after replaying this i definitely get why its beloved status is contested among some, it's probably the easiest of the mega drive games to actually finish but it's designed in a way that encourages mastery a lot more - ultimately a very good thing but after sonic 2 it can feel a little slow if you aren't familiar with these levels! that flow state is much harder to achieve here, but it's by far the most rewarding and tightly paced of these games. so massively impressive and detailed for its era, 90s sega were insane

wonderful little compelling mood piece & learning experience of a game <3 so addictive to slowly explore this world and use your own wits (HINT HINT PIKMIN 2!!!) to master your own arsenal. just enough stress to make things exciting and tense - i need to go back and do a full 30 part run because i just missed it by a day or two and i don't want to make myself suffer through the full final level & boss on day 30 lol. glad you can get the standard ending and give yourself a little wiggle room but i'm looking forward to getting the real one

so incredibly imperfect! really unique and shockingly polished for what it is, but totk really vindicates my opinion that botw's meditative slant on the open world template was what made it work. still ultimately a cool thing that i'm glad exists though, i just wouldn't want another of this game any time soon. in a similar fashion to elden ring's heavy asset reuse, it's a testament to the wild shit that's possible when studios opt to heavily build on their prior work. there's no way it would be possible to make a game like this without an existing game world and mechanical framework to utilise, and that allows for some insane mechanical experimentation - if botw was a detailed and polished but ultimately fairly restrained immersive sim -like then totk is the "fuck it, we can make this work" version of that. link warp through every ceiling in the game who gives a shit anymore

have found myself with a very 'flirting vs harassment' relationship w this compared to nocturne. love the music here, love the atmosphere, dislike almost every change they made to these systems. it's easy to find smirk hate online but what the hell did they do to fusion? having a look at some online resources seems to point towards nocturne being an outlier among these games for giving each demon 5/6+ potential skills of their own but... that is SO much more compelling to me than the system here where you get 1 or 2 mediocre new skills and otherwise carry everything from your sacrifices over unchanged

anyway i'm 30 hours into this and locked into the neutral route and this story's pacing has actually aged me several years. really hope i can finish the chalice of hope quest before i actually turn to dust