I Was COMPLETELY WRONG About TotK's Reused Map
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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I spent years worrying about the fact that Tears of the Kingdom was going to reuse the same map from Breath of the Wild. It just seemed like a bad idea to me. Turns out I was wrong!
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Kk
First
Awesome video
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Totk's map is like the town you grew up in but moved away and returned years later. Some things are the same but a lot has changed.
When I jumped off the Great Sky Island and made it to the ground, it really felt like finding myself back at home in a weird way. But like you said, a home that has changed with time. The excitement to discover the both the new and the evolved familiar was very special.
Yep, like the biggest house in the town suddenly being elevated 200 feet up, and it turns out the entire town was built on top of another town buried and forgotten.
You sum it up perfectly
And revisiting places really did feel nostalgic, in a way
@@Spotto26 That's because it takes place years later lol
TOTK is like walking into your house, and every room is in the same location but you have all new furnature and things, and a whole brand new basement
"what the hell happened to the attic"?
And rent is 70$ a day
And there's korok poop everywhere
@@Sean-xc9im Theres a bunch of tiny little attics you can find that werent there before
It’s like reading a favorite book or watching a favorite tv show for the first time again.
Everyone was saying “I’ve already explored this map, why would I want to do it again with small changes” and I’m like, how could you possibly remember every location in botw. The world is massive.
I've walked it a lot. A _lot._ I still remember most of the map and I haven't started Tears yet.
I don’t remember all the little details of the _BOTW_ map, but I remember all the big, awe-inspiring parts 🤷🏻♂️
when I revisit a location now, it’s just like I’m playing a video game and making sure I get all the collectibles, and not really exploring a magical land, like how it felt in _BOTW_ 🤷🏻♂️
I like seeing a more fleshed-out, living and breathing version of Hyrule, but still… I’ve been there before. I would’ve much preferred the game to take place in the distant past… the terrain could be the same, but all the structures, vegetation, inhabitants could be entirely different. imagine if that place east of the Castle with the giant tree stumps was a thriving forest with enormous trees, maybe with Rito or Ewoks living in tree houses?
@@Sam_T2000 i made the mistake of replaying botw thinking they would change the map a whole ton. Boy was i wrong they could have added a lot more stuff.
I loved the nostalgia and I was happy that I still remembered where the spring of courage, wisdom and power were. XD
Not only that, but the map has SO many changes to the point that some areas are borderline unrecognizable. Death Mountain probably being the best example of this.
This little monster puppet measuring his time until death in the unit of Zeldas is grim but also on brand.
ToTK makes BoTW feel like an insanely large and beautiful tech demo. I never thought this game could outdo that game, and how wrong I was
Honestly its a good thing to be proven wrong when something blows our expectations out of the water.
Wait until 2030 when people are saying "blops of the bloop makes totk feel like a tech demo"
nah, BOTW still is a lot better, TOTK is just a bunch of Copy and past content
botw made botw feel like a tech demo
@@Luizanimadolmao
I'm still unsure how to feel about the map. The surface map has changed too much for me to not want to explore it, but still too little to get enough enjoyment about looking in every nook and cranny. Especially when I found the easiest way to find shrines, I suddenly had less drive to go to every forest, hill and ruin.
The sky map is a bit too empty for me. I kinda wish there were more sky islands, although traversal between them would have been too easy so idk what the right idea would be.
The underground map was vast and very unexpected, but there's not too much in it.
I feel like more could have been done with the maps. I am enjoying the game however, just a little less on the exploration side though
I think my issues is that instead of improving on BOTW, the new mechanics made it worse more often than not. I didn't mind weapon durability in BOTW, it made me try new weapons so mission accomplished. TOTK adding fusing which is fun, but the novelty wore off quickly and I just started adding whatever had the highest attack power. It didn't really improve the durability, it just added another layer that ultimately serve no purpose. The champion abilities also suffer from BOTW to TOTK. In BOTW I was able to use any champions ability easily and intuitively. TOTK nerfed the champion abilities but also made them much more difficult to access in battle.
That said, I've dumped a TON of hours into the game and will dump many, many more because it's fun. And that's all that really matters
When I just went down from the sky the first time and started some quests, went in to a secret passage that I just thought was a little thing in my way, I got so surprised after spending more than 4 hours in a mini dungeon that had secrets and stuff to find.
Not to talk about the dephts, that blew my mind.
Jumping into that first chasm was the ultimate "screw around and find out" moment, and yet instead of a goofy death, you get a mind-blowing discovery about the sheer scale of the game! I couldn't stop smiling
ive watched your videos for a while, and on top of being very well written and entertaining, the puppetry is something i dont think people talk about enough. its pretty damn good, never have i thought of your voice belonging to anything other than the funny blue guy. hes a fun character you play well. you should be proud!
What puppet?
Are you implying Arlo is fake?
@@Gloomdrake oh damn wait ur right
The "OH" in the ad read was inexplicably hilarious to me 😂. Also, fitting setting for a video discussing the depths.
I gave a like just for that alone.
I may be a week late, but the Depths is like the entire reverse of the above ground: Mountains become pits, lakes become impassable walls, the canyon over to the east is this big long windy shelf.
The brilliant thing about the Depths to me is...
That it's geography was made entirely by inverting the existing geography of the overworld. Flipped upside down, Negative Space becomes Positive space and vice versa, and boom you have an entirely fresh feeling map to wander about. Sure they had to populate it with new structures, but most of those were just slapped where it made sense, under settlements and landmarks of the surface. They even made the lightroots connect upward to shrines on the surface. It feels like they worked smarter not harder for the whole space and it still is such a captivating addition.
The Depths are my favorite part of Tears. I’ve spent far more time there than really necessary. Hyrule does seem very different at first, but in time you’ll start to recognize areas. But I played BotW years ago so they’re often “new” to me anyway.
Its kind of like pokemon black 2 and white 2, they reused some of the map but updated a lot of it and added some new areas.
When i first heard of the chasms, i thought they would be dungeons. Big hiles you jump into that leads to underground slightly mini dungeons. When i first jumped down a chasm and realized i had a whole new map the size of Hyrule, i was honestly kinda overwhelmed and amazed
Yep then you realize your mostly gonna be mining down there because theres not much else.
@@hawkeyemihawkgettingmoneylord This. So many people are in honeymoon right now and maybe have not discovered much of the map. The backlash will be pretty big once people realize there is not much to the depths or the sky islands. No unique environments and so much copy paste, it's pretty disappointing for a 6 year dev cycle.
@@dampflokfreund to be fair you can redo boss fight in depth but at the same time the boss fight kinda suck so does really matter? Then theres a Coliseum which is ok i always loves fight lynels in the first game but thats the problem i already killed about 500 lynels in the first game im kinda tired of doing that.
that sounds cooler than what we got tbh
It's really funny how the surface ended up being the most refreshing place to explore while the depths and sky islands end up getting boring after a short while.
