I'm looking from the outside in, because I haven't played Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, but if they don't have themed dungeons, compasses, maps, or even a hookshot, then Zelda has already lost its identity. I don't understand the demand for player freedom at the cost of all else. In classic Zelda games, the dungeons are built around the item you get in the dungeon. There's a restriction at first, because you can't get to every room, but then when you get the item there's a feeling of liberation because you can suddenly access areas you couldn't before. You have to earn your way through the dungeon by completing certain challenges. And as you complete more dungeons and get more special items, there's a growing liberation in the overworld as you gain access to more areas. But if you have complete freedom from the start, where's the satisfaction? If you can just go anywhere and do whatever you want then it's not an adventure, it's a sandbox. And if going back to previous areas with new items to complete puzzles you couldn't before sounds like "tedious backtracking" to people, then maybe Zelda isn't the series for them.
@jamesrelich8210 You hit the nail on the head. A huge part of why the older titles are so satisfying is slowly peeling back its layers. Finding those items always gave you new and interesting ways to interact with the environment as you progressed. And because they were linear, they were able to pull you towards the fun. There's so many ways to become bored in a game and botw/totk doesn't stop you from any of them because "freedom"
I played Breath for like 2 weeks straight. And then I stopped cold turkey and never thought about it again. Luckily I borrowed it so there was no skin off my back. Basically, "I was skeptical, I tried it, and as I predicted, it didn't jive." So I can verify what you're saying with experience. The way I always talk about "open world" games is, it doesn't matter how much _content_ there is, if there's no _substance_ beneath the surface. Monotonous grinding is not fulfilling. Meaningless side-questing is not fulfilling. Collecting literal junk for some "item recipe" is not fulfilling, I just don't understand why that last one is so popular.... And for the love of all that is holy STOP with the lootboxes. It's a bit like a person with great looks but when you start talking to him or her, it very quickly becomes apparent that there's no lights on inside. You can hold conversation, but not formulate a true dialogue. Something about a game needs to be fulfilling, there needs to be a _reason_ to play-- and if you're like me growing up in the 90s, you know full well the reason for playing Mario or Zelda is not "save the princess," it's "how close can I thread that needle of fire bars to get through?" It's, "how far can I _actually_ fly with a cape?" It's the lingering question of, "I wonder if there's something good in that treasure box I can't reach yet?" It's seeing a door and knowing you "can" get there, but not yet knowing HOW until you've got more power-ups to experiment with.
You are absolutely right. The new open world Zeldas might be technically impressive but they can't hold up to a well designed and more curated experience that the older games were. In the new games, after you finish the first "dungeon" you have practically seen everything the game has to offer in terms of content. You don't earn any abilities that change up your traversal or combat options in any meaningful or satisfying way over the course of the game, you don't find that missing piece that makes you finally able to progress beyond a particular obstacle, you just get more of the same. Some people might find that exciting or liberating but to me it's boring and empty and it lacks what made Zelda so great previously. Somehow though the Zelda team managed to gaslight so many people into thinking that this is the true essence of Zelda or what it was always meant to be , they did a stellar job an that front.
It's really quite a simple change. Just give us traditional dungeons, a linear story and progressive items that don't break in 3 hits. It's not that hard.
And maybe a story that isn't separated from the playable character. That was disappointing in BotW, but I'll be honest- it kinda worked. But when Zelda disappeared at the beginning of TotK it was so arbitrary(along with just about everything else that happened regarding the "story")
Uh, they did that for about 2 decades. We have a ton of Zelda games exactly like that. The fan base wanted something new really badly back in the mid 2010s and Nintendo delivered brilliantly. ToTK as a sequel to BotW gave us the most balls to the walls insane puzzle mechanics I've ever seen *and* made a direct sequel to a beloved Zelda game, which is extremely rare.....do you know how many of us wanted a direct sequel to OoT, where you explore the exact same world a few years later? Well, we got it except for BotW, and most people are apparently too immature to appreciate it. The same people/mindsets who love Wind Waker in retrospect but were shitting on it at the time are doing the same with ToTK. Go fucking figure.
@@RP-mp4ow using cheats solves 99% of missions in gta3 but I prefer engaging with the game mechanics. Just because you aren't creative enough to get immersed in the game systems and puzzle designs doesn't mean the game sucks.
Every time I hear "why the sudden hate?" it's the same thing: people have been criticizing the game since release. I know I have. And I said "criticizing", not "hating", which is also a conflation people love to make for the sake of generating debate (or sometimes to dismiss criticism). It only got more visible because more people got more time with the game, more opinions gathered online and naturally we hear more of the common feedback.
Yep I've said this a lot. For the first 20-30 hours I was still in full on hype mode exploring the potential of ultrahand. Once I had done that, I wanted to move on and the rest of the playthrough just fell off a cliff for me when I realized, wait a second, the game pretty much IS the ultrahand mechanics and kinda blows for the **insert repeated reasons I've said a million times** And then even despite that aspect being technically good, it isn't implemented well into challenges. But yeah not gonna go into the whole tangent.
@@paranormalscouts all right but then two things: what qualifies as whining? and what is a proper solution when we're just fans and armchair developers at best? I understand it's also annoying to come across trolls or the same points for the 100th time, but that doesn't mean each person doing it is being petty (plus on the internet it's easy to project negative tone on other people's comments). For solutions, we did suggest alternatives, but the actual solution is whatever the devs will actually do if they ever want to address flaws in question.
@@mkjjoe He is absolutely correct, what are you on about? Definitely not even a Constructive suggestion, forget 'solution'. 🤦😄 Just adding further hate Wood to this burning dumpster fire of a video. All you have done is act paranoid, throwing the word "trolls" around and more moaning. Jeez, are you Ok? Does a Zelda game being so Successful, selling so well and boosting Nintendo hurt that much?! Go on, keep moaning then I'm sure those hollow likes you'll receive will cash you out. 🍩🎮
@@mkjjoe He is absolutely correct, what are you on about? Definitely not even a Constructive suggestion, forget 'solution'. 🤦😄 Just adding further hate Wood to this burning dump ster fire of a video. All you have done is act paranoid, throwing the word "trolls" around and more moaning. Jeez, are you Ok? Does a Zelda game being so Successful, selling so well and boosting Nintendo hurt that much?! Go on, keep moaning then I'm sure those hollow likes you'll receive will cash you out. 🍩🎮
That's probably how I would describe Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. Game is filled with a barrage of technical issues and some baffling game design decisions, yet it had a decent story with nice characters and an open world that (although deeply flawed) was fun enough to explore
old zelda + open world + effort = a good game everyone will like. not a copy paste world where theres nothing to do but look for worthless koroks or stumble upon lazy throwbacks like lon lon ranch that are nothing but ruins and thats the only depth you get.
I’ve been playing Zelda games, with great pleasure, since the NES and what I miss most in the recent Zelda games is a sense of purpose. I finished BOTW with maybe 40 shrines. There was no purpose for me to finish the other shrines because I already beaten the game. It felt pointless to me.
@@NovaBombardmentIt’s on the gamecube, released as the console died, the Wii, which has been dead for over 10 years, and the WiiU, which was their worst performing console EVER and stopped production less than 5 years after the switch released.
@@felicisrex8281 So, clearly no Progression to the series at all. Us proper Zelda fans want to see Our favourite series expand and see the unprecedented Success like games like Tears have allowed, not stay stuck in the past with your own limited and selfish opinions and preferences.
Armored Core VI is a great example of a short, focused game with replayability. I completed all three endings and nearly 100%'d that game in like 50 hours. And it was worth every penny!
And another problem is that Nintendo missed a great opportunity to exploit the nostalgia factor. One of the most attractive ideas (for me at least) before TOTK release was to be able to revisit areas and see how much they changed after destroying Calamity Ganon and people start re-building the kingdom. Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Castle Town should've been the first places to rebuild, and how cool would have been to see the castle town vibrant and full of people again. All we got instead is the same post-apocalyptic destruction after what, 7-10 years? The same with Tarrey Town, we could've had an expanded town, but instead we only get some platforms where Bolson is starting to build. Hateno Village only has some mushrooms, and Karariko Village is destroyed with all the sky ruins. Instead of giving the player new cool locations, and old locations expanded/transformed, in reality we only get basically the exact same map. And instead of focusing on that, the developers invested time in giving us the depths, which is awful to explore and is basically a wasteland with nothing to do. Despite that the game was released 7 years after BOTW, it feels rushed and incomplete.
@@rodoxag9117 None of that would work. You cannot just ignore the Fact there's a big fat castle 🏰 surrounded by thick black evil smoke lifted halfway into the Sky by an out of control Zombie - and continue singing and rebuilding and living happily ever after right beside the chaos. I mean , what are you on about and where's the context?! Not to mention the massive gaping pits of toxic gunk everywhere. Sometimes , I just wonder if people drop comments from a glitch zone UA-cam randomly creates as part of side effects of its algorithm.
@@netweed09 Did you think for two seconds before posting that nonesense? Gloom appears shortly before the story of TotK starts, and the Upheaval is the literal introduction. Expecting the kingdom, including Hyrule Castle, to be at least half-rebuild was not only reasonable, it's freaking insulting that was not what happened. Sure, the Castle would be evacuated, but we should have seen at least the buildings, and not just Lookout Landing and a couple of construction material sites in the middle of the road for little to no diagetic reason. And that's only Hyrule Castle. It doesn't account for the rest Hyrule. Heck, even if we take the Upheaval into account, the vast majority of the ruins we encounter in the game are the same ones from the Great Calamity, with very little new ones created by the Upheaval instead. Seriously, did you even play TotK?
It hasn't been 7-10 years. I've seen what master works says, and it's more likely a lower number. Though sadly it probably was going to be that, as they had planned a fully rebuilt castle town at first
@@XanderVJ You cannot even spell nonsense without an edit that's how emotional you probably got, so that's saying a lot right there off the bat. Plus, me having played Tears - yea very amusing coming from someone with 5 year old Soul Calibur videos on PS4 and you have the cheek to ask?! 😂 Stones and glass houses. Anyhow: your pettiness aside , what have you actually said yourself up there? The game has clearly painted an image of a Rebellion and uprising but there's also a clear and palpable fear - just how it's meant to be to anyone sensible? Anyhow, it's Zelda and you're taking the premise a bit too seriously. It's similar to the people who complain about "too few Islands in the Sky", so what let's just totally ruin the Sky box and block out the Sun by adding another 100 then?? Jeez, talk about not thinking! 🤔 Thankfully, not all of you on here are this flat - remarkably there have been 1 or 2 souls capable of intelligent debate here. And don't expect and moan that We did not get Tarrey Town rebuilt into Los Angeles. 🤦🙄😂
@@netweed09 If you read my comment again, and restraining your obvious impulse for trolling, you'll realize that I said that the idea of a re-built kingdom (or in progress) was one of the most exciting prospects for this game before it was released, ergo before even knowing that the castle was going to be (yet again) seized by the baddies. Sure, you have a floating castle, but also not a single house in the castle town is in any way different from BOTW. And the same goes for other areas of the game. You're clearly satisfied with the end result and good for you, I enjoyed TOTK a lot, but the fact that no location went trough a considerable progress in the lapse of 7-10 years is beyond the lore, is just laziness from Nintendo, they clearly rushed the game for release. This takes away part of the huge potential this game had, and that is MY opinion. You don't have to agree with me. BTW, a Los Angeles sized Tarrey Town would have been fun, probably more than the depths.
It's almost a rite of passage for BOTW fans to say that exact same phrase about wanting to forget the game. I would have been okay with the reused map in TOTK if the game had gone in a distinctly different direction. Majora's Mask reused a lot from Ocarina but is a completely different game. But TOTK being so similar in every other way was a bit much. The item rental system isn't perfect, but I'd take it over shrines at this point. It's just that ALBW basically treats every dungeon like "Level 1" so they have to be around the same level of complexity. Zelda 1 let you find dungeons in any order, but it was your dumb fault if you entered Level 6 before doing Levels 1-5 and got mashed into paste.
Honestly this is the real issue personally I want redundancy, not rentals, not degradation, redundancy. Use the old games item system, but the ENTIRE inventory is shared(key items limit) ingredient can stay limitless but have a delay like Skyrim Tomato soup, suddenly I can start with 10 or 20 item slots but only afford to keep 3 meals. Each shrine or mini-dungeon can have a number of classic progression items but certain ones only appear once, for example one hookshot per arm in a dungeon to the far East and West, but at least one feather in each region, maybe iron boots near diving locations with flippers near shallower waters; just enough so when you pick a direction you might find everything, but until you unlock more inventory you have to pick and choose, outfits should ofc be exempt from the item limit for aesthetics, but generally every thing just follows item progression. As for these last 2 games... Tears I think just needed better shrines and DLC in general... Master mode, enemies to spawn around the underworld vines, more varied monster camp combos(literally only the Hinox near the split mountain stable can use bokoblin support, rarely do Lizal enemies, goblins, and Boss Bokoblins intersect... Not sure even one place has all 3 spawn together, no Moblins are in any walled monster camp except 1 weakling red in Hyrule field camp, and a Blue that only lives on the walk-up to the lone hill skyview tower with a fort on the bad end of the entrance's metal spiked ball, otherwise the big camps have only Bokoblin and Boss Bokoblin, nothing else, not Aerokuda or Lizal, not a Hinox or Talus, not a single Horriblin. Edit: to be clear this would be in a system using Koroks to eventually expand your inventory, but they would still expand specific ones, so you likely start expanding key items, swords, shields, or bows before meals.
@@michaellane5381 genius. this style of item system would do wonders for replayibility and make way for actually cohesive narratives. nintendo needs to understand that story/quest progression can make or break a game if they want zelda to stand out against other better open world games in ten years.
the fact that it is big is no problem, as long as it is enjoyable. Totk is too much repetitive, no new map, same animations, clothes, cities, characters, places, graphics, koroks and samey caves, enemies and Hudson signs. Its too much of the same things and you have to do it 100 + times. It gets boring.
@@theresearcher253 ? I uninstalled Botw after the 50th Shrine. I just did upto that number to experience the Master Sword get sequence - and it was so dry, _so_ lifeless and boring. [Spoilers] (yeah, even in this pit of hate because I'm just a nice guy lol) Compare to the one in Tears, atop a Shining Dragon 🐉 that just happens to be your Highness!! Botw simply does not compare, and that's just for one event! Breath did a major thing for the series so I won't go too hard on it, but it's simply unplayable for me especially after the 100x better Tears.
Think this is definitely better than btow, but probably played that 3, 4 times...this bar a few cool gimics that hot old pretty quick....its the same game....with this really annoying, pointlesss and boring depths added....btow of the wild would of been class if they just added 7 odd decent dungeons; that don't take hours to find and five mins to finish.... The story was awful....not one npc is memorable u just do a random task to get 50 rupees- major's mask had such class characters. Fair skyward sword sucked n I like this direction but when its a baron land with repetitive pointless tasks...got bored of this so fast
Agreed, Botw and Totk had some good concepts but no soul, lifeless, sad vibe to it everywhere. Way to repetitive, and spending way to long to mess around with objects/environment to find more of the same. Waste of time. First games I've sold not even close to finishing.
@@s.bradley6089 _"No soul, sad vibes to it"_ What are you on about?? Such generic and wayward remarks. Not near elevated enough to even be considered an opinion. Not to mention, you clearly have 0 understanding of sombre, post-apocolyptic concepts and themes. I dunno about you but many Zelda fans aren't 12 anymore and if you really cannot see anything past the chirpy tunes of the Gameboy and early GameCube games , We don't feel sorry for your being lost in your own fog of nostalgia. Why are you even on here?
