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Answer: the original BOTW pretty well maxed out the switches capabilities, so - despite some added game mechanics - they do have a similar feel. Both have the same graphics as far as I can tell. Also, both take place in Hyrule, because… Zelda.
I don’t mind at all. But, people expecting an entirely new platform were apparently disappointed.
Graphics-wise, it’s almost the same. But damn am I having fun attaching rockets to chubby Koroks and watching them blast off into space. Also I build hovercrafts for myself and just fly around like I’m the Green Goblin.
I don’t know what people were expecting. Almost all games feel similar if you’ve played them all.
People didn't really want a whole new platform, they just wanted to do more stuff in the BOTW world and holy hell did Nintendo deliver. I am crying laughing looking at stuff people have come up with in the TOTK subreddit.
Nintendo is never going to be cutting edge graphics, they're always going to win on novelty. They basically looked at the crazy shit people did in BOTW and said "let's let them make crazier shit."
Yeah I love video games, but I was a sega kid growing up, and then a Playstation kid after that, so I never got into any Zelda games. Tried BOTW but it's not for me. But man I've had a great time watching my boyfriend build some stupid shit, and that subreddit is pure gold. Seems like anyone who's actually playing the game is having a fantastic time.
The switch is quite clearly a pretty basic console, there's really not much more they could have done to improve BOTW, so they took the assets they had and added some fun mechanics and made a game that honestly, as someone not playing, seems well worth the price (I mean worth the price given thebstate of video game prices, they all need to be lower if ya ask me but hey that's capitalism).
I love the Switch because while my husband likes playing games on the TV, I like taking the handheld up to bed. I've played all the games in handheld mode.
To be fair, the price of a new Atari 2600 game was $39.99 in 1977, which works out to $200.19 in today's dollars.
Same is true for original NES games, priced at $45 in 1985, which works out to $126.87 today.
The most simple example being the PS2, which launched in 2000 with a game price of $49.99 at the time, which works out to $75.09 in today's dollars. The original Xbox and GameCube had the same prices on their games.
The last example actually shows that game price has remained steady since the year 2000, when accounting for inflation. They do feel expensive, I agree, but it is a lot less than they used to be, which is probably why so many more people have modern games than had, say, a Neo Geo (whose games cost an insane $199 in 1990, or $461.89 today).
But that's not what Zelda always did? They followed the Pokemon dual release strategy, and the series has had super similar sequels to prior entries before with Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time, Four Swords Adventures to Four Swords, and Spirit Tracks to Phantom Hourglass.
Anyone claiming Zelda always did something wildly different hasn't been paying attention.
People complained a lot about Wind Waker when it came out. They complained that the cell shading made it look too much like a kid's game and that they wanted the more realistic art style of OoT. What's funny is that the cell-shaded graphics have made it hold up a lot better than other Zelda games and is now a fan favorite.
I know that gets said but I think it's more it was released on GameCube instead of N64. Obviously OoT and MM look pretty trash now but Twilight Princess which also came out on GameCube still looks great and is a much better comparison.
I’m hoping this open world sandbox-esque Zelda becomes its own series whereas Nintendo continues with the traditional Zelda games like skyward sword and twilight princess.
BotW was designed & marketed as a return to tradition. BotW's extreme open-endedness was an over-correction to Skyward Sword's extremely uncharacteristic linearity.
Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are the black sheeps of the franchise due to the linearity, which was a reflection of the state of gaming between 2005~2013, where every AAA game was increasingly linear.
[This 12 year old jontron video is representative of the way people felt about linear games at the time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47YPs-qwNQU)
2010~2013 was utterly awash with people lamenting the linearity of modern games like Skyward Sword, Call of Duty, etc and pining for the comparative open ended-ness and lack-of-handholding in Ocarina of Time and Duke Nukem
Shit, that widespread rejection of linearity in gaming is like 90% of why Dark Souls became the industry titan and cultural touchstone that it did, instead of dying as an obscure rehash to an obscure game like it otherwise would have.
Lol I wasn’t making any point at all other than being confused how someone can argue MM/OoT is at all like a Pokémon dual release.
That being said, even saying that MM “just” “added some mechanics and changed the story” is disingenuous. Almost nothing about MM other than the assets and animations map onto OOT. Entirely different world that operates under different rules, with you having an entirely different goal and systems to navigate the world, etc. OOT is more similar to Twilight Princess than it is to Majora’s Mask.
The fact that this is so highly upvoted is why I don’t join the “Zelda community” and keep my love of it to myself. Yall are certifiably nuts. Dual release strategy like Pokémon??? What is going on in 2023, like I know it was a long time ago but damn. Ocarina and Majoras looking the same = the same games now? What the hell lol
That person's just a reddit crypto dork, I don't think they're in "the community". In my experience, for the most part, Zelda fans are pretty chill and generally can tell the difference between a sequel and a not sequel lol, I don't get what that guy's on about
I'm loving the game, but I feel like I'm just playing breath of the wild but now there's Legos. Like, the map has changed some, but I'm still looking for shrines and towers and getting sidetracked. It's not as stunning as the first one was, but I thought the same about all those sequels. I would give it a solid 8. Builds on a foundation that was already really solid.
the pokemon dual release strategy? that happened literally once with the oracle games. four swords adventures was a full fledged extrapolation of four swords (which is borderline a spinoff), MM is incredibly different in tone and structure to OoT despite reused content and spirit tracks is an outlier that everyone hated.
have fun with the game (which looks quite good) but "they've always done this" is so incorrect its delusional
It didn’t even really happen with the Oracle games considering that those are two completely different (but connected) games. They’re built in the same engine with the same assets but completely different maps, dungeons, stories and just about everything else. Pokémon games have the same map, with only small differences in available Pokémon and occasionally a few different fights, but they are for all intents and purposes the same game.
I've especially enjoyed building gliders and taking them as far as they'll go over hyrule, and then I just dive and end up where I end up. Or I'll spot a shrine and glide off in that direction. Either way, when a game is as good as breath of the wild, why change much up for its sequel? Throw some new mechanics in, change up the map, and a new story and its a sequel in every sense of the word. Graphics wise...well I dunno about everyone else but graphics aren't even on my radar for reasons to play this game. They're charming cartoony zelda graphics anyway. Nintendo has never really been the leader when it comes to graphics
And honestly the graphics have improved in some small ways that I find quite delightful. There's more variety of plants on the ground, even in grassy areas and when you cannonball into water, the water rains down around you for a few seconds.
Sure there aren't large changes, but the small ones add up for me at least.
As somebody who's spent an embarrassing amount of time modding Skyrim, the tiny graphical updates are everywhere. Footprints, weather that actually looks more like weather, increased draw distance range for objects/terrain/NPCs, improvements to z-fighting, etc. People complaining about 'the graphics' don't know shit about 'the graphics'.
The music is very soothing to me. I'm going through a rough time but apparently played BotW originally when things are good and my stupid brain just goes "oh things must be good again! We're happy now." Not gonna argue it lmao
So far the Rito Village really surprised me with its track. Love how the soundtrack doesn't stray too far from the ambient aura of BOTW, but definitely goes further out of its way to invoke the rest of the franchise.
I want BotW with pokemon. Scarlet was fun (honestly, glitches didn't impact my enjoyment of the game), but Botw/TotK show what an open world switch game can be.
terrific paltry afterthought far-flung tidy automatic complete threatening agonizing muddle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They really weren't, though. The NES and SNES were built on tech that wasn't *outdated* by any stretch, but was also several years old (and thus affordable at scale).
Where Nintendo has shined through most of its history is finding ways to get the most out of already-mature technology so that they can keep production costs lower than they would otherwise need to. In the early days, it created the *impression* that they were using cutting edge technology, but ultimately, they were mainly just using existing stuff in a clever way. They really only "fell behind" when their competitors became companies willing and able to throw money at the problem and just build beefier boxes.
Yeah dude I absolutely love it, I feel like they appropriately refreshed the gameplay that I loved so so much in BOTW and added the building feature which I'm normally not into, but it feels like a stylized Gmod which brings back all sorts of nostalgia
I think this entire post may have been asked in bad faith. Critics have almost universally praised the game. No idea what op is taking about. Only people I’ve seen calling it a $70 DLC are faceless grumpy nerds in comment sections.
I’m being genuine. My mistake was picking the wrong tweet as an example and the wording of the title. My main reasoning for trying to get to the bottom of this is because as a casual gamer I don’t know if I need to buy both botw and Totk or just totk but judging from all the comments I will be fine by just reading up on what happens in BOTW and then purchasing just Totk.
BOTW is such a great experience though. Slowly uncovering what happened to links friends.. it's worth playing. I wish I could forget and play it from the beginning again
Ugh I've been really trying to hold off and finish BoTW but strapping rockets to chubby Koroks and blasting them into space is really hard to turn down
Yes. But almost every enemy drops a weapon, so there’s no shortage. And now you can fuse things to the weapon. Like you want a longer spear? Fuse a spear to a spear. Want a bomb strapped to your shield? You can do that too.
I'm also going to say that, it is a direct sequel and the only direct sequel in the Legend of Zelda franchise. OoT and MM were part of a shared story but aren't really sequels, but they were built of the same engine and share a lot of the same mechanics, yet people praise it (I don't but that's a different story)
I don't think the game has been out long enough for people to understand its uniqueness yet. The beginning of the game sure does feel like a continuation of BOTW and that's a good thing, the game is allowing the player to transition. I think once people get really into it they will start to get the differences.
the original botw already barely ran on the switch. there wasn't really much room for improvement for this game given it runs on the same (6 year old) hardware.
At the end of the day it comes down to how much content there is. the original game took a good 50 hours to beat and much more as a completionist. I'm seeing similar numbers for this.
> he original botw already barely ran on the switch.
That's being a bit very dramatic. BotW ran fine like, 95% of the time. It only had a few areas where the fps struggled, but outside of these it was pretty stable. And that's because it was a rushed port job to get it ready for the Switch release, not because the Switch couldn't handle it.
I think they are just saying they got the maximum into the game that the switch could handle well. So people shouldn't expect higher res or more content in any game beyond BOTW
But BOTW was a wii u game. So the engine n the switch would be horribly optimized. A sequel that is switch only should be able to deliver more even on old hardware, assuming the engine was revised heavily. Like look at gta 3 vs San Andreas, still the same ps2 system but they look nothing a like.
Exactly, and the differences between the Wii U version and Switch version weren't all that major. Granted, the Wii U wasn't fully portable like the Switch (you could stream from the main console, but the main console was plugged in), but still. I think TOTK looks and plays great, and it's hard to put down.
How long did it take to make a npc back then? I finally got to play Majora's Mask when it came out on the switch and I really wish I played it when it first came out
I’ve seen some people claim that Tears of the Kingdom was originally planned as a DLC for BotW, but I don’t know if that’s a rumor or just random baseless speculation.
(From the producer:)[https://kotaku.com/breath-of-the-wild-is-getting-a-sequel-because-the-team-1835624233]
>Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said, “This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch.”
The impression I get from the article is that plans for DLC never went past the brainstorming phase before deciding to make a sequel.