I agree that it's been great to rediscover this world after a few years of changes and to see how locations and characters we loved from last game have changed. However, I do hope (and I know I'm in the minority here) in the next game that the map is just a little bit less massive. Maybe 60-70% the size of the BotW map. That will make it easier for them to prioritize variety over quantity. I'm convinced that a lot of the minor gripes with these games could be solved by making the map a little smaller, because there will be less space to fill. Then the Depths, caves, overworld bosses, etc. will feel less repetitive and shrines can be a little more meaty and substantial in exchange for having a little less of them. I'd rather have 60 good-great caves than 100 decent-good caves.
"This is the next chapter about what happens in this place and with these people" is most important - mainly, because of the "these people" part. That's what we haven't seen before. They established community, personhood, and such with the characters, and actually continued each of them as people just the same.
I bet that TOTK was made because Aonuma kept having ideas while developing BOTW but the WiiU was waay too weak for them.
Like they had to scrap the whole map on gamepad idea so i imagine a lot of ideas in TOTK Aonuma already had in mind but had to scrap in BOTW
Nintendo really stuck the landing on this one. They put enough intrigue in it: All the previous shrines are completely gone, all the guardians, pretty much all things Sheikah. And they did a good job of adding some new things in the first few hours. From the explanations about the Zonai stuff and your new abilities to that Boss Bokoblin you run into along the way to Lookout Landing. If you find yourself wondering things like "Wait, what about the Shrine of Resurrection in the Great Plateau? That was a Sheikah shrine right?", they added something there for you. And the underground is one hell of an addition, I love the outposts and creations we face there
Watching this with my Raycons on rn and can confirm I am in a cave. I can’t confirm they are good earphones but I can confirm my current location is in a dark wet cavern
As cool as it was to see the changes in each town, knowing where all of them were located was still a littttle disappointing to me. :/ TotK is fantastic, but I super missed how fresh and new and unfamiliar thing felt in BotW. It's hard to recapture that magic, but for that reason I rank BotW just a biiiiit higher personally. But yeah, good discussion!
That's true. Now that you mention it I felt the same. It would have been exciting to have more new settlements or towns beyond just having Lookout Landing added. It would've given more of an impression of people rebuilding Hyrule after the events of BotW. I think the most thrill I got from the surface map was when you first dove down from the giant tutorial sky island and then how different Hyrule Field initially felt. After that, a lot of things did feel similar. I do appreciate and enjoy all the details they added to the surface world though.
He sounds a little dead inside when he's talking. You can tell he was very disappointed with the game. We all were.
Sounds excited to me. Also, many people enjoy Totk.
I was worried about them reusing the same map, too, but as you've said, I really didn't need to. Game is incredible and one thing I love about it is that just even at the start, immediately, I started finding familiar NPCs in Lookout Landing and elsewhere. Even though they don't recognize Link, me recognizing them and seeing what they are up to now made these encounters special.
Also, I bet on 6 years again.
Ehh. 5 max. 6 years was only because of a pandemic. But maybe.
@@tumultuousv I'm trying to account for the team being, evidently, very ambitious about the scope and abilities.
14:34 wow, I haven't realized that until now. if the 6+ years of development cycle between each mainline game becomes standard, there’s just a handful of games to come in the next 50 YEARS, this is crazy
Caveat to the caveat - I LIKED some places being familiar. I was already connected to this world, and with so much change and exploration, the stuff that was just 'the same' honestly felt weirdly refreshing? It was like coming home in a way, like 'ah i recognise this'. The thing with BOTW at the end was I always felt a little unsatisfied, like I wanted Link to be able to live his life after saving the entire world. The issue with BOTW is the divine beasts literally shoot lasers over the map reminding you of Ganon at all times. In TOTK, once you resolve the phenomena it's a lot easier to just exist in Hyrule for a while
Technically, this was the same approach they took with A link between Worlds/ A Link to the Past and I'm totally for it.
Skyrim doesn't have a completely connected underground area spanning the entire map. It has many many underground areas and some of them are massive, but you cannot go from area to area without returning to the surface. I'm not sure why I've heard this comparison multiple times now. This is something new. This is bigger.
I mean... elden ring
Most game sequels would expand up or down, if they were restricted to one map. These madlads did both AND changed the base map to a respectable degree. AND THEY DIDNT EVEN ADVERTISE HALF OF IT.
It has been a long while since I last played BOTW, but exploring Hyrule again was an almost completely new experience for me. Sure, I recognized the towns and major landmarks. Visiting your old Hateno house is kinda nostalgic. Everything in between though, it's like I'm seeing it for the first time again.
This game is so damn good. I've spent multiple 12 hour days on it nonstop, and still haven't gotten to the fire temple. But it's got me wondering; all these Zelda games set in Hyrule... What's outside Hyrule? Is it continent-sized or country-sized? How much does the goings-on in Hyrule affect the rest of the planet? This is what has to be explored if Nintendo decides to use this Link again.
I am going with 5 or 4 years. I think Nintendo should, right now, after this big amazing game TotK, they should bite the bullet and give us the real one we need remade and revisited.
As a Zelda Lore Maniac, I want to point out that Nintendo wants us to take Ocarina of Time and accept that they are keeping the canonical events to the lore from the Ocarina of Time Beta Project before one time period was knocked back to 2 timelines instead of 3 (there was originally going to be past, present, and future settings in the game but was limited by the N64) but yet our Released Version of Ocarina of Time isn't the ACTUAL CANON STORY? Which is why the timeline splits into three, a timeline where the hero failed. Which would be hard to do, being that one of these timelines would be you traveling into, a place where you have died already to stop that Ganon (Presumably already A Pig Monster, which may be the hidden reason as to why we still fought a Pig Ganon in OoT, but was never used in Wind Waker) with seven Wisemen?
This would be the thing to topple BotW and TotK, make us a BEAUTIFUL LUSH HYRULE map the size of the Hyrule in the BotW games, themed off of Ocarina of Time, give us three timelines to make the new map feel even more expansive than TotK. THIS WOULD BE THE WAY TO KICK OFF WITH A NEXT GEN ZELDA!
5:30 hard disagree. The map seemed fresh at first because of the perspective shift. Once I cruised around a bit and got my bearings, it all came back. The idea is to change the way you interact with the world to create a fresh experience, which it does, at first. After a bit though its just business as usual.
The depths are soulless and empty and were a total after thought, thats what dissapoints me the most.
Great game though, 8.5 out of 10 from me.
TOTK is a fantastic expansion pack to a superb game.
"TotK should've been a DLC" crowd is definitely seething + coping + malding
I just love how they made old stuff feel new with limited changes
Part of the fun was going back to locations you know about from botw and seeing what changed. It’s like a different flavor of exploring a world.
