@@timboslice8559 In my humble opinion, that is why great art isn't about how much things you can put in it. The quality of the places is where it is at. I get what you saying and respect that. I think if they took at least 6 more months to make less copy and paste places like the depths, and just make beautiful, integrate amazing puzzles in the islands and in the caves would be bad azz. Oh, and more creatures in those places that are different.
If I’m being honest, exploring the overworld in totk just wasn’t the same as botw, mainly because they just didn’t add enough new things or areas, could also just be my nostalgia for botw as I played that game the most when I was 11 in 2017
What’s funny is I felt the opposite problem. I felt they added too much to the world. It almost felt bloated, and unnaturally so. In botw, I enjoyed the empty space and the serene treks between major locations, while in totk, it felt like I was constantly getting distracted, and to the point where it disrupted the experience
@@calebjp8904 tbh I think you might be on to something. Totk has too many of the korok twin things everywhere and more enemies, now that I think of it, I really enjoyed the peaceful exploration of botw and not having to slow down or go off course. I noticed that the road between the outpost and rito is the biggest example of that in totk.
@@burger_kinghorn It's...just a single button you need to press. You know the game is absolute peak when people make such a fuss about a non-issue like that, lmao.
@@vadoslink446 it's not difficult, per se. It's inconvenient and inefficient. It interrupts the flow. They should've done something like BOTW does for switching arrow types. Every shot stays that way until you switch or run out. It would've been nicer if you could fuse a certain material then every shot automatically fuses it until you manually cancel.
@@burger_kinghorn I dunno, I don’t fire elemental arrows multiple times. It doesn’t make much sense to hit an enemy twice with a fire arrow for example. So in BotW I always used normal arrows, then switched to elemental arrows for a single shot, only to switch back to normal ones again. TotK's system was more convenient for me.
I agree on the most part but imo the combat in totk is MUCH better. Instead of avoiding combat to save durability you want to fight in totk for new horns to fuse onto you weapons. Also a lot more life has been breathed into the enemies with new attacks
Right but like, fusing automatically adds more steps to combat. Plus the weapons in totk have way less durability to begin with. Its a purposeful design choice to get people to even use the fuse mechanic
@@ciaagentgod2968 That's called nuance. That extra step adds a lot to the active decision making of the game and allows you to modify your weapons to your liking. It rewards combat and makes enemy loot actually valuable. On top of that, the base weapons you find are ALL useful now because weapon classes have different perks. In BotW, when the weapons leveled up to the royal tier, pretty much every other weapon was objectively worse than them in any situation. That's not the case with TotK. I think pressing two buttons to create a weapon is an extra step that's well worth the benefits.
Botw was exciting because you had an introduction to characters and places you never seen, different combat mechanics so it felt so fresh. In Totk it just felt recycled. The champions and their abilities were so much better too
Actually no, he is more useful that many people give him credit for. His ability gets you wet and with zora weapons you being wet doubles the damage zora weapons do. And with food buff and any other clothes that gives you buffs you can just kill anything with those weapons@Kruegernator123
Me too. Tbh I thought it'd be in the coliseum under the korok forest. When the Yiga gave their little intro about how I'd never see the light of day again, I thought it'd be the last working guardian that they had somehow gotten their hands on. But no. Just a hinox, and not even a stal one at that.
@@timboslice8559The onclusion of new enemies was nice, and absolutely required for the game to actually feel some semblance of difference, but I would say it does not at all ‘make up’ for Guardians exclusion. No enemy can even come close to recreating the absolute chills you get from hearing that piano and seeing the red laser locking onto you from a mile away. I have a feeling that they made the Gloom Spawn as an attempt to recreate that feeling, but they were in no way as impactful whatsoever. My first experience with the Gloom Spawn (and this was without spoilers) consisted of me seeing them, going ‘Ok these are enemies’ and then I climbed a wall and escaped, and that was it. The Guardian Stalkers were almost always in the open, meaning there was never an easy escape, making encountering one more harrowing. Basically, Guardians are some of the most memorable enemies in gaming I’ve experienced, and they were replaced in totk with a bunch of replacable filler enemies to stuff the game up with more things
@@timboslice8559 True, but the new enemies aren't chasing us down and striking a similar level of panic if you decide to run away, except for gloom hands, which unfortunately gives up and de-spawns if you run away. Very lame.
In BotW, I found way to "cheat" or "break" 2 or 3 shrines and it felt like a major a accomplishment. In TotK, the hand abilities trivialize so much that it felt like every other shrine I was doing in an "unintended" way.
They said in an interview they wanted to exhaust this version of hyrule to its limits. I think they did that and I’m exhausted 😂 I’m ready for the next game to be completely different with a new vibe
I think the BOTW experience is better because it was a brand new exciting Zelda game with new things we've never seen before and a massive map with many different environments. Meanwhile, TOTK is the exact same map but with an underground and sky area.
Enemy variety is technically better in TotK. However, this comes with fine print. First off, the amount of new enemies added is not that big and the improvement is kinda negligible. But the real problem is that due to the whole monster material fusion mechanic, the player is much more pushed towards combat with the enemies, and this makes the lack of enemy variety actually EVEN MORE NOTICEABLE in TotK than it already was in BotW despite it having been improved. Also, as a tangent, in my opinion the heavier focus on combat has also made the weapon durability system even more of a pain in the ass than it already was in BotW. Players avoiding combat to conserve durability in BotW was indeed a symptom of problematic game design, but they did this not because combat was hard or boring, but because weapon durability was obnoxious. This still hasn't changed, the problem is still there, if anything they've made it harder to ignore.
Completely disagree. 1) TOTK has an insanely high combat variety then BOTW, so you can always make your own fun 2) Fuse progressively removes the problem of weapon durability because stronger (and rich) you become, easier you will replace weapons.
@@zekrom34 I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree then. It's cool if you find the changes in TotK satisfying to you. I wish they were for me, so in a way I envy you. I could also have gone into the problems with the actual combat system of BotW/TotK as well and how that too despite being pretty much the same is felt more in TotK because of the heavier focus on it, but I was only referring to the issue of enemy variety in my post. Also, the weapon durability system has A TON of problems, not just the issue of having to replace the weapons (which is not that big of a deal in either game IMO). Chief amongst them being that it was put in place in order to turn finding new weapons into a reward for exploration, yet what it actually does is making it so finding those weapons feels underwhelming and mundane, so the system kinda self-sabotages its own purpose. Then again this in particular is one of the issues I DON'T think was made worse in TotK, as it's pretty much equivalent. It's just disappointing that they ignored it. The stone octoroks were nice though, I'll give TotK that.
In hindsight the introduction should've worried me more. Because not only did TOTK just do BOTW again there, I really didn't want to be going in shrines, Korok hunting, swinging a sword in 2 ways, collecting memories, all these other things that made sense in BOTW, all over again. Made the game such a drag.
I agree with all points. I might add another- Breath of the Wild adjusts difficulty slightly better than Tears of the Kingdom. Because the enemies level with you in Tears, the increase of hearts doesn’t really effect your durability. So enemies can one-shot kill you no matter how many hearts you have. And the only real way to gain defense is by armor collecting and upgrading. It wasn’t that big of an issue on my first playthrough, but when i think about a second replay and remember all the grinding and fetching necessary to upgrade armor it doesn’t motivate me to want to play again.
getting back to you EXTREMELY late but I absolutely agree!! one of totks main focus is the hearts you can collect, and they don’t really seem to matter all that much no matter how many you have, so the difficulty isn’t as well put together
The Monsters in Tears of the Kingdom use their new horns as weapons, no shit, they sprint towards you or swing their heads around to attack you with their blade-horns, which they never did before because there they just had regular horns that are worthless even to them. And heck, they even came up with completely new ones like the Horrorblins or the Bossblins which only appeared in Hyrule Warriors before, or even brought classic ones back like the Like-Like or the Gibdos.
@@Chris-gx1ei not surprised, considering their rarity. I think only one shows in-story, when you are escorting the sea lokomo sage from Papuchia Village to his sanctuary, when the miniblin pirates board your ship to kidnap him. The others show up in their hideout minigame, where you shoot them and miniblins with arrows in a cart (where you first rescue an alleged boyfriend from a Papuchia Village woman who ends up dating the chief of the woods village). AND if I recall, three show up in the last kill every enemy and boss minigame in Castle Town
Look, I can agree on everything about quality, but many of these points are... dumb or very superficial. For example nobody can deny that BOTW's introduction is more iconic than TOTK, but Great Sky Island level design is something beyond human comprehension, a full tridimensional space that manage to teach maybe three times the stuff we learned in the Great Plateau. And it remains incredibly useful even after because it's a great spot to take off with planes. BOTW's Shrines compared with TOTK's Shrines are just a bunch of disconnected stuff. I always defended shrines, but BOTW Shrines seems blatantly belong to a different game because what you do inside them is completely different from the overworld's activities. TOTK blessing shrines have better (FAR BETTER) sections, the proving grounds destroy the tests of strenght, and the ordinary shrines teach you how to use effectively the zonai devices and build many things. TOTK's abilities are by far the best set of power ever seen in a Zelda game, with nothing remotely capable of standing a chance: Ultrahand is inarguably the best main gimmick of the series, a technological marvel and one of the best game mechanics of the last 20 years at least; Fuse fixes the breakable weapon problem, adds a massive combat variety to an already rich component, makes everything useful and adds a great combat progression; Ascend change the traversal, and a mastered recall ability it's like the perfect speedrun ability.
I was really confused when he tried to argue why the Sheikah Runes were better than the Zonai abilities. Because you have to use them? You have to use them just as much as you had to use the Sheikah slate, except the zonai abilities give you SO many more reasons to want to use them. Cryonis is only useful when the game makes it the only solution to a problem. Recall is basically stasis on steroids. Remote bombs basically lose their effectiveness by mid game because of their low damage. Magnesis… I mean do I even have to compare that to Ultrahand?
i really cant agree on the sky island design- it was honestly very boring for me once i got a good look at it all, and its literally just a copy and paste of the great plateau with a different aesthetic.
Ultrahand and fusion are amazing features and add a lot to the gameplay, but the world itself does feel less developed than botw. I have to disagree about the bombs, though. They might’ve been infinite in botw, but they were also pretty much useless except for destroying black rocks. Also, I can’t tell you how many times throughout my play through of both games I thought “Damn, I wish I had a hookshot.”
@Kruegernator123 That’s because it was the only new thing in the game. Botw was already a bit lacking in gameplay variety, making a direct sequel with only one new feature is going to get stale.
@Swiftbow I’ll admit I did forget about Rewind. Fusing weapons is cool, but it can feel like a waste of time because the weapons break so quickly. Ascend could’ve been better if you could angle it instead of just having to go straight up. Still want a hookshot though.
Love this video! You should also make a "10 things Tears of The Kingdom did better than Breath of The Wild" Would put the ganon fight being better in TOTK.
