Where Skyrim Succeeded, and Zelda Failed
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- Опубліковано 17 чер 2023
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Eros by Apple Kid open.spotify.com/album/7m5eSq...
Today, DJ Peach Cobbler complains about the new Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in a refreshingly straight-forward way! Relative to his usual stuff, anyway. He compares the exploration of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to the new Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. He will ramble.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild represent a significant departure for the series. Taking inspiration from Skyrim and Shadow of the Colossus, the games are now more open-world and focus on player-expression.
#temu #temuhaul #temureview - Ігри
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No
I cant tell if this is fr fr or cap bruh
The temu advertising team probably doesn't speak English. No way they approved this
You are clinically insane
ngl I hope America never fully divorces from China. Love some cheap Chinese crap
One thing that made exploration so fun for me in Elden Ring was how I would go on a quest, find a subterranean city, then that leads me deeper and deeper, and when I was close to the end and thought "Alright, just one more room and then back to the surface" it's boom: A WHOLE NEW AREA BELOW THAT ONE. And they kept doing this and more and more I was "NO YOU WON'T" and Miyzaki "UH HUH" and I'm "NUH UH" and boom, now there is a 3rd area, and a 4th, and a lake, and it keeps going down (sometimes up, too). From Software did this in Dark Souls too, something like, 4 times, and it worked every single one. Miyazaki simply goes "you like underground cities so I added an underground city to your underground city" and it works every fucking time.
Since I am a notorious follower of Maxim 1, Pillage, Then Burn, I hate it when Dungeons or Areas go to long for me to take my Loot home !
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233I never thought I would have caught someone familiar with the 7 habits of highly effective pirates out in the wild lol.
I miss schlock mercenary
@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233 Don't worry there's fast travel. But Dark Souls is heavy on the should I leave now with my loot or continue on decision making. Especially in the first when you don't get fast travel until the first half of the game and get to find like 10 different shortcut loop around. Because the level design was just so dam phenomenal in that one.
@@BrokenGauge Me too, I started reading shortly after it came out and it was a great tragedy when my stable daily fix ended.
So I have to propagate the knowledge about it.
And I hope for the day when Howard anounces a new project.
But in TOTK, if you find an underground passage, it leads to either a shrine, a korok, or that guy holding up the Hudson sign.
You're the only youtuber I know that can be sponsored by TEMU and read their copy while still making it clear they're garbage and pocket the money. Kudos to you.
I think it's my favourite ad reel I've seen
Wait til you discover Nick Mulen's ad reads on cumtown. Truly unhinged.
THINGS, STUFF, ITEMS!
I like how the death whistle is the most replayed part. Probably because you sampled perhaps the most terrifying one I've ever heard. Most of the ones you can find audio of are like, the sound of a human screaming in torment. The one Cobbler used though was the sound of hordes of actual demons coming to flay you alive. The sound of the things that will make *you* sound like the other death whistles.
The way you described the unique sound of that death whistle is so *metal,* dude
We are long overdue for a world as rich as skyrim, and as mechanically depth as the new zelda titles.
Was really hoping Cyberpunk could hit it. It misses the mark a lot, but there's a few fleeting moments where it really hits the first playthrough Skyrim vibe. Like, I was doing some dumb gig for some fixer, and on the way back to V's apartment I walked into a plaza and looked up. Dead of night, but full of neon and bustling people and weird architecture linked up with criss-crossing catwalks, and just for a second I felt the same feeling that I got when I turned that corner out of Riverwood and saw Whiterun, with Dragonsreach looming over the city surrounded by golden plains. That feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of world in this open world game.
i'd suggest playing
Blasphemous. if u want to explore and learn about an interesting in game civilization try playing "Blasphemous"
blasphemous if u really resonate about what said in the video, the "Blasphemous" world has godtier lore, toptier voice acting, a bizarre universe where everulyone follows a masochistic religion devoutly and it is a fkin experience to learn more about the world and lore as u progress through the game and the atmosphere+presentation is godtier absolutely fascinating and intriguing. hyped af for the sequel.
other than this , Hollow Knight, Elden Ring , Skyrim, Dark souls1 and thats it for good exploration. i'd fun playing and exploring risen2 when it came to exploration. maybe fallout3 also falls in the category
@@btchiaintkidding7837 Its sadly a 2d metroidvania though not a 3d open world game. I would say its closer to Dark Souls in that regard.
Elder scrolls 6 is coming in like 2026 but it's probably gonna be delayed till 2040 and they'll make supreme edition, platinum edition, aniversary edition+, and god edition before es6 comes out💀💀💀
Elden Ring was a massive disappointment. The caves and catacombs on their own ruined any believability the world might have had. The catacombs especially. They had copy pasted sections in completely different parts of the map. They thought nobody will notice. There are also sooo many reused bosses. Both in the open world and the catacombs+ caves. This kills the difficulty as you already know all of their patterns. Killing them again is just a chore. Elden Ring would have been a much better game if they cut down on about half of it.
One of my favorite moments in Outer Wilds was finding a school, and reading a Nomai students presentation, about their people's history. The architecture of the Nomai and the furry aliens looking things (I have not played TotK) is both minimalist, flat and cool, but that style is what makes the Nomai ruins look like something that people actually did things in. Marooned astronauts, brilliant scientists and schoolchildren all belonged in the various buildings, facilities and labs left beind, and the same thing can be said of the DLC content. I think a minimalist architecture style can intrigue, but it needs to play to its strenghts.
Zonai?
playing outer wilds right now and the game is so exciting. The moment when I got sucked into brittle hollow's blackhole and thrown out of a whitehole is indescribable, it gave me goosebumps and left me in awe unlike any other game. Can't wait to finish this gem.
Bro coulda worded this way better
You can't even compare the two games. Outer Wilds is a fucking masterpiece. Zelda is just another Zelda game.
@@RoseColoredIrisnah you dickriding
Skyrim has that special something, no matter how many years pass it remains as beautiful and broken as ever
Music and atmosphere makes you wanna buy a home and marry Aela
@@archersterling6726 and scream at Lydia for standing in front of your face while shooting arrows. 😂😂
Skyrim has a plethora of problems, but it's a beautiful mess. I have never felt more immersed in a game before.
@@DanteKingOfSin Skyrim makes you want to just walk
One of my favorite games, but very disappointing from a perspective of character progression. All those amazing skill trees and they waste them on dynamically generated enemies.
The outcome is that the first dragon you fight will be weaker than a bandit boss you encounter very late in the game, which is absolutely ridiculous. Luckily there are mods that fix this and make the game truly challenging and rewarding... Well, mostly one mod, Requiem.
I don't know why Bethesda doesn't want to learn this lesson. FomSoft does this excellently. Static and hand crafted content will always be far superior to dynamically generated enemies and loot.
I find very funny that the whay he says temu sounds exactly like "Timo", the Spanish word for "scam"
I think one of the few times my desire to explore was truly rewarded in ToTK was when I was looking around the Hebra region, and I helped a Korok get to their spot, and then I decided to check out what was on the little cliff next to them, and I found a small patch of Silent Princesses. It made me think of the story significance they had in BoTW, how they were a near extinct species, but now they were starting to take a foothold. Idk, felt interesting.
I feel like that's where a lot of the explanation comes from. The flowers, the evolution of the towns and some characters it's much less about each individual cave
Where exactly was that?
So... just literally nirnroot, but less interesting
As a representative and Rabid fan of both BOTW and TOTK, This is up there with only a few other videos as a true and valid criticism of these games. What Nintendo is afraid to do is to be too serious, every part of the game seeks to remind you that it is in fact a game. Whereas Skyrim, it want to to know its a whole world, a whole universe.
I think that’s fine though
I think there is a fair bit more to criticize here.
