having never played that franchise before, the least I can do for my beloved Zelda franchise is play past the first few hours of TotK to give the inevitable Game Of The Year a little more time to win me over.
I played all yesterday, and thanks to an upcoming five-day, no-work, Memorial Day weekend + Show Spoiler +
my school will be closed Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, thanks to some unused snow days in the district I teach at
I'll be able to dedicate a lot more time to TotK before Diablo 4 comes out. I appreciate the suggestions and encouragement you all wrote in response to me being unhappy with the beginning of TotK
I'm approaching TotK in a similar fashion to how I approached BotW, and I'm finding that it works really well for keeping me interested and curious and motivated. This is my personal game plan:
1. Ignore the main story (after receiving the paraglider) and just explore, explore, explore. Generally focus on grabbing watchtowers and finding shrines, but go off on random tangents if something else looks cool (cave! korok! guy trying to hold another king sign up! chest! stable! wtf is that!) or if there are other small sidequests along the way. Stay above ground, beat 20 shrines, and redeem their 20 Light of Blessing orbs all at the same time to experience my first scaling-up in the game: 1 stamina wheel -> 2 full stamina wheels. That's a big enough jump in progress to have it feel significant.
2. Do it again because there's way more to explore and I'm not bored of tower/shrine/distractions above ground. Doubling the stamina opens up what I can do now, even more than before. Once I beat 20 more shrines (I'm about halfway there) and jump from 2 full stamina wheels to 3 full stamina wheels, then I'll probably move on to grabbing a few heart containers to feel better prepared for when I actually fight a lot of monsters / pursue the main quests / go underground (especially when dealing with Gloom).
3. Probably progress a bit through the main story next.
4. Probably leave the underground Depths alone for a while, until I become more experienced with the combat.
In BotW, I completed the game entirely on foot / via paragliding, without using any horses or shield surfing, because I enjoyed taking in the environment at a leisurely pace. I'm doing pretty much the same thing in TotK, ignoring most of the random wooden construction piles found along the roads and opting to walk/glide instead of creating vehicles or riding horses. I haven't minded it all, except for when I need to reunite a pair of Korok friends. Using only ultrahand to lift/move a Korok gets a little tedious if it's a far walk, so I'm more willing to tinker with other ways to transport them faster. I'm sure there will be other non-shrine situations that incentivize me to construct things and use the Zonai devices too.
I think TotK improves upon BotW in pretty much every way + Show Spoiler +
though I'm not sure if I'll rank it as high in terms of my Switch tier list for personal favorites
. As someone who appreciates puzzles and problem solving, I'm much more impressed with TotK's shrines over BotW's shrines, and I think that's a testament to just how versatile the new abilities are.
It's nice you gave the game another try and that you found it fun. I also think it improves over botw.
Interestingly though, I'm finding that for my personal gameplay the game bennefits of treating it a little more linear than botw at least at the begining. For example the game hints that you should go to the Rito first. On the way there you find Hetsu to expand your inventory and you start the glyphs quest. Then you start another quest relating to some newspapers, and you can continue the glyphs quest because a temple where you need to go and the second glyph is in that area. And then you continue your path to go to the rito. And from there it opens up a lot.
Although I must admit that I have only completed one dungeon so far. Now I'm just exploring seeing how the world changed and completing sidequests. But I found it useful to go to the top left area of the map first before exploring the world (although I still have much to explore in the ice mountains). I also upgraded stamina at first. Although with how hard monsters hit, I don't know if I should have maybe increased more hearts first.
BTW regarding the glyphs quest There is an order to them. When you get to the temple where you're able to see the location of all of them, on the walls from left to right is the correct order to do them. This makes the story make more sense.
Also I would suggest exploring the dephts a little, at least through the first chasm south of lookout landing. Mainly because it, also upens up a sidequest where you get a useful item? skill? And because there is the main way to get zonaite, to upgrade your battery. Also enemies in the dephts vary in strenght with some being basically regular bokoblins so you don't want to be too strong vs some of them. Although there are some though ones specially with the gloom mechanic.