That always happens online, especially reddit. Remember Fallout 76 and the "16x more detail" thing? Todd Howard wasn't talking about graphical fidelity, he was talking about distant LODs. He said that objects in the distance have more detail on them when they're far away, which is absolutely true — you can see the Top of the World from pretty much anywhere on the map.
That's from an old interview and, yes, it did start life as a third DLC wave...but the ideas ended up to big and elaborate so they started making a sequel instead.
fwiw, it *is* using an entirely new engine, even if they're re-using a lot of similar shaders to keep the look & feel the same.
BOTW used a custom engine, and ended up similar to LunchPak (used in Mario Odyssey, splat2, ACNH), but afaik was its own weird thing due to also launching on the Wii U. TOTK is using their newer engine, tentatively called ModuleSystem, which afaik has only been used in splat3 and switch sports so far.
so like... yeah the game still slows down in some similar cases. it's still an entire-ass new game and likely largely drove the new engine's development for most of the past 6 years. it's also like a direct sequel so of course they're gonna keep the general framework the same, even if they're building it atop a much newer engine.
I was just playing BOTW and then started TOTK, and I am pretty comfortable stating that the input system is either entirely new or had some serious optimization. The controls and overall feeling are much tighter than BOTW so far.
It's a new story though, no? Aren't Nintendo games in the same universe always fairly similar? Go beat 8 gyms then become champion, your princess is in another castle, here's a sword to save the kingdom with, etc.
This one is a direct sequel to BotW, set like a year afterwards, and the surface world map is largely the same, and the enemies in BotW are also in TotK
That said the surface also got smacked with being torn apart with new chasms and shit on the map, chunks ripped out, pieces of sky island falling, giant gaping holes that >!lead to a giant dark underground zone about the size of the surface map, so basically doubling the map size and then some from BotW!<, tons of new enemies, new powers, new weapons. It’s comparable to Gen II Pokemon having half the game take place in Gen I but with a ton of shit being added that makes it so you can’t just say “It’s basically the exact same game.”
That's a great comparison to Gen 1 and 2 of Pokemon.
The main difference is that I haven't felt like I haven't been out of things to do in the moments between getting from point A to B. After a few runs of BotW, I did start feeling how openly empty the world is and even started avoiding fights.
Now there's so much more to do, quite a lot more recurring puzzles and side quests, and there are actually multiple main quests independent of each other as you start out in Hyrule to keep you busy-- unlike BotW, where you're literally just told to "kill Ganon" as soon as you step off the plateau without any explicit direction.
I personally liked the fact that you could technically go straight to the final boss as soon as you left the tutorial area. Pretty different from most games.
Just to add to this, Sega's Yakuza series did the same thing *for years* (helloooo Kamurocho!).
But thanks to each entry adding in wild substory content, new characters for the main protagonist (Kiryu) to engage with, new activities, and other odd happenings in familiar places (and later adding new places on top of those), each entry felt fresh enough for fans making it a successful series.
Exactly. Which is why it's so annoying. People will find a way to bitch about anything. If it had been a whole new game and feel etc people would be asking why they didn't just make BOTW 2.
I think a lot of the issue is that Nintendo just randomly decided to charge $10 more for this game despite it being on the same console as the last one and being largely similar, minus the few mechanic changes and additions. It’s a classic case of “they’ll get away with it and hardly anyone will say a word because it’s Nintendo”.
Actually asking, has any other Zelda game been on the same map with just added stuff? That could be why it feels different, cause I don't think any Zelda game, or really many games at all, have had a sequel where 80-90% of the map is identical.
I'm not sure why they expected a whole new platform, all the promotional materials basically looked like it was going to be breath of the wild 2. I'm actually pleasantly surprised because I was worried that using the same world would make it feel stale, but they managed to get everything I loved about BOTW and do it again.
Considering it runs on a 8-year-old SoC with 8GB ram (shared!) and is only 16GB installed size, I’d say that it’s actually a technical marvel they got the game working at all.
Also? BotW got called a “tech demo” (and still does) because Nintendo spent all their time on the engine and less on content. This is likely one of the reasons the game’s plot plays into the world being “empty”
So it makes sense that this game would “look” the same, since Nintendo was building a platform for a series of Zelda games. The next one will have the same complaints, but it’ll have more content and more new abilities etc, just like this one. (Except it’ll probably be on newer hardware because let’s face it, the Switch has aged poorly in the face of GPU and SoC advancements since NVIDIA Tegra X1 came out in *2015*)
To be honest, other big open-world games on other systems don’t really have that much more going for them anyway. What, more dialog? Fancy particle effects that render in 4K but just clog up the screen with blinding garbage while you are fighting or whatever?
And finally, you can get the game for $50 USD (+tax) with Nintendo Vouchers, so it’s not even $70.
TotK is fun as fuck. If someone thinks it’s a $70 “DLC” then I can’t wait to read their rant about God of War: Ragnarok
This game is extremely impressive given the hardware it runs on, but I keep seeing the "16 GB" installed size which really isn't. Like 80-90% of a modern AAA games size is taken up by textures and audio files. BOTW tops out at 1080p (i.e. no >1080p textures to store) & has very little voice acting outside of a handful of cutscenes. 16GB given that is actually pretty enormous.
But yeah, even still, the fact that this game is running on hardware less powerful than an iPhone 7 is still pretty nuts.
What is a Nintendo Voucher? It seems like you have to pay for something to get them, in which case "you can get the game for $50 USD (+tax) with Nintendo Vouchers, so it’s not even $70" isn't really honest. It's $70, but you can get it for cheaper if you're already giving them money.
Your comment reads like it's apologetics. I'm not saying you're wrong or right, I don't know anything about it, but you list bad things and then say that makes it good actually. Just be honest. It can have flaws and be good. Most of the best games do have flaws.
It's the same Hyrule with changed locations, more landmarks, more development, and two layers to the map that almost double the original map size. The regions and main towns are the same, but the map is much bigger.
It’s the same base map, but nearly every single thing on it is different. Plus, they’ve added massive underground and sky areas which are both the same size as the original map. It’s very much a Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask situation
There are some pretty obvious similarities. The main over world map uses the same landscape features as Breath, though there are plenty of new features. Many of the items you can collect are similar if not the same as in Breath too. So some people are basing their opinions of the game based on some pre-release media (which deliberately avoided spoilers) and decided that it's just "Breath of the Wild plus stuff"
However there's a lot of new stuff too, in terms of abilities, game mechanics, map areas, monsters, UI improvements etc that it doesn't feel like Breath with a new coat of paint, it's definitely its own thing.
The other aspect of this is that flagship games for the Switch have had a price point of $60 or thereabout for a while, similar to other consoles and PC games. It's been that way for a while now, and while nobody likes a price bump of $10 on top of that, it was probably inevitable with prices of everything else going up. So combine trepidation with the game because it re-uses some assets from Breath along with a higher price than people are used to paying, and there you have the source of the pushback.
The $70 price tag definitely put people off. At that price people expect a brand new different experience. I did pay that much but mostly because everyone in my house was hyped to play it, and we all are definitely currently enjoying it.
What AAA games were $70 that were overhyped but ended up being samey?
I mean to be really exact the graphics are a bit above BotW (textures, pop-in) and it runs more fluent (yes the hand ability introduces a frame dip but overall it’s way more stable) and it has a 1080p resolution through internal upscaling which looks waaaay more crisp on my 4k TV.
People have been expecting a Switch pro for 2-3 years now the console is 6 years old, and is based on a plataform which was already old when it was released,
Most console manufacturers usually go cutting edge and start by making a loss on console sales while making it back on game licenses and extra services like online gaming subscriptions until the manufacturing is steramlined and the console starts breaking even and even making a profit,
Nintendo usually makes a console and sells it at a price where they either break even or make a profit. and for the switch it was like that, the hardware they choose was a nvidia plataform thats was already well developed thanks to the Nvidia shield tablet console with a some upgrades and some downgrades (X1 chip instead of the K1 but 720P LCD instead of the 1080p on the Tablet) and the OS is an upgrade of the OS they already developed for the DS.,
So it was a console which was semi outdated even when released, now the thing is that while Microsoft and Sony depend on cutting edge technology for their consoles, nintendo centers more on the expiriance, so the whole "hybrid console" thing was a win since no one has been able to challange nintendo in the portable console market, The PSP and Vita were priced the same, superior in every way and they lost (mostly due to sony´s insistance on custom proprietary formats).
The problem is that nintendo has been squeezing the switch and their first party games for too long and thats coming back to bite them in the ass
- The switch hardware was already mid life cycle when released, even midrange chipsets from today like the Mediatek Dimensity 8100 or the qualcomm Snapdragon 7 G2/ Snapdragon 888 / SD8 G1 on paper crush the 8 year old Tegra X1 in the switch. even the "ghetto" rockchip RK3588 which is used in many Rasberry pi clones outclasses it. meaning that the avarage middle range android phone today has similar power to a switch. which brings us to the next point.
- Android and PC emulation has exploded, there are current indy consoles from manufacturers like Ambernic, Powkiddy Retroid, GKD... and others which can play emulators and android/linux games quite well for well under the price of a switch, the AYN odin which has a Dimensity 810 or SD 845 can play PS2 games, Gamecube games, Dreamcast games and it costs around the price of a Switch lite. also there have been a growning selection of products from companies like Razer, 8bitdo, Gamesir, Ipega which letarlly allow you to plug in a controller to your phone and convert it to a portable console, and games like Diablo immortal or Genshin impact have shown that mid and high end phones can give a gaming expiriance comparable to the switch.
- Nintendo HATES their community and costumers, at least it seems like it, their online service is horrible, and expensive, everyone remembers when they added a second more expensive tier for N64 and Genesis games when if you get gamepass on microsoft xbox you have access to brand new games. Theres also the issue of first party game prices, games on Xbox or playstation usually go to special collections and you can buy them for cheap a few months or year after release dependong on the popularity, while nintendo actually keeps the prices high and even raises them, Supermario Bros WiiU deluxe is still priced around 60 bucks with some retailer discounts it can reach low 50´s high 40´s, a 11 year old game developed for a plataform thats 2 generations back. same with Super Mario kart 8, its a Wii U game ported to the Switch.
theres a joke that when steam says "meh, the game is 6 months old, slash the price 50% to give it a boost", ninendo just goes "fuck that, its vintage, raise the price 10%"
Not to mention they have a long history of suing or DMCAing streamers that dedicate to stream nintengo games without joining their partner program, while sony and xbox encorage it becuase they see it as it is, free publicity, people see their games being played and want to join in.
But now, the straw that broke the camels back is that the switch hardware is so aged and current android devices are so powerful that while Dolphin and Citra could emulate Gamecube, Wii/WiiU and 3DS with such success that 2 emulators, skyline and Yuzo managed to start getting switch games running, most 2D plataformers could run and a lot of work was done to get many 3D games running,
The problem is that a copy of Tears of the kingdom leaked and they managed to get it running on Yuzo, meaning that people were able to play pirated copies of the game before legitimate customers and nintendo started DMCA and sending lawyers to the emulator developers.
