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aufi-creative-mind · 10 months

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Slightly eldritch Link and Zelda post-totk? Like what effects does draconification have on Zelda when she returns and what effects does link have from the zonai arm?

Could be physical, could be mental, maybe both?

And if you are into linked universe, what does the chain think of this?

..... C:<

Slightly eldritch, you say? WELL...

I don't have a lot for a Post-TotK Zelda... Maybe some leftover scales on parts of her body but that's as far as I can think of.

But for Link, I have PLENTY.

Especially for a Post-TotK LU Wild.

This is gonna be a very long post so please bear with me on this one.

Many of the Post-TotK Wild headcanons I had were made from 2019 onwards, after the BotW2 announcement trailer. And then started to evolve and become more eldritch during the 4 year long waiting and from the breadcrumbs of info the Zelda dev team dropped prior to 2023 release.

(Most of these Post-TotK Wild headcanon have now since been debunked with the official TotK game lore. But I like to come back to them and they are being repurposed in some way with the new official TotK context).

Many of these headcanons were about Wild's creepy glowing green hand. Especially as prior to the game's release, it was never revealed who was the hand's original owner. So I had a dark theory that the Glowing Green Hand was originally the Ancient Hero's and their Hero's Spirit was used as the "Seal" on Ganondorf's corpse. Thus halting the Reincarnation Cycle and why there's a massive 10K year gap between the Ancient Hero of 10K and the Hero of the Wild's incarnations. (This is no longer the case, of course but I sometimes think about it).

So anyway, as for what effects the Zonai Arm may had left behind on Link.

Officially, I had an idea that the Recall ability had enhanced Link's Flurry Rush ability. Particularly the "freeze" game mechanic when Recall is activated, which allowed Link to quickly observe what's in front of him in a split second in real time. And also makes it easier for him to trigger his Flurry Rush when on the ground.

So...basically his time perspective and trigger instincts for his Flurry Rush ability have improved. Especially as I have a headcanon that Link's Flurry Rush is his Champion Ability in BotW.

As for Pre-Totk release / "if Link kept the Zonai Arm abilities" headcanons, I have a couple of ideas that I did experimented with. Especially with the LU Boys.

At the time, I had Post-TotK Wild to not only being older but is also rather cryptic about his TotK adventure with the reasoning that its still too raw for him to tell the rest about what happened (Especially as there was so little info about what happened at the time, other than "a sequel is in development" and "Link gets a glowing arm").

Of course, this has now changed and I am still thinking about what new experiences and abilities from TotK would Wild bring to the LU Family. Though the one definite change from the original Post-TotK headcanon is that... Wild is now 7 years older than he was in BotW. So he's now 125 years old.

Before the Zonai Arm's Abilities were revealed, I had an idea that the Glowing Arm had three abilities - dubbed "Farore's Blessings" - Wrath (rage/survival power up), Breath (ability to see spirits/soul leaking) and Spirits (animal spirits and where the Farore's Spirits originated from).

Some of these ideas may be repurposed with the official TotK ideas.

I have also done a handful of stories that explores the Farore's Blessing abilities with the LU family in the past. Including Puppet Twilight AND Fierce Deity. Especially the Fierce Deity one which was originally an early live writing story that I spotenously created in the LU main server back in 2019.

Here's the sketches I made based on that.

(Original posts: Original 2019 sketch [left], 2020 Redrawing [right])

(Original post: Dialogue Exchange comic)

I have plenty more in store! Many old Pre-TotK-release headcanons and new TotK ones that are slowly brewing in the back of my mind. But this is how much I can post for now.

Enjoy! :D

#answered #but like seriously though i had to edit this one post 5 times because it kept deleting all of the pics i wanted to attached...#linkeduniverse #linked universe #tears of the kingdom #totk #botw2 #breath of the wild 2 #lu wild #lu time #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom spoilers

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cooking-with-hailstones · 6 months

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I’m curious, what do you think about Zelda games and continuity in general? I know one point of contention with BOTW/TOTK is the “lack” of continuity which yeah, i get it. It could be better. However the Zelda series is not known for its continuity lol. Like, take OOT and MM for example. MM is supposed to be a sequel to OOT, right? Well, tbh it’s not a very good one. Besides the fact that Link is the same one from oot, and the happy mask salesman and skull kid return, it feels really disconnected from its predecessor. I think Twilight Princess fits more as a sequel to OOT than MM. I could go on and on but what are your thoughts?

Very good question! So yeah, I know that the Zelda games give 0 craps about consistent lore or continuity, which is fine! I think they put forward a lot of different and interesting ideas. As a fandom, and especially as writers, we can treat it like a buffet of ideas to sample and play around with.

You raise an interesting point with oot/mm. I think the difference between oot/mm is the fact that they have very little in common with each other. New map, new characters, a completely different concept. There's a lot of mechanics that are the same but it really feels like you're in a new universe with the same aesthetics as the previous one, and that's about it.

I think TOTK stands out to people because it is a direct sequel with only a few years between them in-universe, but there is very little story, lore, and setting continuity between botw and totk. If it were a whole new game with a new slate of characters and a new map, I don't think the discrepancies would feel as jarring. That being said, I really love totk as a game! It's fantastic and I've sunk at least 100 hours in.

However, botw remains my favourite game because: botw is a gesamkunstwerk. TOTK is not a gesamkunstwerk.

And now here's my very long tangent about this:

I'm sure I've seen a video talking about this idea before but basically, a gesamkunstwerk is a German term for "total work of art." Coined by the composer Richard Wagner (whom we do not like, but his ideas were very influential), a gesamkunstwerk is a large scale work where everything reinforces each other. It is "a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms, or strives to do so." So in opera, for example, this would be how the orchestra, the costumes, the text, the music, the set pieces, everything comes together to tell one unified story.

I believe botw is a good example of a gesamkunstwerk: the open world setting serves the narrative framework, the Sheikah technology is incorporated seamlessly into the game mechanics, the story is scattered throughout the world for you to discover, but everything is still centered around your final goal and the narrative arc you're meant to travel. You're meant to explore, meet people, hone your skills, then face off against the final foe that you've been staring in the face for the whole game. You're meant to discover the world, to do all these things, as the player and as Link. Everything in botw reinforces everything else. It's not a perfect game by any means but it is incredibly well crafted.

And while totk improves on all the things in BOTW, it loses the cohesiveness that tied the first game together. I find that totk fights itself in a lot of ways. It didn't commit to being a linear game but it clearly has a linear path in mind (hello dragons tears...I am so glad a friend of mine told me to do them in order) The integration of zonai and Sheikah mechanics made no sense to me. The sages... Good gravy the sages...

Anyways this turned into a much longer post than I intended, but I hope this all made sense.

#Emily talks #asks #Anon #thanks for the ask!#breath of the wild #tears of the Kingdom #legend of Zelda #legend of Zelda lore #continuity #storytelling #loz #botw #TOTK #vaguely totk critical

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solarsyrup · 23 days

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Would love to hear your extended thoughts on totk (i haven't played it and only played about 10 hours of botw)

Oh boy! I've had a year to stew on this, so here we go!

...er, actually, before I really start tearing this game a new one, I have to acknowledge how central Breath of the Wild is to Tears of the Kingdom's shortcomings. While not championing (pun intended) Breath of the Wild, I do hope that comparing the two helps emphasize the many mistakes of Tears of the Kingdom.

Okay, with that out of the way, here's some stuff. A detailed and hopefully thorough examination of the faults of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, yes, but ultimately: stuff.

Why begin like this? Well, because Tears of the Kingdom LOVES stuff. There is a persistent and irritating theme across the game that you'll have more fun if they just keep dumping more things in your lap. More items, more enemies, more dungeons, more plot (well, sort of), more checklists to fill out, more stuff.

The game's central theme seems to be rebuilding, emphasized both with the general beats of the plot and the emphasis of the new construction mechanics. Certain other abilities were replaced, the weapons system received a major overhaul, and in something of a first for the series, you can actually acquire allies (of a sort) to fight alongside you.

