A lot of my problems with totk arise from how obvious the hand of the creators is. A lot of the things in this game feel very contrived; we start off strong with the game forcing you to get a heart container. Which. Yeah, sure, alright. I can handwave that, it's fine. Then we get to the skyview towers, which are... very similar to the Sheikah towers (which were still functioning just fine when we found them in botw). The challenges from the Sheikah towers came from how old they were. They were still functioning fine; the world around them changed. With the skyview towers, they're glitched, they're broken... something that by all means just feels like a reason not to give you the map. The Sheikah towers are tricky because after all that time, they should be. The skyview towers are tricky because the game needs them to be.

And there's so many things like that in the game; things that can be dismissed as flawed on their own, but stack up and become extremely irritating. I can't remember who exactly pointed this out, but since you don't technically even need the master sword to beat Ganondorf, Zelda turning into a dragon is completely and utterly pointless. She could have just put the sword in some other holy place, this is just an excuse to metaphorically put her in a crystal again. For a process that is supposedly irreversable and forbidden, it's stupid that she went and did so anyway. Again, it serves the needs of the game, without really justifying itself.

There's just a ton of things like that. I'm very tired and frustrated writing this so it might not make a lot of sense, but it's just. Aughh I wanted to like this game SO BAD

Insane to me that in BOTW you are asked to question the validity of tradition and the powers that govern through it. Whether relying solely on beliefs of ancestors from thousands of years ago should still be upheld despite overwhelming proof that it's not working. Through Princess Zelda you see just how constricting and cruel tradition can be when one doesn't fit the mold of its requirements and how it can utterly destroy someone's sense of value to themselves and to the world around them. It asks "How many like her have come before? How many Zeldas who, by the misfortune of being born in a peaceful era, never got the same opportunity for freedom in the same way that this Zelda does? Ironic that the Calamity became the very thing that freed Zelda from the confines of Tradition."

And then ToTK turns around, looks you in the eyes and says "Actually tradition is very Important and Good and The Only Thing that stands in the way of Pure Evil. Go on this quest centered around praising ancestors past and mimic their tragically lost influence to Bring Peace and Happiness to everyone!! Also Zelda's character growth involves becoming the picture perfect Ideal of the very thing that made the majority of her life utterly miserable because now she's Perfect and isnt that divine? Definitely don't think about the tragic implications that has lore wise since it tells you that no matter how unique you may be, you will eventually become exactly like the rest from ages past. Anyways go kill a Lynel!!"

i think the way totk references skyward sword only highlights the problems with totk and gets a little insulting at times.

this is mostly about ganondorf’s demon king form being highly reminiscent of demise. i get that it makes sense, since ganon’s power most likely comes from demise’s curse, so when it’s amplified it visually references that. that’s neat, and not an inherently bad idea, even a good one in some aspects.

however, all it does for me is highlight just how much of a non character ganondorf is. demise is, to an extent, also a non character: he isn’t deep nor extensively fleshed out, but the thing is, not all characters have to be. and him, he works. most of the game is spent with ghirahim, his much more expressive and motivated sidekick. he’s fun, intimidating when he has to be, and balances being silly and being an actual threat well. demise is the kicker, the final punch, when ghirahim spent the entire game building him up, we finally get to see him, he’s intimidating, he’s serious in contrast to ghirahim, he immediately shuts the villain we spent most of the game fighting up, and reduces him to an object to be used to fulfil his own goals. his boss fight is cool, and so is he.

demise is a god of destruction, he doesn’t have a motivation beyond the fact that he is a representation and wields power over evil. and that’s the point. skyward sword’s themes largely center humanity vs inhumanity, link spends a large portion of the game running around fulfilling a plan he doesn’t fully understand, being roped into this ordeal before he even finds out about it, not really comprehending what’s happening or why for a long time. so, it’s only natural the final force he has to face is an equally incomprehensible threat, and he defeats it not because he comprehends it more now, or understands the ancient conflict between gods or any of that. he does it because he wants to protect someone he loves, he does it because he forms a genuine bond with the robotic, originally emotionless guide who was made only for the purpose of aiding him in this godly plan. humanity triumphs over godhood. humanity triumphs over inhumanity.

