Stardust

5mo

Some of my favorite tunes

Stardust

5mo

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.

John Mauve

4mo

Thinking of trading in Mario Wonder for this

John Mauve

4mo

Thinking of trading in Mario Wonder for this

Stardust

3mo

Zeltik dropped a 2 hour long review damn😭😭😭😭
Could've used a different title smh, ive seen that one or other variations of it in 5 other videos. Gonna be a long hard watch but im lowkey interested, didnt know bro did reviews

Q3D

3mo

Watched it last night

Pretty good review honestly and i agreed with most of his criticism of the game

Stardust

3mo

Watched it as well. Good video, there were things i disagreed with but overall he expressed his points well. Until he agreed that the game felt like 70$ DLC, and that somehow the game's reception over the months has become less stellar. First point is still not true and still lowkey disrespectful to the devs, second point is straight up false, its the best selling single player game of 2023 iirc, its the only game ive ever seen months after release go UP a point from 95 to 96 on metacritic, which is very hard to do, when most of the times the opposite happens, and its gotten hundreds of goty awards. Maybe Zelda fans are more conflicted on it, fair, but its hardly the general consensus. Wasnt even needed in the review, his feelings were valid without the need of an outside reinforcement

Stardust

3mo

Watched it as well. Good video, there were things i disagreed with but overall he expressed his points well. Until he agreed that the game felt like 70$ DLC, and that somehow the game's reception over the months has become less stellar. First point is still not true and still lowkey disrespectful to the devs, second point is straight up false, its the best selling single player game of 2023 iirc, its the only game ive ever seen months after release go UP a point from 95 to 96 on metacritic, which is very hard to do, when most of the times the opposite happens, and its gotten hundreds of goty awards. Maybe Zelda fans are more conflicted on it, fair, but its hardly the general consensus. Wasnt even needed in the review, his feelings were valid without the need of an outside reinforcement

MattM

3mo

· edited

99% of the people i spoke with about the game, myself included, agreed that once the initial hype wore out, the game was simply not as great as we hoped it would be. So its def not just a niche opinion with zelda fans, but the overall fan opinion.
Feels like it's the consensus on almost all gaming related forums, this one included. Most of the comments are exactly that - the game feels basically just like a major DLC and not standalone enough & thats 100% correct.
Don't get me wrong, its a good f***ing game, but its not anywhere close to my fav zeldas.

Elric

3mo

I thought TOTK did what everybody thought BOTW was doing

MattM

3mo

Imo, the 1st playthrough of BotW was magical for me.
The 1st playthrough of TotK was like - Oh, that's really cool, but it feels just like a dejavu.