- Story execution is awful. Being able to do a linear plot in any order is a good way to ruin any surprises
- Several important characters are underutilized and have no obvious motivations. Including Ganondorf
- Ultra-hand is overused, and yet at the same time you are never asked to do anything challenging with it
- Re-using BotW's landscape kills a lot of exploration, as you have seen most of this before and know it
- Re-using all the collectibles makes this game a nightmare at times. With far too much to do, it can easily overwhelm people
- Dungeons are still very short and are all very similar structurally to each other
- Combat is still rarely worth it, and the enemies damage has been increased to an absurd level
- Enemy variety is still pretty low, with Bokoblins, Lizalfoes & Moblins still taking up the vast majority of encounters
It doesn't even have to be serious, it just has to commit to more within the world than Korok seeds, personally part of my issue with botw (haven't played the new one) is the weapon durability thing, rewards were always just more of the same weapons I already had, and if it was any good it was about avoiding using them until I "needed" them. I never felt a sense of progression at all and nothing felt like a real reward for finding anything or exploring, and so I never cared about what I was finding, and so I got bored. The game had GREAT mechanics for exploring the world, just what you explored never really amounted to anything, serious or otherwise.
The most memorable part of botw, for me, was the castle. You enter it, alone. Faced by a myriad of monsters and guardians, while heroic music plays in the background. You defeat every single foe and meet the ancient god and you slay him. That was memorable. That felt serious, impactful, it made me feel as though i was a real hero, and not just some twink with a passion for rock climbing
@@tyranitararmaldo combat is definitely worth it in TOTK, the enemy horns and a few other fuse items basically completely fixed that from the first game, Ganondorf's character in this game is very strong idk what you're on, and so much of hyrule is changed, plus sky islands, plus AN ENTIRE DEPTHS WORLD SPANNING ALL OF HYRULE TO EXPLORE so there is still exploration. Some of these complaints you've given are true, but some make me legitimately wonder if you've played the game
Nice to see Skyrim used as a positive example for once
Still one of my favourite games of all time.
Underrated indie gem
Skyrim is what got me into gaming, had no real interest in video games before I played it at a friends house.
That was indeed nice explanation of why Skyrim was good, despite the rewards being useless :) thematic, but useless.
@@eggtasticbonail7252 bro are you kidding me skyrim is not indie although it was birthed by one person that one person is the big todd in the sky. So no skyrim is not a "indie game"
I loved exploring the Dwarf ruins in Skyrim. I'd just stumble on them and be like: Ok, I'm Indiana Jonesing around traps and fighting giant clockwork robots now.
Oh man, I will NEVER forget the first time I naively wandered into the abandoned house in Markarth (Skyrim) and everything in the room started flying around poltergeist-style and a booming voice begins to speak. I was legitimately panicked. 😅
My favorite mildly coherent ramble has blessed me with more substance. Praise be thy Cobbler of Peaches🙌🙌🙌
This one’s honestly just schizo. Comparing a open world physics sandbox game to a triple a open world rpg is insane.
@@diegeticfridge9167 Yeah but is it worse than dunkey's videos though 🤔💬
I know finally
Praise the
It's also weird because Zelda has done the "innocuous hole leads to amazing underground complex that's lodged in your memory for years to come" before. I think the normality of a well is half the reason Bottom of the Well was so terrifying, like something in your own town that looks so normal could be hiding just as sinister a secret
and also with the architecture argument too. Twilight Princess' Sky city and Temple of Time dungeons both evoke this feeling of alien technology, this weird civilization that existed with it's atmosphere and the way it's designed. Even the Manor with the Yeti in the mountains had that level of creepy atmosphere of being lived in and subtext present in it. And even with the Stone Temple in Majora's Mask every detail felt deliberate. Of course with the scale of TOTK there can't be as much story to tell but I'll be damned if it had any to tell with it's locations.
Wait a minute...
Bottom of the Well > Breath of the Wild
BotW > BotW
It’s funny how ToTK desensitizes you to checking wells for cool stuff. There’s nothing interesting to find down there.
Dude, you finally hit the nail on the head for me. I've been trying to figure out exactly what was missing in Breath of the Wild ever since it came out. I thought it was just because I wanted a traditional Zelda game but no, it's because there wasn't any intrigue in the environments I explored for reward rather than for the joy of seeing something new.
It's there in many cases, you just have to look really hard and piece the environments together. Some of it is gone now in Totk, as the speculation is gone with some under- welming answers to questions from botw and not too much to replace it but the game is still a blast.
@@superluigi8539No it’s absolutely not there, none of the theories people concocted came true because Nintendo did not actually care in the slightest about the story or world, people are just writing their own stories and praising Nintendo for their own headcanon.
@@larb6314pretty much
Nintendo didn't get the memo that with advancements in videogame development should also come advancements in worldbuilding. Dude's still making games like they're supposed to be just that and nothing more, even if that means cutting them short of what they could have been. Simple, fun, cute. It's their one trick and damnit if I ain't gonna give a treat to that silly old dog.
I went into ToTk with 0 knowledge of the media they put out to promote it. On purpose, I wanted to be completely blind. I saw the first cutscene, made it through the tutorial island and then started running around on the midground. I hadn't seen any chasms or visited the bunker, hadn't talked to single a NPC.
And then I jumped down a blighted well, my 7th well so far except this one was different. Then the music changed. And I kept falling. And falling. And falling. And then I was in complete darkness with eerie things glowing in the distance.
For the first 2 hours I ran around avoiding the lightroots, because to me they looked like eggs that would open and something terrible would climb out. I tamed a skeleton horse and eventually realized I could use the brightseeds to give some illumination. I found the Miners pants and the mine where you get Autobuild by complete accident. And I met Dinraal in complete darkness and learned that you could ride the dragons in Totk. I had 4 hearts, the starting armor and 22 arrows and it was 3am.
It was magical. It was literally my Siofra well moment.
Edit: grammar, I had 4 hearts not 3 my bad
sounds tremendous, although your circumstances had to be altered from the majority.
@@lloydmartelNobody expected the depths because only the sky islands were part of the marketing for this game and they hid half of the map from us so we can discover it ourselves
@@lloydmartel altered? He just played the game
Siofra W
Big problem is that if you trust the game and go where they suggest they will tell you about the underground and about lightroots and how to light up the enviornment and for most players that's how they learn it so it feels like a tutorial rather than exploration
Honestly I feel like the issue is just shoddy marketing and game critics being stupid. Tears of the Kingdom is not a game about exploration, its a game about experimentation and creating things. Everything in the game is designed to make you interact with its systems. Hence why most people online don’t share reactions to huge discoveries, they share their enormous mechsuits blasting bokoblins to the stratosphere.
Got a point😂
This is actually a really good point. When the exploration gets praised and emphasized so much the game feels so disappointing; but really, the whole point of the shrines and koroks is to encourage ingenuity, and as much exploration.
I still wish exploration was better and more rewarding, but looking at it from the perspective of being more about ingenuity than exploration really does make it seem like they actually accomplished what they set out to do. And that's also where all of my own enjoyment of the game came from, personally.
Question: why is it a Zelda game then? Zelda as a franchise was based in the feeling of exploration and discovery. If the new game is about building shit, why isn’t its own franchise that can wholly focus on the construction systems and not be held back by the tropes of Zelda that were not designed for the game they’re making?
@@blank-vj1mc Well, most of Breath of the Wild's unique characteristics (at least for a Zelda game) came about just because the developers asked themselves why they did everything the way they did, and Aonuma didn't really have an answer for them. So BotW was a bit more of a deconstruction of the Zelda franchise than anything else, and I would imagine that TotK just focused a bit more on the new direction they decided to take. So basically, BotW came about because they were making a Zelda game, but wanted to try and make it as little like Zelda as they could (at least, that's the impression I got from the older interviews leading up to BotW).
@@andrewlyon8924 That’s actually not true at all BotW is the closest to the original Zelda that the series has ever achieved. And they specifically cited the fact the went back to the absolute basics of the formula.
Tears of the Kingdom isn’t that. It’s well known that this was DLC that was expanded on to create a whole game. To me that sounds like the developers got bored and they just decided to make a new game with mechanics that were only designed to make the older system more fun.
Zelda is about more than exploration, but it’s also not about being a Banjo Kazooie Nutz N Boltz rip off.
Also, if you want to make a game in a franchise that’s as little of the franchise as possible, what’s the point? Zelda should be out on retirement or Nintendo needs to purge the brain trust they currently have. The modding scene would definitely appreciate it.
I'm shocked that you didn't talk even MORE about Elden Ring for a video like this. It's kind of incredible to me that anyone can excuse the existence of TotK coming out a full year after Elden Ring and I think it's not talked about nearly enough.
