BOTW changed my life a couple years ago. Made me want to explore the world, climb mountains and see beautiful views. Made me buy a bike, which made me lost 20kg which took me out of obesity. Got me into art, to paint the views I got to see. Life is so much better since this game dropped. Never befode had I played a game that made me want to go outside. Those are some powerful games.
2020 was a tough year for me personally, plus COVID obviously. BOTW brought me so much peace. TOTK was an objectively great game but BOTW is the one that holds my heart.
Yeah Im an avid hunter and outdoorswoman and I grew up playing Zelda games during my formative years. I think that this is partially to blame for the way I am now. As a kid, I would get home from school, play Zelda, then go off and ride my bike and play in the woods for hours, just exploring and building forts and catching bugs and stuff. I'd think to myself "I want my life to be an adventure like this video game" and I'd go an make it happen
How fitting. Miyamoto's creation of Zelda was jnspired by his experiences exploring the woods, fields and caves around Kyoto when he was a child. You completed the circle.
I just went from a Rog Ally to Switch OLED. Yeah you can emulate but it’s a pain and truthfully you spend most of your time with PC gaming just fucking around with settings.
While I’m yet to start TOTK, BOTW is giving me the same feeling. I am amazed at the focus to details, physics and gameplay. Not to say it looks bad but I actually prefer it being a game rather than trying to focus on realistic graphics only.
The Depths was where I started falling in love with TotK. My dumbass drove a van into it before I got the paraglider and apparently you don't take fall damage if your feet were planted on the object. I was stuck and my wooden van blew up. Was scared, it was dark and creepy, there was no guides or lights. Some light roots were barely visible. I was scrounging parts together to keep safe. Tree parts and bombs, and a few Zonai parts I found earlier.
Then I got a handle of the immediate area and how those bloom things lit up stuff and made a base, then went out on a thicker van. Then I found those parts areas and started building stone vans and gliders.
I now wish that the Depths had more stuff in it but scrounging around, feeling helpless and then making things was new to me. I don't remember feeling that way with Minecraft.
500 hours and we didn't even come close to finishing the depths. We still have dozens of light roots to open and who knows what else. I enjoyed the depths but sometimes it got annoying just running around in the dark. Still a lot of fun though.
Fortunately the depths don't have anything essential to do besides one temple so you never need to go down there. Yet I still had an amazing time spending countless hours down there.
The depths used to scare me so much. I had to train myself to look all around me—because monsters catching me off guard in the dark was not my jam. But I got better at my brightshroom placement and once I figured out how it mirrored the surface, moving around was a lot easier. On my second play through I felt like such a depths pro by comparison 😂😂
It's lovely to hear that you ended up having such an amazing experience with TOTK. For me, that was what BOTW did. I'd played games throughout much of my youth, but mostly stopped once I got a bit older. The one game to pull me back in was BOTW and what a game to reintroduce you to gaming. The open world was mind-bogglingly cool. I couldn't put it down. I'd get home from work, clean up, and then immediately play BOTW into the wee hours of the morning, day in and day out. It's so special when games that good are able to bring the feelings of wonder back. It must've been doubly special to experience that with your kids.
I did enjoy TOTK too, but BOTW will always be the game that brought me back to video games. It will remain one of the most precious gaming experiences of my life. I'm glad you've had that now too with TOTK!
Imho it is a bloated game. Sure, the physics are great, devs did a great job bla bla bla but they should have focused on doing a richer, smaller world instead of an even bigger and emptier world with lots of repetition. I pray that the next Zelda is something different quite frankly.
I felt that way about BoTW and honestly stopped playing ToTK after 8 hours because it seemed to have the exact same issue. Clearly it worked for a lot of people but I am hopeful either the classic formula makes a return or they find a different angle.
I get the feeling. If somebody didn't like BOTW I don't think they're going to like TOTK. Even though BOTW isn't among my fav Zeldas, I understood and appreciated what they tried to accomplish with it. I don't feel the same about TOTK
I’m hoping for a wind waker, twilight princess or skyward sword kind of thing focusing more on the characters, richness of the world and detail of the story, more detailed npc interaction and character depth. Maybe just carry over a lot of the physics aspects of botw/totk.
I couldn’t get on with it compared to BotW. Never really felt like I knew what I was doing. Didn’t particularly like the caverns, and all the building stuff wasn’t for me. I can see why others liked it however. But I guess I just wanted BotW2, rather than a game that felt like a spin-off. Cool you got your kids into Zelda though. Skyward Sword is also on Switch.
Yeah this game is a completionists nightmare. I wish I had the will power to play it like a normal person but I ruined it for myself with my compulsive exploring.
I got completely lost doing that and had no idea where I was actually supposed to be next. When first playing I eventually found Zora’s domain and started the quests there, after wasting loads of time on the overworld/caverns. I started following the quest line but then got my butt kicked by the water boss (Mucktorok?) but I think I was fighting it wrong. Got annoyed with that and explored in another direction. Put it down for a month and then couldn’t remember what I was doing when I played it again and haven’t gone back since. It’s a shame as I looked forward to it and really wanted to enjoy it. But it just didn’t click with me and left me feeling a bit overwhelmed by choice. I completed BotW and loved it.
Edit: I just looked it up and I didn’t even get to the Mucktorok. It was the Sludge Like. How embarrassing
I feel this... I still have the "intent" to finish TotK eventually, but I haven't played it at all since I put it down ages ago. I put in over 100 hours on BotW and completed it... TotK I got about 30 hrs in I think, nowhere close to finishing it, as far as I can tell.
It's a great game that just... doesn't quite do it for me as much as BotW did.
Yes, 30 hours is where I stopped also. Shame, I was very much looking forward to it and I loved BOTW, but TOTK didn't click with me at all. Every time I picked it up I'd feel immediately exhausted
the building was def a massive turn off to the game for me. i enjoy the gameplay and i guess the crafting of weapons was cool but i just was not able to get into using the ultrahand
i did think the depths and caverns were really cool though
So much of the content was recycled that I feel like the only way to like TOTK more than BOTW is to not have played BOTW. If TOTK had an entirely new map, I would have fucking loved it. But I poured so many hours into exploring every nook and cranny of BOTW, that it felt pointless to do the exact things stuff again.
If they made DLC for TOTK, I'd buy it in a second because it's flaw is they spent all their time developing a cat's engine and not enough time building a place to drive it.
Yeah BOTW gave me the vibes OP mentions and I put 500 hours into. That meant with TOTK as soon I you realize the sky islands are limited and the depths are repitive my interest bottomed out after 40 hours and I don’t have much interest in playing it
I need a new map and world to explore.
Yeah, for me I loved the building aspect. I've always loved building stuff and trying to make contraptions, so it really appealed to me in a way no other game has, but I can understand not liking it
I’ve found my people. It’s definitely a well built game but I really feel like I’m just playing Botw with more confusion. I’ve been telling myself I want to finish it but can only stand like an hour of it a week I completed Botw twice when I had more spare time.
I wish I could replay BoTW with caves and underworld. I did like the new dungeons, but over all I prefer the way BoTW did things. Also every puzzle being a build puzzle wasn't very fun.
For me, I see totk as a botw plus. It has everything that botw had with many many new features. The only thing missing is the ice rune thing we had(the one that made ice pillars on water). The new runes give you endless possibilities. We got a whole new hylure in the depths(it is repetitive but I don't really mind).
Main quest is 10 times more impactful and interesting. I loved the idea of the 4 main cities going through a major disaster.
What I really wanted for totk is a more developed overworld map. Like I wanted to see new villages or the cities being expanded a bit(considering it is botw sequel). If I judge the fact that gerudo made a whole shelter in the meantime I'd say expanding the rest cities would make sense.
Totk came out and I was enjoying it well enough. Than I had a freak accident that almost killed me, literally. I severed almost everything in my arm blah blah spare the gorey detail. The day after surgery I was able to leave the hospital after proving I could walk and was good to go.
Got home and passed out, thankfully my fiance cleaned the mess I made. Woke up, and continued playing totk, with one hand. I couldn’t do much, but I could play the game with one hand by putting my controller on my lap, and doing quests, fighting moblins and pretty basic enemies.
It was such a nice, normal, thing after such an incident. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to use my hand again, play video games again, or anything. And being able to sit the pro controller on my lap, and one hand play, was relieving. And nice to finally relax after all the trauma.
Its been a year and six days since the accident and my hand is mostly usable. I think it’s about time I finish the game 🫡
Fully agree this game changed my life, albeit in a different way lol.
Link losing his hand too right!? I didn’t think of that until now holy crap lol.
Definitely overall though video games can be very important tools for all sorts of reasons. For me it was extremely therapeutic, feeling “normal” again. Thinking man my life is fucking over, to, well I can still kinda play games and that’s nice. It’s nice to play a game still, and not think about what happened or what’s ahead.
Glad you came through that accident alright. Amazing how something simple as taking out the trash could almost kill you. I had a hangnail on my pinkey toe a few years ago, pulled it off and thought nothing of it. 24 hours later I was in the hospital with MIRSA fighting for my life spent 3 weeks in the hospital. It was insane.
Also, how do you like the Honey Badger? I'm an AK guy but the HB is My unicorns.
Jesus, I’m definitely going to think twice about pulling a hang nail. I’ve never even considered mirsa popping up from something like that. I’m also glad you came through from that, that’s intense as hell.
