good to know i am not alone with how frustrated i feel about everything, even after setting my expectations low (yes, i did) to be so severly disappointed i dont think im ever gonna buy a zelda game on release again :( (posting this even though i know youtube comments can be an absolut horror show, but i hope maybe this video gets seen by more people who are able to accept criticism)

[@blackchickiedee7]

Don't apologize, this comment deserves a trophy because overall this game was disappointing. It was bad enough that the story made no sense, but the shrines were lacking, the "dungeons" were half baked except the Gerudo region, the characters were flat, the boss fights were subpar, ugh Ganondragon should have been more of a battle than just a spectacle, the sky and depths were barren wastelands, and ultrahand didn't belong here. This gimmicky building mechanic needed to be in a separate game with a new IP. And I'm sorry, the fact that the devs were okay with green lighting "demon king? Secret stone?" Four times is inexcusable. If that's not an indicator of being lazy and unimaginative then I don't know what is. Like I don't see how anyone can defend that. Mind you, this game costs $70, we really got scammed and people are treating this game as if it saved their house from burning. This game is DLC and we got wrongly charged and I'm still surprised that the majority of people are okay with it. And like my final straws were how Fujibayashi said "ahyuck yep all the sheikah tech disappeared and nobody cares and just accepted that" and Aonuma gaslit players who miss the traditional Zelda formula of previous titles - basically calling them nostalgia blind and turned his nose on them. Like, dude you want to act all pretentious when we were giving you money and supporting this franchise all this time!? Nah, no. If that's going to be his attitude and if they're not going to focus nor care about the story in future games then I'm out. I'll stick to the older titles because I'm not about to give my hard earn money away to people who don't care and just want to make lazy garbage and want people to kiss their feet for it. Y'all can keep it, I'm good

[@roshandala]

Did you ever play immortal: fenyx rising? It's pretty much a shameless clone of BotW, But they just improved upon so many things that BotW did terribly. They made the combat 100x better (even if it's just very ubisoft) They made the items / inventory better There was a cool down for health potions which makes sense And it's a smaller map with less filler The rewards for completing the different variety of puzzles on the map are varied and have better incentive And although it stole a lot of the good elements from BotW, it also realized it's flaws and improved upon them in almost every way. Playing that game will give you massive perspective on recent Zelda

[@localbuzzkill1760]

I listened to this while doing housework so I might’ve missed you talking about it but one of the biggest issues I dealt with while playing TOTK was how bad the frame rate is ANYTIME there’s more than a couple things moving on the screen. When I entered the dungeon areas my fps dropped to POWERPOINT level choppy. And that was with it being played in handheld and on the TV. Unacceptable.

[@joshuafrank1246]

Botw was my first major game I played. It made an incredible impression on me and is my favorite game of all time. The main reason BOTW was so exciting to explore for me was you genuinely never knew what was around the corner and it was always something great. Totk fails to recreate any of the magic botw had on first play through. I feel like the developers did not understand fundamentally what made the game so groundbreaking and exciting. A perfect BOTW 2 in my eyes would have had link and Zelda travel to a completely different map. They could have even done this with a similar story. Just have link go back to the past and rationalize that the map is completely different because it’s so long in the past. This would also make the story finally work. Having a story happen out of order completely disconnected from your present situation is not engaging. All of the new stuff was incredibly fun but I never found myself simply wandering around the world like I did in BOTW. And that was the most important part. The depths were also incredibly boring and repetitive it would’ve been better if they just added the content to extra deep caves or something instead of making an empty interconnected map. It feels like the depths only exist for the one master kogha quest which does not require that large of a map. Even though it is interesting to follow the statues halfway across hyrule. You don’t even notice you’ve gone that far because it literally all looks exactly the same. The sky was all new and all interesting and probably the only part of Totk that fully captured botw. Unfortunately it feels like the sky was 1/10 of the content while 4/10 was depths and 5/10 was the over world (random numbers). I feel like nintendo was so focused on player freedom they forgot to make a game. Thats a little harsh but it sounds cool lmao. anyway tume to watch this two hour video to see if we agree. 😊

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Huh, I get the feeling you will

[@gracebres]

See, I really like totk's gameplay with the abilities, it's like objectively fun. But personally for some reason, I just prefer botw. Idk it's maybe about the vibes and the fact that it was my first zelda... but things like memories and shrines made more sense in that game. It felt meaningful. But in totk, it doesn't?? Also I find it annoying that NPCs don't remember link. Especially in hateno village. Like hello, we live there??

