Im in the boat where i think they’re intentionally hiding stuff. We have yet to see a boss, a full on cave, anything of the sky islands that is significant (we know it’s important in some way) and we’ve been teased on new and old characters (“goddess?” And ganon). There is so much we have been teased but not fully told about that I think its only reasonable to believe they have only shown us a miniscule amount of what they have to offer. Age of calamity was a huge surprise as well with what it had, so imagine this, the main title game and not a spin off
I think it has to do with the way they marketed Botw, they showed so much and they weren't comfortable with that. So now they want to make sure we know very little I'm guessing. 🤷🏽♀️
Age of Calamity was also a massive bait and switch since we were told it was a look at the original demise of Hyrule and the Champions, only for the game to involve time travel and alternate timelines.
There’s definitely stuff hidden, but the issue is we have no clue to what extent this content makes up. In a brand new game, that’s not an issue. But because it reuses BotW’s map, one has to ask, “How much of this game is retreading BotW, and how much of it is playing the new content?” With the way their marketing is going, you’re going to have to wait a week at least (or several) just to get an idea of what it entails. I’m risking having the game spoiled in multiple different ways, just to see if it’s even worth the price of admission. I might’ve bitten the bullet if they confirmed classic dungeons, but even the art book leak wasn’t definitive. So I’ll have to wait. Plus, they’re charging more money and not at all attempting to justify it. They can talk about “spoilers” all the way, but you could easily use that as an excuse to not show why it “has” to be more. The whole spoiler thing is kind of a wash too. People are not considerate in the slightest. They will leak the entire game in the first few days (or earlier) and ruin it before some people can even get a copy/play it. Showing like, the entrance of one dungeon or a few new challenges that you couldn’t do with tools in BotW is not a big deal. Especially if this game has “so much content”.
I’m 50/50 optimistic vs pessimistic. Could they really have missed the opportunity to add everything that was missing from botw and instead spend all their time developing this new crafting driven approach? Certainly no. On the other hand…. Could they have just gona insanely deep with this crafting mechanic and ways of using it to replace things from classic Zelda games and even botw? Yeah probably they love doing their own thing and just going hard in that direction. Just sucks cause I’ve never not been insanely hyped for a Zelda game.
I played breath of the wild while high on shrooms. It was very very funky riding around on the horse. True panic when the guardian chased me. Ended up at the flower shrine and fuck that was hard. The flowers kept growing right infront of me.
Minor thing but could mean more. If you rewatch the Aonuma gameplay, near the end of it, when Link dives from the air and into a river, he has "Ascend" as his ability. When he's in the air, Ascend is faded, meaning it's unusable, which makes sense....BUT when Link is under the water, before he surfaces, Ascend isn't faded and is activatable! (It fades immediately when he surfaces too, so its NOT to get back to the sky islands.) Obviously this isn't much but....there is potentially more you'll be able to do in water, possibly diving down deep into it, and you'll need Ascend to surface.
That would be so cool, I would love some underwater exploration in this game, it would be super easy to have clothing that allows for under water breathing or even make potions that allow you to breath underwater.
@@linkboy That sounds so neat! I hope they treat it in the same way as stamina was in the previous title. Basically you saw something climbable but you didn't quite have the stamina yet to climb that mountain(until you realized you could destroy that mechanic with food) What I mean is I want to dip my head underwater, see a cave, not being able to reach it; find thing, be able to reach underwater cave.
To be completely honest, I’ve been more enthralled by what comes with the lore and the story that I haven’t even thought about making it feel new and wondrous. I definitely just want to be captivated by the Zonai, the consequences of “defeating” the calamity, and where Zelda is. I’m a nerd for lore, and the games just help me live in that reality
I loved that in BotW, Hyrule was itself a character in the story. As a newcomer to this iteration of Hyrule, it was so fun for me to scavenge about for the piecemeal story about what life here was like before the calamity, and what life had been like since. It’s such a rich world with cultures, people, and hopes and fears in the face of a recurring apocalypse. There are places, weapons, items, recipe components, and gear that all combine to tell the story through the experience of just playing the game. Discovering Hyrule and its history was its own objective in BotW, and it’s the part of the game that people don’t get when they complain that the game doesn’t have much story. Just because the game doesn’t shove exposition in your face doesn’t mean that the story is not there for you to discover, much less that it’s a bad story. Dark Souls and Bloodborne are the best examples of this.
@@AARon11414 I get that perspective, but that just means they need to incorporate more classic lore-telling this time around, because of the fact that Hyrule has already been discovered in BotW.
I always thought wind waker almost got it perfect. Sailing was kinda boring on its own, but the mix of free exploration and main story islands was so good. I think TotK needs that formula. Keep all the open world stuff, but add linear dungeons with themes that you need to find to at least open some final area. Some people in BotW ran straight to Ganon and actually ruined their own experience by gaining good gear too fast. People have admitted that after trying Ganon's castle early, the rest of the game was boring. I think open world choice is awesome, but even Elden Ring required some progression before you could just waltz to the end. I get that BotW made you fight extra bosses if you try to run to Ganon, but even this feels kinda lame. Imagine spoiling all the bosses in one room. Then if the player gives up to actually go explore, they end up playing lackluster dungeons with bosses they've already seen. Suffice to say, Wind Waker had great balance. All it needed was better in-between islands content, which TotK has. Just smoosh the two gameplay styles together. P.S. Remember in Wind Waker when you work with Medli in the Earth Temple? Imagine working with Zelda like that in a dungeon or open world, or even PLAYABLE ZELDA.
I think Wind Waker actually already handled the between-hotspot experience significantly better than BotW (in addition to having much better actual hotspots as you said). The ocean is a much more fitting environment for this type of game because it's naturalistically self-similar and makes it very visually clear what exists to be meaningfully interacted with (islands, submarines, lookouts, etc), and what is only there to create a sense of scale and pacing (open sea). In BotW it's visually often unclear what is meant to be a meaningful hotspot, and this leads to a sense of constant disappointment even outside of the lack of quality dungeons, etc, as almost everything you come across is less interesting or valuable than it might initially appear to be. Another thing that TWW does with its ocean navigation which could be fleshed out even further but nonetheless exceeds BotW and would be harder to realize in a continental setting is generating procedural content on the world's surface, like the rupee/barrel trails that sometimes pop out of the water.
I don’t see that WW/ER combination working. Elden Ring was arguably semi-open structure set in large open spaces. Wind Waker was semi-open structure set in smaller spaces, but a crucial difference between them was that WW’s gate ‘keys’ were novel items that could be used in a variety of ways. To have several applications of these item-keys in large open spaces like ER/Botw risks the player wasting time in repeatedly hitting dead ends because they haven’t got that item yet. ER used the ‘soft lock’ of beefgating mainly plus a handful of ‘hard lock’ single-key gates. Botw gave you runes upfront and then used some beefgating and some navigation gating (stamina wheel upgrading to increase climbing, swimming, paragliding). The current design challenge is a semi-open structure set in large open spaces that uses the hard locks of novel item use. That’s where the gold lies
I enjoyed Wind Waker, but that game was flawed in as many ways as BotW was, just in different ways. Every Zelda game has its imperfections. At the end of the day, were they each a legendary experience for what they were attempting? Yes. Having preferences is normal and fine, but there is no “correct” formula for a Zelda game that BotW somehow upset, as many in these comments suggest.
That was kinda the point of the Entire Game. BOTW was one of the first big games in a while that let YOU figure it out. YOU made the Choice. YOU were the piolet. no Hand holding. No go do this first cause story. Thats what made the exploration so Great. You did not get to a spot that was some wall they put up to keep you out till X. You either could find a way to do it or you could not. This is what birthed just so many different experiences. I can promise you after 5 playthroughs and knowing many also that have played it. None are alike. Everyone. Every single person who plays will have a vastly different experience based on them selves. They do shrines different ways. They Fight enemies different. Their Link in their mind is different than your link or mine. All because the Game never told them what to do or where to go or how to fight. Honestly I have never sat down and watched people play a game I have played and seen so many different ways.
One of, if not the only channel that actually views both sides of this “controversy” with impartiality. One thing I’ll say in regards to the “hiding” argument is that we already heard that argument when BoTW was releasing, and it turned out that what we saw was EXACTLY what we got. Yes there were some surprises in the shrine quests, but the Devine Beasts are largely an inconsequential amount of content and in fact most of the game was just Towers and Shrines.
That is a totally fair assessment, however it’s worth noting that nintendo has been extremely open that BoTW was a nightmare to develop. The physics system and world design took up so much time they had to focus on content they could copy and paste. Maybe the same thing has happened here with the fusion mechanic, but idk I don’t think it has. There’s probably room for them in those 6 years, especially given they re-used the same core, to have created some of that unique one-time use content. That being said, Im like rata on this one. I’d probably turn sour on the game if it was lacking in content
@@Splitboltxful They still may have lost 2 years to COVID you guys, things may have been slow. And they released DLC and Zelda 2 from the ground up remake in the meantime. Could have been working on ports and remakes of some of their older games as well. They definitely worked on Skyward Sword. I get why you're saying these things, but it could genuinely go either way... That's just my opinion though and I could be totally wrong. All I know is, lookout for yourself first!
The developers themselves must have known that they weren't bringing their best with the dungeon content and I can't imagine that improving that wasn't #1 on their list of priorities. For example, BotW director Fujibayashi also directed Skyward Sword (arguably having the best dungeons in the series, albeit with perhaps one of the weakest approaches to the overworld) as well as Minish Cap and Oracles; there is no way he could have felt satisfied shipping the Divine Beasts. Also covid should not have had that big of an impact. Maybe a functional loss of something up to 0.5 years but not anything like 2 years. A large amount of gamedev can be done remotely and Japan never even had legally-mandated lockdowns.
"Will you turn on tears of the kingdom if it doesn't have that special something" I will heavily revise my expectations for the series going forward and opinion of Aonuma. But for now, I believe that it is fairly inconceivable that they aren't hiding more, considering they're only showing a starting area, teasers of enemies and the starting abilities. How large these additions will extend, whether we'll get a dark world that will blow our minds, etc, are not something I'm thinking about. After reading through interviews, reading artbooks and playing the dlc for breath of the wild, I think the developers are extremely talented, have a good design philosophy, a passion for the series and want to make the best games that they can. Nintendo (the publisher) knows that there is a lot riding on the game; breath of the wild was their big break for the series, they can't afford to not keep that momentum going for the new players that just joined the series. Since all of the other 3d games were ambitious (sometimes too much for their own good) I see no reason to believe that this one won't be the same. The reuse, the increased pricetag, pretty much everything makes me believe the game will be huge.
I honestly feel that given how long the game was delayed, and the fact that this is the same people who gave us Breath of the Wild (which was also a very long anticipated game that got delayed) I'm almost certain that whatever they have in store for us is gonna be pretty good. Breath of the Wild was great. Age of Calamity was great... why wouldn't this game be great? They've already teased quite a lot and given there's no 100 year gap in this one I'm guessing its going to be much more story driven.
Agree 1000%. I am worried, but at the same time I cannot conceive that this talented team would botch the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. Especially when they’re using so much from BOTW as a base.
you gotta be realistic about just how difficult games are to make. and just how difficult it is to make a good game. every great game series has included huge letdowns. think of mass effect andromeda. BOTW was a cosmically impressive achievement. many people remarked that they don't understand how creating it in just ~5 years was even possible. I think there's a strong likelihood that BOTW was lightning in a bottle. the stars just happened to align in a way that everything went right during development and nothing went wrong. no major mistakes or red herrings followed that cost the team 2 years of wasted dev time. they had a good idea and were able to carry it through to completion. but now they have to do something new. they can't just execute the same idea again. so they must have experimented with a lot of different ideas. they had to think of something new to freshen up the series. and creativity is hard. most new ideas are bad. there's a strong likelihood that they spent years developing other, now scrapped versions of the game that we're never gonna see. they may have gone back to the drawing board multiple times. it happens all the time in game development, it's one of the reasons the video games industry is so much riskier than software development in general. the least risky endeavors in gaming are rehashes, series in which the games don't need to do much different to sell well, series like call of duty. but zelda isn't like that. they've already gotten lucky trying to turn a copy of a previous game into a radically new game. that's majora's mask, basically. will they strike gold again? it doesn't seem likely statistically, even ignoring the disappointing media we've now seen. for all we know, there were 2 scrapped BOTW sequels before they settled on this plan, and the finished product that we're seeing in these trailers was only worked on for a year or two.
Another thing to keep in mind is that they definitely have more to show us, but it's just uncertain if those things will do it for everyone. In fact it's basically impossible for them to satisfy everyone. The most likely way to enjoy this game is to try and have an open mind and appreciate the specific experience they have tried to make for people.
Credibility truly means nothing to people lmao. 1000 attaboys destroyed by one perceived screw up. Devs truly make games for people that are as fickle as the wind.
It's curious how Aonuma has used the term "this unknown/unfamiliar Hyrule" in two different occasions. It kinda feels like it could be just marketing talk which aims at convincing skeptics about exploring the same Hyrule again. But I hope there's more to that statement and that there's quite a lot of unexpected things to be found in the overworld.
@@chiffmonkey I've seen choice pages out of it (never managed to find a link to the whole thing, and I suppose it's for the best) and it does seem promising, if most every thing in there is in the game!
I am hoping for a yet to be shown under world or cave system revealed by all the islands floating back into the sky. if there are multiple layers and the original world changed then there is less to really complain about. Nintendo already said it's the same Hyrule but changed in many ways YEARS AGO! How changed? Is it enough? We will find out eventually.
Bro I can't believe how many people counter the skepticism about the map being the same with "theres sky islands now, it's a whole new map to explore." It's an argument I feel is mostly made by people who haven't played the other 3D Zelda games before. You got a whole new entire map every game, even in the case of Majoras' Mask, where the engine and assets were pretty much the same, it was an entirely new map. So yeah, "some sky islands" is better than NO sky islands, but that doesn't justify the entire map below being the same, not by the standards set by all 3D Zelda games before it. What do you expect me to do? Play the whole game sky-island-only and pretend it's a different game?
To be fair, A Link Between Worlds largely reused A Link to the Past's overworld geometry (albeit with significant downgrades to the structure of the dark world). However, I feel like TotK has a second disadvantage in that it's not just recycling an overworld but one was already amongst the sparsest and least interesting ones in the series.
Always great to hear your calm and reasonable thoughts on the current discourse. You lay it all out in a way that makes sense and validates everyone's feelings
Honestly, I think many people are just skeptical about how “sequel-like” the game will feel if it uses the same map. Even though I am very excited for this game, and I loved what I saw in the gameplay demo, I can’t deny that I feel that skepticism too. It’s hard to imagine how they could make the game feel completely new and ready to explore when we’re literally playing in the same world space. I do think (and hope) that I will be very pleasantly surprised though.
I still don't understand these ppl after these 10min gameplay especially when he falls down from the sky... I could see so many different on the overworld map... so many spots I want to explore cause Iwant to know what this is and why is this there.. and dont forget all the caves around hyrule.
One thing here is if they are not showing anything more than this and also enforcing strict NDA so reviews can't say everything they want to say how can consumer decide if to buy this product?
ok so we got sky islands and caves, these will probably easily be as big together as the main overworld was. so we already have a completly new map to explore, and then also the old map with updateded locations??
We're classic Zelda fans, and there are things we wish BotW and TotK had in it to add to the 'Zelda' experience (dungeons, as you mention). Things that wouldn't take away from what these new games are doing. We also can't deny, while it's sad to have those things missing, we also appreciate all the new and different things the games are doing. There's a lot of pros and cons to the situation. Appreciate you always bringing to light these sides in a clear and fair way! - Graham & George
This is exactly how I feel, I will add that I do not think BotW is as good as people generally seem to think it is (I would give it a solid 8 or 8.5/10) but I do appreciate what it does and Tears looks great! I do hope classic Zelda continues to exist including the top down games and I hope we see more games like Tears and also Cadence of Hyrule, Hyrule Warriors and the like.
You can't say that adding dungeons wouldn't take away from these games are doing, dungeon as they were in older Zelda games are fundamentally against the design philosophy of BOTW and TOTK , I understand how classic zelda fans feel but sadly dungeons just wouldn't work in these games.
@@naboume466 Why not? Just take a Divine Beast layout, make it longer/bigger, add more & better puzzles, give it a unique aesthetic and music, add a cool boss at the end and maybe a mini-boss midway through. Boom, you've got yourself a "classic" dungeon.
This is laughable. Guys listen this is still zelda and classic nintendo design... they give you awesome mechanics and tools to solve puzzles just like items... the linear item design is old and has been done many times. A good example is the part at the river and they make a boat to cross it. Problem: cross river. Solutions: build something that can fly or float across it using the ultrahand ability, try to make a path in the water or swim across with stamina boosts, or just climb the mountain by it or find another path. They lay out the things you need to solve that problem and you get to decide how you will do it. I think its way better than it being that you just need to hookshot specific points to go over the river... Botw and totk are zelda and nintendo game design but more open ended. The zelda boomers are cringe I watched reactions from people who dont even play zelda or like it to the new 10 minutes of gameplay and there reactions where far more positive and impressed with the new features and gameplay. I'll be honest when i first saw it being so hyped up it took a while for me to take in everything now that i have I couldn't be more excited. I agree it needs more ambitious dungeons like older zeldas absolutely but Zelda was destined to become what it is now and its bringing a bigger audience to the entire franchise its so beautiful it could make me cry
@@2Chep Yeah I was thinking about this recently. I really hope that we get classic Zelda in at least some form if they are to continue the main games in this more open style. - Graham
This is easily the best explanation of the TotK discourse I've seen online. You approached it from a very neutral standpoint and explored the nuance of each perspective very well. I really appreciate all the work that went into this and thank you for presenting the argument in a very balanced manner.
Ummm I still think that assuming that they're hiding good things deliberately as opposed to hiding bad things is not pro-consumer, it's pro Nintendo. Please don't just hope for the best, also prepare in case it's a letdown. We haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise. I am talking tangible evidence, not anecdotal based on a track record...so just wait till you have that. That's my personal recommendation.
This is the first Zelda game in my life where I have literally 0% excitement. I've never cared for building things in games and that seems like it's definitely a core mechanic of this game. The only time it's ever engaged me is in an RTS like StarCraft. I'm glad they're trying to take the franchise in a new direction and stretch their creativity, but it's going too far from the looks of it. Well, at least for my taste. I'm trying to reserve my full judgment until it's out but everything they've shown just feels like I should check out from the series and let the newcomers enjoy Zelda because this really looks like a game for them and not me.
It does give off a bit of Banjo nuts & bolts energy that breaks my immersion into the world unlike how immersed was in Botw, maybe I just lost that creative spark from being a kid but making vehicles isn't exactly what made botw great, could trivialise alot of exploration too but time will tell
I'm hoping that the world will change dramatically throughout the game and that this version we've seen throughout all the marketing is simply the initial state of the world. Not much else can really explain to me the dramatic development time.
Hey when the guy is falling from one of a ton of giant sky islands they developed, and circles the camera, look closely. You might already have your answer for dev time. Everything looks different.
I feel very similar, Ultrahand and Fuse abilities are cool but its going to need something else really interesting to get this game over the hump. An ACTIVE story and Dungeons will definitely do that.
If the fact that the game title is Zelda doesn't get you hyped theres no help for u. sorry ur not a zelda fan. maybe a sammyclassicsonicfan fan. not zelda though. u gotta have faith. without faith its pointless. zelda team worked 6 years. a lot of time. so what we know nothing. doesn't stop a true zelda fan from being hyped lol.
This sums up my feelings very well, if they’re reusing the game engine and basic game mechanics, there needs to be quite a bit there to compensate for that $70 price tag. I’m hopeful though, Nintendo has basically been drip feeding us information. Even now we still know basically nothing besides a couple story events and new mechanics. That makes me think they’re definitely hiding things.
@@TheFreeMinecrafter1 nobody would even bother expressing concerns if we didn't care about the game we are simply worried for its success. caring about a game we like does not make anyone any less of a fan what are you on about?
@@Videogame-606 Spoken like a true consoomer. Logical fallacies, gatekeeping fandom and no true argument to OPs concerns. If faith and long development time is what make a good game. Then Duke Nukem Forever would have been the greatest game of all time. Yet it ended up being a gigantic disappointment for fans.
Screw alienating me, with every video you make the type of person you are seems clearer and the arguments you make are so easily understood that I'm shocked some people don't get them.
I think what I define a dungeon for this BOTW-style game would be like Hyrule Castle or the Yiga Hideout. A location like a cave or structure to explore and fight through and then a boss/miniboss at the end. I like how Elden Ring handled integrating the classic Dark Souls dungeon design with Elden Ring. Locations like Stormveil Castle or hidden caves. I love BOTW and the fun I had in the Yiga Clan’s hideout and Hyrule Castle was something I want to see more of. Maybe the mention of caves from the recent 10min reveal is something I can hope for.
Yiga Hideout was probably the best part of the game, but felt more like a half dungeon a la Forsaken Fortress or Gerudo Fortress than a full-fledged dungeon
Stormveil Castle was my favorite area I think (as far as giving me classic souls vibes). The academy and Leynell capital are close seconds! Agree with you 100% btw
@@saxoman1 for some reason the ambient music they use for castles in elden ring really sets the mood perfectly for me so i loved skulking around in stormveil castle xD
I think the structure of dungeons has been varied enough throughout the series that fans would accept literally anything as long as they had unique aesthetics.
A suite of traditional dungeons would sell me on this game even if it was just 4 or 5 of them. It would be enough to atleast get a play through out of me if they were good. Honestly the fusing shit would be so cool in dungeons. Like there could be dungeon specific Items that could be fused for the puzzles inside and all that fun stuff and could be used creatively in the overworld. I just have no clue how you balance or design this for an enclosed space where someone could come in with any number of things. I really hope, for the people who still enjoy zelda, that this didn't cost them the rest of the game.
The most promising pieces of information we got about TotK's mechanics from the viewpoint of the "classic Zelda fan who just needs dungeons again", are the implementations of Fuse and Ascend, which I believe hint that Nintendo truly does listen to feedback from players. In my eyes, the two biggest flaws that are always pointed out with BotW's design are: 1. The weapon durability system and how it creates a negative feedback loop in terms of player progression and the practicality of engaging with enemies. Nintendo seems to be directly addressing this with Fuse, which both acts as a way to repair/increase the durability of weapons and provides infinite incentive for collecting any and all weapons and trying out their combinations. 2. The lackluster quality of Shrines and Divine Beasts, both aesthetically and functionally. Ascend feels like the most "dungeon oriented" tool in Link's new kit, as it's specifically used to maneuver through vertical spaces while still having limitations as to not be used everywhere (basically, a more linear and binary tool compared to the rest), which immediately could be used in an infinite number of ways within a multi-floored, traditional puzzle box dungeon. It might be copium from waiting 10 years to see classic dungeons again, but I don't think that Breath of the Wild's modern team of new generation of game developers would spend 6 years not addressing two very obvious weaknesses with BoTW.
