Tears of the Kingdom this rivals some of the worst games i've ever played; and i'm a life-long zelda fan

[Mellow Ezlo]

BotW and TotK are both incredibly flawed games and I think it's a stretch to call either of them among the best games of all time.

Mostly empty open worlds, tons of pointless blessing shrines, the same korok puzzles over and over with less than half even being remotely worth it, incredibly lackluster dungeons, disjointed stories, difficulty that ranges from frustratingly difficult in the early game to pathetically easy late-game, in TotK's particular case it is about as far from a sequel as a game can get with its retcons and near-complete lack of references to its predecessor and the depths were massively underutilized and uninspired.

I love both games, even if I don't find them particularly great as Zelda games, but I don't think either are really among the greatest games of all time and I don't consider either of them top tier Zelda games.

Of course, TotK does a lot right. The story is better than BotW's, the enemy variety is better even if still quite lacking, the gameplay mechanics are really fun and innovative, the soundtrack is fantastic, the differences in the overworld, the dungeons are significantly better even if still formulaic and easy.

I love both games, TotK significantly more, but I find it hard to defend their many flaws and find it even harder to place them among the best games ever.

Though, that said, I think both games have significantly more appeal among those who are not lifelong Zelda fans, for the most part.

 

[Captain_Jack]

BotW and TotK are both incredibly flawed games and I think it's a stretch to call either of them among the best games of all time.

Mostly empty open worlds, tons of pointless blessing shrines, the same korok puzzles over and over with less than half even being remotely worth it, incredibly lackluster dungeons, disjointed stories, difficulty that ranges from frustratingly difficult in the early game to pathetically easy late-game, in TotK's particular case it is about as far from a sequel as a game can get with its retcons and near-complete lack of references to its predecessor and the depths were massively underutilized and uninspired.

I love both games, even if I don't find them particularly great as Zelda games, but I don't think either are really among the greatest games of all time and I don't consider either of them top tier Zelda games.

Of course, TotK does a lot right. The story is better than BotW's, the enemy variety is better even if still quite lacking, the gameplay mechanics are really fun and innovative, the soundtrack is fantastic, the differences in the overworld, the dungeons are significantly better even if still formulaic and easy.

I love both games, TotK significantly more, but I find it hard to defend their many flaws and find it even harder to place them among the best games ever.

Though, that said, I think both games have significantly more appeal among those who are not lifelong Zelda fans, for the most part.

My first Zelda game was OoT, played it when if first came out. Next game was BOTW.
Since then, I’ve played whatever Zelda games they have on Switch.
SS was fun but I don’t see myself playing it again.
I bought an old N64 system to play OoT again and it was still pretty fun.
What an I missing about Zelda fans and not liking the open worlds?
You just like the dungeon worlds that much?

 

[Malon]

My first Zelda game was OoT, played it when if first came out. Next game was BOTW.
Since then, I’ve played whatever Zelda games they have on Switch.
SS was fun but I don’t see myself playing it again.
I bought an old N64 system to play OoT again and it was still pretty fun.
What an I missing about Zelda fans and not liking the open worlds?
You just like the dungeon worlds that much?

I like open world...

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

My first Zelda game was OoT, played it when if first came out. Next game was BOTW.
Since then, I’ve played whatever Zelda games they have on Switch.
SS was fun but I don’t see myself playing it again.
I bought an old N64 system to play OoT again and it was still pretty fun.
What an I missing about Zelda fans and not liking the open worlds?
You just like the dungeon worlds that much?

Hmm, good question. I don't think it's the open world that's the problem for me, it's the lack of content.

Sure, there are 156 shrines, but a good chunk of them are just lackluster blessing shrines. There are 1000 korok seeds, with less than half being needed to maximize the inventory, and only a small variety of different puzzle types. Most of the sidequests only give rupees or fuse materials as rewards. The completionist in me feels the need to do everything but I have no incentive to partake in such a tedious grind. Then there are the BotW dlc and amiibo gear, most of which is very easy to find as they all follow the same location patterns in the depths, meaning once you figure out the pattern the sense of reward is lost.

