I HATE TEARS OF THE KINGDOM
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- Опубликовано: 15 июл 2024
- I really wanted to love this game. I couldn't. Here's why.
This is my first ever video essay, and my first attempt at making any sort of long form content, ever. It took me over a year to make, but Tears of the Kingdom broke me down so bad that I had no choice. Thanks so much for watching! If you really REALLY liked this video, consider supporting me on Patreon! / ittybittyskitty
That epic kazoo cover of the main theme can be found here: • Tears of the Kingdom K...
Featuring Voltage as Rauru / @voltagevo
Orion’s TotK Video: • Tears of the Kingdom: ...
Nerrel’s TotK Video: • Tears of the Kingdom R...
Rat Zaddy’s video about the house-building minigame: • The Biggest House-Buil...
JWittz screaming WHAAAAAAT??: • Top 10 Best Pokéballs
Table of Contents:
0:00 - Intro
3:16 - The Hype (was) Real
5:24 - My Suffering Begins
17:20 - A Necessary Disclaimer
20:24 - Link's Abilities
24:09 - More Like Loser Interface
31:32 - (Re)exploring Hyrule
44:23 - A Video Game World
47:57 - Dropping The Ball
58:13 - The Zonai
1:05:06 - The Sky
1:11:57 - The Depths
1:22:18 - The Dungeons
1:49:42 - Shrines
2:20:11 - Sidequests and Rewards
2:31:19 - Combat (sort of)
2:37:34 - Story and Characters
3:08:22 - How I'd Fix It
3:16:34 - Final Thoughts
SOURCES (in order of appearance)
/ spoilers_about_the_spr...
/ botw_ss_comparison_of_...
www.polygon.com/legend-zelda-...
/ totks_shrines_are_name...
apnews.com/article/nintendo-b...
www.washingtonpost.com/arts-e...
kotaku.com/hookshots-wii-u-ma...
www.ign.com/articles/zelda-te...
www.nintendo.com/my/interview...
www.famitsu.com/news/202309/0...
www.nintendo.com/my/interview...
/ messages_from_an_ancie...
FOOTAGE (in order of appearance)
Pokemon S/V: / @betabrawler
MySims Party: • MySims Party - nintend...
WiiU Trailer: • Nintendo Wii U Trailer...
Tulin blowing items away: • Zelda Tears Of The Kin...
Game Grumps TotK: • Game Grumps - Best of ...
Zeltik’s TotK review: • Tears of the Kingdom: ...
Zeltik saying funny bad words: • Top 5 BEST Shrines in ...
Skyward Sword: / @zorzelda
Kaam Ya’tak Shrine: • Kaam Ya'tak Shrine Gui...
ALttP Master Sword: • The Legend of Zelda - ...
Blue Coins in Super Mario Sunshine: • Super Mario Sunshine A...
Korok Torture: • This is a Real Zelda Game
TotK in 39:50: • TotK Any% 39:50 (v1.0....
KH1 Gummi Ship menu: • How to build the best ...
All other footage is either watermarked or was recorded by me!
Copyright Disclaimer: under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
![NoCap - Yacht Party [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rm_lvDln8kE/mqdefault.jpg)
"Since we're all gonna die, there's one more secret I feel I have to share with you: I did not care for Tears of the Kingdom."
- "What? how can you even say that?"
"Didn't like it."
- "But skitty it's so good! It's like the perfect Breath of the Wild!"
"This is what everyone always said. Whenever they say it's like: *Oh my-"*
- "Eiji Aonuma, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, I mean, that guy worked on Skyward Sw-"
"I know, I know."
- "MANAKA KATAOKA!!!"
"Fine. Fine. Fine composer, _did not like the game."_
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Out of all the amazingly funny/informative comments on this video, mine was the last I expected to be pinned 💀
@@shame2189i rotate the pinned pretty regularly. this one took me out though
It *insists* upon itself!
@@LenamLorbington I'm kind of dissapointed the "it insists upon itself" part wouldn't have worked as well as the start, because TOTK really does insist upon itself. So much so it invalidates BOTW
The fact that this started with them wanting to make a love letter to BOTW and ended with them making a three hours hate letter to TOTK is kinda poetic
Love the term "hate letter"
Not really. If anything it's kinda deranged and unhealthy to put hundreds of hours, literally days of your life into something you hate.
@@prizmovr8817 I mean, it's not something I'd do (I think, who knows), but I choose to take it lightly or jokingly like with the comment cause it's not my life so who am I to judge or criticize
@@prizmovr8817you obviously didn’t watch the video lol
Is it unhealthy? People have made much longer media analysis videos on youtube. What’s the difference between making an analysis on something you love or hate when it comes to mental health? passion goes both ways
Link: My girlfriend turned into a dragon.
Impa: That's rough, buddy.
Fire Emblem: First time?
Smash, next question
@@lookassperal9850to Impa?
Better than a maractus
That's a upgrade
The one fix I still stand by is that Link needed to get send to the past instead of Zelda.
That way the whole overworld could be different. In fact we could’ve had dungeons that were dilapidated in Breath.
We could’ve kick it with Rauru as a partner or whatever.
I’m 100% with you on this. I think putting TOTK in the past would have fixed a lot of its story/NPC/exploration issues
@@KC-tw1wdhow about swallowing the stone to get back and rescue Zelda. We get to play as a fucking dragon and demolish Ganon. Sacrificing ourself for the greater good. Making it more emotional and impactful.
Adhd and OCD brain here. I played tears of the kingdom for over 300 hours. I went through every cave, got every bubblegem, collected every piece of equipment, completely filled the compendium, did every quest, completed all three maps... and when I was done, I felt so empty.
TotK made me question why I try to complete the fun out of games, it was just mindless, and I couldn't stop myself. At a certain point I was no longer having fun, but I couldn't let myself move on over thoughts that the true reward was coming any moment
One of the very first NPC's you meet at Lookout Landing tells you that they're taking refuge there after their home was destroyed when Lurelin Village was raided by pirates. When I first heard that, I was SO intrigued to see theses new pirate enemies and headed straight for Lurelin.
I get there and find out the "pirates" were just Bokoblins. Not even special, unique Bokoblins that wear pirate outfits or anything. Literally the exact same Bokoblins you can find everywhere else.
I was expecting some pirate Hylians like in Wind Waker 😭
I imagined Gerudo pirates like Majora's Mask, or Skeleton pirates like in Skyward Sword or the Oracle games. I was quite upset. Well, at least the ship was original... Then I ran into the same ships all over the map 😐
@@labrynianrebel The Skyward Sword Pirates are actually ROBOT Skeleton Pirates, the Oracle ones are just plain old regular skeletons. Both of which are infinitely more interesting than Totk's Bokoblin Pirates that actually aren't even pirates.
@@netweed09 Nobody Likes You.
@@netweed09 You want to know what in Hyrule I was expecting? PIRATES. I was expecting PIRATES. The game literally told me there would be PIRATES, and so I expected there to be PIRATES. Instead I got ordinary, generic Bokoblins. Not even special pirate Bokoblins, no. The exact same Bokoblins you can find in every other part of the game. As in, 100% identical. Literally copy-pasted.
Other Zelda games were able to do pirates just fine, what's Totk's excuse?
link's (non) reaction to zelda turning into a dragon made me wanna throw away my switch 💀
😂😅😅
Yeah it's absolutely baffling how Link is so expressive when cooking and eating... but when it's about his supposed GF he's less expressive than a rock.
For goodness sake, Nintendo could've made him yell "Zelda!" out loud during the final skydive...but no.
@@avon_c6199 exactly, like botw link could get away with the lack of emotion cuz of the amnesia but there is absolutely no excuse for this game, ESPECIALLY when we learn at the end that link canonically loves zelda but apparently couldn't give a shit that she's now an immortal dragon ???
@@jmurray7721 How far off base would I be to assume that we didn't get any of that in terms of showing actual affection and love the way us westerners understand it, cause the japanese might have an issue with showing it that publicly so they didn't do it for their own sake?
@@avon_c6199 honestly all i wanted was for link to shed a tear or at least look a little upset instead of a blank slate. i remember the look of distraught he had in skyward sword which was done infinitely better than totk
I keep pounding at the gates of nintendo HQ asking for a ganon who wants power to end the reincarnation curse that hes been driven to madness by but they keep ignoring me
also: putting on my Corporate Thinking Conspiracy Hat, i think this IS an unfinished game unfortunately. Nintendo would have continously justify its development on things like story, continuity, and with 6 years gone by already I think the shareholders were like "Well we need Product so out it goes!"
