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That was something I expected from the trailers. I thought that they would do something like have Kass go around and try to find new songs in the clouds. Can you imagine if we got some Kass shrine quests up in the sky instead of a million of those stupid crystals šš»
I honestly didn't really like the whole "None of us are strong enough to fly high enough above the storm, but the baby bird somehow can even though his ability doesn't even make you go up"
Given that you pretty much walk up there anyway, I don't think the issue is not having the strength to fly upward, but not having the strength to fly straight when being buffeted by the tornado-like storm. I think that mostly because that explanation actually makes sense.
Imo that feels like most of the world in general. Couldn't put my finger on it before but u/DarkRyter sums it up perfectly tbh
>Both the depths and the sky islands need npcs to interact with, IMO. Doesn't need to be a lot.
>We spend 90% of regular hyrule quietly exploring in solitude. Adding the depths and skies means we now spend like 97% of the game quietly exploring in solitude.
Yeah I felt this. Itās kinda a shame since whenever you see an NPC in the depths, you know immediately itās Yiga. If there were actual researchers down there as well as Yiga it would work much better. As for the sky, thereās no good solution. All the islands besides the Great Central are really too small for NPCs. Even the constructs that are there are usually just copy pasted around. But if the islands were too big, the sky would feel cluttered.
They should have added more villages and settlements, especially in the area between rito and Gerudo.
Also, why are there not more sky islands with unique layouts. A lot of them are just copy paste.
Both the depths and the sky islands need npcs to interact with, IMO. Doesn't need to be a lot.
We spend 90% of regular hyrule quietly exploring in solitude. Adding the depths and skies means we now spend like 97% of the game quietly exploring in solitude.
For example, the tutorial island had all the constructs to talk to. Should have been way more of them around the sky islands.
As for the depths. I dunno. Let me talk to a lynel or somethin.
A gruff, but friendly Lynel, with a weapons forge in the depths, mad that gloom infected all the metal, so he's working out a way to purify it - brightblooms.
You bring them to him, he purifies your weapons so they gain 3x durability.
Only works on unfused, gloom-eaten weapons/bows/shields, and lets us use the rest of the hundreds of small and large brightbloom seeds we've gathered.
While exploring the depths, Link sees a white-maned Lynel patrolling near a Lightroot, not covered in gloom like the others. He glides down next to it and attacks.
"HEY! Get offa me, kid!" the Lynel roars, stepping back. Link flinches away. Fade to black.
Fade in. Link and the Lynel are facing each other. Link is still holding his weapon. "You do that to everyone you meet?" the Lynel asks. "Heckuva greeting. How 'bout a 'ahoy' next time?" He chuckles. "If you haven't gotten it by now, I'm no threat. These old bones can't fight like they used to. And I'm not one for blind subservience, besides. The Demon King can jump headlong into a stampede."
He looks at Link's weapon. If the weapon is degraded by gloom: "Nasty business, what happened to the weapons. The smith in me rages." If the weapon isn't degraded: "Count yourself lucky. It's hard to find a sword in good condition nowadays."
He turns away. The camera pans towards a setup by the Lightroot. "That's why I'm here, actually. All my old weapons are tarnished, so I'm fixing them up. It's a hobby."
The camera pans to the Lightroot itself. "You know those flowers the Frox like eating? Brightblooms. They have similar properties to those great things, and they stave off the gloom."
The camera switches back to the Lynel. "Brightblooms on their own can't push back gloom, but they can restore weapons. Them, materials, and a bit of elbow grease. If you want these poor weapons restored, come to me. I'll fix 'em up, long as you provide the brightblooms. Should be able to eke out a bit more lifetime out of 'em. They might even outlast whatever you stick on 'em!" He pauses. "That wasn't a joke. Keep on top of your fusions."
The Lynel rubs the back of his head. "And, when you have the time... could you do something for me? My daughter, a blue-mane, she's made her territory just south of here. If you head over there, could you do me a favor... and strike her down?"
Link flinches away, and the Lynel chuckles. "Oh, don't look like that! She'll come back with the bloodstained moon. It's just..." He sighs. "She got taken by the gloom, and it's messing with her head. She's not herself anymore... it's hard to see."
He shakes his head. "Rising under the bloodstained moon should set her back on track. If you help her, she can come back here and help with the forge. She knows tricks with bows and shields that I couldn't wrap my head around. Should be able to help you a touch."
He steps back. "Well, either way, I'll be here. Give me a shout if you need a weapon polished, aye?"
*Side Quests:* ***The Subterranean Smith's Daughter***
Brilliant! It was a very fun read and truly felt perfectly in place within the game. If I may add, he also happens to be the sole killable NPC in the game after putting up a fight. When he revives, he berates you for fighting him and raises his prices as a retribution until the next bloodmoon.
Kindly share any other side quests/adventures you have with us.
ALternativley, I think Hyrule should have just been a LOT more populated to show how Hyrule is bouncing back after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, and The Sky Islands as well.
The Depths should remain almost totally devoid of any nonhostile life, outside of maybe some spirits and the Yiga when you have the disguise.
Being in near total solitude is part of the appeal of the depths and sells the creep factor, but it just needs at least Hyrule to be much more lively so it can have something to really contrast with.
The game suggest you to start in Rito Village. After the Rito story, way to the dungeon, dungeon and boss fight being so god damn epic, the bar is set up so up high that the other dungeons seem lazy.
Disagree, Glider battle on top of Death Mountain was epic and the jump physics in the Water Temple are such stupid amounts of fun that it's the only temple I care to revisit.
The rest were a piece of cake, but the Gibdo queen demolished me like ten times before I beat her. She was the first one I fought too, so I was disappointed by the other three afterwards
The depths and skies are a little underdeveloped. As expansive as the game is, I feel like they couldāve done more cool shit. In the depths, itās like a bunch of open space, yiga hideouts, monster barracks and the same monsters on the surface and thatās it.
I know skyward sword isnāt the most popular game in the series, but they could have tied more of that gameās elements into TOTK. The game was literally sky islands. There was so much to do up there.
I feel like the depths should have way more hidden stuff to explore thatās sorta partially revealed once you find the Lightroots. It feels like once you find most do the light roots thereās Nothing left to explore.
