Tears of the Kingdom review: Not enough tears

[@frewtlewps1152]

I wish that each Ancient Sage shared their own perspective on the Imprisoning War instead of repeating the same cutscene. Here are my ideas for each one: 1. The Rito Sage could depict using the Stormwind Ark in battle against the Demon King’s army and taking down multiple Colgeras. 2. The Goron Sage could talk about the days when the City of Gorondia was thriving. Maybe it was a mining town, and it helped the people of Hyrule create weapons. 3. The Zora have healing powers, so they could show the Zora Sage healing people’s wounds. 4. The Gerudo has the most potential. A cutscene of the conflict between the Gerudo Sage and Ganondorf could’ve been amazing. We could have seen Ganondorf’s motivation for having a secret stone of his own. 5. Mineru’s cutscenes are the best in the game. I don’t think I’d change them.

[@sophitiaofhyrule]

This!!

[@Vincent-in1uc]

Damn. I just wanted to see each sage fight on of the phantom ganons in their own way. This is much more ambitious, and I'm totally on board! Such a shame Nintendo let us down like this; we should be on the development team! The fans!

[@BriarBeeBenson]

The only thing I’d change about Mineru’s cutscene is letting her grieve Rauru. Mineru watches her baby brother die right in front of her eyes while she’s being essentially tortured to death by the gloom eating away at her, she should have more of an emotional reaction to that! And then when she exchanges her vow with Link she holds her dead baby brother’s hand through Link for the very last time, of which Link’s hand is significantly smaller than Rauru’s, probably being closer in size to Rauru’s hand when he was a child and Mineru has no reaction at all. WHY NOT? Why can’t they just let her show emotion about that? She’s literally lost everything dear to her heart, just let Mineru express emotion about it. This game is so weird about not letting Mineru or Rauru (or Link) express any emotion and grieve their loved ones when they absolutely should. Like… Rauru gets to grieve his dead wife who he loved very, very much for like maybe 2 seconds and then that’s it! He isn’t allowed to cry over her? He isn’t allowed to say “I miss you, I’m sorry” to her? Rauru also doesn’t get to express concern or grief for his sister either when the player interacts with him and we barely see him or Mineru interact with each other in the past at all. What is even the point in establishing that they’re siblings and that both Rauru and Mineru are those who have a strong sense of responsibility and caring if they’re not going to do anything with it?

[@chibi2239]

Ganondorf is disappointed in Link because RIGHT AFTER that Rauru speech he wakes up millennia later, busts the master sword, and immediately takes Link's arm. He doesn't see Link as worthy in the final fight because of what happened at the start of the game. The fight itself is basically there to prove his assumption wrong.

[@DucksAreYellow]

Totally agree. Would’ve liked him articulating that or acknowledging the contrast though 🥲

[@victorystarsaber7807]

​@@DucksAreYellowhe sort of does that during the boss fight.During the 1st phase ganondorf talks shit when he hits link but in the 2nd phase he doesn't almost like ganondorf is getting some respect for link.Still wish he would say to link maybe something like hmm maybe I was wrong to not consider you a opponent.

[@joylechanceux4805]

Thought I’d mention that at the end of the phantom ganon fight he says that link has more than just the power that Rauru gifted him

[@DucksAreYellow]

@@joylechanceux4805this is also true, though he says “though not by much”- how cool would it have been if he praised link properly in the final fight so we would’ve gotten “is that the best you can do” -> “looks like there’s more to you but not by much” -> “finally a worthy opponent, I was wrong about you”. We can creatively create that arc ourselves by implying the last one in his “im beginning to enjoy this”/“feel the blood coursing through my veins” rant after the first stage, but would’ve been nice if it was acknowledged properly.

[@joylechanceux4805]

@@DucksAreYellow true but I still wanted to mention that in case

[@diegog1853]

A friend told me I was a freak for being disappointed at Zelda coming back... Her sacrifice was really well told and meaningful. A brilliant solution to a dilema, tragic but also with a sense of consolation. Zelda is gone but not entirely gone, she is arround us protecting us. She lives on as an eternal symbol of hyrulian values. I clearly could have imagined thousands of years in the future, people telling the legend of the light dragon zelda. Link living the rest of his life with just one arm mourning yes, but also smiling among all the friends that he got to save, and maybe even being close with the dragon princess zelda even if not much of her original self remains. Choosing to stay on top of the dragon forever. Bringing zelda and links arm back with the power of love feels hollow... not won. I didn't do it, it didn't cost me anything, the ghost magic of love did it whenever the ghosts felt like it. It undermines the struggles of the characters and the player, like if they never happen, erasing them with a snap of the finger at the very last moment. It is not like the zelda series is a stranger to bitter-sweet endings. OoT's Link looses his best friend at the end and arguably his childhood innocence, TP's Link also lost her best friend, LA's Link has to destroy the entire dream world in order to wake up, and the sadness of it is not hidden from you as you watch everything slowly being erased while listening to quite a melancholic song. Totk's ending doesn't feel earned... I literally didn't earn it. The story seems to be sometimes about the huge sacrifices people pay to fight against unstopable evil. But by the end it tells you that those sacrifices don't matter that much as long as you have ghost love magic. I am being a bit hyperbolic of course. It is a great game with a great story. It was just underwhelming how it ran away from its emotional weight at the very end,

[@pdjinne65]

because of sequels and DLCs, it had to go back to the status quo. That doesn't bother me at all, just the way it happens feels contrived and unearned. But SO much effort and care have been put in the story of this one, only to fail at the last mile... Is this the George Lucas/prequel effect where nobody dares criticizing Jar Jar binks in front of the grandmaster? I have strong suspicions. It wasn't very hard to fix, as the author of these videos suggested. Two things: 1/make turning Zelda back into a proper quest, and 2/give Ganondorf a real motivation and character, both of these would have gone a long way.

[@iantophernicus6042]

At 260 hours in and all but Sidon in tow, I'm scared to know, but I have to ask. Onc3 you beat the game, does it BOTW style put a star on your save so you can return and do the boss fight over, or is Zelda permanently restored, along with Link's arm?

[@pdjinne65]

@@iantophernicus6042 The answer to your question is Yes. I wish you could roam the world post Ganondorf's defeat, but no... you can't. So I wanted to keep playing and just put a medallion right before the end boss. That way you can do whatever side quest is left (I recommend the Yiga clan stuff, it's really good and by itself justifies roaming the depths of the depths)

[@ShyGuyXXL]

The older I get, the more disappointed I get in storylines that can't commit to a character dying. One of the most impactful lessons one has to learn in life is that death is the end. So reversing that sacrifice just because it would be too sad is so immature.

[@annaczgli2983]

I get your point, but NGL I cried when Link finally managed to catch Zelda at the end - it was such a great callback to the start of the game when he couldn't rescue her. For that reason alone, I don't fault this ending.

[@stanzacosmi]

fun fact: In japanese ganondorf's goals are (while still 1dimensional) are different. He wants a world where the strong rule the weak, where the weak have the audacity to stand up for themselves, and the intellect to figure out how to beat their overwhelming foes.

[@my2randomcents]

So...is he the strong? Or the weak?

[@quillion3rdoption]

Still though, his motivation comes off more as a weak excuse for just doing business as usual: pursuing unlimited power and taking over the world. Ashnard in Fire Emblem Path of Radiance has the same motivation but executed much better. He actually gets a reason for wanting to create a Darwinist world (he was a distant relative of the Daein royal family and grew to hate how he's trapped as a minor noble because of his birth) and he later states he doesn't care if he dies as long as he can go down fighting and/or change the world.

[@BioAlpha5]

Hes Armstrong is what he is @@my2randomcents

[@thechugg4372]

Japanese Ganondorf is literally Senator Armstrong then

[@VioletLunaChan]

@@thechugg4372 Making the mother of all omlets here, Link.

[@jjtheenton]

The reason for Ganondorf's simplicity is not due to the writing, but due to the English localization. He has an actual motive in the original script and other regional localizations. He belives the world has lost its courage because of the Zonai, beings with god-like power that only use it for peaceful purposes. To him, that is cowardice, and he wishes to stamp it out - something echoed by his line about Rauru having squandered the stones' potential. It's one of many blenders in the English version. We already know about Link not writing the quest descriptions himself like he's supposed to, which is the perfect way to give us his thoughts without having him speak. We have a soulless bastardization of the original intent.

[@DucksAreYellow]

This both makes me extremely happy and supremely disappointed 😭

[@jjtheenton]

@@DucksAreYellow Unfortunately for me, minor spelling mistake 🥲 But yeah, the quest descriptions not being in first person is a thing in both games, and we didn't get Link's line about wanting to see Zelda's smile again in BotW. I need to know what we missed in TotK with how focused on finding Zelda he is. WE WERE ROBBED.

[@qua_xor3348]

​@@DucksAreYellowI love Russian ganondorf lol. He wants to make the world be in an endless war like the past.

[@funchipin4960]

i was confused when ganondorf mentioned that sonia's death was a consequence of rauru's arrogance. there was absolutely no context for that line (at least in the english version) and i kinda just threw it away. im sure there was actual context for it in the original japanese version but in the english version rauru is painted as this wise king who could do nothing wrong. however, in a later cutscene rauru mentions this arrogant mistake of his, but it doesnt go into detail. i want to see this arrogant mistake that rauru made, where he, idk, gets greedy for power and doesnt think of others. i know thats way off from the original story, but it might work.

