[Aptorian]

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes out this friday.



The reviews look unsurprisingly glowing.

https://opencritic.c...-of-the-kingdom

 Udklip.PNG (691.27K)
Number of downloads: 0

I personally want to watch some gameplay to see the games performance, but this has to be a must buy.

[QuickTidal]

So here's my thing. I liked the first one a LOT....even though it's not a Zelda game in much but name and characters...but by the time I finished it a LOT of it had started on weigh on me, and things that were initially charming (the temple puzzles in place of dungeons; the various map opening towers, ect.) started to fucking DRAG....and stuff that was annoying from the get-go (oh my god, weapons that break after too much use....FUUUUUUUUUUCK you Nintendo...even the fact that when ou FINALLY get the master sword it has a fucking COOL DOWN TIME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?) got grating by the end.

A game that I think early on Iw as going to rank amongst Skyrim as one of the finest games I've ever played, becuase something more middle of the road.

And with this new one...some of the things they are positing as new and fresh elements...like using anything to bold anything else...you know what Nintendo? I was already annoyed at having to cook ingredients to make potions.....now you've giving me sandbox-like ability to MAKE things? I don't want.

I don't even know if I'm going to play to be honest...FFS the Map is the exact same, and has Link just gone back in time now? Why are we repeating things?

Adding floating islands doesn't cut it.



.....



Ah fuck, who am I kidding. I'll still play it. Jeezus. Fucking stupid breaking weapons and shit! Goddamit I hate myself. I WILL however, wait a few months before even buying it....I'm not stupid I need some answers from randoms playing it, not critics.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 May 2023 - 02:29 PM

[Aptorian]

I don't recall ever tiring of Breath of the Wild. Mind you, I bought my Switch and BotW right after I graduated from Library Hogwartz and had 4 months where I was unemployed. There was never a better time to have fun with a massive open world Zelda game. Think I put over 200 hours into the game. I think Zelda was worth the price of the Switch alone.

Towards the end of the game, the durability on high level weapons you picked up, was so high it didn't really bother me. I'd collected enough Korok Seeds and what ever, to have plenty of inventory space.

What I was less enthused about was the performance and visuals. The switch was outdated before it was released, and you could definitely tell by the crazy texture pop-in and washed out visuals. The art style was great, but you could tell it was choice based on processing power. Thankfully, looking at the reviews, it sounds like Tears of the Kingdom isn't worse, in fact it sounds like it's a slight improvement on the original.

Pre-ordered the game.

I don't know how much I'll get to play before Sunday but I'll cram everything I can into my free time.

[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 11 May 2023 - 04:47 PM, said:

I'd collected enough Korok Seeds and what ever, to have plenty of inventory space.

See this is one of the things.....there are something like 200+ Korok seeds in the game...I would say you need fewer than half of those to have more space than you'd EVER need for your inventory packs....but the others are there for busy work.

There's too many shrines. Make less of them, and make those shrines longer, and then make them dungeons while you're at it. FFS there's 4 dungeons in the first game....4.....it's mental.

I feel like IMMORTALS: FENIX RISING perfected all the shit wrong with BotW.

I dunno. I HOPE TotK is better in those areas...but yeah I'd be kidding myself if I pretended I wasn't going to at least TRY it in 6months time.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 May 2023 - 05:40 PM

[Aptorian]

There's actually like 900 korok seeds. If you collect them all you're rewarded with a golden turd.

I think from a design standpoint, you were never supposed to find more than you need. It's just part of a short feedback loop, giving the player small rewards for being curious or clever.

[QuickTidal]

Aptorian, on 11 May 2023 - 06:16 PM, said:

There's actually like 900 korok seeds. If you collect them all you're rewarded with a golden turd.

I think from a design standpoint, you were never supposed to find more than you need. It's just part of a short feedback loop, giving the player small rewards for being curious or clever.