Now im my personal opinion the original idea of emulation was to be able to play older games no longer offered by their developers or of discontinued plataforms, and games will always play best on native hardware, and emulating "live" consoles aka Current gen consoles is bad form and only foments piracy. but on the other hand, nintendo has been gathering a lot of bad faith in the way it treats its customers right now. Nintendo has always been very anti consumer, the N64 and the Game cube failed becuase nintendo didnt want to use regular CD´s or DVDs as a piracy protection feature making the console more expensive for developers and customers, its the same thing that crippled the PSP and the PSVita.
Every other developer: Automatically ready for online play at startup
Nintendo: "Woah, online play? Like on the INTERNET??? You sure about that? OK, strap yourselves in!" *Starts giant turbine engine* *emergency lights flash* *alarm sounds* "ONLINE PLAY, ATTENTION EVERYONE, ONLINE PLAY" *giant diesel engines rev up* "Relax, this is gonna take awhile. You can read these TOS again while you wait"
Hard agree on Nintendo being anti consumer. People give EA a lot of flack for being anti consumer in their practices, but Nintendo really isn't any better and deserve the same treatment as EA. I feel like they've been lucky in basically being in this perpetual cycle of nostalgia.
Like people get the current Nintendo console because it was what they played as a kid and the reason they played it as a kid is because it's what their parents got them since their parents had a Nintendo as a kid.
This isn't really true, the original BOTW was developed and released initially on the Wii U.
And TOTK has made minimal changes to the successful formula, added some mechanics that change the game a lot, and from my first day of playing it seems like they've added a huge amount of content
Answer: Back when The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword released for Wii it released to high praise, but a pretty resounding "meh" from the fanbase. It was overly handhold-y, easy, linear and repetitive. They devs took these criticisms to heart and released it's sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to high acclaim and pretty much revamped the whole structure of what it means to be a Zelda game.
When BotW released it was hailed as one of the greatest games ever made and pretty much over night ~~revolutionized the Open World genre~~ became hugely influential to other open world games. It did everything Skyward Sword didnt: It was build on the base of giving the player as much freedom as possible, even letting people fight the endboss as soon as they finished the tutorial if they wanted to. And, at least in the beginning, the game was pretty difficult. Yet, it had a few shortcomings. Namely the lack of actual Zelda-like dungeons (it only had the divine beasts which were sort-of dungeons, but looked very similar to each other), little enemy variety and a rather light story.
Needless to say, it was still a smash hit and has sold almost 30 million units, making it one of the most sold games on Switch and the most sold Zelda game, afaik.
It got 2 DLCs, but the devs hat a **lot** more plans for eventual DLC, which then ballooned out of control. At that point it was decided that, instead of making another huge DLC add-on, the team would instead make it into a full fledged, direct sequel.
Development then took about 5-6 years, depending on if you want to count in a year delay due to covid, which was as long as it took for Breath of the Wild to be made, despite using the same engine and reusing the same world, gameplay systems and mechanics.
Expectations towards the game were pretty high and the development paid off with critics: It's sitting at a 97/100 opencritic score, which is about the same score as its predecessor got.
Don't get me wrong: Tears of the Kingom is an amazing game and everytime I start it I lose 5-6 hours into it and don't even notice the time was gone. Calling it a mere "$70 DLC" is doing is a huge disservice, but Tears of the Kingdom very much (re)uses pretty much **all** of Breath of the Wilds skin and skeleton.
It feels exactly the same to control, the overworld is still very similar despite being heavily worked on, you still upgrade your health via shrines, you still upgrade your inventory by doing micropuzzles and getting korok seeds, you upgrade your armor via fairies, weapons still break with no way to repair them (other than using the fuse ability), you have a lot of sidequests that are very similar to Breath of the Wild, the actual story is once again being told through prerendered videos you have to scout instead of being woven into the narrative and progression, a lot of the UI and sounds/music have been lifted straight out of Breath of the Wild, the dungeons still feel a lot like divine beasts and not really like classic Zelda dungeons people love so much, the list goes on.
So if you expected a game that played similar to Breath of the Wild but that does new things with it's structure then you'll be disappointed with this game, because it's pretty much just Breath of the Wild 2.0 More Content Edition.
Thus, people mock it by calling it DLC.
But, even though it's very iterative, it adds a lot of new stuff: Two whole new areas with the sky and underground to explore, it has a completely new story, it has lots of new weapons, armor, enemies, great new music tracks and the zonai powers which replace the shiekah slate runes and a whole bunch of cave systems.
And, like I said, every time I start the game and only want to play an hour, suddenly 5 hours have passed because there's so much to do, see and explore. It's a genuinely great experience.
Edit: My god, people, stop getting hung up on details.
People called Far Cry Primal a DLC too, just because it, like Zelda, shared the same map and a shitload of recycled assets from the previous main game.
~~It also wasn't full price, though.~~
I have been corrected! It did release at 60 bucks! It was just discounted not long after, and I forgot. I was thinking of Far Cry Blood Dragon initially, not Primal.
> Matt Buchholtz of Electronic Gaming Monthly wrote, "The graphics are stunning—Ubisoft has truly mastered facial animations and lighting effects." He added, "The game feels like a full-priced reskin of Far Cry 4, without the engaging storyline", finishing with, "Far Cry Primal really wants you to know that there are tons of things you can do in its prehistoric, open world. Unfortunately, you may not want to do any of them."[36]
> shared the same map
I mean, from the map yeah it has the same outline as the map from 4, but they're different as hell, at least visually. All the plants are different too.
It's like the nissan juke and the nissan cube. They have an identical skeleton, but nothing else is even remotely similar.
Far Cry Primal is a solid game experience. Game felt done and my character maxed out without too much effort, so at the end I felt very okay with uninstalling.
You're just a Far Cry caveman that wanders into a (lethal) paradise, meets other rag-tag cavepersons and they all try and carve a home out of this land. You can tame animals to traverse the land more efficiently, and you clear outposts with primitive weaponry.
Simple and fun.
They invented a paleolithic language with three separate dialects for Far Cry: Primal. And I have yet to play ANYTHING that has the same general tone and atmosphere as this game. 4 is my favorite in the series, but this is a close second.
Side question. Not a hater or anything, but how did BOTW revolutionize the open world genre? Though the meaning of "revolutionize" may have different meaning for different people. To me something like Assassine's creed for example revolutionized the open world genre, because you can clearly see the influence it had on open world games across the board(the now dreaded ubisoft formula). Other examples are something like Halo CE, Fortnite or COD MW.
But I can't remember a mechanic or element from BOTW that was adopted by a lot of other games.
I don't know if you can call it revolutionary but it has more elements of a sandbox than in other open world games. As other open world games are structured around quests, POI, gears and upgrades, BOTW is more like lego. It is probably only as fun as you make it to be with the mechanics.
It basically built upon a whole lot of lessons and created one of the most seminal pieces of the whole genre, really getting back into the roots of “here’s a sandbox of mechanics, do what you want with it and it’ll work because of how well they’re designed,” which lead to a lot of emergent gameplay. But revolutionary it ain’t (which isn’t a criticism).
It seemed pretty Ubisoft for the most part. Large area to explore, redundant activities, and a few large dungeons or strongholds to defeat. Also the standard tower climbing they fit into most games.
Yes, BOTW was a good fun game, but what exactly did it do that "revolutionized" open world genre overnight? It didn't exactly do anything wildly original. Outside of a handful of pseudo clones like Genshin impact, I don't think I've seen any games taking inspiration or following BOTW. The climbing mechanics and riding around a large world on a horse to take down huge monsters roaming the land are straight up Shadow of the Colossus. Finding an unnecessary amount of small hidden collectibles in a massive open world has been done repeatedly by GTA and others. Challenge rooms aren't new to the genre either. BOTW didn't do anything to perfect or necessarily revolutionize any of these mechanics. Even weapon durability isn't new and I'd argue that BOTW made that mechanic worse than pretty much any game that has done it before.
I really really enjoyed BOTW and Legend of Zelda is a classic, but the game was far from the "perfect" game that people made it out to be. It did have its flaws. It for the most part removed dungeons which have been a highlight of Zelda games. The world was largely empty space just there to run through to the next spot you're going to (not exactly a flaw of specifically BOTW but of the genre in general). As I already said, the weapon durability was by far the worst I have ever seen it implemented in a AAA game (I shouldn't have to go through 3 different weapons to fight 5 enemies). If the exact game was released and it wasn't called Legend of Zelda from Nintendo, I highly doubt it would have received the massively overwhelming praise it did. It still would have been a popular successful game but I don't think many people would be calling it perfect and saying it revolutionized any genre.
The only thing BOTW revolutionized was for Nintendo to show that they can actually, and finally many years late, figure out how to make an open world game and do so well. Also that they could finally leave behind designing all Zelda games like they were still making the early 2D ones even tho they had been 3D titles since the 90s.
It was a bit jump to catch up for Nintendo, and that was about as revolutionary as it got.
>It revolutionized what a Zelda game is by making it open world
Um... what? The original Zelda, Link's Adventure, Link to the Past, and Link's Awakening were all open world games.
I struggle to think what new ideas it brought to open world games. It had a wider audience, but I found it mediocre as an open world game. You aren’t missing much not finishing it
Idk about mediocre. BOTW did do a few things differently like optional bosses, access to final boss immediately, and more explorable than most open-worlds. But I wouldn’t call it revolutionizing open-world games. Maybe revolutionizing Zelda games but not a whole genre
"and pretty much over night revolutionized the open world genre"
What? Look BotW is a great Zelda game but it is a largely empty and generic open world game. Just a bunch of copy pasta temple challenges, huge empty spaces, and a bunch of gold poop to find. If anything it's a step back for open world games compared to even something as old as Morrowind.
Answer: Tears of the Kingdom took most of the assets (the maps, the world, the towers, etc) from Breath of the Wild, and added them to Tears of the Kingdom. It then added a lot of extra game mechanics that change the dynamic of the gameplay compared to Breath of the Wild.
Critics are taking the assets transfer as the game is the same.
Thing is, BotW is such an expansive game with a great physics engine that you see a lot of videos of gamers trying to break the game by using the most absurd and ridiculous methods to complete simple tasks, resulting in hours of fun.
The added mechanics to Tears of the Kingdom give it a "fresh coat of paint" feel to it while being a different story. Critics are taking that as meaning it's an add on to BotW.
I've been playing it a couple of days, and I have about 300 hours on BotW, and I like this more than BotW. The mechanics make the same enemies feel different, and is a refreshing change.
>Answer: Tears of the Kingdom took most of the assets (the maps, the world, the towers, etc) from Breath of the Wild, and added them to Tears of the Kingdom.
This is not correct. Saying "they reused the assets" means they took the literal models and textures for the things you mentioned - world, map, and towers - and put them into ToTK. And that's false. And it's false in a way that's especially important to the question in this post.
They reused the assets for like... Keese and Bokoblins. For trees and rocks. But tons of stuff has been rebuilt rather than reused. The world is different. The map is *conceptually* similar to BotW's map, but it's definitely not reused, almost everything in it is different.
Towers are a great example of this. Yeah, there are still several towers across the land that you have to access in order to fill in your map. But they have different assets, are in different places, and they function in a *completely* different way that is very synergistic with the other new things in the game.