[@sheridan5175]

@@funchipin4960 A show of fealty I guess is what they were referring to

[@MerweenTheWitch]

I think this is one the best videos on Tears of the Kingdom out there. As a narrative designer, I'm delighted to see someone actually delving into the conflicts between game design and storytelling and how the game did not seem to want to solve them, which was extremely frustrating to me as I played. I've been yearning to see somebody doing just that breakdown of what I think didn't work (and was really surprised not to see more widely criticized). Great commitment to the theory, great examples. Subscribed!

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words! Means a lot

[@frogglen6350]

Yeah. I can't believe this fantasy game has fantastical story elements in it. No zelda has ever done that before.

[@scubasteve2189]

@@frogglen6350 Nice try with the straw man argument. 😉👍🏻 Now you want to address the criticisms he ACTUALLY talked about? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@level5650]

I just wish Zelda becoming a Dragon and Link needing a prosthetic arm were permanent changes. If TotK has a main theme, it’s honouring the sacrifices of others. Rauru lays down his life to give Hyrule a fighting chance and leaves Link the Ultrahand to help him on his quest, Link sacrifices both an arm and the master sword to protect Zelda from Ganondorf, and Zelda herself, inspired by both her distant ancestor and her trusted knight, sacrifices her humanity and mind for a lonely life in the skies to repair his weapon and make it stronger then ever. Ganondorf’s sacrifice, on the other hand, ends up accomplishing nothing because it was an entirely selfish decision made just to spite Link. But Sonia and Rauru showing up at the end to completely nullify the prices Zelda and Link paid in the name of protecting Hyrule devalues those sacrifices because it means they aren’t really “forever changed”. If Zelda was still trapped as a Dragon but was at least able to regain her mind, and Link had to replace Ultrahand with a Sheikah robot-arm so Rauru could properly rest in peace, it would have stayed true to the idea that help you give others at cost to yourself is eventually repaid.

[@DucksAreYellow]

well put 👑

[@jeremytewari3346]

I know Nintendo would never go so far as to leave Zelda a dragon, but the arm thing is entirely realistic. I think for Zelda, the sacrifice would’ve meant more if she was conscious for the last 10,000 years, as it is she just fell asleep and woke up after the final fight, no struggle. At least that way it could feel like she sacrificed something

[@naturalLog26]

And also this way you could've made it possible to play the game after the defeat of ganon, which is what everyone was complaining about in botw

[@vanyadolly]

Or if human Zelda's mind was gone but there was some hope for improvement in the future. That would have been a fine ending. You can't have a story about sacrifice without any sacrifice. I know Nintendo has a long history of hating story-driven games, but they really need to invest in some actual writers if this is the direction they're going.

[@daniel8181]

The only two problems: Zelda still had her memories - she was clearly never fully dragon, at least according to mineru's assumptions. She also contains the full triforce, so best case scenario they just set up a third game where they activate it to save her, which would be silly because the triforce should break itself if she is truly gone as a dragon. Link needs a hand to catch her with, and it cant be anyone else's. Nintendo just isn't going to have a scene with an amputee link. That said, I'm sure they could have just had an explanation for how he got it back.

[@LeetleToady7]

“How does Sonia have a force ghost?” King Rhoam, Daruk, Mipha, Revali, and Urbosa: “Am I a joke to you?”

[@therighteously8454]

Don't forget The Hero's Shade Every sage from Ocarina The Kokiri and Zora sage from WW

[@wildbard4112]

Yeah ghosts aren't anything new in Zelda

[@DucksAreYellow]

Valid criticism, the “can’t move on unless their purpose is complete” bit does seem to be a constant theme across games.

[@LeetleToady7]

@@therighteously8454 I was more referring to ghosts we see in the hyrule of botw and it’s timeline

[@Rayanaminge]

I’ve a;ways thought about fit as any of the “Sages” have this power. As well, this other realm, is the realm of the sages. We see this in several Zelda games. As early as Ocarina, we see where the sages exist outside of time.

[@Goobious_Maximus]

One of the worst things to me is how this Link just doesn’t react to anything. In Wind Waker, Link was shocked and threw rationality out the window when he saw a bird take his sister. He was happy when he rescued her. He was sad when his grandma cried. In Twilight Princess, Link got fuckin pissed when he saw King Bulbin kidnap Colin. In Skyward Sword, Link cried when Zelda sealed herself away. He was ENRAGED when Ghirahim took her away. He screamed when he saw Groose falling behind him. 😭 But in TotK, Link reunites with his lover who we thought might be lost forever, and Link is like 😐 It’s just awful. Why can’t they at least hug? 😭

[@KaminoKatie]

If the Zelda team has the guts to have Zelda stay a dragon or at least turned into a half-dragon hylian after we defeated Ganondorf, we could have a decent bittersweet ending out of this

[@falconeshield]

Their kids would've been half dragon, amazing

[@AlfredoPuente8]

And the Title “Tears of the Kingdom” would be super strong.

[@ihavenoidea3272]

Tbh I feel a way to make the de-draconification make more sense would be to have some upgrade to recall from doing the dragons tears or a quest after that from impa reading the ancient texts

[@DucksAreYellow]

This is brilliant that would have been phenomenal

[@samuelharrison7164]

Yes! I also would have loved it if the game had you activate it in game play while you were falling, instead of just a cutscene.

[@GoldEmberMage]

Maybe link should have gotten his own secret stone

[@ayokunmiolatunde6932]

I think that it would have been a lot for impa's research to lead to a secret light Temple considering it took both Sonia's and Raruru's Powers to do it. And for link to become the sage of light.

[@ayokunmiolatunde6932]

I also feel this would give more Credence for Raruru coming back at the end

[@SosadoesMusic]

I feel like one way that they could have fixed the memories is, once you go ahead and collect all the memories Zelda won't shed that last tear till the mineru quest us completed, that way you dont skip the whole way or something like that

[@DucksAreYellow]

💯💯💯

[@Magi..]

THAT WOULD'VE WORKED SO WELL, WHY DIDN'T THEY THINK OF THAT!?

[@LstBrth]

It's funny. I knew the geoglyph of the Sword had something really important to tell, so I decided to leave it for the end. What I wouldn't expect was to fight Phantom Ganon like 12 times in a row in the same fight and having to 'revive' Mineru by building a body for her soul (Thank god I didn't watch the trailers). So.. we could say I did it the right way?

[@NintendoDeepDiver]

you were talking fast too for me, & therefore I didn’t understand half of this, even so, you probably over-thought alot of your points, I say this because I didn’t see any indication that the devs put half of this amount of thought into the story of ToTK. Whatever the story was, it’s not well told

[@iamLI3]

@@Magi.. because they didn't give a shit , because nintendo knew they already had our money before the game was finished....

[@CrissBluefox]

That's a very good point, Ganondorf has no reason to be trusting of Rarau. In fact it would have been more interesting for Ganondorf to question the other leaders and make them wonder why they are swearing loyalty to this forgine creature who dropped out of the sky and now claims to be king of all the lands. It wouldn't have to be due to any malice on Daddydorf's part, what benefits do the other rulers gain for being subservient to Rarau? These seeds of doubt would make for intriguing tension if everyone starts agreeing with Ganondorf.

[@jeremytewari3346]

Gabon Forg is a cool villain cuz he’s smart and good at manipulating people, here his master cunning was just distract someone, stab them, then use brute force and win. One of his first lines in the memories is “So brute force won’t do it” but it’s literally all he uses

[@amberukiseve]

Im still amazed you just started youtube, your commentary and editing is of super experienced youtubers

[@natesamadhi33]

Thats really not that uncommon nowadays; there are so many resources available now that teach people how to get that pro quality, he probably did his homework before doing so. and maybe he already had enough money to get good enough equipment before youtube.

[@my2randomcents]

See Ganondorfs anime villain lines are exactly what made the Calamity way more interesting for me "A manifestation of pure evil that willed itself to life in it's yearning for resurrection to the point of building itself a body from Sheika tech to spite the Godessess themselves" sounds way better than"Ganondorf wants to bathe the world in darkness cuz light is ugly"

[@frogglen6350]

"A manifestation of pure evil that willed itself to life" Sounds like some kingdom hearts nonsense..Also people back then hated calamity ganon because his boss was too easy. Bit now they like him because of nostalgia. yuck

[@billcipher8645]

​@@frogglen6350I always liked him. He was too easy, sure, but narratively speaking he was brilliant

[@_malo_mart]

@@frogglen6350he’s super easy, but that’s a gameplay thing, story wise i LOVE the idea that ganon is such a hater that his hate has a life of its own lol

[@Gafafsg]

@@frogglen6350Because it’s not like people could have valid reasons for liking what they like. _Especially_ not when they’re telling you those reasons plainly.

