Tears of the Kingdom Retrospective

[@rexded]

It kind of fells like the game reset in development at some point, maybe the devs thought that they could make a whole game out of the sky islands but had to cut most of it out for one reason or another, despite that not being reflected in trailers. Some aspects feel rushed like the depths which is odd for a game with a 4-5 year development time as everything should feel as carefully crafted as possible and not empty. The strangest thing about the depths is that we saw them quite early in the trailers, is like they were just a place where the devs would put things like armour with no challenge, and boss rematches without it looking jarring on the games world. Personally I think something bad happened to this game during development, covid most likely effected communication between devs which could of led to a disconnect of what the games directors wanted from the rest of the dev team. Maybe they lost the vison of what this game was going to be and just did what BOTW did. Although the strangest thing about this game is probably that is was meant to be made of DLC ideas which is strange for a game that is so lacking in new content and new ideas. Although I'm not a game developer so maybe this stuff is harder than I think it is.

[@c7fab]

It's always irritating to me no critics mention the ultra-hand building mechanic and the sorrounding physics engine when they argue about the long development time. Those probably took the most effort to get done, since there's a lot of testing needed to get everything right, then more testing and, guess what, found another bug to fix, now fixed, something else is broken and so on and on and on. Creating the sky and the depths seem tame compared to that.

[@jpa3974]

I don't agree with your analysis. From the interviews with the game's director, it seems clear to me that TOTK is exactly his vision. He was saying recently that he doesn't understand why people want "limiting" games, when they can do whatever they want like in TOTK. It's hard to believe, I agree, but TOTK isn't the result of development problems, it's exactly what the director and Nintendo wanted to offer, because they really think that copying and pasting bland things and spreading them around a world to make the player spend 150 hours solving self-evident puzzles and fighting dull battles is good game design. And to be fair, the more than 40 million copies that BOTW+TOTK sold kind of implies that they're right...

[@rexded]

@@jpa3974 Yeah I guess that's true, I didn't really take the interviews into consideration because I kind of forgot about them. although it's a bit strange that this is the final vision of the game, not that the game is bad it's just quite odd for a Zelda game. Maybe I just got overhyped about some aspects of the game and expected more than I should of.

[@rexded]

@@c7fab The reason why critics don't really blame Ultrahand for the long development time was is because of how many people made this game. I'm sure that Ultrahand was unbelievably difficult to develop and incorporate into the game, and its an achievement that they got it running smoothly on the Switch but its not like it took the entire team the years to develop. There where other developers working on the game at the time and I don't think that Ultrahand could of single handily held back development for more than a year.

[@APsGTG]

@@jpa3974BotW was amazing. Nintendo announced a sequel to that amazing game. They could’ve released Pong as that sequel and it would’ve sold 10 million + copies, Tears of the Kingdom sales do not reflect that they’re right, it merely shows that BotW was a a beloved game.

[@randychristensen1028]

I think the best way I could describe this game is... I don't think there's ever been a better game that I got bored of playing as fast as I did with TotK

[@Whispernyan]

The saddest part is how this could've all be avoided if the marketing wasn't so maliciously misleading. It's hard to give the game any of the benefit of the doubt when they went out of their way to hide stuff like the fact shrines were returning. Looking back it was the perfect storm, the only thing we knew at first was the fact Ganondorf was returning, to drum up hype even when that goes no where in the game, and that the map would be reused, which they knew would drum up drama so they gave everyone years to come to terms with that. They once again made it seem like in trailers that the story would be happening in the present time, just for it to be memories again. I've never been punched in the gut harder than when I investigated that first glyph just to be given a memory, years of theorizing what these things meant just for it to be a reused concept. I've legitimately never seen a game with as misleading marketing, tons of games have worse marketing, but I've never seen marketing for a direct sequel do everything in it's power to actively hide the fact it's just the same game but again. It leaves such a sour taste which does not help when the game as in individual product itself is polarizing.