I agree with you very much on the front of fusing weapons. They have decoupled the value of defeating enemies from their weapons, which means you have a reason to go out and defeat enemies down to their specific type, with defeating those enemies being useful throughout the entire game. It was a problem in the first game that was only slightly offset by armour upgrading and kilton, but it wasn't enough to fix the issue. It is a net benefit to defeat enemies when you see them in almost all circumstances now. Additionally, you can't simply force an enemy to drop their weapon, steal it and run; you will not be getting the full (meaningful) reward. This also means that they can now design lots of enemies that don't hold weapons in their hands at all, as they can still drop materials that you will be able to use upon their death. Hell, they're actually incentivised to add a ton of enemy types so you'll have a lot of unique effects for your tools throughout the adventure. I think it's a very promising advancement, and indicative of the combat design of the game.
Personally I disagree with it fixing the weapon durability system. The main problem of that to me was how the flow of combat felt like it was halted and ruined and that the weapons themselves didn't feel special, powerful or valuable. It just didn't feel rewarding at all. I think this fuse mechanic is pretty cool but doesn't fix any of the problems I had with the weapon durability system. It's just more breakable weapons that don't look cool, powerful or beautiful in my eyes. Now of course there would be some cool-looking weapons for sure but just in an overall general sense that's how I feel.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 I think Fusing weapons will add a greater sense of personal connection to your weapons while at the same time alleviating the feeling that you need to hoard them, since you can always make new ones or re-fuse something to upgrade it. Previously, the value of weapons was staggered by the fact that they break unequivocally, so you would often end up either avoiding combat entirely to preserve your weapons or use weaker ones in combat while the good ones sit in the back of your inventory. The weapons fused in the demonstration were not visually appealing for sure, but we were only shown the most rudimentary types of Fusing. I'm positive that there will be weapon Fusions that are more visually appealing, as we've already seen an example of the Zonai cannon thing Fused onto a different weapon to make it into a completely new tool.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 Yeah, I don't get how people say this fixes the durability system? All it does is bide your time with a specific weapon but eventually it will still break. Unless they haven't shown us something that might upgrade your weapon's stats or something, all this tells me is that I have to use a specific mechanic to mow extend the lifetime of whatever is in my inventory, and sacrifice the cool looks for some of them to just slap a random ass rock or log on them. I know people seem to like the goofiness of that but I personally kinda don't? And what of the Master Sword and Hylian Shield? They're supposed to be super special things and we're even having a big story about repairing the sword, so for them to have us go through all of that and then the Sword is just the same as it was in BotW?? Or combining it with random sticks or hammers? And does fusing things to your shield extend the durability? They haven't shown that. And you also have to craft specific arrows you want now, so you're effectively sharing your arrow slot with the things you can fuse them to. So like, you want Ice Arrows? Better specifically hunt for that resource to have them now. And you better hunt a lot of them too. And I'm sure there's probably a limit to how much you can fuse. There's no way they'd just let you do it infinitely. And what happens when you defuse them? If their durability stays consistent and that stick goes back to being on the verge of breaking either way it's like what's the point? Why wouldn't I just get rid of the stick for something else and ignore the fusion mechanic? Unless the fusion mechanic specifically makes the two things stronger than they would be on their own. They should've showed this as well as this is very important. People are just assuming things and having blind faith but I want hard confirmation.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 This right here! It's like putting a bowtie on a turd. Just remove it entirely and bring back traditional weapons. You can keep the durability if its strong weapons you find in the overworld but just give us unlockable weapons from dungeons.
I completely agree with your opinion. I love what they've shown, but there just has to be more that they're not showing. Although these mechanics may have taken a long time to develop, I can't imagine the developers thinking it's worth sacrificing other aspects of the game in favor of their inclusion. It just wouldn't feel justified to me. I trust that the Zelda team is smart enough to realize that.
I actually fear that this is what happened. They saw what happened with CDPR's cyberpunk, and know that releasing anything "broken" is not acceptable, what we will get is something that can be described as a finished game, however, it's lacking in terms of levels, open world expansion, and many other things. Just polished mechanics for people to "break them" and "return to Monke unga bunga". That's what it's looking like to me, and I am sorry that it's sounding like I am trying to be accusatory or offensive. Genuinely not trying to do that. I am just saying from what I've seen, this is what I've gathered. Nothing has been officially shown or announced that would effectively negate that. i.e. It's what many people have aptly dubbed "glorified DLC", I think.
The game isn’t even out yet and people are already calling it BOTW 2.5. You guys so desperately want to be negative that you’ve made your judgements about a game based on two trailers and a ten minute gameplay demo.
This is a nonsense opinion. Nintendo barely changes their games from the last. We all said the same thing when BOTW dropped and we never saw dungeons. We all said “surely they’re hiding them!!!”. Nope. There were none. This is the game. You either like what you see, or you dont.
@@davismorgan99 Because they havent shown anything that tells us otherwise. If they want to sell us a game that's an actual sequel and NOT an experience that feels like glorified DLC then I want to see some of it. As of now i'm not seeing anything that couldn't have just been added to the base game. I'll gladly eat my hat if the game reveals to be a lot more than what theyre showing i.e full traditional dungeons , caverns to explore, rich enemy variety, deep cast of characters, more settlements, a more involved story (all things that made breath of the wild pretty weak) but we've still not seen any evidence of that and the game releases in 6 weeks. We arent being negative because we want to be. We want this game to be amazing but so far it doesnt feel like it. It's okay sitting in the back and speculating that there's so much they're purposely hiding but then, as a previous comment said, we all thought that they were hiding true dungeons from us with breath of the wild but no it was infact a case of "what you see is what you get".
Reusing the same overworld map was a huge gamble. For me the best thing about BotW was the exploration and discovery. I think this is playing a big part why people are underwhelmed. I'm sure i'll still enjoy it and am looking forward to playing it but i'm pretty sure i won't get that overwhelming feeling of awe and wonder knowing most of the map already.
@w Tht's all very true but i know all the bridges, i know all the mountains i know where the desert is. I know where all the stable are and where the Zonai jungle is, i know where Zoras domain is and all the areas associated with it. The point is that making small changes and then just littering the map with rock debris is NOT in any way meaningful changes. I accept that all the sky islands are new for discovery but i'm not talking about the sky or the underworld. I'm talking only about the main land mass. The view we got when free falling in the video showed us very little in the way of changes to the overworld. This was my main concern when they announced the overworld map would be reused it still is now and i know that when i'm finished with the game i will have enjoyed the game very much but i also know my number one criticsm of TotK will still be the reusing of the map. I am resigned to knowing that now.
@@Tass... I watched Pointcrow, a Zeldatuber who also knows BOTW like the back of his hand, react excitedly seeing new landmarks and structures in an 'old' map during that freefall sequence. Seems to me you don't know the map that well and are only concluding negatively without actually poring over the stuff. He spotted a big tower on top of Mt. Lanayru for example. Was that in BOTW?
yeah but see it like this, we got sky island and caves, these can easily be as big as the main map was in botw, but then we ALSO have the botw map, with what seems like some pretty big changes to atleast the main areas? (like the mountain not having any lava) there will definetly be enough to explore to rival botw.
I think many people tend to forget that we're paying customers and we reserve the right to be critical. If you're one of the believers that thinks they are hiding things, I hope you're right. But for me personally, seeing is believing.
That's my problem with the 'hiding things' argument. It's nice and certainly may be true! But it means that, as a skeptical consumer, I have to wait until the game comes out and spoil myself to decide if the game is worth purchasing. (Especially with the price hike.) As a long-time Zelda fan, this franchise has never put me in that position before.
I totally agree 100%. For me, the fact that the music hasn't changed in old places was a huge disappointment. After playing the same game for 6 years, I was really looking forward to hearing new music when I'm walking in Hyrule, because I've grown tired of it. The music was good, but I've heard it for thousands of hours by now. No later than last week, I was in the Hebra region and I was telling myself how much I was looking forward to revisit theses regions with new music. I'm more worried now than before the gameplay.
no lie, the moment i noticed the music when i was first watching the gameplay stream was when my heart sank a little and now i’m kinda worried (as worried as you can be about a videogame lol) about totk. i guess we’ll find out soon
@@nanashi7779 I am playing for the game. I pity people like you that care so much for insignificant stuff like bg music(like I saw aguy saying in a video, if music is well made you don't even notice it is there)
Lmao your idea of the “moderate classic Zelda fan” is literally me. If Aonuma had just come out and said, “there will be actual dungeons in this one,” I’d be fully onboard the hype train and willing to drop $70 on release day. The way dungeon progression worked in Link Between Worlds would’ve been perfect for an open world game like BotW and I don’t get why they didn’t do just that.
I thought the shrines were a super smart way to make exploration fun and have a point. Also the divine beasts were well done they were just too short. So I think they had great ideas and a lot of good execution. Wasn’t perfect perhaps but it was well thought out.
@@Ray-dl5mp Yeah! The only problem shrines had was that some were a little boring and they all shared the same visual identity. If they can craft a "shrine replacement" but incorporate more visual variety and more interesting puzzles, it'll be perfect IMO!
@@sethfeldpausch4337 yes I agree. Even though part of me loved the similar music and feel of each shrine. Kinda comforting in a way. I didn’t like the combat ones. I want puzzles to be there if we have to find something.
@@Ray-dl5mp I’ll give them some credit. I didn’t really like the divine beasts, but having mini-puzzles is a good way to populate the world with something interesting that isn’t just enemy camps. That’s definitely a “Zelda” approach to that open-world problem, that no other game really does. So looking back, it’s no surprise divine beasts suffered when they made 120 shrines. They were spread thin and something had to give. Perhaps those green spiral things actually lead to cave sections (instead of remixed shrines), which play out differently and aren’t as numerous as shrines so we could get a good mix of “mini-dungeon-like areas” along with “more traditional dungeons”.
They heard about the “weapon durability and exhausting climbing system” by giving us fuse and ascend ability. I’m still hopeful that they incorporate dungeons too. 🤞🏻
honestly the mechanics they showed could lead to some absolutely incredible dungeon gameplay, and I'd be sad if they were only there to screw around in the overworld with
@@calebwest2806 I'm almost pretty sure that we can use it to solve puzzles in overworld or dungeons(?) maybe, just like how Mr. Aonuma hinted at a scenario "Imagine being stuck in a cage" when he showcase the ascend ability.
I think, if dungeons do exist, they will be focused on going deeper and deeper, that way you can easily ascend to earlier parts of the dungeon, but getting deeper will be where the challenge lies.
Its not a complete turn-off for me, but having dungeons is absolutely the difference between it being a good game, and it being a fantastic one. As long as they arent linear?
The way I see it, TotK could be one of the best sequels ever but I wouldn't know because the marketing has been THAT bad. Even during the gameplay reveal with Aonuma, it starts with him riding a horse on the surface and at a glance you could easily mistake the game for BotW. The only giveaway are Link's arm and the sky islands if you look up. Imagine if we got an Elden Ring 2 but it reused the same overworld, engine, and animations and you couldn't tell if it was the original or not from certain screenshots. That's how TotK feels right now.
This was an extremely level headed discussion. I am in the hype camp personally, because the gameplay elements we’ve seen genuinely have me excited. But I understand as well that not everyone will share those sentiments. Different people find different joys in games. Great video. Thanks again
I think its absolutely reasonable for fans to be worried about totk. The little we've seen feels paltry to new entries of the past. Many folk point to MM for the reused assets and say "See? You shouldn't worry." And I think that's not a valid comparison. We've never revisited the same exact Hyrule map in the series like this. At least, not to this degree. The closest comparison we have would be ALBW, but that can easily be hand waved since it had been 20+ years between it and LttP. Yet it still brought new things to the table and has a bit of its own identity compared to its predecessor. Going back to the MM comparison, yes assets were reused but were also reinterpreted for the new world setting they made. I won't blame somebody if in the future they mistake totk with botw. I just hope we get something more that will help set it apart from botw to capture our hearts in the way only a Zelda game can in whatever form that may be
the difference is that BoTW's world is already magnitudes *larger* just on its own than all of Ocarina. They don't *need* a whole new map to create a new story, as evidenced by AOC (despite it being a spinoff). That, and they are clearly trying to give this set of games some consistency to tie the overarching story together, which is a valid reason to keep the same world. If anything it's more like Ocarina vs. Twilight Princess, just more on the nose and a smaller time-skip. It's the same *world* but different stuff in that world.
@@princetbug And I agree with your points wholeheartedly. Totk isn't just another Zelda game, its a direct sequel. Considering what we know about the general plot of the game, a completely new map would be ridiculous. Yet because of that, part of the joy and wonder of exploring the world is lost because the land itself is roughly the same. For most people I can't say whether or not new landmarks or sky islands will be enough to satisfy that exploration. Those people need something new and big to dig their teeth into, whether its an underground area or dungeons. That would be enough incentive to comb through familiar territory to uncover these lost and hidden entrances. Theres an appeal there that invites you to come back to well treaded ground. All in all, I can understand why some aren't yet satisfied with what they've seen. I myself look forward to playing totk regardless as I know I'll enjoy myself. Totk is a house being built upon the foundation that is botw which is exciting for me. What that house should look like is going to differ between individuals.
I don't think it's reasonable to worry about any video game ever unless you are making it and want it to be the best it can possibly be. You haven't bought it yet, why the fuck would you worry about how it turns out? If it's good get it, if it's not play something else...
I think the main concern for me is exactly what the development focused on. If it's mechanic and less exploration oriented, it's a bit of a let down. One of the reasons I found Skyward Sword a bit more difficult to digest was the feeling that the game revolved around perfecting motion control to the point where exploration felt confined (or barren when considering the sky). My thoughts were that most of the focus came from this mechanic and forced a smaller claustrophobic overworld on the development. Now we have the same world, we've played in this world for 6 years, and the wonder of that exploration doesn't seem as present. 15 sky islands just don't seem that compelling to me considering everything. Saying all this, I have a feeling the game will be great... I just need more than new powers to reassure me. Edit: Didn't mean to cause any distress with the sky island exaggeration
You do understand that there are likely entirely sperate teams working on the new mechanics and working on revitalizing the world, right? The base overworld may be layed out the same, but there's no way there's not going to be new things all over it, not to mention the Sky and Underground. 15 Sky Islands is clearly a misrepresentation, we saw more than that in just the single video of gameplay that we got.
Aonuma said at least 3 times " this hyrule ,isn't the One you played in botw . Guys they added these new Powers to the game for a reason , to give us the possibility ti extend the exploration , the rewind Power can be used for fighting for the exploration and for solving puzzles,and i think it's the same for the Power "ascensus " that Will be used not only to go up in the Sky ,but also for the underground exploration ( yes there Will be caves in these game ) ,and this Power can also be used to solve puzzle . You have to understand that this time ,Nintendo doesn't Need to show us everything about the game like they did for botw ,because they know that legend of Zelda brand Is at his top in popularity . Aonuma said in the last gameplay trailer "there are many things that i Wish to show you ,but i can't ,i Hope that you Will Discover by yourself .
I was watching the showcase on the same day I sat down with the Final Fantasy 16 showcase with Yoshi P. I definitely had a distinct feeling between the two games. With 16, I watched the hour and change of gameplay and I got really excited. Yoshida showed a lot of stuff, as he said "talk is cheap", so he addressed a number of concerns people had for the game and how they marketed FF16. It was cool that he showed that he does watch the community and if you know Yoshida, this isn't new to him. I think he handles criticisms well and him talking to the community in a fashion like he does with his FF14 mmo is telling about how he is listening in despite being stalwart in how he wants things done. What they showed went in depth, like combat, eikon battles, eikon abilities, how the menus look, how the world looks in different areas, how the story beats look like with lore and world building, and more. It was great and I was sold to the letter with FF16. With Tears of the Kingdom, I watched the gameplay, thinking to myself, "ok. What's the hook. This video isn't as long". The Ultrahand and fuse was cool. It gives me ideas, like what if you can fuse two of the same sword to make it stronger or restore its durability. The vehicle building potential will probably be very cool to experiment with. Breath of the Wild let you have a lot of freedom to interact with the world in ways you might not even think of. I remember solving a puzzle involving electric currents by dropping my dying swords to conduct that electricity. Very cool stuff. But when it was all over, many things left me wanting. Dungeons are a big part of that. I don't think this game will be bad since Breath of the Wild was very interesting. But I do have my reservations with Breath of the Wild, such as the lack of dungeons, how combat felt super simplistic, even for a Zelda game. I don't get tired of Wind Waker or Twilight Princess because there are cool mechanics such as twisting around to an enemy's backside to flank them, or stabbing them when they are down, or drawing your sword to do a lot of damage. It felt like you were an expert. But the three weapon types feel super simplistic, outside of parrying. Flurries felt both overused and got boring quickly, especially during Lynal fights with silver and gold lynels being such beefy mid bosses. I was hoping for a bit more depth with the weapon play, and I'm still hoping for that. I like the idea of fusing cloud mushrooms to make a smoke screen, and even rocks for a beefy shield. I especially like the idea of fusing arrows with monster parts to change how they function. But my issue is how marketing is so confident in their strut, that they won't show much to not spoil people to such a fine degree, that it sort of hurts its marketing by now showing just a bit more. I rather trailers show less because there is a thing as too much, but there is such a thing as too little too. Especially when there are a chunk of people, minority or otherwise, who are worried about the game. And that's what I think as to why FF16 had me so much more excited than Tears of the Kingdom. It wasn't afraid to address things by showing you more without spoiling large parts of the game itself. Gameplay, lore and the world with hooks on what you can expect were reasonable to show. I am intrigued and hyped for what's to come and I'm far less nervous about it than I am with Tears of the Kingdom. I wished they showed a few more things at least to put some more people at ease. There is being mysterious and vague, but there is a point where it goes too far.
The issue with the Fuse idea is simple. Most people simply won't use it much, they'll Fuse whatever strong weapons they find and that's really it, maybe they'll use it for their shield or armor a couple of times because it pops into their head and whenever the game actively WANTS you to use it, but that's really it. The amount of people who will realistically use these systems is extremely low. How do i know this? Because it ALWAYS happens, same with almost every crafting system, people just don't bother with them much.
@@AzureRoxe Ya. That’s where the game designer comes in. They counter that typical optimization people have by throwing a wrench in the works. These challenges could be a complex enemy, traversal, puzzle, or so on. Nuts and Bolts will have very specific challenges which requires you to think outside the box. Maybe not every one, but you have to keep people on their toes. If the challenges in TotK are basic (use a regular car/boat/flying machine with no extras to solve a problem) then the systems were a waste. They’re only as interesting as the challenges you’re presented with. And I don’t really see this game presenting you with NPC’s that ask you to protect bananas from a Lynel or something. Which limits the amount of challenges you could run into. They showed crossing a river… which is dumb since that wasn’t an issue in BotW anyway. Food, Cryonis, a higher vantage point, they worked fine. What they could’ve shown is “scaling” a mountain during the rain. Because we _didn’t_ have a solution to combat rain before, but you could probably make a non-metallic flying machine (like the hot air balloon) to overcome that. It may not be a new challenge, but it would show _something_ that differentiates TotK and no one can complain about “spoilers” because rain isn’t new (assuming it’s still in the game).
FF16 is supposed to have a demo available before the game launches too. That will be great. I'm still cautiously optimistic about the game, but I'm hoping that they pull it off. I'd love to actually want to play a Final Fantasy game again. As for TotK, I'm kind of done with Zelda if it's just more open world exploration, with what I would barely call puzzles, and bad combat.
Elden Ring gave me an itch for wanting to explore floating ruins but it never really gave it a proper scratch. Farum Azula was great but somehow felt disconnected to the ruins in the sky that the ruin fragment items hinted at. Tears of the Kingdom just might scratch the itch.
it is disconnected from the ruin fragments. farum azula is way off the coast of liurnia, nowhere near most of the sites where ruin fragments are found, like all over limgrave, in the far north of caelid, etc. there may be no connection at all between farum azula and the ruin fragments. the big ruined cube structures you find all over limgrave don't resemble farum azula's architecture. they probably represent the ruins of an entirely different skyfaring civilization from the crucible era?
When I played Elden ring and I’m saying this is a lifelong Zelda fan it just showed me how crappy Nintendo when it came at creating dungeons and caverns that I wanted to explore. Games like Elden ring, Hogwarts legacy and red dead redemption two made everything interesting to actually see and find, tears of the Kingdom looks identical to the game. They came out six years ago with reused music assets and basically nothing new. Oh, in the Saturday morning cartoon, cheesy voice acting that for some reason they decided to do in breath of the wild.
Yeah but where's the game? So far we have sky islands and new mechanics. But where's the actual game? Because Farum Azula was a relatively tiny part of Elden ring. It's basically a legacy dungeon in the sky. Oh and I love that it had 3 major boss encounters. Godskin duo, Maliketh, and a secret boss encounter with Placidusax, the last boss I actually beat in the game, and used the Black Blade to do so!
Agreed! The fact that youv teleported there really added to that feeling of disconnect. But it was beautiful! The thing that BOTW has over Elden ring though is a more modern physics and mechanics system. Farum Azula was beautiful, but having ancient Dark Souls 3-esk game engine (which is just a tweak of DS 1, which is a tweak of DeS) made my character feel stiff and out of place, unable to freely move through this beautiful environment. Imagine if BOTW used a revamped Twighlight Princess game engine? And didn't have all that new, from the ground up, physics system and climbing and general game engine? Wouldn't be as good, it just wouldn't! Yet, Elden ring destroys BOTW in enemy/environment variety and combat system. Not to mention that ER proved that you COULD have traditional DS dungeons in an amazing open world game. So TOTK has a LOT to prove. But given that they already had an engine and world build, 6 years of development later, I SIMPLY CAN'T IMAGINE that they aren't hiding an absolutely enormous portion of the game from us and leaving it as a surprise. We'll see!
This is the second one of your videos like this I’ve seen, and I’ve gotta hand it to you dude. You are INCREDIBLY good at explaining both sides. I was all hype after the gameplay trailer, and you actually made me realize that I’m more concerned subconsciously than I realized. I’m the “BotW was amazing but please just give me dungeons” guy. Great video, thanks!!
The question that needs to be asked is: What could be added to Breath of the Wild's base that would appease old fans without ruining the new gameplay style for new fans? When it comes to mutually exclusive design choices, there's no magic solution to appease everyone. But there there really is a sizeable list of things that would placate both camps: -Boss variety/immersion -Music variety/immersion -Enemy variety/immersion -Dungeon variety/immersion -Story elements -New environments with unique traversal mechanics: underwater, underground, in the sky When I heard that the sequel would reuse all the old assets, I was actually really glad because it meant they had an opportunity to refine the old game and add everything above. The new stuff is good; the game would definitely be disappointing if there was _no_ new stuff. But if Nintendo fails to put in an appreciable potion of the above list, then it doesn't just feel like they're making the tough decision to appeal to new fans at the expense of old ones, it feels like they're *abandoning* old fans when they don't even have to.
Strong convictions loosely held. Nothing wrong with shifting how you feel after introspection/new sources of info. Appreciate your takes and look forward to more videos !
