One week later: Have you been enjoying Tears of the Kingdom?

[telekill]

Another week in, I continue to explore the map working to get more shrines and towers done before really moving forward with the story. I have started the Zora storyline getting decently far with that, but I wanted to hold off just a bit more and get more hearts as I was only at 5 when I hit a boss in that storyline. Currently sitting at 9 and I want a couple more. I think I have another shrine or two to complete before I can trade in getting up to 11.

I've seen my kids playing and they've already explored more of the underworld as I haven't even touched that yet. Very strange how they have this built like three maps, underworld, main ground level, and sky world. This game will probably end up being twice as long as the first.

[kamikazekeeg]

And finished with the shrines.  Really ground out the last half of them in like the past 2 or 3 days as this was the one other big challenge I wanted to get done in the game alongside the story to hit a point where I'm kinda "done" with the game for the most part, at least for now.  You get a pretty neat item for the Shrine completion in this, I would say it's much more standout than the classic styled outfit you got in BOTW, because if you had the amiibo, you already had a classic styled outfit, making that one kinda unnecessary lol 

I do have sidequesting left to do, but there's a lot of low level quests that don't give too much of a worthwhile reward, so gonna just ignore a lot of that.  Might finish the Penn quests just for the reward there being worth it, but there's not much left I want to do.  Oh and I'll do korok seed stuff eventually, but only for the stash upgrades, screw that bullcrap achievement of getting them all lol

[Cartagia]

Having beat the game, done more side stuff, still working on getting the shrines as the reward sounds really cool and I think I've kinda settled on how I feel about the game.

I think overall, this is mostly a better game than BOTW, but at the same time, there's things that aren't the best.  The sky area is cool, but I don't think there's enough of it and there's a lot of copy paste.  The Depths are cool, but there's way too much of it and far too much copy/paste going on.  Dungeons are more unique, but I also think they are abit bland in execution.  I love that we got unique bosses back, but where the Ganon Blights in BOTW were pretty challenging, but uninteresting from a design POV, the new bosses look neat and have a classic feel, but are incredibly easy.  I never really liked the soundtrack much before and it's not really changed.  I'm still very middling on weapon degradation, I didn't hate it before, don't outright hate it now, but I can't say I love fusing.  It's not bad, it's better for the more gimmicky aspects (Rocket shields for lift, arrow attachments), but I think I've hit the point where I'd prefer to go back to non-breaking weapons.  Give us weapon variety, but allow us to keep them, maybe alter them in different ways based on our preferred playstyle.

I've not beaten the game yet, but this is pretty much where I am at as well.  It's a better game than BotW (and makes BotW looks like a first draft in comparison), but the Depths and Sky Islands are too much and not enough, respectively.  I like the fusing, but it goes back to what I said before about all the menu-ing.  Just let me make a bunch of fire / ice / lightning arrows.  It gets redundant having to go into that menu every time I want to make one (or not having a favorites for cooking recipes or fusion that isn't construction).  Minor things, but things that stop me from declaring it a 10/10 type stuff.

[kamikazekeeg]

Having beat the game, done more side stuff, still working on getting the shrines as the reward sounds really cool and I think I've kinda settled on how I feel about the game.

I think overall, this is mostly a better game than BOTW, but at the same time, there's things that aren't the best.  The sky area is cool, but I don't think there's enough of it and there's a lot of copy paste.  The Depths are cool, but there's way too much of it and far too much copy/paste going on.  Dungeons are more unique, but I also think they are abit bland in execution.  I love that we got unique bosses back, but where the Ganon Blights in BOTW were pretty challenging, but uninteresting from a design POV, the new bosses look neat and have a classic feel, but are incredibly easy.  I never really liked the soundtrack much before and it's not really changed.  I'm still very middling on weapon degradation, I didn't hate it before, don't outright hate it now, but I can't say I love fusing.  It's not bad, it's better for the more gimmicky aspects (Rocket shields for lift, arrow attachments), but I think I've hit the point where I'd prefer to go back to non-breaking weapons.  Give us weapon variety, but allow us to keep them, maybe alter them in different ways based on our preferred playstyle.

I've not beaten the game yet, but this is pretty much where I am at as well.  It's a better game than BotW (and makes BotW looks like a first draft in comparison), but the Depths and Sky Islands are too much and not enough, respectively.  I like the fusing, but it goes back to what I said before about all the menu-ing.  Just let me make a bunch of fire / ice / lightning arrows.  It gets redundant having to go into that menu every time I want to make one (or not having a favorites for cooking recipes or fusion that isn't construction).  Minor things, but things that stop me from declaring it a 10/10 type stuff.

That's mostly why I want to see the next Zelda return to regular gear and such.  Fusing is neat, outfit variety is neat, all the items you can attach to your arrows are neat, but constantly dealing with menu's and changing weapons and gear can get kinda tedious. It's sorta always something Zelda has done, but it's so much more involved now. 

I think certain things can stay, like having different weapons and weapon types, no decay, and build it around a more involved combat system that has you doing sword attacks for lights and then maybe an axe or hammer for heavy attacks and you can get sort of an action game flow to the combat that's tied to the weapon style.  I think that's a smart thing to do for if they make a smaller game, so they can focus more on deeper and more fluid gameplay mechanics. 