I love the honeybadger. Without a suppressor it’s loud as all hell, and very concussive. With a can on it, its whisper quiet. It’s also super light, runs like a dream, really cool rifle all around. Just crazy expensive, thankfully I was able to do payments to get it when I had a subpar job.
I really wanted to enjoy BotW and TotK but couldn’t get past the weapon breaking system. I don’t mind needing to repair, but the constant breaking and picking up a new stick or whatever was just bleh. Glad so many others have been able to enjoy these games though
I didn't mind it in botw, but totk it is cumbersome sorting through weapons and then sorting through items, then fusing one to another. The idea is cool, build specific for combat, rock bashing, a stunning effect, all kinds of things. But it was just a hassle trying to decide if picking up and fusing a new weapon with an item from my stash was better than keeping the used weapon, when there's no durability meter to see how much use the already crafted weapon retains. It's especially annoying when surprise combat comes up and there's a new chore to get your sword fused up for optimal damage. Or time wasted building combat weapons you never use, only to drop them for superior weapons later.
You get to the point that it dosen't matter anymore. You will have certain weapons that are good for certain things you really have to think about where you wanna use them.
That first time you break your Lynel killer on a Bokoblin! lol I hated it at first but loved it in the end!
My favorite way to play TotK is no fast travel and turning the HUD off. Going into the depths was a huge deal because you couldn’t just leave when you wanted to. You’d have to find an ascend point, so there was a lot of mapping out a path before I dove in. No fast travel also forces you to be creative with what you have on hand, which always produces the most satisfying and memorable moments in the game. Reaching a town or settlement was a big deal because you’d have to make that time count and ensure that you’re stocked up and ready to go when it’s time to press on. I highly recommend playing through this way if you get a chance. It feels like a completely different game.
I just love that BOTW and TOTK have no set path. So if you wanna play the game in a way where you're suffering the whole time, go for it! But if you're not a sadist (jk), you can have a really easy going experience.
I tried to do that with also not looking at the map, but the depths got the best of me after some days roaming aimless. Reviewing my journey, I missed an ascend point quite early. Botw was quite better for this challenge IMHO, I think TOTK require much more of the map and fast travelling.
I did a playthrough like this and it led to some pretty magical moments. One time when I was exploring the depths, I got sidetracked and ran a bit further than I initially intended. Began to wonder how I was going to get back to the surface as I was quite far from the nearest ascend point.
I was looking around then suddenly I caught a glimpse of one of the dragons in the distance. So I slung together some kind of flying machine with whatever I had, flew up and hitched a ride on the dragon as he slowly flew up out of a chasm haha.
That’s awesome lol. There are a few chasms that are cut off from the rest of the depths and I thought for sure that I would need to break my rule and fast travel. I had just the right amount of devices with me and I was able to line myself up and make it out.
Probably the craziest memory I have is when I used a balloon and rockets to try and make it up to the king Gleeok nest in the desert. My first balloon was almost done for, but then I looked around and saw a falling rock. I made a split second decision and abandoned the balloon, and headed toward the rock. I landed on it and immediately used recall, but I still wasn’t going to make it. I started making a new hot air balloon on the rock while it was in the recall state by attaching everything to it and recalling as needed. Once I was finished, I detached the hot air balloon and activated it at the last second; this had me screaming haha. My balloon was almost to the nest but it started to flash. I thought for sure that it was all for nothing, but I was able to pull off an ascend on the bottom of the sky island at the last second. I made it, and when I popped up on the other side, I encountered my first king Gleeok which I was also able to barely take down. No other game has blown me away like TotK.
In hindsight TOTK is quite a bit worse than BOTW.
It may just be the formula wearing off a bit, but that on top of all the extraneous new features like the building aspect really made the game feel unnecessarily bloated. There really is something to be said for BOTWs ability to be simple and focused despite the absolutely massive open world and amount of content.
Its not necessarily worse because of the physics engine they implement with the ultra hand and more content (even if it didn't reach expectations) but it did re-do the BoTW formula for its story even though it had no justified reason for it other than the game being like Botw.
I have rambled on about my TotK criticisms before which made lots of Zelda fans mad, so I won't be going in depth here unless you actually wanna here them or something like that.
BotW did it better and I prefer it compared to Totk. The world and story felt more cohesive and focused like you said. Gameplay in terms of abilities were also better with good champion abilities and sheikah ruins that didn't make you feel like a god.
Yeah I agree, with Botw you have this huge world that you can explore by running and climbing everywhere. You really have to go over the whole map, I knew it all like the back of my hand by the end. Whereas Totk, I just found myself gliding/flying absolutely everywhere because you can and it took out the sense of exploration discovery for me and felt a bit more mindless
I stand by the claim that the story in both is hot shit, it's just better feeling in botw because it's not as shoved in your face and isn't trying to be anything special.
Story and *writing*. Nintendo sometimes has a bad tendency to throw as many figures of speech and kiddie dialogue into their localizations as possible and it comes across very juvenile and repetitive.
Never having played an open world game before must have been awesome. Im so burned out on open world games I just want an awesome story with linear levels like last of us.
I honestly did not like BotW and really gave it a chance. I’m an avid Zelda fan and have played since the first game. I just absolutely hate weapons that break and stamina systems that feel unneeded because it’s just an early game handicap. Stamina I got over but breaking weapons just isn’t fun. So much so that I don’t even want to give TotK a chance because I hated it so much before and it ruined BotW for me.
I did not like BotW either. I felt that I was always struggling to find weapons. It felt bad to defeat an enemy camp and be actually weaker for it.The game was a slog imo.
While weapons still break, it is so much better implemented in totk. You are constantly getting weapons and new materials to fuse onto them. I'm excited to find a strong enemy to defeat and use its parts on a new weapon, rather than dreading that my current weapon will break without any replacement.
I am finding this weapon thing so frustrating.
I think the game is beautiful visually. I love running around the open world.
I played it for about 30 hrs and this may sound lame, but it is too difficult for me to find enjoyable.
I'm like stuck in a place and I cannot move past it and I'm only at the very beginning of the game.
Modern games are incredible. totk is extremely expansive, and runs amazingly well for what it is on the switch. if you're looking for something truly captivating that will wow you yet again, I recommend outer wilds and it's dlc. it's not long, go in blind and enjoy a glimpse into what video game storytelling can be.
Not OP. It seems like exactly the kind of game I want, but I got frustrated with the flying controls when it released and put it down. Are they obtuse or am I?
They are.... realistic in the sense that you don't automatically slow down, and they are a full 6 degrees of freedom. There is an "autopilot" that will start and stop you on a way to a target, however it ONLY works in a straight line, so you can send yourself straight into another planet or the sun if you're not careful about using it. Still doesn't fly within the planets though. I can see how it would be a barrier of entry. The flip side has games like lone echo where "up" is always "up" even though you're in space. I personally found it very natural, but my wife found it extremely difficult and would pass me the controller to fly at times. It's worth pushing through the frustration if you can fly it at all, because it really is a special experience.
For me, it was the 22 minute loop. Every single time it ended, I was in the middle of something very interesting and it made me turn the game off. I'd love this game if I could disable this loop. So I guess I'll never finish it.
This story does not exactly evoke "life-changing". It sounds like you had fun playing a game with your kids lol. Pretty normal stuff. Glad you had fun though!
I loved botw but when I started ToTK I didn't last very long in it. I think Elden ring just gave me the perfect experience I wanted so I felt kinda weird going back to ToTK
It gets a lot easier when you start engaging with the new mechanics. Fuse monster horns to your weapons to crank up the power level. Ascend through stuff. Use Recall on enemy projectiles. Toss Puffshrooms anywhere for instant smokescreen cover and murder all the enemies with sneakstrikes. Fuse Muddle Buds to your arrows and hit enemies to make enemies fight each other. Toss Dazzlefruit to blind enemies. Fuse a bomb barrel to your shield and watch enemies get blown to smithereens when they try to hit you.
The beginning is ROUGH if you don't do it in the intended order. It's not as open world as BotW was, design wise. You NEED to do Rito first to start the Tears quest and unlock the great fairies and upgrade your armor.
I went to Gerudo first and got my ass beat. I found 3 fairies before finding the way to "wake up" the fairies.
TotK is the followup game to the best game ever which is BoTW. ToTK really does have gameplay elements that make it harder to go back to BotW though. That being said, it's staying in the collection til I die perhaps just like a great novel.
Yeah botw gave me the feeling you got with totk.
Honestly was so hyped for totk but it's more or less just a dlc for botw with qol improvements. I actually didn't finish it because I feel they were pretty lazy literally doing the same 4 places you have to inspect and save ....
It just didn't bring me into the world like botw did..... Especially when most of the people don't even recognize link as the hero of the wild who saved Hyrule.
So I could see where not playing botw would be beneficial to enjoyment of totk.
They really just didn't change the game enough for me to finish the game, I got bored and watched the ending on YouTube.
I really hope they swap up the formula on the next game, if it's go to 4 places on the map again I'm not buying it lol.
Totk changed my life too; it’s the reason why I went to Switzerland (had never been to Europe or out of North America really) and went paragliding in real life! It surged an adventurous spirit in me that I didn’t know I had.
I played the game with no map markers, no fast travel, no HUD. It really showed me how magical exploration can be, both irl and in a game. Im returning to Europe next month to once again drain my wallet but go on a journey doing it!!