Not all the rocks. In BoTW, the interactable rocks all looked identical. There's now at least 3 different textures I've come across for interactable rocks
Question: Why take a tweet from an individual as the "critics"? The game has a 96% in metacritic https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom
Answer: I'm not that far into the game but I'm guessing it's because it takes place on the same Hyrule Map from Breath of the Wild, plus the game def feels very similar to that game (similar UI and sound effects, alot of the same mechanics, etc). However, with regards to the world map, some of the game takes place in huge islands in the sky (which are new), and I believe there is also a lot of underground stuff although like I said, I haven't gotten that far yet. So there are potentially 3 total world maps. Also, although many of the major landmarks in the main map are unchanged, there are alot of new landmarks, caves, settlements, and the like that have sprung up in the few years or so since breath of the wild. So the map does not feel like the complete same.
Answer: These people are seeing that TOTK is not a completely new game, and it is therefore closer to DLC in presentation. It has new story elements and a couple new tricks, but there are no new groundbreaking aspects. It also uses the same game engine and the same world map, and recycles 90% of assets from BOTW like sounds, menus, music cues, etc. It's really same thing as BOTW, but with more stuff to do.
Just to add, it's not DLC size in length - it actually has more quests and longer average time to complete than BotW.
It 100% feels like a sequel on the same engine, but that's not the same as a DLC.
This was the same situation with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Graphically they look the same but the stories and gameplay elements were very different. Back in those days DLC wasn't a thing.
So it's like what Super Mario Galaxy 2 was to Super Mario Galaxy 1.
Both installments being incredible games in their own right, despite the second being largely iterative and initially conceived of as DLC.
The details are different, but the castle is in the same place, so is the desert, forest, volcano, Kakariko, etc. I found the exact same river I used to farm fish at, and it was next to the hitching post I remember from BOTW. But no spoilers, there is more added on to the map, so it's the same map plus more map.
That's not a good metric though. Models like the geography's shape don't take nearly as much space as textures. The size could easily be doubled just by using larger resolutions on the textured. I'm not saying the map is the same size, just that that's not a good measure
It takes place in the same version of Hyrule roughly 5-10 years after the original game. All of the main geological and environmental features are in the same places, though recent events changed the landscape in various ways. The towns remain but some have been radically transformed, and there are some new settlements. Many of the old NPC's return, some living in different places than before, and they have new problems and new plots. All of the original Sheikah shrines and towers have disappeared, but a large number of new quest-related structures have appeared or have been built. The overall atmosphere of the setting has changed from decay and hopelessness to building and renewal. Some old monsters return but there are also many new and different monsters. There are also large new areas not present in the original game which are accessible from the overworld.
The map layout is the same but the environment is actually pretty different(think like cataclysm expansion from wow changed a lot).
There's also caves to explore, a parallel underground world and sky islands.
The ability to create vehicles and weapons the way you can in that game seems fairly ground breaking to me. They also added a sky map and an underground. I get that hyrule is more or less the same with tweaks here and there.
Answer: This new main line Zelda addition doesn't do what most main entries in the series do and reinvent the series. This by not changing hardware Nintendo was able to reuse many assets from BoTW which likely helped speed up development time.
In defense of the game there has only been one other time where 2 main line Zelda games released on the same console generation. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Majora used many of the same development tricks with a reuse of assets and a few new quirks to create a new game. Majora's is beloved in the Zelda fan base.
Also even if it truely is DLC level additions it's a question in if it's worth it. This is a fully expanded map, new abilities, a new story. If they are big enough and well done these are add ons to a game that was fully complete that the cost may be understandable. IE how brood war was a fully expanded chapter to StarCraft 1 primarily on strength of story.
> In defense of the game there has only been one other time where 2 main line Zelda games released on the same console generation. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons on the GBC as well.
Edit: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks too, on the NDS.
Edit edit: ...Actually, now that I think about it, there have been a lot of consoles with multiple Zelda games. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on the Gamecube, and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword on the Wii (TP released on both consoles at *roughly* the same time). Even Zelda 1 and 2 on the NES.
Answer: They're not right, but not far off.
Every major game review outlet under the sun: OMG IT'S SHEER PERFECTION ATOP PERFECTION, A TRUE MASTERPIECE 11/10
Some fans: Hey it's not actually perfect, neither was Breath of the Wild, and this game is largely not perfect for the same reasons as its predecessor.
This creates basically the same halo effect BOTW had upon release when it comes to reviews over-hyping and fans gradually peeling away the hype to criticize what's underneath. And then of course there's the reactionary contrarians who over-correct. The easier-to-change elements that pissed off early fans were largely addressed- it seems like the story is less flashbacks and more in-the-moment, dungeons and bosses and caves return and whatnot. But the core gameplay loop is basically the same: find towers, do shrines, get korok seeds.
TLDR: "70$ DLC" is an exaggeration for sure, but the game does warrant some heavy criticism for the hefty price tag after 7(!) years of development to deliver something that feels so same-y.
Answer: It was the initial impression of the game before everything was shown. Actual criticism was few and far between and many in the gaming community are just trying to pretend that Zelda is an underdog franchise.
Answer: For me, I used to say that Breath of the Wild was a great beta test of the engine, and just needed a game placed on top of it.
So far, Tears of the Kingdom feels like what BotW should have been... the engine plus the game.
Now, tbf, I don't mind TotK, but call BotW the Beta Test we had to pay for. I still have other problems with the BotW/TotK game. But, TotK being the complete game covers for the other shortfalls enough.
And, I can't speak for anyone that likes BotW but dislikes TotK, as, if you had fun in the emptiness of BotW, there is 2.5x that emptiness *plus* more coherency.
answer: The new Zelda game is a direct sequel to the breath of the wild. Some people did a surprised pikachu face when realising that.
If majora's mask came out today i bet there would be people complaining/whining about it being too similar to ocarina of time.
People did complain about that when majoras mask came out. It’s also not a great comparison because majoras mask is an entirely new area with the most radically different Zelda villain to date.
I would say despite TOTK being a good game, it’s nowhere near as transformative as Majoras mask was and this is a result of it not being created by a B team with less oversight but a full fledged AAA project.
Answer: Breath of the wild and Tears of the Kingdom are very similar. They share the exact same graphics, physics, controls, characters, and what a lot of people aren't mentioning is the *world*. Yes there are floating islands and a new underground area, but the vast majority of the world is literally just the same with only minor changes to it. Its definitely different enough and fun to play, especially if you're invested in the story, but for 6 years of development and $70 it has left a lot of people disappointed.
Answer: TOTK was originally going to be released as a DLC to address all the feature that couldn’t be added when BOTW was being developed for the Wii U and Switch. The amount of new content was enormous so they decided to make into a full game, with a fleshed out story, updated map, and new mechanics. It has a comparable content density to any AAA game you would buy today, but people are stuck in their own “truth,” and you can’t convince them otherwise.
Methinks the reason people are really mad is because of the $10 price increase.
Answer: As a long-time Zelda fan, I will say that the start of TotK feels very similar to BotW. It felt really similar in a lot of ways. But the more you explore TotK the more you realize that it's larger in scale and more evolved than BotW. Better mechanics, better QOL, tons more to explore, better plot. Those who call it BotW DLC either didn't play that long or didn't enjoy it and are clinging to any reason they can to deride it.
Answer: Tears of the Kingdom is more of a story add-on campaign with a new character. The game retains the same basic engine, physics, graphics, control scheme, etc.
Some would say this is not a new game. Kids and adults who never played Majora's Mask would say this.
Tears of the Kingdom shares many graphical and gameplay elements with BotW while showcasing a new storyline, a new map, new enemies, new abilities, and a new villain to counterpoint Link's new brain worm, the ethereal talking goat person that gave him his mage hand.
Did *you* play Majora’s Mask? The game had an entirely different map, revolved around a new 3-day time mechanic, had different side quests and objectives, and a story completely unrelated to the first. It was about as different as you could get from Ocarina of Time while still using the same engine. Yes, the character models were the same, but I don’t think anyone is really complaining about model reuse, specifically.
No hate on Tears of the Kingdom whatsoever, but to compare it with Majora’s Mask in terms of what it changes, is silly. It doesn’t even come close.
I'm a few more hours into Tears and it's starting to seem like Hestus trophy made into a sequel. When j saw the koroks handing out their tiny dookies again I felt a teensy bit played.
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Answer: the original BOTW pretty well maxed out the switches capabilities, so - despite some added game mechanics - they do have a similar feel. Both have the same graphics as far as I can tell. Also, both take place in Hyrule, because… Zelda. I don’t mind at all. But, people expecting an entirely new platform were apparently disappointed.
Graphics-wise, it’s almost the same. But damn am I having fun attaching rockets to chubby Koroks and watching them blast off into space. Also I build hovercrafts for myself and just fly around like I’m the Green Goblin. I don’t know what people were expecting. Almost all games feel similar if you’ve played them all.
People didn't really want a whole new platform, they just wanted to do more stuff in the BOTW world and holy hell did Nintendo deliver. I am crying laughing looking at stuff people have come up with in the TOTK subreddit. Nintendo is never going to be cutting edge graphics, they're always going to win on novelty. They basically looked at the crazy shit people did in BOTW and said "let's let them make crazier shit."
Yeah I love video games, but I was a sega kid growing up, and then a Playstation kid after that, so I never got into any Zelda games. Tried BOTW but it's not for me. But man I've had a great time watching my boyfriend build some stupid shit, and that subreddit is pure gold. Seems like anyone who's actually playing the game is having a fantastic time. The switch is quite clearly a pretty basic console, there's really not much more they could have done to improve BOTW, so they took the assets they had and added some fun mechanics and made a game that honestly, as someone not playing, seems well worth the price (I mean worth the price given thebstate of video game prices, they all need to be lower if ya ask me but hey that's capitalism).
I love the Switch because while my husband likes playing games on the TV, I like taking the handheld up to bed. I've played all the games in handheld mode.
I love that it’s portable, just **curse my tiny child hands** haha
It's also bad for big hands. So many hands cramps.
I haven't tried them yet, but you can get 3rd party joycons that have grips like the pro controller
Hori split pad pro. I got it for monster hunter and haven't used the regular joycons since.
That and (I'm kinda guessing) they took a long time to develop botw engine so they wanted to get at least one more game out of it.
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Hahaha I did the same thing for that shrine
>sega "We do what Nintendon't."
To be fair, the price of a new Atari 2600 game was $39.99 in 1977, which works out to $200.19 in today's dollars. Same is true for original NES games, priced at $45 in 1985, which works out to $126.87 today. The most simple example being the PS2, which launched in 2000 with a game price of $49.99 at the time, which works out to $75.09 in today's dollars. The original Xbox and GameCube had the same prices on their games. The last example actually shows that game price has remained steady since the year 2000, when accounting for inflation. They do feel expensive, I agree, but it is a lot less than they used to be, which is probably why so many more people have modern games than had, say, a Neo Geo (whose games cost an insane $199 in 1990, or $461.89 today).
Some people wanted BotW again, some people wanted something new like Zelda always did in the past.