There's a lot going on! I just wish that any of it was done well. Entire areas are introduced only to be practically empty. Central mechanics are a chore of almost hilarious repetition. Many elements introduced in Breath of the Wild were actively made worse.

In short: Tears of the Kingdom is a game that hopes it can dump enough stuff into your lap that you forget it's not actually good.

(If anyone is hoping to read this entire thing, I hope your butt is comfy; that was just the preamble.)

Before anything else, let's get the basics of the plot down: Ganondorf appears, Zelda disappears, and... well, actually, that's pretty much it. While Ganondorf's return and Zelda's whereabouts (spoiler: she was sent to the past and then turned into a dragon) provide the overarching impetus for the plot, very little else contributes.

Each of the major races introduced in Breath of the Wild faces natural phenomenon that endangers them (heavily alluded to be the handiwork of Ganondorf) but are otherwise mostly inconsequential to the narrative. Each arc concludes with a member of said race awakening as a sage and offering to lend their strength to Link, after they have acquired a mineral macguffin, a secret stone that —

Oh. Right. They're literally called "secret stones".

Call me nuts, but going in blind I was absolutely certain that they would be the titular "Tears of the Kingdom". Nope. Secret stones. I guess I'm the idiot for thinking that such a long development time would leave room for a second draft.

The narrative impact of solving these crises is virtually nonexistent. While the completion of each major dungeon in Breath of the Wild both freed the associated Divine Beast to help in the final fight and provided a useful power from its champion, Tears of the Kingdom instead opts to dump a nebulous promise of teamwork and and an eerie, green simulacrum to follow you around in the wilderness.

I cannot overemphasize how poorly implemented these "avatars" are, failing in almost every fundamental way. Rather than providing useful abilities at will, the player is left chasing after a dead-eyed NPC to activate practically worthless powers only when absolutely necessary. And far from providing a sense of camaraderie, the silent and omnipresent avatars can actually be unsettling. They're also miserable in combat, serving more as meat shields than a conceivable ally. To add insult to injury, the final sage — a GIANT ROBOT, no less — is borderline useless, thanks to the game's poorly-thought-out mechanics.

The practical shortfalls of Tears of the Kingdom is such a large topic that I'm practically forced to tackle it piecemeal. While larger constructions were the focus of much of the game's promotional material, I think the smaller Fuse mechanic serves as a better starting point.

A major point of contention within Breath of the Wild was the implementation of breakable weapons. With a very small handful of exceptions (namely, the ubiquitous Master Sword and the ever-recharging Bomb rune), weapons break after a set amount of use. Tears of the Kingdom attempted to remedy this situation by introducing Fuse — an ability allowing players to attach most items to weapons, shields, and arrows, increasing their stats and potentially giving them new properties.

This is a prime example of Tears of the Kingdom brazenly dumping stuff in the player's lap.

The system is an absolute mess. First, to encourage (borderline mandate) that the player engage with this new mechanic, the plot has decided that all weapons in Hyrule have degraded because of... plot. Making them anywhere near feasible for combat relies on using Fuse, meaning the player is in a constant loop of (essentially) gluing items to their weapons. Now not only are you scrounging for weapons, you're also looking for stuff to stick on to it — and reminding yourself to do so, as it's very difficult to do in the heat of combat. Adding insult to injury, there doesn't seem to be a particularly substantial increase in weapon durability after using Fuse. Some later-game items are sturdier, but their rarity makes them unappealing as mere monster mashers.

This leads into another issue with Fuse: constantly fighting for resources. Beyond previously-established uses from Breath of the Wild (making elixirs, cooking, selling, upgrading equipment, etc.), items are now also the means by which you strengthen weapons. Should you glue that horn to a sword, or will you need it for an upgrade down the line? Retrieving an item used this way isn't impossible, but it may as well be. And considering that you'll want to go into fights with weapons pre-Fused, players will constantly be scraping together more stuff just to keep their supplies healthy.

BOMB ASIDE: Okay, please forgive a moment of very specific nitpicking, but nowhere is the Fuse issue more evident than in the absence of bombs. In Breath of the Wild they were (obviously?) used to break cracked walls and as an emergency weapon. With their very notable departure, EVERY cracked wall in Tears of the Kingdom has a chance of spitting out rocks and rusty weapons when broken, just to keep up a supply of cracked-wall-smashing implements. So now even the WEAPONS THEMSELVES are needed for progression, and you have to keep gluing them together. Great!

This also applies to the game's Ultrahand power, allowing the player to cobble together vehicles, structures, and similar devices to complete quests and achieve goals. Aside from the ever-present need to collect more stuff (in this case, Zonai parts) to begin freely assembling these devices, the plain and simple fact is that they're cumbersome and — frankly — kind of lame.

Without going too in-depth (although, hey, if you're still reading this then maybe you'd be into that), the system is a slow process with a lot of room for failure. Misplacing parts frequently sabotages entire projects, trying to move individuals components is frustrating, and the results are generally unimpressive. Sure, there are interesting builds and neat combinations, but they're almost always more trouble than they're worth. More often than not, players will simply find spare parts littered around individual puzzles, slap together whatever the devs had in mind, and move on. Rather than feeling creative or ambitious, it feels like someone simply forgot to put the game together. More stuff.

But it's a good thing you can build vehicles period, because the game introduced entire new levels of Hyrule to explore: the sky and the depths. Each is ostensibly as large as Breath of the Wild's original map of Hyrule, both near-necessitate the use of Ultrahand and its construction abilities to explore, and both are some of the biggest wasted opportunities I've ever seen in a video game.

Both the sky and the depths are absolutely barren. While there are what I would loosely describe as "points of interest" in both, they hold surprisingly little importance. Oh, there are enemies to fight and chests to open aplenty, but it ultimately just acts as more stuff. More rupees. More minibosses. More materials for more upgrades.

Stuff. More stuff.

Since I've already gone this far down the rabbit hole, here's a running list of other bad design choices in Tears of the Kingdom that I can't feasibly include in an essay-style answer but are still worth complaining about:

The addition of caves throughout surface Hyrule was poorly implemented; Breath of the Wild noticeably shied away from using them for the exact reasons they stink here (difficulty in location and navigation, clumsy climbing mechanics inside, camera difficulties, etc.)

Quest and shrine rewards were noticeably less valuable, further prolonging the grind for materials and weapons

Having to upgrade the battery for Zonai devices isn't the worst idea; having to mine in the barren-ass Depths for the ore for it IS

The sheer amount of items in the game makes navigating menus and scrolling a constant issue, and even by mid-game trying to Fuse an arrow takes a preposterous amount of time

While I enjoy the boss designs, they (and their dungeons) are almost totally irrelevant to the plot. While I guess you could make the argument that this is truer to classic Zelda formula (most dungeon bosses being an unexplained monster) I feel like it doesn't hold up as well as the Blight Ganons' personal enmity with the champions

Many promising elements from Breath of the Wild (such as the Zonai mazes) receive zero explanation, relevance, or discussion, and many frustrating elements went completely unchanged (I cannot believe the Korok seeds/inventory upgrade system is the same beteween games, the mind BOGGLES)

The Zonai receive basically zero attention, except for heavily implying that one of Link's earlier incarnations was a Zonai? What a weird thing to purposelessly shoehorn in

Zelda is sent to the past for no other reason than to justify why this game also has ancient structures and technology, making it further baffling why the Zonai are essentially an afterthought to the game

I cannot overemphasize. Secret. Stones.

Shrines are much more of a chore thanks to the aforementioned issues with Fuse/Ultrahand

The house-building system is AWFUL and, just, straight-up, absolutely fails to capture what made the home-buying subplot of Breath of the Wild so beloved

Breath of the Wild's use of Malice (limited appearance outside of major dungeons) was much better than Tears of the Kingdom's use of Gloom (spreading it like peanut butter)

(also Malice is a way cooler name)

Huge tonal clashes throughout the game (trying to play up Ganondorf as a bigger threat than Calamity Ganon vs. mushroom mayoral election?)