On May 22 2023 15:36 Laurens wrote:
60 shrines done, I've seen screenshots of people with a crazy amount of hearts though so I'm starting to think there's more than 120 in this one. 6 towers/regions left to discover and then I can finally resume the main quest.
Yeah, I haven't read how many they are but there seem to be even more than in botw, although interesingly I feel the opposite? I feel like I come across them less frequently. __________ If any on you guys haven't read this I suggest you check out these nintendo interviews with the developers:
It's from 1 week before the game came out but it has interesting stuff. Like how "hands" are an important mottif in the game, and the conections you make with them with other people etc. Or how Zonai tech started out as Sheika tech, and that the building vehicles idea came very early
Yesterday night they relesed a new patch that removes the multiple (and easy to execute) duplicate items glitches. If you want to use them you shouldn't update the game. A part of the community is up in arms because it was removed and it's a "singleplayer game" so you're not affecting anyone.
As for myself, I think those glitches kinda remove the fun of the game? In part this is a survival game about gathering resources so if you can jsut duplicate them...it loses part of it's sense. Although I will say that obtaining certain items, like Dragon body parts, or even rupees, seem to be heavily nerfed compared to botw. So some quest or armor upgrades might get annoying.
Also, you need A LOT of Zonaite to upgrade your battery, so you need to spend a lot of time in the dephts, so I understand some people not wanting to grind. As for myself, I just know I won't upgrade the battery fully, nor most of my armors, only the ones I most commonly use, so I dont particularly care it was removed.
__________ Appart from that, my belief that this game should be treated more linearly than botw has strengtened. I think the best thing to do is go to rito village, star the dephts quest with roobie, start the glyph quest, start doing them in order (in the temple, from left to right on the walls, that's the correct order, Impa also hints at it.). Then do the first dungeon, explore the area, then go to the second suggested dungeon, explore the area, the explore more, m,aybe go to kakariko or hateno, explore the dephts more, then go to the nexxt dungeon etc.
Becuase sure, you can explore, and you should explore between dungeons, but for example I found a way to get into the lost woods before my second dungeon, and decided to go back and not do that. And later I found out it was a good decision because if I had done the Korok quest I would have spoiler part of the story. Saame with doing the glyphs quest out of order.
I'm starting the third dungeon now. The Goron one was a pain in the ass, and had to "cheat it" with zonai devices. I still don't know how you were supposed to do some things otherwise.
Still, I think dungeons are much improved compared to the last game. The rito one has so far been the smallest, but the path to the dungeon was cool (and I count it as part of it). The Goron one was bigger, and more difficult for me as well, and I liked it's theme. I think some people will still miss the old dungeons, but I think this is a cool middleground.
I think the dungeon rewards are much better than the champions abilities from botw, and work much more similarly to items.
In previous games, you would start a dungeon, get an item, then use the item to complete the dungeon. Now, a champion helps you through the dungeon. This is equivalent in fuction to getting an item, as you use the champions ability to progress through the dungeon, and in the end, you gain that champions ability and you can use it in the overworld, just like you could with items before. Except the abilities are much more useful compared to some items like the Twilight princess spinner, or rod of dominion.
The abilities themselves also work much more like items. Mipha's grace was cool, but it only activated when you died, it wasn't like an "active item". The new abilities basically work like active items, which I find cool.
I liked the fire temple. Felt more like the dungeons of old, a more or less linear path with puzzles that open quicker access routes along the way. Still a lack of enemies and a boss that was too easy but definitely the best dungeon in botw/totk for me.
Water and Lighting were huge disappointments afterwards. Both with only 4 nodes to find, accessible in any order and only locked behind a rather trivial puzzle. Bummer.
