What could the next Zelda game learn from Elden Ring?

[@TheBradleyBliss]

This touched on something I realized we need around dungeons. Dungeons should be these cool places that are discoverable rather than always the same plot point of having to go to a village like zoras domain and then dungeon

[@triforcetimes]

100% agree, dungeons in TOTK became predictable and repetitive

[@SuperSikarlo]

Its the other way around.

[@triforcetimes]

Why's that?

[@gu3z185]

Imagine how much better BoTW or ToTK could have been if they had horses control like Torrent in Elden Ring, and if they had even half as much enemy variety, or imagine how interesting the world would have been if there was even a little bit of minor lore sprinkled throughout the many ruins on the surface. Even if you think Elden Ring is not as good of a game, the lessons that can be learned from another don't have anything to do with arbitrary qualities. Different games do things better, and we should always encourage them to improve instead of pretending they're perfect.

[@vianabdullah2837]

I'd like to see Zelda learn a few things from another Nintendo franchise, Xenoblade, Its developers are already acting as support for Nintendo on recent titles, and I'd like to see certain features carry over carry over. - Consistent voice acting. Don't have only a few lines be fully voice-acted and the rest of the information are delivered through grunts. Hire actual British VAs rather than make Americans do fake posh accents - Unique or "alien" looking environments. Experiment more with different biomes that aren't just grassy plains, the depths was already a step in the right direction - More interesting map design. Every Zelda game seems to follow a similar format of a central town in the middle and every region extending from it like a compass. It'd be a nice change of pace if only some regions were connected to one another. Like if you want to reach a city, you'd have to traverse through a swamp region and a forest region in that particular order.

[@triforcetimes]

this makes a lot of sense, I love these ideas

[@firmanawd]

I'm new fan to Zelda games. I've played BotW, TotK and Elden Ring. I agreed with your suggetions, would love to see better dungeons, variety of weapons that doesn't break, more enemy types and reduce the player's way to explore to some extent, so the player not just skipping away the environment. But I'd like to see, they still bring the charm and goofiness of Link to the next game.

[@triforcetimes]

oh you're absolutely right, we wouldn't want to lose the heart of zelda games

[@matheusdalbem6605]

"In Tears of The Kingdom I could build a simple Zonai machine and fly wherever I wanted" You also could not do that, the game is perfectly fine and enjoyable if you don't. I never see that being mentioned in those sorts of videos, as if building a Zonai machine is mandatory, or if the game allows you to do that in an early stage. You literally NEED to do ground exploration to loot, upgrade sets, progress the main story, do the damned side-quests if you want to, find caves, etc. Most of the content is on the ground and it is not like you can build a machine and use it to skip exploration early on, you get that ability after... well, after you collect materials on the ground. And to be fair, TOTK is still a very popular Zelda game, and funny enough, in many non-Zelda centered spaces. The only places I see people actually trashing it are on Zelda KZbin channels and in discussion spaces with "traditional" Zelda fans. Average player does not care about any of the complaints lol.

[@triforcetimes]

TOTK is arguably one of the best games of all time, however there's a few things that really didn't work out with it. A great series can always iterate and improve

[@gu3z185]

ToTK is an open game with minimal game design. It's a game that doesn't care. One of my favorite games of all time is Metroid Zero Mission. That game is very open ended in the order that you can do the areas in, but it's a guided experience that impress you by showing how much the developer thought about what they were making. ToTK is the exact opposite of this. It's so open ended in the opposite way that instead of commanding respect, it turns me off from the whole experience. Every single shrine that centers around hitting a target with a Boulder can be skipped by shooting it. Every shrine centered around elevation can be skipped with a rocket shield. And so, why wouldn't you do the easy way? Why do any side quest content if they don't give heart pieces anymore? Why walk around the world looking for caves when you stop getting rewards after like 50 bubbul gems? Why explore for shrines when the lightroots tell you exactly where all of them are? In most previous Zelda games, the only time the game recognized your actions was when it was rewarding you or guiding you, and that's how it should be. Instead, games like ToTK enjoy wasting people's time by not giving a reason to play in a fun way. They should have made a more condensed world where everything was of a good quality with rewards that felt meaningful. Instead, they decided to make a game that's way too long for the amount of good content that's actually in the game. The recycled main story cutscenes are insulting enough, but I disagree with the basic principles of game design used in this game.

