Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Thread

[sXeth]

So no one here is a Zelda fan? Lines outside the door on release day, high scores across the board, and not one person here actually loves this game? So weird.

Well I don't play Nintendo stuff and the new Zelda games are not for me either for multiple reasons but I gotta say how much I respect Tears. It is interesting to follow.
It seems they leaned into everything that makes BotW what it is and more, which is really the perfect sequel. It also seems to run well and look good for what it is, something many feared due to the "old" hardware.

I agree with SkillUp- it's pretty amazing you can have this huge sandbox game with physics mechanics and quests and areas to explore that is 16GB and you can carry around with you.

It will absolutely win GOTY and all the awards this year and it probably deserves it. Look at how many franchises have turned to shit and lost their way, and here is a beloved franchise expanding and developing, pulling old fans along with it and pulling in new fans, and sticking to its guns. Yes that means many will not like it, but if we want games to have a vision and be true to themselves we should respect when games actually do that.

LttP, Minnish Cap (although sorely in need of a remaster to fix the controls into something sane), Links Awakening and Twilight Princess are all pretty cool. I'd even give OoT and Majoras Mask some nods, although other parts have aged like milk and they don't have the wow factor they did when I was 6(?) for obvious reasons.


Wind Waker was neat, but obviously the ambition exceeded their time or the technical capabity of the platform, so you got what felt half finished in the end.

Skyward Sword perhaps the same instance, but even what was there was horrible tedium.

BotW is where they lost me completely. Basically thowing out everything that makes a "zelda game" in the name of having an "open world" (something Zelda always had, its metroidvania (which honestly, Zelda predates both those for that style) gates here and there aside. No dungeons, no gadgets, very limited puzzles. Only a bare handful of pallete swap enemies. An insaningly tedious crafting system and a bunch of +number weapons. And two thousands mostly copy-pasted collectibles where they clearly ran out of ideas around two hundred.

Quintessentially, I was a Zelda fan, but this is more Banjo Kazooie with a Zelda skin now. And I definitely wasn't a BK/collectathon fan.

 

[Catfood220]

By the way, how the fuck do you detach shit that you've glued to one another? I keep messing up sticking things together and than needing to start from scratch or abandoning it all together.

Select the part you want to remove with the grab function and then wiggle the right stick to detach it. The game does tell you if you look at the button prompts at the bottom of the screen.

Its a faff and to be honest a button press would of been better in my opinion.

If you want to removal items from you weapons, you need to go into the menu and select the option.

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

Select the part you want to remove with the grab function and then wiggle the right stick to detach it. The game does tell you if you look at the button prompts at the bottom of the screen.

Its a faff and to be honest a button press would of been better in my opinion.

If you want to removal items from you weapons, you need to go into the menu and select the option.

If you have the motion sensor enabled as well, a quick wrist wiggle is efficient decoupling technique.

 

[Eacaraxe]

The more I hear about it, the more it actually kinda sounds like it’d be an atypically good drinking game.

I haven't played far enough into the game to see available higher-end kit, but TotK takes the "necessity is the mother of invention" theme Nintendo flirted with in BotW, and takes it to the Nth degree. If anything, so far it feels like good weapons and shields are less common in TotK, and they're less durable when you find one which strongly disincentivizes use for just any fight -- you have to fuse enhancements or other weapons together.

It makes for some really funny/cool chimeric abominations to wield, and gives some really valuable use cases for the lowest-tier, least-valuable, most common items. Fight some bokoblins and lack weapon slots? fuse the arms to what you've already got for a disposable, substantial, attack boost. Long stick lying around? grab it, fuse a bomb flower to it for a long range grenade. Out for lulz? stick a soup ladle to the end of a mop.

My personal favorite so far is a wall segment stuck to a claymore. It's like the korok leaf chugged a cocktail of steroids, ketamine, and bath salts. Then, there's a Skyshroom on the end of a soldier's broadsword. Last so far, spiked iron ball on a spear.