The sage abilities piss me off though. The only somewhat challenging part of these boss fights is not getting frustrated when activating the damn ability lmao. Like on the Goron fight if you got surrounded by rocks and Yunobo was on cooldown, you kinda just had to take the hit? And with Sidon it wasn't trivial to hit a moving target in the sludge, but one miss meant you had to wait for it to come off cd again, eurgh. And Riju is the worst of all cause you have to wait for it to come off CD, then you have to wait again for her circle to reach the enemy, and then you have to hit with the arrow or the wait starts all over again. And of course first you have to run up to the sage and press A while they are actively in combat with enemies or sprinting around. Terrible, terrible implementation of this mechanic About to enter the 5th dungeon at which point I'll have 5 spirit sages surrounding me, can't wait..
Also don't sleep on the great fairies guys. I thought I was durable when I found a set of 4/4/4 armor but you can upgrade that thing to 28/28/28 for 7 times more armor. No wonder the White enemies were still one-shotting me.
I liked the fire temple. Felt more like the dungeons of old, a more or less linear path with puzzles that open quicker access routes along the way. Still a lack of enemies and a boss that was too easy but definitely the best dungeon in botw/totk for me.
Water and Lighting were huge disappointments afterwards. Both with only 4 nodes to find, accessible in any order and only locked behind a rather trivial puzzle. Bummer.
The sage abilities piss me off though. The only somewhat challenging part of these boss fights is not getting frustrated when activating the damn ability lmao. Like on the Goron fight if you got surrounded by rocks and Yunobo was on cooldown, you kinda just had to take the hit? And with Sidon it wasn't trivial to hit a moving target in the sludge, but one miss meant you had to wait for it to come off cd again, eurgh. And Riju is the worst of all cause you have to wait for it to come off CD, then you have to wait again for her circle to reach the enemy, and then you have to hit with the arrow or the wait starts all over again. And of course first you have to run up to the sage and press A while they are actively in combat with enemies or sprinting around. Terrible, terrible implementation of this mechanic About to enter the 5th dungeon at which point I'll have 5 spirit sages surrounding me, can't wait..
Also don't sleep on the great fairies guys. I thought I was durable when I found a set of 4/4/4 armor but you can upgrade that thing to 28/28/28 for 7 times more armor. No wonder the White enemies were still one-shotting me.
I agree the champions mechanic is a little clunkly. I think in general the controls aren't the best. Throwing stuff is a little weird. I got used to it and do it pretty fast but it's weird.
Also while in the menus, compared to botw that the items were "in pages" so when you were looking at ingredientes, you could switch to a different page and inmediately see 20 more ingredients. However now it's a scroll down, so when you go down you only see 1 new row of 5. For a game where you need to be more active with the ingredients and items it's a weird decition to make it slower to actually browse them. I would have liked a mix. You switch category of item by pressing L/R, but you switch between pages horizontally with the right stick like botw.
__ I did the Rito, Zora and Goron Dungeons, been doing the great plateu quest and just exploring and doing quests all over the world. I do think it feels much more full than botw (although some areas are still empty but I think it's understandable). I find the shrines generally easier now? But they're fun.
________ Edit: Aparently you can whistle (like with your horse) with Dpad down, to bring the champions close to you. Just found out.
I've had a couple pretty sour experiences in this game, I'm trying not to let them color my overall impression too much. But one I thought was pretty egregious. I had a quest to do down in the Depths, which involved collecting some things from various locations and transporting them all to a central location. I was kind of excited for it actually, the Depths are so tense and hostile and weird, and it was going to be an excuse to make a vehicle down there and try to figure out how to navigate to specific locations. In fact, I went to do the Rito dungeon first, and it was a decent enough dungeon but the whole time it felt a bit like I was eating my vegetables so I'd be allowed dessert.
It was the bargainer statue that wants you to bring it back it's eyes, which gives a fun cosmic horror vibe to the whole thing, too.
