VioRosery
5 reviews liked by VioRosery
Mr. Bones
1996
Game of all time material right here. This game definitely isn't good, but it's also an experience that will stick with you till the day you yourself become mr bones. The levels are strange and usually play entirely differently from one another. The cutscenes are just bizarre. Playing Mr. Bones is truly a wild ride.
Games a decent coop experience. Last few levels were beyond unenjoyable, like they didn't even test to see if they were fun. Fun to play, but sadly ended terribly.
Instead of doing what Zelda has always done and innovating with their structure and design concepts, for the first time in the 37 years of Zelda games, I feel like Zelda team bought into its own hype after BotW. Marrying a more classic structure to BotW's lush world and free systems could have yielded the best Zelda game ever made. Instead, the only major change made to BotW is the addition of more stuff TM, with no attempt to innovate or create something new like Zelda always has. And for me, this structure is infinitely less charming on the second go around. Probably the single most disapointing gaming experience of my adult life made worse by the fact that all anyone can do is call it the greatest game of all time, apparently.
I didn't like BOTW so I don't know why I thought this would be any different, grabbed by the hype once again! I just never learn!
Nothing about these games gives me that revolutionize of the open world genre buzz that they're praised for and honestly, it pisses me off that I don't get it. It makes me feel INSANE when I see the praise, but it's just not clicking.
The new building mechanics feel clunky to me, but I do see the vision. It's a toybox with more toys to fool around with. For me though, the thought of doing shrines again, especially with these mechanics, just makes me want to turn off.
For positives, I do enjoy the visuals. I think the art direction and presentation are gorgeous. It's got that Nintendo charm that always appeals to me, which further makes it sadder that it doesn't hit for me.
I've put in around 10 hours and I've had my fill. Overall, it's my own fault. I knew I wouldn't like it, but a mixture of FOMO and hope that something would grab me took hold. It has put me in that Zelda mood though, I'll probably replay one of the older ones soon.
Nothing about these games gives me that revolutionize of the open world genre buzz that they're praised for and honestly, it pisses me off that I don't get it. It makes me feel INSANE when I see the praise, but it's just not clicking.
The new building mechanics feel clunky to me, but I do see the vision. It's a toybox with more toys to fool around with. For me though, the thought of doing shrines again, especially with these mechanics, just makes me want to turn off.
For positives, I do enjoy the visuals. I think the art direction and presentation are gorgeous. It's got that Nintendo charm that always appeals to me, which further makes it sadder that it doesn't hit for me.
I've put in around 10 hours and I've had my fill. Overall, it's my own fault. I knew I wouldn't like it, but a mixture of FOMO and hope that something would grab me took hold. It has put me in that Zelda mood though, I'll probably replay one of the older ones soon.
I will be slowly adding to this review, and it will likely end up being really, really long, but my summary is this.
Tears of the Kingdom is Domino's Pizza. I ate it sober, and the critics ate it baked out of their minds. To me, its a greasy bit of open world action that satisfies me, but never impresses. To them, its the best food they've ever eaten.
If you liked Breath of the Wild, this is basically that, but removing the sheikah slate powers with infinitely more impractical ones. Gone are remote bombs and stasis, instead you get the incredibly gimmicky recall and ascend powers. Ascend is a nice get out of jail free card in regular caves, but recall is totally useless outside of puzzles. Fuse is a cool gimmick that bellyflops the execution by making the act of fusing a constant tedious process, thats required to make weapons do damage. 90% of items are useless to fuse because they only affect elemental powers and a static power level.
The Ultra Hand steals the show, essentially being a more unwieldy GMod prop gun. The main problem with this power, along with fuse, is that I expected them to be so much deeper than they are. Fuse only really adds an element or higher DPS to weapons, and ultra hand can build bridges or useless makeshift vehicles for your amusement. To make matters worse, you have to grind up useful interactable props in a gacha machine in the sky. So making your own fun is often prefaced with grinding Zonai cores to trade in.
The other big nut tap I recieved was finding out how weak the dungeons are in TOTK. Theres 4 and a quarter dungeons in the game, and all of them can be beaten with little thought in less than 45 minutes each. The bosses are alright, although too easy with the expection of the thunder boss and final bosses. If there was one god damn thing I wanted Nintendo to fix after 6 years, it was the weak ass dungeons. And they couldn't even do that.
Tears of the Kingdom is stuck in limbo. Its not fresh in the slightest, but it slaps some total gimmicks into a 6 year old game, like a 50 year old lady slapping on layers of makeup. The new powers are now my textbook definition of gimmick, its so face slappingly obvious. They seem like gamechangers for about an hour, before fading into the background for 45. The shrines exist as some form of justification for them, making cool but overly simple physics puzzles involving ultrahand.
The massive underground depths are again, cool at first. But they take way too long to explore, are butt ugly and also don't contain any substancial content. So...from a game design perspective, why even have them? It feels cynical, like making a big, second ugly copy pasted overworld will band aid the severe lack of change.
The sky islands are actually a great addition. They feel fresh, with cool geometry, puzzles and rewards, but there's barely any of them. It pains me to say that, because the thing thats all over the marketing actually works as an addition to good game, and they underdevelop them. What were they doing for 6 years??
