Tears of The Kingdom Wants You To Cheat

[@DarylTalksGames]

Your browser is holding you back. Level up here: operagx.gg/DarylTalksGames3 Thanks to Opera GX for sponsoring! What's been your favorite "cheat" you've pulled off in TOTK?

[@matrixfull]

I really want to play games the intended way, that is the way developers intended. I don't enjoy cheap cheeses and even if I see opportunity to do them I refuse to. I just think it's common sense that you trust developers of the games to know how to bring you best experience. If you alter it there is too much third wall breaking and I don't like that. I like immersion way more over feeling like "smart person".

[@thunderborn3231]

'MimIc TeAr Is ChEaTiNG' uses giant crusher with royal knights resolve ash of war with 16 buffs slamming the boss for 46000 damage per swing and calls it skill

[@thunderborn3231]

@@matrixfull are you really playing 'as they intend' if you refuse to use over 50% of the mechanics and items they hand deliver to you? i.e. both in totk and any souls series naked with only sticks is not the intended way no matter how much the community tries to force feed you that b/s

[@merrgikker3753]

I brought a frost emitter to the spirit temple boss and just didn't let it do anything

[@elliottorion4235]

⁠@@matrixfullcheck the video at 17:42 Aonuma himself says you’re meant to “cheat” although cheat isn’t necessarily the best word for it. Think of it as creative solutions rather than cheating. All within the realms of what is allowed in game by the developers because otherwise they wouldn’t have added it. Cheating would be something like whistle running in BOTW. That was not intended by the devs that’s a glitch that breaks the games mechanics. THATS cheating. Whereas every creative solution your mind can fathom no matter how much it feels like cheating in Tears is just that. A creative solution thought up by you and provided by the devs.

[@DED_C]

I think it's interesting that when I find an obviously unintended solution, I *always* have a moment where I question "...wait, am I sure that wasn't intended" no matter how farfetched it was

[@Spyziy]

Yeah…. Almost any shrine with movable objects you can ascend through after time warping and get into broken places. Or attach rockets to your shield before entering, etc. like the shrines are really fun but it’s so easy to cheese so so many of them

[@thunderborn3231]

the shrine for ascend it surrounded by ice and ice is unclimbable naturally, so the obvious thing to do is make a tree wall and climb it to the shrine, i did that the first time i played through but on a new playthrough i wondered 'was that not the intended way?' and so i continued to circle the mountain and you have a short drop down with your way back up covered in unclimbable ice which led to me having to make a 45 minute treck back to the temple of time and all the way past every other shrine a second time because the closed loop cannot be backtracked with no glider no bombs no zonai materials they *intend* for you to build things its kind of the point of the game not *cheese*. you might think something isn't intended but it is, if its not youll painfully know as you make an hour long walk back or get a game over screen

[@McCaroni_Sup]

​​@@Spyziy Can confirm. I've completed shrines that were CLEARLY intended to be completed AFTER getting the glider. Without the glider. Hell, I've mapped sky islands without the glider. That's how damn broken this game is, and I love it. It was a pain in the ass, but I did it lol.

[@Spyziy]

@@thunderborn3231 My point isnt that they dont want you to build in creative ways to solve problems, it's that combining multiple abilties can completely bypass the entire shrine. By lifting up a plank you're supposed to put a ball on and fly across a massive ravine in a shrine in the right position, freezing it with time stop, then ascending through it, you can completely climb over the shrines walls and get straight to the blessing.

[@dingomatic]

It's the TOTK variation of the Xanatos gambit. Gamer: Hah, I beat it in a way the devs thought couldn't or shouldn't be done. TOTK Devs: Yes, it's performing as designed. We won.

[@0Lottee0]

I remember reading that the 'ascend' ability started off as a developer tool that one of the team members used to get out of caves when he was finished play testing them. He came to realize that having to backtrack out of the cave, now devoid of enemies and puzzles and loot, was not fun the same way it was to enter the unknown and discover - so this core ability of the game started off as a way for devs to 'cheat' themselves out of caves and realized it was way more fun.

[@burnin8able]

I absolutely LOVE that story, because it's such a genius way of solving the question of "how do you make leaving a place more interesting?" The out of the box nature of Ascend as an answer to the question is a perfect reflection of how Nintendo wants the players to think outside the box too. I like to think about how that compares to how others have answered that same question, like how skyrim has one way shortcut exits at the end of basically all of the caves and dungeons so that you can leave in a different way than you came in, or the tomb loops back to the entrance with a false wall you can only open from the treasure room end, same thing.

[@angelman69]

​@@burnin8ablewario land 4 hurry up

[@burnin8able]

@angelman69 so true. Pizza tower really did make the answer to that question central to its core gameplay

[@blakksheep736]

Basically the trope Door to Before, but on the demand.

[@Deadflower019]

"Oh you don't like walking? Well... how about you just go up?"

[@gramathy999]

if you think about the rocket jump shrine, it teaches you MULTIPLE shield things. It's actively showing you that there are lots of options for fusing stuff to shields that aren't just "more durability"

[@bapsy8014]

my friend in botw I always do boe lift smuggling glitch that how I fly

[@mrcombustiblelemon2902]

And its subtitle is something along the lines of "more than defense", which tells you right when you walk in that the lesson is about the versatility of shields.

[@GamingRabbit17]

I had a Hydrant Shield, i used that

[@nujuat]

@@GamingRabbit17 I wish I realised this for the water temple LMAO

[@GamingRabbit17]

@@nujuat Didn't even think of that

[@andrewszabo1483]

I always feel like I’m cheating when I walk korok’s to their friend instead of shooting them to the moon on a rocket

[@mckaygoodman6514]

Where's the fun in walking? Why wouldn't you attach a korok to the bottom of your car's wheel so that it gets run over on every revolution, or glue them to the underside of your boat?

[@JasonSucks]

or nail them to a cross

[@player_lv430]

You guys take the koroks to thier friends?

[@Ryanowning]

@@mckaygoodman6514 Eh, sometimes it's annoying and the whole point of the game is to have fun. If you want to challenge yourself by doing everything in your power to avoid the "preconceived" solution then all power to you. The video's point goes both ways, it's about how much challenge you want. If you want the most challenging experience in the game you disallow yourself to use builds and instead have to solve as many things as possible without them.

[@ssjkaryuusennin]

@@player_lv430 I just mark them and save it for later. Encountered well over 50 but did around 10

[@EphemeraEssays]

There's an interview with the Divinity: Original Sin director, where someone asked him if he's aware of an exploit that lets players stack dozens of status effects onto themselves before a hard fight. His reply was that not only did they know, but they chose not to fix it because it's so much fun to do

[@edatthegovernance]

Oh, cool, I figured it was on purpose.

[@Aqsticgod]

this falls in line with fromsoftwares philosophy, otherwise why put the ashes in the game? if they wanted you to play a certain way they wouldnt have those objects in game.

[@andrewgreeb916]

there's also the ability to use telekinesis to maul enemies with an object that weighs an absolute ton, letting you one shot most enemies with a bit of setup

[@synergy6035]

DOS is such a good game. Both games are entirely "heres a problem, figure it out we dont care how."

[@Silverman160Zero]

That trick of filling a crate and just chucking it at enemies in DOS is always funny.

[@saladcartographer822]

Since the beginning, I've felt like this game's shrines are intended as sparks of inspiration for the player. In the shrines, they teach general concepts. I definitely figured out a few awesome tricks thanks to the foundation that they formed for me

[@vincenttorrijos9680]

That's why i like those proving grounds shrines so much, they make you rely on experimenting with the mechanics the game gives for you, like that shield rocket boost, and teach you a lot about the deeper mechanics in a controlled envrionment. The shrines in this game are a lot better for experimentation in general tbh

[@Tomyj9]

I will not ruin my loving marriage no matter what this game wants me to do

[@cleverman383]

Aonuma wants you to learn the joy of polyamory

[@groofay]

@@cleverman383 Hey, if all parties are consenting it ain't cheating

[@Fabiocean2000]

looking at your profile picture I am fearful as to what this loving marriage entails

[@Tomyj9]

@@Fabiocean2000 😏

[@heromedley]

but its fun :D

[@Iffondrel]

I always do a cheeky lil "heeheehee" anytime I ascend through a ceiling at JUST the right angle in a difficult spot. I feel like I'm outsmarting the game when I am, in fact, playing it exactly as intended.

[@Big_Man_From_Splatoon]

I believe ascend literally was a cheat during the game's development, and then they just tweaked it and added it into the final game

[@meee_5155]

@@Big_Man_From_Splatoon you are correct

[@alexbeesley7971]

it is satisfying to turn on ascend and it suddenly turns blue/green and goes ding on the edge of a cliff just slightly hanging above you lol. but then it turns to despair when you fall off the tiny piece of land you're standing on right when it happens.

[@Majima_Nowhere]

Going from a cave near the bottom of a mountain all the way through to the top feels cheesy in all the best ways.

[@JohnDoe-og2bt]

​@@Majima_NowhereYep, skipping the climb is super rewarding lol

[@kandect5508]

I accidentally got the master sword early and thought that maybe I ruined the story experience a bit. In the end as I got the rest of the tears, it felt more like dramatic irony and honestly imo a better experience. So no one should feel bad about the way they play this game, I feel like its fully intended to be an individual experience. To tell a story with that ability is actually astounding.

[@eli9867]

accidentally? isnt that a complicated ass glitch?

[@ltcuddles685]

@@eli9867 you assume there's only one way to glitch this game to do an action

[@ssgoko88]

​@@eli9867you only need to do like 20 shrines to be able to get the sword, very early for most people. If someone did 20 shrines, went to go turn in 100 charges for a battery segment, and on their way out sees something eye-catching below them, it's reasonable they would get the master sword very early without glitches like 4 hours into the game.