I think botw had so much love put into partly because it was the switch's flagship game, and to the Investor/Stock Shareholder Overlords, the investment by the devs was justified by a greater profit (new game system, amiibos, dlc, merch, etc) which is why a shitty sequel thats running solely on the clout of the first game is a tale as old as time
Finally I feel justified in my losing interest in this game
Seriously. I lost interest in this game only a few months after I started playing it. Meanwhile I can replay BOTW over and over again without ever getting bored or losing interest with the story. Totk just doesn’t hold up as well from an emotional standpoint
I was losing interest by the time I was halfway through the main story.
Not that I'd say BotW was much better. It shares many of the same glaring issues that TotK either failed to fix or made worse.
Its so infuriating that the zonai LITERALLY just take the place of the sheika JUST for the sake of a slightly different aesthetic, and the sheika just get absolutely dropped.
dont get me wrong, like their designs, but its such a conceptual retread instead of expanding what’s already there that its infuriating.
But it's kinda like an origin story for them, yea?
I thought the whole point was to show that these familiar ideas are all connected and yet also unique
I wouldnt even mind, if the zonai didnt feel like a direct downgrade from the sheika, both lorewise and designwise.
The sheikatechnology was integrated into their culture in such an interesting way that wasnt really explored in totk
SAME I was so excited for a game where the focus would be on magic versus technology, and writing wise why does a supposedly powerful, magic species use technology in the first place?
@@NatetheSensitivePlant Why can't they use both really?
@@jaydenc367 cause necessity is the mother of invention, the reason that magic societies don't use technology is because there is no need. When you compare the original concept of shiekah and Zonai, you have a group of people who seem to have forsaken their magic for superior technology, as shown by the fact that the yiga are more powerful than the average shiekah, and those two societies are very different, with different priorities and capabilities. The zonai were supposed to be powerful, magic users but there was no talk of them having advanced technology, and there doesn't seem like a need or a reason why except for in-game mechanics. We don't know how they figured out their machines, and the storytelling around it is weak. Why did they build cannons when they can blast through things with huge beams of light?
And besides magic in TOTK is such an untapped potential, literally, because the main zonai relic, the secret stones, make innate abilities stronger. Why weren't they focusing on that instead of building cars?
Their priorities don't make sense and we will never get answers because Nintendo doesn't care
“Little nerdy gay woman complaining about her hyper-fixation” is my favourite genre of video essay.
Shout out to _People talking about they hyperfixation for 1+ hours with valid arguments_ , it has to be one of my favorite genders.
Absolutely based. I'd do this if I were less self conscious and I probably will once I get a decent pc. 😂
@@Ixarus6713I should really get into it as well, but I’d need to get better at editing as well as get a proper setup XD
@@mr.j3rs3y SAAAAAME.
Ill keep doing what I always do: Pace around my room rambling to myself for 2 hours about a game I love/hate.
@@DonTinker do u mean genre?
Describing this game as junk food is just the perfect description. That first bite is magical, it feels like the best thing you've ever eaten, and then each bite gets worse and worse until u feel like throwing up and realise u just ate a bunch of chemical processed garbage.
Honestly, so true. Everything else aside - I was so excited going through the first dungeon and boss, and awakening the sage (which I already wasn't a huuuuge fan of, but whatever, I could get behind it). Only to discover the other 3 dungeons were exact copy/paste dialogs at the end. I wanted to scream - it's such lazy writing. I immediately lost all interest in the rest of the story; which was boring anyway imo.
I know BoTW story isn't exactly praised much either, but at least I got attached to characters. We got to experience the pain and hopelessness they all felt during Ganon's attack in the memories.
It's genuinely insane to me how Majora's mask, a game with a development process that was awful for the developers, and made in less than half the time it took to make totk, is now one if the most highly-praised and loved games of all time.
It's crazy.
Maybe you should go play majora's mask and realise that games were a lot easier to make back then and yanno way less expansive
It's also a very unenlightened logic to say "the methods of development for the thing I like are clearly better than the thing that's new and I don't" with like no self awareness how shallow of a criticism that is
The whole underlying systems had to be changed to make everything physics based in ToTK. For the surface, the entirety of hyrule had to be passed over and redone. Sure that shouldn't take as long as initially creating it, but it is still a lot of work. Don't get me wrong I love Majoras, but it has a higher percentage of reused assets and game systems (from a programming perspective). Between the remaking of things using physics systems, the new powers, the dungeons, the sky, and the depths, totk definitely had more new things involved in it. Major's was also it was insanely rushed, and they weren't even fully happy with it. Games these days are wildly different in scale from back then.
@@Joshm5396is that really true? Because I can believe it might be more expensive but given the technological advancement in the industry you can make the case that it's actually easier to make games today than say 2 decades ago.
And depending on the type of game it has even gotten cheaper just look at the massive influx of indie devs some of them are small teams of 2 or 3 people coding an entire game.
@@Dark_sparky honestly if they had to comb over the entire surface of hyrule anyways and basically overhaul everything, they should have just made a brand new world to explore.
Goated for putting in a "look at the screen dumbass" jingle for people like me.
maybe i just forgot but i didnt hear the jingle once lol
@@tylerandari12It's there. Here's an example.
39:20
@@tylerandari12 There were a couple times where i had to do a double take to make sure i heard it(sometimes i didn't).
Having the jingle sound effect is an awesome idea that I wish more reviewers do!!! I often like to listen to these reviews while doing something else but it can be super annoying if I turn and look at the screen and see important edited notes flashing in screen. It makes me think that i have to watch the whole thing so having a cue letting me know I have to look at the screen is great!
- made about a minute worth of videos
- returns year later
- 3 hour essay on why TotK sucks ass
- gigachad theme intensifies
Autism. Sadly.
@@user-zx1ur
Autism is Chad when used Right
@@user-zx1ur more like happily, i'm eating this up
@@user-zx1ur many such cases!
@@user-zx1urautism is when someone doesn’t like overhyped trash
"I'd like nothing more than to smash the demon king" got me rolling on the floor 🤣 that line will never be the same again
The Vine boom and 😳 really sell it 🤣☠️
I think the moment that doomed this game was fairly early on in the planning stage, when someone high up at Nintendo asked a boardroom full of men in suits "Okay, Breath of the Wild was a big hit, what do we do to top that?" And then everyone started shouting ideas:
The player base really latched onto the Zonai stuff. I mean we just wanted to draw some Mayan looking structures in the jungle because jungle, and the fans are spooling themselves up over it.
The fans have been asking where this game falls in the timeline, especially since we deliberately put conflicting evidence in like Zoras standing next to Rito. We should probably tie this back into the core story and reference Ocarina of Time a lot.
I heard someone mention that there aren't a lot of caves in Breath of the Wild and that exploring caves has been a staple of the series, let's do a couple hundred of those.
Better idea, let's do an entire underworld the size of the entire map of Hyrule that's in perpetual dark and the player has to explore and light it up.
There's a contingent of fans who say they like Skyward Sword better, so let's put a bunch of islands in the sky and bring back skydiving mechanics.
Lynels were really popular, so let's bring back more classic monsters. What haven't we done since the N64? How about Like Likes and Gleeoks?
Crafting mechanics! Players don't just want to cook, they want to build vehicles!
Crafting mechanics! Players don't just want to upgrade their armor, they want to build their weapons!
After awhile of this, the higher-up running the meeting quoted Bruce Almighty and said "Yes. To All! There, now everybody's happy."
And so the game ended up CRAMMED full of ideas, none of which have any room for development at all.
Mas o TOTK tbm foi sucesso. E ainda vai vender pra caramba no Switch 2. Não vejo razão pra voltar a fórmula clássica.
As someone who watches a lot of videos and read interviews on gamedev, and has read and seen everything from the zelda devs, I can assure that's not how it goes at all, and that the creative process is not some weird corporate mismatch of ideas, but I still agree that the game tries to do too much for it's own good
As much as BOTW isn't my thing it's really a coherent package and I can appreciate its game design. TOTK is a mess that unfortunately ruins BOTW in retrospect. To fully appreciatte BOTW I need to pretend Nintendo created some fanfic like they did with Age of Calamity. I'm more comfortable with Spirit Tracks being canon than TOTK.