I guess what it boils down to is I don't want them to do to Zelda what they've done with Paper Mario, where each iteration feels like it has less and less of the elements that got me hooked in the first place. Everyday I feel a little bit more like BotW's massive success has actually become a curse on the fanchise and I'm just hoping that after TotK, there's a return to form.
There’s _some_ hope. BotW and so far TotK are build on the concept of surprise, i.e. novelty. I don’t think there’s another wide-scale thing they could do to make those types of games again. BotW had climb anywhere, and natural effects system (wood burns, metal conducts electricity, etc). With TotK it’s weapon fusing (with other weapons or items), and vehicle crafting (with all sorts of objects/parts). I can’t fathom a third way, and even if somehow there was, I don’t think they could feasible keep it up long-term for the series. The “anything with anything” concept is not one that can be replicated infinitely. It’s untenable. So pretty soon you’ll have to settle for something more formulaic or deliberate, but with comparatively smaller changes. It’s probably why TotK reuses basically the entirety of BotW. They know they can’t keep up this “anything/combination” aspect up forever. The time to try that again is now, when you have all these systems made. And with how more complex these new fusion mechanics are (in terms of testing), they probably sacrificed a completely whole new world to make it possible. Because the game after TotK will likely use a new engine, which more likely means having to recreate it. Whereas now they can just reuse it with ease. This isn’t to say the choice is justified or not, it’s a gamble. But, if they wanted to recapture what BotW had, it’s now, not later. Just as if Nintendo wants to make “Smash Ultimate 2”, their best chance is with the following game. Because once you “restart/reboot” and start from scratch, you can’t jump ahead, and then back again. Although maybe that’s a ham-fisted example, but you get the gist. It’s either now or never.
All I've been saying is I hope since 2019 after every trailer and now the gameplay... I'm done with hoping, as sad as it is - we've seen the evidence now. I predicted it but honestly didn't think it would be this bad.
@@mrshmuga9 Yeah I definitely agree. I’m still hoping that this one will have dungeons and a good story, but even if it doesn’t, surely they can’t get away with just doing another big open world sandbox for the next game, they’ll have to do something different, hopefully by fusing it with some of the more classic elements that have always made Zelda games special
You absolutely nailed the “classic Zelda enjoyer” description. I definitely fall into that group but I have some overlap with botw fans. Your closing words really hit home for me too.
My biggest fear is this: The Weapon Fusion and Ultrahand systems seem really cool, but I'm worried I might not end up using them to their full potential. I enjoyed BotW 1, but I feel like one of things that held it back for me was that a lot of the cool interactions for that game became "cool trivia" rather than "gamplay" to me. For example, electrocuting enemies with lightning strikes and metal objects is really cool and feels awesome when you use it, but I didn't use it that often since just fighting the enemies was usually faster and easier (I never did play Master Mode, maybe it would've helped). I worry that the game will lack strong incentives to actually use the creative tools available rather than just something simple and effective.
It can work… providing they make challenges that require you to think outside the box. But who knows if they will. Darn near everything about this game is hidden. I don’t think we’ve even seen NPC’s, lol.
@@mrshmuga9 : Apparently certain constructs here are NPCs. People noticed the ones designated Construct Ranger appear to have the 'talk' option. Haven't talked to anyone though. Link hasn't felt like talking since Ganondorf came back I guess. XD
100% And this makes it stale... in the old games you had to use your entire toolkit because many enemies were straight up immune to other types of damage.
Well the issue was people didn't adapt to the durability system, instead of focusing on alternative methods to deal with enemies everyone just opened a guide and started farming korok seeds until they had enough inventory space that they would never actually run out of weapons. It's what happens when you have to pullback on a feature you designed your game around just because old fans weren't receptive to it on focus tests.
I remember when I saw the first teaser and everyone was out of their minds. Ganondorf is back, and now the castle is lifting somewhere! Where is it going? Are we getting an adventure with Zelda too? What can we expect of the world now? And then 2 years pass, and we discover the castle is like, 2 feet above where it used to be. Zelda fell off a cliff, and in all likelihood, we're just saving her again. That's a good representation of my feelings on this. Sorry, but... six years, and people can still entertain that it looks like a 70 dollar expansion and _have a point?_ The novelty is gone. We know it's not truly a new world, at least not entirely. To be frank, I don't care about an intricate crafting system if I'm constantly retreading the places, enemies, and sounds of the first game. I don't like going into a game this skeptical. I don't want to be spoiled, don't get me wrong, but I've never in my life had to question whether or not a sequel was a sequel this much, and I don't want to shell out 70 dollars for faith either. It's really bizarre how they thought this was a good way to advertise. edit: Oh and let it be known that if I'm proven wrong, which I _want_ to happen btw, I will eat my words and clown on this comment until the end of time. edit 2: I unfortunately wasn't wrong
I know that we are in the minority. But I swear there is no game here imho. Just gimmicky mechanics and a minor expansion to the map. Took From Soft 7 years to make Elden Ring, but that is the real deal. No doubt that they had to correct course and scrap stuff and start all over again, and even though yes they did reuse some old assets, it was a brand new title and an ambitious project the likes of which no one had attempted before. There's no nicer way for me to say this to soften the blow, but Nintendo was probably working on ports and remakes of old Zelda titles as opposed to attempting to dethrone From Soft which usurped them. CDPR may have kinda imploded with Cyberpunk, but they'll be back with Witcher 4, and that's well in their comfort zone. It will probably turn out just fine for them. This pushed down what used to be the "IT" fantasy series further on the quality ladder. Square looks like they're doing okay too, and while they haven't truly made a comeback, they're making MMOs that offer a different experience than single-player campaign fantasy games. Shame really, if this was Microsoft, Sony, or another good 3rd party developer, a gem like this would be cherished. Edit: This is very important, but I am not saying this to hate on Nintendo. Also, please don't harass the devs on social media guys if the game doesn't live up to your expectations.
It usually takes a few days after release but by then the rom will be online. So you can emulate it, if you want to do a demo before you commit to buying it for 70 bucks.
@Sam F.S I honestly don't even like comparing Nintendo to other companies anymore because it's just kind of...pointless? They're gonna do whatever because Nintendo is the "do whatever" company, for better or for worse, and their practices over the course of this gen have been especially...unique. Taking the genre and industry forward doesn't seem to be a real primary goal to them. They design games to be surface-level fun as always, which isn't always a bad thing, but as a result, I doubt they will ever take much inspiration from outside their bubble. It's not impossible, but I suspect there's a reason why they focus on stuff like fuse in ToTK almost a month before release despite the fact that we still know basically nothing about it that isn't "yeah, we reused the world you explored for 500+ hours lol."
People remember the Wii U right? Nintendo failed to articulate to potential buyers why the console was something new (and worthy of shelling out more money), and not just a revamped Wii. Although not exactly the same here, I hope Nintendo aren't being too overconfident again in thinking they will automatically get a big win without delivering on what a sizeable "minority" have been hoping for.
You hit the nail on the head for what I’m feeling in your outro. I’ve always had concerns about the reused world, and the mechanics we’ve seen, while cool, don’t feel substantial enough for this to be worth a whole new game. I really hope the people saying there’s more to the game than we’re seeing are right (whether it’s dungeons, another world to explore, or even a gripping story like you said) but right now I’m just not seeing it.
Hey Becky, that's kinda the thing. Even if these people magically turn out to be right, it will honestly be a coincidence and a bizarre marketing strategy on behalf of Nintendo. We haven't been officially told that that's gonna be in there, nor shown. So why would anyone assume that to be the case other than wishful thinking and blind trust in a developer. Which, in this industry, has been proven to be a huge mistake.
I honestly don’t care I’ve played every single mayor Zelda game ever and I’m not gonna stop now. Imo iPhones are definitely not worth its price but it’s still one of the top selling phones ever. Imo Zelda is the same if you don’t want to play it great you saved yourself $70 congratulations hope that helps with whatever other expenses you have.
@@samf.s8786 its not blind trust, its stablished trust, zelda is 35+ years franchise that has released banger after banger and they have experience reusing maps and making them feel different, its just thats most people skeptical either haven't played many zelda games or outright just played BotW.
"The mechanics don't feel substantial enough to be worth a whole new game"... The possible combinations from the Fuse mechanic, just from what we have seen, which is a very small sample, are already in the hundreds if not thousands of options. The Ultrahand mechanics are ridiculously interesting in of themselves and if the cannon shown in the past trailer is a hint we will probably be able to arm the vehicles we make. Hell even the point of the map not being too different is not as big of a deal as most people think, BotW gave you a completely different set of tools to explore the world, imagine doing the Great Plateau without Runes, the experience is quite different like that. I understand you want things like dungeons or more story, but why would you expect that when this is a direct sequel to a game that didn't have them?
Yeah I think it be fun to have 7 giant Dungeons, temples or shrines that are enclosed space that are their own open exploring locations with a boss. If that doesn't happen that's fine, but it be cool to have something connected to the sages or something
My problem with the whole dungeon ordeal is that I personally thought that while BotWs world was beautiful and filled with things to do, it was forgettable due to lack of significant locations. Sure you had the villages that you could go to, but aside from buying one or two sets of armor and arrows, there wasnt much differentiating themselves from each other. Dungeons could fix that problem for me in a few ways. There could be exclusive gear found in or around the dungeons, or even bosses that respawn at every blood moon to get rare materials. That alone would encourage revisiting them and would be a memorable landmark. It is also possible that I am simply forgetting about something simple, but maybe I forgot it for that exact reason.
I agree, the least forgettable location to me were the 3 huge mazes with a barbarian piece of armour at the end. These 3 locations were the ones that resembled (at least aesthetically) to a classic dungeon
BOTW is very easily my favorite Zelda game and preferred style for the series going forward, but... yeah, I'm going to need me some dungeons or something equally massive to make this the game I was expecting it to be in the many years leading up to release. Replaying BOTW made me realize how different even the most similar sections are to classic 3D Zelda. Shrines are extremely short, easy, and open-ended even if they are fun. The Divine Beasts are entirely non-linear, so solving any individual puzzle only takes a few minutes or so and doesn't allow the dungeon to interconnect in any meaningful way. The most interesting of linear sections in the game are often trivialized by some simple "creative" thinking, like gliding past Yiga guards or using gusts of wind to skip Hyrule castle. It's one of my favorite games of all time and I absolutely love the sandbox elements, but even I will admit that, in my opinion, BOTW's changes are not always just different, but detrimental to the usual strengths of the Zelda series. I want an 11/10 game, not just expanding on the strengths of BOTW, but filling in what was lost in the open-world transition. Concerns being written off as those of a pessimistic, nostalgia-obsessed OOT stan who "never actually liked BOTW in the first place" has been a take I've been hearing a lot lately, so it was great to hear you address just about every side of the conversation.
The reason I’m skeptical is because BotW had several serious issues imo and they haven’t addressed any of them, they’ve just talked about new content they’re adding. In the latest video durability looked unchanged, so I have no idea if they even recognize any of the problems. It also doesn’t look like a $70 sequel, it looks like the same game with new content that was pretty unimpressive. It doesn’t look like something they’ve been working on for 5 years, it looks like something they could have made in six months. I hope I’m wrong about all these things.
I just dont want the open world to be so empty again, though I don't see why the exploration won't be more of the same from BOTW I really hope Nintendo is actually hiding a great deal of content. That 6 years of development and $70 price tag must mean something, right? (doubtful tho)
Your opinions don’t matter cuz they’re always followed by sound analysis and valid reasoning. You make incredible content, and your opinion shouldn’t scare your viewers away cuz we know what we’re here for 😄
I agree that the fuse system is where all the development time went in to. Every item can combine with any item, that’s a huge undertaking and unfortunately I couldn’t care less about it. I enjoyed breath of the wild when I played it but now looking back in hindsight I just wish they stuck to the tried and true formula of what the older games felt like. I’ll take a twilight princess or a link to the past over breath of the wild anyday
Yeahhh that’s where I’m at too, I knew they weren’t going to go in the direction I hoped, but I really wish they hadn’t leaned into the “speed runners breaking the game” aspect because while those are the videos that get the most attention from botw, I don’t think the majority of players actually play like that
They have a bigger team than they had for the first game. The same game that is on many peoples GOTY and Favorite game list. I don't think they spent the last 5 or 6 years with just the fuse system. That is a silly level of skepticism. I'm sure there will be many new locations/environments/enemies as well as changes to old ones.
Exactly. Keep the dungeons and slap an open world on top. Elden Ring proves its a winning formula. They already sort of did it with Wind Waker. Why is this so hard.
I agree with you 100%. Hoping they are hiding something big, and when the times comes they will drop the bomb! (if that's the case I hope they don't show us anything more until the release, I'm ok with that). And yeah, I align with the "classic zelda fan", I will be pleased with a few good massive thematic dungeons and bosses. And storywise, if it comes with a beautiful and meaningful journey that would be the cherry on top. I liked what they showed us, yeah, but there is this little voice in the back of my head whispering "cool... but, is it just that? It can't be just that... right?". Great vid!
My biggest problem with botw were the large open spaces with nothing. I hated the feeling of running for 30 minutes to find nothing of interest. I didnt care to do all the shrines, after 20 i found them to be a chore. I didnt care for the lack of enemy variety. I didnt like how easily my weapons broke. I DID like the tower dlc. Where it stripped you of everything and set up enemy puzzles. Ending with a Lionel.Which CONVINCED me they need dungeons. I thought, at first, i wouldn't be too sad without them but I was. I wanted a puzzle and a planned dungeon that had certain, unique, enemies.
there might be a lot they arent showing but what we saw may just be where the bulk of the development time went in. Im not a programmer but i could imagine that making that many interactable parts could take a massive amount of time. A lot of people at least from what ive seen online mostly like botw for the cool things you can do with the gameplay mechanics (wind bomb, bullet time bounce, etc) rather than the story or open world. I think they may just be targeting those people who like to see cool things rather than developing a larger world and deep story.
that feels a little unfair, if you ask me. these days ppl keep playing BotW for the cool gameplay mechanics/quirks, now that the game has been broken to hell and back and it’s 6 years old, but back in the day, the discovery, wonder, and true exploration of the everything the game offers was what made BotW damn near a masterpiece game when it launched. but now everyone has discovered almost everything BotW had to offer
I'm a "Zelda Boomer." Pretty much what I was hoping for was: add unbreakable weapons, add dungeons, improve the variety of over world bosses, add some more interesting villains with personality, and create a new over world. That may sound like a lot but I would have been willing to wait 6-7 years for that. I'm sure the game will be great in a "Shadow of the Erdtree" sense, but the initial sense of wonder and novelty is definitely gone.
I think we’re looking at that sense of exploration from the wrong angle imo. When Aunoma initially described returning to the same Hyrule I felt the same but thinking of it like returning to your home town after a couple years of being away, the developers play with our familiarity with the world to surprise us in new ways, it won’t be the same kind of wonder we initially felt maybe but I think there is so much more to this game that will surprise us, especially considering what’s already been leaked in the art book. I think it’ll be like going back to Hateno and it being mostly the same but you notice a giant cave or crater has shown up where it hadn’t before, that continuity with the world allows for it to feel like it’s ever changing without taking anything away from the first game.
just go play elden ring this game is for people who want to have fun and try out the new abilitys of the game and solve puzzles in different ways. unbreakable weapons is stupid go play elden ring again. Having more traditional dungeons would only benefit totk i agree but you're viewing the entire game from the wrong perspective. Do you really think it would be better for that river to only be crossable with a hookshot by shooting at specific spots or give the player the "items" if you will to achieve that goal in literally limitless ways. instead of being locked out of a puzzle from an item its open ended its beautiful. are you really gonna tell me theres no sense of wonder when theres literally far more enemys and things to do and collect than botw???? this is a sequel and it makes botw look bland and boring to somebody who loves botw more than most people. I want you to think about whats on those sky islands why are they there what can you do with them? what about the underground? the changes done to the overworld and how all the races are doing there are so many mysterious that give me more wonder than i had when playing botw 20 hours in you know what to expect everywhere you go a korok or a shrine super lame IM HYPED FOR TOTK LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
@@repingers9777 Errrr. Ok? I'm not even sure how to respond to a comment like this but settle down dude. I already said I think the game will be good and probably very fun from a crafting perspective but every flagship Zelda game has a definitive identity, and this game needs to have that "magic moment" where you truly feel like you're in a new world and experience. I'm haven't gotten that from this gameplay trailer. I'm hoping to get it when I play the game. I don't feel like that's a controversial take....
@@Rin_ku it will be nice to check in on NPCs meet new travelers and so on and its probably what we'll be spending most of our hundreds of hours doing if the sidequests are better than botw's
Just remember gameplay and story matter way more than graphics. We are so used to graphics being an automatic hook to play a new game. This is not trying to do that at all. Which shouldn’t matter to Nintendo fans luckily. But I think people that care about this game still care about graphics looking similar. I think it’s focusing on the wrong thing. It comes down to how much feels the same in terms of gameplay and story. I will turn on this game if it doesn’t blow me away in those areas. But I won’t knock the game for looking almost the same. I expected it to and it’s a direct sequel. It would probably look weird if it didn’t look the same.
I think I'm all of the people you described depending on what time of the day your catch me. I've experienced all of these feelings at one point or another, many multiple times... I love Zelda as a series and the Breath of the Wild entry so much, that is why I feel I critique it so I often have this feeling that breath of the wild is very close to a what you might call a perfect score, and if it wasn't an entry in the Zelda series I would feel more love towards it. It's the lack of some of those elements and features from previous games, it's missing feelings I usually feel playing a new Zelda game, and that can be scary when you order your favorite dish and your chef puts a spin on it, perhaps that is why I feel some disappointment and apprehension, yet also excitement for the upcoming title It's very conflicting, because it's something I still consider very dear to me, but it's not without it's flaws subject to my own preferences I desperately want this to improve on everything breath of the wild did right, while adding elements that I feel were missing or getting rid of features that didn't work as well... I think it was very important that they showed us that stick breaking early on in the new gameplay demo.... To temper expectations some
Bro. It took them 6 years to make a BOTW 2. With literally all the same mechanics. In 6 years we got MAJORAS MASK, THE WIND WAKER AND TWILIGHT PRINCESS. This time, we get the same shit again, with the same shit world. How can you not understand the complaints???
After finishing Botw when it came out I hoped that they could find a way to integrate classic Zelda items into the open world, I think there's a way to still be an open world that you take on how you choose while feeling more grounded in the Zelda universe, I'm not disappointed it doesn't look like it's happening this time, I just hope when they do a new story than Botw and Totk they find a way to seamlessly combine both styles in a way that blows our minds like Botw did in the first place
Just do what Elden Ring did. Enemies don’t drop weapons for the most part and instead you have to find/create/earn weapons. The weapons last forever and can be upgraded so they don’t fall off damage wise. Each weapon has a different move set and playstyle so people can play what they want. The current system prevents you from ever caring about item drops because it will break or be replaced in short order.
For the past few years I've seen games and movies I was excited for have awful marketing. And each time, the defense is, "they're hiding the big stuff". Well, that's just bs. Every time it turns out that the marketing accurately captured how much is in the game. If there really was that much cool content, there'd be plenty to show off in marketing without even spoiling too much. There's no way any of these companies would purposefully give you the impression that there isn't much to the game, unless there really just ISN'T! Totk will be fun, it might even be better than botw, but there's no doubt in my mind that it'll feel largely like traversing the same map just with new puzzles scattered throughout and new ways to move through the world. That's what the marketing tells me, and I've learned to trust the marketing.
"A reasonable classic Zelda enjoyer does not hope for more" 5:16 . Omg dude, 100%. My biggest gripe about BOTW was the lack of unique looking bosses, enemies, and thematic dungeons. The divine beasts all had gross brown colors and it strained the eyes. I just want a cool dungeon like the Ancient Cistern, Great Bay Temple, or the Wind Temple (WW)
Honestly, as much as I loved BOTW, I’m gonna wait until the reviews come out for TotK to see if I really should buy it immediately or wait a bit longer to get it, because from what we’ve gotten, it seems like TotK is more a glorified DLC/expansion than a true sequel. I will gladly eat my words if I’m wrong and it warrants being considered a sequel, of course
I could live with almost all of the issues you talked about in this video if they only have a beautiful and compelling story, and fun and interesting characters. I don’t need insanely unique overworld music, or a brand new combat system. I could even live without old school dungeons. But Zelda games have always been about the stories to me, about what they can make you feel. And that was honestly my biggest problem with botw-that it was so focused on gameplay that the story kind of sat on the back burner in favor for exploration. I didn’t hate it, I actually thought the story was beautiful in its own way, especially considering the way botw was set up. But I don’t want to see a lackluster story return in lieu of awesome mechanics. The gameplay we saw looked epic, but I don’t play Zelda games for the cool physics engine or mechanics, or even for the exploration. I play them for their emotionally compelling stories that immerse me in the world. And another Zelda game without an immersive story would leave me feeling disappointed in a franchise I have loved since I was 2 years old.
Is there such a thing as a Zelda game with an immersive and emotional story? I've played all of them and they're generally pretty straightforward rescue-the-princess fluff with isolated scenarios to explain the various set pieces. The flashbacks in BotW were the closest thing to emotional storytelling I've ever seen from the series.
I guess it’s really all subjective, and everyone has their own opinion of what an immersive story is. And maybe it’s just my nostalgia talking because I grew up on them, but yeah I think there are plenty of compelling and emotional stories within the franchise. Twilight Princess and it’s story of a fallen princess who failed to protect her kingdom from a usurper tyrant, and her journey back to redemption and learning to care for people other than herself. Wind Waker’s tale of a boy trying to save his sister, but being caught up in a greater scheme too big for him to understand, and his selfless choice to save a kingdom he never even knew. Skyward Sword’s story of two best friends, unknowingly entwined with destinies far too complicated for them to fully understand, thrust into a battle they never asked for, and both of their journies to discover their true divine calling and potential. And Ocarina of Time’s tale of a child ripped from his simple life in the forest and forced to play a pawn for a man bent on destroying a kingdom. He gave up everything, his childhood, his home, his friends, to prevent the events that destroyed his homeland from ever happening, and at the end of it all he’s sent back to a time where no one even knows the name Link, or everything he sacrificed to save them all from ruin and despair. Those are only a few of the stories in the games, and even those are boiled down to their most basic concepts. So yeah, I’d say there are quite a few emotionally immersive stories. I guess it all just depends on your perspective and what you are looking for and focusing on. :)
@@azzy-551 I beat Skyward Sword on the Wii. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was a game about solving puzzles and using motion controls, not about watching emotional cutscenes. Its focus on gameplay over story is one of the things I like about it.
