My (18F) SO (47M) won't stop shouting BRAVO NINTENDO every time he is able to climb something, AITA for accidentally calling his videogame "Tears of the Child"?

I feel like I'm going insane seeing people everywhere go "WOW ITS ACTUALLY SO GOOD ITS ACTUALLY BETTER" while never pointing out why, as if you're just supposed to accept that "you can do many things = good videogame"

This was never gonna hit very hard for me unless they changed the format from BotW significantly, and lord knows they didn't have the balls to nudge even a single system from that game. For the record I don't have even a single problem with the bricklayers, the carpenters or the painters of this house, I'd just like a word with the architect. What has been crafted within the format and beyond the systems is pretty nuts - plenty of great quests and open world storytelling, great environmental puzzles (outside of shrines - which are a mixed bag), and a much better presentation than before.

There's still very little point in interacting with much of the world, combat - being mostly centered on physics cheese - still feels like a round of TABS, Link still has to run around grinding for food like he's in an early access survival sim, clothes and temperature are still non-systems that basically just make you menu a whole lot more and your path still consists of 80% completely forgettable, mind numbing gliding/climbing from point A to point B.

This time however, you're much less interrupted by discovery and exploration, as you already know what's beyond the horizon, seeing as a large majority of the game takes places on more or less the same map. This was a dumb decision taken by an idiot. There are very little soyface moments to be had if you already played the previous game, and you're also supposed to believe that the new stuff they did add (both world and story) was just uh.. it was just hiding last time okay!! Stop thinking about it!!!

I actually really like the final act or so of the story, at least presentation wise, but the substance of the whole thing is extremely lacking and you can pretty much figure out the entire plot in broad strokes from seeing maybe 10% of it.

Temples are much better looking now and a little bit better gameplay wise - but shrines? Flip a coin man. Sometimes they're way better than anything in BotW and sometimes it's like "hurr duur here is a big stick and a lever with no big stick on it, wonder what to do man haha". Thanks Dora, I'll bring out the notebook see if we can't crack this conumdrum. A lot of the shrine puzzles are solved upon a single glance and then take significant time and fiddling to actually execute, which just feels like you're jerking off with the HL2 gravity gun for several minutes trying to make a plate balance on a stick, and fast solve + long execute = YAWN. In BotW some shrines had "alternative" solutions where you could solve the shrine in other ways than intended - I thought this was neat. In TotK, most shrines can be skipped entirely if you strap a single rocket to any of your backup shields. For a while I tested the limits of this by simply strapping every rocket I found to a shield and skipping around 4-6 shrines in a row by simply flying over the content after doing the solve in my head in 5 seconds and not wanting to bother with the execute. I don't think this is neat.

The Ascend ability in particular legitimately has like one puzzle you can make with it - you go up through roof. Is there a roof? If yes, use ability menu. It sometimes feels like it was made entirely so designers could spend less time making sure every cave had an exit. Rewind is not much better - it's impressive technologically but as an actual level design tool it's insanely one dimensional and when they try to make it not one dimensional by making shit that flips and turns so you can't "just" rewind it in the same angle, it becomes extremely finicky and feels like physics cheese again.

Closing rant:
Little Big Planet cars have zero place in Zelda and I'll never be convinced otherwise. I have been completely unimmersed since the second I saw rockets lying around for no reason. Oh and while I'm at it fuck your Purah pad bullshit ass in-universe Switch too. It's not cute Nintendo!!! It just looks fucking weird!!! No one else has one! Those fantasy creatures would freak the fuck out if they saw a handheld tablet!!! Fuck you!!!!!

Final score: Why is it so empty in the basement