I am personally not down for another open air Zelda game. I feel like it will always distract the developers from adding what makes a Zelda game special. A somewhat linear and cohesive story, memorable characters, permanent items and upgrades, chests with more meaningful loot and, most importantly, well crafted dungeons with great puzzles and boss fights. Also, what happened to link being able to play an instrument? that totally removes the charm a lot of past Zelda games had.
I don't think item rentals should come back. You basically get almost every item at the first dungeon and then always reset before you die if you somehow don't have enough money to rerent or buy. The item gates start to turn into tedious time-wasters since there is no reason to not rent everything. But you could still blend the classic formula with an open world very easily. Just have every region have a regional crisis that leads to a dungeon with an item. Design every dungeon to be completable with just its own item unless you have multiple sets of dungeons open up. Then design every item to also have a traversal, shortcut or combat utility outside of dungeon puzzles. They kind of did the whole regional crisis thing, but the crises were basically all the same and then they dropped the ball by making your "dungeon items" be rewards for finishing the dungeon.
@@AdamTheGameBoy Possibly the best and easily one of the most intelligent and insightful comments here. But of course, 0 likes (allow me to fix that!) 👍👍💯💫✨ Why am I surprised though, you're not being toxic and generally making blanket statements and irrational opinions hating on the game. And meat riding older Zeldas. You know what a Quality Zelda game is, its limitations and how it can actually improve. Just like Tears did over Breath (10 fold for me.) Amazing development and progression of characters, (shout out to Yunobo) , great Regional quests and actual Temples not hollow Machines that all look the same with a dead "boss" (literal blobs with one eye) at the end.
Agreed. I think it could be done too. Have a gate outside of each dungeon, must have this item to complete, in order to get it, there could be like a specific shrine/puzzle outside of the big dungeon. Make it a mini dungeon, complete with mini bosses, then have places in the open world where you can use them the tools as well. I think the concepts really could be merged.
That's not 'Open Air' then. You're asking for a flying Car , or a Chocolate teapot. The whole point is to solve Dungeons out of order so We don't end up back in 2012 when everyone's Skyward Sword streams (well then, Playthrough videos) were exactly the same. There was a massive backlash in the community then you know, if you were old enough to witness it 10 years ago. Proof? We got Botw.
@@netweed09 You know there's more to Zelda than Skyward Sword right? Like Zelda games before that had fairly open world designs and yet still had well crafted dungeons. But your comment treats it like a binary. The issue with Skyward sword was that Nintendo wanted to make the whole overworld into essentially a dungeon, and as a result made the game far more linear. Ironically, the game actually holds up well as a randomizer though. But before Skyward sword there were many other Zelda games, all with fairly open overworlds. But even afterwards, there's a Zelda game that came out afterwards and is pretty close to the open world formula without destroying it's dungeon design and that is A Link Between Worlds. In ALBW, you have access to most of the items (one is not available at the start), and you are able to rent any of them provided you have the money for it. The game asks you to go do several dungeons and you can do them in any order. The game tells you what items you need for each dungeon and there are some optional paths that you can take if you have others not listed. And it's great. The dungeons are fun, and the bosses are well designed and fun. The game also has some other items you get from outside of Ravio's shop such as the Pegasus Boots and upgraded equipment. In a sort of half way point between the Open world and more linear designed games, one could go back to the formula that was introduced in ALBW, however rather than reusing the Ravio Shop idea, my idea would be to spread the items to the overworld somewhere. Through exploration, the player would find the items, upgrades, and dungeons and the dungeons would show what they required like ALBW. I play a lot of Zelda randomizers and more or less that is how it often works in there. There's far less structure though, as sometimes you need to partially explore dungeons to find items needed to get further in other areas. So my experience of playing Zelda randomizers has greatly influenced my idea of a dream Zelda game. Not only would it work well as a vanilla experience, it would work well with randomization as well.
@@netweed09You can have dungeons out of order and also design them in a way that they all aren't completely trivialized by one ability. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
Nintendo already said that Skyrim launching 2 weeks after skyward sword was a huge inspiration for making the change to open world but Bethesda itself wasn't even able to follow up skyrim
Thank you. 💯 At least the more Knowledgeable and seasoned gamers (and Zelda fans) are now beginning to comment too! Linearity can always be implemented in Open Worlds but, as it's own whole entity in much larger worlds? It's just not going to cut it. Backtracking through what's essentially ''decorated and painted corridors'' and seeing _everyone's_ ''Progression and story'' be _exactly_ the same just ain't cool, even for Zelda.
@@Raylightsen That's a massive Compliment, do you realise that? 😄 Though, I feel it was Tears that was more like Skyrim with its distinct Temples and not 4 Machines that all looked the same internally.
@@theodord9551 Why enjoy degrading? Everyone having the same old exact playthroughs once again just like 2012 , and seeing "Our Hero" stuck on a 2 foot high fence because he cannot jump. Why though, just why lol? For a Hookshot We've picked up 1000 times before, seriously? 🤔😄
@@aureate So, absolutely not like the ''Push a square block into this square-shaped dent on the floor there's a good little tiger (before a nappy change)'' of the Zelda games from 2003 - 2017 then? Got ya.
@@aureate They are allowed to have those by simple gaming History rules, as the 1st 3D games that fully established the series as We know it today. That's why I left those 2 out on purpose. 🙄 But then, 3 mainline Zeldas after it , all holding Ocarina's tail and being too afraid to let go ever?? I mean look they were fun games for a while but the samey-ness and things like say in WW, the wall-kicking feeling of sailing off to discover stuff, stumbling upon Gale Isles - only to find you were ''game Blocked'' out of it felt _so_ frustrating. Then the final kick in the teeth was Skyrim vs the charming but super Linear and repetitive Skyward Sword: yes the Ancient Cistern is genius but it was too little, too late. I didn't enjoy the lazy sand Ship , the ''boss'' was a joke and it only got worse from there with Biolcyte, an even worse boss than the tenacle baby abomination. All while you felt like someone was forcing you into an MRI tunnel! The series was growing tired & stale, very Quickly - and some people want to return to the claustrophobic hand-holdy corridor gaming? For what? To see how big Ganon's beard was this time when he betrays & consumes the far more interesting Sub-villain??
For me, the story focus needs to be improved. It's sounding like Echoes is going to have as light a story focus as BotW/TotK, and far from having been a day one player for years, I think it's going to be the first Zelda game I not only don't get day one, but may end up not playing since I started when Oracle of Ages came out. I need more from a game than a physics sandbox puzzle game. I want epic sequences and even just a simple story that fleshes out the world or timeline connection - and feels like my actions are influencing the world.
TotK is the only mainline Zelda title that I haven't bought. Hated BotW with a passion, despite buying and trying it twice, first on Wii U then Switch. It just wasn't a Zelda game. The old formula wasn't broken, and didn't need a complete overhaul.
@@FuzedBox I was willing to give TotK a fair go on the assumption they'd improve its failings, BotW being a brand new direction, and the final trailer suggested a much stronger story - and nothing was different. So I'm approaching Echoes with MUCH more scrutiny, and I may end up skipping it. Which sucks, cuz I've always wanted a playable Zelda game.
For the food mechanic, my fix would be that when you eat anything from your inventory it doesnt take effect instantly, once you close out of the inventory Link does a little eating animation that takes a few seconds where he can still move but can't use his hands for anything (including runes). This is a nice drawback and actually incentivises cooking even more. You cant just eat 10 apples in a row now unless you want to be super inneficient, you now have to cook them into a meal.
-Disappointing = Story/lore -Masterpiece = Gameplay/Mechanics We have praised the developers for what they did on a 7 year old console, but we wanted more from the story stablished on BotW and we got a samy, uninspired and out of the timeline story
Honestly, Totk got slapped with the label 'masterpiece' just because people feel it's due to it. In reality it is very disappointing in many regards and it would perhaps only have been acceptable if it had come out one or two years after Botw as a sort of in-between game. It may have sold like hot cakes, but it's clear that it has generated nowhere near the amount of internet gaming culture that Botw has, largely because people played it, scratched the itch and then put it away.
My main problems with Tears of the Kingdom was that all of its Aesthetics felt silly and over the top, compared to Breath of the Wild which was a much better mix of Fantasy and Reality. Tears of the Kingdom was a bit too out there, and not as relaxing. Breath of the Wild was a Breath of fresh air, while Tears of the Kingdom was so full of stuff you couldn't breath. This alone explains why some people prefer one game over the other, and can't understand the other crowd. Those that want as much content as possible, vs those that want a more relaxing experience. The second problem is that this game completely invalidated Breath of the Wild's story. Trying to piece the Zelda timeline together is one reason I've loved the series, and this is the first game that seems to directly spit on that Idea, rather than just make it challenging. Its lack of continuity with Breath of the Wild is what makes it stand out from all the other games which are also hard to place on the timeline.
I wsh that there was a Second Traditional 3D Zelda Team who made new 3D Zelda Games. They still sold well prior to BOTW so I never got just WHY Nintendo stopped making them. They could easily slot those games to release in-between big "open-Air" releases. Same with new 2D Games.
@@bwscarbthis speaks more volumes than anything. There’s some people who buy games and don’t play them too. Some people who didn’t like it. I’m sure most people did like it. I’m in the last camp. I immensely enjoyed TotK.
@OP. I know why. Skyward Sword happened. Nintendo experimented too much and forced that play style on people who hated it. Then decided to go another way and getting inspiration from Skyrim worked because of their sales. But considering Bethesda probably got inspiration from Nintendo too(Mario 64, and Ocarina of Time, come on that game was open world to a degree too) I’d say it fine.
My arrogant opinions. Shrines: you can reduce their prese 0:00 nce by 25%. All that energy could be used on the temple quest and the temple themselves. Armor and paragliders needed more character, or at the least taylor their abilities together. That frickn' dragon set is worthless, what were they thinking! Korok collection needs new rewards. That under world ( and 75% of wells) could be written off completely and they could have diverted the energy to caves . My last problem is with horses. Either give them more utility or just write them off.
"Pretty much everything in this game becomes dull if you've already experienced it." Me, with countless BotW playthroughs and over 1,000 hours of playtime: *Awkward Look Monkey Puppet Meme*
I was thinking the same thing because a link between worlds was a great game but this reminds me of what happened to resident evil after 4 came out then 2 sequels later the game lost its identity so 1 more game to go for zelda before the series is lost then rebooted from the ashes
I agree with you on the dungeons and wanting things to get back to more linear ways. I love both BOTW and TOTK as good games, but think they make horrible Zelda games.
Breath of the Wild bored me so much, that I had no feelings for Tears of the Kingdom beyond, "they want SEVENTY DOLLARS FOR WHAT???" Combat was uninspiring. "Dungeons" were uninspiring. Treasure-hunting was uninspiring. The only thing that it had going was the beautiful scenery and the ability to literally climb on anything which.... arguably isn't really that cool. "Oh that's nice look at me just spider climb this rock with absolutely no gear whatsoever" just does NOT compare to the exhilaration of firing the hookshot and literally launching yourself across the map to the great beyond. And we live in an age where "beautiful scenery" is like a dime a dozen. Any and _every_ game can and does have lovely imagery to just _look_ at. Breath just did not feel a fraction as revolutionary to me, as I was led to believe. It was so off the mark it didn't even feel like a Zelda game, it felt like a Nintendo-styled SkyRim-- which is exactly what they drew inspiration from. That's my not-so-humble opinion of these games.
I think the interesting question is what the zelda team thinks of totk?? They definately have noticed the drop off of playing hours and i suspect they see the backlash online-- However these games are amazingly successful both critically and sales wise.. The zelda team seems to focus on "look at this" tweets more than anything else at this point (totk is made for "check this out" vids). Zelda games have always been pretty easy.. but as the popularity of zedla has skyrocketed, the games seem to be made even easier, for a "wider" audience.. There is always a risk for a "true fan" when something they love catches a wave and becomes popular...zelda has become incredibly popular in the botw era.. I don't know where they will go but i hope it looks something like.. OPEN WORLD / LINEAR DUNGEON with a lot more roadblocks (gamey things that makes something.... a game).. With this last title they have provided so many things to the player that can be "cheesed"-- rending you pretty much OP.. that can be fun but it doesn't make a good "game"
TotK Took all the tedium and frustration from BotW and quadrupled it. I couldn't even play it after a few hours because all the building mechanics on top of constantly having to farm turned this game into a job. As far as dungeon order goes, they absolutely could have a classic dungeon experience by making the dungeon order always be the same no matter what what "entrance" you used. Find entrance #3 first you get dungeon #1 find entrance #1 next you get dungeon #2
The dungeon thing doesn't make sense to me. Why would you enter the Wind Temple entrance and wind up doing the Fire Temple? Unless you mean shrines and even then, a lot of the shrines are themed based on their respective areas.
I have this same talk(in core) with some friends and cousins: the dungeons can come back in old fashion, and A Link Between Worlds already give the answer, plus these necessary itens could be held by enemies around the world.
Every time this kinda discussion comes up, link between worlds and its item renting system gets mentioned as a possible solution... No, that's lame. You'd still have to backtrack to the rental location, and just renting these tools does nothing for the adventure aspect of these games. It's a big part of why I still haven't really played Link Between Worlds. I dont' want to rent my items, I want to FIND them. Zelda already lost its identity when it went 3D and started holding your hand with the companions. And BOTW and TOTK still hold your hand too much in certain ways. The divine beasts were a good idea, but they were implemented horribly. SOME parts of the new dungeons are better(like the fire temple specifically, it actually felt like a big puzzle), but the themes didn't help them. If anything they made them worse and less interesting because again, I loved the idea of the divine beasts(not necessarily being beasts, but the whole dungeon being one giant rotating puzzle was a really interesting idea with some great potential). And ultimately the way the new dungeons were set up and "presented" was just like the beasts but without the rotational stuff. And again with the divine beasts and the handholding, how cool would it have been if nobody ever told you the beasts existed until after you organically stumbled upon one, roaming around off in the distance somewhere? The absolute LAST thing Zelda needs is to go back to the linear formula. That formula fuckin sucked and turned what was supposed to be a fun adventure into a guided tour of Hyrule Park. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were huge steps in the right direction of what Zelda needs to do, but it's still not perfect. And Tears just repeated waaaay too many mistakes made by Breath. The dungeons don't need to be themed, and we don't need all kinds of dramatic storytelling bs. We just need some hidden shit to find. When I saw that one doorway that was supposed to be down in the depths in the very first reveal trailer for Tears, I thought it looked like one of the old OG labyrinth entrances and that we'd be finally getting hidden dungeons back... But then we didn't. That's what we need more of. We need Zelda 1 in 3D, in this or a very similar engine, but without the minecraft-y stuff or the constantly breaking weapons with no way to repair them. We need a hunger meter or cooldown timer for eating more food. We need a quick-access food button of some kind too so we don't have to go into the menu and stop the fight to heal. We need better rewards in chests. We need fewer copy/paste things like shrines and caves and korok seeds lying around the world and more unique interesting areas to explore and find dungeons in. We need more fleshed out ruins if there are going to be ruins. Why were they all just broken walls? Why wasn't there a basement down below any of these walls that led to dungeons? Why were we immediately told about the 4 big main objectives of the game for both games, in the opening acts?