[@sheridan5175]

I may have put too much thought into this, but here's an interesting solution I came up with. First of all, I'd somehow make the master sword unobtainable until you'd gotten all the tears. This happened for me by coincidence, but it's important here. I'd also make the mineru side quest mandatory to get the last tear. Lastly, I'd change Rauru's parting words on the GSI so that he said something like "I'll always be there if you are in need of me." This is where the fun begins... Link, having just obtained the final memory and then the master sword, lands on the GSI, and the light dragon flies away. Link stands still, in shock, frustrated with himself and in disbelief as to what's just happened. You could even have him start to lose it a little, before Rauru appears behind him and tells him to not lose hope. He has no idea if there's anything you can do either, but he tells link to look to his allies for help, speak to the best scholars he can find. So you go back to the Forgotten Temple and speak with Impa. She tells you to meet her back at kakariko village. When you go there, she tells you of a riddle. The first part is simply coordinates, leading to a remote location in faron. Research teams have obviously been there already, and have found nothing. But it also leaves a clue... "In order to gain what you seek, something of equal value must be given." When you go to the location mentioned in faron, something reacts to link's presence, and a zonai interface appears, like the ones outside shrines. Upon activation, a door is opened, leading down into a cave with a second door. The keyhole is oddly shaped, but you feel as though you've seen it somewhere. At this point, Impa appears behind you and says she knows what it is. Her family carries an ancient heirloom that fits perfectly into the hole. (This has already been established as there's a side quest where the Yiga steal it, and if you haven't done that you'll need it for this.) She inserts the key into the lock, revealing a new dungeon of zonai design. Once you have completed this and beaten the boss (Dark Link?) You get a shiny new rune, called "repair" or "heal" or something to that effect. This allows you to destroy tools (weapons, bows, shields) you find that you don't want and add their durability to your tools, effectively a repair, and with the cost of one or a few zonai charges depending on the amount of durability being added. When you return to Impa, you tell her what's happened and it becomes clear that everything you've just done seems to have been in vain. You're still no closer to restoring Zelda. Impa swears you to secrecy lest hyrule lose all hope, and you go on, as if that never happened, dejected and defeated. After you destroy Ganon, the sword speaks to you. It has done its duty, and commits itself to one final act for its kingdom. "You know what you must do, link." So he uses his rune, sacrificing the master sword to restore Zelda, and catches her out of the sky. They embrace, and the credits roll. No one's going to read this lmao Edit: Alterations have been made. I've been thinking about this more and I actually think there are a couple of problems with this idea. Besides the fact that the master sword could never be the key because they didn't know it existed, I just don't think it gives you enough time to process the loss. This game's "dark night of the soul" moment is more in the gameplay after you discover the truth, when you're exploring and you happen to look up and she's just there, and it hits you again, and you realise how much guilt and pain link must be hiding. The fact he doesn't tell anyone is pretty consistent with his prior characterisation; he'd rather bear the burden silently because he feels he has a responsibility to live up to the image of the steadfast hero, unflinching and courageous.

[@skyfish77]

This- This is so good. I love it, especially the impa heirloom reference; that was a quest in botw if i remember correctly. 10/10, would pitch to nintendo

[@adrianamurillo5810]

I've been thinking about how Totk could be "fixed" or at least made a little bit better. I like this a lot, your take on it is great!

[@Vivers01]

I loved the part where Link said “it’s link’n time” and then Linked all over the place

[@DucksAreYellow]

Same

[@Vivers01]

@@DucksAreYellowOn a serious note, I just finished the essay and noticed that you have a thing for steak jokes, don’t you

[@Gyashonav]

​@@Vivers01 Sorry about that '"That's a steak"'

[@DucksAreYellow]

🥩🥩🥩

[@dijonmoutard6647]

I loved the part where Link was in the park and said “It’s Linkin Park!”

[@maxenswlfr1877]

I nearly laughed when arriving to Ganondorf and he just goes "I'm a bad guy. Darkness and not peace am I right" Like, dude, I bet he was just reading "100 quotes for a big bad guy" before Link got in what kind of dialogue is that. He had better lines when he was a pig

[@funchipin4960]

definition of edgy villain big bad guy

[@jeremytewari3346]

To be fair, there are a lot of HINTS at him being more interesting (he would genuinely rather have a difficult battle and win they just get to be king) but he has so little screen time that they just don’t elaborate on any of it, and the biggest hint is his corpse’s first line of dialogue so by the time you actually meet him you’ve probably forgotten it

[@vanyadolly]

Ganon/dorf is that guy who seems really impressive until he opens his mouth. Maybe they should just stop trying and go back to him laughing menacingly from the game over screen.

[@falconeshield]

Oink

[@falconeshield]

​@@vanyadollyThat really hot gym nut = he does nothing but talk about football disappointment

[@Vverte]

Just saying, in Breath of the wild, all 4 of the champions who died during the Calamity and even King Rhoam had a force ghost I really don’t think it’s just a Zonai thing. Also, while I do agree that zelda being reverted back to her normal self is technically a retcon, when I played the game, (I got the memories around a similar time as you did) I was fully expecting Zelda to not stay a dragon. I don’t think nintendo would ever have the guts to end the story with such a sad note. The sole objective of the game that is shown on screen as being completed after the final cutscene is finding Princess Zelda. While I absolutely agree that it was annoying that nobody except Impa could know Zelda was a dragon, the story still focuses on finding Zelda and bringing her home, wether or not you know she is a dragon. This is not me saying the decision was narratively okay, this is me explaining that I didn’t necessarily feel cheated by the ending.

[@DucksAreYellow]

It was, frustratingly, unfortunately, extremely predictable.

[@jjtheenton]

​​@@DucksAreYellowne thing that would help is if Recall could be used on enemies. As it stands, Zelda is the only life form that it gets used on. And Link, since he gets his arm back.

[@thomasdebuch3046]

@@DucksAreYellowit’s like watching a good Disney movie- you know how it’ll turn out, but you don’t know how it gets there, which is ultimately what makes the movie good. “It’s about the journey, not the destination”

[@josephscottlawrence]

As this is a Japanese story, it might make more sense to apply kishotenketsu than the western 3-act structure. The light dragon reveal fits better as the midpoint twist rather than as a final-act moment of despair.

[@frewtlewps1152]

I remember a line from Rauru talking about the secret stone amplifying Zelda’s power, and he says that she could do more research on how to use her power to get back to her own time. Maybe there could’ve been a cutscene involving the ghost of Rauru and Sonia talking to Link about his Recall ability being the key to bringing back Zelda to her human form, since Recall is essentially Zelda’s Sage ability. I think a good placement for this cutscene is when Link gets the Master Sword and returns to the Temple of Time, and this cutscene will only play if the Dragon Tears quest line is complete.

[@victorystarsaber7807]

One thing in the story i found disappointing was how ganondorf never says anything about link having the master sword again. Maybe he could have said something like that blade most not be as fragile as i thought but no matter i will shatter it again Then have ganondorf use the same gloom attck that shattered the master sword but this time the sword reflects the attack to ganondorf

[@CuCuKM]

This would have been cool

[@surrealisticinfinity2895]

Yes I missed this part in the final fight. Why would Ganondorf not shoot tendrils of gloom at Link and the master sword when it proved to be very effective in their first meeting. He fricken destroyed the master sword with the 2nd one and proceeded to lift the entire castle with that power. It would have been perfect when Ganondorf realizes Link is stronger than he first appeared. It would have been awesome just to block the gloom with the sword and it not breaking.

[@polar9984]

It’s because he’s barely even ganondorf, design and name aside. The master sword doesn’t stop him, the triforce doesn’t keep the 3 linked. It’s a joke. He’s just a big evil anime guy now. They even took away his pig form, he’s generic dragon now. The metaphor of greed for power through the metaphor of a pig (greed) is also gone. It’s not ganondorf/ganon.

[@Violetttt24]

The act of wanting to sacrifice everything to destroy Links parallels Zelda who also sacrificed everything but instead to destroy link it’s to save him and Hyrule. It’s to show how sacrifice can be both negative and positive

[@DucksAreYellow]

But if the weight of those sacrifices aren’t felt or dwelled upon they don’t feel meaningful 😶 I agree though ganondorfs selfish sacrifice does contrast nicely with Zelda’s, that’s a good note

[@Magi..]

@@DucksAreYellow I always saw it more like a duality between light and dark, and I loved every bit of it.

[@Violetttt24]

@@DucksAreYellow Zelda’s is a sacrifice she thinks about. For days. She did it w a lot of thought in mind meanwhile Ganondorf did it in the spur of the moment. Imagine how selfish and greedy you are, you are ready to sacrifice everything to become power. So power hungry, so vicious. Zelda games have always been story that the players fill the blanks in not the devs.

[@wace9174]

​@@DucksAreYellowZelda's sacrifice was necessary because if you didn't get the master sword before the final battle there is a cutscene where link obtains it when Zelda comes and it's needed to beat the final boss

[@natesamadhi33]

(1/2) While i can see how thats what the developers meant to do, the "lesson" still rings kinda hollow in the end: First, Zelda's sacrifice, in the end, doesnt really "stick to landing". Once Rauru and Sonia turned her back, its like Zelda didnt sacrifice anything at all. Now you could make the argument that Zelda lost time, but how did losing all that time change her? Did it really cost her anything? She's exactly the same as she was before she got turned to a dragon. I feel like the game shouldve gone either one of two ways: -Kept Zelda a dragon to really drive home a lesson about love & sacrifice. or -IF they chose to turn her human again, then something about her mind/character should've fundamentally shifted, even after she returned to human. I'd like to think becoming a godly dragon for 10,000 years would affect someone *deeply*.

[@dhinkakmed]

I have a fix for the whole "Zelda changing back doesn't feel earned" Normal "ending" You fight Dragondorf the same way, but the ending cutscene is of Link Falling into the lake alone. He looks up, the light dragon flies back up into the sky, above the cloud barrier. Credits Roll. Fade to Black Reload at last save BS... BUT! After all the Tears: Talk to Impa She says "Yo, lots of latent Light magic in those shrines, ya know?" You: "Bet" Complete all the shrines. Shrines give you the Light Orbs. Light orbs = Rauru power Collect all the orbs = Juice up the Goat Man. Have him say "Dorf being alive is scuzzin up my steeze too much for me to fix her, go disappear him please." Go Fight DragonDorf again But THIS TIME you have the power to change Zelda back. Goat Man and Mom arrive with all the light orbs and change Zelda Back. Boom Earned. It aint perfect, but it would have felt Earned.

[@adnnebs]

I don’t think retcon defines what happens with Zelda turning back to normal. The best expression would be Deus Ex Machina.