You mentioned rewards as one of the two big things exploration needs to have, and jesus christ, Elden Ring does rewards the best out of any open world game I've ever played. Every single spell, weapon, ash of war, and spirit ash gives you a new way to slightly (or majorly) tweak your build and offer you new things you can do in combat, so exploration was *always* engaging because I never knew what I was going to get out of a chest or from killing a boss. It just kept getting better and better as the game progressed and never let up the steam. It's insane to me that the game not only keeps up the pace of interesting new combat tools but it also continually ups the impact and power level of the stuff that you can find right up to and including what you get from the very final boss.
Going from Elden Ring to TotK was disappointing in ways words cannot describe. By about 10 hours in I realized there were no more surprises left, and yet I kept playing for another 150 hours because I had bought the limited edition OLED Switch and felt stupid about not playing the game to completion. If it wins Game of the Year I think it will be perhaps the biggest indictment on the gaming community I have seen in years. It is the most phoned in sequel I have ever seen.
The rewards are better, but I feel that er has similar problems with context (or as dj calls it here, "decorum") for rewards to zelda. Most rewards feel pretty arbitrary, and I rarely got the sense that I was learning anything about where I was or who I just fought from the rewards.
I think Japanese game design principles suffer in the transition to open world. I remember wandering around dungeons in wind waker and twilight princess fascinated by the architecture, and trying to put together the story of why it was there. Same for fromsoft games, especially Ds 1, where every area has a few hidden stories tucked away in their item placements. I enjoyed elden ring, and it did a good job scratching my exploration itch (especially in combination with the combat, as you pointed out), but the world it took place in didnt feel living and lived in in the way that Bethesda's games manage to capture, in spite of their other problems
@@koboldgeorge2140 I guess you must not have been reading the item descriptions, because there’s tons of location context for items. Not for everything, but there is still plenty.
Either way, I don’t consider that a problem in the slightest. For every random cave with the Golden Order Greatsword in it there’s a Night’s Sacred Ground with the Mimic Tear and Fingerprint Blade. I was never expecting every single little cave and dungeon to have context because most of the side dungeons are there purely for the sake of content, not lore. Regardless, there was still *plenty* of environmental storytelling and appropriately placed item lore.
I would consider something like that a nitpick because I almost never felt like I had no context for where I was.
@@koboldgeorge2140In my opinion, as someone who praises DS1 as the greatest game of all time, I think elden ring had much more depth and exploration in terms of learning about the world around you than any game I’ve ever played before. Definitely more than Skyrim, even if it’s a little more confusing to understand.
Elden Ring's exploration would have been a whole lot better if the various catacombs didn't feel like shuffled assets with recycled bosses over and over.
@@hurrdurrmurrgurr everything could always be better. Not sure what point you’re making. Pretty much everyone still loved the side dungeons even with boss reusage because the layouts were all unique and unpredictable and they never repeated the exact same boss setup since if they reused a boss it had a different move set or was combined with another boss. Realistically that’s the only way you could develop a game that size with that much space in the amount of time they had. They spent the most resources on the unique content like legacy dungeons and the medium-sized dungeons as well as the open world and if you take all of that content together it’s more content than any of the Dark Souls games. Elden Ring just also has *on top* of that a hundred little dungeons with less resources put into them.
As I was playing through this game, it felt like there was something missing. I enjoyed everything there was about it, but it felt like it could’ve been better. This video perfectly explains what I could not put into words. Thank you so much.
My exact feeling
Thanks to this vid, I've realized that in all the time I've poured into ToTK in the past weeks I hadn't once stopped to praise its exploration,
for me it's all been the moment to moment gameplay, the puzzle solving... and honestly that's it, really.
To be fair I don’t think it meant to be a exploration game, I feel like it more like a creation game where you meant to make cool mechanisms like hover bikes, mech suits, bombers
I agree, over half the time I've spent with TotK has just been "basically gmod but Zelda." Frankly, that's not a bad thing!
Point is though, as the vid pointed out, every 10/10 review refers to the exploration as the main "thing" on offer, while once you actually get into the meat of the game it's all just puzzle solving and creativity toy. Really good puzzles and hella fun creativity toy, just misrepresented is all.
@@LAF0NT Eh it has a lot of great exploration too around the world.
@@LAF0NTBut often the puzzle solving is for the sake of exploration. "How will I use the pieces I have available to me to get over there?"
That callback to the beginning is an absolute work of art. I love this channel.
Idk it seemed a bit shallow, it was just shoehorned into the start just so he could make the callback without actually adding anything
@@jack_kerins he changed the quote so yes he added something lol wtf you on about.
Nintendo clearly prioritized the Underdark from a mechanical perspective over a focus on presentation. I do like how it mirrors the overworld in thematic ways. Underneath the shrine of Resurrection from the start of the first game lies an underground hot spring lake that heals you.
First-time viewer, here.
"Do you not take pride..." That was a beautiful way to wrap a story back around, and you have truly impressed. Love how you used Skyrim's exploration bits in a positive manner, and as an example of what to do, and how to *actually* take from it. Well done.
The lighthouse tower in Skyrim and the murder that has happened within it is very much the most memorable location event for me that I doubt I'll ever forget it to my dying days.
The most interesting location in TotK is the Arbiter's Grounds. When you first see them in BotW all you see is the tips of pillars sticking out of the ground. But in TotK if you go under where it is in the depths you find a colleseum and cemetery. The best part is that if you haven't played the older games it means nothing to you.
See if you've played Twilight Princess you actually get to explore the Grounds. It was a place to torture and execute prisoners of war. Dim halls full of undead and quicksand. The walls inscribed with symbology and statues implying that this WAS originally a temple for the religion of the gerudo. Now with Hyrule royal family crests plastered atop it all.
This cesspit of hell and death now, millena later is the tops of some pillars, a small graveyard and an arena. That's all that was left after time's grasp upon the place. The ruins are so old that all meaning is lost. As the history wasn't recorded. Even the now underground sections don't align perfectly with what's above, meaning that tectonic shifting broke the pillars off and pulled them away from their place.
I think places like that are the best TotK has to offer. A glimpse of old ares thousands of years later. But if you haven't played the game they mean absolutely nothing.
I have played all the games and this means nothing to me. The Depths are boring af. The smaller scattered caves on the other hand have some character and they feel alive and full of history as if they've always been there.
@@ELMQ missing my point. What I'm saying is the most interesting part is only made interesting by other games. On it's own the explanation isn't much to sneeze at.
The most interesting areas in the games are the ones that call back to previous locations to remind you how fucking ancient Hyrule is
That just highlights another problem I have with totk. Like, how do you know the arbiters grounds is even the same place as the twilight princess arbiters grounds? How do we know *any of this* is actually connected to past Zelda? Because you can find costumes that reference past games? Who made those costumes? What are they doing in there? How did they end up in a chest with a gameplay safe reward? More to the point, why are the rito and zora a separate race when all of the zora turned into rito in wind waker?
Do you see the issue here? Zelda takes no effort to cement itself within any kind of timeline beyond cure references to past games. The arbiters grounds in totk wasn’t a place where they executed prisoners. It was an area made to get you to remember twilight princess. Everything in totk is 100% meta and it’s impossible to divorce it from that. It’s a sandbox built on the corpse of like 50 past games (and somehow it’s not as interesting as how that sounds)
@@firstprimehunterI'd argue that you're looking too deep into it, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing but it can be damaging. The OP is saying that if you haven't played past games, then locations are obviously not going to mean anything which is true.
However, these locations are simply...there to give familiarity/call back to older games to fans but are not rooted into being the exact same location previously. Take for example, Spectacle Rock, it's just two mountain peaks to the average person. And yet this location has been around since the first LoZ game and is constantly changing its location in every appearance. I think that trying to cement call backs is a double edge sword. It brings familiarity, but also ironically makes fans try to make sense of things when it clearly wasn't meant to in the first place. That's why I believe the fans who forced/put pressure on devs to make timelines of their games unironically ruined part of the magic of LoZ.
Honestly the longer the video the wider my smile gets when I see you upload. Thank you for doing this crazy research👍
I think the main difference between two games is that Skyrim is about immersion in game and about game world, exploration and stories (even though sometimes stupid) but Zelda is more about the game mechanics and their unscripted interations.
thats true. although theres some games which are 100% about game mechanics that still keep you interested in the game world and stories.
