its like the first game but better gameplay-wise, the continuation of the story is great and some of the secret stuff really ties it all together. the sky and the depths were great additions. peak shaking **** emoji
I love gerudo women.
I truly didn't know how Nintendo could top Breath of the Wild. I was nervous in the week leading up to this games release because I was plagued with the thought of "what if it's not as good as the last one? I don't like crafting/survival games. What if this is the first Zelda game that just isn't for me?"
Oh, how good it feels to be wrong.
This is, quite possibly, the best video game I have ever played. Tears of the Kingdom doesn't just clear the bar set by its predecessor – it flies high over it, expanding on the world of Hyrule in ways that I thought weren't originally possible. The sandbox elements of TOTK's world always had me wondering what contraption could be made to solve an issue or what bizarre combinations were possible through fusion. It frequently elicited moments where I asked myself "did the devs intend for me to do that?" and the answer was often "no, but I bet they created this toolkit with infinite possibilities in mind."
Oh, how good it feels to be wrong.
This is, quite possibly, the best video game I have ever played. Tears of the Kingdom doesn't just clear the bar set by its predecessor – it flies high over it, expanding on the world of Hyrule in ways that I thought weren't originally possible. The sandbox elements of TOTK's world always had me wondering what contraption could be made to solve an issue or what bizarre combinations were possible through fusion. It frequently elicited moments where I asked myself "did the devs intend for me to do that?" and the answer was often "no, but I bet they created this toolkit with infinite possibilities in mind."
Uhhh this game is bad now because all my friends told me so
Great zelda game as usual
Much of what TotK does bad is what it doesn't bring over from BotW. However, as a game, it blows everything its predecessor tried to do out of the water. It fills out the world SO so much better, and Ultra Hand may be the best and most fleshed out mechanic in any game in the last 10 years. It doesn't compare to the main 3D Zelda games for me, but it is basically everything BotW should have been.
If they made an entirely new overworld to explore, this would've been a straight 5.0 even with yet another load of lackluster dungeons like BotW.
Cool mechanics with sheer infinite possibilies provided by the Ultra Hand and Fuse abilities though! I just wish the champions abilites weren't such a big downgrade to what we got in BotW.
Cool mechanics with sheer infinite possibilies provided by the Ultra Hand and Fuse abilities though! I just wish the champions abilites weren't such a big downgrade to what we got in BotW.
My opinion changed a lot the more I played this game.
When I first started it, I was completely hooked. The beginning sky island area is well designed and gets you familiar with the new cool abilities that I used much more then the ones in BOTW. The graphics and size of the world are also super impressive for being a Switch title.
Once I finished the tutorial area which took around 5 hours, everything started going downhill. The game is basically an exact copy of BOTW. The enemies are identical with the only new ones being these small robots that have replaced guardians and some dragon mini boss which I didn't bother fighting. Armor sets are also the same, there are a few new additions but to get many of them is a real chore. The main negative is that the map and story are pretty much identical to BOTW. The whole sky island I found to be a really cool concept but there's almost none of that in the rest of the game. That tutorial sky island is the largest with none of the rest being as remotely interesting anywhere. They're all very tiny with nothing on them and no reason to visit them except shrines. Another addition was an entire underground world which sounds cool and again is quite technically impressive for the Switch but after 20 minutes I decided to never go there again unless I needed to progress the story. It's all empty copy pasted land with nothing special and no reason to explore it. This leaves the main land left and as I've repeatedly said, it is an exact copy of BOTW I keep finding the need to say it over and over since I'm still amazed at how little they decided to change for this hyped $90 game. I played the shit out of BOTW in 2019 and even after 6 years so many things felt familiar, practically nothing surprised me in my playthrough. The story is very generic and worse then BOTW imo. Once again you find 4 sages then gain their powers to defeat Ganon; only this time the sages are younger kid versions who were made into anime personalities for some reason. The dungeons I found to be a downgrade and as they were much easier than BOTW, that goes for the shrines as well; they were still quite enjoyable and my favorite part of the game. I really thought I'd spend a lot of time on this game especially with the increased price tag but that was not the case. In BOTW I spend around 150hrs with 100% completion, in this game I did all shrines, a few uninteresting side quests, and the story picking up whatever korok seeds I find on my way which brought me to around 65 hours with no urge to do anything else but put it back on the shelf. Why play anymore when I pretty much experienced all of it already in BOTW? I'm very tired of this new Zelda formula and would love to see it go back to its core.
The one thing I did quite enjoy with the story was the ending. The Ganon boss fight was solid, one of the best in Zelda and a huge improvement from the BOTW final boss. The ending cinematic was also amazing. Seeing that caught me off guard, it made me wish they focused on story more as it showed they are capable. I was impressed that there could be such epic cinematics in a Zelda game and wish there was more of it throughout the story rather then using the most bare bones RPG story that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy on the NES. This game has no reason for existing. A sequel like this was not needed, this felt much more of a quality of life update with new sandbox stuff and that's about it. This was not a GOTY 2023 contender to me.
When I first started it, I was completely hooked. The beginning sky island area is well designed and gets you familiar with the new cool abilities that I used much more then the ones in BOTW. The graphics and size of the world are also super impressive for being a Switch title.
Once I finished the tutorial area which took around 5 hours, everything started going downhill. The game is basically an exact copy of BOTW. The enemies are identical with the only new ones being these small robots that have replaced guardians and some dragon mini boss which I didn't bother fighting. Armor sets are also the same, there are a few new additions but to get many of them is a real chore. The main negative is that the map and story are pretty much identical to BOTW. The whole sky island I found to be a really cool concept but there's almost none of that in the rest of the game. That tutorial sky island is the largest with none of the rest being as remotely interesting anywhere. They're all very tiny with nothing on them and no reason to visit them except shrines. Another addition was an entire underground world which sounds cool and again is quite technically impressive for the Switch but after 20 minutes I decided to never go there again unless I needed to progress the story. It's all empty copy pasted land with nothing special and no reason to explore it. This leaves the main land left and as I've repeatedly said, it is an exact copy of BOTW I keep finding the need to say it over and over since I'm still amazed at how little they decided to change for this hyped $90 game. I played the shit out of BOTW in 2019 and even after 6 years so many things felt familiar, practically nothing surprised me in my playthrough. The story is very generic and worse then BOTW imo. Once again you find 4 sages then gain their powers to defeat Ganon; only this time the sages are younger kid versions who were made into anime personalities for some reason. The dungeons I found to be a downgrade and as they were much easier than BOTW, that goes for the shrines as well; they were still quite enjoyable and my favorite part of the game. I really thought I'd spend a lot of time on this game especially with the increased price tag but that was not the case. In BOTW I spend around 150hrs with 100% completion, in this game I did all shrines, a few uninteresting side quests, and the story picking up whatever korok seeds I find on my way which brought me to around 65 hours with no urge to do anything else but put it back on the shelf. Why play anymore when I pretty much experienced all of it already in BOTW? I'm very tired of this new Zelda formula and would love to see it go back to its core.
The one thing I did quite enjoy with the story was the ending. The Ganon boss fight was solid, one of the best in Zelda and a huge improvement from the BOTW final boss. The ending cinematic was also amazing. Seeing that caught me off guard, it made me wish they focused on story more as it showed they are capable. I was impressed that there could be such epic cinematics in a Zelda game and wish there was more of it throughout the story rather then using the most bare bones RPG story that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy on the NES. This game has no reason for existing. A sequel like this was not needed, this felt much more of a quality of life update with new sandbox stuff and that's about it. This was not a GOTY 2023 contender to me.