[@lukejones7164]

Both BotW and ToTK have Japanese dubs in the games and they are far better than the English versions, especially for Ganondorf and Zelda

[@sanityunknown6958]

I love when people give Twilight Princess the praise it deserves. : )

[@A_man_not_your_man]

I never played Botw since I dislike the concept of weapons having limited usage and I enjoy a polished combat system, watching this video gave me a new perspective and I may actually try it out one day and ignore Totk as a whole

[@BubblesChika]

The voice-acting is fine... in the original Japanese. If you're gonna listen to Zelda, I HIGHLY recommend switching to the original audio and reading the subtitles. Trust me. Your ears will thank you. I agree with your all criticisms. Not sure what the developers were thinking with this. Breath of the Wild, but bigger was such a terrible idea. As much as I adored Breath of the Wild, I grew bored doing the same thing over and over in Tears of the Kingdom. Instead of bloating out the game, the developers would've been better served slimming the game out, cutting down the shrines to 70 and using that extra to give us a higher quality. It's saddening that they chose quantity over quality for the sequel

[@adnnebs]

If you upgrade the lizard frog outfit with great fairies you don’t slip ever when it rains

[@MegaVirus700]

The real issue with this is that by the time you've been to all the stables to get the outfit and upgraded it, there's hardly a need for it. Your stamina should be upgraded enough that slipping isn't that much of a set back, and the mountain of zonai parts in your inventory can get you anywhere you'd need to climb.

[@huwdte]

Something cool they could've done is make the TotK world an evil-controlled wasteland, comparable to ALttP's dark world. That would make exploring the same world that is similar but different more enjoyable and unique, like how exploring the dark world is in ALttP

[@masterolimario]

Of course an N.M.E employee would criticize this game's enemy variety, their catalogue of monsters is extensive.

[@theelectricprince8231]

1:11:45 thank you for taking the time to go through that dungeon. A lot of Zeldatubers complain about the dungeons in BOTW and TOTK but don't take the time to explain to us why they are bad. Now I get what you guys are talking about.

[@Valstrax420]

If you played any other Zelda game you'd know why.

[@theelectricprince8231]

@@Valstrax420 I haven't but I have played a variety of games and the issue with TOTK and BOTW is that they have very weak (if any) game design. The technical aspects of the game are amazing (like GTA, RDR2 etc) but there is barely any focus on level design, combat design or puzzles.

[@thephalange8630]

I actually saw a video of a game critic, who said something along the lines of 'this game is being held back by being a Zelda game. If it was a multiplayer online game, without having to have anything to do with Zelda, the ultrahand mechanics and beuilding things, it would have been absolutely genius!' I think he referred to minecraft in the same example, or something like that, I don't actually know, because this is not the kind of gameplay I enjoy, so I have no clue about these games. Idgaf about those kind of games! Zelda is either Zelda or they can start working on a new minecraft Nintendo version and go crazy with it! But don't taint Zelda anymore. I too have lost real interest in any more 3D Zelda games coming out. I am hoping and looking forward for a completely renewed OoT remake, where they just change the visuals and maybe a few tweeks here and there, keep the music just newly orchestrated, that I would love to see, but if they change it up more than that, I fear they might ruin even this.

[@amandaslough125]

Would you happen to remember which video or content creator that was?

[@thephalange8630]

@@amandaslough125 I'm so sorry, I only now saw I had a reply to this comment. I have just tried to search for it, but there are so many videos on TotK by now, I can't find it. It's been a few months since I've seen it, it was a channel of 2 guys reviewing games in what looked like a serious and professional way. It had lots of views, they said they knew TotK fans are gonna come for their jugular, but they just didn't enjoy it and it was a disappointment as a Zelda game and should have better been a minecraft kind of game, which would have been the best thing ever. One of them had glasses and they were not together, but talked over zoom or discord or whatever. Just giving you all the details I can remember for maybe you know who it might be 🤣🤣🤣

[@TwoField666]

1:22:11 I'm sorry a did you pronounce it "boz-er" ?