@@yazeldafan I...sadly... agree
@yazeldafan BotW is a unique case of a disappointing sequel ruining its predecessor retroactively for reasons that AREN'T (strictly) about the story. Part of what I loved about BotW was the _potential_ it showed as a blueprint for Zelda games going forward. I was willing to look past some of its shortcomings because I thought some of the ways to build on it would be obvious.
TotK showed that Aonuma has _no_ goddamn idea what he's doing with this series still, and is only content with sales figures and short term hype since BotW was such a coup for him. His callous comments about the pre-BotW games in December made that especially clear.
secret stone??????? demon king!!!!?!?!?!???????
Psycho mantis?
Metal...Gear???
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones?!?!?
You're that ninja.......
so that was the imprisoning war............
For the quality of this video I present the highest honour I can provide: Watching it while eating a meal
I'm literally at the pub right now having a pint and watching this
Long ass meal lol
I watched it on a slow work day 😂
Me, with steak and salad and mash potatoes… utter honor
I remember when I thought this was going to be Twillight Princess Ganandorf. Time travel doesn't HAVE to make stories suck, but it has a bad habit of being poorly executed.
To be fair time travel stories are WAYYYY harder to make than most people realize. (Unless you cop out with the alternate timeline excuse). Writing a good time travel story takes an extensive amount of pre-planning and is more like a mystery story than a sci-fi story. Just like a mystery story you typically want to start backwards with the answer and work out how the heroes arrived there. Trying to add time travel to a story that didn't start with it originally will always lead to issues.
That theory never made sense, it looked nothing like TP Ganondorf.
In BotW I almost always walked from one point to another, rarely riding horses. I'd veer off and end up finding a korok puzzle, a hidden shrine, or just some cool landmark.
In TotK it was so easy to fly across the entire map, and because the world was almost identical to BotW's, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.
We need a video on why the hell they got rid of Kass with no explanation whatsoever
kass will be unpacked in the autisticut (it’ll release within six months depending on how heavily edited it is)
@@skittybittyholy I love the phrase Autisticut
I hate Kass I’m glad his corny bird ass is gone
I _really_ thought Kass would be the core of story DLC. It'd even mirror his significance with BOTW's DLC 🙃
@@skittybittyAutisticut is the greatest thing ever, holy
This whole video is a pinboard where everything surrounds a post-it note with the words “70 United States Dollars” sharpied on there
literally
im the 70th like on this comment. How ironic.
My only guess for what happened in those 6 years is that they mustve scrapped the game several times before finally settling on a final idea.
I know this is a baseless theory, but it seems entirely plausible to me. Like they kept trying and failing to nail down a good open world concept for the sequel, so eventually just decided to recycle the same story structure.
No, that's not what happened. If you look the developers interviews it becomes crystal clear that what happened is that the vast majority of the development resources went to the physics engine and Ultra hand.
All because Fujibayashi and Aonuma got overtly enamoured with the vehicle building feature, to the point that paid little to no attention to anything else.
@@XanderVJ Lets hope that the leaders of the project are satisfied enough with the engine now to actually focus on making a game next time instead of a tech demo. I doubt that will happen though with how successful financially the games have been. As it is, why should I care about something that 'the creators' clearly don't. To me it seems like most (but not all) Nintendo properties have been declining ever since the Wii-era of their company began with a lot of their internal policies outright making most long established franchises worse over time, with the notable exception of Mario Odyssey being outright incredibly good.
@@liarwithagun Aaah... No. The Switch era has been objectively superior to the shovel ware-driven era of the Wii, and many of their franchises are in the strongest they've been in a long time, if not ever.
"Splatoon" has been perfected and it's now one of Nintendo's most valuable franchise. "Pikmin 4" was the best game in the franchise since 2003, "Fire Emblem" got a maginificent back to form in "Three Houses", Tetsuya Takahashi FINALLY was able to pull off a master piece as big as he has been wishing since 1998 thanks to "Xenoblade Chronicles 3", the "Metroid" series has become more popular than ever, "Kirby" got one of its most charming games as well as its best selling ever, and I could go on. On the other hand, the only Wii era games that have truly pass the test of time are the "Mario Galaxy" games.
Heck, even "Breath of the Wild" was a triumph when you leave aside the debate of whether it's a true Zelda game or not.
The only games when there has been a truly noticeable downgrade are, for the most part, Nintendo's sport games, for some reason, and I guess "Animal Crossing", albeit I haven't played this one.
The mistep of "Tears of the Kindom" is the exception, not the norm.
@@XanderVJ Yep,, there's our best singular answer to "What went wrong with Tears of the Kingdom?"
The whole development budget got dumped into the physics engine. And what semblance of a game they made out of it was built on *liberal* use of recycled assets with a bare-bones slapdash plot to tie it all together.
As someone that has shared basically all these opinions on launch and was incessantly told to shut up, THANK YOU!
This is exactly what my experience was, omg. I had soooo many of these exact reflections myself almost immediately, like days post release. I felt ppl were kind of dismissive when I brought them up
exactly. Like don’t get me wrong, I of course was excited for totk, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to pick up on the flaws with the game design. People are allowed to have opinions, if someone else sees no problem with this game and loves it good for them. To me this game will never hit as hard as BOTW
3 hours of listening to Fiona from adventure time complain about tears of the kingdom. I love it
oh she’s the va? Learn something new everyday
@@KyeXGamernope it’s not me haha they’re making a joke
@@skittybittytomboy >:)
@@MacenW wrong. skitty.
@@edgehead2695 BASED skittygender
Me absorbing all the passionate “I didn’t like totk” videos because I feel the exact same way yet do not have the energy to put together a 3 hour video myself, condensing all of my points.
"Bored and overwhelmed at the same time" is so well put. In breath of the wild absolutely everything fascinates you and draws your attention, but in this game I could not care less about the absurd number of hudson signs, or koroks, or side quests. Literally nothing in this game draws my attention but then on paper there is an enormous amount of "content"
I was not enjoying ToTK when I played it on release but couldn't put my finger on why until the lightning temple.
In the lightning temple, I knew I had to get to the top. So I thought: maybe I can be clever about this.
So I spent a bunch of time making a zonai device that I could use to float all the way to the top. It took energy refill stones and replacing pieces on the way up, but I did it and used the ceiling climb to get into the final chamber. Aaaand no boss.
Because I didn't do it the way the devs intended, I didn't "solve" the dungeon.
Another moment was when I looked up and saw a huge gauntlet in the sky. I built a vehicle and flew all the way up, spending a bunch of resources and time, then I did all the combat and challenges on the way up that path and I finally got to the top. Turns out it was the water temple and, because I didn't do it in the order the devs wanted, I just got nothing. Couldn't even enter the dungeon.
Breath of the wild's whole draw for me was how you could creatively solve things. As long as you got to the objective, you did it.
ToTK always hands you exactly the solution it wants you to use. If you try to be creative, nothing you do will be more efficient than just using the car they give you for the challenge. If you try to do something more efficient than the answer they hand to you, they go "no, that solution wouldn't be fun" and block you somehow.
Actually, most puzzles (but not all) are way easier to solve using one of four simple efficient strategies rather than the dev intended way. These strategies are: rocket shield, air bike, literally just ascend, and ultrahand+recall. Those four simple and easy strategies solve most of the game's puzzles. The best and most fun puzzles are the ones you can't solve using these four solutions.
The sound effect for when important information is on-screen is honestly such a smart idea for these longform videos that a lot of people just listen to that I can't believe I haven't seen it done before.
Honestly yeah, it's catchy enough to grab my attention for really fun points but subtle enough that it's not jarring. I've seen it done occasionally done in other video essays but it doesn't usually meet the mark like this or appear so consistently
Ive only noticed the sound once during the whole video, definitely didnt work for me lmao. Not jaring enough
I cant emphasize how cute representing your mom as a Delcatty is
Literally every clip of her mom was so adorable!
she’s appreciating all the love haha she wants a delcatty plushie now
@@skittybitty Welp, you better go get her one 😅
@@boiwifeyasmr4U 🫡🫡
@@skittybittyFull Momma Skitty playthrough when??
I adore how your mom just sounds like an older more distinguished version of you
Its just like one of my Japanese animes!