The Master Sword absolutely sucks and reacquiring it is a huge letdown aside from the obvious "regenerating weapon" benefit

The Goron and Zora subplots are both awful, it feels less like you're saving a society and more like you're the janitor, the Zora plotline especially is just a miserable follow-up to Breath of the Wild's Mipha arc

Both Link and Zelda have significant alterations made to them that are completely undone at the end of the story, which really undercuts the whole "rebuilding" theme of the game

As much as I enjoyed Matthew Mercer's performance, Ganondorf really doesn't have much story presence and for most of the game her kinda just slides into frame every now and then like a Saturday morning cartoon villain

Speaking of squandered characters, poor Mineru is easily one of the best newbies and she gets like, absolutely nothing

...I liked Zelda's Breath of the Wild hairstyle better THERE I SAID IT

Tears of the Kingdom is a game convinced that if it hands you enough stuff, you'll stop worrying if it's any good or not. I've read that many of the new mechanics were originally conceived as DLC for Breath of the Wild, and I don't know if the devs understand what an indictment of Tears of the Kingdom that statement really is.

Because ultimately, that exactly what the game feels like. It feels like they took a completely different game and dumped some bloat on top of it — items, bosses, cutscenes, whatever.

And one of the most insulting aspects is that Tears of the Kingdom tries to frame it as freedom. You can build whatever you want! You can choose how to solve problems! The lack of cohesion is palpable, and it makes the entire experience feel like you, the player, are responsible for putting together any fun you want to experience. It's bizarrely apathetic.

I'm honestly surprised that more people haven't drawn comparisons to the likewise genre-twisting Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, considering the attention on mediocre vehicular gameplay and a similarly irreverent tone to its predecessor(s). It's uncanny.

...so anyway, there you have it. I had originally planned to have some kind of robust conclusion here, but I think I'm done with writing about all this... stuff.

#heinousactszx #here are 2000+ words about a video game. i am so sorry.

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1hellofacookie · 16 days

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I may have said this on here before but

so many issues of Totk would have been fixed had they just sent Link to the past.

It would have given us the chance to experience a Hyrule that is still the same but also very different in certain spots and it would've made sense. It would've been so interesting to explore the old buildings and structures, and see how the land evolved and changed, how the flow of time affected it.

The lack of Sheikah tech would've made sense as well as the abundance of new monsters.

We also could have gotten a story that finally unfolds alongside the player, where your progression actually has an effect on the world.

We could have gotten a variety of new armor/clothing and weapons.

I think instead of the focus on the depths it would have been so much more fun had the world changed more. The depths are too huge, empty and dark to be interesting and to feel rewarding instead of like a chore. Like, keep some caves here and there, put some cool rewards in them, or a side quest/puzzle (and not a fucking shrine, for the love of Hylia, please) to make them worth exploring and maybe keep the "depths" or part of them exclusively for dungeons and similar shit.

For example, the water temple lead up?? That massive cave had so much potential! it would have been so great if something in there had been the water temple.

Also put that shit from the 2019 announcement trailer under Hyrule castle (or whatever would be there), that woulda been sick.

Doing this would help making the depths and caves or any underground location feel special and not overwhelming.

The issue lies heavily in the emptiness of every vast space in Totk. Rewards were scarce in Botw, but in tears they're practically non-existent. In Botw you'd find a chest in the weirdest places and they'd have a weapon or another useful thing in them, but in Tears, if you do find a chest, theres rarely ever something of value in them. It robs you of any patience to explore since it makes you feel like it's pointless, because you either don't find anything at all, or nothing useful.

The sky islands are honestly super pretty, I absolutely love the aesthetics, and I wish we had gotten more of the ones like the Great Sky Island and not just copy pasted shit.

Nevertheless, the story would still need a lot of fixing (I don't particularly like the Zonai as they are in Tears) and also please ffs get rid of the hot glue, I think its an awful game mechanic, giving the player too much freedom for their own good and its honestly just kinda ugly.

anyways, I had a point when I started this post, I may have kinda lost it due to too many tangents, but please take what it is so far and any other additional reblogs

#zelda #totk #tloz #tears of the kingdom #tears kinda sucks a little much ngl

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furrylibrarian · 6 months

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I want to talk a bit about Tears of the Kingdom.

It's hard for me to do that, because all my feelings about it are contradictory and tangled up. I think its storytelling is incoherent and is actively hindered by the game structure, but it also has unquestionably some of the best story beats in the series. I find the open-ended creativity encouraged by its mechanics wild and engaging, but in practice I tend to just fall back on a few simple solutions and get frustrated when they don't easily apply to the thing I'm trying to solve. Most of all, I think it (alongside BotW) represents a much-needed shakeup to a series that was getting entirely too stale, but it is those very games that stagnated the franchise that made me fall in love with it.

Expanding on the second point I just made; I think TotK might be the only game I've played (that isn't a fighting game, anyways) that makes me feel inadequate. I know enough about its mechanics to understand that, conceptually, there's an incredible amount of potential Nonsense you can do with Ultrahand, but I just don't know how I should tap into that potential. I think it's admirable that the game doesn't tutorialize everything and lets you discover functions on your own, but because of that I've missed critical information about mechanics and felt like a complete fool for having to look up the information online (case in point; I had to consult the internet to figure out that I had to hit devices to activate them). I often have this background feeling that I could be doing something more interesting and effective when I'm playing TotK.

But really, most of my issues with TotK come from the lore implications. Gonna put a break here because spoilers. It's kind of just a rant after this point.

I've always been sharply aware that the devs aren't really concerned with adhering to an extended continuity and would rather craft a self-contained experience, but I just can't get over how weird TotK's story and backstory are. I'm still not sure what to make of the revelation that APARRENTLY there was just a SECOND GANONDORF the whole time who nobody knew about, and I'm still not really sure if Calamity Ganon was the classic Ganondorf degraded to a primal form after millennia of reincarnation (as I believed before TotK dropped), or if it was related to this game's new ancient Ganondorf? It's a messy situation that's only a problem when you're thinking about BotW/TotK in the context of the rest of the franchise WHICH IS COMPLETELY REASONABLE

Also the memories are just so strange. They feel like a warped retelling of OoT's first act, especially since a main character shares his name with an OoT character, a name which is not one of the many continually-recycled named the series uses which makes it sound way more significant! Like when I was playing through, I had this weird creeping feeling that this game was trying to replace OoT with this new backstory? Like obviously, no, it isn't, but it hit so many of the same important beats! Ganondorf allies himself with the king of Hyrule (even mirroring a shot from OoT), Zelda realizes he's up to something and tries to stop him, only to fail spectacularly such that Ganondorf gets the exact empowered artifact he was gunning for the whole time. Even Zelda transforming into a dragon to repair the Master Sword and sacrificing her identity in the process reminded me of Link in OoT drawing the Master Sword and losing his childhood, LIKE THEY'RE TELLING THE SAME STORY, WHAT IS GOING ON

I don't have a conclusion, I don't have a thesis, I just have opinions and I needed to vent them

#tears of the kingdom #totk #zelda totk #legend of zelda #vent

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rawliverandgoronspice · 11 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/rawliverandgoronspice/718014251940315136?source=share

Ill be honest and say i think the removal of sheikah related lore was not for internal weird racist reasons and instead simply for game design reasons, why the zonai tech is so similar in concept and execution. totk is a sequel and also a redux, they needed technology for mechanics and a reason for the world to change and introducing an entirely new race of characters would be the perfect scapegoat. it feels like it ignores botw almost entirely because 1) new players 2) to be a finished version of botw more mechanics and more content. the narrative was barely a thing in this game because what mattered the most was design and gameplay above all else. i don't think caring about gameplay first particularly bad, it's a fun game they will probably revolutionize the industry once again, and that nintendo doesn't care about lore at all but it really wasn't the priory here at least that's how I felt when i play the game. i adore the overworld and the npcs but the main quest (tears) story itself is very stale. best praise i can give to it is character design and zeldas sacrifice/how they handled her and link that's literally it (vague because i don't know if you've gotten there yet, it's after the completion of the tears quest and getting the master sword). zelda lore at this point is a sandbox and us fans will do what we want with it. sorry for the ramble!