What made BotW special, what made it work, is the sense of exploration, discovery, the enjoyment of traversal and the overall ambiance. In TotK you re-explore the same map so you don't have the same excitement from discovery (although the nostalgia factor of revisiting places and seeing how they changed compensates this loss a bit), and once you learn how to make a hoverbike the enjoyment of traversal and problem solving is lost as every challenge boils down to "fly from A to B". In the end these two factors make exploring feel like a tedious task. Also, I think giving the player too much freedom starts to feel like playing with cheats turned on at some point. Like in the fire temple I just used the hoverbike to fly from keypoint to keypoint , skipping all the puzzles. In the Gerudo desert I just flew over the sandstorm to reach Gerudo Town. Now that I think of it, flying machines are the biggest culprits when it comes to what made the game feel trivial and tedious.
The hoverbike breaking most things was probably why those wings and balloons had that 1 minute limit in the first place. If there was some kind of check for sustained flight which then accelerated your energy use or dispelled the control stick, then most of the balance would be restored.
There are so many things wrong with that mini-essay. 🤦♂ Must have hurt to write all that and end up saying nothing. You clearly haven't played the game or aren't serious: the Freedom is the whole point of *Open world* adventure games. If you don't like it, go and play the past 20+ years of Zelda where your 'Hero' cannot jump 2 meter gaps & grab Hookshots for the 10 thousandth time and be forced to feel excited. Us proper Zelda fans embrace the change and enjoy a proper Adventure.
@@netweed09Holy shit man, you don’t have to dunk on the classics to feel like you deserve to enjoy the new games. By all means, have fun with the new games but don’t be an asshole for no reason, people are allowed to criticise the series they love
@@geschnitztekiste4111 Lol are We triggered much over in that sweaty corner over there? 😭 And there you go with the Gatekeeping Emperor with no clothes on again. "Classics" because of course the Zelda games that outsold those "classics" by almost 3:1 are not classics themselves. You people are actually sick upstairs. You honestly need to grow up, no one has to meat ride the older games either. Physician heal thyself.
@@geschnitztekiste4111 Lol are We triggered much over in that sweaty corner over there? 😭 And there you go with the Gatekeeping Emperor with no clothes on again. "Classics" because of course the Zelda games that outsold those "classics" by almost 3:1 are not classics themselves. You people are actually sick upstairs. You honestly need to g row up, no one has to meat ride the older games either. Physician heal thyself.
I think there is absolutely a way that the Zelda team could marry the new, open-air format with the older style of "stylized linear dungeon crawling." I don't think it has to be either/ or... I think Nintendo was just afraid to push the envelope too far away from what made Breath of the Wild such a success. But that fear made an obvious disappointment of a sequel that could have been so much more.
And A Link to the Past is open world after the Palace of Darkness is completed. That is because once the hammer is obtained, the rest of the Dark World Dungeons are accessible no matter what order you complete them in.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 Okay, but that is literally one of the finest games ever made, it's a Masterpiece for its time. However, Tears doesn't have to follow in its footsteps if it doesn't want to. Risks Were taken and they paid off as TOTK is the _Fastest_ selling Zelda of all time , no matter what is said in some random comments. Not that I need to 'defend' it with that. Of course, it's not Perfect, but not for the reasons you stated. I enjoyed what I got but felt there should have been at least 2 further Temples and a lot more of the Lore dotted about at certain points. I feel there should have even been a Key quest where We did get to time Travel back to that lost age. Facts are, Tears actu5even leaned towards this while Breath was hollow and stark empty. But I'll let it off , as it had over 15 years of stasis to shoulder the burden of change.
@@netweed09, I have a big problem with the durability system. Link is a knight. He should have relearned proper weapon maintenance by the time TotK happens. Compared to the previous games, the durability system portrays him as irresponsible with his equipment. Even though the rock Octorocks repair weapons in TotK, they are only found around Death Mountain. If only the blacksmiths in each village were able to repair weapons instead of just the Champion’s weapons. And the story of TotK makes me feel like Zelda’s janitor, not Hyrule’s hero. Link is just an afterthought in terms of characterization. Compared to Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, Link has no emotional reaction when he learns that Zelda turned into the light dragon. Why isn’t he crying for the loss of the woman that was his roommate if not girlfriend for five years after seeing that memory? Skyward Sword has Link slamming his fists in desperation against the crystal that Zelda seals herself away in.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 I understand that the new Mechanic is a sticking point for many. However, how else do you apply the drastic changes they wanted? I think it's refreshing, as I've games with the old trusty unbreakable for over 20 years now. For me, the change was welcome.
@@netweed09, and the impact of the item get jingle is less impactful of a rush of dopamine due to the durability system. In the old games, it felt like “Oooh, what does this do?” In BoTW and TotK, it feels like “Another thing that will break in five minutes. Wish it was the Hookshot.” I HATE treating everything in the inventory as consumables. A sword is not an arrow. Arrows are consumables, swords should not be consumables.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 Hmmm, I mean I still refer to my point above , unfortunately there's no happy halfway between Unbreakable and breakable. I think they did the Best they could, I mean I like it. The Master Sword does not truly break and while the system was really boring and barebones in Botw, honestly I'm very happy at Tears' arrangement of Fusion of materials making combat 10 times more worth it. Honestly, each to their own opinions but I don't see how people can say otherwise, of course unless maybe like you they are totally non-tolerant of any weapons breaking. I dunno, Skyrims weapons are 'unbreakable' but the Specials have a cooldown on their Magic and many need re-Enchanting.
until totk every zelda played and presented itself differently even if the core gameplay was mostly the same. oot/mm->ww->tp->skyward sword. each has a unique world, theme, appearance (except mm but n64 hardware was very limiting), ui, combat, characters, etc. so even though the core zelda identity is shared across them there's still plenty of new stuff to do and explore. but totk was just botw with a reskin, which is still a good game but very disappointing for people who have already played botw
i think that they should have made the shrines a lot like dungeons but different, like how instead of just a very small basic puzzle I think they should have used the massive stretches of unused map to tie it together like you enter a dungeon it gives you a linear quest that you must complete almost like a bit of a treasure hunt. like maybe one (in Botw specifically) where you must cross the tanagar canyon to find the forgotten temple and from there search through a maze like place filled with guardians for a hidden room with a compass leading towards it
you could still have open world but linear storyline. for example, specific story beats upon completing a dungeon could awaken a dungeon's ability to be explored. Thing lightning temple, but instead its unlocked by completing the previous dungeon. You can keep shrines, maybe add variety in their aesthetic. make them reflect the location they are in and perhaps integrate them into the world better. The sheikah slate/purah pad type system can be expanded, maybe aesthetically altered too, but you could have powers unlocked halfway through a dungeon, like a traditional zelda item, then have the item be used for the rest of the dungeon. Take the design elements from eventide island where you lose all your gear but apply it to the dungeons, or better yet, eliminate the variable gear system w/ durability and return to traditional progression when it comes to your weapons. im sick of level scaling and its consequences. You can still have an open world with out level scaling, without the sameyness, with traditional dungeons. The rental system is a good solution to this, but far from perfect imo. Another aspect I'd like to see return is a dark world. i get the depths kinda function as that, but i miss the twilight realm, the dark world, lorule, oot's adult timeline, etc. I agree with your take on food, force me to exit combat to eat, limit my bottles for potions but i can use those in combat. Bring back swimming underwater, enough said, I want a water temple, and one that lives up to the reputation the rest of the series has given them. Totk water temple was A.) the easiest in the game, and B.) the least thematically interesting. Ideally they take what benefits zelda from botw/totk and return to form on the things that didn't, especially storytelling devices and dungeons. I'd like my story to occur in the present, not the distant past memories. I dont mind linear main storylines at all. lock content behind progression, its not less of an open world just because i need the hookshot or zora tunic to reach an area. Ideally i prefer intended dungeon orders, so my solution still stands, but its not even necessary. Oot lets you do a few dungeons out of order even. I also miss companion characters! not navi or fi really though... more like midna and tatl. I dont want handholding at ALL, but i do want a story partner that can act as the "voice" for link at times. Also, make horseriding more incentivized. Make it BETTER than fast travel. Random encounters/narrative events in other rpgs tend to fill this. Idk, i have a lot of thoughts on this, these are just a few.
I was worried about the future of Zelda but Echoes of Wisdom reassured me that Nintendo can still make amazing dungeons. I think they're experimenting a lot right now so I suspect that the next big 3D Zelda game will be something new and way different from BotW and TotK, except probably the open-world aspect. I still really wanna see a Zelda taking place in modern/future times with cool tech swords and flashy gadgets, something Xenoblade-esque
I'm not sure LBW's item rental is the answer. In any case, I'm not interested in Zelda games anymore. They lost me with TOTK. They doubled down on shrines and divine beasts. I just have to accept I'm not who they want buying their Zelda games anymore. I'm all for them trying new things, but Zelda as we knew it seems to be gone for good.
Yeah I'm not doing open world Zelda anymore unless they scale it down to Link Between Worlds style. That felt like a good size but I just don't see what is so exciting about needing to run for 39 minutes before getting to the next destination instead of 3 minutes.
If TOTK had come out 3 years after BoTW, as a massive expansion/Follow up campaign, it would have elevated BoTW to a a "timeless masterpiece" but no, they wanted to give us BoTW 2.0
Botw is the bare minimum effort open world game. you play it and like it if youre a nintendo head and have never played any other open world. Thats the only time its good is when youre ignorant and its your first. totk is just botw reskinned and more of the same. its honestly pretty clear botw was slapped out as a basic open world to blow the mind of people that never played them. then after success release totk to repeat that without giving any effort. and i say no effort because both games function and have same game and reward systems, and the open world is just enough to fool everyone that its deep.
what we need is more substance and a denser level design. having boundaries but giving a good degree of freedom like what the first entry laid out is what the series should return to but with modern game design. i do not want to return to an on rails experience that went to the extreme with twilight princess and skyward sword, but one where we still have some dungeons that can be open in any order while others need items or abilities. story beats should be kept to a minimum, primarily for the intro and end game. totk was bad bcause it added more quantity over quality, had a lot of grinding for side quests, and mechanically it was clunky, and poor enemy AI.
i liked the cell shaded style in botw but ngl it feels like a step back from the watercolor wonderland that was skyward sword and twilight princess's environmental storytelling and atmosphere centered design. i think we can safely say that if you can copy/paste terrain elements from one region into another, you're not designing those regions well.
@@aricheec7722 I'm working on an indie 3D video game (for Windows PC) and can confirm that copying and pasting assets is an integral part of development, both for productivity and especially style consistency. That being said... There are several videos on UA-cam of BotW and TotK without the filters: the textures are lazily matte. Many sections of the models don't line up properly, something that can easily be remedied by snapping vertices together or at least snapping to grid or align plane to grid. The reason many development teams (especially at the corporate level) have embraced excessive lens-flare and cell-shading is because you don't have to work as hard on quality models and textures because the filters will just blend everything anyway (think drunk goggles lol). This allows for swifter manufacturing, industrialized mass production of game assets, which ultimately makes production more cost effective. This is another example of how economics often supersedes artistry.
@@KnightTechStudios i’m sure that for a small studio copy/pasting assets is useful, as nobody expects an indie game to have a strong design identity from the get go and they’re not as long generally so it’s not as noticeable as a game you spend 60+ hours in. for botw and totk though, it definitely is noticeable and it’s partly because the assets they choose to copy-paste are sloppily made themselves and not that versatile. cell shading can look good, if the design is good enough and doesn’t just look like steam store freebies, so i don’t feel comfortable blaming it. either way it’s not hard to tell that corporate game development chokes artists into mediocrity
@@aricheec7722 Agreed. ...Borderlands for example, (in my opinion) has good production values with the right magnitudes (slight) CS and LF to add a stylistic accent. Lens-Flare is used appropriately, to more accurately simulate flashbangs, acetylene torches, plasma explosions, etc. I'll conclude with this: Filters like CS and LF (or motion blur for that matter) are another set of tools in the artist/engineers' toolbox. Abusing them can taint the overall experience of a game. Using them wisely, with insight can make for a great aesthetic.
I only got into Zelda properly about 7 years ago i think. And honestly had Breath of the Wild been the first Zelda game i'd played, i likely wouldn't have bothered with the rest as i found it boring from the get-go. To me it felt just like any other open-world game. The only real difference is that it actually worked without the need of patches on release day.
Something like Wind Waker would be nice. It was decently big, lots of areas (though small islands), lots of side quests and things to do, and had some areas that were locked away behind certain items, so semi open worldish and felt like some areas were beginner friendly and some end game.
The fact that people complain about the freedom a gave gives them, makes me hopeless for the future of the world. If you don't like the food system, simply put a personal limit on what you can use in combat. For example, allow yourself to eat just 1 food during combat. Problem solved.
7:38 it kinda already is a trilogy at this point since age of calamity is taking place in the same story with some time travel stuff (which especially oot fans should agree is canon friendly)
people waking up to this game being bad so late is why the phrase "disappointing masterpiece" has been used. the bias is so strong for the new zelda games but this one was so much of the same and bad that its getting hard to ignore it for them. all started with botw, which also wasnt an insane awesome game like everyone wants to mindlessly say like a drone. People that opened their mind during botw seen just how lackluster it was by the end of the game. im just delusional though and a hater, i dont wanna see a good combination of old zelda and open world. also any linear element is bad though to these people
The only thing I didn’t like about this game was the weapons breaking. I spent a long time trying to hack the Switch to install mods just for this game. I eventually gave up. And I had a bunch of nightmares about the game.
Just make one more 3D Zelda title with real dungeons, neat items, an actual soundtrack, make it difficult, dark story, raise the stakes. Sadly, they may never do this. Nintend'oh keeps dumbing down their games so 2 year olds could beat it by sucking a joycon in their mouth
I'll be honest... I wish I didn't get tears of the kingdom... but my perfect Zelda game would probably just be crazy... Anyways, I would want multiple Zelda dimensions. Think about it this way, Skyward Sword Faron and Twilight princess' too?? Each game keeps their core identities, with birds, trains, boats, or even ocarina's. You get the experience of like 8 Zelda games in one. Sure, it may be longer and require more than a traditional game... but what if we had to complete 6/28 dungeons to beat the game, but that doesn't mean we can't complete every one. If we combined a certain number of games, make it so that we have to beat one dungeon per world, and each has a unique dungeon item or something else to it... but each item can help make other ones easier. Who doesn't want to see Midna, Fi, and Navi right next to each other midway through the game and feel betrayed by link (He would have to combine dimensions or whatever)?? Just imagine the link you are changes based on the environment!! Or maybe even a multiplayer where you have to beat one part of the game (Similar to Skyward Sword) and your friends other games (Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess) and you can use items your friends pick up in your dungeon. You can even travel between games so long as your friend isn't in that one. Just make it so that you have to meet up a lot in a central dimension and whenever you want to mess with each other or solve extra puzzles. I know it's confusing and a bit hard to make, but to me that would be so much fun. Oh, and maybe also see their screens on the side of yours so you can help them solve puzzles if you aren't in the same area! One last idea, what if you could turn into a champion (BOTW) of the zora or gorons?????
As a huge Zelda fan since the original debut (my child self was fascinated by this "never ending adventure"). I've cleared them all. That is until Botw and Tears, I was duped twice for the same reasons as the video and sold them with no interest in clearing them.
I absolutely love BOTW and TOTK. Honestly, BOTW saved me when i saw so burnt out. It reignited a magic in gaming i hevent felt in years before it came out. I have yet to finish TOTK, i didnt get bored or lose interest because i absolutely love that game i just get distracted with other games. But open world games need to die. Instead, incorporate open areas scattered to give us a sense of exploration with out being "too much". A perfect example of this would Elden Ring. I spent over 200 hours my first play through, and it was some of the best gaming ive experienced but i have no desire to run through it again, unlike dark souls 1 and 3. With those games being more linear i ran through them multiple times.
