tbf everything happens in the past. Like, what happened after the beginning was my first question and it all felt like a puzzle to me so I didn't know how to connect everything and I guess it all works differently for everyone (reminds me of the film 21 Grams and I love that one) At least the last dragon tear remains the same. However, I'd agree that BOTW felt less disjointed in that aspect.

Story itself is top tier ib the franchise. I guess the storytelling is more of a problem to many.

Everybody is so f***ing verbose in this from the main characters to the most random NPC. They need to tone that down.

I noticed this too. I say wassup to some random NPC's and they go on and on yapping they mouth for way too long.

I cant lie, the no teleport run completely changed my relationship with this game. An incredible experience this second time around even though i obviously loved the first run.

Yeah so turns out this game is the bomb.com but I feel like I’ve just made a colossal mistake by jumping into this and like it’ll be hard to go back to BOTW, especially since it’s the same map -the Chasm… I think

I might like this game as much as Elden Ring.

botw is so different truly, the tools/puzzles are mostly unique to each game

you’re gonna freak out when you fight your first guardian, and it’s got a lot of much harder challenges like the master trials and master mode which actually makes it good as a follow-up to totk

every opinion you post from now on is going to be looked at through the prism of "I really liked Starfield"

Trust me there’s enough changes between both game maps to feel different. The two games are also operating under completely different driving philosophies that make each a unique experience.

There are similarities tho and I wouldn’t recommend playing both back to back. Having some time in between playthroughs so you can forget the game a bit would be ideal.

IMO I would just keep playing TOTK and wait till the Switch 2 is revealed next year before you start BOTW. Nintendo has been showcasing a 4k60 tech demo/build of the game to devs so it might be worth waiting to see what that’s all about

People wanted that game to be something it was never going to be, I just wanted a classic Bethesda rpg and that’s what I got. Enjoyment is about managing expectations. Starfield still has a lot of room for improvement.

I could have forgiven the flying mechanics not being what I wanted them to be if there weren't copy pasted points of interest all over the place. If I ever walked into the middle of an organic firefight between two different factions like you normally do in a Bethesda game. If I ever felt like out of the way, exploration was rewarding in a traditional Bethesda way. If there was a satisfying and purposeful crafting/building mechanic. I could go on and on. They clearly half assed it. Bethesda magic not there.

The oblivion gates were all copy and paste, the radiant quests in skyrim/fo4 were all copy and paste. Bethesda always had that stuff as a side dish.

Exploration is rewarded, I found over 100 hours worth of quests in my first play through and that’s more than most games.

Crafting/building is NOT a part of the classic Bethesda magic. Super irrelevant mechanic tacked onto one of their games, fallout 4, and that was the worst part of that game.

You crafted in all the 3d Fallouts? I mean tweaking your guns and armor The universe just did not feel alive or interesting in a way that Bethesda games should. If you don't mind constantly coming across the same points of interest with the same items and the same enemies in the same locations then I thrive off survival mode and this was such a missed opportunity to feel like you're actually out there struggling.

If the simple way of modifying stuff in fallout 3 is what you liked then doesn’t starfield have the same thing basically?

I thought you were saying you wanted a more fleshed out crafting/building system like fallout 4 had.

Survival mode was added to fallout 4 like 6 months after release so we could still be eating soon

Also imagine a far harbor-tier expansion Bethesda always improves their games over the years, mods aside

In for one single f***ing planet that's actually fleshed out and dense with hand crafted environments and unique/accidental encounters. Far Harbour was amazing.

I said purposeful I was coasting on the hardest difficulty without even having to bother tinkering that much. And I got a couple guns midway through my game that i never saw anything match again so by the end I wasn't even bothering to unlock doors and safes and s***. The last 30 hours had made me realize there was not gonna be anything interesting to find.

Survival mode would fix that imo hopefully it drops soon

Tears is 2023 GOTY f*** y’all

F*** letting it marinate, give us the raw thoughts

Well f*** it, why not.
Although i anticipated tears to be a super Mario Galaxy 2 meets majora's Mask sequel, so a direct sequel but with some huge twists to gameplay and atmosphere, it ended up being more similar to the former than the latter. Thats not an issue for me, smg2 is my favorite game ever, but it makes it harder for me to rank tears in comparison to botw. I still have no idea if i prefer tears or breath at the end of the day, but id argue its a positive thing since it makes tears stand on its own as its own thing, despite the endless DLC complaints.