As far as power, zora weapons with the right fusion FUCK. I did not expect keese eyeballs -- of all fuckin' things -- to transform arrows into Patriot missiles. Electric and frozen keese eyeballs are encounter-solvers on their own. Ruby arrows might as well be tactical nukes.

 

[Dalisclock]

I feel this game is gonna be just like OoT 20-30 years down the line; sure, its gonna get all the praises NOW with criticisms falling on deaf years, but as time goes on more and more people realize its many flaws.

And I personally experienced this myself. Used to think OoT was greatest game ever made, but as time went i started to see more flaws that goes beyond the infamous water temple

I didn't play OOT till a couple years ago and while I enjoyed it, playing it 20 years late doesn't quite bring those "GOAT" vibes like it probably did in 1997. It probably didn't help I hadn't played any Zelda games other then the first 3 prior to that, so it basically felt like OOT was basically an evolution of Link to the Past but in 3D.

I think I enjoyed Majora's mask more overall just because of the concepts on display.

 

[Dalisclock]

So no one here is a Zelda fan? Lines outside the door on release day, high scores across the board, and not one person here actually loves this game? So weird.

I will say I am. I played Link to the past when it came out and the NES games but didn't play any other games until around 2017 with OOT. I'm slowly catching up on the games but still haven't gotten all the big titles.

And I've enjoyed them for the most part, though admittely I still haven't finished wind waker because THAT PART near the end kills the pacing and I've yet to jump back in.

At the same time, I know there's not gonna be another Zelda game for about 5 years or so I'll play TOTK when I'm feeling ready to play it.

 

[Hawki]

I am reconsidering playing this game.

Man, who'd have thought Link could be such a dick?

So no one here is a Zelda fan? Lines outside the door on release day, high scores across the board, and not one person here actually loves this game? So weird.

I'm definitely a fan, but I haven't picked up Tears for reasons including:

-Haven't played Breath of the Wild (yet)

-Playing any LoZ game is a massive time investment, all the more so for an open world game.

-Plenty of other LoZ games that I also haven't played yet

This isn't a problem that's exclusive to Zelda (this problem applies every RPG in existence for instance), but, well, I'll put it this way - OoT was my first LoZ game, and back then, I had the time to play for hours on end. As an adult, I'd be lucky to reach double digits over the course of a single week. So it's nice to see LoZ still going strong, I just don't have the time to ride the waves, so to speak.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I didn't play OOT till a couple years ago and while I enjoyed it, playing it 20 years late doesn't quite bring those "GOAT" vibes like it probably did in 1997. It probably didn't help I hadn't played any Zelda games other then the first 3 prior to that, so it basically felt like OOT was basically an evolution of Link to the Past but in 3D.

I think I enjoyed Majora's mask more overall just because of the concepts on display.

I would’ve probably enjoyed MM more if I wasn’t playing it at the same time I just got a PS2. That made its somewhat eccentric design choices something I had less patience for than I otherwise might have, even considering it was riding on the coattails of OoT’s success.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So, something that makes me feel quite stupid yet still really pissed off at this game... I was kinda losing my fucking mind because I for the life of me could not figure out how to attach shit to my arrows. I know I saw a pop-up right after I got the power that quickly explained it, but not having enough time to read it it just slipped my view. Both my shield and my melee weapon got a constructo HUD icon as soon as I activated the power, but nothing on the bow. I'd equip my bow and hit L; nothing. I'd hit L THEN equip my bow; nothing.

And apparently, if you play this game with your HUD on Professional, meaning you get rid of the mini-map, noise indicator, and temperature gauge, you also get rid of both the button prompt for attaching things to your arrows and the prompt that tells you how to detach things that you've glued together. But those are seemingly the only prompts it gets rid of - every other prompt is still front and center in the screen. And seeing as every other prompt is the same as it was in BotW on Pro you'd have no idea this is why you can't see those particular prompts. So yeah, weird decision from Nintendo there.

