Tears of the Kingdom is an exercise in how much a game developer can get away with in recycling content. Potentially one of the most uninspired Zeldas ever made, TotK retreads everything Breath of the Wild did but worse in almost every way--save for the weapon fusion which is brilliant and I will miss in other titles. From the beginning, TotK kicks you off in a worse version of BotW's tutorial, but longer and less focused. Then it drops you in to the exact same map as the previous game with the only changes being sprinkles of copy-and-pasted content to keep you entertained. Unfortunately, several highlights from the previous game have been completely removed (such as the Guardians) to be replaced with... nothing. TotK as a game seems determined to pretend that it's a vastly more substantive experience than BotW, but fumbles the ball, especially in regards to the new ares: The Sky and The Depths.
The Sky and The Depths are emblematic of everything I dislike about this game (note that I still liked it, I'm just disappointed). The Sky, outside of the tutorial, is barely anything to write home about. A few scattered islands copied across the entire upper level of the map, so sparse as to make one think The Sky exists solely as marketing filler. And The Depths, a whole map the size of Hyrule but covered in absolutely nothing. The Depths, while very cool and frightening when you first discover them, are immediately undercut by how little there is to actually do there. And while TotK benefits from a better sidequest system than its predecessor, it completely fails on making exploration more interesting--or at all interesting.
And outside of the painfully mediocre and repetitive dungeons--all of which feature the exact same "open four locks and fight a boss" structure, lacking personality or any actual difficulty, become the most droll and dull parts of a game that cannot allow itself moderation. TotK is a good game, but not a great one; hampered by a need to reuse its ideas as much as possible, without introducing anything new or interesting, it becomes one of the most lackluster Zelda games I have ever played. I had a solid time, but I wish I had a great time instead.
The Sky and The Depths are emblematic of everything I dislike about this game (note that I still liked it, I'm just disappointed). The Sky, outside of the tutorial, is barely anything to write home about. A few scattered islands copied across the entire upper level of the map, so sparse as to make one think The Sky exists solely as marketing filler. And The Depths, a whole map the size of Hyrule but covered in absolutely nothing. The Depths, while very cool and frightening when you first discover them, are immediately undercut by how little there is to actually do there. And while TotK benefits from a better sidequest system than its predecessor, it completely fails on making exploration more interesting--or at all interesting.
And outside of the painfully mediocre and repetitive dungeons--all of which feature the exact same "open four locks and fight a boss" structure, lacking personality or any actual difficulty, become the most droll and dull parts of a game that cannot allow itself moderation. TotK is a good game, but not a great one; hampered by a need to reuse its ideas as much as possible, without introducing anything new or interesting, it becomes one of the most lackluster Zelda games I have ever played. I had a solid time, but I wish I had a great time instead.
NOWITSREYNTIME17
3 days ago