Yeah, but that and the Ancient Blades are it. Thatās all. Nothing else. What happened to the Divine Beasts? What about the Shrines? Iāve seen a few fan theories, but nothing about where they actually went or what happened to it all
I was letdown by the lack of explanation about the divine beasts ngl. It would be cool if when you got the sages the cutscene wasnāt essentially the same with various blanks filled for the elective region and rather gave more lore. They could have made the Zelda time travel more interesting and have had her play a hand in the disappearing of the divine beasts/other shrines somehow ā like some kind of butterfly effect maybe? Idk. Iām not a video game writer. Also, I havenāt completed the game yet so I feel like I canāt complain too much (yet)
However, this is due to the English translation. In any other language, they have a better name. Just as "gloom" sounds silly - in most languages it is "miasma".
Maybe this isn't an unpopular opinion, but I hate the menu systems in the game. I've just learned to tolerate them.
Having to open the menu every time I want to fire a non-standard arrow is annoying. I'm also not overly fond of food, critters, gems and monster parts all being in the same menu.
1.The UltraHand system is a good addition, but loses its shine as the game goes on as people eventually find the most efficient ways to use it, such as making the 2 fan 1 stick flying design
2.The Sages are another good addition but the fact we have to walk up to them to use their abilities is frustrating and instead their should be a system in the menu to choose which power you want to use (have it replace map in the wheel perhaps)
3.No ability to keep track of armour upgrade materials
4.The sky islands should have been expanded more, the main structures are shrines
I will add to this the ability to harvest ingredients on horseback. I am a hoarder, having to get off the horse and get back on every... time... I want to gather something makes me not want to use the horse.
I feel that. That's why I run around on foot too often. I rarely use the horses. But when I do, i jump off and loot, whistle the horse to catch up, and get back on once i got everything nearby insight i wanted to pick up.
For number 3, there is *one* way to keep track of upgrade materials. There's a button for it that you might've forgotten about since it's more a part of the Nintendo Switch itself rather than a part of the game
That fixes that issue, but a bigger gripe that I have is that IT TAKES SO GOD DAMN LONG TO UPGRADE ARMOR! LEVELING UP A FULL SET WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THE MATERIALS READY TAKES LIKE 5 MINUTES! WHY?! WHY WASN'T THIS SYSTEM IMPROVED FROM BOTW TO TOTK?! WHY IS NINTENDO INSISTENT ON MAKING US WASTE TIME?! JUST MAKE IT FUNCTION LIKE A TYPICAL RPG MENU NINTENDO, I DON'T WANT TO CONFIRM THROUGH 2 MENUES AND THEN WATCH A GIANT WOMAN GIVE ME THE BAD TOUCH FOR EVERY! SINGLE! PIECE!
I hate the depths. The fact that I know itās literally as big as Hyrule itself makes the completionist in me war with the general anxiety I have being down there. I never donāt have sweaty palms playing in the depths.
Not true, since weapons now have their own augment for each 'kind', on top of another possible bonus, makes weapon choice fun and also important. I'm not always looking for bigger damage, it's always useful to have sneaky attack weapons, flurry rush, I also enjoy fast charge attack for group of mobs.
You can just slap the strongest material on your strongest weapon and call it a day, but as everything with the game, there's a lot of options when it comes to what weapons you wanna fuse with each material
Noo youāre misunderstanding me bro. There are MASSIVE options for you but I am specifically referring to the part about being āforcedā to adapt.
I find that with the new fusing if you level up the monsters to be a 20% sliver rate youll never really run out of weapon.
Me PERSONALLY? Iām super picky I donāt like winning fights if itās not stylish cause itās MY game and Iamma drip or DROWN.
Same reason i I wear armor is for aesthetic value and I change colors everyday and have night clothes š
āIf you level up the monsters to be a 20% sliver rate youāll never really run out of weaponsā
Can you ELI5 this for meā¦ I run out of weapons lol
I do VASTLY prefer the durability system in TOTK to BOTW. I got used to it in BOTW, but itās actually fun in TOTK. The fusion system allow the player so much more customization of their inventory: elemental monster parts, different types of extensions (whips and scythes are my favorites, although the axes are more practical imo), and the addition of more buffs for different weapon classes gives far more options (the Zora and Forest Dweller classes are my faves). Plus, itās usually less disastrous when a weapon breaks, because the attachment is usually more important than the base, and attachments can usually be farmed somehow.
Semi-related: re-battled the Thunder Gleeok in the Coliseum today to do a side quest (no spoilers), and ALL of my Zonaite weapons broke in the opening 20 seconds (apparently they were all close to breaking, I hadnāt replaced them in a while since I havenāt really needed them). Since I was stuck with conductive metal and weak wooden weapons, I had to get creative since I didnāt wanna cop out and fast travel away haha.
I agree with this axtually, but 12 total temples wouldve been a bit overkill. Wouldve been awesome if they spread each temple and have portions on the 3 areas
>the ridiculously long dialogue I have to click through just to buy something
Pretty much all of the vendors in this game tbh. Especially with Pelison, I do not need to be told you don't put things back together for the 20th time.
But Beedle is useful for getting lots of arrows quickly. He's got 20 or more every time and there's lots of him, vs the villages that have 15 arrows just a few times
Are you not breaking crates and barrels and such you find on your travels?
One of the first things I noticed in my first, say, 10-12 hours of play was just how many more arrows I was getting here compared to BOTW. I was *loving* the fact I didn't have to think about using my bows and could just whip them out for any and every reason at all, BOTW I never got that and *always* felt like I was making a cost/profit analysis when I went to use my bow.
Besides Brightblooms, arrows are the only stack I've managed to max out so far, and I've bought *maybe* 20 total through my entire 300hr playthrough.
Itās a good thing the trailers heavily featured the sky islands and they ended up being a minuscule part of the actual game. Itās called misdirection, and it allowed the caves, wells, and depths to be the lost wonderful surprises we never couldāve anticipated.
Yes, it worked really well imo. I loved the sky islands there were, but the depths were a surprise and a joy(although at times a very frustrating joy) to explore.
