there are things i liked about this game and there are things i didn't like. i want to write a proper review for this game so let’s go.

ART DIRECTION
art direction and character design are great. the sprites are really charming, environments look good, and it controls really smoothly. i loved flying over the world map with the airship (whispered chrono trigger!! to myself when i unlocked that)

speaking of sprites, the portraits not having different expressions to fit with whatever the characters are saying is just a minor gripe, but i don't feel as though it took me out of the immersion that much. overall art-wise i think it does really well.


COMBAT
the fucking overdrive bar. i know that there are people who like it but i hated this thing LOL it felt so limiting. i don't feel like it added any strategy to the combat at all. thankfully you can make it wider in the difficulty options though.

combat wise... i did go into a majority of the encounters with the same strategy (crit buff + attack buff + defense debuff + go crazy). i liked that it was so fast-paced but combat was not a fave if i'm honest. balance was also an issue. i don't know if i'm just bad at games or whatever but normal enemies felt WAY harder than they should've been. i ended up turning enemy stats to low so i could beat the game quicker but then every battle turned into a cakewalk... in my opinion the normal difficulty should've been between the game's low+normal settings. i am glad the difficulty settings exist though (also might be worth mentioning that i’m not the type of person who likes to optimize equipment).

i know a lot of people liked the levelling system but going into menus to learn new skills got reaaally tedious after a while. crystals were also annoying and probably the worst mechanic in the game but thankfully you can just ignore them. unfortunately you can't ignore the amount of mech battles you're forced to do in the later half of the game. i really did not like those mech battles LOL they felt like scripted fights. let me use the characters i've been investing in!!! big numbers is fun and all but most of the mech battles just felt like a slog.


WRITING
now. the writing. i won't lie my biggest gripe with this game is the writing. firstly, i know the developer/writer is german and that english isn't his first language. but i really do think a couple more drafts + an editor would've done wonders. a lot of emotional scenes lack punch because of the stilted way characters speak (the beginning especially... 0 contractions). swear words are thrown in haphazardly and feel more "12year old who just learned about swear words" than "mature story with dark undertones." dialogue is very on the nose and lacks subtlety most of the time too. characters just say what they think. the worst one for me was (act3 spoiler) when frederik dies and lenne just says "he wants me to forgive him but he's done too many bad things so i can't, even though he's my brother." like at this point you need to have some faith in the audience's ability to parse the significance of events/character relationships (though with the state of so many people's media literacy/comprehension i guess i do get it lmfao).
i don't HATE the writing though. i think the main plot is interesting and is paced well throughout. i do think an addition of a journal that covers the events would be helpful though - the game just throws you right in and lobs a bunch of names/factions/important npcs at you without giving you a ton of time to grasp it all. by the end of the game i was still confused about a bunch of the countries lol but maybe that's on me.

wait ONE MORE THING. why did we never even get to fight the megaloworm thing?! all that buildup and for what?!?


CHARACTERS
this is getting kind of long oops. i do want to talk about characters though.
kylian first because he really reminded me of delita from final fantasy tactics (wotl). is he as compelling as delita? no... but i think he's still an interesting character. i think he would've benefitted from some more screen time after he leaves the group so we could've seen more of his motivations and ambitions. the ending... i will get to it.

gwayn (and june) were my favs so not much to say about them other than that but i really enjoyed gwayn as a character. i like the morally grey chessmaster types i guess. i think he was utilised well and his endgame reveal was VERY GOOD. loved that.

sienna is a lot of people's favs for good reason. i think she's written decently well and it helps that she's so good in combat too. i liked the reveal of her backstory and her growing attachment to the party. i'm a sucker for the "guy who joins for convenience accidentally gets attached" trope i guess. her design is great too (loved the gag where the soldiers remember nobody except her down to the smallest detail). divorced failwomen W

honourable mentions: ba'thraz and amalia. i hope they find a way to break amalia's pact :( robb's growth was nice to see but i feel like it maybe had some pacing issues. oh also i enjoyed victor as a character. shishishi

lenne and glenn (lol) were the most uninteresting to me i won't lie. some more attention given to the way lenne speaks would've been good for her character considering her background... the game wants us to think that she's working hard to fit in with the common people but she already talks like everyone else off the bat. her character arc was pretty decent though.

glenn... i liked him in the beginning but that slipped into indifference towards the end. i will say that the plot twist regarding his identity was good and foreshadowed well though. other than that... i have nothing against protags who are unsure and don't know what they're doing, but for some reason glenn just didn't click with me. i can't really put my finger on why.