The biggest reason this is a "minority perspective" is because most people who see these glaring issues with TOTK are either blind with franchise bias or are afraid to voice their concerns online because of Nintendo zealots. I am what you would categorize as an old school Zelda fan. I'm older than the franchise itself and I'm not seeing nowhere near the hype that BOTW had or any prior Zelda game for that matter. Now this could be because either people are underwhelmed or because the Mario movie has dominated Nintendo's marketing push so far this year. The points raised by the "minority" are objective because we are so close to the launch of this game and know almost nothing about it. A Zelda game's marketing has never been this obscure. Even Majora's Mask had a bigger push than this. That can be because of one of two things. Either Nintendo has MASSIVE surprises in store for us and trusts brand bias (this is Zelda, after all), or what we've seen is what we're going to get (largely). This all could have been easily cleared up by Aonuma-san if he stated something like "This is only scratching the surface of what this game has to offer." Instead he made it seem like the gameplay he showed was the only additions made and for a game that has spent 6 years in development, and delayed more than once, that is insane to me. People are gushing over meat arrows. Talk about literally throwing a dog a bone. For those wanting dungeons and diving, if the game had it, this was the time to show it and they didn't. There's a reason people want this stuff and it's because it would fundamentally improve the game's dynamics and pacing. I want this game to succeed just like everyone else, but when you get my age, critical thinking takes over and it seems as of this moment, the writing is on the wall. But hey I'm just an aging gamer in the "minority". IGN will still give it a 10 no matter what.
I'm still sceptical of TOTK, I've put my money down and pre ordered the game. Ive bought every zelda game since the early 90s. But this is the first time that I'm not excited at all. So far what I've seen looks like its building on everything I disliked about Breath of the Wild. And not only that, it looks far to similar to breath of the wild too. Same map, same music, what are they thinking? I want to go on an epic adventure in a new world with unique themed dungeons, a memorable soundtrack and a well written story. I want to gain new abilities and items as I progress through the game allowing me to go back and access new areas that I couldn't before. What I don't want is repetitive fetch quest chore in a massive sandbox to waste my time. Games like this feel so pointless and boring to me. Breath of the Wild is the largest zelda game ever made, but with the least quality content. It's a good game in it's own right, but one of the worst Zelda games. It feels like quantity over quality. Nintendo really needs to combine what is good about open world zelda with traditional zelda or the franchise will just end up turning into a shell of its former self.
Hey! Might I suggest you cancel the preorder and wait for about a week after release to order it? Even if the money is no problem for you (Which, I hope so!) We might be experiencing a cyberpunk 2077 situation here. It won't be broken, but it will be lacking in terms of content to make a full game. Seeing that Nintendo is both a creative outlet for many developers and simultaneously a greedy bloodsucking corporate, I know that we can only speak to the latter component of the company (They call the shots eventually) and it's not done with our voices, it's done with our cash. It's your money of course, so at the end of the day I can't tell you really what to do with it, you're free. But pre-orders empower companies to get away with a lot of shady stuff. So please consider that. It will always be on the e-Shop, so you can go back and purchase it if it turns out to be worth it. But if it's not, it would be pretty hard to get a refund.
I’m in the “I’m still not sold” on ToK, I love BotW, and also am a “I just need a dungeon” kind of fan. I obviously already preordered the game and will def play it day 1, but I def feel like I am forcing myself to be excited for it, since what they have shown me hasn’t made me go “hecc yeah now this is a sequel” I still feel I’m stuck in that barrier of “This is just too much of a same vibe, like I’ve already done before even if it has a few new mechanics”
At its core, the expectations I unknown placing on this Zelda game are that I want it to recapture the emotional awe and wonder I had at 10 years old playing Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. And nothing shy of the beauty of God could recapture those emotions. A healthy expectation for this game (or anything in life) is to accept the experience for what it is, enjoy it while it lasts, and remember it fondly without putting the entire weight of my soul’s well-being upon this game. The only thing want from this game within the realm of healthy expectations is for it to contain a strong narrative with a defined beginning, middle, and end.
I avoided the community like the plague before I got my copy, so had little idea about these discussions. I was very excited and hopeful for Totk but after playing through the game (over 150 hrs), I've come to land on your final consensus. I was really dissapointed with the game, and want to know in general why people are praising it like they are. I don't think it's wrong to like it- it makes sense for first timers and those with a more creative affinity that care less for the narrative element. But 10/10? There's a lot of monumental flaws more than I recall Botw having, if because it retained them and created many new frustrations
Before watching the video wanted to say something I've been thinking of before seeing your views. From what we have seen this reminds me of when Banjo Kazooie: Nuts n bolts came out. That game was the newest and last game for the series that took a massive gameplay direction change and made vehicles the main focus. While ToK isn't fully about it, I could see this causing many people to be hesitant about or already dislike the game like how it was for me and others when Nuts n Bolts came out.
Difference there was Banjo was relatively “niche” by comparison, and obviously wasn’t going to get copious amount of sequels. People rightly assumed that that was their last big entry in the series either for a while or forever. Zelda doesn’t have that problem. It’ll get various spin-offs and it’ll get another mainline game in another 5-6 years. There’s no fear that the series will die, or even focus on vehicles forever. Most Zelda mechanics are limited to that specific game. Other than basic concepts like having an alternate world of some sort or time travel.
What I really hope for is seeing the locations of botw’s hyrule really shift in tone. For example, I would love it if the great plateau were to become a hostile area, or to see lurelin village in ruins. I think that Such a drastic tone shift could really motivate botw players to explore the map once again. Because right now, the thing I might be most exited for is just seeing what went down in order for all those sky islands to appear, the caves to form, death mountain not longer flowing with lava but spewing malice etc. If Nintendo plays their cards right, rediscovering an old location you loved being canged completely could be very cool! I also am very exited for all het sky shenanigans because we haven’t even seen half of those islands in detail. The caves look neat too. Overall i’m just very exited for the game. Tough I do definetly get the concerns. Let’s just wait and see!
I'm in that minority! I'm a 38 year old Zelda fanatic who has played every single game since the NES original. For me, BOTW was a GREAT game, but it wasn't a great ZELDA game. I love the big open world, and the gameplay mechanics were incredible. I poured 400 hours into my 100% save, but I struggled to think back to any memorable or iconic moments in my playthrough... There were no standout dungeons, catchy songs, bosses, favourite items etc. Infact, after a while, it just started to become the same old thing on repeat! I can't remember which shrines where which. 900 Korok seeds later and i realised there were only about 6 different types of puzzle. I was hoping after SIX YEARS of waiting to see BOTW's gamemap and gameplay mechanics, but built upon with the reintroduction of dungeons, bosses, items etc. THAT would be an epic Zelda game. We could still get that!! But i was underwhelmed by the 10 minute footage. The graphics, map, HUD design, character animations etc where all reused. Even the soundtrack was the same!! we got shown "constructs" the new enemy type. But their attack pattern and animation was the same as a Bokoblin. Its just a character asset swap! The new abilities just looked a bit silly, and seem like way to make the game easier for lazy people. Don't wanna climb? Use ascend! Don't wanna aim your bow? Just use the Keese Eyes! I KNOW there is so much more to unveil, but so far all I have seen is the same game reused. After 6 years of development, the longest we have ever gone without a Zelda game, and an increased price tag, I'm expecting so much more!!! I expect dungeons!! THAT IS ZELDA!!
The crux of my feelings on the gameplay trailer are hinged on the fact nothing addressing the failings of BotW was shown. BotW wasn't a bad game by any means, but it's the only Zelda game ever that I didn't absolutely pour ever every single nook and cranny because it all felt disposable. Breakable weapons don't, in fact, encourage experimentation, they encourage hoarding. Every shrine having the exact same reward of paper plate weapon or token to buy life or stamina made it all feel pointless. By the end of the game I had an inventory of amazing weapons I never wanted to use, three wheels of stamina, and an entire buffet that functionally made me immortal. Also, so many lizards. I would argue that dungeons aren't specifically what we crave. What we want is discovering that next cohesive hub of tightly constructed exploration constructed of puzzles punctuated by unique rewards and a capstone challenge that defined previous entries. We need spaces that pull together all the tools we've been given, and that then expands them, then quizzes us on how to apply them to a boss. We want to leave feeling stronger, more prepared, with something new to try in the world. They could do something really unique a la Elden Ring by merging dungeons with the outdoor explorable world. We hunger for the meaningful. The gameplay trailer showed features with no context. Okay, I can merge a stick and a rock or a pitchfork and a stick. Will these be vital to progression? What in the world demands their use? Will I be stuck on a puzzle where I have to decide which objects are the correct ones to merge? How will this not be disposable or descend into tedium if my best options for weapons are to throw a bunch of trash on the ground and spent 30 minutes fusing them? Will being able to make a go-kart be needed or just kind of neat for 20 minutes until it gets stuck in a ditch? If I don't need it, then it's junk. If it is needed, then how will it not become a chore? Show me, Nintendo. BotW's greatest strength and biggest flaw were that it was an excellent open world physics engine with a coat of Zelda paint. I have no doubt that TotK will be a fun game with interesting tools for people to tinker with. For people that enjoy trying to break the game and create meme-able moments with ridiculous and clever us of the in-game physics they will no doubt find this a delight. But that isn't what I want from a Zelda game at all. Nintendo is asking me to pay $70 for a product that doesn't show me they understand why Zelda is great.
The core hook of zelda has always been exploration, from the original 2D ones to the linear 3D ones and the open world of botw. But from what they showed so far, it has me thinking that this one focuses more on player creativity and these sandbox features than exploration
Seems to me like y'all think they gave us a mechanic to create vehicules just for the hell of it. The way i saw it in game is that they are gating exploration with said vehicules. Just like you needed stamina to scale a mountain you'll need a vehicule to get to the points you can't get to by your own physical means. The reverse power when used on the falling rock didn't take the rock to world limit, it took it to a very specific point where you can immediately see that there's more islands above it and you have no way to get there from the island you are on.... Just hearing you guys talk about the trailer makes me think i watched another fucking video or something...
I'll be honest, the more I've seen and thought about TotK the less and less excited I am for it. In the 6 years since BotW, that game's flaws have become more and more apparent, and i think that even addressing common criticisms like durability and adding dungeons won't really be enough to save it, because the fundamental premise was rotten at the core. I think that, the next Zelda game we see after TotK will probably be the most interesting and important Zelda to date, because they can't just do Breath of the Wild AGAIN after having a sequel game to it. It's either going to force them back to more classic design ideas, or they're going to REALLY have to think about how to make open world actually function, because as it stands, it's clear they haven't figured out how to make it work. I feel like this is sort of like what happened with pokemon, X and Y created a bad game, then Sun and Moon improved on it but not by much, and by Sword and Shield the series was basically dead designwise, because they failed to capture what makes that series compelling. In the same way, BotW is the bad apple in a good bunch, and TotK is just going to be more of the same, but slightly better. If the next game is ANOTHER open world with tiny puzzles and a drip-feed of upgrade materials, it's over, Zelda will be dead as a series. Like pokemon, it'll still make money, but I probably won't be interested in playing any of them going forward.
I heard someone mention the idea that maybe those green swirly things actually summon new sky islands above them when they’re activated. If that’s true it makes me a bit less worried, as there’s likely a lot more sky islands than we see in the trailer/gameplay showcase. So far it doesn’t even look like there’s much in the sky from what I’ve seen, unless the draw distance is hiding most of it
Im one of those that absolutely loved botw, but also see the dissapointment in totk. I grew up on ocarina of time and majoras mask, so classic dungeons, items to clear said dungeons and the green tunic is something that i truly hope will be a part of totk. I also believe that totk will have some form of dungeons, may it a large underground system that connects across all og hyrule, or overworld dungeons. This is because of the "Ascend" ability many have already pointed out. Totk are maybe going full circle, back to skyward sword so the master sword that is shown as broken may be forged into the goddess sword.
10:23 I was massively disappointed by the reused music, I was convinced they would compose new music to make the game feel new but they didn't even do that. The game really looks like a re-hash or an expansion pack based on what Nintendo has shown. Are they hiding something huge? Maybe, but what evidence is there?
Watching the gameplay demonstration got me thinking. I started wondering well since in Breath of the Wild and now in Tears of the Kingdom we had the sheikah slate and now Zonai powers respectively, why don’t they make dungeons with puzzles centered around those? I know the shrines in BotW were kind of that and maybe Tears of the Kingdom will actually do that with these new Zonai powers. They obviously don’t want to gate progression in any kind of way so if we get all these new Zonai powers at the start of the game then we will be equipped for any of the potential dungeons that can have the puzzles centered around those abilities as well as the boss fights.
One thing I think people are underestimating is the ways in which having already visited locations can *add* to the experience of exploration. "Ooh, I wonder what's changed in Hateno... what about Lurelin?" As long as they've given you different things to find in all these places there's going to be a thrill of discovery. People talk about it as if there are going to be literally the same NPCs handing out the same quests, with Lynels and Hinoxen camped out in the same locations, etc. It's not going to be like that.
I think the biggest thing that is interesting about TotK by comparison to the other big 3D Zelda games...and this may seem like a shallow thing to mention at first, but hear me out....every single previous game looks distinct and fresh on its own. Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and Breath of the Wild. All of them feel and look very different from each other. The closest parallel to TotK in terms of using the same engine and assets is Majora, but that game has a radically different feeling and a bunch of new gameplay mechanics to it that make it a wholly unique experience. What we saw in the TotK 10 minute gameplay example is not that type of leap. We have yet to see a significant leap of the caliber with previous Zelda games. No matter what kind of fan you are, that has to strike you as odd. Either they're geniuses trying to carefully hide some big surprises or they really have nothing substantial to show. Really pulling for a Super Mario Galaxy 2 type sequel with TotK.
There's no "genius" angle to vague marketing. It's pure evil. Remember Disney's Star Wars trilogy? That wasn't spoilers they were being secretive about, it was the fact that the plot to those films would anger a lot of fans... The details were intentionally hidden to get people to go, see something they don't like, but not get their money's worth (In their opinion).
For me, BotW felt like a technical demo for a Zelda game: - 1 fully fleshed out dungeon, - 4 dungeon concepts, - 1 dungeon boss reused in each (blight Gannon), - 1 sidequest boss (Kohga), - 100 puzzleboxes, --> 29 (blessing shrines) fleshed out in the overworld with atmospheric regional assets, --> 71 puzzle concepts to be implemented, - 20 (test of strength) combat challenges disguised as puzzleboxes in the overworld, - 3 mock up enemy classes, --> I am leaving kees, octorok and chu out here, - 4 overworld minibosses (which were awesome), - 2 mock up stealth missions, - 3 mock up gauntlet missions, - 1 mock up forager mission, I really want TotK to be the (classic) Zelda that BotW seems to be a technical demo for. I need atmospheric dungeons and bosses, diverse enemy types, quest lines, and puzzles integrated into the overworld. The TotK demo makes me fear that Nintendo invested in the technical mechanics of the world rather than the classic elements. I was never interested to attatch octo balloons to logs to create clippable moments. If I wanted a sandbox, I would play minecraft
The thing the made the first one so good was the sense of disoovery and seeing new things. If I’m exploring almost the same map, then I’m probably gonna wait for it to go on sale… there needs to be a fully new map
Its been a while ever since BotW came out that I actually dipped my toes into anything Zelda (modern) and this, by happenstance, was the video I chose to check out. I was disappointed with BotW and expected the next major installation would be a continuation of BotW. Aonuma (and Miyamoto) dont care about story and loathe that the timeline - they facilitated mind you - became integral to Zelda's identity as a narrative structure to work around. With BotW being (lets be honest) a reboot that gave passing winks to every timeline, it gave Aonuma free reign to do whatever now (especially if plans were in the works for Miyamoto to retire). So it makes sense they would simply reuse assets for the next game given BotW is what "Zelda" means moving forward. I cant say I blame fans fearing TotK will ultimately feel like DLC. TBH thats what it looks like. If Aonuma learned anything from Miyamoto it was lessons from MM - re-use assets from the previous game to build the next game. But where MM succeeded, I am skeptical TotK will rely on too much. First and foremost Aonuma and Miyamoto cared most about gameplay - what major mechanics they wanted to build the rest of a game around. If Fusing and the Ultrahand are the key mechanics - while cool, its not the meat and potatoes that would make me wanna re-tread the same world again. They may be able to elaborate more on story now, but thats because there will be no question what timeline this is and will be from now. Its the BotW Universe's timeline and why make an all new game in a different world, with a different art direction, with a different Link if you dont have to. Personally, I dont feel BotW and TotK come to us in good faith given what was sacrificed for them to exist.
i just hope the world is a little more filled out with fun things to do than the first game. Like dungeons with enemies or something. not just a bare world of some enemies and then you go do story quests
That was one of my biggest gripes. You never felt any tension in your adventure (like the first and second games). You never felt like the exploration had an accomplishment other than "oh cool" like most of the series. It was... like a walking simulator and sandbox to me. Cool in a way, but boring and bland compared to previous titles.
Even if the fusing system is very in-depth and creative (fingers crossed 🤞), I still think 6 years for only that is not justifiable. I completely agree with you - at least a second "hook" is necessary. I will also be disappointed if the overworld isn't significantly different from BotW.
it was pretty obvious that the sky island that was used in the gameplay video is most likely the starting island/the first island we will visit. so basically we only saw a small glimpse of the great Plateau equivalent. and people think that's everything?
I'm in the not impressed camp, I know the map by heart and after completing it 100% it's going to take a lot, and I mean a lot to entice me to go back because I essentially burnt myself out and I've been unable to pick breath of the wild back up since.
Yeah I feel as if the whole fuse thing is dope but will end up with that same stale feeling tens of hours in if the playground isnt updated for the considerably bigger toys we're getting. Hopeful for dungeons and I do really wish there could be some items. I think there's a way to have them without necessarily locking stuff behind them. Like making them QOL upgrades, the hookshot would be a fantastic addition to the climbing setup imo
Shrines were probably intended to make BOTW more accessible, but I don’t think they worked that way. Novice players need to be walked through the game and build their skills sequentially. A tutorial is not a proper difficulty curve, and this is where I feel like BOTW missed the mark for me as a novice player. Shrines overcomplicate the experience for novice players, who may end up bouncing around the map looking for something they can beat. Dungeons with an optional recommended order would simplify these players’ experience by offering a proper difficulty curve for those who need it.
It may be that it took 6 years to get the fusion and ultra-hand mechanics into a place that was of acceptable quality for Nintendo. However, artists, level designers, animators, quest designers, and many others would not have been told to sit on their hands while the programmers and system designers work on these two abilities. They would have been working as well. If the systems team needed another year, then that is another year to build out more shrines, add a new enemy variant, put in some new caves or islands. There are large portions of the team that would have basically no hand in getting the fuse system working. Now maybe that shows itself in the final game, and the system isn't well integrated into the loop of some quests or dungeons (doubtful to me, personally) but I don't think it means that those quests or dungeons weren't made at all.
I have a hybrid perspective. I think they're hiding stuff, but its not massive. I don't mind it being not massive. One trend I've noticed a ton lately is a lack of transparency between companies and players (both ways) regarding the long-term impact of the 2020 lockdowns on entertainment products. I think this is one of those times, where the seven year Dev cycle was more like three and a half with one to three false start/internal reboots. An additional thing I've heard since pretty early on was that Tears was built from cut dlc ideas that couldn't be made to work with the existing engine, which all reveals since indicate was a correct statement. But I'm here for the ride. I don't have a desire to play any game for 500 hours, a good long game is good for 150 hours, so I never tired myself out on BotW. More, Different botw is all I need. I prefer the older Zelda style, and would like to see more of it make its way in, but I don't expect it, or need it. I can just play the old games as well.
This video perfectly summed up how I feel about Tears of the Kingdom. The new runes look super cool. But the runes are only cool as a means of exploration. And I don't know what I'll be exploring yet. That's what's really holding me back from being truly excited. And I have the game on preorder, so I'm betting that Nintendo is hiding A LOT. But if they're not, I definitely will fault Nintendo for a uselessly long development time.
i don't know guys, isn't the file size just 18 gbs? that, with the added sky islands, doesn't leave much space for something huge being kept as a surprise, i don't think... looks like this game is going to have caves to replace shrines (maybe?), but i don't think dungeon cravers will be very satisfied with them. they'll be just caves
I think the only way this game is saved, is if there’s dungeons and massive underground/underworld exploration in addition to sky islands. If the Devs essentially doubled the map by going above AND below, we are in business.
Last video on this topic. I've fallen behind talking about the actual news. 😭
Will you cover Monster Hunter 6?
@@SevoraLF Yes.
@@ratatoskr6324 nice
I like to think you recorded the laugh at the end of the video six or seven times before you had a take that you felt you could use
Your poll is intentionally biased as you gathered data from anti-intellectuals that follow your anti-intellectual videos.
Im in the boat where i think they’re intentionally hiding stuff. We have yet to see a boss, a full on cave, anything of the sky islands that is significant (we know it’s important in some way) and we’ve been teased on new and old characters (“goddess?” And ganon). There is so much we have been teased but not fully told about that I think its only reasonable to believe they have only shown us a miniscule amount of what they have to offer. Age of calamity was a huge surprise as well with what it had, so imagine this, the main title game and not a spin off
I think it has to do with the way they marketed Botw, they showed so much and they weren't comfortable with that. So now they want to make sure we know very little I'm guessing. 🤷🏽♀️
Age of Calamity was also a massive bait and switch since we were told it was a look at the original demise of Hyrule and the Champions, only for the game to involve time travel and alternate timelines.
I believe the giant made of stone cubes is a boss.
There’s definitely stuff hidden, but the issue is we have no clue to what extent this content makes up. In a brand new game, that’s not an issue. But because it reuses BotW’s map, one has to ask, “How much of this game is retreading BotW, and how much of it is playing the new content?”
With the way their marketing is going, you’re going to have to wait a week at least (or several) just to get an idea of what it entails. I’m risking having the game spoiled in multiple different ways, just to see if it’s even worth the price of admission. I might’ve bitten the bullet if they confirmed classic dungeons, but even the art book leak wasn’t definitive. So I’ll have to wait. Plus, they’re charging more money and not at all attempting to justify it. They can talk about “spoilers” all the way, but you could easily use that as an excuse to not show why it “has” to be more.
The whole spoiler thing is kind of a wash too. People are not considerate in the slightest. They will leak the entire game in the first few days (or earlier) and ruin it before some people can even get a copy/play it. Showing like, the entrance of one dungeon or a few new challenges that you couldn’t do with tools in BotW is not a big deal. Especially if this game has “so much content”.
I’m 50/50 optimistic vs pessimistic. Could they really have missed the opportunity to add everything that was missing from botw and instead spend all their time developing this new crafting driven approach? Certainly no.
On the other hand….
Could they have just gona insanely deep with this crafting mechanic and ways of using it to replace things from classic Zelda games and even botw? Yeah probably they love doing their own thing and just going hard in that direction.
Just sucks cause I’ve never not been insanely hyped for a Zelda game.
Nothing can match my excitement to finally drunk drive in a zelda game nintendo has outdone themselves
What about the master cycle?
Literally already drunk drove in BotW
@BailiwickVideos motorcycle not has fun skidding on pavement hurt 😭
This is the only correct mindset in the entire fandom
I played breath of the wild while high on shrooms.
It was very very funky riding around on the horse. True panic when the guardian chased me.
Ended up at the flower shrine and fuck that was hard. The flowers kept growing right infront of me.