[@Bunthepariah]

When you're an OG Zelda player and you shake your head knowing all Zelda games are open world.

[@ShmankyTube]

Finally, a _Tears of the Kingdom_ review which I can agree with.

[@karkaroff1617]

who is the one playing at the stream in the very end? 2:11:21

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

Joseph Anderson. He makes very good video game reviews, and he also streams. This video was very inspired by him, and the reason I made it is because I knew he wouldn’t. It was also a good way for me to actually start making videos myself.

[@karkaroff1617]

@@MrGoof-if8rb Your video addresses various issues that I had with the game as well. To me it feels like they spent a lot of the time they had developing the gimmicks (the new abilities) and didn't knew how to make the world and story actually deep as it should had been in this open world approach. It's very frustrating as a old Zelda player to see such disregard to what makes good Zelda games (dungeons, puzzles and story). We all thought that it would be fixed in Tears, but, what came out after 6 years of such expectations was disappointment. The game can be fun, it's beautiful sometimes, but it's just that, substanceless... and that is very, very disheartening, for the foreseeable future at least.

[@opticalsalt2306]

Our biggest problem tbh is that we care way too much about the game 😭 I love the approach they took, you can really tell they wanted to make another creative game, I'd say they literally just got "Lost in the sauce," haha.

[@FreeTaurus1]

What triggers me the most with Tears of the Kingdom is how completely disconnected this game is from BOTW. A direct sequel should have direct consequences. The Divine beasts we're the 4 main threats of BOTW and suddently they are gone without explanation. The Zonai have completely replaced the Sheikahs. Almost every characters except story-relating characters doesn't reconize Link. I feel like TOTK was only a fan service and nothing mores. I loved playing TOTK in my first playthrough and then i replayed it once the Wow glasses is gone and oof. 6 years for that...really ? I recently replayed BOTW and i can see all the problems TOTK have. Also i did a comparision of the graphics and TOTK is worst in so many aspect. The colors are grayish , they're much mores pops-in regarding grass, and i had way more frame issues in TOTK than in BOTW. Also , spitting on the Triforce in favor for some magical gummy bear stones really ? What they we're doing these past 6 years ? I'm very disappointed and i really fear for the future of the series. I saw a lots of custom-made dungeons in BOTW with the modding community and if fans can do it why can't Nintendo ? You have locked door , you have keys , USE IT. This game triggers me because its like being promise a chocolate cookie and ended up being dry-grapes cookie.

[@colecube8251]

ikr I agree. I think the shrines and dungeons look significantly worse than in botw. The depths are incredibly ugly. The random blocks they sprinkled around the world, paired with the floating sky islands, ruin so much of the atmosphere the original game had.

[@FreeTaurus1]

@@colecube8251 I feel this game was half-baked. The Lightning Temple and the Ancient Zora's waterworks we're the only ''dungeons'' that i feel was directly inspired from Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. The rest was meh. Restricting a dungeon with a more ''classic'' environment won't scrap the open world. The gameplay changes was cool at first , but incredibly boring and repetitive. The combat in BOTW had so much depth with the runes ability. I think the main reason for that its because BOTW restricted you and rewarded you and if you're clever enough , you can play with the physics at your advantage. This is why Zelda speedrunners still stick to BOTW to this day rather than TOTK because BOTW is much more fun and rewarding. I saw a speedrun of TOTK and oof, half of it its just clipping into the depth with a machine. No techniques , no build up , nothing. Just boring to watch.

[@colecube8251]

@@FreeTaurus1 yup!! The ancient zora waterworks was so cool, if only that was the actual dungeon. Really reminded me of the water temple from oot at first. And yeah I agree. I don't really like the divine beasts but atleast they look awesome from the outside and each have a unique mechanic by rotating the thing. That's more than any of the temples in this game can say except for the lightning. People say the combat in totk is better and i just... don't get it. Every new option they added to combat just kind of... trivializes the fight? Muddle buds and puffshrooms especially. They're EVERYWHERE and they allow you to kill any common enemy you want. And shooting arrows is so much more cumbersome. Also. That awesome moment in botw when you throw a weapon at an enemy, it explodes (from breaking), they drop their weapon, you pick it it up and kill them is ruined! Because in this game, the weapon they drop is usually really weak and needs to be fused with something. which means you need to open the menu, scroll to items, sort the menu, look for the item you want, drop it on the ground, close the menu, switch to fuse, and FINALLY fuse it to the weapon. So cumbersome and ruins the most exciting moments of battle imo. and yeah speedrunning this game is a nightmare compared to botw lol. That cutscene at the beginning is brutal.