The caves, the sky and the depths (as well as the new vehicle system) all seem like separate DLC ideas Nintendo decided to hold on to and sell at a later date. The sky is amazing but in terms of content it's barely a dlc's worth of content. The depths are just empty, reusing the same assets over and over again over a huge span of land and, what's more infuriating, just coating regular monsters (save for two), in a red glaze instead of having some actual variety. The caves are fun and they bring new life to the Hyrule surface, but again, it gets old pretty quick. It's just an improved korok hunt that rewards you with masks instead of gold poop (and it's made useless since Majora's mask can be found independently from that anyways) and the dlc/amiibo outfits with two new enemies (see a pattern here?). The new shrines are fun, of course, but it's more of the same physics gameplay of the older shrines repackaged. It could have been sold as a Ballad of the Champion 2. The spirit companions are good aditions but they're just toned down versions of the botw powers. They could have been dlc as well.
The glue holding it together is BoTW and, just like a claymore with a branch attached, it shows. We've been so used to being sold subpar, unfinished games that when a studio delivers a polished experience we don't sit and think how good that experience actually is. We're just happy we got something that works. And by god does ToTK work. It works beautifully. It just so happens it's the game Nintendo should have delivered 6 years ago and didn't.
I had my doubts but boy was I surprised how good the game was. Now I like the fact that it has the same map. It's still so different and it feels nostalgic to visit those same places that have changed so much.
I did not know I needed to hear a Muppet talking about TotK but my god, what a revelation this has been
I dont think the depths makes up for the reuse of the old map. You say that we can look at where the story went from the last time but i dont think that the cost of having that exploration was worth what they ended up doing with it
I have to say that Arlo’s ad breaks are the only ads I willingly watch on RUclips. 😂
I still think the game would be strictly better with a new map but they definitely made it better than I expected
For me it still feels disappointing. The sense of wonder and discovery is limited to the depths and the sky islands. Everything on the surface just feels to familiar. Yes there are new things, but the discovery of new landmarks and regions is not really happening in this game if you played BOTW.
Yeah, I am of the same opinion. While we did get new landscape in form of the Sky Islands and the Depths, the Surface is still the most important land mass and that barely changed.
(But they do have their problems, for example the Sky Islands are too small and they are only a few types, it gets repetitious fast)
They essentially took all "interaction points" of BotW and replaced them with new ones. New shrines, caves, new towers, new quests, new NPCs, new enemies, new camps and so on.
The thing is that the search for these new interaction points is through a map that has barely changed. And that gets stale really fast for players who have seen everything in BotW.
That was one thing that I was really interested in: To see how the old landscape changed.
And I think that the only region that really changed is Eldin with Death Mountain, with all the missing lava making space for new land mass and with all the tracks for mining wagons.
But other than that… we have Typhlo ruins without fog, a new river in the Canyon, a new site at Tarrey Town, but that's about it.
They should have gone the Lorule-way in changing stuff: Change the looks of all the regions, the entire land mass, by changing seasons or climates, essentially make a phenomena per tower region. And then make changes based on those phenomena. For example: Hebra mountain in summer ist without snow, it's not cold and that results in lots of a new rivers.
Or let's have Hyrule fields dried up in a heat wave phenomenon, there are constant wildfires and all the rivers and Lake Hylia are dried out.
Or the Faron region, a phenomenon has caused huge rain falls and they have flooded the entire woods, now we have to use self-built boats to traverse on this new sea through the trees.
Exploration was one of BotW's biggest strenghts, and while we got new things to discover, the exploration itself suffers because the Surface has barely changed.
I actually am really glad they reused the same world. The magic in Breath of the Wild was exploring an incredible world. The magic in Tears of the Kingdom is seeing how the iconic places and characters have changed, and the fact that they have different types of magic means that TOTK doesn't discount BOTW or give you no reason to go back to it. Bravo, Nintendo. You did it again
I’ve only just started, but I found out about the depths myself so no need to worry about spoilers.
But I just had to say that the feeling I got when turning up to rito village, listening to that melancholy music and seeing it lifeless, when only a short while ago I witnessed it filled with life and activity, being one of my favourite places to go. Now it is desolate, and that connection I have to the location itself and the mystery of what caused this and where the rito who lived there escaped to was all the more prevalent.
Imagine playing this without knowing about or playing botw, while you would still be feeling that initial drive to explore and taking things slowly, I find that us having that experience actually manages to only further enhance the emotions the designers wanted out of us when visiting that location.
i had the exact opposite experience lol. First i didn't worry because i trusted nintendo, then i got royaly dissapointed.
Fr
First mistake - trusting Nintendo in the Switch era.
what is there to be disappointed abt though? if you look past some surface level things, its a totally new experience that has so much new to offer from BOTW
@@samcandles
It's disappointing because, even if it's still a good game, it falls a little short. The cave stuff, for example, feels underutilized.
@@Persun_McPersonson I actually agree now, after thinking about it a lot the game is structured really poorly for storytelling and the way the new mechanics are implemented often get in the way immersion and ease of use
14:35 I think about this all the time. I wish more people talked about this sort of thing. I'm 33 and even if I live to be exactly 100, and I make the assumption that it will take about 6 years between mainline Zelda games, there may only be 11 or fewer games left in my lifetime.
I'm pretty sure nintendo not only used the same assets and stuff to be cheaper, but also that it's pretty much the best they can do with the limitations of the switch
It bugged me in previous Zelda's that there wasn't location continuity in Hyrule between games. So in that regard I was OK with them reusing the overworld.
I love this game, it might be the best I've ever played, but I also agree and get where you're coming from Arlo when you say we're retreading old ground at times. The shrine discovery gameplay loop in particular has me feeling like I'm replaying BotW at times.
A new settlement and/or new race of people in the sky or depths, tied to the main quests, would have also gone a long way in differentiating this experience from BotW.
It's a weird one, though, because it's an undeniable improvement over its predecessor and I can't stop playing. But I also agree that it doesn't quite give the same wondrous sense of discovery we got from BotW. Comes damn close though, which is saying a lot for a game that reuses the same assets and world.
Before you read the rest of this, just know I LOVE Tears of the Kingdom. I will probably play it for twice as long as I did Botw, and it's no doubt one of my favorite games I've ever played.
I liked my experience playing Breath of the Wild better. That said, botw was not just my first switch game, not just my first Zelda game, but my first ever console game. Being dropped into such an expansive world as botw and first walking out of the shrine of resurrection was an experience. It took me weeks to get off the Great Plateau just because I had no muscle memory to work off of with how console buttons work. TOTK is incredible and I love it to death but tbh the kind of "new" I'M looking for isn't the "new" they put in the game. I like new mundane things. I like seeing a new skyline I've never seen before. I like new jingles and tiny themes that would usually go unnoticed (was disappointed to find out most of the overworld themes are just carried over from botw. They're all bangers but even a remix would have been cool) I like finding out what basic animal models look like in-game and finding new stuff to just collect. There wasn't a lot of that kind of "new". I guess what I like is that general vibe of "every angle of this is an unknown, and you just have to figure it out." I didn't get that with totk, despite most mechanics and map elements changing to fit an objective "new." Love the game and probably will only ever replay botw on a better system, but I love my first play through of botw better than my first run of totk
The trailers made me wonder if we were playing as a young Ganon. Now that I’m playing I just think that Zelda is not Zelda. She just seems to enjoy the blood moon a bit too much. And no woman enjoys her blood moon that much.