As a baby gamer who's only been playing ANY games for 2 years, it's interesting to hear these kinds of perspectives on these games. BOTW was the literal first video game I ever played, and TOTK was the third! (Animal Crossing was second lol.) They're both just AMAZING to me. I do agree that I wish they'd done something different than the shrines on TOTK, and I don't _love_ the Depths, but overall, it's _cool_ how they kind of blend together for me into the same game. I know that's partly because my standards aren't as high as more experienced gamers, but idc. I know that newer gamers like me who love both BOTW and TOTK -- and who haven't played any of the older Zelda games -- are often laughed at on these sorts of game criticism videos, and described as basically The Problem With Modern Video Games. But I just want to say that I'm here to support your work and your perspective, even though I'm not experienced enough in the world of gaming to be upset about TOTK's lack of change. :) I like your thoughtful content anyway!
@milo_thatch_incarnate your feedback still matters. You're just as important to the discussion as any of us. Botw and totk are my favorite switch games and I don't want to be a part of the "New Zelda bad" narrative, but fans have pretty solid reasons for feeling alienated. This wouldn't be such a heavy blow in the first place if Nintendo were to say "hey, top down Zelda, linear zelda are still here to stay, they just won't be the main focus" that away we still get old school zelda the same way we still got games like Super Mario wonder.
@@Tenacityfromtheglass - Totally! And thanks for the inclusion! :) I haven't always found the same elsewhere in the gaming community. My philosophy is the same for both film and gaming: if the fans are complaining, it's not the FAN'S problem. They're the ones who love the IP, and give the creator money! The creator SHOULD pander to the desires of the fanbase (most of the time). Like with Star Wars. The fans aren't the problem because they don't like the new content -- the _content_ isn't up to snuff.
💯 Nevermind the seethers: all they can do is raise their noses up in denial and trot out the rusty old ''Sales =/= Quality'' line. Why would they want the series to be enjoyed by _less_ people - how is that even being a Zelda fan?? And they're so salty - they stoop to make void comparisons with COD?? COD is a multiplayer game, it sells on its Merits. *Tears is the fastest selling Zelda game ever - guess what , also on it's own (and many) Merits!!* Let these 'fans' live in the past, with their corridors.
As a person who has played almost all of the zelda games, I understand where you're coming from. Botw and totk weren't the best, but they're still good games. People still like botw and totk, but what if we merged the things that were good from botw and totk with the classic charm of the Zelda franchise and the things that were good from those classic games together. For example, what if there was a way to remove durability from an item entirely, so fans that want durability can have it, but fans that don't, can remove it. Or classic Zelda dungeons in the open world setting with fast travel so there isn't a lot of backtracking. There is hope for this franchise, we just need to make sure Nintendo knows that this is what we want.
@@zackattackplayz4162 I don't expect anything good from this franchise as long as aonuma is in charge, because that guy has shown he is following trends and this franchise has never been about trends as you already know, but if you wanna be optimistic about it, good for you then, i guess. Both formulas doesn't mix at all, the gameplay from botw doesn't fit in the traditional style and viceversa. I lost any hope with that auonuma there.
Zelda has never been super linear outside of the dungeons tho it’s just been going far as the system specs would let it go at the time . Those Zelda games worlds were huge for its time
i kinda felt that the shrine could have used some more complesion an maybe tools inside that could be usefull for the dungeon or such but randomized wood have been neat the training shrines could have had a training construct outside them an then a mini dungeon with keys inside an locks idk
Long assumed that ratings are paid for from big publishers; I swear with out fail a side scrolling marrio has been given 10/10 everytime they're release they are the exact same game with a new skin? I don't understand how this took 7 years to develop. They sky bits were quite cool but just to add the depths which is just an annoying place you find clothes in and have a few fights. I loved botw but always thought the temples were shit and all they needed to do to make this game class was add 7-10 full sized dungeons you'd get in a traditional zelda n your golden. Instead they spent seven years making the depths and slightly changing the original map. I'd played btow 3 4 times easy so this got old real quick The dungeons where an improvement in that at least had they're themes but were still just as few and short The story through flash backs was sort of interesting but after every boss you get told the exact same story by a different character? And I think the biggest element missing from these new two zeldas is actually interesting npc that have a consequentially role in the game that has a cool pay, major's mask did this by far the best for me But the closest we got from these two was collecting wood to help build a town; other than that just random people Would tell you to fetch themsomething and they'd give you some rupees These games are so far from masterpieces its unreal I honest to God thought they would nail totk. Botw wild was such a class baseline to build from and what was missing was so obvious its mind boggling they thought , let's just double the size of this massive baron map
I am hoping they make one more game to make it a trilogy, with a more fleshed out Hyrule. After that I hope they do something new, close to the same but better, the game does not need to be as big as it is, it needs more life to it, open world yet somewhat linear. It is hard to say honestly, I did like the games. They are far from perfect, but they do mostly right. I am a bigger fan of the older games.
"Fans are starting to feel burned" I'm agreed with it! For when Nintendo will move their ass for made a new Star Fox game or a remaster game since we still have nothing for it since 7 years? Thankfully we gonna have Metroid Prime 4 the next years as the third big Metroid game to be released on the Switch after we wait 7 years before they decide to announce something big for it despite we don't have much game and I don't hide it started to be borring to eat every years the same cash grab franchise who keep coming on Switch such Mario, Pokemon, Kirby and somes others.
When I beat the legend of Zelda ocarina of Time as a boy some 25 years ago I remember thinking how amazing this game is and how it would be cool to explore pass the game walls.
I agree with you! Zelda games should not continue with this approach. It’s almost become a forced fed game. They make the game for all ages, which is some of the problem. They don’t want to make it too hard for the kiddies. I too am a huge fan and have been playing for 25+ years. Can you imagine shrines that were not visible to the eye. And you had to pain stacking find them. Or some item that was totally necessary, that was buried somewhere.? There’s almost no figuring out anything about the game. Like I say, being forced fed! I think they could have an open world with also a controlled environment, that you had to follow. They definitely need to bring back challenging temples. Maybe ones that activate other sections of the environment. They definitely need to become more imaginative! If they keep going the way they are, the past games will be a memory!
And games are getting too complex gameplay wise. I'm too busy to play every day. I'll go a month of not playing a a game, come back and completely forget the combat mechanics. But you know what I can pick up and play immediately? Any Mario game.
I just have no inspiration to play BoTW or ToTK at all. What I really want: to play as young Link in a photorealistic or semi-realistic Zelda game, like OoT/MM, with a twist. Playing as young Link in OoT/MM/WW always had this unique charm of exploring with childlike wonder that is missing from the later titles. If you really must play as adult Link though, then make Link the “bad” guy and Ganon the “good” guy - how about an enemy, such as Ganon or Shadow Link as the Hero of Time? About story: I don’t really want to save Zelda again. I don’t want to be that Prince Charming, the hero in a shining armor. I don’t want the same old black & white, good vs. evil setting. If somebody has to be bad, then Link must be that rotten apple - the one whose rottenness and failures indirectly save the world.
+3d mainline will go back to linear +2d/topdown mainline is now mainline +open world elements will be incorporated into the mainline games +if they're going to continue the open world games that will have to expand Hyrule
I didn’t play BotW, and I loved TotK, but I didn’t want to replay it because it took too long to get started. I used to play Link to the Past over and over again, but the 3d games just take too long to start.
Edit: Sorry for long comment Might be my bias preventing me to talk against totk, I do think totk is a masterpiece. There is no perfect game, no real masterpiece without flaws. Totk also has flaws. The one I find the most noticable is freedom. I can understand people enjoy freedom in totk, it was an experiment from nintendo and it works well. It was an overall success. But I fell in love with the series because of complicated, challenging and thematicaly creative dungeons with linear approach that requies you to solve the challenges they put infront of you. There was no skipping, you couldnt fly a hover bike to the top of a temple and fight the boss. Totk gave us freedom but took away the challenging and creative dungeons. While I do agree totk dungeons are a step in the right direction compared to botw, they are very stale compared to oot, tp or tww dungeons. I like the rest of the gameplay, I don't even mind the lack of content in depths and the sky, as it doesnt seem like it needs more content. The caves were a very welcome addition too. I just think too much freedom ruined the dungeons. Nintendo, we understand your games are often tailored for children, but well designed dungeons were the trademark of the zelda franchise. Don't be afraid to challenge your audience.
Hated BOTW. ToTK honestly surpassed my expectations--massively--but it's still a sequel of BOTW. I don't expect to see real dungeons ever return because their core design inherently contracts the new open formula. And let's be real, most of us beat our first Zelda game when we were about...6 years old, give or take. They weren't meant to be challenging. They're designed for little kids to beat. Fans wanted hard hitting enemies, which meant Nintendo had to trivialize combat difficulty some other way. In this case, really stupid enemy AI and abusable consumables. In short, there's a trade off for everything. BOTW--and to an extent ToTK's--flaws are all a result of Nintendo changing the series formula and direction. A lot of the series strengths were possible because of linearity. Without linearity, things have to change. A Link Between Worlds *also* had to change the dungeon formula. Dungeons were limited to one item and you never unlocked it, you brought it in with you. This was horribly limiting from a design standpoint and the dungeons were ridiculously easy even by Zelda standards. BOTW's compromise was made so developers could design dungeons around multiple items again.
As an adult with 2-5 hours of gaming per week, it took me over one year to actually beat Tears of the Kingdom. And I loved the game, but it was just so damn big that it was impossible to finish quickly. And I don't like to rush or skip content in my games, especially the ones I love like Zelda, so I had to at least complete all the shrines before finishing and that was what I did.
No, no, thats exactly why the shrines/korok seeds/etc are so great, You just do what you want to/need and keep going. Botw and Totk are the only two games (that arent mmos or racing/fight sims) that make me feel like I am permitted to have responsibilities that are not the game. I shouldnt have to work a real job to pay money to have a fake job, and when developers feel the need to "maximize value" by lengthening everything, thats what they are doing, giving bored people jobs that make them nothing, and giving adults a great reason to save 60+ dollars. I dont check review scores anymore, I check hltb, because if it takes more than 15 hours it better have a damn good reason. Thing is, I put 200 hours into totk before finishing it, because while it was longer than most games, it respected my time while it was played.
These game take too long to make so when they are not exactly what we wanted, we get very frustrated because the wait will be long for another chance, anyway, right now if you wanna experience totk in a way that feels more traditional, you can play it without paraglider and avoiding climbing as much as possible, if you really wanna a challenge, dont upgrade your hearts, stamina, batteries and inventory, you will find it to be a whole new game, your saved zonai devices become like your new items.
Agreed Link Between Worlds is fantastic. I am looking forward to Echoes of Wisdom. We haven't had a new 2d Zelda in ages. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom few like 2 sides of the same coin. I enjoyed the Breath of Wild more than Tears of the Kingdom. I didn't like the Depths underground map It felt dark, confusing, somewhat boring and with lots of hard enemies. I tried to avoid combat on the way to Ganondwarf. I heated the glum mechanic. I liked the Sky Islands more than the Depths. My Favourite 3D Zelda is Twilight Princess. Good video.
I loved TotK and would give it a 10/10. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect. But I occasionally like watching these videos that criticize TotK because they’ll see things from a different perspective than I have or less forgiving than I am. But some people tend to forget there were complaints about the past Zelda games too. Complaints about being the same old stale formula . Or some people wanting an open world Skyrim type game and then people complained about that. I agree a 3D version of A Link Between Worlds would be great and could work.
I'm happy you're open to these types of discussions. Both botw and totk are amazing games, but I don't know if I'm completely on board with a 3rd game in this style. I think it's fun to imagine what a somewhat Gear-gated open world Zelda game would be like.
in ten years do you really think botw and totk will stand out against other open world games? it doesn’t even really hold its own against other open world titles from a decade earlier in terms of atmosphere and story and dungeon design. in the end, we got a formula that was already stale by the time they took a swing at it, and the swing they took was a miss
Dude please make the title and video actually line up. I wanted to hear about the mistakes, maybe in a list - instead I get a droning VO of one person's experience with the game. Guess what? I also played and have opinions on TOTK and I don't really care about yours.
when you said: if you play link between worlds then explained that the item rental mechanic would work in a new game etc. i found it funny because these people wont and never have played any of the old games so its like talking to a wall. half of these people literally probably were still a sperm when link between worlds came out. The Whole reason they cant see the flaws is because they havent or barely played the old games, and expect me to respect their opinion. i played botw and totk both to 100% before i started shit talking
Couldn't agree more, plus the Underworld in TOTK is so much copy pasted busy work covered by smoke and mirrors, most reviewers prised it cause they just play the first few hourse after droping down from the sky.
Gamers have been whining about everything since I was a gamer kidc in the 80s. Nothing has changed. The closer a game is to perfection, the more these babies can focus on the little things that made them cry. I've never played a game that I thought didn't need improvement and I've also never seen a game where the needed improvements are completely agreed upon. I remember people whining hard about weapon durability in botw... THEY BETTER NOT HAVE IT IN TOTK they said. I for one understood it was necessary and hoped it returned. "Better not have to find seeds for..." just shut up.... seriously. 😅
I love open world games not necessarily Zelda. But I also love Zelda sooooo much. Now both switch sky are awesome and they aren't lacking of good and bad things. They definitely need a new formula. In the few things they need it's dlc or even paid content. But It's too little too late. Oh well let's hope for more content that the end might end up with a definitive Identity edition..
I'm looking from the outside in, because I haven't played Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, but if they don't have themed dungeons, compasses, maps, or even a hookshot, then Zelda has already lost its identity. I don't understand the demand for player freedom at the cost of all else. In classic Zelda games, the dungeons are built around the item you get in the dungeon. There's a restriction at first, because you can't get to every room, but then when you get the item there's a feeling of liberation because you can suddenly access areas you couldn't before. You have to earn your way through the dungeon by completing certain challenges. And as you complete more dungeons and get more special items, there's a growing liberation in the overworld as you gain access to more areas. But if you have complete freedom from the start, where's the satisfaction? If you can just go anywhere and do whatever you want then it's not an adventure, it's a sandbox. And if going back to previous areas with new items to complete puzzles you couldn't before sounds like "tedious backtracking" to people, then maybe Zelda isn't the series for them.
@jamesrelich8210 You hit the nail on the head. A huge part of why the older titles are so satisfying is slowly peeling back its layers. Finding those items always gave you new and interesting ways to interact with the environment as you progressed. And because they were linear, they were able to pull you towards the fun. There's so many ways to become bored in a game and botw/totk doesn't stop you from any of them because "freedom"
So accurate...
I played Breath for like 2 weeks straight. And then I stopped cold turkey and never thought about it again. Luckily I borrowed it so there was no skin off my back. Basically, "I was skeptical, I tried it, and as I predicted, it didn't jive." So I can verify what you're saying with experience. The way I always talk about "open world" games is, it doesn't matter how much _content_ there is, if there's no _substance_ beneath the surface. Monotonous grinding is not fulfilling. Meaningless side-questing is not fulfilling. Collecting literal junk for some "item recipe" is not fulfilling, I just don't understand why that last one is so popular.... And for the love of all that is holy STOP with the lootboxes. It's a bit like a person with great looks but when you start talking to him or her, it very quickly becomes apparent that there's no lights on inside. You can hold conversation, but not formulate a true dialogue.
Something about a game needs to be fulfilling, there needs to be a _reason_ to play-- and if you're like me growing up in the 90s, you know full well the reason for playing Mario or Zelda is not "save the princess," it's "how close can I thread that needle of fire bars to get through?" It's, "how far can I _actually_ fly with a cape?" It's the lingering question of, "I wonder if there's something good in that treasure box I can't reach yet?" It's seeing a door and knowing you "can" get there, but not yet knowing HOW until you've got more power-ups to experiment with.