[@Takejiro24]

That would probably fit better, yes.

[@Notllamalord]

I think he meant all the yap about “you can never return back to normal!!”

[@GoldEmberMage]

Just imagine for a second that when Link got the last tear memory, he puts his hand to his mouth in shock for a moment, then a few seconds later he pulls whatever sword he has equipped out and brandishes it angrily at hyrule castle or something

[@JamesR1986]

Better yet, imagine if after you see the last memory you can go back to Dragon Zelda have Link will run his hand through her hair. Or after not moving on Dragon Zelda for a second, Link sits down on her and just vibes.

[@vio2626]

Imagine that scene, but Links just holding a stick.

[@kittykat6079]

In defense of the ghosts, BoTW had the champions and the king exist in the world as ghosts that could interact with the world to some degree too, and none of them had anything to anchor them either, so ghosts existing is sort of canon to this world already, and definitely not just a Zonai thing, but I was also confused that Sonia appeared at the end, I feel like it just came completely out of left field?? Like maybe Sonia could've also been there during the tutorial, and then it wouldn't have been so confusing when suddenly she just appeared despite never having been a ghost before

[@DucksAreYellow]

Having her appear during the tutorial also and/or alternate with rauru as they lore dump would’ve helped a lot

[@jhallo1851]

At 24:15, you define story beats after having used a musical beat to accompany the title to the section that which follows. I don't know if this was intentional, but your editing seems to utilize the sound/music as well as other elements to emphasize parts and create a tone and it's really awesome. Impressive use of the medium in my opinion, thanks for the video!

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for noticing and for the kind words :)

[@cool-soap]

our duck here drop 3 great videos then dip out and is MIA for a year now. what a legend.

[@allstarzombie_7]

SPOILERS: What I’m really sad about for the ending is when Aquaman died saving uncle Ben. It was very sad. 😢

[@allstarzombie_7]

@@xzpython Yes. It was Linkdermans cannon event, but Aquaman stoped it. That’s what caused the upheaval.

[@Elementaldragons1215]

Aren’t uncle ben and aquaman from different universes

[@allstarzombie_7]

@@Elementaldragons1215 no they’re both from totk

[@MyLux777]

Dude spoilers, quit being a spoilest

[@allstarzombie_7]

@@MyLux777 sorry my bad I just got really sad and thought others would share the sadness.

[@lukeoliver1431]

This man’s channel needs to absolutely blow up. Your quality of output and not just in the editing but you have well thought-out and well spoken opinions, and without malice or vitriol. You’re a real person who wants to have a discussion about a great game, and it’s so amazing to see discourse like this on the usually-polarized internet. More please!

[@DucksAreYellow]

This means a lot to me, thank you so much for your kind words :)

[@hunterstephens8833]

Agree

[@Foervraengd]

YESS TO ALL OF THIS! I felt so robbed the moment they undid all the sacrifice zelda did with some magic sprinkles. I do wonder if they simply didnt have the time or resources to fully flesh out the story. I think impas comment on looking up ancient scripts was going to be an additional quest, but they simply didnt have room or time for it and decided to cut corners. Yes this sounds weird knowing we have waited seven years for this game - and they even said they took an additional year to fully polish and optimize the game- but i work in game dev and there are so so so many factors that can lead to things like this. I didnt care much for the story in BOTW so i didnt really care if it had storytelling flaws. But i was really liking the story in TOTK up until the ending scene, so i have so many more opinions about this story because god it could have been SO GOOD. Imagine if we COULDNT turn zelda back! Such a bittersweet ending! It would have hurted so good.

[@idoxially]

Imagine if Zelda was permanently a dragon. Then in the true ending, it takes place outside the Forgotten Temple. All the Sages and Link are talking about what happened with the fight, but also about the legacy of the princess. They realize she would've wanted for peace to be restored to Hyrule, so each sage dedicates themselves to that cause. It ends with a group hug/cheer, then each sage slowly leaves to go about their day, but Link stays. He slowly walks into the Forgotten Temple and it's shown that he does something to Sonia's grave site. He stares at it for a moment before smiling for the first time in a while, then leaving. His back faced the camera, he exits the Forgotten Temple. The weather is beautiful, and it is sunset. There are blue petals in the air. The camera then cuts back to Sonia's grave, revealing a newly planted Silent Princess next to it. And then the game ends..

[@gab.bee123]

love this!! i see not leaving zelda as a dragon as such a missed opportunity for what could've been a huge emotional moment in the series. it would've made my opinion of the story do a 180

[@SaberRexZealot]

That’s very Majora’s Mask where you get the picture of Link and Skull Kid at the end of

[@Ebzolan]

What a beautiful in depth analysis of this story! I’m so pleased that you talked about the types of storytelling especially how it affected the overall narrative of the game. I’m excited to see more of your content :D!

[@DucksAreYellow]

:D !!!

[@Jay-qh6uv]

“Bae, get him!!! Oh she’s so tinyyyyyyy!” 😭😭😭

[@unusualjdawg96]

This is a fantastic video and I really enjoyed the streams I could watch. Can’t wait to see more content like this in the future!

[@DucksAreYellow]

That means a lot to me, thank you!

[@micahbarrus8406]

The whole "it's Nintendo, they won't deal with death" is insulting on its face. Zelda, by itself, has dealt with death TWICE, both on E games in Links awakening and majoras mask. Both had heavy themes of death and sacrifice weaved within it. They've killed characters off and left them dead before, they could do it again and take some risks, but they didn't. Amazing video. I loved the step by step analysis of the story and gameplay themes.

[@snakkattakk]

Kinda sad you stopped posting, you've got a good editing style and writing style for video essays. I'd love to see you write about the story of botw and your thoughts on that in comparison to totk. And your thoughts on how totk follows up on botw.

[@readyplayerthree3]

The imprisoning war scenes are so freaking powerful. The LOZ main theme leitmotif over Rauru's last words actually make me cry. I wish Nintendo was able to keep that up with the rest of the story.

[@DesTr069]

That was probably my favourite Zelda cutscene ever. So freaking good!

[@Decapitationtrain]

So good they had to be repeated FOUR TIMES!

[@kriichan6100]

See Zelda turning back into a human after they said 'there's no way for that to happen' could've made sense if they just added 'you lose all sense of yourself but the subconscious is still there, if you transform into a dragon and somehow complete what your subconscious set out to do you can become human again' or something like that.

[@7makosheva]

I want to applaud you for how this story analysis was done. A lot of video essays on KZbin are not able to distinctly identify flaws in for example a game's story nearly as well as you have. One thing I would have liked to see in addition to the NPCs reacting appropriately to Zelda's sacrifice, is Link showing some kind of expression as a result. Like when he pulls the master sword, or when the last memory is done and he sees the Light Dragon right after. A tear of his own, running down his face, even. I have to say, me, the player, as an extension of Link, was mind blown by the last memory. Even though I saw it coming, the voice acting was perfect, the way Zelda's panicked eyes turned into a dragons. Wow. Gold, in my opinion. Going on a bit of a tangent, but I think it's long past due that Link has more of an identity in the Zelda games, where we understand his motivations, his insecurities, his personality, etc. I also agree about the ghosts showing up at the end and solving the Zelda problem. What does her sacrifice mean if some spirits from beyond can just intervene in the real world? What could have made more sense is, they had the theme of the Triforce subtly hinted throughout the game, then somehow Link obtains it near the end, wishing for Zelda to return to normal. Since we already know the Triforce works this way, it would feel a lot less contrived than two super ghosts saving her. Lastly, you nailed it with Ganondorf, I felt wholly disconnected from the conflict between Link or me the player, and him. Like you said, it could have been improved with some better dialogue in the final act. To finish off my comment, I'd say even with its flaws, Tears of the Kingdom still has some of the best main quest Zelda story ever.

[@OmegaVitaminC]

As someone who loved BotW, but quit halfway through TotK for many of the same reasons as you (though in my case the biggest cause was the railroading and linearity forced upon the open world), this little series of videos has been very fulfilling to see someone else share that experience.

[@timmarley1146]

Great video dude, I think you nailed it. I personally think one way to make Ganondorf more involved in the story would be for him to brain wash the Gerudo into serving him instead of brainwashing the Gorons as he does in the game. Just think how emotional it would be to have to wage a war against the Gerudo even though Riju is your friend.

[@ailehunter]

The game actually pushes you the master sword if you didnt get it in demon dragon fight. Badass moment tbh but you miss a memory.fragmentt i think.

[@brizzly-bear]

Did they forget they used the ouroboros for the game's logo? What was the point of that? Agreeing with all your points, I would have appreciated the tragic ending of link swallowing Mineru's stone and spending eternity with Zelda after saving the world.

[@jaredtheastralartist2510]

To be fair though, with the context of Zelda and links relationship, I would imagine that link would keep this to himself after finding out. If I found out that the love of my life, sacrificed herself in order to help me in the future, I wouldn’t really tell that to Just anyone. And I feel like this makes the conflict more personal. A similar thing happened to breath of the wild too, we also don’t acknowledge anything with link once he gets all the memories, but I feel like it’s still justified because with link it’s more of an internal conflict. also, I’m kind of glad calendar didn’t really get any meaningful backstory or anything. I get that it makes for an interesting dealing with a have motivations, but a great villain can easily be good by just being evil. And honestly, the presents that this ganondorf gives along with his boss fight makes skyward swords, and twilight princess look a week due to how much of a menace he is. Overall, I understand your gripes with the game, but for me, I still enjoy it. and I enjoyed the part about storytelling and game structure!

[@blmn564]

But characters like Purah and Impa are not "just anyone"

[@Magi..]

