The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

As a huge Zelda fan, I wish they have stuck to the graphics in Twilight Princess. Breaking weapons & cooking was already a bad idea in BotW. Starting off in the sky, looks like a cheap Skyward Sword copy and this weird engineering construction stuff doesn't belong in a Zelda game. The clothes are weird, the plot is cheap, the music has changed for the bad. The game lacks all the exciting stuff from the N64 and WiiU era. Too much RPG at the cost of the adventure part, was the worst decision.

Exploring sky & underground is a pain compared to land. Don't like constant customizing things (build, synthesize, and cook). The companion system is cool in concept, but gets in the way. Gameplay is smooth as always but there's more lagging. Much faster loading. Excessive uninteresting quests. Rewards are unrewarding. Outfits are too expensive. Memory cutscenes are good. However, repeated dungeon cutscenes are bad. Triforce>secret bs. LSFWaWi. The final boss sequence was really good.

Finished my first playthrough. It seems like BOTW at first, but with a very different tone. It has lots of content, everywhere. The biggest game I've ever played. But the gameplay is well thought out and with many ways to do things. And lots of building. The story is iffy with loose threads and repetition. A lot of it feels contrived. I accidentally skipped a lot of the main quest by misguessing a clue. These are minor complaints because it is very, very fun.

BotW was already a 100. This is a 100. BotW was amazing because of the exploration and how the mechanics/physics all tied into this sense of exploration, along with the subtle usage of music, the world and the visuals. Then you have TotK which is just like... hey, you liked BotW? Here's more of the same except it's even better because now you can build, among other things, and exploration is even better and Nintendo is still the best developer on the planet... and I'm not even a Zelda fan.

I have officially completed TotK to the standard I’m happy with (didn’t do every side quest or cave or collect everything, but I did every shrine, all main quest line, charted the depths, most side adventures, killed King Gleeok, etc). And yeah it’s indeed excellent. Exploring the sky was a blast, shrine puzzles fun, physics engine great, fighting enjoyable, finale epic. I only notch it down from my top score because in my heart classic Ocarina-style Zelda dungeons will always reign supreme.

The breadth and depth of Hyrule is insane. It was already crazy in BOTW, but here it is next level: the addition of sky and depths areas, the massive number of npc's with their own stories that you help out in, increased enemy variety, improvements to the dungeons compared to BOTW, the thousands of means of traversal created with ultra-hand. While being a direct sequel means some of the majesty and zen of just moving across the surface world is muted, everything else is just straight up better.

Pretty fun game for a little bit. Enjoyed some of it, stopped playing about 10 hours in. The story is very average. The open world is pretty, but a chore to traverse at times, and the overall gameplay can get old fast. Bit tired of all the crafting and cooking.

Tears of the Kingdom suffers from a lesser sense of wonder compared to Breath because the bag of exploration-tricks is less impressive the second time. Everything else is marginally to extremely better. Fusion makes durability less of a problem, there is more landmass to explore, more sandbox elements to play in, more to discover, and the story, while still not great, is an improvement. I am again bummed by the lack of Zelda-quality dungeons but the trade-off (everything else) is well worth it.

Packed full of so many things to do, but not all of them interest me. Building/crafting as a mechanic in general doesn't appeal to me, so while there were moments of intense satisfaction from me using these mechanics in a way I thought of as clever, I found myself only using the bare minimum required most of the time. The narrative beats were interesting enough, with one that I found particularly great. I wasn't too keen on the final stages of the game, so my epic experience fizzled out, sadly.

It solves my big gripes with BOTW - lack of an underworld (although the Depths are pretty boring once you've lit up all the roots) - and weapon durability through the fuse mechanic, which is extremely fun. Although definitely improving on BOTW, I would hesitate to say TOTK is a perfect game, because the temples & new environments (sky islands & Depths) are still a bit lacking. Needed a Shadow temple and some more enemies like those gloom hands (encountering those for the first time was amazing).

I wanna be the next TotK cast member, and here's why I should be a contender. Hi Shigeru, I'm Morshu, and of course you've been feeling the heat because your game got delayed to 2023. I know you got rope and bombs but I feel I oughta be selling it, when it comes to shopkeeps you have to give me credit.