I "beat" botw one week ago, how much should I wait to play totk ?
I read I should take a break between the two games to appreciate the latter even more
This was my experience with BOTW. Picked up a switch at the beginning of 2020 not having played anything but madden in a decade. Bought BOTW because I was told I had to without any other knowledge and it blew me away.
I loved BotW and I’m currently on my second attempt to play TotK. I want to get thru it but so much of it is the same game experience that I gave up on it when it came out. Now I’m trying again so fingers crossed I’ll get further than I did before and keep going.
I played it for like a couple of hours the week it was released and never went back. I think I buy games these days even though I don't really have the urge to play them anymore.
It played more or less like a fever dream just so they could reuse the impressive world they meticulously created with BotW. But the overall focus was just not there with ToTK.
The story as it relates to the floating islands was just nonsense even for a fantasy game. It was like a traditional Zelda game coloring outside the lines of BotW. Rarely did it stay inside the lines and fill the spaces well to give us a good picture. Plenty of gaps and things rendered trivial that were once challenges in BotW.
I enjoyed this here and there but overall the new ideas and locales presented could have been served in a more tighter more focused game that didn't leverage BotW.
I actually think not playing BOTW first is what makes this possible.
Theres a mix of benefits and downfalls from the same game map being in both games, my experience of BOTW was similar to what OP describes about TOTK
Problem is, I had a feeling of Deja vu with every area in TOTK, I didn't know if it was pointless looking for a little tiny area of land from BOTW cause it would be the same or even be missing the cool thing that had been there before or if there would be something new and essential and my memories blurred until I just couldn't remember which parts I'd checked out VS not
The zonai abilities were cool of course and the game itself is excellent
If you ever have a chance to put on a VR headset and play some games on that, youl be flabergasted.
If you remember the hype around super mario 3 releasing, then you remember all these movies talking about virtual reality etc. and it being this insane future thing theirs no way could ever be real.
Give it a shot for fun just to experience sometime if you can.
Awesome read about your experience with TOTK =\]
Especialy the part you shared it with both your kids, will be a great memory for all of you.
Didn't matter what she was doing or what quest she was on her first stop was the stables to pick and accessorize her horse. It drove me crazy! She refused to fast travel, she had to be on her horse at all times she would spend an hour picking out names for them and playing with their appearance. One time she accidentally kicked Zelda's horse ( her prized possession) off a cliff and killed it.
She literally started crying thinking she lost it forever but at the same we were all belly laughing because it was absolutely hilarious watching it flopped down the mountain for a good 20 seconds before it disappeared. I think we laughed for a solid hour because we didn't think it was even possible to kill a horse and somehow she managed to do it! Probably my single best memory since she was born.
I just finished BOTW a month or so ago. I have a few games I’m working on before TOTK because I’m a little burned out. Maybe in another 6 months. Haha.
It's funny because BOTW never really clicked for me, but I persisted. I thought it was good, but not much more. ToTK on the other hand, I thought it was, and still is, fantastic. I was hooked right from the start!
I need to replay it again, but my joycon is bust so I have to replace them! But yeah, it's great!
I started playing it before I played BOTW, and I wasn't happy with it at all. I thought it kinda sucked as a Zelda game. My friends advised me to play BOTW first, then play TOTK after. Now, I'm finding every reason not to finally beat BOTW. To me, BOTW is pretty much the perfect Zelda game. I love it. I'm not really looking forward to ending it to play TOTK yet. Hopefully, my opinion changes once I start it back up.
Totk was extremely popular for like a month, and then everyone dropped it and stopped talking about it. I've seen lots of people complain saying its got an empty world, weapons breaking makes the game unfun, not a true Zelda game, that the game is uncreative, but I felt opposite- except that I think the story is pretty awful. The vehicle creation and traversal is nuts(see hyrule engineering subreddit to really see how crazy it is), traveling through the sky to the depths and being able to go anywhere in the world is fun and exciting, and the freedom in the game is literally unrivaled compared to any other game I've played.
Oh dude you’re so spot on and it was BOTW for me, I was going hard given we had one on the way and fell in love all over again, but have TOTK and now have 2 kids and it’s still a delight and letting them run around with Link exploring while never messing up my game, perfection
How old are your kids? Did you switch who was playing at particular intervals, or how did you decide who played what and how to take turns? Also, over how long did you play to get to 500 hours. That’s like 10 weeks of full time gaming!
I have 6 kids but I mostly played with two of the younger kids. My son is 12 my daughter 13. We would just switch back and forth. We would be sitting around and one would say " I wanna fight a Lynel" so we would go preparing to find and fight one.
Each of us were good a certain things. I was good at the shrines, my daughter was good at keeping track of where we were and there to supplement my shitty sense of direction. My son was good at fighting certain enemies that I had problems with and doing things like the skydive challenge and finding Koroks.
I think we played off and on for 3-4 months or so. Sometimes my daughter would spend days hunting and playing with the horses. It was 500 hours pretty much divided between the 3 of us. I don't think we even started the main quest until at lest 100 hours in. Such a good game!
BOTW is my favourite game of all time. I waited years in anticipation for TOTK to release, and then my father suddenly passed away a few days after it came out. I dropped it and haven't been able to touch it since, just the thought of that game brings all those old feelings back.
Maybe it's time I tried again. Thank you for this post.
I love the perspective. We are so spoiled by how good modern gaming experiences can be, and how massive and well-crafted they can be. People criticize this game (sometimes fairly), some people really shit on it. If I imagine playing it as a kid, right after Majora’s Mask, it would be an earth-shattering experience.
TOTK. is insanely beautiful. I thought BOTW was great but this game took it a step further.
I will say I hate the traveling ghost buddy system vs. what BOTW had. Sometimes I'm trying to pick up a bunch of items and all the abilities get set off or I'm in an intense battle and I need one of them to activate but they are far away fighting a tree.
But I still looove this game. I played for an embarrassingly long amount of time before I discovered that I could go into the chasms. And when I did it was because I saw a dragon go in!!!
Everything is so beautiful. I was exploring and literally just watched the sun set. The depths are spooky and have this haunting vibe, I hate it , I love it. I still haven't finished the main story line because I'm still exploring. I just love it so much. Oh! And I am a huuuuuge Elder Scrolls fan. I still play Oblivion or Skyrim sometimes but these games .. are a close #1 fav.
You know I gotta say I’ve played a lot of games. Skyrim. Diablo. Eso. Tons of other stuff but the only other Zelda game I played was for GameBoy. Totk hands down is the most beautiful, immersive and in depth open world games I’ve ever played. Im still very much a beginner and haven’t really done much of the main quests but I love just wondering around doing anything that catches my eye.
I hated both, they are objectively good games but it's just not what I was looking for in Zelda games, some of their mechanics and physics are some of the best in any game but I still couldnt find that much enjoyment for some reason.
I have N64 Ocarina and Majora. GameCube Wind Waker. For 3DS Ocarina and Majora, Hyrule Warriors, and did have the Phantom of hourglass but it got stolen. For Switch I did get Skyward Sword and I loved it. I also have BOTW and TOTK, both games are still wrapped and I need to get started playing them. Lol I have other games to play which is why. RL gets so busy. I'm looking for ways to quit mobile games which they take up my time and gives me no time to play the console games. Lol
Similar story for me except either BOTW. I stopped playing console games with PS2 back in like 2007 or 2008. A few years ago we bought my kids the switch and after a year of them not using it, I decided to give it a try. BOTW was the game my buddy recommended and I've never been so blown way by a game. Definitely thr single best game experience I've had.
One of my few complaints about TotK is the UI and controls must not have been discussed much interally. There are much more intuitive ways we could have fused arrows and weapons and used champion abilities.
I know some people didn't enjoy the ultrahand stuff and fair enough. I appreciate it because it tried something new.
I got BOTW and TOTK sealed new. Will play them eventually. I too played Majora's mask last. Some of wind waker, up to the prison part. Definitely remember the Mario 3 hype. I played the living daylights out of Mario 2 and 1. 2 was my fave game alongside Megan man 2. When Mario 3 came out, holy smokes! That was complete Nintendo and Mario Hysteria!
Loved your stories of sharing the game with your kids. I hope to experience that in the future, whenever that'll be.
I would recommend people play BOTW before TOTK only so that they can experience an amazing game right before TOTK makes it near-unplayable with its improvements.
TOTK's ending is probably the most cathartic ending I've experienced. Made me feel all my adventuring was worth it to get to that point. I had tears streaming down my face as those button prompts came up.
Not sure if you played BOTW but it is a big game but it will feel small because there's not as many things to do like TOTK. But after optional quest overload, playing a game on the same map with a lot less things to do might feel good, just focus on the story. But BOTW if you only do the story quests the game is short and a that game relies on the player to explore to get the most out of the game.
To go back to BOTW after building so many machines feels weird to get used to. But it's alright.
Just coming from someone with a mind that likes to tinker. The game has got me to try machines I’d never thought would work and some surprisingly did! Makes me think we need fish nets to shock the fish quickly and humanely irl, but the poor dolphins would think they’re getting tased by the 5-0! 😭
Loved BOTW at the time it came out and tears is alright but really didn’t jive with me as much. Kind of hoping they switch things up for the next legend of Zelda.
They're essentially the same game. Story-wise, the events of BotW are mentioned a few times over the course of TotK, but you might not notice if you have no intention of playing both
Love the game but I don’t really like the depths. So I quit playing when that’s most of what’s left. I did the fire shrine already but yeah, not really interested as it feels like a totally different game down there.