[@Night_Quest]

This hit hard… can’t say I disagree

[@sweetdreams1028]

Ikr? 😔 If TotK was released two or three years after BotW, I would be far more forgiving towards it. But instead, we waited six years just for a slightly bigger version of BotW.

[@ProjectionProjects2.7182]

Wow good points.

[@alfredio]

I honestly believe this essay is underrated

[@mon0tony]

Yeah, myself and a few buddies were fairly unimpressed with the game within a week of it's release, but it felt like the entire Zelda community was sharing it on and saying that it made breath of the wild look like a "tech demo". I enjoyed the abilities more in breath of the wild, and I am astounded that it took them longer than any other Zelda game to create this. I've been a fan of the series since 1987, and I vehemently defended breath of the wild as a great game towards those who said it wasn't really a Zelda game.. but now I'm starting to get a little worried if this is the direction they are going in moving forward. They replaced the puzzles with grinding and farming 😔

[@knp01]

I'm replaying BoTW right now and it does feel like a demo after ToTK. Or maybe Should I say ToTK feel like a coding portfolio- somebody at the studio said "I bet you can't code THAT" and all the devs said "hold my beer". It's so much better on technical level. But it doesn't matter, because I have so much more fun with BoTW and the whole atmosphere of the game is so much more sincere. I play it and I feel like devs had fun making it, while with ToTK I feel like it was a chore for them and they did not enjoy it so much, because it is a chore for me. In ToTK I left a medalion just before Ganon fight, because I had so much fun with it and will reveisit it at some point. With BoTW I start from begining every time, because I like it so much that replaying BoTW with different approach every time is simply better experience over all.

[@alfredio]

@@knp01 BotW felt like genuine new approach but TotK tries so hard to appeal for everyone it completely drops the ball. Both old- and new-school Zelda fans complain it's basically just glorified DLC for BotW

[@knp01]

@@alfredio I' consider myself BoTW fan first, tried to play Zelda previously and it didn't click much with me. That being said, I have no issue with big dungeons being or not in the game. I have issues with dungeons that I can cheat with hoverbike, like pretty much all dungeons in this game. We are all learning that there is such thing like too much freedom in open world game and you have to have some progress flags if you want to do linear story. And Given how they didn't do well with the story, I'd rather have actual DLC to BoTW with expanded map (caves, maybe some undergrounds) and extra runes like ascend. I would be happy with it and I wouldn't mind paying extra. Or entirely new game loosely based on BoTW but not a direct sequel. I would love a game that's actually in the past - either Rauru's past or the first Calamity Ganon (and if they wanted to make it more technical, they could so easily make Zonai-level old Sheikah tech from 10 k years ago without compromising the continuity like they did with ToTK). I thought I would love ultrahand, but I don't care for it and it almost makes me sad, becuase I can see it's labour of love. It's just, the whole game is not as coherent experience as BoTW was over all. Clearly they wanted to kill one too many birds with this stone.

[@Goosewitdajuice317]

@@knp01 botw wasnt even a coherent experience. Both are equally bad

[@knp01]

@@Goosewitdajuice317 that's ypur opinion and I disagree with it.

[@emperortgp2424]

IDK if you've watched it but Matthewmatosis did a review of BotW where he correctly identified the problem of having too much freedom in the game, and the many concessions needed to facilitate it, years before TotK came out. He also talked about how too many collectibles can cheapen the gameplay leading up to said collectible, which was not much of a problem in BotW but is definitely a problem here with its dozen different currencies and one-third of the shrines being empty. This game pretty much doubles down on the flawed designs and mechanics of BotW while not even retaining what made that game so unique and fascinating, which was the exploration.