You are absolutely right. The new open world Zeldas might be technically impressive but they can't hold up to a well designed and more curated experience that the older games were. In the new games, after you finish the first "dungeon" you have practically seen everything the game has to offer in terms of content. You don't earn any abilities that change up your traversal or combat options in any meaningful or satisfying way over the course of the game, you don't find that missing piece that makes you finally able to progress beyond a particular obstacle, you just get more of the same. Some people might find that exciting or liberating but to me it's boring and empty and it lacks what made Zelda so great previously.
Somehow though the Zelda team managed to gaslight so many people into thinking that this is the true essence of Zelda or what it was always meant to be , they did a stellar job an that front.
It's really quite a simple change.
Just give us traditional dungeons, a linear story and progressive items that don't break in 3 hits. It's not that hard.
And maybe a story that isn't separated from the playable character.
That was disappointing in BotW, but I'll be honest- it kinda worked.
But when Zelda disappeared at the beginning of TotK it was so arbitrary(along with just about everything else that happened regarding the "story")
Uh, they did that for about 2 decades. We have a ton of Zelda games exactly like that. The fan base wanted something new really badly back in the mid 2010s and Nintendo delivered brilliantly. ToTK as a sequel to BotW gave us the most balls to the walls insane puzzle mechanics I've ever seen *and* made a direct sequel to a beloved Zelda game, which is extremely rare.....do you know how many of us wanted a direct sequel to OoT, where you explore the exact same world a few years later? Well, we got it except for BotW, and most people are apparently too immature to appreciate it. The same people/mindsets who love Wind Waker in retrospect but were shitting on it at the time are doing the same with ToTK. Go fucking figure.
@@erikmclennan3934 ultrahand>recall>paraglide solves 90% of the puzzles
@@RP-mp4ow using cheats solves 99% of missions in gta3 but I prefer engaging with the game mechanics. Just because you aren't creative enough to get immersed in the game systems and puzzle designs doesn't mean the game sucks.
@@erikmclennan3934 there's a difference between using cheats and using player provided tools.
How does that distinction escape you?
Every time I hear "why the sudden hate?" it's the same thing: people have been criticizing the game since release. I know I have. And I said "criticizing", not "hating", which is also a conflation people love to make for the sake of generating debate (or sometimes to dismiss criticism). It only got more visible because more people got more time with the game, more opinions gathered online and naturally we hear more of the common feedback.
Yep I've said this a lot. For the first 20-30 hours I was still in full on hype mode exploring the potential of ultrahand. Once I had done that, I wanted to move on and the rest of the playthrough just fell off a cliff for me when I realized, wait a second, the game pretty much IS the ultrahand mechanics and kinda blows for the **insert repeated reasons I've said a million times** And then even despite that aspect being technically good, it isn't implemented well into challenges. But yeah not gonna go into the whole tangent.
Criticism is usually met with solutions, not more whining.
@@paranormalscouts all right but then two things: what qualifies as whining? and what is a proper solution when we're just fans and armchair developers at best?
I understand it's also annoying to come across trolls or the same points for the 100th time, but that doesn't mean each person doing it is being petty (plus on the internet it's easy to project negative tone on other people's comments). For solutions, we did suggest alternatives, but the actual solution is whatever the devs will actually do if they ever want to address flaws in question.
@@mkjjoe He is absolutely correct, what are you on about?
Definitely not even a Constructive suggestion, forget 'solution'. 🤦😄 Just adding further hate Wood to this burning dumpster fire of a video. All you have done is act paranoid, throwing the word "trolls" around and more moaning. Jeez, are you Ok? Does a Zelda game being so Successful, selling so well and boosting Nintendo hurt that much?! Go on, keep moaning then I'm sure those hollow likes you'll receive will cash you out. 🍩🎮
@@mkjjoe He is absolutely correct, what are you on about?
Definitely not even a Constructive suggestion, forget 'solution'. 🤦😄 Just adding further hate Wood to this burning dump ster fire of a video. All you have done is act paranoid, throwing the word "trolls" around and more moaning. Jeez, are you Ok? Does a Zelda game being so Successful, selling so well and boosting Nintendo hurt that much?! Go on, keep moaning then I'm sure those hollow likes you'll receive will cash you out. 🍩🎮
"Disappointing masterpiece" hints at the existence of a "satisfying dumpster fire", and I don't know how to feel about that
So bad it's good?
@@timrosswood4259 That fits pretty well
A piece of true fiction
I love those lol
That's probably how I would describe Pokémon Scarlet/Violet.
Game is filled with a barrage of technical issues and some baffling game design decisions, yet it had a decent story with nice characters and an open world that (although deeply flawed) was fun enough to explore
old zelda + open world + effort = a good game everyone will like. not a copy paste world where theres nothing to do but look for worthless koroks or stumble upon lazy throwbacks like lon lon ranch that are nothing but ruins and thats the only depth you get.
I’ve been playing Zelda games, with great pleasure, since the NES and what I miss most in the recent Zelda games is a sense of purpose. I finished BOTW with maybe 40 shrines. There was no purpose for me to finish the other shrines because I already beaten the game. It felt pointless to me.
Noob
My perfect Zelda game would be a remake of twilight princess on the switch 😭
Isn't it already on three systems?
@@NovaBombardment And not one of them is the switch, crazy.
@@NovaBombardmentIt’s on the gamecube, released as the console died, the Wii, which has been dead for over 10 years, and the WiiU, which was their worst performing console EVER and stopped production less than 5 years after the switch released.
@@felicisrex8281 So, clearly no Progression to the series at all.
Us proper Zelda fans want to see Our favourite series expand and see the unprecedented Success like games like Tears have allowed, not stay stuck in the past with your own limited and selfish opinions and preferences.
@@netweed09 Nice one brother 😂
Armored Core VI is a great example of a short, focused game with replayability. I completed all three endings and nearly 100%'d that game in like 50 hours. And it was worth every penny!
And another problem is that Nintendo missed a great opportunity to exploit the nostalgia factor. One of the most attractive ideas (for me at least) before TOTK release was to be able to revisit areas and see how much they changed after destroying Calamity Ganon and people start re-building the kingdom. Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Castle Town should've been the first places to rebuild, and how cool would have been to see the castle town vibrant and full of people again.
All we got instead is the same post-apocalyptic destruction after what, 7-10 years? The same with Tarrey Town, we could've had an expanded town, but instead we only get some platforms where Bolson is starting to build. Hateno Village only has some mushrooms, and Karariko Village is destroyed with all the sky ruins.
Instead of giving the player new cool locations, and old locations expanded/transformed, in reality we only get basically the exact same map. And instead of focusing on that, the developers invested time in giving us the depths, which is awful to explore and is basically a wasteland with nothing to do. Despite that the game was released 7 years after BOTW, it feels rushed and incomplete.
@@rodoxag9117 None of that would work. You cannot just ignore the Fact there's a big fat castle 🏰 surrounded by thick black evil smoke lifted halfway into the Sky by an out of control Zombie - and continue singing and rebuilding and living happily ever after right beside the chaos. I mean , what are you on about and where's the context?!
Not to mention the massive gaping pits of toxic gunk everywhere. Sometimes , I just wonder if people drop comments from a glitch zone UA-cam randomly creates as part of side effects of its algorithm.
@@netweed09 Did you think for two seconds before posting that nonesense? Gloom appears shortly before the story of TotK starts, and the Upheaval is the literal introduction. Expecting the kingdom, including Hyrule Castle, to be at least half-rebuild was not only reasonable, it's freaking insulting that was not what happened.
Sure, the Castle would be evacuated, but we should have seen at least the buildings, and not just Lookout Landing and a couple of construction material sites in the middle of the road for little to no diagetic reason.
And that's only Hyrule Castle. It doesn't account for the rest Hyrule.
Heck, even if we take the Upheaval into account, the vast majority of the ruins we encounter in the game are the same ones from the Great Calamity, with very little new ones created by the Upheaval instead.
Seriously, did you even play TotK?
It hasn't been 7-10 years. I've seen what master works says, and it's more likely a lower number. Though sadly it probably was going to be that, as they had planned a fully rebuilt castle town at first
@@XanderVJ You cannot even spell nonsense without an edit that's how emotional you probably got, so that's saying a lot right there off the bat. Plus, me having played Tears - yea very amusing coming from someone with 5 year old Soul Calibur videos on PS4 and you have the cheek to ask?! 😂 Stones and glass houses.
Anyhow: your pettiness aside , what have you actually said yourself up there? The game has clearly painted an image of a Rebellion and uprising but there's also a clear and palpable fear - just how it's meant to be to anyone sensible? Anyhow, it's Zelda and you're taking the premise a bit too seriously.
It's similar to the people who complain about "too few Islands in the Sky", so what let's just totally ruin the Sky box and block out the Sun by adding another 100 then??
Jeez, talk about not thinking! 🤔 Thankfully, not all of you on here are this flat - remarkably there have been 1 or 2 souls capable of intelligent debate here.
And don't expect and moan that We did not get Tarrey Town rebuilt into Los Angeles. 🤦🙄😂
@@netweed09 If you read my comment again, and restraining your obvious impulse for trolling, you'll realize that I said that the idea of a re-built kingdom (or in progress) was one of the most exciting prospects for this game before it was released, ergo before even knowing that the castle was going to be (yet again) seized by the baddies. Sure, you have a floating castle, but also not a single house in the castle town is in any way different from BOTW. And the same goes for other areas of the game. You're clearly satisfied with the end result and good for you, I enjoyed TOTK a lot, but the fact that no location went trough a considerable progress in the lapse of 7-10 years is beyond the lore, is just laziness from Nintendo, they clearly rushed the game for release. This takes away part of the huge potential this game had, and that is MY opinion. You don't have to agree with me. BTW, a Los Angeles sized Tarrey Town would have been fun, probably more than the depths.
It's almost a rite of passage for BOTW fans to say that exact same phrase about wanting to forget the game.
I would have been okay with the reused map in TOTK if the game had gone in a distinctly different direction. Majora's Mask reused a lot from Ocarina but is a completely different game. But TOTK being so similar in every other way was a bit much.
The item rental system isn't perfect, but I'd take it over shrines at this point. It's just that ALBW basically treats every dungeon like "Level 1" so they have to be around the same level of complexity. Zelda 1 let you find dungeons in any order, but it was your dumb fault if you entered Level 6 before doing Levels 1-5 and got mashed into paste.
Honestly this is the real issue
personally I want redundancy, not rentals, not degradation, redundancy.
Use the old games item system, but the ENTIRE inventory is shared(key items limit) ingredient can stay limitless but have a delay like Skyrim Tomato soup, suddenly I can start with 10 or 20 item slots but only afford to keep 3 meals.
Each shrine or mini-dungeon can have a number of classic progression items but certain ones only appear once, for example one hookshot per arm in a dungeon to the far East and West, but at least one feather in each region, maybe iron boots near diving locations with flippers near shallower waters;
just enough so when you pick a direction you might find everything, but until you unlock more inventory you have to pick and choose, outfits should ofc be exempt from the item limit for aesthetics, but generally every thing just follows item progression.
As for these last 2 games... Tears I think just needed better shrines and DLC in general... Master mode, enemies to spawn around the underworld vines, more varied monster camp combos(literally only the Hinox near the split mountain stable can use bokoblin support, rarely do Lizal enemies, goblins, and Boss Bokoblins intersect... Not sure even one place has all 3 spawn together, no Moblins are in any walled monster camp except 1 weakling red in Hyrule field camp, and a Blue that only lives on the walk-up to the lone hill skyview tower with a fort on the bad end of the entrance's metal spiked ball, otherwise the big camps have only Bokoblin and Boss Bokoblin, nothing else, not Aerokuda or Lizal, not a Hinox or Talus, not a single Horriblin.
Edit: to be clear this would be in a system using Koroks to eventually expand your inventory, but they would still expand specific ones, so you likely start expanding key items, swords, shields, or bows before meals.
@@michaellane5381 genius. this style of item system would do wonders for replayibility and make way for actually cohesive narratives. nintendo needs to understand that story/quest progression can make or break a game if they want zelda to stand out against other better open world games in ten years.
the fact that it is big is no problem, as long as it is enjoyable. Totk is too much repetitive, no new map, same animations, clothes, cities, characters, places, graphics, koroks and samey caves, enemies and Hudson signs. Its too much of the same things and you have to do it 100 + times. It gets boring.
found my second play through a bit of a chore. I played BOTW about 6 or 7 times - I won't be playing Totk again for a while.
@@theresearcher253 ? I uninstalled Botw after the 50th Shrine. I just did upto that number to experience the Master Sword get sequence - and it was so dry, _so_ lifeless and boring. [Spoilers] (yeah, even in this pit of hate because I'm just a nice guy lol) Compare to the one in Tears, atop a Shining Dragon 🐉 that just happens to be your Highness!! Botw simply does not compare, and that's just for one event! Breath did a major thing for the series so I won't go too hard on it, but it's simply unplayable for me especially after the 100x better Tears.
Think this is definitely better than btow, but probably played that 3, 4 times...this bar a few cool gimics that hot old pretty quick....its the same game....with this really annoying, pointlesss and boring depths added....btow of the wild would of been class if they just added 7 odd decent dungeons; that don't take hours to find and five mins to finish....
The story was awful....not one npc is memorable u just do a random task to get 50 rupees- major's mask had such class characters.
Fair skyward sword sucked n I like this direction but when its a baron land with repetitive pointless tasks...got bored of this so fast
Agreed, Botw and Totk had some good concepts but no soul, lifeless, sad vibe to it everywhere. Way to repetitive, and spending way to long to mess around with objects/environment to find more of the same. Waste of time. First games I've sold not even close to finishing.
@@s.bradley6089 _"No soul, sad vibes to it"_
What are you on about?? Such generic and wayward remarks. Not near elevated enough to even be considered an opinion. Not to mention, you clearly have 0 understanding of sombre, post-apocolyptic concepts and themes. I dunno about you but many Zelda fans aren't 12 anymore and if you really cannot see anything past the chirpy tunes of the Gameboy and early GameCube games , We don't feel sorry for your being lost in your own fog of nostalgia. Why are you even on here?
I am personally not down for another open air Zelda game.
I feel like it will always distract the developers from adding what makes a Zelda game special.
A somewhat linear and cohesive story, memorable characters, permanent items and upgrades, chests with more meaningful loot and, most importantly, well crafted dungeons with great puzzles and boss fights.
Also, what happened to link being able to play an instrument? that totally removes the charm a lot of past Zelda games had.
I don't think item rentals should come back. You basically get almost every item at the first dungeon and then always reset before you die if you somehow don't have enough money to rerent or buy. The item gates start to turn into tedious time-wasters since there is no reason to not rent everything.
But you could still blend the classic formula with an open world very easily. Just have every region have a regional crisis that leads to a dungeon with an item. Design every dungeon to be completable with just its own item unless you have multiple sets of dungeons open up. Then design every item to also have a traversal, shortcut or combat utility outside of dungeon puzzles.
They kind of did the whole regional crisis thing, but the crises were basically all the same and then they dropped the ball by making your "dungeon items" be rewards for finishing the dungeon.