I really find the concept of a muppet type being doing game stuff to be utterly charming regardless of the subject.
I like how the honeymoon phase is over and now everyone stopped with that obnoxious toxic positivity and acknowledges it's the exact same game with minecraft mechanics (and this is coming from someone who religiously defended totk from the 'its a glorified dlc' comments)
I played BotW up to TotK's release, wanting to know exactly how the two cames compared. And despite the play-set being identical, I had SO much fun. In six years, I've put 150 hrs into BotW. At current time, right now, TotK's playtime sits at 170hrs. I did in 4 weeks what took me six years before.
so as someone thats almost 100% the game except koroks no amount of money could get me to do that i mean ya they put in pretty much the same cave just a little different eachtime with only a few with treasure that u give a shit about.. the sky islands except a few are all the same with slightly different easy puzzles and the depths..... everyone is going on about the depths but what is really down there to explore the collusiums are cool but theres the same yiga base copied and pasted over and over which you kill 1 enemy and bam your done with that the boss refoghts are ok except the bosses are a joke and when you re encounter them nothings changed theres vast amount of space in the depths just empty i will give thsm some credit though the ultrahand is awesome the fuse is absolutely sick but the world in all honesty is still just bland theres 0 endgame content and the challenges fot killing every mini boss is just a medall so after killing100s of the same 4 bosses u dont get some awesome piece of armor no you get a shitty medal that literally offers 0 value to your game play.. i think people are in a honeymoon phase with this game and in time will have the same problems that they originally had with botw
I agree with you 100%, this is imo one of the most overrated games in a long time
it recycles SO much from BoTW it's not even funny
HOW are ppl finding exploring the exact same towns like Eldin or Rito NEARLY as exciting as in BoTW?
everything was new in BoTW, here only like 15% - and Depths are HUGELY repetitive and way too big for their content!
@@charliez077 absolutely if it wasnt for the cool shit you could do with the zonai constructs with ultrahand and fuse whats really that different other then like 4 new enemies around the world that you just run by after the first couple hours AND they only added like and i just counted 11 new outfits out of like 34 outfits 23 outfits and thats not even including all the earrings crowns and misc pieces that were from BOTW and dont get me wrong i did have fun playing it but its not even close to being as good as everyone says when you first step out of the res chamber in botw talk about starting a game off right idk this just falls way flat for me
I don’t understand the argument that this game is dark. It’s really disappointing, not even close to the twilight princess, which was not even close to Majora’s mask. Totk is fantastic yet disappointing at the same time.
Misquoted. Aonuma only said what we saw in 2019 was dark not everything
What you didn't account for in your assessment of the "production cycle" thing:
1. Covid obviously.
2. All the in-game physics seem to be a huge deal, development-wise, that couldn't have been pulled of by-the-way.
3. Longer production cycles that don't need many delays are an indicator of an improved project scope. If they did so, while working on improving employee-wellbeing, this is an actual plus to me. I think, we're actually spoiled by annual releases from publishers who fight each other over our attention.
I also highly support reusing assets in games, even in cases like an entire map being reused. This gives developers more time to work on other things. It also gives them more time to polish that map! The devs were able to replay their game builds a lot to find bugs and fine tune how the map felt to explore in various ways.
When nintendo delayed totk last year, they actually already had a final product to release! Art can never truly be “completed”, though, so an extra year of time gave them more of a chance to fine tune the game even further
I don't understand why people want "a new Hyrule", it makes no sense.
What would be in this new version of Hyrule? Another Death Mountain? Another Zora's Domain? Another Kakariko Village? Another Gerudo Desert? The same set of iconic locations but arranged differently?
Or do you want to just throw away everything that makes it Hyrule? None of the iconic locations, something entirely new. To me, that wouldn't be Hyrule anymore.
If you really want a new world in a Zelda game, you're saying you want to get rid of Hyrule. You want a game set in a new location, and start from scratch without any of the iconic things about Hyrule, like a game sending Link to Termina or Koholint.
Nintendo made the decision that makes the most sense. Keep building more into Hyrule.
And honestly, I'd love if they used the same world again but added even more! Add more villages and towns, completely renovate the existing towns, add new places to go and so on.
Maybe set it hundreds of years later to explain the changes and new characters. 1720s Europe is a lot different than 2020s Europe, even though its "the same world".
And instead of the Depths next time, the next game could do something such as Link to the Past's Light World and Dark World, or Past/Future like in Ocarina of Time. Two parallel realities of the same map.
Love your vids Mr. Arlo, quick question - You’ve said a few times “they did a Skyrim” and I’m wondering if you mean Elden Ring. I don’t recall a large underground area in Skyrim but I’ve heard Elden Ring has one and was wondering if either there’s a mistake or I’ve missed a massive part of Skyrim lol. Great vids can’t wait for the TOTK review.
I think a lot of frustration with game development time can come down to not knowing what's really involved in making a game. We could have gotten an RE4 situation (& I hear this happens a lot), if a build of a game isn't working then the developers have to start from scratch so that kind of makes total development time irrelevant.
Breath of the Wild was my first ever Zelda game. Beforethat I was aware of the series but I'd only interacted with it through childhood via super smash bros. I love how they made it a direct sequel. My favourite pokemon generation is gen 5 BECAUSE I got to spend a longer in-universe amount of time in that region. I love One Piece. Having something that builds on itself like a direct sequel just scratches me in the right places.
Most developers would be too nervous not to show everything about their game. So the fact that Nintendo just flat out didn’t mention The Depths is crazy. They have such confidence in their product and faith in their community. It’s awesome, truly.
There's also the fact that the entire world went on its head when botw came out so it was expected that journalist would keep the hype up about the sequel no matter how little they showed
For real. When i jumped down there for the first time and realised there is a whole underground, I was poppin' off. I was like "they fuckin did it! They didn't even have to but they did the thing!"
No matter how lackluster some of the trailers seemed, I could never fathom being worried about a Zelda game. I didn't need anything but that title to know this game would be a masterpiece. Building that level of trust with your fanbase isn't something most franchises can do.
What were they supposed to do, just show link gliding through pitch black towards an orange dot?
@@holyelephantmg8838or the mines with old/ new armour, the coliseums, the boss arenas, the gerudo graveyard, the blupee den, the 2 dungeons, the springs, the bargainer statues, the new mini bosses etc.
I think one thing you missed about the reuse of old map is how you explore it. Now that you have ultrahand and ascend you can do things you previously can't do to the old map
Yeah, and if it had been a totally new map then people would have been saying, "Man, I wish I could have used this cool vehicle I built back in Breath of the Wild, that would have been sweet."
Or adding sleds and minecarts to your shield to make shield-surfing more viable in the world too.
Always fun to be inside a cave and ascend whithout paying attention to the map to see where you'll emerge.
Sleds and mine carts? You don't need a minecart to grind the rails, and a slab of raw meat that had an ice fruit thrown at it is the best thing to fuse to your shield for shield surfing.
