very very charming game that I enjoyed quite a bit
and since I struggle at writing reviews im just gonna list a topic and rant about it for a second

the music? great

the art style? so incredibly charming with everything in this game just being a joy to look at

the dungeons?
well I thought all the dungeons were pretty fun and the same goes with all of the puzzles in the dungeons/in the game overall

my only real issue is that the game just spells everything out for you at every possible moment

everything still feels fun to explore the puzzles are still fun and rewarding to solve especially with how unique their gimmicks are but the game just loves to hold your hand and tell you exactly what must be done and where to go

the same can be said for the combat
it is unbelievably easy 99% of the time
you just target your enemy and spam the attack button
and the times the combat is hard

well

sometimes its cool and fun like the knights where you have to perfectly time a parry to strip off pieces of their armor (these guys are basically the only enemy type that is like this and semi difficult btw)

and other times they spawn in 100+ enemies and your targeting starts to actively work against you

my favorite example of this is the like flying wizard dudes who can spawn in enemies

you almost always want to take them out first so enemies will stop spawning but the targeting system just loves to target everyone but the flying wizard dudes

this isn't to say the combat is bad however
I think its really fun and I love how they mix in other items into the combat

sure it isn't hard to target then press a button to quickly throw a boomerang/shoot a arrow/flap your deku leaf/aim your mirror shield then go right back to spamming the attack button

but its cool
I like the different weaknesses the enemies have

oh and I guess I should mention those giant ass skeleton guys are kinda ass since they just never stop spinning

but overall combat good

exploration?
really good
I love the islands filled with the charming characters
I love seeing the characters evolve even if its only a little bit
and I love the activities and quest lines they send you on

but even the tiny islands with no characters at all were fun to explore and I think a good way to explain all of this would be to share my time doing the tri force quest

for those who are unaware the game makes you go out and find 8 tri force shards

looking at the reviews for the game on this site it seems a lot of people were not a fan of this quest

I however kinda liked it
but it wasn't without issues

basically I decided to do the earth and wind temples before finding any of the shards

which btw side note: the game implies you can do any temple you want first but I actually just couldn't do wind temple before doing earth first

also don't get why its called earth temple when everything in the temple was based off light and darkness and the mirror shield but ok

anyways
after doing the temples I decided to go after the shards and thankfully your buddy ol pal tingle gives you a chart showing you where all of them are via the mailbox

it cost quite a bit but its easily worth it

and this is one of those special charts where its just the whole map and even shows your exact pinpoint location at all times

so I was just sailing away to all these tri force shards and checking out every interesting island along the way

a lot of these islands were these fairy islands with fairies who can give you upgrades like increasing how many bombs you can carry or how many arrows you can carry or how much magic you can have

and a lot of these islands also had these unground caverns with the reward for most of them being money

well you can only carry 500 rupees by default and I think it was the moment where I had 500 rupees and I beat one of these caverns and the reward in the chest was a silver rupee which is worth 200 rupees and it just went into thin air where I was like "damn I wish these fairies could give me a money upgrade"

then I got 2 tri force charts and I went to tingle to decipher them and the dude charges you 398 rupees per chart meaning I could only do 1 and I was like "damn I really really wish I had a money upgrade right now"

and it was while I was looking for my newly deciphered tri force chart that I saw the tingle chart that you get near the beginning of the game that ive never once opened

turns out it was a special chart with 2 fair locations on it
and both of them were money upgrades

yeah I felt pretty stupid and was quite annoyed in that moment

but after getting my money upgrades and grinding the labyrinth for money I continued my quest for tri force shards by using my tri force charts

and here is where we get into a big issue for the game
tressure charts and the sea chart/map suck

I don't mind the idea of having to chart out my map
and I like the idea of cross referencing tressure charts/tri force charts with my map

the issue is that charting the map is just so unbelievably tedious
at least in the beginning of the game

basically you have to talk to this fish guy at every island and feed him bait
the issue is that the bait cost like 30 rupees for a bundle of 3 and when you only have 500 rupees max but most likely actually less than that since you're probably not making that much money plus not to mention I think you can only buy bait at outset island unless im just dead wrong and refused to look anywhere else

its just ass

its also pointless since the king of red lions for like the majority of the game just marks where you have to go even if the area is undiscovered

so there is just no reason to ever chart out the map until this very point in the game where you have to cross reference tri force charts

and my map was looking pretty empty

thankfully however my newly found riches and the ability to fast travel which you unlock later on in the game made charting out the map pretty easy

just fast travel to outset and buy a ton of bait
then start sailing away to every island
and I got to explore even more islands and their fun puzzles and caverns

so it wasn't all bad
however being informed about the swift sail in the auction house by the fish dude as I was finishing up charting everything was slightly annoying