[@gu3z185]

Also, there are so many cool designs for stuff you can make with auto build, but all of them are completely useless compared to two fans glued onto a steering stick. Every other method of travel is worse, and infinitely more expensive, in a game where Zonaite is relatively rare. The game punished me for using anything else, and I realized that when my fanplane just decided to disappear before even using half of my battery. The game doesn't think things out as much as it should have, and it being "open" isn't a good excuse.

[@edselgreaves6503]

Teleporting away from a boss battle is VERY IMPORTANT. Its an evolution of gameplay mechanics that frankly should have been implemented YEARS earlier. It gives the player control and establishes trust between us and the developers with them saying "We know you'll come back when you feel ready." I dont want to be stuck dying over and over again because theres nowhere to go.

[@triforcetimes]

I strongly disagree with this

[@firmanawd]

But in Elden Ring you do not stuck. Can't defeat Margit? Your character just need to die then you can go some where else to defeat weaker enemies or other easier bosses. You can find better weapons or level up. Then "you can come back when you feel ready". I think that the difference between Elden Ring to other Fromsoft souls games.

[@Luxembourgish]

Just make it medieval again. Zelda is not about modern motorcycles or futuristic space ships.

[@triforcetimes]

Agreed 💯

[@Sly88Frye]

The legend of Zelda series can learn a few things but it teaches so much. This is also protection against the all annoying "first"

[@triforcetimes]

For sure, it's inspired so many

[@ZeldaLore]

Rolling to avoid attacks and healing via flasks (potions/elixirs) is such an easy thing they could re-implement to the series to improve combat significantly. The controls in BOTW are almost the same as those of Elden Ring, Dark Souls... down to how the Dpad works, having Up be the runes (spells in ER), Right be Weapons (Right hand Armament in ER), and Left be Shields (Left Hand Armament in ER). Down in BOTW/TOTK is for whistling, while in ER it is used for items such as flasks. Rolling can be implemented as simply as tapping the sprint button to roll, and hold it to sprint, exactly as ER, and then depending on the direction you move while targetting, you roll forwards, sideways... This allows them to make more agressive monsters, increase the difficulty a bit more. They can improve weapon equipping to be able to equip the same things on either left and right hand slots (for example, dual wielding swords, dual wielding shields...) or even allow for one hand or two handed stances (It boggles my mind tha Link is SEEN changing stances from one handed to two handed sword wielding when training in that one cinematic with Zelda in the rain, yet we never get to do that in the gameplay). But what I NEED them to keep, is narrative structure and progression. EOW is a great example of how to marry the traditional linear storytelling, with the open exploration and mechanical freedom of these newer titles. One does not excuse the absence of the other. What TOTK did with its narrative is abysmal and inexcusible, specially when the main plot revolves around a mystery that is instantly spoiled by fragmented memories that even spoil themselves, and no one reacts to your findings except for Impa, who is the only person Link decides to tell (and all this, all the plot, dungeons, quests... all are rendered irrelevant and not even worth doing if you can go straight to the final boss from the start of the game with the outcome being the same if you do the rest or not. A good or bad ending would at least excuse this, like having Zelda remain as a dragon in the bad ending, and saving her in the good ending. But a story needs structure. there is no buildup to the finale whatsoever). You can have a story as intricate, engaging and linear as Twilight Princess (Mind you it would have to be segmented into story arcs, with sub-story arcs that can be completed in any order, exactly like EOW did by allowing you to choose which dungeons to do first), while simultaneously have the freedom of exploration and experimentation that BOTW introduced with its gameplay (which goes back to the "choosing your path" I mentioned before) ER doesnt let you go to the Elden Beast from the start of the game. there are bosses and locations you need to go to first, steps you need to take to get to that finale, and optional paths that unlock different endings too. Zelda needs this desperately.

[@triforcetimes]

Thanks for checking it out Zelda Lore

[@triforcetimes]

I do like the idea of improving the weapon selection. Botw felt better in combat for me. While TOTK overall was objectively better, the combat was too stop-start. Something like the dpad (or another mechanism to swap weapons) would be a nice improvement

[@vitormoraes8320]

@@ZeldaLore rolling with I frames is very lazy, and gets old fast. Ocarina and Botw already do it right and makr you look stylish with backflips, parries and side flips, from software combat formula has its strengths, specially with how it rewards us for memorization and dexterity, but its janky slow paced mechanics are not the way to go. Zelda is quite fast paced at times and I like it that way.