Eh I get it, but then I don't like that design. Give me a the finite number of things to find that I need to make my inventory max out...and then stop. That way I won't focus extra energy on it as a completionist (not that I found all the seeds mind you, just making a point). Like a big part of the problems with BotW was the fact that there are a bajillion Shrines, and a bajillion Seeds, and a bajilliuion _________" to find....thats' sandbox without purpose to me. Like even in the sandboxiest FF game there's only so many of _______ thing you can find. It's like Nintendo was like "Just put so many of everything in that no one will ever run out." That's a game design flaw to me.

[D'rek]

Wasn't that the whole point? I thought there was statements in the marketing or from the designers that the whole intent was to make it super duper huge (and kind of samey) but put the final boss right in the middle that you can go to at any time, so that every player could play the sandbox up to the amount that they found fun. Once you find exploring the rest of the sandbox not fun anymore, you can go beat the final boss and be finished.

[QuickTidal]

D, on 12 May 2023 - 01:46 PM, said:

Wasn't that the whole point? I thought there was statements in the marketing or from the designers that the whole intent was to make it super duper huge (and kind of samey) but put the final boss right in the middle that you can go to at any time, so that every player could play the sandbox up to the amount that they found fun. Once you find exploring the rest of the sandbox not fun anymore, you can go beat the final boss and be finished.

I don't think that works well personally, and frankly if you face Ganondorf before you've beaten all the dungeons and and gained enough hearts to get the Master sword and shield...you're dying...So you HAVE to log a tone of hours anyways....why not make it a finite amount of things to do then? The illusion of free will/too much sandbox is silly.

Like Ghosts of Tsushima, huge sandbox world, lots of things to open up, and upgrade related to combat and stats...but still a finite number of those things in the world to do and collect. I never felt constrained, and it felt super open world and sandboxy...but it still was finite. Best example I have is the bamboo shoot sword live tests. There were something like 10 of them I think in the game spread across the whole set of islands...finish the ten, and you've maxed out that stat. Move on.

Like I get I'm in the minority on this and people LOVE BOTW and quite likely TOTK....but I feel like these complaints are VERY valid.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 12 May 2023 - 02:34 PM

[D'rek]

I didn't love BotW either, but it was mostly because I found the items/inventory really annoying. Weapons degrading is fine by me, but I disliked constantly having to pause even in the middle of fights in order to switch weapons or eat items or pick a different tablet power or whatever. Or like when cooking 100 apples having to do it handful by handful over and over again. It felt like way too much inventory management and was always killing the pace of events because I was always pausing to pull up a menu in the middle of a fight or the middle of a puzzle.

[QuickTidal]

D, on 12 May 2023 - 03:36 PM, said:

but I disliked constantly having to pause even in the middle of fights in order to switch weapons or eat items or pick a different tablet power or whatever. Or like when cooking 100 apples having to do it handful by handful over and over again. It felt like way too much inventory management and was always killing the pace of events because I was always pausing to pull up a menu in the middle of a fight or the middle of a puzzle.

Yep, very much a bone of contention in the game for me as well.

Like I can see its merits overall and for a long time I was enjoying myself as I played despite them....but by the end, hooboy I just wanted it to end.

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 12 May 2023 - 02:34 PM, said:

Like I get I'm in the minority on this and people LOVE BOTW and quite likely TOTK....but I feel like these complaints are VERY valid.

I think the complaints are perfectly valid and a perfectly normal reason to dislike a game. I don't think they're inherently a design flaw, though. Like the others said, the idea of a bajilion shrines is so that you don't have to do everything: if there'd only been, say, 30 - 15 to max stamina, 15 to max hearts; that'd have been a plausible way to do it, but it wouldn't have fed into the 'something worthwhile over every hill' feeling they were going for. Players would have had to go to the same specific 30 places in the end. It'd have been a more diffuse but still ultimately somewhat directed version of the same drive as hitting the four beasts was. Whereas what they wanted was being able to go literally anywhere and get something that helps you towards the final goal.



I would say that they slipped a bit on the actual shrine (and Beast) designs, though. By far the weakest part of BotW for me, even though I adore it: I want proper dungeons in mah proper Zelda. I watched a video recently about how Nintendo developed it that implied they added a lot of that quite late in development, because they did an early playtest focused more on the towers as the goal of exploration and found people just weren't exploring. I think that showed. I'm optimistic that having had that clear in their mind from the off and having so long to develop it means the equivalents are better here.