Also with other NPC's I think you could make the excuse that if you told them zelda turned into a dragon, they would think you're crazy.

[@HylianSwamp123]

In the Gerudo Assault memory, we see Zelda and Sonia channel their powers through Rauru to amply his power even further. Thats what they were also going for in the ending I think, having Rauru and Sonia channel their powers through Link to amplify his recall ability, but the issue is that Rauru and Sonia are both dead. I think it wouldve made more sense of there were two endings, and Zelda is only brought back if you do all of the story mission, and instead of Rauru and Sonia bringing her back, it ahould be the current sages, given that they all have secret stones, they arent dead, amd theres 5 of them, which would make a much bigger impact than just 2. Also, imo, this would also compliment the theme of community and joining hands together that is present in the game. After Link helps all of the sages, they in turn help him by giving him their vows and saving him from Ganondorfs second gloom attack at Hyrule Castle. Zelda had also done so much for the peoples of Hyrule as a whole, and so them returning thr favor to bring her back would just thematically make more sense and hit a lot harder.

[@josiahmeece3381]

Great essay! Definitely worth the wait, and the edited is just 👌 I think the whole Force Ghost thing is kinda like how Rhoam and the Champions in BOTW were where they could not fully leave until they were at peace (like Rhoam disappearing and then reappearing in the post credit scene) also i would totally watch a RDR2 essay if you decide to do it lol.

[@DucksAreYellow]

I do think the “not moving on until their purpose is completed” bit is all but confirmed at this point. I don’t hate it! And thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it :)

[@joemps]

I think the tears should have appeared one at a time rather than having all of them be on the map already. I (luckily) managed to do them all in order since the forgotten temple hints at them chronologically using the murals, which was a clever detail, however so many of my friends just gathered them randomly to the point that basically nothing makes sense or you already discover major points (the death of sonya for example way before you even know who she is). Since the dragon is looping around the map anyway why not have a tear fall after obtaining the last one, this way you get a clear objective and you slowly build up the geoglyphs on the map to have a sense of progression similar to how breath of the wild had lasers point to hyrule castle after each divine beast

[@christopherbravo1813]

I'd be lying if I said I understood the praise this game received.

[@kytechnelson]

Excellent work on these videos and their production quality. Probably one of the best analyses I've seen on this topic (I'd put it up there with the quality of Zeltik's analysis on the highs and lows of how TOTK told its story). You articulated many of the reasons why I really enjoyed TOTK from both gameplay and story, especially the relationship that is setup with Link and Zelda, along with where I felt the execution left something to be desired. I'm also hopeful for the next game, especially since I think they have it in them to get it right since they did a good job with Link and Zelda in Skyward Sword and did put together a good dynamic for them in TOTK. Would love to see an analysis from you on Skyward Sword's story as well.

[@victorystarsaber7807]

I wish totk plot was about link and Zelda being sent back in time that way we could spend more time with Zelda and give queen Sonia and king raura most devolvement.Then set up link maybe trying to pull the master sword but due to the gloom on his arm the sword doesn't let him. Have the story play out the same again but have link and Zelda fight ganondorf to try and protect Queen Sonia but ends with her death and Ganondorf getting the secret stone. When link, Zelda, Raura and the sages fight demon king Ganondorf have link with the broken master sword at least hurt ganondorf then have Raura seel him away but knowing it would break Zelda would want to eat the secret stone and become a dragon to fix the sword that seals the darkness could have had a emotional moment we're link doesn't want her to do it but she has to. Then maybe have link return to the temple of time and use it to go back to the future but after he returns he finds Hyrule under the rule of ganondorf. Leading to link having to find the 5 sages and get the master sword to kill ganondorf. Imo it should end with link killing ganondorf for good but Zelda is still a light dragon having the message of sometimes you must sacrifice for what you know is right

[@syanderson_music]

Really enjoy your videos and insights! Would love to have more of your videos to watch!

[@GeminiSaint1]

Well, one could say Sonia having a ghost form makes just as much sense as King Rhoam having one in BotW. Also, I believe the way Zelda was transformed back was more of a Deus Ex Machina than it was a Retcon. Oh, and three people were needed to perform that feat; three people representing Power, Wisdom and Courage. That might have had something to do with it too.

[@Miss_Trillium]

12:46 I see her being able to have one being the same reason King Bosphoramus Hyrule was able to have one The problem is, is that it introduces the idea of these ghosts otherwise just being able to show up whenever it's convenient? Which actually harms the ending minutes later with Mineru doing her own disappearing act

[@TornBase]

7:15 what if the dragon tears somehow had Link in the past in the body of that ancient hero

[@PROTOBLUES90]

Know what was a better quest than the main quest? The Yiga quest line. It does everything you wanted the main quest to do and more and even has extra Dialogue if you have the full Yiga armor. Unfortunately you seem to never bring that up. Big shame

[@deltaphoenix8616]

All of y’all wanting a Zelda that is more involved in the story and actually shows some physical affection towards Link should just pay Spirit Tracks. An absolutely great game just sayinggg

[@Nova-gh5yr]

Not only that but Link also shows affection towards her Plus you get to see their relationship grow firsthand 🙏

[@soulkibble1466]

The fact that the Triforce is just nonexistent in this game and replaced with Secret Stones which seem way more vague in their powers than the Triforce always confused me. Hell, they could have easily use the fact Ganondorf gaining the Triforce of Power as a reason to why he believes it's his right to rule and will not bow to a Zonai like Rauru. You could even flesh out his backstory wherein he earned the Triforce of Power via trials and hardships by uniting the Gerudo during times of hardship and whatnot, ie wielding his power and authority in a way that basically made him worthy of gaining the Triforce of Power and then have that Grace given to him by the heavens steadily corrupt his mindset over the years where he thinks it is his God-given right to be the true ruler of the world because the Triforce chose him.

[@DashSwordSlash]

Also, how the hell does Gannondorf even know about the process of draconification? Let alone its consequences? I’m in Zelda didn’t even know until she was told, and that’s supposed to be some deep dark forbidden secret of the zonai.

[@KagomeYasha023]

I enjoy videos like these but I still will not think too deeply while playing the game itself just to enjoy it as much as possible.

[@anthonymorin747]

Looking forward to your Echoes of Wisdom review

[@WhiteRockFace]

15:23 the "AnCiEnT LiTeRaTuRe" cracks me up everytime xD 22:57 the way you explained the gameplay structure of WW and Tokt was really neat. made me realize even more how different new and old zelda are. You put into words what i kinds knew or felt, but couldnt 100% point it out. something to add is also how difficult the balancing acts between these 2 versions is here. If you design shrines to be only completable after aquiring a Special Item, then the player would need to travel ungodly amounts of paths to "get item, go back to location, repeat". this works in a smaller world i think, but it would get frustating ove rthe span of the game. The open world design; giving the players all tools at the beginning; also makes Bosses piss easy. You cant design them for special items, so every boss has to be killable by the start gear, which results in stupid cheese tactics that once you know them, they ruin the gameplay... What i would have loved is this: The "Temples" once you completed them, grant you new abilities (like they kinda give you) and then its a bait. You got the spirit stone of the region and the hazards dont go away. As it turns out: each region has a 2nd true Temple on a different location. The 2nd Water temple is in the Zora Ruins below the Sea, that you needed to go to enter the Sky Water Temple (which would be a 100% better location choice for a fucking "WATER" Temple. Nintendo must have felt smart "hehe look! water temple in sky! look! very unique!"), and then you proceed to enter content that wasnt available before. Make this event also trigger new "shrines" that werent there before, that play with the new ability and your physic knowledge of said region. ALSO: PLS FOR GODS SAKE! Make a better scaling system! Make the Demon Army a REAL fight outside on hyrule field! When i saw Mineru's cutscene of Ganon riding his Horse [ 29:50 ], i thought that was also the finaly! I mean: WHY THE FOUCK do we see new Soldiers going to Lookout-landing, when nothing happens there? They implemented this neat little "help the armies out" on the map, but then didnt made a nice NPC final fight? HUH? Then what was the point of "oh wow.. we sadly cant send you soldiers to lookout-landing because our hazard hinders us.... Oh! the hazard is gone! We can now send our soldiers there!." WHAT WAS THE POINT PF THIS??! ( i guess the switch would just melt when this army fight would happen xD; but knowing the Zelda team, they would find a solution. make all more low poly. unload the map and make a red flame circle around hyrile field to hide it, dunno). Imagine if you could gear them up more and more. This would make "getting the 100th same sword out of a "TrEaSuRe" chest worth the time spend. You would be happy getting another Royal Sword, and then grind Lynels to fuse them and give this to your NPCs... Also: Why are the light roots so useless? The Reward of getting all is...... a Medal..... A MEDAL?. How about: X-Amount of light roots triggers a special Phantom-Ganon/Darknut/"insert middle boss" fight you have to deal with. and each time you succed, "the demon's forces got weakened" and each light root actually effects the final battle a little. Why is that good? Make the Demon Army and Ganondorf + Boss Rush UNGODLY HARD. This will please players who like challenges. And players who notice "oh. im to undergeared or weak or bad" can then start exploring more light roots, get more gear, do the "Temples" and get their Army ready. But no... This "Army" feature was just a throwaway Toy, like many other new gameplay elements. We get Sky Island? How about we copy the same "rotate this bridge" a million times! Players would enjoy many sky islands? NAH! We only do 2 big regions! One is the tutorial, the 2nd can accidently be skipped completly aka. Mineru island x) -Aonuma How about we add caves! But every cave is just "destroy X-amount of stone for 10 hours, then kill monkey with long ass sticks, then get tingles 3rd underwear, or Ganon's used socks after he saw Rauru the first time, and a snowflake to satisfy this one weird fetishist who wants to be a glowing rabbit". cool. how engaging. Players will love smashing Rocks for gazzillion of times. I bet! -Aonuma How about we re-add Koroks, and this time we have backpack bois (i love them. pls dont crucify xD ), but the Korok golden poop is as useless as ever before. Imagine.... but thats a stretch... if only.... if only you could get Maronus as some sort of a companion after finding x-amount of Koroks... i wonder if a companion feature would work... maybe make Maronus grow out this cool wood gear with special properties... OH. Oh if only we had a Companion feature already as inspiration in Totk!... NAH!! Noone wants Korok Poop to have a good use lmao. drop that idea. -Aonuma Wow lets add the Depths! But instead of creating new content, we put resources there to annoy players who want to get more battery and use autobuild! AMAZING! Make the Players feel forced to enter there to farm gazillion of camps to get zonai, so they can poop out 3 autobuilds, then be forced to reenter, which feels like slave labor to have 5 minutes of fun..... Wait what? Players want actual content? What? We could add the lost shikah tech there and the 4 Divine Beast as ruins and make players be joyfull when they find their first Glooom-Invested-Guardian? NAH! We Just Smash Every Single Chest With The Amiibo Items From BOTW! They will love it! -Aonuma [ imagine the instinctive reaction when e "gloomed remix" of the guardian music would start and then you witness the true terror of a Gloom Guardian. Imagine not Re-using your best enemy from the previous game. Only at Nintendo ] How is every idea thrown into the meatgrinder in this game? Is the Zelda team really happy with this half-assed result? Oh. One easy fix: You Can NOT see tears out of order! Make them always in order, no matter which tear you collect NINTENDO!!! Cool. i saw a corpse of a Women and Ganondorf transforms into Demise. cool. WHAT THE FUCK JSUT HAPPENED? Oh! That Women was Sonia! She was a mother figure for Zelda for 2 minutes! Ah. ty. if only i could have bonded with here before i see HER FUCKING CORPSE AS MY FIRST SCENE. x) Only at Nintendo. Edit: Maybe to get some positive stuff in here. Totk is probably my most favourite game. My vanilla playtime is 180 hours, increasing with my 2 modded playthroughs. I like the bagpack korok missions, i like monster camps and how much stupid stuff i can do to have fun. totk is an improvement to botw, but issues stay issues.