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So I sort of agree, especially on the first part. I absolutely believe that yes, sheikah were not sidelined for malicious reasons, and the ease of just having one super-powerful ultratech culture you rely on was cleaner than having the old relics hanging around. I actually think it's the cleanest choice to make (one that would have been *even cleaner* would have been to write a story and think of a world that reinvent its landmarks based on that new ideas of archeology and the past bursting back into the present, which is theme that coats the game but doesn't ever permeates it). I still think any acknowledgement that it used to exist would have enriched a world that has, ultimately, very little new things to teach us about itself (I have scoured the Depths a bunch, and it's a combat/exploration hotspot, and that's cool but also what a missed opportunity to try some proper FromSoftware-style worldbuilding down there!). I don't think this would have confused new players; if anything it could have hinted at more and gave the new players any reason to pick up Breath of the Wild? But: the world is a playground! That's cool. I think it could be a much more meaningful playground, that's all. There's a category of players who kind of need some light modicum of internal consistency to be invested in exploration, and will just get bored otherwise (I have seen a bunch of people making this exact remark, and honestly... yeah, there are areas in the game I'm not interested in exploring just because I know it's a consequenceless challenge in the end --I'm just not the kind of player that is hooked by a game loop on its own merit, I need to understand what I'm building towards or I lose interest. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't have changed anything to a regular TotK's enjoyer experience, but would have greatly enriched the experience of players like me)

Still think that making Sheikahs a subset of hylians was a very weird choice. Not an outright malicious one, but one that does build up with all of the other weird choices and make this Hyrule feel like a revisionist Hyrule; and one they simply... didn't have to make.

(I'll maybe do another post about this, but there are so many things in this game that would be very confusing to a new player either way also --but that's kind of going into another territory)

I disagree about one general point, however, and I may get offtrack here a little but I guess you gave me an excuse to rant a little about how narrative design is perceived by the general public and what has been frustrating to witness in regards to the conversation surrounding this game from my perspective.

Mainly, this notion that "they had no other choice" because they chose to prioritize gameplay. I'm going to overshare a little (again sorry) but I work in gamedev in real life; I am actually a narrative designer that did quest design and game writing on a couple of games, some of them that also qualify as AAA open worlds. I think it's completely fair to see this game from a player perspective as a series of compromises struck to privilege the aspect of the game they were the most confident with --however, it is literally my real life job to walk through situations that can be extremely similar to this one and find solutions that weave narration with fun experiences game and level designers managed to put together. It doesn't mean that story has to swallow gameplay: if anything, narrative designers always try to privilege mechanics first and treat them as narrative devices in their own right before whipping out the actual cutscenes and the constant writing (and this game was somehow under AND overwritten in my opinion, especially in English --so I don't think it even solved this aspect?). This is not at all aimed at you in particular but at the internet at large; it ends up being quite grating to see assumptions being made about what can and can't be done in non-linear narrative as like, a fact of the universe instead of it being a specific field that deserve research and investment just like any other graphical advancement or intricate interactive feature, and explain away poor design decisions by the strange notion that they had no other choice, as if Nintendo studios aren't comprised of a bunch of humans who made active and passive choices. Like, I worked on very similar issues. There are solutions to how you feed information to the player in a non-linear way. There are ways to maximize impact and depth, even when you let the player guide the story. Again: it's fine if it doesn't bug you or a lot of people --but there are flaws. It happens. It's gamedev. It's a miracle any game is made at all --and this one is its own sort of miracle. What strikes me as strange is that I never see that level of excuses made for companies that do not cultivate that same image of being an unapproachable, united workforce, that get instead torn to shreds at the slightest sideway brush --but that's another subject maybe (maybe).

Narrative design is this thing that, when it's not there, people don't realize it could be; and when it is there, people take it for granted unless it's very visibly front and center like in Edith Finch or Disco Elysium or any other number of indie games (generally it's the indies who do all the research and development and take all of the risks on that front --like seriously I worked in narrative-driven studios, known for their narrative games, where 2/3 of the game designers couldn't care less about emotional impact beyond satisfaction/frustration/boredom, and it's infinitely frustrating (heh) to have your specialization considered optional fluff when you know how far thematic cohesion can push a game when handled well ANYWAY anyway). So: I was always going to care about the way they handled narrative, because it's how I'm wired, what I research, and I also played this game in part because I was very curious on how they'd push their explorations of BotW's possibilities, which were very interesting if a little limited. Needless to say, this was a let down. And I think it's not unreasonable to have higher narrative standards than this.

I do want to autocorrect myself on a statement I put out before, however, that being the notion that not enough research was put into narrative. I think I want to push forward a new theory that sounds much more plausible to me (again based on nothing but speculation and weird déjà-vu vibes, which is perhaps why I care that much :) :) ), and that being: a lot of research was done, and then cut. It seems very plausible the narrative used to be much more ambitious than this --and then, for one reason or another, somebody panicked, or the thing got out of hand, or they couldn't get it to work exactly right, and everything was downscoped pretty late into production. Six years of development is a long time, and I don't think anyone with the standards of a Nintendo employee would have been happy with handling the storyline the way it was. It kinda feels like a rushed cobble-up of loose threads after a massive downsizing, leaving plot holes and suboptimal emotional experience. Again: just a theory, no proof at all. But I absolutely wouldn't be surprised, and it would explain a lot of things.

#asks #thoughts #totk #totk spoilers #totk critical #gamedev #narrative design #sheikah #botw #as for the lore as a sandbox: yes! I agree #tloz #but here they tried to shut doors instead of opening them almost?#I mean not really #but it is obviously a soft reboot #I don't know there is this sort of vague contempt for zelda lore/story enjoyers that permeate a lot of the discourse #which I find weird and unfair #like it's one of the last forms of gamer nerdiness worthy of mockery that a lot of other fanbases seem to have outgrown #nobody can agree on what feels like Zelda or what part of Zelda is important!! that's the zelda fandom: arguing about what is Zelda!!#and story fans were always an important subpart of the fanbase #not you anon but general internet dwellers have this sneering “you enjoy the game wrong so it's not for you” attitude #when it's clearly and demonstrably untrue (or it has been in the past)#and if it ends up becoming true... then isn't it a sad thing?#why are we scoffing at the people who don't feel at home with zelda anymore?#especially when they very well still could if some *truly* minor effort was being made in their favor?#anyway thanks for the ask! I hope I make some sort of sense!

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abyssal-cryptid · 1 year

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More Tears of the Kingdom thoughts (SPOILERS)

You hunt koroks again lets goo and yes there is new puzzle types

Them being in different locations implies canon version Link hunted all of them down

PAYA IS CHIEF OF KAKARIKO

The chasms are terrifyingly deep. Nope. Scary. I dont even want to know

Every single shrine has outsmarted me

WHERE IS HESTU I NEED MORE INVENTORY SPACE

The Koroks who go "I need to find my friend" require you to bring them to their friend. Reward for each is several korok seeds

Zelda keeps appearing in her Zonai fit and then disappearing. Rude. But as I said, Skyward Sword vibes.

HYRULE TOMATOES

Also Golden Apples for some reason???