in totk, however? there really isn’t much difference between ganondorf before and after he becomes the demon king. he has no particular motivation before or after, he is a king who wants to rule over hyrule with evil, and then he becomes a more powerful king who wants to rule over hyrule with evil. he looks more like the god of destruction now, but that signifies nothing other than he is more powerful now. ganon has always been associated with power, and the way power corrupts has always been a fitting theme for him. he could’ve had development throughout the game, and him becoming more like the literal godly representation of evil could’ve signified that development. maybe he was a king with an actual motivation, an actual in story reason to oppose hyrule, we could’ve been shown his human side, what he actually cares for and why he does the things he does, and then we could’ve seen that side of him dissolve as he taps more into his power, becomes more like a being of destruction that destroys simply because that’s what it has power over. him taking visual cues from demise could’ve actually meant something, could’ve been a visual representation of the way his power corrupts him. instead, we get nothing. there was no reason to bring ganondorf back, because he still acts like a motivationless monster, who is evil simply because he is. all talk of this being “his game” was a lie, considering he could easily be replaced by a generically evil monster and nothing would’ve changed.

ultimately, i still wouldn’t have been happy with this story because it would still lean heavily on the orientalist narratives still alive and present in zelda, but this would’ve been at least something. the way it is, the fact that he takes visual cues from demise pisses me off because it highlights just how one dimensional his character is, it makes me feel only cynicism because it makes it clear that ganondorf was only brought back because he’s a popular and iconic character and not because he had any purpose in the story or because the writers had anything interesting to do with him.

I said before that TotK "nerfed Zelda's personality" but now I think it might be even worse than that.

Outside of the intro cutscene and a bit of the ending, she has no personality. She's a blank slate (which she is NOT supposed to be, that's Link's job). Now I'm not going to lie to you, her dragon transformation made me cry A LOT. But it's only because:

1. Even if she was written in the most boring way possible, she's still the same incarnation of Zelda that BotW had. So from the get-go I care about her, so matter how bland TotK made her.

2. that cutscene was just so beautifully executed with the cinematography and the animation and the music, everything. Plus afterwards where we see Link surronded by silent princess flowers. That whole sequence is amazing, but that doesn't take away from the fact that she had no personality in the prior memories.

The only thing that shows us that Zelda has "grown" since BotW is that she's been scrubbed clean of all her flaws. She is a perfect benevolent ruler who is smarter than everyone else (she gave training advice to THE GERUDO of all people). Everyone who complained about her being "whiny" and "mean" back when BotW came out fail to understand that a flawless character is pretty boring. I don't care much for a perfect waifu. I want a character who has interests outside of what she can do for others. Because that's what TotK Zelda is ultimately: she exists to please others. What SHE wants doesn't matter. It's all about helping Rauru, it's all about repairing Link's sword. She has no desires of her own. All the personality she had was taken away as soon as she fell into the abyss.

Given the wild omissions of major BotW content (all mention of and art assets related to the prior ancient Sheikah tech, the Divine Beasts, etc.) and inconsistencies of new content introduced in the distant past (parallel Ganons, sky islands, etc.), it almost feels like TotK was originally designed as a sequel to BotW in the same sense that Majora’s Mask was a sequel to Ocarina of Time: less of a direct continuation and instead more of a step sideways.

Honestly, if TotK was not marketed as a direct BotW sequel, it would have felt significantly better. If the world and assets were all the same but these were new instances of Link and Zelda, and what separated TotK from BotW was a parallel plane, split timeline, or a massive separation in time (such as running around Hyrule in the ancient past), then TotK would not have suffered carrying the twin burdens of needing consistency in order to make sense while also being less exciting for not being different enough. Break the cycle by breaking the connection. If the timeline purportedly doesn’t matter, then don’t market it as a direct sequel.

You know as much as I don’t like TotK the Colgera battle was masterful. That was literally an experience that was good.