Like Doom Eternal. after beating it, I was having a blast researching every demon - from the imp to the tyrant.
the issue with TOTK's exploration for me is that, you eventually figure out that every single cave (barring a few) holds the same exact reward. Shoot the frog ghost and get the gem. And what do you get for these gems? Items you had in BOTW. So there's no surprise when you unlock a bokoblin mask - you already did. In the first game.
And the same goes for the temples and shrines. Once you've done one, you know exactly how every single other one will go. The temples ALWAYS end with the SAME cutscene, and the same reward. Same with the shrines. And treasure chests in the world never quite feel like a cool discovery because it's almost always a temporary item that will disappear. Skyrim's exploration continuously builds your character.
Zelda BotW and TotK feel like huge playgrounds for you to have fun gameplay-wise, while Skyrim is a game for you to immerse in it's world. I think that's the reason copycats never got close to what Skyrim offer in terms of world building and exploration and why BotW and TotK never bothered with world building and "lore"
especially if the lore would become "legend" by the next game (unless it is a direct sequal) lijke most of the series does.
I’m still waiting for the game that blends these two game design philosophies in the perfect proportion. That will be the next open-world masterpiece.
I disagree. While Skyrim does have a lot of lore, most of it is contained within books, and there is never any incentive to read them or even anything that lets the player know that there is anything in them. In addition, the Nordic ruins never feel like actual tombs, and the dwarven ruins NEVER feel like anyone ever lived in them. And while some ruins are unique, many if them have literally zero lore about who is buried there or what happened there. Skyrim is the starting point for many gamers that leads them to more and more in depth experiences, but it itself is quite simple.
Nah BOTW and TOTK are games for you to immerse in it's world too and they feel less empty then Skyrim too. Expect games like Witcher 3 and Elden RIng obviously surpass Skyrim in world building and exploration and Botw and TotK bothered with world building and lore too
@@THEBEEEANSSThat's part of the game's strenght, I would say. Simplicity isn't bad.
My favorite thing that Bethesda has done, is roll out the anniversary edition of Skyrim to Switch. Except they obviously didn't test how it would function or run, so now if you buy the anniversary edition, you essentially brick your game with sub 15 fps.
I can't believe, they've had almost half a dozen releases of Skyrim to practice actually launching a polished playable game and they still haven't been able to do it.
Can't forget skyrim vr a full priced game that doesn't work unmodded meaning they didn't even test it out beyond getting it to run
Classic Bethesda.
I bet Starfield will still have bugs found in Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. Like re-skinned dragons flying backwards or some shit. The memes will be glorious.
That was fixed quite some time ago.
Says more about the switch than Skyrim itself, it's hardware is severely outdated
This video is perfect. This is exactly how I’ve felt with the game. I was so hyped for this game but after putting many hours in it, it left me feeling empty and honestly sad because it’s lack of soul.
I felt the same thing. But I eventually came around and am a believer that totk is the greatest videogame ever made
I agree, having played both BOTW and TOTK, these Zelda games lack soul. Unlike The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Dogma, Diablo, Dragon Age, and The Witcher, these games have a soul with a captivating story. BOTW along with TOTK would have been perfect if they had a more engaging story.
Just like the Soul series, fun games to play but no engaging plot. Although it’s good to see the new Baldur’s Gates with a great story line up.
Agree completely. Everything that made Zelda games so unique and memorable are completely gone in the open world Zeldas. Truly unfortunate.
I now know the reason why the Great Sky Island was so memorable for me. Not only was I completely enthraled in this beautiful forgotten world I just teleported to, I was also so interested in the story and what was happening. Then the story takes a complete nose dive with boring memories and the same exact main quest from Breath of the Wild (though it got way better after completing the 4 main dungeons, even though I was only a few hours away from the end). I would love to imagine a world where the open world was just a bunch of sky islands and the story was much more engaging, but maybe with there next game.
In a good game (like Witcher 3, for example) sometimes the reward IS the story. One of my favorite questlines is Where the Cat and Wolf Play -- and I don't give a damn about the material reward you receive for completing it. And I always, always, finish that quest during a playthrough.
Something too many devs forgot... and players.
I can think of 2 games that have good side quests that do it in somewhat abnormal ways, and they're from the same series, but have good sidequests in different ways.
NieR:Automata and NieR replicant.
Now, replicant is a 2010 game and it's side quests are super dated interactively, structurally, and just by general design. Basically bland fetch quest galore.
These quests are menial slogs with no real purpose in progressing anything in the game. But, they do contain LOADS of dialog between the protagonist and his companions.
This helps greatly with building character and relationships in the cast.
The quests practically suck by design. But there is 1 quest where the actual tangible reward is amazing. Its where you go fetch ingredients for a special cocktail, to get a pair of twin sisters to sing together at a local bar.
Your reward for doing this quest is a duet of these sisters singing a song you normally only ever hear being sang solo by 1 of them around the village.
It's not until the final stretch of the game that you hear another duet by them of the same song, but....different.
NieR:Automata does quests better by design and execution, offers the same kind of character enhancing dialog, but the actual subject matter of the quests is IMPORTANT.
Like, a person who did do sidequests and someone who skipped them just simply will not have the same experience with the games main story.
Example: 1 of the games side quests, called amnesia, explores a murder mystery involving a very confused individual.
Long story short, the information regarding the quest giver and murders basically alludes to the plot twist at the very end of the game.
Actually, if you never did this side quest, and another sidequest about a girl's missing friend, you'd actually never even realize the plot twist at the end of the game is even a plot twist. You'd just go "oh okay, that's new, didn't know that" and it would kinda be lost on you.
But if you played those quests you'd be like "holy fucking shit this changes everything I know about this character and their relationship".
And there's wayyyy more quests that provide world, character and story building too.
1 mission you help build a slide for machine children in a village...before...a terrible tragedy.
Another mission, you beat a machine at a race multiple times, but racing was everything they lived for. They feel sad and defeated, purposeless. They kill themselves in face of this existential crisis.
Another sidequest you learn that androids feel a form of pleasure or happiness from combat and killing. Which redefines how you come to understand the full scope of the love that the main characters have for each other.
Another sidequest explores a returning character from replicant who's survived for over 8,000 years. They talk about their past and the main characters, aka his friends, from replicant. He talks about how the machines were created, how he fought a war alone against them for God knows how long. Just a generally important world building quest.
Another quest......has you burying one of the main characters and mourning them.
A random interaction, not even a quest, Just something you can stumble upon at a certain point in the game, Is a recording of that dead characters final words to your current character. Their final words of love meant for the one they love most. Just, lost in the world, as a random encounter you can so so easily miss.
Automata easily has the best sidequests I've ever experienced in a game. Not the most fun, but what you get out of them is more important than fun. They actually leave a mark on you, are memorable because of this, and greatly, GREATLY enhance the games various elements.
Replicants side quests, while being horrible in design, show that you can make trash quests worthwhile if you give them meaning and value outside of material gain. Fuck the money rewards, I want to cry. THATS getting my REAL money's worth for the game I spent actual money on. I'll take tears and emotions over x5 materials, an upgrade item, and in-game currency anyway. Anyday
The thing that really gets me is that TOTK could've had a lot more narrative depth in it's world. The pieces are there, it's just that they don’t write enough around it. You hear the legends of Gorondia and the Stormwind Ark, but their history ends there. We don't know why the Gorons left Gorondia or how the Rito used the Stormwind Ark (the zonai just made it for them ig). They even re-contextualize the dragons in a really cool way, but don't go farther than making it a plot device. Even the game people think is just a clone, Genshin impact, puts a lot more effort in framing it's world and the locations found within with books, notes, even entire quests all about prior events -- almost to its detriment because the game can get very wordy. Finding stuff in totk still scratches that curious itch, but for me it ended up losing a lot of its weight without any subtext to back it up. They do turn up the storytelling to 11 in the Gerudo area though, that place was a lot of fun.
I felt the exact same way. Gorondia is never even mentioned again afterward.
