i hate discussing this game with fans because they always move the goal posts. no, this isn't the first time i've played an older 3d game, and no, i don't dislike this game because i can't appreciate them. i greatly enjoy and love games like resident evil, tomb raider, crash bandicoot, and sonic adventure; those were all early 3D offerings that were rough around the edges. they had very thought-out mechanics with intentionality behind their level design and were consistently engaging to play. i cannot say the same about this game. super mario 64 is not fun for me play because i do not find the mechanics or level design engaging. additionally, the camera is atrocious and has aged poorly. there's also this weird pseudo-tank controls aspect that changes how mario moves without warning and killed me several times in the later levels like TTC and RR. movement is actively one of the worst parts of this game, which is the kiss of death for a platformer. i don't dislike this game for being old, i dislike this game for being bad.

i respect what it tries to do, and i think there is some level of admiration game devs of the time express for it that i understand. i get why this was such a groundbreaking game in some ways. but, i grew up in this era, and even as a kid, this game didn't connect with me. finally sitting down and playing it as a fully grown adult, i can understand and verbalize what it is that fucks me off from this. am i impressed with the attempt to focus so much on momentum as a platforming principle? yes. do i think this game hits the mark with that lofty goal? absolutely not. again, it's not that this game is old; i had this same exact feeling when it was still a new game. i do not enjoy super mario 64 not because it is dated, because dated things can still be enjoyed. i do not enjoy super mario 64 because i do not enjoy super mario 64.

1.5/5.0 feels harsh, but it's a combination of not enjoying my time with this game as well as resenting this game's legacy. i don't understand how this is still regularly discussed in contention for greatest game of all time. i hate how it's still seen as hipster and contrarian to say this game isn't the second coming of christ. and, most importantly, i am very tired of this idea that the games that we love cannot have flaws and cannot be criticized.

Tears of the Kingdom improved on nearly all of Breath of the Wild's positive qualities, but completely failed to address its negative qualities - in some ways regressing in certain aspects.

The strongest conflict the player is faced with regarding this game's design is the contradiction between nonlinearity and structured progression. This affects the gameplay but also tends to bleed into the mishandling of the story and the design of the world itself.

Link's abilities and the world design have so many mechanical improvements to the point where TOTK actually feels sort of like the sandbox BOTW tried to be. Ultrahand is the star of the show, with recall and ascend being additional conveniences. Fuse is a gimmick that ultimately adds needless micromanagement in my opinion. Nintendo, amidst the criticisms of poor weapon durability, instead decided to double down on their decision and make material fusion a core mechanic. It was marketed in a way where you're like "wow, look at all of these possibilities!" but I found myself just fusing my highest damage materials to my weapons every time. The lack of accessibility and convenience built into the UI really makes experimentation feel like a chore. Particle effects in many places (the worst example being in fiery areas of the depths) were so overwhelming and they literally blinded you. Camera speed when using ultrahand grinds to a halt. Fusing items to weapons and shields requires the player to scavenge their inventory, drop the items on the ground, equip the items you want to be fused, and only then can you fuse them. There is no option to do this in menus. Fusing items to arrows is a one-time instance - you can't toggle items on or off. If you want to use (or throw) bomb flowers, get ready to use the scroll menu for every single shot. Autobuild charged the player zoanite to build things, and never asks the player if they can use zonai item capsules instead, forcing the player to once again go into the menu and place each part on the ground if they want to use them. The other huge fumble was the implementation of sage powers. They feel downright awful to use, requiring the player to run and talk with them to activate the power. I have no idea why Riju's power couldn't display a button prompt when the player draws their bow nor do I know why they decided to make her effective radius a tiny circle that expands so slowly. Sidon's power should have been able to be activated when the user has their shield up. Again, Nintendo refuses to improve accessibility or convenience - a problem also present in games like Animal Crossing (remember when players begged for years for bulk crafting and more durable tools?) and Splatoon (inadequate colorblind support, lack of/inaccurate reticles, etc) with no solutions in sight.

Combat is the sore thumb that the community hasn't shied away from pointing out. Not only are there less swordplay options compared to Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, but the optimal strategy of flurry rushing and headshotting gets incredibly monotonous quickly, and isn't helped by the still-poor enemy variety (another complaint Nintendo doubled down on). Weird strategies of using complicated zonai devices can be funny in short clips on YouTube, but are way less convenient or sustainable than simply swinging a high-powered weapon over and over. I hate how your weapon combo knocks over bokoblins/lizalfos/horriblins and they just go flying back, so you have to run towards where they flung, and do the same thing while their incredibly bloated HP bars dwindle down. Bosses can sometimes be interesting, but other times stink. Frox are okay, but get old quick because they're the only unique boss in the depths. Colgera was literally just target practice, Queen Gibdo was cool but unfortunately made worse by the poor implementation of Riju's power and fuse, Mucktorok was so easy but it had so much HP and kept running away, and Marbled Gohma was good except for the fact that Yunobo is annoying to access and takes a while to recharge (and he's annoying as fuck). Flux constructs are cool for the first few fights but then you have to fight them 100 more times. Gleeoks are actually really fun, and I enjoy their multiple phases and elements. At this point, combat is the first thing that needs a direct overhaul in the next Zelda game.