Literally only 3 minutes in but I appreciate that you have an auditory indicator for when something important on screen is shown. I often listen to videos like this while I’m cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc. so it’s nice to have a sound that indicates there is something important on screen. Really cool that you did that
Purah being a sage never even crossed my mind but now i realize just how much better that would be then just reusing mineru
@@netweed09 yeah it would have been cooler to see a temple where all the lost sheikah tech dissapeared to or something, and honestly, any character from the memories should stay in the memories
YEA LIKE WHAT REAL PURPOSE DOES PURRA HAVE
Boo. What could possibly be better than a giant underground rideable robot companion? Imho the best reward in the entire franchise. Mixing things up a little with that quest was a high point
Honestly I dunno...Mineru was pretty cool too. Purah would be a interesting Sage though and the Mech could make sense for her too really.
@@netweed09 literally the pot calling the kettle black, look at the rest of your seething in this comment section. you abuse the caps key like nintendo has abused your sense of taste
Wow this plush toy certainly has some articulate opinions
The Hyrule Castle soundtrack was SO GOOD in Breath of the Wild. The amount of emotions Hyrule Castle Exterior and Interior provided to the exploration of the castle made BOTW's Hyrule Castle absolutely amazing. ITS HORRIBLE NOW. Everything that made Hyrule Castle amazing in the last game is GONE, its only use now is to find and break the Royal Guard weapons so you can get their pristine versions in the Depths. Hyrule Castle Interior created a creepy and tense atmosphere that made you feel like you were in actual danger. Exterior made you feel like you were on a noble quest, the final journey, all this coming to a head as you get to Ganon and destroy him. The organs, piano and drums are notable instruments.
Hyrule Castle in BotW was my favorite place to be! I always go to it and everything about it was just a masterpiece! Its theme is even my favorite theme in the entire game!
AoC Hyrule Castle was exactly like how I pictured Hyrule Castle to look like back then!
Meanwhile TotK Hyrule Castle was a cheap copy of it, that got rid of everything that made it cool. Its theme doesn't even compare to the original!
@@REDFRLegend The thing that made me live the themes even more was how the "Low on hearts" beeping sound from A Link to the Past could be heard in the back of the theme. The beeping would get louder and faster, until it FLATLINED. It symbolized Zelda's fight for her survival while trapped inside Ganon. It just made it so cool. (I figured this out from Game Spot btw).
I genuinely believe this game took 6 years simply because the developers did not know what to do with this game to make it deserving to be a sequel….
Sadly they never figured it out
There is NO WAY this is your FIRST EVER video essay. I loved your presentation, humour, analysis, and editing! your channel should be at LEAST 70$ on the switch shop tbh
Truly rthe Breath of the Wild of video essays about Tears of the Kingdom.
omg thank you so much!
Still can’t believe the game doesn’t end with Link smiling and shedding a tear, breaking his lifetime of putting on a brave face and bookending the whole tears of the kingdom thing. Great video!
I actually do like Link's characterization in Breath of the Wild but he's much more bland in ToTK. I agree that either at the end or after the light dragon cutscene he should have broke down and cried, even for a moment before collecting himself. He JUST got Zelda back, and now she's gone again, possibly forever. He should have a reaction to that and it's strange that he doesn't.
Yeah there was work done to justify it in BotW, but for me it’s one more thing that says TotK isn’t a *narrative* sequel. Its just more game, in a mod sense.
That’s why the best versions of Link are either Toon or CDI.
*Yes I’m serious*
@@owonapikinsby the same token, link has always been an insert for the player. and whatever i was feeling at that time more than made up for what link wasn’t expressing: i was crying and i was role playing as link.
The worst part is boundary break showed us that he smiles off screen and we can't see it at the end
i really like the idea that link has a tony hawk-esque presence in hyrule
Every time i had to watch that secret stone cutscene, i couldnt help saying "Psycho Mantis?" out loud. Every single time.
One thing I will never forgive nintendo for is doing literally nothing cool with the Akalla Citadel when it could have been a dungeon rivaling the dark atmospheres and prowess of those in twilight princess. I am personally betrayed by this decision to fill it with tight meaningless caves that do not reflect the sheer size of the architecture implied by the exterior and lore.
i appreciate Age of Calamity for having a few levels set inside it, its pretty cool seeing it from the inside despite how simple it is
Same! I spent so long slamming my head against the entire structure because SURELY there's more than just 1 cave there! Right?
@@scrappy2082 Age of Calamity is what stoked my hope for anything cool at all! 😭
And that it is JUST a cave, when it’s supposed to be a citadel. It would have been much better and cooler to explore a Hyrule Castle-like fortress.
@@scrappy2082 The fact that "Age of Calamity", a game which story is literally a poorly written "fix fic", does a better job at world building and narrative than "Tears of the Kingdom" has to be one of the biggest fails in Nintendo's history.
I knew the editing in the video was top tier but I was sold when I looked in the bottom left and saw the background tracks being listed as they start playing jeez you went ALL OUT for this
And FOR FREE
@@bakedbeananimationi mean you CAN give me money if you want….. (this is a joke)
I'm so impressed that this is your first ever video essay. Genuinely an incredible well written, edited, and performed video. I was mouth open agape when you pointed out we'd never seen Rauru and Sonia's child. That's such a WILD oversight. I can't wait to see what else you make, and having just watched your update video, please please please take your time! I'm sure whatever you make next will absolutely be worth the wait :3
The most impressively bad thing about TotK is that it failed to truly fix any of the issues BotW had, yet at the same time manages to retroactively make BotW worse by cheapening and conflicting with its established setting and plot.
And yes, even Age of Calamity had better writing and characterization than this. A fanfic-y non-canon spinoff.
"TOTK is the first game to make me feel bored and overwhelmed at the same time. There is so much to do in this world, and absolutely none of it matters."
Wow, you explained my exact feelings in such a concise way that I never even considered. As someone who also adored BOTW and played through it twice yet couldn't even bring myself to finish TOTK, this video was so cathartic. Absolutely incredible work, and it's amazing that this is your first longform video. I can't wait to see what else you make in the future!
my thoughts for the game almost immediately after beating it were pretty similar. "They created a big world with all these things to do, but nothing that's actually worth doing."
Whole game is just a huge timewaster.
Nintendo gave too much power to the design team instead of writer/lore team.
At least it’s a good thing the former is far more important for this medium
@@kinobabbleI’m not so sure about that.
@@Zythryl It’s a videogame, not a visual novel, not a text adventure, not an interactive movie. Anything pertaining to the gameplay & design will automatically be of greater importance as that’s the defining feature of the medium.
In my opinion, it depends on what they want to focus on, and I think here they cared more for immersion than the writing or the story
Tho I think writing is very important for something that wants to tell a story, which is what impressions the cutscenes give me
First, I just want to say, for someone's very first video essay, this is fucking *phenomenal.* You should absolutely do more of these; you did a great job at writing and structuring it.
As for TotK itself, it's funny that you call it a "second draft," when to me it almost seems like this is the *first* draft, and BotW was the sequel. If you think about them in that order, it makes a shocking amount of sense.
- People didn’t like having to fuse each individual arrow, so now there are dedicated arrow types again.
- People didn’t like the goofy monster parts being the only way to upgrade weapons, so now weapons as a whole are stronger and more durable.
- People didn’t like the nameless bland ancestor spirits, so now each one has a ton of personality and has a personal connection to Link, Zelda, and their descendant. Completing a dungeon even has extra weight now, because you're avenging your comrades and defeating the creatures that killed them.
- People didn't like the copy/paste cutscenes that all give the same information, so now each one has character development for the ancient hero.
- People didn't like how bland the temples were and how they just kinda materialize out of nowhere, so now each one is a rad as fuck mecha kaiju that you get to partially control.
- People didn't like the way that Zelda didn't have much agency, so now her whole plotline is about her struggling with it.
- People didn't like the empty Depths, Sky Islands, and Shrines, so now the former two are removed entirely to focus on improving the content in the main map and having fewer empty shrines.
- People could break the game too easily with vertical movement options, so most were removed.
- People’s most commonly made creation was a motorcycle, so this time there's an honest-to-god motorcycle in the game that outclasses every other form of travel.
Like seriously, there's a bewildering amount of stuff that feels like it must have come first, because it's such an obvious step down from BotW.
By all means, the devs claim that this game is "complete" as they envisioned it. As unsatisfying as that sounds, listening to the dev interviews and insight of why they implemented certain changes is extremely enlightening (and also frustrating). Of course, all they will ever talk about is gameplay and not story nor gameplay loops/rewards.
One of the big take aways I remember from dev interviews is that BOTW was designed almost entirely from bottom up. They scrapped everything they knew about Zelda and only implemented the what was felt as "essential" to the best experience. Unlimited bombs, Status, Cryosis all came from that thinking. Got rid of a magic meter and instead used a item specific cool down is ingenious and I wish I could think of that. I wouldn't be surprised if the glider was also the result of that designing in that exact way.