@@AdamTheGameBoy Possibly the best and easily one of the most intelligent and insightful comments here. But of course, 0 likes (allow me to fix that!) 👍👍💯💫✨
Why am I surprised though, you're not being toxic and generally making blanket statements and irrational opinions hating on the game. And meat riding older Zeldas. You know what a Quality Zelda game is, its limitations and how it can actually improve. Just like Tears did over Breath (10 fold for me.) Amazing development and progression of characters, (shout out to Yunobo) , great Regional quests and actual Temples not hollow Machines that all look the same with a dead "boss" (literal blobs with one eye) at the end.
I'd like a combination of open air worlds with intricately designed dungeons that can't just be skipped over.
Agreed. I think it could be done too. Have a gate outside of each dungeon, must have this item to complete, in order to get it, there could be like a specific shrine/puzzle outside of the big dungeon. Make it a mini dungeon, complete with mini bosses, then have places in the open world where you can use them the tools as well. I think the concepts really could be merged.
That's not 'Open Air' then. You're asking for a flying Car , or a Chocolate teapot.
The whole point is to solve Dungeons out of order so We don't end up back in 2012 when everyone's Skyward Sword streams (well then, Playthrough videos) were exactly the same. There was a massive backlash in the community then you know, if you were old enough to witness it 10 years ago. Proof? We got Botw.
@@netweed09 L
@@netweed09 You know there's more to Zelda than Skyward Sword right? Like Zelda games before that had fairly open world designs and yet still had well crafted dungeons. But your comment treats it like a binary. The issue with Skyward sword was that Nintendo wanted to make the whole overworld into essentially a dungeon, and as a result made the game far more linear. Ironically, the game actually holds up well as a randomizer though. But before Skyward sword there were many other Zelda games, all with fairly open overworlds.
But even afterwards, there's a Zelda game that came out afterwards and is pretty close to the open world formula without destroying it's dungeon design and that is A Link Between Worlds. In ALBW, you have access to most of the items (one is not available at the start), and you are able to rent any of them provided you have the money for it. The game asks you to go do several dungeons and you can do them in any order. The game tells you what items you need for each dungeon and there are some optional paths that you can take if you have others not listed. And it's great. The dungeons are fun, and the bosses are well designed and fun. The game also has some other items you get from outside of Ravio's shop such as the Pegasus Boots and upgraded equipment.
In a sort of half way point between the Open world and more linear designed games, one could go back to the formula that was introduced in ALBW, however rather than reusing the Ravio Shop idea, my idea would be to spread the items to the overworld somewhere. Through exploration, the player would find the items, upgrades, and dungeons and the dungeons would show what they required like ALBW. I play a lot of Zelda randomizers and more or less that is how it often works in there. There's far less structure though, as sometimes you need to partially explore dungeons to find items needed to get further in other areas. So my experience of playing Zelda randomizers has greatly influenced my idea of a dream Zelda game. Not only would it work well as a vanilla experience, it would work well with randomization as well.
@@netweed09You can have dungeons out of order and also design them in a way that they all aren't completely trivialized by one ability. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
Nintendo already said that Skyrim launching 2 weeks after skyward sword was a huge inspiration for making the change to open world
but Bethesda itself wasn't even able to follow up skyrim
Thank you. 💯 At least the more Knowledgeable and seasoned gamers (and Zelda fans) are now beginning to comment too! Linearity can always be implemented in Open Worlds but, as it's own whole entity in much larger worlds? It's just not going to cut it. Backtracking through what's essentially ''decorated and painted corridors'' and seeing _everyone's_ ''Progression and story'' be _exactly_ the same just ain't cool, even for Zelda.
@@netweed09 the reason nobodies really surpassed skyrim is because most aaa games have just became slop
skyrim of the wild, was the real name for botw.
@@Raylightsen That's a massive Compliment, do you realise that? 😄
Though, I feel it was Tears that was more like Skyrim with its distinct Temples and not 4 Machines that all looked the same internally.
@@netweed09 Yeah, im sure skyrim fans love botw, they are in luck.
i would honestly love to go back to linear
@@theodord9551 Why enjoy degrading?
Everyone having the same old exact playthroughs once again just like 2012 , and seeing "Our Hero" stuck on a 2 foot high fence because he cannot jump. Why though, just why lol? For a Hookshot We've picked up 1000 times before, seriously? 🤔😄
@@netweed09 100 IQ+ long-form puzzles would be better than sub-85 IQ puzzles and Korok Seeds.
@@aureate So, absolutely not like the ''Push a square block into this square-shaped dent on the floor there's a good little tiger (before a nappy change)'' of the Zelda games from 2003 - 2017 then? Got ya.
@@netweed09 More like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask dungeons.
@@aureate They are allowed to have those by simple gaming History rules, as the 1st 3D games that fully established the series as We know it today. That's why I left those 2 out on purpose. 🙄 But then, 3 mainline Zeldas after it , all holding Ocarina's tail and being too afraid to let go ever?? I mean look they were fun games for a while but the samey-ness and things like say in WW, the wall-kicking feeling of sailing off to discover stuff, stumbling upon Gale Isles - only to find you were ''game Blocked'' out of it felt _so_ frustrating.
Then the final kick in the teeth was Skyrim vs the charming but super Linear and repetitive Skyward Sword: yes the Ancient Cistern is genius but it was too little, too late.
I didn't enjoy the lazy sand Ship , the ''boss'' was a joke and it only got worse from there with Biolcyte, an even worse boss than the tenacle baby abomination.
All while you felt like someone was forcing you into an MRI tunnel!
The series was growing tired & stale, very Quickly - and some people want to return to the claustrophobic hand-holdy corridor gaming?
For what? To see how big Ganon's beard was this time when he betrays & consumes the far more interesting Sub-villain??
For me, the story focus needs to be improved. It's sounding like Echoes is going to have as light a story focus as BotW/TotK, and far from having been a day one player for years, I think it's going to be the first Zelda game I not only don't get day one, but may end up not playing since I started when Oracle of Ages came out.
I need more from a game than a physics sandbox puzzle game. I want epic sequences and even just a simple story that fleshes out the world or timeline connection - and feels like my actions are influencing the world.
TotK is the only mainline Zelda title that I haven't bought. Hated BotW with a passion, despite buying and trying it twice, first on Wii U then Switch. It just wasn't a Zelda game. The old formula wasn't broken, and didn't need a complete overhaul.
@@FuzedBox I was willing to give TotK a fair go on the assumption they'd improve its failings, BotW being a brand new direction, and the final trailer suggested a much stronger story - and nothing was different.
So I'm approaching Echoes with MUCH more scrutiny, and I may end up skipping it. Which sucks, cuz I've always wanted a playable Zelda game.
@@FuzedBoxI would like to see the old formula return while still keeping the big open world
@@TaliesinMyrddin echoes of wisdom now released and you couldn't have been more wrong about the game
@@KevZ7. So I've heard, and I'm very happy about it. I may actually play it after all
For the food mechanic, my fix would be that when you eat anything from your inventory it doesnt take effect instantly, once you close out of the inventory Link does a little eating animation that takes a few seconds where he can still move but can't use his hands for anything (including runes). This is a nice drawback and actually incentivises cooking even more. You cant just eat 10 apples in a row now unless you want to be super inneficient, you now have to cook them into a meal.
-Disappointing = Story/lore
-Masterpiece = Gameplay/Mechanics
We have praised the developers for what they did on a 7 year old console, but we wanted more from the story stablished on BotW and we got a samy, uninspired and out of the timeline story
Honestly, Totk got slapped with the label 'masterpiece' just because people feel it's due to it. In reality it is very disappointing in many regards and it would perhaps only have been acceptable if it had come out one or two years after Botw as a sort of in-between game. It may have sold like hot cakes, but it's clear that it has generated nowhere near the amount of internet gaming culture that Botw has, largely because people played it, scratched the itch and then put it away.
My main problems with Tears of the Kingdom was that all of its Aesthetics felt silly and over the top, compared to Breath of the Wild which was a much better mix of Fantasy and Reality. Tears of the Kingdom was a bit too out there, and not as relaxing. Breath of the Wild was a Breath of fresh air, while Tears of the Kingdom was so full of stuff you couldn't breath.
This alone explains why some people prefer one game over the other, and can't understand the other crowd. Those that want as much content as possible, vs those that want a more relaxing experience.
The second problem is that this game completely invalidated Breath of the Wild's story. Trying to piece the Zelda timeline together is one reason I've loved the series, and this is the first game that seems to directly spit on that Idea, rather than just make it challenging. Its lack of continuity with Breath of the Wild is what makes it stand out from all the other games which are also hard to place on the timeline.
I wsh that there was a Second Traditional 3D Zelda Team who made new 3D Zelda Games. They still sold well prior to BOTW so I never got just WHY Nintendo stopped making them. They could easily slot those games to release in-between big "open-Air" releases. Same with new 2D Games.
Sales went from several million to thirty million with BOTW
@@bwscarbthis speaks more volumes than anything. There’s some people who buy games and don’t play them too. Some people who didn’t like it. I’m sure most people did like it. I’m in the last camp. I immensely enjoyed TotK.
@OP. I know why. Skyward Sword happened. Nintendo experimented too much and forced that play style on people who hated it. Then decided to go another way and getting inspiration from Skyrim worked because of their sales. But considering Bethesda probably got inspiration from Nintendo too(Mario 64, and Ocarina of Time, come on that game was open world to a degree too) I’d say it fine.
Dude! You sounds like the air conditioner in Brave Little Toaster haha
i find tears just a rehashed botw with stupid building mechanics that doesnt fit into the world.....
My arrogant opinions. Shrines: you can reduce their prese 0:00 nce by 25%. All that energy could be used on the temple quest and the temple themselves. Armor and paragliders needed more character, or at the least taylor their abilities together. That frickn' dragon set is worthless, what were they thinking! Korok collection needs new rewards. That under world ( and 75% of wells) could be written off completely and they could have diverted the energy to caves . My last problem is with horses. Either give them more utility or just write them off.
"Pretty much everything in this game becomes dull if you've already experienced it." Me, with countless BotW playthroughs and over 1,000 hours of playtime: *Awkward Look Monkey Puppet Meme*
Yeah it feels like I wasted $70 on a botw mod with a shit fanfic for a story
Zelda fans always hate the newest game. They have since Majora's Mask. The only thing Nintendo can do to avoid that is to stop making Zelda games.
Miyamoto isn't as involved as he was before, Zelda has been dead for years...
I was thinking the same thing because a link between worlds was a great game
but this reminds me of what happened to resident evil after 4 came out then 2 sequels later the game lost its identity so 1 more game to go for zelda before the series is lost then rebooted from the ashes
yeah i didn't like a link between worlds either, i vibe heavily with the metroidvania esque aspect from pre link between worlds zelda games
I agree with you on the dungeons and wanting things to get back to more linear ways. I love both BOTW and TOTK as good games, but think they make horrible Zelda games.
Breath of the Wild bored me so much, that I had no feelings for Tears of the Kingdom beyond, "they want SEVENTY DOLLARS FOR WHAT???" Combat was uninspiring. "Dungeons" were uninspiring. Treasure-hunting was uninspiring. The only thing that it had going was the beautiful scenery and the ability to literally climb on anything which.... arguably isn't really that cool. "Oh that's nice look at me just spider climb this rock with absolutely no gear whatsoever" just does NOT compare to the exhilaration of firing the hookshot and literally launching yourself across the map to the great beyond. And we live in an age where "beautiful scenery" is like a dime a dozen. Any and _every_ game can and does have lovely imagery to just _look_ at. Breath just did not feel a fraction as revolutionary to me, as I was led to believe. It was so off the mark it didn't even feel like a Zelda game, it felt like a Nintendo-styled SkyRim-- which is exactly what they drew inspiration from. That's my not-so-humble opinion of these games.
Id like the next zelda to be half way between botw and ocarina. Open but with proper dungeons and bosses and darker in tone, oh thats elden ring.
I think the interesting question is what the zelda team thinks of totk?? They definately have noticed the drop off of playing hours and i suspect they see the backlash online-- However these games are amazingly successful both critically and sales wise.. The zelda team seems to focus on "look at this" tweets more than anything else at this point (totk is made for "check this out" vids). Zelda games have always been pretty easy.. but as the popularity of zedla has skyrocketed, the games seem to be made even easier, for a "wider" audience.. There is always a risk for a "true fan" when something they love catches a wave and becomes popular...zelda has become incredibly popular in the botw era.. I don't know where they will go but i hope it looks something like.. OPEN WORLD / LINEAR DUNGEON with a lot more roadblocks (gamey things that makes something.... a game).. With this last title they have provided so many things to the player that can be "cheesed"-- rending you pretty much OP.. that can be fun but it doesn't make a good "game"
TotK Took all the tedium and frustration from BotW and quadrupled it. I couldn't even play it after a few hours because all the building mechanics on top of constantly having to farm turned this game into a job. As far as dungeon order goes, they absolutely could have a classic dungeon experience by making the dungeon order always be the same no matter what what "entrance" you used. Find entrance #3 first you get dungeon #1 find entrance #1 next you get dungeon #2
The dungeon thing doesn't make sense to me. Why would you enter the Wind Temple entrance and wind up doing the Fire Temple? Unless you mean shrines and even then, a lot of the shrines are themed based on their respective areas.
I have this same talk(in core) with some friends and cousins: the dungeons can come back in old fashion, and A Link Between Worlds already give the answer, plus these necessary itens could be held by enemies around the world.
Every time this kinda discussion comes up, link between worlds and its item renting system gets mentioned as a possible solution...
No, that's lame. You'd still have to backtrack to the rental location, and just renting these tools does nothing for the adventure aspect of these games. It's a big part of why I still haven't really played Link Between Worlds. I dont' want to rent my items, I want to FIND them.
Zelda already lost its identity when it went 3D and started holding your hand with the companions. And BOTW and TOTK still hold your hand too much in certain ways. The divine beasts were a good idea, but they were implemented horribly. SOME parts of the new dungeons are better(like the fire temple specifically, it actually felt like a big puzzle), but the themes didn't help them. If anything they made them worse and less interesting because again, I loved the idea of the divine beasts(not necessarily being beasts, but the whole dungeon being one giant rotating puzzle was a really interesting idea with some great potential). And ultimately the way the new dungeons were set up and "presented" was just like the beasts but without the rotational stuff. And again with the divine beasts and the handholding, how cool would it have been if nobody ever told you the beasts existed until after you organically stumbled upon one, roaming around off in the distance somewhere?
The absolute LAST thing Zelda needs is to go back to the linear formula. That formula fuckin sucked and turned what was supposed to be a fun adventure into a guided tour of Hyrule Park. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were huge steps in the right direction of what Zelda needs to do, but it's still not perfect. And Tears just repeated waaaay too many mistakes made by Breath. The dungeons don't need to be themed, and we don't need all kinds of dramatic storytelling bs. We just need some hidden shit to find. When I saw that one doorway that was supposed to be down in the depths in the very first reveal trailer for Tears, I thought it looked like one of the old OG labyrinth entrances and that we'd be finally getting hidden dungeons back... But then we didn't. That's what we need more of.
We need Zelda 1 in 3D, in this or a very similar engine, but without the minecraft-y stuff or the constantly breaking weapons with no way to repair them. We need a hunger meter or cooldown timer for eating more food. We need a quick-access food button of some kind too so we don't have to go into the menu and stop the fight to heal. We need better rewards in chests. We need fewer copy/paste things like shrines and caves and korok seeds lying around the world and more unique interesting areas to explore and find dungeons in. We need more fleshed out ruins if there are going to be ruins. Why were they all just broken walls? Why wasn't there a basement down below any of these walls that led to dungeons? Why were we immediately told about the 4 big main objectives of the game for both games, in the opening acts?