Gorondia is such a wasted potential
And this isn't even mentioning the absolute nothingness the water temple has, where it should be the Most lore heavy dungeon, since Zora live many times longer than the other races
Also the "Demon King? Secret Stone?" Copy paste cutscenes are just icky and no good
Wheres my background as to why the sages joined rauru's side?
i think the best way i can describe zelda "mysteries" is like when someone says "guess what" and you say what but they just say "guess"... its just so tiring to never get anything from this, im not even asking for answers, but just MORE to the mysteries so you can build your own idea of it in your head. god knows we're never going to find out who the 3 dragons were or why they became what they are, or who the ancient hero was and why he looks the way he does, or any other countless things that feel purposely set up only to frustrate you with the lack of any real depth.
not to go too off point but i'd say its honestly the same with most zelda characters too lol, its like they try to stay as safe as possible so they can recycle things in the future without fans questioning continuity or lore, even though hyrule and its characters have literally been reborn multiple times T_T they literally have the perfect world to exploit by making it interesting and/or wack as hell story wise and be able to then completely erase away when needed with no consequence, why do they waste it by trying to stick to some weird formula that nobody's asking for...
(to mention the ancient hero again, its actually kind of cool that he looks the way he does, its not just another blonde boy twink in green like it always is, like they finally broke a part of that formula, but again they didnt do anything with it in totk and probably arent going to do anything with it later either, so r.i.p to red haired ugly green-ass cat..thing(?) link, you could've actually been interesting...)
You put into words EXACTLY the feelings I've had for BOTW after I played it, thank you. Everyone is so busy praising the game they don't see some of its glaring issues as a videogame. It's a good game but it seriously doesn't deserve so much attention. They have some masters of game design at Nintendo but it feels like sometimes they forget there are other ways to make games engaging other than good mechanics. I think the only things that BOTW actually deserves praise for are the elemental interaction system and the freedom and feeling of movement: running, gliding, shield surfing all feel absolutely amazing. Everything else is incredibly safe and uninspiring, even though it DOES work because it checks most boxes decently. I didn't play TOTK but based on your description it's exactly what I expected it to be and I'm really not interested.
I agree completely
I got shunned online for not liking BOTW with arguments like "well, you have exploe the world to make it fun, if you aren't an explorer, this game isn't for you".
Dude, I played Skyrim and The Witcher 3 for hours on end and always found interesting stuff and small little stories throughout the world. I explored almost every inch of these worlds.
Whereas in Zelda: go somewhere, find chest with a weapon that breaks after like two hits, go somewhere else, get korok seed, repeat. There was not enough incentive for me to look closer anywhere after playing it for a few days. It left me with a feeling, that there isn't much to experience besides the busywork to stretch the playtime.
It didn't even count, that I praised its mechanics and environmental systems. The sole fact that I didn't like the game as a whole, was direct proof, that my concerns were invalid and I wasn't the "correct" type of gamer to play this game.
I'm not a huge fan of Nintendo in any way, I played Pokemon and Zelda in my childhood and then never again, but I don't hate Nintendo either. They don't put out the stuff, that I'm interested in nowadays, that's all. If they revolutionize something or put out good stuff? Good for them, praise is totally deserved.
One problem I have is the inability of the fanbase to accept critizism of Nintendo or their games without resorting to counter-arguments, like "you played it wrong", "you just hate Nintendo", "your point is invalid, because Nintendo is the good guy".
Skyrim was awesome. Its exactly what you describe. There were so many moments I remember where I discovered something incredible for the first time and yeah no game has ever managed to do that. Those two dragons coming out of the ice in the forgotten vale, finding Serana imprisoned inside of that shrine thing which I was not expecting at all, blackreach of course, Miraak, Solstheim, Sovngard, the first time I stepped foot in Windhelm. You break into a random home only to find that kid playing with a corpse in a dark magic ritual to summon an assassin to kill a cartoonishly evil orphanage lady and you can play along and be the assassin! You can't top that. That's literally the most interesting way breaking into a house can go in a video game. Did not see getting to be a werewolf coming either when you join the companions or the first time I ran into a hagraven and thought it was a person at first and then was horrified to see it up close when it finally turned to look at me. There are innumerable moments like this and man do they add up to a profoundly investing exploration experience. There is no game more rewarding to explore than Skyrim. Not one rewards you more for taking the time to explore the most remote places.
Speaking of windhelm, the curious things store was my favorite store in all of Skyrim lol. Homie had a gold spoon for sale or something wild lmao.
Again, Bethesda proves that they're masters of exploration and environmental storytelling. You can give them a lot of grief for a lot of things, but they *_truly_* do know the essence of exploration, they get what it should feel like better than any other developer I've seen.
Obsidian with Fallout New Vegas exploration >
@@islandboy9381New Vegas has very good storytelling and quests and it is my favorite Fallout game ever. It, however, does not have exploration on the same level as Bethesda.
The game tells you where everything is, every dungeon is in some way connected to a quest that you can find by talking to an NPC in a quest hub and most of the map is just boring uninspired desert. It gives you very little reason to stray from the path the quests give you. It does not have the same wonder of exploration that there is in Skyrim and Fallout 3.
@FeCyrineu I love how the quests always point to a location.
It actually gives a reason to explore each area beyond just pointless loot.
New vegas has the best story
Fallout 3 easily has the best atmosphere
And fallout 4 has the best gamplay
@@FeCyrineu Yes, this is the thing that I don't think most people realize. Bethesda captures the wonder of exploration by not necessarily giving every location a specific purpose. Some places just exist and that's all they're there for. Makes them interesting and mysterious. Each location tells its own story regardless. Not every location needs to be tied to a quest.
Bethesda is also really really good at capturing the tone of the environment, which in and of itself makes exploration interesting. Bethesda also does a really good job at rewarding exploration in an organic way.
@@nick15684 I agree - I think that might be why I actually disliked New Vegas. I'm more of an explorer gamer, and that one felt more like just a decent RPG.
the reason why people view zelda's exploration in a more positive light than skyrim's is because skyrim puts markers on your compass to tell you a thing is near while in zelda you have to figure out that the thing is near
Well also Zelda has freedom of movement and the environments are designed to interest you in a way to want to go over to whatever mountain you see
Zelda has very great exploration because of the methods to get from pointA to pointB. You could find a higher point to fly, hitch a ride on a dragon, build a vehicle, climb a mountain, all to get to your pointB. The problem is pointB is generally pretty boring and uninteresting. This is where Skyrim thrives in comparison.
The way in which to get to pointB in Skyrim kinda sucks. You'll just walk or fast travel there. Maybe you'll meet some cool NPC events on the road or something, but the travelling aspect of exploration in Skyrim is lacking (plus, youll probably be TOLD points of interest instead of seeing them from a distance first.) But the reward of exploration comes from the pointB itself. It's inherently interesting.
So imo, the strengths of exploration in both games differ. For Zelda it excels at travel, for Skyrim it excels at, well, the destination and what is there.
They put markers on the compass because you can't climb up towers or mountains to see your surroundings
@@AngelRamirez-do6tp morrowind didn't have markers
@Spark What's your point? The skyrim map markers serve the same purpose as climbing towers or shrine locator in botw.
As someone who's really enjoying Totk right now, this is really interesting. I don't feel numb, but I get it. The game opens with so much excitement but doesn't really deliver on the worldbuilding as much as I was hoping... but still fun!
Great video!
This was a great video. Botw used to be my favorite game, but I haven’t been enjoying Totk very much at all. And everywhere I go online and everyone I talk to constantly praises the game and laugh at the people who thought it was just going to be glorified dlc. But to me it’s worse. It just feels like the same game again except with the most appealing part that being the sense of exploration just missing because it’s the same overworld and the underground they added was just a big flattish area with mostly enemies we’ve already fought for like 6 years. I got so incredibly unironically upset upon booting up the game and just a little while in hearing that “YA HA HA”. I haven’t actually beaten the game yet, but every time I turn it on I’m basically forcing myself just thinking, “I waited so long for this game I have to try and give it another shot. I bet ‘the good part’ is gonna come any time now or whatever it is that everyone loves about this game.” I think it’s just ever since Elden Ring came out and in my mind built on and improved what Breath of the Wild did, I compare other open world games to it now and nothing really stands up to it.