Minor thing but could mean more. If you rewatch the Aonuma gameplay, near the end of it, when Link dives from the air and into a river, he has "Ascend" as his ability. When he's in the air, Ascend is faded, meaning it's unusable, which makes sense....BUT when Link is under the water, before he surfaces, Ascend isn't faded and is activatable! (It fades immediately when he surfaces too, so its NOT to get back to the sky islands.)
Obviously this isn't much but....there is potentially more you'll be able to do in water, possibly diving down deep into it, and you'll need Ascend to surface.
That's an awesome observation, I truly hope it does imply more explorative options.
god damn you have some good attention to detail! this is very possibly hinting at underwater gameplay!
very cool!!
That would be so cool, I would love some underwater exploration in this game, it would be super easy to have clothing that allows for under water breathing or even make potions that allow you to breath underwater.
@@linkboy That sounds so neat! I hope they treat it in the same way as stamina was in the previous title. Basically you saw something climbable but you didn't quite have the stamina yet to climb that mountain(until you realized you could destroy that mechanic with food)
What I mean is I want to dip my head underwater, see a cave, not being able to reach it; find thing, be able to reach underwater cave.
To be completely honest, I’ve been more enthralled by what comes with the lore and the story that I haven’t even thought about making it feel new and wondrous. I definitely just want to be captivated by the Zonai, the consequences of “defeating” the calamity, and where Zelda is. I’m a nerd for lore, and the games just help me live in that reality
I loved that in BotW, Hyrule was itself a character in the story. As a newcomer to this iteration of Hyrule, it was so fun for me to scavenge about for the piecemeal story about what life here was like before the calamity, and what life had been like since. It’s such a rich world with cultures, people, and hopes and fears in the face of a recurring apocalypse. There are places, weapons, items, recipe components, and gear that all combine to tell the story through the experience of just playing the game.
Discovering Hyrule and its history was its own objective in BotW, and it’s the part of the game that people don’t get when they complain that the game doesn’t have much story.
Just because the game doesn’t shove exposition in your face doesn’t mean that the story is not there for you to discover, much less that it’s a bad story. Dark Souls and Bloodborne are the best examples of this.
@@AARon11414 I get that perspective, but that just means they need to incorporate more classic lore-telling this time around, because of the fact that Hyrule has already been discovered in BotW.
This game had no lore whatsoever apparently. Story was trash I’m hearing
I always thought wind waker almost got it perfect. Sailing was kinda boring on its own, but the mix of free exploration and main story islands was so good. I think TotK needs that formula. Keep all the open world stuff, but add linear dungeons with themes that you need to find to at least open some final area.
Some people in BotW ran straight to Ganon and actually ruined their own experience by gaining good gear too fast. People have admitted that after trying Ganon's castle early, the rest of the game was boring.
I think open world choice is awesome, but even Elden Ring required some progression before you could just waltz to the end. I get that BotW made you fight extra bosses if you try to run to Ganon, but even this feels kinda lame. Imagine spoiling all the bosses in one room. Then if the player gives up to actually go explore, they end up playing lackluster dungeons with bosses they've already seen.
Suffice to say, Wind Waker had great balance. All it needed was better in-between islands content, which TotK has. Just smoosh the two gameplay styles together.
P.S. Remember in Wind Waker when you work with Medli in the Earth Temple? Imagine working with Zelda like that in a dungeon or open world, or even PLAYABLE ZELDA.
I think Wind Waker actually already handled the between-hotspot experience significantly better than BotW (in addition to having much better actual hotspots as you said).
The ocean is a much more fitting environment for this type of game because it's naturalistically self-similar and makes it very visually clear what exists to be meaningfully interacted with (islands, submarines, lookouts, etc), and what is only there to create a sense of scale and pacing (open sea). In BotW it's visually often unclear what is meant to be a meaningful hotspot, and this leads to a sense of constant disappointment even outside of the lack of quality dungeons, etc, as almost everything you come across is less interesting or valuable than it might initially appear to be.
Another thing that TWW does with its ocean navigation which could be fleshed out even further but nonetheless exceeds BotW and would be harder to realize in a continental setting is generating procedural content on the world's surface, like the rupee/barrel trails that sometimes pop out of the water.
I don’t see that WW/ER combination working. Elden Ring was arguably semi-open structure set in large open spaces. Wind Waker was semi-open structure set in smaller spaces, but a crucial difference between them was that WW’s gate ‘keys’ were novel items that could be used in a variety of ways. To have several applications of these item-keys in large open spaces like ER/Botw risks the player wasting time in repeatedly hitting dead ends because they haven’t got that item yet. ER used the ‘soft lock’ of beefgating mainly plus a handful of ‘hard lock’ single-key gates. Botw gave you runes upfront and then used some beefgating and some navigation gating (stamina wheel upgrading to increase climbing, swimming, paragliding). The current design challenge is a semi-open structure set in large open spaces that uses the hard locks of novel item use. That’s where the gold lies
You completely missed the point of botw’s game design. The freedom. Before botw the series was in a very bad and stale position
I enjoyed Wind Waker, but that game was flawed in as many ways as BotW was, just in different ways.
Every Zelda game has its imperfections. At the end of the day, were they each a legendary experience for what they were attempting? Yes. Having preferences is normal and fine, but there is no “correct” formula for a Zelda game that BotW somehow upset, as many in these comments suggest.
That was kinda the point of the Entire Game. BOTW was one of the first big games in a while that let YOU figure it out. YOU made the Choice. YOU were the piolet. no Hand holding. No go do this first cause story. Thats what made the exploration so Great. You did not get to a spot that was some wall they put up to keep you out till X. You either could find a way to do it or you could not. This is what birthed just so many different experiences. I can promise you after 5 playthroughs and knowing many also that have played it. None are alike. Everyone. Every single person who plays will have a vastly different experience based on them selves. They do shrines different ways. They Fight enemies different. Their Link in their mind is different than your link or mine. All because the Game never told them what to do or where to go or how to fight.
Honestly I have never sat down and watched people play a game I have played and seen so many different ways.
I really appreciate your style of analysis. The way you steel-man different points of view on what we’ve seen from TOTK so far is amazing.
One of, if not the only channel that actually views both sides of this “controversy” with impartiality.
One thing I’ll say in regards to the “hiding” argument is that we already heard that argument when BoTW was releasing, and it turned out that what we saw was EXACTLY what we got. Yes there were some surprises in the shrine quests, but the Devine Beasts are largely an inconsequential amount of content and in fact most of the game was just Towers and Shrines.
That is a totally fair assessment, however it’s worth noting that nintendo has been extremely open that BoTW was a nightmare to develop. The physics system and world design took up so much time they had to focus on content they could copy and paste.
Maybe the same thing has happened here with the fusion mechanic, but idk I don’t think it has. There’s probably room for them in those 6 years, especially given they re-used the same core, to have created some of that unique one-time use content.
That being said, Im like rata on this one. I’d probably turn sour on the game if it was lacking in content
@@Splitboltxful They still may have lost 2 years to COVID you guys, things may have been slow. And they released DLC and Zelda 2 from the ground up remake in the meantime. Could have been working on ports and remakes of some of their older games as well. They definitely worked on Skyward Sword.
I get why you're saying these things, but it could genuinely go either way... That's just my opinion though and I could be totally wrong.
All I know is, lookout for yourself first!
@@samf.s.7731 The Botw team is not the same as the other things.
The developers themselves must have known that they weren't bringing their best with the dungeon content and I can't imagine that improving that wasn't #1 on their list of priorities. For example, BotW director Fujibayashi also directed Skyward Sword (arguably having the best dungeons in the series, albeit with perhaps one of the weakest approaches to the overworld) as well as Minish Cap and Oracles; there is no way he could have felt satisfied shipping the Divine Beasts.
Also covid should not have had that big of an impact. Maybe a functional loss of something up to 0.5 years but not anything like 2 years. A large amount of gamedev can be done remotely and Japan never even had legally-mandated lockdowns.
"Will you turn on tears of the kingdom if it doesn't have that special something"
I will heavily revise my expectations for the series going forward and opinion of Aonuma. But for now, I believe that it is fairly inconceivable that they aren't hiding more, considering they're only showing a starting area, teasers of enemies and the starting abilities.
How large these additions will extend, whether we'll get a dark world that will blow our minds, etc, are not something I'm thinking about. After reading through interviews, reading artbooks and playing the dlc for breath of the wild, I think the developers are extremely talented, have a good design philosophy, a passion for the series and want to make the best games that they can.
Nintendo (the publisher) knows that there is a lot riding on the game; breath of the wild was their big break for the series, they can't afford to not keep that momentum going for the new players that just joined the series. Since all of the other 3d games were ambitious (sometimes too much for their own good) I see no reason to believe that this one won't be the same. The reuse, the increased pricetag, pretty much everything makes me believe the game will be huge.
I honestly feel that given how long the game was delayed, and the fact that this is the same people who gave us Breath of the Wild (which was also a very long anticipated game that got delayed) I'm almost certain that whatever they have in store for us is gonna be pretty good. Breath of the Wild was great. Age of Calamity was great... why wouldn't this game be great? They've already teased quite a lot and given there's no 100 year gap in this one I'm guessing its going to be much more story driven.
Agree 1000%. I am worried, but at the same time I cannot conceive that this talented team would botch the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. Especially when they’re using so much from BOTW as a base.
you gotta be realistic about just how difficult games are to make. and just how difficult it is to make a good game. every great game series has included huge letdowns. think of mass effect andromeda. BOTW was a cosmically impressive achievement. many people remarked that they don't understand how creating it in just ~5 years was even possible. I think there's a strong likelihood that BOTW was lightning in a bottle. the stars just happened to align in a way that everything went right during development and nothing went wrong. no major mistakes or red herrings followed that cost the team 2 years of wasted dev time. they had a good idea and were able to carry it through to completion. but now they have to do something new. they can't just execute the same idea again. so they must have experimented with a lot of different ideas. they had to think of something new to freshen up the series. and creativity is hard. most new ideas are bad. there's a strong likelihood that they spent years developing other, now scrapped versions of the game that we're never gonna see. they may have gone back to the drawing board multiple times. it happens all the time in game development, it's one of the reasons the video games industry is so much riskier than software development in general. the least risky endeavors in gaming are rehashes, series in which the games don't need to do much different to sell well, series like call of duty. but zelda isn't like that. they've already gotten lucky trying to turn a copy of a previous game into a radically new game. that's majora's mask, basically. will they strike gold again? it doesn't seem likely statistically, even ignoring the disappointing media we've now seen. for all we know, there were 2 scrapped BOTW sequels before they settled on this plan, and the finished product that we're seeing in these trailers was only worked on for a year or two.
Another thing to keep in mind is that they definitely have more to show us, but it's just uncertain if those things will do it for everyone. In fact it's basically impossible for them to satisfy everyone. The most likely way to enjoy this game is to try and have an open mind and appreciate the specific experience they have tried to make for people.
Credibility truly means nothing to people lmao. 1000 attaboys destroyed by one perceived screw up. Devs truly make games for people that are as fickle as the wind.
It's curious how Aonuma has used the term "this unknown/unfamiliar Hyrule" in two different occasions.
It kinda feels like it could be just marketing talk which aims at convincing skeptics about exploring the same Hyrule again. But I hope there's more to that statement and that there's quite a lot of unexpected things to be found in the overworld.
Maybe you’re overthinking it when you start thinking about the fact that he said the same thing in two different ways. Just something to consider.
There's meat to that statement. Anyone who has seen the artbook would agree.
@@chiffmonkey I've seen choice pages out of it (never managed to find a link to the whole thing, and I suppose it's for the best) and it does seem promising, if most every thing in there is in the game!
I am hoping for a yet to be shown under world or cave system revealed by all the islands floating back into the sky. if there are multiple layers and the original world changed then there is less to really complain about. Nintendo already said it's the same Hyrule but changed in many ways YEARS AGO! How changed? Is it enough? We will find out eventually.
THANK YOU! I said that, too! I def think there's more to it! lol.
Bro I can't believe how many people counter the skepticism about the map being the same with "theres sky islands now, it's a whole new map to explore." It's an argument I feel is mostly made by people who haven't played the other 3D Zelda games before. You got a whole new entire map every game, even in the case of Majoras' Mask, where the engine and assets were pretty much the same, it was an entirely new map. So yeah, "some sky islands" is better than NO sky islands, but that doesn't justify the entire map below being the same, not by the standards set by all 3D Zelda games before it. What do you expect me to do? Play the whole game sky-island-only and pretend it's a different game?
To be fair, A Link Between Worlds largely reused A Link to the Past's overworld geometry (albeit with significant downgrades to the structure of the dark world). However, I feel like TotK has a second disadvantage in that it's not just recycling an overworld but one was already amongst the sparsest and least interesting ones in the series.
Always great to hear your calm and reasonable thoughts on the current discourse. You lay it all out in a way that makes sense and validates everyone's feelings
The Goat
Honestly, I think many people are just skeptical about how “sequel-like” the game will feel if it uses the same map. Even though I am very excited for this game, and I loved what I saw in the gameplay demo, I can’t deny that I feel that skepticism too. It’s hard to imagine how they could make the game feel completely new and ready to explore when we’re literally playing in the same world space. I do think (and hope) that I will be very pleasantly surprised though.
I still don't understand these ppl after these 10min gameplay
especially when he falls down from the sky... I could see so many different on the overworld map... so many spots I want to explore cause Iwant to know what this is and why is this there.. and dont forget all the caves around hyrule.
One thing here is if they are not showing anything more than this and also enforcing strict NDA so reviews can't say everything they want to say how can consumer decide if to buy this product?
@@Mikx100 by waiting after the game came out.. watching Reviews then or watch LP and than decide to buy it or not? xD
ok so we got sky islands and caves, these will probably easily be as big together as the main overworld was. so we already have a completly new map to explore, and then also the old map with updateded locations??
I agree with you, it should have had a new map imagine if elden ring 2 used the same map it would hurt the experience a lot
We're classic Zelda fans, and there are things we wish BotW and TotK had in it to add to the 'Zelda' experience (dungeons, as you mention). Things that wouldn't take away from what these new games are doing. We also can't deny, while it's sad to have those things missing, we also appreciate all the new and different things the games are doing. There's a lot of pros and cons to the situation. Appreciate you always bringing to light these sides in a clear and fair way!
- Graham & George
This is exactly how I feel, I will add that I do not think BotW is as good as people generally seem to think it is (I would give it a solid 8 or 8.5/10) but I do appreciate what it does and Tears looks great! I do hope classic Zelda continues to exist including the top down games and I hope we see more games like Tears and also Cadence of Hyrule, Hyrule Warriors and the like.
You can't say that adding dungeons wouldn't take away from these games are doing, dungeon as they were in older Zelda games are fundamentally against the design philosophy of BOTW and TOTK , I understand how classic zelda fans feel but sadly dungeons just wouldn't work in these games.
@@naboume466 Why not? Just take a Divine Beast layout, make it longer/bigger, add more & better puzzles, give it a unique aesthetic and music, add a cool boss at the end and maybe a mini-boss midway through. Boom, you've got yourself a "classic" dungeon.
This is laughable. Guys listen this is still zelda and classic nintendo design... they give you awesome mechanics and tools to solve puzzles just like items... the linear item design is old and has been done many times. A good example is the part at the river and they make a boat to cross it.
Problem: cross river. Solutions: build something that can fly or float across it using the ultrahand ability, try to make a path in the water or swim across with stamina boosts, or just climb the mountain by it or find another path. They lay out the things you need to solve that problem and you get to decide how you will do it. I think its way better than it being that you just need to hookshot specific points to go over the river... Botw and totk are zelda and nintendo game design but more open ended. The zelda boomers are cringe I watched reactions from people who dont even play zelda or like it to the new 10 minutes of gameplay and there reactions where far more positive and impressed with the new features and gameplay. I'll be honest when i first saw it being so hyped up it took a while for me to take in everything now that i have I couldn't be more excited.
I agree it needs more ambitious dungeons like older zeldas absolutely but Zelda was destined to become what it is now and its bringing a bigger audience to the entire franchise its so beautiful it could make me cry
@@2Chep Yeah I was thinking about this recently. I really hope that we get classic Zelda in at least some form if they are to continue the main games in this more open style.
- Graham
This is easily the best explanation of the TotK discourse I've seen online. You approached it from a very neutral standpoint and explored the nuance of each perspective very well. I really appreciate all the work that went into this and thank you for presenting the argument in a very balanced manner.
Nah he took a side, that of the negativity.
@Ok ok ok all right. He only picked a side at the very end after explaining all the different arguments very neutrally.
Ummm I still think that assuming that they're hiding good things deliberately as opposed to hiding bad things is not pro-consumer, it's pro Nintendo.
Please don't just hope for the best, also prepare in case it's a letdown.
We haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise. I am talking tangible evidence, not anecdotal based on a track record...so just wait till you have that. That's my personal recommendation.
This is the first Zelda game in my life where I have literally 0% excitement. I've never cared for building things in games and that seems like it's definitely a core mechanic of this game. The only time it's ever engaged me is in an RTS like StarCraft. I'm glad they're trying to take the franchise in a new direction and stretch their creativity, but it's going too far from the looks of it. Well, at least for my taste. I'm trying to reserve my full judgment until it's out but everything they've shown just feels like I should check out from the series and let the newcomers enjoy Zelda because this really looks like a game for them and not me.
It does give off a bit of Banjo nuts & bolts energy that breaks my immersion into the world unlike how immersed was in Botw, maybe I just lost that creative spark from being a kid but making vehicles isn't exactly what made botw great, could trivialise alot of exploration too but time will tell
This is how I feel.
Like final fantasy and paper mario, this franchise left us old fans behind for new ones
I'm hoping that the world will change dramatically throughout the game and that this version we've seen throughout all the marketing is simply the initial state of the world. Not much else can really explain to me the dramatic development time.
They could have been working on ports and remakes of old Zelda titles.
Maybe that's due to lack of imagination? There are tons of things they could do with the world being relatively the same and I am sure they will.
@@samf.s8786 Pretty sure that's an entirely different Zelda team
Hey when the guy is falling from one of a ton of giant sky islands they developed, and circles the camera, look closely. You might already have your answer for dev time. Everything looks different.
@@samf.s8786 the Zelda team doesn’t work on remakes at all, they outsource them to different developers like Grezzo.
I feel very similar, Ultrahand and Fuse abilities are cool but its going to need something else really interesting to get this game over the hump. An ACTIVE story and Dungeons will definitely do that.
If the fact that the game title is Zelda doesn't get you hyped theres no help for u. sorry ur not a zelda fan. maybe a sammyclassicsonicfan fan. not zelda though. u gotta have faith. without faith its pointless. zelda team worked 6 years. a lot of time. so what we know nothing. doesn't stop a true zelda fan from being hyped lol.
This sums up my feelings very well, if they’re reusing the game engine and basic game mechanics, there needs to be quite a bit there to compensate for that $70 price tag. I’m hopeful though, Nintendo has basically been drip feeding us information. Even now we still know basically nothing besides a couple story events and new mechanics. That makes me think they’re definitely hiding things.
@@TheFreeMinecrafter1 nobody would even bother expressing concerns if we didn't care about the game we are simply worried for its success. caring about a game we like does not make anyone any less of a fan what are you on about?
@@Videogame-606 You're legit pathetic.
@@Videogame-606 Spoken like a true consoomer. Logical fallacies, gatekeeping fandom and no true argument to OPs concerns. If faith and long development time is what make a good game. Then Duke Nukem Forever would have been the greatest game of all time. Yet it ended up being a gigantic disappointment for fans.
Screw alienating me, with every video you make the type of person you are seems clearer and the arguments you make are so easily understood that I'm shocked some people don't get them.
I think what I define a dungeon for this BOTW-style game would be like Hyrule Castle or the Yiga Hideout. A location like a cave or structure to explore and fight through and then a boss/miniboss at the end. I like how Elden Ring handled integrating the classic Dark Souls dungeon design with Elden Ring. Locations like Stormveil Castle or hidden caves. I love BOTW and the fun I had in the Yiga Clan’s hideout and Hyrule Castle was something I want to see more of. Maybe the mention of caves from the recent 10min reveal is something I can hope for.
Yiga Hideout was probably the best part of the game, but felt more like a half dungeon a la Forsaken Fortress or Gerudo Fortress than a full-fledged dungeon
Stormveil Castle was my favorite area I think (as far as giving me classic souls vibes). The academy and Leynell capital are close seconds!
Agree with you 100% btw
@@saxoman1 for some reason the ambient music they use for castles in elden ring really sets the mood perfectly for me so i loved skulking around in stormveil castle xD
I think the structure of dungeons has been varied enough throughout the series that fans would accept literally anything as long as they had unique aesthetics.
Bet you a million bucks we'll get to jump down into the Yiga pit and there'll be a dungeon down there
A suite of traditional dungeons would sell me on this game even if it was just 4 or 5 of them. It would be enough to atleast get a play through out of me if they were good. Honestly the fusing shit would be so cool in dungeons. Like there could be dungeon specific Items that could be fused for the puzzles inside and all that fun stuff and could be used creatively in the overworld. I just have no clue how you balance or design this for an enclosed space where someone could come in with any number of things. I really hope, for the people who still enjoy zelda, that this didn't cost them the rest of the game.
Obviosuly 7 would be cool tho lol
The most promising pieces of information we got about TotK's mechanics from the viewpoint of the "classic Zelda fan who just needs dungeons again", are the implementations of Fuse and Ascend, which I believe hint that Nintendo truly does listen to feedback from players. In my eyes, the two biggest flaws that are always pointed out with BotW's design are:
1. The weapon durability system and how it creates a negative feedback loop in terms of player progression and the practicality of engaging with enemies. Nintendo seems to be directly addressing this with Fuse, which both acts as a way to repair/increase the durability of weapons and provides infinite incentive for collecting any and all weapons and trying out their combinations.
2. The lackluster quality of Shrines and Divine Beasts, both aesthetically and functionally. Ascend feels like the most "dungeon oriented" tool in Link's new kit, as it's specifically used to maneuver through vertical spaces while still having limitations as to not be used everywhere (basically, a more linear and binary tool compared to the rest), which immediately could be used in an infinite number of ways within a multi-floored, traditional puzzle box dungeon.
It might be copium from waiting 10 years to see classic dungeons again, but I don't think that Breath of the Wild's modern team of new generation of game developers would spend 6 years not addressing two very obvious weaknesses with BoTW.
I agree with you very much on the front of fusing weapons.
They have decoupled the value of defeating enemies from their weapons, which means you have a reason to go out and defeat enemies down to their specific type, with defeating those enemies being useful throughout the entire game.
It was a problem in the first game that was only slightly offset by armour upgrading and kilton, but it wasn't enough to fix the issue. It is a net benefit to defeat enemies when you see them in almost all circumstances now. Additionally, you can't simply force an enemy to drop their weapon, steal it and run; you will not be getting the full (meaningful) reward.
This also means that they can now design lots of enemies that don't hold weapons in their hands at all, as they can still drop materials that you will be able to use upon their death.
Hell, they're actually incentivised to add a ton of enemy types so you'll have a lot of unique effects for your tools throughout the adventure.