I also realized I think you're intended to speak to the fish dude to figure out the locations of the iron boots and the power bracelets but I talked to the sailor dude at windfall to figure that stuff out (was pretty fun figuring that out btw)

so yeah the exploration is fun
sailing is cool and the islands all have cool things to them
I just hate the damn sea chart

uhhhh
bosses
I like all of them besides the final 2

they are all really fun with unique gimmicks
gimmicks that aren't hard to figure out either since they almost always revolve around the item you obtain in that dungeon

then I got to puppet ganon
and I just didn't know what to do

now don't get me wrong its not that hard to figure out
the item you obtain is the light arrows and the puppet itself is a all black creature with a weird blue ball on its tail

for those who don't understand
you shoot the ball with the light arrows

but my dumbass spent 5 mins just throwing my boomerang at his puppet strings just over and over again until I finally decided to look it up

but even after looking it up and figuring out what to do the boss fight just isn't that good

especially that 3rd phase
bro turns into a fish like creature I think and runs around at the speed of sound sometimes charging at you and does a shit ton of damage
and you just have to get lucky with your bow shots
so ass

and the final fight with ganon is also kinda mid

but all the other fights are fun af and I really enjoyed them

the story? simple but good
nothing too special about it but its interesting enough to keep you invested the whole time and the characters are all pretty charming

I also think the idea that the whole world is just a flooded hyrule and the islands are hyrules hills is so cool

one final thing I can think of that I wanna mention is that the platforming feels like ass
but its really not that much of an issue especially when you get the deku leaf

but the like 3 instances where you are forced to hop between platforms and swing from rope to rope

it feels horrible

overall though game is great and I heavily enjoyed it 👍

very very charming game that I enjoyed quite a bit
and since I struggle at writing reviews im just gonna list a topic and rant about it for a second

the music? great

the art style? so incredibly charming with everything in this game just being a joy to look at

the dungeons?
well I thought all the dungeons were pretty fun and the same goes with all of the puzzles in the dungeons/in the game overall

my only real issue is that the game just spells everything out for you at every possible moment

everything still feels fun to explore the puzzles are still fun and rewarding to solve especially with how unique their gimmicks are but the game just loves to hold your hand and tell you exactly what must be done and where to go

the same can be said for the combat
it is unbelievably easy 99% of the time
you just target your enemy and spam the attack button
and the times the combat is hard

well

sometimes its cool and fun like the knights where you have to perfectly time a parry to strip off pieces of their armor (these guys are basically the only enemy type that is like this and semi difficult btw)

and other times they spawn in 100+ enemies and your targeting starts to actively work against you

my favorite example of this is the like flying wizard dudes who can spawn in enemies

you almost always want to take them out first so enemies will stop spawning but the targeting system just loves to target everyone but the flying wizard dudes

this isn't to say the combat is bad however
I think its really fun and I love how they mix in other items into the combat

sure it isn't hard to target then press a button to quickly throw a boomerang/shoot a arrow/flap your deku leaf/aim your mirror shield then go right back to spamming the attack button

but its cool
I like the different weaknesses the enemies have

oh and I guess I should mention those giant ass skeleton guys are kinda ass since they just never stop spinning

but overall combat good

exploration?
really good
I love the islands filled with the charming characters
I love seeing the characters evolve even if its only a little bit
and I love the activities and quest lines they send you on

but even the tiny islands with no characters at all were fun to explore and I think a good way to explain all of this would be to share my time doing the tri force quest

for those who are unaware the game makes you go out and find 8 tri force shards

looking at the reviews for the game on this site it seems a lot of people were not a fan of this quest