Haven't got far enough to say that, though yeah, I am hopeful. It's looking good from where I am. I would say that the game, although still explory, is by its nature not quite as pure exploration-focused as the first, which might be a point towards it in your favour. There's definitely more actual plot drive, but also just because most players will have been here before they can't treat the world in the same way. So, even with the same basic ideas behind it, the approach is different.
But on the other, the new abilities are entirely about sandboxy tooling about. It is very, very about just dicking about and seeing what sticks. So who knows. Anyone who loved BotW will love this- it converting anyone who didn't is a lot more up in the air.

[Slow Ben]

I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and get a switch.

[Aptorian]

I haven't had a lot of time to play Tears of the Kingdom the past week, so haven't been able chime in on the comparison to Breath of the Wild.

So far, only playing in the introduction area, I don't think the game will win over people who disliked BotW. I've been kind of luke warm on the introduction.

That might mostly be because of how fiddly it feels, trying to adjust to the controls, the slighty strange character movement, the physics, a really clunky menu system when you want to cook something, etc.

I'm hoping when I eventually get out of the intro area the game clicks.

[QuickTidal]

Slow Ben, on 13 May 2023 - 01:04 PM, said:

I’m gonna have to bite the bullet and get a switch.

It's a SOLID investment. I love my Switch.

[Gorefest]

Once you go Switch, you never....switch. Ditch? Sni... I don't know why I came in, really.

[Tiste Simeon]

Once you go Switch, you never can ditch! It isn't kitsch so don't be a b... Well you get the idea.

[polishgenius]

Aptorian, on 19 May 2023 - 02:31 AM, said:

I'm hoping when I eventually get out of the intro area the game clicks.

I don't know if it will win over non-BotW fans, but I would say the game proper makes the differences from BotW more substantially clear. The Sky Island is fiddlier than the Great Plateau and has a little less freedom about the order you explore it in, but ultimately it's presented in a very similar way (big empty land you don't know, explore it). So it just feels like BotW again, but like I say fiddlier.


Once you're down on the surface it's less like that. Like clearly you are still meant to be exploring, but doing so is a substantially different prospect than before, and the focus is much more on... well, doing stuff. It's much, much more full with characters and things happening, there's way more variety in enemies and stuff.

It is taking me a bit to shake BotW habits, but ultimately the game wants you to use its new abilities to the full and not approach exploration, fights etc in the same way.

[Gorefest]

There are different ways to approach it? I usually just run in, button smash, die, run in, die again, run in, die, run in, fluke a win, save, next enemy encounter.

[Aptorian]

Gorefest, on 21 May 2023 - 03:12 PM, said:

There are different ways to approach it? I usually just run in, button smash, die, run in, die again, run in, die, run in, fluke a win, save, next enemy encounter.

This is also my strategy. I find myself getting 1 hit killed too often by flaming swords or explosions. I'm a little disappointed that there's not a more advanced combat system. I could really use a dodge role, I find myself getting double teamed or just miss timing enemy swings too often. I'm definitely not attempting to parry any enemy swings.

I've now made it to the surface, cleared a handful of shrines, found the look out town, went into the depths. Next up I think I'll focus on upgrading my camera pad before doing story stuff. I desperately need to upgrade my armor and hearts, so I don't constantly worry about enemy encounters. I am definitely fighting as dirty as I can. Attaching explosives and smoke bombs to arrows to sow chaos before cheap shot'ing the baddies.

[polishgenius]

Gorefest, on 21 May 2023 - 03:12 PM, said:

There are different ways to approach it? I usually just run in, button smash, die, run in, die again, run in, die, run in, fluke a win, save, next enemy encounter.

Yeah, not so much in terms of how you actually hit things, but using the fuse system to make weapons with varying effects, or as you build an arsenal, ultrahanding yourself some vehicles, using ascend to get up bases, etc.

You're definitely meant to use arrows more, you can tell by the fact that every crate has some in now.