[@Shuroii]

@@ssgoko88 you don't even need the battery upgrade, I did it without just because I got a map marker telling me to go ride the dragon, so I went up to a tower that was really close to it and just jumped on it lol

[@finngardiner5358]

The only weakness of the game's story imo was the dungeon end cutscenes becoming repetitive but given how much of the game you can do in any order, the fact that that's the only part that stood out to me is really impressive

[@samwoodley1653]

I think giving Link a dedicated jump button in these games (vs the prior "run to ledge to auto jump") is a good indicator of what kind of approach Nintendo wants players to take. Before you could only do actions at specific points in specific ways at specific times. Now you can just kind of jump spam up odd slopes and crouch under weird half ledges and scam your way around little physics problems in tiny ways that can all add up to getting around problems the way you want, not just by the way the devs allow.

[@pomfpomf]

Ye old Skyrim horsing in action

[@Aqsticgod]

again, if the game allows it, then it was intended, lot of people dont get that if something is wrong with the game, or if they didnt want you to do or use certain things, they would just remove it like they did the dupe glitch in totk ver 1.1.1

[@samwoodley1653]

@@Aqsticgod I don't know about that. There are plenty of glitches and exploits in BOTW that are clearly not intended yet were never patched. The specific instance I was thinking of when I made my comment was a shrine that had a switch in a large cube room that when struck it rotated the entire cube around you, moving the floor to the ceiling. It had holes in it to facilitate the puzzle. My solution (which crucially for my point didn't feel like the solution intended) was to stand on the lip of one of the wall holes (after gliding to it while the cube was already rotating), shoot an arrow at the switch, and then as the cube rotated again, I just of just walked at the wall until I would slide down and started spamming jump so I could make it onto the flatter outside ceiling, and thus walk to the goal. Not sure what specific shrine it was but the game wasn't buggy or anything and it was very easy, but it didn't feel like someone at nintendo said "then at this point the player needs to stand on this thin part of the hole, shoot the switch, and then jump at this odd angle to hopefully not slide off". There are basically 3 solutions to problems in this game. Built in, oddball, and exploit. Oddball solutions are fine but they aren't intended.

[@blazefactor6849]

@@samwoodley1653 Thing is, that's fine. The developers probably realized that there would be some solutions they didn't see coming. If they didn't want you to be rewarded for that type of extremely creative or exploitative solution, they would have patched it when testing the shrines, or when seeing how it's played afterward.

[@19Szabolcs91]

Yeah, but speaking of jumping, the very first 3D game, OoT also had the side jump and back flip, and they absolutely allowed you to get to places that were (probably) unintended like heart piece above Dodongo Fortress and the guy sitting on a roof in Kakariko Village.

[@ScarletDevilVam]

I still remember clearing the Fire Temple by almost completely ignoring the minecarts and just climbing the place and using Ascend on the little available spots on ledges.

[@sludge0ftheswamp90]

That is EXACTLY what I did. I looked at those minecarts and realized my half-baked monkey brain would never get it. It's like that math problem in high school you accept you're just never gonna understand and move on.

[@Mr.Blenderman]

Bro same

[@alexbeesley7971]

yeah i saw the maze of tracks and i was like umm. i was scared to do them in the wrong order and have to backtrack. and then i came to an area where i couldn't figure out the intended strat so i put on my climbing gear and just scaled the outer wall lol

[@Nathan-qp9uv]

talking about ignoring the intended path for the path to the water temple I didn't realize the zora armor let you climb waterfalls by gliding into them (as opposed to starting at the bottom) in this game until the last one into the temple proper so the wind sage got a workout making sure I reached the side of those floating water dispensers to climb up them

[@kurtweeks6812]

Glad I'm not the only one who did this. I maxxed stamina really quickly and lucked into the climbing shirt early on, so I've just been spidering and gliding and ascending everywhere, which isn't too far off from what I did in BotW honestly.

[@delicious9905]

“If you aren’t cheating you aren’t trying” that’s my new motivation in life.

[@robbynash8530]

That was a hidden bit of wisdom we didn't know we needed

[@AlvinaYunoa]

That’s how most ppl pass their final exams tbh

[@DaFro3713]

Living by the words of the late Eddie Guerrero

[@Mehwhatevr]

That's the Chinese philosophy.

[@ivaniawren5014]

For the record, if you didn't know, rocket shield boosting was in the big trailer, the final huge one. They show link doing it for his advantage, we knew about this before we could even play the game; Nintendo was eager to show it off.

[@GlitchDude]

Plus, obviously it's a specific feature of the game, not some buggy exploit, if the devs didn't want it to be used they just wouldn't have implemented it/would have restricted it in shrines or any other specific locations, their whole thing is that you're always free to experiment with everything and solve problems in any way you can

[@leaf111]

@@GlitchDude yeah exactly and they gave it a separate animation and everything, they accounted for every possible fusion so i really don't get why some people call it a 'cheat' like the devs didn't explicitly add it as a feature

[@ehx3419]

And one of the random hints even advises you to do it.

[@aj-sz8mu]

i think it feels a lot like its cheating, because if you try to take out a rocket (any of the gumball) out, the shrine won't let you. I had to get out of the shrine, put the rocket into the shield and go back. That's why it kind of is cheating. I'm sure they knew players could still do it anyways, at the end of the day they can only limit so much so they let it go for some of the shrines. Of course I try not to do it this way, IF i could truly figure it out, cause I am curious what is the intended solution.

[@ivaniawren5014]

@@aj-sz8mu by that logic using any weapons from outside the shrine are cheating, and you should treat each shrine like the ones that strip you of your gear. You're allowed to use what you have, there is tech to stop you and they don't implement it.

[@thegreatphantus1627]

tears of the kingdom is a game that makes me feel dumb and clever at the same time. dumb because there were puzzles that i to this day have no clue how to solve "properly", but clever because i found a solution anyway.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

It's been fascinating to see how other people solve the puzzles since I know I did most of them wrong lol

[@thegreatphantus1627]

@@BaldorfBreakdowns i'm not in the stage where i'm watching other people play just yet, but i imagine it would be similar for me.

[@kacheek9101]

​@@thegreatphantus1627 I've been having a lot of fun discussing the game with friends who are also playing and it is absolutely insane how different some of us are doing these shrines. I have a friend who didn't understand the shrine in Karikako Village was trying to teach you how stabilizers work so he managed to complete the shrine by making a huge tower and paragliding off of it

[@AlfyDC]

@@kacheek9101I also didn’t realize hitting them is what activates the stabilizers so instead I used ultra hand to pick up the item and rotated it quickly then dropped it and recalled it. Made a makeshift catapult lol

[@michaellane5381]

What's also funny is those puzzles you build an overly complicated solution that probably shouldn't work but just does.

[@blokvader8283]

Another thing about the rocket jump is that its literally shown in the TRAILER, using it to get to the very top of the monster camp in Eventide Island

If it's a feature, of course Nintendo knows of it and wants you to use it!

[@chcknpie04]

My feeling has always been that the developers were watching how speed runners were breaking breath of the wild, and decided to make a game that was designed to be exploited like that

[@georgemeyers7172]

That makes sense. This is a sequel to Breath of the Wild.

[@SoverineSR]

Inspired by, maybe. But I can't imagine myself being excited to see a speedrun until they find some way to clip through a wall that sends them half-way across the world. Part of what made exploits fun was that it was some absurd solution that seemingly appeared from thin air. Here, they're just handing you toys and telling you the experience they built isn't worth your time.

[@codycast]

The speed runners in BotW were “cheating” in quite lame ways outside of the ‘rules’ of the game. Basically finding glitches. Like the whistle running and whatever that ‘bullet bounce’ is called (I’ve forgotten all the corny glitch names). All the creative solutions Ive seen in TotK are way better. Though I haven’t seen speed running videos and assume they’re packed with lame stuff.

[@leeshapon]

@@codycast >hasnt actually watched any speedruns >insults them anyway lmao

[@codycast]

@@leeshapon I’ve seen tons of speed runs. I found most of the ones involving glitches to be boring as it wasn’t someone beating the game quickly as I view beating the game. It would be like if someone found a random sequence of key presses that instantly teleport you to Gannon where you can then 1 shot and the process took 20 seconds To me that’s not “beating the game quickly”

[@awyrlas]

I've also seen a lot of people treating the platform recall trick "cheating" as well, but several shrines demand that you know about it. There's one with a sagging bridge you have to ultrahand into place and then recall it back up so you can reach the other end. The devs know, and they want you to know too.

[@PhyreSpore]

I'd honestly never thought of it until seeing it in this video. There was a backpack korok that would have gone WAAAAYYY faster if I'd though of that. instead I had to build some horrible stepladder bridge. XD

[@RyanEglitis]

Unless of course if you rocket shield over it. Or just use rewind to let you jump to the other end.

[@delikatessbruhe9843]

Boy did I feel smart when I discovered it. For me it was the very first shrine on the surface. It expected me to have the paraglider but because I had run off in the other direction than the game told me to, I didn't have it yet. There was the box that I was obviously supposed to shoot in the air, jump off and glide over the gap. And there was me glider-less and still pretty clueless about all the mechanics and stuff. Of course, you can leave shrines any time so I thought that was the safetly measure left by the devs if you come here when you can't complete it yet. And then the thought struck me: what if I float the cube over the gap, climb on and rewind? And obviously it worked! So personally, I felt like I worked for that trick and deserve to use it now.

[@paperbagzi]

The bridges happen so often too! Like, in the fire temple, tons of shrines. They teach us that it's possible. They even teach us to ascend through it!