It is kind of a curse having played video games for so long (my entire life from around age 4) that I'm simply not bad enough to have many funny experiences to talk about. I rarely struggle due to two decades of ingrained instincts of game design tropes. "I beat this without struggling at all" just doesn't lead to many interesting moments, so I only talk about story and characters and ships that I'm interested in.

The main reason I basically only talk about Link and Zelda isn't because it is my *sole* enjoyment of the game (far from it, actually. I enjoy every aspect of the gameplay), but because (at risk of offending people) ...I just don't find the other characters very interesting? It's ironic to say that, because Link doesn't have that much explicit characterization himself, but I find his backstory and what we do know about him and what he goes through to be compelling and relatable. The main story of botw & totk (while yes, it is also about their connections to Hyrule and their friends), is mostly Link and Zelda's story, anyway.

I did like the champions, especially Urbosa and Revali (yes, I am a Revali sympathizer), but they're all dead now and barely mentioned in totk, so I don't have much to say there.

I liked Mineru, Rauru and Sonia, but we barely got to know them. I did like the implication that Mineru let Zelda ride around her construct in the past, and did experiments together (though, I kind of wish that had been a cutscene).

Ganondorf is cool looking and all, but he wasn't a super compelling villain or anything. Not that he really he needed to be for me. He's the big bad boss you fight and that's fine by me.

I like Purah, but she is more of a supporting cast member (and comedic relief in AoC and botw). She was also a lot more interesting in AoC, tbh.

Paya... did absolutely nothing and had very little actual growth. It honestly really disappointed me that her character seems to exist just to stand around and look pretty. Tauro exists, I guess?

Sidon was honestly very flat to me compared to how he was in AoC, and I'm just not interested in him at all in the way other people are (I lean towards women and don't find anthropomorphic animal characters attractive. I honestly feel nothing at all when I look at Sidon. I'm sorry if that upsets somebody). I liked Yona's design the most out of any of the Zora designs so far, but I don't really feel any type of way about her. I did like that she encouraged Sidon.

I like Riju, but I really don't like her being sexualized, which is what a lot of people seem to do when she is brought up.... so I'm a little scared to talk about her character lol.

Yunobo is Yunobo. I don't hate him but there's not much to say about him (except for when he became a drug overlord for a moment lol). He fulfills the same role as Daruk as the goofy goron bro and that's fine.

Teba unfortunately didn't really do much this time, but It was nice seeing Tulin grow up and come into his own in totk.

...and that's about it. Again, the main story mainly focuses on Zelda (Which I don't mind, she's my favourite. I'm shamelessly Princess Zelda biased), so I'm just a bit passive about everyone else.

Hi I read your rant! (I'm asking here cause I don't wanna clog up your previous post with my words lol) and honestly yeah I don't blame you for being confused about the time travel stuff! I'm also confused by it as well lmao! I like the idea of there being a split timeline after SS! And SS!Link being the Hero of Time as well would be such an interesting concept! I could be wrong but I like to think that Hyrule Warriors (not the Age of Calamity one) is the reason why everything exist in Botw/Totk. I know it's not technically canon but the game has all the other elements from the previous games and it kinda merges them together.

As for the Zonai? According to Zelda, they existed in heaven alongside the goddesses and also were gods and goddesses themselves! Then they came down to Hyrule during the imprionsoned war which takes place much later in the timeline (the downfall timeline) so Hylia and those three goddess could still technically exist!

In TOTK Rauru and Sonia were said to be the first people to rule Hyrule. I have a headcanon that all the history before them disappeared or were lost before that happened!

Sorry this was long 😭 I wish LOZ lore and the timeline were linear but it's also fun and interesting to discuss certain elements of the game

I’m glad you like my ideas! The previous post is here for anyone who’s curious :)

I’ve heard of that theory about Hyrule Warriors, maybe it could work but I don’t really like to include HW in the timeline (I can’t take this game seriously haha, I never recovered from Cia 😆)

I believe the Imprisoning War mentioned in TotK is not the one we knew of in the Downfall timeline (before ALttP), but maybe we’re not talking about the same thing?