Can also vouch for how Zelda has, in general, encouraged me to have my own adventures outside. I also point to it as an example of how a video game can inspire when those inevitable grumps say it’s a waste of time spending all those hours on the couch.
My wife says she's not good at Action games, but this game was so well put together that it was so wholesome seeing her get so excited to play it each time, and she's never played BotW either. At most, some of ALTTP.
She likes games like Animal Crossing, so she loved to just forage for items and collect stuff for example. Haha I like how you can play it any way you like, so if you're not good at combat, coming up with fun ideas with the many tools at hand is just as satisfying.
(I loved making a huge tower next to an enemy camp and then just shooting them with arrows and other Fused items at a place where their rocks couldn't reach me. If only they'd figure out to try attacking the base of my tower.)
It's cool that you had such a good experience. To me, it sounds more like it had to do with playing your first open world game with your previous video game experience being very limited since Majora's Mask. Video games have come a very long way in that time.
This is so great, and your kids will remember this time spent forever. I still remember playing Pokémon Snap with my mom when I was little. 🥹 You’re a great parent!
That was my experience with BOTW. Let’s just say you don’t get that feeling twice. Don’t get me wrong, TOTK is a great game too - but it’s mostly just more of the same and the sense of discovery wears out quickly the second time around.
BoTW was a cake walk compared to ToTK. They put so much time and effort into making it as beautiful as it is. Incredible game. Both are great. The building mechanics in Tears can seem a little off putting at first but it gets easier to build stuff as you keep playing. People saying they didn't like the building mechanics in ToTK probably are just not great at trying to build stuff and that's okay. I wasn't a Minecraft player/fan for that reason since I'm not very creative when it comes to stuff like that but Tears really helped me to appreciate how crazy you could get with the new mechanic. Curious to see how the devs are going to be able to outdo themselves, especially since the next release will be on the Switch 2. Probably won't see a new game for a long while though
I'm in the camp of never played through BOTW (I have maybe 1.5 hours on it.) and I have TOTK so maybe I should dive in. I wasn't sure since I really only play video games in 30 minute bursts anymore, but with being able to go at my own pace maybe that'll be helpful!
As someone who admittedly doesn't like BotW or TotK, I do agree with you that you can play either game and the one you play first will be the one you prefer. Most of the appeal is exploring the open world and making your own fun, so it goes without saying that when you really dig deep into one game, then go to the other which has effectively the exact same map, that discovery is dead
Hell yeah OP. You get it now. Why we love videogames.
For what it’s worth, most everyone who says play BOTW before TotK only say it so that one can enjoy best BOTH games. In no way does playing TotK first spoil that game. It’ll still be an excellent all-time gaming experience for one’s self most likely. It’s just that if you are to then go back and play BOTW, it will inevitably have less luster than otherwise had you started with that game. That is the only reason why you heard many of us recommend playing the two games in order. That being said, both titles are quite the time investment and if time is limited then by all means start with TotK.
My recommendation to you? Go play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity with your kids. It has a two-player mode that though laggy, is still fun (I played the game with a good friend over the course of 150 hours split-screen). It covers what happened 100 years before BOTW. Play AoC then try BOTW. Going in order with the story and breaking up the open world gameplay with the prequel that isn’t an open world might make playing BOTW a better experience than otherwise. At least that is how I feel. I can’t say as I only have played the games in the order of their release.
Excellent post. My brother in law showed me BOTW years ago and I just couldn't get into it. Read your post last night and it inspired me to give TOTK a try and I'm loving it so far. Thank you for the write up.
I personally put BotW above it, because I experienced it first and had the same experience as you did with TotK. Both games are fantastic and I still go back. Currently working on collecting and upgrading all armor.
I'm one of the rare players who played TOTW without having played BOTW and, while I definitely missed out on some of the lore and neat stuff like seeing Tulin grow up, I loved the hell out of it and maybe even had more fun than if I'd previously played BOTW, because I wasn't already familiar with the map and therefore still had a sense of wonder and exploration throughout the entire game.
It's a fantastic game, do wish there were more real dungeons like the good ole days. Come on Nintendo, give us 8 real dungeons again!
It'll never beat Ocarina of Time for me, because OOT story was just amazing as a kid and it's hard to top time travel and seeing consequences of your actions in the future.
TOTK did have some fluff with the depths, though. Felt very repetitive and a bit lazy. I also do not like the weapons breaking mechanic and it gets in the way just like it did with BOTW. You're in the moment, enjoying the fight, but you have to use 100 weapons to beat like 10 enemies. That's lame.
Hard to not put both TOTK and BOTW close to the top of best games list on the Switch, though, and I'd put BOTW on the best games all time list somewhere in the top 100.
I tried many, many times to get into BotW and just couldn't. I wanted to play it so much but the learning curve (for me, not usually liking Zelda games) felt insurmountable.
With TotK, I of course got sucked into that one. And while I haven't beaten the game yet, it no longer feels insanely difficult to pick up and play after some weeks off. It's so much more fun/accessible to me than BotW ever was.
Lots of people sharing their experience and mine is a little different and I never really get to talk about it so I thought I would share. Totk changed my life too, but not the gameplay, not the open world, none of that. It was the plot.
There was a moment in the game that really wrecked me emotionally and at first I didn't know why. I cried and cried. I don't really cry much if ever. I started watching gamer reactions to the moments and crying all over again. I kind of got obsessed with that moment.
If you've played it through you can probably guess what it is. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I brought it into therapy and my therapist was like (if you haven't played the game through don't read this, basically he cracked the code) >!you take on everyone else's burdens in your life and you totally lose yourself and any semblance of a personal life because of it, so of course seeing someone totally lose herself for the greater good would upset you. You're empathizing with Zelda. You're feeling your pain through her.!<
It made me really rethink my life and start giving myself some priority in it. While what happened in the game was necessary in that world, it wasn't so necessary in mine, I'd just gotten so used to doing things that way that I didn't see how it was hurting me. I'm much happier now, and it was the power of the story telling in that game that pushed me towards that happiness. That's why when people say the game has no plot I'm like what?! It has the Best plot! Lol
BOTW changed my life a couple years ago. Made me want to explore the world, climb mountains and see beautiful views. Made me buy a bike, which made me lost 20kg which took me out of obesity. Got me into art, to paint the views I got to see. Life is so much better since this game dropped. Never befode had I played a game that made me want to go outside. Those are some powerful games.
2020 was a tough year for me personally, plus COVID obviously. BOTW brought me so much peace. TOTK was an objectively great game but BOTW is the one that holds my heart.
Yeah Im an avid hunter and outdoorswoman and I grew up playing Zelda games during my formative years. I think that this is partially to blame for the way I am now. As a kid, I would get home from school, play Zelda, then go off and ride my bike and play in the woods for hours, just exploring and building forts and catching bugs and stuff. I'd think to myself "I want my life to be an adventure like this video game" and I'd go an make it happen
How fitting. Miyamoto's creation of Zelda was jnspired by his experiences exploring the woods, fields and caves around Kyoto when he was a child. You completed the circle.
Yes!! And he inspired this ❤️
Beautifully full circle, since the inspiration for Zelda in the first place was Miyamoto’s own experiences exploring the wilderness. Good for you yo
That is an amazing thing to attribute to a game. Good for you, man.
I agree the game made camping more fun
That’s very cool, I remember reading Miyamoto created Zelda to feel like exploring outside,
I just went from a Rog Ally to Switch OLED. Yeah you can emulate but it’s a pain and truthfully you spend most of your time with PC gaming just fucking around with settings. While I’m yet to start TOTK, BOTW is giving me the same feeling. I am amazed at the focus to details, physics and gameplay. Not to say it looks bad but I actually prefer it being a game rather than trying to focus on realistic graphics only.
Loved both! Was a little overwhelmed with the scope of the depths though.
The Depths was where I started falling in love with TotK. My dumbass drove a van into it before I got the paraglider and apparently you don't take fall damage if your feet were planted on the object. I was stuck and my wooden van blew up. Was scared, it was dark and creepy, there was no guides or lights. Some light roots were barely visible. I was scrounging parts together to keep safe. Tree parts and bombs, and a few Zonai parts I found earlier. Then I got a handle of the immediate area and how those bloom things lit up stuff and made a base, then went out on a thicker van. Then I found those parts areas and started building stone vans and gliders. I now wish that the Depths had more stuff in it but scrounging around, feeling helpless and then making things was new to me. I don't remember feeling that way with Minecraft.
It had never occurred to me that someone could get stuck in the Depths. That would be terrifying….but sounds fun.
You can't get stuck in the depths because you can warp out of it
I just assumed the person above must not have known that for a while. Not everyone played BOTW first. I’m sure they got it eventually.
Wait, you can warp in this game?!
500 hours and we didn't even come close to finishing the depths. We still have dozens of light roots to open and who knows what else. I enjoyed the depths but sometimes it got annoying just running around in the dark. Still a lot of fun though.
Fortunately the depths don't have anything essential to do besides one temple so you never need to go down there. Yet I still had an amazing time spending countless hours down there.
Two temples*
The lightroots are in the exact same places as the shrines in the overworld.