[@Batshite_crazy]

I just feel like I'm cheesing most puzzles by doing that though

[@tegxi]

there's one shrine that actually teaches you the recall trick. you have to lift up some torches, go press a button elsewhere, and recall them to their lifted up state. It teaches you that recall works reverting things to their ultrahand state, and that it works from much further away than ultrahand. I had never even considered using recall in that way before, but from then on I was cheesing puzzles and challenges constantly. And to me, it felt great! I had acquired knowledge and now I was using it to surpass challenges in unintended ways. But I didn't learn that from the internet- I learned it from the game telling me.

[@jim4million]

Omfg i know exactly the shrine you're talking about I had NO idea how to solve it i just put hydromelons on this button and then fire arrowed the burners, like i solved it but i was frustrated i didn't learn what the game was trying to teach me you know?

[@diademiemi]

omg I cheese so many shrines with the recall trick but it didn't occur to me there so I just grabbed the torch and put it next to the button, stood on the button and grabbed a bow, lighting the arrors with the torch. I knew it wasn't the intended way but that honestly felt better

[@Ptg2635]

so that’s how it’s supposed to be done… recall didn’t occur to me there so i dropped all my weapons to make a long stick and light the torches from the button

[@awp4444]

Oh I put a heavy weapon on the button then used the torch to light up my arrows then fored them

[@aff77141]

That sounds a lot more pleasant than how I realized it, which was on attempt 20 of a shrine puzzle that it had no bearing on 😂

[@socaslimjim13]

Great video as always! My favorite TOTK hack is definitely "make a bigger bridge" It's truly staggering how many puzzles can be solved by building an aggressively large bridge 😂

[@munchrai6396]

Bridges trump vehicles every time lol

[@fivetales2672]

have you heard of the (double) recallevator?

[@KogaHarine]

​@@munchrai6396 Early game bridges are best until you have enough battery to make the hoverbike last longer.

[@serge263]

Yes. I just did the shrine crystal puzzle today and landed it pretty well. However, I also brought out an extra fan, added two batteries nearby, a large battery and two rockets instead.

[@ValunarTonix]

My go to "cheat" is rocket shields. Make them outside a shrine, and boom, anything not locked behind doors is done. Also, Rewind is amazing for making your own floating platforms

[@TheLaughingRavens]

Ascend ability was originally a cheat code during development for devs to get around quickly untill they realized how annoying getting out of caves is without it so they just made it a real thing 😂

[@LukieLuke5]

Yeah it seems tailor made to solve that problem.

[@nerdletter3773]

I remember feeling like I sequence broke the game when I did all the tears after doing only one temple. The final tear basically tells you where Zelda is. You can go to her any time you want. Yet that "Find Princess Zelda" main quest kept sitting in my adventure log, taunting me. It was like the game was telling me "you did not experience this story the right way."

[@xintrosi6829]

I did all the tears before any of the temples. The quest remaining active made me wonder if I missed a quest flag somehow!

[@sicklysweetdenouement]

The "Find Princess Zelda" quest never goes away. It's only complete once you beat the game.

[@Subject_Keter]

I cant play the game without the Mastersword, so i flew up to Zelda and tickled her till she gave me the s w o r d. I found the memory that played afterwards to be "Ya I got it already after seeing your evil buttcheeks"

[@robertoj.9509]

I'm starting the game, and please don't spoil me the end, but I do know where Zelda is. SPOILERS AHEAD THAT COULD BE WRONG SO DON'T CORRECT ME: . . . . . . . . . . She's in that hell hole below the Hyrule castle, right? I mean, for me, it's kind of pretty obvious she went there, or will end there. And I even tried to go down that toilet, get to the end, but I wasn't able to bypass the army of moronic goblins because I ran out of resources when I got there... But I'm pretty sure I can find her there. I haven't been able to reach the castle, but I'm sure as hell the castle is empty and the big bad boss has Zelda trapped in there. I also know that Ganon is disguised as Zelda walking here and there, because they kind of spoil the fun in Hyrule. So I know she's not walking free. And I also know that the imbecile of Zelda keeps speaking to your mind and instead of telling you where she is, she says "Find me." The Zelda version of "Guess what I want to eat today."

[@magi1134]

​@@robertoj.9509yeah uhuh sure yup yup sure

[@carlossolis3547]

At times I really felt like I was missing some intended experience by hovering in the air bike in the underworld... so I tried to do it the "honest" way and got tired of it 10 minutes later, the game's mechanics are there for a reason. The only intention after all is to let you shape your own experience however you like. That is truly genius.

[@TheDapperDragon]

Disagree. 'Our game's shit, here, just skip it.' Is the exact same thing we criticize games like WoW for.

[@jorgeddls]

Getting a horse in the underground its way broken, max stamina in a jump you can clear full camps and never touch the ground

[@carlossolis3547]

@@TheDapperDragon It's not really skipping it since I´m still exploring a lot of areas and having fun.

[@typh2630]

@@TheDapperDragon and where did u get the implication that they’re skipping anything? There’s nothing wrong with exploring how they want, that was a stupid assumption and take.

[@friendlygiant1507]

@@TheDapperDragon WoW is indeed objectively a bad game. :)

[@zachismadd4106]

The best part of this imo is the fact that when I want to use a shortcut I end up spending more time trying to cheese it than I would’ve if I just did it their way. I feel like I’m not the only one who tries to come up with the funnest solution without caring how much time it’ll take.

[@deviouschimp4663]

I continued to blow myself up, reset saves, and stealth around a hinox to build a giant bomb that spells "die"... Fun is my only objective in this game

[@conja710]

​@Devious Chimp no way, I also reset many times trying to build a bomb at a certain hinox camp when I saw them it was the only way to kill it.

[@JoeyScraggy]

Ik! Just spent like 15-20 minutes and lots of resources making an army of freezing + fan auto robots that froze and pushed bokoblins to their death. It would've taken me less than 1 minute of killing them by hand, but that wouldn't be as enjoyable. In fact, the best thing about it was that i rescued a guy in a cage while every single Boko was still alive but freezing and colliding against spikes over and over again

[@TeaquestSagas]

Yes, but how much more fun did we have breaking the intended path than we would have had forcing ourselves to do something we disliked?!

[@typh2630]

@@TeaquestSagas let ppl play how they wanna play bruh. If they dislike it in the end they only have themselves to blame

[@jasonhebert1656]

That feeling of cheating of being 100% free to figure it out how you want is exactly what the game is about.

[@thiscat4426]

I’ve finished all the shrines by now, and since I always just carry rocket shields, there’s been a good number of them where I’ve seen the possibility for an easy cheese and chosen to do the intended puzzle anyway, because the puzzles are fun to solve and the cheese being there just gives me a safety net. The few times I’ve just used the cheese, it’s because I’ve been standing there like ‘ok, I know how to solve this, it seems annoying and tedious to get it exactly right, so I won’t bother’. Gets me the fun part of solving the puzzle without having to go through the actual work of executing the solution

[@thunderborn3231]

just because your key also fits the lock doesn't mean its cheating to open the door

[@catjayp]

@@thunderborn3231 its not cheating if Nintendo wants players to solve the puzzles their own way.

[@GuitarSlayer136]

The puzzles aren't engaging enough to make me do them by choice. Having some puzzles literally just raise a platform in a game where any number of banal things can shoot you upward is bad design.

[@brawlstar1748]

Those are few and far between tho, fortunately

[@TheFerdi265]

I didn't use rocket shields much, but I did use my fair share of Recall Elevators and Bomb-Flower-Shields. It's just really rewarding to cheese yourself through a puzzle

[@kylewhite5695]

As a person who tends to play more building games and fewer RPG/shooter games, I love how you can solve problems in this game in an unintended way. It sort of adds an adjustable difficulty where more complex creative builds and plans save you time exploring.

[@cheeseman1115]

I think they have solved a problem even rpg games have had for a while and that’s the creative aspect even in rpgs there is 1-2 ways to solve a problem like in Skyrim there was stealth and all guns blazing but TOTK just says here’s a puzzle and some stuff figure it out or do what you want with it

[@Not_Ciel]

It’s also more satisfying for me to do it with some wacky solution I build vs. what they clearly want you to do. Most of the time I see what I’m SUPPOSED to do but I’m like “okay but can I do it this way?” And continue building my little goofy contraption, even if it takes an additional 25 minutes to work. I love it.

[@cheeseman1115]

@@Not_Ciel I love playing that way too I feel like I get more out of the game beating it “my way” and it gives the temples a level of replay-ability I’ve replayed a few just to see if I can beat it in another way or without using what’s provided

[@SapphireLeaf10]

My biggest "cheat" moment was when I was in the fire temple and I couldn't figure out how to get where I wanted with the minecarts and accidentally discovered that I could climb every wall in the temple and I ended up just climbing up and paragliding to where I wanted to be

[@drrigel63]

I somehow managed to get lost in Fire temple and I said fvck it, completed all of it by climbing 😭

[@l33tminion]

The multitude of options for cheese also helps keep the open world more open. There are a lot of games where you can access more challenging areas early, but the expected response after getting eaten by a dinosaur or something is to backtrack and come back later. In BotW/TotK, you're encouraged to give it another try and think of something clever.

[@gabusdeux]

One of the best parts about totk in my opinion, is that if you find yourself losing you can quite literally just burn through materials to fuck up whatever you're fighting. Find yourself dying over and over again against an enemy camp? Welp, time to load that lynel bow with rubies to nuke the shit out of them

[@idiotically-everything]

​@@gabusdeux Or get good, like I had to do when I first played BotW and got trapped by the Zora's domain lynel, without knowing I could go back to an earlier save. Anyway, I died a few hundred times, but I managed to beat it!

