flamelemental
4 reviews liked by flamelemental
This review contains spoilers
This is a fantastic game and will go down as a legend. As someone who thought BotW was at best a mediocre experience, I LOVED TotK. It improves upon the many faults of BotW in great ways.
Spoiler warning ahead, obviously. Probably shouldn't be looking at reviews if you are worried about spoilers, anyways.
PROS:
1. The story is great, if a bit predictable.
2. The new exploration mechanics are awesome.
3. The dungeons feel a LOT more meatier than their blink-and-you-miss-it counterparts in BotW.
4. The world isn't even close to as empty as it was in BotW.
5. Fusion helps counter the awfulness of the durability mechanic. Bit disappointed that it was even still there at all as it was by far the worst part of BotW, but at least in TotK you can do something to help make your stuff last longer.
6. The 3 layers of the world are fun to explore and go between and the new mechanics help you do that in great ways.
7. The boss fights are a blast, with the only exception being the Water boss. That one was just simply annoying.
CONS:
1. The ending felt a bit too...easy? They build up Draconification as being permanent so much and make the reveal of Zelda doing that so sad, but then some energy shoots out of Link's hand at the end and suddenly it isn't permanent anymore? When I found Mineru, I expected her to have found a way to undo it and she was going to work with Link on it, but no, she just wanted revenge. I dunno. I was pretty disappointed, honestly.
2. Similar point to the above, but there was a ton of talk about the dragons being immortal until Link fights one and suddenly there are big obvious weak points that allows him to kill one? It felt too easy.
3. Being able to build monstrosities is fun, yes, but why make them disappear on reloads? Keep the last one made. It is super sad to see your vehicle you just put all that work into (or spent all that zonaite on) poof into thin air because you walked into a shrine. Feels like a pointless thing to do.
4. The planes disappearing after a tiny bit of use sucks. It defeats the purpose of them.
5. Stamina. The game could have benefited from a more lax stamina wheel. The amount you get to start with is pathetic. I honestly put all my points into increasing that way before I increased my health because it went down so bloody fast.
6. Seriously, why does everything have to hit so damn hard? I liked it at first, but it quickly got old. Also, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever that a silver Bokoblin hit Link way harder than the bloody Demon King himself.
7. Similar to 5, I guess, but I thought the charge you get to start with to power your creations was pretty pathetic. I don't see the harm in giving players a bigger pool to start with.
8. The way the story was told. I wish you were guaranteed to see the flashbacks in chronological order. I found the one where Ganondorf kills Sonia as one of my first ones and it spoiled almost all the memories I found after that.
Spoiler warning ahead, obviously. Probably shouldn't be looking at reviews if you are worried about spoilers, anyways.
PROS:
1. The story is great, if a bit predictable.
2. The new exploration mechanics are awesome.
3. The dungeons feel a LOT more meatier than their blink-and-you-miss-it counterparts in BotW.
4. The world isn't even close to as empty as it was in BotW.
5. Fusion helps counter the awfulness of the durability mechanic. Bit disappointed that it was even still there at all as it was by far the worst part of BotW, but at least in TotK you can do something to help make your stuff last longer.
6. The 3 layers of the world are fun to explore and go between and the new mechanics help you do that in great ways.
7. The boss fights are a blast, with the only exception being the Water boss. That one was just simply annoying.
CONS:
1. The ending felt a bit too...easy? They build up Draconification as being permanent so much and make the reveal of Zelda doing that so sad, but then some energy shoots out of Link's hand at the end and suddenly it isn't permanent anymore? When I found Mineru, I expected her to have found a way to undo it and she was going to work with Link on it, but no, she just wanted revenge. I dunno. I was pretty disappointed, honestly.
2. Similar point to the above, but there was a ton of talk about the dragons being immortal until Link fights one and suddenly there are big obvious weak points that allows him to kill one? It felt too easy.
3. Being able to build monstrosities is fun, yes, but why make them disappear on reloads? Keep the last one made. It is super sad to see your vehicle you just put all that work into (or spent all that zonaite on) poof into thin air because you walked into a shrine. Feels like a pointless thing to do.
4. The planes disappearing after a tiny bit of use sucks. It defeats the purpose of them.
5. Stamina. The game could have benefited from a more lax stamina wheel. The amount you get to start with is pathetic. I honestly put all my points into increasing that way before I increased my health because it went down so bloody fast.
6. Seriously, why does everything have to hit so damn hard? I liked it at first, but it quickly got old. Also, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever that a silver Bokoblin hit Link way harder than the bloody Demon King himself.
7. Similar to 5, I guess, but I thought the charge you get to start with to power your creations was pretty pathetic. I don't see the harm in giving players a bigger pool to start with.
8. The way the story was told. I wish you were guaranteed to see the flashbacks in chronological order. I found the one where Ganondorf kills Sonia as one of my first ones and it spoiled almost all the memories I found after that.
Having to be in a world with other people really is a horrifying thing. Sometimes things get so bad I wonder why we even bother trying to communicate with each other. It seems inevitable that we mess something up, say too much or too little, hurt people in ways we could never fathom. No amount of verbal or non-verbal communication could capture the ideas we truly believe in, it could never convey the nuances of our thoughts and perceptions, the principles we carry that guide our every decision. Wouldn't it be better if we all knew exactly what was going on in each other's minds? It sounds like a horrifying idea, but would it really cause more trouble than we already create? A network of people constantly connected, every detail of your life being taken in by anyone willing to join that network. Then you would see every version of yourself that exists in different people's minds. Wouldn't that be a relief? Or maybe it would drive you mad. Either way, why not give it a shot?
This game came out 2 months after the final episode of Serial Experiments Lain. Fans went into this expecting answers and got more than they would ever want to know.
This game came out 2 months after the final episode of Serial Experiments Lain. Fans went into this expecting answers and got more than they would ever want to know.
if this were released like 5 years ago this absolutely would have been a super ironic meme made at the expense of the series in order to appease the people who don't like nor get Sonic, so I'm glad I don't live in that timeline.
This was a fun treat, much more charming and considered in style, polish, writing than I expected from a free April Fool's surprise, with a framing that lets each character's personality shine a bit more than they often get the chance to in the mainline Sonic series.
Think it was smart to serialize the story via a linear progression of train cars, too, given the intended audience is Sonic fans more than the sort of die-hard mystery VN fans who might want more freedom in the investigations.
My biggest complaint is the over-reliance on a minigame that feels like it's there to placate fans who demand some form of action in a Sonic game and is asked to prop up a climax that might have been better served by more of the sleuthing and lite-deduction that's more core to the game.
Think it was smart to serialize the story via a linear progression of train cars, too, given the intended audience is Sonic fans more than the sort of die-hard mystery VN fans who might want more freedom in the investigations.
My biggest complaint is the over-reliance on a minigame that feels like it's there to placate fans who demand some form of action in a Sonic game and is asked to prop up a climax that might have been better served by more of the sleuthing and lite-deduction that's more core to the game.