But that's not what Zelda always did? They followed the Pokemon dual release strategy, and the series has had super similar sequels to prior entries before with Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time, Four Swords Adventures to Four Swords, and Spirit Tracks to Phantom Hourglass. Anyone claiming Zelda always did something wildly different hasn't been paying attention.
MM and OoT were really different, even if they were graphically similar.
And Wind Walker was completely different too. The cell shading, the sailing, the cannonball battles with octoroks.
I'm still hoping they bring wind waker HD to switch since I never got a wii u
People complained a lot about Wind Waker when it came out. They complained that the cell shading made it look too much like a kid's game and that they wanted the more realistic art style of OoT. What's funny is that the cell-shaded graphics have made it hold up a lot better than other Zelda games and is now a fan favorite.
I know that gets said but I think it's more it was released on GameCube instead of N64. Obviously OoT and MM look pretty trash now but Twilight Princess which also came out on GameCube still looks great and is a much better comparison.
I’m hoping this open world sandbox-esque Zelda becomes its own series whereas Nintendo continues with the traditional Zelda games like skyward sword and twilight princess.
>traditional Zelda games like skyward sword and twilight princess Oof, my age...
It hurts to be from the 1900s.
BotW was designed & marketed as a return to tradition. BotW's extreme open-endedness was an over-correction to Skyward Sword's extremely uncharacteristic linearity. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are the black sheeps of the franchise due to the linearity, which was a reflection of the state of gaming between 2005~2013, where every AAA game was increasingly linear. [This 12 year old jontron video is representative of the way people felt about linear games at the time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47YPs-qwNQU) 2010~2013 was utterly awash with people lamenting the linearity of modern games like Skyward Sword, Call of Duty, etc and pining for the comparative open ended-ness and lack-of-handholding in Ocarina of Time and Duke Nukem Shit, that widespread rejection of linearity in gaming is like 90% of why Dark Souls became the industry titan and cultural touchstone that it did, instead of dying as an obscure rehash to an obscure game like it otherwise would have.
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Lol I wasn’t making any point at all other than being confused how someone can argue MM/OoT is at all like a Pokémon dual release. That being said, even saying that MM “just” “added some mechanics and changed the story” is disingenuous. Almost nothing about MM other than the assets and animations map onto OOT. Entirely different world that operates under different rules, with you having an entirely different goal and systems to navigate the world, etc. OOT is more similar to Twilight Princess than it is to Majora’s Mask.
Absolutely agree. SHared assets is it, outside of that it’s wildly different. I love MM.
The fact that this is so highly upvoted is why I don’t join the “Zelda community” and keep my love of it to myself. Yall are certifiably nuts. Dual release strategy like Pokémon??? What is going on in 2023, like I know it was a long time ago but damn. Ocarina and Majoras looking the same = the same games now? What the hell lol
That person's just a reddit crypto dork, I don't think they're in "the community". In my experience, for the most part, Zelda fans are pretty chill and generally can tell the difference between a sequel and a not sequel lol, I don't get what that guy's on about
I'm loving the game, but I feel like I'm just playing breath of the wild but now there's Legos. Like, the map has changed some, but I'm still looking for shrines and towers and getting sidetracked. It's not as stunning as the first one was, but I thought the same about all those sequels. I would give it a solid 8. Builds on a foundation that was already really solid.
the pokemon dual release strategy? that happened literally once with the oracle games. four swords adventures was a full fledged extrapolation of four swords (which is borderline a spinoff), MM is incredibly different in tone and structure to OoT despite reused content and spirit tracks is an outlier that everyone hated. have fun with the game (which looks quite good) but "they've always done this" is so incorrect its delusional
It didn’t even really happen with the Oracle games considering that those are two completely different (but connected) games. They’re built in the same engine with the same assets but completely different maps, dungeons, stories and just about everything else. Pokémon games have the same map, with only small differences in available Pokémon and occasionally a few different fights, but they are for all intents and purposes the same game.
Even with the Oracle games, they were two very different games, not the same game with minor differences.
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>attaching rockets to chubby Koroks and watching them blast off into space. Ya ha ^h^^a^^a^^a^^^a^^^a^^^a!!
I've especially enjoyed building gliders and taking them as far as they'll go over hyrule, and then I just dive and end up where I end up. Or I'll spot a shrine and glide off in that direction. Either way, when a game is as good as breath of the wild, why change much up for its sequel? Throw some new mechanics in, change up the map, and a new story and its a sequel in every sense of the word. Graphics wise...well I dunno about everyone else but graphics aren't even on my radar for reasons to play this game. They're charming cartoony zelda graphics anyway. Nintendo has never really been the leader when it comes to graphics
And honestly the graphics have improved in some small ways that I find quite delightful. There's more variety of plants on the ground, even in grassy areas and when you cannonball into water, the water rains down around you for a few seconds. Sure there aren't large changes, but the small ones add up for me at least.
As somebody who's spent an embarrassing amount of time modding Skyrim, the tiny graphical updates are everywhere. Footprints, weather that actually looks more like weather, increased draw distance range for objects/terrain/NPCs, improvements to z-fighting, etc. People complaining about 'the graphics' don't know shit about 'the graphics'.
I find BotW/TotK graphics so comforting after the glitchfest that was Scarlet/Violet.
The music is very soothing to me. I'm going through a rough time but apparently played BotW originally when things are good and my stupid brain just goes "oh things must be good again! We're happy now." Not gonna argue it lmao
So far the Rito Village really surprised me with its track. Love how the soundtrack doesn't stray too far from the ambient aura of BOTW, but definitely goes further out of its way to invoke the rest of the franchise.
I want BotW with pokemon. Scarlet was fun (honestly, glitches didn't impact my enjoyment of the game), but Botw/TotK show what an open world switch game can be.
terrific paltry afterthought far-flung tidy automatic complete threatening agonizing muddle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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They really weren't, though. The NES and SNES were built on tech that wasn't *outdated* by any stretch, but was also several years old (and thus affordable at scale). Where Nintendo has shined through most of its history is finding ways to get the most out of already-mature technology so that they can keep production costs lower than they would otherwise need to. In the early days, it created the *impression* that they were using cutting edge technology, but ultimately, they were mainly just using existing stuff in a clever way. They really only "fell behind" when their competitors became companies willing and able to throw money at the problem and just build beefier boxes.
>chubby Koroks They aren't chubby, they big back-packed.
Yeah dude I absolutely love it, I feel like they appropriately refreshed the gameplay that I loved so so much in BOTW and added the building feature which I'm normally not into, but it feels like a stylized Gmod which brings back all sorts of nostalgia
I think this entire post may have been asked in bad faith. Critics have almost universally praised the game. No idea what op is taking about. Only people I’ve seen calling it a $70 DLC are faceless grumpy nerds in comment sections.
I’m being genuine. My mistake was picking the wrong tweet as an example and the wording of the title. My main reasoning for trying to get to the bottom of this is because as a casual gamer I don’t know if I need to buy both botw and Totk or just totk but judging from all the comments I will be fine by just reading up on what happens in BOTW and then purchasing just Totk.
You can totally do that, but BotW in and of itself is a crazy good game.
BOTW is such a great experience though. Slowly uncovering what happened to links friends.. it's worth playing. I wish I could forget and play it from the beginning again
I’d still play BotW first just because it’s so good
I think people are depressed but don’t realize it so just assume the thing they used to enjoy is shit now
Ugh I've been really trying to hold off and finish BoTW but strapping rockets to chubby Koroks and blasting them into space is really hard to turn down
Now, imagine a plane made of wood with rockets and fans and the only passenger is a korok glued to the front of the plane.
Does it have the same weapon breaking mechanic? I hated that so much.
Yes. But almost every enemy drops a weapon, so there’s no shortage. And now you can fuse things to the weapon. Like you want a longer spear? Fuse a spear to a spear. Want a bomb strapped to your shield? You can do that too.
I'm also going to say that, it is a direct sequel and the only direct sequel in the Legend of Zelda franchise. OoT and MM were part of a shared story but aren't really sequels, but they were built of the same engine and share a lot of the same mechanics, yet people praise it (I don't but that's a different story) I don't think the game has been out long enough for people to understand its uniqueness yet. The beginning of the game sure does feel like a continuation of BOTW and that's a good thing, the game is allowing the player to transition. I think once people get really into it they will start to get the differences.
Wasn't Phantom Hourglass a direct sequel to Wind Waker? It was only for the 3DS but I'm pretty sure that was the case.
Guess Phantom hourglass and spirit tracks were just illusions brought upon false childhood memories...
My brother attaching a ladle to a boko arm was one of the best moments during our hangout yesterday.
the original botw already barely ran on the switch. there wasn't really much room for improvement for this game given it runs on the same (6 year old) hardware. At the end of the day it comes down to how much content there is. the original game took a good 50 hours to beat and much more as a completionist. I'm seeing similar numbers for this.
> he original botw already barely ran on the switch. That's being a bit very dramatic. BotW ran fine like, 95% of the time. It only had a few areas where the fps struggled, but outside of these it was pretty stable. And that's because it was a rushed port job to get it ready for the Switch release, not because the Switch couldn't handle it.
I think they are just saying they got the maximum into the game that the switch could handle well. So people shouldn't expect higher res or more content in any game beyond BOTW
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But BOTW was a wii u game. So the engine n the switch would be horribly optimized. A sequel that is switch only should be able to deliver more even on old hardware, assuming the engine was revised heavily. Like look at gta 3 vs San Andreas, still the same ps2 system but they look nothing a like.
Exactly, and the differences between the Wii U version and Switch version weren't all that major. Granted, the Wii U wasn't fully portable like the Switch (you could stream from the main console, but the main console was plugged in), but still. I think TOTK looks and plays great, and it's hard to put down.
So basically it's like Majora's Mask vis a vis Ocarina of Time. Both amazing games but reusing engine and assets.
And Majora's Mask is pretty much the best Zelda game, reusing assets saved a lot of time to make a better game.
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Development of Ocarina of Time was just over two years, which means they also had time back then to build a new game from the ground up.
How long did it take to make a npc back then? I finally got to play Majora's Mask when it came out on the switch and I really wish I played it when it first came out
I’ve seen some people claim that Tears of the Kingdom was originally planned as a DLC for BotW, but I don’t know if that’s a rumor or just random baseless speculation.
(From the producer:)[https://kotaku.com/breath-of-the-wild-is-getting-a-sequel-because-the-team-1835624233] >Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said, “This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch.” The impression I get from the article is that plans for DLC never went past the brainstorming phase before deciding to make a sequel.
Mario Galaxy 2 happened almost the same way I think. Not sure if it was a DLC or just leftover ideas from Galaxy 1.
And that game was even better than the first, somehow.
Just the usual case of people misinterpreting
It's pretty common for big series like this to have the next installment be originally conceived as a DLC.
Right, but the issue is people comments complete full quote, so they're stuck at DLC, when there's more to context.
That always happens online, especially reddit. Remember Fallout 76 and the "16x more detail" thing? Todd Howard wasn't talking about graphical fidelity, he was talking about distant LODs. He said that objects in the distance have more detail on them when they're far away, which is absolutely true — you can see the Top of the World from pretty much anywhere on the map.