[@bannisray3683]

You are going places, son.

[@merlumili]

I'm kinda surprised by some of these takes ngl, you might be the first person I've seen like the sky islands as they are. I LOVE totk but I just can't stand how repetitive they are, by the fourth green gem shrine I was kinda over them. That's why I was hoping there would be dlc where we get a new big sky island (sigh) I will admit that my perspective is very biased by the fact that I haven't played botw, so what people felt with that game back then is what I feel now with this one. Also I just don't put much weight on certain aspects of Zelda games other people do, like the story, so it never really detracts from my enjoyment of the game. I do agree wholeheartedly that the cutscene reuse was embarrassingly lazy, I won't believe it was impossible to have different cutscenes for the sages depending on how much of the main story you've done already (completed temples+dragon's tears)

[@MrGoof-if8rb]

I didn’t have so many criticisms of the sky islands at the time because they annoyed me significantly less than the overworld and the depths. It’s that thing of being given something bad repeatedly over and over, and when you finally get something decent you enjoy it more because it’s comparatively better than what you’ve been getting. I feel like all the criticisms of the sky islands from other people are probably accurate, but I was more focused on the other two areas because they annoyed me more.

[@BriarBeeBenson]

I can’t believe this is your first ever video! It was written and presented wonderfully and I watched it all of the way through! The ending especially resonated with me as I’m someone who also has been let down time and time again in my life to the point where I feel at least nervous every time I get hopeful or excited about something because often I just get crushed by disappointment. I’m heartbroken that other people can relate to this… You basically touched on most of the things that frustrated me as well! So good job! TotK to me really is Missed Opportunities the game. I guess the only things you didn’t mention that I have personal gripes with is how this game constantly has set up after set up, establishing really interesting concepts, characters, stories and lore and then doing *nothing* with it. They simply go no further for seemingly no reason. Frustrating as hell. In addition to that there’s the misleading marketing that made a lot of us think that we were going to be getting an entirely different game that actually gave a shit about the franchise’s lore or at least BotW’s lore. Y’know, it’s prequel game? And yet they did literally nothing with the Sheikah. Why was Robbie demoted to the compendium guy instead of being in the depths with Josha and Mineru making super weapons or some shit? I miss my ancient gear and weapons, ugh… what is the point in alluding to a link between the Zonai and the Sheikah if they weren’t going to do anything with it? They do this like a million times this is like one single gripe off of the top of my head. Then there’s also the teasing us with Zelda being present in the marketing making us believe that she’ll be present or even *playable* in the main story. Or them actually doing something with the sky islands beyond them being empty (I thought they would populated like Skyward Sword but 🙃) or them giving answers about the Zonai when they barely do anything with them because the only two Zonai we get barely get like half an hour of screentime and are barely allowed to be characters. It just makes me feel sad and dejected. Because this game made me care a lot about the characters and the world they exist in and then I felt like the developers were then laughing in my face for daring to care about them it just feels… mean spirited. Idk, this is super long and I’m so sorry I just… I’m so damn sick and tired of unregulated capitalism and greedy, money hungry executives and share holders with crippling stock market gambling addictions ruining every single thing I dare to deeply care about. Like… I’m also a Pokémon fan as well so know very well what it’s like to watch a franchise you hold dear to your heart just get destroyed in the pursuit of a few wealthy guys with a crippling addiction to accumulating wealth and influence. But at least I can tell their team are just under a lot of stress and still care about the lore and wriitng of their franchise. At least they’re trying? With the Zelda team it just seems like because Aonuma and Fujibayashi do not value lore, worldbuilding, character development and a well-written, emotional story in games then they think everyone else, including their own team members, just ought not to value it either and if you do then you’re stupid for getting your hopes up I guess. It crushed my heart because the fluid and open ended yet intriguing lore of Zelda is what has drawn me to the series. When the gameplay loop gets old and their new gimmick becomes tiresome, when I’ve long since put the game down, I’m STILL thinking. I’m still trying to parse things out and put it all together in my head to figure out what’s going on which is incredibly fitting for a series of puzzle games. But it seems as though now that the head developers of Zelda care just as much about developing actually consistent and intriguing lore and stories as much as they care about designing challenging and intricate dungeons. I can’t believe I’m saying that about the two developers who gave us Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Majora’s Mask and especially The Wind Waker, which is a damn masterpiece! Literally, Fujibayashi was the director Skyward Sword! Who gave us the scene of Link running to Zelda and banging on the seal with all of his strength, trying desperately to free her, his face screwed up in emotional agony because he cares about her to him then directing BotW and TotK and giving Link no emotional reaction what-so-ever to relieving the memory of Zelda crying over his dying body or Zelda turning into a dragon. What the hell?? And Aonuma fought tooth and nail with Miyamoto to allow him to make Twilight Princess and give the fans what they wanted: a more gritty, darker Zelda with higher stakes and compelling, emotional characters to attached to and it saved the whole franchise! I miss Midna, I wish we’d gotten another companion in the from of Mineru or Rauru who could’ve easily filled that role again… just ugh. And now I’m just sitting here, left scratching my head wondering what the hell went so wrong? Like yeah… I get it. I get what you mean, being scared of getting hopeful and excited about things. About putting your trust in people to properly handle the things you hold so dearly to your heart, and getting your trust violated every time.