[@boo1_gaming927]

The more I played this game, the more disappointed and pissed off I got. The very beginning of the game was intriguing, but the more I progressed through the game, the less interested I became. In past Zelda games, I was hooked from beginning to end, eager to find out what new ability I'm going to get in each dungeon. In BotW and TotK, you don't get that sense of mystery and surprise, especially in TotK. I also hate how they did the story. The tears don't work, and them spoiling dragonification has to be the worst thing about it to me. I knew from when Mineru was talking to Zelda about dragonification that she was going to turn into a dragon. It's kind of lame and disappointing that The Legend of Zelda is just her turning into a dragon, especially when they dropped a huge hint pretty early on in the tear order. I also bought the Switch OLED, Switch Pro Controller, and Collector's Edition for this game. If I would have known how the game was going to be, I probably just picked up the standard version of the game and the Switch Pro Controller. I spent $600 for a game where I didn't really enjoy, especially compared to other Zelda games.

[@AJWEXIST47]

Tbh the Majora’s Mask argument just makes me want to play that version of it that you suggested lol. Demon King? Secret Stone?

[@J0J0Jetz]

So that was the imprisoning war…

[@AJWEXIST47]

@@J0J0Jetz couldn’t believe they copy and pasted the lore scene like that, it should’ve shown what the imprisoning war did to impact all the different races, instead we got different sages saying the same damn thing. Love the game, I thankfully was one of the people who got the geoglyphs basically in order at least so my perspective is probably a bit more welcoming. Seriously tho, Majora’s Mask storyline in Ocarina of Time Hyrule with masks being like zonai devices sounds KILLER to me. You made a great point with that, though! If it took 6 years for Majora’s Mask to come out on the N64, it would’ve been outdated and hated from the jump. Crazy to see what a difference 2 decades and freemium games can make.

[@michaeloconnell145]

Demon King? Secret Stone? I would have preferred small lore dumps like the giants in Majora's Mask

[@manafish8732]

i relate so much to this video. BOTW was a legitimately amazing artistic experience but i got completely sick of this before i even got halfway through it

[@Naruto4995]

Thank you got this video J0J0. To be frank in my feelings, somehow, it feels like the ~new shiny~ mechanics wound up taking the primary attention of this game's creation compared to the elements it was supposed to compliment. Open world approaches always feel like they ran that risk to me. I always imagined (well outside the memories bit lol) that a way to 'choose your own adventure' always needed that linear threads with games like Zelda to keep it secure. At this point this is just my conjecture, but the idea of having a streamlined story with a free to explore world might've served as the best bet for this project. TOTK always gave this scale of lucidity where nothing can really just be cohesive, the hover bike in itself being a fine example. Since with elements like this, the story elements have to get shot through as a trade off, and the lack of care in that when I love me some Zelda lore wounds me. BOTW managed to succeed in that survivor rising up with the dregs to help their homeland and it's people, the past they were committed to, while Link in TOTK's end feels so oddly disconnected. It was a story I believe really needed Zelda and Link to compliment each other seeing how the primary developments were in the memories. Also I 'have' to ask since we're talking about it. lol. What in the world stopped Zelda from using her sealing power to just keep Ganondorf handled back then? I don't expect an answer, it's just funny to me now.

[@MacenW]

Best TOTK review/retrospective on KZbin. The amount of copium there was prereleaae cannot be understated. We were hoping they were gonna show more than the gameplay demonstration of the powers, but no. That's the whole game. That demonstration for 100 hours.

[@MacenW]

Also, after I found out about the hover bike "I didn't even look it up, I put 2 fans together facing down and a steering stick on top, it made travel brainless and the game unfun.

[@AnthonyDGreen]

Thank you for taking less than 2 hours to express your critique ❤

[@777Rowen]

Good critique. In the game, in the forgotten temple, there’s a map that guides you on the memories in order; but like you, I found them out of order. I’m missing a few more, but don’t know where to go next. Anyway, I just wish the story was a bit better. I liked it for the most part, and the ending is great. I refuse to collect all 1,000 Korok seeds, but I will get all the memories n shrines.