So if the Zonai are gods/goddesses, what’s their role? Are they lesser deities than Hylia? Were there more of them than just Rauru and Mineru? And why does Rauru not know what the Master Sword is? Can he be both a Sage and a god? And did he and Sonia truly have descendants? I have so many questions about this haha, it’s so weird

And I guess being a god would make Rauru aware of Hyrule’s history, so he would know he’s not the first king even if all records of Hyrulean history were lost. Or in case he really believes himself to be the first king it’s a huge coincidence that he’s also calling his kingdom Hyrule. Idk this whole thing is kind of a mess

I agree it’s definitely fun to theorize about the timeline!! But to me TotK is too disconnected from the rest of the lore and makes things way too confusing, I’m not a fan of that. It bothers me that the Zonai are now such a big part of Hyrule’s history despite being barely fleshed out. TotK’s story was so disappointing to me and I’m a bit afraid the whole lore has been retconned and things that were established in older games will keep being ignored.

And that makes me sad :(

I wish so much that I could fully enjoy totk but I am struggling so much. Idk why some of the decisions for the game are the way they are. I can't help but be critical given how important the series and botw are to me.

I feel like the game is struggling to have its own identity. I feel like some creature has wormed its way into botw's skin and is wearing it poorly.

(So far I've played through the Gerudo and Rito story quests. What I've written here though is mostly about the world and direction. I just need to get some of these thoughts out. There are spoilers.)

The three main criticisms people had with botw were the story, weapon durability, and dungeons- and man so far in totk these things have only been worse. (The boss fights are incredible though)

The framerate drops whenever I use ultrahand, and combined with my left joycon drifting it makes trying to use the new mechanic difficult to the point that I will avoid it to do something else.

Some of the game does feel like mashed up dlc ideas. I would have preferred them to be dlc even. If the Zelda devs wanted to tell this story or make a game with these mechanics I wish they would have made an entirely new game instead of using botw.

So far totk has no through-lines between itself and botw. No one has mentioned the Champions, only a single npc has talked about the Calamity, no one has mentioned Calamity Ganon or the divine beasts Link calmed, and only a few people recognize Link himself. The champion successors I've met haven't spoken of the Champions or their divine beasts which is strange given how they spoke of them in botw, and at most have only referred to Link having been there in the past as, "when you helped us" without any specifics as to what. I've done all the side quests in botw and to have the people I helped call Link a stranger is saddening. It's even more pronounced in Hateno. I bought a house there. I helped its people. And the house no longer has Link's name by the door and Hateno's people remark at how Link is a new face in town. Didn't I live there? Given how some of the kids have grown it's probably been around 4 years since botw. Where has Link been in that time for the people to forget him? In Kakariko Cottla says she can't talk to me because she isn't supposed to talk with strangers. We've played tag together. I cooked meals with her sister. It's sad. In botw we spent the whole time collecting Link's memories and growing attached to the land only to have the land forget us. I feel like it's a disgrace to all of the time and joy players put in and found in botw, and to botw's story- to have none of that matter.

What happened to the Divine Beasts and the Sheikah shrines and the slate? Further, some important npcs from botw are just gone without explanation.

If the events of botw are so irrelevant then why use the same world and characters? I understand it's a way to save time and resources but this game took 6 years to make past botw. I would have preferred a new world and princess/hero entirely so I could go into it as a fresh experience. Instead, it feels like what made botw important was swept away, and the map and characters are only being used as an empty husk, like setpieces. Majora's Mask being a sequel with reused assets worked because in Termina there was no reason for anyone to know Link, and him traveling to find Navi made sense, and the look-alike characters are different people. In botw, there is no reason for no one to recognize Link or his achievements. He is the Hero of Hyrule for that world and it's people. He freed the divine beasts and put an end to the multiple local disasters they were causing, yet none of that is acknowledged and it sticks out like a sore. (I'm really really hoping that Sidon talks about Mipha and the constant rain caused by Vah Ruta because how could he not? That's his sister! Yunobo saw Daruk's spirit in botw so I'm hoping he says something of the Champions. I'm really hoping.)

