## what i played
i spent 75 hours doing maaaybe half the shrines, a handful of side quests, upgrading my armor most of the way, and beating the final boss
### stuff i liked
- the art direction
- the music near the end of the game is incredible
- lots of cool shrine puzzles
- link is once again a hot little elf twink on display for us
- the sky islands were pretty cool
- the enemy design is so cool looking
- i just want to play a game about bokoblins thanks
### stuff i was meh about
- the framerate got really choppy whenever you do physics stuff, but was playable for most things
- the overall soundtrack direction is too subdued and ambient for my tastes
- frankly i'm not huge on the combat in BOTW/TOTK. the side dodge vs back dodge vs parry mechanics is way too much for me. dark souls doesn't even need this many types of parries. i never bothered mastering or even getting half good at this.
- only 5 full dungeons
- none of the boss fights were very fun to me
- why are horses still so useless?
- zelda has always had side quests but i think the structure of putting map markers everywhere and making lists of side quests and all that makes the game commodified in a way that feels uncomfy to me, and pressures me into doing more tedious shit than i would naturally
- the structure of the whole game is basically 100% flat, like BOTW
- everything is approximately the same difficulty with only minimal scaling
- because of this, dungeons can't really build on previous ones
- and you don't collect new and interesting upgrades over the course of the game
- i didnt really find building stuff as compelling as they must've expected
- on occasion i was like "oh shit!" but it was rare
- usually it was just tedious and boring
- due to the finicky physics and weird abilities, lots of puzzles can be cheesed, and it may not even be remotely clear what the intended solution is... leading to a dissatisfied feeling of cheating the game and/or yourself
- i feel like older zelda games had more unique types of enemies?
- most enemies here are just recolors
- it was tough to manage all 5 companions since they're 100% context sensitive actions :(
### stuff i didnt like
- feels too "epic" for zelda imo, which i associate with being a bit more cutesy and subdued
- too many cutscenes
- dialogue for almost every character is far too long
- shonen anime tropes really undercut the zelda mood for me
- the underground area was a huge bummer for me, and i chose not to fully explore it
- dungeon design is once again lacking. the dungeons are basically completely flat in structure: just do 4-5 puzzles in any order. also it's possible to cheese some of the puzzles via environment traversal. eek.
- the pacing of the final stretch of the game is all out of wack
- mech combat is a huge bummer
- "gloom" sucked because it punishes you for exploring and for not stockpiling certain types of cures
- and it makes you want to just run away from every battle involving it
## verdict
i would've had a lot more fun just loading up a classic 2d zelda and replaying it
i spent 75 hours doing maaaybe half the shrines, a handful of side quests, upgrading my armor most of the way, and beating the final boss
### stuff i liked
- the art direction
- the music near the end of the game is incredible
- lots of cool shrine puzzles
- link is once again a hot little elf twink on display for us
- the sky islands were pretty cool
- the enemy design is so cool looking
- i just want to play a game about bokoblins thanks
### stuff i was meh about
- the framerate got really choppy whenever you do physics stuff, but was playable for most things
- the overall soundtrack direction is too subdued and ambient for my tastes
- frankly i'm not huge on the combat in BOTW/TOTK. the side dodge vs back dodge vs parry mechanics is way too much for me. dark souls doesn't even need this many types of parries. i never bothered mastering or even getting half good at this.
- only 5 full dungeons
- none of the boss fights were very fun to me
- why are horses still so useless?
- zelda has always had side quests but i think the structure of putting map markers everywhere and making lists of side quests and all that makes the game commodified in a way that feels uncomfy to me, and pressures me into doing more tedious shit than i would naturally
- the structure of the whole game is basically 100% flat, like BOTW
- everything is approximately the same difficulty with only minimal scaling
- because of this, dungeons can't really build on previous ones
- and you don't collect new and interesting upgrades over the course of the game
- i didnt really find building stuff as compelling as they must've expected
- on occasion i was like "oh shit!" but it was rare
- usually it was just tedious and boring
- due to the finicky physics and weird abilities, lots of puzzles can be cheesed, and it may not even be remotely clear what the intended solution is... leading to a dissatisfied feeling of cheating the game and/or yourself
- i feel like older zelda games had more unique types of enemies?
- most enemies here are just recolors
- it was tough to manage all 5 companions since they're 100% context sensitive actions :(
### stuff i didnt like
- feels too "epic" for zelda imo, which i associate with being a bit more cutesy and subdued
- too many cutscenes
- dialogue for almost every character is far too long
- shonen anime tropes really undercut the zelda mood for me
- the underground area was a huge bummer for me, and i chose not to fully explore it
- dungeon design is once again lacking. the dungeons are basically completely flat in structure: just do 4-5 puzzles in any order. also it's possible to cheese some of the puzzles via environment traversal. eek.
- the pacing of the final stretch of the game is all out of wack
- mech combat is a huge bummer
- "gloom" sucked because it punishes you for exploring and for not stockpiling certain types of cures
- and it makes you want to just run away from every battle involving it
## verdict
i would've had a lot more fun just loading up a classic 2d zelda and replaying it