[@ZeldaLore]

@vitormoraes8320 same can be said about flurry rushes. If I have to choose between dodging and maintaining the flow of combat, or dodging and stopping the flow of combat completely, I'll go with maintaining the flow

[@vitormoraes8320]

@@ZeldaLore we can get rid of that, I also think flurry rushes are cheap and add little to combat

[@isuckatnames6033]

What the game and combat lack the most is difficulty customization. "Press pause to heal" and other overpowered options definitely should be retained as accessibility features, but PLEASE let me turn them off! I want the option to make flurry rush timing stricter, to make bullet time ravage my stamina wheel even more so that BotW while only slowing down time half as much, to have enemy health scale to the best weapons in my inventory, etc.

[@triforcetimes]

great ideas here, thank you

[@mkjjoe]

Overall I pretty much agree 👍 On difficulty I also prefer the static enemy levels. The open setting leaves plenty of room to vary that level per area, main quest points but also optional challenges that can be tough as hell and not block anyone. Open world means the player should be able to go in any direction, but it's ok if they face a wall from time to time, it's an incentive to get stronger and come back, or just try something else. Even TOTK shows they had that thought in the back of their minds sometimes, but they forced themselves to keep everything equivalent in all directions _in theory._ That ties into how I wish the main progression was more defined beyond an optional non-linear main quest. Keep the ability to reach the final boss with mind-numbing difficulty if you want, leave the choice to go in a few directions at each stage, but put more obvious story beats on the path with a clear before and after for everyone involved. TOTK somewhat does that with each local crisis but it felt superficial with essentially no story pay-off. That wouldn't prevent the player from going in any direction for secondary content at all times. It's ok if some quests have conditions, ER sometimes had weird ways to lock you out of certain quests or items (hello Sanctified Whetblade in Leyndell) but at least most actions felt impactful on the world and characters _during_ the playthrough (not just implied from the intro or in the finale). 6:57 I loved the wildlife interactions in BOTW, which TOTK sort of left aside. If they're going to commit I'd like to tame more than just horses. And whenever we'll revisit the skies (please Zelda team don't consider you're done with the concept, sky islands were clearly undercooked), we can't skip descendants of the Loftwings again... we must have that in an open world some day. 9:45 I didn't mind durability in BOTW, I thought it _actually_ encouraged variation and I liked the flow of breaking something against enemies an stealing their stuff, but it _did_ break too often. Lots of people asked for a proper blacksmith but in the traditional sense it would just mean more interruptions. Lowering the frequency could go a long way and I believe there was a rather popular mod that simply gave x2 or x3 the official durability to all weapons. In TOTK Fuse was fun but it didn't address durability unlike what a lot of people say. It added extra management since materials matter, fusing requires input, and only pristine weapons can really last longer which requires grinding in the Depths. I do like that fusing itself is a physical interaction, but selecting a material and un-fusing add to menu clutter. Weirdly enough the quick weapon menu was slower than BOTW, I believe because it had to render the combination of fused models on the fly. That really bothered me since horizontal menus already aren't good. I think a better system would have durability by default, but we'd have to work to upgrade specific traits of weapons we like: more durable, more powerful, side effects, etc. It doesn't have to be too deep but along with an overhaul of the food / elixir / armor effect systems, there's a better way to balance all that. Some weapons can also be overpowered if we go back to my wish for more defined progression: if we get the Master Sword later in the game, it's ok if it doesn't break, the player will know by then what works best for them. That doesn't prevent from using anything else if the player finds it fun.

[@brightya]

The thing for the next Zelda to learn is making it challenging but not as the tedious way that Elden Ring did.

[@nickcampbell6387]

They could have unbreakable weapons and still inspire exploration. Use the fuse mechanic to fuse weapons of the same kind to gradually upgrade the weapon of choice with the limited numbers of that weapon type, there's alot you could do with that to keep it interesting for the player throughout the whole game.

[@hododod246]

They just need to dungeons and it is good to go. They can ignore the rest of the whining from community like item progression or lore continuity. If they fix the dungeons 98% of core Zelda community will be happy

[@triforcetimes]

dungeons should be a priority

[@michaelashby9654]

TOTK has a beauty to its world particularly in the sky islands that I find unique (though I am NOT a gamer and my experience is very limited). Are there other games like TOTK that can match its mood (music, sound design, lighting, etc). I find the vibe of TOTK to be its most remarkable aspect. I haven't played Elden Ring but from what I see here that doesn't seem to be part of the deal. I do agree about the dungeons and I think the way to describe what a good dungeon is to be a useful description. From what I see in TOTK it does not seem that this was a focus. It feels like the mood was a big part of the focus and they really did an amazing job. I would be happy if the next TOTK/BOTW on Switch2 was more of TOTK with more permanent building capability (I'd like to be able to build permanent structures in the sky island) and have dungeons as you described. I do not feel they need to reinvent that wheel, just expand it at higher resolution and better frame rate. But again, I'm not a gamer.

