Should TotK learn from mistakes made in BotW?

[Vanessa28]

Personally I don't think BotW had big mistakes but of course there are a lot of people who think otherwise
So what mistakes from BotW (and even other games) should ToaK avoid? And should they fix this? Besides mechanics there's also the story. And many don't like the story. Again, I think BotW was perfect enough for me but this is not about what I think
So....shoot your thoughts!

 

[thePlinko]

You know what, I could just beat a dead horse for the billionth time and list off every reason why I don’t like BotW, but this time I’ll just bring up something new.

This is actually something that I realized just recently yet has bothered me for the longest time prior, being that Links melee attack animations are incredibly stiff, particularly with one handed and spear weapons. Except for in very specific circumstances, there is exactly one attack chain in BotW per weapon. One. Meaning that every single time you attack, Link is just going to freeze in place and do the exact same damn animation. Meanwhile all the way back in OoT there are 5 separate attack pattern animations for the one handed swords alone. It seems like a nitpick, but simply having the option to either stay put or move forward while attacking makes combat feel so much more fluid. The reason why sword combat was so fun in Twilight Princess wasn’t just because “the game lets be kill all of the enemies with some box I found lying around.” It was fun because it’s extensive sword combat felt good and also kept getting better because TP actually understands the concept of rewarding the player for exploration, something that BotW doesn’t quite seem to grasp.

 

[Uwu_Oocoo2]

I feel like there's a lot of issues in botw that got glossed over for the sole fact that it's a Zelda title. Cheif amongst these would be the story for me. The story in breath of the wild was so, SO weak. It provided no motivation. Essentially, it was just background information. The actual story was "defeat the divine beasts and then calamity ganon". I don't want that again. I would love to see tears of the kingdom be a more story focused game so we can really be led through it and know what we're fighting for. I think that's what their intent was for the story clips in botw but it really didn't work out like that.
Also, not letting us pet dogs was a mistake because now everyone complains about it. They can add a pet action.

 

[Mima_sama]

One of my complaints with BotW was lack of enemy variety (it seemed like most were simply variants on Bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizalfos), which seems to have been addressed somewhat from what I've gleaned of the most recent trailer. I just hope we get more than one or two new enemy types. I'd love to see more classic enemies return-- flying enemies like Guays, Kargarocs, and Peahats; undead like Poes, Re-deads, and Gibdos. Maybe even a Deku scrub or two! Oh! And Darknuts! Can't forget Darknuts! I think that'd give them an excuse to expand on the elements of swordplay, too.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

Personally I don't think it would make much sense for tears to dip into survival gameplay like botw but if they did they absolutely have to have to have to find a better way to implement "scavenged weapons" gameplay

That's priority #1



Also they need more unnaturally large colored trees you're not a real open world game without at least eight of those suckers, maybe one even bigger one

 

[Sentinel]

There is a lot:

• Make the boomerang an actual item again with similar functions of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. If possible even better. Thus:
• Bringing up more traditional items in general, not just those being similar to the runes. Technically, Nintendo already worked for a lot of traditional items but they had to cut lots of this content. So I see a possibility of these items appearing again, there is a good chance. I mean, Link already used a flamethrower shield on a new enemy.
• Actual dungeons but considering the recent trailer, I believe we might really get 7 amazing traditional dungeons again. Yet again, if possible it could be designed even better (ie. having larger scales than those of Twilight Princess). And please, PLEASE, proper epic dungeon bosses! I will immediately quit this game if I see two individual comparable bosses ever again. Blight ganons are the biggest mistake of the entire game. The sequel definitely needs to fix this or there is one player less playing this game (not that they will care tho).
• Exclusive and individual combat for each weapon. Why don't they use concepts of Twilight Princess combat battle? It baffles me how they threw this amazing gameplay in Skyward Sword away as well. Personally, I'd have liked to have a primary and secondary weapon system; the primary being your sword which is totally unbreakable and the second one the weapons which you're able to collect. Now the next point regarding weapons:
• Weapon durability. With the primary and secondary weapon system, it'd be already handled a lot better than Breath of the Wild considering that Link's weapon of choice is always his sword - that's his signature weapon. It was always like that. Making this or other primary weapon swords unbreakable is a really good start to balance things even further. Just make the secondary weapons more powerful but breakable (with the options of repair and forging your weapons to make weapon crafting). It'd also give players more reasons to invade enemy camps and taking their weapons if these weapons give the player a good advantage in damage output. This was already a huge issue and mistake which BotW - rarely rewarding the player with useful stuff which is worth for the 2 - 3 broken high weapons in your inventory. Besides, with breakable I don't mean the previous durability that of a glass jaw. If you use a precious weapon like the king swords or sth like that, it's utter nonsense to give it a durability of 30x hits. Most enemies later on have high HP and in BotW, you had to waste 2 - 3 for one or two enemies mostly. It broke the flow very often which I hated. And with the blacksmith repairing your weapons, there is also no risk of losing rare weapons with rare stats forever. Where is even the issue in collecting rare weapons? Just make the drop rate for them lower and it should be okay.
• As others mentioned, more enemy varieties. With more battle combat abilities there should be a huge variety of monsters, not just humanoid enemies. I really grew tired of fighting the same bokoblins, moblins and so on with different color. That's just lazy design, nothing more.
• More linear storyline. Sorry but with the way how BotW operated it is impossible to implement a fully functional story. It's simply not possible because the gameplay usually dictates you to make everything optional. A good story needs to be linear. It is good for the game which fit its core themes - there is a reason why it is named BREATH OF THE WILD after all - but it doesn't mean that they always have to use this kind of concept for all future Zelda games. It is very unlikely imo. They always used specific and individual core elements for any Zelda game. Hence, it is highly likely that Tears of the Kingdom is story focused, in a more linear way. After all, the player already explored Hyrule, so where is the point of exploring everything again like that? Connect the world with the story and it should already be good enough to have a more valid story.
• Last but not least, filling up the overworld with more useful content and more memorable places. Don't get me wrong, the game's atmosphere immediately sucked me in and everything was just amazing and beautiful but honestly, that's it. If I remember certain places, it's mostly difficult since there weren't that many special ones. The Lost Woods are the worst version imo. Phirone region had a cool jungle theme but unfortunately, it was also neglected a lot. In the first trailers, I legit thought there was a dungeon but unfortunately, there was just another shrine. I hope this changes in the sequel. Well, it has to change, they had almost 6 years of development.
• Underwater exploration. Do I need to say more? Besides, a cool underwater dungeon/temple like the Ancient Cistern would be also nice.