I was pretty harsh on BOTW's minimalist style soundtrack, as it felt like a step down considering the series' deep history with music. I think TOTK's soundtrack is fuller in some areas, but I do actually miss other musical aspects of BOTW. The shrine theme from BOTW was beautiful and iconic with its bagpipes, strings, and synths, and I find it much superior to the current shrine theme, which I can barely even hear. I also think the lack of any Kass equivalent is a big blow to the game's musical identity. Otherwise, TOTK's soundtrack was very nice. The dungeon and boss themes were pretty, and I absolutely adore the music on the sky islands and especially the Thunderhead islands. I will say, however, that I audibly groaned when I got to the cold area of the great sky island and heard those same stupid ambient cold sound effects. I still think it wouldn't hurt to give each province their own subtle musical motif - it would add a lot to the exploration and regional identity of the world.

World design was a net upgrade over BOTW, as the caves, chasms, pirate ships, and expanded towns all contribute to the world's fullness. It's less of a quiet game, and you can argue it doesn't hold a candle to BOTW's atmosphere, but I think it works well enough as a sandbox. I do think TOTK's overworld does a good job at addressing the complaints of a barren overworld in BOTW. Unfortunately, those complaints are just as valid when looking at the depths. There's a complete lack of diversity in biomes, all enemies are recycled except for Frox, and the scarce points of interest like the mines and coliseums are reminiscent of Wind Waker's eye reefs - incredibly repetitive. The depths were a slog and I only felt compelled to activate all the lightroots for imaginary completionist peace of mind. Sky islands were pretty underwhelming, all things considered. I enjoyed the occasional individual zonai mechanical puzzle, but other islands copy pasted the same launch platforms, spinny islands, crystal puzzles, and boss islands. Again, my only desire to visit them was not out of curiosity but out of completionist's desire.

This is minor, but I vastly prefer the visual aesthetics of the sheikah over the zonai. Shrine music, coloration, and enemy design all felt more thoughtful. Guardians were scary but pretty, and their presence was a neat way to direct players in certain path choices.

Zelda stories save certain parts of Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask have never impressed me. There's only so much you can do with a continuous prophecy of good and evil and a silent protagonist. Breath of the Wild's main narrative conflict, the "Calamity", was a bore. What was interesting was how the various missteps of the kingdom 100 years prior shaped the development of the tragedy. Center to this story was the growth of Zelda's character displayed through assorted memories scattered across Hyrule. This system was terrible for multiple reasons, the most egregious being the ability for the player to view them out of order, making the events appear as character regression. The most optimal way to view these cutscenes are through a YouTube compilation, and that's pretty shameful. TOTK's only improvement to this system is the geoglyphs, giving the player a much easier opportunity to access the memories. Other than that, they're worse. A temple does give you the order in which to find the memories but that design is so counterintuitive to the "go anywhere, do anything" world the devs have created. If I see a point of interest, I'm going to go there. Who in their right mind would zigzag all across the map just to watch the memories in order? The memories themselves displayed less characterization and more info dumping the random lore. I find a lot of the dialogue and story content to be incredibly corny, "secret stones", ganondorf's cliche ass monologue and all. The twist with the light dragon was kinda cool but I still prefer learning about Zelda's actual character development, and of course I would prefer an actual linear story over either option.

Dungeons were just as bad as BOTW, with some minor mixups and extra visual flair. The terminal-based systems were lazy enough in BOTW but the linearity of the dungeon design in TOTK is somehow even more egregious. The water temple was jaw-droppingly pathetic, with a gimmicky water bubble mechanic only present here, and four individual paths to each terminal with no semblance of nonlinearity or environmental puzzles. The wind temple was nearly just as bad, having a fleeting sky boat mechanic and a similarly simple design. I sorta saw the vision with the fire temple but the minecarts could be avoided for more easy and convenient (but also more boring) cheesy solutions. Also, building a super long platform to ring the gong with no floor was a horrible experience and it felt so terrible to know the solution the whole time but be let down by finicky mechanics. The lightning temple by far showed the most promise. The starting section was generally linear but had some branching options and encouraged exploration. Once you got to the main room, there was immense verticality, adding complexity. Previously, I was never a fan of verticality in Zelda dungeons. Namely, the Snowhead Temple in Majora's Mask felt bogged down by the unintuitive map and it was overall annoying if you accidentally fell down a floor. Here, it's much more manageble and one of the few times I enjoyed having waypoints in dungeons. The lightning temple actually makes use of ascend in clever ways, and the light puzzles do get progressively harder. I still don't think it's nearly on the same level as most traditional dungeons but it has some good qualities that I won't overlook. The fact that there were yet again only four dungeons was an immense disappointment, and it's even more disappointing because I found the spirit temple early on and didn't know it was a pseudo-dungeon until much later. I was so pumped when I stumbled upon it for the first time but my hopes were crushed lmao.