[@knp01]

I ignored the temple altogether, because it is what is encouraged with open world, so not only I found last memory third in row, I managed to snag master sword before I realised I need to go to Korok forrest for the clues, but I also found Mineru by accident, when I was 2 sages in. It was a mess and I did not enjoy that experience all that much, especially when I finally played through every story beas, I felt so cheated in the end.

[@H-TownGamer]

I love Zelda but this one is overated, one of my least favorite Zelda games. Feels it lacks passion

[@dampflokfreund]

Agreed. The depths feel so boring. Same with the sky islands. They should've put more unique content in all the three maps. The dungeons were lame, too...

[@kingdomworker2615]

Thank you for this critique, ove watched a couple now, but yours is probably the closest to my experience with the game. In regards to the stagnation sentiment, it is concerning that it took the original 3d formula around 5 entries, while as of right now, due to design decisions it has only taken a single sequel to give me that feeling.

[@J0J0Jetz]

I agree. I do hope Nintendo sets a course correction forward. My greatest fear is that I’ll be tossing the Zelda series into the uninspired open world game bin.

[@facepwnagewtf]

Disappointing is the most appropriate way to describe TOTK. It's one of those game where anything spectacularly positive i have to say about it is undercut by an equally bad negative. I want to like this game because after Breath of the Wild it felt like the Zelda team was set to make one of the best sequels of all time, by taking the open air formula to the next level. What it feels like however is that all the focus went into ironing out a single game mechanic (which to they're credit works very well), but everything else falls short. Nearly all the same short comings of BOTW are still present in TOTK. Some showing slight improvement, some becoming worse, and in many ways creating a whole new slew of issues. I hope the Zelda devs take the fan feedback to heart, and make the next zelda title that truly amazing open air experience all of us expect TOTK to be.

[@obviouslyPSM]

I think of the concepts that leads to so many shrines is that the orbs are tied to both heart and stamina upgrades, requiring that many orbs to max out. Finding additional ways to get these upgrades (please not koroks though) would allow for less shrines thereby removing a majority of the blessing shrines and being able to more develop or even combine ideas from other shrines

[@ITS_Tronka]

I finally found that ah ha moment when I found the unlit blessing

[@crashban4t.f.s.b783]

Botw also had a 6 year wait. Skyward Sword came out in 2011. Breath of the Wild came out in 2017.

[@Tazerboy_10]

Jojo, that's basically a lot of the same things I was thinking about too!

[@RP-mp4ow]

Unlike you, i did have a problem with the memories storytelling. The nail in tbe coffin for me, not hating, but being violently disappointed in this game was that final trailer. I was so hyped to engage with the ideas and themes from THAT trailer in an interactive medium like video games, only to be given nothing but random, uninteractive clips in the video game. For the next game, can the trailer be trusted? I hear the same type of trailer happened for BotW, but i wasnt clued in on that. Can anothet trailer be trusted after doing this bait and switch TWICE?

[@J0J0Jetz]

Gotta say, the bait and switch was very egregious on Nintendos part.

[@abadab1024]

preach it JoJo

[@Tazerboy_10]

Yeah!

[@christianburks1516]

Amen 🙏🙏🤲🤲🤲

[@chrisj320ac3]

Nb4 10-15 years from now it's harelded as severely underrated and unironically one of the best in the series.

[@hist150project5]

I don't see that happen. If anything there will be more dislike for it as the novelty wears off. The difference between this game and previous Zelda games is that stuff like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were more hated for superficial stuff like disliking the artstyle. With TotK the issue is the fundamental design of the game.

[@chrisj320ac3]

@@hist150project5 which I personally loved way more than botw. I guarantee I'm not alone.

[@MacenW]

In your dreams

[@spencer1980]

If they had put less time into the depths, and more time into the temples/shrines, it would have been a 9/10. As it stands, it's about 6.5. Lots of really good ingredients, but they just werent in the right proportions.

