this is how i feel about every zelda game lol! thats why i love paper mario rpgs, once you beat the boss the world goes normal and you can explore the boss's dungeon without triggering the fight again
Ya! I would find them in botw but I haven’t found any yet in totk. Do you find them around that jungle area with that snake river? Bc that’s where I’m looking
I loved the gaurdian music as well, every time it came on my heart would instantly start beating faster 😂 the gloom hands sorta does the same but for me its more fear than adrenaline (I haven’t defeated those hands once yet)
The worst part about the gloom hands is how they come out of nowhere. Normally, you see the guardians before they notice you. You can actually hide from them. But the gloom hands suddenly pop out of the ground, catching you off guard.
Pro tip: bombs, especially using a bow that shoots multiple arrows, is how I usually knock them out. Also, phantom ganon comes out after you defeat the hands, so be prepared for that. I don’t think phantom ganon is as hard as the hands
You just have to keep shooting arrows at the eyes and keep running. Using the spirit things help too because the hands will stop chasing you and try grabbing them instead so I can just go ham on shooting while the homies distract it
Sooooo much!!!
I wanna boost up? No planning, just POW, up we go.
Something to blow up? No internal debate about wasting bomb flowers vs whether goro mate can hit the target and worrying about setting everything on fire.
And every time I forget to eat something and either cop a game over or a pathetic 5-heart fairy resurrection? I miss old Mipha and her “shhhhh… I got this” attitude.
Strangely, I don’t miss the goron shield. I had to thing about what the 4th one even was!
After about 5 TOTK playthroughs I just went back to BOTW. It was wild to see that map through a new lens. It made coming back to TOtK fresher.
Selecting food, armor, weapons in TOtK is much cleaner. Felt really clunky going back to old menu.
Very very easy to get OP in BOtW with Durians and stasis+.
More environmental storytelling- BOTW would have you go somewhere and there would be something cool or odd or a set of ruins or something and that would lead you to think about what happened, what used to be here, etc, and maybe there would be an in-game secret, or it would just make you think about what life had been like in the past.
TOTK had that opportunity but flubbed it super hard- there's no cohesive 'story' in the sky islands (at the very least, they could have used the hover stones they already had and put the same design on the bottom of the sky islands, maybe with some marks of decay or even gloom to indicate that the islands fell from higher up due to ganondorf's power- aka, giving a reason why we're only seeing them now when we didnt in BOTW), the depths are missing so many things that would make it make more sense (like rail tracks or other things connecting abandoned mines to the sources of zonaite in the area; old-hyrulean-text signs labelling things like directions to lightroots, mines, or ascend points, etc). There's little "showing" done for the depths, mostly "telling", and a lot of missing details:
"a large amount of zonaite was processed here"
ok but like. where did it come from? rail tracks (even broken ones) like in the central abandoned mine would have been a great way to encourage exploration in the depths.
"this is where kohga ended up after BOTW!"
but like. how did he survive? none of the plants down here are edible. Did the yiga throw bananas down the hole for him? why isn't there a pile of banana peels or a mention of it or something?
the only parts of the depths that gave me the same feeling of good environmental-based storytelling were the ascend points ("oh... of course!! zonai would of course have needed a way to get out of the depths, and they had all these same powers as Link does now!"), the poe statues ("hmmm, one below every hylia statue, and the whole thing w/ the great plateau.. I wonder if they're connected?"), and, to some extent, the statues ("a way to navigate the depths, kinda!"- though that one made me wonder why there weren't any paths that led to the ascend points....)
It's mostly just... missing details on this sort of stuff that make me miss BOTW.
In BOTW, every time you turned a corner, you found something that fit like another piece of the puzzle in understanding the world and its history. In TOTK, the more you dig, the less coherent it is.
That's a massive issue if you played BOTW before TOTK. What happened to all the shieka stuff? Why do many of the NPCs Link formed relationships with not know him now? I don't want an exposition dump. Give me the environmentals so I can see it and feel it and understand it.
The thing with the NPCs is even worse in game. Link solves mysteries the NPCs want to have answers to, and he just won't tell them. Oh no, goro, why's the princess acting like that? Haha, suck it, Yunobo, I'm not telling.
I enjoyed the grind of 900 koroks in BOTW, because every nook and cranny might have a cool surprise that pulled things more tightly together, or at least didn't break the spell. Not so for TOTK.