[@triforcetimes]

The Outer Wilds is very good. Also, I made a guide for games like zelda kzbin.info/www/bejne/mauTnWqimpWMabs

[@gu3z185]

Elden Ring is a lot more artful in its story as well as its mood, and it's a game with much more complex settings and themes beyond what modern Zelda is able to put to paper. Even though the lore, compared to previous entrees in the family of games Elden Ring is apart of, is a minor focus, and even basic presentation is not an area of development that got very much attention, it's still miles ahead of ToTK because of how much it learned from other games. It's fascinatingly iterative. Nintendo, for better of for for worse, refuses to rip off ideas from other games that do things better, even if those games are ones they've made in the past. I enjoyed BoTW and ToTK, but not nearly as much as Elden Ring or the N64 Zelda games, and even though they're polished and finished games, they're not striving for perfection like they used to. They're settling for what sells.

[@alxgrcs]

I really enjoyed your video and the point about the target audience for Zelda games. However, I believe you may have overlooked the fact that Nintendo is a family-oriented company and has always been. Their games, including the Zelda franchise, are meant to be accessible to all ages, especially teenagers. This is what has kept the fan base growing with each new release, as new generations are able to enjoy the games.

[@triforcetimes]

you are right, zelda is family friendly. However, I do think Nintendo could push their audience a little more. I've seen kids play elden ring, and beat crazy bosses :D

[@ddripgod6965]

No more pause to refill your health keep the action going

[@triforcetimes]

indeed

[@isuckatnames6033]

It should remain as an accessibility option but it should be turned off by default/after the tutorial section.

[@hododod246]

Exploration on totk is 10 times better than Elden Ring. Exploration in totk is unmatched.

[@triforcetimes]

I dunno about that assessment tbh

[@jameslowell9656]

Lol

[@hododod246]

@@triforcetimes When you finish limgrave, basically you are done with the game and you saw everything game can offer. Each area has one dungeons, some catacombs, some mines to collect stone, same copy paste dragon, same copy paste night bosses, same minor erdtree with its boss, same troll convoy with a weapon, same soldiers with different color like bokoblins, same mage towers. Each area has exact same template. Elden Ring has massive issues in terms of exploration. DLC breaks the template but this time you have massive areas with nothing. Complete barren areas.

[@gu3z185]

​@@hododod246I agree about the DLC, but Elden Ring has minor caves and elevators that lead to completely different areas with unique bosses and mechanics. ToTK is extremely safe compared to Elden Ring. The only thing I found that even slightly surprised me, except for the depths, was Malanya. Finding the lake of Rot was one thing, then going under Limgrave, finding the really cool catacombs where ghosts eternally fight each other, and also finding Mohg... All of those things require exploration to find, and they're incredible. Exploring in ToTK will get you a korok seed and a bubbul gem, and if you're lucky, an empty blessing shrine or a big horse. Anything cool is already marked out on the map. There's no comparison when it comes to ER's rewards for exploration.

[@hododod246]

@@gu3z185 You totk haters just saying stuff that are not true about game just to shit on it. Basically "anything cool is already marked out on the map" is not true. Most of the time game give you very generic direction or description or riddle and ask you to figure stuff out. For example in one quest game want you to find a door inside a cave and whistle. Game doesn't tell neither where that cave it is not whistle to you. You need to figure it out yourself. Or in another quest game want to to find two cave facing each other and one cave has a puzzle and the other cave has the solution. And you need to figure out all of these from riddle. For the master koga questline there is no marker at all. You need to follow statues in the dark. You need to figure out how to go korok forest. In fact botw is the game that removed all the markers and everything from the map to begin with. Elden Ring just followed botw as template. Also which unique bosses are you talking about in Elden Ring? All the bosses at catacombs, caves, and mines are normal enemies with boss health bar. Game has around 240 bosses and only 15 remembrance bosses are unique. Rest is just copy paste. And this is a game about fighting with bosses. It is the entire identity of entire Fromsoftware. So what do you get for exploring? Normal enemy with a health bar or an item/spell/weapon/magic/ash of war/summon you will never use for your build. Also Elden ring also puts markers as well. For the entire Volcano Manor questline, all of your targets are at your map. Once you kill Morgott, Melina put a marker on your map. Graces shows you the direction you need to go. Only chaos ending questline and how to undo that is very cryptic. Rest is super easy to follow and game giving you lots of directions.