[@justacoolplant]

After all these livestreams and waiting, the time has come

[@camronreynosa4958]

I found mineru by complete accident, i decided one day to explore the storm cloud in the sky and found a mask that had a laser pointer effect like the incomplete shrines wich was a great adventuring point and personal discovery!

[@BriarBeeBenson]

15:17 oh my god THANK YOU for bringing this up! I am very firmly of the opinion that Mineru should be your first sage, not your last. It would be so much better that way and I’m so annoyed that more people haven’t brought up how Mineru is seriously just Missed Opportunities the character. She or Rauru should’ve been our companion and she had SO MUCH potential to be an incredible member of the cast and they do nothing with her and I’m so annoyed. She’s literally my favourite. She, Purah, Josha and Robbie should have been working together to be proactive in preparing for the fight against the demon king, especially considering the game heavily implies that there’s a link between the Zonai and the Sheikah. This is supposed to be a sequel to Breath of Wild, so why have the Sheikah been benched? Why is the Zonai who have replaced them not allowed to do anything? Seriously what is the point in introducing Josha and her studying the depths if we never go anywhere with it? Why has Robbie been demoted to being the compendium guy, what the hell? Why is Purah just sitting around not doing anything until the plot comes to get her? All of this feels so uncharacteristic of the Robbie and Purah that we’ve come to know. Also Mineru has personal experience fighting Ganondorf, she was literally there during the final battle. She has a deeply personal stake in this fight. You’re telling me Mineru, a person who clearly has a strong sense of responsibility and cares a LOT (as evidenced by her taking responsibly for Ganondorf’s everything for just being a Zonai and feeling tremendous guilt over telling Zelda about draconification) but she… isn’t being as proactive as possible when it comes to taking down the guy who killed her baby brother and tortured her to death? Like that seems so… out of character for her and it’s really frustrating to have her sitting in her temple not being allowed to do anything until the plot requires it of her. It’s so frustrating to even just be walking around with her and you can’t ask her questions or ask for her thoughts or have her give you information about the area you’re in. She’s established as being this bastion of knowledge when it comes to the technology, culture and history for her species and they don’t do anything with it! And then at the end, that damn post credits cutscene, she just leaves! Mineru would never just leave Zelda like that when she’s the only person who knows what Zelda went through during the imprisoning war, with Zelda literally begging her not to leave. Not only that by Mineru’s sense of responsibility would not allow her to leave without making absolutely sure that the people of Hyrule know how to safely use extremely complicated Zonai technology. You could argue that Zelda could teach Purah and Robbie about it but Zelda’s few months (or years? Who knows) in the past being Mineru’s assistant essentially is not at all the same as Mineru’s many years worth of extremely in-depth knowledge about the technology of her species. They’re in no way comparable, Zelda is smart but she’s not a Zonai and she’s no a genius. Also speaking of Zonai tech, I hate how the game treats Mineru’s construct, her entire life’s work, as not being a life for her. I hate that so much. Mineru had great potential to explore transhumanism (or transzonai-ism?), her unique relationship with mortality and the afterlife, about transforming in general since she’s knowledgeable about draconification. But nope! Like many things in this game isn’t introduced/set up and then never addressed again like… what the hell? Her construct is treated like it’s not really a body she custom made for herself, it’s just a Cool Game Mechanic for the player to wield as a weapon and to then discard the second she isn’t needed anymore. She kinda even says that at the end “you’ve proven yourself and you no longer need me” while there’s a huge tear in her eye and her voice is breaking. My heart shattered for her, I hate how this game treats her. Scratch that, I hate how this game treats Mineru’s entire species as though the Zonai are a commodity. They exist only to give context to the game play and nothing else is worth considering about them. They’re just a shiny new toy for the player to use and that’s it. Mineru is boiled down to being Exposition Giver and then Kind Cool Mech that the player uses as an object. You can’t interact with her construct and TALK to her like a person when you’re walking around with her, that’s her actual construct as well, that’s not her sage avatar, she doesn’t have one. And poor Rauru barely gets to be a zonai. He is boiled down to being Plot Device and then just his arm and because we don’t see anything about his relationship with his sister or about his zonai culture and how it’s shaped him as a person, if you made Rauru a Hylian blessed with divine magic it would barely make a difference to the overall narrative and that fucking sucks. We don’t see him fight, we barely see him interact with his big sister, we barely see him grieve his wife and he doesn’t mention his very dead big sister at all where the last time he saw her gloom was just eating away at her frail body like… Why is Rauru not allowed to be a character with emotions? I hate this shit! We don’t know anything Rauru or Mineru’s backstory or culture and we don’t even see Rauru or Mineru using their zonai magic apart from when Rauru seals Ganondorf. Like… what is this mess? Why did we get barely anything of them?? I swear I’m gonna die mad about this, the zonai had so much potential, especially in regard to enriching pre-established Sheikah lore and they just didn’t do anything with them! They were made to be re-skinned Sheikah and then discarded the second the devs didn’t need them anymore and I hate it so much.

[@marvinhanson9391]

I struggled finishing the game too but hearing you tear it apart made me instead go back and play it out of rebellion, it just made me laugh at its flaws instead because you were right and I still had a great time, win win, take my Like, Subscribe and Comment

[@steegen101]

36:15 HUGE agree. At least I mourned. Wish the game validated that

[@BMP0709]

Let’s go a part 2, btw great job on this video, 15 Pages!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?!!

[@DucksAreYellow]

15 pages!

[@Catpuff818]

The fanfic writers "Its ok we can fix it!"

[@thephalange8630]

When I started the game I literally saw all the potential. Raurus back, zonai being in the game (even though they hinted in BotW at Zonai being a savage warrior tribe, suddenly they're god like, highly intelligents goats, but okay) and when I realized Zelda was back in time, I was convinced we would travel back in time as well. Just imagine you being able to travel back in time after seeing Zeldas memories and then being the one giving her the idea of tranforming into a dragon, kind of like a OoT's song of storm paradox. Meeting Ganondorf like you suggested, didn't even cross my mind, but of course that would have been the peak. The end fight could have still played out like it did and Ganondorfs desperation to eat the stone in the end would have been to spite Link, the legendary swordsman who followed Ganondorf through thousands of years of imprisonment. So much potential and all the Zelda team focused on was the game play mechanics, which were fun for the first couple of hours and later on I built absolutely nothing. That is just me though, obviously not everyone is cut out to build stuff all the time and it was ao frustrating that I was too "dumb" to build things properly, since logical, mathematical and geometrical thinking were never a strength of mine.

[@Touma134]

Most people are too dumb. Very few people would utilize it properly who could then post it to social media to make people go "whoa what a cool game" while most who play it will make shoddy rudimentary abominations. I'm cynical enough to believe it was a mechanic tailor made for social media so people will not realize just how shallow the game effectively is for most people with that mechanic stripped away.

[@thenerdlog1602]

I feel like your biggest problem can be summed up with the stakes, which is something that open world games suffer with commonly. Games like the Witcher 3 and RDR2 are linear games in an open world which commonly will take you from one mission to another, separating the story from the open world. BotW and TotK lower the stakes alot as to not force the players hand in completing the game too early, but as you mention, TotK fucked that up. It has colosal stakes in the tutorial island where you think you could find zelda, but once you send back the master sword the stakes deflate somewhat.

