Why does everyone HATE Zelda Tears of the Kingdom now!?!

[@JetterTrender]

⚠PLEASE READ!!!⚠ Hello! Okay so before anyone who might feel upset by this video decides to leave a rather nasty or rude comment please read this first. 1- This video is not made to slander TOTK but rather made to focus on the sudden influx of hate/disappointment towards it 2- This is not a dive into my own personal views of the game, yes I did make statements about how I agree with specific sentiments but the wording in the video mainly focused on the fans who disliked TOTK or are disappointed by it, if you want to harp on my own personal opinions then might I direct you to the deep dive I did where I actually give my thoughts in an organized way kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIOcaZWHe9ymkLc 3- For anyone who feels that this video is unfounded or believes that I am making this topic up for the fun of it to gain views then might I direct you to the following videos that have been made in the past year, keep in mind the KZbin algorithm shows you videos you personally would be interested in so its very likely you haven't seen these videos or you may have just glossed over and never noticed. - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gH_caWSnqpp3eMk - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpqsl6F9Zr2HicU - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJSseXxmmNyim8k - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5rEmZKef7mroLM - kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqbRfKqGhrKihaM - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2LQg4mkZbx2qLc ( These are all channels above the 10k, 100k, and 500k marks, channels with major fanbases that have gained lots of views, and all these videos are made in the past year ) 4- I will admit that I should have taken the time to focus on the many good aspects of both TOTK and BOTW, it was not my intention to make this video feel like a hate train with nothing but negative takes, at the end of the day BOTW and TOTK are both fantastic games with incredibly tight design, but as far as Zelda games go, they do fall short in some areas IN MY OPINION. If you loves these games that's fantastic! And if you don't agree with my or other peoples takes well that's also great! nobody can take the way you feel about these games away from you so please be respectful of the opinions of others, there is no point being rude and getting all offended about a game that features and elf boy who runs around and breaks pots lmao 5- and finally, the ending bit of the video was a shock value joke lmao, don't take it to seriously At the end of the day this video was made for entertainment and in the name of fun, nothing more, nothing less. I just wanted to focused on a topic that interest me that is currently trending so please bear that in mind before commenting, anywho! Thank you for reading and have a fantastic day!!

[@scarmucci1918]

6 - So-called Zelda fanboys are idiots.

[@Kittzu]

You can probably see why there isn't as much of it as there should be, fans of it for some reason are unhinged enough to insult, threaten and even wish death upon critics openly. I was there on different forums talking about it as early as week prior when the leak dropped, I've seen, heard and experienced it all.

[@dice5709]

Never, never apologize to them. You said what you said and if those glazers can't take it, they can just go cry somewhere. Who cares about mean comments anyway? They don't mean anything and most of the time they are written by some 10 yo, especially because they are Zelda fans. I think Zelda fans that joined with botw shouldn't even talk about what a good Zelda is, instead they should atleast play one older Zelda title. Otherwise, what they say holds no meaning.

[@slyguy8943]

My guy, I've never seen your channel before but it popped up in my feed today. If you're going to list sources, mention it in the video and put the links in the description. Use clips from those videos to prove you aren't lying. Afterwards, don't apologize the the unhinged twitter lunatics giving you hate. Your video quality, your enthusiasm, and the entire presentation is incredibly professional. I will subscrube.

[@thesleepyswordsman_2265]

i get that but why are people still making a big deal abt this when they're getting new games that are like the old ones they want so much. like you got what you wanted now you're complaining just to complain like don't try to ruin it for everyone else.

[@tunt8189]

Funny how people of Hyrule just refuse to remember Link even after he singlehandedly resolved world threatening problems

[@johnhoran9840]

That's my complaint. How do you forget the guy who saved the world?

[@christianpickhardt4105]

@@johnhoran9840 Because most of the denizens of Hyrule legit don't know you, haven't heard of you, or in some cases just straight up forgot. It sounds absurd, but Link does ALOT, like, the VAST majority of things to save Hyrule, with no witnesses around, and this is actually a subtle theme throughout the whole series: A hero destined to save the world, living forever in the shroud of obscurity, as Midna puts it directly to you in Twilight Princess. Hyrule's technology and communication are more sophisticated than in real-life medieval ages, but they're comparable. Stories don't get around and the ones that do get telephone-gamed into meaning nothing. The hero's action changes. The hero's IDENTITIY changes. He's a child, he's a man, he's a kokiri, he's a fairy, he's a wolf, he's a rabbit from the sacred realm, he's whatever your grandpa told you by the fire. A "legend" in the absolute truest sense of the word.

[@johnhoran9840]

@@christianpickhardt4105 I like what you did there.

[@danielgammo]

​@@christianpickhardt4105 in a world where newspapers exist, no one knows because no one can know. Except they can, he defeated Ganon and it's very obvious to not seen Ganon around hyrule castle. No one thought to do a story? Even people link met in Botw don't remember him. What you said is nintendos excuse for a wacky game design policy

[@christianpickhardt4105]

@@danielgammo What the fuck are you even talking about? Literally even in the modern day with communication tech being all pervasive the average joe has no CLUE about the vast majority of major world events that even directly affect them, so you're REALLY plucking at straws with "bUt ThErE's NeWsPaPeRs" lmfao. This also assumes everyone in Hyrule can read, which is honestly WAY less likely than you think it is given the real-life era Zelda is mostly based on. Who saw him defeat Ganon? Only Zelda, in an abandoned field no one goes because it's riddled with murder-mechs. So, in TotK, only the people around and involved in Central Hyrule's politics and the Castle know, and the games reflect this exactly. Word hasn't spread and when word DOES spread in the Zelda universe it's a literal game of telephone where details are either completely lost or twisted. Sacred "Triforks" from Wind Waker is a great example. "No one thought to do a story" Kass probably sings about it, and bards embellish stuff. Y'know, *like in legends*. There are certainly *portions* of the game that don't handle this well, and a save-file checking system like in Witcher 3 should have been implemented, but they are very brief instances that don't at all ruin the idea and frankly it just IS more realistic than the assumed (and super boring) alternative where you're constantly lauded as a hero, something Link has clearly never strived for in the series, ever, as a matter of thematic routine. Now, everyone pretending the Divine Beasts never existed, and them being nowhere to be found? Yes. Genuine plothole, or plot"gap" to be more precise. But the rest of this just works, and makes sense.

[@cheke_hs]

_”The Internet can tend to be an echo chamber of sorts.”_ -Masahiro Sakurai

[@festivepapa5573]

I’m old enough to remember that people hated twilight princess and now everyone loves it

[@JakeYolk]

Thats like half of the zelda fanbase for u lol, they hate every new game because it's too "different", and then they praise it a decade later

[@JakeYolk]

^ This happened with Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword

[@thebluerodriguez4085]

​@@JakeYolkTbf OG wind waker has the triforce collection wich was a pain in the ass at the point even Nintendo fixed it later. So there is at least a fair point to people hate in it. Besides the vast empty sea, Wich some would say "why you make your game that big if there's nothing to do there" Plus the expectations left by OOT on the art style, honestly who thought it would be a good idea to completely flip the aesthetics when people were praising Oot looks. Like, now we don't give a F, but i can totally see why people could get disappointed.

[@thebluerodriguez4085]

Not even close, there's crystal clear reasons why people don't like it and you can see all of them if you want, in the past we can just get through mouth to mouth opinions and have 0 consensus about it. Like, it's totally at will if you want to blame on a "phenomenon" instead of actually hear why.

[@JakeYolk]

@@thebluerodriguez4085 yeah but a lot of zelda fans will just look for the things they dont like instead of what the game does right

[@CurrentlyDuck1]

I don't hate it. The gameplay was fun, minus some strange decisions. I'm just disappointed with the disregard for established lore, and the stagnant story.

[@icetea3595]

Couldn't have said it better.

[@lolilll]

​@@icetea3595what was wrong with the story the end boss was way better than BOTW right?

[@d3va383]

@@lolilllThe boss fights and dungeons were much better, but the boss fights and dungeons in BOTW couldn’t be worst. The problem with TOTK is that it doesn’t pick a direction and everything is just mid. The world is mid because it’s recycled and the new areas are empty, the dungeons are mid aside from the lightning temple, the ultrahand is janky and even tho it’s meant to be free it’s actually a bit restrictive, enemies are mid they have fun AI but there’s no variety, puzzles are mid they’re way too open and easy, combat is mid and repetitive, the story is good but the execution is terrible so it’s mid, the bosses are good asf but you refight them so damn often. They don’t really fixate on a specific thing to build their game around. They try to be a combat game, a story centric game, a puzzle centric game and an open world sandbox all at the same time. They don’t pick a direction so everything they’ve done just doesn’t hit. BOTW focused on exploration and even tho there was a lot of repetitiveness there was a shit ton of lore on top of the repetitive shit like the shrines and koroks to reward exploration. Lore in TOTK is so fucking hidden that makes it nearly impossible for content creators to make theory videos. Quality gameplay/challenge videos are a lot more difficult to make because they require so much skill with glitches and ultrahand builds. The game has no longevity even tho it is so fucking fun to play.

[@lolilll]

@@d3va383 I disagree with modt of what u said i guess agree to disagree

[@d3va383]

@@lolilll na can you expand cuz I wanna see your pov. The first playthrough of TOTK to me was the best gaming experience in the moment I’ve ever had. But after playing it again I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much and saw how it’s probably the Zelda game with the most flaws (not close to the worst Zelda game, but for sure the one with the most flaws in terms of sheer number)

[@mikeoxlong3676]

I said on reddit that people would turn on this game once the duplication glitch was patched because the upgrading process was such a chore. I got downvoted to hell at the time. Feels good to be right.

[@trza49er]

Solid point. The thing is, it also sucked using the dupe glitch. Felt cheap and unrewarding, but like you said, the alternative was such a grind. Seems like there could have been some middle ground to settle on in development.

[@BrownMan-gg7dx]

Hated for the truth huh?

[@torkicks2670]

you post on reddit so you're wrong by default

[@BrianJonez-v8n]

@@trza49erI would rather just play the game how it is breath is kinda bland compared to this tho like not finna lie breath just bland now

[@Hadoriseternal]

😂​@@torkicks2670

[@Chubby_Bub]

Despite their similarities, I don't think BotW and TotK are interchangeable. They're both good, but in my opinion the first was a lot more well-rounded as a whole, and if someone new had to pick only one I would 100% say to play BotW. I don't think TotK is a "bad game", nor is BotW perfect, but I think the sequel has a lot more flaws that stand out.

[@LeFizolof]

I 100% agree with you. The experience of BotW is more consistent, from a worldbuilding to a game experience PoV. And while TotK highs are highers, its lows are lower. I believe that's why there is so much hate, or at least contreversy. When you don't see anything good in a game you just ignore it. But when a game has extremly good segment with evident flaws in the middle it becomes frustrating. Take Star Wars VII to IX as a example. I find them so bad I have no issue ignoring them in the Star Wars lore. But TotK is in this frustrating middle area where I don't completly like it but I don't fully dislike it. For me (and me only, you can agree or not), TotK is just another Zelda game at the same level of any other, it's not a direct sequel. That's the way that allow me to not be frustrated. (I see the global Zelda lore as a single legend, which has been deformed over time.)

[@BrownMan-gg7dx]

I agree but tears has the ability to craft power weapons if you find requirements. B.o.t.w just had standard set items. That's really the only thing that would push me to recommend tears more. The crafting and the fact the shrines are a lot more easier

[@emeraldeyes5319]

I absolutely agree. I think BotW is a game that unilaterally says "Yes" to the player, no matter where you wanna go and what you wanna try out, while TotK has a lot more stuff that, if found out of order, tells you to "come back once you've startet the questline" (The mines with the robot parts in the Depths, the writing you have to take a photo of, even the Paraglider). As someone who wants to play open worlds as actually open worlds, that really frustrated me. Even the story everyone says is so great can really suffer from being found out of order, which I feel is the most natural way to find it. Beyond that, TotK relies a lot on whether or not you enjoy the Ultrahand mechanic. It's so decidedly your main ability that if it's not fun for you, the game suffers strongly for it.

[@Alex95rlz]

Nah, I'd still recommend anyone to experience Tears over Breath if they only had one choice.

[@OnderHassan]

The flaws in TotK only stand out because it's impossible to recapture the magic BotW offered since we're all already familiar with the overworld. So we naturally ignored the flaws BotW had, of which there were lots of. Hence, I always advise someone getting into it fresh to play through TotK. It's a more expanded and refined experience and will likely appreciate the game a lot more.

[@Vic4vendetta]

I think the reason fans have felt this way is because there's not enough world building, in terms of the zonai, sky island, and the depths. We waited 6 years for this sequel, and a lot of the exploration in the game comes off as tedious. You even get the same amiibo gear when you explore the depths. There's rarely any new equipment.

[@nilothesage]

Tell me you didn't play the game without telling me you haven't played the game

[@Vic4vendetta]

@nilothesage I'm sure I have more hours in the game than you. Are you willing to share that info?

[@diamant_2dot0]

​@@Vic4vendettaI habe no idea what they are talking about. You said what I feel pretty much perfectly. I don't exactly know if you ment that with "worldbulding" but I have noticed a heavy decline in those theory videos everybody used to make about the old Zelda games. Where are the "whah is the forest temple?", "who built snowpeak ruin" and "what is the meaning of the ancient cistern" Videos about, idk the Wind temple, Goropolis (this is just a personal nitpick I have with the fire temple in totk but I just can't see a city in these two buildings.) or even just some less significant landmarks?