I enjoyed exploring botw's world because there were always koroks and shrines to collect. I could wander knowing there was something in store to find. The world never felt too big or empty for this reason, and the solitude made sense because of the Calamity. In totk the number of shrines and koroks has been greatly reduced (edit: there are more shrines and just as many koroks as in botw. It just seems I'm having difficulty finding them ashfsjdf.) I know the overworld already so there not being a reward for exploring gives me no incentive to. The lack of shrines and the cutscenes required to go through to use the towers is another hindrance on exploration and quests. I can't get spontaneously sidetracked because there's no nearby place to warp back to, and I know how far I'll have to walk to get there. Traveling can feel like a chore instead of something enjoyable. It feels like the overworld has been stripped.

The world wasn't made for the new mechanics either, and so the areas to use them in are all tacked on as monster camps or fallen ruins, instead of a natural part of the landscape.

The new map content, the Sky and Depths, would have been better being condensed. They don't fit within the scope of botw's map. The Sky Islands so far don't take up much space and are significantly less important than I hoped they would be. The Depths is a fun concept and I enjoy the restrictions it puts on players, with the soft cap and kinda rougelite aspect while you're in the early game, but it's way too big, very repetitive, and there's not much point to exploring once you know what it's about. Both the Sky and the Depths would have benefitted by being more carefully thought out, concise, areas and suffer from having to fit the scope of botw's map. The Depths has poes and zonite to collect, but these things come in such huge quantities and require even huger quantities of to be useful that it feels grindy. I need 3 zonite ore for one crystalized ore, 100 crystalized ore for one fuel charge. There are three charges in one canister, of 8. That's 7,200 zonite ore like wtf. How is this supposed to be achievable? So far I haven't needed to use the vehicles all that often so it's not particularly useful atm either. The amount of cross-trading currency collectibles is overbearing. For some time I had no idea what any of them were used for so I didn't know what the point was in collecting them. Bubulgems, zonite ore, large zonite ore, poes, crystalized charges, large crystalized charges- too many. Please condense some of them.

Gone are all the very cool weapon designs, replaced in favor of the new fuse mechanic and endlessly scrolling through materials to find the right thing to attach.

The memories and the story in that aspect are still passive. Even more so.

We're all familiar with the Zelda formula- totk now follows the botw formula. Plateau area, back and forth fetch quests to upgrade your abilities, four main story beat locations, memories, and then the open world for players to tackle freely. I'm really hoping there is more. There has to be because the Sky and Depths haven't been used in the main story beats so far. In botw you could go anywhere and have everything to do in a given location immediately assessable to play through, but in totk there are things locked by progression. However, it's awkward because you aren't told precisely what's locked or why. I'm like- I went through the effort to get here but there isn't anything for me to do. I know there's something here! But I can't do anything yet and idk why or what I'm missing! and instead of building anticipation it just makes me frustrated. I'm not sure if what I'm missing is locked to progression or if there is something I've truly just missed.

So I have a feeling of having missed something important story/mechanic-wise when exploring, and then on the other hand I have the feeling of being very clearly shoehorned towards certain goals. Nearly all of the npcs have dialogue that leads you towards something. I don't feel like botw was ever this in-your-face about goals. The Calamity happened 100 years ago so the people have had time to adjust, while the Upheaval is happening now. It makes sense that the Upheaval would be much more pressing, I just wish the npcs would chat about something other than "go here, do this" once in a while. Like, I found Bolson, and instead of being greeted as a familiar face or getting to see Bolson in character, he just told me to go somewhere for a quest related thing. So many of the familiar characters are missing the quirky characterizations they had in botw that made them them.

With being shoehorned towards certain locations: many, many of the npcs want me to clear out monsters at Lurelin. So I went to Lurelin. At that point I'd only completed the quest in Gerudo and five shrines, yet the monsters I faced in Lurelin (and widely across the overworld) were black level monsters, which I was and still am nowhere near prepared for. Totk is either meant to be more difficult than botw or there is an issue with balancing. I've touched maybe 25 shrines and have lit a good number of lightroots, but haven't completed many, so maybe that's a factor into the enemy leveling? I also think there's a way for me to get help that I haven't found yet. Regardless, the enemy scaling across the world feels like it happened too quickly and I don't enjoy the npcs pushing me towards things my character isn't ready for. I feel like there should be more checks in place for this that determine the npc dialogue to the player's progress.