Anyway, as for the game itself so far... I'm not feeling it too much. It seems like they REALLY want you to interact with the whole construction mechanic A LOT. It has these stops on the road almost every 100 feet that has crafting material for you screw around with, and I can't say I'm digging it. The weapons seem to break even faster now, which the game explains away with bad guy lore, but in the end you're still stuck with a bunch of breadsticks that you're unsatisfyingly cracking over enemies. The item and weapon management was always quite shit in BotW, but with this added construction mechanic it just adds another layer of management to the whole thing, making me feel exhausted by it before I'm even 4 hours in.

 

[Silvanus]

Nintendo in general are masters of making each new game in a given IP just more of the same. And while that can be good, it is a really stale pattern. Every mario is the same, every zelda, every pokemon. Nintendo games are games you but every 3rd or 4th new game in the series when you are just in the mood for more of whatever it is.

This is a mega common criticism that i feel people repeat without much real consideration. Odyssey was enormously different from Galaxy/ 3D World. And while every Pokemon from Gen 1 to 6 was essentially the same, Gen 7 (Sun/Moon) and Gen 9 (Scarlet/Violet) were both pretty big deviations from the formula-- and Legends: Arceus was a different ballpark altogether. TotK may be mega similar to BotW, but BotW was hugely different from anything that came before, Zelda-wise. And Skyward Sword was not like TP at all. TP was not like WW. WW was not like MM. MM was not like OoT.

There's more difference between the last two Mario games, and between the last two Pokemon games, than there was between the last two Dooms, or Elder Scrolls, or God of Wars. People just say it about Nintendo franchises cos criticisms get recycled. I think the only one of those franchises it's substantially true for is Pokemon up until Gen 7.

So no one here is a Zelda fan? Lines outside the door on release day, high scores across the board, and not one person here actually loves this game? So weird.

Loving it so far. Don't listen to these guys, they're just a bunch of hipsters.

 

[Casual Shinji]

This is a mega common criticism that i feel people repeat without much real consideration. Odyssey was enormously different from Galaxy/ 3D World. And while every Pokemon from Gen 1 to 6 was essentially the same, Gen 7 (Sun/Moon) and Gen 9 (Scarlet/Violet) were both pretty big deviations from the formula-- and Legends: Arceus was a different ballpark altogether. TotK may be mega similar to BotW, but BotW was hugely different from anything that came before, Zelda-wise. And Skyward Sword was not like TP at all. TP was not like WW. WW was not like MM. MM was not like OoT.

There's more difference between the last two Mario games, and between the last two Pokemon games, than there was between the last two Dooms, or Elder Scrolls, or God of Wars. People just say it about Nintendo franchises cos criticisms get recycled. I think the only one of those franchises it's substantially true for is Pokemon up until Gen 7.

Not every Nintendo game within a franchise is the same, but you can't deny that Nintendo is adament about NEVER changing up the character or even world dynamic. This fierce protection has made their characters and aesthetics the most iconic in the industry, but it's also made them more brands than characters at this point. Playing the start of Tears of the Kingdom it was woefully par the course for Zelda to literally fall and disapear from the game. Zelda will always be Link needing to help/save Zelda against/from Ganon, Mario will always be Mario saving Peach from Bowser. And that's not even getting into gender tropes, but just that you have characters where there's no real point in getting invested in them, seeing as they haven't changed in 30 years, and as a result maybe not get too invested in the world or even the game itself.

I like Zelda games generally, even some Mario games. Heck, Mario Galaxy 1 is one of my favourite games ever. But other, typically non-Nintendo games, have more to offer in terms of character and world/lore.

 

[Silvanus]

Not every Nintendo game within a franchise is the same, but you can't deny that Nintendo is adament about NEVER changing up the character or even world dynamic. This fierce protection has made their characters and aesthetics the most iconic in the industry, but it's also made them more brands than characters at this point. Playing the start of Tears of the Kingdom it was woefully par the course for Zelda to literally fall and disapear from the game. Zelda will always be Link needing to help/save Zelda against/from Ganon

It happens often, but "never changing the character dynamic" is patently untrue. Zelda, under an assumed identity, is off journeying as a pirate for the majority of Wind Waker. She's not even present in Majora's Mask. Hell, even in OoT she escapes Ganon without Link's help, and is off being a Ninja for about 60% of the game-- she only requires saving by the protag at the end of the end. Ganon isn't present in Minish Cap, Majora's Mask, Four Swords, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, or Skyward Sword. And he's barely present (and not the primary antagonist) in OoA, OoS, and ALBW.