[@gabrielduquevizfraga6238]

I played 180 hours in my first save and let me tell you, you're 100% right. The Sky islands are sparse and repetitive, The overwold is mostly the same from BOTW - and since I have over 400 hours on that game, I didn't really want to see the same thing all over again, with a few crafting materials and a pothair guy trying to build a sign to change things up. And well, the Depths... copy and paste everywhere, nothing really good and fun to see and don't even start talking about the reuse of the amiibo and DLC rewards... the Depths are basically just a waste of memory.

[@aricheec7722]

@@gabrielduquevizfraga6238 to be honest the sky islands reminded me of the things i hate about otherwise good games like skyward sword and wind waker

[@jovelove2115]

Because when the haters were like “it’s just BOTW DLC” we clapped back but after finishing it, we realized they were right.

[@jovelove2115]

Also, the story could have been great but they botched it to all hell.

[@murmirr]

yeah, and they admitted it too it's so embarrassing 😭😭

[@PeruvianPotato]

I mean at least I'm actually vindicated for once because I got absolutely destroyed back then when I told people it was just DLC

[@seaofbloodredroses9940]

I hated BotW from the day I started it, and I literally got death threats for saying that it was shit

[@kap1618]

Modern gamers constantly demand freedom and despise linearity, but I have to wonder how much of that is genuine. Too much of a good thing and you become bored easily.

[@mikeoxlong3676]

Without structure it becomes overwhelming.

[@Jinni-iras17514]

Genshin impact handles this the correct way. You can explore most of the map but the main story is linear.

[@revonfyll]

Gamers think they want freedom because it sounds like a positive word and arguing against it feels like an uphill battle.

[@Jinni-iras17514]

@@revonfyll making the story non-linear was the real mistake here

[@WatsonDynamite]

the whole point of freedom is to potentiate a sense of exploration, to fuel your curiosity, but when the main map is nearly the exact same as the prequel and the two new maps are a nothingburger, there's no sense of exploration to be found

[@whereistheInternet]

My biggest problem is the Depths and Sky Islands really aren’t interesting. BOTW had a lot of world elements that left the player intrigued.

[@purefoldnz3070]

disagree, I'm enjoying them all and at 60fps.

[@purefoldnz3070]

@Stevencool77 give us an example of a good game then.

[@purefoldnz3070]

@Stevencool77 there's a lot of running around and sailing in all of those games, so please try again.

[@ZERO10989]

@Stevencool77Elden ring.

[@DanielMazahreh]

That’s because you are not good at the game and not good at exploring.

[@andyromero7321]

"Since 2017 the style has been the same" MY BROTHER IN CHRIST THERE'S ONLY 2 GAMES IN THAT STYLE did everyone forget that Majora's Mask and Ocarina of time 2 of the most praised games in the series have the same style thats just a weak argument

[@ShallBePurified]

OoT came out in 1998, MM came out in 2000, WW came out in 2002, and TP came out in 2006. The art style of OoT only lasted for 4 years until WW came out, and TP came out 4 years after WW. We've had 3 Zelda games, which I am including Age of Calamity in this, of this style from 2017 until whenever the next 3D Zelda game comes out. It's not simply the number of games, but how long in between games.

[@Its_SaberHG]

​@@ShallBePurifiedAnd those games really pushed the hardware but still ran well. Totk just looks okay but runs extremely poorly

[@HyperfixationStation]

I don't mind the style itself, but there only being 2 games doesn't change the fact that it's so very similar after 6 years of development. That's fair to be disheartened by or tired of. I loved botw (still do!) and totk is very fun! But it has more than its share of problems, some of which really break enjoyment, and it's not unfair to hold nintendo to a higher standard than they were at 6 years ago

[@ausgod538]

Irrelevant as there was only two entries.​@@ShallBePurified

[@goonballoon]

@@Its_SaberHGon my 2017 switch it runs beautifully and i use it constantly

[@personman3659]

It's not so much that people are "starting" to hate Tears of the Kingdom, but that people have had time to mentally absorb and reflect upon the game itself. When the game released, of course people were hype and happy. "New Zelda game!" Everyone wanted that. The problem came from the realization that many of the problems that existed in BotW were simply not addressed, and the things in BotW that people said "would be addressed in the sequel" simply never were. We still have so many questions, and many issues with the world. Many of the characters are bland at best, and there is so much empty wasted space. There is so much copy and pasting going on that it essentially became a game to find *new* content instead of searching through old content. Rewards are unsatisfying. The story is lackluster at *best*, and the gameplay feels like it's taken steps *backwards* instead of forwards many times. It's just saddening. That's why people "hate" the game now. It's because they've had time to reflect and go "That actually wasn't very good."

[@goonballoon]

i still do not get how people can think this way besides almost tricking themselves to. there are glaring issues in totk and it’s not perfect but it’s no where near terrible. for me in retrospect, the game is better from the reception at release. the gameplay and exploration is drastically improved but the trade off is that nothing you explore is new, which i believe enhances it rather than a whole new map (but if they replaced the depths with a new quality map that would’ve been great). very little of totk hate is actual constructive criticism, most is just a band wagon just because the game didn’t implement or include everything we wanted and is just whinging honestly. people can have opinions but the game is not objectively bad

[@personman3659]

@@goonballoon I am not claiming that the game is bad. I am claiming that the game missed a lot of potential it had for either the "safe" route or boring nothingness. People like to point out ToTK and BOTW's open worlds, yet the reality is that about 90% of your time in those worlds is just you running from point A to B with nothing in between. You do *nothing*. The story is bland. You figure it out within about an hour if you pay attention, yet you as a player are simply not allowed to interact with the world in a meaningful way. This is the same year that a game like Baldur's Gate 3 came out, which demonstrated that *yes* we do actually have game technology now which can handle player choice to a pinpoint degree. The gameplay that you mentioned has not changed. There are a couple of new gimmicks. I ask you to demonstrate any new gameplay element at all. The best you can say is that building things was shown, which doesn't actually add anything to the game because almost every zonai tech that you can make is worthless. You yourself said the depths were fairly pointless. I ask you why you are complacent in this poor design decision then? Why should a company spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours developing something people nearly unanimously agree is bad? You claim it's whinging. You provide no examples of good game design choices ToTK made. I ask you to do so.

[@flamenami]

The switch up is crazy. It’s just popular to hate on it now, you don’t need to pretend to justify it.

[@personman3659]

@@flamenami way to ignore everything I said, sheep.

[@flamenami]

@@personman3659 because you wrote a lot and said barely anything at all. Your only actual critique was a reusing of assets, which I don’t see a problem with. The story thing is subjective, and I’m gonna be honest while I agree the story wasn’t the best, anyone that says that and glazes BOTW can’t be taken seriously.

[@jusuke1980]

ive been wondering about this trend as well. i was more reluctant getting into totk last year, it wasnt doing it for me. but picked it up 3 months later and sank 120 hours and now i absolutely love it. and i started a new playthrough last week and so in my reignited hype, i started looking up YT vids of the game and noticed this huge "i hate the game now" trend. not arguing ppls opinion or anything, was just surprised to see the backlash now

[@packa_bread]

Fr i know its not perfect but it seems like everyone switched up for no reason

[@Cybertechwerewolf]

I think because the honeymoon phase is over, people have time to actually have in depth looks at what problems they have with the games. BotW had it's issues, but I can forgive it as it radicalized the formula, so because it's so radically different from previous titles, any issues I had could have been fixed in it's sequel, but most of them were not, at least in my opinion.

[@tarnw3301]

ToTK was funnier than BoTW...at first. The more you explore, the more you realize how POINTLESS exploring is. The first cave? Amazing experience but then, you explore one cave, you practically have explored them all. First time in the deeps? Good stuff, then everything is the same. Memories? Oh, yes, Link knows everything, but hey, he doesn't share the information. Why does the player even bother to gather those memories? Then there are areas that are gated by NPCs and Link fails to bypass them.

[@Its_SaberHG]

​@@tarnw3301Memories were too predictable New dragon, where'd it come from? Oh they said eating a stone turns you into a dragon? Ot was pretty obvious that it was Zelda

[@netweed09]

​@@Its_SaberHG It's a Zelda game, not Metal Gear lol?? Plus , I rather it be slapstick daft than actually trying like Twilight Princess of disappointment and having seemingly the most amazing and exotic, curious case 'end villain' in Zant ,,,,,,, *not* be the end villain. Oh look kids, surrrpriseeee it's ,,,,,, Ganondorf again (pops out from behind the curtains moment.) 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅 I almost tossed my GameCube out the window that day, lmao 🤣😅 At least Tears is comically obvious, I mean didn't Ganondorf's ridiculous smirk after killing Sonia make this totally clear?? It doesn't pull a bull sheet act like TP, lead you to the highest Treehouse, then suddenly shove you off the tree.

[@thebluerodriguez4085]

​@@netweed09 Well it kind of does that, trough all the game Ganon is portrayed as a huge menace, and you only see him at the end, to defeat him without loosing even a ¼ of health, with the inventory full of extra health meals bc you think he will f you. Xd Then it goes dragon brrrr (same sht as dark beast ganon again) *Proceeds to explode* For some reason against the weakest version of the master sword who himself shattered at the begging without his full demon power.

[@netweed09]

@@thebluerodriguez4085 ? No Totk doesn't in any way bluff you with villains, pls stop with that strawman lol. It's only zombie Ganon that clearly goes through his own rehabilitation process which is cleanly integrated into the Story, anyone sensible can see this. The Story is about Draconification and it's drawbacks despite you becoming a Dragon , isn't that clear enough? So duh of course it makes sense Ganon would turn into a Dragon and be less effective, it is far better and cooler than seeing that boring old Beast Ganon every single other game. And the Demon King Ganon fight is worthy; look at you, an oldskool Zelda $tan where the Bosses were laughable, a 12 y ear old almost blindfolded can take down Twilight Princess' Ganondorf who deals Link barely 2 hearts of damage on Hero mode , same as a _green Bokoblin_ from Totk/Botw?????? And you have the audacity to call out Tears' difficulty, hahaha heard it all from you lot. Next you'll be saying Wind Waker was challenging 🤣🍅

[@asterthehedgehog6861]

It’s the fact Nintendo put in half the work they did in BotW into TotK. They hardly showed any time passing, the story felt detached from everything in the “original”, Ganondorf is written pitifully and the Zonai feel shoehorned in with their tech. And where did the Sheikah tech and Divine Beasts go?! I’d argue Zelda “time traveling” ruined the entire timeline in ways they don’t even address.

[@trixxy9566]

all ganondorfs have almost no depth

[@Luxembourgish]

I want them to move away from tech. Let BotW and TotK be *the* Sci-Fi Zelda, people had their fix. Enough. Let's go back to medieval fantasy going forward so Zelda doesn't lose its identity.

[@markkugames]

​@@trixxy9566what? Both continuations of Ganondorf have depth, wind Waker and Twilight princess

[@DORAisD34D]

Well totk reused a lot of assets for botw so duh

[@Wombattuus]

@@trixxy9566 Wind waker:

[@drop9502]

Because the game felt like it was going to be different at the beginning of the game, but as we progressed, the more it felt like botw. It uses the same story structure, when they did not need to. They had an opportunity to make a good linear story in this open world so that both fans can be happy. Instead they just clone botw with different runes and expanded map while kind of hiding that you can just go straight to Ganondorf. Temples are just reskinned versions of botw dungeons using the same terminal system in every dungeon. This time using your sage ability instead of the sheikah slate to activate them. The difference between the 2 games being just that subtle which is a missed opportunity for Nintendo to have something new and unique.

[@loveinthevalley]

@@drop9502 you act like zelda games don't copy each other repeatedly. News flash. They do. Often. They actually haven't changed very much over the years other than visuals. Dungeons are dungeons are dungeons. Once you play on zelda game through you have a general feel for almost every other zelda title. They're far far more the same than they are different and saying anything else is a blatant lie.

[@drop9502]

@@loveinthevalley k. But they actually never felt this similar before and I've played every 3d Zelda. My point being that they didn't borrow enough from the elaborate dungeons of Zeldas before botw. Not to be captain hindsight but they should have made under 50 shrines to midigate fast travel as much and 10 extremely well crafted dungeons. At least 1 per region. I don't have the region count memorized, but something along those lines. I'm just saying a story like tp in botw's overworld would have been really cool if Nintendo didn't botch it.

[@loveinthevalley]

@@drop9502 I would have been okay with 2 more dungeons at most. Totally fine with reducing shrines. It's excessive I'll agree. But 8 to 10 dungeons is excessive too. I personally like the straying away of the standard dungeons in favor of shrines, but the number is too high. I also think the point of these games both structurally and lore wise is not borrowing from other titles. And that needs to be okay to change, grow and make mistakes along the way. Growth is not a straight line up.