Great Fairies have Moved Away

Still dont know how to get a camera please I need to return to photography simulator

Ascend is best ability

WHY IS THE STEALTH GEAR 5000 RUPEES EACH PIECE

Why is making money here so hard

I recommend visiting the shrine of resurrection. Thats all Im going to say. Its entirely overgrown

All traces of sheikah machinery is gone everywhere. I still expect to see shrines but no

I admit I am still afraid of guardians while I run around Hyrule field

I hate the transportation machines as a game mechanic

Blood moons still exist

Havent seen any of Ganondorf after the beginning cutscenes

The new map towers just straight up launch you into the sky

OH MY GOD THE MEMORIES YOU FIND

Found Hestu. Does a little dance for you WITH KOROKS. Best day of my life

You have a profile on Purah Pad for every main npc btw

REMEMBER THE DARK SKINNED WOMAN WE SAW IN TRAILERS WHO LOOKED LIKE ZELDA? SHE'S QUEEN SONIA, RAURU'S WIFE AND THE FIRST QUEEN OF HYRULE

I love her look and voice

I wonder if she and Rauru are looking for a third I am in love

I cant wait to what kind of fucked up creations the furry porn community makes with the Zonai

Also please someone write a 300k word fanfic about Rauru and Sonia, I will give you my soul

I miss Revali's gale and my armor sets so much

Tulin is adorable

There is so many new enemies and I hate them all

All my weapons are shit because I avoid fighting because I die instantly

BOTW was post apocalyptic, TOTK is during an apocalypse and you can tell

My jaw hurts. Ive played this game for like 9 hours straight now. Havent done anything much other than explore

This feels more old Zelda games than BOTW did, its a mix of them and BOTW

Gloom is scary and I need to make porridge

You can make food that makes you glow

I miss having Majora's mask

Why are Yiga still a thing

Honing in on target arrows are amazing

KANELI IS DEAD BTW and Teba is new chief. I wept

#tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda #spoilers

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archaictunic · 11 months

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i know it'll be hard to go back to botw after totk, after how MUCH BETTER- strictly through gameplay- totk was. but like. i really want to purchase botw eventually, and maybe finally finish it myself. i've seen the ending of the game dozens of times through other means. but idk. there's something about totk and botw that's so... uniquely special to each person who plays.

i've been watching alongside plenty of streamers and youtubers with totk, because honestly, i think that its a great game to be able to "spend time" with someone else during? saker and i parallel play all the time, both laying in bed next to each other having our own unique adventures in hyrule. today he was telling me about a merchant he's met and befriended to the point that merchant will STOP DRIVING HIS CART if saker hops off to go grab something, then resume when he gets back on!! why is that programed into the game!!! i don't even know if i've met that merchant specifically- i mostly see xyle, but saker was talking about eryck !! granted, we may have just been on different parts of the map at the time.

but its still so interesting, how different the experiences with this game can be? i cried about the tears of the dragon questline. i've listened to another streamer cry about it. i've watched so many people geek out about the new mechanics. no two people follow the quests the same. i think that also feeds into why, with link specifically, he's one of the few muses i've ever had where there's been no hint of anxiety towards duplicate muses. another wilds link will not be my wilds link. it's honestly really refreshing. it's been years since i felt so attached to a muse, and even longer since i felt so uniquely about my own that i didn't mind interacting with others. idk. totk and this blog, albeit with my lack of ic due to Life Events, have been so helpful and happy for me.

thanks for sticking around with me / my portrayal thus far everyone ♥ thank you for enjoying my headcanons, my writing, my art, my silly clip of breaking a phantom ganon. just. thank you for letting me have a good time here.

#╰ △ ╮❝ ᴀ sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ sᴏᴜɴᴅ ⋰ 「 ooc . 」 ⋆#i'm feeling weepy and sappy right now apologies

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minijenn · 1 year

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I just beat Tears of the Kingdom

Thoughts under the cut because golly I have soooo many

OK SO THIS HAS IN JUST A WEEK ALONE BECOME NOT ONLY MY NEW FAVORITE ZELDA GAME BUT MY NEW FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME BECAUSE HOLY SHIT ITS INSANE

Ok, enough screaming, time for coherent thoughts. Sort of. First of all, the gameplay. Its SO fun. Honestly all of the arm mechanics are great; I still need to flex my creativity with ultrahand now that I’m done the game but once I do ohohoho it’s aaaaaaall over for you nerds. I used ascend SO much tbh, way more than I probably should have, same with recall. The puzzles are really nicely open ended in a way that allows you to use any of these abilities in whatever way you’d like really to solve them. The world itself is so much more fun to traverse using them and speaking of that world its HUGE. Like I’ve barely even scratched the surface of the Depths and I’m gonna be spending a lot of my post game trying to finally map it all out. I do wish there was a bit more going on in the sky but ah well. Exploring what’s there is still fun. The dungeons are pretty good, not the best the series has ever seen, but a major step up from the divine beasts for sure. Same with the boss fights. Though the final phase of the final boss was such an insane spectale like seriously I’m still struggling to believe something that cool happened in a Zelda game imo

The game performs... mostly well, though I did notice a few framerate dips here and there but I’m rarely one to get too worked up over that sort of thing. The way it takes a world that was familiar in Breath of the Wild and makes it look so fresh and new is outstanding. And the music? Amazing, like seriously this game’s main theme slaps so hard, not to mention the final final boss music? ohohohoho godddddd.

Ganondorf is exactly the despicable piece of shit I was hoping he’d be, the new characters like Rauru and Sonia and Mineru are fantastic editions to the Zelda cast and I can easily see them all becoming fan favorites. Seeing characters like Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon, and Riju have some major time to shine was great, and adventuring through the dungeons with them is a ton of fun! The side adventures/quests are also a lot more involved in this game, NPC interactions in general are just more fleshed out, and there’s just so much to do all across Hyrule, which leaves me with so much more to still get to now that I’m finished with it (still haven’t gotten all the shrines not to mention bubble gems; I’ll be playing this for a good long while even now that I’m done with it)

Then of course there’s the story which had me theorizing and second guessing myself right up to the very end. Like seriously, I yelled and laughed and screamed, and of course sobbed like a BABY over the ending. It took so many turns I wasn’t expecting and I really liked that! If botw already made you care about Zelda, this game took it too a whole new level. The memory cutscenes fucked me up and this game personally victimized my emotions and I’ll never recover but I love it so much for that. I’m already thinking through several fanfic concepts centered around this game even as we speak so yeah, like I said, I’ll never recover.

But anyway, overall, my first experience with ToTK has been an incredible one. It was well worth the wait, even better than I anticipated it would be, and will no doubt go down in history, just as BotW did before it, as one of the greatest games of all time. It certainly is in my book, anyway.

#jen rambles #tears of the kingdom #totk spoilers #ill be reblogging spoilery shit still with the same tags so make sure they're blacklisted #cause i cannot shut up about this fucking game hhhh #severe brainrot

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bonkusdonkus · 1 year

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Zelda has changed, and is going to keep Changing.

You know, with Tears of the Kingdom right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about Zelda and where it’s going.

I loved Breath of the Wild, and I’m like 95% sure I’m going to love TotK too. It looks awesome, and it’s obvious that Nintendo has taken the first game and turned it up to 11.

But, it’s undeniable that Breath of the Wild was a huge step away from the classic Zelda action-adventure formula. And with any big step, it’s inevitable that some people are going to feel left behind.

I hadn’t actually realized how many people there were who didn’t like the changes of BotW until they started speaking up about how they didn’t like the way TotK looked. Breath of the Wild turned the Zleda formula on it’s head, discarding the story-driven linear dungeon exploring adventure, for an open world sandbox.

Personally, I really resonated with the changes, but a lot of people hated it. And seeing TotK apparently doubling down on those changes has really disheartened a lot of folks.

And even if I don’t really agree with them, like... I feel for you guys, I get it. A series you love is changing in a huge way, and there’s no way of knowing if you’ll even like what it becomes by the end of it. Heck, I’m an old school Paper Mario fan, I’ve been there.

And I know there’s gonna be some Asshat who’s like “Oh wHy Don’T YoU jUsT PlAy sOmE OTher ActIoN-AdVeNtuRE AnD StOP WhINinG! UgH, GaMErs ArE So EnTiTlEd!”

Listen. No one makes games like 3D Zelda anymore. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Okami, and that game came out 17 years ago! And even if they did, it wouldn’t be Zelda, not exactly. People love Zelda for all the classic adventures it gave them, the stories and battles they hold close to their hearts. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize those people for being upset that Zelda isn’t going to be like that anymore.

Because let’s be honest with ourselves, BotW changed Zelda forever. Period.

I don’t presume to know where LoZ is going after this, Nintendo is nothing if not unpredictable, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that we’re going to be seeing the influence of the two Switch Zelda titles for a long, long time. As of writing, BotW has sold upwards of 29 MILLION copies, making it the top selling Zelda game of all time by a cool 21 million, more or less. ( Last I checked, number 2 was Twilight Princess, at 8 million.)

Tears isn’t out yet, but I bet it’s gonna sell like hotcakes too.