 

[Link Floyd]

TotK definitely needs more unique items like it previous games before BotW. Maybe something like the Lens of Truth that can reveal hidden places in the overworld or a device that allows Link to explore underwater areas like @Sentinel mentioned above. And of course weapon durability. That was a big complaint among myself and other fans with BotW. I think BotW did a lot of things well, but of course there is room for improvement. I also think the dungeons should be more unique. The Divine Beast idea was cool, but the dungeons had identical aesthetics which made them boring to look at by the time you reach your second one. Any dungeons in TotK should be more unique in style than in the previous installment.

 

[GrooseIsLoose]

I saw someone mention somewhere sometime that BotW would seem just like any other open world game if you remove the characters. The lack of enemies from previous game as Mima mentioned and the niche items such as claw shots getting replaced with runes are somethings that make some users resent the lack of traditional "Zelda-ness" of BotW.

 

[Sentinel]

The Divine Beast idea was cool, but the dungeons had identical aesthetics which made them boring to look at by the time you reach your second one

I think they planned to make Divine Beasts as traditional but mobile dungeons quite indeed. If you look at the cut content, you see that they planned 10 Divine Beasts - each one had its own architecture and design. There was even one underwater. Some were supposed to have factories and bridges in its architecture, Vah Rudania was clearly meant to be a moving large factory. It's pretty clear that they scraped this idea not because of trying something new but because it would take too much development time to develop such large titanic dungeons like that.

You even see the original 4 Divine Beasts' design which looks infinitely times better than the official ones. As I said above, Vah Rudania's design was much more original. There was even one Divine Beast which has a whole ass city in its interiors.

Look at the pictures:

All in all, I think 8 Divine Beasts would be possible if they had 2 more years of development but well, they needed to sell this game with the Switch. I'd have really liked to see the full potential of the Divine Beasts. It is definitely an interesting concept.

 

[Hawk of Light]

I think every good sequel ought to build upon the original and make it better. The only problems I really have with BOTW is the bare bones story, and the sameness of all the shrines and divine beasts. I've always felt being able to rebuild Hyrule and having mechanics around that similar to Fallout 4 would be pretty cool, and maybe populate the world with more interesting NPCs and more things to do, but I'm pretty hopeful we'll get a good sequel.

 

[Uwu_Oocoo2]

I think every good sequel ought to build upon the original and make it better. The only problems I really have with BOTW is the bare bones story, and the sameness of all the shrines and divine beasts. I've always felt being able to rebuild Hyrule and having mechanics around that similar to Fallout 4 would be pretty cool, and maybe populate the world with more interesting NPCs and more things to do, but I'm pretty hopeful we'll get a good sequel.

I really like the rebuilding idea. It almost makes me think of Tarrey town. But seeing as the world in Botw has been reduced to just a few villages due to Calamity Ganon, it'd be cool to see Hyrule kinda of recovering and settlements expanding. Fix the occasional boring-overworld syndrome Botw suffered from in certain areas.

 

[Mases]

I think the quests in Breath of the Wild were a bit lame. Too much simplicity to so many of them. I think this is remedied in Tears of the Kingdom. I truly feel there is going to be less emphasis on just exploration, and much more on a massive amount of side quests, with some of them being bulkier and more meaningful.

As @Sentinel wrote above - dungeons. This was will be more of a dungeon-crawler and I expect those 7-dungeons to be there, and be much bulkier than any Divine Beast style dungeon.

 

[accio boomerang]

I want a more in depth story line, and enemy variety. I also really want literal dungeons like the old zelda games and I want them to be so much longer than the Divine Beasts were. I missed that a lot while playing BoTW and I missed the music each temple or dungeon would have.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

I guess I don't think it should learn from the mistakes of Breath of the Wild so much as expand on the success of the previous game. TotK should aim for more unique mini-bosses, sub-dungeons, and storylines. I tend to refer to Breath of the Wild as a proto-Elden Ring, so the ideal successor would go all in on those qualities.