HOWEVER, when they talk about TotK, they talk about developing new mechanics from the other side of the coin. As you said how this game feels like a "second draft", they took out the essentials they developed and instead wanted to make the most complex mechanics they can allow. Fusing, Ultra hand, Autobuild all fit this frame of reference. And all the shrine puzzles were made with the "you can solve it anyway you like" from this thinking. We also know from interviews that Ascend was almost made mandatory ability because devs kept no-clipping to the surface every time they got lost in the caves. Making Ascend one of the few "essential" mechanics borrowed from BoTW's thinking. It stands out so much from the other abilities.
Making mechanics as "complex" as they can implement can also explain why the GUI is so horrid in the game, it was never updated to complement the complexities. No hotkeys for champion abilities, no organization for fusing items, no hotkeys for outfit sets nor Autobuild, having a secondary map selection on your hotwheel when there is ALREADY A BUTTON IN THE CONTROLLER FOR JUST THAT. The GUI was completely forgotten about entirely. It's extremely inappropriate for this game and makes almost the whole game worst than Botw from just that alone. I'm not going to experiment with items and powers if it takes me 5 menu minutes every time to do something.
Let's hope the new Zelda game with the "summon anything in your inventory" ALSO doesn't suffer from the same neglect.
Well we have seen the menu in teh trailer and...
I think by “complete”, the devs just meant that they were just done working on it and have moved on to the next thing.
The copy and paste cutscenes for a game that took 6 years to make while recycling so much from the first game is just crazy to me
What did they even spend 6 years doing? There's no content.
While we could cut them some slack for two years of Covid in between development, I do agree that the cost/time calculation and ultimate return for the players is off quite a bit.
I mean there's a reason why quite a lot of players consider TotK to be nothing more than a glorified DLC......being sold at "full price" no less.
@@yurifairy2969they spent the 6 years just fixing bugs and glitches, there were a ton with them changing the map. The whole game basically needed fixing from what I heard 💀
@@yurifairy2969 wdym by no content? There is a lot of content. And what did they spend doing? Changing stuff on the map and adding stuff to it and creating the depths and the skies, creating all the game changing abilities and making sure they work well and don't break the game at all, Covid delayed the game too and they spent the final year just polishing it all up really.
@@yurifairy2969 the physics system obviously
MASTER KOHGA in TotK is a better antagonist than TotK Ganondorf. At least Master Kohga actually has a relationship with the player.
Yeah. I’ll admit it. He actually is almost threatening in the final fight with him.
Master Kohga is the G.O.A.T. xD
I love his catchy theme in TotK...and the first encounter with him was so much fun.
Why can't they make a new villian?
@@gdassspar6nr204 I mean, they should. At the very least, we need something like, Mirror Ganon, The Shattered Reflection, and all his attacks are inverse to typical Ganon attacks. Or, maybe, Incarnation of Envy, Archfae Tingle. Heck, maybe, Fallen Legend, Grandmaster Groose. I got plenty of ideas.
@@JacksonVoetGanon has already stole spotlight from several villians.
The game had an entire world underground and they didnt think to put the sheikah technology there...
We CLEARLY see Link go down an elevator for every shrine in BOTW, it wouldve been cool to see ruins of some kind underground
What Sheikah technology? Nintendo wants to pretend like it doesn’t exist.
Worst is that it would solve the "lack of landmarks" thing because sheikah tech glows so in a place where its all dark it would have been perfect
We couls even have a quest where we look for another sheikah slate so we could use the tech inside the depths and iluminate the place that way
new comfort video essay just dropped
Fun Fact: TOTK doesn't use the same engine as BOTW. Its actually a new engine that simply ported over existing assets. The new engine is used in a few other games too but TOTK does not reuse the BOTW engine contrary to popular belief
i meant the graphics engine, i know the physics are different
@@skittybitty the graphics engine is new too. Us in modding community is unsure if it’s an evolution of the lunchpack engine (BOTW) but they seem to have migrated all shaders and materials to a new rendering pipeline which is why some visual effects such as ambient occlusion in the grass and reflections work differently in Tears of the Kingdom. Very bizarre to us that they even changed to a new graphics engine. It’s the same one Splatoon 3 and Super Mario Bros Wonder uses.
@@EDMIRE programming stuff obviously isn’t my strong suit haha
@@EDMIRE Is it possible that this new engine (Along with COVID) is responsible for why TotK turned out the way it did unlike Majora's Mask? A new engine explains why the game took so long.
@@Acecard-jl2pyi mean maybe but that doesn’t explain why it’s so poorly written. the writers and programmers are different teams
To be fair "I'd like to smash the Demon King" was pretty funny
Undoubtedly the best thing that came out of the game.
The game's a 5/10 instead of a 4/10 for me just because of that line
As someone who did the lightning temple first, I can confirm that the other temples were seriously disappointing
Remenber stumbling into the water beast in botw and really liking the puzzle
Only to be instantly disapointed when i realized that all other beasts where worse versions of it
I honestly can't stop watching this video over an over. It resonates with me so much as a lifelong Zelda fan. Been playing it since the 80s.
Also; your humor is just fabulous and while TOTK is sore subject, you definitely made this a fun watch.
Ok I already commented here but I had to come back to show my appreciation for all the hard work you put into this video by sharing my favorite parts:
-The “getting back with my ex was only the second worst sequel”
- Editing the “secret stone??? Demon king???” Clips back to back
-Playing the guardian piano theme which blew any argument about “which was more scary: the hands or the leggy bois” out of the water
-The “duh” enunciation on obviously evil “Zelda”
-Calling the Purah Pad “Zelda’s iPhone”
-The emoji on “I want to smash the demon king”
-Adding GameGrumps clips
-Making the distinction between a “world in a video game” and “a video game world”
-A SHRINE SPREADSHEET?!?!? All the research you did for the shrine section really
-“Link, this edible ain’t shi-“
-“Link is not a character. He just looks sexy and gender”
-“Tells her that the batteries in her wii mote are nearly depleted”
-Pointing out how stupid Ganondorf’s meme face is
-The constant reiteration of TOTK being $70
-Putting relevant quotes up on the screen (holy research batman)
-Pointing out how since Rauru’s arm is relevant to literally EVERY MECHANIC IN THE GAME, it’s basically luck (aka lazy writing) that Link lost his arm in the first place
-Whipping out the Japanese translation to point out how malice “grudge” makes more sense than the randomass change to gloom
-Calling Skyward Sword’s Slumbering Zelda her “resin project”
-Always taking the time to appreciate TOTK’s godly soundtrack
-Pointing out how TOTK Zelda suddenly doesn’t nerd out anymore in the memories
-Pointing out how lame it is that Link just magically gets his arm restored
-“Mysterious voice #957”
-PUTTING THE SONGS THAT YOU USED IN THE BOTTOM LEFT AND DESCRIPTION SO WE KNOW WHAT THEY ARE
-Calling out the awful UI when trying to fuse or drop or throw anything
-Taking the time to explain details to those that may not have played TOTK
-Suggesting that a button be added to “equip set” if you have all the armor pieces (why is that not in the base game)
-“The writers peace-ing out after they finished totk’s story in one afternoon”
-“The things we love about TOTK don’t come from the game, they come from us” (what a LINE)
-“Hell hath no fury like a Zelda fan scorned” (real)
All this to say, fuckin superb. May you get everything you ever want in life
omg this is my favorite comment i’ve received so far i think. it makes me so happy when people notice all the little details and stuff i put in hahaha ❤
The “this edible ain’t sh-“ actually made me audibly laugh
Headcanon: Link didn't even lose his arm to Ganondorf. It was injured, discolored, but would have been ok.
Rauru just took it, so he could give Link his to make him powerful.
This is now the definitive ToTK critique . Writing, editing, takes, all 10/10. Absolutely blown away.
Also making your mom the delcatty plush was an adorable touch.
"Loving the time i spent playing Tears of the Kingdom with my mom isn't loving Tears of the Kingdom, it's loving my mom" this sentence made me start spontaneously crying in the middle of work, excellent video.
This is seriously the only RUclips video essay I’ve liked enough to watch all the way through. Like the best one I’ve ever seen hands down
They gut any and all interesting lore or questions the player may have by making the answer to every question be "The Zonai did it"
idk not really, the zonai didnt do that much. The constructs?? Most of the ancient stuff was built by Hylians following the imprisoning war, even the sky islands
@@EileenLorekeeperAh, the imprisoning war, what a way to retcon the timeline with using some ALTTP had.