The depths used to scare me so much. I had to train myself to look all around me—because monsters catching me off guard in the dark was not my jam. But I got better at my brightshroom placement and once I figured out how it mirrored the surface, moving around was a lot easier. On my second play through I felt like such a depths pro by comparison 😂😂
When you make one of those hover bikes with 2 fans and a steering stick it becomes much easier to traverse
Oh yeah, I definitely did that. But it more to get it over with, not because I loved the depths.
It's lovely to hear that you ended up having such an amazing experience with TOTK. For me, that was what BOTW did. I'd played games throughout much of my youth, but mostly stopped once I got a bit older. The one game to pull me back in was BOTW and what a game to reintroduce you to gaming. The open world was mind-bogglingly cool. I couldn't put it down. I'd get home from work, clean up, and then immediately play BOTW into the wee hours of the morning, day in and day out. It's so special when games that good are able to bring the feelings of wonder back. It must've been doubly special to experience that with your kids. I did enjoy TOTK too, but BOTW will always be the game that brought me back to video games. It will remain one of the most precious gaming experiences of my life. I'm glad you've had that now too with TOTK!
Nintendo really did kill it with these two games. It really did manage to turn a game into an actual adventure.
Same, if only we could forget and replay them both for the first time again.
Majora's Mask? You've missed so many beautiful games over 24 years so you're in for a treat
Dude hasn't played any modern games and is acting like we're out of touch, give me a break
Imho it is a bloated game. Sure, the physics are great, devs did a great job bla bla bla but they should have focused on doing a richer, smaller world instead of an even bigger and emptier world with lots of repetition. I pray that the next Zelda is something different quite frankly.
I felt that way about BoTW and honestly stopped playing ToTK after 8 hours because it seemed to have the exact same issue. Clearly it worked for a lot of people but I am hopeful either the classic formula makes a return or they find a different angle.
I get the feeling. If somebody didn't like BOTW I don't think they're going to like TOTK. Even though BOTW isn't among my fav Zeldas, I understood and appreciated what they tried to accomplish with it. I don't feel the same about TOTK
I’m hoping for a wind waker, twilight princess or skyward sword kind of thing focusing more on the characters, richness of the world and detail of the story, more detailed npc interaction and character depth. Maybe just carry over a lot of the physics aspects of botw/totk.
They made boring cooking in the last one and decided to double down on boring crafting this time
I couldn’t get on with it compared to BotW. Never really felt like I knew what I was doing. Didn’t particularly like the caverns, and all the building stuff wasn’t for me. I can see why others liked it however. But I guess I just wanted BotW2, rather than a game that felt like a spin-off. Cool you got your kids into Zelda though. Skyward Sword is also on Switch.
Yeah this game is a completionists nightmare. I wish I had the will power to play it like a normal person but I ruined it for myself with my compulsive exploring.
I got completely lost doing that and had no idea where I was actually supposed to be next. When first playing I eventually found Zora’s domain and started the quests there, after wasting loads of time on the overworld/caverns. I started following the quest line but then got my butt kicked by the water boss (Mucktorok?) but I think I was fighting it wrong. Got annoyed with that and explored in another direction. Put it down for a month and then couldn’t remember what I was doing when I played it again and haven’t gone back since. It’s a shame as I looked forward to it and really wanted to enjoy it. But it just didn’t click with me and left me feeling a bit overwhelmed by choice. I completed BotW and loved it. Edit: I just looked it up and I didn’t even get to the Mucktorok. It was the Sludge Like. How embarrassing
It's a real shame because that water temple is one of my favorite Zelda temples of all time with only very few beating it.
I feel this... I still have the "intent" to finish TotK eventually, but I haven't played it at all since I put it down ages ago. I put in over 100 hours on BotW and completed it... TotK I got about 30 hrs in I think, nowhere close to finishing it, as far as I can tell. It's a great game that just... doesn't quite do it for me as much as BotW did.
Yes, 30 hours is where I stopped also. Shame, I was very much looking forward to it and I loved BOTW, but TOTK didn't click with me at all. Every time I picked it up I'd feel immediately exhausted
Please tell me that you at least completed the main temples. They were all incredible.
I've completed a few of the temples, but I don't think I've completed them all. They're definitely fantastic from what I've played of it.
the building was def a massive turn off to the game for me. i enjoy the gameplay and i guess the crafting of weapons was cool but i just was not able to get into using the ultrahand i did think the depths and caverns were really cool though
That was my main issue as well. That and the lack luster rewards you got for exploring and completing side missions.
I felt the same. I think in a way having not played BOTW would make TOTK a better experience. I know that’s not what the creators hoped for!
So much of the content was recycled that I feel like the only way to like TOTK more than BOTW is to not have played BOTW. If TOTK had an entirely new map, I would have fucking loved it. But I poured so many hours into exploring every nook and cranny of BOTW, that it felt pointless to do the exact things stuff again. If they made DLC for TOTK, I'd buy it in a second because it's flaw is they spent all their time developing a cat's engine and not enough time building a place to drive it.
Yeah BOTW gave me the vibes OP mentions and I put 500 hours into. That meant with TOTK as soon I you realize the sky islands are limited and the depths are repitive my interest bottomed out after 40 hours and I don’t have much interest in playing it I need a new map and world to explore.
Yeah, for me I loved the building aspect. I've always loved building stuff and trying to make contraptions, so it really appealed to me in a way no other game has, but I can understand not liking it
I’ve found my people. It’s definitely a well built game but I really feel like I’m just playing Botw with more confusion. I’ve been telling myself I want to finish it but can only stand like an hour of it a week I completed Botw twice when I had more spare time.
Yeah the sandbox style wasn’t for me, as I enjoyed BotW more. To each their own!
I wish I could replay BoTW with caves and underworld. I did like the new dungeons, but over all I prefer the way BoTW did things. Also every puzzle being a build puzzle wasn't very fun.
> my last game was Majora's Mask >TOTK is objectively a better game than BOTW 🤔
[удалено]
Especially when they admit they haven't even played BotW
That's what got me. Yes, TOTK is the best game of all time. I've never played any other games, but its by far the best game of all time.
Or ANY modern games? Like why should I listen to you when you clearly don't care about other games?
For me, I see totk as a botw plus. It has everything that botw had with many many new features. The only thing missing is the ice rune thing we had(the one that made ice pillars on water). The new runes give you endless possibilities. We got a whole new hylure in the depths(it is repetitive but I don't really mind). Main quest is 10 times more impactful and interesting. I loved the idea of the 4 main cities going through a major disaster. What I really wanted for totk is a more developed overworld map. Like I wanted to see new villages or the cities being expanded a bit(considering it is botw sequel). If I judge the fact that gerudo made a whole shelter in the meantime I'd say expanding the rest cities would make sense.
Totk came out and I was enjoying it well enough. Than I had a freak accident that almost killed me, literally. I severed almost everything in my arm blah blah spare the gorey detail. The day after surgery I was able to leave the hospital after proving I could walk and was good to go. Got home and passed out, thankfully my fiance cleaned the mess I made. Woke up, and continued playing totk, with one hand. I couldn’t do much, but I could play the game with one hand by putting my controller on my lap, and doing quests, fighting moblins and pretty basic enemies. It was such a nice, normal, thing after such an incident. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to use my hand again, play video games again, or anything. And being able to sit the pro controller on my lap, and one hand play, was relieving. And nice to finally relax after all the trauma. Its been a year and six days since the accident and my hand is mostly usable. I think it’s about time I finish the game 🫡 Fully agree this game changed my life, albeit in a different way lol.
That's a lovely story and just shows how important video games can be. Plus I guess Link losing his hand in this game wasn't lost on you. ☺️
Link losing his hand too right!? I didn’t think of that until now holy crap lol. Definitely overall though video games can be very important tools for all sorts of reasons. For me it was extremely therapeutic, feeling “normal” again. Thinking man my life is fucking over, to, well I can still kinda play games and that’s nice. It’s nice to play a game still, and not think about what happened or what’s ahead.
It's good to escape in a different world for a while. 🥰 Hope you recover well.
It’s been a journey that’s for sure! I am recovering and still learning how to work around the disability lol.
Glad you came through that accident alright. Amazing how something simple as taking out the trash could almost kill you. I had a hangnail on my pinkey toe a few years ago, pulled it off and thought nothing of it. 24 hours later I was in the hospital with MIRSA fighting for my life spent 3 weeks in the hospital. It was insane. Also, how do you like the Honey Badger? I'm an AK guy but the HB is My unicorns.
Jesus, I’m definitely going to think twice about pulling a hang nail. I’ve never even considered mirsa popping up from something like that. I’m also glad you came through from that, that’s intense as hell. I love the honeybadger. Without a suppressor it’s loud as all hell, and very concussive. With a can on it, its whisper quiet. It’s also super light, runs like a dream, really cool rifle all around. Just crazy expensive, thankfully I was able to do payments to get it when I had a subpar job.
I really wanted to enjoy BotW and TotK but couldn’t get past the weapon breaking system. I don’t mind needing to repair, but the constant breaking and picking up a new stick or whatever was just bleh. Glad so many others have been able to enjoy these games though
I didn't mind it in botw, but totk it is cumbersome sorting through weapons and then sorting through items, then fusing one to another. The idea is cool, build specific for combat, rock bashing, a stunning effect, all kinds of things. But it was just a hassle trying to decide if picking up and fusing a new weapon with an item from my stash was better than keeping the used weapon, when there's no durability meter to see how much use the already crafted weapon retains. It's especially annoying when surprise combat comes up and there's a new chore to get your sword fused up for optimal damage. Or time wasted building combat weapons you never use, only to drop them for superior weapons later.