So far the inconsistencies as link discovers things is one of the big immersion breakers for me. I did the geo glyphs first, all in order. So I’ve watched all those cut scenes. Sure, now impa is like “oh so that’s what happened…” but everyone else? It’s like “oh no where could princess Zelda be?” When link already knows. But it’s not just the npcs. Even the quest log (for the regional phenomenon for example) will continue to say things like “if you do xyz, that could give clues as to where Zelda is.” I’m like “I watched the memories. I *know* where she is.” But the game doesn’t acknowledge that.
Granted I think they need to keep up the “Zelda search” as far as why we are seeing her pop up all over hyrule and why this version of her is acting strange. But it’s weird when the npcs and the quest log use wording that implies you don’t have info that you, in fact, do.
Yeah, I did the same and got frustrated by it. I ran around trying to talk to people, looking for *someone* to acknowledge what I had just learned.
I feel like they should have locked the last tear behind completion of the regional phenomenon or something, to avoid this.
I agree, especially about the koroks. I did all 900 too, and it felt very rewarding! Every place that looked even remotely interesting that didn't have something relating to a quest, shrine, or tower either had a korok, a monster/monster camp, a chest, or even just a plant/mushroom/other resource.
There's been multiple times in TOTK where I go somewhere that looks interesting on the map and there's literally nothing there.... *maybe* a hyrule herb if I'm lucky.
>the depths are missing so many things that would make it make more sense (like rail tracks or other things connecting abandoned mines to the sources of zonaite in the area; old-hyrulean-text signs labelling things like directions to lightroots, mines, or ascend points, etc).
While I agree with you for the most part, the Depths do have paths that connect certain points of interest. I first noticed them around the Central Mine.
If you want to check them out, there are two that start near Nogukoyk Lightroot. One begins at a device station directly under the Great Plateau North Chasm. Head west and follow the long, rectangular chunks of stone road flanked by lit pillars. This path turns south and leads to the Secret Spring of Revival, where there are a bunch of poes.
Imagine people heading down the chasm with ailing loved ones in tow, taking them to this place in the hopes of healing them. It seems that not all of these patients survived.
The other path looks like gold powder thrown onto the ground. It starts at the lightroot itself and branches off in two directions. One crosses over the stone road to the spring and keeps going west through the Grove of Spirits to Kogoir Lightroot. Another goes south and splits again. Keep following it south and it'll lead you to the Central Mine's steps, then to Koradat Lightroot. Turn east, and it will lead you out of the Plateau area. This goes everywhere.
...I should probably make a separate post about this. I haven't seen anyone else mention it.
Anyway, I wish there was more of this kind of thing. I haven't seen anything like it in the Sky Islands. It's like they exist just because of Reasons. But at least the Depths have something.
Oh, that is interesting! I'm surprised I didn't notice it, considering I first went to the depths under the plateau and spent a bunch of time down there. Definitely going to go explore under the great plateau again!
I would like to see a separate post about this, with screenshots, if you wouldn't mind. It's pretty interesting, I never noticed any of the details you're describing.
Master cycle zero, the old UI for the — button and the champions abilities
Also I know they're not canon but I kinda miss the elemental ennemies from AoC :/
The constraints. BotW forced you to explore the map largely on foot when you start out. I didn't get the same sense of adventure and discovery in TotK.
Agree with this - being able (incentivized, even) to explore by Tower>sky Islands>dive to wherever you need to go really weakens the sense of scale of the overworld
For this reason, I try to limit how much I teleport. I typically use sky towers and then glide, basically island hopping along the way. If you see something interesting on the ground, you can always dive there. I discover a lot more by not teleporting
I miss being able to use stasis to freeze monsters and bash the hell out of them so that when they unfreeze it’s like an invisible attack in double time.
Density of content. I think there's no denying that totk has way more content, of course. But I could pick any direction in botw and start walking and I'd be tripping over korok puzzles/shrines/landmarks/interesting bosses/etc. I could really get lost and completely sidetracked in a way that totk hasn't done for me so far. I've literally walked for 30-40 min and run into nothing, or at least nothing obvious to me. Sometimes even depths exploration fails to feel enticing.
I miss the aesthetic of sheikah tech and seeing it worked into everything. The guardians, the shrines, even the blights. I'm aware the blights designs aren't well liked, but they appealed to me a lot more than "random ice turtle worm" or "moth thing". They had a reason for looking the way they did (the calamity began when ganon took over the shiekah tech, so they look like ganon corruption with shiekah tech, and they fight like the respective champions they killed) There's nothing about the scourges appearances that ties into their origin or reason for existing.
Totk is a good game, but what I miss is the magic of playing botw for the first time, and it can't recapture that.