It could have taken place after the timelines came back together..? But honestly, eh.
And of course, “Demon king? Secret Stone?”
“Second floor basement? Psycho mantis?”
And it's extra annoying cuz they had an ancient robot-building sky people race in the backstory of Skyward Sword all primed and ready to go.. but apparently the Zonai are an entirely different ancient sky tribe with highly advanced technology that mined special ore in pre-history?
It really feels like they wanted to just make people stop caring about continuity and timelines. I'd have been much more interested in Tears' lore if it turned out Hylia wasn't a true goddess, but a Zonai time sage, perhaps the original Zonai.
@@LocalizedBozo I mean, how could we expect timelines to mend? Once you break reality into pieces, those pieces gain their own identity and can’t be repaired. BOTW and TOTK are so far into the future, it could just be that the Zonai just established another Kingdom of Hyrule after the Great Sea receded.
No not every question.
This video could net you more than 70 dollars in ad revenue, so in a way you got your money back!
but not the hundreds of hours of each of our lives wasted playing this really bad game.....
@@iamLI3it’s not bad necessarily it just depends on what people think about it while the game will get mindlessly boring after awhile it’s still fun in the beginning to end (again depending on the person)
@@draggonwarrior42 hard disagree
@@draggonwarrior42 i was bored after doing the main story line for a bit after i got all the shrines, but i then i discovered C R E A T I N G M A C H I N E S O F D E A T H
@viganhoxha8814 your reply got shadowbanned , but i am not counted among those of us i speak of in my comment in full , for i recognized by the time i got to the first wind temple that tokt was bad , so i rushed to beat it from there , in total only wasting about 40 hours of my own life....
Genuinely one of the most thorough critiques I've seen of a video game in general, let alone one as (on-release anyway) popular as TotK. Your back-and-forth between thought-out constructive criticism and pure gamer fury born of disappointment was delightful to listen to.
Demon king? Secret stone?
Another weird piece of environmental storytelling that goes completely unexplained and unacknowledged is that the big sky rocks that dot Hyrule's surface are literally terraforming the land around them. I think it's supposed to be soil falling with the rocks, but it just looks like the ground is turning into the same kind of soil as is on the sky island.
Elden Ring has big ruin pieces scattered throughout the first couple areas that fell down from a floating city--that feels like a much better execution of what you say TotK tried to do
What do you mean exactly is unexplained or unacknowledged? It's just rocks falling, nothing more. It doesn't look like the same kind of soil does it?
@@minerman60101 How do they?
@@jaydenc367 I think I read the original message wrong lol and thought the commenter disliked the particulars of the implementation--I haven't played TotK so I don't have the context
@@jaydenc367 Yeah, the soil immediately around the large, stationary bits of sky rock has the same grass/soil texture as the sky islands. It might be hard to see from a RUclips video, but you'll see what I'm talking about if you're looking for it.
NO SHRINE ON SHRINE ISLAND
Its ridiculous. Did you know the game costs 70 dollars xD
"People don't want to explore the same places all over again!"
My biggest issue with Shrines in both games is that they had *zero* plot relevance. Instead of taking an opportunity to share a small bit of lore (potentially out of sequence) that you have to put together to understanding something meaningful, they just tell you the same piece of boilerplate text again and again. Lore is easy to share in that it doesn't break game balance, but can add a lot of color, motivation and complexity to the game. Instead they feel devoid of meaning.
i will forever be mad about the nerfed mastersword, literally the blade of evils bane bathed in the light of a dragon for more than 10,000 years and it has less durability and damage than the mastersword from botw? crazy as hell
Isn’t there a glitch that its durability is permanently nerfed after the first time you fuse it?
@@ZiggyPalffyLA mhm! It loses its sparkle and will never get bonus durability again. If i could fix the mastersword id just give it infinite durability, and the fused items would have their own durability so that the mastersword can act as an extremely powerful jack of all trades tool.
@@seerai-42 of all the things they “fixed” in the game, this was never one of them. Shows you their priorities
The Master Sword being destroyed in the beginning of the game really set the tone for where the Zelda franchise is going.
Not good.
@@QuothTheRavenclaw11:(
there are so many missed opportunities in this game but the yiga blade master station made me really pissed off by the fact that the yiga, who know that link goes to the shrines and other places like the mines in the depths, but they don't activly ambush him there? they do it with random bananas, but not the place link is constantly actively seeking out, which is unprotected
The biggest offense is farming. It's crazy. Item duplication glitch is the single thing that made this playable, but also trivialise it
Me at like 10:00 pm: “yeah let’s find something to fall asleep to.”
Me at 1:28 AM, completely engrossed in this critique: “mmm I didn’t fall asleep but that was awesome.”
I agree with so much of what you’re saying and even in your ‘nitpicking or biases’ (which I’m glad you use to INFORM your opinion making rather than trying to create some ‘objective’ distance), you demonstrate an internal consistency to YOUR voice and your passion for the Zelda series as a whole, especially the modern Zelda format, shines through so brightly.
Great video. I will be sleep deprived tomorrow but it was totally worth it and dropping a subscription.
omg haha go to bed! thanks so much for watching
Nitpicks are just what people who disagree with you call your examples. Nitpicks are usually separate issues that add up to a big issue.
The animators spent their emotion budget on gannondorf's face and didn't have any left for link.
That laughing face was priceless though XD. Some G-Mod ass shenanigans going on there!
@@mr.j3rs3yAnd while it is indeed funny. It comes at the cost of complete emersion destruction on the same level as Mickey Mouse saying “Say fellas, did somebody mention the door to darkness.”
@@infinityheart_tm9270 It wasn't supposed to be funny, it was supposed to be disturbing
@@emojiface699 Smash Announcer: Failure
The sound effect for important visuals is soooo nice as someone who usually only has the time to listen but doesn't want to miss vital stuff...
56:02 I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it, but here’s my thoughts.
BOTW is infamous for reusing content/assets whenever possible to save time. The reason petting dogs wasn’t included is because the developers thought they wouldn’t be able to reuse the animations/mechanic anywhere else.
The reason why the bosses erupt into malice instead of gloom when defeated is probably because the stock animations already were colored for Malice, and they didn’t want to spend time retexturing it.
people have said this and it’s a little embarrassing that i hadn’t even considered that it was just asset flipping
@@skittybitty It should be embarrassing for the Zelda Team for being so lazy.
Why'd you have to remind me we can't pet dogs in this game? 😭
The ONE THING everybody was begging for in Breath of the Wild and one of the very first things I tried when I got to a Stable in Tears and Nintendo couldn't be arsed to let us pet. the. fucking. *dogs.* 🙃
3:01:16 I love that Ganondorf is such a sore loser that he’s like “nah, I’ll sacrifice everything to beat up this twink.”
Sees title
“They can’t hate it that much can they?”
Sees that it’s 3 hours long
“Oh”
I wouldn't use the term "hate" I prefer the term "violently disappointed"
i changed the title because single digit iq mfs kept falling for the obvious ragebait but your comment will forever be iconic
@@skittybitty Don't listen to them, if fact, make them angrier 😂
@@skittybittypopularize being a hater, a real rapscallion‼️🍄
@@skittybitty ah okay all good lol
Was I the only one who really disliked the Great Sky Island? I see it generally considered as one of the better parts of the game, and it even gets a pass here, but I had a lot of trouble going into it. The spectacle at the start is excellent, but once I got into the greater island I had a lot of issues. The Great Plateau was supposed to be very open, so that you can go after the shrines in any order, and the Great Sky Island markets itself the same way, but it really isn't. I ended up accidentally grabbing them in a weird way that I've since been told was wrong, something I didn't know I could do, and it made the tutorial super frustrating because I had to fight harder to do things in an unintentional way (for example, I spent 30 minutes bridging a small gap between the ascend and fuse shrines that was really annoying). It felt like there was a disconnect between what I wanted to do and what the developer had accounted for, which surprised me because BotW had been so open to things in the same vein.
oh it’s definitely worse than the plat, but at least it’s _something_ substantial to do in the sky
@@skittybitty Fair, there’s not really much else. Great video btw
The rauru hand thing could have easily been fixed if they just made it a glove that links hand could heal in
Fuckin duh
Going through the whole hebra sky island ascension, skydiving into the cloud, seeing “Wind Temple”, followed by “Wind Temple 1F”, but then hearing “there are still five locks securing the hatch on the deck” followed by seeing them pop up on the map is probably my most disappointing video game experience ever.