It's amazing how small the Great Plateau feels now, isn't it?
Came for the cute blue monster commentary, left with an existential dread lingering from the "how many more Zeldas will we play before we die?" question.
That part made me roll my eyes actually. Dude wants faster development cycles AND new versions of Hyrule/ assests AND wants it faster. He seems like a childish wanker. This will be my last video of his as I've realized I don't like or respect the man behind (fittingly) the muppet. He's *literally* like a child screaming "MORE" and "NOW" over and over again.
The irony is that his review of the game is taking so long that he should call it: "Too late. No one cares."
And the unfortunate answer is not enough.
@@lracseroom8286 You seem fun.
I honestly don't mind them taking 5 years to develop these games, but I would love to see Nintendo develop new 2D Zelda's again.
I mean, there's a lot of discussion in regards to how BOTW (and TOTK too really) differ from the original Zelda formula, and I think that making 2D games would give them an opportunity to satisfy those who really enjoy that og formula (I include myself there lol) while also just giving us more games while we wait for the big ambitious 3D games.
Yes, I've already been contemplating this question. And there's maybe 5-6 more Zelda games in it for me, if I'm lucky! So... I'm going to enjoy them as much as possible and I better not die right before one of them launches!
the fact that nintendo was somehow able to keep the entirety of the depths a complete secret leading up to the games launch is a small miracle in and of itself, and just made that first dive down a chasm that much more incredible
edit: well i guess i have a new most liked comment lol
Unless you saw it in a RUclips video first
Yeah them protecting this stuff before release as strictly as they do is something I really appreciate. Also the hands. Man the first time reaction to those is classic and I couldn’t have had that if it had leaked
And the fact that you can travel directly from sky islands, through regular map and into the depths seamlessly, without any loading screens on such limited hardware as Switch is, that's even more amazing.
I can't imagine how many sleepless nights software engineers at Nintendo had to spend to optimize it. Like, yeah, they had a test run in the form of BOTW, but we're talking about a game that essentially added two new maps (sky & depths) on top of what was in the BOTW (just ground). Not to mention that the game is gorgeous and you really need to work really hard and have a lot of bad will to find a place where it looks bad.
So theoretically totk is more than 10 years old in development due to botw setting a foundation for it
Technically, they showed it for like 2 seconds in one of the trailers, but it would be almost impossible to tell what it was.
What’s really strange to me is that I found that the simple act of starting the game from lookout landing/central Hyrule instead of the Great Plateau, plus the additional/altered landmarks, gave me a completely different perspective on the layout of the land, to such a degree that I found myself lost many times despite being so familiar with the world in BOTW. I found myself constantly checking my location on the map and thinking “OOOHH this is around the Zora area” or whatever it was cause I couldn’t tell just from walking around.
Same! Thank god for the map in the LL shelter. Couldn’t even remember where Tarrey Town was lol
Big facts
With all of the old sheikah towers missing, I realized how much I used them to get a general sense of direction. That bit threw me off too even though I didn’t think it would have.
@@sadudas11 That and the areas on the map you unlock by the towers not being necessarily the same, or split up in some cases, made me confused a lot initially.
My collective 2,000 hours of botw didn't allow me that experience.
My favorite change is that they moved the arc of the sun across the sky. In BotW, the sun was in the north at noon. In TotK, it's in the south. So even if you're in the same exact place, the different lighting will make the environment feel subtly different, even if it's exactly the same.
Dude that’s actually so cool and smart, I love that
i hate it, it literally makes no sense and is never explained.
@@goese868 It's a world where a scorching desert borders an arctic region, giant chunks of rock float effortlessly in the sky, an absolutely massive underground cavern existed right next to the ocean without leaking water in over the eons, and the moon randomly turns red and revives monsters every couple nights...
The sun's angle in the sky changing over time is far from the weirdest thing here.
@@SKy_the_Thunder yeah but those things have a purpose. What the hell is the purpose of changing where the sun is. It's effort for nothing.
@@goese868 It's literally one setting in the engine.
And the purpose is probably somewhere between "fixing" the sun's position for players in the northern hemisphere and achieving a certain lighting atmosphere.
I personally hadn’t touched BotW since I originally played it on release, and I think the long span of time since then managed to make going through Hyrule in TotK still feel fresh in it’s own way. It felt like walking into a town you hadn’t been to for years, and get a warm feeling when you see a cafe you used to visit a lot back in the day (if that makes sense)
nostalgia
Same for me! Yes I recognized general points of interests and had a vague sense of where things were, and I loved that sensation
A cool thing is for me I played botw for the first time about a month before totk released and even jumping straight from botw to totk with basically no wait inbetween the new additions and changes still managed to make totk feel new and fresh so its not just the timespan between botw release and now
I had the same experience. I remembered bigger points of interest but I couldn’t remember where. I could remember the biomes but it always felt like i was playing totk blind. I prefer it a LOT over botw 60-70 ish hours in
I played BOTW and TOTK back to back and I wasn't disappointed
I just wish there were more sky islands. It's the coolest part of the game and it's so tiny.
The first one is a great size. One of those over a few more regions with lots of smaller ones in between would have been great.
Absolutely, also a lot of them seem to be very copy paste. The great sky island was so cool but then there's no reason to go back except koroks and there's no where else in the game like it
I wish there were more islands too. I guess I can see the logic behind not having as many. If there's more large islands, then it could turn into a huge umbrella and it's "not realistic" and could inhibit the view. I still want more sky islands.
I theorize that in the DLCs (assuming we get 2 like Botw) we'll get one dedicated to the depths with new areas, bosses and other stuff. And we'll get one for the Skylands with more sky islands with unique layouts and bosses.
And the easiest thing to add in DLC.
One of my favorite parts so far, was just randomly stumbling into a massive cave. I kept finding more and more rooms and couldn’t believe how huge this cave was. It almost felt like its own game.
After the early quest to talk to the guard captain below Hyrule Castle, instead of teleporting back to Lookout Landing, I decided to explore the castle bits that were still on the ground. I wound up finding the "Exit" to the Royal Secret Passage or whatever that was supposed to have its own quest much later down the road and be entered from the other side down at the Landing. XD
So there's me with 4 hearts, crappy weapons, having to face down a Shock Like and then a Stalnox, barely scraping by with enough weapons and stones to fuse to break through all the rock walls, and picking up the guard armor set all along the way, finally meeting the horned statue at the end and ascending up into Lookout Landing. It was the most awesome 2 hours of Zelda dungeoneering I'd played since the traditional dungeons of the past, or maybe something like Skyrim... just a long, straightforward gauntlet of difficult fights and resource management, and I agree, such long and packed caves really do often feel like their own games!
Too bad there’s usually nothing worth finding in those outside of an occasional shrine or one of those monsters you kill the the one quest. Breakable weapons take away any sense of discovery.
