The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom

[KnightoftheWind]

all the building shit is incredibly tedious. just slows the entire game down even more.

there's very little actual REAL gameplay in the game.

It's definitely a subjective gameplay mechanic, you either love it or hate it. But you can play through much of the game without using it. In my case, I mainly utilise it to construct faster methods of transport, and you get an upgrade later in the game that saves pretty much anything you make and allows you to autobuild it in seconds. Provided you have enough materials (zonaite), or have the parts you need on hand.

But they really want you to use this mechanic in dungeons and in shrines, which is a large portion of the experience when not out in the open world. It's used so much to the point that all other traditional Zelda design aspects are thrown completely out the window. It's either the ultrahand, or it's nothing at all.

Compared to what we had pre-Breath of the Wild, it may just be a downgrade. And a rather sizeable one at that. You went from having fine-tuned items and equipment for every dungeon, that are used to their fullest extent- even in boss fights-, to magical sci-fi Krazy Glue. It really feels like the developers were starved for ideas, and when coming up with the ultrahand mechanic, they went overboard and made it a core part of the game's identity. It's as if they are insecure about being perceived as "old" or "boring", like they're scared of bringing back aspects from previous Zelda games. Everything has to feel trendy, new, and disconnected from the series' lineage.

One of my recent complaints in particular is that

► Show Spoiler

the Master Sword still breaks after a few swings. I guess that's one bit of criticism the developers chose to ignore completely.

[aweigh]

all the building shit is incredibly tedious. just slows the entire game down even more.

there's very little actual REAL gameplay in the game.

It's definitely a subjective gameplay mechanic, you either love it or hate it. But you can play through much of the game without using it. In my case, I mainly utilise it to construct faster methods of transport, and you get an upgrade later in the game that saves pretty much anything you make and allows you to autobuild it in seconds. Provided you have enough materials (zonaite), or have the parts you need on hand.

But they really want you to use this mechanic in dungeons and in shrines, which is a large portion of the experience when not out in the open world. It's used so much to the point that all other traditional Zelda design aspects are thrown completely out the window. It's either the ultrahand, or it's nothing at all.

Compared to what we had pre-Breath of the Wild, it may just be a downgrade. And a rather sizeable one at that. You went from having fine-tuned items and equipment for every dungeon, that are used to their fullest extent- even in boss fights-, to magical sci-fi Krazy Glue. It really feels like the developers were starved for ideas, and when coming up with the ultrahand mechanic, they went overboard and made it a core part of the game's identity. It's as if they are insecure about being perceived as "old" or "boring", like they're scared of bringing back aspects from previous Zelda games. Everything has to feel trendy, new, and disconnected from the series' lineage.

One of my recent complaints in particular is that

► Show Spoiler

the Master Sword still breaks after a few swings. I guess that's one bit of criticism the developers chose to ignore completely.

yeah pretty much.

"It's as if they are insecure about being perceived as "old" or "boring", like they're scared of bringing back aspects from previous Zelda games. Everything has to feel trendy, new, and disconnected from the series' lineage."

^this especially. There's so little actual real gameplay to what I've played so far, it's all just baby's first GMOD with Ultrahand. I've only played like 10 hours or so and have only done a few shrines (none of the temples yet), but it's almost even worse than BOTW.

I hate the fuse system too. I quickly realized the optimal fuse is to glue a sword-type weapon to the end of a stick or something, to give it maximum reach while still retaining the sword moveset (which is superior to the spear moveset). So now you have a 10 foot sword swing and nothing can touch you. It's shit and I hate it, and it looks awful. Aesthetics are important and fuse aesthetics are the worst I've ever seen. I don't want to have a sword fused to the end of another sword, but because it gives reach there's really no reason not to do it, and it looks janky and retarded.

idk it's hard to articulate why the fusion and ultrahand stuff is so underwhelming. on a surface level it all sounds great, but then you realize they sacrificed EVERYTHING else and left ONLY that, and wasting 15 minutes to make a janky log boat that will disappear after you walk away from it IS NOT REAL GAMEPLAY.

IT'S BUSYWORK.

[KnightoftheWind]

I agree with those criticisms, I was very enthusiastic about the game for my first 10-15 hours, but then the usual open world fatigue started to set in and the repetition of the new mechanics didn't help to alleviate that one bit. These mechanics are great ideas on paper, fantastic even, but they cannot carry a 100+ hour experience in the way they were implemented here. The brilliant mechanic of weapons being made of Chinese styrofoam just makes things so much worse, and in fact it 'is' worse than it was in Breath of the Wild, if such a thing were possible. Because the weapons you receive are so pitifully weak on their own, you are essentially forced to fuse random items in the environment or more powerful creature parts to make the weapons even remotely decent in later stages of the game. I recently completed the fourth dungeon of my playthrough, yet I was still getting rusty halberds and greatswords as if I was still in the tutorial. So what it boils down to is MORE work, for the same results we got in the previous game. It doesn't matter if you fuse a +40 monster part to a +11 spear, because it will still break in 5-10 swings anyway. At least in Breath of the Wild, you just found that +51 weapon by chance and didn't have to do additional button presses and menu hopping to get it.