[@vitormoraes8320]

Combatwise I dont know what zelda could pick from elden ring, i prefer zelda to be on the action-side of things( i.e like Peco and japanese botw players do in combat montages), with its action cancelling mechanics, techs and more fast paced like bayonetta /devil may cry than slow paced like from software titles. I simply cant stand the long ass animations, the huge waiting times between inputting an action and watching it happen, and also I cant stand the floaty animations that from software puts in their games.

[@triforcetimes]

I see what you're saying. The flow of combat for me was broken in TOTK. Just going into the menu all the time, that made combat feel off for me. BOTW felt better IMO

[@vitormoraes8320]

@triforcetimes me too. I want non intrusive menus, so that I can combo while keeping the flow

[@keithspringston9283]

I have elden ring and both Zelda games. Totk is the best out of the 3. Botw is at #2.

[@triforcetimes]

Why is TOTK the best?

[@Gabeora]

Mac hype

[@triforcetimes]

Woop

[@painuchiha2694]

I really like the new Elden ring spin-off I really think Nintendo could have done a multiplayer botw spinoff similar to that made by another studio instead of making totk. So Zelda team would have an entire generation to work on switch 2 Zelda. But because of totk it’s unlikely we get a next gen Zelda for a long time. Fromsoft made elden ring and a dlc in a new map and now a spinoff all extremely fast, they really are outpacing Zelda team imo. I’m hopeful for the Zelda series on switch 2 but I’m also slightly concerned about development time extending. With new hardware they will surprise us for sure

[@triforcetimes]

Multiplayer Zelda? Yes please

[@sacredgeometry]

BOTW/ TOTKs weapon system absolutely ruined those two games for me. Apart from micro-transactions and adverts, item degradation is worst game mechanic to ever pollute gaming. Its a game its not a job. I dont want to have to maintain weapons. I certainly dont want to be too scared to use them because there is limited stock of them in the game. Its an utteterly shit mechanic and its embarrassing for a company like Nintendo to have added it to their games which are historically far better than that easy compromise nonsense.

[@triforcetimes]

the idea is to promote exploration

[@sacredgeometry]

@ And it doesnt work, in fact elden ring is the game I explored most out of all games I have played since 1986 and doesn't have that mechanic. If it did I wouldnt have.

[@chinmaypanse2528]

The Zelda games are much much better than Elden Ring lol

[@triforcetimes]

that may be true, but Zelda can always learn a few things

[@meadoggy5361]

why do u sound so much like the caretaker from hogwarts legacy

[@triforcetimes]

english accent?

[@meadoggy5361]

@@triforcetimes maybe

[@Xivinux]

Elden Ring needs to learn from Zelda. Hyrule is so much more of a believeable world than Elden Ring. I do have more hours pumped into Elden Ring, but Hyrule is a special place for me

[@triforcetimes]

Hyrule is a special place, I would agree with that. I'd argue Elden Ring did learn a lot from BOTW, but the zelda series can always learn and evolve to get better

[@Ant_370]

You mean what Eldin Ring can learn from Zelda 😑

[@triforcetimes]

We already know this

[@DylanBlanko]

I personally consider Elden Ring a Zelda game in its own right and the true successor to the series. BotW and TotK are not Zelda games

[@triforcetimes]

So much of this statement is hilarious

[@hododod246]

If Aonuma says that they are Zelda games then they are Zelda games. Your opinion is worthless. Souls games are very different than zelda games.

[@COFFEEBREAKRACING]

I don’t understand, How is possible that a game like Zelda BOW and TOK, who have sold a combined of 50 million copies should learn something from Elden Ring? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? How is possible that a legendary franchise as Zelda has to learn something from Elden Ring? BOW and TOK have received better reviews and have sold more copies than Elden Ring, that says a lot, especially considering that Elden ring is a multiplatform game. PlayStation fanboys don’t care much about Elden Ring either, their exclusives like God of War and the Last of Us always sell better than Elden Ring. There is too much hype around Elden Ring but not much evidence to prove its greatness.