[@crystallion1269]

@@idiotically-everythingI love the game gives you options tho!! I absolutely adore it, esp bc I’m not a gamer-gamer who’s got like, less than twenty game experiences under my belt. My brother (who I shit you not, has like 4 solid years by now of game time on Destiny/Destiny 2) was like “oh yeah all the bosses are super easy lol” and I’m like, thank god for that a little bit, bc it keeps me going through em… Those are necessary experiences that are made accessible so everyone, from pros to little 10-year old Timmy (I do find it hilarious tho bc it’s intended that way but in Australia at least, BOTW and TOTK are both rated M) can enjoy and complete the game. The optional enemies are what sell me though. Lynels, and I haven’t tried yet but Gleeoks? Genuinely difficult and skill requiring! Yes you could cheese them, but aside from duplicating (my game updated beyond it) it’ll drain your resources real quick I’d imagine. So esp if you wanna farm their parts for upgrades… it’s time to learn those mechanics a bit, cook some dishes that temporarily let you fight god, and nail your flurry time rushes in time with their attacks. I’ve done that for Lynels now, and breezed the Red variety so will be taking on blue and whites now. Hoping to fight a Gleeok soon once I restock on arrows LMAO. I should also give a big shoutout to the Fuse ability which MASSIVELY improves upon BOTW’s weapon system, just… literally game changing. Nothing beats the Hudson Shield! 😤

[@gabusdeux]

@@idiotically-everything lol, it sounds like you just got used to it's fighting patterns. That's fine and all, but you could have probably beaten it easier if you had a shit ton of materials y'know? Besides though, I was more referencing things like massive monster groups

[@idiotically-everything]

@@gabusdeux Yeah, also known as "get good"

[@Firemage0520]

I think a lot of the time when the “cheating” feels bad is just when the cheese is kinda trivial and lame. Like just happening to have a rocket shield and skipping the whole shrine incidentally feels kinda lame cause you basically didn’t do it at all. Whereas solving it with some random bullshit that just so happens to work out feels very fun

[@lavaguanix6804]

I agre, true cheese is when the correct way is easier than the cheese way, but you didn’t bother doing it the correct way so you chose the harder cheesy way

[@fungelfin]

Fantastic take

[@maxminton7861]

This is defintely how I feel. No amount on weird contraptions I build to make solutions make me feel bad for completing a shrine, because I applied creativity to use it. But if there is a complex puzzle in front of me for a chest, and I simply abuse recall, then it just feels like I robbed myself of doing something cool.

[@awayekevin3397]

@@maxminton7861 Exactly. I think in some cases alternative solutions can be good puzzle design, in some others not so much. Like building your 1st makeshift bridge to skip something, using rockets to gain height, or bomb flowering a pressure pad is fun the 1st time, but when this solution can be repeated so many times I don't care that it's ''uNiNtEnDeD, omg so many solutions = good design'' at this point it's a non puzzle. And even the intended solutions are sometimes too easy because most of the shrines are not really all that hard. They usually introduce a concept, then make it a little bit more difficult, then they end the shrine abruptly before the can expand on the concept because they have to keep things bitesized. Doesn't help that in an open world everything has to be level 1 because they never know where you can go, so you're left with many disappointing shrines and alternative solutions are not really all that fun most of the time.

[@maxminton7861]

@@awayekevin3397 I agree with this 100%. I don't understand how people can say that the shrines have obtuse solutions. Even the "intended" way is super easy 90% of the time. I really miss the difficult puzzles in other Zelda's, but I don't think we'll ever get them back because of how much more widespread the series has gotten, and it must appeal to a wider audience that hasn't been playing Zelda for 20 years.

[@tunakann7629]

I was absolutely mind bogged when I first played the game and learned all the new abilities the game gives you and it instantly made me think Nintendo has incredible faith in their level design, and I felt respected as a player to be trusted with the absolute amount of freedom

[@0-jm7]

I think a good way to view these "cheap" but intended solutions, is the way players view shortcuts in racing games. It gives you a massive advantage but it was placed there to reward players that explore routes thoroughly and remember the shortcuts.

[@controllerfreak3596]

I get that, but its not entirely accurate, you cant use a shortcut you found in the mute city course in the big blue course. in this game you can find one shortcut and apply it to like 300 puzzles.

[@ArmedDem]

The hidden skate park on Nintendo 64 Cruisin USA

[@secretlyditto7716]

Yeah but I was raised in a school system that stifled my creativity and taught me a fear of failure. If I'm not doing it "the right way" then I feel bad about it :(

[@LethalLuggage]

​@@secretlyditto7716 I can't help but remember Daryl talking about a puzzle in BotW where everyone found the non-intended solution and to me the intended solution was smacking me in the face... And the whole video was about how maybe the devs wanted creativity to shine and didn't have an intended solution... Flipside whenever I find a cheesy strat in TotK I hate myself. I remember one where I had to build a contraption that would climb a rail... I couldn't figure it out so I just dragged the thing up by hand, then rewound time to bring it back up after it fell and I climbed.

[@Joncwcxxx]

​@@LethalLuggageomg i couldn't figure that one out either! I wasn't even smart enough to use reverse. I used the metal bars to build a bridge and walk up, then grabbed the ball after. I felt like I was too dumb for the game.

[@LouSpowells]

We were talking about this in my DnD group earlier, how it seemed cool that this game really tries to give you the easy way out of most things...and how always offering the easy way out has inspired so many people to complete tasks/puzzles in some mind-bogglingly complicated ways.

[@remixtheidiot5771]

ah ttrpgs. the most open game where there can really only be 2 unintended solutions. when the gm finds your proposal so absurd they don't know how to rule it or when the dice simply says you fail.

[@pabloguzman8472]

yea but the dungeons suffered A LOT because of this "no frustration" philosophy

[@blurb9319]

@@pabloguzman8472 I’d argue that all the shrines and dungeons are a massive step up from BOTW, both in scale and in difficulty

[@pabloguzman8472]

@@blurb9319 the dungeons are a downgrade from old zelda, which didnt allow cheesing

[@blurb9319]

@@pabloguzman8472 what you call cheesing, I call player freedom. There’s no such thing as a wrong choice in ToTK, just choices that don’t work out.

[@sealish6163]

This is why I love this game so much. Also... that shrine with the bouncy boats... I had no arrows for it and the enemy that drops them died at an edge and they fell into the void. Even with that the shrine was beatable with the tools the game gives you. It really is a game that promotes thinking your way around a puzzle when the obvious solution isn't viable, and I love that.

[@JohnDoe-og2bt]

Only with the tools they give you, you don't really have to think to avoid the intended solution.

[@iantophernicus6042]

For a second, I was convinced you were describing the shrine as a beat table because of the variety of options it gives you to solve it. It took a few tries before my brain stopped auto swapping the word out and I realised you meant beatable.

[@AlfredEiji]

I love how many “teaching” shrines they have. I sometimes don’t use the first solution I find in case there’s some other mechanic it’s trying to teach me.

[@iaxacs3801]

The only time you're ever outsmarting the puzzles in this game is when you get to the end of the shrine and don't hear the jingle. That's when you know you found an unintended solution

[@dawntwilight]

how would that happen?

[@damiantorres5569]

Unless the jingle is tied to you physically being near the shrine

[@thedancingpipestuffer]

The jingle isnt tied to how you solve it, its just tied to you reaching the other side of the puzzle

[@iaxacs3801]

@@dawntwilight The time I saw was when someone snaked a long stick under the ending of a shrine and just Ascended through it

[@TaoScribble]

​@@iaxacs3801 Rauru: "...Fine. Here's your stupid light. Freaking kids these days..." XD

[@eepyJay]

I’m so glad to see someone talk about this feeling! The game being made this way where solutions are vague or have so many solutions feels very difficult for me (my brain doesn’t work that way) and feeling like I’m not doing it RIGHT even if I did get it done robbed me of the satisfaction of beating it. Edit: I personally don’t feel like I outsmart the game because the solutions aren’t particularly novel, if I was exploiting a glitch I’d discovered I may get that feeling but I wouldn’t return to the glitch solution cos I personally find it very upsetting lol.

[@Muhahahahaz]

Seriously, right? Many of the “unintended” solutions are so dumb and janky, there’s nothing smart about them at all. Just brute forcing the puzzle with any random method, rather than actually having to think

[@Mackinstyle]

The way I make these ridiculously simple shrines more fun is to identify what they want you to do, then work very hard to find any alternative way to do it. I love it.

[@carotclan148]

I can absolutely relate and I am frustrated that he did the shield based shrine correctly.

[@PupdudePwns]

You'll like TehCactusPlant's videos, he does this too.

[@Abionx]

​@@carotclan148i unironically was surprised when he did it with the shield to get through the fire since if its the same one I'm thinking of I just grabbed the metal plate and put it over the holes the fires came out to bypass it lol, also the shrine with the big wheel that you use to move a ball up to the top I cheeses by just joined 3 big plates together to make a bridge from the bottom floor to the top where the latter is and ultra hand carried the ball up to the hole lol

[@orngjce223]

Honestly I suspect that, equally so, the built-in cheese _also_ exists so that the game does not have to provide hints to make sure everyone can complete the puzzle "properly", since providing too many hints feels like handholding. It is like a hidden difficulty setting in that way: people can skip a puzzle they are too stumped by without the game having to provide an explicit "I give up, do it for me" button.

[@Mackinstyle]

@@orngjce223 I would guess you're right. It's brilliant game design to put in an "escape hatch." I remember in Demon's Souls how every boss had at least one cheese way to win, so if you really sucked and were stuck, you could go online, learn how, then cheese it.

[@ImPersonNation]

There was one shrine where you had to like connect these orbs together to roll a certain way on an S shaped slope to hit a target with enough speed. After like 14 failed attempts, I just tried shooting a bomb arrow, and funny enough it worked.