[@ShallBePurified]

@@loveinthevalley Previous Zelda games don't have the issue of having the exact same map with the exact same story progression. Like you seriously can't tell me OoT, MM, and WW play exactly the same. TP does take more from OoT but does have a completely different map, different characters, and had multiple games in between. SS is when people started to complain about the "Zelda structure," but the complaint comes from being too linear going from point A to point B without much freedom of exploration like older Zelda games. OoT latter dungeons could be done slightly out of order. TotK follows the BotW formula to a tee. Same story structure with memories and Zelda being "trapped." Link has to go to the same 4 main regions to do a thing with a "dungeon" to unlock 4-5 terminals with minimal puzzle solving and shrines littered everywhere on the exact same map. Like it's not even remotely comparable to previous Zelda games. It's so obviously the same structure. It is not a great sequel either because it doesn't add much to the story from BotW. None of the characters really get developed. Zelda ends the same character she started in this game, except maybe more traumatized, but we never see her dealing with the trauma of losing her second set of parents or turning into a dragon. She's just completely fine at the end and didn't really grow. Also this modern Link is so fucking boring. Please for the love of god react to things besides food!

[@loveinthevalley]

@@ShallBePurified I didn't make any such claim. It's a direct sequel based in the same kingdom 6 years after the first game that largely focuses around the plot point of "where was Ganondorfs physical body". I'm not here saying the game doesn't have problems, I've got my fair share of issues with the game that I feel are closer to universal or could really have made it a game that held onto all audiences without backlash. So when I'm arguing against something I'm doing it from the perspective of "the players wouldn't enjoy that as much as..." Doesn't mean I'm right about it, but I'm trying to assess it for market quality, and not just what I think I'd like more.

[@dudewithachannel1163]

There are people who think Skyrim is trash because it came out twelve years ago. If something is big enough it'll have a loud minority of haters lol

[@Udon74]

agree, i just enjoy the game and respect the pros and cons

[@thelastwindwaker7948]

It's not even just open world Zelda, it's that open world has become the future for a lot game series, especially with how many games take influence from Botw. Craftopia, Genshin Impact, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Tchia, Sonic Frontiers, Sable, Palia, The last three Pokemon games in a row. "But it's only been two games!" And Aonuma has made it clear that freedom is the future of the series, dismissing the preference for a more structured game as nostalgia.

[@arbellason2094]

Technically speaking, the first 2 Zelda games were open world as well. Just 8bit. No real direction given, you had to explore them

[@kingdaniel3519]

Yea, that's what made them fun.

[@yazeldafan]

Keep in mind that traditional Zelda never had the opportunity to sell in a system like Switch. It probably wouldn't reach BOTW numbers but when you look at 3D Mario it jumped from 13M(Galaxy) to 28M with Odyssey without throwing 3D Mario formula away. If a traditional Zelda game had the same jump over Twilight Princess we'd get to >20M units.

[@JetterTrender]

Very true! I would have loved to see what a normal wholly original 3D zelda game would have sold like on the switch!

[@_sparrowhawk]

"Keep in mind that traditional Zelda never had the opportunity to sell in a system like Switch. " Except for Skyward Sword... which didn't sell.

[@yazeldafan]

@@_sparrowhawk Of course I'm talking about an original game. And Skyward Sword is a corridor, the game is disliked even by traditional Zelda fans. Even Link's Awakening remake, a 2D Zelda, sold more than SS. Still the power of Switch alone made it sell more than the original Wii release.

[@AnonymOus-ss9jj]

@@yazeldafan Actually fans of Mario games would disagree, with many saying Odyssey brought back the open world formula. Apparently, the Galaxy games were made a bit differently due to the Wii's controllers.

[@captainkirk2705]

Twilight Princess was a launch title for the Wii just like BOTW was for the Switch. And the Wii is the best selling console of all time it sold better than the Switch at launch. You could maybe argue casual gamers are more open to serious titles deeper title like BOTW, but this argument doesn’t really track.

[@mkjjoe]

It isn't sudden or a hate trend, it has been building up since release as more people played and finished the game (the video results you show are mostly from 8+ months ago). BOTW also had a transition from either praise by enthusiasts or dismissal by those who didn't like the direction, to a lot more level-headed criticism. TOTK just happens to carry the weight of a sequel while not being particularly subtle in its delivery. People often mention the "Zelda cycle" but TOTK's pros and cons have been clearly identified by now, people's enjoyment may keep fluctuating over the years but it won't change what this game is / isn't. Voicing opinions is also amplified by a wider community since BOTW. The series will keep moving on as usual.

[@GBDupree]

This is a very level-headed explanation. Very good, since you clearly explain the distinction between the heart of the criticisms versus the actual enjoyment. Its true that the way fans feel about this game will fluctuate as all the games eventually did, but that the criticisms may not. Most people don't understand this which is why they can often get overly defensive of any game when someone points out flaws.

[@DORAisD34D]

I like having a big world to explore but the problem is that so much is empty. Either fill in the world a little more, or get more locations involved in the main story. Exploring is fun but most of it doesn’t amount to anything significant other than 100%ing the game

[@lordlucas0392]

I couldn’t agree more. They suffer from the Open world curse where 80% of the world has no content and you have to walk through all of it until you arrive at something to do (when the rewards aren’t even worth the time)

[@shawnscouten5184]

Yeah, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I think that is exactly why I started to get bored of it. The novelty of breath of the wild wore off eventually, and while the game is incredibly vast, It also feels shallow as a puddle somehow. In theory, it should be amazing, but in practice, it feels like it is missing something that the old Zelda titles like skyward sword had.

[@shellderp]

I like having a game to explore that I can actually explore. We already knew the world, I don't care so much what extra meaningless side quests they add. That's why I loved exploring the depths, but unfortunately there was basically nothing there.

[@Easternromanfan]

I don't get this because I couldn't stop finding things to do in every corner of totk

[@ChaimS]

Agree and disagree. Agree that there's a lot of open land, but I think that's part of the allure. Most past games you can't just explore the whole world, there's no real point. There are enemies everywhere, usually respawning every time you leave an area and come back, and with the graphics of the time, nothing to really look at. Now there's actually a world to explore, and you can just walk around, taking the sites, go for a horse ride, go farming or mining, or just glide off a tower and go someplace new too. I do agree that they could have implemented a lot more story by giving more life to the ruins (such as by having more diaries, or more signs of battles, etc) as well as more than just a couple towns. I do wish there were more cities where people were hold up. And while the shrines can get boring, when you find one you really don't know if it's going to be super easy or super hard.

[@sonerdeniz7295]

Experiencing botw for the first time is an experience that you will never forget.Playing totk for the first time I felt it would be the same,and for the most part it was.Looking back at it now tho,it’s just not any more unique than botw and the replay ability is far worse.I tried replaying it and I got bored immediately due to how much you need to do in the game for it to become fun again.

[@goonballoon]

i tried replaying totk and botw. these games aren’t the best for replayability but totk is better due to the creativity

[@giovannigrimmer3533]

For me, Breath of the Wild was great and innovative, while Tears of the Kingdom sat unimpressive in its shadow. I do think Nintendo is going in the right direction. I'm hoping the next big title will continue to innovate, but I also hope they will show a little more respect for the good elements of the older titles that these two games have their foundation built upon. My hope is that they will find a healthy balance between open-world & linear storytelling.

[@1800mexicano]

??? Now? I didnt like it from the beginning. And a certain skitty made a video that outlines pretty much every gripe i have with the game. It was fun enough, i didn't HATE it, but no future play through for me.

[@MacenW]

This

[@megaman37456]

Because people are waking up to the fact that while BoTW and ToTK are great video games, they are TERRIBLE Zelda games, everything that made previous Zeldas popular was thrown out, and after 6 to 7 years of the same hyrule with the same minimalistic features, people are gonna hit burn out, the honeymoon phase is gonna wear off.

[@aricheec7722]

this phrased it perfectly. i think i would enjoy these games more if nintendo had put in the effort to design an original ip for it, instead of just slapping a pre-existing brand on it for the sales margin. it just feels so LAZY.

[@megaman37456]

@@aricheec7722 Not just lazy, but lackluster and uninspired.

[@doolenny9458]

And the thing is atleast for me Botw is good at what it is trying to be while totk isn’t as good as Botw at being Botw and isn’t as good as classic Zelda at what classic Zelda is so it has no identity

[@hued2542]

Ok but 50 million combined sales says everything Nintendo needs to know but what the wider audience wants these days. To back peddle on the open air formula would be a blind move to make as it would further alienate the people that hopped on this series with botw release. You won’t see a “traditional” Zelda for a decade as long as this style of game is popular. The final nail is definitely echoes . If it manages to outsell links awakening you will see more of this on switch 2. This is why you haven’t seen ww or tp pop up in hd yet. Why should they ? Release them when there’s doubts as to whether this style of game is beneficial

[@hued2542]

@@aricheec7722way too much risk with a new ip. But I definitely could see a world where star fox adventures got a botw type refresh with the ships being easy access tools for the world

[@CynHicks]

I love ToTK. I've been a huge fan since the 80s. They are ALL great. There were people that hated OOT because they thought 3D ruined it. 😂

[@goodnightmyprince6734]

Are those people even alive

[@CynHicks]

@goodnightmyprince6734 Kid, those people rule the world. We don't dissappear at age 40. We become the majority. Try math...

[@kingdaniel3519]

Same here. Grew up playing the NES and SNES. My friend tried to dissuade me from getting OoT because he couldn't figure out how to control the camera.

[@randomwolfboi7866]

I wasn’t one of those people who went “THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER” I didn’t enjoy tears by the time I finished it. I was having fun at first, but I think everyone did. The thing with Zelda is that we went to Wind Waker, people said it was for kids, so we got twilight princess. We skyward sword and people said it was way to linear, so we got Breath of the Wild. For some reason Nintendo didn’t take our feedback, and changed almost nothing and sold it to us for $70. I wish they spent more time working on tears and not… whatever they did for like 6 years. Wait- 6 YEARS!? How did they do so little on 6 years!? What were they doing!? Random fans who mod the game could do more in less!

[@zacatkinson3926]

Wind waker wasn’t for kids

[@inkursion5868]

Shout out to the Second wind project for BotW. It's not "random fans doing more", but it's still very neat

[@Fiucha8893]

Tears of the Kingdom took 3 and a half years to make, not 6.The development started in 2019, and Covid happened later.

[@Jdudec367]

They took feedback actually, better enemy variety and bosses, weapons being more satisfying to get thans to fuse, etc, no they changed a lot. They spent a lot of time working on the game though. They didn't do little, overworld changes, and the sky islands and depths and getting the new abilities to work, etc along with covid delays affected things. Then how come no fan has modded the game to do more in less then?

[@gatolf2]

Ok so the thing I’m noticing is people complain about TOTK being basically just DLC. That’s the actual issue with TOTK. The only thing wrong with BOTW was the divine beasts being way too short and not giving us the classic dungeon experience. THATS IT. “People are tired of open world Zelda”… not really. We played TOTK and got tired of essentially playing BOTW again. BOTW on its own was amazing but TOTK was so similar that it was like playing it again. The main problems with TOTK was the way it told the story the exact same way, they reused the BOTW map and just added onto it. Too many similarities. That doesn’t mean the formula was bad. It just means that repeating the same exact formula was a bad idea. New map, new way to tell the story and new art style would have solved this issue even if they screwed up on dungeons for a second time.

[@Soaring_Penguin]

Haters gonna hate. TotK is still S tier for me, and I can still enjoy BotW too. The different abilities and Zonai devices make the way you traverse and explore completely different. In BotW I was running, riding horses, using the paraglider, climbing, etc.. In TotK I mostly used janky vehicles like bikes and air planes, and I constantly used the new runes for everything. The play style is different enough that they feel like two different games in their own right, and of course the dungeons and bosses are all different too. I also immensely enjoyed exploring Hyrule for a second time, eager to see all the changes, so I wasn't bored exploring the same map again. I have a feeling most people who hate TotK and called it "BotW with a bit of DLC" probably just played TotK the exact same way they played BotW, making the games feel the same. Or maybe they played BotW a million times and tired themselves out of looking at that Zelda style.

[@HyperfixationStation]

it's cool to hear your perspective, and there's a lot to love about totk! But "haters gonna hate" is a bit dismissive of all the people who wanted to love this game and were disappointed for reasons they articulate and share, and find others have similar issues with the game. It's ok to critique or criticize media, especially after spending so much money on it

[@wernetto]

For me to. TotK was everything what I think modern Zelda should be. BotW was nice, but it was more like "survival game in Zelda world" and was in most of the places like empty tech demo. People like it because of nostalgia, nothing more.

[@MisterHeroman]

Can't really explore differently when all your vehicles disappear and have little object permanence.

[@iflgames3245]

​@@wernettoTotk is not a Zelda game you would now that if you ever played Zelda.

[@brightya]

TOTK was my best game and I still think it is superior to any other game. The gaming mechanics is hell insane and the world exploration is so alive even after 260 Hyrule trip in BOTW. However, until very recently I found that the puffshroom is so overpowered basically blinds any type of enemies and keep them still for sooooo long and wait for Link to kill. That completely destroyed my fun of the game. Before I was so eager to explore all different types of combat tactics based on mechanics and even after 170hrs in the game but never bored. Now everything comes to me, the Keese eyeball, the puffshroom. There are too many overpowered elements that make this game too easy almost as easy as a toddler’s button press speaker. This is probably the worst balanced game I have played. I blame the dev team who let the overpowered elements pass, which completely wasted the best gaming mechanics, the best virtual world, and the best physical engine and destroyed my favorite game. Zelda needs to change. Nintendo needs to change. You make a toddler’s game, but they cannot pay they cannot play.