Mario will always be Mario saving Peach from Bowser. And that's not even getting into gender tropes, but just that you have characters where there's no real point in getting invested in them, seeing as they haven't changed in 30 years, and as a result maybe not get too invested in the world or even the game itself.

I like Zelda games generally, even some Mario games. Heck, Mario Galaxy 1 is one of my favourite games ever. But other, typically non-Nintendo games, have more to offer in terms of character and world/lore.

Mario is (primarily) a platformer series, which have very rarely in any franchise focused on lore or worldbuilding. I do get your point about Mario, though, and would love it if they developed or progressed a bit. Though the stories of Sunshine, Galaxy, the Paper Mario series and the Mario & Luigi series are fairly notable deviations.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Seems to me that these complaints about Nintendo franchises not changing are just complaints about what franchises are.
Assasssins Creed is always about stabbing your way through some historical conspiracy. Dark Souls is always about fighting and dying your way to take over a dying world. Final Fantasy is always about rallying a group of characters and gods to kill a god. Armored Core is always about being a mech to fight mechs. Madden is always about playing football.

I mean, if you just distil a franchise to one sentence, yes, that will not change. Which is the whole point of being a franchise.
I totally respect someone not wanting to continue playing a franchise. But I can't respect complaining that core identifying aspects of that franchise remain consistent, 'cause that's kind of the point.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

*blank stare*


I've never played a zelda game.

 

[CriticalGaming]

There's more difference between the last two Mario games, and between the last two Pokemon games, than there was between the last two Dooms, or Elder Scrolls, or God of Wars. People just say it about Nintendo franchises cos criticisms get recycled. I think the only one of those franchises it's substantially true for is Pokemon up until Gen 7.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Most "drastic" changes in Nintendo games are surface level only. Look at your pokemon example. Scarlet and Violet are no different, you still battle, catch and evolve pokemon, battle a rival team, battle gym leaders, become champion, and solve an ancient legendary mystery. Same same same. Open world does not make it any different, it only makes the series take a baby step towards modern game design.

Mario odyssey is the same as Mario 64. Go world to world, hunting as many moons as possible, fight bowser at the end. Mario games vary from game to game with having one or two powers and nothing more really.

Do i even need to mention Splatoon?

And yes you can make the point that other series' follow the same thing. But God of War 4 is far different than the games that came before. Game series do evolve and reboot all the time. And even with God of War or Uncharted the adventures in each game have different story beats, different characters, different motivations. Which Nintendo's dont have.

 

[BrawlMan]

Assasssins Creed is always about stabbing your way through some historical conspiracy.

That's because AC wastes everybody time with the stupid conspiracy story that doesn't know how to end or stop. Not to mention the dumb future story lines and the crappy season passes and dlc. There's also the fact that the later games get extremely grindy and expect you to pay to skip the grind.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I disagree wholeheartedly. Most "drastic" changes in Nintendo games are surface level only. Look at your pokemon example. Scarlet and Violet are no different, you still battle, catch and evolve pokemon, battle a rival team, battle gym leaders, become champion, and solve an ancient legendary mystery. Same same same. Open world does not make it any different, it only makes the series take a baby step towards modern game design.

Mario odyssey is the same as Mario 64. Go world to world, hunting as many moons as possible, fight bowser at the end. Mario games vary from game to game with having one or two powers and nothing more really.

Do i even need to mention Splatoon?

And yes you can make the point that other series' follow the same thing. But God of War 4 is far different than the games that came before. Game series do evolve and reboot all the time. And even with God of War or Uncharted the adventures in each game have different story beats, different characters, different motivations. Which Nintendo's dont have.

At first I’d be inclined to say something like, “Yeah but you have to keep it simple for kids.”

