Great game. I think fuse, ultrahand, rewind, and ascend are all very interesting powers and much better than the abilities from the first game.
Sky islands were a very cool idea. I just wish there were more of them, and that there was more going on in each one. Having 2-3 islands the size of great sky island would have been great.
I still don't love shrines, but the ones in TOTK are a massive step up in quality from BOTW.
I wish the core combat was made more complex. Despite having many interesting abilities, I still find myself resorting to the same basic tactics (attack until enemy strikes then shield, or jump off a ledge and use slow motion arrows). As the game progresses, having weapons with really high stats is much more efficient than interacting with the environment in most cases, even though it's less interesting. Making vehicles or weapons with zonai devices was very fun though (most of the time). I wish there were better opportunities to fuse materials to weapons because of their interesting properties, e.g. mushrooms for their springiness. But monster parts with high fuse attack power are much more effective in combat. One solution might be to give each weapon two fuse slots: one that solely increases attack power and one that determines the properties of the weapon.
I like the increased enemy variety over BOTW. All the new bosses are great.
There are some good UX improvements, like being able to drop weapons from your inventory after opening a chest while your inventory is full. But overall a lot of the UX is annoying once you have put a substantial amount of time into the game. There is too much dialogue attached to actions that I performed frequently, like upgrading armor or taking out a horse from the stable, that make a lot tasks frustrating over time.
Faster loading times would have been a massive improvement. Not sure if this would be feasible with a moderate amount of work or if the game is well optimized, but I suspect it should be possible to keep the shrine assets loaded at all times so the player can enter and exit shrines with minimal loading times.
I also wish sage powers were a little easier to use. Having their abilities available on a wheel would have been great. I also wish the sage upgrades actually upgraded their abilities (reduced cooldown, more distance for wind gust, etc) instead of just the sage attack power.
Thematically, I like how the NPCs in this game are all working to rebuild Hyrule. There are construction workers, survey teams, mob patrols. It makes the world feel very alive and determined.
Plot-wise, I like the mystery and time-travel aspects of the game. I don't like that this game seems to ignore the Shiekah's presence from BOTW.
Final boss fight was awesome.
Sky islands were a very cool idea. I just wish there were more of them, and that there was more going on in each one. Having 2-3 islands the size of great sky island would have been great.
I still don't love shrines, but the ones in TOTK are a massive step up in quality from BOTW.
I wish the core combat was made more complex. Despite having many interesting abilities, I still find myself resorting to the same basic tactics (attack until enemy strikes then shield, or jump off a ledge and use slow motion arrows). As the game progresses, having weapons with really high stats is much more efficient than interacting with the environment in most cases, even though it's less interesting. Making vehicles or weapons with zonai devices was very fun though (most of the time). I wish there were better opportunities to fuse materials to weapons because of their interesting properties, e.g. mushrooms for their springiness. But monster parts with high fuse attack power are much more effective in combat. One solution might be to give each weapon two fuse slots: one that solely increases attack power and one that determines the properties of the weapon.
I like the increased enemy variety over BOTW. All the new bosses are great.
There are some good UX improvements, like being able to drop weapons from your inventory after opening a chest while your inventory is full. But overall a lot of the UX is annoying once you have put a substantial amount of time into the game. There is too much dialogue attached to actions that I performed frequently, like upgrading armor or taking out a horse from the stable, that make a lot tasks frustrating over time.
Faster loading times would have been a massive improvement. Not sure if this would be feasible with a moderate amount of work or if the game is well optimized, but I suspect it should be possible to keep the shrine assets loaded at all times so the player can enter and exit shrines with minimal loading times.
I also wish sage powers were a little easier to use. Having their abilities available on a wheel would have been great. I also wish the sage upgrades actually upgraded their abilities (reduced cooldown, more distance for wind gust, etc) instead of just the sage attack power.
Thematically, I like how the NPCs in this game are all working to rebuild Hyrule. There are construction workers, survey teams, mob patrols. It makes the world feel very alive and determined.
Plot-wise, I like the mystery and time-travel aspects of the game. I don't like that this game seems to ignore the Shiekah's presence from BOTW.
Final boss fight was awesome.