Regardless, there is a lot to like about Tears of the Kingdom, and I still stand by my previous statements of it being a great game, but you have to be willing to forgive some of it's more puzzling design choices and enjoy fusing things together to get the most out of it. I for one would like to see these devs go back to basics and give us a true successor to Twilight Princess/Wind Waker. Smaller world, tightly crafted dungeons, and weapons that don't break after 5 swings.

[aweigh]

I agree with those criticisms, I was very enthusiastic about the game for my first 10-15 hours, but then the usual open world fatigue started to set in and the repetition of the new mechanics didn't help to alleviate that one bit. These mechanics are great ideas on paper, fantastic even, but they cannot carry a 100+ hour experience in the way they were implemented here. The brilliant mechanic of weapons being made of Chinese styrofoam just makes things so much worse, and in fact it 'is' worse than it was in Breath of the Wild, if such a thing were possible. Because the weapons you receive are so pitifully weak on their own, you are essentially forced to fuse random items in the environment or more powerful creature parts to make the weapons even remotely decent in later stages of the game. I recently completed the fourth dungeon of my playthrough, yet I was still getting rusty halberds and greatswords as if I was still in the tutorial. So what it boils down to is MORE work, for the same results we got in the previous game. It doesn't matter if you fuse a +40 monster part to a +11 spear, because it will still break in 5-10 swings anyway. At least in Breath of the Wild, you just found that +51 weapon by chance and didn't have to do additional button presses and menu hopping to get it.

Regardless, there is a lot to like about Tears of the Kingdom, and I still stand by my previous statements of it being a great game, but you have to be willing to forgive some of it's more puzzling design choices and enjoy fusing things together to get the most out of it. I for one would like to see these devs go back to basics and give us a true successor to Twilight Princess/Wind Waker. Smaller world, tightly crafted dungeons, and weapons that don't break after 5 swings.

"Regardless, there is a lot to like about Tears of the Kingdom, and I still stand by my previous statements of it being a great game, but you have to be willing to forgive some of it's more puzzling design choices and enjoy fusing things together to get the most out of it."

There's something BOTW made me realize:

A game can be fun to play but not be a good game. BOTW/TOTK are very kinectically satisfying, everything that revolves around moving Link around feels extremely smooth and fun to do, running, climbing, jumping, even moving the camera feels very good. (In fact I think BOTW/TOTK's 3rd-person camera doesn't get enough praise, it's fantastic, possibly the best 3rd-person camera ever made).

And because the mechanical input/output feels fun and satisfying we end up feeling like we're having fun playing the game(s), but it doesn't mean the games are actually "good". If that makes any sense. There's nothing to back up the satisfying movement and action input/output, it's all made of paper.

Elden Ring is another game that has a similar level of satisfying mechanical input/output, moment-to-moment kinetic energy. It also feels immediately smooth and satisfying to move your character around the game world in and use your weapons and abilities, but unlike BOTW/TOTK it actually has a real game behind that engine that backs it up and provides actual long-lasting gameplay.

[General Reign]

The worst part is this is the shit people like so I guess this is Zelda now.

[rusty_shackleford]

every game is a crappy minecraft knockoff now

[General Reign]

Doom is Mario though.

[maidenhaver]

Its a shame that zelda, renowned for it's levels, became an open world. I wonder if anybody left in games can make good levels.

[MadPreacher]

Its a shame that zelda, renowned for it's levels, became an open world. I wonder if anybody left in games can make good levels.

The very first Zelda game was an open world one. Granted it was top down, but it was still an open world. Kids these days...

[maidenhaver]

Quit pretending to be retarded.

[MadPreacher]

I'm pretending to be retarded.

You don't say...

[rusty_shackleford]

open world does not imply nonlinear and nonlinear does not imply open world, they are construed because they are often used together but not always
e.g., many of the Mega Man games are nonlinear but not open world. Zelda games have pretty much always been open world but typically not nonlinear, although they were to some degree.

nonlinear+open world = sandbox

[MadPreacher]

open world does not imply nonlinear and nonlinear does not imply open world, they are construed because they are often used together but not always
e.g., many of the Mega Man games are nonlinear but not open world. Zelda games have pretty much always been open world but typically not nonlinear, although they were to some degree.

nonlinear+open world = sandbox

Just like Pac-Man and other games like it are not open world. You are limited to the map you are on. Metroid is another open world game. Open world games extend all the way back to the 1970s. Dungeons and Dragons on the Intellivision was an open world game. Adventure on the Atari 2600 was an open world game.