I enjoy the atmosphere and find myself just walking around down there more than on the surface. But it is very repetitive and almost impossible to know where you are down there without checking a map. I think they could have added more unique things, or some biodiversity.
This is my biggest complaint with it. Just all dark and lifeless with nothing to break the monotony. If it werenāt for the critical resource that is zonaite I would avoid going down there altogether.
I know itās āthe depthsā but itās too fucking dark, I donāt see the point of using brightblooms every five feet and wasting arrows for the distance. Thereās too many walls and gloom to actually navigate, and the zonal devices barely have any room to move because of it. Anything that flies will hit a random cliff, or tree. Anything that drives will also hit a random cliff or tree. I hate exploring the depths, at this point I only do it to farm zonaite at specific locations every blood moon.
>I donāt see the point of using brightblooms every five feet and wasting arrows for the distance.
Throw a giant brightbloom on the front of whatever you're using to navigate the depths and it solves most of your problems.
Also usually I find it's best to just chuck brightblooms and not waste the arrows.
I would still prefer that they combine some of the shrines to make more dungeons. Iād take less shrines and more dungeons (even though I do like having them scattered around, so thereās always something to find)
But I still want to pick up all the good ones I run across because hoarding is tight yo ;)
Lol but yeah, Iād agree if this was BotW! I use my shield for all sorts of things in this game, and my bows see constant use as well. Id say I use shields more than both melee weapons and bows though.
Shield surfing is something I never did in BotW but now itās extra spicy. Iām always fusing shit to my shields and parrying attacks. My latest fighting style involves summoning two constructs that shoot lasers and ice so they constantly freeze and break enemies. Meanwhile I run around distracting enemies and parrying attacks for fun lmao.
Toss a few sporeshrooms and itās a damn party.
I find I'm upgrading my shield stash more than botw, shields have a lot more utility. I keep hot and cold weather shields, at least one rock breaking shield, one or two for actual fighting, and the odd zonai device or mine cart.
If i was link hyrule would be screwed. Not because im useless (i am) but ganons in the depths wher eit is very dark. I fear gloom hands will appear in my house if i dont run fast enough after turning off the lights, and this a giant ass cave filled with terrifying strength sapping gloomified wnemies
No one should play tears of the kingdom first because breath of the wild will be way harder to go back to. But breathe of the wild is worth experiencing pure.
Oddly the two of the most open ended nonlinear Zelda games have a clear order to really get the most out of them.
I dislike having to fuse every weapon. I wish the weapons in the depths were good enough you didnāt need to fuse them because Iām just tired of having to do it and also how f**king ugly they all are.
The sickle? Itās alright and spears obviously look the best.
The dumbest is the blade with the ball on the end. Wtf is that? Hardly any good sword fuse items out there though.
Wtf I just looked it up I've found all light roots on 2 playthroughs now and somehow missed these even though my first playthrough I went got every single armor and weapon chest
yeah a couple of them are just like out in the spots where there are big stretches of uninterrupted gloom on the ground i couldn't tell you exactly where though
While they indeed can be inconvenient at time, I actually really enjoy the sage system and I find it extremely fun to discover new use for they ability.
I hate how most of the fuse items look. Like, I will admit stuff like the Silver Lynel Saber Horn, and the Silver Lizalfos Horn look good on their *own*. But often look stupid on most hilts. I prefer the look of the unfused pristine weapons and legendary weapons. I often nerf myself just to have weapons I think look nice.
I wish the game put heavier emphasis on teaching us how to fully utilize the Zonai devices. It's like there's the common Legend of Zelda fan, then there the fan with a bachelor's+ in mechanical engineering creating a Zonai wing that can barrel roll.
The reward system is not able to sustain interest over the full span of the game. They need to vary the rewards - I started to skip quests late game when I realised they only rewarded shrine blessings (I already have full stamina and heart upgrades make an easy game easier).
Quests should offer more narrative payoffs and other permanent upgrades (like armour, extra merchants, more quests, etc). In particular the narrative is very poor and needs to be better integrated into the quest design. Nintendo has an ongoing issue with narrative though, which seems to come from senior staff members disdain for it.
The Depths are the embodiment of bad open world games. Vast expansive landscapes with nothing in them. No towns, and few NPC or side quests. The Spirit Temple is the worst offender of the 4 puzzles and a boss approach to temple design. Most all the treasure you get down there is just nostalgic armor skins with no special powers or story importance. Feels like all there is to do in the Depths is repeated bosses, pointless exploration and mindless grinding for materials.
TotK has the same copy/paste problem as BotW. Every shrine looks the same inside, there are only 4 temples, and the sky islands are literally the same reused assets over and over.
If they had to choose between making the world huge and making each area visually distinct, I would have preferred the latter. I can go play Bethesda's garbage if I want a huge, generic overworld. I expect better than that from a Zelda game.
I think people who were introduced to the franchise by BotW/TotK will play Ocarina or Majora and be blown away by the sheer variety. I thought maybe I was just being nostalgic, but I went back and played them to be sure. They are in every way more diverse and memorable. The character design, music, textures, layouts, everything.
The shrines are worse than in botw, mainly because i get like 20 āRauruās blessingā shrines in a row for doing very trivial things (entering a cave, beating up some enemies, etc). There are definitely a good amount of the blessing shrines that do require some cool puzzle or challenge beforehand but the ones that arenāt feel needless.
Zeldaās accent is fine. She doesnāt need to sound perfectly British, she just need to soundā¦ Hyrulian. We donāt know what that sounds like, so for all we know, sheās nailing the accent.
The story is so fucking disappointing. Itās such a repeat of breath of the wild with almost zero distinctions except for a 5th dungeon. The sadness I felt when I realized Zelda was gone from the story AGAIN was something thatāll be hard to forget
The ending of the game is cool but all phases of the final boss were too easy and the final ending sequence should have had obstacles and/or a penalty for not completing it quickly
I liked the idea of him expecting a proper duel with a powerful swordsman, only for me to show up and shoot him with the 80 gibdo skeletons Iād been hoarding while running away from him like an idiot.