[@ncapone87]

I wrote a comment about this same shrine, but I ended up attaching the ball to a spear and threw it at the target and it worked. And the spear didn't fall in the abyss so I got to keep it. Nice

[@goldmemberpb]

Yeah, I also resorted to bomb arrow for that. I could not for the life of me figure out a way to get to roll fast enough and curve to the right. It just did not seem to have enough distance to hit that target no matter what I tried.

[@maxgrzeda5065]

Lmaooo I just did this one before I ended up stacking all the balls and then just let it tip over and hit it

[@thunderbolt64_]

wheres the shrine?

[@ImPersonNation]

@@thunderbolt64_ Iun-orok shrine in the chasm beneath Tabantha Great Bridge. There's a cave in the little corner northwest of the bridge. "The Right Roll"

[@Inogat]

I just love the feeling of thinking like Link would, improvising, looking around, thinking, anticipating, planning, trying, failing, trying again. It's everywhere, in combat in puzzles in exploration it's all so great. Also when I fail it's funny, I can hear the Loony Tunes music and it's all in good fun. I think I enjoy failing even more than succeeding, especially when the failing surprises me. It's such a delightful game I want more games like this.

[@asc3nded397]

I always love when games make you feel like you’re outsmarting the developers, even if it’s exactly how they designed it and TOTK takes that idea to a whole new level.

[@anabenskywalker122]

The amount of times I’ve done a puzzle in this game and felt as though I did it incorrect and outsmarted the game is immense. There was a shrine once where I had to find a way to get across a rail to the end and just couldn’t figure out the puzzle so I ended up just fusing the mine cart it gave me to my shield and just rode across the rail. I also cheated the entire fire temple I’m pretty sure cause I hated the mine cart system, so I just used a ton of hover platforms and ascend and I was pretty much able to do the whole dungeon that way. It’s incredible just how much this game lets you choose how you do things

[@Dyundu]

I brute forced the Fire Temple with climbing and a crapton of endura shroom skewers

[@Fancylvania]

Hey I don't know if you know this but you can shield surf on rails without a fused cart and Link just locks right onto it. It's a lot of fun!

[@pomfpomf]

I’m a psychopath and I just climbed the entire temple. no stamina food, only had one and a half stamina wheels. i just really did not want to fuck with those minecarts

[@Bromasterplays]

Hover bike completly solos fire temple

[@azazellon]

Bruh I just found high enough ledges and climbed what I couldn't paraglide to.

[@tybellsprout]

As someone who struggles with lateral thinking and played this game like a traditional Zelda game and got very frustrated. Thanks for validating why I didn't enjoy the game and also agreeing that "yes, maybe the devs want you to approach these puzzles differently". Keep up with the great content, wishing you the best!

[@PixelatedCatMan]

I feel like the cheating feeling more-so comes from discovering the rocket shield trick online rather than discovering it yourself because that would’ve been a really cool “aha!” moment for anyone.

[@alfadorfox]

This is why I stringently avoided looking up anything online until very late in the game. I've got three temples and about 100 shrines under my belt now, and interestingly, rocket shield was one of the earlier shrines I remember getting. I always keep a rocket shield or two on me now for "emergencies".

[@centurosproductions8827]

It was literally in a trailer, so good luck.

[@PixelatedCatMan]

@@centurosproductions8827 oh really lol i avoided all trailers

[@Lufleee]

I have never done it but I think I read that in an in game tooltip lol

[@somerandominternetweirdo9962]

I definitely had one of those moments with a minecart shield, I fused it by mistake and just had it in my inventory for ages, and then at one point I was just like... "hmmm I wonder if I can use this as a skate board" and it actually worked. which was the first moment I had of "wait, what else can do weird things" which lead me down a few wacky rabbit holes. This is %100 the kind of game that I dont wanna know anything about when i play it, heck, I even avoid looking at the map most of the time. It's such a fun game to unravel on your own.

[@bonafide5364]

i went into the sky temple before heading to rito village, and it was such a surreal experience to go through that temple knowing it was intended for me to go through it, yet without the power needed to complete the temple, it felt... empty in a sense. of course, naturally, i got pissed off and looked up what to do, but still, those few moments where i was just trying to figure it out are so memorable

[@colinvollmer]

I did something very similar except I had already done most of the Tulin quest...I just somehow lost him because I went to the wrong sky island to start climbing up??? Fast forward to me reaching the Wind Temple, sans Tulin, and then being very disappointed when I couldn’t activated the wind turbines with zonai fans lmao. I eventually figured it out, went back for Tulin, and climbed all the way up again... Just a very funny moment for me as well!

[@NinjaNeet]

I did the same thing with the water Temple and was slowly going insane trying to solve the puzzles. My only gripe with the game is that things like that aren't immediately obvious.

[@TtimeXP]

Same haha i was looking for that one item that would create wind strong enough.... Till i remembered, oh forgot to find Tulin haha Later i lost him, went to the temple again and he wasn't there. After an hour of looking for him... Google where his spawn point was, it was simply looking right of a shrine 🤦

[@Somepersonoverthere]

Same hat here, was going on along some sky islands thinking I was just doin some side stuff then found that I was heading right towards a big important story thing. I didnt have any context at that point that you needed companions to actually complete temples. Which with the fact that you don't get to activate the teleport at the temple *until* you bring tulin; it definitely felt like a kick in the butt that I came all this way but couldn't even attempt the temple. Honestly I think the temples themselves are one of the few parts of the game where the open ended implementation falls a little flat. If you're going to let players access temple areas without doing main quests, why punish them for that?

[@trueRocc]

Agreed, I did that for water temple, just exploring. So by the time sidon was up there, no enemies, just him and I.

[@Nagromthewhite]

Just gotta say, this was a really good video. I greatly respect the way you delivered the message of "cheating" is trying.

[@cosmic8437]

I think if you find the 'cheat' on your own, it feels like a more of a creative solution

[@bellingtoned]

Its creative problem solving taken to the obvious comclusion they know most if not all the answers that you can use to get thrue a obstacle maybe block a few or force you to think about a creative idea or maybe even leaving a easier option open for people who know how to do that

[@fuzzypockets]

I love those moments when I feel like I broke the game and then realize that the devs are fully ok with it

[@litessbu]

There’s a reason why the devs never patched out wind bombs, but they did patch out duplication glitches.

[@jamesbailey2377]

What a great video this is. Very eloquently put. The fact always remains: this game is ALSO designed so that you can avoid ALL of the “cheat” ways to solve puzzles and to beat the main quests. If you WANT to beat a shrine puzzle with the technically “correct” solution you are free to do so. I’ve cheated a couple of shrines because I was getting frustrated (and THAT’S not fun) but then I went back when I was in a calmer mood and figured out the “official” solution. This game is for every taste and temperament. It’s revolutionary and I love it!

[@captaintogawa9736]

i would literally find myself doing things in ways i would realize were cheese, then figure out how it was intended to be solved and then be like "oh that was cool"

[@aspzx]

I really appreciate the perspective that you come at this from. I had the exact same feeling when I "cheated" a solution to some problem and felt like I wasn't learning the "correct" lessons. But now I realise the game subtly taught me so much and I don't feel so bad about the solutions I came up with. It's nice to realise the game is not completely broken - clearly a lot of the freedom you are given is intentional.

[@NotNormalYT]

Honestly every single hour with Totk I have spent so far has felt like i was cheating the game even if it's something as simple as fusing 2 strong weapons together to make something that even a lynel would fear or using reversal on a piece of metal i dropped from the air to give me height to jump and paraglide to the end of the shrine. However more often than not, I found myself being more proud of my efforts when they went against the designed structure of the game which is why it's really cool in my opinion that the devs have that "it's your game. Do something creative if you want" kind of attitude.

[@Aqsticgod]

the game urges you to do that tho, hows that cheating? its like ppl like you assume that because you did something different, or saw a different solution its not "intended" but riddle me this, if it wasnt intended why is it allowed? cheating would be the dupe glitch, or hacking/modding the game, thats cheating, but thinking you cheated cuz the game allowed you to use a different solution to the puzzle is about the worst kind of gatekeeping ive seen gamers utter.

[@BlueSparxLPs]

@@Aqsticgod "If it wasn't intended, why is it allowed?" That's not really how that works. In pretty much any game, even without glitches, there are ways to do things the game allows even though they aren't intended. It's a big part of why glitchless speedruns are just as entertaining as the glitch ones. TOTK and BOTW were likely built with each puzzle having at least one solution, maybe even a few, in mind, but the game still wants you to be able to find solutions they didn't consider. Plenty of solutions absolutely can be described as "cheating the puzzle," but it's not a bad thing to cheat them. I don't think anyone is gatekeeping this except the people actively against the cheese.

[@bryanthomas1382]

I can say with certainty that one of the best feelings I've gotten while playing TotK was spending hours on the great sky island stubbornly refusing to enter the temple of time, and managing to explore the entire island without any powers. Was I supposed to get up a large suspended minecart track by chaining 30+ shield hops? Probably not, but I'll be damned if it wasn't the most satisfying feeling to actually do it.

[@kylebricker9505]

Me too! It wasn’t until I beat the flux construct and wasn’t able to pick up its core that I finally thought “okay, I’m clearly missing out on some things”

[@sidneyrobinson18]

Yeah the same happened to me, I went around and killed a ton of enemies and got a lot of stuff but it felt like I was missing something the entire time, then I realized I probably should've gone to the intented destination first

[@Mightylcanis]

I believe you are what people call "obstinate"

[@litessbu]

Me too. I got sidetracked and then the next thing I know I find a bunch of useless rocks lying around, and there are minecart tracks that I can’t use. When it was to the point where I got stuck on the flux construct island, I just decided to start a new save file because I figured I wasn’t losing much. I used to have to walk across the minecart tracks.