I’d love to see a comparison of the size of all the combined cave space compared to the map, I bet it matches or is larger than all the sky islands combined
I did the same thing and ended up in fricken Hyrule Castle after wandering around for forever. 😂
@@thedapperdolphin1590 What are you talking about? Fighting a boss for their Fuse material is really nice. Most of my best weapon were from bosses I fought in caves. I could have tried finding more on them in the surface, but Cave exploration was fun
I thought the chasms were just a new bottomless pit to avoid so imagine my shock when I Jump down a chasm for shits and giggles expecting the classic bottomless pit death only to end up in the Depths
When I jumped into one of those holes I thought it was just another small cave area to explore. I go down and I'm wondering why the hell it's so dark in here so I keep running around exploring...and then it just never ends. I just thought maybe it was a slightly bigger cave than the other caves. I feel stupid though because I actually got lost in the depths and was trying to figure out how to make my way back up after 20 minutes and didn't realize you could just teleport out by swapping to the ground map lol
That is awesome! I wish I was brave enough to experience it like that! lol
I didn't even jump in a chasm, I discovered the whole thing with wells, jumped down a random well and suddenly I was in pitch black, found a nearby lightroot then looked at the map and had the crazy realization
@@bdmatsterrr The same thing but found the root after several hours. And I was really early in my playthrough ^^
I found a stalhorse on my first trip to the depths and spent well over an hour running around on it till I got it stuck in a hole cause it was dark
When I saw the depths for the first time and realised how big it was - I was immediately overwhelmed and got too scared to touch it again for quite a bit
Same
I still haven't been down there much and it's been over 50 hours
Same I've got a couple light roots marked and some key areas for story. But I don't even have auto build and I'm 100 hours and am on the last 2 story missions.
Their size is staggering, but the thing that kept me from exploring them for a bit was the lightseeds. I find them kinda clunky. I didn't want to have to toss them around all the time, but I guess I got over it lol.
I saw one of the wall boarders and assumed there was just a bunch of separate large caves. So then I turned around.
It was so cool, seeing even super minor characters, like Calip and Magda, getting actual character development. Like, seriously, I’m so happy they didn’t skimp on the NPC’s.
yeah like i noticed the kids from botw grew up into preteen looking ppl in totk. I thought that was so cute to see new npcs that looked different but were the same people.
Calip got development?
Always seemed like a prick to me.
Hudson has a child. Link wingman'd enough for a child to exist now.
seeing Loone move on from the guardians to obsessing over the great skeletons was pretty great, i also remembered that hylian couple in rito village where the wife wanted baked apples, and ran into the husband with a different girl. seems like those two got a divorce. the npcs definitely make the world feel so lively
Was worried at first too, because at the start they kept yammering tutorials and repeating information at me.
The depths are not only the same map, but an inverted version of it. Like, the big mountains on the surface are big holes on the depths. It's pretty cool.
I never even noticed, that's awesome. The light roots are on the place of shrines though and they are the same name but backwards
All rivers on the surface are the walls of the depths as well. It's literally like a dark world type thing
It's really cool at first but it also gets really boring and repetitive after a while
The Depths are WAY too big given how little diverse content there is - they should have made it much smaller or added more diverse stuff, more dungeons a town... etc.
@@charliez077Using a script to flip the map and auto generate it was probably an intentional decision made to save money and time. I don’t agree with smaller areas (adding something like elden rings rivers would have been pretty lame tbf) but they should have used custom modeling tools to make a new underground by hand, and fill it full of unique stuff to find. Very important that it still spans the entire map, but a network of huge caverns would have been good. But yeah, I agree it gets very repetitive when you know how it works. Plus, most of the rewards are some dumb reference items or clothing so finding things gets pretty stale. The airbike is a blessing when banging out the last of the depths
@@saycapbro 💀
Elden Ring rivers are top map design in all of gaming because it rewards curiosity. It's not like totk that says "YO LOOK AT THIS PLACE YOU CAN EXPLORE"
Instead, it's hidden inside a forest or just a random structure off in the middle of nowhere. You think it's just a dungeon but instead a huge new unique level with unique enemies, bosses and weapons to find
Finding Mogh was so freaking awesome. It felt like I was genuinely rewarded for exploring everything, I can't say that for totks depths
Honestly I like the sense of familiarity with the world in totk. It changes the vibes from "exploring a post-apocalyptic hyrule" to "Running around int a world that is being reconstructed." I think it's especially true since movement is easier so it's actually quite easy to visit all the populated areas. It changes the vibe of the game to match the setting, while still having the depths as this mysterious unknown.
I think it's very under appreciated when a masterpiece of a map like BotW is allowed to really breath and expand. not only that, but re-meeting certain characters and locations that are totally different is just such a joy.
Post-apocalyptic hopelessness is done so much, I really like the reconstructing as you describe it. It's also very different than the fallout version of the idea of 'rebuilding', and in a fantastic way.
I loved seeing Mubs in Lookout Landing. And I love how every town is different in some way. Stuff like that makes the world feel fresh and lived in.
I find that traversal isn't much easier though, which can make the reused map feel like a chore sometimes. I'm so used to these fields and hills, and hiking can be just as slow and trudging as BOTW. You don't always have a sky island checkpoint to glide from and I'm still getting the hang of vehicles. Horses remain very committal and clunky as well. It made reactivating all the watch towers pretty irritating for me. I wish we had a few already activated for us, and had to help repair the rest. It would've helped make exploring the new world just a tad more expedient for me.
But the upheaval kinda throws that into the trashbag. The world is basically ground zero for a catastrophe again. I don't seea world reconstructed but rather a world coming together to face another apocalyptic scenario. Zora Domain hasn't changed for the better, for example. They have the same structures but now they have to deal with sludge?
Love that Hudson Construction are treated like low key heroes with super natural building skills too. Hyrule could be completely rebuilt by the next sequel if they really get to work 😂
"Arlo is awesome!"
"Arlo peaked in 2019!"
"Hey!"
I just love that gag when echoes somehow repeat the opposite of what you said.
Agreed
Lol like the Grinch
@@TROBassGuitar Grinch: I'm an idiot!!! Echo: You're an idiot!
Why am I starting to see you everywhere?
It was the double "Hey!" that got me.
i love that the 5 or so year time skip rlly does feel like it happened with all the developments in the world
Time passed at the same rate for us and for the game... Pretty cool!
Ngl it was shocking for me. I was like, "woah it's all so different and yet the same"
The dude who married a gerudo in Botw now has a 7 year old child, so i guess 7 years past
@@brotbrotsen1100 I think she's actually 5
@@brotbrotsen1100 oh damn so longer than i thought
Realizing the way the light roots in the depths connected to the shrines was pretty crazy. It fixed one of the biggest issues in hunting down shrines especially when you only had a few left to find and at the same time it gave you points to find more light roots in the depths to help you explore
I think I lit up maybe 2/3 of the depths before the "ah ha" moment where I realized on my own that the lightroot and shrine positions were the same. Probably because I started the depths mostly in areas I hadn't visited up top yet. Would have made early lightroot hunting and shrine hunting far earlier, though honestly it would have made it also feel more like a collectathon chore than exploration.