Makes me think what BotW would have been had they gone through with the original plan to add DLC to BotW and not make TotK. Would we have still gotten the sky islands and depths? How would the elemental arrows worked? Would the fuse ability be left out? What was the original plan for BotW? How much better would BotW be?
I appreciate this video so much. Thank you for bringing up the arrow issue. TotK did so much right but also made changes that ended up being so anti quality of life. It makes it hard for me to enjoy either now. I miss the caves and Ascend in BotW, and I miss... this video basically, in TotK. I also miss moving the Divine Beasts cause at least that added something interactive to the boring dungeons
@@Itsajuicebox1 What did I mix up? What I said about the divine beasts was an addendum to what I said about missing "this video" in TotK, and I miss some of the TotK QoL features like caves and Ascend when I play BotW. Where's the mixup?
@@Itsajuicebox1 Lol, that's fine. No, I just wish it had a handful of the features, cause now I always feel like I'm missing something whichever of the 2 games I play
I recently started replaying BOTW from the beginning and there are definitely some things that I like more about it. -What I really don't like in TOTK is that they made some food items more difficult to find (like truffles) or removed them entirely (like durians). Maybe the intention was to encourage the player to experiment more with the food recipes. But in my case it really didn't work like that, I ended up spending a lot of time going through those places where the rare foods can be found, again and again. That started to feel like too much grinding. In BOTW I can go where I actually want to go, instead of having to constantly return to the same places, because I can find enough food anywhere. Overall, it feels like I spend a lot of time in TOTK refilling my inventory with the stuff I need rather than doing something interesting. In BOTW, I sometimes teleport throught all the towns to buy more arrows, but that's about it. -The Depths are boring. The area is huge but all of it looks about the same and there's not much to do. The area in BOTW was smaller but on average, more interesting. -The Guardians were much scarier than anything in TOTK. I still get a minor heart attack when a Guardian suddenly notices me (especially if I wasn't aware that it is there). The Gloom Hands just aren't the same, especially because they seem unable to do anything about me if I simply climb a bit higher that they are. -I miss Revali's Gale. Don't get me wrong, TOTK is an excellent game but I like some aspects of the older game better. Both are really good games.
Yeah I disagree with almost all of these except that the shrine puzzles in botw had more effort to solve rather than the totk shrines which was mostly ultrahand and recall to solve
OMG, thank you for this video, I agree with everything you said. This is maybe obvious, but I would add that, the Champions were also a lot better than the sages, first because they were easy to use, just hold one button and that's it, while the sages they are so jenky to use, second, the champions were a lot more powerful, when you got one of those power it actually changed the way you play the game, while the sages just feel kinda useless. I also feel like the structure of BOTW was better,like, I never felt lost in BOTW, it always felt like I was in the right place, because the game is built in a non linear way, however there was 3 moments in my playthrough of TOTK, where I got to a place before I was supposed to and kinda broke the game, the discoveries don't feel very natural as BOTW. Anyway, great video
it feels like they spent all their dev time on ultrahand and had to recycle all the universally shrines from botw. Also the new champion abilities made me question their competency as designers bc it's actually insane that those got through beta testing
The shrines are also just worse. So many are done in 10 seconds. They leave you going '....that's it?'. The combat shrines are better but there's just so many formulaic ones that you solve before you've gone in.
Botw shrines make feels like they are really sacred ancient places, monks are real, the soul inside feels alive and design legendary beautiful but Totk shrines look like they are just big rocks you can enter inside. Feels like you are in a dusty garage you just need them for fast travel even tho they have orbs.
As if BotW's were any better. I don't get why people tend to always shit on the puzzle difficulty of the newest Zelda game, as if these games ever had hard puzzles.
I think my problem with TotK has to do more with having played and completed BotW like half a dozen times. The novelty just wasn’t there with TotK aside from the ultra hand mechanics, but to me that stuff got old once I learned to make the hoverbike as it solved like 99% of the problems that Ultrahand is supposed to solve. The main focus of the game should’ve still been the adventure and exploration aspects.
The Shrines in TotK have some deeper lore. You can do the Anchient Stone Tablets Quest and in one of these stands after you translated it that the shrines were once prisons for Demons that Rauru and Sonia defeated and captured to prevent them from resurecting
I think the fuse mechanic was too open. You could fuse any material to any weapon or shield, which does offer some novelty, but I found I was using the same 10 to 20 fuses in my game. It's also not fun trying to find an arrow fuse in 200 items.
I wish there was an additional menu where you could "sort by element" since theres already a sort by fuse attack power. The amount of times ive ran out of fire or ice fruit and spent forever trying to find another item with the same effect is exhausting
Great content, keep it up! Also, if you played totk first and then botw, you would definetly think totk was way better, its just because you've spent so much time in the game (like me) that you just get burned out of the same game... in a way
Honestly, the removal of arrow types was amazing for me, because I could never use my various arrow types without feeling guilty about wasting good arrows when I dont really need them. Matter of fact, I ended up with so many late game that I started running out of regular arrows and needing to switch to my special arrows
Breath has many things I like that cant be found in Tears. But, I think people need to appreciate Tears more because Tears is amazing. Which game is better? I don't know. Depends on my mood.
Breath for sure. With the DLC you can unlock a bike which is faster and easier to control than all Zonai tech in Tears, the champions abilities are 100 times better than the sage’s ability in Tears, Breath has Master Mode Tears doesn’t, Breath has better story and characters.
@@artagle_14You can’t get the bike until you basically beat the game and do all the DLC though. It’s a nice bonus but by the time I got it, I just drove around for a few minutes and stopped playing. Zonai builds have so much more versatility and you use them throughout the entire game.
That's a big hard no from me. The only shrines tears did better was not having the motion control ones, but I personally don't hate those, even if I acknowledge those are weak. But Tears has more shrines, with a larger percentage of them being empty blessing shrines, and too many are out in the open, or require escorting a crystal. There's also way more unskippable text for any tutorial shrine. And you already have to go through 5 loading screens during a shrine in each game.
Anyone else feel like the scaling is kinda lackluster in Totk? Don’t get me wrong, I think botw kinda suffers from the same issue, but since Totk is a bigger game and has more to do - I think it’s actually worse in a way. For example, I just want to explore the world as much as I can- I like doing that in between dungeons. However, after exploring the world and getting like 20 shrines, I already have all silver enemies? They’re extremely tanky with their health and now I feel like I didn’t even get to use the other horns and monster parts I got from blue and black enemies because the game scaled so quickly on me. Maybe that’s on me, I’m not sure- I just wish maybe the scaling went maybe on other factors instead of me like beating a Lynel once. (Not sure exactly how it works, but once I beat a lynel I saw stuff go up)
i havent fully seen the video yet so idk if this was addressed but im not a fan of how there are random chunks of sky rubble peppered across the landscape in totk, you cant take 3 steps without bumping into one and theyre a big eyesore whereas botw doesnt have them
to add on to this: i also am really confused by them not making dlc for this game..? like, there are so many things that would be improved upon with a dlc (those statues of mogma-esque beings in the depths *have* to have been something, right? the depths felt so empty, and having a dlc surrounding them would be so fitting) theyve already made 1 game, 2 dlcs for it, then another game, all with the same storyline, engine, artstyle, world, mechanics, characters, etc, but making a dlc for the second game is where they draw the line? i mean, its their game, they can do what they want to do with it, but i just found it weird
Breath of the Wild had a superior story with better shrines, characters, and side quests. The four champions all had interesting backstories and Kass was by far the greatest character in the entire game. He was way better than Penn. I would even argue that Breath of the Wild had better dungeons. We have seen water and fire temples before and they have been done much better than Tears of the Kingdom but at least Breath of the Wild had a unique concept where the dungeons take the form of a giant animal that fits its environment and navigating the entire beast made room for some interesting atmosphere and puzzles. The shrines in Tears of the Kingdom were annoying as hell especially the cave ones and Rauru should be a preacher with how many blessings he gives. The actual shrine puzzle should be harder and more challenging than actually finding the shrine itself. The four champions are superior to the sages in every way possible. When it comes to side quests and side adventures I honestly think that Breath of the Wild has it beat. I had a lot more fun doing side adventures in that game than I did with Tears of the Kingdom which a lot of them seem absolutely pointless. If you were to rank all of them side by side Tarrey Town from Breath of the Wild would be at the very top. Exploring the world, especially the depths, isn’t really all that rewarding because the game makes you grind out the tedious depths and all they reward you with is the same outfits and clothing from Breath of the Wild. It was lazy on Nintendo’s part and not very good in my personal opinion. Breath of the Wild soundtrack is vastly underrated and even though Tears of the Kingdom has some new music on it’s own it still for the most part borrows the music from its predecessor. Breath of the Wild has one of the most beautiful and underrated soundtracks in the entire series and I will DIE on that hill. Lastly, the dungeons in Tears of the Kingdom have pleasant atmosphere and vibes but if you really think about it they are not very good as well when it comes to gameplay. Water Temple is by far the worst dungeon in the entire series and it makes the Divine Beasts look like master pieces. Wind Temple is just a smaller and easier version of a Divine Beast. Navigating the rail carts in the fire temple was annoying and most people will end up cheesing it. And the spirit temple doesn’t even count because its just a list of chores you have to do leading up to the actual dungeon which only leads to a boss fight that really wasn’t that good. As a matter of fact you can literally cheese all the dungeons with autobuild which makes them 10x easier to begin with. The only decent temple was the lightning temple and even that was short as hell. In conclusion I think Tears of the Kingdom has good moments but Breath of the Wild was more impactful and more well balanced with better characters, shrines, side quests, and overall story.
BotW's shrines were so much better. They had like, actual puzzles while most of TotK's shrines almost always boiled down to just building things. Rewind, fuse and ascend didn't really lend well to puzzles the same way slate abilities did.
Yo I'm so glad you made the Halo comparison which is something I wish Skitty did in her video (or at least talking abt more open world games) and something that I think about myself. Honestly I wish TOTK was structured in the same way Halo Infinite's campaign was. It forces you to go to specific missions/memories but you can do all the extra content in any order. I have no clue why they decided to let people go and do the missions in any order in both BOTW & TOTK, but especially TOTK. (I could go and make a whole video on why TOTK should've learnt from what BOTW & Halo Infinite did instead of being the alternate universe BOTW that it is but I feel like it wouldn't do well). Also TOTK might not feel the same as BOTW since it's on a whole different engine but they just remade all of the systems from BOTW into it.