But then well, what about Disney. All their Pixar movies are geared towards kids regardless of being increasingly appealing to their parents, yet they also have pretty complex story beats with intelligently implemented themes that even adults can appreciate. There is also a lot of progression and gear shifting between sequels, even considering the typical through line of good vs evil.

So Nintendo really doesn’t have much of an excuse, other than still pulling the John Carmack card that a videogame doesn’t need a story because like porn, “it’s expected to be there but it’s not that important.”

 

[Silvanus]

I disagree wholeheartedly. Most "drastic" changes in Nintendo games are surface level only. Look at your pokemon example. Scarlet and Violet are no different, you still battle, catch and evolve pokemon, battle a rival team, battle gym leaders, become champion, and solve an ancient legendary mystery. Same same same. Open world does not make it any different, it only makes the series take a baby step towards modern game design.

!? An open world, 3 independent storylines, and the ability to tackle things in your preferred order are massive changes, affecting the entire experience.

If your complaint is that the core conceit is the same, even though the format and mechanics are different, then... yeah. That's what a franchise is. Try arguing that Doom 3 is the same as Doom Eternal because both are about shooting demons!

Mario odyssey is the same as Mario 64. Go world to world, hunting as many moons as possible, fight bowser at the end. Mario games vary from game to game with having one or two powers and nothing more really.

Odyssey is more like 64 than it is like Galaxy, 3D World, or Sunshine-- so rather than saying they're all alike, you're reaching back about 6 or 7 installments to find the closest comparison.

And even then, the hat and possession mechanics are enormous differences. You may as well say the Gravity Gun makes no meaningful difference between HL1 and HL2.

Do i even need to mention Splatoon?

You can, so long as you mention it in the same breath as COD, Battlefield, etc. Although the introduction of Salmon Run between Splatoon 1 and 2 is a bigger game mode introduction than the majority of BF and CODs have.

And yes you can make the point that other series' follow the same thing. But God of War 4 is far different than the games that came before. Game series do evolve and reboot all the time. And even with God of War or Uncharted the adventures in each game have different story beats, different characters, different motivations. Which Nintendo's dont have.

But they do. Up above you gave a very simplified description of Nintendo plots to say they're all the same-- which is just as easy for God of War. "They're all just about bashing through a gauntlet of mythical creatures and gods who wronged you using melee weaps and colourful executions". Bam, same.

Note: I'm not saying they are the same. I'm pointing out that if you just list the basic franchise beats, you can make anything seem that way. The differences are mainly tonal. Which... is also a massive difference between MM and OoT, or between WW and TP.

The differences are there. They just don't appeal to you. That ain't the same thing as absence.

 

[BrawlMan]

Mario odyssey is the same as Mario 64. Go world to world, hunting as many moons as possible, fight bowser at the end. Mario games vary from game to game with having one or two powers and nothing more really.

In Mario 64, your main hub world is a castle and you jump in a different paintings. Mario Galaxy was about going to different planets and playing with all types of gravity. It does have the most lore out of all the Mario games. Mario Odyssey has you globe trotting to different locations. It's a world tour mode. Not to mention Mario Odyssey does enough to mix it up and does add some gameplay changes for variety that works well.

The Legend Of Zelda has Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Those are certain deviations, despite the latter looking more like a "traditional" Zelda game. And like I said before, both of the Hyrule Warriors spin-offs are something different and just made for the fans to have fun. Both games are better than nearly any of KT's & Omega Force's recent outputs when it comes to the main line Dynasty Warriors games.

Did I not mention Kirby as well? Metroid is usually the one that's more consistent, but it still doesn't know if changes to make most of each games unique. Those games do have more story going on, but it's definitely based on the atmosphere of each game. You are for the most part dead on about Pokemon. There are the spin-off games, Nintendo doesn't even seem to care much for those anymore, nor put out as many as they did back in the 2000s, or just throws them on mobile phones without much care.

 

[Chimpzy]

Kind of on the fence.

On one hand I've bounced off any of the 3d Zeldas. BotW I skipped. It's also €65 new i.e. over my max for any single game, so my only option is sale or secondhand.

On the other, you can build a mecha and fuck shit up.