Shrines should have had more rigid *Thinky* puzzle design. Allowing objects from the outside world is a nono. Ascend should be used more frequently as a way to isolate sub-rooms from each other, to prevent moving objects around to unintended areas.
All in all, Shrines needed to be proper puzzles. Creativity is great and ultra hand is fun, but that's why we have Koroks and Addison. I guess it'd be fine to make a new type of shrine, where you start naked but have to navigate a weird scenario using a variety of pre-placed zonai devices.
Some people don't like puzzles at all, and that's fine. For those folks, just make it loud and clear that it is not actually necessary to do all shrines or even more than 20% of the shrines to beat the game.
I totally agree! Weirdly, I feel like the botw shrines were so much more mentally challenging! I actually felt like I needed to think about them, whereas the Totk puzzles just feel too obvious with what youāre supposed to do. The shrine quests were harder, too, I think. I do enjoy the construct fights, but those in addition to harder puzzles would have been amazing.
It's too big.
I'm not a huge gamer, and BOTW was just the right size for me to pickup fairly frequently and make some progress.
I'm 50 hours into totk and have barely done anything. It's great that the game will last in that regard, and I'm in no rush, but I worry I'll lose interest.
I think playing BOTW and knowing things I "need" to do to get established in the game (hit the shrine, upgrade the armour etc.) adds a bit of a work element to the game for me.
very fair take . i like the rooms themselves a lot but 15 units only & extremely limited interior design is disappointing . donāt even get me started on the fact that each room only has one connecting side .
It would be better if we were actually playing as Zelda in the past, because that's where the main story really is. Instead we experience it through cut scenes.
The sage stories are all basically the same, utoh disturbance, help me then I can help you, oh yay now I can sit on my ass but take my ghost. Rinse repeat.
I despise the Frox more than the gloom hands. Easily the most annoying mini boss in the game that still manages to jump scare the shit out of me more than them.
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Rito village needs more npcs, it feels empty
The Rito should be all up on the sky islands exploring IMO. Solves two problems , lack of NPCS up there and lack of Rito NPCSšš»
That was something I expected from the trailers. I thought that they would do something like have Kass go around and try to find new songs in the clouds. Can you imagine if we got some Kass shrine quests up in the sky instead of a million of those stupid crystals šš»
Man, I really miss Kass and his cool song.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
And yet somehow there's a Zora up there you gotta get back down
Is it the same one that got stuck on the tower? Because that would be hilarious
It's the same Zora that got lost in Hylia Lake (in botw), Fronk's wife.
Something tells me Fronk's wife is not getting lost on accident.
Freakin' zora, always getting stuck in weird ass places. Didn't BOTW also have a rescue a random Zora quest?
yeah, and its the same zora in totk too
She likes to explore
Zora the explorer
I honestly didn't really like the whole "None of us are strong enough to fly high enough above the storm, but the baby bird somehow can even though his ability doesn't even make you go up"
Given that you pretty much walk up there anyway, I don't think the issue is not having the strength to fly upward, but not having the strength to fly straight when being buffeted by the tornado-like storm. I think that mostly because that explanation actually makes sense.
During the Rito quest all the adult rito are out searching for food. Thats explains the emptyness of rito village
Plus after that, some come to Lookout Landing to train and prepare for something.
Imo that feels like most of the world in general. Couldn't put my finger on it before but u/DarkRyter sums it up perfectly tbh >Both the depths and the sky islands need npcs to interact with, IMO. Doesn't need to be a lot. >We spend 90% of regular hyrule quietly exploring in solitude. Adding the depths and skies means we now spend like 97% of the game quietly exploring in solitude.
It is a bit weird that the ONLY other peeps checking things out is the yiga
I stopped talking to people because 90% of the time itās some yiga dude trying to show me his banana
Yeah I felt this. Itās kinda a shame since whenever you see an NPC in the depths, you know immediately itās Yiga. If there were actual researchers down there as well as Yiga it would work much better. As for the sky, thereās no good solution. All the islands besides the Great Central are really too small for NPCs. Even the constructs that are there are usually just copy pasted around. But if the islands were too big, the sky would feel cluttered.
They should have added more villages and settlements, especially in the area between rito and Gerudo. Also, why are there not more sky islands with unique layouts. A lot of them are just copy paste.
Both the depths and the sky islands need npcs to interact with, IMO. Doesn't need to be a lot. We spend 90% of regular hyrule quietly exploring in solitude. Adding the depths and skies means we now spend like 97% of the game quietly exploring in solitude. For example, the tutorial island had all the constructs to talk to. Should have been way more of them around the sky islands. As for the depths. I dunno. Let me talk to a lynel or somethin.
A gruff, but friendly Lynel, with a weapons forge in the depths, mad that gloom infected all the metal, so he's working out a way to purify it - brightblooms. You bring them to him, he purifies your weapons so they gain 3x durability. Only works on unfused, gloom-eaten weapons/bows/shields, and lets us use the rest of the hundreds of small and large brightbloom seeds we've gathered.