(Spoilers) I completely agree on this issue with the memories. First time playing the game, I had no idea you’re actually supposed to see Impa to really get that quest going properly. My first memory was on the opposite side of the map and so I didn’t learn what exactly happened to Zelda in the way Nintendo intended you to. I know I need to take some of the blame. The game heavily encourages you to go to Rito Village first and the first memory just so happens to be on the way.
tbh i have to agree that the memories were better in botw than totk just because the first memory cutscene I got in totk was GANONDORF STABBING QUEEN SONIA AND THEN HYSTERICALLY LAUGHING.... i was tramuatised
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the Sheikah aesthetic from BotW. The Guardians looked awesome. The ancient weapons and shields were awesome. The Zonai swords and shields are ok, as are the sandstone shrine designs, but the blue-and-orange was a nice contrast. TotK shrines are just... potato-looking rocks. The towers aren't as distinctive. The Shrine of Resurrection is just another muddy cave. The TotK temples are overall better than the Divine Beasts, but they don't have a distinct aesthetic from the environments around them. They're missing that "pop" of color. I remember thinking sci-fi tech in a Zelda game wouldn't work back in ~2015 when BotW trailers released, but I ended up really liking it.
I raise the guardian graveyards; castle town, blatchery plain, torin wetland and akkala citadel. They didn't have to keep guardians as enemies. But they should've kept the bodies. Those four places have soo much lore behind them and you can see it in the landscape. Heck, I know they've begun to clear up Hyrule, so where's the decomposing stack of guardians in hateno and akkala? The guardians would go back into the towers when calamity ganon was defeated, but *only the functional ones*. Turrets and decayed guardians wouldn't be able to move. So you might be able to find deactivated turrets in Hyrule Castle. If you remove the guardians from those places, blatchery plain especially, they lose their soul. The only reason they stay there is because they have the same map.
I think the techno theme in botw was better (green is my favorite color but the ancient shekia stuff looks way better) and the way they did the companion abilities is so much better in botw, each being mapped to a button rather than having to walk up to them then press a which could lead to accidentally using it (as I have done repeatedly)
Honestly, I think my decision to play TotK before BotW was a good decision (I had seen so many gameplay videos and more stuff so I knew the plot) because it allowed me to see TotK from a fresh perspective without BotW bias. Some may hate me for that, but that’s just how I feel. Plus, the abilities are better in TotK in my opinion 😂
I honestly agree with you here TotK tried to replicate the feeling of BotW and it just can't I haven't touched TotK in months but I have gone back to BotW more times than TotK and I honestly just can't explain why
People need to understand that Tears can’t be completely different from Breath. It's a sequel and because it is on the same map all they could do was to expand on the last game and rework some elements, but not to the point where it feels completely different. You should be able to hop between the two games without any trouble. Recently I played both games back to back, and I can say they are really different in their core approaches to exploration. Breath focuses on introducing introducing things slowly and because of the emptiness it gives the player freedom on how they will explore the new Hyrule without overwhelming the player and also the game is all about how the player will traverse and climb the world. Tears assumes you already know the world and provides abilities to make traversal easier. The game also focuses more in player freedom, Botw didn't have many optional elements because it didn't have many elements at all, but in Totkmos things are optional like the paraglider, ability uses, zonai devices, etc. Because you’re expected to be familiar with the world, the game introduces caves, depths, and sky islands to complement the exploration, these areas are not meant to be explored for much time. The surface has the most content and story, caves are small, linear dungeons, the sky islands are large overworld puzzles, and the depths being challenging to explore even with Zonai devices, similarly how Breath did exploration.
In my view, Tears of the Kingdom had the potential to create an exhilarating experience that could rival the next-gen storytelling and dynamic gameplay of the Mass Effect series. One of the hallmarks of the Mass Effect franchise is the captivating, immersive journey that each player embarks on-a journey brimming with unique discoveries, character interactions, and jaw-dropping surprises at every turn. This spirit of exploration and personalization not only enriches narrative depth but also keeps fans coming back time and again, hungry for fresh adventures. While I recognize that the developers aimed to establish a distinct identity for TotK, separate from its beloved predecessor, Breath of the Wild, I can't help but feel there was an incredible opportunity to weave more thoughtful references and thematic ties to BotW without sacrificing the originality and creativity TotK aspired to achieve. Just imagine! Right from the get-go of TotK, the moment when you lose all your equipment could be seen as Rauru testing your mettle and adaptability in a brand-new landscape. This mechanic immediately ups the ante-starting from scratch is a classic and thrilling element of every great adventure! To counterbalance the sting of losing all your hard-earned gear from BotW, Nintendo could have introduced a clever flag system to track previously acquired armors-a concept they already implemented with the horse regeneration system, which supposedly imports registered BotW horses into TotK. By applying a similar idea to armor, players could have ventured into Shrines of Light dispersed throughout Hyrule, discovering rewards of armors they had already collected in BotW. This would create an exhilarating sense of continuity, allowing long-time players to feel their efforts celebrated. Plus, players who missed out on securing certain pieces of armor (highly doubtful) during their previous journeys would still have access to the original procurement methods already in the game. Nintendo could also still organically add TotK’s unique armors with the default armor procurement system. Now let’s talk about that thrilling opening sequence of TotK, where Ganondorf launches a ferocious attack on Link! This moment is packed with narrative potential that feels only partially realized. Rather than simply casting Ganondorf as a fearsome foe that stole Link’s life energy, how about portraying him as a cunning strategist who seals away Link's BotW abilities right from the start? This plot twist could elevate the stakes, transforming Link's journey into an epic quest not just for adventure but for reclaiming his lost powers! Players would be challenged to conquer a series of Shrines, offering a chance to unseal these abilities in exchange for collecting coveted Light Blessing orbs at a goddess statue. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see references to their favorite BotW Champions? In conclusion, I believe Tears of the Kingdom possessed remarkable potential to craft a more cohesive and interconnected experience that intricately ties back to Breath of the Wild. By weaving in these connections and amplifying the narrative richness, Nintendo could have orchestrated a gameplay experience that resonates powerfully with both newcomers and veterans alike. This would not only deepen the overall gameplay but also intensify the emotional investment players have in the ever-evolving saga of Hyrule, making every adventure feel more thrilling than ever!
Disagree with all the points made here save for two. First, with what agree or semi agree with, or more accurately, the points within the picks that I agree with. I totally understand people's beef with the memories, or more specifically, how the player can potentially find them. I'm gonna say before clarifying, I hate the memory route in both games, but I still like totks memory story more due to the fact that I hate how we never learn anything more than what we got for the Champions and even Zelda. Seeing Ganondorf's mythical rise was just far more interesting to me than seeing tidbits of characters that you're suppose to feel for. Back to the memory encounters, Totk's experience can definitely suffer more because of it's more linear aligned route. Thankfully, It wasn't ruined for me because I explored the ruined temple and found Glyph order hint within said temple. On the topic of the arrows, the thing I agree with is the very tedious UI it brings. Constantly scrolling to find what you want to fuse is quite annoying. Something that would've been more useful would be a quick select wheel for favored items. However, I disagree with that botw's elemental arrows themselves were better. ToTK has a lot more variety than just three elements, gaurdian arrows, and bombs. In ToTK not only do you have those in muiltple variations, there's the added element of water, light, items that are homing, items that make your arrows fly farther, and of course items that simply add more atk power. Sure, bombs and gaurdian arrows are harder to find...buuuut once you unlock the statues in the depths you can just buy a whole bunch via poes. As for the rest of the points- Map- In my opinion, botw feels a lot more empty in comparison to totk, and I'm not simply talking about the extra maps. With the base ground map, totk just simply has a lot more to do in both quantity and quality. Quests were much more fun and memorable, enemies were more plentiful and varied. It was fun to see what changed in old locations and new areas open up. Could things get repeditive? Yes...but botw has the same issue along with less to do. The starting grounds- If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They didn't need to try anything too new, but I do prefer totks start over botw. There were a lot more attractions in the sky-islands. Fun with rails, new challenges in the enviorment. Story wise...totk does it leagues better because he doesn't exposition dump like Zelda and the old man do. How I wish the fact everyone was dead was discovered and not told to you from the start. I honestly would've prefered it if zelda never talked to you and that the old man was more vague. That or he too is scrapped or at the least, not the king. That exposition ruins the memories in botw because then I don't feel as obligated to learn about them. They're long dead, there's barely anything explored about them thus I don't feel much for them. Shrines- I prefer totk. The botw shrines really got boring considering they often ended up relying on the same rune mechanics over and over with a stricter set of ways to solve. In totk, you can solve shrines in various of ways, allowing for more freedom to go about them as you please. You didn't soley have to rely on the abilities and could possibly come up with more clever ways to solve them. No one shrine was ever solved the same if you didn't want to which makes replayability more fun. Speaking of abilities- The only ability botw has going for it is stasis due to the fact it can affect enemies. Other than that...they're boring or pretty much useless. (And I'm talking about the runes intended use and function. No glitches or exploits) Acsend has use outside of exploration. You can use it in battle like holding a rock above you to gain height and jump to use bullet time. You can use it on enemies that you can climb, like the talus. It also freezes time briefly. Ultra-hand is literally a mini-sandbox mechanic, the only limitation being the in game materials provided and your imagination. If you don't like building stuff, that's a personal issue, because yeah, not everyone wants to be creative with it. Yet when people are creative, their builds get crazy fun and even hilarious. I literally see videos of people stun locking enemies and creating torture machines or utterly destroying tough enemies in seconds. Enemies in totk are majorly improved and have more variety. I love the zonai enemies, the Flux, and gleeoks, enemies in the caves and frox in the depths. All the dungeon bosses are leagues better than botw. I also prefer gloom hands more because they will always be threatening at the start. Unlike gaurdians, because once you master shield counters in a few short minutes, what threat do they pose? You can also see them coming and avoid them when you want. Gloom hands, they can sneak up on you outta legit nowhere. I was freaked out by them more and I was majorly caught off gaurd, several times. But if I find a gaurdian for the first time, I can simply choose not to engage at all. As for the atmosphere, I'm on the fence. Both games have great music and both have the looming threat of Ganondorf over them for a hidden atmosphere. Definitely a lot to read, but I tend to do that because simply saying "I disagree" isn't enough for me. It doesn't encourage discussion otherwise. So if you did manage to read it all, thanks for reading.
@@shikiira4185 I 100% agree with what you said about how Zelda should NOT have talked to you in botw. Everything was already laid out for you to figure out on your own, there was no reason for them to hold your hand the whole way through, it takes away the mysterious feeling that I think BOTW should have embraced a lot more than it did, and I think TOTK embraced that feeling a lot more, so I’m happy about that. Total respect for all the points you made!!
The shrines were NOT better. I hated those bullshit motion control puzzles. It's like the developers had zero regard for those of us with the Switch Lite. Absolute garbage.
@@TheEleventhDimension More or less a sorta modern version of the original game.. Zelda 2 was my first I owned tho.. So hopefully they’ll do an ode to that one one of these days
3:58 the new horns are just so you can differentiate between monsters of different colours in botw, a red bokoblin and a blue bokoblin had the same horns, but in totk they're different so you know which one does more damage when fused
@@TheEleventhDimensionIt does! I had heard this in another video and started digging through 3D Zelda soundtracks, to no avail (and I thought I knew my Zelda OSTs). Thank you! Also, I thought your video was great, love how quickly you got into the topic. Clearly expressed and succinct points.