Open world is a world where you can go anywhere. A closed world is one where you are limited to a certain map until you meet the requirements to change the map.

[maidenhaver]

I've never heard anybody call zelda open world prior to breath of the wild. Regardless, the game is about good dungeons. Nobody cared what it was in its nascent days on the nes. Its just another soulless open world, now.

[MadPreacher]

I've never heard anybody call zelda open world prior to breath of the wild. Regardless, the game is about good dungeons. Nobody cared what it was in its nascent days on the nes. Its just another soulless open world, now.

That's because you're a retard. Are all young people of your generation born retarded or was it learned through the indoctrination system?

[rusty_shackleford]

I've never heard anybody call zelda open world prior to breath of the wild.

Because it's a term that largely came into parlance with later Bethesda games, especially console releases, and therefore the nonlinear nature of them was confused with the open world aspect.

[rusty_shackleford]

I agree that Zelda is about dungeons & puzzles though. It was never a sandbox game. BotW and its expansion pack hold zero interest for me.

[maidenhaver]

I've never heard anybody call zelda open world prior to breath of the wild. Regardless, the game is about good dungeons. Nobody cared what it was in its nascent days on the nes. Its just another soulless open world, now.

That's because you're a retard. Are all young people of your generation born retarded or was it learned through the indoctrination system?

Yes.

[MadPreacher]

I've never heard anybody call zelda open world prior to breath of the wild. Regardless, the game is about good dungeons. Nobody cared what it was in its nascent days on the nes. Its just another soulless open world, now.

That's because you're a retard. Are all young people of your generation born retarded or was it learned through the indoctrination system?

Yes.

I only called you retarded because you called me one. I'm 53 years old and the first video game I played was Pong in the 1970s. I played the first successful console on the home market, Atari VCS (2600), and played too many arcade games to count in the late 1970s all the way up to 1990s. I have extensive knowledge of gaming going all the way back then. I lived through the biggest successes and the hardest falls in video games. I'm usually 99% right when it comes to my talking about this subject.

As I said to @rusty_shackleford, open world means that you can go anywhere within the game world. All arcade games are closed world by design. That design is to force you to complete the map based upon the game's requirements at great financial cost to you the player. It wasn't until home consoles and computers that video games could get away from the vacuuming a player's wallet out for progress. This enabled games like Dungeons and Dragons and Adventure to be made. It's also where Ultima and other cRPGs got their start. Guess what? Those were all open world games.

Your confusion about the original Zelda game being open world is that you are used to the modern definition not the original one. The original one meant to be the counter to the closed map design of the arcades. Nothing more. Sandbox and non-linear gameplay didn't come later. Thus, the early open world games, the exception being Elite (1984), were on a linear path. You just could go anywhere you wanted. The downside is that you could go to a high level area and end up getting your ass handed to you with a dead party as a result.

[maidenhaver]

I called you retarded because you were saying some retarded things just to be contrarian. I don't care how old you are. Having more age on the internet is even less relevant than having a pair of tits.

[MadPreacher]

I called you retarded because you were saying some retarded things just to be contrarian. I don't care how old you are. Having more age on the internet is even less relevant than having a pair of tits.

Ad hominem logical fallacy means you lose. I gave you the facts and history of the term open world. Now you can go shut the fuck up and play with your Barbies. The adults are talking.

[maidenhaver]

Holy shit.

[J1M]

The items in the dungeons lock you out of exploring the world in Zelda (NES). It's a wide hallway where finding the next dungeon is part of the gameplay, but it's not an open world game.

[KnightoftheWind]

People keep saying "Oh it's just like Zelda 1, it's just like Zelda 1!". But what about every game made 'after' Zelda 1?. The original game's focus was on dungeons and finding those dungeons within the overworld. Every screen had a secret or two tucked inside, and it was so cryptic that you had to look up a guide just to know where half of them were. You can't really compare that to the more Bethesda/Ubisoft-style fare that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are. Zelda 1 didn't have Krazy Glue, it didn't have towns and NPCs to do menial sidequests for, it didn't have towers to climb or fix in order to reveal the world map, and your weapons didn't fall apart if you sneezed too hard. It was a pure exploration and secret-hunting affair. To say nothing of it's successors, which are all about the tightly crafted dungeon design with satisfying puzzles, and going through the story.

I can remember many things from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but can I remember anything about Breath of the Wild?. Will I remember anything about Tears of the Kingdom?. If I do, it'll be to a much lesser extent. These games are a sandbox because a sandbox is the new fad, people like Skyrim and Elden Ring so just give them more Skyrim and Elden Ring, but with a Nintendo twist!. Now it's not just about sidequests and shrines, but building your own Mega Bloks masterpiece!.