[@thatoneguy52884]

Great vid jojo 👍

[@DudeKing1129]

this video is great, gonna use it as my new bedtime story :-)

[@pchanAnimatesSometimes]

It’s got flaws but it doesn’t take away form a great game IMO great video tho

[@pchanAnimatesSometimes]

The meats a bit old but the sammich is still great

[@pchanAnimatesSometimes]

I never used the hover bike I couldn’t get it to line up

[@hist150project5]

Finally someone says the truth about this game

[@christ4205]

Completely agree with your takes here. Not enough new for the time in between and price increase. I also wanted to 100% and thought I was going to after the first few weeks but I have lost the entire desire to 100% after beating the story. Disappointed me a bit

[@APsGTG]

19:27 the only thing that makes this game playable lol

[@benjthewhite]

I agree with a lot of critiques on the story, and reused overworld, but in the end I still think it’s a phenomenal game. I think while there could def be improvements, there was so much great substance in the base story in the past, the new mechanics, combat, and ending that I still enjoy. If I’m recommending a newcomer to the series, I’d tell them that if you want the most out of TOTK, skip Botw as I think TOTK is better but you will enjoy it more if you don’t go through the same world and story beats of the previous game

[@saxoman1]

This was great! And I agree 100%

[@jpa3974]

One very disappointing thing about TOTK is that it shows that BOTW is exactly what Nintendo wanted it to be. What I mean: BOTW is a bold and incredible game, but many people have noticed that it lacks substance. From exhaustively copy-pasted things to small, relatively simplistic dungeons, BOTW didn't have much depth, and many people believed that the reason for that was that Nintendo simply didn't have the time to build such a big game and then populate it with really unique and meaningful things. Fair enough... But here comes TOTK, a game that has been in development for around six years, built on top of an already completed game, and instead of unique things that will add depth and substance to the world, what do we get? A bloated BOTW. There are now more copy pasted things scattered around the world, to make you waste more time on trivial tasks that will give you insignificant rewards. The four dungeons have somehow managed to be even more simplistic than in BOTW. And not even the basic mechanics of the game have been touched, such as the armor system, which is basically garbage. The disappointing thing is that this shows that BOTW is as shallow as a puddle of water because that's what Nintendo considers good open world design. TOTK is BOTW all over again, with all the problems mentioned, because Nintendo really does consider this type of experience to be the pinnacle they can offer. I know that a lot of people don't find this worrying, and are waiting for BOTW 3 with more copy pasted content for them to blindly repeat in a brain-dead way, but for me, TOTK is a clear sign that Zelda is on a path that is no longer worth following, at least for more demanding players who no longer have as much time to spend on games that demand so much time while being so shallow.

[@ACW-dn9wb]

Ive been in the exact same camp for a hot minute bro. And it sucks bc we KNOW Nintendo csn do better. They've done better with their older games, and even games from other franchises. Thats why I've been getting into an Ocarina of Time romhack called Indigo. Its everything TOTK should have been as a proper sequel. And the best part is, the guy who made it is just getting started. I definitely recommend as it reaches the itch TOTK couldnt scratch with new enemies, dungeons, items, interesting story and locations etc. You won't be disappointed with that one my friend.

[@Ianmar1]

This comment hurt to read. Eleven years of conceptualization and development time.

[@Luizanimado]

Thank you for this video

[@nanite97]

Game is good ngl but needs one QOA update

[@whatwhat98]

I honestly believe this game is overrated.

[@IzzyItachi]

As much as it hurts I’d have to agree

[@Raymond-Reddington88]

The early trailers were deceptive! thought the game was going to be darker then later trailers bright skies and islands like they couldnt decide on the tone of the game.

[@theadmiral4625]

SUPER-overrated

[@Night_Quest]

@@Raymond-Reddington88 Soon as I saw the vehicles I got antsy… was hoping I wasn’t correct that the whole game’s vision would be about them. Turns out that’s exactly what it was, and I, like many others, have no interest in vehicle building in a Zelda game.