I think it's a very promising advancement, and indicative of the combat design of the game.
Personally I disagree with it fixing the weapon durability system. The main problem of that to me was how the flow of combat felt like it was halted and ruined and that the weapons themselves didn't feel special, powerful or valuable. It just didn't feel rewarding at all.
I think this fuse mechanic is pretty cool but doesn't fix any of the problems I had with the weapon durability system. It's just more breakable weapons that don't look cool, powerful or beautiful in my eyes. Now of course there would be some cool-looking weapons for sure but just in an overall general sense that's how I feel.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 I think Fusing weapons will add a greater sense of personal connection to your weapons while at the same time alleviating the feeling that you need to hoard them, since you can always make new ones or re-fuse something to upgrade it. Previously, the value of weapons was staggered by the fact that they break unequivocally, so you would often end up either avoiding combat entirely to preserve your weapons or use weaker ones in combat while the good ones sit in the back of your inventory. The weapons fused in the demonstration were not visually appealing for sure, but we were only shown the most rudimentary types of Fusing. I'm positive that there will be weapon Fusions that are more visually appealing, as we've already seen an example of the Zonai cannon thing Fused onto a different weapon to make it into a completely new tool.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 Yeah, I don't get how people say this fixes the durability system?
All it does is bide your time with a specific weapon but eventually it will still break. Unless they haven't shown us something that might upgrade your weapon's stats or something, all this tells me is that I have to use a specific mechanic to mow extend the lifetime of whatever is in my inventory, and sacrifice the cool looks for some of them to just slap a random ass rock or log on them. I know people seem to like the goofiness of that but I personally kinda don't? And what of the Master Sword and Hylian Shield? They're supposed to be super special things and we're even having a big story about repairing the sword, so for them to have us go through all of that and then the Sword is just the same as it was in BotW?? Or combining it with random sticks or hammers? And does fusing things to your shield extend the durability? They haven't shown that.
And you also have to craft specific arrows you want now, so you're effectively sharing your arrow slot with the things you can fuse them to. So like, you want Ice Arrows? Better specifically hunt for that resource to have them now. And you better hunt a lot of them too.
And I'm sure there's probably a limit to how much you can fuse. There's no way they'd just let you do it infinitely. And what happens when you defuse them? If their durability stays consistent and that stick goes back to being on the verge of breaking either way it's like what's the point? Why wouldn't I just get rid of the stick for something else and ignore the fusion mechanic? Unless the fusion mechanic specifically makes the two things stronger than they would be on their own. They should've showed this as well as this is very important. People are just assuming things and having blind faith but I want hard confirmation.
@@ultimatedumbass4640 This right here! It's like putting a bowtie on a turd. Just remove it entirely and bring back traditional weapons. You can keep the durability if its strong weapons you find in the overworld but just give us unlockable weapons from dungeons.
I completely agree with your opinion. I love what they've shown, but there just has to be more that they're not showing. Although these mechanics may have taken a long time to develop, I can't imagine the developers thinking it's worth sacrificing other aspects of the game in favor of their inclusion. It just wouldn't feel justified to me. I trust that the Zelda team is smart enough to realize that.
I actually fear that this is what happened. They saw what happened with CDPR's cyberpunk, and know that releasing anything "broken" is not acceptable, what we will get is something that can be described as a finished game, however, it's lacking in terms of levels, open world expansion, and many other things. Just polished mechanics for people to "break them" and "return to Monke unga bunga".
That's what it's looking like to me, and I am sorry that it's sounding like I am trying to be accusatory or offensive. Genuinely not trying to do that. I am just saying from what I've seen, this is what I've gathered. Nothing has been officially shown or announced that would effectively negate that.
i.e. It's what many people have aptly dubbed "glorified DLC", I think.
@Sam F.S I fear you may be right, but I'll stay cautiously optimistic until the game releases.
The game isn’t even out yet and people are already calling it BOTW 2.5. You guys so desperately want to be negative that you’ve made your judgements about a game based on two trailers and a ten minute gameplay demo.
This is a nonsense opinion. Nintendo barely changes their games from the last. We all said the same thing when BOTW dropped and we never saw dungeons. We all said “surely they’re hiding them!!!”.
Nope. There were none.
This is the game. You either like what you see, or you dont.
@@davismorgan99 Because they havent shown anything that tells us otherwise. If they want to sell us a game that's an actual sequel and NOT an experience that feels like glorified DLC then I want to see some of it. As of now i'm not seeing anything that couldn't have just been added to the base game. I'll gladly eat my hat if the game reveals to be a lot more than what theyre showing i.e full traditional dungeons , caverns to explore, rich enemy variety, deep cast of characters, more settlements, a more involved story (all things that made breath of the wild pretty weak) but we've still not seen any evidence of that and the game releases in 6 weeks.
We arent being negative because we want to be. We want this game to be amazing but so far it doesnt feel like it. It's okay sitting in the back and speculating that there's so much they're purposely hiding but then, as a previous comment said, we all thought that they were hiding true dungeons from us with breath of the wild but no it was infact a case of "what you see is what you get".
Reusing the same overworld map was a huge gamble. For me the best thing about BotW was the exploration and discovery. I think this is playing a big part why people are underwhelmed. I'm sure i'll still enjoy it and am looking forward to playing it but i'm pretty sure i won't get that overwhelming feeling of awe and wonder knowing most of the map already.
@w Tht's all very true but i know all the bridges, i know all the mountains i know where the desert is. I know where all the stable are and where the Zonai jungle is, i know where Zoras domain is and all the areas associated with it. The point is that making small changes and then just littering the map with rock debris is NOT in any way meaningful changes. I accept that all the sky islands are new for discovery but i'm not talking about the sky or the underworld. I'm talking only about the main land mass. The view we got when free falling in the video showed us very little in the way of changes to the overworld. This was my main concern when they announced the overworld map would be reused it still is now and i know that when i'm finished with the game i will have enjoyed the game very much but i also know my number one criticsm of TotK will still be the reusing of the map. I am resigned to knowing that now.
@w i might just be on crack but were those faron-looking trees always right next to the dueling peaks?
@@Tass... Exactly.
@@Tass... I watched Pointcrow, a Zeldatuber who also knows BOTW like the back of his hand, react excitedly seeing new landmarks and structures in an 'old' map during that freefall sequence. Seems to me you don't know the map that well and are only concluding negatively without actually poring over the stuff. He spotted a big tower on top of Mt. Lanayru for example. Was that in BOTW?
yeah but see it like this, we got sky island and caves, these can easily be as big as the main map was in botw, but then we ALSO have the botw map, with what seems like some pretty big changes to atleast the main areas? (like the mountain not having any lava) there will definetly be enough to explore to rival botw.
I think many people tend to forget that we're paying customers and we reserve the right to be critical. If you're one of the believers that thinks they are hiding things, I hope you're right. But for me personally, seeing is believing.
That's my problem with the 'hiding things' argument. It's nice and certainly may be true! But it means that, as a skeptical consumer, I have to wait until the game comes out and spoil myself to decide if the game is worth purchasing. (Especially with the price hike.) As a long-time Zelda fan, this franchise has never put me in that position before.
I totally agree 100%. For me, the fact that the music hasn't changed in old places was a huge disappointment. After playing the same game for 6 years, I was really looking forward to hearing new music when I'm walking in Hyrule, because I've grown tired of it. The music was good, but I've heard it for thousands of hours by now. No later than last week, I was in the Hebra region and I was telling myself how much I was looking forward to revisit theses regions with new music. I'm more worried now than before the gameplay.
no lie, the moment i noticed the music when i was first watching the gameplay stream was when my heart sank a little and now i’m kinda worried (as worried as you can be about a videogame lol) about totk. i guess we’ll find out soon
No one forced you to play the same game for 6 years LOL
@@TheBrazilRules this is just childish. I've played the game for 50 hours and I agree with them
@@nanashi7779 I am playing for the game. I pity people like you that care so much for insignificant stuff like bg music(like I saw aguy saying in a video, if music is well made you don't even notice it is there)
Lmao your idea of the “moderate classic Zelda fan” is literally me. If Aonuma had just come out and said, “there will be actual dungeons in this one,” I’d be fully onboard the hype train and willing to drop $70 on release day. The way dungeon progression worked in Link Between Worlds would’ve been perfect for an open world game like BotW and I don’t get why they didn’t do just that.
I thought the shrines were a super smart way to make exploration fun and have a point. Also the divine beasts were well done they were just too short. So I think they had great ideas and a lot of good execution. Wasn’t perfect perhaps but it was well thought out.
@@Ray-dl5mp
Yeah! The only problem shrines had was that some were a little boring and they all shared the same visual identity. If they can craft a "shrine replacement" but incorporate more visual variety and more interesting puzzles, it'll be perfect IMO!
There is a bit evidence of dungeons.
@@sethfeldpausch4337 yes I agree. Even though part of me loved the similar music and feel of each shrine. Kinda comforting in a way. I didn’t like the combat ones. I want puzzles to be there if we have to find something.
@@Ray-dl5mp I’ll give them some credit. I didn’t really like the divine beasts, but having mini-puzzles is a good way to populate the world with something interesting that isn’t just enemy camps. That’s definitely a “Zelda” approach to that open-world problem, that no other game really does. So looking back, it’s no surprise divine beasts suffered when they made 120 shrines. They were spread thin and something had to give. Perhaps those green spiral things actually lead to cave sections (instead of remixed shrines), which play out differently and aren’t as numerous as shrines so we could get a good mix of “mini-dungeon-like areas” along with “more traditional dungeons”.
They heard about the “weapon durability and exhausting climbing system” by giving us fuse and ascend ability. I’m still hopeful that they incorporate dungeons too. 🤞🏻
honestly the mechanics they showed could lead to some absolutely incredible dungeon gameplay, and I'd be sad if they were only there to screw around in the overworld with
@@calebwest2806 I'm almost pretty sure that we can use it to solve puzzles in overworld or dungeons(?) maybe, just like how Mr. Aonuma hinted at a scenario "Imagine being stuck in a cage" when he showcase the ascend ability.
I think, if dungeons do exist, they will be focused on going deeper and deeper, that way you can easily ascend to earlier parts of the dungeon, but getting deeper will be where the challenge lies.
Its not a complete turn-off for me, but having dungeons is absolutely the difference between it being a good game, and it being a fantastic one. As long as they arent linear?
@DingDongVG Archive You can only use it if they give you cave, still plenty of climbing!
The way I see it, TotK could be one of the best sequels ever but I wouldn't know because the marketing has been THAT bad. Even during the gameplay reveal with Aonuma, it starts with him riding a horse on the surface and at a glance you could easily mistake the game for BotW. The only giveaway are Link's arm and the sky islands if you look up.
Imagine if we got an Elden Ring 2 but it reused the same overworld, engine, and animations and you couldn't tell if it was the original or not from certain screenshots. That's how TotK feels right now.
@@OutsiderAus10 and the „big new thing“ is that you can glue a stick and a stone together.
I won't lie, that horse stable music being the exact same (and it looking the same) triggered me lol.
100% agree with you
@@saxoman1 the music was a huge problem for me.
This was an extremely level headed discussion. I am in the hype camp personally, because the gameplay elements we’ve seen genuinely have me excited. But I understand as well that not everyone will share those sentiments. Different people find different joys in games.
Great video. Thanks again
I think its absolutely reasonable for fans to be worried about totk. The little we've seen feels paltry to new entries of the past. Many folk point to MM for the reused assets and say "See? You shouldn't worry." And I think that's not a valid comparison.
We've never revisited the same exact Hyrule map in the series like this. At least, not to this degree. The closest comparison we have would be ALBW, but that can easily be hand waved since it had been 20+ years between it and LttP. Yet it still brought new things to the table and has a bit of its own identity compared to its predecessor. Going back to the MM comparison, yes assets were reused but were also reinterpreted for the new world setting they made. I won't blame somebody if in the future they mistake totk with botw. I just hope we get something more that will help set it apart from botw to capture our hearts in the way only a Zelda game can in whatever form that may be
So much sense and no likes. What a world we live in today :(
Keep doing you good sir
the difference is that BoTW's world is already magnitudes *larger* just on its own than all of Ocarina. They don't *need* a whole new map to create a new story, as evidenced by AOC (despite it being a spinoff).
That, and they are clearly trying to give this set of games some consistency to tie the overarching story together, which is a valid reason to keep the same world. If anything it's more like Ocarina vs. Twilight Princess, just more on the nose and a smaller time-skip. It's the same *world* but different stuff in that world.
@@princetbug And I agree with your points wholeheartedly. Totk isn't just another Zelda game, its a direct sequel. Considering what we know about the general plot of the game, a completely new map would be ridiculous. Yet because of that, part of the joy and wonder of exploring the world is lost because the land itself is roughly the same. For most people I can't say whether or not new landmarks or sky islands will be enough to satisfy that exploration. Those people need something new and big to dig their teeth into, whether its an underground area or dungeons. That would be enough incentive to comb through familiar territory to uncover these lost and hidden entrances. Theres an appeal there that invites you to come back to well treaded ground.
All in all, I can understand why some aren't yet satisfied with what they've seen. I myself look forward to playing totk regardless as I know I'll enjoy myself. Totk is a house being built upon the foundation that is botw which is exciting for me. What that house should look like is going to differ between individuals.
I don't think it's reasonable to worry about any video game ever unless you are making it and want it to be the best it can possibly be. You haven't bought it yet, why the fuck would you worry about how it turns out? If it's good get it, if it's not play something else...
@@oussamaokbi because people enjoy a certain series and want the next installment to be good, not very hard to understand
I think the main concern for me is exactly what the development focused on. If it's mechanic and less exploration oriented, it's a bit of a let down.
One of the reasons I found Skyward Sword a bit more difficult to digest was the feeling that the game revolved around perfecting motion control to the point where exploration felt confined (or barren when considering the sky). My thoughts were that most of the focus came from this mechanic and forced a smaller claustrophobic overworld on the development.
Now we have the same world, we've played in this world for 6 years, and the wonder of that exploration doesn't seem as present. 15 sky islands just don't seem that compelling to me considering everything.
Saying all this, I have a feeling the game will be great... I just need more than new powers to reassure me.
Edit: Didn't mean to cause any distress with the sky island exaggeration
Is that number 15 made up or is that confirmed. Serious question
You do understand that there are likely entirely sperate teams working on the new mechanics and working on revitalizing the world, right? The base overworld may be layed out the same, but there's no way there's not going to be new things all over it, not to mention the Sky and Underground. 15 Sky Islands is clearly a misrepresentation, we saw more than that in just the single video of gameplay that we got.
@@HArrowsmith Who told you there will be an Underground?
Aonuma said at least 3 times " this hyrule ,isn't the One you played in botw . Guys they added these new Powers to the game for a reason , to give us the possibility ti extend the exploration , the rewind Power can be used for fighting for the exploration and for solving puzzles,and i think it's the same for the Power "ascensus " that Will be used not only to go up in the Sky ,but also for the underground exploration ( yes there Will be caves in these game ) ,and this Power can also be used to solve puzzle . You have to understand that this time ,Nintendo doesn't Need to show us everything about the game like they did for botw ,because they know that legend of Zelda brand Is at his top in popularity . Aonuma said in the last gameplay trailer "there are many things that i Wish to show you ,but i can't ,i Hope that you Will Discover by yourself .
@@musti8044 Watch previous trailers. Also, Ascend is a very big telltale.
I was watching the showcase on the same day I sat down with the Final Fantasy 16 showcase with Yoshi P. I definitely had a distinct feeling between the two games. With 16, I watched the hour and change of gameplay and I got really excited. Yoshida showed a lot of stuff, as he said "talk is cheap", so he addressed a number of concerns people had for the game and how they marketed FF16. It was cool that he showed that he does watch the community and if you know Yoshida, this isn't new to him. I think he handles criticisms well and him talking to the community in a fashion like he does with his FF14 mmo is telling about how he is listening in despite being stalwart in how he wants things done. What they showed went in depth, like combat, eikon battles, eikon abilities, how the menus look, how the world looks in different areas, how the story beats look like with lore and world building, and more. It was great and I was sold to the letter with FF16.
With Tears of the Kingdom, I watched the gameplay, thinking to myself, "ok. What's the hook. This video isn't as long". The Ultrahand and fuse was cool. It gives me ideas, like what if you can fuse two of the same sword to make it stronger or restore its durability. The vehicle building potential will probably be very cool to experiment with. Breath of the Wild let you have a lot of freedom to interact with the world in ways you might not even think of. I remember solving a puzzle involving electric currents by dropping my dying swords to conduct that electricity. Very cool stuff. But when it was all over, many things left me wanting. Dungeons are a big part of that. I don't think this game will be bad since Breath of the Wild was very interesting. But I do have my reservations with Breath of the Wild, such as the lack of dungeons, how combat felt super simplistic, even for a Zelda game. I don't get tired of Wind Waker or Twilight Princess because there are cool mechanics such as twisting around to an enemy's backside to flank them, or stabbing them when they are down, or drawing your sword to do a lot of damage. It felt like you were an expert. But the three weapon types feel super simplistic, outside of parrying. Flurries felt both overused and got boring quickly, especially during Lynal fights with silver and gold lynels being such beefy mid bosses. I was hoping for a bit more depth with the weapon play, and I'm still hoping for that. I like the idea of fusing cloud mushrooms to make a smoke screen, and even rocks for a beefy shield. I especially like the idea of fusing arrows with monster parts to change how they function. But my issue is how marketing is so confident in their strut, that they won't show much to not spoil people to such a fine degree, that it sort of hurts its marketing by now showing just a bit more. I rather trailers show less because there is a thing as too much, but there is such a thing as too little too. Especially when there are a chunk of people, minority or otherwise, who are worried about the game.
And that's what I think as to why FF16 had me so much more excited than Tears of the Kingdom. It wasn't afraid to address things by showing you more without spoiling large parts of the game itself. Gameplay, lore and the world with hooks on what you can expect were reasonable to show. I am intrigued and hyped for what's to come and I'm far less nervous about it than I am with Tears of the Kingdom. I wished they showed a few more things at least to put some more people at ease. There is being mysterious and vague, but there is a point where it goes too far.
100% agree
The issue with the Fuse idea is simple. Most people simply won't use it much, they'll Fuse whatever strong weapons they find and that's really it, maybe they'll use it for their shield or armor a couple of times because it pops into their head and whenever the game actively WANTS you to use it, but that's really it.
The amount of people who will realistically use these systems is extremely low. How do i know this? Because it ALWAYS happens, same with almost every crafting system, people just don't bother with them much.
@@AzureRoxe Ya. That’s where the game designer comes in. They counter that typical optimization people have by throwing a wrench in the works. These challenges could be a complex enemy, traversal, puzzle, or so on. Nuts and Bolts will have very specific challenges which requires you to think outside the box. Maybe not every one, but you have to keep people on their toes. If the challenges in TotK are basic (use a regular car/boat/flying machine with no extras to solve a problem) then the systems were a waste. They’re only as interesting as the challenges you’re presented with. And I don’t really see this game presenting you with NPC’s that ask you to protect bananas from a Lynel or something. Which limits the amount of challenges you could run into.
They showed crossing a river… which is dumb since that wasn’t an issue in BotW anyway. Food, Cryonis, a higher vantage point, they worked fine. What they could’ve shown is “scaling” a mountain during the rain. Because we _didn’t_ have a solution to combat rain before, but you could probably make a non-metallic flying machine (like the hot air balloon) to overcome that. It may not be a new challenge, but it would show _something_ that differentiates TotK and no one can complain about “spoilers” because rain isn’t new (assuming it’s still in the game).
I soon as I saw FF16's combat was from the same guy that made Devil May Cry 5 I was sold
FF16 is supposed to have a demo available before the game launches too. That will be great. I'm still cautiously optimistic about the game, but I'm hoping that they pull it off. I'd love to actually want to play a Final Fantasy game again.
As for TotK, I'm kind of done with Zelda if it's just more open world exploration, with what I would barely call puzzles, and bad combat.
Elden Ring gave me an itch for wanting to explore floating ruins but it never really gave it a proper scratch. Farum Azula was great but somehow felt disconnected to the ruins in the sky that the ruin fragment items hinted at. Tears of the Kingdom just might scratch the itch.
it is disconnected from the ruin fragments. farum azula is way off the coast of liurnia, nowhere near most of the sites where ruin fragments are found, like all over limgrave, in the far north of caelid, etc. there may be no connection at all between farum azula and the ruin fragments. the big ruined cube structures you find all over limgrave don't resemble farum azula's architecture. they probably represent the ruins of an entirely different skyfaring civilization from the crucible era?
@@ToxicallyMasculinelol man i thought that there would be a city on top of the Erdtree
When I played Elden ring and I’m saying this is a lifelong Zelda fan it just showed me how crappy Nintendo when it came at creating dungeons and caverns that I wanted to explore.
Games like Elden ring, Hogwarts legacy and red dead redemption two made everything interesting to actually see and find, tears of the Kingdom looks identical to the game. They came out six years ago with reused music assets and basically nothing new. Oh, in the Saturday morning cartoon, cheesy voice acting that for some reason they decided to do in breath of the wild.
Yeah but where's the game? So far we have sky islands and new mechanics. But where's the actual game?
Because Farum Azula was a relatively tiny part of Elden ring. It's basically a legacy dungeon in the sky.
Oh and I love that it had 3 major boss encounters. Godskin duo, Maliketh, and a secret boss encounter with Placidusax, the last boss I actually beat in the game, and used the Black Blade to do so!
Agreed! The fact that youv teleported there really added to that feeling of disconnect. But it was beautiful!
The thing that BOTW has over Elden ring though is a more modern physics and mechanics system. Farum Azula was beautiful, but having ancient Dark Souls 3-esk game engine (which is just a tweak of DS 1, which is a tweak of DeS) made my character feel stiff and out of place, unable to freely move through this beautiful environment.
Imagine if BOTW used a revamped Twighlight Princess game engine? And didn't have all that new, from the ground up, physics system and climbing and general game engine?
Wouldn't be as good, it just wouldn't!
Yet, Elden ring destroys BOTW in enemy/environment variety and combat system. Not to mention that ER proved that you COULD have traditional DS dungeons in an amazing open world game.
So TOTK has a LOT to prove. But given that they already had an engine and world build, 6 years of development later, I SIMPLY CAN'T IMAGINE that they aren't hiding an absolutely enormous portion of the game from us and leaving it as a surprise.
We'll see!
This is the second one of your videos like this I’ve seen, and I’ve gotta hand it to you dude. You are INCREDIBLY good at explaining both sides. I was all hype after the gameplay trailer, and you actually made me realize that I’m more concerned subconsciously than I realized. I’m the “BotW was amazing but please just give me dungeons” guy. Great video, thanks!!