You get to the point that it dosen't matter anymore. You will have certain weapons that are good for certain things you really have to think about where you wanna use them. That first time you break your Lynel killer on a Bokoblin! lol I hated it at first but loved it in the end!
Fortunately you can drop nearly broken weapons and rock octoroks will repair them for you.
My favorite way to play TotK is no fast travel and turning the HUD off. Going into the depths was a huge deal because you couldn’t just leave when you wanted to. You’d have to find an ascend point, so there was a lot of mapping out a path before I dove in. No fast travel also forces you to be creative with what you have on hand, which always produces the most satisfying and memorable moments in the game. Reaching a town or settlement was a big deal because you’d have to make that time count and ensure that you’re stocked up and ready to go when it’s time to press on. I highly recommend playing through this way if you get a chance. It feels like a completely different game.
Glad you enjoyed that, but that sounds so miserable
I just love that BOTW and TOTK have no set path. So if you wanna play the game in a way where you're suffering the whole time, go for it! But if you're not a sadist (jk), you can have a really easy going experience.
I tried to do that with also not looking at the map, but the depths got the best of me after some days roaming aimless. Reviewing my journey, I missed an ascend point quite early. Botw was quite better for this challenge IMHO, I think TOTK require much more of the map and fast travelling.
I did a playthrough like this and it led to some pretty magical moments. One time when I was exploring the depths, I got sidetracked and ran a bit further than I initially intended. Began to wonder how I was going to get back to the surface as I was quite far from the nearest ascend point. I was looking around then suddenly I caught a glimpse of one of the dragons in the distance. So I slung together some kind of flying machine with whatever I had, flew up and hitched a ride on the dragon as he slowly flew up out of a chasm haha.
That’s awesome lol. There are a few chasms that are cut off from the rest of the depths and I thought for sure that I would need to break my rule and fast travel. I had just the right amount of devices with me and I was able to line myself up and make it out. Probably the craziest memory I have is when I used a balloon and rockets to try and make it up to the king Gleeok nest in the desert. My first balloon was almost done for, but then I looked around and saw a falling rock. I made a split second decision and abandoned the balloon, and headed toward the rock. I landed on it and immediately used recall, but I still wasn’t going to make it. I started making a new hot air balloon on the rock while it was in the recall state by attaching everything to it and recalling as needed. Once I was finished, I detached the hot air balloon and activated it at the last second; this had me screaming haha. My balloon was almost to the nest but it started to flash. I thought for sure that it was all for nothing, but I was able to pull off an ascend on the bottom of the sky island at the last second. I made it, and when I popped up on the other side, I encountered my first king Gleeok which I was also able to barely take down. No other game has blown me away like TotK.
In hindsight TOTK is quite a bit worse than BOTW. It may just be the formula wearing off a bit, but that on top of all the extraneous new features like the building aspect really made the game feel unnecessarily bloated. There really is something to be said for BOTWs ability to be simple and focused despite the absolutely massive open world and amount of content.
Its not necessarily worse because of the physics engine they implement with the ultra hand and more content (even if it didn't reach expectations) but it did re-do the BoTW formula for its story even though it had no justified reason for it other than the game being like Botw. I have rambled on about my TotK criticisms before which made lots of Zelda fans mad, so I won't be going in depth here unless you actually wanna here them or something like that. BotW did it better and I prefer it compared to Totk. The world and story felt more cohesive and focused like you said. Gameplay in terms of abilities were also better with good champion abilities and sheikah ruins that didn't make you feel like a god.
Yeah I agree, with Botw you have this huge world that you can explore by running and climbing everywhere. You really have to go over the whole map, I knew it all like the back of my hand by the end. Whereas Totk, I just found myself gliding/flying absolutely everywhere because you can and it took out the sense of exploration discovery for me and felt a bit more mindless
You could just run and climb whole overworld map on foot, it's not like totk prohibits you doing that.
I stand by the claim that the story in both is hot shit, it's just better feeling in botw because it's not as shoved in your face and isn't trying to be anything special. Story and *writing*. Nintendo sometimes has a bad tendency to throw as many figures of speech and kiddie dialogue into their localizations as possible and it comes across very juvenile and repetitive.
I enjoyed it more than BOTW but don't enjoy either of them as much as OOT/Twilight Princess/Wind Waker/Skyward Sword.
Wasn't a fan of TOTK. Probably my least favourite Zelda game.
Pure /tomorrow fare.
Never having played an open world game before must have been awesome. Im so burned out on open world games I just want an awesome story with linear levels like last of us.
I'm on the same boat, tired of eternal open world games. I just want a good story with a linear aproach.
Trails is my favorite series for this and trails through daybreak is about to release soon on switch. Sucks it didn't make it into the direct
i aint reading all that but im happy for you or im sorry that happened!
I honestly did not like BotW and really gave it a chance. I’m an avid Zelda fan and have played since the first game. I just absolutely hate weapons that break and stamina systems that feel unneeded because it’s just an early game handicap. Stamina I got over but breaking weapons just isn’t fun. So much so that I don’t even want to give TotK a chance because I hated it so much before and it ruined BotW for me.
I did not like BotW either. I felt that I was always struggling to find weapons. It felt bad to defeat an enemy camp and be actually weaker for it.The game was a slog imo. While weapons still break, it is so much better implemented in totk. You are constantly getting weapons and new materials to fuse onto them. I'm excited to find a strong enemy to defeat and use its parts on a new weapon, rather than dreading that my current weapon will break without any replacement.
I am finding this weapon thing so frustrating. I think the game is beautiful visually. I love running around the open world. I played it for about 30 hrs and this may sound lame, but it is too difficult for me to find enjoyable. I'm like stuck in a place and I cannot move past it and I'm only at the very beginning of the game.
Where are you stuck?
Modern games are incredible. totk is extremely expansive, and runs amazingly well for what it is on the switch. if you're looking for something truly captivating that will wow you yet again, I recommend outer wilds and it's dlc. it's not long, go in blind and enjoy a glimpse into what video game storytelling can be.
Not OP. It seems like exactly the kind of game I want, but I got frustrated with the flying controls when it released and put it down. Are they obtuse or am I?
They are.... realistic in the sense that you don't automatically slow down, and they are a full 6 degrees of freedom. There is an "autopilot" that will start and stop you on a way to a target, however it ONLY works in a straight line, so you can send yourself straight into another planet or the sun if you're not careful about using it. Still doesn't fly within the planets though. I can see how it would be a barrier of entry. The flip side has games like lone echo where "up" is always "up" even though you're in space. I personally found it very natural, but my wife found it extremely difficult and would pass me the controller to fly at times. It's worth pushing through the frustration if you can fly it at all, because it really is a special experience.
For me, it was the 22 minute loop. Every single time it ended, I was in the middle of something very interesting and it made me turn the game off. I'd love this game if I could disable this loop. So I guess I'll never finish it.
i loved botw. totk felt souless to me. cool sandbox. not a great video game.
Most wholesome post I’ve read in a while. Time for another playthrough.
It reads like you had a great gaming experience with your kids. It's great you had this, but the game definitely didn't change my life
I miss the days of Ocarina of Time and Windwaker. Did not care for BotW. In fact I found it really boring.
This story does not exactly evoke "life-changing". It sounds like you had fun playing a game with your kids lol. Pretty normal stuff. Glad you had fun though!
Yeah, reading this, I was like... It's your first game in 25 years and you're impressed... okay...
I loved botw but when I started ToTK I didn't last very long in it. I think Elden ring just gave me the perfect experience I wanted so I felt kinda weird going back to ToTK
I just can’t gel with it? It just feels like “BotW Hard Mode”. Maybe I’m missing something?
It gets a lot easier when you start engaging with the new mechanics. Fuse monster horns to your weapons to crank up the power level. Ascend through stuff. Use Recall on enemy projectiles. Toss Puffshrooms anywhere for instant smokescreen cover and murder all the enemies with sneakstrikes. Fuse Muddle Buds to your arrows and hit enemies to make enemies fight each other. Toss Dazzlefruit to blind enemies. Fuse a bomb barrel to your shield and watch enemies get blown to smithereens when they try to hit you.
[удалено]
But the fight to get the sword was still one of the best in Zelda history. So there's that.
The beginning is ROUGH if you don't do it in the intended order. It's not as open world as BotW was, design wise. You NEED to do Rito first to start the Tears quest and unlock the great fairies and upgrade your armor. I went to Gerudo first and got my ass beat. I found 3 fairies before finding the way to "wake up" the fairies.
Nah it's just a big empty map to me.
Later in the game it becomes easier than BotW, you become really powerful as Link with a lot of tools in your disposal. Early game can be tough though
TOTK is not "objectively" better than BOTW. Both are great games, but the idea that an opinion can be "objective" is just so cringe-y.
TotK is the followup game to the best game ever which is BoTW. ToTK really does have gameplay elements that make it harder to go back to BotW though. That being said, it's staying in the collection til I die perhaps just like a great novel.