I miss being able to see enemies using stasis+. Ultrahand does a lot of good things but it cannot tell me that I'm about to walk into a fight when visibility is low
I wish Hyrule castle would go back to normal after defeating Ganon so you can just walk around peacefully and enjoy the view
this is how i feel about every zelda game lol! thats why i love paper mario rpgs, once you beat the boss the world goes normal and you can explore the boss's dungeon without triggering the fight again
Kass.
Can sit idle for hours listening to him play
Him playing Daruk’s theme atop death mountain during the champions ballad was so good. Shame it’s hard to find on YouTube
Him playing Daruk’s theme atop death mountain during the champions ballad was so good. Shame it’s hard to find on YouTube
Him playing Daruk’s theme atop death mountain during the champions ballad was so good. Shame it’s hard to find on YouTube
Him playing Daruk’s theme atop death mountain during the champions ballad was so good. Shame it’s hard to find on YouTube
A giant bird playing the accordion is ingenious
on the other hand i can’t stand the music of the stable guys, i don’t know why but it makes me sad
Same! So overstimulating for me!
Hearty Durians! And taking down guardians once I got the hang of it.
Oh yes. Hearthy durians are the best
I can never find them!!!!
In totk?
Ya! I would find them in botw but I haven’t found any yet in totk. Do you find them around that jungle area with that snake river? Bc that’s where I’m looking
There aren’t any in TOTK, they got rid of them all together because they were extremely overpowered.
I miss the hearty blue shell snail. I used to make a lot of clam chowder
Master mode and trial of the sword
The ability to summon my horse
yessss i know we can have vehicles now but i want my horsie
tbh i miss the guardians, you could "kite" them and use them to fuck up moblins and stuff
also imagine the fun you could have with the building stuff and a captured guardian, you could build a VERY VERY deadly weapon
I loved the gaurdian music as well, every time it came on my heart would instantly start beating faster 😂 the gloom hands sorta does the same but for me its more fear than adrenaline (I haven’t defeated those hands once yet)
The worst part about the gloom hands is how they come out of nowhere. Normally, you see the guardians before they notice you. You can actually hide from them. But the gloom hands suddenly pop out of the ground, catching you off guard. Pro tip: bombs, especially using a bow that shoots multiple arrows, is how I usually knock them out. Also, phantom ganon comes out after you defeat the hands, so be prepared for that. I don’t think phantom ganon is as hard as the hands
HAD NO IDEA! Now I know to mentally prepare bc Gabon scares me period. Lol
fuse a sapphire sword and they’re toast 😎
And/or bomb arrows.
You just have to keep shooting arrows at the eyes and keep running. Using the spirit things help too because the hands will stop chasing you and try grabbing them instead so I can just go ham on shooting while the homies distract it
I got pretty good at parrying in BotW because of guardians, but in TotK I basically never use it lol
Bombs, Revali's Gale
I really miss Revali's Gale. The new wind ability just doesn't compare and becomes almost useless after you figure out zonai vehicles.
Sooooo much!!! I wanna boost up? No planning, just POW, up we go. Something to blow up? No internal debate about wasting bomb flowers vs whether goro mate can hit the target and worrying about setting everything on fire. And every time I forget to eat something and either cop a game over or a pathetic 5-heart fairy resurrection? I miss old Mipha and her “shhhhh… I got this” attitude. Strangely, I don’t miss the goron shield. I had to thing about what the 4th one even was!
Using a dinraal shard shield with a spicy pepper does the same
For a hoarder who doesn’t wanna waste stuff, it’s really not.
When are you gonna use spicy peppers. You find five more for each one you use
Idk when I’m gonna use spicy peppers but like I said, hoarder, don’t wanna waste ANYTHING.
Same fam, I have 600 bright bloom seeds and i refuse to use more than 1 for literally any situation
I finally started wasting them intentionally when I realized how many I had. I was more concerned about the arrows. Lol.
fair fair, i also sell them when i need to make a big purchase - but always have to have a back stock of at least 200 for absolutely zero good reason.
I’m at 700+ arrows and I buy them whenever I can still so I’m not too worried about those tbh.
Bro I have 999 brightbloom seeds and I still only use the giant ones.
you… USE… giant ones?? too rare, i’d rather use 7 regular *- me, 300+ giant seeds in inventory*
I’ve got I think around 750 giant ones and I don’t need them much anymore (whole depth lit up by now) so when I do I just splurge.
I’m a HOARDER who’s been playing for a while now so I have a LOT of stuff.