I however kinda liked it
but it wasn't without issues

basically I decided to do the earth and wind temples before finding any of the shards

which btw side note: the game implies you can do any temple you want first but I actually just couldn't do wind temple before doing earth first

also don't get why its called earth temple when everything in the temple was based off light and darkness and the mirror shield but ok

anyways
after doing the temples I decided to go after the shards and thankfully your buddy ol pal tingle gives you a chart showing you where all of them are via the mailbox

it cost quite a bit but its easily worth it

and this is one of those special charts where its just the whole map and even shows your exact pinpoint location at all times

so I was just sailing away to all these tri force shards and checking out every interesting island along the way

a lot of these islands were these fairy islands with fairies who can give you upgrades like increasing how many bombs you can carry or how many arrows you can carry or how much magic you can have

and a lot of these islands also had these unground caverns with the reward for most of them being money

well you can only carry 500 rupees by default and I think it was the moment where I had 500 rupees and I beat one of these caverns and the reward in the chest was a silver rupee which is worth 200 rupees and it just went into thin air where I was like "damn I wish these fairies could give me a money upgrade"

then I got 2 tri force charts and I went to tingle to decipher them and the dude charges you 398 rupees per chart meaning I could only do 1 and I was like "damn I really really wish I had a money upgrade right now"

and it was while I was looking for my newly deciphered tri force chart that I saw the tingle chart that you get near the beginning of the game that ive never once opened

turns out it was a special chart with 2 fair locations on it
and both of them were money upgrades

yeah I felt pretty stupid and was quite annoyed in that moment

but after getting my money upgrades and grinding the labyrinth for money I continued my quest for tri force shards by using my tri force charts

and here is where we get into a big issue for the game
tressure charts and the sea chart/map suck

I don't mind the idea of having to chart out my map
and I like the idea of cross referencing tressure charts/tri force charts with my map

the issue is that charting the map is just so unbelievably tedious
at least in the beginning of the game

basically you have to talk to this fish guy at every island and feed him bait
the issue is that the bait cost like 30 rupees for a bundle of 3 and when you only have 500 rupees max but most likely actually less than that since you're probably not making that much money plus not to mention I think you can only buy bait at outset island unless im just dead wrong and refused to look anywhere else

its just ass

its also pointless since the king of red lions for like the majority of the game just marks where you have to go even if the area is undiscovered

so there is just no reason to ever chart out the map until this very point in the game where you have to cross reference tri force charts

and my map was looking pretty empty

thankfully however my newly found riches and the ability to fast travel which you unlock later on in the game made charting out the map pretty easy

just fast travel to outset and buy a ton of bait
then start sailing away to every island
and I got to explore even more islands and their fun puzzles and caverns

so it wasn't all bad
however being informed about the swift sail in the auction house by the fish dude as I was finishing up charting everything was slightly annoying

I also realized I think you're intended to speak to the fish dude to figure out the locations of the iron boots and the power bracelets but I talked to the sailor dude at windfall to figure that stuff out (was pretty fun figuring that out btw)

so yeah the exploration is fun
sailing is cool and the islands all have cool things to them
I just hate the damn sea chart

uhhhh
bosses
I like all of them besides the final 2

they are all really fun with unique gimmicks
gimmicks that aren't hard to figure out either since they almost always revolve around the item you obtain in that dungeon

then I got to puppet ganon
and I just didn't know what to do

now don't get me wrong its not that hard to figure out
the item you obtain is the light arrows and the puppet itself is a all black creature with a weird blue ball on its tail

for those who don't understand
you shoot the ball with the light arrows

but my dumbass spent 5 mins just throwing my boomerang at his puppet strings just over and over again until I finally decided to look it up

but even after looking it up and figuring out what to do the boss fight just isn't that good

especially that 3rd phase
bro turns into a fish like creature I think and runs around at the speed of sound sometimes charging at you and does a shit ton of damage
and you just have to get lucky with your bow shots
so ass

and the final fight with ganon is also kinda mid

but all the other fights are fun af and I really enjoyed them

the story? simple but good
nothing too special about it but its interesting enough to keep you invested the whole time and the characters are all pretty charming

I also think the idea that the whole world is just a flooded hyrule and the islands are hyrules hills is so cool

one final thing I can think of that I wanna mention is that the platforming feels like ass
but its really not that much of an issue especially when you get the deku leaf

but the like 3 instances where you are forced to hop between platforms and swing from rope to rope

it feels horrible

overall though game is great and I heavily enjoyed it 👍