The quest has you picking up these four quest items from around the Depths, but they're too big to put in your inventory, so you have to carry them with Ultrahand or stick them on a vehicle of some sort. I got to the first one, built a vehicle, and started trucking toward the second one because I was going to collect all 4 and then turn them in. It's a bit of an ordeal, I've been going maybe half an hour, but that's what I signed up for. Then I hit... an exploding barrel or something? Maybe a bomb flower? I don't know, I never saw it, I was just driving and then there was an explosion and I went from full health to dead (I think I had maybe 8 hearts?).
Here's the bad part: the game didn't save vehicles in game saves. Like, whether it's an autosave or a manual save, if you had a vehicle in the world next to you, when you load that save, now it's gone. It's particularly weird because a lot of times the vehicle is in the thumbnail for the save, but it's still just gone when you load it. That's annoying enough when you've spent a bunch of resources on some contraption and they delete it, but in this case my vehicle has quest items stuck to it. That means for the entirety of this quest, any time I die, I may as well load a save from before I started it because the quest items will be back at their spawn location anyway. I died two more times to random explosions before I got the quest done, and finally wound up mostly just carrying the stupid things with Ultrahand one at a time to the destination because it was safer and I just wanted the stupid quest to be over.
The quest items being on the vehicle particularly stings, but I do think it's a problem more generally how quickly this game deletes your vehicles. If you load a save, or go into a shrine, or even just get far enough away, they just vanish. Considering you're slowly accumulating resources that you have to spend to build these things, it leads to a couple issues:
1) I never want to build a vehicle to make my life easier, because I'm worried I'll wind up losing the resources for nothing. 2) If I ever *do* build a vehicle, I don't want to engage with stuff I find around the world because it'll mean my car will get deleted.
The first is just a particularly bad case of the 99 Hyper Potions problem that a lot of games have – if you let players hoard a consumable that can make play a little easier, a lot of them will feel like they can never use it because they might want it later. Whatever, I can try to make myself use them when it seems cool and get over the hoarder impulse. The second is really bad, though, because so much of BotW was wandering around the world, seeing something cool, and thinking "hey I should go check that out!" This game does that too, but if you build a sick flying machine or w/e, and then you find a shrine or cave or well or something, you kind of want to just not go in. Or just not build a sick flying machine in the first place so you won't have to worry about it.
Still love the game, these aren't completely insurmountable problems, but I do think they partially undercut a lot of the really cool stuff they've added.
The final ability you unlock on your ability wheel kind of helps with the disappearing builds problem, but yeah it’s not great. Personally i’m not building many vehicles for this reason. I made a kart for the korok on the tutorial island and all the other koroks have just been carried by ultrahand to their buddies lol.
My latest mini frustration is caves. Sometimes the sensor picks up a shrine on a mountain somewhere and eventually you see the words “below” and the hunt for a cave entrance starts… some of these have driven me mad. I was planning to 100% this game but if the korok maps don’t make it clear whether a korok is on top of a mountain or inside a cave I probably won’t bother :p
Finished the main story yesterday. Just like in BOTW there are many shortcuts you can take but I THINK I did all the main quests available.
Now the real fun begins for a completionist like myself; finding and doing all shrines, lightroots, koroks and side quests. Not 100% on the side quests yet, I've had some stinkers like 'find all the wells across Hyrule', I'll probably leave those for last and see how burned out I am.
Definitely a great game in the end. Loads of mini frustrations along the way though. Clunky systems, clunky mechanics, Joycon drift appearing after a few dozen hours didn't help xd. Not the biggest fan of the combat. Stuff like horse riding and swimming feels terrible. But lots of exploration, lots of puzzles, didn't rate the depths and the sky world at first but I quite like both of them now. Good additions to the world.
What.... Zelda isn't a pure comedy it gets dark, real fast at times. That who the hell would want to hear pop culture songs in such a movie. Dreamworks would be a better choice imo.
On June 09 2023 07:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: What.... Zelda isn't a pure comedy it gets dark, real fast at times. That who the hell would want to hear pop culture songs in such a movie. Dreamworks would be a better choice imo.
EPT
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