[@yozarian86]

I personally like BotW more right now. Tears seemed like it improved everything, but after getting close to the end I got so bored I couldn’t finish. The only major flaws totk fixed are the stamina drain and the boss fights. Fans wanted TotK to be a fusion game. Mix of classic format and TotK. Hopefully Nintendo finally gives that next time.. though at the rate they release new games, I’ll be old by the time the next one comes out. They do have the ability though. The Gibdo attacking the village in Tears was probably the best part of the game. Devising a strategy to defend the town. A modern impact. It’s like a modern, better version of that scene in the mountain in final fantasy 7.

[@finneascoombs5092]

IMO I don’t like older Zelda games because they just aren’t my thing, I like botw and Totk because they aren’t linear. But you don’t have to like them.

[@canonicallygod8782]

I will never tolerate people who call themselves Zelda fans but dont enjoy the older games.

[@果従莞友]

Not so sure anybody hates it. It has gotten fair criticisms since its release.

[@xSilentZeroXx]

I hate it.

[@lolilll]

I love it.

[@netweed09]

@@xSilentZeroXx *L*

[@sirdonivandoodle2403]

I think its decent

[@Name-tn3md]

It's mid compared to ss and earlier

[@Jomonji]

I like open world games. If Nintendo wants to stick to open world then I welcome it. However, if they are going to stick with an open world they need to make that open world feel more alive. Populate it with more cities, towns, and settlements. Add npcs that roam the entire world. Add quests that are more than just a task that unveils a shrine. Also, add classic dungeons with unique puzzles and dungeon items (give me back my hookshot please). Add a story that is happening and the impact of which can be felt . If nintendo can add that stuff to an open world then everyone would be in love.

[@nilothesage]

Lol you clearly didn't play totk

[@gonzalocachi4329]

You aré ignorant.

[@andrewwall4155]

@@nilothesageI did. Totk had better dungeons BOTW. Which isn’t saying a lot.

[@soldatheero]

they dont get why they can't just have a mix between open world and actual biug dungeons.. i mean that is what the world zeldas were really, just the technology wasn't there to bring it to this scale of detail and realism in world building

[@WatsonDynamite]

" if they are going to stick with an open world they need to make that open world feel more alive. Populate it with more cities, towns, and settlements. Add npcs that roam the entire world." absolutely fuck no, the beauty of BoTW was that it was just you, alone, against the wilderness of Hyrule. you were discovering and unearthing all these places like you were an explorer or a pioneer, and it was almost like a survival game in disguise, except intead of managing resources like hunger or thirst, you were managing your items, your weapons, shields etc. It's an absolute masterclass in crafting an open world simply ripe for exploration, they somehow managed to make a world carefully handcrafted by dozens of developers feel like it was never treaded before you, the player, came around to uncover it. ToTK falls flat precisely because it's the same map as BoTW AND it's too heavily populated. You're not discovering anything because not only have you been to all these places before in BOTW, but everywhere you go you're met with people who were already there before you. The world of BoTW was alive enough, it's just a more natural form of life, (mostly) undisturbed by human eyes and hands until the player dares to explore it. What ToTK needed was a new map and less emphasis on the population.

[@luisburgos7365]

You guys aren’t tired of open world Zelda. You’re tired of BotW/TotK We’re most likely getting another open world 3D Zelda. But hopefully with even better, tighter dungeon design and hopefully more items to unlock permanently like the hookshot. They went balls to the wall with the crazy shit Link can do in TotK but I’d like for them to dial it back a bit and give us other things to use

[@DANBAN119]

real, there is such a thing as TOO much freedom and you really felt that in totk, botw was a good balance with the tools you had.

[@Jdudec367]

@@DANBAN119 Nah in TOTK it isn't too much freedom either.

[@andrews3156]

The claim EVERYONE hates it now is so wrong and off base it gets a thumbs down on this video. I loved the game when it was released and still play it today. I do not hate it. huge number of fans do not hate it. A small group of people might hate it but it is FAR FAR from everyone.

[@lcding8349]

wdym at least 90% of people hate it. 40% claim they hate it, 50% claim they like it but deep down just kind of hates it (idk how da explain) and only 10% understands the game design and actually likes it.

[@Dolphin47]

@@lcding8349 I think hate is a strong word. 40% who said they like it don’t hate it. They just might be disappointed at most.

[@diegomedina9637]

I mean I've seen it. It's mostly because of really *REALLY* dumb reasons (mainly how some random ass NPCs don't remember you ignoring the fact that a lot of NPCs do remember you) but the random ass hate for Tears of the Kingdom is there.

[@diegomedina9637]

​@@Dolphin47Disappointed and hate means the same thing on the internet.

[@DarthTrilluminati]

I have over 400 hours in and still play to this day nearly every day since release.

[@redfoxoffire]

I enjoyed playing TotK a lot, but at the end of it all, it just felt so empty. I've been playing Zelda since OoT on N64 and BotW quickly became my favorite Zelda (and still is) so I was 1) totally cool with the new style despite being a long-time series player, and 2) super excited for a sequel, yet I don't think I'll ever play it again. It's so weird. Never before have I enjoyed a game so much yet simultaneously felt like it was kind of a waste.

[@djlotusx]

My Sentiments Exactly

[@MatthewAvalos1]

The Zelda cycle strikes again. None of the mainline games are perfect but each release gets a phase where they get crapped on for not being as good as another title the person is nostalgic about, then many years go by and all the sudden it’s “misunderstood” then “underrated” then is held up as a great in line with all the rest. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess went through heavy shit phases before that’s similar to TOTK now.

[@MysteriousmrR-mq9cs]

Stop calling it a cycle for Zelda, tons media have “cycles”, it’s the fact that you can’t accept criticism of a game that’s the issue. One of the main reasons I don’t like this game is they reused the same map making exploration non existent

[@MatthewAvalos1]

@@MysteriousmrR-mq9cs I literally said none of them are perfect you dunce

[@MatthewAvalos1]

@@MysteriousmrR-mq9cs I literally said none of the games were perfect. Read more carefully next time and have fun playing the games you like.

[@nabil.19]

@@MatthewAvalos1 keep being a fucken npc u flop

[@murmirr]

i really don't know what you guys babble about with this ""zelda cycle"". it was the 30 year olds who shit on those games on niche internet forums, who were already OoT biased because it was some "masterpiece". wind waker and twilight princess have always had wide acclaim across youtube and other platforms and are obviously held in high regard, even back then. but maybe my perspective was warped from being a child back then, though. now, the difference is that, with me at least, i grew up in a time where nearly ALL zelda games were accessible through virtual console, i was born two months before the wii came around. i have played nearly every single zelda game at least once, stayed away from this "cycle" you speak of, and still, this game is horrible. i have never ever in my life felt such disdain for a piece of media. because it is made for people who are media illiterate. it's actually quite baffling because i hated breath of the wild as well, before tears. after tears, i went back and had the most fun with breath of the wild ive ever had. it was just that bad. i saw the zelda twist from before the game even came out, accidentally skipped parts of dungeons, the whole experience was a lackluster mess that i waited 6 full years for. i was in 4th grade when breath of the wild came out. i'm allowed to be disappointed after it was a complete nothingburger that didn't expand on the childhood wonder i experienced. hell, the game spit on and practically threw away that adventure entirely. and the game isn't the problem. it's the fact that all of my childhood games' formula will now be bulldozed and rebuilt, like this is some victorian home bought out by a contractor. they said they're abandoning the old formula.

[@VortokMercadia]

So Nintendo fans are realizing the tradeoffs that open world games make. The developer quote does feel a bit off (but hey, one quote, limited context, etc) in that the comment almost acts like there's no real tradeoff for being open world - you just have more freedom! It's basically just a less extreme version of procedurally generated vs handcrafted content. Both have strengths and weaknesses. As someone that has merely watched others play both games, the one thing that stands out to me is that an open world needs to be interesting, in some way, to be worthwhile over a more confined game world. The underground in Tears just looked... exceedingly tedious. While conceptually neat, it ultimately came off looking a bit barren and annoying to interact with, beyond the initial novelty period, outside of a few, specific set pieces.

[@WhitfieldR]

Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom didn’t ‘change’ Zelda’s formula. It was returning to what it has always been. The linear games were a necessary step in the series evolution, but they weren’t the heart of it.

[@whateverwithalex9083]

I'd argue linearity and traditional Zelda became the heart when 30+ years of games exist.

[@MyBodyIsReggie1]

Love it or hate it, BotW/TotK are what Miyamoto always wanted for the series. Good Blood has a pretty good documentary about it.

[@goodnightmyprince6734]

Ikr

[@deemster4249]

Delusional

[@kingdaniel3519]

You have to remember that the majority of modern Zelda fans didn't grow up with the original game. They've only played a select few of the 3d games that followed the formula first set by ALttP and solidified by OoT. They don't know any better.

[@apkhbmbgamlkbh1531]

I already hated it on release

[@CanadianMoose272]

I've loved every Zelda game up until the Wild era games. There's just too little story and too much open space filled with nothing but korok seeds. The dungeons feel barren and not special like all the unique dungeons of previous games that had memorable themes, music, objects, etc.

[@jimskim8568]

Exactly

[@arthursimsa9005]

Not for you then. If Younes unable to actually enjoy different, new things, you still have the old ones. Or maybe the new God of War games could be up your alley.

[@pcdeltalink036]

I still love it. The only glaring change I didn't like is how there is basically no evidence of the guardians and sheikah tech ever being a thing. Like it all got Thanos snapped out of existence to be replaced by Zonai stuff.

[@gabrielduquevizfraga6238]

Zelda always had amazing worldbuilding with tons of interesting things to talk about and theorize. BOTW decided to do it's own thing and basically ignore the lore from previous game. And I get it, you're basically recreating the franchise from scratch, some things will change. TOTK does not have that excuse. It disregard most of its prequel story and heck, even its own story. If the game itself ignores its story, why should I care?

[@DANBAN119]

Botw was still able to creat a whole lot of interesting lore on its own, the Zonai being super interesting. But totk doesn't really make them as interesting as the fandom had built them up to be, which, sure, is our fault for getting our expectations up, But are you telling me that after 6 years the best thing you could come up with for the Zonai is that they were ANOTHER ancient technologically advanced society? IMO the Zonai devices should've been "sheikah devices" repurposed from gaurdians, sheikah shrines, and the divine beasts. That way we could still have those gameplay elements, you could explain where the sheikah tech went, and you can give the Zonai a different cultural identity. Idk make them some cool mystic sky wizards that use spirit energy or something, anything but what we got.

[@gabrielduquevizfraga6238]

@DANBAN119 honestly anything would've been better than what they did with the Zonai

[@nabil.19]

@@DANBAN119 the zonai was fucken boring trash

[@NathanielOSoup]

I have a solution with the story aspect. What if the story still continued and depending on the choices you make you gain new experiences or adventures throughout the journey that opens new branches and storylines that aren’t too far off from the main objectives that way you have a linear storyline that is far larger but offers more freedom? Much like those books were you get them pick and choose your own story. As for the dungeons I agree that it needs to bring them back and actually utilize them. As well as change the weapon breaking system and add crafting or a blacksmith option

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

Mostly because the honeymoon period wore off, I think. And up front I'm gonna say this: TotK is a good game. I know why I hate it, though. It's probably more accurate to say I hate what it represents than I hate the game itself; I found the game itself merely dull and overly long. I think for most people who agree with me, a big issue is we got into Zelda because we enjoyed the stories, and we loved theorising how the games were connected, and at the time there was pretty clearly an intention for the games to be connected. TotK was announced with a trailer that genuinely made it look like all the criticisms of BotW's main flaw - the story and storytelling - were being addressed, and then it turned out the Zelda team had learned nothing. Worse; they didn't care about the criticism. Aonuma came out saying linearity is dead and he doesn't understand why people wanted to go back, he borderline minimised people's critisisms by claiming it was "grass is greener" mentality (which makes no sense for people who knew they wouldn't like BotW as soon as it was described), and the reason for all the Sheikah tech from BotW disappearing was brushed off in an interview as "it wasn't needed anymore so it disappeared" without a single reference in the actual game. The story is still largely told through flashbacks you'll more than likely find in a random order, and it's barely three hours long in a sea of 200 hours of content. The world was already big enough in BotW, it didn't need the Depths too. And, in addition to the storytelling and pacing issues, it just feels like a reboot of the franchise. It barely felt connected to BotW itself, and its lore is essentially decoupled from the rest of the series. It would have made more sense to have the time Zelda went back to be pre-Skyward Sword, and Hylia turned out to be a Zonai, but instead there were apparently two super-advanced, robot-building sky people who helped found Hyrule across vast swathes of time? Honestly, most of the 'story' of TotK, told through flashbacks, showed me a game I'd rather be playing, and that was true for BotW for me too. BotW at least was a new direction and was novel, but once people started to realise it's just how the series is now, more people are realising they don't want EVERY Zelda game to be that. I'm worried for Echoes of Wisdom too.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

Ah, and I see another comment down there with the old, idiotic comeback of "if you want a story, read a book". Book stories and game stories are completely different things, and telling someone to read a book if they want a good story completely minimises and ignore what videogame stories are capable of. Absolutely no respect for people who's response to criticism of a game's story, particularly in a series known for being a company's main story-focused series, is "read a book". If I want to read a book, I read a book. If I want to enjoy a Nintendo game with a decent story, up until BotW I could play most any Zelda game.