[@wace9174]

That makes so much sense and I honestly agree

[@jankkito]

An absolute masterpiece. You deserve more subscribers!

[@DucksAreYellow]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@noah_body_cares]

Imagine the possibilities of Link encountering a younger Ganon from the past, and then forming a sort of mutual respect of their combat abilities and unwavering determination. It could be a cool "In another life, we could have been allies but are destined to be enemies" type of dynamic

[@KumoKumiko]

y'know what is still meaningful comparison here? WIND WAKER the King's narrative arc, of shepherding Link along his quest because it's just what he knows to do when the fate of the world's at stake and Ganon is loose, but growing to appreciate the kid's sacrifices and mental fortitude, and by extension the surface world he represents, makes his final sacrifice to sink beneath the waves with his kingdom MEANINGFUL. his decision, borne of understanding that you cannot return to the past and should instead look forward to the future, has real narrative weight to it, and ties to the game's overall theme of traditions and the past.

[@blmn564]

Incredible work! Nice Joseph Anderson callback with the title.

[@DucksAreYellow]

I'm so happy someone got this. He's the 🐐

[@Big_Dai]

I very much enjoyed your trip through the game. Excellent quality content, editing, commentary and all.

[@howabtjoe8]

I think it would’ve been kind of beautiful if she had stayed a dragon. Botw narratively said something about Zelda’s character. At the canonical end of the game, thousands of the silent princess flower flourish in the wild. In Totk it seems like a lot of the narrative is about change. All the villages have changed and the world has too and everyone you encounter is trying to deal with that change. The whole permanent sacrifice could’ve been something that the main characters had to deal with. Also that sort of transformation thing feels so ghibli it could’ve been like Chihiro and Haku in spirited away.

[@lasercraft32]

6:30 Um... No offense, but isn't that kinda the point? OF COURSE Ganondorf would eat the secret stone with that "as long as you lose I win energy" just to spite Link. Is that not completely in-character? After how we see Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time? And Wind Waker? Heck, even all the way back in Skyward Sword, Demise has this same philosophy. Ganondorf in every iteration we see him is TOTALLY ready to throw away his humanity to become a mindless beast when backed into a wall. Ganondorf is not supposed to be a relatable villain. He's supposed to be a _tyrant._

[@tomasbedoya2901]

The game should have some story restricted areas to deliver the emotional beats of the story better. I, for example, felt that I was punished in the story for exploring, because I stumbled into the fifth sage storyline by accident when trying to get to the stormy clouds above Farone. The feeling of discovery was huge, I had uncovered an entire quest line in the game which appeared out of nowhere, and it felt like an enormous surprise, but this element was later overtaken by the sensation that I had robbed myself of the narrative thrill. In the end, after the Throne Room fight there was supposed to be this allure of mystery, the secret of the ring ruins finally uncovered, the path of the Snake cleared, all this thrill gone because I had already gotten to the end of all this storylines without even realizing it. BOTW didn’t have this problem because the story was incredibly simple. I praise TOTK for improving on BOTW’s lackluster story, but the drawback was that, without any restricted areas, you could accidentally cheat yourself out of the good story beats

[@Davidledonkayy]

ganon: do not look away me: you witness a king mid suavamente ganon: mid revival me: aw man

[@nohnohz]

This is one of the most well-organized and engaging video essays I have watched on this platform. Every single moment I thought you were making a great point. I stopped playing this game almost two thirds of the way through, and I still experienced the story in the “correct order.” Really great stuff, though

[@MattisticStatistic]

zelda should've become an anthro dragon that's it, instant 10/10

[@z2amiller]

When it became apparent in the last battle that Ganondorf was going to eat his secret stone and become an immortal dragon, I was fully expecting that to open a new act of the game, where dragon Ganondorf was flying around causing trouble (maybe the perma-blood-moon-gloom). Then you'd have to work with Purah and Impa to find a MacGuffin that would somehow allow a dragon to become mortal again - thus unlocking the way to both defeat Ganondorf and to save Zelda. The dragon fight we got instead was amazing and epic, but I think having another act to tie up the dragon angle might've sewn up some of the story weakness.

[@inkstar7521]

About the whole ghost thing, I don’t think Rauru disappears after you beat the Great Sky Island. I believe his spirit went back into his arm to follow Link on his journey. As for Sonia, since it was Sonia’s secret stone that Ganondorf stole, I think Ganondorf somehow trapped Sonia’s soul inside the secret stone, and when we destroy the Demon dragon, along with the secret stone, it frees Sonia’s soul.

[@Erifire]

Your entire argument about that recon is EXACTLY what i thought as it happened

[@anwmus]

“Three-day old steak” 😂😂😂

[@kitanotatsu]

I've seen people point out here that King Rhoam and the Champions come back after the final fight against Ganon in BotW, but... Key difference: when Rhoam and the champions come back, they don't actually DO anything? They're just looking over Link, and Zelda, as if they're seeing them off and entrusting the future of Hyrule to the two of them from afar, in a kind of "we'll be there in your heart" kind of way. By contrast, Rauru and Sonia... USE MAGIC? Like, has that ever happened with a spirit in a Zelda game? Sure, the champions are able to halve Ganon's health at the end of BotW, but that's because their spirits are linked to the divine beasts and it's the divine beasts which do the actual damage. Other than that, the most I can think of is a spirit doing is teaching something to Link (or another character) before moving on - permanently. For example, the spirits in WW, the Goron and the Zora from MM (I forget their names), the Hero's Shade... you get the picture. So, yeah, it makes some sense that Sonia could be there in spirit form - and maybe Rauru as well, for that matter - but to go from that to helping Link revert Zelda's draconification makes absolutely no sense and is a complete ret-con. Link clearly has no idea that they could to that, and EVEN IF HE DID, the Sonia and Rauru showing up clearly shows that he couldn't have done it himself.

[@a_person4742]

In Spirit Tracks you play with Ghost Zelda who can do things

[@enmaenmaenma123]

Yay finished ur 3 part commentary of totk!! :)

[@mondi6292]

Random, but I may not know the full english lines in english, but in german Ganondorf basically starts his speech with "Back in MY time..." And i just think it's pretty funny- He's such a boomer lol

[@ZeroJump]

I feel so sorry for everyone playing the English dub. The German one is way more acurate

[@AntoniWroblewski-p6w]

so, because i did the tears early and found Mineru early, i ruined the game for myself...thank you for explaining my disappointment with TotK

[@bouncybubble]