[rusty_shackleford]

When I was referencing Zelda, I was implicitly referring to OoT, btw. I assume it's the game all the others are compared to.

► Show Spoiler

No, it wasn't the first I played. That was LttP.

[KnightoftheWind]

I agree with those criticisms, I was very enthusiastic about the game for my first 10-15 hours, but then the usual open world fatigue started to set in and the repetition of the new mechanics didn't help to alleviate that one bit. These mechanics are great ideas on paper, fantastic even, but they cannot carry a 100+ hour experience in the way they were implemented here. The brilliant mechanic of weapons being made of Chinese styrofoam just makes things so much worse, and in fact it 'is' worse than it was in Breath of the Wild, if such a thing were possible. Because the weapons you receive are so pitifully weak on their own, you are essentially forced to fuse random items in the environment or more powerful creature parts to make the weapons even remotely decent in later stages of the game. I recently completed the fourth dungeon of my playthrough, yet I was still getting rusty halberds and greatswords as if I was still in the tutorial. So what it boils down to is MORE work, for the same results we got in the previous game. It doesn't matter if you fuse a +40 monster part to a +11 spear, because it will still break in 5-10 swings anyway. At least in Breath of the Wild, you just found that +51 weapon by chance and didn't have to do additional button presses and menu hopping to get it.

Regardless, there is a lot to like about Tears of the Kingdom, and I still stand by my previous statements of it being a great game, but you have to be willing to forgive some of it's more puzzling design choices and enjoy fusing things together to get the most out of it. I for one would like to see these devs go back to basics and give us a true successor to Twilight Princess/Wind Waker. Smaller world, tightly crafted dungeons, and weapons that don't break after 5 swings.

"Regardless, there is a lot to like about Tears of the Kingdom, and I still stand by my previous statements of it being a great game, but you have to be willing to forgive some of it's more puzzling design choices and enjoy fusing things together to get the most out of it."

There's something BOTW made me realize:

A game can be fun to play but not be a good game. BOTW/TOTK are very kinectically satisfying, everything that revolves around moving Link around feels extremely smooth and fun to do, running, climbing, jumping, even moving the camera feels very good. (In fact I think BOTW/TOTK's 3rd-person camera doesn't get enough praise, it's fantastic, possibly the best 3rd-person camera ever made).

And because the mechanical input/output feels fun and satisfying we end up feeling like we're having fun playing the game(s), but it doesn't mean the games are actually "good". If that makes any sense. There's nothing to back up the satisfying movement and action input/output, it's all made of paper.

Elden Ring is another game that has a similar level of satisfying mechanical input/output, moment-to-moment kinetic energy. It also feels immediately smooth and satisfying to move your character around the game world in and use your weapons and abilities, but unlike BOTW/TOTK it actually has a real game behind that engine that backs it up and provides actual long-lasting gameplay.

My main issue is that the older Zelda games were distinct in their own right, you couldn't compare them to any other fantasy game or any RPG. That's why they stood apart. But with these new games, now all of a sudden you 'can' compare them to other stuff. You can say "Hey, this is just like Skyrim, or Far Cry, or Elden Ring!". It lost a ton of it's originality, that's why the developers are trying all these wacky new ideas and see what sticks. Now all of a sudden Zelda is a Minecraft mod made for zoomers and autists.

[aweigh]

The worst part is this is the shit people like so I guess this is Zelda now.

Real gameplay died for this.

RIP

[aweigh]

PSA for those playing this on emulator (buyfags on suicide watch)

game looks better now on Yuzu. Not sure why but if I had to guess it's probably that Ryujinx's resolution scaler is broken on TOTK.

fired up TOTK on Yuzu at 2x res w/ FXAA and it looks a LOT better than it does on the same settings on Ryujinx. Less jaggy, basically.

anyway just wanted to share that for those of you using Ryujinx, try switching to Yuzu.

[KnightoftheWind]

I just saved a village from a horde of monsters and now I have to bring a sodomite character 15 logs and 20 bunches of rice. This is why I'm increasingly sour on open world games, 90% of it is filler content designed to waste your time and pad out the game. If the next Zelda game is anything like this and Breath of the Wild, I think i'll just be done with the franchise completely. The Skyward Sword director is gaming cancer, son of a bitch can't do anything right.

[MadPreacher]

The items in the dungeons lock you out of exploring the world in Zelda (NES). It's a wide hallway where finding the next dungeon is part of the gameplay, but it's not an open world game.

I guess these authors are wrong then huh?

Big Book of Zelda: The Unofficial Guidebook

IGN India discusses game design: Combat in open world games

15 Most Influential Games of All Time

How The Legend of Zelda Changed Video Games

Open World Deep Dive Wikipedia

That's at least four sources stating that Zelda is an open world game. They used the same definition I did. What do you have besides your opinion?