[@leonardofarias8843]

They tried really badly, Aonuma should have chosen only one extra overworld

[@linktheplayer3]

For this being my me of your first videos apparently I really love the editing! There are very few long videos like this that make me pay attention as much as this one does and that intermission before the final whammy of the story discussion is just *chef’s kiss*

[@guyles2462]

very high quality analysis. a little drawn out, it was possible to shorten the inserts and not waste time on long plot clips. As an example, you could talk about one dungeon, instead of all four. totk is just a big dlc for botw

[@foxsalinas55]

Can I also add that draganon getting laser space cannoned made me burst out in laughter and completely ruined the ending moment of this game.

[@ph5.484]

Regarding the points about voice acting, I don't see it brought up often because I think American players don't always notice, but the British accents in these games are not good. Sidon and Zelda stand out in my memory specifically. I actually think Zelda's accent improved a bit between games (going from terrible to okay) but I wouldn't be surprised if doing an unfamiliar accent ended up hindering the actors' ability to do a good performance.

[@jorgehuertas3995]

In fact combat shrines in BOTW do change, they have different ways of stopping the mini guardian's charge. Either column, metal blocks, water for crionis, etc. It's not much, but it's something

[@MasiPT]

I agree with almost everything in the video but the music in the Colgera fight was godly. 1:14:47 thats just hater energy

[@shiethegal]

The Zelda Cycle is hitting TotK _HARD_ and we're not even a full year out from its release. That's not a good sign, is it...

[@khabirgaiarsa7896]

The game feels like alternate universe botw

[@bagelenjoyer3437]

I do feel like the voice acting is 50% bad voice acting and 50% the most shitty ai generated sounding dialouge ive ever seen

[@sSeason3]

57:11 some says that gloom hands are made by link's orignal hand but gloom hands are left hand and link loss his right hand.

[@Soleil.m]

My feelings about ToTK aren’t exactly positive. However, I still have some favorite moments in the game, the biggest one of which has got to be my first encounter with the gloom hand monster. I was exploring Hyrule Castle when I found myself in the underground prison area. Past a hallway with cells on both sides, I turn to see this big gate to my right. Suddenly, there’s a strange movement. I can’t tell what it is. I get closer to watch whatever’s on the other side. Before I know it, a dark mass is coming right at me with surprising speed, accompanied by this freaky-ass music I haven’t heard before. I bolt, but soon realize things have gone eerily quiet. Cautiously, I go back to see. The thing is gone. Damn near crapped my pants there.