ENDING
before i talk about the ending i will say that i LOVED the worldbuilding in this game. i loved the lore about the true kings (sequel bait?) and the vaen. i thought that was really well done. sidequests were pretty good too, especially the jan & marsia one. that one tugged at my heartstrings... poor jan. i was worried marsia would be stuck like that but luckily you get one last sidequest to fix everything up.

okay. now the ending. i can definitely see why it's controversial after experiencing it for myself. i might be in the minority here but i thought it was an ending that fit well within the themes and context of the overall story. could it have been executed better? yeah. in my opinion the ending mostly suffers from everything being jammed into a short period of time which leads to it feeling kind of rushed. this is why i think the story should've gone through a couple more drafts! but overall i didn’t hate the ending.


tldr: solid 3/5 game for me. in some areas it does what it needs to do well enough, in other areas it falls flat. incredible accomplishment from a (mostly) solo dev though. gwayn you will always be famous.

i love this game. incredible continuation of the open world zelda format, although i hesitate to call it a good sequel to botw.
it's a little baffling that there's almost zero mention of the events and characters from botw. the absence of sheikah tech is never explained (and barely even implied) and the beloved champions are mentioned maybe once or twice in journal entries. and beedle and hestu don't even remember link! What!!!!!

zelda's role in the story is also disappointing. i know it was wishful thinking to hope for a playable zelda but i was hoping she would at least be present this time. (SPOILERS) i do like her sacrificing everything to become a dragon so she can return the sword to link, but it shouldn't have all become undone so quickly at the end. same with link's arm... a mechanical sheikah arm would've been cool. i'm a "zelda should've retained some draconic traits" truther.
and one more thing... the sage cutscenes were lame. Demon king? Secret stone? So that was the imprisoning war... Like enough already i've seen this 3 times.

zelda games (majora's mask aside) have always been gameplay over story though, and the gameplay/exploration does NOT disappoint. zonai devices add so much to exploration & the sky and depths are a huge addition to botw's hyrule. they do get super repetitive after a while though... i wish there was a depths civilisation & a skyloft-esque sky civilisation. i think i would've preferred if all the zonai weren't mysteriously extinct and we could find one of their towns up in the sky. it would have helped it feel less empty.
the armour upgrading grind is also insane. i don't see using item duplication glitches as cheating at all because all it does is make playing the game less tedious.

i loved the dungeons (not the fire temple) and all the temple bosses were fantastic. colgera made me tear up. i hope in future open-world zelda installments we get bigger, classic-style dungeons though... like i'm talking small keys, big keys, minibosses, etc. but these dungeons are such a massive improvement over botw that i think we can be excited for future dungeons. hopefully they don't stick to the unlock X number of things to unlock the boss door format.

speaking of dungeons, i think this game would have benefitted from SOME linearity. being able to get the dragon's tears in any order doesn't work as well as being able to get the botw memories in any order — there's an actual story that you're uncovering this time, and the emotional crux of it can be completely spoiled if you get to it too early. i had to look up the order of the geoglyphs so i could experience it properly, but i know there's a lot of people who ended up getting some of the later 'memories' super early. i can't help but feel as though those should've been locked out until you've progressed to a certain point.
the english voice direction is also... Hmm. zelda still sounds like she's on the verge of tears every time she speaks. riju's accent is all over the place. honestly, the way dialogue is written in some of the cutscenes also feels kind of stilted at times, so i don't entirely blame the awkward voice acting. secret stones is a dumb as fuck name though.

i sound a little critical of this game and no i don't think it's perfect, but i've put over 150+ hours into it since it came out and it is definitely a favourite. i have a lot of fun just running around and exploring and i really do love this game a lot despite the issues i have with it. also, the final boss was AMAZING. so so much better than calamity ganon. i got smacked a bunch cause i was trying to take pictures of him while he was swinging at me.

i kind of wonder if there's going to be a third installment in this series? if they do one (it'll be red for sure) i hope it's not this hyrule. maybe a new link, a new zelda, a future or past hyrule that's completely different. or maybe we'll finally get to see what's beyond hyrule... i'm excited for the future of zelda though. i hope we get more ganondorf. i love my wife.

Last thing... i'm so so happy we got ganondorf in this game but i can't help but be a little disappointed at how shallow his character is. ever since wind waker we've never really gotten a ganondorf with the same nuance and depth... totk ganondorf just ends up being evil for the sake of being evil again. but at least he's hot </3

okay i'm done. love this game. love zelda.