[@triforcetimes]

you can always learn something new, however, successful you are. Interest in TOTK dropped off very quickly, as did the sales, where as Elden Ring has only grown since release. Elden Ring DID learn a lot from BOTW, but I don't think closing yourself off to feedback is a good idea, thats a quick way to kill the franchise.

[@ZeldaLore]

Sales numbers don´t mean anything. BOTW sold a lot because A) Its Zelda, the name sells, B) it was a new take on Zelda, which gave people interest to see what they were going to do with it, and C) it released alongside their new system, the Switch, which was revolutionary, and of course people would buy it with the only major and greatly anticipated game on the system. BOTW was well received, and while it had flaws, people expected them to be a one time thing which would be improved in the future. When the sequel was announced, specially with that darker tone and more story focused intro, people expected a more narrative focused game, and for the flaws from BOTW to be fixed. that game was going to sell millions no matter the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, they doubled down on every flaw from BOTW, which is why there was such a dropoff in interest on the game, and why so many people criticise the game so viciously, myself included. Sales numbers don´t mean a product is perfect. A bad product can have ingenious marketing (look no further than scam products), and the same is true in the inverse, great product can have terrible marketing and have terrible sales numbers. Nintendo has great marketing.

[@COFFEEBREAKRACING]

@@triforcetimes I don’t understand, how can you claim that Interest in TOK dropped very quickly? What evidence have you got for this? TOK was nominated as game of the year and sold 20 million copies. Elden Ring has barely sold 3.5 million copies on the PS5, what makes you believe that Elden Ring has to teach something to Zelda, the most legendary franchise in gaming history. I don’t get this?

[@vitormoraes8320]

@@COFFEEBREAKRACING elden ring actually learned from Botw, as said by miyazaki.

[@joaoluizkfsantos8392]

​@@COFFEEBREAKRACING TotK was nominated for game of the year, ER won it. Counting only PlayStation sales is disingenuous also, just makes you sound biased. On the topic of TGA, Fromsoft is the only studio to have won the main award twice. Zelda might be the most legendary series of history, but Fromsoft is the studio gold standard of today, many series have stuff you learn from them.

[@rinas6550]

NOTHING, please god NOTHING!!!! Zelda is a much more enjoyable game than Elden ring.

[@triforcetimes]

why didn't you like elden ring?

[@rinas6550]

@ imperceptible “story,” ridiculous difficulty spikes every 5 minutes, ugly sad monotonous world, and it requires extremely fast combat skills but the frame rate is almost never stable. Can’t do online to get some help without some random fucking ass hole also coming in to kill you either. It’s just not fun for people who have jobs and don’t want to sink 15 hours into learning how to play it.

[@randychristensen1028]

​@@rinas6550sounds like a skill issue

[@rinqitheone1185]

Saying Zelda should learn from Elden Rings exploration is just wrong💀

[@triforcetimes]

Why?

[@rinqitheone1185]

There‘s no game with better traversing than TotK, being able to run, ride, climb, reversing falling objects, building zonai vehicles, ascend and so on. Your reasoning for Elden Rings „superior“ exploration is the exacly same reason why i find BotW/TotK makes it better. There is often moments in Elden Ring with its beautiful world where i think:“dammn, if it only was Zelda, where u can move more freely“. Farum Azula for example, wouldnt it be sick as fuck, the same map being in TotK, it would be a reallly good Sky Island. I think you could‘ve bring a more valid point into this comparison, which I then would‘ve agreed with you, and that is the reward in exploring. In Zelda its more like „It's not the destination, it's the journey that counts“, which i just told before, Zelda has a great traversing, but the rewards in itself isnt as satisfying as in Elden Ring when you find a new talisman. With all that, i dont want to discredit Elden Ring because oh boy this game is an absolutely blast, the world is so beautiful and big. But somehow i still had more fun with TotK, i like it more when you can travel the world more freely.

[@gu3z185]

​@@rinqitheone1185 One of the problems I had with ToTK was that the journey always felt the same. Being able to construct a flying machine to take me right to a shrine I see in the distance saves so much time and it's an interesting mechanic, but it makes every journey the same. Combined with every destination being one of a few rewards, it makes for a less satisfying gameplay loop than BoTW or ToTK. My ideal Zelda game would be a smaller version of the BoTW map with more in depth lore and a story that actually happens in the present. In a game as long as ToTK, the journey will eventually stop being better than the destination.