[@johnpett1955]

I enjoyed this game, but it's a terrible sequel. Elements of BOTW felt either forgotten, or barely even built upon in the first place.

[@ZubiForce]

I agree with your take on the game, good video.

[@painuchiha2694]

I like this game but also enjoy some good criticism Good video

[@Raymond-Reddington88]

The game needed a darker tone gloom should of plagued every area of the game and weakens as u completed dungeons. Needed more combat in the skies and challenges we didnt get any air battles beside a gleeok i guess And ganondorf should of been out and about more not just under the castle the whole game.

[@APsGTG]

17:42 such facts

[@johnpett1955]

Tears isn't a bad game, but it's a terrible sequel.

[@DudeKing1129]

This game is probably the best video game I've played this year and probably the last five. But I somehow feel like Outcore, a game made on unity with a single developer and only around 3 hours of gameplay is better (and its more cheap, 100% actually). Anyone have the same opinion or is it just me?

[@OnePolishMoFo]

I'm not defending this game or Breath of the Wild. But when the criticism is "This thing I'm doing is making the game unenjoyable because it's too efficient." It's hard to agree with you. That's a you problem more than the game's. For example say you hate fast traveling in a game because it lets you skip huge swaths of the map. But then you do it anyway?! Like, what? If you don't like it don't do it. Nobody is forcing you. There's no gun to your head is there? If the hover bike trivializes any obstacle, don't complain and use it anyway. What sense does that make?

[@mkjjoe]

It's not that obvious. Path of least resistance is a concept with real effects and players can't / won't always pause to think about how to not optimize everything, which in a sense is a form of optimization itself. I managed to restrict myself on occasions because I knew BOTW so well, yet many instances showed to me that such freedom limits the developers' ability to account for all possibilities with particular depth. They even confirmed their design was about giving tools to create fun moments, rather than just give fun moments. That comes with pros and cons.

[@OnePolishMoFo]

@@mkjjoe it's just weird to me because I give myself rules and limitations to make games fun that are too open. For example when I play Skyrim I never fast travel and I have to eat and sleep and be aware of the temperature outside. And I won't allow my character to hold more than they could realistically carry on their person. They can't fight entire bandit camps singlehandedly. I enforce these rules on myself to make things more enjoyable.

[@mkjjoe]

@@OnePolishMoFo and it's great that you have the option and will to do so, but there's a balance to have between "here's a sandbox where the focus is your own making" and "here's exactly what you have to do". I think BOTW was an amazing first step in sandbox with some guidance, background story and environmental world building for those interested. TOTK doubled down on the mechanical side of the sandbox without really fleshing out the world that's supposed to be a pretext to use the sandbox, IMO.

[@christianbaker3564]

Ya lost me at the abilities being better in BOTW😂.

[@mkjjoe]

He said "better for the game in the long run". Everyone agrees TOTK's mechanics are impressive, his point goes further than that though.

[@christianbaker3564]

@mkjjoe I tried to play BOTW not too long ago and ended up wishing I had the abilities from TOTK, because all are usefull for exploring the world.

[@mkjjoe]

@@christianbaker3564 Sure, personally I fell back into habits so it was fine replaying but I can see that, they're really cool. The point is more about how they relate to the experience in TOTK, that is, the creators openly said they designed the game to let us create situations for ourselves, more than in BOTW. They succeeded but it's not always a perfect approach for everyone. Sometimes it's nice to have situations crafted by the designers themselves, it gives them more control on the pay-off. I can't count the times in TOTK where I used basic tools and thought "oops, I just skipped the intended challenge".

[@coocola6076]

Tulin & Riju's dungeon/temple are the only ones I can stomach, the other two are way too cheap and so are their bosses. It feels like they divided work on this game between guys who knew what they were doing and a bunch of diversity hires.