Having said that, i still think this is an incredible game and achievement. As i was playing this game, the amount of content had me fearing the level design of botw would be lost entirely in service of checklist game design that we see so often in this genre, but that wasnt the case. The gameplay loop is still so good at achieving that sense of adventure and getting lost in a huge world, and id argue its made even better in this game because of the sheer variety of activities. Shrines, caves, wells, enemy camps (which have different and more complex layouts finally), side quests, sky Islands, ultrahand minigames, depths, glyphs, koroks, bosses and i could go on. Jumping from one of these to the other is so organic and natural you dont even feel the hand of the level designers guiding you, and the variety makes exploring less boring and tedious, since these are mostly fundamentally different challenges. People complained botw was shrines and koroks only, and while not true, i could get the sentiment. Not with this game though.

The runes are maybe my favorite part of the game alongside the Sky Islands. They're easily better than botw's, less situational, more interesting and more versatile, and their mastery is very satisfying. Ascend is an ability i dont think i can live without in an open world game now, it blew my mind countless times. Same could be said with recall and ultrahand. The shrines help with understanding the full potrntial of these abilities, since in this game they're generally more like fun interactive tutorials than simple puzzle rooms.
Fuse instantly improves on the combat as soon as you get It, increasing variety in weapons by adding hit boxes, effects and most importantly, making engaging with the physics system easier for normal players, which to me is one of the strongest aspects of tears. I remember seeing people doing crazy s*** in botw and devs talking about applying real world physics interactions in the game, but i never got around to It that much because it was hard and the results werent always satisfactory. Now, in tears, i always try to use my surroundings when in Battle because fuse and ultrahand make it much easier. As such, no battle Is the same unless you make It so.
I didnt have any issues with durability, so it returning was a pleasure for me, but even then its made more tolerable thanks to fuse, and playing smart with your resources rewards immensely. Wiping out a silver bokoblin camp without using a single weapon is possible and grants you tons of powerful horns and other resources, all without spending an ounce of durability. The game is harder to contrast link's op in this game, ive died plenty of times jn the first 30 hours, but its a welcoming challenge.
Special mention to the zonai devices, the dungeon items of this game, so versatile and useful, obtaining them was one of the biggest rewards to me and would open so many possibilities, they're definitely more useful than any classic Zelda dungeon item, at least in the overworld. Still dont understand why some people want them back, now that we got the superior versione.

I'll always defend the Sky Islands, because while not as plentiful as i expected, they offer some of the best content and design in the game. People love to mention the samey shrine Islands or the fairy ponds, but for some reason forget that the skies have the great sky Island (Quick thoughts on it, great tutorial for the abilities, not so much for exploration; great atmosphere and aesthetic, linear but better and more dungeon-like for it, ultimately different in approach compared to great plateau which is not a bad thing), 2 whole dungeons with their pre-dungeon ascending sequences, thunderhead Island, the three zonai armor set Islands, the star wars death star Islands, especially the one above gerudo highlands, the mirror island, the incredible labyrinths, etc. Some content Is reused, but its hardly the dominant experience up there, and moving around the sky Islands is always so mesmerizing. Plus they're so far apart from eachother and the gameplay loop makes visiting the same islands consecutively rare.

The depths on the other hand are sort of a mixed bag. I started liking them when i figured out the gameplay loop, but there's a lot of missed potential. The depths get going when you realize its a Zelda-fied dungeon crawler where you try to get as many resources as possible while surviving with what you have. The atmosphere is great and it gets creepy at times, but i wish some areas had more of a design to them where they play into the darkness and lack of vision down there. I remember meeting my first frox in the dark while falling down a plane id made, i was scared s***less and ran away as fast as i could, ultimately dying to a creature i couldnt see. That was amazing and i wish id encountered more situations like that, but It didnt happen. At times lighting all up became quite tedious, especially towards the end-game. But the main gameplay loop is kinda addictive, sometimes id spend hours down there and entire play sessions going from one lightroot to the another. The one thing that would've added a lot to the experience Is have just some more locations, even if repeated. Unlike Sky Islands, the depths are huge, so two temples, some unique locations like the ghibdo graveyard, the spiral mine, the fort under akkala and the gleeok's nest, the complex under great plateau, the mines under the towns and the mines arent enough imo. While these were cool, i think It needed some more locations. There was an observation deck under necluda region which i thought was very cool, but ultimately there was literally nothing there. Some more unique locations like that one with some small rewards like a cool weapon or even zonai device would've sufficed, but i feel like they didnt have time to flesh out the depths more.