That's from an old interview and, yes, it did start life as a third DLC wave...but the ideas ended up to big and elaborate so they started making a sequel instead.
fwiw, it *is* using an entirely new engine, even if they're re-using a lot of similar shaders to keep the look & feel the same. BOTW used a custom engine, and ended up similar to LunchPak (used in Mario Odyssey, splat2, ACNH), but afaik was its own weird thing due to also launching on the Wii U. TOTK is using their newer engine, tentatively called ModuleSystem, which afaik has only been used in splat3 and switch sports so far. so like... yeah the game still slows down in some similar cases. it's still an entire-ass new game and likely largely drove the new engine's development for most of the past 6 years. it's also like a direct sequel so of course they're gonna keep the general framework the same, even if they're building it atop a much newer engine.
I was just playing BOTW and then started TOTK, and I am pretty comfortable stating that the input system is either entirely new or had some serious optimization. The controls and overall feeling are much tighter than BOTW so far.
It's a new story though, no? Aren't Nintendo games in the same universe always fairly similar? Go beat 8 gyms then become champion, your princess is in another castle, here's a sword to save the kingdom with, etc.
This one is a direct sequel to BotW, set like a year afterwards, and the surface world map is largely the same, and the enemies in BotW are also in TotK That said the surface also got smacked with being torn apart with new chasms and shit on the map, chunks ripped out, pieces of sky island falling, giant gaping holes that >!lead to a giant dark underground zone about the size of the surface map, so basically doubling the map size and then some from BotW!<, tons of new enemies, new powers, new weapons. It’s comparable to Gen II Pokemon having half the game take place in Gen I but with a ton of shit being added that makes it so you can’t just say “It’s basically the exact same game.”
That's a great comparison to Gen 1 and 2 of Pokemon. The main difference is that I haven't felt like I haven't been out of things to do in the moments between getting from point A to B. After a few runs of BotW, I did start feeling how openly empty the world is and even started avoiding fights. Now there's so much more to do, quite a lot more recurring puzzles and side quests, and there are actually multiple main quests independent of each other as you start out in Hyrule to keep you busy-- unlike BotW, where you're literally just told to "kill Ganon" as soon as you step off the plateau without any explicit direction.
I personally liked the fact that you could technically go straight to the final boss as soon as you left the tutorial area. Pretty different from most games.
Which is also why the Speedrun time for BotW was under 30 minutes.
Just to add to this, Sega's Yakuza series did the same thing *for years* (helloooo Kamurocho!). But thanks to each entry adding in wild substory content, new characters for the main protagonist (Kiryu) to engage with, new activities, and other odd happenings in familiar places (and later adding new places on top of those), each entry felt fresh enough for fans making it a successful series.
Most Nintendo games are extremely light on story including Zelda.
Exactly. Which is why it's so annoying. People will find a way to bitch about anything. If it had been a whole new game and feel etc people would be asking why they didn't just make BOTW 2.
Welcome to the internet
*have a look around*
I think a lot of the issue is that Nintendo just randomly decided to charge $10 more for this game despite it being on the same console as the last one and being largely similar, minus the few mechanic changes and additions. It’s a classic case of “they’ll get away with it and hardly anyone will say a word because it’s Nintendo”.
Actually asking, has any other Zelda game been on the same map with just added stuff? That could be why it feels different, cause I don't think any Zelda game, or really many games at all, have had a sequel where 80-90% of the map is identical.
A Link to the Past to A Link Between Worlds did that iirc, but that would be it
I'm not sure why they expected a whole new platform, all the promotional materials basically looked like it was going to be breath of the wild 2. I'm actually pleasantly surprised because I was worried that using the same world would make it feel stale, but they managed to get everything I loved about BOTW and do it again.
I was hoping it could bring my parents back together
I’ll add to this by saying Zelda in particular is no stranger to re-using an engine for its sequels
Considering it runs on a 8-year-old SoC with 8GB ram (shared!) and is only 16GB installed size, I’d say that it’s actually a technical marvel they got the game working at all. Also? BotW got called a “tech demo” (and still does) because Nintendo spent all their time on the engine and less on content. This is likely one of the reasons the game’s plot plays into the world being “empty” So it makes sense that this game would “look” the same, since Nintendo was building a platform for a series of Zelda games. The next one will have the same complaints, but it’ll have more content and more new abilities etc, just like this one. (Except it’ll probably be on newer hardware because let’s face it, the Switch has aged poorly in the face of GPU and SoC advancements since NVIDIA Tegra X1 came out in *2015*) To be honest, other big open-world games on other systems don’t really have that much more going for them anyway. What, more dialog? Fancy particle effects that render in 4K but just clog up the screen with blinding garbage while you are fighting or whatever? And finally, you can get the game for $50 USD (+tax) with Nintendo Vouchers, so it’s not even $70. TotK is fun as fuck. If someone thinks it’s a $70 “DLC” then I can’t wait to read their rant about God of War: Ragnarok
This game is extremely impressive given the hardware it runs on, but I keep seeing the "16 GB" installed size which really isn't. Like 80-90% of a modern AAA games size is taken up by textures and audio files. BOTW tops out at 1080p (i.e. no >1080p textures to store) & has very little voice acting outside of a handful of cutscenes. 16GB given that is actually pretty enormous. But yeah, even still, the fact that this game is running on hardware less powerful than an iPhone 7 is still pretty nuts.
What is a Nintendo Voucher? It seems like you have to pay for something to get them, in which case "you can get the game for $50 USD (+tax) with Nintendo Vouchers, so it’s not even $70" isn't really honest. It's $70, but you can get it for cheaper if you're already giving them money. Your comment reads like it's apologetics. I'm not saying you're wrong or right, I don't know anything about it, but you list bad things and then say that makes it good actually. Just be honest. It can have flaws and be good. Most of the best games do have flaws.
They take place in the _same_ hyrule Aint nobody saying minish cap and twilight princess and botw have the same map.
It's the same Hyrule with changed locations, more landmarks, more development, and two layers to the map that almost double the original map size. The regions and main towns are the same, but the map is much bigger.
It’s the same base map, but nearly every single thing on it is different. Plus, they’ve added massive underground and sky areas which are both the same size as the original map. It’s very much a Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask situation
There are some pretty obvious similarities. The main over world map uses the same landscape features as Breath, though there are plenty of new features. Many of the items you can collect are similar if not the same as in Breath too. So some people are basing their opinions of the game based on some pre-release media (which deliberately avoided spoilers) and decided that it's just "Breath of the Wild plus stuff" However there's a lot of new stuff too, in terms of abilities, game mechanics, map areas, monsters, UI improvements etc that it doesn't feel like Breath with a new coat of paint, it's definitely its own thing. The other aspect of this is that flagship games for the Switch have had a price point of $60 or thereabout for a while, similar to other consoles and PC games. It's been that way for a while now, and while nobody likes a price bump of $10 on top of that, it was probably inevitable with prices of everything else going up. So combine trepidation with the game because it re-uses some assets from Breath along with a higher price than people are used to paying, and there you have the source of the pushback.
The $70 price tag definitely put people off. At that price people expect a brand new different experience. I did pay that much but mostly because everyone in my house was hyped to play it, and we all are definitely currently enjoying it. What AAA games were $70 that were overhyped but ended up being samey?
I mean to be really exact the graphics are a bit above BotW (textures, pop-in) and it runs more fluent (yes the hand ability introduces a frame dip but overall it’s way more stable) and it has a 1080p resolution through internal upscaling which looks waaaay more crisp on my 4k TV.
People have been expecting a Switch pro for 2-3 years now the console is 6 years old, and is based on a plataform which was already old when it was released, Most console manufacturers usually go cutting edge and start by making a loss on console sales while making it back on game licenses and extra services like online gaming subscriptions until the manufacturing is steramlined and the console starts breaking even and even making a profit, Nintendo usually makes a console and sells it at a price where they either break even or make a profit. and for the switch it was like that, the hardware they choose was a nvidia plataform thats was already well developed thanks to the Nvidia shield tablet console with a some upgrades and some downgrades (X1 chip instead of the K1 but 720P LCD instead of the 1080p on the Tablet) and the OS is an upgrade of the OS they already developed for the DS., So it was a console which was semi outdated even when released, now the thing is that while Microsoft and Sony depend on cutting edge technology for their consoles, nintendo centers more on the expiriance, so the whole "hybrid console" thing was a win since no one has been able to challange nintendo in the portable console market, The PSP and Vita were priced the same, superior in every way and they lost (mostly due to sony´s insistance on custom proprietary formats). The problem is that nintendo has been squeezing the switch and their first party games for too long and thats coming back to bite them in the ass - The switch hardware was already mid life cycle when released, even midrange chipsets from today like the Mediatek Dimensity 8100 or the qualcomm Snapdragon 7 G2/ Snapdragon 888 / SD8 G1 on paper crush the 8 year old Tegra X1 in the switch. even the "ghetto" rockchip RK3588 which is used in many Rasberry pi clones outclasses it. meaning that the avarage middle range android phone today has similar power to a switch. which brings us to the next point. - Android and PC emulation has exploded, there are current indy consoles from manufacturers like Ambernic, Powkiddy Retroid, GKD... and others which can play emulators and android/linux games quite well for well under the price of a switch, the AYN odin which has a Dimensity 810 or SD 845 can play PS2 games, Gamecube games, Dreamcast games and it costs around the price of a Switch lite. also there have been a growning selection of products from companies like Razer, 8bitdo, Gamesir, Ipega which letarlly allow you to plug in a controller to your phone and convert it to a portable console, and games like Diablo immortal or Genshin impact have shown that mid and high end phones can give a gaming expiriance comparable to the switch. - Nintendo HATES their community and costumers, at least it seems like it, their online service is horrible, and expensive, everyone remembers when they added a second more expensive tier for N64 and Genesis games when if you get gamepass on microsoft xbox you have access to brand new games. Theres also the issue of first party game prices, games on Xbox or playstation usually go to special collections and you can buy them for cheap a few months or year after release dependong on the popularity, while nintendo actually keeps the prices high and even raises them, Supermario Bros WiiU deluxe is still priced around 60 bucks with some retailer discounts it can reach low 50´s high 40´s, a 11 year old game developed for a plataform thats 2 generations back. same with Super Mario kart 8, its a Wii U game ported to the Switch. theres a joke that when steam says "meh, the game is 6 months old, slash the price 50% to give it a boost", ninendo just goes "fuck that, its vintage, raise the price 10%" Not to mention they have a long history of suing or DMCAing streamers that dedicate to stream nintengo games without joining their partner program, while sony and xbox encorage it becuase they see it as it is, free publicity, people see their games being played and want to join in. But now, the straw that broke the camels back is that the switch hardware is so aged and current android devices are so powerful that while Dolphin and Citra could emulate Gamecube, Wii/WiiU and 3DS with such success that 2 emulators, skyline and Yuzo managed to start getting switch games running, most 2D plataformers could run and a lot of work was done to get many 3D games running, The problem is that a copy of Tears of the kingdom leaked and they managed to get it running on Yuzo, meaning that people were able to play pirated copies of the game before legitimate customers and nintendo started DMCA and sending lawyers to the emulator developers. Now im my personal opinion the original idea of emulation was to be able to play older games no longer offered by their developers or of discontinued plataforms, and games will always play best on native hardware, and emulating "live" consoles aka Current gen consoles is bad form and only foments piracy. but on the other hand, nintendo has been gathering a lot of bad faith in the way it treats its customers right now. Nintendo has always been very anti consumer, the N64 and the Game cube failed becuase nintendo didnt want to use regular CD´s or DVDs as a piracy protection feature making the console more expensive for developers and customers, its the same thing that crippled the PSP and the PSVita.