I started crying when there was no guardians I loved going around and fighting (a hard enemy) I never really tought of them as difficult but when I just went on a guardian killing spree anyone around me was like how
I actually really don't like how I'm forced to use the powers in totk. I genuinely hate using ultrahand and fuse, but you can't really progress without doing so. I do think ultrahand controls better than magnesis, but for me, it was a horribly infuriating learning curb. I also hate nativagting the sky. Totk made me go back and play botw again. I enjoy the aesthetic and the shrines so much better. I don't know who's idea it was to make totk shrines just rocks, but it's such a downgrade. Not to mention they are now so much harder to spot from a distance. Nothing in botw was orange but shrines, so you see a bit of orange, it's a shrine
Ikr I'll take totk shrines over botws apparatus motion trash shrines any day of the week😂 the runes are better too in totk. Like cryonis was so useless lol
Just me stating my opinion even if I get some flack, Breath of the Wild is better than Tears of the Kingdom. Both are amazing games and I know ppl are gonna say Tears of the Kingdom is better and there’s one thing I know is that every video game has its pros and cons and I felt like Tears of the Kingdom was a bit too much in a way.
@@CapricornGilbert I generally like to say each game has its upsides and downsides, and they definitely do, but all in all I think botw is a lot better
There are 86 enemies in BotW (including the DLC). TotK has 110. Conclusion? TotK has a much better enemy variety. Even bosses are more exciting. In the first game you fight blight ganons 4 times, which are relatively similar. The sequel does not have that problem.
@@chrisrey0018 Cope, your opinion doesn't matter, 96 metacritic, 20+ milion copies sold, countless GOTY nominations and awards speak for themself, Tears of the Kingdom is an enormous success.
@@paczka695 Cope, it will forever be a disappointment of a sequel. Embarrassing that it didn’t win GOTY but BOTW did, LMAO. You act like there weren’t millions of fans hyped up to buy Totk on the first month it released, only for them to find out it’s horrible flaws soon after, it should’ve just been a 30$ DLC.
The Map: Just, what did i just listen, Zelda TOTK have overall a better map than BOTW, even if in the underground or the sky we have less things to do, its doesnt make it better, you just cant say it get repetitive in TOTK when it also get repetitive in BOTW The Introduction: The same, why? BOTW presents something new because EVERYTHING its new, how in TOTK can they show the "new things" Shrines: Yes, BOTW Outside shrines look better than TOTK, but in terms of creativity to resolve the puzzles, TOTK is way better as you have more options and is more funny overall The Abilities: Seriously? TOTK abilities are way better to use, to move everything (every weapon, object, tree, etc) is what we needed in BOTW, then, we also have the Fuse-builder part of the Ultrahand, that just upgrade everything, you can make everything if the game wants you to do, the creators wants in TOTK that you make your own path with anything u need, also, Ascend is really usefull, more for TOTK than BOTW because in TOTK we HAVE caves, also, Recall is better than Stasis and you dont need the bombs when you have Bomb fruit or Heavy Fusion Weapons The Memories: The memories are way better in BOTW because you dont need another one to know what is happening, in TOTK it get confusing, so i agree with you The Arrows: Yes, BOTW are cooler, but TOTK arrows are way more usefull and unique to use
I preferred BotW, TotK had great additions but felt disjointed. I was hoping Zelda would be playable, give her a completely different play style in the overworked and have Link stuck in the underworld.
but TOTK has unlimited bombs with the Goron Summon and his skill- which can put things in fire and crush and the recovery is the same as the bombs in BOTW!
Yeah totk abilities are too overpowered and "free" there has to be some restrictions. Puzzles can be solved and cheesed in so many ways so they feel a bit stupid. and botw abilities were just awesome.
@@Kruegernator123 yeah and the shrine puzzles can usually be cheesed with ultrahand in some way, and dungeon puzzles because you have the zonai parts... like the fire temple is good but it would be better if you were forced to use the railways to move around and you couldnt just build a hoverbike to get going :/
@AndyWitmyer You poor, confused thing. The story is contrived garbage, the Shrines are mostly just tutorials with a few good ones (which is even worse because there are more Shrines), here and there, the building mechanics are a bit janky, the characters are idiots, the once beautiful world has been littered with random stones from the sky, and the ending is cheesy.
Your just falling into the cycle again where at first the newest zelda game is the best thing, But NOW the previous game is an underrated masterpiece and the newest sucks. No it doesn’t both are great games stop letting commentary youtubers make your opinion. Also be honest story was never Zelda’s strongsuit, gameplay was.
The only positive things about the game are the underground, the ganondorf fight, and fuse/ultra hand. Everything else was the exact same as botw or worse, which shouldn’t have happened considering this took 6 years to make. It also has the worst story in the franchise.
3:45 The arrow fusion things are annoying, and take a long time to use but it also makes it harder to get the arrows, instead of just spending a bunch of rupees on them.
My First thought of this title was …. Nothing? Totk has a better introduction with a better Tutorial The shrines are on the Same Level The abilities in totk are better and make more fun Botw memories are Boring and useless The fuse Mechanik for arrows is so Creative and more usefull The botw I also want more enimies But totk has more variety It’s literally not hard to find bombs in caves The atmosphere is also cool because you know the place and want to see what they’re changed It was an other level of experience. In my opinion botw is only a Beta Version of totk
Just found this channel today and I gotta say I’m really enjoying it. I gotta agree with most of the stuff that you said, for me I think the reason why botw was breath taking (pun intended) was because it was new and intriguing. Totk has a lot of things to do, but it’s overfilled with content. I think that’s the main reason why a lot of people like botw more than totk, botw was more compact. But I love both games and I hope Nintendo does more like these games in the future, but hopefully it isn’t just another botw.
I believe TOTK is better than breath of the wild in (almost) every way. Not really because what they “improved” but because of things they added. Upgradable horses, which means you don’t have to spend hours hunting the perfect horse. A customizable house, now everyone’s house can be unique (unless you follow a tutorial online you lazy bi-). Two new areas (sky islands and depths) that add basically an entire maps worth of new content (although the exploration isn’t as fun as the normal land, it’s still fun). The ability to create essentially whatever you want (link can now complete the Geneva conv- I mean checklist). Bosses that are actually entirely unique from one another while all being fun at the same time (except the mucktorock rematch, that one is ass). A final boss that actually feels like a final boss, I think even the demon dragon form was insanely good (especially if compared to dark beast ganon fro botw).And best of all YOU CAN MAKE PIZZA OH MY GOD. There are quite a few things that were removed or replaced that should’ve stayed (we can all agree that champions abilities are better that the sage abilities) but there is one thing, specifically about shrines, that I am glad they sent to the void, THAT STUPID MOTION CONTROL BULLSH- TOTK isn’t perfect, it has many flaws but it’s still one of my favorite games to ever come out, and I think it’s better than breath of the wild, and you can fight me on that (preferably not, because I’m a 5’4 skinny Hispanic teenager that only has karate as a form of defense yet I have little physical strength)
Thanks for 10k views guys, I’m excited to see what we can do next:)
BOTW is more cohesive.
Precisely. That's the main reason why I still hold BOTW in a higher regard than TOTK.
Yeah but the map is a little empty in BOTW, while TOTK has side quests everywhere
@@timboslice8559 In my humble opinion, that is why great art isn't about how much things you can put in it. The quality of the places is where it is at. I get what you saying and respect that. I think if they took at least 6 more months to make less copy and paste places like the depths, and just make beautiful, integrate amazing puzzles in the islands and in the caves would be bad azz. Oh, and more creatures in those places that are different.
@@timboslice8559quality > quantity
That’s it.
If Ganon from Tears was the final Boss in Breath, it would have made Breath almost Perfect imo
fr
@@thecrimsonpool absolutely
I like the weird machine zombie followed by the giant princess mononoke's cursed pig just fine
Why is final boss even important in open world zelda games? You just can't play back after beat him
If I’m being honest, exploring the overworld in totk just wasn’t the same as botw, mainly because they just didn’t add enough new things or areas, could also just be my nostalgia for botw as I played that game the most when I was 11 in 2017
What’s funny is I felt the opposite problem. I felt they added too much to the world. It almost felt bloated, and unnaturally so. In botw, I enjoyed the empty space and the serene treks between major locations, while in totk, it felt like I was constantly getting distracted, and to the point where it disrupted the experience
@@calebjp8904 tbh I think you might be on to something. Totk has too many of the korok twin things everywhere and more enemies, now that I think of it, I really enjoyed the peaceful exploration of botw and not having to slow down or go off course. I noticed that the road between the outpost and rito is the biggest example of that in totk.
Wait…I WAS 6 WHEN I PLAYED BOTW??? (Now I’m 12, the hell)
The bow fusion is genuinely painful to use
EVERY. SINGLE. SHOT.
Yeah, they could have done something like letting us sort them after the elements or something too
@@burger_kinghorn It's...just a single button you need to press. You know the game is absolute peak when people make such a fuss about a non-issue like that, lmao.
@@vadoslink446 it's not difficult, per se. It's inconvenient and inefficient. It interrupts the flow. They should've done something like BOTW does for switching arrow types. Every shot stays that way until you switch or run out.
It would've been nicer if you could fuse a certain material then every shot automatically fuses it until you manually cancel.
@@burger_kinghorn I dunno, I don’t fire elemental arrows multiple times. It doesn’t make much sense to hit an enemy twice with a fire arrow for example. So in BotW I always used normal arrows, then switched to elemental arrows for a single shot, only to switch back to normal ones again. TotK's system was more convenient for me.
I agree on the most part but imo the combat in totk is MUCH better. Instead of avoiding combat to save durability you want to fight in totk for new horns to fuse onto you weapons. Also a lot more life has been breathed into the enemies with new attacks
Right but like, fusing automatically adds more steps to combat. Plus the weapons in totk have way less durability to begin with. Its a purposeful design choice to get people to even use the fuse mechanic
@@ciaagentgod2968 That's called nuance. That extra step adds a lot to the active decision making of the game and allows you to modify your weapons to your liking. It rewards combat and makes enemy loot actually valuable. On top of that, the base weapons you find are ALL useful now because weapon classes have different perks. In BotW, when the weapons leveled up to the royal tier, pretty much every other weapon was objectively worse than them in any situation. That's not the case with TotK.
I think pressing two buttons to create a weapon is an extra step that's well worth the benefits.
Botw was exciting because you had an introduction to characters and places you never seen, different combat mechanics so it felt so fresh. In Totk it just felt recycled. The champions and their abilities were so much better too
The sage control sucks in totk
@@Xeno911They did Sidon dirty. With that amount of water attack his sage ability has I could easily replicate it at home with a glass of water…
@@artagle_14 yeah they did sidon super dirty guess they ran out of ideas
@@artagle_14Sidon’s ability is only good in niche circumstances, such as making Link wet to buff Zora weapons.