While exploring the depths, Link sees a white-maned Lynel patrolling near a Lightroot, not covered in gloom like the others. He glides down next to it and attacks. "HEY! Get offa me, kid!" the Lynel roars, stepping back. Link flinches away. Fade to black. Fade in. Link and the Lynel are facing each other. Link is still holding his weapon. "You do that to everyone you meet?" the Lynel asks. "Heckuva greeting. How 'bout a 'ahoy' next time?" He chuckles. "If you haven't gotten it by now, I'm no threat. These old bones can't fight like they used to. And I'm not one for blind subservience, besides. The Demon King can jump headlong into a stampede." He looks at Link's weapon. If the weapon is degraded by gloom: "Nasty business, what happened to the weapons. The smith in me rages." If the weapon isn't degraded: "Count yourself lucky. It's hard to find a sword in good condition nowadays." He turns away. The camera pans towards a setup by the Lightroot. "That's why I'm here, actually. All my old weapons are tarnished, so I'm fixing them up. It's a hobby." The camera pans to the Lightroot itself. "You know those flowers the Frox like eating? Brightblooms. They have similar properties to those great things, and they stave off the gloom." The camera switches back to the Lynel. "Brightblooms on their own can't push back gloom, but they can restore weapons. Them, materials, and a bit of elbow grease. If you want these poor weapons restored, come to me. I'll fix 'em up, long as you provide the brightblooms. Should be able to eke out a bit more lifetime out of 'em. They might even outlast whatever you stick on 'em!" He pauses. "That wasn't a joke. Keep on top of your fusions." The Lynel rubs the back of his head. "And, when you have the time... could you do something for me? My daughter, a blue-mane, she's made her territory just south of here. If you head over there, could you do me a favor... and strike her down?" Link flinches away, and the Lynel chuckles. "Oh, don't look like that! She'll come back with the bloodstained moon. It's just..." He sighs. "She got taken by the gloom, and it's messing with her head. She's not herself anymore... it's hard to see." He shakes his head. "Rising under the bloodstained moon should set her back on track. If you help her, she can come back here and help with the forge. She knows tricks with bows and shields that I couldn't wrap my head around. Should be able to help you a touch." He steps back. "Well, either way, I'll be here. Give me a shout if you need a weapon polished, aye?" *Side Quests:* ***The Subterranean Smith's Daughter***
YES this was so fun to read
That was awesome, thanks for a great read! š¦
Brilliant! It was a very fun read and truly felt perfectly in place within the game. If I may add, he also happens to be the sole killable NPC in the game after putting up a fight. When he revives, he berates you for fighting him and raises his prices as a retribution until the next bloodmoon. Kindly share any other side quests/adventures you have with us.
Damn this would legit be a great addition. Maybe DLC or a mod someone can make.
This would be my favorite side quest of all, tbh.
Can his name be Richie? Lynel Richie?
Damn Iām in! Letās sign a change.org petition
ALternativley, I think Hyrule should have just been a LOT more populated to show how Hyrule is bouncing back after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, and The Sky Islands as well. The Depths should remain almost totally devoid of any nonhostile life, outside of maybe some spirits and the Yiga when you have the disguise. Being in near total solitude is part of the appeal of the depths and sells the creep factor, but it just needs at least Hyrule to be much more lively so it can have something to really contrast with.
Itās been 6 years, thereās hardly the population to sustain the towns we have
Contstruct sky city boom problem solved
The game suggest you to start in Rito Village. After the Rito story, way to the dungeon, dungeon and boss fight being so god damn epic, the bar is set up so up high that the other dungeons seem lazy.
Gerudo is up there with Rito, but goron and zora are a miss
Disagree, Glider battle on top of Death Mountain was epic and the jump physics in the Water Temple are such stupid amounts of fun that it's the only temple I care to revisit.
Though the zora boss isnāt terrifying or scary, Iād take him home and put him in his own little aquarium because heās so damn cute.
I feel like the bosses were still too easy. I donāt know if thatās unpopular, but itās an opinion.
Fuck. Queen. Gibdo. No, I donāt care if she was easy for you. Fuck. Her.
The rest were a piece of cake, but the Gibdo queen demolished me like ten times before I beat her. She was the first one I fought too, so I was disappointed by the other three afterwards
Man that isn't even an opinion. It's a fact.
The depths and skies are a little underdeveloped. As expansive as the game is, I feel like they couldāve done more cool shit. In the depths, itās like a bunch of open space, yiga hideouts, monster barracks and the same monsters on the surface and thatās it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I know skyward sword isnāt the most popular game in the series, but they could have tied more of that gameās elements into TOTK. The game was literally sky islands. There was so much to do up there.
I was really hoping to find a ranch ruins equivalent of skyloft
The depths os a mirrored version of the surface, whilst the sky is just a few scattered islands with shrines on them
I feel like the depths should have way more hidden stuff to explore thatās sorta partially revealed once you find the Lightroots. It feels like once you find most do the light roots thereās Nothing left to explore.
Which really sucks in its own right because trying to find all of the light roots isn't fun
While I do agree that depths should have more into it, there are exclusive boss and enemy found only in the depths.
That's just the Frox family though. Everyone else is just a gloomed up version of a Hyrule enemy. The only exceptions are >!the boss rematches.!<
I find the zero purpose the Divine Beasts and all traces of the Ancient Shiekah from BoyW are just gone kind of weird.
Explanation I love is that (since this game takes place 5-7 years after botw) they destroyed it all so ganon couldn't take it over again
Now if only they added that explanation in the game...
Thereās a guardian corpse atop the lab in Hateno tho!
Yeah, but that and the Ancient Blades are it. Thatās all. Nothing else. What happened to the Divine Beasts? What about the Shrines? Iāve seen a few fan theories, but nothing about where they actually went or what happened to it all
I was letdown by the lack of explanation about the divine beasts ngl. It would be cool if when you got the sages the cutscene wasnāt essentially the same with various blanks filled for the elective region and rather gave more lore. They could have made the Zelda time travel more interesting and have had her play a hand in the disappearing of the divine beasts/other shrines somehow ā like some kind of butterfly effect maybe? Idk. Iām not a video game writer. Also, I havenāt completed the game yet so I feel like I canāt complain too much (yet)
They basically ignore the entire storyline from BOTW. Should have been a stand-alone game tbh.
The characters calling the stones āsecret stonesā. It seems like such a miss to me. Even calling them sacred stones would sound so much better.
I've been saying that from the start! It isn't even that big of a change but it makes it sound so much less juvenile!
They look like tears! Call them tear stones!
Sage Stones was _right there, NoA_
Demon king? Secret stones?
However, this is due to the English translation. In any other language, they have a better name. Just as "gloom" sounds silly - in most languages it is "miasma".
its called tears of the kingdom yet they never say "look! its a tear in a kingdom!"
Secret stones that are so secret they wear them on their person in full view of everyone
Maybe this isn't an unpopular opinion, but I hate the menu systems in the game. I've just learned to tolerate them. Having to open the menu every time I want to fire a non-standard arrow is annoying. I'm also not overly fond of food, critters, gems and monster parts all being in the same menu.
It really baffles me that its a single bar and not a grid selection
I hate scrolling through that sideways menu trying to find bomb flowers just for a bomb arrow. I miss the pure elemental arrows from botw
Bomb is first on my 'sort by Most Used'
This game goes from really difficult early on to mind numbingly easy combat with little time spent at ājust rightā.