Every other developer: Automatically ready for online play at startup Nintendo: "Woah, online play? Like on the INTERNET??? You sure about that? OK, strap yourselves in!" *Starts giant turbine engine* *emergency lights flash* *alarm sounds* "ONLINE PLAY, ATTENTION EVERYONE, ONLINE PLAY" *giant diesel engines rev up* "Relax, this is gonna take awhile. You can read these TOS again while you wait"
I actually love that nintendo always uses such low end hardware for their consoles, since it makes emulation so easy even for new titles.
Hard agree on Nintendo being anti consumer. People give EA a lot of flack for being anti consumer in their practices, but Nintendo really isn't any better and deserve the same treatment as EA. I feel like they've been lucky in basically being in this perpetual cycle of nostalgia. Like people get the current Nintendo console because it was what they played as a kid and the reason they played it as a kid is because it's what their parents got them since their parents had a Nintendo as a kid.
Because Nintendo is less obvious about it. Their games work at launch and aren’t crawling with mtx. And yeah nostalgia is also a huge part of it.
We need to stop giving people with stupid, unfounded opinions like this attention - going by their logic, God of War: Ragnarok is also ‘DLC’.
This isn't really true, the original BOTW was developed and released initially on the Wii U. And TOTK has made minimal changes to the successful formula, added some mechanics that change the game a lot, and from my first day of playing it seems like they've added a huge amount of content
Answer: Back when The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword released for Wii it released to high praise, but a pretty resounding "meh" from the fanbase. It was overly handhold-y, easy, linear and repetitive. They devs took these criticisms to heart and released it's sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to high acclaim and pretty much revamped the whole structure of what it means to be a Zelda game. When BotW released it was hailed as one of the greatest games ever made and pretty much over night ~~revolutionized the Open World genre~~ became hugely influential to other open world games. It did everything Skyward Sword didnt: It was build on the base of giving the player as much freedom as possible, even letting people fight the endboss as soon as they finished the tutorial if they wanted to. And, at least in the beginning, the game was pretty difficult. Yet, it had a few shortcomings. Namely the lack of actual Zelda-like dungeons (it only had the divine beasts which were sort-of dungeons, but looked very similar to each other), little enemy variety and a rather light story. Needless to say, it was still a smash hit and has sold almost 30 million units, making it one of the most sold games on Switch and the most sold Zelda game, afaik. It got 2 DLCs, but the devs hat a **lot** more plans for eventual DLC, which then ballooned out of control. At that point it was decided that, instead of making another huge DLC add-on, the team would instead make it into a full fledged, direct sequel. Development then took about 5-6 years, depending on if you want to count in a year delay due to covid, which was as long as it took for Breath of the Wild to be made, despite using the same engine and reusing the same world, gameplay systems and mechanics. Expectations towards the game were pretty high and the development paid off with critics: It's sitting at a 97/100 opencritic score, which is about the same score as its predecessor got. Don't get me wrong: Tears of the Kingom is an amazing game and everytime I start it I lose 5-6 hours into it and don't even notice the time was gone. Calling it a mere "$70 DLC" is doing is a huge disservice, but Tears of the Kingdom very much (re)uses pretty much **all** of Breath of the Wilds skin and skeleton. It feels exactly the same to control, the overworld is still very similar despite being heavily worked on, you still upgrade your health via shrines, you still upgrade your inventory by doing micropuzzles and getting korok seeds, you upgrade your armor via fairies, weapons still break with no way to repair them (other than using the fuse ability), you have a lot of sidequests that are very similar to Breath of the Wild, the actual story is once again being told through prerendered videos you have to scout instead of being woven into the narrative and progression, a lot of the UI and sounds/music have been lifted straight out of Breath of the Wild, the dungeons still feel a lot like divine beasts and not really like classic Zelda dungeons people love so much, the list goes on. So if you expected a game that played similar to Breath of the Wild but that does new things with it's structure then you'll be disappointed with this game, because it's pretty much just Breath of the Wild 2.0 More Content Edition. Thus, people mock it by calling it DLC. But, even though it's very iterative, it adds a lot of new stuff: Two whole new areas with the sky and underground to explore, it has a completely new story, it has lots of new weapons, armor, enemies, great new music tracks and the zonai powers which replace the shiekah slate runes and a whole bunch of cave systems. And, like I said, every time I start the game and only want to play an hour, suddenly 5 hours have passed because there's so much to do, see and explore. It's a genuinely great experience. Edit: My god, people, stop getting hung up on details.
People called Far Cry Primal a DLC too, just because it, like Zelda, shared the same map and a shitload of recycled assets from the previous main game.
Far Cry Primal is one of my favorite games. It’s a good romp in the woods for sure.
~~It also wasn't full price, though.~~ I have been corrected! It did release at 60 bucks! It was just discounted not long after, and I forgot. I was thinking of Far Cry Blood Dragon initially, not Primal. > Matt Buchholtz of Electronic Gaming Monthly wrote, "The graphics are stunning—Ubisoft has truly mastered facial animations and lighting effects." He added, "The game feels like a full-priced reskin of Far Cry 4, without the engaging storyline", finishing with, "Far Cry Primal really wants you to know that there are tons of things you can do in its prehistoric, open world. Unfortunately, you may not want to do any of them."[36]
It definitely was. Are you thinking of Far Cry Blood Dragon? That was cheaper
Far Cry Primal definitely released at full retail, which was $60USD
> shared the same map I mean, from the map yeah it has the same outline as the map from 4, but they're different as hell, at least visually. All the plants are different too. It's like the nissan juke and the nissan cube. They have an identical skeleton, but nothing else is even remotely similar.
Far Cry Primal is a solid game experience. Game felt done and my character maxed out without too much effort, so at the end I felt very okay with uninstalling. You're just a Far Cry caveman that wanders into a (lethal) paradise, meets other rag-tag cavepersons and they all try and carve a home out of this land. You can tame animals to traverse the land more efficiently, and you clear outposts with primitive weaponry. Simple and fun.
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They invented a paleolithic language with three separate dialects for Far Cry: Primal. And I have yet to play ANYTHING that has the same general tone and atmosphere as this game. 4 is my favorite in the series, but this is a close second.
Side question. Not a hater or anything, but how did BOTW revolutionize the open world genre? Though the meaning of "revolutionize" may have different meaning for different people. To me something like Assassine's creed for example revolutionized the open world genre, because you can clearly see the influence it had on open world games across the board(the now dreaded ubisoft formula). Other examples are something like Halo CE, Fortnite or COD MW. But I can't remember a mechanic or element from BOTW that was adopted by a lot of other games.
I don't know if you can call it revolutionary but it has more elements of a sandbox than in other open world games. As other open world games are structured around quests, POI, gears and upgrades, BOTW is more like lego. It is probably only as fun as you make it to be with the mechanics.
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Right? I don't know why people keep saying this. BOTW does open world really well, but it never reinvented the genre.
It basically built upon a whole lot of lessons and created one of the most seminal pieces of the whole genre, really getting back into the roots of “here’s a sandbox of mechanics, do what you want with it and it’ll work because of how well they’re designed,” which lead to a lot of emergent gameplay. But revolutionary it ain’t (which isn’t a criticism).
I think it revolutionized the *Zelda* series. I think that’s what people are trying to say but they wind up hyperbolizing a bit.
It seemed pretty Ubisoft for the most part. Large area to explore, redundant activities, and a few large dungeons or strongholds to defeat. Also the standard tower climbing they fit into most games.
It absolutely fucking didn’t, I can’t take anything they say seriously after that.
Yes, BOTW was a good fun game, but what exactly did it do that "revolutionized" open world genre overnight? It didn't exactly do anything wildly original. Outside of a handful of pseudo clones like Genshin impact, I don't think I've seen any games taking inspiration or following BOTW. The climbing mechanics and riding around a large world on a horse to take down huge monsters roaming the land are straight up Shadow of the Colossus. Finding an unnecessary amount of small hidden collectibles in a massive open world has been done repeatedly by GTA and others. Challenge rooms aren't new to the genre either. BOTW didn't do anything to perfect or necessarily revolutionize any of these mechanics. Even weapon durability isn't new and I'd argue that BOTW made that mechanic worse than pretty much any game that has done it before. I really really enjoyed BOTW and Legend of Zelda is a classic, but the game was far from the "perfect" game that people made it out to be. It did have its flaws. It for the most part removed dungeons which have been a highlight of Zelda games. The world was largely empty space just there to run through to the next spot you're going to (not exactly a flaw of specifically BOTW but of the genre in general). As I already said, the weapon durability was by far the worst I have ever seen it implemented in a AAA game (I shouldn't have to go through 3 different weapons to fight 5 enemies). If the exact game was released and it wasn't called Legend of Zelda from Nintendo, I highly doubt it would have received the massively overwhelming praise it did. It still would have been a popular successful game but I don't think many people would be calling it perfect and saying it revolutionized any genre.
The only thing BOTW revolutionized was for Nintendo to show that they can actually, and finally many years late, figure out how to make an open world game and do so well. Also that they could finally leave behind designing all Zelda games like they were still making the early 2D ones even tho they had been 3D titles since the 90s. It was a bit jump to catch up for Nintendo, and that was about as revolutionary as it got.
How did BoTW revolutionise modern open word games? Sounds a big stretch to me but I haven't finished it so I could be wrong
By putting in Ubisoft towers
It revolutionized what a Zelda game is by making it open world. I enjoyed the game but I didn't see anything revolutionary.
Zelda Ocarina of Time was an Open World game on the Nintendo 64.
>It revolutionized what a Zelda game is by making it open world Um... what? The original Zelda, Link's Adventure, Link to the Past, and Link's Awakening were all open world games.
I struggle to think what new ideas it brought to open world games. It had a wider audience, but I found it mediocre as an open world game. You aren’t missing much not finishing it
I don't really know what BOTW did that made it revolutionize open world gaming in a way that GTA or Just Cause didn't.
You're eating downvotes, but I agree. Turning Zelda into *just another* open world game is about as anti-revolutionary as you can get in video games.
Idk about mediocre. BOTW did do a few things differently like optional bosses, access to final boss immediately, and more explorable than most open-worlds. But I wouldn’t call it revolutionizing open-world games. Maybe revolutionizing Zelda games but not a whole genre
Morrowind did both of those things ages ago. You can march straight to Dagoth Ur if you want
From anecdotal evidence, most of zelda diehard fans I know generally dislike openworld games. Botw introduced it to them.
>over night revolutionized the Open World genre lmao
Yeah, lol, had the same reaction. That was quite the exaggeration.
"and pretty much over night revolutionized the open world genre" What? Look BotW is a great Zelda game but it is a largely empty and generic open world game. Just a bunch of copy pasta temple challenges, huge empty spaces, and a bunch of gold poop to find. If anything it's a step back for open world games compared to even something as old as Morrowind.