The question that needs to be asked is: What could be added to Breath of the Wild's base that would appease old fans without ruining the new gameplay style for new fans? When it comes to mutually exclusive design choices, there's no magic solution to appease everyone. But there there really is a sizeable list of things that would placate both camps:
-Boss variety/immersion
-Music variety/immersion
-Enemy variety/immersion
-Dungeon variety/immersion
-Story elements
-New environments with unique traversal mechanics: underwater, underground, in the sky
When I heard that the sequel would reuse all the old assets, I was actually really glad because it meant they had an opportunity to refine the old game and add everything above. The new stuff is good; the game would definitely be disappointing if there was _no_ new stuff. But if Nintendo fails to put in an appreciable potion of the above list, then it doesn't just feel like they're making the tough decision to appeal to new fans at the expense of old ones, it feels like they're *abandoning* old fans when they don't even have to.
I believe that's Elden Ring.
Does all of it.
In an open world, with sick beats!
@@samf.s.7731 Yeah, I've liked the souls games for some time. But they lack the traversal/physics mechanics that only Zelda games seem to do.
Strong convictions loosely held. Nothing wrong with shifting how you feel after introspection/new sources of info. Appreciate your takes and look forward to more videos !
I guess what it boils down to is I don't want them to do to Zelda what they've done with Paper Mario, where each iteration feels like it has less and less of the elements that got me hooked in the first place. Everyday I feel a little bit more like BotW's massive success has actually become a curse on the fanchise and I'm just hoping that after TotK, there's a return to form.
Same here
There’s _some_ hope. BotW and so far TotK are build on the concept of surprise, i.e. novelty. I don’t think there’s another wide-scale thing they could do to make those types of games again. BotW had climb anywhere, and natural effects system (wood burns, metal conducts electricity, etc). With TotK it’s weapon fusing (with other weapons or items), and vehicle crafting (with all sorts of objects/parts). I can’t fathom a third way, and even if somehow there was, I don’t think they could feasible keep it up long-term for the series. The “anything with anything” concept is not one that can be replicated infinitely. It’s untenable. So pretty soon you’ll have to settle for something more formulaic or deliberate, but with comparatively smaller changes.
It’s probably why TotK reuses basically the entirety of BotW. They know they can’t keep up this “anything/combination” aspect up forever. The time to try that again is now, when you have all these systems made. And with how more complex these new fusion mechanics are (in terms of testing), they probably sacrificed a completely whole new world to make it possible. Because the game after TotK will likely use a new engine, which more likely means having to recreate it. Whereas now they can just reuse it with ease.
This isn’t to say the choice is justified or not, it’s a gamble. But, if they wanted to recapture what BotW had, it’s now, not later. Just as if Nintendo wants to make “Smash Ultimate 2”, their best chance is with the following game. Because once you “restart/reboot” and start from scratch, you can’t jump ahead, and then back again. Although maybe that’s a ham-fisted example, but you get the gist. It’s either now or never.
All I've been saying is I hope since 2019 after every trailer and now the gameplay...
I'm done with hoping, as sad as it is - we've seen the evidence now.
I predicted it but honestly didn't think it would be this bad.
That's a perfect analogy
@@mrshmuga9 Yeah I definitely agree. I’m still hoping that this one will have dungeons and a good story, but even if it doesn’t, surely they can’t get away with just doing another big open world sandbox for the next game, they’ll have to do something different, hopefully by fusing it with some of the more classic elements that have always made Zelda games special
Man, I wish everyone was capable of just sitting down and considering other people's points of view like you. Great video.
You absolutely nailed the “classic Zelda enjoyer” description. I definitely fall into that group but I have some overlap with botw fans. Your closing words really hit home for me too.
My biggest fear is this: The Weapon Fusion and Ultrahand systems seem really cool, but I'm worried I might not end up using them to their full potential. I enjoyed BotW 1, but I feel like one of things that held it back for me was that a lot of the cool interactions for that game became "cool trivia" rather than "gamplay" to me.
For example, electrocuting enemies with lightning strikes and metal objects is really cool and feels awesome when you use it, but I didn't use it that often since just fighting the enemies was usually faster and easier (I never did play Master Mode, maybe it would've helped). I worry that the game will lack strong incentives to actually use the creative tools available rather than just something simple and effective.
Doing that also became pretty darn pointless later on since it failed to scale with enemy HP. XD
It can work… providing they make challenges that require you to think outside the box. But who knows if they will. Darn near everything about this game is hidden. I don’t think we’ve even seen NPC’s, lol.
@@mrshmuga9 : Apparently certain constructs here are NPCs. People noticed the ones designated Construct Ranger appear to have the 'talk' option. Haven't talked to anyone though. Link hasn't felt like talking since Ganondorf came back I guess. XD
100%
And this makes it stale... in the old games you had to use your entire toolkit because many enemies were straight up immune to other types of damage.
Well the issue was people didn't adapt to the durability system, instead of focusing on alternative methods to deal with enemies everyone just opened a guide and started farming korok seeds until they had enough inventory space that they would never actually run out of weapons. It's what happens when you have to pullback on a feature you designed your game around just because old fans weren't receptive to it on focus tests.
I remember when I saw the first teaser and everyone was out of their minds. Ganondorf is back, and now the castle is lifting somewhere! Where is it going? Are we getting an adventure with Zelda too? What can we expect of the world now?
And then 2 years pass, and we discover the castle is like, 2 feet above where it used to be. Zelda fell off a cliff, and in all likelihood, we're just saving her again.
That's a good representation of my feelings on this. Sorry, but... six years, and people can still entertain that it looks like a 70 dollar expansion and _have a point?_ The novelty is gone. We know it's not truly a new world, at least not entirely. To be frank, I don't care about an intricate crafting system if I'm constantly retreading the places, enemies, and sounds of the first game.
I don't like going into a game this skeptical. I don't want to be spoiled, don't get me wrong, but I've never in my life had to question whether or not a sequel was a sequel this much, and I don't want to shell out 70 dollars for faith either. It's really bizarre how they thought this was a good way to advertise.
edit: Oh and let it be known that if I'm proven wrong, which I _want_ to happen btw, I will eat my words and clown on this comment until the end of time.
edit 2: I unfortunately wasn't wrong
I know that we are in the minority. But I swear there is no game here imho. Just gimmicky mechanics and a minor expansion to the map.
Took From Soft 7 years to make Elden Ring, but that is the real deal. No doubt that they had to correct course and scrap stuff and start all over again, and even though yes they did reuse some old assets, it was a brand new title and an ambitious project the likes of which no one had attempted before.
There's no nicer way for me to say this to soften the blow, but Nintendo was probably working on ports and remakes of old Zelda titles as opposed to attempting to dethrone From Soft which usurped them. CDPR may have kinda imploded with Cyberpunk, but they'll be back with Witcher 4, and that's well in their comfort zone. It will probably turn out just fine for them.
This pushed down what used to be the "IT" fantasy series further on the quality ladder. Square looks like they're doing okay too, and while they haven't truly made a comeback, they're making MMOs that offer a different experience than single-player campaign fantasy games.
Shame really, if this was Microsoft, Sony, or another good 3rd party developer, a gem like this would be cherished.
Edit: This is very important, but I am not saying this to hate on Nintendo. Also, please don't harass the devs on social media guys if the game doesn't live up to your expectations.
For real. The biggest draw for Botw was exploration and it seems like the main overworld is the same map.
Maybe it took 6 years because of the damn COVID pandemic?
It usually takes a few days after release but by then the rom will be online. So you can emulate it, if you want to do a demo before you commit to buying it for 70 bucks.
@Sam F.S I honestly don't even like comparing Nintendo to other companies anymore because it's just kind of...pointless? They're gonna do whatever because Nintendo is the "do whatever" company, for better or for worse, and their practices over the course of this gen have been especially...unique. Taking the genre and industry forward doesn't seem to be a real primary goal to them. They design games to be surface-level fun as always, which isn't always a bad thing, but as a result, I doubt they will ever take much inspiration from outside their bubble. It's not impossible, but I suspect there's a reason why they focus on stuff like fuse in ToTK almost a month before release despite the fact that we still know basically nothing about it that isn't "yeah, we reused the world you explored for 500+ hours lol."
People remember the Wii U right? Nintendo failed to articulate to potential buyers why the console was something new (and worthy of shelling out more money), and not just a revamped Wii. Although not exactly the same here, I hope Nintendo aren't being too overconfident again in thinking they will automatically get a big win without delivering on what a sizeable "minority" have been hoping for.
Eeerily similar, but I bought a Wii U.
This on the other hand... well... unlikely?
You hit the nail on the head for what I’m feeling in your outro. I’ve always had concerns about the reused world, and the mechanics we’ve seen, while cool, don’t feel substantial enough for this to be worth a whole new game. I really hope the people saying there’s more to the game than we’re seeing are right (whether it’s dungeons, another world to explore, or even a gripping story like you said) but right now I’m just not seeing it.
Hey Becky, that's kinda the thing. Even if these people magically turn out to be right, it will honestly be a coincidence and a bizarre marketing strategy on behalf of Nintendo.
We haven't been officially told that that's gonna be in there, nor shown. So why would anyone assume that to be the case other than wishful thinking and blind trust in a developer.
Which, in this industry, has been proven to be a huge mistake.
@@samf.s8786 people are very optimistic over the potential changes to this sequel lol
I honestly don’t care I’ve played every single mayor Zelda game ever and I’m not gonna stop now. Imo iPhones are definitely not worth its price but it’s still one of the top selling phones ever. Imo Zelda is the same if you don’t want to play it great you saved yourself $70 congratulations hope that helps with whatever other expenses you have.
@@samf.s8786 its not blind trust, its stablished trust, zelda is 35+ years franchise that has released banger after banger and they have experience reusing maps and making them feel different, its just thats most people skeptical either haven't played many zelda games or outright just played BotW.
"The mechanics don't feel substantial enough to be worth a whole new game"...
The possible combinations from the Fuse mechanic, just from what we have seen, which is a very small sample, are already in the hundreds if not thousands of options.
The Ultrahand mechanics are ridiculously interesting in of themselves and if the cannon shown in the past trailer is a hint we will probably be able to arm the vehicles we make.
Hell even the point of the map not being too different is not as big of a deal as most people think, BotW gave you a completely different set of tools to explore the world, imagine doing the Great Plateau without Runes, the experience is quite different like that.
I understand you want things like dungeons or more story, but why would you expect that when this is a direct sequel to a game that didn't have them?
When you said "I need some DUNGEONs" I got hype
Yeah I think it be fun to have 7 giant Dungeons, temples or shrines that are enclosed space that are their own open exploring locations with a boss. If that doesn't happen that's fine, but it be cool to have something connected to the sages or something
My problem with the whole dungeon ordeal is that I personally thought that while BotWs world was beautiful and filled with things to do, it was forgettable due to lack of significant locations. Sure you had the villages that you could go to, but aside from buying one or two sets of armor and arrows, there wasnt much differentiating themselves from each other. Dungeons could fix that problem for me in a few ways. There could be exclusive gear found in or around the dungeons, or even bosses that respawn at every blood moon to get rare materials. That alone would encourage revisiting them and would be a memorable landmark.
It is also possible that I am simply forgetting about something simple, but maybe I forgot it for that exact reason.
I agree, the least forgettable location to me were the 3 huge mazes with a barbarian piece of armour at the end. These 3 locations were the ones that resembled (at least aesthetically) to a classic dungeon
You are on spot, there are just few memorable locations worth mentioning.
BOTW is very easily my favorite Zelda game and preferred style for the series going forward, but... yeah, I'm going to need me some dungeons or something equally massive to make this the game I was expecting it to be in the many years leading up to release. Replaying BOTW made me realize how different even the most similar sections are to classic 3D Zelda. Shrines are extremely short, easy, and open-ended even if they are fun. The Divine Beasts are entirely non-linear, so solving any individual puzzle only takes a few minutes or so and doesn't allow the dungeon to interconnect in any meaningful way. The most interesting of linear sections in the game are often trivialized by some simple "creative" thinking, like gliding past Yiga guards or using gusts of wind to skip Hyrule castle. It's one of my favorite games of all time and I absolutely love the sandbox elements, but even I will admit that, in my opinion, BOTW's changes are not always just different, but detrimental to the usual strengths of the Zelda series. I want an 11/10 game, not just expanding on the strengths of BOTW, but filling in what was lost in the open-world transition. Concerns being written off as those of a pessimistic, nostalgia-obsessed OOT stan who "never actually liked BOTW in the first place" has been a take I've been hearing a lot lately, so it was great to hear you address just about every side of the conversation.
The reason I’m skeptical is because BotW had several serious issues imo and they haven’t addressed any of them, they’ve just talked about new content they’re adding. In the latest video durability looked unchanged, so I have no idea if they even recognize any of the problems. It also doesn’t look like a $70 sequel, it looks like the same game with new content that was pretty unimpressive. It doesn’t look like something they’ve been working on for 5 years, it looks like something they could have made in six months. I hope I’m wrong about all these things.
I just dont want the open world to be so empty again, though I don't see why the exploration won't be more of the same from BOTW
I really hope Nintendo is actually hiding a great deal of content. That 6 years of development and $70 price tag must mean something, right? (doubtful tho)
Your opinions don’t matter cuz they’re always followed by sound analysis and valid reasoning. You make incredible content, and your opinion shouldn’t scare your viewers away cuz we know what we’re here for 😄
I agree that the fuse system is where all the development time went in to. Every item can combine with any item, that’s a huge undertaking and unfortunately I couldn’t care less about it. I enjoyed breath of the wild when I played it but now looking back in hindsight I just wish they stuck to the tried and true formula of what the older games felt like. I’ll take a twilight princess or a link to the past over breath of the wild anyday
I wish they'd pulled an Elden Ring, but that has been proven to be the kind of thing only one studio can pull, at least as of today.
Yeahhh that’s where I’m at too, I knew they weren’t going to go in the direction I hoped, but I really wish they hadn’t leaned into the “speed runners breaking the game” aspect because while those are the videos that get the most attention from botw, I don’t think the majority of players actually play like that
They have a bigger team than they had for the first game. The same game that is on many peoples GOTY and Favorite game list.
I don't think they spent the last 5 or 6 years with just the fuse system. That is a silly level of skepticism. I'm sure there will be many new locations/environments/enemies as well as changes to old ones.
Exactly. Keep the dungeons and slap an open world on top. Elden Ring proves its a winning formula. They already sort of did it with Wind Waker. Why is this so hard.
@@CJ-ct2mu Finally someone with common sense
I agree with you 100%. I've been waiting on this game for way too long just for there to be almost nothing new, and i'm going to need that extra push
“TheDopamine” lol
@@ClumpypooCP ok
@@TheDopamine998 poo
@@ClumpypooCP ok
I agree with you 100%. Hoping they are hiding something big, and when the times comes they will drop the bomb! (if that's the case I hope they don't show us anything more until the release, I'm ok with that). And yeah, I align with the "classic zelda fan", I will be pleased with a few good massive thematic dungeons and bosses. And storywise, if it comes with a beautiful and meaningful journey that would be the cherry on top. I liked what they showed us, yeah, but there is this little voice in the back of my head whispering "cool... but, is it just that? It can't be just that... right?". Great vid!
My biggest problem with botw were the large open spaces with nothing. I hated the feeling of running for 30 minutes to find nothing of interest. I didnt care to do all the shrines, after 20 i found them to be a chore. I didnt care for the lack of enemy variety. I didnt like how easily my weapons broke.
I DID like the tower dlc. Where it stripped you of everything and set up enemy puzzles. Ending with a Lionel.Which CONVINCED me they need dungeons. I thought, at first, i wouldn't be too sad without them but I was. I wanted a puzzle and a planned dungeon that had certain, unique, enemies.
there might be a lot they arent showing but what we saw may just be where the bulk of the development time went in. Im not a programmer but i could imagine that making that many interactable parts could take a massive amount of time. A lot of people at least from what ive seen online mostly like botw for the cool things you can do with the gameplay mechanics (wind bomb, bullet time bounce, etc) rather than the story or open world. I think they may just be targeting those people who like to see cool things rather than developing a larger world and deep story.
that feels a little unfair, if you ask me. these days ppl keep playing BotW for the cool gameplay mechanics/quirks, now that the game has been broken to hell and back and it’s 6 years old, but back in the day, the discovery, wonder, and true exploration of the everything the game offers was what made BotW damn near a masterpiece game when it launched. but now everyone has discovered almost everything BotW had to offer
There aren't enough well-articulated contrarians on YT, I really love this channel
@Game Design Andy Maybe so, but the world isn't ready for that discussion haha
I'm a "Zelda Boomer." Pretty much what I was hoping for was: add unbreakable weapons, add dungeons, improve the variety of over world bosses, add some more interesting villains with personality, and create a new over world. That may sound like a lot but I would have been willing to wait 6-7 years for that.
I'm sure the game will be great in a "Shadow of the Erdtree" sense, but the initial sense of wonder and novelty is definitely gone.
I think we’re looking at that sense of exploration from the wrong angle imo. When Aunoma initially described returning to the same Hyrule I felt the same but thinking of it like returning to your home town after a couple years of being away, the developers play with our familiarity with the world to surprise us in new ways, it won’t be the same kind of wonder we initially felt maybe but I think there is so much more to this game that will surprise us, especially considering what’s already been leaked in the art book. I think it’ll be like going back to Hateno and it being mostly the same but you notice a giant cave or crater has shown up where it hadn’t before, that continuity with the world allows for it to feel like it’s ever changing without taking anything away from the first game.
just go play elden ring this game is for people who want to have fun and try out the new abilitys of the game and solve puzzles in different ways. unbreakable weapons is stupid go play elden ring again. Having more traditional dungeons would only benefit totk i agree but you're viewing the entire game from the wrong perspective. Do you really think it would be better for that river to only be crossable with a hookshot by shooting at specific spots or give the player the "items" if you will to achieve that goal in literally limitless ways. instead of being locked out of a puzzle from an item its open ended its beautiful. are you really gonna tell me theres no sense of wonder when theres literally far more enemys and things to do and collect than botw???? this is a sequel and it makes botw look bland and boring to somebody who loves botw more than most people. I want you to think about whats on those sky islands why are they there what can you do with them? what about the underground? the changes done to the overworld and how all the races are doing there are so many mysterious that give me more wonder than i had when playing botw 20 hours in you know what to expect everywhere you go a korok or a shrine super lame IM HYPED FOR TOTK LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
@@repingers9777 Errrr. Ok? I'm not even sure how to respond to a comment like this but settle down dude. I already said I think the game will be good and probably very fun from a crafting perspective but every flagship Zelda game has a definitive identity, and this game needs to have that "magic moment" where you truly feel like you're in a new world and experience. I'm haven't gotten that from this gameplay trailer. I'm hoping to get it when I play the game. I don't feel like that's a controversial take....
@@Rin_ku it will be nice to check in on NPCs meet new travelers and so on and its probably what we'll be spending most of our hundreds of hours doing if the sidequests are better than botw's
Just remember gameplay and story matter way more than graphics. We are so used to graphics being an automatic hook to play a new game. This is not trying to do that at all. Which shouldn’t matter to Nintendo fans luckily. But I think people that care about this game still care about graphics looking similar. I think it’s focusing on the wrong thing. It comes down to how much feels the same in terms of gameplay and story. I will turn on this game if it doesn’t blow me away in those areas. But I won’t knock the game for looking almost the same. I expected it to and it’s a direct sequel. It would probably look weird if it didn’t look the same.
You know you can never get me to go away. You always have something interesting to talk about.
I think I'm all of the people you described depending on what time of the day your catch me. I've experienced all of these feelings at one point or another, many multiple times...
I love Zelda as a series and the Breath of the Wild entry so much, that is why I feel I critique it so
I often have this feeling that breath of the wild is very close to a what you might call a perfect score, and if it wasn't an entry in the Zelda series I would feel more love towards it. It's the lack of some of those elements and features from previous games, it's missing feelings I usually feel playing a new Zelda game, and that can be scary when you order your favorite dish and your chef puts a spin on it, perhaps that is why I feel some disappointment and apprehension, yet also excitement for the upcoming title
It's very conflicting, because it's something I still consider very dear to me, but it's not without it's flaws subject to my own preferences
I desperately want this to improve on everything breath of the wild did right, while adding elements that I feel were missing or getting rid of features that didn't work as well... I think it was very important that they showed us that stick breaking early on in the new gameplay demo.... To temper expectations some
Bro. It took them 6 years to make a BOTW 2. With literally all the same mechanics. In 6 years we got MAJORAS MASK, THE WIND WAKER AND TWILIGHT PRINCESS. This time, we get the same shit again, with the same shit world. How can you not understand the complaints???
After finishing Botw when it came out I hoped that they could find a way to integrate classic Zelda items into the open world, I think there's a way to still be an open world that you take on how you choose while feeling more grounded in the Zelda universe, I'm not disappointed it doesn't look like it's happening this time, I just hope when they do a new story than Botw and Totk they find a way to seamlessly combine both styles in a way that blows our minds like Botw did in the first place
A little bit of item-based progression would be nice.
Just do what Elden Ring did. Enemies don’t drop weapons for the most part and instead you have to find/create/earn weapons. The weapons last forever and can be upgraded so they don’t fall off damage wise. Each weapon has a different move set and playstyle so people can play what they want. The current system prevents you from ever caring about item drops because it will break or be replaced in short order.
For the past few years I've seen games and movies I was excited for have awful marketing. And each time, the defense is, "they're hiding the big stuff". Well, that's just bs. Every time it turns out that the marketing accurately captured how much is in the game. If there really was that much cool content, there'd be plenty to show off in marketing without even spoiling too much. There's no way any of these companies would purposefully give you the impression that there isn't much to the game, unless there really just ISN'T!
Totk will be fun, it might even be better than botw, but there's no doubt in my mind that it'll feel largely like traversing the same map just with new puzzles scattered throughout and new ways to move through the world. That's what the marketing tells me, and I've learned to trust the marketing.
"A reasonable classic Zelda enjoyer does not hope for more" 5:16 . Omg dude, 100%. My biggest gripe about BOTW was the lack of unique looking bosses, enemies, and thematic dungeons. The divine beasts all had gross brown colors and it strained the eyes. I just want a cool dungeon like the Ancient Cistern, Great Bay Temple, or the Wind Temple (WW)
Honestly, as much as I loved BOTW, I’m gonna wait until the reviews come out for TotK to see if I really should buy it immediately or wait a bit longer to get it, because from what we’ve gotten, it seems like TotK is more a glorified DLC/expansion than a true sequel. I will gladly eat my words if I’m wrong and it warrants being considered a sequel, of course
I could live with almost all of the issues you talked about in this video if they only have a beautiful and compelling story, and fun and interesting characters. I don’t need insanely unique overworld music, or a brand new combat system. I could even live without old school dungeons. But Zelda games have always been about the stories to me, about what they can make you feel.
And that was honestly my biggest problem with botw-that it was so focused on gameplay that the story kind of sat on the back burner in favor for exploration. I didn’t hate it, I actually thought the story was beautiful in its own way, especially considering the way botw was set up. But I don’t want to see a lackluster story return in lieu of awesome mechanics.
The gameplay we saw looked epic, but I don’t play Zelda games for the cool physics engine or mechanics, or even for the exploration. I play them for their emotionally compelling stories that immerse me in the world. And another Zelda game without an immersive story would leave me feeling disappointed in a franchise I have loved since I was 2 years old.