[@DanielMazahreh]

Honeymoon period is not over. You anti-intellectuals are actually the minority. Tears is a masterpiece and most people love the game, because they are smarter than you.

[@reefatbakht]

Agree with everything you said, although I don't fear about the future of Zelda. I think Zelda is too big and Nintendo too intelligent to completely abandon their roots. They tried (supposedly) to go back to their roots of Zelda 1 with BOTW. I can't see why they wouldn't go back to their roots in OOT at some point either - which is clearly a narrative-driven game. Or even make something that takes from the ideas that made ALttP so good. I do think however, we are just going to have to accept for a little while that Zelda is not for us. I felt the same about Mario between Galaxy 2 and Odyssey with the exception of 3D Land to some degree. Although, having said that, maybe you are onto something.. Wonder was not a great experience in the end, for me, and a part of that is how useless the powerups and the added abilities felt. It was similar to the Zelda games in ethos "do things your way, whenever you want". It definitely takes away from the charm, Linearity is good when the director is good, and Nintendo's directors can create some fantastic story/adventure beats. But I still think this ethos of theirs won't last forever. They'll realise it's not for everyone, whereas their old stuff was.

[@DanielMazahreh]

@@TaliesinMyrddin Honeymoon period just started. TotK is a masterpiece.

[@TaliesinMyrddin]

@@DanielMazahreh I just finished it last week. I disagree.

[@bagussetyagraha6875]

I played Breath of the Wild first and spend 280 hours-ish game time on it. At first when Tears of the Kingdom launched I thought no way I spent the same amount of hours. Now I already played Tears for 360-ish hours. I definitely enjoy playing Tears of the Kingdom. Although for some reason I cant forget the very first time I played Breath of the Wild.

[@ChaosNew]

Im actually glad most players are now noticing or voicing there actual thoughts on this era of "Zelda", that other players notice from the start, botw I actually enjoyed it as its own thing, but totk... even if better in many if not all aspects, its overdue to this style, sadly the developers if im not mistaken have said they will keep doing more open world games... with Link in it and call it a Zelda game...

[@DORAisD34D]

It’s literally still Zelda

[@ChaosNew]

@@DORAisD34D if you feel that's the case, more power to you.

[@icetea3595]

I absolutely love the open world style for zelda games, however, if we keep getting these half assed stories, it's gonna be a problem for me.

[@Luigi22Green]

I think having both is good, I like both Zelda is a big enough IP ant the Botw style games take a long time to develop I don’t see why their can’t be some smaller traditional releases, we’re even seeing a new traditional Zelda game Echoes of Wisdom, I think both can thrive at the same time and I don’t think people really have to pick and choose

[@ChaosNew]

@@Luigi22Green i agree but sadly, its not a good deal, the wisdom game is a top view Zelda, and thanks to the bind ability, the menus and more, its looking to be more like botw top view style now... But oh well... this is "Zelda" now.

[@therealgaberton1683]

They claim they “hear the fans” yet Totk didn’t improve upon any of Botw’s issues and only made them worse. Hurt the existence of both games. I loved Botw and will only ever replay that game, have to act as if Totk never existed😢

[@greenberrygk]

I feel like people have to understand more about game development before they make a lot of the criticisms they are making because its fucking incredible that this game even exists

[@ahmadalaqib8148]

I think they don’t it may be a miracle that it exists but if they wanted it to be liked they should have made something that the people would appreciate not only the devs

[@WatsonDynamite]

unfortunately games aren't built to be technological acheivements, they're built to be entertaining, and quoting the Reggienator, "if the game's not fun, why bother?" not that ToTK isn't fun, but it falls flat in the experience it tried to deliver

[@Big_G5654]

Just because something is hard to develop it doesn’t make it good

[@SweaterSwagg]

The most important elements are fun, originality, and replayability. The average person isn't concerned with the tech stuff

[@murmirr]

yes, because the way nintendo operates is so ass backwards it's a miracle any of the modern zeldas are doing well. as a game dev, it's extremely disheartening. they are so behind, and for some reason so out of touch that they think people want more of this formula, the same formula they could be gotten elsewhere, and could've been obtained 10 years ago. it's just not a zelda game. it's any other open world game in existence. it's really sad and... immature? is the way i would put it. nintendo to me feels like a toddler throwing a tantrum now, holding onto things and grasping at straws to breed ""innovation"" when all they're doing is making their series' subjectively worse. but financially better, i guess, and that's all that matters now, i've definitely observed that from their decisions with other games as well.

[@Chronoflation]

Skyward Sword is proof that the Zelda cycle is bullshit. People still hate that game over a decade later. Most of the hate Zelda games regularly get on cycle are cause the series has been getting controversial decisions made with every Nintendo made game post Ocarina of Time. BotW was the only one to not really have that, but it completely changed the formula. Zelda has a massively fractured fan base because some people will love all the games, but many will severely dislike games because of their controversial design decisions. Those complaints tend to only be heard after the hype dies down, and then those complaints eventually die down as the plays move on to the next game that changes the controversial mechanic to no longer be that thing they disliked. But some, like Skyward Sword, continue to get hate because the design decisions are just plain that unpopular. As someone who likes Skyward Sword, even I can acknowledge that it has a ton of issues. It's a B tier game with high highs and low lows. So, basically, the Zelda cycle is a bullshit excuse that only really explains the fact that the toxic "Zelda good" fanbase uses to defend the game they love. Cause all that's really happening is the fanbase is bullying out negativity for about a year, and then, eventually, only the fans who still like the games years later are left talking after the negative people finally get to speak their peace. But games that even the topically positive fans don't have the motivation to defend get shit from the very beginning. Skyward Sword did, and even Twilight Princess got a lot of early negativity, and Wind Waker got negativity from it's first reveal. So people who claim "every loves the games, and then everyone hates them, and then loves them again" is just plain full of shit. I never liked Wind Waker and when I finally played the HD version I only liked my time in dungeons, which was something like 3 or 4 hours of over 15, not something I'd consider a game I really like. I loved Skyward Sword cause everything felt like a dungeon, but I know that's not what people really want and I'm the niche fan for that type of thing, plus it has other issues regardless of that design choice. People just lack the ability to objectively view things they have emotional connections with, and, for some reason, the Zelda community just seems unparalleled in the ability to emotionally process criticism. It's really creepy and makes me think there's something wrong with the fact that the series attracts this type of behavior, cause I don't see it in many other fanbases, not to the degree Zelda gets it

[@monstermaster4524]

I feel like many of the critics are due to BotW and the Zelda franchise. If BotW didn't exist, and this game wasn't called Zelda, I think this hate part would not have existed at all. The problem is how Nintendo handled it. If Pokémon stopped releasing traditional Pokémon games and only did Mystery Dungeon, then everybody would hate these games. If we look at TotK isolated from everything else, we see it for what it truly is: a great game. One of my top 3, in fact. The problems are that Nintendo stopped releasing traditional Zelda games and that it uses a lot of assets from BotW. While it is quite similar to BotW, I would say that the experience as a whole is different enough that it was justified to make it a different game. Honestly, the problem isn't TotK itself, but rather the circumstances that revolve around it. I feel like these types of games should be treated like Pokémon seems to be treating Legends games. They release one or more traditional games, then another open-world game. Fusing both ideas seems like a good option, but I would personally prefer to keep them separate. I would also like to add that, as you said, Nintendo isn't at fault here. We like BotW, so they naturally thought that we wanted more. And we did, we just wanted more BotW while at the same time more traditional games. In conclusion, TotK isn't the problem, but how it was handled by Nintendo. It's one of my favorite games and a wonderful experience, but its similarities to BotW and the deviation from the traditional formula led to it being hated by fans when the game itself is and has always been good.

[@daniel8181]

Absolutely silly take. It isnt like freaking mystery dungeon, but it IS like pokemon. When the switch pokemon games released, and then again when palworld took off, all the commentary around it was that pokemon was stale, it needed something more, and they have been milking fans by re-releasing the same game in two versions every two years for the last 20 years. Zelda was in the exact situation. Ocarina was a radical departure from the series origins that was done because of n64 limitations, but it still got comparable sales to the first game, reversing the series downward trend, noting this, Nintendo pushed for MM, but it dropped to a series low in sales. from there it was a struggle until TP took off in a complete sales one-shot as again support dwindled. Its important to note that the zelda team tried to figure it out, was it the impression of a larger world? was it the puzzles? the dungeons? the story? what did people want? and the problem with it was...it was none of that and all of it at once, nobody can tell you what zelda "is" because there are people who play it for braindead puzzles, people who played it because they wanted a big world on a nintendo console, people who specifically want dungeons, and people who think its story is somehow riveting. They failed to consistently recapture the audience for years, with botw they gave up trying to please everyone and no-one and started making the game they wanted to, it sold more than every other one of those games, and more than all the "top" games combined, so they made a sequel, and it actually maintained sales for the first time in Zelda's history.

[@MarkLaf]

You are absolutely right. A LOT of Zelda old school fans didn't enjoy BOTW and TOTK. I think Nintendo needs to create what fans want, a new traditional Zelda game, just like OOT, TP, Wind Waker, etc. Luckily, I really liked botw and totk even tho Open World isn't my thing :)

[@daniel8181]

@@MarkLaf "traditional" "Oot" you will never not do this, will you?

[@MarkLaf]

@@daniel8181 Are you really not considering Ocarina of time as an actual traditional Zelda game? I can't even tell if you are kidding us.

[@daniel8181]

@@MarkLaf Do you know what "tradition" means? There's a massive problem right now where people seem to think "tradition" is a word of power that by simple invocation legitimizes them. If a woman who dresses in hotpants and a bikini top, tattooed from top to bottom and pierced much the same were to talk you up pissed at a bar and say she is "very traditional", are you stupid enough to believe her? With the use of the word "traditional" you are simply attempting to give yourself authority; to explain why you have claim to be the arbitrator on something you have no rights to, attempting to categorize the series as a single thing also betrays your inexperience, because as anyone who has played the entire series could tell you, the games are always changing save for some intangible and mysterious core they all evoke, and so the question becomes as difficult to answer as "what makes a miyazaki movie?" All Zelda are "traditional", save for Crossbow training or hyrule warriors, and OoT and MM in fact were the two games in the series furthest removed from its traditions as a consequence of hardware limitations and development troubles. Why does this offend you?

[@guydude439]

My biggest problem is they removed so much from between BotW and TotK, namely weapons and Sheika stuff. I loved TotK but i missed a LOT of weapons and especially the undamaged weapons

[@kingdaniel3519]

I'm not a fan of how they handled the Sheikah tech disappearing between games. All it would've taken was some throwaway dialog from a single NPC to give an in game explanation.

[@chickennoodlegamer915]

"im so bored of open world zelda" dude stfu theres literally been 2 open world zelda games. if 2 games with no switch up is too much for you you shouldve gotten sick of the original zelda formula after ocarina of time

[@Okarun-VVV]

Exactly!!!

[@randychristensen1028]

Did you ever stop to think why many players are sick of the open world formula after only 2 games while the old formula that ran for almost 30 years is praised to the moon and back? Maybe you need to stfu

[@kingdaniel3519]

@@randychristensen1028 That old formula is why each subsequent game sold less than the one before. It allowed for easier storytelling but was killing the franchise. Zelda needed BotW/TotK. The sales numbers prove that.

[@randychristensen1028]

@@kingdaniel3519 I would argue that BotW sold so many copies because it was the only game really worth playing when the Switch launched. At the least it was the flagship title of Nintendo's new hybrid console of course it was going to sell like hotcakes

[@randychristensen1028]

Also gotta love it when KZbin deletes comments

[@Zebra_24]

No one hates it. People just think it could be better considering how long it took to develop.

[@DigiDestined13]

My biggest issues with the games are the weapons system and the Minecraft elements of TOTK, and it's the same reason for both. 1. I HATE the weapons having durability. Aragorn would never have into battle with a sword that breaks when you use it against two enemies. He'd have been dead in 10 seconds. King Arthur never had to deal with Excalibur suddenly losing it's strength and needing time to recharge it's batteries. So why should Link be subjected to it? 2. As per the building aspects of Tears of the Kingdom, as I said, it's clearly meant to be Minecraft in a Zelda game. It just doesn't fit in a fantasy world. Plus, I'm not a creative person, so it literally takes me hours to figure out what to do in these parts of the game. I'm not kidding when I say it took me somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to finish the tutorial section of TOTK. By the time I was done with it, I had no desire to keep playing the game. These elements completely break the emersion. I don't feel like I'm experiencing a fantasy adventure - I just feel frustrated that I'm out of useable weapons, or that I have to stop exploring to build something to progress further. This just isn't what makes Zelda great.

[@rezarfar]

100% this. Especially about the "Minecraft in Zelda" take, i don't have as much issue with the building side as i can be creative but i 100% agree that it DOES NOT belong in a game like this at all, not even a little bit and it definitely is emersion breaking. Aside from that, it actually doesn't help that the mechanic itself is unintuitive abd extremely cumbersome to use, which makes the experience all the more frustrating to engage with and emersion breaking. Durability always annoyed me but less than the above mentioned and IMO the lack of a well fleshed out story and narrative is a bigger issue overall.