Actually no, he is more useful that many people give him credit for. His ability gets you wet and with zora weapons you being wet doubles the damage zora weapons do. And with food buff and any other clothes that gives you buffs you can just kill anything with those weapons@Kruegernator123
Guardians were missed by me, I was hoping for more variety or upgraded ones and instead for none, not even a cameo boss fight
Me too. Tbh I thought it'd be in the coliseum under the korok forest. When the Yiga gave their little intro about how I'd never see the light of day again, I thought it'd be the last working guardian that they had somehow gotten their hands on. But no. Just a hinox, and not even a stal one at that.
Yeah but the inclusion of like a dozen new enemies kinda makes up for it imo. I feel like TOTK is just an upgraded BOTW
@@timboslice8559The onclusion of new enemies was nice, and absolutely required for the game to actually feel some semblance of difference, but I would say it does not at all ‘make up’ for Guardians exclusion.
No enemy can even come close to recreating the absolute chills you get from hearing that piano and seeing the red laser locking onto you from a mile away. I have a feeling that they made the Gloom Spawn as an attempt to recreate that feeling, but they were in no way as impactful whatsoever. My first experience with the Gloom Spawn (and this was without spoilers) consisted of me seeing them, going ‘Ok these are enemies’ and then I climbed a wall and escaped, and that was it. The Guardian Stalkers were almost always in the open, meaning there was never an easy escape, making encountering one more harrowing.
Basically, Guardians are some of the most memorable enemies in gaming I’ve experienced, and they were replaced in totk with a bunch of replacable filler enemies to stuff the game up with more things
Even just parrying them was fun to do
@@timboslice8559 True, but the new enemies aren't chasing us down and striking a similar level of panic if you decide to run away, except for gloom hands, which unfortunately gives up and de-spawns if you run away. Very lame.
In BotW, I found way to "cheat" or "break" 2 or 3 shrines and it felt like a major a accomplishment. In TotK, the hand abilities trivialize so much that it felt like every other shrine I was doing in an "unintended" way.
@duckpwnd that’s a good criticism! I agree, should have put that in the video
They said in an interview they wanted to exhaust this version of hyrule to its limits. I think they did that and I’m exhausted 😂 I’m ready for the next game to be completely different with a new vibe
I think the BOTW experience is better because it was a brand new exciting Zelda game with new things we've never seen before and a massive map with many different environments. Meanwhile, TOTK is the exact same map but with an underground and sky area.
People are really hating TOTK just for the sake of it. Just appreciate 2 amazing games
Enemy variety is technically better in TotK. However, this comes with fine print. First off, the amount of new enemies added is not that big and the improvement is kinda negligible. But the real problem is that due to the whole monster material fusion mechanic, the player is much more pushed towards combat with the enemies, and this makes the lack of enemy variety actually EVEN MORE NOTICEABLE in TotK than it already was in BotW despite it having been improved.
Also, as a tangent, in my opinion the heavier focus on combat has also made the weapon durability system even more of a pain in the ass than it already was in BotW. Players avoiding combat to conserve durability in BotW was indeed a symptom of problematic game design, but they did this not because combat was hard or boring, but because weapon durability was obnoxious. This still hasn't changed, the problem is still there, if anything they've made it harder to ignore.
Completely disagree.
1) TOTK has an insanely high combat variety then BOTW, so you can always make your own fun
2) Fuse progressively removes the problem of weapon durability because stronger (and rich) you become, easier you will replace weapons.
You're wrong about everything you said lmao
@@zekrom34 ikr
@@zekrom34 I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree then. It's cool if you find the changes in TotK satisfying to you. I wish they were for me, so in a way I envy you.
I could also have gone into the problems with the actual combat system of BotW/TotK as well and how that too despite being pretty much the same is felt more in TotK because of the heavier focus on it, but I was only referring to the issue of enemy variety in my post.
Also, the weapon durability system has A TON of problems, not just the issue of having to replace the weapons (which is not that big of a deal in either game IMO). Chief amongst them being that it was put in place in order to turn finding new weapons into a reward for exploration, yet what it actually does is making it so finding those weapons feels underwhelming and mundane, so the system kinda self-sabotages its own purpose. Then again this in particular is one of the issues I DON'T think was made worse in TotK, as it's pretty much equivalent. It's just disappointing that they ignored it. The stone octoroks were nice though, I'll give TotK that.
@@HilipinapixiliNintendo didn’t really fix the weapon durability issue in TotK, they just put a bandage on it.
In hindsight the introduction should've worried me more. Because not only did TOTK just do BOTW again there, I really didn't want to be going in shrines, Korok hunting, swinging a sword in 2 ways, collecting memories, all these other things that made sense in BOTW, all over again. Made the game such a drag.
When BOTW came out everybody tried to be like it.
Lets see how many try to be like TOTK
Even TotK tried to be like BotW.
In TotK I never bother making war machines to take out enemies when I can just fight them the normal way :/
Idk I don't see any point to it
It’s fun.
I agree with all points. I might add another- Breath of the Wild adjusts difficulty slightly better than Tears of the Kingdom. Because the enemies level with you in Tears, the increase of hearts doesn’t really effect your durability. So enemies can one-shot kill you no matter how many hearts you have. And the only real way to gain defense is by armor collecting and upgrading. It wasn’t that big of an issue on my first playthrough, but when i think about a second replay and remember all the grinding and fetching necessary to upgrade armor it doesn’t motivate me to want to play again.
getting back to you EXTREMELY late but I absolutely agree!! one of totks main focus is the hearts you can collect, and they don’t really seem to matter all that much no matter how many you have, so the difficulty isn’t as well put together
The Monsters in Tears of the Kingdom use their new horns as weapons, no shit, they sprint towards you or swing their heads around to attack you with their blade-horns, which they never did before because there they just had regular horns that are worthless even to them.
And heck, they even came up with completely new ones like the Horrorblins or the Bossblins which only appeared in Hyrule Warriors before, or even brought classic ones back like the Like-Like or the Gibdos.
Boss Bokoblins aren’t necessarily Big Blins. Also, Big Blins aren’t Hyrule Warriors exclusives, they’ve actually debuted in Spirit Tracks
@@burra007
wot? Where did they appear?
I never saw them for some reason, 😅
@@Chris-gx1ei not surprised, considering their rarity. I think only one shows in-story, when you are escorting the sea lokomo sage from Papuchia Village to his sanctuary, when the miniblin pirates board your ship to kidnap him. The others show up in their hideout minigame, where you shoot them and miniblins with arrows in a cart (where you first rescue an alleged boyfriend from a Papuchia Village woman who ends up dating the chief of the woods village). AND if I recall, three show up in the last kill every enemy and boss minigame in Castle Town
Look, I can agree on everything about quality, but many of these points are... dumb or very superficial.
For example nobody can deny that BOTW's introduction is more iconic than TOTK, but Great Sky Island level design is something beyond human comprehension, a full tridimensional space that manage to teach maybe three times the stuff we learned in the Great Plateau. And it remains incredibly useful even after because it's a great spot to take off with planes.
BOTW's Shrines compared with TOTK's Shrines are just a bunch of disconnected stuff. I always defended shrines, but BOTW Shrines seems blatantly belong to a different game because what you do inside them is completely different from the overworld's activities. TOTK blessing shrines have better (FAR BETTER) sections, the proving grounds destroy the tests of strenght, and the ordinary shrines teach you how to use effectively the zonai devices and build many things.
TOTK's abilities are by far the best set of power ever seen in a Zelda game, with nothing remotely capable of standing a chance: Ultrahand is inarguably the best main gimmick of the series, a technological marvel and one of the best game mechanics of the last 20 years at least; Fuse fixes the breakable weapon problem, adds a massive combat variety to an already rich component, makes everything useful and adds a great combat progression; Ascend change the traversal, and a mastered recall ability it's like the perfect speedrun ability.
Truer words have never been spoken
I was really confused when he tried to argue why the Sheikah Runes were better than the Zonai abilities.
Because you have to use them? You have to use them just as much as you had to use the Sheikah slate, except the zonai abilities give you SO many more reasons to want to use them.
Cryonis is only useful when the game makes it the only solution to a problem. Recall is basically stasis on steroids. Remote bombs basically lose their effectiveness by mid game because of their low damage. Magnesis… I mean do I even have to compare that to Ultrahand?
i really cant agree on the sky island design- it was honestly very boring for me once i got a good look at it all, and its literally just a copy and paste of the great plateau with a different aesthetic.
@@claycountydayshow so? the great plateau is far less interesting than the great sky islands
@@trixxy9566great plateau is better tutorial than any other game. Sky island has nothing on purpose
Ultrahand and fusion are amazing features and add a lot to the gameplay, but the world itself does feel less developed than botw. I have to disagree about the bombs, though. They might’ve been infinite in botw, but they were also pretty much useless except for destroying black rocks. Also, I can’t tell you how many times throughout my play through of both games I thought “Damn, I wish I had a hookshot.”
Good point about the bombs, it's true they didn't do much in botw.
My problem with Ultrahand is that nearly everything in TotK revolves around that mechanic.
@Kruegernator123 That’s because it was the only new thing in the game. Botw was already a bit lacking in gameplay variety, making a direct sequel with only one new feature is going to get stale.
@@Hurtle885hu8bu If you forgot to use Ascend or Rewind, then well... you should try playing again. Fuse allows for a lot more weapon variety, too.
@Swiftbow I’ll admit I did forget about Rewind. Fusing weapons is cool, but it can feel like a waste of time because the weapons break so quickly. Ascend could’ve been better if you could angle it instead of just having to go straight up. Still want a hookshot though.
Love this video! You should also make a "10 things Tears of The Kingdom did better than Breath of The Wild" Would put the ganon fight being better in TOTK.
That’s the plan!!
Makes me think what BotW would have been had they gone through with the original plan to add DLC to BotW and not make TotK. Would we have still gotten the sky islands and depths? How would the elemental arrows worked? Would the fuse ability be left out? What was the original plan for BotW? How much better would BotW be?
I appreciate this video so much. Thank you for bringing up the arrow issue. TotK did so much right but also made changes that ended up being so anti quality of life. It makes it hard for me to enjoy either now. I miss the caves and Ascend in BotW, and I miss... this video basically, in TotK. I also miss moving the Divine Beasts cause at least that added something interactive to the boring dungeons
you got them mixed up
@@Itsajuicebox1 What did I mix up? What I said about the divine beasts was an addendum to what I said about missing "this video" in TotK, and I miss some of the TotK QoL features like caves and Ascend when I play BotW. Where's the mixup?
@@Chronoflation Oh it sounded like you thought botw was totk
@@Itsajuicebox1 Lol, that's fine. No, I just wish it had a handful of the features, cause now I always feel like I'm missing something whichever of the 2 games I play
I recently started replaying BOTW from the beginning and there are definitely some things that I like more about it.