Is there such a thing as a Zelda game with an immersive and emotional story? I've played all of them and they're generally pretty straightforward rescue-the-princess fluff with isolated scenarios to explain the various set pieces. The flashbacks in BotW were the closest thing to emotional storytelling I've ever seen from the series.
I guess it’s really all subjective, and everyone has their own opinion of what an immersive story is. And maybe it’s just my nostalgia talking because I grew up on them, but yeah I think there are plenty of compelling and emotional stories within the franchise.
Twilight Princess and it’s story of a fallen princess who failed to protect her kingdom from a usurper tyrant, and her journey back to redemption and learning to care for people other than herself.
Wind Waker’s tale of a boy trying to save his sister, but being caught up in a greater scheme too big for him to understand, and his selfless choice to save a kingdom he never even knew.
Skyward Sword’s story of two best friends, unknowingly entwined with destinies far too complicated for them to fully understand, thrust into a battle they never asked for, and both of their journies to discover their true divine calling and potential.
And Ocarina of Time’s tale of a child ripped from his simple life in the forest and forced to play a pawn for a man bent on destroying a kingdom. He gave up everything, his childhood, his home, his friends, to prevent the events that destroyed his homeland from ever happening, and at the end of it all he’s sent back to a time where no one even knows the name Link, or everything he sacrificed to save them all from ruin and despair.
Those are only a few of the stories in the games, and even those are boiled down to their most basic concepts. So yeah, I’d say there are quite a few emotionally immersive stories. I guess it all just depends on your perspective and what you are looking for and focusing on. :)
@@chfgn almost all of them? To each their own I guess
@chfgn clearly haven't played skyward sword.
@@azzy-551 I beat Skyward Sword on the Wii. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was a game about solving puzzles and using motion controls, not about watching emotional cutscenes. Its focus on gameplay over story is one of the things I like about it.
The biggest reason this is a "minority perspective" is because most people who see these glaring issues with TOTK are either blind with franchise bias or are afraid to voice their concerns online because of Nintendo zealots. I am what you would categorize as an old school Zelda fan. I'm older than the franchise itself and I'm not seeing nowhere near the hype that BOTW had or any prior Zelda game for that matter. Now this could be because either people are underwhelmed or because the Mario movie has dominated Nintendo's marketing push so far this year. The points raised by the "minority" are objective because we are so close to the launch of this game and know almost nothing about it. A Zelda game's marketing has never been this obscure. Even Majora's Mask had a bigger push than this. That can be because of one of two things. Either Nintendo has MASSIVE surprises in store for us and trusts brand bias (this is Zelda, after all), or what we've seen is what we're going to get (largely). This all could have been easily cleared up by Aonuma-san if he stated something like "This is only scratching the surface of what this game has to offer." Instead he made it seem like the gameplay he showed was the only additions made and for a game that has spent 6 years in development, and delayed more than once, that is insane to me. People are gushing over meat arrows. Talk about literally throwing a dog a bone. For those wanting dungeons and diving, if the game had it, this was the time to show it and they didn't. There's a reason people want this stuff and it's because it would fundamentally improve the game's dynamics and pacing. I want this game to succeed just like everyone else, but when you get my age, critical thinking takes over and it seems as of this moment, the writing is on the wall. But hey I'm just an aging gamer in the "minority". IGN will still give it a 10 no matter what.
I'm still sceptical of TOTK, I've put my money down and pre ordered the game. Ive bought every zelda game since the early 90s. But this is the first time that I'm not excited at all. So far what I've seen looks like its building on everything I disliked about Breath of the Wild. And not only that, it looks far to similar to breath of the wild too. Same map, same music, what are they thinking? I want to go on an epic adventure in a new world with unique themed dungeons, a memorable soundtrack and a well written story. I want to gain new abilities and items as I progress through the game allowing me to go back and access new areas that I couldn't before. What I don't want is repetitive fetch quest chore in a massive sandbox to waste my time. Games like this feel so pointless and boring to me. Breath of the Wild is the largest zelda game ever made, but with the least quality content. It's a good game in it's own right, but one of the worst Zelda games. It feels like quantity over quality. Nintendo really needs to combine what is good about open world zelda with traditional zelda or the franchise will just end up turning into a shell of its former self.
Hey! Might I suggest you cancel the preorder and wait for about a week after release to order it?
Even if the money is no problem for you (Which, I hope so!) We might be experiencing a cyberpunk 2077 situation here. It won't be broken, but it will be lacking in terms of content to make a full game.
Seeing that Nintendo is both a creative outlet for many developers and simultaneously a greedy bloodsucking corporate, I know that we can only speak to the latter component of the company (They call the shots eventually) and it's not done with our voices, it's done with our cash.
It's your money of course, so at the end of the day I can't tell you really what to do with it, you're free. But pre-orders empower companies to get away with a lot of shady stuff.
So please consider that.
It will always be on the e-Shop, so you can go back and purchase it if it turns out to be worth it. But if it's not, it would be pretty hard to get a refund.
I’m in the “I’m still not sold” on ToK, I love BotW, and also am a “I just need a dungeon” kind of fan. I obviously already preordered the game and will def play it day 1, but I def feel like I am forcing myself to be excited for it, since what they have shown me hasn’t made me go “hecc yeah now this is a sequel” I still feel I’m stuck in that barrier of “This is just too much of a same vibe, like I’ve already done before even if it has a few new mechanics”
At its core, the expectations I unknown placing on this Zelda game are that I want it to recapture the emotional awe and wonder I had at 10 years old playing Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. And nothing shy of the beauty of God could recapture those emotions.
A healthy expectation for this game (or anything in life) is to accept the experience for what it is, enjoy it while it lasts, and remember it fondly without putting the entire weight of my soul’s well-being upon this game.
The only thing want from this game within the realm of healthy expectations is for it to contain a strong narrative with a defined beginning, middle, and end.
I avoided the community like the plague before I got my copy, so had little idea about these discussions. I was very excited and hopeful for Totk but after playing through the game (over 150 hrs), I've come to land on your final consensus. I was really dissapointed with the game, and want to know in general why people are praising it like they are. I don't think it's wrong to like it- it makes sense for first timers and those with a more creative affinity that care less for the narrative element. But 10/10? There's a lot of monumental flaws more than I recall Botw having, if because it retained them and created many new frustrations
Before watching the video wanted to say something I've been thinking of before seeing your views. From what we have seen this reminds me of when Banjo Kazooie: Nuts n bolts came out. That game was the newest and last game for the series that took a massive gameplay direction change and made vehicles the main focus. While ToK isn't fully about it, I could see this causing many people to be hesitant about or already dislike the game like how it was for me and others when Nuts n Bolts came out.
Difference there was Banjo was relatively “niche” by comparison, and obviously wasn’t going to get copious amount of sequels. People rightly assumed that that was their last big entry in the series either for a while or forever. Zelda doesn’t have that problem. It’ll get various spin-offs and it’ll get another mainline game in another 5-6 years. There’s no fear that the series will die, or even focus on vehicles forever. Most Zelda mechanics are limited to that specific game. Other than basic concepts like having an alternate world of some sort or time travel.
What I really hope for is seeing the locations of botw’s hyrule really shift in tone. For example, I would love it if the great plateau were to become a hostile area, or to see lurelin village in ruins. I think that Such a drastic tone shift could really motivate botw players to explore the map once again. Because right now, the thing I might be most exited for is just seeing what went down in order for all those sky islands to appear, the caves to form, death mountain not longer flowing with lava but spewing malice etc. If Nintendo plays their cards right, rediscovering an old location you loved being canged completely could be very cool! I also am very exited for all het sky shenanigans because we haven’t even seen half of those islands in detail. The caves look neat too. Overall i’m just very exited for the game. Tough I do definetly get the concerns. Let’s just wait and see!
I'm in that minority! I'm a 38 year old Zelda fanatic who has played every single game since the NES original. For me, BOTW was a GREAT game, but it wasn't a great ZELDA game. I love the big open world, and the gameplay mechanics were incredible. I poured 400 hours into my 100% save, but I struggled to think back to any memorable or iconic moments in my playthrough... There were no standout dungeons, catchy songs, bosses, favourite items etc. Infact, after a while, it just started to become the same old thing on repeat! I can't remember which shrines where which. 900 Korok seeds later and i realised there were only about 6 different types of puzzle.
I was hoping after SIX YEARS of waiting to see BOTW's gamemap and gameplay mechanics, but built upon with the reintroduction of dungeons, bosses, items etc. THAT would be an epic Zelda game. We could still get that!! But i was underwhelmed by the 10 minute footage. The graphics, map, HUD design, character animations etc where all reused. Even the soundtrack was the same!! we got shown "constructs" the new enemy type. But their attack pattern and animation was the same as a Bokoblin. Its just a character asset swap!
The new abilities just looked a bit silly, and seem like way to make the game easier for lazy people. Don't wanna climb? Use ascend! Don't wanna aim your bow? Just use the Keese Eyes!
I KNOW there is so much more to unveil, but so far all I have seen is the same game reused. After 6 years of development, the longest we have ever gone without a Zelda game, and an increased price tag, I'm expecting so much more!!! I expect dungeons!! THAT IS ZELDA!!
The crux of my feelings on the gameplay trailer are hinged on the fact nothing addressing the failings of BotW was shown. BotW wasn't a bad game by any means, but it's the only Zelda game ever that I didn't absolutely pour ever every single nook and cranny because it all felt disposable. Breakable weapons don't, in fact, encourage experimentation, they encourage hoarding. Every shrine having the exact same reward of paper plate weapon or token to buy life or stamina made it all feel pointless. By the end of the game I had an inventory of amazing weapons I never wanted to use, three wheels of stamina, and an entire buffet that functionally made me immortal. Also, so many lizards.
I would argue that dungeons aren't specifically what we crave. What we want is discovering that next cohesive hub of tightly constructed exploration constructed of puzzles punctuated by unique rewards and a capstone challenge that defined previous entries. We need spaces that pull together all the tools we've been given, and that then expands them, then quizzes us on how to apply them to a boss. We want to leave feeling stronger, more prepared, with something new to try in the world. They could do something really unique a la Elden Ring by merging dungeons with the outdoor explorable world. We hunger for the meaningful.
The gameplay trailer showed features with no context. Okay, I can merge a stick and a rock or a pitchfork and a stick. Will these be vital to progression? What in the world demands their use? Will I be stuck on a puzzle where I have to decide which objects are the correct ones to merge? How will this not be disposable or descend into tedium if my best options for weapons are to throw a bunch of trash on the ground and spent 30 minutes fusing them? Will being able to make a go-kart be needed or just kind of neat for 20 minutes until it gets stuck in a ditch? If I don't need it, then it's junk. If it is needed, then how will it not become a chore? Show me, Nintendo.
BotW's greatest strength and biggest flaw were that it was an excellent open world physics engine with a coat of Zelda paint. I have no doubt that TotK will be a fun game with interesting tools for people to tinker with. For people that enjoy trying to break the game and create meme-able moments with ridiculous and clever us of the in-game physics they will no doubt find this a delight. But that isn't what I want from a Zelda game at all. Nintendo is asking me to pay $70 for a product that doesn't show me they understand why Zelda is great.
The core hook of zelda has always been exploration, from the original 2D ones to the linear 3D ones and the open world of botw. But from what they showed so far, it has me thinking that this one focuses more on player creativity and these sandbox features than exploration
Seems to me like y'all think they gave us a mechanic to create vehicules just for the hell of it. The way i saw it in game is that they are gating exploration with said vehicules. Just like you needed stamina to scale a mountain you'll need a vehicule to get to the points you can't get to by your own physical means. The reverse power when used on the falling rock didn't take the rock to world limit, it took it to a very specific point where you can immediately see that there's more islands above it and you have no way to get there from the island you are on.... Just hearing you guys talk about the trailer makes me think i watched another fucking video or something...
@@oussamaokbi fr I don’t know why everyone thinks they spent the last 6 years on the fuse/ultrahand mechanic
I'll be honest, the more I've seen and thought about TotK the less and less excited I am for it. In the 6 years since BotW, that game's flaws have become more and more apparent, and i think that even addressing common criticisms like durability and adding dungeons won't really be enough to save it, because the fundamental premise was rotten at the core. I think that, the next Zelda game we see after TotK will probably be the most interesting and important Zelda to date, because they can't just do Breath of the Wild AGAIN after having a sequel game to it. It's either going to force them back to more classic design ideas, or they're going to REALLY have to think about how to make open world actually function, because as it stands, it's clear they haven't figured out how to make it work.
I feel like this is sort of like what happened with pokemon, X and Y created a bad game, then Sun and Moon improved on it but not by much, and by Sword and Shield the series was basically dead designwise, because they failed to capture what makes that series compelling. In the same way, BotW is the bad apple in a good bunch, and TotK is just going to be more of the same, but slightly better. If the next game is ANOTHER open world with tiny puzzles and a drip-feed of upgrade materials, it's over, Zelda will be dead as a series. Like pokemon, it'll still make money, but I probably won't be interested in playing any of them going forward.
I heard someone mention the idea that maybe those green swirly things actually summon new sky islands above them when they’re activated. If that’s true it makes me a bit less worried, as there’s likely a lot more sky islands than we see in the trailer/gameplay showcase. So far it doesn’t even look like there’s much in the sky from what I’ve seen, unless the draw distance is hiding most of it
Yeah I feel like there were way more islands from the trailers, so the gameplay might just be early game and more islands will come later
Im one of those that absolutely loved botw, but also see the dissapointment in totk. I grew up on ocarina of time and majoras mask, so classic dungeons, items to clear said dungeons and the green tunic is something that i truly hope will be a part of totk. I also believe that totk will have some form of dungeons, may it a large underground system that connects across all og hyrule, or overworld dungeons. This is because of the "Ascend" ability many have already pointed out. Totk are maybe going full circle, back to skyward sword so the master sword that is shown as broken may be forged into the goddess sword.
10:23 I was massively disappointed by the reused music, I was convinced they would compose new music to make the game feel new but they didn't even do that.
The game really looks like a re-hash or an expansion pack based on what Nintendo has shown.
Are they hiding something huge? Maybe, but what evidence is there?
Watching the gameplay demonstration got me thinking. I started wondering well since in Breath of the Wild and now in Tears of the Kingdom we had the sheikah slate and now Zonai powers respectively, why don’t they make dungeons with puzzles centered around those? I know the shrines in BotW were kind of that and maybe Tears of the Kingdom will actually do that with these new Zonai powers. They obviously don’t want to gate progression in any kind of way so if we get all these new Zonai powers at the start of the game then we will be equipped for any of the potential dungeons that can have the puzzles centered around those abilities as well as the boss fights.
This video was great! It really helped me organize my own thoughts on the game. Hope it gets more views.
One thing I think people are underestimating is the ways in which having already visited locations can *add* to the experience of exploration. "Ooh, I wonder what's changed in Hateno... what about Lurelin?" As long as they've given you different things to find in all these places there's going to be a thrill of discovery. People talk about it as if there are going to be literally the same NPCs handing out the same quests, with Lynels and Hinoxen camped out in the same locations, etc. It's not going to be like that.
I think the biggest thing that is interesting about TotK by comparison to the other big 3D Zelda games...and this may seem like a shallow thing to mention at first, but hear me out....every single previous game looks distinct and fresh on its own. Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and Breath of the Wild. All of them feel and look very different from each other. The closest parallel to TotK in terms of using the same engine and assets is Majora, but that game has a radically different feeling and a bunch of new gameplay mechanics to it that make it a wholly unique experience. What we saw in the TotK 10 minute gameplay example is not that type of leap. We have yet to see a significant leap of the caliber with previous Zelda games.
No matter what kind of fan you are, that has to strike you as odd. Either they're geniuses trying to carefully hide some big surprises or they really have nothing substantial to show. Really pulling for a Super Mario Galaxy 2 type sequel with TotK.
There's no "genius" angle to vague marketing. It's pure evil.
Remember Disney's Star Wars trilogy?
That wasn't spoilers they were being secretive about, it was the fact that the plot to those films would anger a lot of fans...
The details were intentionally hidden to get people to go, see something they don't like, but not get their money's worth (In their opinion).
For me, BotW felt like a technical demo for a Zelda game:
- 1 fully fleshed out dungeon,
- 4 dungeon concepts,
- 1 dungeon boss reused in each (blight Gannon),
- 1 sidequest boss (Kohga),
- 100 puzzleboxes,
--> 29 (blessing shrines) fleshed out in the overworld with atmospheric regional assets,
--> 71 puzzle concepts to be implemented,
- 20 (test of strength) combat challenges disguised as puzzleboxes in the overworld,
- 3 mock up enemy classes,
--> I am leaving kees, octorok and chu out here,
- 4 overworld minibosses (which were awesome),
- 2 mock up stealth missions,
- 3 mock up gauntlet missions,
- 1 mock up forager mission,
I really want TotK to be the (classic) Zelda that BotW seems to be a technical demo for. I need atmospheric dungeons and bosses, diverse enemy types, quest lines, and puzzles integrated into the overworld.
The TotK demo makes me fear that Nintendo invested in the technical mechanics of the world rather than the classic elements. I was never interested to attatch octo balloons to logs to create clippable moments. If I wanted a sandbox, I would play minecraft
Correction: 5 overworld minibosses (all awesome)
- Talus
- Hinox (also stalnox)
- Lynel
- Guardian:
--> Decayed
--> Stalkers
--> Skywatchers
--> Turrets
- Molduga
The thing the made the first one so good was the sense of disoovery and seeing new things. If I’m exploring almost the same map, then I’m probably gonna wait for it to go on sale… there needs to be a fully new map
Its been a while ever since BotW came out that I actually dipped my toes into anything Zelda (modern) and this, by happenstance, was the video I chose to check out. I was disappointed with BotW and expected the next major installation would be a continuation of BotW. Aonuma (and Miyamoto) dont care about story and loathe that the timeline - they facilitated mind you - became integral to Zelda's identity as a narrative structure to work around. With BotW being (lets be honest) a reboot that gave passing winks to every timeline, it gave Aonuma free reign to do whatever now (especially if plans were in the works for Miyamoto to retire). So it makes sense they would simply reuse assets for the next game given BotW is what "Zelda" means moving forward. I cant say I blame fans fearing TotK will ultimately feel like DLC. TBH thats what it looks like. If Aonuma learned anything from Miyamoto it was lessons from MM - re-use assets from the previous game to build the next game. But where MM succeeded, I am skeptical TotK will rely on too much.
First and foremost Aonuma and Miyamoto cared most about gameplay - what major mechanics they wanted to build the rest of a game around. If Fusing and the Ultrahand are the key mechanics - while cool, its not the meat and potatoes that would make me wanna re-tread the same world again. They may be able to elaborate more on story now, but thats because there will be no question what timeline this is and will be from now. Its the BotW Universe's timeline and why make an all new game in a different world, with a different art direction, with a different Link if you dont have to.
Personally, I dont feel BotW and TotK come to us in good faith given what was sacrificed for them to exist.
i just hope the world is a little more filled out with fun things to do than the first game. Like dungeons with enemies or something. not just a bare world of some enemies and then you go do story quests
That was one of my biggest gripes. You never felt any tension in your adventure (like the first and second games). You never felt like the exploration had an accomplishment other than "oh cool" like most of the series. It was... like a walking simulator and sandbox to me. Cool in a way, but boring and bland compared to previous titles.
Even if the fusing system is very in-depth and creative (fingers crossed 🤞), I still think 6 years for only that is not justifiable. I completely agree with you - at least a second "hook" is necessary.
I will also be disappointed if the overworld isn't significantly different from BotW.
it was pretty obvious that the sky island that was used in the gameplay video is most likely the starting island/the first island we will visit. so basically we only saw a small glimpse of the great Plateau equivalent. and people think that's everything?
I'm in the not impressed camp, I know the map by heart and after completing it 100% it's going to take a lot, and I mean a lot to entice me to go back because I essentially burnt myself out and I've been unable to pick breath of the wild back up since.
Yeah I feel as if the whole fuse thing is dope but will end up with that same stale feeling tens of hours in if the playground isnt updated for the considerably bigger toys we're getting. Hopeful for dungeons and I do really wish there could be some items. I think there's a way to have them without necessarily locking stuff behind them. Like making them QOL upgrades, the hookshot would be a fantastic addition to the climbing setup imo
Hookshot even makes sense with the whole artificial arm thing.
Shrines were probably intended to make BOTW more accessible, but I don’t think they worked that way. Novice players need to be walked through the game and build their skills sequentially. A tutorial is not a proper difficulty curve, and this is where I feel like BOTW missed the mark for me as a novice player. Shrines overcomplicate the experience for novice players, who may end up bouncing around the map looking for something they can beat. Dungeons with an optional recommended order would simplify these players’ experience by offering a proper difficulty curve for those who need it.
It may be that it took 6 years to get the fusion and ultra-hand mechanics into a place that was of acceptable quality for Nintendo. However, artists, level designers, animators, quest designers, and many others would not have been told to sit on their hands while the programmers and system designers work on these two abilities. They would have been working as well. If the systems team needed another year, then that is another year to build out more shrines, add a new enemy variant, put in some new caves or islands. There are large portions of the team that would have basically no hand in getting the fuse system working. Now maybe that shows itself in the final game, and the system isn't well integrated into the loop of some quests or dungeons (doubtful to me, personally) but I don't think it means that those quests or dungeons weren't made at all.
It's all rooted in the fear that the games we loved before will never return. A farewell we've already missed.
I have a hybrid perspective. I think they're hiding stuff, but its not massive. I don't mind it being not massive. One trend I've noticed a ton lately is a lack of transparency between companies and players (both ways) regarding the long-term impact of the 2020 lockdowns on entertainment products. I think this is one of those times, where the seven year Dev cycle was more like three and a half with one to three false start/internal reboots.
An additional thing I've heard since pretty early on was that Tears was built from cut dlc ideas that couldn't be made to work with the existing engine, which all reveals since indicate was a correct statement.
But I'm here for the ride. I don't have a desire to play any game for 500 hours, a good long game is good for 150 hours, so I never tired myself out on BotW. More, Different botw is all I need. I prefer the older Zelda style, and would like to see more of it make its way in, but I don't expect it, or need it. I can just play the old games as well.
This video perfectly summed up how I feel about Tears of the Kingdom. The new runes look super cool. But the runes are only cool as a means of exploration. And I don't know what I'll be exploring yet. That's what's really holding me back from being truly excited. And I have the game on preorder, so I'm betting that Nintendo is hiding A LOT. But if they're not, I definitely will fault Nintendo for a uselessly long development time.
My position has never been that they're hiding massive amounts of content, but that they BETTER be.
i don't know guys, isn't the file size just 18 gbs? that, with the added sky islands, doesn't leave much space for something huge being kept as a surprise, i don't think... looks like this game is going to have caves to replace shrines (maybe?), but i don't think dungeon cravers will be very satisfied with them. they'll be just caves
I think the only way this game is saved, is if there’s dungeons and massive underground/underworld exploration in addition to sky islands. If the Devs essentially doubled the map by going above AND below, we are in business.