Then there's the enemy variety, which while better than BotW's, is still lacking. I can fight the exact same enemies in Hebra as in Death Mountain and Faron, three entirely distinct biomes with the only differences being elemental affinity. Only one region in the game actually has unique enemies, that being the Gerudo region, and that plus the fact that it's the closest the game comes to traditional dungeon gameplay makes it my favourite region to explore.

The minibosses are fun, but each one is effectively the same fight over and over, and there are far too many of them. With twice as many miniboss types, TotK far outshines BotW, but this is a big flaw with both games.

Traditional Zelda always was, to me, gameplay first and the thematically rich and immersive dungeons were the standouts in most games, with few exceptions. TotK does not do enough to make the world outside of the dungeons interesting.

Don't get me wrong, BotW and TotK are both incredibly innovative and fun games that I love to death. I just find it really hard to ignore the blatant flaws that they have especially when compared with the other Zelda games I grew up with. I can absolutely see why people love them, and why they rank among people's favourite games, but from an objective standpoint it's hard for me to agree that either are GOAT material.

 

[Captain_Jack]

Hmm, good question. I don't think it's the open world that's the problem for me, it's the lack of content.

Sure, there are 156 shrines, but a good chunk of them are just lackluster blessing shrines. There are 1000 korok seeds, with less than half being needed to maximize the inventory, and only a small variety of different puzzle types. Most of the sidequests only give rupees or fuse materials as rewards. The completionist in me feels the need to do everything but I have no incentive to partake in such a tedious grind. Then there are the BotW dlc and amiibo gear, most of which is very easy to find as they all follow the same location patterns in the depths, meaning once you figure out the pattern the sense of reward is lost.

Then there's the enemy variety, which while better than BotW's, is still lacking. I can fight the exact same enemies in Hebra as in Death Mountain and Faron, three entirely distinct biomes with the only differences being elemental affinity. Only one region in the game actually has unique enemies, that being the Gerudo region, and that plus the fact that it's the closest the game comes to traditional dungeon gameplay makes it my favourite region to explore.

The minibosses are fun, but each one is effectively the same fight over and over, and there are far too many of them. With twice as many miniboss types, TotK far outshines BotW, but this is a big flaw with both games.

Traditional Zelda always was, to me, gameplay first and the thematically rich and immersive dungeons were the standouts in most games, with few exceptions. TotK does not do enough to make the world outside of the dungeons interesting.

Don't get me wrong, BotW and TotK are both incredibly innovative and fun games that I love to death. I just find it really hard to ignore the blatant flaws that they have especially when compared with the other Zelda games I grew up with. I can absolutely see why people love them, and why they rank among people's favourite games, but from an objective standpoint it's hard for me to agree that either are GOAT material.

Fair points. I‘m a casual and this kind of game is GOAT for me. I’ve got a hundred switch games, my only game vice, and I’ve probably finished about twenty of them but BOTW and TOTK are the only games I keep coming back to.

I know a fair bit. I am not really the kind of person for whom spoilers damage the experience though, so I think it will still be great.

I knew nothing going into both games. And I don’t follow NPC dialogue so I feared the depth chasms for probably the first 20 hours of the game!

 

[Twlink]

I am a lifelong Zelda fan for sure. My first Zelda game played was the original, and OoT is my favourite game of all time.

I think the BotW formula holds up.

For sure, they are different, we can't call them 3D Zelda in the same way we are used to, but I think that holds true for a lot of games too. I think the Windwaker and other two toon games are different enough from OoT to be their own little thing.

Zelda innovates and has different styles. BotW has been influential in the way that OoT and LoZ were before it. My only hope is that it doesn't kill off the more linear games completely, because I think that would be a shame.

 

[Angopik]

Sure, there are 156 shrines, but a good chunk of them are just lackluster blessing shrines. There are 1000 korok seeds, with less than half being needed to maximize the inventory, and only a small variety of different puzzle types. Most of the sidequests only give rupees or fuse materials as rewards.

This comes across as more of a lack of rewards you like, and less a lack of content.