-What I really don't like in TOTK is that they made some food items more difficult to find (like truffles) or removed them entirely (like durians). Maybe the intention was to encourage the player to experiment more with the food recipes. But in my case it really didn't work like that, I ended up spending a lot of time going through those places where the rare foods can be found, again and again. That started to feel like too much grinding. In BOTW I can go where I actually want to go, instead of having to constantly return to the same places, because I can find enough food anywhere. Overall, it feels like I spend a lot of time in TOTK refilling my inventory with the stuff I need rather than doing something interesting. In BOTW, I sometimes teleport throught all the towns to buy more arrows, but that's about it.
-The Depths are boring. The area is huge but all of it looks about the same and there's not much to do. The area in BOTW was smaller but on average, more interesting.
-The Guardians were much scarier than anything in TOTK. I still get a minor heart attack when a Guardian suddenly notices me (especially if I wasn't aware that it is there). The Gloom Hands just aren't the same, especially because they seem unable to do anything about me if I simply climb a bit higher that they are.
-I miss Revali's Gale.
Don't get me wrong, TOTK is an excellent game but I like some aspects of the older game better. Both are really good games.
Mostly agree with you!!!!!
Yeah I disagree with almost all of these except that the shrine puzzles in botw had more effort to solve rather than the totk shrines which was mostly ultrahand and recall to solve
OMG, thank you for this video, I agree with everything you said.
This is maybe obvious, but I would add that, the Champions were also a lot better than the sages, first because they were easy to use, just hold one button and that's it, while the sages they are so jenky to use, second, the champions were a lot more powerful, when you got one of those power it actually changed the way you play the game, while the sages just feel kinda useless.
I also feel like the structure of BOTW was better,like, I never felt lost in BOTW, it always felt like I was in the right place, because the game is built in a non linear way, however there was 3 moments in my playthrough of TOTK, where I got to a place before I was supposed to and kinda broke the game, the discoveries don't feel very natural as BOTW.
Anyway, great video
it feels like they spent all their dev time on ultrahand and had to recycle all the universally shrines from botw. Also the new champion abilities made me question their competency as designers bc it's actually insane that those got through beta testing
The shrines are also just worse. So many are done in 10 seconds. They leave you going '....that's it?'. The combat shrines are better but there's just so many formulaic ones that you solve before you've gone in.
Botw shrines make feels like they are really sacred ancient places, monks are real, the soul inside feels alive and design legendary beautiful but Totk shrines look like they are just big rocks you can enter inside. Feels like you are in a dusty garage you just need them for fast travel even tho they have orbs.
@@semihdeveli1491 Yeah good point too.
As if BotW's were any better. I don't get why people tend to always shit on the puzzle difficulty of the newest Zelda game, as if these games ever had hard puzzles.
A lot of this goes back to TotK being too overwhelmingly big.
I think my problem with TotK has to do more with having played and completed BotW like half a dozen times. The novelty just wasn’t there with TotK aside from the ultra hand mechanics, but to me that stuff got old once I learned to make the hoverbike as it solved like 99% of the problems that Ultrahand is supposed to solve. The main focus of the game should’ve still been the adventure and exploration aspects.
Imo botw is overall a beter game.
The Shrines in TotK have some deeper lore.
You can do the Anchient Stone Tablets Quest and in one of these stands after you translated it that the shrines were once prisons for Demons that Rauru and Sonia defeated and captured to prevent them from resurecting
I think the fuse mechanic was too open. You could fuse any material to any weapon or shield, which does offer some novelty, but I found I was using the same 10 to 20 fuses in my game. It's also not fun trying to find an arrow fuse in 200 items.
Even after a whole year I'm still left wondering WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K were they thinking when they designed the arrow fusing interface.
I wish there was an additional menu where you could "sort by element" since theres already a sort by fuse attack power. The amount of times ive ran out of fire or ice fruit and spent forever trying to find another item with the same effect is exhausting
Hit "Y" to sort your fuse selection by Most Used (or a few other sort options). Anything you've used recently will be at the front of the list.
Great content, keep it up! Also, if you played totk first and then botw, you would definetly think totk was way better, its just because you've spent so much time in the game (like me) that you just get burned out of the same game... in a way
Honestly, the removal of arrow types was amazing for me, because I could never use my various arrow types without feeling guilty about wasting good arrows when I dont really need them. Matter of fact, I ended up with so many late game that I started running out of regular arrows and needing to switch to my special arrows
Breath has many things I like that cant be found in Tears. But, I think people need to appreciate Tears more because Tears is amazing. Which game is better? I don't know. Depends on my mood.
Breath for sure. With the DLC you can unlock a bike which is faster and easier to control than all Zonai tech in Tears, the champions abilities are 100 times better than the sage’s ability in Tears, Breath has Master Mode Tears doesn’t, Breath has better story and characters.
@@artagle_14You can’t get the bike until you basically beat the game and do all the DLC though. It’s a nice bonus but by the time I got it, I just drove around for a few minutes and stopped playing.
Zonai builds have so much more versatility and you use them throughout the entire game.
@@artagle_14botw doesn't come close to totk in terms of the actual story including the mainline and the tears
"THIS IS A ROCK!!!!!!!!!"
Interesting take; most people agree that the shrines were considerably more interesting in Tears of the Kingdom.
Yes but way less challenging
@@Windwaker_is_the_goat That's not necessarily a negative thing. Many prefer fun, interesting shrines over more difficult ones.
Almost every gamer I know thinks that shrines were better and more creative in BOTW. Myself included.
@@kamranki Nah. That's definitely not the general consensus.
That's a big hard no from me. The only shrines tears did better was not having the motion control ones, but I personally don't hate those, even if I acknowledge those are weak. But Tears has more shrines, with a larger percentage of them being empty blessing shrines, and too many are out in the open, or require escorting a crystal.
There's also way more unskippable text for any tutorial shrine. And you already have to go through 5 loading screens during a shrine in each game.
But what about my boys thunder and water blight Gannon? 💀
Real temples and a little linear objectives would have botw a classic
Anyone else feel like the scaling is kinda lackluster in Totk? Don’t get me wrong, I think botw kinda suffers from the same issue, but since Totk is a bigger game and has more to do - I think it’s actually worse in a way. For example, I just want to explore the world as much as I can- I like doing that in between dungeons. However, after exploring the world and getting like 20 shrines, I already have all silver enemies? They’re extremely tanky with their health and now I feel like I didn’t even get to use the other horns and monster parts I got from blue and black enemies because the game scaled so quickly on me. Maybe that’s on me, I’m not sure- I just wish maybe the scaling went maybe on other factors instead of me like beating a Lynel once. (Not sure exactly how it works, but once I beat a lynel I saw stuff go up)
i havent fully seen the video yet so idk if this was addressed but im not a fan of how there are random chunks of sky rubble peppered across the landscape in totk, you cant take 3 steps without bumping into one and theyre a big eyesore whereas botw doesnt have them
to add on to this: i also am really confused by them not making dlc for this game..? like, there are so many things that would be improved upon with a dlc (those statues of mogma-esque beings in the depths *have* to have been something, right? the depths felt so empty, and having a dlc surrounding them would be so fitting)
theyve already made 1 game, 2 dlcs for it, then another game, all with the same storyline, engine, artstyle, world, mechanics, characters, etc, but making a dlc for the second game is where they draw the line? i mean, its their game, they can do what they want to do with it, but i just found it weird
Am I the only one who was bummed that the silver enemies in TotK didn't drop gems?
BotW makes TotK look like a tech demo.
No, I didn't write it in the wrong order.
Yes you did😂😂😂😂
BotW feels like a more cohesive and complete experience, TotK is more like a lot of random stuff that was put together.
TotK feels like a BotW ROM hack.
Botw is a tech demo for totk. Yall are just delusional
@@Easternromanfan ikr
Breath of the Wild had a superior story with better shrines, characters, and side quests. The four champions all had interesting backstories and Kass was by far the greatest character in the entire game. He was way better than Penn. I would even argue that Breath of the Wild had better dungeons. We have seen water and fire temples before and they have been done much better than Tears of the Kingdom but at least Breath of the Wild had a unique concept where the dungeons take the form of a giant animal that fits its environment and navigating the entire beast made room for some interesting atmosphere and puzzles.
The shrines in Tears of the Kingdom were annoying as hell especially the cave ones and Rauru should be a preacher with how many blessings he gives. The actual shrine puzzle should be harder and more challenging than actually finding the shrine itself.
The four champions are superior to the sages in every way possible. When it comes to side quests and side adventures I honestly think that Breath of the Wild has it beat. I had a lot more fun doing side adventures in that game than I did with Tears of the Kingdom which a lot of them seem absolutely pointless. If you were to rank all of them side by side Tarrey Town from Breath of the Wild would
be at the very top.
Exploring the world, especially the depths, isn’t really all that rewarding because the game makes you grind out the tedious depths and all they reward you with is the same outfits and clothing from Breath of the Wild. It was lazy on Nintendo’s part and not very good in my personal opinion.
Breath of the Wild soundtrack is vastly underrated and even though Tears of the Kingdom has some new music on it’s own it still for the most part borrows the music from its predecessor. Breath of the Wild has one of the most beautiful and underrated soundtracks in the entire series and I will DIE on that hill.
Lastly, the dungeons in Tears of the Kingdom have pleasant atmosphere and vibes but if you really think about it they are not very good as well when it comes to gameplay. Water Temple is by far the worst dungeon in the entire series and it makes the Divine Beasts look like master pieces. Wind Temple is just a smaller and easier version of a Divine Beast. Navigating the rail carts in the fire temple was annoying and most people will end up cheesing it. And the spirit temple doesn’t even count because its just a list of chores you have to do leading up to the actual dungeon which only leads to a boss fight that really wasn’t that good. As a matter of fact you can literally cheese all the dungeons with autobuild which makes them 10x easier to begin with. The only decent temple was the lightning temple and even that was short as hell.
In conclusion I think Tears of the Kingdom has good moments but Breath of the Wild was more impactful and more well balanced with better characters, shrines, side quests, and overall story.
Nah, botw really good but totk is another level
BotW's shrines were so much better. They had like, actual puzzles while most of TotK's shrines almost always boiled down to just building things. Rewind, fuse and ascend didn't really lend well to puzzles the same way slate abilities did.
Yo I'm so glad you made the Halo comparison which is something I wish Skitty did in her video (or at least talking abt more open world games) and something that I think about myself. Honestly I wish TOTK was structured in the same way Halo Infinite's campaign was. It forces you to go to specific missions/memories but you can do all the extra content in any order. I have no clue why they decided to let people go and do the missions in any order in both BOTW & TOTK, but especially TOTK. (I could go and make a whole video on why TOTK should've learnt from what BOTW & Halo Infinite did instead of being the alternate universe BOTW that it is but I feel like it wouldn't do well). Also TOTK might not feel the same as BOTW since it's on a whole different engine but they just remade all of the systems from BOTW into it.
(Spoilers)
I completely agree on this issue with the memories. First time playing the game, I had no idea you’re actually supposed to see Impa to really get that quest going properly.