Everything about this comment is true - so much yes
This.
Top 3 disappointing moments in totk:
- when the 5 locks appeared on the map of your first dungeon
- when you get your first memory and it ends
- when you realize the depths map is mirrored of the overworld
also when you beat your second dungeon and the same cutscene plays as the first one. but you already know how similar the quests will be well before then.
@@FunnyAnimatorJimTV I mean, The Depths are like the Dark World, and it being a mirror makes it easier to know where to go. The other two are definitely disappointing though.
@@JacksonVoet Making it easier to know where to go makes it less interesting. The moment you know "oh there will be a mountain over there, then a valley and a lake, and the chest is up there" then it removes all your sense of urgency and mystery, that made the depths so exciting the first time you enter it.
Same reason why exploring hyrule in totk is boring. even though the specific contents of goron city are different, even knowing it's general appearance and direction makes it less exciting.
@@FunnyAnimatorJimTV I mean, unlike the Dungeons, navigating the Depths would be much, much more tedious otherwise. Plus, the darkness and overall enemy difficulty makes traversal much better.
ur fans should call themselves the itty bitty skitty committee
omg my dream come true
*i understand this reference* 💀
I didnt but i understood that one. Lol@boiwifeyasmr4U
Or skittybitty toilet
@@droolmax8943 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
why was purah not a descendent of mineru and the new sage of spirit? why didn’t shrines have only one ability you are allowed to use, predetermined by the developers to truly limit the mechanics and challenge your knowledge? why not occasionally bring a sage through some shrines (4 each) to receive the sage’s wills and deepen the connection with the sages in smaller dungeon-like content? this was the result of me thinking for literally five minutes. these developers had 6 years
also yes i’ve been rewatching this video and commenting multiple times. the video fully deserves it, skitty. you are very comprehensive and thoughtful in your dissection
Yeah, this is generally how I felt about the game as well. I felt like I was crazy when I told people I didn't like TOTK, and they were all shocked.
"Bored and Overwhelmed" at the same time really does summarize it well.
I completed three of the dungeons, and then one day, i put the game down and never picked it back up. Shame I missed the thunder temple, though.
I ended up playing with the japanese dub from the start, and am glad I did.
I have mixed feelings on the depths. I basically went into the depths almost immediately after getting the paraglider, and spent a good while walking around down there, doing most of the Yiga Clan questline. I recall getting particularly frustrated at a part where they want you to follow a bunch of statues to their base, only for them to then have you run into a wall, and be like "oops! Guess you need to look somewhere else!" only for them wanting you to find a narrow pathway somewhere completely else, which really frustrated me. After that, the depths were mostly avoided for me, outside of getting zonaite.
I agree with the lack of ganondorf's development in this game. It's part of why Windwaker is my favorite Ganondorf! You initially meet him because you're trying to rescue your sister, only for you to get tied into a situation with much larger stakes. The second time you confront him, he takes you out with nothing but his fists. And in the final confrontation, he again, lays you out on your ass, and completes the triforce. The only reason he commits to killing you is because the King of Red Lions ruined his plan. And like, sure, there's plenty of criticism you can lay at windwaker ganon, like any ganon. But I still like the fact that windwaker ganon is not just 'I've been absent from the entire game, I'm here now, oh no, what's that, the master sword, nooooooo'
I think the easiest way to fix the memories is to have them play out in a specific order irrespective of which tears you pick up first.
Personally I think the story should have taken place in the past. Which was my first assumption when i saw the trailer for it, with link in the strange outfit on the floating sky. I assumed it was the link from the previous time ganon showed up, or like a reverse samurai jack situation, where they get yeeted through time, and need to make their way back to their time, I dunno.
Part of the reason I liked BOTW better was because it really nailed that aspect of "it's just you out there." Zelda has always been one of those games where to me, at least, you play as the chosen one. Its you, just you, and only you, versus the big bad world out there. It definitely felt a bit janky suddenly having all these people fighting alongside you for a lot of these fights, it's a neat concept, but that never really felt like "The Legend of Zelda" to me. It was irritating in the BOTW boss fights, having the champions in your ear while you're trying to fight a big scary boss, but was generally not that impactful.
I don't really like any of the characters you're forced to work with, outside of Sidon. Riju is okay. But it feels symbolic in some way, to compare the champions in BOTW, all of whom were definitively adults, and very clearly experienced, to ... two literal children, and an awkward dork who sounds like he's still in puberty. Sidon gets a pass, but It helps to have the character building of BOTW to cement his character. I would imagine if someone played TOTK without playing BOTW, they'd probably find him less endearing. Riju just ... isn't an interesting character to me. I would have much rathered Teba over Tulin, but even he would come off as kind of uninteresting, since you don't really get much development of characters in this game, much less BOTW. Yunobo just ... his personality really just doesn't say "yeah that's a goron" to me. I feel like if you took his personality, and put that on, say, a rito (insert chicken jokes here), it could have made for a more interesting character development there. But that also means retroactively changing characters in BOTW. oh well.
Also I think it's super sweet you're playing through this with your mom!
This was a great vid! I hope you do eventually do that loveletter to BOTW you mentioned!
surprised you didn't have a section on how freakin' ugly 90% of the weapon fusions are. that shit bummed me out when i first saw it.
you’re so right it’s in the autisticut dw
@@skittybittywill there be a way to watch just the extra content from that cut or will it be integrated into the existing video?
@@ZiggyPalffyLA i will make it so that both are options
@@skittybitty awesome, thanks!
I know, right?
Nintendo could've either hid the fused bits like they do with the MasterSword and make them mystically glow with some Zonai glyphs...oooor go the extra length of making custom weapon models for each fuse instead of, imo rather lazily, sticking them to the end of whatever weapon.
The fuses may be somewhat ok-ish with shields, but some of the weapon fuses look outright hideous...like fusing the FierceDeity sword to the Biggoron Sword, which also clips through the floor when stored on your back. xD
They went to make breath of the wild 2 but ended up retconning the entirety of botw without at least actually committing to retconning botw
I really appreciated this because I disliked BOTW and I assumed I wouldn't enjoy TOTK. And everyone thinks I'm crazy for feeling that way. But even in your comments about BOTW you cover what my issues with the game are and acknowledge why you're fine with those things but others might not be. Ultimately, you definitely earned my trust as a narrator because you were incredibly objective and honest. You didn't shy away from anything. And that's a rare thing in online content creation. Thank you for sharing your voice and please don't feel pressured for your future content. What made this so special is that you were you. Your voice and humor is unique and a breath of fresh air. I see a lot of content creators who have videos take off and they feel pressured to maintain their audience's interest. And it starts to feel like they're a caricature of themselves. It seems like you absolutely don't want that but you know the pressure of the Internet is immense. I only want to affirm your decision to remain genuine and to move at your own pace. Good luck to you and enjoy your trip!
As someone who still (after over a year of picking up this game) hasn't finished it because whenever I think about booting it up again I just feel kinda tired, this video felt very cathartic. And I'm saying this as a big Zelda fan and someone who managed to quite enthusiastically spend over 200 hours with BotW.
I'm especially glad about your long and detailed accounts in regards to the temples and the story (and the depths and the side quests, a lot of your experiences seemed to match my own) as those were the biggest issues for me. Like you point out, I was willing to overlook some things in BotW since at least it was a wholly new game and experience but with TotK I'm just baffled about where all the 6 years of effort went, considering they had heard the feedback about the dungeons (and the story) and yet what we ended up with just felt like a rehash of BotW (right down to the way the story was told which at least made sense in BotW but feels like a weird choice here and therefore really lazy). I was so excited with this game when I started and then my excitement kind of dropped slowly, to occasionally rise again when something looked promising for a second only to plummet down again by the lackluster execution of so many elements. (Like the first time I dropped down into the Depths I got really excited about this new dark and spooky area that could have so many secrets and story beats but quickly realized how empty it all was).
I also, unfortunately, was that person who liked to explore so of course I saw all of the memory cut scenes before I had barely finished the first dungeon. And while seeing them in order wouldn't have made the story good, at least I wouldn't have spent most of my remaining play time engaging with the main story infuriating (and a partial reason for my apathy to go back to the game).