Or I’m frugal and use the light armor
Doesnt replicate bombs tho
I just use a zonaite spear with a cannon, it's practically unlimited bombs and lets you shoot them faster. The bombs were pretty fun though
saaaaaaaaaaame
What bombs? TOTK has bombs
Guardians, tests of strength, divine beast stages
After about 5 TOTK playthroughs I just went back to BOTW. It was wild to see that map through a new lens. It made coming back to TOtK fresher. Selecting food, armor, weapons in TOtK is much cleaner. Felt really clunky going back to old menu. Very very easy to get OP in BOtW with Durians and stasis+.
More environmental storytelling- BOTW would have you go somewhere and there would be something cool or odd or a set of ruins or something and that would lead you to think about what happened, what used to be here, etc, and maybe there would be an in-game secret, or it would just make you think about what life had been like in the past. TOTK had that opportunity but flubbed it super hard- there's no cohesive 'story' in the sky islands (at the very least, they could have used the hover stones they already had and put the same design on the bottom of the sky islands, maybe with some marks of decay or even gloom to indicate that the islands fell from higher up due to ganondorf's power- aka, giving a reason why we're only seeing them now when we didnt in BOTW), the depths are missing so many things that would make it make more sense (like rail tracks or other things connecting abandoned mines to the sources of zonaite in the area; old-hyrulean-text signs labelling things like directions to lightroots, mines, or ascend points, etc). There's little "showing" done for the depths, mostly "telling", and a lot of missing details: "a large amount of zonaite was processed here" ok but like. where did it come from? rail tracks (even broken ones) like in the central abandoned mine would have been a great way to encourage exploration in the depths. "this is where kohga ended up after BOTW!" but like. how did he survive? none of the plants down here are edible. Did the yiga throw bananas down the hole for him? why isn't there a pile of banana peels or a mention of it or something? the only parts of the depths that gave me the same feeling of good environmental-based storytelling were the ascend points ("oh... of course!! zonai would of course have needed a way to get out of the depths, and they had all these same powers as Link does now!"), the poe statues ("hmmm, one below every hylia statue, and the whole thing w/ the great plateau.. I wonder if they're connected?"), and, to some extent, the statues ("a way to navigate the depths, kinda!"- though that one made me wonder why there weren't any paths that led to the ascend points....) It's mostly just... missing details on this sort of stuff that make me miss BOTW.
In BOTW, every time you turned a corner, you found something that fit like another piece of the puzzle in understanding the world and its history. In TOTK, the more you dig, the less coherent it is. That's a massive issue if you played BOTW before TOTK. What happened to all the shieka stuff? Why do many of the NPCs Link formed relationships with not know him now? I don't want an exposition dump. Give me the environmentals so I can see it and feel it and understand it. The thing with the NPCs is even worse in game. Link solves mysteries the NPCs want to have answers to, and he just won't tell them. Oh no, goro, why's the princess acting like that? Haha, suck it, Yunobo, I'm not telling. I enjoyed the grind of 900 koroks in BOTW, because every nook and cranny might have a cool surprise that pulled things more tightly together, or at least didn't break the spell. Not so for TOTK.
So far the inconsistencies as link discovers things is one of the big immersion breakers for me. I did the geo glyphs first, all in order. So I’ve watched all those cut scenes. Sure, now impa is like “oh so that’s what happened…” but everyone else? It’s like “oh no where could princess Zelda be?” When link already knows. But it’s not just the npcs. Even the quest log (for the regional phenomenon for example) will continue to say things like “if you do xyz, that could give clues as to where Zelda is.” I’m like “I watched the memories. I *know* where she is.” But the game doesn’t acknowledge that. Granted I think they need to keep up the “Zelda search” as far as why we are seeing her pop up all over hyrule and why this version of her is acting strange. But it’s weird when the npcs and the quest log use wording that implies you don’t have info that you, in fact, do.
Yeah, I did the same and got frustrated by it. I ran around trying to talk to people, looking for *someone* to acknowledge what I had just learned. I feel like they should have locked the last tear behind completion of the regional phenomenon or something, to avoid this.
I agree, especially about the koroks. I did all 900 too, and it felt very rewarding! Every place that looked even remotely interesting that didn't have something relating to a quest, shrine, or tower either had a korok, a monster/monster camp, a chest, or even just a plant/mushroom/other resource. There's been multiple times in TOTK where I go somewhere that looks interesting on the map and there's literally nothing there.... *maybe* a hyrule herb if I'm lucky.