I'm so glad the game basically leaves you to figure that out on your own. Same with "Oh, the inaccessible areas are the water areas on the surface" and "The canyons in the depths are the mountains on the surface". So clever.
Idk, that realization took a lot of fun out of shrine hunting for me. It introduced a pretty rote and repetitive gameplay loop for me. It also just underscored the fact that they reused the same hyrule map for me. Like “you already explored this map before, so you might not want to do that again, so we’ll just tell you where all the shrines are.”
The fact that Tarrey Town was still there was all I could ever ask for.
Tarrytown*
It's not a town filled with Terry's.
@@jarlwhiterun7478 Tarrey Town*
Though it kinda is a town where you tarry a while on your journey.
Yeah it was pretty Awe-son, right?
Wouldn’t it been hilarious if it WAS a town full of Terrys?
@@jarlwhiterun7478 It's not filled with Terry's? We'll see about that ;)
Arlo peaked in 2019 had me rolling on the floor, few people can make fun of themselves wholesomely. You are one of those legends among men!!
Arlo is not human
Monsters*
Is he a man or a muppet?
The backhanded compliment 😂
@@Yisrael_TeshuvahIs he a manly Muppet or a Muppet of a man?
One of the most fun things about TotK is going to a place where there used to be a certain secret or Shrine in BotW and finding out what they ended up putting there instead
There’s a singular tree- the only one for a while around- south of the Northern Lomei Labyrinth that housed a Korok in Breath of the Wild. In Tears of the Kingdom, that tree grew up into a larger tree and had a different type of puzzle. Something as small as that was enough to make my day.
Yeah, I found myself specifically going to certain locations to learn what happened to them. “What happened to the Great Plateau?” was one of my first big questions.
yeah what's with the weird stripping of all sheikah technology in TOTK?
@@goese868 It's so weird. Not even just that it's gone, that no one remembers it.
@@z.amelius when i first played and i got to the shrine of resurection i thought this game wasn't connected to botw, it's just so poorly explained.
at 12:16 we can see Arlo casually wasting one of the most powerful items in the game on a common enemy. I screamed.
Usually it's Arlo's editor's footage that we're seeing
@@thorne3827 True, though at least it made a cool clip in a video watched by hundreds of thousands of people. And... I haven't used a single one of these items, even though I've beaten the game, because if the enemy is strong, I *want* the items they drop.
@@thorne3827 even worse
Well, they're renewable, much like many 'unique' weapons, so even if it is a bit wasteful, I don't think it's that much of an issue. Use what you want, I say.
Within the first 10 mins of landing in Hyrule, i was kinda confused because something was different, i just couldn't figure out what
Probably because you land close to the middle of the map and start exploring from a point, where you weren't in Botw. I mean, when would you have ever gone from Hyrule Castle to where the Great Plateau is? It always was the other way around. That's why it felt so different, while not being different in the most parts
Even seeing the new designs for the bokoblins was jarring. The new horns made them look so weird at first but now I can’t imagine them with their tiny horns in BOTW
Well, for starters, landing i Bottomless Pond instead of Bottomless Bog. Seriously, that alone, even after seeing Zeldatubers note that change, made me think "this wasn't here before!". The absence of Guardians also made Hyrule Field feel strangely safer.
For me it was the fog/haze. That bothers me a bit, but I'm getting used to it.
The first time I dove into the depths I had no idea they existed and I immediately landed by what I now think was a yiga clan hideout where I was being blasted by a Lazer in the pitch black, and it seemed so hard/scary that I didn't go down again for a very long time
I first went down the "tutorial chasm" (Central Hyrule) and STILL I was too terrified until I felt I had to do the quests related to the Depths. Learning there were Lightroots under the shrines made it doable, knowing where the "lightswitches" were haha
One of the first times I went to the depths, I basically landed on top of an Obsidian Frox and I actually screamed
@@whysitthat3515 Let me guess, in Akkala? ;)
One of the first things I did in the game was go back to The Great Plateau... and did the bring me my eyes quest.... and by accident did my first Yiga Clan encounter... I had no idea what this game was anymore.
Successfully doing the quest (skipping over the intended introduction) hooked me on the depths. Turned out pretty nice, because there's a ton of bomb flowers to find down there!
my first experience with the depths was the great plateau quest. crazy introduction.
I have a weird sneaking suspicion that using the same map was a lot harder than Nintendo expected. Trying to fit new concepts into an old world is astronomically difficult from a game design standpoint. I think that Nintendo won't do it again.
From a programming and graphics perspective it makes things much simpler
Doubt that's the case. Let's not forget, COVID shutdowns and stuff started to happen less than a year after TotK was announced, as it was announced during the E3 2019 Direct. There is also the fact that Aonuma said in an interview that game was effectively done one full year before they released it, they just held off release and polished for that one extra year. So the effective development turnaround between BotW and Tears was five years, four once you factor in COVID slowdowns that affected every developer in the world. Then you also have to factor in they likely didn't just start production on Tears immediately (Champion's Ballad came out end of 2017, so they didn't start till 2018 at the earliest) and the turnaround gets even shorter.
I mean, they didn't do it now. There's nothing new here.
Nah man, I completely disagree. This game is only possible because it was built on the back of another game. It's genuinely one of the greatest things ever made and one of the highest rated and most well received games of all time. I don't think they'll shy away from this strategy if it makes sense in the future. But I also don't think theyll make another game with the same base map again. The next game will probably have a new style and map but probably gonna use a similar engine and structure.
@@TheDapperDragonyou are mentally handicapped if you genuinely believe that.
My favorite part of the game is restoring places like Lurelin Village or Gerudo town. So rewarding.
Reminds me of how it felt to revisit Kanto in Gold/Silver/Crystal. It's not just the same map, it's the same map several years down the line.
I loved this part of the 2nd gen games, and was incredibly disappointed that they didn't follow the same path with the 3rd gen.
It was like, "okay, I finished exploring Hoenn. I want to go back home, now!"
That's a great analogy
Black and White 2 as well
@@retroransom yeah but at least gen 2 had its own map. Analogy kinda falls appart when you think of it like that lol.
This is a pretty terrible analogy, Kanto was empty and more of a boss rush in GSC. The changes in comparison to this are so minimal it's insulting, but compared to actual Kanto? That should have made people angry not being something they bring up all the time.
I actually didn't know about the depths for a long time into my playthrough. then one time when me and my bf were calling and playing totk at the same time he's like "have you jumped into a chasm yet" and i was like "no i thought it would hurt me if i jump in" and he got my live reaction "wow this is deep WAIT HOLY SHIT IS THIS HELL WORLD?? IS THIS THE NETHER???!? TOTK NETHER!!!!?? HELL WORLD!!!"
The magic of the game for me was going back to the same locations and seeing what changed, helping the locals rebuild, and since the shrines were do much better and more interesting, im actually gonna do all the shrines now. It's just a better experience.