[@awalltep81]

After playing through it twice and getting damn near 100% I think I’d like them to scale back the sandbox elements. Ultrahand is remarkably intuitive as a system and it makes no apologies for going deep into the “anything goes” end of the pool, but I’m just not someone who appreciates games like Minecraft. But I can’t deny I was absolutely hooked while playing it, with game sessions upwards of 6-7 hours where I just couldn’t put it down. The core gameplay loop is incredible. Zelda has an incredibly high standard to live up to. People were always going to eventually pine for the Ocarina formula once they strayed too far from it.

[@Idan-22]

My main criticism of TOTK is that the world is basically the same. I didn't feel the desire to explore the world as I already knew what I was going to find, so I just rushed the story and by the end it didn't feel like this grand adventure like it did in BOTW. It really felt like DLC for me, because a new game is supposed to be a different game, where as DLC just adds new stuff to the game without changing the core gameplay. The latter it exactly what TOTK did. It's massive DLC, but it still felt like the same game, or at least it didn't make a sufficient effort to make me feel otherwise.

[@JetterTrender]

I totally understand your perspective, In a lot of ways I sorta felt the same way

[@MasterMix291]

I agree with all of this

[@DORAisD34D]

What would make totk truly perfect would be filling in the world a little more. Exploring doesn’t really amount to anything significant other than 100%ing the game

[@mysryuza]

20 years later, it becomes an underrated classic or BotW becomes the holder of that title. /j Fatigue and lore inconsistency is the best I could describe why people finally took off the rose-tinted glasses. I knew after playing the game, people were gonna churn out negative videos about the game. It was a future that was bound to happen from the start. There’s a reason why it’s called the “honeymoon phase.” If it could happen with BotW, it can happen here because it’s closely tied to that game. I think BotW’s popularity was also boosted by the multitude of “Zelda WiiU/ Zelda NX” fan theories that were being churned out before launch due to how close Nintendo held info about it so dang close to their chests. I didn’t really feel that same vibe up to TotK’s launch. Wasn’t the game’s fault though.

[@Giggles_iJest]

*To further BotW's sheer superiority, I will say this:* TotK's story is bad, Fs with pre-established key lore aspects, absolutely shatters all the Master Sword's reputation, unga bunga buff Dorf with little to no ambition other than "me strongest there is" uninteresting, nearly everyone forgot who you were despite this game taking place a mere 4-6 years after Wild, Rauru existing is an insult, no Fi, no breaking of the Demise curse despite it being falsely hinted being the case what with all the Skyward Sword PR this game got (I distinctly remember Skyward Sword being advertised as heavily linked to TotK somehow which, again, is misleading as on Nintendo's part), no dog petting, no hookshot spiderman swinging with the physics being suuuuch a driving factor in these newer Zelda games, no underwater exploration instead a damp dark smelly overgrown cave can't see jack, COLLOSAL missed opportunity to hitch the princess with her handsome knight in shining armor, no stakes since Zelda's sacrifice was reversed giving the story little to no agency or consequence, Link as a protagonist felt nonexistent feels like everyone else was the star of the show not the guy who's saving all their 🫏s, no Link backstory before any of this went down aka no Arryl 2 or Granny 2 aka NOT WIND WAKER, didn't make me cry like Twilight Princess, dungeons are STILL NOT dungeons (pulling a couple levers to open a door and then be treated with literally the same copy-paste cutscene at the very end with each champion? Yeah naw), sky islands hardly anything worth noting although they are pretty asf to look at, I was expecting a totally NEW revamped endgame super Saiyan master sword golden tier 4 legendary new hilt new everything but naw same design with a booboo scar and hilariously less powerful... hoverbike autobuild pales in comparison to THE Master Cycle As a game, sure, it's leagues above BotW but BotW will never be topped as a one-in-a-lifetime *experience* TotK was an overblown $70 DLC and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Mid.

[@DORAisD34D]

It’s not a $70 dlc

[@Giggles_iJest]

@@DORAisD34D $70 for mediocrity

[@icetea3595]

I agree with most of your takes.

[@the_shape523]

yup I agree to it all

[@celestinij]

just my opinion: If it's glorified dlc, it's the best DLC that has ever been released. But i understand the vids perspective.

[@iflgames3245]

Honeymoon period is not people liking the game , but finding it later how bad it really was.

[@THEONETRUEOVERLORD]

That’s not how it works. People just like to hate. The same thing happened with RDR2 and now everyone loves it. It happens with every popular game.

[@iflgames3245]

@@THEONETRUEOVERLORD R2D2 was hated for things that had nothjbg to do with game design and gameplay. That the difference.

[@omicron3012]

Another reason why people loved this game at first and expressed doubts or even frustration a few weeks after has to do with TotK's broken gameplay loop. In the open world formula, the loop goes like this: you begin with weak weapons, so you are incentivized to seek out monsters and explore for resources. Defeat stronger monsters to get the stronger weapons they hold, with which you can defeat even stronger monsters, etc. TotK added something called fuse, allowing you to stick a monster part on a weapon to make it stronger. Thus, its gameplay loop goes as follows: seek out monsters for parts you can stick to your weapons to make them stronger. Since your weapons break after using them in battle, the stuff you get from defeating monsters can be used to make new weapons to replace the ones that just broke. Also, the more you explore the world, the more gear, heart and stamina pieces you collect, making Link stronger. There's a problem with that though, as upon reaching a certain point in the game, you have fused so many good and very strong weapons and collected so many gear, heart and stamina containers and miscellaneous, that the reward you can get from engaging in combat are not worth using your weapons and seeing them break, since you will end up with something worse than what you already had. Plus, further exploration is no longer worth your time, since none of what you could find is objectivelly better than the stuff you already have. When this happens, we essentially are at a breaking point in the gameplay loop: further playing the game is no longer worth the time and engaging your acquired resources. This break in the loop in TotK is likely to occur between halfway into the game and two thirds into it. What likely happened is that when going through the first half or first 2/3 of the game, when the gameplay loop still works, people were having the time of their life and were singing the game's praises all over social media and such. But as more and more players reached the loop's breaking point and realized they were no longer having fun with the game, then their perceptions shifted and they became more aware of the game's flaws, repetitions and shortcomings. This is my story with the game and I'd wager I'm not the only one who went through something similar.

[@chuckchan4127]

Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild feel like new IPs that had the Zelda IP slapped on then to make them sell. I love both games despire the flaws in both. I prefer TotK.

[@kingdaniel3519]

Play the original games. Then come back and say that with a straight face.

[@chuckchan4127]

@kingdaniel3519 What?

[@kingdaniel3519]

@@chuckchan4127 What part of those 2 sentences confused your tiny little mind?

[@chuckchan4127]

@kingdaniel3519 I'm confused why you're pretending your comment has even a hint of intelligence and how you even managed to string the letters together like some drunk monkey.

[@chuckchan4127]

@kingdaniel3519 What confused me how is you have enough intelligence to type that drivel.

[@MoodersInit]

I think that as people play games for HUNDREDS of hours you just generally grow to realise that its kind of unreasonable to expect a piece of software to hold peoples attentions for that long and for them to enjoy the entire thing. I see this with so many different games people play them for like 300 hours and then when they are between hour 300 and 400 they realise that they are not enjoying it as much so it must be the games fault. It happens with a lot of sequels especially with sequals that dont switch up the formula much i think the reality is that people just get bored and frustrated being this deep into something and really need to take a break from it and try something else

[@availlaponcet5877]

It really depends on the circles you're in. "Everyone" is a large span. YOU didn't see any critique. Everyone around YOU loved this game. I went into TOTK optimistic (I was disagreeing with people left and right about it being a glorified DLC) only to be sorely disappointed nearly immediately. It's not "recently". You just SAW it recently. People have been talking about this since the game came out.

[@rezarfar]

This was my exact issue too, i defended the game only to be almost immediately disappointed 😂, for slightly different reasons maybe, now to be fair there is enough new content in the game to make it playable, even as DLC, not worth the cost of a whole new game but if this was DLC (which it honestly should have been), it would be on par with Blood and Wine for Witcher 3 as the best DLC a game ever got. But yes it really is just glorified DLC unfortunately. The issue i personally had was the cumbersome and unintuitive building mechanic thats forced onto the game and requires you to engage with to progress a lot of the game too. Thats my issue.

[@train4292]

I’m not really into Zelda much, but it just kind of sucks how much people hate TOTK and BOTW now. I get that opinions exist, but everywhere I go, I see people saying “they killed the Zelda franchise! And people “are finally realizing these games are awful!” It’s disappointing this is kind of how it is now.

[@CoolLogoDude]

For some reason they want to go back to when you would get stuck in some section because you had to do some NPC quest line to get a random item that let you into the dungeon. That's how Zelda used to be. These new games allowed players to go anywhere and not get stuck on tedious and cryptic puzzles. Past Zela games had a lot of BS that would have you put down the game for months because you couldn't find a small key. Idk why people want that style again

[@murmirr]

@@CoolLogoDude then you didn't like zelda! don't fucking play zelda games if you don't like zelda games! this is what makes me mad, why are YOU being catered to, someone who obviously doesn't actually care or give deeper thought into why the games were the way they were, instead of actual fans? the game is made for literal brainrotters who can't focus on one path for more than 3 seconds without needing someone to jingle keys in front of their face. literally saying "uhhh the only good mario game is mario teaches typing!! the rest of them are shitty platformers why would you want that!!" it is genuinely an insane argument.

[@lotrfan4237]

⁠@@CoolLogoDude so you hated Zelda before it went generic open world route, got it

[@OGYouTubeEnjoyer]

I hadn't played a Zelda game since Windwaker (Which was always a great game) and I picked up Tears Of The Kingdom recently skipping Breath Of The Wild and while I don't dislike the game it just doesn't feel like a Zelda game. I find it somewhat boring with how open (and big) it is. My biggest issue with it though is the durability system. It makes me want to avoid combat entirely. I also find the abilities and having to construct things and whatnot to be extremely slow and tedious. Also Ocarina Of Time is timeless and will never feel dated.

[@SIsReal]

Looking back now making a game based on dlc probably wasn’t the best idea maybe. I love the old school Zelda formula that I grew up playing. Going through the dungeons for the first time is just magical, especially as a kid. Collecting new items and upgrading yourself through the game was always awesome especially when you had to do a special quest to get some awesome new sword. Get the fierce deity mask as a kid was so cool man. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the new open design. It’s literally what was envisioned from the first game and what they’ve always wanted to do. Having that sense of wonder exploring the open world the first time playing botw is just unmatched. Going through the shrines and figuring out the puzzles with the new sandbox, toying with the open ended mechanics, and piecing together the story was a great refresher and something I wanted to more of. But I always still missed that old school formula, especially during TotK. With this next game, I really hope they combine the two together, like everyone wants. It would feel like they have fully realized the new formula.

[@Sauron2010]

They should make a remake of one of the older Zelda games not as an official release and see how that does with the current fanbase

[@JetterTrender]

It would probably lead to a lot of disinterest, more modern fans of open world Zelda might find traditional 3D Zelda to linear, it kind of comes down to personal taste and the fact that open world is all the rage in todays gaming landscape.

[@netweed09]

Why another re-make?? No, maybe only Ocarina in the Unreal 5 engine but that's only to re-explore nostalgia and great aesthetics. I loved actual innovations, like UltraHand, in a free roaming, sprawling Open world.

[@Name-tn3md]

There's rumours that's ocarina of time it's 1st candidate for it

[@The_hot_blue_fire_guy]

Didn’t the Wii one get a remake like last year?

[@The_hot_blue_fire_guy]

@@Name-tn3md didn’t that already get remade for the 3DS? If they are doing another remake why not pick a game that has not been remade yet, like the very first NES Zelda?

[@theprophet2444]

Played 180h of BotW and 280h within 4 weeks of Totk. Haven't played both for more than a year now, why should I hate them now, when I had the most fun of my life with these two games? The dungeons never were great to start with and the bosses way too easy, that's criticism I agreed with even back then. However I highly disagree that BotW is the same as TotK, it's a way different play experience, with a much weaker Link and always the history of the failing hero hanging above your head.

[@yaryoo]

this shit happens with every game ever made, once the hype is over people pretend its the worst thing in the universe for attention online and yall always feed the fire and wonder "damn wonder why all these people saying this shit"

[@JMB_Knight]

Isn’t the same thing currently happening with Spider-Man 2? I haven’t personally played the games but back when it released many were praising it, now they talk as if it was a disappointment. Hell in some rare cases I see GoW Ragnarok being bashed for not living up to its predecessor

[@rifatbobos]

Most that hated TotK (and BotW to some extent) are criticizing the story. As if they still haven't learn that Nintendo never gave a damn about continuity in Zelda and only did so because fans kept pressured them. I honestly in favor that they're more leaning towards exploration rather than story, because how complicated do they want a Zelda story to be?

[@nabil.19]

so apart from the story what does the game have? its a copy paste of botw if you arent comparing stories

[@rezarfar]

My biggest issue with TOTK is they took a cumbersome, unintuitive and tacked on building mechanics from BOTW that was added for fun and not needed to progress the game. They took that, doubled it and gave it to the next game 😂. Oh and they made progression more reliant on it. They didn't make it less cumbersome, less annoying to use and more engaging. They just changed the way you engage with the mechanic to actually be MORE ANNOYING than before and they made progression more reliant on this terribly tacked on and lazy building mechanic. I like Zelda, im not a fan of Minecraft. To me this game is the second worst Zelda game right behind Skyward Sword. 6.5 out of 10 game at best.