What made BotW special, what made it work, is the sense of exploration, discovery, the enjoyment of traversal and the overall ambiance.
In TotK you re-explore the same map so you don't have the same excitement from discovery (although the nostalgia factor of revisiting places and seeing how they changed compensates this loss a bit), and once you learn how to make a hoverbike the enjoyment of traversal and problem solving is lost as every challenge boils down to "fly from A to B". In the end these two factors make exploring feel like a tedious task.
Also, I think giving the player too much freedom starts to feel like playing with cheats turned on at some point. Like in the fire temple I just used the hoverbike to fly from keypoint to keypoint , skipping all the puzzles. In the Gerudo desert I just flew over the sandstorm to reach Gerudo Town.
Now that I think of it, flying machines are the biggest culprits when it comes to what made the game feel trivial and tedious.
The hoverbike breaking most things was probably why those wings and balloons had that 1 minute limit in the first place. If there was some kind of check for sustained flight which then accelerated your energy use or dispelled the control stick, then most of the balance would be restored.
There are so many things wrong with that mini-essay. 🤦♂ Must have hurt to write all that and end up saying nothing. You clearly haven't played the game or aren't serious: the Freedom is the whole point of *Open world* adventure games. If you don't like it, go and play the past 20+ years of Zelda where your 'Hero' cannot jump 2 meter gaps & grab Hookshots for the 10 thousandth time and be forced to feel excited. Us proper Zelda fans embrace the change and enjoy a proper Adventure.
@@netweed09Holy shit man, you don’t have to dunk on the classics to feel like you deserve to enjoy the new games. By all means, have fun with the new games but don’t be an asshole for no reason, people are allowed to criticise the series they love
@@geschnitztekiste4111 Lol are We triggered much over in that sweaty corner over there? 😭
And there you go with the Gatekeeping Emperor with no clothes on again. "Classics" because of course the Zelda games that outsold those "classics" by almost 3:1 are not classics themselves. You people are actually sick upstairs.
You honestly need to grow up, no one has to meat ride the older games either. Physician heal thyself.
@@geschnitztekiste4111 Lol are We triggered much over in that sweaty corner over there? 😭
And there you go with the Gatekeeping Emperor with no clothes on again. "Classics" because of course the Zelda games that outsold those "classics" by almost 3:1 are not classics themselves. You people are actually sick upstairs.
You honestly need to g row up, no one has to meat ride the older games either. Physician heal thyself.
I think there is absolutely a way that the Zelda team could marry the new, open-air format with the older style of "stylized linear dungeon crawling." I don't think it has to be either/ or... I think Nintendo was just afraid to push the envelope too far away from what made Breath of the Wild such a success. But that fear made an obvious disappointment of a sequel that could have been so much more.
And A Link to the Past is open world after the Palace of Darkness is completed. That is because once the hammer is obtained, the rest of the Dark World Dungeons are accessible no matter what order you complete them in.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 Okay, but that is literally one of the finest games ever made, it's a Masterpiece for its time.
However, Tears doesn't have to follow in its footsteps if it doesn't want to. Risks Were taken and they paid off as TOTK is the _Fastest_ selling Zelda of all time , no matter what is said in some random comments. Not that I need to 'defend' it with that. Of course, it's not Perfect, but not for the reasons you stated. I enjoyed what I got but felt there should have been at least 2 further Temples and a lot more of the Lore dotted about at certain points. I feel there should have even been a Key quest where We did get to time Travel back to that lost age. Facts are, Tears actu5even leaned towards this while Breath was hollow and stark empty. But I'll let it off , as it had over 15 years of stasis to shoulder the burden of change.
@@netweed09, I have a big problem with the durability system. Link is a knight. He should have relearned proper weapon maintenance by the time TotK happens. Compared to the previous games, the durability system portrays him as irresponsible with his equipment. Even though the rock Octorocks repair weapons in TotK, they are only found around Death Mountain. If only the blacksmiths in each village were able to repair weapons instead of just the Champion’s weapons. And the story of TotK makes me feel like Zelda’s janitor, not Hyrule’s hero. Link is just an afterthought in terms of characterization. Compared to Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, Link has no emotional reaction when he learns that Zelda turned into the light dragon. Why isn’t he crying for the loss of the woman that was his roommate if not girlfriend for five years after seeing that memory? Skyward Sword has Link slamming his fists in desperation against the crystal that Zelda seals herself away in.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 I understand that the new Mechanic is a sticking point for many. However, how else do you apply the drastic changes they wanted? I think it's refreshing, as I've games with the old trusty unbreakable for over 20 years now. For me, the change was welcome.
@@netweed09, and the impact of the item get jingle is less impactful of a rush of dopamine due to the durability system. In the old games, it felt like “Oooh, what does this do?” In BoTW and TotK, it feels like “Another thing that will break in five minutes. Wish it was the Hookshot.” I HATE treating everything in the inventory as consumables. A sword is not an arrow. Arrows are consumables, swords should not be consumables.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 Hmmm, I mean I still refer to my point above , unfortunately there's no happy halfway between Unbreakable and breakable. I think they did the Best they could, I mean I like it. The Master Sword does not truly break and while the system was really boring and barebones in Botw, honestly I'm very happy at Tears' arrangement of Fusion of materials making combat 10 times more worth it. Honestly, each to their own opinions but I don't see how people can say otherwise, of course unless maybe like you they are totally non-tolerant of any weapons breaking. I dunno, Skyrims weapons are 'unbreakable' but the Specials have a cooldown on their Magic and many need re-Enchanting.
until totk every zelda played and presented itself differently even if the core gameplay was mostly the same. oot/mm->ww->tp->skyward sword. each has a unique world, theme, appearance (except mm but n64 hardware was very limiting), ui, combat, characters, etc. so even though the core zelda identity is shared across them there's still plenty of new stuff to do and explore. but totk was just botw with a reskin, which is still a good game but very disappointing for people who have already played botw
i think that they should have made the shrines a lot like dungeons but different, like how instead of just a very small basic puzzle I think they should have used the massive stretches of unused map to tie it together like you enter a dungeon it gives you a linear quest that you must complete almost like a bit of a treasure hunt. like maybe one (in Botw specifically) where you must cross the tanagar canyon to find the forgotten temple and from there search through a maze like place filled with guardians for a hidden room with a compass leading towards it
you could still have open world but linear storyline. for example, specific story beats upon completing a dungeon could awaken a dungeon's ability to be explored. Thing lightning temple, but instead its unlocked by completing the previous dungeon.
You can keep shrines, maybe add variety in their aesthetic. make them reflect the location they are in and perhaps integrate them into the world better.
The sheikah slate/purah pad type system can be expanded, maybe aesthetically altered too, but you could have powers unlocked halfway through a dungeon, like a traditional zelda item, then have the item be used for the rest of the dungeon.
Take the design elements from eventide island where you lose all your gear but apply it to the dungeons, or better yet, eliminate the variable gear system w/ durability and return to traditional progression when it comes to your weapons. im sick of level scaling and its consequences. You can still have an open world with out level scaling, without the sameyness, with traditional dungeons. The rental system is a good solution to this, but far from perfect imo.
Another aspect I'd like to see return is a dark world. i get the depths kinda function as that, but i miss the twilight realm, the dark world, lorule, oot's adult timeline, etc.
I agree with your take on food, force me to exit combat to eat, limit my bottles for potions but i can use those in combat.
Bring back swimming underwater, enough said, I want a water temple, and one that lives up to the reputation the rest of the series has given them. Totk water temple was A.) the easiest in the game, and B.) the least thematically interesting.
Ideally they take what benefits zelda from botw/totk and return to form on the things that didn't, especially storytelling devices and dungeons. I'd like my story to occur in the present, not the distant past memories. I dont mind linear main storylines at all. lock content behind progression, its not less of an open world just because i need the hookshot or zora tunic to reach an area. Ideally i prefer intended dungeon orders, so my solution still stands, but its not even necessary. Oot lets you do a few dungeons out of order even.
I also miss companion characters! not navi or fi really though... more like midna and tatl. I dont want handholding at ALL, but i do want a story partner that can act as the "voice" for link at times.
Also, make horseriding more incentivized. Make it BETTER than fast travel. Random encounters/narrative events in other rpgs tend to fill this.
Idk, i have a lot of thoughts on this, these are just a few.
I was worried about the future of Zelda but Echoes of Wisdom reassured me that Nintendo can still make amazing dungeons. I think they're experimenting a lot right now so I suspect that the next big 3D Zelda game will be something new and way different from BotW and TotK, except probably the open-world aspect. I still really wanna see a Zelda taking place in modern/future times with cool tech swords and flashy gadgets, something Xenoblade-esque
I'm not sure LBW's item rental is the answer. In any case, I'm not interested in Zelda games anymore. They lost me with TOTK. They doubled down on shrines and divine beasts. I just have to accept I'm not who they want buying their Zelda games anymore. I'm all for them trying new things, but Zelda as we knew it seems to be gone for good.
Yeah I'm not doing open world Zelda anymore unless they scale it down to Link Between Worlds style. That felt like a good size but I just don't see what is so exciting about needing to run for 39 minutes before getting to the next destination instead of 3 minutes.
If TOTK had come out 3 years after BoTW, as a massive expansion/Follow up campaign, it would have elevated BoTW to a a "timeless masterpiece" but no, they wanted to give us BoTW 2.0
Botw is the bare minimum effort open world game. you play it and like it if youre a nintendo head and have never played any other open world. Thats the only time its good is when youre ignorant and its your first. totk is just botw reskinned and more of the same. its honestly pretty clear botw was slapped out as a basic open world to blow the mind of people that never played them. then after success release totk to repeat that without giving any effort. and i say no effort because both games function and have same game and reward systems, and the open world is just enough to fool everyone that its deep.
what we need is more substance and a denser level design. having boundaries but giving a good degree of freedom like what the first entry laid out is what the series should return to but with modern game design. i do not want to return to an on rails experience that went to the extreme with twilight princess and skyward sword, but one where we still have some dungeons that can be open in any order while others need items or abilities. story beats should be kept to a minimum, primarily for the intro and end game. totk was bad bcause it added more quantity over quality, had a lot of grinding for side quests, and mechanically it was clunky, and poor enemy AI.
Yeahh. The open world games have been burning me out pretty heavily with their empty worlds I'm supposed to find stuff in.
This game feels more like a dlc than a full $70 game
Perhaps stop Cell-Shading and Lens-Flaring everything into oblivion and actually respect your 3D models and textures?
i liked the cell shaded style in botw but ngl it feels like a step back from the watercolor wonderland that was skyward sword and twilight princess's environmental storytelling and atmosphere centered design. i think we can safely say that if you can copy/paste terrain elements from one region into another, you're not designing those regions well.
@@aricheec7722
I'm working on an indie 3D video game (for Windows PC) and can confirm that copying and pasting assets is an integral part of development, both for productivity and especially style consistency.
That being said...
There are several videos on UA-cam of BotW and TotK without the filters: the textures are lazily matte. Many sections of the models don't line up properly, something that can easily be remedied by snapping vertices together or at least snapping to grid or align plane to grid.
The reason many development teams (especially at the corporate level) have embraced excessive lens-flare and cell-shading is because you don't have to work as hard on quality models and textures because the filters will just blend everything anyway (think drunk goggles lol). This allows for swifter manufacturing, industrialized mass production of game assets, which ultimately makes production more cost effective. This is another example of how economics often supersedes artistry.
@@KnightTechStudios i’m sure that for a small studio copy/pasting assets is useful, as nobody expects an indie game to have a strong design identity from the get go and they’re not as long generally so it’s not as noticeable as a game you spend 60+ hours in. for botw and totk though, it definitely is noticeable and it’s partly because the assets they choose to copy-paste are sloppily made themselves and not that versatile. cell shading can look good, if the design is good enough and doesn’t just look like steam store freebies, so i don’t feel comfortable blaming it. either way it’s not hard to tell that corporate game development chokes artists into mediocrity
@@aricheec7722
Agreed.
...Borderlands for example, (in my opinion) has good production values with the right magnitudes (slight) CS and LF to add a stylistic accent. Lens-Flare is used appropriately, to more accurately simulate flashbangs, acetylene torches, plasma explosions, etc.
I'll conclude with this: Filters like CS and LF (or motion blur for that matter) are another set of tools in the artist/engineers' toolbox. Abusing them can taint the overall experience of a game. Using them wisely, with insight can make for a great aesthetic.
I only got into Zelda properly about 7 years ago i think. And honestly had Breath of the Wild been the first Zelda game i'd played, i likely wouldn't have bothered with the rest as i found it boring from the get-go.
To me it felt just like any other open-world game. The only real difference is that it actually worked without the need of patches on release day.
Something like Wind Waker would be nice. It was decently big, lots of areas (though small islands), lots of side quests and things to do, and had some areas that were locked away behind certain items, so semi open worldish and felt like some areas were beginner friendly and some end game.
The fact that people complain about the freedom a gave gives them, makes me hopeless for the future of the world. If you don't like the food system, simply put a personal limit on what you can use in combat. For example, allow yourself to eat just 1 food during combat. Problem solved.
7:38 it kinda already is a trilogy at this point since age of calamity is taking place in the same story with some time travel stuff (which especially oot fans should agree is canon friendly)
Subnautica fans: first time?
well, they can get stuck in the same old formula; let's see what happens in a few years. Echoes of Wisdom is almost here besides.
people waking up to this game being bad so late is why the phrase "disappointing masterpiece" has been used. the bias is so strong for the new zelda games but this one was so much of the same and bad that its getting hard to ignore it for them. all started with botw, which also wasnt an insane awesome game like everyone wants to mindlessly say like a drone. People that opened their mind during botw seen just how lackluster it was by the end of the game. im just delusional though and a hater, i dont wanna see a good combination of old zelda and open world. also any linear element is bad though to these people
Should of left it as DLC, would have made for a amazing game. Instead they went for the 70 dollar cash grab.
And who the hell saw the original weapon durability system and said "HMMMM, NOT ENOUGH WORK, LETS ADD A EXTRA STEP"
Anyone who calls this masterpiece a $70 cash grab is an idiot
The only thing I didn’t like about this game was the weapons breaking. I spent a long time trying to hack the Switch to install mods just for this game. I eventually gave up. And I had a bunch of nightmares about the game.
Just make one more 3D Zelda title with real dungeons, neat items, an actual soundtrack, make it difficult, dark story, raise the stakes.
Sadly, they may never do this. Nintend'oh keeps dumbing down their games so 2 year olds could beat it by sucking a joycon in their mouth
I'll be honest... I wish I didn't get tears of the kingdom... but my perfect Zelda game would probably just be crazy... Anyways, I would want multiple Zelda dimensions. Think about it this way, Skyward Sword Faron and Twilight princess' too?? Each game keeps their core identities, with birds, trains, boats, or even ocarina's. You get the experience of like 8 Zelda games in one. Sure, it may be longer and require more than a traditional game... but what if we had to complete 6/28 dungeons to beat the game, but that doesn't mean we can't complete every one. If we combined a certain number of games, make it so that we have to beat one dungeon per world, and each has a unique dungeon item or something else to it... but each item can help make other ones easier. Who doesn't want to see Midna, Fi, and Navi right next to each other midway through the game and feel betrayed by link (He would have to combine dimensions or whatever)?? Just imagine the link you are changes based on the environment!! Or maybe even a multiplayer where you have to beat one part of the game (Similar to Skyward Sword) and your friends other games (Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess) and you can use items your friends pick up in your dungeon. You can even travel between games so long as your friend isn't in that one. Just make it so that you have to meet up a lot in a central dimension and whenever you want to mess with each other or solve extra puzzles. I know it's confusing and a bit hard to make, but to me that would be so much fun. Oh, and maybe also see their screens on the side of yours so you can help them solve puzzles if you aren't in the same area! One last idea, what if you could turn into a champion (BOTW) of the zora or gorons?????