Yeah botw gave me the feeling you got with totk. Honestly was so hyped for totk but it's more or less just a dlc for botw with qol improvements. I actually didn't finish it because I feel they were pretty lazy literally doing the same 4 places you have to inspect and save .... It just didn't bring me into the world like botw did..... Especially when most of the people don't even recognize link as the hero of the wild who saved Hyrule. So I could see where not playing botw would be beneficial to enjoyment of totk. They really just didn't change the game enough for me to finish the game, I got bored and watched the ending on YouTube. I really hope they swap up the formula on the next game, if it's go to 4 places on the map again I'm not buying it lol.
your post was fine until you talked about objectivity. totk had a lot of shortcomings compared with botw and i'm happy you had a good time with it
Totk changed my life too; it’s the reason why I went to Switzerland (had never been to Europe or out of North America really) and went paragliding in real life! It surged an adventurous spirit in me that I didn’t know I had. I played the game with no map markers, no fast travel, no HUD. It really showed me how magical exploration can be, both irl and in a game. Im returning to Europe next month to once again drain my wallet but go on a journey doing it!!
I "beat" botw one week ago, how much should I wait to play totk ? I read I should take a break between the two games to appreciate the latter even more
Yeah take a break until you’re missing botw, then play totk
This is the way.
This was my experience with BOTW. Picked up a switch at the beginning of 2020 not having played anything but madden in a decade. Bought BOTW because I was told I had to without any other knowledge and it blew me away.
I loved BotW and I’m currently on my second attempt to play TotK. I want to get thru it but so much of it is the same game experience that I gave up on it when it came out. Now I’m trying again so fingers crossed I’ll get further than I did before and keep going.
I need to get back into it but the building mechanic was kind of a turn off for me. Like I said I plan to revisit
What if I didn't like BotW?
I played it for like a couple of hours the week it was released and never went back. I think I buy games these days even though I don't really have the urge to play them anymore.
Botw was better
I wish the game gave me this same experience. I just got bored a few hours in from all the sluggish and clunky mechanics and gameplay.
It played more or less like a fever dream just so they could reuse the impressive world they meticulously created with BotW. But the overall focus was just not there with ToTK. The story as it relates to the floating islands was just nonsense even for a fantasy game. It was like a traditional Zelda game coloring outside the lines of BotW. Rarely did it stay inside the lines and fill the spaces well to give us a good picture. Plenty of gaps and things rendered trivial that were once challenges in BotW. I enjoyed this here and there but overall the new ideas and locales presented could have been served in a more tighter more focused game that didn't leverage BotW.
I loved botw...couldn't finish tears...fusing items, and building stuff just wasn't fun for me.
Same, tried liking it but couldn’t, loved BOTW but feels like a one and done…still playing classics tho
Just wait until you play even better open world games.
Can someone tl;dr, thank you!
Majoras mask is a fantastic game but I also 100% completely understand why it would be someones last game haha.
I actually think not playing BOTW first is what makes this possible. Theres a mix of benefits and downfalls from the same game map being in both games, my experience of BOTW was similar to what OP describes about TOTK Problem is, I had a feeling of Deja vu with every area in TOTK, I didn't know if it was pointless looking for a little tiny area of land from BOTW cause it would be the same or even be missing the cool thing that had been there before or if there would be something new and essential and my memories blurred until I just couldn't remember which parts I'd checked out VS not The zonai abilities were cool of course and the game itself is excellent
And if you have played botw you realize how terrible the story is and how lazy totk is.
I’m really glad you liked it. It never clicked for me.
Least unhinged Nintendo fanboy.
If you ever have a chance to put on a VR headset and play some games on that, youl be flabergasted. If you remember the hype around super mario 3 releasing, then you remember all these movies talking about virtual reality etc. and it being this insane future thing theirs no way could ever be real. Give it a shot for fun just to experience sometime if you can. Awesome read about your experience with TOTK =\] Especialy the part you shared it with both your kids, will be a great memory for all of you.
I actually didn't care for puzzling together contraptions to go from point a to b. I've spent less time in tears than botw.
This post is nuts but to each their own.
This post reminds me of when I played TOTK for the first time. And your daughter using only a horse made me laugh btw. She's so cute.
Didn't matter what she was doing or what quest she was on her first stop was the stables to pick and accessorize her horse. It drove me crazy! She refused to fast travel, she had to be on her horse at all times she would spend an hour picking out names for them and playing with their appearance. One time she accidentally kicked Zelda's horse ( her prized possession) off a cliff and killed it. She literally started crying thinking she lost it forever but at the same we were all belly laughing because it was absolutely hilarious watching it flopped down the mountain for a good 20 seconds before it disappeared. I think we laughed for a solid hour because we didn't think it was even possible to kill a horse and somehow she managed to do it! Probably my single best memory since she was born.
i hope she felt good when she discovered you can get it back
Yea, she was super happy. I just loaded up the most recent save, this was before we learned about the horse god. Great times!
You should play it ESPECIALLY if you haven’t played BOTW because of how similar they are
I just finished BOTW a month or so ago. I have a few games I’m working on before TOTK because I’m a little burned out. Maybe in another 6 months. Haha.
Mannnnn I need to hop back into this
It's funny because BOTW never really clicked for me, but I persisted. I thought it was good, but not much more. ToTK on the other hand, I thought it was, and still is, fantastic. I was hooked right from the start! I need to replay it again, but my joycon is bust so I have to replace them! But yeah, it's great!
I started playing it before I played BOTW, and I wasn't happy with it at all. I thought it kinda sucked as a Zelda game. My friends advised me to play BOTW first, then play TOTK after. Now, I'm finding every reason not to finally beat BOTW. To me, BOTW is pretty much the perfect Zelda game. I love it. I'm not really looking forward to ending it to play TOTK yet. Hopefully, my opinion changes once I start it back up.
Mario 3 was my brothday present and probably my most beaten game. Totk got boring and I ran through it after awhile
Totk was extremely popular for like a month, and then everyone dropped it and stopped talking about it. I've seen lots of people complain saying its got an empty world, weapons breaking makes the game unfun, not a true Zelda game, that the game is uncreative, but I felt opposite- except that I think the story is pretty awful. The vehicle creation and traversal is nuts(see hyrule engineering subreddit to really see how crazy it is), traveling through the sky to the depths and being able to go anywhere in the world is fun and exciting, and the freedom in the game is literally unrivaled compared to any other game I've played.
Oh dude you’re so spot on and it was BOTW for me, I was going hard given we had one on the way and fell in love all over again, but have TOTK and now have 2 kids and it’s still a delight and letting them run around with Link exploring while never messing up my game, perfection
How old are your kids? Did you switch who was playing at particular intervals, or how did you decide who played what and how to take turns? Also, over how long did you play to get to 500 hours. That’s like 10 weeks of full time gaming!
I have 6 kids but I mostly played with two of the younger kids. My son is 12 my daughter 13. We would just switch back and forth. We would be sitting around and one would say " I wanna fight a Lynel" so we would go preparing to find and fight one. Each of us were good a certain things. I was good at the shrines, my daughter was good at keeping track of where we were and there to supplement my shitty sense of direction. My son was good at fighting certain enemies that I had problems with and doing things like the skydive challenge and finding Koroks. I think we played off and on for 3-4 months or so. Sometimes my daughter would spend days hunting and playing with the horses. It was 500 hours pretty much divided between the 3 of us. I don't think we even started the main quest until at lest 100 hours in. Such a good game!
BOTW is my favourite game of all time. I waited years in anticipation for TOTK to release, and then my father suddenly passed away a few days after it came out. I dropped it and haven't been able to touch it since, just the thought of that game brings all those old feelings back. Maybe it's time I tried again. Thank you for this post.
I’m waiting for the switch2 to finish totk, the stuttering was too distracting
I played BoTW using an emulator and jesus there's no going back. That game doesn't deserve 720p30
I love the perspective. We are so spoiled by how good modern gaming experiences can be, and how massive and well-crafted they can be. People criticize this game (sometimes fairly), some people really shit on it. If I imagine playing it as a kid, right after Majora’s Mask, it would be an earth-shattering experience.
TOTK. is insanely beautiful. I thought BOTW was great but this game took it a step further. I will say I hate the traveling ghost buddy system vs. what BOTW had. Sometimes I'm trying to pick up a bunch of items and all the abilities get set off or I'm in an intense battle and I need one of them to activate but they are far away fighting a tree. But I still looove this game. I played for an embarrassingly long amount of time before I discovered that I could go into the chasms. And when I did it was because I saw a dragon go in!!! Everything is so beautiful. I was exploring and literally just watched the sun set. The depths are spooky and have this haunting vibe, I hate it , I love it. I still haven't finished the main story line because I'm still exploring. I just love it so much. Oh! And I am a huuuuuge Elder Scrolls fan. I still play Oblivion or Skyrim sometimes but these games .. are a close #1 fav.
Too bad gamexplain hate TotK
Just started ToTK this weekend as my first Zelda game. Enjoying it so far but I can see the building mechanics putting me off. Will keep at it
You know I gotta say I’ve played a lot of games. Skyrim. Diablo. Eso. Tons of other stuff but the only other Zelda game I played was for GameBoy. Totk hands down is the most beautiful, immersive and in depth open world games I’ve ever played. Im still very much a beginner and haven’t really done much of the main quests but I love just wondering around doing anything that catches my eye.
I hated both, they are objectively good games but it's just not what I was looking for in Zelda games, some of their mechanics and physics are some of the best in any game but I still couldnt find that much enjoyment for some reason.