[@goonballoon]

i love the building and remember the target audience is mainly kids and it allows creativity. I love twilight princess which i believe is the definitive zelda game, but tears of the kingdom was much more enjoyable.

[@goonballoon]

and the zonai is very shoehorned but the building mechanic is one of the best i’ve seen implemented in gaming, yall just impatient lol

[@DANBAN119]

I still prefer it over botw, but I think what aggravates me the most about totk is mostly that it didn't really fix the issues I had with botw. Sure the dungeons have themes and unique bosses, and I really don't hate any of them, but they are still pretty short and lack that classic Zelda formula, I.E Unique Miniboss, searching for a boss key, several locked doors you need a small key first to get through. I really Don't mind the "find 5 locks to unlock the boss" formula but at make finding those 5 locks a bit longer to get too and put in a unique miniboss. Combat is still trivialized healing by the ability to bullet time and flurry rush infinitely, why this isn't tied to a focus meter or something is beyond me. Would've made combat more engaging while also increasing possible rewards by allowing the player to find collectibles to increase the flurry/bullet time and healing slots. I really don't mind the weapon durability system but the ability to repair weapons is really tedious and not at all told to players, that way being you have to throw a weapon and have it eaten by a rock octorock which are ONLY found in the eldin region. Just, the ability to use monster parts to repair a weapon would've been cool, fuse increases the damage of weapons but it doesn't really help repair them. Also the mastersword being breakable is still stupid. In a game where every weapon breaks is it really such a crime to have 1 weapon be unbreakable? ESPECIALLY when it's the main weapon of the game? Mastersword isn't even the strongest weapon, just make it unbreakable but in exchange it can't be fused and is locked at 30dmg for all nongloomed enemies, that's a decent trade off right? Story is not as solid as botw, as well as kinda giving Zelda a character assassination after the opening. Idk it just mostly relies on Zelda being stupid, which she is NOT, this is probably the most clever and intelligent Zelda we got. Like you meet a guy named Ganondorf, very similar sounding name to that Calamity Ganon monster, not only that but that Ganondorf guy looks almost exactly like the mummy you ran into before being sent back in time, a mummy who also mentioned the first king of Hyrule. And what's most damning is that you know of an ancient battle with a Demon King called the "imprisoning War", which occurred around the time period you are CURRENTLY IN. Theoretically any person with decent deductive abilities and the knowledge that Zelda had could at least piece together that the mummy was around at the time of Hyrule's founding, and that he was "imprisoned", so he may or may not be the demon king who was defeated in the Imprisoning War. At the very least Zelda could have asked if anything like an the Imprisoning war had occurred yet, and if Rauru said it hadn't, could've warned him that it WOULD happen. This would fix another issue, the fact Ganondorf and Rauru say that Rauru was "arrogant", but for the most part we don't see that. It would've been so simple for Zelda to warn Rauru about the Imprisoning War, and Rauru in his arrogance be like "Ha! Well if that does happen it certainly won't be now! Under my leadership Hyrule has prospered! And their certainly isn't any 'Demon King' like you mentioned!". Rauru can still be this strong and noble leader, but at least make his character flaw of being arrogant a bit more pronounced so that his eventual revelation about this flaw and Ganondorf calling him out makes more sense. The story and character arcs aren't bad on paper, and their are definitely some good and iconic moments from it, but it feels like a rough draft that still had some holes that needed to be filled in, as opposed to botw which felt a bit more realised, even if it is obnoxious we didn't get to play through it.

[@rdfarley89]

I don't get it; I think people are just full of shit. I saw someone saying that the Zelda franchise is dead now and the next game will be a mobile gacha game like get a fucking grip. People who want to talk about lore and shit never played ALTTP without reading the manual lol.

[@darkarma3603]

I would love a twilight princess style plot and dungeon design, with all the mechanics behind Tears of the Kingdom. And proper fishing. I loved Twilight's fishing. Bonus points if we actually find out what happened to Midna and not have Zelda acting as background mcguffin.

[@JetterTrender]

OMG FOR REAL!! the would actually be the perfect Zelda game!

[@patrickkelly4213]

BOTW story, OOT dungeons and bosses, BOTW mechanics would be best for me

[@darkbladenexas]

problem is that breath/tears mechanics make dungeons hard to design since they can cheese most puzzles. When you was more item based, you were a bit more restricted it what you could actually do you solve a puzzle. Once example was I was meant to utilise logs and parts to make a contraption to go flying over a gap (if memory serves me correctly). On keeping the logs as I went....... I just made a long bridge.

[@lyianx]

@@patrickkelly4213 wouldn't work. There is a reason "OOT dungeons" were not in BotW. People like you would bitch that they "arent worth doing" because.. what do you expect to get out of them? It wouldn't be a unique item to help you get though that dungeon, that is then needed in subsequent dungeons. IF it were, it wouldn't be open work any more any the BotW mechanics wouldn't work. Its crazy how many people dont understand this.. They just "want it all" without realizing "all at once" cant work they way they think it will.

[@patrickkelly4213]

@@lyianx I’m not interested in gimmick mechanics, I want an area to explore with structure and a unique atmosphere

[@IAMTHEARMAGEDON]

I formed a lot of opinions when I found out they were just re-using the same map, and playing the game did not change them. Most of the fun of Botw was exploring this new iteration of Hyrule, nothing in Totk came close to that feeling.

[@winterrain1947]

People legit spent over a hundred hours on this game. They LOVED it. Many People CRIED their eyes out over certain scenes. How can it suddenly be so awful to so many people though? BE HONEST! It 'WAS" such a good game that we all played it TOO much. We made ourselves sick of it. It's not the game's fault that it was SO good that we kept on playing it long after we had our fill! Stop bullying the poor thing!

[@ricky.t.1658]

No, that’s the power of marketing, they brainwashed half the fanbase to think the game was good, now everyone can see the game in a objective light and can see how bad the game truly is

[@winterrain1947]

@@ricky.t.1658 I don't think I was brainwashed. I am certain that I actually had fun beating the story parts of TotK. It was a really good story/adventure.

[@ricky.t.1658]

@@winterrain1947 that is something interesting to me. How could you enjoy a so hollow and empty story that has the hability to spoil itself and repeats all the story Beats from botw, lacks literally any kind of theme and character complexity. This Game IS what would happen if u asked a 3 year old how they think the sequel to botw would be?

[@winterrain1947]

@@ricky.t.1658 Are you mad at me for liking a game that you did not like? *Shrug That actually does suck though when a game you wanted to like ends up being a game that is Not your thing at all. And TotK was expensive. I guess I'd be mad about that too. And I've been there. Bought games for good money that I ended up hating so bad that I could not play them. Also, LONG before TotK while we were all still playing BotW, I knew they would make a sequel. I imagined all kinds of things that they could do with a sequel and I hoped they would somehow put Link in the North continent. That way they'd be able to totally make a different world, different map, new creatures, towns, and maybe regular temples instead of all those shrines. That would have been great because they'd be able to reuse that same game engine, but we would have gotten a completely different game.

[@Rando1481]

@@ricky.t.1658the gameplay is good the world is beautiful and it has so much content

[@commander7744]

I like tears of the kingdom i actually prefer it over breath of the wold

[@WarIsNoMoreCold]

Lol people complaining about content in TOTK really like to kill the same 3 enemy types in BOTW for dozens of hours. Even the puzzles are so boring in BOTW.

[@Xiatter]

Since when does internet opposition shut people up? Most people seem to double down, even if it means moving to another platform to do so. I think people just got burnt out of and started looking for reasons to dislike these games. Yeah they share a lot of similarities, but it doesn't take dozens of hours or months or a year to figure that out and say something about it. I had a similar reaction to Elden Ring. It just wasn't nearly as impressive as people led me to believe, but I was not ashamed of saying how I felt about it, the whole way through until it's several 30-second endings.

[@nerdFerb]

I still love tears of the kingdom 900 hours in the game on my 3rd play through. Probably my favorite game of all time

[@RavenGamingOverLord]

Same

[@DelasVC]

Your final verdict is pretty much exactly what I expected from TotK - which is why I was pretty underwhelmed by it when it dropped..

[@lambdanebula8473]

Can't say I've noticed any sudden influx of hate towards the games, but I've been complaining about both of them since both of their releases. While I can appreciate a lot of what was done, these games have extremely serious game design flaws that honestly make the games vastly worse than they needed to be and TotK addressed literally none of them. The fundamental flaw was thinking the game being open world meant that the player had to essentially have access to all areas right off the bat. And yea, with rare exception, you can go basically anywhere you want as soon as you get the sail cloth. You might need some potions to cope with the weather, but this is more an inconvenience than any kind of real barrier. While this does afford a sense of freedom, the price you pay in return is very severe. In a standard Zelda game, you unlock new areas by getting new items, most of which are found in dungeons. Each dungeon has a special item you have to get within it to complete it, and it also has utility outside of the dungeon, thus allowing you to reach the next dungeon and so on. This lock and key game design is extremely good, and it's survived the test of time being the basis of the extremely popular metroidvania genre. It's a solid game loop with a strong sense of progress, but this way of doing things locks out a large portion of the map behind story progress. So, their solution was to do away with items altogether. Instead, you'd have every item you need to challenge and beat any dungeon as soon as you left the tutorial, but that created another problem. There's not much you can do to reward the player with if they already have everything they need. This is a problem they never solved, and in their attempt to solve it, they created one of the single worst aspects of the game. First off, they decided to include stamina which would slow how quickly you climb, how far you could glide, and how quickly you can move around, but frankly, all this did was make the game more tedious. They artificially imposed and inconvenience simply so they can reward you with the solution, and it that directly negatively impacts game feel. Stamina was pointless and annoying in Skyward Sword, and the same is true here. Secondly, and much more substantially, they decided to include a wide variety of weapons the player can use, based on a handful of base designs. Most of them aren't that interesting. Few of them substantially change gameplay, and worst of all, in a vain attempt to force the player to use all of them, thinking that would fix the monotony, they added durability. Weapons break after 5 hits it feels like, and it actually diminishes the reward of getting them, because you know you'll only be able to kill a single bokoblin before it's gone forever. What this ultimately means is that players are either going to just put up with it diminishing the game, or find the few places where good weapons respawn, and just farm them, meaning now they have to do this tedious farming in between actually playing the fun parts of the game. Again, they manufactured a problem, and then try to reward you with a terrible solution, and worst of all, it completely failed to solve the original problem which was the fact that there is no interesting items to find anywhere in the world. The most rewarding thing to find is outfit items, because at least they stick around, but those don't change the gameplay at all. Third, due to limited development time, they did away with dungeons in favor of shrines dotted throughout the world. This helped to fill up the world, but they're so damn repetitive and insignificant. They feel more like busy work than a valid replacement for dungeons. Dungeons are way more interesting, and we didn't get that in either game. The game objectively would've been better if they simply didn't make this decision. Fourth, they copy pasted enemies a bunch of times. BotW had less enemy variety than any other game in the series, including the first Zelda ever, and sure, you could argue they're more in depth, but truthfully, in most cases, they're very basic enemies. TotK did increase enemy variety by simply adding to what they already did in BotW, but really, it still feels like you run into the same few enemies in every area. It's almost entirely bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizalfos. It's boring. TotK keeps the stamina, keeps the durability, keeps the shrine system, keeps the lack of enemy variety, and what does it add? It adds an admittedly really cool, but extremely janky build system that was so tedious, most of the time I would look for ways to avoid or minimize what I had to build rather than engaging with it. It was so unreliable and clunky that most of the time it took forever to implement simple solutions. The thing is, it never needed to be this way. If they had simply kept the existing Zelda formula, and built the world around that, rather than doing it the other way around, they would've had a much better game on their hands. They could've simply kept Dungeons locked unless you got the item and solved the puzzles needed to open them. Around the world hide actually useful items and just a few really unique weapons that don't break. This game could've been the masterpiece everyone kept tricking themselves into believing it was. People wanted so bad for these games to be incredible that they fooled themselves into believing it was, but when the dust settles, the truth is they both are horribly flawed, and it all started with the devs being unwilling to lock locations away, which in the end, they ended up doing with some shrines and locations anyway, especially in TotK. They're a failed experiment that sold well, meaning we can expect even more disappointing would be masterpieces in the future.

[@BasementDweller_]

I find it weird when people love Breath of the Wild but dislike Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the kingdom is the breath of the wild…but more of it.

[@imhaddanitattaxx4172]

That's exactly the issue. We loved botw because it was so earth shatteringly different to what came before. Waiting 6 years for what was essentially "more BotW" was pretty underwhelming

[@murmirr]

yeah because it sucked the soul and the life out of it, and i can FEEL the lazy decisions. as an artist, i know when devs were lazy and threw something together. you got scammed, sorry. it's a dlc marked up 20 dollars (they admitted it, don't argue).