[@orngjce223]

I realized this when I saw someone build a long stick to get across a certain river on a certain Great Sky Island. They found that there were only enough logs available through cutting trees nearby to reach 90% of the way across the river. They swam the rest of the way. On their very last sliver of stamina they reached the other side. They skipped off, satisfied that they had cheesed the puzzle. There were _exactly_ enough logs available to get someone to reach the other shore on their last sliver of stamina for a reason.

[@jonavin]

If you’re not playing online competitively, do anything the game will allow you to have fun. The best part about both BOTW and TOTK is finding out how other people did the same puzzle/obstacle that you did. I am always amazing, entertained, laughing when people will better or dumber ways to do things.

[@captainzebulin3148]

One of my only personal rules with games is that I complete things in a way that leaves me satisfied. So often I refuse to use easy skips and cheese if I didn't feel like I properly engaged with a challenge. I like the feeling of overcoming things not breezing by them, so I don't mind restricting myself to achieve that.

[@MaxIronsThird]

Yeah, me too, i definitely feel like i'm cheating when i'm clearly cheesing the game.

[@lightishredgummi]

I'm similar, but with much more emphasis on using shortcuts or googling the solution lol. sometimes I just know that figuring it out on my own isn't gonna be fun for me, I just want the thing DONE. luckily that feeling doesn't pop up with more consequential things, usually just sidequest type things.

[@derpkipper]

I think thats totally valid The only time its invalid is when someone is getting worked up at someone else because they didnt do it in the way the other person would, especially in regards to whether or. Ot the solution was "intended" But ppl who do that (force their way of playing onto others) entirely miss the point of the game, which is to be creative and do things how you want And if you want to do it the intended way, thats just as valid as doing it the "unintended" way lol

[@captainzebulin3148]

@@derpkipper Oh yea, totally agree. I just try not to make decisions that worsen my own experience. But games are meant to be fun, so I'm happy to see people enjoying the game in their own ways.

[@Autoskip]

For a similar reason, often when I “cheese” something, it's because I saw the puzzle, and decided to set my own puzzle: “how silly can I get to solve this?” - even if, or sometimes especially if, my new solution is even more difficult.

[@sarinabina5487]

I genuinely think I saw this video at the perfect time. TOTK has been overwhelming me (outside of the factof how much there is to do) because I'm diagnosed with OCD, and one of my big problems is called "Just Right" OCD. I've been constantly getting anxious and worried if I'm doing things the "right" way even moreso than usual people, which has been making it difficult for me to fully enjoy the experience. It's been causing genuine distress. Ironically, I watched this video to take a break from playing TOTK. I was on a massive mountain that would take forever to climb off from. Beside me was a bird glider, a cart, and a fan. Now, it may seem obvious what I was supposed to do (it was), but my OCD was to preoccupied by the idea that this was all a misunderstanding, and I'm not *supposed* to do that. After unsuccessfully trying to get the bird glider to take off by itself for 30 minutes, I got tired and decided to watch youtube. This is one of the first videos I see. Long story short, I am now off the mountain and can rest assured that I'm (most likely) not doing anything "wrong" for the rest of the game.:)

[@HyperfixationStation]

I feel this. I also have ocd (not Just Right OCD; my themes are more rumination, counting, touretic, etc) so I can imagine how stressful totk could get for you. I'm also autistic, so that may play a part, but I also have had moments of "oh, I could solve it like this. WAIT -- what if that wasn't the 'answer?' What if I'm missing something important??" and in doing so have lessened my own fun at times because every time I think of a solution, my brain yells at me to think of more until I find one that feels like THE solution This vid helps though

[@TheREALGalamineGary]

When I cheese a puzzle that appears to have an intended solution, I don’t always feel clever. I don’t feel like I cheated the game to win, or like I cheated myself out of the satisfaction of solving it “right”, instead I feel like the game won against me because I’m too poopoo brain to figure out the solution so I had to activate rocket shield easy mode.

[@luka_8]

I think the puzzles are the easy way out actually. I imagine if there's an absolute uncreative person that only wants to play by the rules enters a puzzle room, they can certainly find all the tools to solve it, like in the older games. But I fell like that's more of a failsave. If you're not creative enough to "cheese" your way through, you can go the old-fashioned way.

[@aspzx]

Hah yeah. Kind of like when a kid draws a line all the way round a maze instead of solving it properly.

[@jceggbert5]

​@@luka_8 Depends on the shrine. Bomb-shield-bouncing over the entire puzzle is unsatisfying. Fusing the stupid ball to a random stick you have, throwing it, missing, recalling it to yourself, throwing it at the target again, only to realize that you now have to jump 2 stories to get to the exit door, probably using the mechanic you already couldn't figure out when trying to solve the puzzle correctly. So, you check your inventory and don't have any bomb shields but do have a board shield (a shield with a 4x8 sheet of wood attached), so you drop it, ultrahand it up where you need to be, tilt it so you can make it all the way, bring it back, and hop on and recall. (anyone who's done this shrine probably knows which this is) That's satisfying.

[@GackleBlax]

I'm impressed that something so eloquently put includes the words "poopoo brain". Well done.

[@edwardgonzalez3302]

Lol that example of going around the maze is how I solved two of the sky labyrinths.

[@frickinfrick8488]

I love how they fully embraced open puzzle design. Finding creative ways around a puzzle is often just as fun as solving it. Plus it means you’re basically never stuck in the game, if you think hard enough there’s always a way forward

[@satibel]

yes, that's an issue I encountered in earlier zelda games, you miss a key item and then you're stuck till you find it.

[@enlongjones2394]

Having multiple solutions to problems is a concept I think of whenever people discuss the wind temple boss. Since beating Colgera, I’ve heard of a few ways to fight him. Some people shot him with bomb and fire arrows when he revealed his weak spots. Some shot him with bomb and fire arrows from his underside. Some even took swings at him with a hammer in midair. I fought him by skydiving through each weak point, using Link’s boosted momentum to crash through each one. I was surprised to learn that there were other methods for the fight, as I’m sure the people who used weapons were. And what’s neat is that you basically have been taught each one. My method was learned by crashing through frozen ponds on the way up to the temple. But the game has also taught players how to shoot weak points with slow mo, and how to smash brittle obstacles with hammers. Colgera is a nice example of a boss having that kind of open-ended design.

[@tedsowards]

I found it interesting how portal and portal 2 don’t have much replayability since you already know all the puzzles solutions. But I have seen friends do the same temples/shrines in tears of the kingdom different ways and I realize that it definitely ups its replayability.

[@cleverman383]

The biggest surprise with TOTK is that this game unironically feels like everything I've always wanted Portal 3 to be gameplay-wise if it ever came out. Solving shrines in TOTK feels like doing Portal test chambers, and I absolutely love it. I bought a Zelda game and unexpectedly got a new Portal game along with it!

[@helplmchoking]

Yes! I love a puzzle with a simple task (reach the shrine end, get past this monster group, take this gem to that spot), some basic limitations (walls, cliffs, lava) and a bunch of tools and says "aight, here's what you're working with, solve the puzzle". I come out feeling clever for having an idea, following through and succeeding. The "puzzles" with only one possible solution and the only challenge is spotting the (usually very obvious) hints the Devs left and following the path. There's no figuring out, no "ah-ha" moment, if you try something else the game just says "no, I don't want it that way". My only gripe with both Portal games is how easy they are, my very first playthrough of the OG portal took literally 70 minutes. I never so much as paused to think about the "puzzle" because there was only one path forward and spotting it is simple - though the writing and story holds up the flimsy puzzles so well I still had fun.

[@AaronRotenberg]

​​@@helplmchoking Did you have a lot of puzzle game experience before playing Portal? 70 minutes is really short for Portal 1. I believe the "canonical" first playthrough time is considered to be around 4 hours. I remember getting stuck a lot on my first Portal playthrough and having to repeatedly put down the game and come back to it before I had the a-ha moment of what the puzzle solution was.

[@helplmchoking]

@@AaronRotenberg I guess so? I played Portal 2 first (I think) so that probably gave me a good primer. I think there was one spot in Portal 2 (that big lake bit underground?) where I wasn't sure of the way forward, but that was more that I didn't spot the portal surface the game wanted. I didn't find either game challenging at all, though I don't play many puzzle games, I think 'cause they just match how my brain works - visualising spaces and spotting patterns - but I did find them great fun. Portal Reloaded is a very different story. Partly 'cause the "correct" solutions don't always feel correct like the main games did and partly 'cause it's just really hard

[@ethandanielcorbett1622]

I also like to think of it in a way that if you were in a shrine, for example, in real life. You would do whatever it took to solve the puzzle and use everything at your disposal and it wouldn’t feel like cheating. You’d just feel like you outsmarted it.

[@baldobandito1795]

I've noticed the sound that plays to say you've solved a part of a shrine is tied not only to buttons and machines, but to you reaching a location within the shrine. The test isn't about how you got there, it only cares if you make it there. To me, that says any method is fair game.

[@pablojams5152]

@@baldobandito1795 exactly, the game has no checks, or “clear conditions” for just about anything in the game, meaning the goal is to simply reach the goal, doesn’t matter how you got there. Like the challenge where you’re supposed to outlast the man on the mountain in the cold and the heat, you can either wear resistance clothing, cook meals, equip a fire or ice weapon, block the sun, build a fire, etc. they don’t care how you do it, just do it.