My first memory was on the opposite side of the map and so I didn’t learn what exactly happened to Zelda in the way Nintendo intended you to.
I know I need to take some of the blame. The game heavily encourages you to go to Rito Village first and the first memory just so happens to be on the way.
tbh i have to agree that the memories were better in botw than totk just because the first memory cutscene I got in totk was GANONDORF STABBING QUEEN SONIA AND THEN HYSTERICALLY LAUGHING.... i was tramuatised
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the Sheikah aesthetic from BotW. The Guardians looked awesome. The ancient weapons and shields were awesome. The Zonai swords and shields are ok, as are the sandstone shrine designs, but the blue-and-orange was a nice contrast. TotK shrines are just... potato-looking rocks. The towers aren't as distinctive. The Shrine of Resurrection is just another muddy cave. The TotK temples are overall better than the Divine Beasts, but they don't have a distinct aesthetic from the environments around them. They're missing that "pop" of color.
I remember thinking sci-fi tech in a Zelda game wouldn't work back in ~2015 when BotW trailers released, but I ended up really liking it.
I raise the guardian graveyards; castle town, blatchery plain, torin wetland and akkala citadel. They didn't have to keep guardians as enemies. But they should've kept the bodies. Those four places have soo much lore behind them and you can see it in the landscape. Heck, I know they've begun to clear up Hyrule, so where's the decomposing stack of guardians in hateno and akkala? The guardians would go back into the towers when calamity ganon was defeated, but *only the functional ones*. Turrets and decayed guardians wouldn't be able to move. So you might be able to find deactivated turrets in Hyrule Castle. If you remove the guardians from those places, blatchery plain especially, they lose their soul. The only reason they stay there is because they have the same map.
I think the techno theme in botw was better (green is my favorite color but the ancient shekia stuff looks way better) and the way they did the companion abilities is so much better in botw, each being mapped to a button rather than having to walk up to them then press a which could lead to accidentally using it (as I have done repeatedly)
is it just me or do you miss the guardians
Nah I do too
It would be sick if there was a few last pieces of sheika tech in the depths, and you found some super hard guardian boss fight there
Guardians >>>> gloom hands
@@preciousjade7336Guardians are also fun to fight. For Gloom Hands, you just spam Bomb Flower arrows.
Honestly, I think my decision to play TotK before BotW was a good decision (I had seen so many gameplay videos and more stuff so I knew the plot) because it allowed me to see TotK from a fresh perspective without BotW bias. Some may hate me for that, but that’s just how I feel. Plus, the abilities are better in TotK in my opinion 😂
Now you just have a TotK bias.
BOTW brought a lot of innovative game play. But Ascend in TOTK is just amazing.
I honestly agree with you here TotK tried to replicate the feeling of BotW and it just can't I haven't touched TotK in months but I have gone back to BotW more times than TotK and I honestly just can't explain why
People need to understand that Tears can’t be completely different from Breath. It's a sequel and because it is on the same map all they could do was to expand on the last game and rework some elements, but not to the point where it feels completely different. You should be able to hop between the two games without any trouble.
Recently I played both games back to back, and I can say they are really different in their core approaches to exploration. Breath focuses on introducing introducing things slowly and because of the emptiness it gives the player freedom on how they will explore the new Hyrule without overwhelming the player and also the game is all about how the player will traverse and climb the world.
Tears assumes you already know the world and provides abilities to make traversal easier. The game also focuses more in player freedom, Botw didn't have many optional elements because it didn't have many elements at all, but in Totkmos things are optional like the paraglider, ability uses, zonai devices, etc.
Because you’re expected to be familiar with the world, the game introduces caves, depths, and sky islands to complement the exploration, these areas are not meant to be explored for much time. The surface has the most content and story, caves are small, linear dungeons, the sky islands are large overworld puzzles, and the depths being challenging to explore even with Zonai devices, similarly how Breath did exploration.
In my view, Tears of the Kingdom had the potential to create an exhilarating experience that could rival the next-gen storytelling and dynamic gameplay of the Mass Effect series. One of the hallmarks of the Mass Effect franchise is the captivating, immersive journey that each player embarks on-a journey brimming with unique discoveries, character interactions, and jaw-dropping surprises at every turn. This spirit of exploration and personalization not only enriches narrative depth but also keeps fans coming back time and again, hungry for fresh adventures.
While I recognize that the developers aimed to establish a distinct identity for TotK, separate from its beloved predecessor, Breath of the Wild, I can't help but feel there was an incredible opportunity to weave more thoughtful references and thematic ties to BotW without sacrificing the originality and creativity TotK aspired to achieve. Just imagine! Right from the get-go of TotK, the moment when you lose all your equipment could be seen as Rauru testing your mettle and adaptability in a brand-new landscape. This mechanic immediately ups the ante-starting from scratch is a classic and thrilling element of every great adventure!
To counterbalance the sting of losing all your hard-earned gear from BotW, Nintendo could have introduced a clever flag system to track previously acquired armors-a concept they already implemented with the horse regeneration system, which supposedly imports registered BotW horses into TotK. By applying a similar idea to armor, players could have ventured into Shrines of Light dispersed throughout Hyrule, discovering rewards of armors they had already collected in BotW. This would create an exhilarating sense of continuity, allowing long-time players to feel their efforts celebrated. Plus, players who missed out on securing certain pieces of armor (highly doubtful) during their previous journeys would still have access to the original procurement methods already in the game. Nintendo could also still organically add TotK’s unique armors with the default armor procurement system.
Now let’s talk about that thrilling opening sequence of TotK, where Ganondorf launches a ferocious attack on Link! This moment is packed with narrative potential that feels only partially realized. Rather than simply casting Ganondorf as a fearsome foe that stole Link’s life energy, how about portraying him as a cunning strategist who seals away Link's BotW abilities right from the start? This plot twist could elevate the stakes, transforming Link's journey into an epic quest not just for adventure but for reclaiming his lost powers! Players would be challenged to conquer a series of Shrines, offering a chance to unseal these abilities in exchange for collecting coveted Light Blessing orbs at a goddess statue. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see references to their favorite BotW Champions?
In conclusion, I believe Tears of the Kingdom possessed remarkable potential to craft a more cohesive and interconnected experience that intricately ties back to Breath of the Wild. By weaving in these connections and amplifying the narrative richness, Nintendo could have orchestrated a gameplay experience that resonates powerfully with both newcomers and veterans alike. This would not only deepen the overall gameplay but also intensify the emotional investment players have in the ever-evolving saga of Hyrule, making every adventure feel more thrilling than ever!
Disagree with all the points made here save for two.
First, with what agree or semi agree with, or more accurately, the points within the picks that I agree with.
I totally understand people's beef with the memories, or more specifically, how the player can potentially find them. I'm gonna say before clarifying, I hate the memory route in both games, but I still like totks memory story more due to the fact that I hate how we never learn anything more than what we got for the Champions and even Zelda. Seeing Ganondorf's mythical rise was just far more interesting to me than seeing tidbits of characters that you're suppose to feel for. Back to the memory encounters, Totk's experience can definitely suffer more because of it's more linear aligned route. Thankfully, It wasn't ruined for me because I explored the ruined temple and found Glyph order hint within said temple.
On the topic of the arrows, the thing I agree with is the very tedious UI it brings. Constantly scrolling to find what you want to fuse is quite annoying. Something that would've been more useful would be a quick select wheel for favored items. However, I disagree with that botw's elemental arrows themselves were better. ToTK has a lot more variety than just three elements, gaurdian arrows, and bombs. In ToTK not only do you have those in muiltple variations, there's the added element of water, light, items that are homing, items that make your arrows fly farther, and of course items that simply add more atk power. Sure, bombs and gaurdian arrows are harder to find...buuuut once you unlock the statues in the depths you can just buy a whole bunch via poes.
As for the rest of the points-
Map- In my opinion, botw feels a lot more empty in comparison to totk, and I'm not simply talking about the extra maps. With the base ground map, totk just simply has a lot more to do in both quantity and quality. Quests were much more fun and memorable, enemies were more plentiful and varied. It was fun to see what changed in old locations and new areas open up. Could things get repeditive? Yes...but botw has the same issue along with less to do.
The starting grounds- If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They didn't need to try anything too new, but I do prefer totks start over botw. There were a lot more attractions in the sky-islands. Fun with rails, new challenges in the enviorment. Story wise...totk does it leagues better because he doesn't exposition dump like Zelda and the old man do. How I wish the fact everyone was dead was discovered and not told to you from the start. I honestly would've prefered it if zelda never talked to you and that the old man was more vague. That or he too is scrapped or at the least, not the king. That exposition ruins the memories in botw because then I don't feel as obligated to learn about them. They're long dead, there's barely anything explored about them thus I don't feel much for them.
Shrines- I prefer totk. The botw shrines really got boring considering they often ended up relying on the same rune mechanics over and over with a stricter set of ways to solve. In totk, you can solve shrines in various of ways, allowing for more freedom to go about them as you please. You didn't soley have to rely on the abilities and could possibly come up with more clever ways to solve them. No one shrine was ever solved the same if you didn't want to which makes replayability more fun.
Speaking of abilities- The only ability botw has going for it is stasis due to the fact it can affect enemies. Other than that...they're boring or pretty much useless. (And I'm talking about the runes intended use and function. No glitches or exploits) Acsend has use outside of exploration. You can use it in battle like holding a rock above you to gain height and jump to use bullet time. You can use it on enemies that you can climb, like the talus. It also freezes time briefly. Ultra-hand is literally a mini-sandbox mechanic, the only limitation being the in game materials provided and your imagination. If you don't like building stuff, that's a personal issue, because yeah, not everyone wants to be creative with it. Yet when people are creative, their builds get crazy fun and even hilarious. I literally see videos of people stun locking enemies and creating torture machines or utterly destroying tough enemies in seconds.
Enemies in totk are majorly improved and have more variety. I love the zonai enemies, the Flux, and gleeoks, enemies in the caves and frox in the depths. All the dungeon bosses are leagues better than botw. I also prefer gloom hands more because they will always be threatening at the start. Unlike gaurdians, because once you master shield counters in a few short minutes, what threat do they pose? You can also see them coming and avoid them when you want. Gloom hands, they can sneak up on you outta legit nowhere. I was freaked out by them more and I was majorly caught off gaurd, several times. But if I find a gaurdian for the first time, I can simply choose not to engage at all.
As for the atmosphere, I'm on the fence. Both games have great music and both have the looming threat of Ganondorf over them for a hidden atmosphere.
Definitely a lot to read, but I tend to do that because simply saying "I disagree" isn't enough for me. It doesn't encourage discussion otherwise. So if you did manage to read it all, thanks for reading.
@@shikiira4185 I 100% agree with what you said about how Zelda should NOT have talked to you in botw. Everything was already laid out for you to figure out on your own, there was no reason for them to hold your hand the whole way through, it takes away the mysterious feeling that I think BOTW should have embraced a lot more than it did, and I think TOTK embraced that feeling a lot more, so I’m happy about that.