[@hoel7367]

Disagree with most of what you said. Freedom to solve the intended vs a unique way is so cool. Had a lot of "aha" moments because of that. You can choose to make puzzles more challenging if you want which i have done and it was satisfying. I agree that things were too repetitive in the sky islands and depths but it didn't damage the quality too much. The green cystal puzzles are time if you challenge yourself to do them differently. I did which made them more unique. Story was good minus some issues with the freedom to discover the curscenes out of order. And yes agree, we don't need thesame end dungeon cutscene. This is better than BOTW but suffers from players unreasonable expectations with a direct sequel in the same hyrule. Can understand if this is not the game for you but some of these criticisms are just unfounded.

[@Naruto4995]

That's one of the issues from how I see it. A lot of what your choices for challenge serve as are self-imposed limitations, instead of limitations being the framework to have players work within instead from the devs. This is what I can understand well from the vid creator in how they discussed it. The convenience vs build your own style always had that 'ravine' in my head, particularly how the 'intended' doesn't have enough grounds to hold on it's own. Which almost feels weird to say lol. How too much freedom winds up being a bad thing, but that's what my gameplay experience with TOTK has also shown me. That and the repetition of some particular beats like literally having to recover the same inventory space all over again. Artificial lengthening like that have always been very few in the Zelda franchise. If this game at least came at 40-50 bucks it'd be less of a wound compared to 70 off rip. I respect your thoughts about the game however.

[@J0J0Jetz]

Thanks for watching the video and for your comment. There may be some truth to my high expectations for this game, as I did watch every trailer building up to release and knew all mechanics. I went into Botw completely blind with no knowledge or having watched any trailers and had a better experience because of it. However, I do try my best to recognize biases as well as any disappointment I felt for the game when viewing totk from an objective viewpoint. I do respectfully disagree that the many ways to solve a puzzle was done right. I feel too many possibilities diluted challenge. To the point about the green crystals, I disagree about this point because the burden should not be on the players to make the transportation unique and interesting, but the devs themselves. This is also why I disagree if anyone states it’s the players fault for using the hover bike. If a player discovers something that breaks designed challenge (and not in a fun way) I feel the devs failed in some way or another. Good points and I love debating Zelda.

[@knp01]

@@J0J0Jetz As a player with minimal time for gaming - I mean, I can spend half an hour testing a built that will dissolve in 60 seconds, because wings, waste multiple resources and add hours upon hours of play time that this games requires, or I can build a hover bike that lasts forever with minimal reasources. I have yet to hear a good argument why shouldn't I do that. Either I can't do whatever in a game or I can- like build a damn hover bike - and if devs chose to give me freedom and that freedom breaks my experience, then it means something isn't right at the base level of game design. What I think happened is that the devs concentrated so much on what they can code, they simply went too far and it was too late to scale down or change the mechanics. Because they are nerds they went with technical aspect and it is in fact insanely impressive game. But they lost something along the way, that spark that was BoTW. They also didn't recognised that what was fun in BoTW due to limitations - like building flying carts, flying that thing was a challenge on it's own, won't be fun without limitations, and so hover bikes enters the scene, but as a player you don't recognise it's a trap until you already played through the game. But the devs let me built the hoverbike in the first place. And self- imposed challenges are fun in challenge runs, not in a casual first playthrough. If that first playthrough isn't fun enough, there won't be a scond one.

[@googlesuckt1519]

sorry but after 6 years of development, asking for content like more complex dungeons, better storytelling and less copy paste stuff, things not only other recent games and also other zelda games over 20 years ago already did better is not "unreasonable expectations" i'm absolutely sick of hearing that argument, come on We didn't ask for like 30 full dungeons or 50 new towns or 5 new overworlds, we did ask for a compelling game that fixes some botw issues and brings enough new stuff to the table to feel like a proper sequel and totk clearly didn't do that. It is by no means a full on bad game, but it's crazy to say that to expect more than what we got here is "unreasonable"