I think with Totk taking so long its important to remember that whole covid thing really set game development back, for example the producer of FF16 said it set them back at minimum 6 months, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if zelda lost a year of productivity
Yeah I would not be surprised if the game was meant to come out 2 years ago
@@ADreamingTravelerit WAS meant to come out 2 years ago. It was supposed to come out in 2021.
On top of that, the entire final year of development was spent just patching out bugs with the new mechanics. I know the reuse of the world probably saved them a lot of time since the Sky and Depths aren't quite as fleshed out, but without COVID and likely without mechanics that are this demanding from a programming standpoint, I doubt the next Zelda will take nearly as long.
This is one of the reasons Pokemon Black and White 2 are one of my favorite games too! Just to see how the world and characters have changed is in two years was really fun to see. Same with Tears of the Kingdom!
I had that feeling going playing Gold or Silver and returning to Kanto.
I'm replayng both games rn pokemon black and white is simply incredible
But they barely changed the world in TotK
Gen 5 was the worst, I've never played 7 but apparently that one sucked too
That’s it! I kept saying Final Fantasy X-2 or XIII-2 but, no, it was HGSS and BW2.
Hearing the idea of surface-depths correlations makes it almost seem like lazy design to quickly create a new area, but I can’t bring myself to see it that way. It’s ingenious and works so well
It did however destroy the creativity of placing the shrines in the overworld a ton.
I like it because if you explore the depths before the surface, you have an easier time with the surface because you learn the shrine locations whereas if you explore the surface before the depths, you have an easier time with the depths because you learn lightroot locations.
@@DragonPanda4what a strange take? the shrines are placed in far better areas this game
@adam yeah but half of them were blessing shrines and it was extremely disappointing. I love this game to bits but that is so many blessing shrines.
@@DragonPanda4I preferred that because the challenges were in the overworld rather than in the shrine itself. One of my least favorite parts of botw was how much of a chore the shrines became and in this I never felt like a shrine was too annoying to accomplish using the overworld for puzzles also made for more options in solving the shrines. There were maybe two blessings in the entire game where I thought that it could have been a regular shrine but other than that I think they made the right choice
I’m just disappointed there’s more of the depths than the sky, the first couple hours in the great sky islands were the most fun I had in the game. The rest is still fun, but I just loved the zonal robots and the atmosphere and puzzles and design of the sky islands. Meanwhile the depths are fun but there isn’t much to do down there. They should’ve made more sky islands and less underground
I think it's just well sky islands means there is more sky than island while underground you have to be basically as big as the surface since it's just underground
To me the great sky island kind of just felt like botw DLC, then when I got onto the surface it felt like a new game
Agreed. The Sky Islands are the best part. They feel so fresh and new. I would GLADLY buy DLC that adds several more Great Sky Island areas to the game :)
The sky islands were extremely underwhelming for me. Most of them were basically just the same stuff. I would have loved for there to be bigger clusters like the great sky island all over the place with different themes and biomes, more use of rails and verticality. They have some amazing premises with the sky gameplay but didn't take it far enough I think.
@@durpanda123 Would a denser sky region be worth the tradeoff in shadows? It'd be a lot darker on the surface and you wouldn't see as much of the sky down there.
I have never felt nostalgia quite like walking back onto the great plateau. It was such a beautiful moment just to relieve that section.
And then to find out what was beneath the goddess statue... So cool.
I can’t blame you for not realizing how great revisiting places and seeing what people had been up to would be. One of the major improvements in this game is how all the inhabitants feel like they’re living real lives and doing things and making plans outside of what link is doing. I couldn’t have anticipated feeling wonder at revisiting places before because the people in the first game were pretty static, unmoving and not really changing. So when I pictured revisiting places, I kinda just pictured people continuing to just kinda exist. What makes this game so exciting is that all the people are up to new things based on what’s happened previously. It’s the key ingredient, in my opinion
I ran into an NPC who's part of the Monster Hunting team who gave me a LYNEL horn. Respect.
@@Swiftbow exactly! Like that seems so small, but just feeling like you’re a part of a bigger force fighting to fix the world (even if you’re the main, most influential part) feels cool
"all the inhabitants feel like they’re living real lives and doing things and making plans outside of what link is doing"
you've got to play majora's mask, friend
My favorite addition was the underground passage between Lookout Landing and Hyrule Castle. It's a callback to Link to the Past and wasn't necessary to put in. But it's there, and it takes about 90 mins to fully explore, almost like it's own dungeon. Even had a Stalnox as a sort of boss in the middle. It's one of those details that is just beautiful.
doing that early on and being rewarded with the knights amour was awesome. Just wish it didn't make me use a gazillion bombs - certainly taught me to fuse rocks to rusty claymores found in the rocks.
and the way they make you unearth the Stalnox is such a fun touch
@@LogicalleapingThat itself may have been the intended lesson. You're so likely to explore that before finding renewable/plentiful sources of rock-breaking, so it teaches you that it's ok to put something slapdash together. That room will open up again later.
@@LogicalleapingBuild an excavator with a spike ball on a wheel on the end of a spear.
I really loved running into old NPCs! It made it feel like returning to a friend.
My biggest gripe with the game is that Kass is just straight up missing. Hopefully he’s in DLC but it honestly did suck out a lot of enjoyment. Seeing him again was one of my most looked forward to things :(
ok. THIS is a legit issue. We demand Kass back. :(
he should be in that band, theirs literally a band
BOTW was about the past. TOTK is about the present and future. Kass is a bard who studies the riddles and legends of the past. Penn is a reporter who is keenly interested in current events and problems people face.
I do hope he's in the DLC.
@@eneekmot this would make sense except half the game’s story takes place in the ANCIENT past. I get Kass not being a major NPC, but like… where is he??? Why can’t he just be chillin at Rito village. I just wanna SEE him.
He’s like the only major NPC that just disappears
Instead of Kass we got his half-cousin Penn
I just wish there were like 3 or 4 more sky islands that were as big and interesting as the Great Sky Island. The smaller clusters just kinda felt the same.
I also wish there were more interesting things to see in the Depths. Different biomes or even towns where some sort of monster people live.
The game is still absolutely massive and you have to admire the sheer scale of the whole thing.
Maybe will get it on dlc
I wish we had more big sky islands, there is definitely room for more. Eldin is such a large area and it has like 5 tiny islands with virtually nothing on them. I wouldn't want the whole sky cluttered with them, but for sure having more would be great
Totally agree especially about having more big sky islands. I recently found one fairly big one and was pleasantly shocked. I thought I'd accidentally ran into a temple at first but it was just a pretty decent sized island even if not as big as the starting area. And yes I really wished there were little monster towns or communities in the Depths too. I kinda was wondering if I would run into the Subrosians actually, the hooded race of people that live underground in the Oracle games. That certainly would've been cool. I do still very much enjoy the Depths though but would've liked more variety since it is still around the same size as the surface map.
My idea was it would be cool if there were an underground civilization of those Mogma guys from Skyward Sword. It would make sense, and it would give that area desperately needed complexity beyond the repetitiveness.
These two things that you mention bother me so so so much, that I just can't love this game.