This is EXACTLY how I feel. Right down to the comment at the end about Elden Ring one-upping BOTW at its own game: exploration. BOTW is still my favorite game of all time due to the exploration, but TOTK might be my least favorite Zelda game.
Here's the thing: I think you're right. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, when the hype has worn off, people will look back and realize BOTW did something TOTK did not.
There are a few highlights of environmental storytelling in TotK. The areas under the sand in Gerudo desert that reveal an ancient prison and a cemetery in the depths underneath that, the statues of the seven heroines and a quest to learn more about who they were, some of the old Zonai ruins from the first game and the weird unexplained owl imagery, the skydiving challenges that are said to be rites of passage for the Zonai to name a few
I want to make a point on decorum in Tears of the Kingdom, and how its more game play focused. The big thing that went through my any time that I found a shrine was not "I wonder what I'll get for completing it" but rather "what will I deal with here". What's the puzzle, or what fight against the constructs will I have to deal with. What solution, either intended or otherwise, will I come up with to beat it. So, while I don't believe that Tears has the decorum you are looking for, one that ties into narrative, it does have a game play decorum, at least in some sense. Which I guess is the big difference here. Skyrim is good at giving in universe context to its various dungeons, but the actual game play can get very repetitive (how many of these things contain just Draugur and nothing else), while the shrines in Tears have less in universe context (they just appear out of nowhere), while having better game play decorum. I think this can also extend to the Depths, but I felt that place felt more appropriate as a mild horror experience that, over the game, you can master exploring than ancient buried civilization. More of a game play thing than story element.
When I enter a shrine I think “did I remember to have at least two rocket shields”
damn ,
thats a really inefficient way to say that ToTK has immersive sim elements. btw i never thought of this so yeah bug W for you
Any game that has immersive elements is Based af by default tbh. you almost got me sold in getting a switch
So not a Decorum. But challenges. All games have those.
Your Skyrim example falls short in the challenge set but almost every dungeon is unique.
A secret labyrinth to hide the Overseer's past expedition, helping a woman find a scroll, finding a song manuscript detailing the stories of an old tyrant.
Decorum isn't challenge. They're aesthetics. Also Elden Ring already did it better gameplay wise like, come on Zelda games don't have that hard of a puzzle. It's not a point and click adventure game.
@@zurielschubert9410I fully agree
Even Skyrim as Cobbler suggested falls short somewhere if we are willing to go hard. Literally the most advertised and hyped feature about Skyrim's world was that there would be Giant Dragons and epic memorable battles with them.
Now Guess how that actually tuned out to be... pointless easy battles with useless rewards or any interest whatsoever past the prologue of the game. The whole Dragonborn storyline was diminished of interest because of the weak presence and negligible impact of actual Dragons.
On the other hand, TOTK had A Lot of interesting side quests and adventures that weren't featured in this video. There were so many adventures starting within adventures that I could not reduce the amount of side quests I had, because during the course of doing one, I was always being presented to more people and thus more stories.
It’s like a good movie, you watch it once to enjoy and then again when you are about to go to sleep and need something reliable to help you drift
Exploration needs to feel like you were rewarded for your curiosity whether it be a crazy quest or item or lore reason I fully agree with this video. Exploring in the Witcher 3 and Skyrim was some of the most fun you can have exploring that and any fromsoft game.
The reason I don't entirely like tears it's because the game feels heavy and it feels so dragging in the sense that everything feels so inconvenient. Also the world doesn't have any build up, everything is empty, just like it's described in the video.
Since there were Sheikah researchers in The Depths, I thought there could’ve been side quests where you had to explore ancient cities. My favorite part of The Depths was when you had to collect the eyes for the Poe statue. I wish there were more side quests to populate The Depths with more interesting stuff other than ancient mines.
I also wish when you infiltrated yiga bases there were more yiga members there, and each yiga member had humanizing dialogue and quests. 80% of the yiga show up in the depths but all actual yiga content is in the overworld
In short, "Skyrim does what Zeldon't."
I genuinely love your videos and have officially run out, hard part is waiting for the next! Doing awesome stuff!
This is the first video I've ever seen that makes a true criticism of the open world Zelda games that actually makes sense. BOTW and TOTK are some of my favorite games ever made and I've wanted all open world games since then to be inspired by them but not for the reasons stated. I think Elden Ring did it exactly how I wished a game would. It took everything that made the Zelda games so fun to traverse and explore but actually gave them purpose and lore letting you learn and put together the entire world and everything surrounding it.
Didn't expect a fantastic Father's Day present from my Daddy DJ Peach Cobbler but I love it!
I always love it when daddy cobbler fills me up with his pastry goodness
happy fathers day daddy cobbler
This is cobbler's way of telling us that Starfield will be Better than Tears of the Kingdom in his Opinion.
And as Someone Who's cautiously hyped for starfield i have to respect the Grindest
The Zelda Fans who hated BOTW and TOTK will like and support this
Excellent plan general cobbler
And FF16 will better than both combined. First game I’ve played in a long time with a modicum of emotion in it, imo
Starfield will suck
@@proggz39
I trust in Creative Business unit 3
And they also have Suzuki to create fantastic combat
FF16 will be a Masterpiece
@@Raiden-pi3gtPersonally, I will like it. The Direct was wonderful in showcasing the game, not a 10/10, more like an 8/10
I didn't get anything related to Starfield when I watched this
The point you miss is that doing the said shrines is fun and something new most of the times, the same can be said about the koroks (although to a lesser extent, but what is rarely fun the 10th time around is sifting though dialogue after dialogue, or killing the same bandits time and time again.
Isn't the shrine same repeating the same stuff
9:33 Tunnels used to be my favourite book series as a kid. I dont know if its as good as I remember, but I definitely recommend.
Number one thing I remember is that shit got shockingly bleak in the later books. That and the really bizarre and confusing ending.
Yes! You give voice to a problem I've been feeling with the Zeldas. There's plenty to do, but nothing matters.
You walk through a flooded ruined village - Why is it there? What happened to it? Where did the people go? Doesn't matter, its just set dressing. The entire world is just empty set dressing.
Oh wow, the Shiekah temples are beautiful and mysterious, promising amazing technologies of a bygone age... but why is it here? Just to test the hero? To test the hero 200 times? Did the Shiekah really hollow out every single mountain and most of the world just to slow down and put barriers in front of the one guy who can save it?
The environmental story telling is non-existant at best and mostly totally incoherent. It wants to be a prestige game where you take the world it builds seriously, then immediately hand waves every single possible experience with "chill, its a just game."
Most of Skyrim's dungeons are similar, the only thing you know about almost all of them is that a cult existed 5000 years ago and that they made temples for the dragons, and the dwarven ruins are literally just "these people were advanced, and then they vanished randomly"
when you explore in like, ocarina of time, it feels more like an adventure you could distill it down into an epic bedtime story. botw or totk? you cant.... really do that
@@THEBEEEANSS Not really. A good amount of the dungeons have stories tied to them that you can learn by reading related books, completing related quests, and talking to related NPCs. Likewise, the Dwemer ruins have unique stories too, which concern things like the study of Elder Scrolls, long lost tomes, expeditions gone wrong, and the creation and forging of unique materials that aren't found anywhere else because only the Dwemer had the know-how to work with them. There's environmental storytelling everywhere. The dungeon's aesthetic similarities are just that.
@@DovahFett You got stories for what TOTK has though. TOTK has environmental storytelling too. Just what exactly?
It does all matter actually.
It does matter and there is a story for that, it's not not just set dressing and the world is not empty set dressing.
Yep to test the hero with new challenges. Well since said guy is meant to save all of Hyrule yes they did need to do that.
Not really it clearly exists especially by looking at ruined places and is not incoherent at all. It does not hand wave any possible experience with "chill it's just a game" it just shows rather then tells.
Thank you Cobbler for cooperating with the People’s Republic of China & advertising Temu, you have been awarding a free trip to Ürümqi & 7000 social credit points
I love how you came back to the quote in the end
Here is the thing about Skyrim it has more emphasis the What of exploration while Zelda is emphasizing the How part of exploration
In Skyrim you’d go to a place with a “interesting” story but the things there don’t change your gameplay while exploring
In Zelda the place can be “interesting” but the items there can be one of the 414 objects with unique properties that interact with enemies and each other in many different ways. Additionally armor sets like the Zora set (allows you to swim up waterfalls) change how you interact with world.