Same thing for bows, have a few bow types that have specific attributes that affect the arrows and then just have bomb/element arrows you change to, not just a fuse thing.  So like you can have a long bow for distance shots, higher velocity, and then a short bow for quicker short range shots, and a magic bow that gives homing shots to whatever arrow you have.  Build the game more around what you'd like to play as compared to just making you use whatever you stumble across more often than not.

Focus on depth, not scale, that's what I hope for with the next Zelda.

[ignition365]

I've not beaten the game yet, but I'm like 120 hours in so far.  I've probably done about half of the shrines, I've done 2 of the major dungeons, bunches of side quests, I'd guess I'm at just under halfway through the game.

To me, the game feels like they looked at what people were doing shenanigans wise with the world systems in BotW and said fuck you, here, go crazy; changed up the world slightly, and to make the world feel bigger establish an underworld and a skyworld.

I'm enjoying my time with the game.

[bikingjahuty]

I beat the game earlier this week and while I had a really good time with it, I actually was a bit disappointed overall. BotW was all about exploration for me. I loved getting distracted from where I was originally headed by like 20+ things that I had to investigate. There were so many secrets and amazing things to witness and experience in that game. One of the things that fascinated me the most was looking beyond the borders of Hyrule at the land beyond that was completely in accessible to you. I wondered what other adventures waited for me out there, and this is where I desperately hoped the sequel to BotW would take place. Unfortunately TotK pretty much took the exact same map of Hyrule, made various alterations to it, and added a bunch of shallow sky islands as well as a tedious, bland underworld to explore. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hyrule of BotW and TotK, but it's a world I've already thoroughly explored and conquered in BotW. Even with the various changes I still felt like TotK was 85% the same.


I did thoroughly enjoy the inclusion of Ganondorph, actual temples (although they were pretty weak in terms of Zelda temples/dungeons) and much more memorable bosses than the blight enemies and bosses. Storywise though I did care for TotK as much as BotW which was a shame. Still, the dungeons and bosses were a step above what we had in BotW with the divine beasts and blight bosses.


I pretty much felt like this game was a solid 8/10, maybe closer to an 8.5/10. All Nintendo had to do was set it in an all new world and i would have been overjoyed. I have a feeling the main reason they didn't do this was because of COVID likely slowing the development of this game, but also because I feel like Nintendo quality control and innovation isn't what it used to be, even just a few years ago. It's present in Splatoon 3, the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC, and especially with Pokemon. Unfortunately even Zelda doesn't seem immune. Still, TotK is better than 90% of the games I regularly played and it was a fun distraction for the couple weeks it took me to beat it.

[telekill]

Still working through it. I don't have tons of game time, but I have the Master Sword and have completed the main quests for the Zora and Gorons. Next up is activating the last two great fairies and upgrading my green Link outfit. I've even managed to snag a couple shooting stars out of the sky while falling. Good times. After that, I'll be mapping out the underground... also known as Hell in the real world. lol

[dhaabi]

It's been briefly mentioned in this topic already, but what is the general consensus regarding the sky portions of the game? From every trailer I've seen, this aspect was made out to be the highlight of the game that sets it apart from Breath of the Wild. But, every time I've watched gameplay aside from the game's introduction, I've never even seen the sky areas.

[telekill]

It's been briefly mentioned in this topic already, but what is the general consensus regarding the sky portions of the game? From every trailer I've seen, this aspect was made out to be the highlight of the game that sets it apart from Breath of the Wild. But, every time I've watched gameplay aside from the game's introduction, I've never even seen the sky areas.

Honestly... it's small and scattered. There are some shrines up there. Some puzzles. It's mostly fun to warp up there and jump off a ledge. It's not a highlight for me in the game, but adds to it.

[sworddude]

It's been briefly mentioned in this topic already, but what is the general consensus regarding the sky portions of the game? From every trailer I've seen, this aspect was made out to be the highlight of the game that sets it apart from Breath of the Wild. But, every time I've watched gameplay aside from the game's introduction, I've never even seen the sky areas.

it's not the highlight of the game, the other layer that wasn't in the trailers is

Still in general no matter where you are the exploration is far more vertical which gives the world allot more depth as another very strong selling point

I pretty much felt like this game was a solid 8/10, maybe closer to an 8.5/10. All Nintendo had to do was set it in an all new world and i would have been overjoyed.

I hear ye but at that point it would be a new zelda game. it's kinda expected when your making a BOTW sequel that it wouldn't be a totally new world otherwise we probably wouldn't get a sequel in the first place

[kamikazekeeg]

It's been briefly mentioned in this topic already, but what is the general consensus regarding the sky portions of the game? From every trailer I've seen, this aspect was made out to be the highlight of the game that sets it apart from Breath of the Wild. But, every time I've watched gameplay aside from the game's introduction, I've never even seen the sky areas.

Without being spoilery, the sky stuff is cool, but not as expansive as it really should've been, especially for how much it's promoted.  It's quite good and enhances the games overall vertically, but I think they could've done alot more with it.

[Cartagia]

It's been briefly mentioned in this topic already, but what is the general consensus regarding the sky portions of the game? From every trailer I've seen, this aspect was made out to be the highlight of the game that sets it apart from Breath of the Wild. But, every time I've watched gameplay aside from the game's introduction, I've never even seen the sky areas.

Without being spoilery, the sky stuff is cool, but not as expansive as it really should've been, especially for how much it's promoted.  It's quite good and enhances the games overall vertically, but I think they could've done alot more with it.

1000%.