[@Jinni-iras17514]

It's not even more of Botw. if it was there would be new areas to explore. ACTUAL new areas and environments with unique enemies

[@Atxurra]

I've fallen out of videogames for the past 7 years. In June I got heel surgery and had to spend a considerable time in bed. Pretty much the last game I played a lot was BOTW and now got a friend to lend me his switch (I had sold mine) and TOTK. When I saw gameplay videos of TOTK I thought the fuse power looked dumb, now playing it, I love it. It gives each items a lot of importance and something to do with, in BOTW and in most RPGs a lot of loot items are either something to sell and earn a little money from, then possibly maybe you would need to collect some for a specific quest later, nothing else. TOTK completely solved that problem, had any game ever solved that before? The depths become stale only once you become strong. But otherwise, when youre weak at the beginning they are very challenging and full or surprises. It's very hard and disconcerting to explore the depths at that point, and that transition from aprehension to dominance of the depths is part of the experience, you're becoming stronger, like Link. The Depths, the Sky and the Land all have 3 different gameplay flows, and even when separated feel connected. I never have a drive to complete side quests in games because they usually barely unlock new things, in TOTK some of the smallest sidequests unlock huge things, like armor improving, something to do with the Phantasmo collectibles, making your house, huge cave systems with actual smart hidden secrets. TOTK is not DLC, it's a whole new game with only the map from the first as a base map. People who dislike it usually give a very shallow and superficial analysis because it looks the same, but the gameplay is a lot more deep and engaging. In fact, I was ready to be disappointed because I had heard it's a disappointment, it wasn't at all. And I'm 100% hard to please when it comes to video games.

[@JetterTrender]

This is a very solid perspective on this topic and I agree with most of your points! TOTK was a game I sank an easy 200 hours in and mostly completed, I loved it so so much, though I do still feel in a lot of ways this game ends up feeling like DLC, mainly because of the amount of reused setup and content, THOUGH that is just my own personal perspective on it, but even if that is the case TOTK still is one of my favorite open world games along with Fallout, Skyrim, and star fox atlas despite the amount of reuse.

[@daniel8181]

"totk's abilities looked stupid until i played it" dude 100% haha, I actually felt a huge letdown when that trailer featured the dumb robot tower released.

[@_sparrowhawk]

"When I saw gameplay videos of TOTK I thought the fuse power looked dumb" Really? Why? They were basically solving the 'but swords break' problem from the first game.

[@Atxurra]

@@_sparrowhawk Yeah, it's awesome. But it looked stupid when I hadn't played the game before.

[@ninkstheultimate3376]

Nothing is more boring than doing shrines again, especially after 132 of them in the previous game. Gotta love more koroks, too. You can save state your horses, but ABSOLUTELY nothing else? Weapons look stupid. Fuse, Ultra hand, and Autobuild are the same power. Combat is the exact same; the only variance is stupid looking weapons and having materials that stun or confuse enemies so you can slash at them easier, which basically means get good. The depths became stale when I had 3 hearts and weapon power below 20. Why? Cuz it's just a big empty pit. The only thing even partially interesting is the Kohga story, which forces you to go to the corners of the map. The almighty and ever versatile hoverbike breaks the entire game, and although optional, is an intended way to play the game, so why shouldn't I play the way the game let's me and says I need to? The story is good on paper, but the delivery in the actual game sucks. Botw was ok with it because the story was literal lost memories, not a story that is supposed to shed light on the ancient past. The sky islands are mediocre at best. The only one of significance is the Great Sky Island. Nintendo lied to us in their marketing, especially getting a quick buck by selling Skyward Sword and encouraging players to get it before they play Totk, as if SS is relevant to it's story or world. NOPE! Imo, Botw does the Botw formula FAR better than Totk. But that's just my opinion. These are just a few of my problems with the game. Will be listing more.

[@MichaelW.1980]

What sort of killed the open world idea for me was, that I played Both, Skyward sword HD and Tears of the Kingdom at the same time, and both FOR the first time. I enjoyed Skyward Sword very much, while noticing the weaknesses of both BOTW and TOTK more and more with time. Mind you, I played Breath of the Wild a stupendous amount of time, accumulating more than 2.6K hours, so I liked it a lot, obviously. But that was despite its flaws. And Tears of the Kingdom, sadly, while doubling down on BOTW‘s strengths, also did so on its weaknesses. And this broke the formula for me. I loved the exploration, loved the puzzle shrines, loved the mini bosses, loved the gathering of stuff to make myself more OP, loved the cooking mechanic. But the repetitiveness of so many things in these two games (shrines, puzzles , enemies because of a lack of variety, etc) became more and more of an issue to me, ending up becoming something that I don’t want to put up with for the amount of time it takes to 25% a game like this anymore, let alone completing it.

[@Kraken_da_goat]

I think people are getting bored

[@JetterTrender]

Lmao probably, but let me assure you that this video was not made on a basils topic! Here is a short list of videos that I was referencing in mine, all of which were made in the past year and focused on issues they have with TOTK! - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gH_caWSnqpp3eMk - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpqsl6F9Zr2HicU - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJSseXxmmNyim8k - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5rEmZKef7mroLM - kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqbRfKqGhrKihaM - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2LQg4mkZbx2qLc

[@elnurgling]

Tne main difference between BotW and TotK is that in BotW the Sheika powers are easy and intuitive to use and don't overstay their welcome but can be used if you feel like it. Played through that game eight times and loved almost every second of it. In TotK I was already fed up with constantly having to glue junk together before I even got off the Tutorial Sky Island, and gave up on the game entirely after wasting 75 hours mainly being bored and annoyed (maxed out my Stamina wheels, unlocked the entire overworld map, unlocked part of the underworld and explored a handful of Sky Islands).

[@tomtinakiyama9949]

Both games are bad. Botw is a unfinished mess and Totk didn't fix the main problem of botw. It took people 7 years to realize botw is a bad game.

[@gothicboulder]

Based

[@es2cs]

It’s like the souls and monster Hunter games. fans hate the new mechanics / different pacing of the new title then they later enjoy it.

[@kimarimoi]

I've beaten BotW at least twice, and barely finished the tutorial of Tears before dropping it. But, indeed, I didn't really talk about this a year ago because everyone seemed to think it was the best Zelda game ever, and a huge upgrade over BotW specifically. Partly, I just hated the skill select wheel, and had too much muscle memory from using runes to get used to it. But it also felt like they added too much content that wasn't really necessary and made it feel overly complicated. An open world exploration game, but with gacha machines for building Garry's Mod contraptions, sidequests and mini-dungeons packed into every square inch, gluing random objects to your weapons, arrows enhanced by literally any item drop, and everything else that I didn't get to (a giant underground cavern, ghost buddies following you around...). What does all that random stuff add to the core experience, which is basically the same as BotW? Does it actually make the game better, or just longer and more convoluted? People started saying the older game was like a tech demo, but nobody thought that when it came out, it only seems minimalist when compared to its max-imalist sequel. Sometimes less is more; packing too many Things To Do into an open-world game makes it feel more like plowing through an endless pile of tasks than exploration. I think that's the main reason I lost interest. There's still hope for new ideas in Zelda with Echoes of Wisdom... though it looks like it's using the Link to the Past map yet again, so, we'll see.

[@ToaMeikhaal]

I think a lot of Tears of the Kingdom's initial popularity came from the wow factor. Everyone remembers their firsts in that game. Discovering the Depths for the first time, the thrilling buildup to each temple, figuring out what happened to Zelda, and that EPIC final boss fight... Tears REALLY delivered on its spectacle. But now people have seen all that, and there are no more surprises. Now the fans look at how much you actually have to do to 100% the game, and it A)quickly gets overwhelming, B)is largely derivative of Breath of the Wild, and C)feels pointless because you get crap rewards for most of it.

[@mattmanbrownbro]

My biggest problem with both titles is the movement from spiritualism and time period immersion, to a more technologically progressive and yet still medieval mish-mash that just isn't coherent. Previous titles always had a focused on ethereal artifacts, with a small pantheon of gods and goddesses creating or influencing certain items, time travel, melody and music, and other things that feed your spirit and imagination. Now, it's just archeology and cellular devices, but with swords.

[@kingdaniel3519]

That's valid.

[@benlink202forever]

Hot take: if Nintendo IS listening to the fans, then what are they going to interpret from an entire community that doesn’t know what it wants? 7 years ago BotW was considered revolutionary, now fans are questioning what they want from the franchise. I love BotW, but it was flawed, TotK didn’t improve much to it. When Nintendo listened to fans crying about WW being bad because it was “realistic” in terms of style, we got TP a game that was loved, then hated for its style, then loved again. Personally, I don’t want Nintendo to listen to the community because it seems like there no cohesive argument for what to change in the franchise.

[@patrickshaw411]

A lot of my issues with Breath and Tears are covered in this video, and it’s very conflicting, cause I actually really love both titles, I just wish they did more. They both feel wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle for me, with Tears being a little more deep. The way they made the story work, twice in a row, frustrates me. I could go on. They are 10/10 games to me, but very frustrating 10/10s. Contrary to the comments, this is not the first video on KZbin talking about issues with Zelda nor will it be the last. I see parallels with Skyward Sword for sure. In 2011 and 2012, everyone was calling it a perfect game, but since then it is a good game with some flaws.

[@JetterTrender]

I'm always scared to talk about anything Zelda nowadays, anytime I do there is a high chance the majority of the fanbase dogpiles me lmao, but even still when I do talk about the games I keep my opinions honest and I'm glad you agree with many of the small issues I brought up in this video!

[@f3ryx]

Nintendo fans literally can’t handle their games not being a 10/10. When you say shit like that you completely invalidate your own opinion.

[@asdfasdf4924]

Context, I'm slightly over 40 years old. I bought Tears of the Kingdom, and over the course of playing it, I realized I wanted to play NES games instead because I found the aspect of rotating shit and soldering it together to be annoying, as well as getting lost and wasting hours of my life in the underworld. Since then I've discovered how much I yearn for the days of my childhood, and have been happily playing NES games since. Just to be clear, at least part of my critique of TotK is simply the fact that it's 3D at all. I miss the days where I could expect an interesting game in 2D, whether it be a side-scroller, or top down. It also makes me wonder if the fact that all games nowadays are 3D are forcing them to be so expensive to develop. I wonder if we could have higher quality and better games if the focus was to make games that were fun to play, not just 3D

[@blackdust7353]

Here is an easy one: Cause the game itself lacks an identity besides being "the funny sandbox Botw/Zelda game". Almost everything in this game was reused in the laziest ways possible. The surface is 90% the same with awfully empty and boring caves everywhere. Shrines are back, but look different. Koroks are back, but are more. Sage abilities are Champion abilities, but worse. The pause menu still makes you basically immortal. Memories are back, but they absolutly don't work well for Totk, because they can tell you the story of what happened in the past in completly random order. Like, the memory where you see Zelda turning into a dragon? Yeah, that was my second one i got and it ruined the whole "mystery" about the light dragon. An open world game should have measures against this, easiest one being to just show the memories in order, no matter where you went. The Zonai pretty much replaced Sheikah in every way. The storyline itself is a dumbsterfire. Also, has anyone of you ever seen how the stroy progression is almost the exact same as in Botw? Link almost dies protecting Zelda from the Calamity/Ganondorf, gets transported to an isolated plateau/sky island and your first thing is to seek the temple of time (which there are 2 of now?). On your way there, you meet someone and, by mere chance, it's the former King of Hyrule's ghost Rhoam/Rauru. They both tell you to seek shrines to get your abilities and once you've done that, your mission is to save Zelda and beat the Calamity/Ganondorf. You jump down the plateau/sky island and your first recommended thing is searching for a Sheikah member, that being Impa/Purah. They tell you what has happened after the Calamity/Upheaval began and now you need to save the same 4 villages as before from some disaster that's happening there, meeting the same 4 people as before and do stuff with them to unlock the divine beasts/temples - should i go on? I think it's pretty clear that the whole progression is the exact same for almost the whole game. This game has some heavy flaws and is a horrible sequel. As a game on it's own, it's alright, but nothing outstanding besides the physics and fusion being the way they are

[@DanielMazahreh]

Tears has an identity. You’re just not smart enough to identify it.

[@blackdust7353]

@@DanielMazahreh So you know it then? Mind telling me what it is?

[@DanielMazahreh]

@@blackdust7353 Figure it out yourself by looking up the Zelda development team being interviewed in a series from the official site. Either figure it out yourself by replaying the game or cheat on the internet. Not going to spoon-feed it to you.

[@blackdust7353]

@@DanielMazahreh I'm not going to replay a game i was almost 90% bored of while playing it, nor read through potentially multiple full on interviews about this game, if you could just tell what the hell it is. Aren't you trying to disprove my statement here? Is Totks identity about finding hope and rebuilding Hyrule? Clearly not, otherwise we would see more of it in all of Hyrule, not just Lookout Landing. Is it about sacrificing yourself? Not really, cause pretty much everyone who did die somehow was either stupid, overestimated themselves or was in the complete dumbsterfire of a plotpoint called "the imprisoning war" and/or in the battle were 7 sages weren't able to land a single scratch on Ganondorf. And Zelda gets turned back without a single memory of what happened. If you are such a smart guy who was able to figure it out somehow, help this dumbass here out and tell me what it is. Otherwise, it just feels like you are not able to disprove that point in any way

[@DanielMazahreh]

@@blackdust7353 So you struggle reading? LOL! There’s a reason why I’m not helping you out, because it proves the point that you prefer stories that spoon-feed you AKA inferior narrative styles. You should just grow up & figure out where you were wrong in judging this obvious masterpiece. You were bored, because you are not smart enough to appreciate an obvious work of art.