[@xtremelymoderate829]

This video was amazing! I absolutely loved when I realised that not only were you displaying how creative the game wants you to be, you were also being creative while explaining it yourself. The realisation when you said "when the game wants you to do only one solution" you were displaying a closed box and then you said "when the game wants you to think outside of the box, it keeps the box open". Also when you displayed how you felt cheated when the game stole that gem from you, it all came together in the end to chisel into your brain even more about why they *felt* this kind of system would be beneficial. Your brilliant explanations have made me feel like I understand it all, even to the point of what you were intended to feel when you realise that their intention was for you to cheat. That relief and a sensation of longing for the next shrine just so you can find out the best shortcut. I feel inspired, and I laugh at the feeling of almost having been played, enjoying it. I hope the effort you put into this video has paid off well, as these 20 minutes have passed in the blink of an eye.

[@Nevillewrld]

Daryl don’t just talk games he talks facts

[@IdentifiantE.S]

Fr

[@testhekid]

on glob

[@gribberoni]

I'd like to share my thoughts on the rocket shield shrine "cheese". Even though I've known of it for a while, I pretty much _never_ used it in shrines because I know for a fact that there are treasure chests in them that when you open, you get a little chest icon on the shrine's icon on the map. The completionist wins over my desire to finish the shrine quickly. I've found many ways to cheese each singular puzzle, but I've never went ahead and skipped an entire shrine.

[@aidankocherhans9861]

There's an icon for that? That's good to know!

[@derpkipper]

It is really fun to try and get the chests in the shrines, they rly make u think sometimes

[@AnthanKrufix]

I remember talking with a friend about the shrine where you learn about stablizers. At the end of it there's a massive pit you need to get over somehow. He has a clip of him managing to piece together a long chain of grates, use a stablizer to prop them upright at a 45° angle, then walk up it and glide the rest of the way across the pit. And by pure chance that was actually one of the shrines I *_also_* had saved a clip of me completing it, and I used the stablizer to create a catapult to shoot me across the pit.

[@nikomint4894]

The fun of totk is that you can make your own rules, you can decide if you go the easy or the hard way

[@JohnDoe-og2bt]

More like "you can skip the gameplay as you just move link around the map to check off the quests"

[@dillweed8766]

something fun about the shrine design in totk is that, most of the time if you solve a shrine in a different way than what's intended you're showing off that you're paying attention to the game, you're learning how it works and using it to your advantage. this game rocks.

[@Cuiasodo]

There's also an interesting trade-off in regards to cheating traversal. Sure, you can build a hovercraft to fly over everything, but then you miss a lot of the resources you need for weapon fusions, cooking and selling to get more rupies. Each have their benefits - sometimes you wanna check every cranny for resources, sometimes you have a place you want to go and you want to get there quick without distractions.

[@SanktaLo]

it’s never felt like cheating to me; it feels like freedom. my mind approaches problems a bit oddly, so i might struggle with the restrictive shrines, but have a blast in the more open ones. it’s kind of like the developers (in some parts) said, “here’s a problem. go nuts.” and i love that. plus the creativity that it’s inspired online is incredible. i’m definitely going to make some kind of mecha monster to take out the lynels i need to beat to upgrade the warrior armor 😂

[@pablojams5152]

Something I had to wrap my head around early on is that the game has no checks, or “clear conditions" for just about anything in the game, meaning the goal is to simply reach the goal, doesn't matter how you got there. Like the challenge where vou're supposed to outlast the man on the mountain in the cold and the heat, you can either wear resistance clothing, cook meals, equip a fire or ice weapon, block the sun, build a fire, etc. they don't care how you do it, just do it.

[@somerandominternetweirdo9962]

I built him a little house to shade him because i felt bad for him as I sat there fully refreshed with a magical frosty dragon horn strapped to my back.

[@RowanTS]

I think it’s the difference between someone being good at problem solving, and good at passing a test. Or if you prefer to go Zelda-y, it’s the difference between wisdom and knowledge. There’s the person who has pride in getting A’s, likes feeling more knowledgeable and having a fixed tier system (at minimum for themselves and their improvement, and at worst that they like to judge others by); and there’s the person who is thinking how to make creative or efficient or unintended answers to problems, ‘it’s not stupid if it works’. And that’s actually what’s at the forefront of modern child education theory - in a world where you can look up the answers to single-answer ‘knowledge’ questions in three seconds, the educating is actually about learning how to think: basic jigsaw puzzle/learn-by-wrote tiering is useless, and the more creative you are in getting to an answer, the more you’ve probably learned anyway. Tl;dr: Link gets his wisdom Triforce when he realises ‘I could use a rocket to zoom through this shrine’.

[@newjersey973]

Highly disagree that any education system, atleast public ones in America, are trying to teach children to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and think outside the box. I'd say they're taught quite the opposite actually.

[@HyperfixationStation]

​@@newjersey973yeah, they tell us to think outside the box, but then go "not THAT far outside the box!" And I could never figure out why. Seems they just wanted me to think inside a slightly bigger box

[@Mia_or_Mika]

my favourite part of this game is that most of the puzzles are so open ended that you can solve them in almost any way you can think of, the limit truly is your creativity here

[@perriwinkleiii5361]

Brilliant video. While a lot of the early game gave me that intense rewarding feeling of outsmarting the devs, it took me a lot longer in the proceeding dozens of hours to accept that this would be the standard for every puzzle I encountered. But my new frame of mind is: regardless of whatever solution feels "right," I'm gonna try what's fun first and foremost. I don't carry rocket shields too often because making hot air balloons is more fun to me. If I'm gonna cheat, I'm gonna cheat my way :)

[@Romanticoutlaw]

this, exactly. I'll look at a mountain and know that I *could* spend time scrambling up and standing on weird pieces of architecture, or cook and use up stamina wheel foods/elixers... but since that's just less fun, I'm more likely to look around to see if there's a cave nearby to ascend through, or a contraption to build

[@mingyuhuang8944]

​@@Romanticoutlaw This game is absolutely incredible. It's like an industrial revolution but in game form, truly groundbreaking. Ive never played a game where the ways of playing and getting around the map, and solving problems are so diverse❤❤

[@Insert.Oregano]

This video was recommended to me right around when it came out, and just seeing the title helped make my tine with the game since a bit more fun. Just remembering when i wanted ro use a neat trick "maybe they didnt intend this, but they definitely intended players to do what they didnt intend" and specifically remember this video existing. I didnt even watch it until right now

[@CRAgamer]

I love how open ended this system is. Sometimes I like to do things as intended and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I can't figure out the intended method and its really really nice to be able to just say "screw it" and still get results.

[@lizzyserf]

I love how deeply the creativity is involved with this game, because it not only goes for the puzzles, but some of the bosses. Spoilers for the wind temple boss below vvv There are at least 2 completely different ways you can beat Colgera, and I think that’s REALLY cool. You could wait for it to come by you and shoot the weak spots with arrows, or you could wait till it fires off its spikes and smash through it yourself with a dive. To me it feels like the latter is more “intended,” but if they really wanted to, they could have made arrows not work. But they didn’t! They leave room for alternate solutions even with these bosses, something that’s not present in a lot of Zelda games. I think that’s super cool

[@witherschat]

I thought that the arrows were the only way to do it, until I read about the skydive thing. Part of it being that stamina regeneration when redeploying had only ever been used for bullet-time-based things in the previous game.

[@PurplePhonix37]

Wait you’re supposed to dive through the boss? Oops

[@dualwieldroxas358]

Each boss has multiple ways of fighting it. It is really cool t ok experiment in the Depths and find new ways to take them on. For example, i never even thought about Ascending to cheese one boss, or recalling the bombs back at him.

[@raysay1818]

I feel it gives the game a monster hunter vibe where it's more about learning the creature and exploiting weakness more so than other Zelda bosses where it feels like more of a performance puzzle.

[@Mightylcanis]

Hold up, you can smash Colgera's weak spots with a dive!?

[@Schizophrenie666]

for me its a refreshing and very welcome change to the series. majoras mask is still my most favorite zelda, but not rly because of its "linear" gameplay or dungeon design, but rather because of the stories, numerous quests, the time system and that every time i booted up the game, i discovered new things. npcs doing different things on different days and different times was something that blew my mind as a kid. kafeis quest, aliens on romani ranch, refining your sword and seeing what you can accomplish if you know certain details before and follow that line. in some form, botw and totk feel the same to me. i can boot up the game every day, or start a new game file, and still discover new things and play a completly different way. going straight to ganondorf without any sages or the mastersword is awesome and there are many things i still like to test out, build and discover. its amazing and refreshing to me compared to something like oot, which obviously is still a great game, but you can pretty much just play in a single way, if we exclude glitches.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

I think the feeling of being cheated is generally when something becomes too easy and you wanted more of a challenge. Basically too clever or know an op tactic or meta knowledge. It's a tricky thing.

[@MrDoot_]

I agree, I remember getting super stuck on the water temple in Twilight Princess and I had to take a break for like a week because I was so confused. I didn't figure it out for like a month, but when I finally did it felt SO satisfying and awesome. I wish there was more of that, but also, the puzzles just aren't as good because like 70% of TP was the dungeons, so they were more thought out. Whereas in botw and totk the mechanics and the map are a much more significant part of the game so they just didn't have as much time to develop better dungeons. I'm just sad that we'll probably never get a new mainstream Zelda game with the older style.

[@somerandominternetweirdo9962]

@@MrDoot_ I dont really agree. You kind of have to take in the entire experience of getting to the dungeon as part of the dungeon. The actual "temple" is more like the final puzzle of the dungeon to unlock the boss door. The lightening temple isn't just the pyramid, it's getting to the town, learning what happened, figuring out where the leader is, doing two tower defense situations, solving the triangle puzzle, THEN getting to the temple and solving the final puzzle of opening the boss room. Sure it's not one giant building you enter separate from the map you have to unravel, but the entire situation is all one experience leading you to the boss and so it serves as the entire region being the dungeon.