And on top of all of those numbers, we can’t forget that this is Nintendo we’re talking about. Obsessed with gameplay mechanics and innovation as they are, it’s hard to imagine them trading in this new wide-open sandbox for a more linear adventure now that they’ve figured it out.

Even if Nintendo does address a lot of the big complaints people had about BotW, like the story and the lack of classic dungeons, (which I hope they do, I’d like to see some more work in those areas too,) the runaway success of the game and the near inevitable success of Tears of the Kingdom mean that Nintendo really doesn’t have a reason to go back to the Ocarina of Time style ever again. Maybe I’m wrong, but if I were a betting man, I’d say the Zelda sandbox is here to stay, at least until Nintendo dreams up some wacky new thing to replace it.

So, yeah. On the one hand, I’m very excited for Tears of the Kingdom, and whatever comes after it. It’s a fresh, exciting new direction for the series I love, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us. But on the other hand, I am a little sad for what we’re losing in the process, and for the people who are really hurting for a good old fashioned zelda game.

I can only hope that this divergence in the Zelda series has the same affect it did so many other times when Nintendo left a beloved game or series behind: Inspire other people to go and make their own!

I mentioned Paper Mario earlier. When that series went through a big change, it inspired games like Bug Fable and Born of Bread to step up to the plate and fill in the gap left behind. And it’s not just Paper Mario either! You can see it all over the place now, games inspired by series like Star Fox or F-Zero that have been abandoned by Nintendo! I hope that’s what happens. As much as I love the new style, I think it would be a real shame to see the old way disappear.

#breath of the wild #legend of zelda #nintendo #tears of the kingdom

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mishwanders · 9 months

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I saw talk about the zelda timelines and really wanted to post my theory too!;

Personally I think the zonai first arrived in the hild timeline. Among those first Zonai was the Zonai hero who's quest involved merging all the timelines. Because 2 out of the 3 kingdom were rather unstable the kingdom of hyrule collapsed with the royal line becoming priests worshipping hylia herself.

Time flies by and it's the end of the Zonai Era. This is where totk zelda lands and meets her ancestors who were building a new kingdom and named it after the country they read about in history and story books alike. Sonia and Rauru already have at least one kid here that they left behind to protect the young kingdom against ganondorf.

More time flies and the zonai are fully gone again, but their stories have held on. Though, they were more seen as fairytales in this time. The sheikah were inspired by them though and tried to replicate their mechanics. With the threat of a monster appearing and destroying hyrule they made machines to fight back. With the help of the hero on the tapestry they succeeded!

10 000 years later the events of botw happen and about 10 years after that totk happens (Seeing as Maddison is at most 8 years old).

This makes the most sense to me! I hope you like it too! 😊

Oh now that’s a cool idea for the timeline! I also like the idea of the hero connecting the timelines together once again because of the kingdom mess. To be honest my ideas for it are very fluid and I can never find myself sticking to one theory 😭 I’ve got too many thoughts and hardly any of them stick together, so I just vibe with them regardless lol.

Like sometimes I imagine them after Sky’s era just being villagers who became priests and priestesses for Hylia and then Zonai descended and that’s how they met, but then I have other ideas of like nah they tried to restart the kingdom and then the Zonai descended. Then I’ve also got thoughts about the Zonai being the descendants of those in the Twilight realm and the BOTW/TOTK Sheikah and the power they found coming from them - the banished tribe coming back to Hylia/the threes good graces and what not. But then I also think of “what if the times never merged and this one is just directly following Twilight Princess and OOT considering there’s broken remains of Lon Lon Ranch in BOTW.” If that’s true then WHAT WILL THE OTHERS LOOK LIKE?!

Many thoughts in my head but none fit together well imo.

#mish rambles #I vibe regardless tho #that’s what makes fic writing great #got a lot of things I can pull at and explore lol

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christophoronomicon · 1 year

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So, about Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom…

Wow! Just one day (well, less than a day, 12 hours from when this post will be published in my time zone) before Tears of the Kingdom is released and we can all start roaming Aonuma's "unfamiliar Hyrule". For my last self-made post for a while (yeah, I think this game is going to suck up all my free time for the coming weeks at least!), I thought it'd be fun to put here some of my theories/predictions/wishful thinking about TotK. Nothing major, just some ideas I have about how the game could go.

Once again, everything after the break, I have not seen any leak so everything is based on the officially released materials and my own hyperactive imagination. Still, you've been warned.

So, unlike others my predictions concern mostly how the game is going to start. My main theory is that the start of Tears of the Kingdom is going to mirror that of Breath of the Wild a lot: No cutscene showing the Upheaval happening, not even a recap of the events of BotW (if there is one it though, it'll be using those tapestry-like graphics they used to show the Great Calamity events in BotW). Instead, a bright light in the middle of the screen, and a voice saying "wake up, Link", first sounding like Zelda, then morphing to another voice (maybe Impa's, or Purah's, or some other unknown person?) and Link waking up nearly naked in some unfamiliar environment (not the Shrine of Resurrection, but something similar but Zonai-influenced). His arm will already be that grey encased thing, and he will wonder about it.

The voice will guide him, and he will get some clothes, maybe get a new Sheikah slate, find the Master Sword in very bad shape, make his way out, and discover he's on a floating island. And then things will start to deviate from the BotW formula, as the person who woke him up will reveal themself then.

One thing though: Link will be suffering from memory loss again, although this time only of recent events, not the entirety of what happened in BotW and before that, and the tutorial part of the game will help him jog his memories (which is when we'll get the events of the Upheaval, as flashbacks).

One thing that will become clear very quickly is that there is a time skip between the actual Upheaval and the start of TotK. Not 100 years this time though, only 6 months, 1 year maybe. All that time, Link was basically in a coma, while people scrambled to try and save him. The Malice attack that ate up both the Master Sword and his right arm was actually slowly making its way to the rest of his body and would have eventually killed him, with what was done to his arm being the only way to stop the infection. After that, it simply took that long for his body to recover, and his long time in coma would explain the temporary memory loss and the fact that he'll start the game with low stats again.

The time skip will also explain why things seem to be at a stalemate in Hyrule, and why people have already organised themselves to fight the monsters back. Something is preventing Ganondorf from going full out, while the people had a year to organise themselves to handle the new reality.

Now, this all is more like wishful thinking rather than a theory, really. But I think it would be a rather neat way to start the game, better than a long cutscene that spells everything out.

Another theory of mine is that the Blood Moon cycle is going to make a return in TotK. Its effect, mechanically speaking, is going to be the same as in BotW (reset the setting except for the quest-dependent stuff), but since Zelda is missing she is not the one who is going to speak during the Blood Moon cutscene. Rather, it will be Ganondorf himself, and what we heard in the trailer that featured his voice for the first time is actually what he'll say during each Blood Moon! (and even the actual cutscene will contain some of the stuff we saw in that trailer and the latest one)

Another idea I have is about Zelda's location. Many people seem to think that time travel is involved, and frankly that seems to be the most probable explanation. An alternative I have though, is that she is in the Sacred Realm. Remember, the Sacred Realm takes the shape that its most powerful inhabitants force on it (that's why it took the form of the Dark World in A Link to the Past, due to Ganon's influence). Maybe the Zonai didn't disappear, instead they just relocated to the Sacred Realm, and their presence turned the Sacred Realm into a reflection of Hyrule as it was when the Zonai lived there. Zelda would thus be there as well, and the Tears of the Kingdom, then, may be the keys to open a portal to the Sacred Realm. I know it's unlikely, but in a recent interview someone form Nintendo (was it Aonuma himself? Don't remember) mentioned that the Imprisoning War was important in TotK. The same war that was mentioned all those years ago in A Link to the Past! Hence my opinion that more ideas from ALttP will be brought over to TotK.

Finally, and this one is really more grasping at straws than anything else, but I really hope the Triforce is going to make a comeback in TotK! What if the endgame of both Ganondorf, and whoever the figure is that was speaking to Zelda in the latest trailer, is to get their hands on the Triforce, respectively to become an immortal ruler and to rid the world of Ganondorf's Malice once and for all? The Triforce seems to have been forgotten in the time of BotW (except as a symbol on the royal family's crest), but TotK seems to be digging even deeper in the past than BotW did, so who knows?