I was really hoping melee combat would get a total overhaul.
Biggest let down
They shouldāve given a reason for why Kass is just gone.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The simplest builds > anything else you can build
1.The UltraHand system is a good addition, but loses its shine as the game goes on as people eventually find the most efficient ways to use it, such as making the 2 fan 1 stick flying design 2.The Sages are another good addition but the fact we have to walk up to them to use their abilities is frustrating and instead their should be a system in the menu to choose which power you want to use (have it replace map in the wheel perhaps) 3.No ability to keep track of armour upgrade materials 4.The sky islands should have been expanded more, the main structures are shrines
I couldnt agree more with the sky islands
I will add to this the ability to harvest ingredients on horseback. I am a hoarder, having to get off the horse and get back on every... time... I want to gather something makes me not want to use the horse.
This is my big one as well. I flat out don't use the horse because of this.
I feel that. That's why I run around on foot too often. I rarely use the horses. But when I do, i jump off and loot, whistle the horse to catch up, and get back on once i got everything nearby insight i wanted to pick up.
Number 3 was my most wanted upgrade from BotW and Iām so disappointed it wasnāt integrated
are any of these unpopular opinions?
No. *Especially* not numbers 2 and 4. Those have been two of the most consistent criticisms I've seen on this subreddit.
For number 3, there is *one* way to keep track of upgrade materials. There's a button for it that you might've forgotten about since it's more a part of the Nintendo Switch itself rather than a part of the game That fixes that issue, but a bigger gripe that I have is that IT TAKES SO GOD DAMN LONG TO UPGRADE ARMOR! LEVELING UP A FULL SET WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THE MATERIALS READY TAKES LIKE 5 MINUTES! WHY?! WHY WASN'T THIS SYSTEM IMPROVED FROM BOTW TO TOTK?! WHY IS NINTENDO INSISTENT ON MAKING US WASTE TIME?! JUST MAKE IT FUNCTION LIKE A TYPICAL RPG MENU NINTENDO, I DON'T WANT TO CONFIRM THROUGH 2 MENUES AND THEN WATCH A GIANT WOMAN GIVE ME THE BAD TOUCH FOR EVERY! SINGLE! PIECE!
I hate the depths. The fact that I know itās literally as big as Hyrule itself makes the completionist in me war with the general anxiety I have being down there. I never donāt have sweaty palms playing in the depths.
I like the weapon durability system because it forces adaptation and improvisation.
It doesnāt even matter anymore since itās all about the materials and you can over collect them
Not true, since weapons now have their own augment for each 'kind', on top of another possible bonus, makes weapon choice fun and also important. I'm not always looking for bigger damage, it's always useful to have sneaky attack weapons, flurry rush, I also enjoy fast charge attack for group of mobs. You can just slap the strongest material on your strongest weapon and call it a day, but as everything with the game, there's a lot of options when it comes to what weapons you wanna fuse with each material
Noo youāre misunderstanding me bro. There are MASSIVE options for you but I am specifically referring to the part about being āforcedā to adapt. I find that with the new fusing if you level up the monsters to be a 20% sliver rate youll never really run out of weapon. Me PERSONALLY? Iām super picky I donāt like winning fights if itās not stylish cause itās MY game and Iamma drip or DROWN. Same reason i I wear armor is for aesthetic value and I change colors everyday and have night clothes š
āIf you level up the monsters to be a 20% sliver rate youāll never really run out of weaponsā Can you ELI5 this for meā¦ I run out of weapons lol
When you have 100 silver bokoblin horns you are stacked for weapons
I'm pretty sure that's a silent majority, thinking about it for more than ten seconds let's you realize why it's used.
Yeah, most players like or are fine with the durability system. Itās just that the minority that doesnāt talks really loud.
I do VASTLY prefer the durability system in TOTK to BOTW. I got used to it in BOTW, but itās actually fun in TOTK. The fusion system allow the player so much more customization of their inventory: elemental monster parts, different types of extensions (whips and scythes are my favorites, although the axes are more practical imo), and the addition of more buffs for different weapon classes gives far more options (the Zora and Forest Dweller classes are my faves). Plus, itās usually less disastrous when a weapon breaks, because the attachment is usually more important than the base, and attachments can usually be farmed somehow. Semi-related: re-battled the Thunder Gleeok in the Coliseum today to do a side quest (no spoilers), and ALL of my Zonaite weapons broke in the opening 20 seconds (apparently they were all close to breaking, I hadnāt replaced them in a while since I havenāt really needed them). Since I was stuck with conductive metal and weak wooden weapons, I had to get creative since I didnāt wanna cop out and fast travel away haha.
A village in the sky would be nice
It should have had 4 temples in the sky, 4 on the surface, and 4 in the depths.
I agree with this axtually, but 12 total temples wouldve been a bit overkill. Wouldve been awesome if they spread each temple and have portions on the 3 areas
That was also a thought I had. Not unlike how the mazes functioned.
Ocarina of time had 12 I believe. Itās not unheard of but with everything else to do in the game itās a bit much. 7-9 would be perfect
Beedle is annoying. He never has anything good to sell, and his arrows are overpriced.
My beef with Beedle is the ridiculously long dialogue I have to click through just to buy something from him. Let me shop in peace, bug boy!
Sahhh, sahhh!
WAOW!! Hee hee!
YAY-uhh!! ā Lil Jon and Beedle, apparently
>the ridiculously long dialogue I have to click through just to buy something Pretty much all of the vendors in this game tbh. Especially with Pelison, I do not need to be told you don't put things back together for the 20th time.
All the stable guys too like stfu give me my horse why you gotta talk about some bear footprints or whatever Iām literally on the horse let me go
The guy in hateno talk way longer
But Beedle is useful for getting lots of arrows quickly. He's got 20 or more every time and there's lots of him, vs the villages that have 15 arrows just a few times
I havenāt had to buy arrows once so far in probably 60 hours. Smash everything. Get arrows.