I haven't even talked about the story.

I know I'm being very critical with the game, and I wish I could just enjoy it. I need to stop trying to find botw in this game. And I should take a step back for a while too. I'm just disappointed.

The music and boss battles have been incredible! I hope there's more structured boss battles outside of the main four + ganon. Heck I even hope there's a boss gauntlet with a cool reward.

Just- yeah. So far I am not enjoying the new Zelda formula when it comes to totk. Botw worked for botw. totk looks and is structured too much like botw to feel like its own thing, and yet trying to play it like botw is just upsetting because it isn't.

Totk is a good game, but it's a bad sequel.

I hope the Zelda team returns to the old format sometime, or at least pulls forward some of the ideas. I miss the concise dungeons that take multiple play sessions to get through. I miss the tricky puzzles that make me feel smart for solving. I miss combat being a puzzle requiring certain items or learning boss phases and patterns (rather than sticking materials to your bow and taking a "just deal damage" based approach. I want to be closer to it.) I miss the worlds that were puzzles in and of themselves like Minish Cap or the Oracle games. I miss seeing a clearly marked spot on the wall or a tree in the way and knowing that I'll pick up an item that will help me here later. I like that there were clear solutions. The clues in botw and totk for progression are not as clear. And the botw open-world format is too large for concise puzzles like this. I enjoyed the open-ended way to combat and puzzles in botw, but I feel there should be space for both. No more ways to fenagle the physics or smack your way through obstacles. I want to see linear progression and long-form puzzles return to Zelda games, at least for the next one.

I'm hoping there's some plot twist or turn in gameplay that I haven't reached in totk yet. We'll seeeeee

I'm gonna say it. I think it's cringe that people want to make botw and totk entirely separate from the main timeline. Botw's story, to me, deals with a lot of the downsides of Demise's curse and what's it's done in the long run to those who suffer from it. Link is no glorified hero. He's constantly feeling the expectations on him, and the hero is no longer some kind of free spirit. He's just a straight up Hyrulean Guard under the Royal Family. Zelda gets it much worse. She struggles with living up to what everyone says she needs to be. Every Zelda before her awakened a sealing power, and she just cannot using the means provided (constant prayer). Her interests are constantly put down to deal with this prophecy.

Don't forget everyone fucking dies in Breath of the Wild as well. Link and Zelda don't even get a victory. I will die on the hill that Breath of the Wild's ending is a sad tie at best. They managed to save Hyrule, but they lost far too much on the way to the point where it's debatable on how they would do after.

I just think narratively it's more interesting for Breath of the Wild to be about the consequences of this cycle going on and on. That's why I was excited for totk which did...

None of that. Didn't deal with the cycle. Tried to soft reboot. Link and Zelda moved on like all was well. Fuck.

I have personal beef with totk. It's a watered down rehash of events that already happened in the series if you DO interpret it as a reboot. Ganondorf is now a paper thin villain. The triforce might not even exist. The cycle may not even exist. I wish totk was about moving on from the previous timeline instead of *gestures vaguely* whatever that was.

This rant is nonsensical and idk where I'm going with it. I just am a little tired of people saying "the timeline sucks. Leave it alone." It's so cool to think about and to use if you just suspend a LITTLE BIT of disbelief. There's so much narrative nuance that you can pour into Link's character with the fact that he's been recycled multiple times over. AGH.

Anyway this is strongly hinting at what a totk-like fic will be from me. I love this damn series and I don't just want to throw out the old timeline for a narrative that nintendo really didn't land.

To my fellow totk haters (people who started off mildly annoyed with the game's flaws, who then progressed into full on rage as almost everybody else seemed to love it): What did you most dislike about the game? If you can't decide, what were the biggest problems you had? What changes would you like to make?

This can be anything from gentle constructive criticism to a full on rage induced rant; I want to hear your thoughts, whichever form they may take!