So what do you think? The advantage of putting our theories just before a game releases is that we'll know soon enough if they are wrong or right. The drawback... is basically the same 😅. But I don't mind. Those are just thoughts I had, and I can't wait to see what the dev team did instead. So what do you think? Do you think I have any chance of being right?

#zelda #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #loz #loz totk #totk #breath of the wild #loz botw #botw #totk countdown #my predictions

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doubleddenden · 11 months

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I know the comparison is tired, bit after playing ToTK and after experiencing how glitchy and... well let's face it, kinda ugly Scarlet and Violet can be, I really hope I don't hear about the dlc for a while. Like I do want it, but I also don't, you dig?

I have sort of a rant below lol

Totk had six years of development plus 300 something staff members. SV had maybe 2 and a half years and around 180 or so. Game Freak is aiming way too close to the sun on wings made of Elmer's glue and brittle leaves. They need to stop splitting their staff so much between all of these projects (btw reminder that they started working on Project Bloom, another IP due out in 3 years on pokemon's 30th anniversary lol) and up dev time to 5 years minimum for each project.

I'm just saying, the worst glitches in ToTK are usually player triggered and do not end up messing with their game. The worst glitches in SV can corrupt save data with barely a way to fix it. If it only happens to 100 people out of millions world wide, that's still 100 too many.

So what I want is this:

Do not release Teal Mask until a MASSIVE update rolls out to fix things. In theory, November will be a year since release, and maybe then most of the issues will be fixed, but I'm seriously doubting it since we're 6 months out and the slow downs keep happening. Ideally, fix things by November, release Teal Mask- delay Indigo Disk until March or so instead of winter this year, give both plenty of time to bake.

After that?

Just let Pokémon nap for a bit. Seriously. I don't want to hear about a Let's Go Johto at all. I don't want to hear about BW Remakes (least of all from ILCA). I don't wanna hear about gen 10. Not until it's good and God damn ready.

Here's the thing, folks: the gaming industry copies everything from Zelda now. Open world with climbing and gliding ESPECIALLY jumped up since BoTW, and SV is no exception. ToTK added new layers to its world and added physics, engineering- what pokemon really, REALLY needs to take away from Zelda is this: time, focus, and effort to refine a product. ToTK was actually finished a year before release, but Aonuma delayed it and kept playing the game to completion 10 times over so they could polish it to hell and back. That kind of dedication is what I'd kill for in Pokemon game development.

I already hear some of you.

1. They're entirely different games! It's not fair to compare!

It actually is. Here's the thing: both are Nintendo products- yes pokemon isn't quite first party, but you're not seeing it on the ps4, and Nintendo does have partial ownership, so it is a Nintendo product. Both are running on the Switch, so it isn't so much a hardware issue so much that it's Game Freak and the lack of optimization or shooting themselves in the foot with cut corners, less staff, and less dev time. ToTK has WAY MORE going on compared to Pokémon in terms of mechanics, animation, and programming. Pokemon has been recycling and reglossing the same mechanics, models, animations, and gameplay since XY. Yes, there's new textures, there's a few new models, there's some new animations- but the majority is so recycled that you can find items and data in the code that's leftover carry over from bw2 of all things. And yes, ToTK does have an advantage of being built on top of BoTW, but let's be real, there's way more going on by having to program bullet time, fuse an arrow, and then programming the effects of said fused arrow as it attacks a fully autonomous enemy that has its own set of programming to kill you. This, vs updating the same turn based battle Mechanics that is literally pick a move, X Pokémon does animation, damage calculation, enemy randomly selects pre programmed set of moves, animation, damage calculation.

2. But there's 1000 pokemon they have to model now!

Incorrect and you're purposely spouting misinformation by balooning the numbers. They only put in around >500 pokemon at launch, only 400 of which were available until recently when the Home Update finally let us access the others from LA that were in the code. At most there's 230 more coming. While that's still a lot, consider that ToTK has hundreds of models of NPCs, entities, weapons and weapon combos with their own mechanics and interactions, and enemies on the map, each with vastly more complex dynamics, modeling details, animations, etc than your standard pokemon npc that just stands there, or your standard pokemon that just walks around with walking programming from SM's data. I'm not asking for all pokemon back (although I do find it real fucking suspicious that a fucking 3ds can have 800+ pokemon in it, plus megas, plus forms, plus z moves, plus all sorts of other transformations PLUS shinies PLUS more shirts and pants and apparently gf thinks the Switch can't handle it, and said 3ds only really chugged with more than 1 pokemon on the field lol). What I am asking for is that since they themselves have stated that the reason for dex cuts was to improve things, they actually put their multi billionaire money where their mouth is and actually show it.

3. But people freaked out over Home not being available at launch!

As they should be. ILCA develops Home, not GF. They should have had it ready to go day fucking 1, lets be real. Yes its never been day 1 (it was for ORAS but i digress) but there's really no reason for it not to be- and no, they don't care about team metas or whatever because players will get the pokemon they want regardless. If they cared, they'd leave out Landorus and Kyogre.

SV were rushed out the door covered in glue and tape holding it together, but the far simpler side products get to take their sweet time? GF should have waited for ILCA to be done and taken time to polish, or they should have had the home update out the door by February at the latest by working alongside developers to get it working asap.

Even then, that's just Home. Home is not the entire game. Even if fans snarl and foam at the mouth for GF to release an unfinished product, ESPECIALLY if FINANCIAL PARTNERS scream and throw tantrums about wanting their money now; pokemon, Nintendo, and GF need to tell those people to fuck off until it's done and not falling apart.

There's a difference between what's essentially a save editor app and a full functioning game.

4. But the anime! The merch! Everything else! They have to keep schedule! Pokémon isn't just a gaming franchise anymore!

I really, really am tired of this argument and quite frankly I do not give a flying fuck anymore, even if i have made the same argument myself in the past. Pokémon IS a game first and foremost, even if everyone wants you to think otherwise. There is NOTHING without the games, and it's time we give the games the proper respect.

For plushies, merch, trading cards, etc: why don't we try changing how things are marketed?

Game Freak can still develop the games- they take their time doing it this time though. What should change is the order in which the public sees things.

GF basically spear heads the operations of all commercial grade goods because they're the ones that decide regional location basis, and most importantly, design the new Pokémon.

Why do we need the games to come first in that regard?

Here's a consideration: back in the early days of Pokémon, they would tease new Pokémon before the games they originate from ever come out. Ho Oh, Togepi, Donphan, Marill, Snubbull, Elekid, Bellossom, Hoothoot- all teased in the anime and movies before gen 2. Keckleon, Wailmer, Duskull, Wynaut, Blaziken- all before gen 3. Gen 4 was REALLY hype af because we'd get Munchlax super early in the gen 3 anime, Bonsly as playable in XD, Lucario got his own movie- you get the idea.

What if instead of forcing a team that clearly needs more time to not fuck things up to work faster, they just make merch for new Pokémon ahead of time to hype people up?

Imagine if Wooloo was a plushie before gen 8 released. If Corviknight, Centiskorch, Drednaw, Dragapult, and Toxtricity were in the tcg before launch? What if we had Horizons tease Ceruledge, the Paldean starters, and more a whole year before launch? Shit, that's what they're doing for Terapagos right now, and it's working!

Now imagine all of this teasing. You want these guys on a team. You want to see their stats so bad, don't you? Imagine the payoff when you finally get it. That's how it was when I was a kid, believe it or not. Hell, that's how it was when I was 18 and saw Noivern and Mewtwo Y in the BW anime and movie before XY dropped. That's how it was seeing Charizard X in Origins, too.

Instead of relying on the games to lead the way, let the Pokémon designs do it. Let the games be completed and polished in the background while they tease the dex in the gap time. And then they can have more surprises hidden in the game at launch!