 

[thePlinko]

My first Zelda game was OoT, played it when if first came out. Next game was BOTW.
Since then, I’ve played whatever Zelda games they have on Switch.
SS was fun but I don’t see myself playing it again.
I bought an old N64 system to play OoT again and it was still pretty fun.
What an I missing about Zelda fans and not liking the open worlds?
You just like the dungeon worlds that much?

Nobody has a problem with it being an open world, I have a problem with it being a bad open world. BotW feels like it’s trying to copy from other open worlds without understanding why those other open worlds were so good to begin with. TotK is the exact same but now with three times as much filler content and a half-baked gmod gimmick.

The classic style was great. It was consistent, but kept reinventing itself with each new entry. It was unique in a way that no other developer was able to replicate. Nintendo decided to throw all of that away and replace it with the same Skyrim clone that every other developer was already making but worse.

This comes across as more of a lack of rewards you like, and less a lack of content.

It’s filler content. You can have as many worthless korok seeds as you want, that doesn’t mean the game has loads of content, it just means that the game is filled with meaningless busywork.

 

[Angopik]

It’s filler content. You can have as many worthless korok seeds as you want, that doesn’t mean the game has loads of content, it just means that the game is filled with meaningless busywork.

Content is more than rewards though

 

[thePlinko]

Content is more than rewards though

1.It’s a big part of whether or not the content is meaningful. 2.Regardless of rewards the vast majority of content in both games amounts to the same few repeated challenges over an over again.

 

[Angopik]

1.It’s a big part of whether or not the content is meaningful.

Depends on the person. Having an item at the end isn't really meaningful for me. It's the experience on the whole that I find meaningful. I'm I getting more of the world, more views, more places to explore, etc etc. That's the stuff I find meaningful. That kind of stuff wasn't there in the old games.

2.Regardless of rewards the vast majority of content in both games amounts to the same few repeated challenges over an over again.

Sure, but if you break things down by their own challenges, there's still so many. I'm not even a completionist (not even close) and I recognize that.

 

[thePlinko]

Depends on the person. Having an item at the end isn't really meaningful for me. It's the experience on the whole that I find meaningful. I'm I getting more of the world, more views, more places to explore, etc etc. That's the stuff I find meaningful. That kind of stuff wasn't there in the old games.

It absolutely was there in the old games, the only difference is that there was a practical reason to go to those places.

Sure, but if you break things down by their own challenges, there's still so many. I'm not even a completionist (not even close) and I recognize that.

Maybe a dozen or so? Certainly not enough to warrant a map of that size.

 

[Angopik]

It absolutely was there in the old games, the only difference is that there was a practical reason to go to those places.

Not in the ways that I find meaningful.

Maybe a dozen or so? Certainly not enough to warrant a map of that size.

I'd argue yes, because there's more to the world besides those challenges. The stuff I find meaningful is essentially everything that can be done in the world. Foraging for stones, climbing mountains to get a beautiful view, chopping down trees for firewood, getting to know the characters of the world, etc etc. The world is full of that stuff.

 

[Captain_Jack]

I’ve got a Skyrim game on my switch, only played about an hour of it. Maybe TOTK is a balance between gamers and casuals?

 

[Ghost of Mikeys Past]

it's insane to me that this thread started as a butthurt response to the other thread and just became identical to the other thread, let's find new material eventually please
90% of botw is spent walking or climbing, at least wind waker has the decency to not require inputs while sailing

oh gosh imagine having to swim across the great sea, that's literally botw tier
I don't understand the kind of logical hurdles that one has to make to complain about wind waker's sailing taking too long whilst still enjoying games like botw and tears, if it's just a feeling thing then more power to you but nobody should be defending walking simulators as legitimate game design

fun fact, climbing is so miserable that ascend exists because aonuma kept using the dev tool to teleport himself to the tops of cliffs, what happened to making games you want to play, he doesn't even want to play this hot dog water, how are we applauding this man what happened to video games I can't believe we've fallen so far as to celebrate what can only be described as a complete lack of respect for the capacity and time of the player, we're celebrating it guys what the heck