And I don't really need to say it, but after reading countless critic reviews praising it, I need to. The story and writing is abysmal. Characters have very, very simple personalities. There's no wit or charm to the very inhuman dialogue, consisting of what feels like robots constantly congratulating each other. Way to go, Link! Zelda for example, is just a shell of a human, she doesn't joke, entertain or even try to do anything but exposition dump, as does LITERALLY every major player in the game.
I have more to say...but I'll break here for now. I wouldn't normally go this hard, but after beating it and seeing the insane 97 metascore, I feel obliged to kind of, put my hands up and say, "what the fuck, people?" Its totally good, fine, and fun enough, but so are Hogwarts and Jedi Survivor. Neither of which are worse or better than TOTK. Its like giving the Mario Movie an Oscar.
Breath of the Wild felt like a special game with a creative vision, Tears of the Kingdom feels like an unnecessary retread of it. And I say that, experiencing the new additions, feeling they aren't very meaty or interesting, and looking back at it from the end. I'm not like the reactionaries on this site who are disappointed and give it half a star. By all means, its polished and impressive by the standards of a Switch game in a post PS5 world. But it's no big shot mind blower like the original BOTW, or Elden Ring. It's not fun enough to beat out Sekiro, Doom 2016 or Hollow Knight. It's not creative or even close to as smart as Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium or Forgotten City. It's a fun mindless open world jaunt, and I'm not pretending it's more than that.
Tears of the Kingdom is Domino's Pizza. I ate it sober, and the critics ate it baked out of their minds. To me, its a greasy bit of open world action that satisfies me, but never impresses. To them, its the best food they've ever eaten.
If you liked Breath of the Wild, this is basically that, but removing the sheikah slate powers with infinitely more impractical ones. Gone are remote bombs and stasis, instead you get the incredibly gimmicky recall and ascend powers. Ascend is a nice get out of jail free card in regular caves, but recall is totally useless outside of puzzles. Fuse is a cool gimmick that bellyflops the execution by making the act of fusing a constant tedious process, thats required to make weapons do damage. 90% of items are useless to fuse because they only affect elemental powers and a static power level.
The Ultra Hand steals the show, essentially being a more unwieldy GMod prop gun. The main problem with this power, along with fuse, is that I expected them to be so much deeper than they are. Fuse only really adds an element or higher DPS to weapons, and ultra hand can build bridges or useless makeshift vehicles for your amusement. To make matters worse, you have to grind up useful interactable props in a gacha machine in the sky. So making your own fun is often prefaced with grinding Zonai cores to trade in.
The other big nut tap I recieved was finding out how weak the dungeons are in TOTK. Theres 4 and a quarter dungeons in the game, and all of them can be beaten with little thought in less than 45 minutes each. The bosses are alright, although too easy with the expection of the thunder boss and final bosses. If there was one god damn thing I wanted Nintendo to fix after 6 years, it was the weak ass dungeons. And they couldn't even do that.
Tears of the Kingdom is stuck in limbo. Its not fresh in the slightest, but it slaps some total gimmicks into a 6 year old game, like a 50 year old lady slapping on layers of makeup. The new powers are now my textbook definition of gimmick, its so face slappingly obvious. They seem like gamechangers for about an hour, before fading into the background for 45. The shrines exist as some form of justification for them, making cool but overly simple physics puzzles involving ultrahand.
The massive underground depths are again, cool at first. But they take way too long to explore, are butt ugly and also don't contain any substancial content. So...from a game design perspective, why even have them? It feels cynical, like making a big, second ugly copy pasted overworld will band aid the severe lack of change.
The sky islands are actually a great addition. They feel fresh, with cool geometry, puzzles and rewards, but there's barely any of them. It pains me to say that, because the thing thats all over the marketing actually works as an addition to good game, and they underdevelop them. What were they doing for 6 years??
And I don't really need to say it, but after reading countless critic reviews praising it, I need to. The story and writing is abysmal. Characters have very, very simple personalities. There's no wit or charm to the very inhuman dialogue, consisting of what feels like robots constantly congratulating each other. Way to go, Link! Zelda for example, is just a shell of a human, she doesn't joke, entertain or even try to do anything but exposition dump, as does LITERALLY every major player in the game.
I have more to say...but I'll break here for now. I wouldn't normally go this hard, but after beating it and seeing the insane 97 metascore, I feel obliged to kind of, put my hands up and say, "what the fuck, people?" Its totally good, fine, and fun enough, but so are Hogwarts and Jedi Survivor. Neither of which are worse or better than TOTK. Its like giving the Mario Movie an Oscar.
Breath of the Wild felt like a special game with a creative vision, Tears of the Kingdom feels like an unnecessary retread of it. And I say that, experiencing the new additions, feeling they aren't very meaty or interesting, and looking back at it from the end. I'm not like the reactionaries on this site who are disappointed and give it half a star. By all means, its polished and impressive by the standards of a Switch game in a post PS5 world. But it's no big shot mind blower like the original BOTW, or Elden Ring. It's not fun enough to beat out Sekiro, Doom 2016 or Hollow Knight. It's not creative or even close to as smart as Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium or Forgotten City. It's a fun mindless open world jaunt, and I'm not pretending it's more than that.