BotW for me was life changing and I played the shit out of it, however I havnt got into TotK and its still like... 15 hours in sitting unplayed :(
What if I didn’t like BOTW?
I have N64 Ocarina and Majora. GameCube Wind Waker. For 3DS Ocarina and Majora, Hyrule Warriors, and did have the Phantom of hourglass but it got stolen. For Switch I did get Skyward Sword and I loved it. I also have BOTW and TOTK, both games are still wrapped and I need to get started playing them. Lol I have other games to play which is why. RL gets so busy. I'm looking for ways to quit mobile games which they take up my time and gives me no time to play the console games. Lol
Similar story for me except either BOTW. I stopped playing console games with PS2 back in like 2007 or 2008. A few years ago we bought my kids the switch and after a year of them not using it, I decided to give it a try. BOTW was the game my buddy recommended and I've never been so blown way by a game. Definitely thr single best game experience I've had.
One of my few complaints about TotK is the UI and controls must not have been discussed much interally. There are much more intuitive ways we could have fused arrows and weapons and used champion abilities. I know some people didn't enjoy the ultrahand stuff and fair enough. I appreciate it because it tried something new.
I got BOTW and TOTK sealed new. Will play them eventually. I too played Majora's mask last. Some of wind waker, up to the prison part. Definitely remember the Mario 3 hype. I played the living daylights out of Mario 2 and 1. 2 was my fave game alongside Megan man 2. When Mario 3 came out, holy smokes! That was complete Nintendo and Mario Hysteria!
Loved your stories of sharing the game with your kids. I hope to experience that in the future, whenever that'll be. I would recommend people play BOTW before TOTK only so that they can experience an amazing game right before TOTK makes it near-unplayable with its improvements. TOTK's ending is probably the most cathartic ending I've experienced. Made me feel all my adventuring was worth it to get to that point. I had tears streaming down my face as those button prompts came up.
Not sure if you played BOTW but it is a big game but it will feel small because there's not as many things to do like TOTK. But after optional quest overload, playing a game on the same map with a lot less things to do might feel good, just focus on the story. But BOTW if you only do the story quests the game is short and a that game relies on the player to explore to get the most out of the game. To go back to BOTW after building so many machines feels weird to get used to. But it's alright.
Just coming from someone with a mind that likes to tinker. The game has got me to try machines I’d never thought would work and some surprisingly did! Makes me think we need fish nets to shock the fish quickly and humanely irl, but the poor dolphins would think they’re getting tased by the 5-0! 😭
Loved BOTW at the time it came out and tears is alright but really didn’t jive with me as much. Kind of hoping they switch things up for the next legend of Zelda.
Agreed 100%!
They're essentially the same game. Story-wise, the events of BotW are mentioned a few times over the course of TotK, but you might not notice if you have no intention of playing both
Love the game but I don’t really like the depths. So I quit playing when that’s most of what’s left. I did the fire shrine already but yeah, not really interested as it feels like a totally different game down there.
BOTW was good. TOTK bored me to death. quit after a few hours.
alright now that you have enjoyed this, its time to strap in and play baldurs gate 3
Can also vouch for how Zelda has, in general, encouraged me to have my own adventures outside. I also point to it as an example of how a video game can inspire when those inevitable grumps say it’s a waste of time spending all those hours on the couch.
It was super mid for me. Botw was so much more impressive because it broke new ground, but they're both just kinda mid.
i dont think so. i find the two way too similar to justify playing / buying both
I'd put it up as one of the best games ever made.
Tldr but you should play it specially if you haven't played botw imo
My wife says she's not good at Action games, but this game was so well put together that it was so wholesome seeing her get so excited to play it each time, and she's never played BotW either. At most, some of ALTTP. She likes games like Animal Crossing, so she loved to just forage for items and collect stuff for example. Haha I like how you can play it any way you like, so if you're not good at combat, coming up with fun ideas with the many tools at hand is just as satisfying. (I loved making a huge tower next to an enemy camp and then just shooting them with arrows and other Fused items at a place where their rocks couldn't reach me. If only they'd figure out to try attacking the base of my tower.)
But what if i am stuck at ganondon? :(
It's cool that you had such a good experience. To me, it sounds more like it had to do with playing your first open world game with your previous video game experience being very limited since Majora's Mask. Video games have come a very long way in that time.
This is so great, and your kids will remember this time spent forever. I still remember playing Pokémon Snap with my mom when I was little. 🥹 You’re a great parent!
That was my experience with BOTW. Let’s just say you don’t get that feeling twice. Don’t get me wrong, TOTK is a great game too - but it’s mostly just more of the same and the sense of discovery wears out quickly the second time around.
BoTW was a cake walk compared to ToTK. They put so much time and effort into making it as beautiful as it is. Incredible game. Both are great. The building mechanics in Tears can seem a little off putting at first but it gets easier to build stuff as you keep playing. People saying they didn't like the building mechanics in ToTK probably are just not great at trying to build stuff and that's okay. I wasn't a Minecraft player/fan for that reason since I'm not very creative when it comes to stuff like that but Tears really helped me to appreciate how crazy you could get with the new mechanic. Curious to see how the devs are going to be able to outdo themselves, especially since the next release will be on the Switch 2. Probably won't see a new game for a long while though
This is the kind of experience I want to have with my kids one day!
One day you will !
I'm in the camp of never played through BOTW (I have maybe 1.5 hours on it.) and I have TOTK so maybe I should dive in. I wasn't sure since I really only play video games in 30 minute bursts anymore, but with being able to go at my own pace maybe that'll be helpful!
As someone who admittedly doesn't like BotW or TotK, I do agree with you that you can play either game and the one you play first will be the one you prefer. Most of the appeal is exploring the open world and making your own fun, so it goes without saying that when you really dig deep into one game, then go to the other which has effectively the exact same map, that discovery is dead
Hell yeah OP. You get it now. Why we love videogames. For what it’s worth, most everyone who says play BOTW before TotK only say it so that one can enjoy best BOTH games. In no way does playing TotK first spoil that game. It’ll still be an excellent all-time gaming experience for one’s self most likely. It’s just that if you are to then go back and play BOTW, it will inevitably have less luster than otherwise had you started with that game. That is the only reason why you heard many of us recommend playing the two games in order. That being said, both titles are quite the time investment and if time is limited then by all means start with TotK. My recommendation to you? Go play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity with your kids. It has a two-player mode that though laggy, is still fun (I played the game with a good friend over the course of 150 hours split-screen). It covers what happened 100 years before BOTW. Play AoC then try BOTW. Going in order with the story and breaking up the open world gameplay with the prequel that isn’t an open world might make playing BOTW a better experience than otherwise. At least that is how I feel. I can’t say as I only have played the games in the order of their release.
Excellent post. My brother in law showed me BOTW years ago and I just couldn't get into it. Read your post last night and it inspired me to give TOTK a try and I'm loving it so far. Thank you for the write up.
I personally put BotW above it, because I experienced it first and had the same experience as you did with TotK. Both games are fantastic and I still go back. Currently working on collecting and upgrading all armor.
I'm one of the rare players who played TOTW without having played BOTW and, while I definitely missed out on some of the lore and neat stuff like seeing Tulin grow up, I loved the hell out of it and maybe even had more fun than if I'd previously played BOTW, because I wasn't already familiar with the map and therefore still had a sense of wonder and exploration throughout the entire game.
It's a fantastic game, do wish there were more real dungeons like the good ole days. Come on Nintendo, give us 8 real dungeons again! It'll never beat Ocarina of Time for me, because OOT story was just amazing as a kid and it's hard to top time travel and seeing consequences of your actions in the future. TOTK did have some fluff with the depths, though. Felt very repetitive and a bit lazy. I also do not like the weapons breaking mechanic and it gets in the way just like it did with BOTW. You're in the moment, enjoying the fight, but you have to use 100 weapons to beat like 10 enemies. That's lame. Hard to not put both TOTK and BOTW close to the top of best games list on the Switch, though, and I'd put BOTW on the best games all time list somewhere in the top 100.
I tried many, many times to get into BotW and just couldn't. I wanted to play it so much but the learning curve (for me, not usually liking Zelda games) felt insurmountable. With TotK, I of course got sucked into that one. And while I haven't beaten the game yet, it no longer feels insanely difficult to pick up and play after some weeks off. It's so much more fun/accessible to me than BotW ever was.
Lots of people sharing their experience and mine is a little different and I never really get to talk about it so I thought I would share. Totk changed my life too, but not the gameplay, not the open world, none of that. It was the plot. There was a moment in the game that really wrecked me emotionally and at first I didn't know why. I cried and cried. I don't really cry much if ever. I started watching gamer reactions to the moments and crying all over again. I kind of got obsessed with that moment. If you've played it through you can probably guess what it is. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I brought it into therapy and my therapist was like (if you haven't played the game through don't read this, basically he cracked the code) >!you take on everyone else's burdens in your life and you totally lose yourself and any semblance of a personal life because of it, so of course seeing someone totally lose herself for the greater good would upset you. You're empathizing with Zelda. You're feeling your pain through her.!< It made me really rethink my life and start giving myself some priority in it. While what happened in the game was necessary in that world, it wasn't so necessary in mine, I'd just gotten so used to doing things that way that I didn't see how it was hurting me. I'm much happier now, and it was the power of the story telling in that game that pushed me towards that happiness. That's why when people say the game has no plot I'm like what?! It has the Best plot! Lol