Totk for me was the only Zelda game that felt like a cash grab. I know that it took six years to develop but everything felt soulless, like it was made only to ride off of the success of Botw rather than make a worthy sequel. Firstly, this game as a sequel makes no sense. It tries to distance itself from Botw so much for people who haven’t played Botw. But this is supposed to be a sequel to Botw. Why would you distance yourself from it? The zonai in Botw were a long-dead barbaric tribe. Where did all this tech come from all of a sudden? Where is all the sheikah tech? Why does no one mention the champions apart from mipha? Why are the sky islands suddenly here? Why are there zonai shrines everywhere? Why do some people know you but people you met in Botw don’t know you? Also, no one seems to remember the calamity apart from the hateno village school. WHY? Also, the memories are so much worse than in Botw. In Botw, you already knew roughly what happened because of King Rhoam Bosphoramus hyrule but you did the memories to get attached to the characters and to find out EXACTLY what happened through tiny bits of information. However, in totk this is no longer the case. It is trying to tell a proper story using memories: one full of twists and turns. Which wouldn’t be a problem but totk decides to do what its predecessor did and make the memories be able to be viewed in any order; WHICH MAKES ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE FOR A FULL STORY because everything is jumbled up and plot twists could even be seen as your first memory. Bad idea Some more problems I have with the story: Why doesn’t Rauru tell link about Zelda when they first meet on the great sky island? Why doesn’t the construct that gives you the purah pad tell link about Zelda? How is the purah pad an “upgrade” to the sheikah slate when it has less features? Why does eating a magic bean turn you into a dragon? Where do the magic beans even come from and why weren’t they in Botw? How did Zelda know that the master sword would stay in her when she turned into a dragon? Also, why didn’t Zelda tell Rauru that she had fought a being called Ganon and that Ganondorf is most likely the exact same being? Also, if Rauru is well aware of his evil nature then why does he wait until Ganondorf strikes first? Why did link not tell everyone about what happened in his memories Why did link not bring a shield with him in the beginning? Surely you’d block red slime with a shield instead of a sword. When Ganondorf ate his magic bean, why would he still want to destroy hyrule? We’re told that turning into a dragon makes you mindless but apparently ganondorf still wants to destroy hyrule. How? Also, the master sword is hyped up the whole game as the only way to kill ganon but the master sword isn’t even required to kill ganon. What? Also, if turning into a dragon makes you mindless then is it even ethical to kill him? When ganon ate his magic bean, he takes link into his teeth but I guess he forgot to chew. Oops. How did the ghost of Rauru and the queen restore Zelda back into a human? And why couldn’t they have done that earlier? One scene that annoyed me in particular was a part of the cutscene where it’s “revealed” that the Zelda we were following is actually Ganondorf the whole time (the one before fighting a bunch of phantom ganons). For a brief second ganondorf creates an illusion where hyrule castle looks like it looked in the past. This technique is not being used anywhere else. It’s not interesting, because we all know that link would never fall for that trick. At this point everyone also knows that it’s not Zelda so there didn’t need to be this whole scene anyway. And not even ganondorf seems to have faith in this trick and stops the act very quickly. This whole scene has no tension, no substance and no stakes. It’s entirely without purpose. So why is it in the game anyway? For the trailer. This scene is in the trailer and edited in a way that makes it look like link is in the past. And if link is in the past he would also be more involved in the story. It suggests way more than it actually is. It lets you theorise in all sorts of directions. To generate more hype. And that’s what bothers me about this game. So many scenes are made solely for the purpose of pretending to be deeper than it actually is. To pretend to be interesting, instead of actually being interesting in the first place. Not only that, but in the beginning of totk ganondorf destroys the master sword using the secret stone. Fine, right? No because the master sword was made by the goddess specifically for when ganondorf got the triforce, meaning that the master sword would be able to stand against ganondorfs power. Totk implies that one singular secret stone is more powerful than the entire triforce; which is ridiculous because the triforce is the golden, ultimate power in the Zelda universe. The triforce is supposedly the power on which the work is built upon. To then imply that one secret stone is more powerful than the ENTIRE triforce means that ganondorf should’ve been literally invincible. But then a team of 5(or six? I forgor) secret stone users somehow lost to ganondorf? What? Are they THAT incompetent? How are we supposed to feel sympathy for SUCH stupid characters. Either the developers didn’t know about the existing lore or they simply didn’t care. The characters are also such blank slates as well compared to the champions. It was a joy every time to see the champions in memories, but the ancient sages and Rauru just left me bored. If the ancient sages were designed to be so blank, then I would call the devs stupid for thinking they would be a worthy addition to the game but if they were intended to be proper characters then they failed miserably to do so. That being said, I did enjoy seeing the champion descendants again (they are good characters) On to mechanics, where I again have lots of complaints. The ascend ability makes climbing feel obsolete, which is not a good thing because there is no good reason to just make one of your game mechanics useless. The fuse ability makes all of your weapons look so ugly and messy and there isn’t even a viable option to not use fuse because all of the weapons have been nerfed via decay. It is required of you to fuse your weapons if you want even a remotely strong sword. Another thing, using fuse on arrows takes soooo long compared to just switching to an elemental arrow like in Botw. Ultra hand is the main selling point of the game, and also one of the things I hate most. Zonai devices are finnicky to use and once you make a functioning vehicle, there is basically no reason to use a horse or walk or anything like that. It makes climbing a mountain feel like a walk in the park instead of an incredible accomplishment like in Botw. The sage abilities in totk suck sooooo much compared to Botw. In Botw, the champion abilities were implemented perfectly: they all felt fun and powerful to use and they also had great activation methods •die to use mipha •spin attack to use urbosa •hold jump to use revali •guard to use daruk Compared to totk where you have to run up to each avatar and then press A; which might seem simple, but the time when you want to use the abilities ( in combat) the sages are also running toward the enemies, which are running to you but you are running to the sage and it all gets really hard to use them. The abilities are also sooo weak and boring to use, especially compared to the Botw abilities. The combat is all the same (not even a new weapon type???), the enemies are basically all the same (the main new enemy the ‘constructs’ are literally just reskinned bokoblins), and hyrule itself is more or less exactly the same. Also the towers are even worse than in Botw as they launch you into the sky meaning you could literally just glide to anywhere you want, now even making ultrahand a slow means of travel compared to the towers. Another thing I dislike about sequels in general (which includes totk) is how most of the stuff that you got in the first game, you don’t have that stuff anymore and you need to go around getting it all again. Like, WHY? I ALREADY GOT THAT STUFF. HOW DO I SUDDENLY NOT HAVE IT ANYMORE? The thing I hate most about totk is the depths. A huge world underneath hyrule that is basically empty and has no reason to visit apart from random mines and chests. Oh wow what a great addition! Another problem with the depths is the lazy reuse of amiibo gear. The only incentive to explore the depths is for gear that I already had in the first game. I appreciate that now I don’t have to buy amiibo to get the gear but this is just stupid. I JUST CLEARED A LABYRINTH IN THE SKY, SURFACE AND DEPTHS AND MY REWARD IS ONE PIECE (the one piece is reeeaaallll) OF SOME CRAPPY GANON ARMOUR!!??? I would’ve easily traded the depths for more development of the sky. Talking about the sky, there are only a few islands even worth exploring. All the others are just shrine crystal puzzles and gacha machines or even worse, literally empty. Two more tiny complaints Secret Stones is possibly the worst naming I’ve ever heard And also, WHERE IS KASS WHERE IS MY TRAVELLING BARD WHERE IS MY SING-SONG BIRD? WHERE IS MY FLYING MINSTREL WHERE IS THE BEST CHARACTER IN ALL OF GAMING I’m not a big fan of this game, Nintendo sold us this game for £70 and it still feels exactly the same as Botw. You go around to the gorons, zora, rito and gerudo, fix the thing that is destroying their land, get some cool ability and then go fight ganon at the castle. Shrines again, towers again, koroks again, stables again, memories again. It’s all the same but placed around in different places.

[@Fancycapy]

There’s this video by kyu craft where he talks about the part of the game where link turns Zelda back to human and it explains a lot more especially if you watch the whole video mabye making the ending a bit better for you. And it is a video explaining link and Zelda’s love and since you seem like a zelink shipper check it out it’s really good and it might make the ending a bit better for you.

[@Cashn_0409]

I'm overall just really dissapointed with how nintendo handled the story here, ESPECIALLY when seeing how much potential it had. It's still a really great game, sure, but SO MANY things just really made me see better possible ways they could have implemented them. (like the sage cutscenes at the end of a dungeon, the dragon tears quest potentially spoiling the game for you, and most importantly you finding out about Zelda's fate DOING NOTHING for the story!) Of course I still enjoyed the game, just so sad that it could have been so much more...

[@Nova-gh5yr]

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I think another major problem is the refusal to make this Link emote. It hinders emotional moments for me being Link is supposed to represent the player, he is an avatar, but when it looks like he feels nothing it takes me out of it. Such as in the end and he see Zelda again and he expresses nothing when she wakes up. Same with Minerus goodbye as everyone is doing something but him, he is just standing there. A silent protagonist does not need to be a blank protagonist. Link in Skyward Sword goes through similar moments as this one, when Zelda sacrifices herself you can see his pain and when they reunite you can see how happy they are. Link's lack of emotion hinders this Zelink for me too, I'm not going to argue on how canon it is but for me I can't get into it when one member of the party doesn't show much emotion for the other. Meanwhile I adore Skyward Sword Zelink and Spirit Tracks has the best one (which they are also both very much canon outside of environmental storytelling and ST has the cutest ending the way they both reach out and hold each other's hands watching the sunset 😭). I'm just tired of this Link being so emotionless for big scenes, he shows emotion in little interactions but for the big ones there's nothing. He should've at least smiled at her man... Overall for this style of gameplay I prefer botws story because it compliments the game well. For totk the two contrast too much (and there is some other stuff the sours the story a little for me.) And damn it Link should've never gotten his arm back Rauru said it couldn't be restored and they had to get rid of it to save Link's life so how and why is it back. The time reversal thing doesn't even work because his arm isn't THERE. You need the object to put it back in its place but his arm is gone it makes even less sense than Zelda coming back.

[@Touma134]

Link was always a great silent protagonist and was slowly getting more emotive. Even in oot there is so much characterization of link by how the story relates to his situation. You know so much about oot link and he barely has any expression but so much can be inferred by how personal the quest is and how universal the concepts it talks about are. Him backing away slowly and then turning around running after getting the ocarina shows so much emotion with such primitive tech. I don't even get why he's this silent and lacking in emotion. It serves nothing and benefits nothing.

[@lornkjewlsvar6283]

There is a nice theory about why Rauru and Sonia where not able to turn Zelda back alone. There is a video with the theory about how Zelda is in love with Link and most important in this case Link is in love with Zelda thus able to turn Zelda back with "miracle" power. Like Zelda was able to use her divine power to rescue Link before a guardian could toast him in BOTW. Also there is one "memory" where Sonia explains that to reverse an object you need to have memories of it. You collect every dragon tear what is essentially a memory of Zelda. But you as Link have much more memories of Zelda. You traveled with her (e.g. to the springs), you saw her struggle, you protected her and spend a really long time with her. Much more time than Sonia and Rauru have spent with Zelda. And most important: you have the strongest motive. Link is very dedicated and doesnt back of a challenge, even if it is time itself. One could also mention that a earlier incarnation of Link was the Hero of Time who transcended time itself. But that may be a bit more far fetched

[@Serch_YB27]

You should play age of calamity. Its a low bar, but I think it might be the best story in the zelda franchise

[@csabi1166]

Great video and I love that you went back to finish the game. This is a great explainer on why saying "It's a Nintendo game, what did you expect" is so narrow minded. People often forget that disappointment doesn't come from the end result, but from the promises that set up expectations for said results. Also just minor nitpick in the video from my perspective, at 13:33 you say that the big Recall with Rauru and Sonia is time travel problematic as if time travel of any sense like FTL travel or deterministic timeline is not a problem. If someone tells a story with time travel in it you already have to go in with some suspended disbelief. This stood out for me, because every other point you make is elaborated upon nicely and this one is more like an offhand comment. You mention paralel universes and the butterfly effect as if that didn't come into the picture the moment we lerned that time powers exist in this game.

[@DucksAreYellow]

This is true- I intentionally limited it to a comment cus it was out of scope. Diving into that would push the video into timeline theories and well beyond the already long runtime of almost 40 minutes. Would make a fun video though to do a deep dive on the potential ramifications.

[@anastasiagirl1342]

32:22 this happened in my play through… Your right, it messed with my enjoyment of the game.

[@gab.bee123]

the three day old steak analogy is So Good. i'm writing that one down