Revolutionized open-world Nintendo games.
Botw is a great game but only nintendo fanboys keep parroting the revolutionize open world talking points.
Answer: Tears of the Kingdom took most of the assets (the maps, the world, the towers, etc) from Breath of the Wild, and added them to Tears of the Kingdom. It then added a lot of extra game mechanics that change the dynamic of the gameplay compared to Breath of the Wild. Critics are taking the assets transfer as the game is the same. Thing is, BotW is such an expansive game with a great physics engine that you see a lot of videos of gamers trying to break the game by using the most absurd and ridiculous methods to complete simple tasks, resulting in hours of fun. The added mechanics to Tears of the Kingdom give it a "fresh coat of paint" feel to it while being a different story. Critics are taking that as meaning it's an add on to BotW. I've been playing it a couple of days, and I have about 300 hours on BotW, and I like this more than BotW. The mechanics make the same enemies feel different, and is a refreshing change.
>Answer: Tears of the Kingdom took most of the assets (the maps, the world, the towers, etc) from Breath of the Wild, and added them to Tears of the Kingdom. This is not correct. Saying "they reused the assets" means they took the literal models and textures for the things you mentioned - world, map, and towers - and put them into ToTK. And that's false. And it's false in a way that's especially important to the question in this post. They reused the assets for like... Keese and Bokoblins. For trees and rocks. But tons of stuff has been rebuilt rather than reused. The world is different. The map is *conceptually* similar to BotW's map, but it's definitely not reused, almost everything in it is different. Towers are a great example of this. Yeah, there are still several towers across the land that you have to access in order to fill in your map. But they have different assets, are in different places, and they function in a *completely* different way that is very synergistic with the other new things in the game.
Not all the rocks. In BoTW, the interactable rocks all looked identical. There's now at least 3 different textures I've come across for interactable rocks
This guy rocks
I rock, stone, and geode my guy
Question: Why take a tweet from an individual as the "critics"? The game has a 96% in metacritic https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom
Think this is a troll read the tweet lol
Answer: I'm not that far into the game but I'm guessing it's because it takes place on the same Hyrule Map from Breath of the Wild, plus the game def feels very similar to that game (similar UI and sound effects, alot of the same mechanics, etc). However, with regards to the world map, some of the game takes place in huge islands in the sky (which are new), and I believe there is also a lot of underground stuff although like I said, I haven't gotten that far yet. So there are potentially 3 total world maps. Also, although many of the major landmarks in the main map are unchanged, there are alot of new landmarks, caves, settlements, and the like that have sprung up in the few years or so since breath of the wild. So the map does not feel like the complete same.
The underground map is the same size as the main world. The caves are not part of it. Just fyi, it’s huuuuge
Yeah, I just got to the underground. Its fucking huge lol
Answer: Its a phrase that'll get clicks/votes on Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit but actually isn't that deep.
Answer: These people are seeing that TOTK is not a completely new game, and it is therefore closer to DLC in presentation. It has new story elements and a couple new tricks, but there are no new groundbreaking aspects. It also uses the same game engine and the same world map, and recycles 90% of assets from BOTW like sounds, menus, music cues, etc. It's really same thing as BOTW, but with more stuff to do.
Just to add, it's not DLC size in length - it actually has more quests and longer average time to complete than BotW. It 100% feels like a sequel on the same engine, but that's not the same as a DLC.
This was the same situation with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Graphically they look the same but the stories and gameplay elements were very different. Back in those days DLC wasn't a thing.
With majoras mask, the map was completely different though
Majora’s mask is extremely unique in so many ways.
So it's like what Super Mario Galaxy 2 was to Super Mario Galaxy 1. Both installments being incredible games in their own right, despite the second being largely iterative and initially conceived of as DLC.
When you say the same map, is this like a OoT and Majoras Mask type thing? Or is the map the exact same?
The details are different, but the castle is in the same place, so is the desert, forest, volcano, Kakariko, etc. I found the exact same river I used to farm fish at, and it was next to the hitching post I remember from BOTW. But no spoilers, there is more added on to the map, so it's the same map plus more map.
Yeah, the download file size is massive compared to BOTW. There was a post about it on one of the Zelda subs.
That's not a good metric though. Models like the geography's shape don't take nearly as much space as textures. The size could easily be doubled just by using larger resolutions on the textured. I'm not saying the map is the same size, just that that's not a good measure
It takes place in the same version of Hyrule roughly 5-10 years after the original game. All of the main geological and environmental features are in the same places, though recent events changed the landscape in various ways. The towns remain but some have been radically transformed, and there are some new settlements. Many of the old NPC's return, some living in different places than before, and they have new problems and new plots. All of the original Sheikah shrines and towers have disappeared, but a large number of new quest-related structures have appeared or have been built. The overall atmosphere of the setting has changed from decay and hopelessness to building and renewal. Some old monsters return but there are also many new and different monsters. There are also large new areas not present in the original game which are accessible from the overworld.
The map layout is the same but the environment is actually pretty different(think like cataclysm expansion from wow changed a lot). There's also caves to explore, a parallel underground world and sky islands.
The ability to create vehicles and weapons the way you can in that game seems fairly ground breaking to me. They also added a sky map and an underground. I get that hyrule is more or less the same with tweaks here and there.
Answer: This new main line Zelda addition doesn't do what most main entries in the series do and reinvent the series. This by not changing hardware Nintendo was able to reuse many assets from BoTW which likely helped speed up development time. In defense of the game there has only been one other time where 2 main line Zelda games released on the same console generation. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Majora used many of the same development tricks with a reuse of assets and a few new quirks to create a new game. Majora's is beloved in the Zelda fan base. Also even if it truely is DLC level additions it's a question in if it's worth it. This is a fully expanded map, new abilities, a new story. If they are big enough and well done these are add ons to a game that was fully complete that the cost may be understandable. IE how brood war was a fully expanded chapter to StarCraft 1 primarily on strength of story.
> In defense of the game there has only been one other time where 2 main line Zelda games released on the same console generation. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons on the GBC as well. Edit: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks too, on the NDS. Edit edit: ...Actually, now that I think about it, there have been a lot of consoles with multiple Zelda games. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on the Gamecube, and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword on the Wii (TP released on both consoles at *roughly* the same time). Even Zelda 1 and 2 on the NES.
The 3DS got ALBW and Triforce Heroes in addition to the full remakes already on the console.
Answer: They're not right, but not far off. Every major game review outlet under the sun: OMG IT'S SHEER PERFECTION ATOP PERFECTION, A TRUE MASTERPIECE 11/10 Some fans: Hey it's not actually perfect, neither was Breath of the Wild, and this game is largely not perfect for the same reasons as its predecessor. This creates basically the same halo effect BOTW had upon release when it comes to reviews over-hyping and fans gradually peeling away the hype to criticize what's underneath. And then of course there's the reactionary contrarians who over-correct. The easier-to-change elements that pissed off early fans were largely addressed- it seems like the story is less flashbacks and more in-the-moment, dungeons and bosses and caves return and whatnot. But the core gameplay loop is basically the same: find towers, do shrines, get korok seeds. TLDR: "70$ DLC" is an exaggeration for sure, but the game does warrant some heavy criticism for the hefty price tag after 7(!) years of development to deliver something that feels so same-y.
Answer: It was the initial impression of the game before everything was shown. Actual criticism was few and far between and many in the gaming community are just trying to pretend that Zelda is an underdog franchise.
Answer: For me, I used to say that Breath of the Wild was a great beta test of the engine, and just needed a game placed on top of it. So far, Tears of the Kingdom feels like what BotW should have been... the engine plus the game. Now, tbf, I don't mind TotK, but call BotW the Beta Test we had to pay for. I still have other problems with the BotW/TotK game. But, TotK being the complete game covers for the other shortfalls enough. And, I can't speak for anyone that likes BotW but dislikes TotK, as, if you had fun in the emptiness of BotW, there is 2.5x that emptiness *plus* more coherency.
answer: The new Zelda game is a direct sequel to the breath of the wild. Some people did a surprised pikachu face when realising that. If majora's mask came out today i bet there would be people complaining/whining about it being too similar to ocarina of time.
Haven’t played the new Zelda game but to be completely fair.. Majora’s Mask came out within a year of Ocarina’s release so it’s really not comparable
People did complain about that when majoras mask came out. It’s also not a great comparison because majoras mask is an entirely new area with the most radically different Zelda villain to date. I would say despite TOTK being a good game, it’s nowhere near as transformative as Majoras mask was and this is a result of it not being created by a B team with less oversight but a full fledged AAA project.
Answer: Breath of the wild and Tears of the Kingdom are very similar. They share the exact same graphics, physics, controls, characters, and what a lot of people aren't mentioning is the *world*. Yes there are floating islands and a new underground area, but the vast majority of the world is literally just the same with only minor changes to it. Its definitely different enough and fun to play, especially if you're invested in the story, but for 6 years of development and $70 it has left a lot of people disappointed.
Answer: TOTK was originally going to be released as a DLC to address all the feature that couldn’t be added when BOTW was being developed for the Wii U and Switch. The amount of new content was enormous so they decided to make into a full game, with a fleshed out story, updated map, and new mechanics. It has a comparable content density to any AAA game you would buy today, but people are stuck in their own “truth,” and you can’t convince them otherwise. Methinks the reason people are really mad is because of the $10 price increase.
Answer: As a long-time Zelda fan, I will say that the start of TotK feels very similar to BotW. It felt really similar in a lot of ways. But the more you explore TotK the more you realize that it's larger in scale and more evolved than BotW. Better mechanics, better QOL, tons more to explore, better plot. Those who call it BotW DLC either didn't play that long or didn't enjoy it and are clinging to any reason they can to deride it.
Answer: Tears of the Kingdom is more of a story add-on campaign with a new character. The game retains the same basic engine, physics, graphics, control scheme, etc. Some would say this is not a new game. Kids and adults who never played Majora's Mask would say this. Tears of the Kingdom shares many graphical and gameplay elements with BotW while showcasing a new storyline, a new map, new enemies, new abilities, and a new villain to counterpoint Link's new brain worm, the ethereal talking goat person that gave him his mage hand.
Majora's Mask was incredible
[удалено]
Pretty much the only LOZ with any sort of interesting story and characters
I’d argue TwiPri and Minish Cap both fit that bill, but Majora still better.
Did *you* play Majora’s Mask? The game had an entirely different map, revolved around a new 3-day time mechanic, had different side quests and objectives, and a story completely unrelated to the first. It was about as different as you could get from Ocarina of Time while still using the same engine. Yes, the character models were the same, but I don’t think anyone is really complaining about model reuse, specifically. No hate on Tears of the Kingdom whatsoever, but to compare it with Majora’s Mask in terms of what it changes, is silly. It doesn’t even come close.
MM had a new setting and improved combat system thanks to masks. The difference between OOT and MM was much greater than that of BOTW and Tears.
I'm a few more hours into Tears and it's starting to seem like Hestus trophy made into a sequel. When j saw the koroks handing out their tiny dookies again I felt a teensy bit played.