Total respect for all the points you made!!
If calamity gammon was in totk as a bow before the final boss it would be decimated by people who played breath of the wild
The shrines were NOT better. I hated those bullshit motion control puzzles. It's like the developers had zero regard for those of us with the Switch Lite. Absolute garbage.
The divine beasts were the biggest let down for me. Imo there rubbish now and the old ‘save the town’ vibe was really nice.
I was happy with the new arrows system tbf as I forage A LOT so it was fairly easy for me to build up 100s of shock, splash and fire arrows
I see them as part A and part B of the same game
@@Mintcar923 Same!! That’s how I see it too
@@TheEleventhDimension More or less a sorta modern version of the original game.. Zelda 2 was my first I owned tho.. So hopefully they’ll do an ode to that one one of these days
3:58 the new horns are just so you can differentiate between monsters of different colours
in botw, a red bokoblin and a blue bokoblin had the same horns, but in totk they're different so you know which one does more damage when fused
@@pikagiuppy93 yeah but I meant like where did they come from
@@TheEleventhDimension idk, i guess they just kinda randomly sprouted on their heads like plants lol
@@pikagiuppy93 haha literally
Does anyone recognize the music being played in the background starting at 1:40?
The songs Lanaryu Sand Sea from Skyward Sword
Hope that helps!!
@@TheEleventhDimensionIt does! I had heard this in another video and started digging through 3D Zelda soundtracks, to no avail (and I thought I knew my Zelda OSTs). Thank you!
Also, I thought your video was great, love how quickly you got into the topic. Clearly expressed and succinct points.
I started crying when there was no guardians I loved going around and fighting (a hard enemy) I never really tought of them as difficult but when I just went on a guardian killing spree anyone around me was like how
I actually really don't like how I'm forced to use the powers in totk. I genuinely hate using ultrahand and fuse, but you can't really progress without doing so. I do think ultrahand controls better than magnesis, but for me, it was a horribly infuriating learning curb. I also hate nativagting the sky.
Totk made me go back and play botw again. I enjoy the aesthetic and the shrines so much better. I don't know who's idea it was to make totk shrines just rocks, but it's such a downgrade. Not to mention they are now so much harder to spot from a distance. Nothing in botw was orange but shrines, so you see a bit of orange, it's a shrine
Y'all are just hating
You just made a strawman fallacy.
It's fine to enjoy something, but it's not fine to say that people who criticize the thing are hating
Wake up
He literally just said he still loves tears of the kingdom
Ikr I'll take totk shrines over botws apparatus motion trash shrines any day of the week😂 the runes are better too in totk. Like cryonis was so useless lol
Just me stating my opinion even if I get some flack, Breath of the Wild is better than Tears of the Kingdom. Both are amazing games and I know ppl are gonna say Tears of the Kingdom is better and there’s one thing I know is that every video game has its pros and cons and I felt like Tears of the Kingdom was a bit too much in a way.
@@CapricornGilbert I generally like to say each game has its upsides and downsides, and they definitely do, but all in all I think botw is a lot better
There are 86 enemies in BotW (including the DLC). TotK has 110. Conclusion? TotK has a much better enemy variety. Even bosses are more exciting. In the first game you fight blight ganons 4 times, which are relatively similar. The sequel does not have that problem.
Cap
TotK has 110 while tripling the size of the map*
That’s it? For a 6-year long wait? Trash
@@chrisrey0018 Cope, your opinion doesn't matter, 96 metacritic, 20+ milion copies sold, countless GOTY nominations and awards speak for themself, Tears of the Kingdom is an enormous success.
@@paczka695 Cope, it will forever be a disappointment of a sequel. Embarrassing that it didn’t win GOTY but BOTW did, LMAO. You act like there weren’t millions of fans hyped up to buy Totk on the first month it released, only for them to find out it’s horrible flaws soon after, it should’ve just been a 30$ DLC.
they made a huge mistake by not including left-over guardians in TotK-
they should have had it where you can get into one like a tank.
@@213kidangel dude that would have been EPIC
YOU FORGOT THE CHAMPION ABILITIES FROM BOTW THEY WERE SO MUCH BETTER
Botw is just a better game.. totk is too big and feels tecycled. Also the world underground sucks...
The Map:
Just, what did i just listen, Zelda TOTK have overall a better map than BOTW, even if in the underground or the sky we have less things to do, its doesnt make it better, you just cant say it get repetitive in TOTK when it also get repetitive in BOTW
The Introduction:
The same, why? BOTW presents something new because EVERYTHING its new, how in TOTK can they show the "new things"
Shrines:
Yes, BOTW Outside shrines look better than TOTK, but in terms of creativity to resolve the puzzles, TOTK is way better as you have more options and is more funny overall
The Abilities:
Seriously? TOTK abilities are way better to use, to move everything (every weapon, object, tree, etc) is what we needed in BOTW, then, we also have the Fuse-builder part of the Ultrahand, that just upgrade everything, you can make everything if the game wants you to do, the creators wants in TOTK that you make your own path with anything u need, also, Ascend is really usefull, more for TOTK than BOTW because in TOTK we HAVE caves, also, Recall is better than Stasis and you dont need the bombs when you have Bomb fruit or Heavy Fusion Weapons
The Memories:
The memories are way better in BOTW because you dont need another one to know what is happening, in TOTK it get confusing, so i agree with you
The Arrows:
Yes, BOTW are cooler, but TOTK arrows are way more usefull and unique to use
Tears of the kingdom is cool it's just I feel like there's too much to do for me to truly enjoy everything, that's why I like BOTW more.
I preferred BotW, TotK had great additions but felt disjointed. I was hoping Zelda would be playable, give her a completely different play style in the overworked and have Link stuck in the underworld.
Weapon breaking was better in BOTW... Tears just added more steps making it even more tedious-
but TOTK has unlimited bombs with the Goron Summon and his skill- which can put things in fire and crush and the recovery is the same as the bombs in BOTW!
Yeah totk abilities are too overpowered and "free" there has to be some restrictions. Puzzles can be solved and cheesed in so many ways so they feel a bit stupid. and botw abilities were just awesome.
Zonai parts should’ve been disabled in the dungeons like how they are in the shrines.
@@Kruegernator123 yeah and the shrine puzzles can usually be cheesed with ultrahand in some way, and dungeon puzzles because you have the zonai parts... like the fire temple is good but it would be better if you were forced to use the railways to move around and you couldnt just build a hoverbike to get going :/
DUDE İ WİSH GUARDİANS WERE THE SAME THEY WERE THE ONLY THİNG THAT ENCOURAGED ME TO PARRY
Tears of the kingdom improved on everything, except for the shrines and four main bosses and their puzzles
I personally dislike most of the armor in totk compared to botw? Idk the designs are so much better to me
everyone is shitting on totk, why
Probably because the recency bias is starting to wear off and people are starting to see its flaws.
@AndyWitmyer You poor, confused thing. The story is contrived garbage, the Shrines are mostly just tutorials with a few good ones (which is even worse because there are more Shrines), here and there, the building mechanics are a bit janky, the characters are idiots, the once beautiful world has been littered with random stones from the sky, and the ending is cheesy.
Your just falling into the cycle again where at first the newest zelda game is the best thing, But NOW the previous game is an underrated masterpiece and the newest sucks. No it doesn’t both are great games stop letting commentary youtubers make your opinion. Also be honest story was never Zelda’s strongsuit, gameplay was.
@AndyWitmyer Enjoy your 151 tutorials, lame story, ugly landscape and bad world building then.
The only positive things about the game are the underground, the ganondorf fight, and fuse/ultra hand. Everything else was the exact same as botw or worse, which shouldn’t have happened considering this took 6 years to make. It also has the worst story in the franchise.
3:45 The arrow fusion things are annoying, and take a long time to use but it also makes it harder to get the arrows, instead of just spending a bunch of rupees on them.
I enjoyed the Ancient Sheikah much more than the Zonai.
You are not alone in your assessments
My First thought of this title was …. Nothing?
Totk has a better introduction with a better Tutorial
The shrines are on the Same Level
The abilities in totk are better and make more fun
Botw memories are Boring and useless
The fuse Mechanik for arrows is so Creative and more usefull The botw
I also want more enimies But totk has more variety
It’s literally not hard to find bombs in caves
The atmosphere is also cool because you know the place and want to see what they’re changed
It was an other level of experience.
In my opinion botw is only a Beta Version of totk
Just found this channel today and I gotta say I’m really enjoying it. I gotta agree with most of the stuff that you said, for me I think the reason why botw was breath taking (pun intended) was because it was new and intriguing. Totk has a lot of things to do, but it’s overfilled with content. I think that’s the main reason why a lot of people like botw more than totk, botw was more compact. But I love both games and I hope Nintendo does more like these games in the future, but hopefully it isn’t just another botw.
Dude I totally agree
Thanks for watching the video!!
I beat both and now have 90+ hours in totk i like it better than botw honestly im extra close to thev end of the game tho lol
Botw is simply the best Switch game
Botw have sword/bigSword elements, i love it.
Im playing Totk dont have it...😢
TOTK is the game plus we wanted but not for $70!
delusional take
I believe TOTK is better than breath of the wild in (almost) every way. Not really because what they “improved” but because of things they added. Upgradable horses, which means you don’t have to spend hours hunting the perfect horse. A customizable house, now everyone’s house can be unique (unless you follow a tutorial online you lazy bi-). Two new areas (sky islands and depths) that add basically an entire maps worth of new content (although the exploration isn’t as fun as the normal land, it’s still fun). The ability to create essentially whatever you want (link can now complete the Geneva conv- I mean checklist). Bosses that are actually entirely unique from one another while all being fun at the same time (except the mucktorock rematch, that one is ass). A final boss that actually feels like a final boss, I think even the demon dragon form was insanely good (especially if compared to dark beast ganon fro botw).And best of all YOU CAN MAKE PIZZA OH MY GOD. There are quite a few things that were removed or replaced that should’ve stayed (we can all agree that champions abilities are better that the sage abilities) but there is one thing, specifically about shrines, that I am glad they sent to the void, THAT STUPID MOTION CONTROL BULLSH-
TOTK isn’t perfect, it has many flaws but it’s still one of my favorite games to ever come out, and I think it’s better than breath of the wild, and you can fight me on that (preferably not, because I’m a 5’4 skinny Hispanic teenager that only has karate as a form of defense yet I have little physical strength)
The CHAMPIONS. I hate them in totk.
am i crazy cuz tears of the kingdom is my least favorate legend of zelda game there is just to many things going on at once in tears of the kingdom
Nah, TOTK is still the better game between then 2 of them. But both games are bad Zelda games though.
Hate TOTK but love BOTW ❤
fire arrow + boko horn = big damage fire damage
no your right they could have the past games always had some very-ation 3:36