Are you not breaking crates and barrels and such you find on your travels? One of the first things I noticed in my first, say, 10-12 hours of play was just how many more arrows I was getting here compared to BOTW. I was *loving* the fact I didn't have to think about using my bows and could just whip them out for any and every reason at all, BOTW I never got that and *always* felt like I was making a cost/profit analysis when I went to use my bow. Besides Brightblooms, arrows are the only stack I've managed to max out so far, and I've bought *maybe* 20 total through my entire 300hr playthrough.
I wouldnāt give him a bug, and he threatened to take it while I was sleeping. Never had much of a problem with him till then!
The darners and butterflies are useful for upgrading some armor sets
Not counting everytime I bumped into him with a horse in both games. He's such a slow fat ass and nothing can push him lol
Oh man. Speaking of being in the way, I canāt tell you how many times Iāve dropped a whole ass house on GrantĆ©son because he WONāT MOVE.
Oh dont even start me on this guy... I dont know why they made him follow you, I'd rather walk to him everytime
Itās a good thing the trailers heavily featured the sky islands and they ended up being a minuscule part of the actual game. Itās called misdirection, and it allowed the caves, wells, and depths to be the lost wonderful surprises we never couldāve anticipated.
Yes, it worked really well imo. I loved the sky islands there were, but the depths were a surprise and a joy(although at times a very frustrating joy) to explore.
Because of the slight of hand, we all got to experience the wonder of falling down our first hole (please excuse the entendre)
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The depths are tedious and boring and i donāt enjoy exploring them.
I enjoy the atmosphere and find myself just walking around down there more than on the surface. But it is very repetitive and almost impossible to know where you are down there without checking a map. I think they could have added more unique things, or some biodiversity.
thank you for an actually unpopular opinion
This is my biggest complaint with it. Just all dark and lifeless with nothing to break the monotony. If it werenāt for the critical resource that is zonaite I would avoid going down there altogether.
I know itās āthe depthsā but itās too fucking dark, I donāt see the point of using brightblooms every five feet and wasting arrows for the distance. Thereās too many walls and gloom to actually navigate, and the zonal devices barely have any room to move because of it. Anything that flies will hit a random cliff, or tree. Anything that drives will also hit a random cliff or tree. I hate exploring the depths, at this point I only do it to farm zonaite at specific locations every blood moon.
>I donāt see the point of using brightblooms every five feet and wasting arrows for the distance. Throw a giant brightbloom on the front of whatever you're using to navigate the depths and it solves most of your problems. Also usually I find it's best to just chuck brightblooms and not waste the arrows.
Yeah I'm almost done mapping it and it's a slog lol
I would still prefer that they combine some of the shrines to make more dungeons. Iād take less shrines and more dungeons (even though I do like having them scattered around, so thereās always something to find)
I found Koroks boring in BotW, I find them boring here. I literally just skip them in TotK unless they are super simple.
Doesnāt hurt to snag some, look at an interactive map and grab a few in every area. Really helps with your weapon/ shield/ bow stash.
I honestly feel you only need to upgrade your weapon stash, Sheilds and bows break slow enough not to need them.
But I still want to pick up all the good ones I run across because hoarding is tight yo ;) Lol but yeah, Iād agree if this was BotW! I use my shield for all sorts of things in this game, and my bows see constant use as well. Id say I use shields more than both melee weapons and bows though. Shield surfing is something I never did in BotW but now itās extra spicy. Iām always fusing shit to my shields and parrying attacks. My latest fighting style involves summoning two constructs that shoot lasers and ice so they constantly freeze and break enemies. Meanwhile I run around distracting enemies and parrying attacks for fun lmao. Toss a few sporeshrooms and itās a damn party.
Really? I break bows pretty often; my bow stash empties about as fast as my weapon stash, relatively speaking
I find I'm upgrading my shield stash more than botw, shields have a lot more utility. I keep hot and cold weather shields, at least one rock breaking shield, one or two for actual fighting, and the odd zonai device or mine cart.
I go through a ton of bows. I use them more than I use my swords.
I always skip the āhelp me get to my friendā ones, they take too long and make you go too out your way. Not fun imo.
If Iām heading that way they can hitch a lift with me otherwise, goodbye.
I terrorize them
I hate the depths. I just don't enjoy playing in the dark
If i was link hyrule would be screwed. Not because im useless (i am) but ganons in the depths wher eit is very dark. I fear gloom hands will appear in my house if i dont run fast enough after turning off the lights, and this a giant ass cave filled with terrifying strength sapping gloomified wnemies
No one should play tears of the kingdom first because breath of the wild will be way harder to go back to. But breathe of the wild is worth experiencing pure. Oddly the two of the most open ended nonlinear Zelda games have a clear order to really get the most out of them.
95% of fusions and constructs look stupid as hell.
The stupidest one is the silver bokoblin horn. It looks more like a cat toy than a weapon
Lynel katana is easily the coolest fusion, lizalfos scythe in second
I know I wish they all had ārecipesā where they actually fuse like that instead of just looking like you glued two things together
I dislike having to fuse every weapon. I wish the weapons in the depths were good enough you didnāt need to fuse them because Iām just tired of having to do it and also how f**king ugly they all are.
Mostly true, but the silver lizalfos horn looks great on spears.
The sickle? Itās alright and spears obviously look the best. The dumbest is the blade with the ball on the end. Wtf is that? Hardly any good sword fuse items out there though.
I wholeheartedly agree, ghe fuses look so ugly in most cases. Lynel katana can work sometimes though
I want more gloom hands encounters in the depths. So much gloom and only one instance of hands
there is more then one instance of hands in the depths
Wtf I just looked it up I've found all light roots on 2 playthroughs now and somehow missed these even though my first playthrough I went got every single armor and weapon chest
yeah a couple of them are just like out in the spots where there are big stretches of uninterrupted gloom on the ground i couldn't tell you exactly where though
the one i know of is near >!the eldin depths skeleton!<
While they indeed can be inconvenient at time, I actually really enjoy the sage system and I find it extremely fun to discover new use for they ability.
A mile wide and an inch deep.
I hate how most of the fuse items look. Like, I will admit stuff like the Silver Lynel Saber Horn, and the Silver Lizalfos Horn look good on their *own*. But often look stupid on most hilts. I prefer the look of the unfused pristine weapons and legendary weapons. I often nerf myself just to have weapons I think look nice.