Idk, have Liko and Roy catch a gen 10 pokemon and evolve it. Have some movies based off of some gen 10 mythicals or mascot pokemon before gen 10 comes out. Have a couple of new characters drop to Masters with new Pokémon. In a SIDE game like the theoretical Colosseum 3 I keep BEGGING for made by a different company- have a few gen 10 pokemon be teased and have them be able to be rented to battle with, like Bonsly.

All of this edging for a few years- when gen 10 is finally announced, you sit there clutching your ultra cute mon pkushies that you want to befriend. You sit there hyped as fuck clenching your cards and holding your figurine of your cool new bird or dragon mon bro. Fuck it, you got your waifu pillow of your furry bait at the ready. Gen 10 finally is teased, you see your babies and bros in the game for real now- AND NOW THERE'S MORE! And then you finally get the games and you're so fucking hyped to have your new favorite pokemon that you've been teased at for so long. ALL from a game that took its time to release, so you get the added satisfaction of playing a game you can be proud to own.

You get your new Pokémon. TPC gets billions in merch, and then tpc, gf, and Nintendo rake in the billions they're gonna make anyway from the games, and most importantly WE get a game that has had more dev time.

Make sense? There's options that they can and *should* explore rather than whipping the poor hamster to keep running on the broken hamster wheel until one or both break.

"B-but the leaks! But but! I don't want to be spoiled!"

Okay, that's on you. I'm basing this off of how things USED to work and what worked very well in the past. That's on you to avoid all of this.

Besides that, for leaks, I really don't care anymore. SM leaked all the final starter evolutions before Mallow was revealed- its going to happen. We know this. It literally always does via 4chan, Discord, or Twitter. Who even cares anymore? What matters is the finished product! Use it as part of marketing!

Or, all of this to say, there's another way to go about this:

Radio

Silence

TOTK went radio silent for years. Then it just fucking drops trailers months before release. Now look at it! It's selling POKÉMON levels at launch!

Just go silent for a few years on the new gen. Idk, hire other companies to port older games to the Switch. Focus on side games. They would make BILLIONS with a an Explorers remake. With Colosseum and XD remakes. With a Colo 3 that does nothing but make a new game with existing pokemon. A Battle Revolution type game that exclusively uses pokemon in your Home Account. We don't need any of that, but it's perfect keys to dangle in front of your frothing man baby businessmen or poketubers that demand their content to milk.

I just want a game that is COMPLETE AT LAUNCH. I want pokemon to finally make a game every other game in the industry copies. I want Pokémon to finally make a GoTY contender. I'm tired of always playing and saying "oh this is a good start- oh this is kinda bad now BUT THERE'S POTENTIAL-" I want to see them FUCKING NAIL IT for once. I want to see 9 and 10 out of 10s from critics and fans alike.

Pokemon used to be a gaming Titan and now it's a laughing stock. I want to be proud to be a fan again. We all agree there's a TON OF GOOD going on in LA and SV, literally some of the best ideas the entire franchise over- but don't you want a glimpse of the timeline where they took their time? Where they were polished? I know I do. I know we can have it.

And before you say "guh you just outgrew the franchise" kindly stop licking TPC's boots and sweaty ballsacks and listen. Gen 8 sucked until DLC. BDSP sucked, but LA was fun. Even with the flaws SV has, it's still vastly more fun than SwSh and LGPE were. I didn't complete Colosseum or XD until AFTER I beat SwSh. This argument is done- I am a fan and have been for a long time. There's a difference between me wanting a COMPLETE AND POLISHED $60 AAA TITLE AT LAUNCH and some man baby that thinks all of gen 5 sucks because of ice cream pokemon.

This is the last point: pokemon games are going to get more expensive. ToTK gave Nintendo the greenlight to charge $70 for their games now- granted, its one of the few games i have ever played that feels close to that price. They're going to start doing it for everything else soon, and Pokémon is going to be SHOVING for the chance to charge you $70 a game.

Do you want to pay $70 for another Scarlet and Violet? PLUS tax? Plus $35 for dlc? Plus $15 a year for Home? Plus $20 to $30 a year for Nintendo Online?- which will probably become more expensive on the Switch's successor, which IS coming, and Pokémon WILL be on it. Don't forget to add in shipping fees or any other regional expenses- it'll probably be $80 in some countries.

$150 for the full experience. Do you want to drop that on bugs and glitches again? I certainly don't. And Nintendo games do not drop more than a few pennies in price either, especially pokemon games, so that $70 Pokémon game, 10 years from now, will be $68.99. Are you going to drop that hard earned money on another incomplete game?

It is time to start demanding better of the richest franchise in history. No, actually the time was 2018 when LGPE thought they could get away with its awful catching mechanics and its Kanto elitism, and it was definitely 2019 when SwSh dropped its awful story and characters in an awful wild area. Stop ass kissing and defending and DEMAND more.

Start demanding Pokemon: Tears of the Kingdom NOW while things are still in the early stages of development.

#pokemon

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cryspymf · 2 years

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tears of the kingdom aka the heart attack nintendo gave me this morning

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First of all, I’ve yet to speak about Zelda here, it’s a newer interest (aka I got into it in the past two months) that has very quickly become my current hyperfixation. Anytime I get into something new I honestly have this little moment of embarrassment where I feel kinda dumb for having attached myself to a subject so darn quickly ig lol, so i didn’t feel like screaming about it on here. But… I cannot contain how much I want to talk about the one and a half minute clip we got in the Nintendo Direct like only a few hours ago.

My brain functions arguing aside, we have a name, it’s no longer breath of the wild 2 :D I do not like tears of the kingdom. to. be. completely. honest. I don’t know what I was expecting so I can’t really say what I wish the title was instead but idk the title just doesn’t feel right. I bet after a while I’m not gonna care anymore and it’ll just be another title to say when I’m talking about the games. I suppose it fits (it does idk why I'm saying i suppose), Hyrule’s being thrown back into ruin, not exactly a happy kingdom. Plus there’s probably some meaning to it that I’m not quite getting and will have an aha moment for eventually-

As for my expectations, I hope we get a more cohesive storyline. While I enjoy the concept of having a completely open world game and think having a storyline that adjusts to fit your gameplay is fun and interactive, I really think it took away from me enjoying any of the plot that was there. Of course I enjoyed it, but I think it would have been more enjoyable if maybe there was a clear order for the memories and some of the quests you have to do. I’ll say it keeps me from rushing through the game just to get to the end, but I still think it leaves this undesirable want for a better built story. Again I understand why they did it with botw, trying to make a solid open world game where everything is truly up to the player. But I hope nintendo takes a bit of a different turn with totk and tries to sort of merge a slightly more linear storyline with open world stuff. I think I just want cohesive objectives rather than “Here’s the final task and 4 things u can do or not do if u want to make it easier.” Not that I dislike that, in fact I love it and think it was an amazing way to make an immersive game BUT I’m just saying I don’t want the same thing. We got that from botw and it was awesome but now I want a new game. Part of why I say that is just because I don’t want botw and totk to be the same game. Some new mechanics and an altered map will just feel like someone slapped a detailed mod onto the game. I have to remind myself that it’s a direct sequel and many things will and have to be the same ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ELEVATOR! I do not know why this shit got me so excited but I can elevator into the sky and that’s all I want in life. ngl I was too focused on the elevator thing to notice the big ass tornado mf to the left what is that-

Does he not take fall damage on this or is this just nintendo showing the cool new features without wanting him to just ragdoll off- Most likely the latter but you bet your ass as soon as I get this game I will be jumping down to whatever that thing is and seeing if I die or not. It will probably end in death.

Also, if I can’t ride/get on top of giant snowballs and roll down hills on top of them in totk, i might just not buy the game- (hint hint wink wink nintendo r u listening)

May 14th is so far away,,, I had to quit my job a little bit ago because I moved abt 4 hours away and honestly I’ve yet to reapply for anything… totk got me wanting to get a job just so I can pay for it when the time comes- I am truly the ceo of letting games urge me into getting jobs just to pay for them alone…

#cryspyzelda #the legend of zelda #loz #link #zelda #ganondorf #botw #breath of the wild #totk #tears of the kingdom #nintendo #i was literally vibrating as I watched the stream lmao

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