Ultimately, more than having three different maps, totk offers one single gigantic map with different layers that can be freely explored with no loading screens, with the gameplay loop guiding the player from one layer to the other organically. I dont feel the need to explain the connection between the layers since many have done so already, but its genius and intuitive and Nintendo and i love it.

The side quests are imo among the best the series has to offer, and the genre in general. Probably only witcher 3 and some Bethesda games are better in that regard. Many dont consider the gameplay aspect of subquests, instead focusing on the writing, but tears offers both some cute little charming stories and diverse activities that make most quests stand out, and its so refreshing to see. Just a tiny thing i feel deserved a mention.

The dungeons are overall a step up from botw, and i hope in the future Nintendo iterates on dungeons like fire temple, construct factory and botw hyrule castle which imo best represent the spirit of these 2 games. Water temple is ass, although the quest to get there was great, and funnily enough i feel the opposite about the Fire Temple. The other dungeons are of course great as many have pointed out.

Now to get to the issues i have with this game.
The new osts are amazing as usual for Zelda, but i wish they didnt reuse so much of botw's ost. I feel like at the very least the towns could've gotten different arrangements. Since they've changed so much, it would only be fair for the music to reflect that, like in other locations in the game. Instead we only get that when the phenomenons arent solved yet. Bummer.

The controls are clunky and while you get used to them after a while, it doesnt change the fact that managing your controller feels like piloting an airplane. I get that the abilities are so complex a controller can only do so much to control them, but man i wish there was a better way to implement them. Ultimately ultrahand is so good i can let it slide i guess.

The sense of deja vu is stronger than id imagined, and at times some play sessions ended up not amounting to much interesting and new, something that never happened with botw. Note that in 300+ hours it happened a handful of times, but nonetheless i feel It deserved mention, cause it impacted my impressions of the game at said moments.

Id have liked just some more enemies, like 5 more new enemies and like 2 overworld bosses, one in the sky and one in the depths, to have the perfect enemy variety. Especially since the depths re-use so many bosses, it would've been nice to have a Little more variety, although i guess atp thats the main motif of most of my depths criticisms. And the skies relied too much on flux constructs for my liking.

Finally, a brief commentary on the story without spoilers.
I feel like this is the most epic tale the series has told, It truly feels like a titanic quest with incredible stakes, and i feel this was only possible thanks to the world's sheer size.
The past and the present are more intertwined, with the present especially being more involved than in botw. The main plot twist is unexpected, tragic and emotional, i loved it so much, and the climax of the story with the finale are the most memorable sequences of the series by far to me. Chills down my spine just thanking about It. The leadup to the 5th sage is also incredible and original and an encapsulation of the entire game's structure.
And as ive stated in other posts the theme of unification and cooperation against a greater evil differentiates the atmosphere of totk from botw and finds its way into all aspects of the game, even gameplay.
But, the finer details of this story are a mess the more you think about them. Fortunately only a few parts are head-scratchers, but still they impact the quality of the story a fair bit. For example the whole time shenanigans are contrived and messy, and zelda's realization that came a bit too late should've happened way sooner.
I also think the glyph showing the main plot twist shouldve been locked from the player until the end of the glyphs side quest, or when you find out about that twist in the other ways the game shows it. I dont mind getting them in no order, not even the ganon and knife glyphs, but that one is the exception. Baffling decision imo.

So yeah i love the game, its not perfect by any means, but its the full realization of what botw tried to achieve but, despite the many similarities, It manages to have an identity of its own and stand tall as one of the greatest games ever.

(Nice way to remix an existing theme to signal change)