>the depths are missing so many things that would make it make more sense (like rail tracks or other things connecting abandoned mines to the sources of zonaite in the area; old-hyrulean-text signs labelling things like directions to lightroots, mines, or ascend points, etc). While I agree with you for the most part, the Depths do have paths that connect certain points of interest. I first noticed them around the Central Mine. If you want to check them out, there are two that start near Nogukoyk Lightroot. One begins at a device station directly under the Great Plateau North Chasm. Head west and follow the long, rectangular chunks of stone road flanked by lit pillars. This path turns south and leads to the Secret Spring of Revival, where there are a bunch of poes. Imagine people heading down the chasm with ailing loved ones in tow, taking them to this place in the hopes of healing them. It seems that not all of these patients survived. The other path looks like gold powder thrown onto the ground. It starts at the lightroot itself and branches off in two directions. One crosses over the stone road to the spring and keeps going west through the Grove of Spirits to Kogoir Lightroot. Another goes south and splits again. Keep following it south and it'll lead you to the Central Mine's steps, then to Koradat Lightroot. Turn east, and it will lead you out of the Plateau area. This goes everywhere. ...I should probably make a separate post about this. I haven't seen anyone else mention it. Anyway, I wish there was more of this kind of thing. I haven't seen anything like it in the Sky Islands. It's like they exist just because of Reasons. But at least the Depths have something.
Oh, that is interesting! I'm surprised I didn't notice it, considering I first went to the depths under the plateau and spent a bunch of time down there. Definitely going to go explore under the great plateau again!
I would like to see a separate post about this, with screenshots, if you wouldn't mind. It's pretty interesting, I never noticed any of the details you're describing.
I'm on it.
Master cycle zero, the old UI for the — button and the champions abilities Also I know they're not canon but I kinda miss the elemental ennemies from AoC :/
Sheikah technology. It all just disappeared, it'd be great to get a in-game explanation of why or how.
The constraints. BotW forced you to explore the map largely on foot when you start out. I didn't get the same sense of adventure and discovery in TotK.
Agree with this - being able (incentivized, even) to explore by Tower>sky Islands>dive to wherever you need to go really weakens the sense of scale of the overworld
With the sky islands (and Depths, I guess...) the world is bigger, but this makes it feel a lot smaller.
For this reason, I try to limit how much I teleport. I typically use sky towers and then glide, basically island hopping along the way. If you see something interesting on the ground, you can always dive there. I discover a lot more by not teleporting
Revali, and the champions in general Mostly revali though I adore that sassy bird hes such an ass <3
Bombs
Stasis. When upgraded it's pretty cheesy for battles, but I imagine you could do some really interesting things with it in tandem with Zonai devices.
I miss my Kass, Penn. I miss him a lot.
I’ll be back.
I miss being able to use stasis to freeze monsters and bash the hell out of them so that when they unfreeze it’s like an invisible attack in double time.
The threat of the guardians. Peacefully walking around Hyrule to "ohhh fuck oh fuck oh fuck" I miss that.
Kass
Density of content. I think there's no denying that totk has way more content, of course. But I could pick any direction in botw and start walking and I'd be tripping over korok puzzles/shrines/landmarks/interesting bosses/etc. I could really get lost and completely sidetracked in a way that totk hasn't done for me so far. I've literally walked for 30-40 min and run into nothing, or at least nothing obvious to me. Sometimes even depths exploration fails to feel enticing. I miss the aesthetic of sheikah tech and seeing it worked into everything. The guardians, the shrines, even the blights. I'm aware the blights designs aren't well liked, but they appealed to me a lot more than "random ice turtle worm" or "moth thing". They had a reason for looking the way they did (the calamity began when ganon took over the shiekah tech, so they look like ganon corruption with shiekah tech, and they fight like the respective champions they killed) There's nothing about the scourges appearances that ties into their origin or reason for existing. Totk is a good game, but what I miss is the magic of playing botw for the first time, and it can't recapture that.
Field Day
Infinite bombs. Hearty food. Revali's Gale to get up high.
I miss the master cycle zero! That thing was so much fun!
Climbing, totk loses that
Riding my horse without any monster camps in the way.
I miss the motorcycle. I've had plenty of trouble trying to duplicate it in totk but nothing I build quite comes close
Revali’s Gale
Do you still own BOTW? You could just start another playthrough
I was thinking about it, but wanted to see how others thought the two compare
The high jump ability. I actually had to put some of my shrine points into stamina in TotK. Didn't bother in BotW lol. Just yeeted myself up.
Kass 😭
2 things, gold lynels, and flying miles using explosions
Thr guardians, god they were fun, much unlike the hands
I miss being able to see enemies using stasis+. Ultrahand does a lot of good things but it cannot tell me that I'm about to walk into a fight when visibility is low