As a huge Zelda fan since the original debut (my child self was fascinated by this "never ending adventure"). I've cleared them all. That is until Botw and Tears, I was duped twice for the same reasons as the video and sold them with no interest in clearing them.
I absolutely love BOTW and TOTK. Honestly, BOTW saved me when i saw so burnt out. It reignited a magic in gaming i hevent felt in years before it came out.
I have yet to finish TOTK, i didnt get bored or lose interest because i absolutely love that game i just get distracted with other games.
But open world games need to die. Instead, incorporate open areas scattered to give us a sense of exploration with out being "too much".
A perfect example of this would Elden Ring. I spent over 200 hours my first play through, and it was some of the best gaming ive experienced but i have no desire to run through it again, unlike dark souls 1 and 3. With those games being more linear i ran through them multiple times.
Link Between worlds needed dungeon items. Renting was fine, but the dungeon should of gave something that's required in that dungeon to.
As a baby gamer who's only been playing ANY games for 2 years, it's interesting to hear these kinds of perspectives on these games. BOTW was the literal first video game I ever played, and TOTK was the third! (Animal Crossing was second lol.) They're both just AMAZING to me. I do agree that I wish they'd done something different than the shrines on TOTK, and I don't _love_ the Depths, but overall, it's _cool_ how they kind of blend together for me into the same game. I know that's partly because my standards aren't as high as more experienced gamers, but idc.
I know that newer gamers like me who love both BOTW and TOTK -- and who haven't played any of the older Zelda games -- are often laughed at on these sorts of game criticism videos, and described as basically The Problem With Modern Video Games. But I just want to say that I'm here to support your work and your perspective, even though I'm not experienced enough in the world of gaming to be upset about TOTK's lack of change. :) I like your thoughtful content anyway!
@milo_thatch_incarnate your feedback still matters. You're just as important to the discussion as any of us. Botw and totk are my favorite switch games and I don't want to be a part of the "New Zelda bad" narrative, but fans have pretty solid reasons for feeling alienated. This wouldn't be such a heavy blow in the first place if Nintendo were to say "hey, top down Zelda, linear zelda are still here to stay, they just won't be the main focus" that away we still get old school zelda the same way we still got games like Super Mario wonder.
@@Tenacityfromtheglass - Totally! And thanks for the inclusion! :) I haven't always found the same elsewhere in the gaming community.
My philosophy is the same for both film and gaming: if the fans are complaining, it's not the FAN'S problem. They're the ones who love the IP, and give the creator money! The creator SHOULD pander to the desires of the fanbase (most of the time). Like with Star Wars. The fans aren't the problem because they don't like the new content -- the _content_ isn't up to snuff.
💯 Nevermind the seethers: all they can do is raise their noses up in denial and trot out the rusty old ''Sales =/= Quality'' line.
Why would they want the series to be enjoyed by _less_ people - how is that even being a Zelda fan?? And they're so salty - they stoop to make void comparisons with COD?? COD is a multiplayer game, it sells on its Merits. *Tears is the fastest selling Zelda game ever - guess what , also on it's own (and many) Merits!!* Let these 'fans' live in the past, with their corridors.
@@milo_thatch_incarnatewhat if the fans complain about black people existing in your film/game? Should you pander to them?
@@netweed09sales =/= quality
Aonuma will keep making botw3, botw4, botw5, up to botw99, because for him the "fans" wants that (shitty) excuse of a zelda game.
As a person who has played almost all of the zelda games, I understand where you're coming from. Botw and totk weren't the best, but they're still good games. People still like botw and totk, but what if we merged the things that were good from botw and totk with the classic charm of the Zelda franchise and the things that were good from those classic games together.
For example, what if there was a way to remove durability from an item entirely, so fans that want durability can have it, but fans that don't, can remove it.
Or classic Zelda dungeons in the open world setting with fast travel so there isn't a lot of backtracking.
There is hope for this franchise, we just need to make sure Nintendo knows that this is what we want.
@@zackattackplayz4162 I don't expect anything good from this franchise as long as aonuma is in charge, because that guy has shown he is following trends and this franchise has never been about trends as you already know, but if you wanna be optimistic about it, good for you then, i guess.
Both formulas doesn't mix at all, the gameplay from botw doesn't fit in the traditional style and viceversa. I lost any hope with that auonuma there.
@@Raylightsen thank you ! They don't mix
Zelda has never been super linear outside of the dungeons tho it’s just been going far as the system specs would let it go at the time . Those Zelda games worlds were huge for its time
i kinda felt that the shrine could have used some more complesion an maybe tools inside that could be usefull for the dungeon or such
but randomized wood have been neat the training shrines could have had a training construct outside them
an then a mini dungeon with keys inside an locks idk
Long assumed that ratings are paid for from big publishers; I swear with out fail a side scrolling marrio has been given 10/10 everytime they're release they are the exact same game with a new skin?
I don't understand how this took 7 years to develop. They sky bits were quite cool but just to add the depths which is just an annoying place you find clothes in and have a few fights.
I loved botw but always thought the temples were shit and all they needed to do to make this game class was add 7-10 full sized dungeons you'd get in a traditional zelda n your golden.
Instead they spent seven years making the depths and slightly changing the original map. I'd played btow 3 4 times easy so this got old real quick
The dungeons where an improvement in that at least had they're themes but were still just as few and short
The story through flash backs was sort of interesting but after every boss you get told the exact same story by a different character?
And I think the biggest element missing from these new two zeldas is actually interesting npc that have a consequentially role in the game that has a cool pay, major's mask did this by far the best for me
But the closest we got from these two was collecting wood to help build a town; other than that just random people
Would tell you to fetch themsomething and they'd give you some rupees
These games are so far from masterpieces its unreal
I honest to God thought they would nail totk. Botw wild was such a class baseline to build from and what was missing was so obvious its mind boggling they thought , let's just double the size of this massive baron map
I am hoping they make one more game to make it a trilogy, with a more fleshed out Hyrule. After that I hope they do something new, close to the same but better, the game does not need to be as big as it is, it needs more life to it, open world yet somewhat linear. It is hard to say honestly, I did like the games. They are far from perfect, but they do mostly right. I am a bigger fan of the older games.
"Fans are starting to feel burned" I'm agreed with it! For when Nintendo will move their ass for made a new Star Fox game or a remaster game since we still have nothing for it since 7 years? Thankfully we gonna have Metroid Prime 4 the next years as the third big Metroid game to be released on the Switch after we wait 7 years before they decide to announce something big for it despite we don't have much game and I don't hide it started to be borring to eat every years the same cash grab franchise who keep coming on Switch such Mario, Pokemon, Kirby and somes others.
When I beat the legend of Zelda ocarina of Time as a boy some 25 years ago I remember thinking how amazing this game is and how it would be cool to explore pass the game walls.
I agree with you! Zelda games should not continue with this approach. It’s almost become a forced fed game. They make the game for all ages, which is some of the problem. They don’t want to make it too hard for the kiddies. I too am a huge fan and have been playing for 25+ years. Can you imagine shrines that were not visible to the eye. And you had to pain stacking find them. Or some item that was totally necessary, that was buried somewhere.? There’s almost no figuring out anything about the game. Like I say, being forced fed! I think they could have an open world with also a controlled environment, that you had to follow. They definitely need to bring back challenging temples. Maybe ones that activate other sections of the environment. They definitely need to become more imaginative! If they keep going the way they are, the past games will be a memory!
And games are getting too complex gameplay wise. I'm too busy to play every day. I'll go a month of not playing a a game, come back and completely forget the combat mechanics. But you know what I can pick up and play immediately? Any Mario game.
I just have no inspiration to play BoTW or ToTK at all. What I really want: to play as young Link in a photorealistic or semi-realistic Zelda game, like OoT/MM, with a twist. Playing as young Link in OoT/MM/WW always had this unique charm of exploring with childlike wonder that is missing from the later titles. If you really must play as adult Link though, then make Link the “bad” guy and Ganon the “good” guy - how about an enemy, such as Ganon or Shadow Link as the Hero of Time? About story: I don’t really want to save Zelda again. I don’t want to be that Prince Charming, the hero in a shining armor. I don’t want the same old black & white, good vs. evil setting. If somebody has to be bad, then Link must be that rotten apple - the one whose rottenness and failures indirectly save the world.
Payed £50 sold it a month later after I got bored.
Great games but they aren't zelda
+3d mainline will go back to linear
+2d/topdown mainline is now mainline
+open world elements will be incorporated into the mainline games
+if they're going to continue the open world games that will have to expand Hyrule
I didn’t play BotW, and I loved TotK, but I didn’t want to replay it because it took too long to get started. I used to play Link to the Past over and over again, but the 3d games just take too long to start.
Just stop telling yourself you have to finish the story and you're good.
Edit: Sorry for long comment
Might be my bias preventing me to talk against totk, I do think totk is a masterpiece. There is no perfect game, no real masterpiece without flaws. Totk also has flaws. The one I find the most noticable is freedom. I can understand people enjoy freedom in totk, it was an experiment from nintendo and it works well. It was an overall success.
But I fell in love with the series because of complicated, challenging and thematicaly creative dungeons with linear approach that requies you to solve the challenges they put infront of you. There was no skipping, you couldnt fly a hover bike to the top of a temple and fight the boss.
Totk gave us freedom but took away the challenging and creative dungeons.
While I do agree totk dungeons are a step in the right direction compared to botw, they are very stale compared to oot, tp or tww dungeons.
I like the rest of the gameplay, I don't even mind the lack of content in depths and the sky, as it doesnt seem like it needs more content. The caves were a very welcome addition too.
I just think too much freedom ruined the dungeons.
Nintendo, we understand your games are often tailored for children, but well designed dungeons were the trademark of the zelda franchise. Don't be afraid to challenge your audience.
I think BOTW is better than TOTK. TOTK feels like a moded BOTW, with janky mechanics that would've been different if it the game was made from scratch
TOTK is too long. So most of the hype probably came from people still playing the game after a month. BOTW was plenty big!
Hated BOTW. ToTK honestly surpassed my expectations--massively--but it's still a sequel of BOTW. I don't expect to see real dungeons ever return because their core design inherently contracts the new open formula. And let's be real, most of us beat our first Zelda game when we were about...6 years old, give or take. They weren't meant to be challenging. They're designed for little kids to beat. Fans wanted hard hitting enemies, which meant Nintendo had to trivialize combat difficulty some other way. In this case, really stupid enemy AI and abusable consumables.
In short, there's a trade off for everything. BOTW--and to an extent ToTK's--flaws are all a result of Nintendo changing the series formula and direction. A lot of the series strengths were possible because of linearity. Without linearity, things have to change. A Link Between Worlds *also* had to change the dungeon formula. Dungeons were limited to one item and you never unlocked it, you brought it in with you. This was horribly limiting from a design standpoint and the dungeons were ridiculously easy even by Zelda standards. BOTW's compromise was made so developers could design dungeons around multiple items again.
As an adult with 2-5 hours of gaming per week, it took me over one year to actually beat Tears of the Kingdom. And I loved the game, but it was just so damn big that it was impossible to finish quickly. And I don't like to rush or skip content in my games, especially the ones I love like Zelda, so I had to at least complete all the shrines before finishing and that was what I did.
No, no, thats exactly why the shrines/korok seeds/etc are so great, You just do what you want to/need and keep going. Botw and Totk are the only two games (that arent mmos or racing/fight sims) that make me feel like I am permitted to have responsibilities that are not the game. I shouldnt have to work a real job to pay money to have a fake job, and when developers feel the need to "maximize value" by lengthening everything, thats what they are doing, giving bored people jobs that make them nothing, and giving adults a great reason to save 60+ dollars. I dont check review scores anymore, I check hltb, because if it takes more than 15 hours it better have a damn good reason.
Thing is, I put 200 hours into totk before finishing it, because while it was longer than most games, it respected my time while it was played.
How do people manage to play these games multiple times? I haven't even finished BotW yet.
The solution for all Zelda's flaws is Dark Souls
These game take too long to make so when they are not exactly what we wanted, we get very frustrated because the wait will be long for another chance, anyway, right now if you wanna experience totk in a way that feels more traditional, you can play it without paraglider and avoiding climbing as much as possible, if you really wanna a challenge, dont upgrade your hearts, stamina, batteries and inventory, you will find it to be a whole new game, your saved zonai devices become like your new items.
Agreed Link Between Worlds is fantastic.
I am looking forward to Echoes
of Wisdom. We haven't had a new
2d Zelda in ages.
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom few like 2 sides of the same coin.
I enjoyed the Breath of Wild more than Tears of the Kingdom.
I didn't like the Depths underground map
It felt dark, confusing, somewhat boring and with lots of hard enemies.
I tried to avoid combat on the way to Ganondwarf. I heated the glum mechanic. I liked the Sky Islands more than the Depths.
My Favourite 3D Zelda is Twilight Princess. Good video.
I loved TotK and would give it a 10/10. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect. But I occasionally like watching these videos that criticize TotK because they’ll see things from a different perspective than I have or less forgiving than I am.
But some people tend to forget there were complaints about the past Zelda games too. Complaints about being the same old stale formula . Or some people wanting an open world Skyrim type game and then people complained about that.
I agree a 3D version of A Link Between Worlds would be great and could work.
I'm happy you're open to these types of discussions. Both botw and totk are amazing games, but I don't know if I'm completely on board with a 3rd game in this style. I think it's fun to imagine what a somewhat Gear-gated open world Zelda game would be like.
in ten years do you really think botw and totk will stand out against other open world games? it doesn’t even really hold its own against other open world titles from a decade earlier in terms of atmosphere and story and dungeon design. in the end, we got a formula that was already stale by the time they took a swing at it, and the swing they took was a miss
Based video.
They fucked TOTK so badly with issues at a fundamental design level. Somebody in charge should be fired.
Dude please make the title and video actually line up. I wanted to hear about the mistakes, maybe in a list - instead I get a droning VO of one person's experience with the game. Guess what? I also played and have opinions on TOTK and I don't really care about yours.
please God let Nintendo bring Link between worlds to switch 2
when you said: if you play link between worlds then explained that the item rental mechanic would work in a new game etc. i found it funny because these people wont and never have played any of the old games so its like talking to a wall. half of these people literally probably were still a sperm when link between worlds came out. The Whole reason they cant see the flaws is because they havent or barely played the old games, and expect me to respect their opinion. i played botw and totk both to 100% before i started shit talking
Couldn't agree more, plus the Underworld in TOTK is so much copy pasted busy work covered by smoke and mirrors, most reviewers prised it cause they just play the first few hourse after droping down from the sky.
Gamers have been whining about everything since I was a gamer kidc in the 80s. Nothing has changed. The closer a game is to perfection, the more these babies can focus on the little things that made them cry. I've never played a game that I thought didn't need improvement and I've also never seen a game where the needed improvements are completely agreed upon. I remember people whining hard about weapon durability in botw... THEY BETTER NOT HAVE IT IN TOTK they said. I for one understood it was necessary and hoped it returned. "Better not have to find seeds for..." just shut up.... seriously. 😅
I love open world games not necessarily Zelda. But I also love Zelda sooooo much. Now both switch sky are awesome and they aren't lacking of good and bad things. They definitely need a new formula. In the few things they need it's dlc or even paid content. But It's too little too late. Oh well let's hope for more content that the end might end up with a definitive Identity edition..