The tone issues though are in every zelda game as having something to lighten the mood is Nintendo’s style. For example Twilight princess ( never played but it supposedly one of the darkest ) had tingle ; a middle age man in a green skin tight suit, in the game.
I'd say a major reason which serves as the foundational difference between Skyrim and Zelda is that although both universes have rich history and lore to draw upon, the makers of Skyrim deliberately embrace the continuity of that lore and the opportunity to elaborate and expound upon it, while the makers of Zelda keep the lore at arms length, only drawing out from it elements which can serve gameplay.
Its a design philosophy difference between embracing continuity and previous narratives and one which tries not to wade in deeper than necessary for marketing reasons or something.
its not the makers of zelda, its nintendo itself, at least the games developed internally by the company. it always has been gameplay first and then the story comes after it, serving the gameplay ideas.
@@ausgod538 So you and I both agree that its the makers of Zelda, I was not specific that it was Nintendo, but nonetheless Nintendo corporation is the maker of Zelda. You agree with my post.
it's technically on their brand. Zelda is their state-of-the-art IP but still embraces that design philosophy as well.
There are plot threads in Skyrim that can be traced back to the mid 90s.
i felt about skyrim the way you do totk. getting the dragon words was cool at first, then i just got the word then ran off to the next thing. most words didnt even really help. however i do see what youre saying, although there were some really cool unique moments in totk and unique quests. but skyrim admittedly had more unique moments. idk skyrims world wasnt it for me the way totk world isnt for you. i love koroks and finding them and the caves are cool too.
... I dunno man, my experience with the blight holes was jumping down, realizing just how far it goes, seeing this vast place, shrouded in darkness, and leaving because I didn't feel prepared. It made me scared, the same way Wind Waker made me scared when I fell off the boat during a storm and the shark monster was coming as a child. I didn't want to deal with what was down there.
When I went down next, I had more hearts, more equipment, I jumped down, and down, and down some more. And I found myself walking through a primordial ocean, surrounded by things that seemed familiar but operated on different rules than what lived above. The darkness was suffocating, these little seeds I had found over the preceeding hours my only comfort as I slowly ran down my resources. Then I found a lightroot, and learned what they do, and had a new mission. Make this land livable by lighting it up.
So yes, I didn't have a siofra river moment. Instead, I had a The Depths moment. Something entirely unique, something I've never experienced before. And it was scary and weird and cool.
Not me, I went down to the depths (I can’t imagine on what universe someone could find it scary)
And it just felt empty, there where some cool mushroom trees, but that’s really all that was down there, there was a cool mini boss frog thing, but that’s literally the only thing of interest in the depths so far for me, no underground dungeons, no dangerous lair of spiders
Just a barren underground that happens to be dark
I remember finding that elevator and being in complete awe when it kept going deeper and deeper underground and then I saw the MASSIVE city underground and my jaw literally dropped. My friend came over and I showed him it without saying anything I just “ hey watch this real quick” he had never played it before or any Souls game and he had the same reaction. That’s when you know you did something right
I just want to say that I love your videos and appreciate the effort you put into them. You and your craziness are absolutely unmatched in my opinion. The little joke calling Link Zelda was just so good. Hard to catch but delightful.
Your not surprised when you go down to the underground in Zelda it’s that fact that you have no idea what you might find when your down there that gives you that fun exploration feeling
And then the crushing realization that there really isn’t much to find
If it had proper long dungeons in addition to the shrines it would have been much better.
Traditional Zelda games like Twilight Princess had story and lore beats given to the player in order to set up and pay off the dungeon.
Again with the Twilight Princess. The story wasn't that good to begin with and the focus of the new games is to spread the combat and puzzle design to the overworld, so longer linear dungeons are not needed.
@@stefanostsougkranis5851but the combat and puzzle elements are shite?
@@stefanostsougkranis5851it was a better Zelda game than totk
I never understood why people say the new Zelda games are the peak of exploration. Great sandbox games? Sure but as far as the actual exploration goes, it's mostly shrines, shrines, and more shrines. Most of the side quests amount to "Climb this, collect item and I'll give you money". Most of the praise that I hear about these games is that you can approach the situations in creatives ways which is true but as far as what you're actually trying to achieve, it's mostly the same. It's the same issue I had with MGSV. Yes, you can get creative with the missions but the missions themselves don't offer much other than just fulton some people. When it comes to exploration AND player expression, I'd say Deus Ex is still the king in that department, maybe Fallout New Vegas as a close second
TotK has the benefit of being part of a pre-established IP as well. Specifically Nintendo, the most fanboy propped company in gaming. If mid-grade titles like BotW and TotK didn't have the "Zelda" branding and were made by any other dev, you can bet they'd be given a deserved 7.5 out of 10.
I agree with your points, at first I thought I wouldn't but (spoilers for Tears of the kingdom)
Then I remembered when I found the spirit sage. I did it by COMPLETE accident, I saw a big ass thunder cloud on the sky and tried getting there, couldn't see shit because the sky was all dark and it was a rain that would not stop, enemies were all over and since my visibility was bad I had to avoid them more than actually fight them.
And the more I moved the more I found and eventually I found a mask that told me to go down to a secret area underground, and from there I did this whole quest where I built a robot that I was sure would be a boss but turns out it was a companion I could control which is just as cool honestly.
At the end of the game, before the end battle and all the NPCs do kinda spoil this by telling you there's another sage to find and you have to go find it, even if they don't tell you exactly where it could be they do tell you it exists...
However I do think the game has exploration, the places you go sometimes are strange and the nature has weird quirks sometimes like the desert area having those sandpits, the caves sometimes have little stories in them I found one once where a man tries to stay warm by drinking a cold resistant potion only to drink the wrong one that is heat resistant and you never find out if he dies or not cause all you have is his diary.
The exploration has no huge reward, there's true in that..but the world does feel worth exploring, even if sometimes there's no point other than exploring for the sake of seeing a new area or understanding the place you're in.
If you haven't found the spirit sage at the end of the regional phenomena purah gives you a quest that leads you there
@@ttmfndng201 yeah, I found it before that point way before I even had finished the other phenomena, but when you do that and Purah tells you that you gotta find that sage they have a dialogue about how Link is very proactive for already doing that before they asked
Another place that has a similar feeling to this for me is the Deku forest, I went there expecting to get the master sword but first I got into the chasm close to it, I was curious as to how the Deku forest underground would look like since most areas underground are a mirror of the areas above. From there I got to the actual forest by using ascend on a place at the center...and the forest was desolate.
None of the koroks were speaking or moving, the Deku tree had this earie dark red malice around it and it said it's stomach was strange and I thought it was going to die like in Ocarina of time.
After helping it it lead me to the master sword which was itself such a cool discovery as to WHERE it is and how you're supposed to get it.
I can't believe you made your way through those fucking clouds. Twice I tried to find my way through them and twice I just gave up.
Spoilers
I do remember trying to get every lamp light in the underground and finding the Temple of Light. I thought I found some cool secret but I couldn't do anything with it. I thought I had to get the rest of the lamp lights to unlock it. Then I came across the place where you build the mech. I heard the music change and I thought I found another cool secret. But I couldn't have any of the devices work with my arm. Then it hit me. They weren't cool secrets I found. I just hadn't got far enough into the main quest to unlock the areas. It was such a let down.
@@RoseColoredIris yeah it was hard to move around there but it was fun as hell.
Also about what you wrote under, yeah it's a letdown and I think this is the biggest issue with this kind of game, the world is massive and it feels like we should explore but it lacks a sense of strangeness, it should have more places we don't understand properly or don't know what they are yet still we should be able to play on there and get something off of it.
Another lovely vid to watch before work. Thanks for every video you make.
Connecting the “unrelated” quote about shadows of the empire from miyamoto and your last sentence in the video was masterfully thought out. Great video, you deserve a korok seed
I totally feel you here. I feel like the shrines maybe could’ve done more to tell the history of the world, maybe there could’ve been ancient settlements in the depths. The environments could’ve done a lot more in the story telling department
The depths strike me more as mining areas than an ancient civilization
At first I thought there wouldve been less shrines and more open dungeons at first, and I was deeply disappointed when I realised the shrine grind returned. The shrines are fun, but they do get very repetitive fast, and huge legacy dungeons like in older Zeldas wouldve been amazing. I guess it's harder to create dungeons that arent easily exploited with the large number of tools available in the game
Thank you for your service.