I'm glad I stumbled upon this video, I found myself chuckling over many parts, your humor is great. I was also feeling kind of depressed and didn't feel like doing anything so it was a treat to pop this on my TV screen and actually watch it all the way through (something I don't often do), so I wanted to say I enjoyed the editing and many thanks for making this!
God the Sage speeches thing was such a mood. The way they repeat it almost entirely word for word. I had been initially excited for the Gerudo Ancestor because ya know... the fact that Ganondorf is... ya know... Gerudo... the King of the Gerudo.
There was even Gerudo WITH Ganondorf in one of the Zelda Memories AND YET-
All we get is one SINGULAR throwaway line about Ganondorf being King of the Gerudo- a fact she REFUSES to elaborate on. And that's it.
It feels like it would have been such an easy thing to give them like... even just a PARAGRAPH 3-5 sentences to give us any information about the culture, the environment ANYTHING about the Ancient World and yet that was still too much worldbuilding for them apparently
but have you considered that secret stone demon king imprisoning war??
Urbosa acknowledged that Ganon was once Gerudo, but someone who literally knew Ganondorf when he was alive couldn’t elaborate even a bit. This game’s story is a joke
I sorta think it KINDA makes sense from a Prophetical destiny standpoint for nintendo to do that but like IDENTICAL is foul
My red flag is - I love listening to people passionately complain for hours on end.
totk definitely isnt dlc, but its designed like it is
I already disliked BotW but I was okay with it enough to beat the main story. I thought for sure TotK would fix all my issues with the game.
But no. I didn't even make it but a few hours. I think this series may just not be me for me any more.
Echoes of Wisdom sealed that for me with its LE MAKE YOUR OWN EPIC SOLUTION and having a menu for Echoes that was nauseatingly similar to TotK's horrible fusion/device menus.
Not even 2D is safe anymore.
Have I ever played TOTK? Nope.
Have I even played BOTW? Nope.
Did I watch all 3 hours of this video? Yep.
Can you fucking imagine if Nintendo actually made Link cry after he finally realized that Zelda was the light dragon? Like, literally, he wakes up from the vision surrounded by silent princesses and he just can't hold it in anymore, breaks down in like a mirror of Zelda crying from botw? Literally could have been the most important characterization moment in the series and they flibbed it by just making him go "Uh? Huh? Oh, weird." And then NOTHING ELSE.
He shoulda went....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................WELL EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME PRINCESS!
no time for bitching, we on that grind
you're supposed to cry dude. Link is there to look and contemplate internally. Honestly, I'll take an emotion now and then, but a subtle one. Maybe not a theater class breakdown, but a fighting in the face, a quiet breaking. Skyward Sword was the most emotion you're gonna get outta the man.
it could've even zoomed on his eyes getting wet, before he blinks the tears away because he's been trained to not feel! it's like they *refuse* to characterize the main character because "what if the player is a sociopath? then they wouldn't be able to go 'his girlfriend died.. thats a fair thing to be sad about'"
I just pretended he did
I feel like the game was designed around the reaction factor and seeing like “oh this is what [insert here] is like in this game!!! Isn’t it cool!?!??!?” Rather than actually adding new and interesting concepts. It makes it seem like a different game even though it’s essentially a complete rehash. Adding to that, I also agree that this game felt essentially made for the internet. I remember reading an interview with Aonuma saying that the inspiration for the ultrahand mechanics was seeing people build wacky flying machines in BotW by abusing the physics engine of the game, so I think the team built the game around people sharing content about the game through the internet. As you said in the video, the korok backpacks and the entire ultrahand mechanic just felt like ways to get people to share stuff around. This philosophy was also used in every other part of the game. The gag with ganondorf’s facial expressions when he killed Sonia and his health bar feel like they wanted to make a meme out of them. Don’t get me wrong both of those gags were hilarious, but neither of them needed to be there. The game felt designed around a whole bunch of moments that you would want to see someone else react to. Despite all of this, I still like the game. I think it has some of the best sound design/music to come out of the Zelda series, even though I have some issues with the soundtrack, like the random reusing of the BotW main theme at completely random times, and a few other minor nitpicks. But the soundtrack is still great. Anyways I’m getting bored of writing this comment so thanks for reading lol.
P.S. extremely well made video, it’s rare that a video is this good that I’ll willingly sit through 3 hours of it.
And I will add in terms of technique.. I have been a PC gamer since 2008 and I am used to having a pleasant experience at high framerate +60fps or even 240 now. For me, playing at 30 unstable fps with sometimes freezes is unplayable. In 2023 it is extremely outdated. it's not smooth at all. As for botw I did it on an emulator with a few mods :
-60fps and to take advantage of the variable refresh rate (gsync) so that the screen synchronizes with the graphics chip and ensures a smooth experience. Which is available console and PC but not the switch of course.
-deactivate the ugly dynamic resolution which must be in 720p and 500p for a fixed 1440p
-better fog for the clarity around you because there is this white veil of ugly mist constantly even in the foreground here to probably hide the misery
-deactivate the internal anti aliasing which is useless to activate that of the emulator and take advantage of Nvidia's DLSS,
-enjoy the 5.1 soundtrack with my high-end sound card and home cinema
-display the controls for the Xbox controller.
and probably other things I don't remember, but that doesn't distort the game either
In the past, Zelda games were at the top technically. When Skyword Sword came out it was already very hard compared to Assassin's Creed in HD on Xbox. Otherwise good video this game makes no sense, it's just a new game + dlc without interest. Quantity over quality, I prefer a small, unique mountainous area full of secrets with its particular music and sound, than a vast empty plain with cardboard textures and useless koguru nuts. It should have been called breath of the 1.3 Tears of the tiktok. I don't expect anything more from the Zelda series, it's just a skin to sell and it works.
Another Issue about the story regarding link's utter lack of emotion. A huge part of the main story in BOTW is that link has been trained to not show emotion and how being resurrected is helping him heal and be an actual person. I could be reading into that too much but it truly feels like that. So the fact that they had link display LESS emotion than when he was LITERALLY RESURRECTED WITH NIGH COMPLETE AMNESIA It truly makes me wonder if they even cared about making a sequel at all or if they just wanted to make a game to fuck around with the engine.
Especially link not even giving the slightest reaction to zelda turning into a dragon. Like bruh. he doesn't even need to say anything, just show his expression. Skyward sword did it perfectly when zelda seals herself in the temple
They just saw botw sold really well and decided to replicate it's success in a very uncreative way 😕
I mean he has some emotion, I don't see the issue really. How does he have less emotion? And I mean...being resurrected even after that as a Knight he doesn't show a lot of emotion publicly. They did care about making a sequel clearly otherwise the story wouldn't be about a follow up to the events of BOTW.
@@LilacMonarch I mean he did care. He didn't have the biggest reaction at first but we did see a reaction and after everything is over you can see how reliefed he is really.
@@thirdwheel9938 Nah they made a follow up with the story and it was something.
Age of Calamity is worth checking out, definitely does more with its supporting cast. I mean, fuck, it managed to make me emotional about *Master Kohga*
Sooga is a better written character than anyone in totk, which is a low bar.
@@micahbarrus8406 Wait what happened to Sooga? I don't know if they wrapped his character up, I think he's playable in the dlc but I never got that yet.
@@jaydenc367 he's essentially the 2nd hand man to kohga as a twin windblade user. He's tough, he's cool, and he's protective enough of his master to sacrifice himself to protect him after Astor betrays then.
Kohga was the GOAT in Age of Calamity. Seriously they made him have a FREAKING CHARACHTER ARC
@@micahbarrus8406 Dang...so he really did die huh? : (
My first cave I found in my playthrough was one of those wet caves that somehow lead into a ruin building with I think the climbing boots, I remember being so excited and wanted to explore every cave I came across afterwards only to be sadly disappointed
BOTW is my fav game ever. I didn't manage to push myself through 5 hours or so of TOTK. I did the tutorial island and shines, went down to the ground and there was just no direction (unlike BOTW with kakariko village). They wiped out what was good with botw (powers, champion abilities, glider) and the zonai architecture is just a worse aesthetic than the ancient sheikah architecture. I hate tech in fantasy games usually but i thought it'd be fine here. Making machines was just absolutely not my thing though. For me sheikah tech was fine because it bordered on magic, you could've replaced it with "magic" and itd be the same. But we're literally crafting batteries and making lasers and flamethrowers and flying engines...
Edit : I literally learned from this video that there's a glider in the game. TOTK gave me so few directions that I didn't find the main quest.