The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom(use spoiler tags!)

I loved every zelda game since ALTTP but BotW underwhelmed me. Felt skin deep. A few hours into TotK and it's a much more fleshed out beast.

One thing I was worried about was the chirpy chirp Nintendo audio grating on me. Not at all, it's done really well and actually the ambient music and UI effects strengthen the game for me this time.
 
Amazing game so far they’ve taken all the best bits from botw and built on them, all the stuff I didn’t enjoy about the 1st seem to have been taken out (having to climb every tower, the laser seeking ancients etc etc).

Also, as with the botw, I’m in absolute awe at how they have managed to cram such a massive game into the switch, it’s ridiculously impressive! I would love to see what this game could do/look like on a PS5 or PC. But then if that happened would this game of been released in such a good state? Encountered 0 bugs so far which is rare for a triple A title nowadays, especially with the scope and size of the game, and it’s running on a 6 year old console! And they have clearly spent a lot of time developing the gameplay mechanics.
 
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I was lost as well but then I went back to the cave that exits to that area and decided to see if I could climb up the large tree roots and yes it works. That saved me a headache just climbing straight up to the shrine, link has enough stamina to do it
The video I saw, fused 2 logs together and climbed it up then a little treck to the shrine.
 
There are some videos of it running on you know what with 4k settings.

I think he means with upgraded graphics

Yea you can run the game on a pc at 4k but it's still the same as on the switch. The biggest thing the game needs is anti aliasing and AF
 
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I was lost as well but then I went back to the cave that exits to that area and decided to see if I could climb up the large tree roots and yes it works. That saved me a headache just climbing straight up to the shrine, link has enough stamina to do it
It took me a while too! Ended up using one of those Zonai wing things, slamming into the side of the correct mountain, and just about climbing up. There were many, many deaths but it was pretty cool
 
I think he means with upgraded graphics

Yea you can run the game on a pc at 4k but it's still the same as on the switch. The biggest thing the game needs is anti aliasing and AF

It doesn't really need it, it's absolutely impressive as it is imo. I wish more devs would focus on gameplay like this rather than worry about stuff you don't really care about when the gameplay is so damn good.
 
It doesn't really need it, it's absolutely impressive as it is imo. I wish more devs would focus on gameplay like this rather than worry about stuff you don't really care about when the gameplay is so damn good.
It is very impressive and you’re spot on regarding the gameplay.

But it would be nice to see it running at 4K/60 which would improve the experience imo.
 
Having a blast, completed 4 dungeons and explored quite a bit of world (some dungeons were mega confusing, had to use some guides as I don't really have patience for this), more exploring to do before I focus on finishing the main quest line. I really like how they didn't reuse all the abilities etc, feels very fresh this way.
 
I’m about 20-30 hours in, having gone in completely blind from playing Breath of the Wild. Haven’t read any posts…. No ‘detail specific’ spoilers please! :p

Just thought I’d share my thoughts - they are actually sort of ‘mixed’! This post contains my general impressions of gameplay and some new features, but nothing ‘truly spoilery’, IMO. I’ve been deliberately vague where appropriate.

The most important thing: core gameplay is generally excellent as per BOTW. Exploring and combat is great fun etc.

Some minor gripes from BOTW have been carried over, particularly this annoying ‘noble / regal’ dialogue from Zelda and others… could they be more annoying?! Doesn’t really impact the gameplay though.

Some minor wins carry over too. I really love the dynamic music in the dungeons and the lead up to them (OK I’ve only done one so far… but it was excellent with the audio).

So here’s my major reservation… it DOES just feel like DLC for BOTW, doesn’t it? Or, like a ‘mod’.

Gone are the old ‘special powers’, replaced with ‘slightly less obvious’ ones. We also have ‘building and fusing / crafting’ as major mechanics. On one hand, I like that this makes for a more unconventional puzzle solving. On the other, I think the building and (particularly the weapon crafting) is adding quite a bit of ‘fiddle’ to the BOTW formula.

The main world is pretty much the same save for some aesthetic overhaul, very much DLC feeling in that regard. I generally don’t mind, it’s a cool map, but I do very much dislike the dump of ‘building materials’ all over the map, which feels silly and ‘for the sake of the game mechanic’. For the feel of a ‘brand new game’, I really do think they should have gone with a ‘brand new map’.

The shrines are back. Again, it’s good, but I have done this before.

There are ‘two new main areas’ which are very intriguing at first and I do like the expanded scoped but one of them does feel a little bland after playing around in it for a while.

So it’s ‘extra content BOTW+ with slightly more emphasis on fiddle’. I mean, it’s great… I’m not ‘underwhelmed’ per se… but it’s very much more ‘more of the same’.

Looking forward to spending more timing with it and seeing if my views change.

Edit: I forgot to add… the art style is excellent and carries the performance issues, but the graphical performance is almost embarrassing at this point. Going from the RE4 remake on PC to this is jarring on the eyes :o it doesn’t materially affect the gameplay but… yeah, it’s really not good. A higher resolution and FPS would sort it because, again, the art style is fine.
 
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New switch user, jumped botw , went straight to this.

Looks gorgeous and the sound design is great. Very relaxing and can sense the depth just under the surface. I'm at the starter area getting my bearings.

Also, I tried this :


Does look great on the LG C2. I went for Trumotion 'low' and didn't have any artifacts.

I haven't had any performance issues so far. But I've just started.
 
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Question:

What happens if you drop the decayed master sword early in the game? Has anyone done this? How does it resolve with the cut scene after you go through the door at the temple of time?
 
Can you fuse items from your bag to your weapon or do you need to drop them on the ground first?

As far as I know, no.

This is a strange design choice IMO and it’s stacked by other strange choices, such as making you scroll through a giant horizontal list when you use the ‘press up on d-pad to quick access’ function.

The very strangest one is having to select to throw your weapon with R, then overriding it with another command to throw an item. There is no other way to throw an item. Not only is this fiddly and results in accidentally thrown weapons, you get an animation of link readying to throw his sword every time you want to throw an item. Just seems a little clumsy to me!

Edit: it is worth adding that you do sometimes fuse things to weapons that aren’t (and can’t be) in your inventory… so I get that it’s one system for all, but I think it should allow the option for things that are in your inventory.
 
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New switch user, jumped botw , went straight to this.

Looks gorgeous and the sound design is great. Very relaxing and can sense the depth just under the surface. I'm at the starter area getting my bearings.

Also, I tried this :


Does look great on the LG C2. I went for Trumotion 'low' and didn't have any artifacts.

I haven't had any performance issues so far. But I've just started.
I have to try this. The game, well, the switch in general, doesn't look the best on TVs due to the horrendous resolution it has.
 
Progressing nicely through this. I think I prefer it to BoTW they’ve really taken the criticism of lack of story - which BoTW had but you just had to look for it - and they’ve really fleshed it out with the cutscenes.
 
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