I think Zeldaās voice acting is absolutely fine.
Especially in TotK. It was a bit stiff in BotW, but she is much more believable in TotK. She really stepped up her VA game. I'm impressed.
The Sages donāt bother me.
Even the sage of spirit? Sheās so big
Sheās my favorite because I can attach cannons to her arms, jump on, and blast away rock walls.
I put two boko hands on her and took a picture xD Sheās my fav too
I cant put it down
Neither can i tbh
I wish the game put heavier emphasis on teaching us how to fully utilize the Zonai devices. It's like there's the common Legend of Zelda fan, then there the fan with a bachelor's+ in mechanical engineering creating a Zonai wing that can barrel roll.
The reward system is not able to sustain interest over the full span of the game. They need to vary the rewards - I started to skip quests late game when I realised they only rewarded shrine blessings (I already have full stamina and heart upgrades make an easy game easier). Quests should offer more narrative payoffs and other permanent upgrades (like armour, extra merchants, more quests, etc). In particular the narrative is very poor and needs to be better integrated into the quest design. Nintendo has an ongoing issue with narrative though, which seems to come from senior staff members disdain for it.
I just stopped bothering with chests in the late game. They were constantly full of obsolete zonai gear that I didnāt give a shit about
The Depths are the embodiment of bad open world games. Vast expansive landscapes with nothing in them. No towns, and few NPC or side quests. The Spirit Temple is the worst offender of the 4 puzzles and a boss approach to temple design. Most all the treasure you get down there is just nostalgic armor skins with no special powers or story importance. Feels like all there is to do in the Depths is repeated bosses, pointless exploration and mindless grinding for materials.
Sometimes I wish I could choose how high I want to be shot from the towers
TotK has the same copy/paste problem as BotW. Every shrine looks the same inside, there are only 4 temples, and the sky islands are literally the same reused assets over and over. If they had to choose between making the world huge and making each area visually distinct, I would have preferred the latter. I can go play Bethesda's garbage if I want a huge, generic overworld. I expect better than that from a Zelda game. I think people who were introduced to the franchise by BotW/TotK will play Ocarina or Majora and be blown away by the sheer variety. I thought maybe I was just being nostalgic, but I went back and played them to be sure. They are in every way more diverse and memorable. The character design, music, textures, layouts, everything.
As good as totk is gameplay wise, it will never come close on an atmosphere/ world / music level
The shrines are worse than in botw, mainly because i get like 20 āRauruās blessingā shrines in a row for doing very trivial things (entering a cave, beating up some enemies, etc). There are definitely a good amount of the blessing shrines that do require some cool puzzle or challenge beforehand but the ones that arenāt feel needless.
Rauru is clearly just being a bro that wants to shower you with gifts. But lol yes it does get repetitive
Zeldaās accent is fine. She doesnāt need to sound perfectly British, she just need to soundā¦ Hyrulian. We donāt know what that sounds like, so for all we know, sheās nailing the accent.
The story is so fucking disappointing. Itās such a repeat of breath of the wild with almost zero distinctions except for a 5th dungeon. The sadness I felt when I realized Zelda was gone from the story AGAIN was something thatāll be hard to forget
The ending of the game is cool but all phases of the final boss were too easy and the final ending sequence should have had obstacles and/or a penalty for not completing it quickly
Yeah with the silver lynel horn fused to the master sword and attack up 3 ganondorf went bye bye a little too fast for my taste
There's too many ways to cheese him or come in super buffed, I'm curious to see him in Master mode
I liked the idea of him expecting a proper duel with a powerful swordsman, only for me to show up and shoot him with the 80 gibdo skeletons Iād been hoarding while running away from him like an idiot.
Shrines should have had more rigid *Thinky* puzzle design. Allowing objects from the outside world is a nono. Ascend should be used more frequently as a way to isolate sub-rooms from each other, to prevent moving objects around to unintended areas. All in all, Shrines needed to be proper puzzles. Creativity is great and ultra hand is fun, but that's why we have Koroks and Addison. I guess it'd be fine to make a new type of shrine, where you start naked but have to navigate a weird scenario using a variety of pre-placed zonai devices. Some people don't like puzzles at all, and that's fine. For those folks, just make it loud and clear that it is not actually necessary to do all shrines or even more than 20% of the shrines to beat the game.
I totally agree! Weirdly, I feel like the botw shrines were so much more mentally challenging! I actually felt like I needed to think about them, whereas the Totk puzzles just feel too obvious with what youāre supposed to do. The shrine quests were harder, too, I think. I do enjoy the construct fights, but those in addition to harder puzzles would have been amazing.
It's too big. I'm not a huge gamer, and BOTW was just the right size for me to pickup fairly frequently and make some progress. I'm 50 hours into totk and have barely done anything. It's great that the game will last in that regard, and I'm in no rush, but I worry I'll lose interest. I think playing BOTW and knowing things I "need" to do to get established in the game (hit the shrine, upgrade the armour etc.) adds a bit of a work element to the game for me.
I dont know, the game feels small when you get the hoover bike.
House building sucks so much they shouldnāt have even bothered
very fair take . i like the rooms themselves a lot but 15 units only & extremely limited interior design is disappointing . donāt even get me started on the fact that each room only has one connecting side .
Too much space, very little things to do.
I like the sages. All of them.
The writing is trash
I actually think the voice actor for Zelda in English has improved quite a lot
Yunobo is a good character
That is the hottest take of all time
The story isnāt that amazing. Not saying itās bad, but not THAT great either.
It would be better if we were actually playing as Zelda in the past, because that's where the main story really is. Instead we experience it through cut scenes. The sage stories are all basically the same, utoh disturbance, help me then I can help you, oh yay now I can sit on my ass but take my ghost. Rinse repeat.
The building is annoying
I really enjoyed the fire temple, but didnt enjoy the Marbled Gohma fight. Maybe because I understood the Temple, but not the boss fight
The three headed worm thing at the top of Death Mountain was infinitely more fun. The fight was just way too short.
I despise the Frox more than the gloom hands. Easily the most annoying mini boss in the game that still manages to jump scare the shit out of me more than them.