I'm probably beating a dead horse but I feel like if TOTK was a stand-alone game my opinion of it would be a lot better, but it isn't, and my opinion of it is still that it's a let down to me

TOTK characterization of Zelda outside the memories can make perfect sense like her having a well built entirely so she can hide in it when she wants to be alone and study but then there’s strange shit like her teaching people how to cook. The girl tried to feed Link a live frog in BOTW and made all the knights (including Link) back up while she was cooking in AOC. If anyone is teaching ANYONE how to cook, it’s Link.

I'm stuck between thinking Zelda's new dress is really pretty and thinking it kinda goes against her as a character.

You're telling me she'd be comfortable wearing something that looks VERY similar to her priestess dress? Her being forced into the priestess role for most of her life is the main source of her trauma. It was clear to me she wanted nothing to do with being a magical priestess, and that her researcher/scholar self was who she really was.

It's strange to me that 1. she appears to have zero trauma from what happened to her in BotW and that 2. she is embracing her role as a priestess/sacrifical lamb. She's never shown interacting with or showing interest in Zonai tech (I know it's mentionned on some tablet but that's lazy). She became what her father wanted her to be. Someone who obeys without question and has zero individuality.

I put off starting BotW for five years for various reasons, including many IRL hobbies, knowing that the game would suck me in and consume all of my free time as I played through it, and various concerns over the direction they took the world and lore.

In the end, I loved that game. I enjoyed that version of Hyrule and—because I had started playing it during pandemic lockdowns—I used it to replace various local adventures I had enjoyed in The Before Times. The open world and nonlinear aspects of BotW were exceedingly well done and an interesting change for the series.

Although I enjoyed both the present-day and fallen Champions and a glimpses into the life and times of The Saddest Zelda Yet, most of the characters of BotW did not resonate with me until I played Age of Calamity.

I loved that game. It is a ridiculous and lovely fix-it fic that paid attention to the details of the original and expanded on it in such a marvelous way. You could experience more of pre-Calamity Hyrule, spend more time with literally everyone (including some WILD surprises), and see a nice “what if” arc for Zelda herself. The game made me really like the older Champions, Sidon, Master Kohga, and I adored that take on Zelda.

With TotK, I feel none of the connection that I had the first two games. Hyrule is largely the same—except for the addition of caves—so the thrill of exploring is dampened. It’s like returning to your childhood city and discovering an odd blend of nostalgia and sadness when you see how parts of town had changed in vaguely unsettling ways.

The Depths—while really cool press-your-luck-in-the-darkness is interesting (it kind of feels like running to the BotW shrines in unfamiliar territory), it’s exhausting to explore. There is so much of it and it’s relatively empty of both interesting things to see and lore. Give me lore! Tell me more about what this place even was! What happened here?? Meanwhile, traversing the sky kind of stresses me out in a water temple kind of way, and so many of the islands are duplicates and simply repetitive.

While catching up with literally hundreds of NPCs in TotK was truly delightful (especially playing BotW rather recently beforehand and seeing how much genuine care they took with continuity), the TotK content on the characters we had spent the most time with in BotW and AoC was rather light, as were the new characters. It was difficult to emotionally attach to anyone and cheer for them. It felt weirdly retrospective, both in the ancient era and the present era. It felt like a game all about catching up with people and then doing a million little tasks for them.

And—as much as TotK is proclaimed by the dev team as a supposedly non-linear story, it’s not. Instead, it’s a linear story carved up and then scattered nonsensically onto a map, and—while it was an interesting experiment—it was a poor experience. They should have had a waypoint lead to the next in chronological order instead of pretending that it is a fully open world and therefore the order you unlocked the memories didn’t matter. While it was frustrating to people returning from BotW, I can only imagine that it must have been bewildering to new players.

All this is to say that AoC really made me appreciate the BotW era, and I really hope that Omega Force makes a TotK Hyrule Warriors, because I would love to see how they expand the otherwise sparse lore and help me learn to like these characters more.

Also playable TotK Ganondorf when.

Last night I was reading Creating a Champion and idk whatever they had planned lore-wise + for the Zonai AND Ganondorf was ten times more interesting than whatever the fuck is going on in Totk Lmao