[@MrDoot_]

@@somerandominternetweirdo9962 I totally see that and agree with your points. But then again, in past Zelda games that was true as well, say in OoT for example inside Jabu Jabu you have to get to the domain, play Zelda’s lullaby to enter the waterfall, beat the diving challenge to get the scale to dive deeper which allows you to swim deep enough to retrieve Princess Ruto’s message in a bottle which you then show to the King Zora so he will let you pass, then you have to catch a fish in the bottle and drop it in front of Jabu Jabu so that he’ll suck it up along with you and only then do you make it to the dungeon. I will say though to clarify, I don’t have a problem with the dungeons in botw or totk, I just miss the old style because it’s nostalgic to me. And honestly I love these games for what they’re made to be, because the main point of these games aren’t the dungeons like older Zelda games, and I’ve learned to realize that and accept it. And now that I have I honestly really appreciate them for what they are. I was 12 when I first played botw, so it honestly brings me nostalgia at this point. It was thrilling to explore the massive map for the first time and meet all the people, and that’s what I love it and totk for. That was kinda the whole idea behind the original Zelda anyways, adventure and exploring. The dungeons were just another thing to explore. TLDR: I love all Zelda games including botw and totk and understand and agree with points that both points of view make about the dungeon situation or really anything that botw and totk changed about the series.

[@homemelanie]

I actually sometimes feel guilty when I don't cheat and do the straight forward way. Like I might be missing out on other cool ways to travel and fight that are more fun

[@Evanz111]

Amazing idea for a video! What I find hilarious is that sometimes I’ve wanted to look up a guide to find an intended solution for a shrine - and yet the official paid guide makers at IGN often resorted to saying “I don’t know how it’s supposed to be solved but you can just attach a rocket to your shield and get over the gap like I did”

[@snapdougles]

Gamers really do play games using the game's own rules then go "oh no, that wasn't hard, did I break the rules??" the point of the toolkit available in tears of the kingdom is that you are meant to be building your own solutions to a variety of problems, and I think it's the exact same in Elden Ring (and most other soulslikes), the obstacle exists, once you overcome it, it doesn't, some ways are easier than others, but it's your choice on how to approach the problem, ER/souls toolkits have so many ways of making the game easier, just unlike most games it isn't interested in explaining any of that to the player, that's up to you to find and engage with.

[@NaamahTheia]

The rocket shield trick being considered - however briefly - unintended is funny, given it's actually featured in the trailer lol. But to be fair, I forgot about it entirely and never used it in the game. Next time!

[@Romanticoutlaw]

it's also a loading screen tooltip that shows up like every other fast travel for me lol

[@victoronnie]

the quote "people will look for an easy way to do something if they can avoid struggling" from aonuma sums it up for me! getting the majora's mask early on in breath of the wild definitely feels a bit like cheating, since it means i can (for instance) just walk straight to zora's domain without dealing with the enemies on the road, but that item often made the game a lot more enjoyable since i could explore freely without worrying about most enemies. i've spent hours just wandering around hyrule castle and i had a great time! i'm saying this as someone who, during my first time playing the game, decided to climb _around_ zora's domain and dealt with the rain in the mountains for several in-game days to get there as i was too nervous about the combat at that point. albeit a much more quiet adventure than the more action-packed path of monsters, it was a fun adventure to me all the same! i did the "walk a long, inconvenient path instead of the intended path solely to avoid enemies" route again in totk when you get to the spirit temple. doing it makes it feel a bit like i'm cheating but the game allows it and i always end up feeling excited and relieved that it works. i have fun finding my own solution for an easier path to my destination in order to avoid dealing with stronger enemies i am definitely not equipped for and won't have fun fighting lol

[@olympiannerd]

My favorite part of tears is to try to find the most ridiculous ways of solving shrines. I'll usually see the solution while messing around and try my best not to use it. Like building a giant bridge when it wants me to build a boat or spending 20 minutes trying to get a movable object into a place it obviously doesn't go. It is so much fun

[@KitterKatter-vv2rz]

I know exactly what puzzle you're talking about because I built a gigantic bridge too lol

[@Autoskip]

Have you tried recallevating through the entire shrine? You pick up an object, move it toward the goal and back, hop on it and use recall, and while it takes you on that short trip, you pick up another object and get it closer to the goal - repeat that enough times, and you can fly through the entire shrine on a recall. …not my idea, and the one time I tried it I found out it was extremely difficult and gave up, so your mileage may vary.

[@ericb5328]

There are so many shrines where i can clearly see what they want me to do but they made it so easy to skip the puzzle with reverse and ultrahand

[@vincenttorrijos9680]

God, bringing up the mimic tear is golden! And it makes me realize why i play both these games the way I do. I enjoy that feeling of overcoming a challenge at its most reasonably difficult, not at RL 1 or without zonai devices or whatever, but also while just using the options the game gives me for that specific puzzle, or with just the levels worth of runes that I've naturally come across (so no farming). I enjoy feeling like I've beaten a puzzle in the most clear, absolute way possible in much the same way i enjoy that feeling of beating a boss on purely my own knowledge and skill, without the safety net that a summon or spirit ash gives you, because then I can claim to myself that my accomplishment is purely my own. That's also why, when i do look up a guide or try out a summon, its out of curiosity more than anything, and if it reveals a solution i never would have thought of, THATS when i feel cheated myself. Because i never would have figured that out on my own

[@XXSQUIDGLEYXX]

One thing I like about this style of play is that the developers are actually watching how players use the mechanics. When a game is too structured you can’t see as easily what people decide to do when playing. Tears of the kingdom was literally shaped from watching what players enjoyed doing in breath of the wild

[@koltonkulis4763]

I could not figure out that big gear puzzle he showed in the video because I forgot Ascend existed. I was still getting used to my powers. I ended up getting on the platforms by climbing the big gear and using Recall to bump me up to the top platform.

[@sheepysnowtato824]

This honestly feels like a game finally being successful at teaching people creativity.

[@FirebirdTalking]

this is making it REALLY hard not to spent my last bit of money to buy this game right this second

[@pawelisecki6054]

Hope u get yourself a copy 👀

[@samyb4566]

There is a shortcut I found in the Fire Temple. In order to reach the last gong, instead of finding a path that lead to the room, I used a magic rod fused with an opal, I created platforms on the lava to go under the room and then I used Ascend in order to enter the room.

[@cutesheep3311]

What was the intended way in there?? I thought that was the correct way to get into that room haha

[@samyb4566]

@@cutesheep3311 Wait. You used the shortcut too?

[@cutesheep3311]

@@samyb4566 Yeah I made a bridge of solid lava underneath the room and ascended through it because I couldn't find another way into the room, i thought that was intended lol

[@samyb4566]

@@cutesheep3311 No. You had to take a mine-cart in one of the upper floors, then you have to jump down in order to reach the room.

[@nunote2362]

as with everything else in this game, it's ultimately up to you, if you want a more focused shrine experience, you can do that by simply, not doing the skips, keep looking until you find a solution that satisfies what you think the intended solution is. if you don't like using a hoverbike to skip over obstacles in your way, you don't have to do that. you can minimize zonai devices to only the places where it's necessary, how someone else plays their singleplayer game should have no bearing on how you chose to go about it. what i like about totk is that the freedom you get from it is entirely optional, and the game is only as easy as you choose to make it. like i chose to play through the whole water temple because i wanted to, even though i knew a few rocket shields would see me to the end in minutes, i didn't want to do that, so i didn't, and i enjoyed my time in it. same way how i rode my way to the spirit temple, even though i probably could've flown my way there 10x the speed with no interruptions.

[@karenlundy8189]

My "gem isn't on the plane" moments have been when I cut the treasure chests dangling from sky islands, then flew/dived down to the ground thinking they'd be there, but no chest. Since they have to keep it within a more predefined solution I guess.

[@Ultimabuster92]

The true fun begins, when you solve a shrine and then search for a different solution. One time i spent more than 1 hour in a shrine i already solved, just too find a different solution that may or may not exist aaaand... i didn't find one. Didn't matter, just thinking about it was SO fun and the game encourages that. I love that

[@pkaz12345]

I would say the ONE exception I’ve seen to this thus far is bomb arrows being able to activate those big shrine pressure plates. That feels like you can dodge the lessons they want to teach you on occasion

[@shadowflamelightburst4503]

There’s one shrine which you can even bomb arrow the back of the button and still activate it, it’s honestly hilarious

[@drrigel63]

I found another way to cheese it, I hover the balls with ultrahand to big plates and then use recall 💀 I thought this was intended before I cheesed 3 or so shrines and was like yep. I'm cheesing

[@rainydeestar]

It's incredible because I prefer doing things the intended way, except on certain sections where I really hate what's asked of me, and the game just allows me to "cheat". It makes the experience so much better

[@crytalfactory]

Thats a perfect summary of totk, any cheating you can do is intended. Its phenomenal

[@Muhahahahaz]

5:41 This is definitely one of my problems with TOTK. The puzzles are NOT Zelda puzzles Zelda puzzles are supposed to be closed-ended logic puzzles that are difficult to figure out, and you actually feel clever and a sense of satisfaction after doing so Being able to slap a pile of random garbage together is the exact opposite of that. It doesn’t matter how crappy my device or structure is, as long as it fails to fail. I’ll also never use it again outside of that Shrine. Literally nothing matters or has any significance in this game, and ultimately the so-called puzzles are not satisfying

[@treyslider6954]

Fun fact: the spot where you had the two blocks and tried to climb up was the place where I figured out how to use reversal as an elevator. Additionally, it's where I figured out how to use 2 blocks in tandem to elevator my elevator (use one block as a normal lift, and then grab the second block while riding the first one for extra height. In theory this should work with hopping on the second one to create a new height for the 3rd, but I didn't bother because if the object is that high might as well just print a double-spring.