The push and pull of nonlinear solution finding and structured progression is at its worst when it comes to puzzles and shrines. TOTK has more shrines than BOTW, but the higher quantity is not put to good use. There are WAY too many crystal shrine quests, and overall the quality of overworld shrine quests absolutely plummeted. Without Kass, the amount of environmental puzzle solving is highly decreased, and many out-of-the-way shrines simply hide in caves with hard to spot entrances. It felt as though a majority of shrines were just Rauru's Blessing. So many of the shrines that do have puzzles are entirely too short, introducing one cool idea but never expanding on it for more complex puzzles. For example, the shrine "Alignment" has the player using recall to align three spinning pillars in order to ascend through all three of them. When you get to the top, it's just over. No expansion on those ideas, no added complexity, and most importantly, no application of this puzzle exists anywhere else in the game. There are so many other shrines that are just as brief and unapplicable to the overworld as this one, to the point where it would be futile to name them all. I've already seen complaints from others about that one shrine that requires the player to get caught in a laser trap when the rest of the entire game incentivizes you to avoid lasers. I won't say all shrines are bad. The Proving Grounds are reminiscent of the Eventide Island challenge of BOTW and are a much more diverse and engaging set of combat challenges than the tests of strength. There are also some shrines that act as a single puzzle but their scope justifies that. One shrine in particular that I loved, "A Prone Pathway", requires the player to navigate a spinning cage, making use of height differences in platforms and ascension to make their way to the top. It's a simple assessment of the environment that isn't dependent on linear mastery of learned mechanics, nor is it so fucking braindead that you can just cheese it with a zonai device or fused item. Which brings me to another point: the application of ultrahand and zonai devices on puzzle solving. I've heard so much praise on TOTK's open ended puzzle solving mechanics but it can't be understated how much this dumbs down level of puzzles available ingame. It's hard to reconcile these elements of progression and creativity, because everybody wants something different. It doesn't help that veterans of Breath of the Wild had no issue with certain basic environmental puzzles. Remember the BOTW shrine surrounded by thorns? Accessing it was part of the challenge, and while simple, it had a single clear solution: gliding from a higher distance. Not only do veterans not get to experience that "aha" because it's just second nature, but zonai devices trivialize any puzzles based on vertical or horizontal world exploration. The paraglider could have been used as a unique progression tool, as it changes the way you can interact with the world after obtaining it (deku leaf in WW had a couple puzzles that made great use of this). In a baffling decision, you're actually able to miss out on the paraglider by exploring other places before going to lookout landing. At first, when I dropped from the sky without a glider, I was excited that the glider was going to be used as a progression tool like that. But no, it's just able to be missed out on to absolute disadvantage of the player.

Just like BOTW, the genius design of the starting area does not properly translate to the scope of the entire world. Right off the bat, the great sky island shows you a korok that needs to reach his friend; there's a metal pipe that reaches from your island to the other korok's island. In this situation, you're able to:
- build a lift using the conveniently placed hook and platform that can carry both you and the korok
- ignore the korok and discover the application of shield surfing, transporting you across faster than any other mode of transportation thus far in the game
- spend an hour making a really long bridge or rigging some stupid intricate zonai device that is technically "creative" but is inefficient, unsustainable, and obviously not ideal

upon reaching this island, there are more activities for you to do in the immediate vicinity.

^This type of problem solving is straight up absent from most of the actual overworld and all of the depths. The third option is always available as a crutch and ends up souring the puzzle solving experience. Zonai devices quickly trivialize the speed and quality of navigation, and there is usually never more than one objective nearby at a time. It's why the Great Plateau and Great Sky Island are just so much more engaging than the rest of the game. Fun fact, I actually accidentally skipped through the entire thunderhead isles using the hover bike. I didn't know it was a linear set of puzzle islands, and I just obliviously made my way to the top without knowing what was below.

I know I talked a lot of shit, but I'm actually mostly happy with TOTK's open overworld and sandbox mechanics. The physics engine is so promising and provided a excellent 40 hours full of childlike wonder, discovery, and exploration. But the following 80 hours were pure monotony. I'm so sick of the open world wave dominating gaming right now. If you had to make me choose between being able to waste an hour and a ton of resources building a stupid custom tank, or playing through a fully linear game with dungeons like the Sandship, I'm taking the fucking Sandship. To hell with "make your own solution", I want to solve real puzzles.