My only complaint with totk, although it is valid to make others and im not wasting brains cells getting angry over how other people fee about it, is that it almost entirely abandons the characters and storyline from the first game. I was APPALLED at how little the king, divine beasts, guardians, and ESPECIALLY champions were mentioned in the game, if at all. And it’s a shame because many of their stories feel unfinished, especially in the case of Urbosa and Mipha specifically.
It felt not like a sequel, but an alternative universe of BoTW.
one of the geniuenly funniest videos I have seen in a long time, how do you do this?
"It's as diverse as a Netflix show about British aristocrats." That was a great line.
Any day cobbler drops a video is a blessing 🙌 keep up the good work
You put to words what I couldn't really describe perfectly. I put breath of the wild down because it all felt the same over and over again. No way I'm paying for more of what I was already bored with.
While exploration has improved dramatically from the past Zelda games, the biggest emphasis I've seen from all the Zelda games I've played (3d and 2d) is gameplay. The puzzles are what defines the games the most. Whether its how to get to the dungeon, solving the dungeon, to how to beat the boss. TOTK seems the pinnacle of that concept with giving many ways to figure out a problem then just having to have a key dungeon item/equipment to solve it
YESSSS
Thank you kindly for your continued content
Your Rome content officially got me back into Total War Attila and I will always enjoy your opinions and insights
Keep up the good work Cobbler :)))
I get legitimately giddy whenever i see you upload.
This is your first video I've seen, and I love it. Your dry humor is hilarious, and I agree with your points.
I don't think anyone's gotten two hearts before?
@@DJPeachCobbler I'll wear the hearts with honor, but I'd rather be wearing your load on my face
@@michaeldavis9190 same i wish i was the totk map
11:17
It’s not trying to get THAT reveal, anyone that knows anything about how playing a game works knows that. The REVEAL is when you go to that first lightroot, it lights up a piece of the map. Then you zoom out. THAT is the reveal, that the depths take up so much space that they cover the entire underside of hyrule. That every location on the surface has a mirror in the depths. When you go down, you’re expecting just a cave or something, only for it to keep going, and going, and going, and after that musical queue, “the depths” appears on screen, mirroring that of “hyrule” when you land from the great sky island. That’s when the realization begins, and it’s after that first lightroot that the realization becomes fully fleshed out.
I believe when people talk about exploring in the last Zelda games, they mean not what Cobbler means. Its more likely not about what is there, but about what you can do there. Especially, when we talk about Totk. It's more like child explore the world. And, for me, its really fascinating. I know it is korok on the mountain, but how do I get there? Climbing? Rocket on shield? Balloon? Spring tower? Maybe bomb or spring on shield? But if the target would be a mystery too, maybe this game could be even more exiting. Still love it, however.
One game that recaptured my Skyrim desire to explore everything was Hollowknight. Really great game
I was finna say this exact thing man I love Hollow knight one of my favorite games of all time
Secret underground cities do exist btw, just as an example the lost underground city of Derinkuyu was discovered in Turkey in the 1960s when a man was renovating his house and knocked down his basement wall. The city was large enough to house an estimated 20,000 people.
Speaking of big ass reveals when descending to a place beneath your world, I think Dark Souls 2' Frozen Eleum Loyce did it fantastically with the final boss. Without getting into spoilers, that was one of the best moments in the Souls games.
Thanks, this was my same issue with the first Botw. Wish we could have a Zelda game loaded with skyrim levels of lore/character. But I know we'll never get that cause Nintendo isn't a fan of story telling. Majora's Mask was the closest we can get to that and seems like Zelda will never get an other like it.
Probably not, Majora's Mask was entirely a product of it's circumstances, very hard crunch using an engine and characters that already existed, directed by someone who had to fight for his creative freedom etc
have you ever seen the story in age of calamity?
@@insertusersname8277 not developed by nintendo or even published y them
@@insertusersname8277 Yes, its fanfiction-tier levels of bad. Actually, scratch that. I've read fanfics that had more artistic integrity than a forced timetravel bullshit to pull a perfectly happy ending.
nah
These are about to be the greatest 27 minutes of my entire week
I think the main crux here is that the enjoyment of both games is in two different questions: Skyrim shows you somewhere in the distance and you ask, what is waiting for me over there? Zelda shows you somewhere in the distance and makes you ask, how do I get there? The fun in Skyrim for me comes from seeing a carrot on a stick, I run over, I chase the carrot around for a while and have fun doing it, then I get the carrot, and start wandering looking for another one. In Zelda, I have fun because when I see a carrot on a stick, in the process of running after that carrot, I’ve gotten distracted and chased around so many carrots and sticks that this metaphor stops working. I love exploring in both games, but for two completely different reasons. In Skyrim I know that my exploration will always be rewarded, and in Zelda I don’t really need a tangible reward because traversing the world is fun in and of itself.
your videos are amazing, the way you explain things is so cool
Bro, you need to check out enderal. In my first playthrough it excelled in this aspect just as much, if not more so than Skyrim. And it also threw some nutty curveballs while at it.
I spent around 300 hours playing both botw and totk for about 600 hours total, completing every single shrine in both games and finding every lightroot and bubbulfrog in totk. As much as I hate to admit it, I've played enough of these games that I can't disagree with you.
Here's hoping the next one does better but they're probably just gonna put 2000 koroks in instead lol.
19:56
I just wanna mention that when I looked at it, it reminded me of the temple of time!! There was some lore upon the green glow but that stuff that it tells you rather than show. You’ve brought up a lot of good point about totk that can be lackluster and I appreciate your video analysis!!
I find it thought provoking when you mention the Zonai being boring. During Breath of The Wild, I had great intrest on the ruins in the Faron region. They weren't destroyed, square buildings, an intricate castle crumbling and covered in malice, it wasn't an empty forest with a fog machine, it wasn't a new, flourishing city after the calamity. It was an ancient ruin of a lost civilization with elegant, weaving architecture that seemed to revolve around the dragons around Hyrule. As soon as I got context from fan theories it became boring fast. It was no longer a mysterious civilization that had a worship of the dragons, but a people who had them as part of architecture, nothing cool, nothing interesting, they just became people with an odd choice of architecture.
My hype for the Zonai came back when I saw Raru in the trailers for Tears of The Kingdom. He was a real zonai! He even looked somewhat like the dragons too! The zonai weren't just a lost civilization with weird, unimportant architecture, but something real that connects with what I knew. Then I watched the cutscenes.
"Oh... Raru is just a furry who became the first king of Hyrule. Fun character though."
Then the cutscene explained draconification and, again, I was hooked, then Mineru said it was a forbidden act. In the end. Their architecture meant nothing to what they were. (Minus their clothing and the murals)
A game that I think comes very close to Skyrim in the exploration part of things, although with a smaller scope, is Kingdom Come. I haven't finish the game but in the first 20h of gameplay there is a lot of risk in exploring and so you end up going slow. Idk how scripted are some encounters, but so far, exploring is highly satisfying.
The only time i remember a cool enviromental story telling moment in botw is when i stumbled across the aftermath of a small scorched village, caused by a fire wizard. It was badass, wish there was more cool stuff like that.
Keep up the awesome videos cobbler!
i have a tradition where when i cant find a good game to play i come back to this video, usually because i am trying to make up my mind to finally play totk beyond the fist hour. but every time without fail, i play skyrim and i love it, its unintended but its awesome. you somehow convince me to play the game while saying another game is bad in some aspect. thank you for helping me waste my life on games that just make me forget i exist.
You should try Outer Wilds if you haven’t already, a really great example of an open world game that not only has a great sense of purpose and history to its locations, but also bakes the discovering of this history into the gameplay
Thank you Cobby for another banger. Idk how you do it but the way you rationalize your points is like watching a guide on critical thinking.
Majora's mask is still the best Action RPG ever made. Skyrim crawled so Zelda could walk so Elden Ring could Run.
12:39
need me some "10 hours of Cobbler whispering dark promises ASMR" on my playlist.