Poll of the Day > Tears of the Kingdom Thread 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ill probably finish up the main story tonight I have another game Ill be spending some time with coming out tomorrow

The game gives people the freedom to do whatever, and people are mad that you are able to cheese some parts

Since Raincode comes out today, I decided to finish up the main story of Zelda. I enjoyed it. And my completion is at 74.75%, which is much higher than what I thought itd be at

I did the water temple a couple nights ago. It wasn't actually that bad. Not my favourite, and the combination of the floaty low-G movement and the frequent framerate drops because of all the moving water meant the whole thing felt kind of awkwardly sluggish, but I wouldn't call it any worse than mediocre.

I've still got fire and spirit left to do, and I'm reasonably on track for finding all the lightroots and shrines. I probably won't do Koroks beyond whatever ones I stumble across in the process of finishing the game (I didn't in BotW either). Same with bubbul gems and probably Addison (I kind of want to fix all of the signs, but I doubt I'll find them all on my own, and checking a checklist will involve manually verifying which ones I've done, which is lame). There's just so much side content, and most of it's fun enough to enjoy doing it, but it almost immediately felt like I was deliberately ignoring the main quest for the sake of doing side content, and that sort of decision can only hold its momentum for so long before the game starts to feel aimless.

Didnt play much while i was on vacation, just finished 2nd dungeon last night. Was trying to finish upgrading the Rito set before diing the rito dungeon (which is where they direct you to go first) but got bored of farming Fire Lizalfos tails. They have a low drop rate and need 39 total before fully upgrading it

I've yet to fully upgrade any armour. I've got a couple sets at level 2 for the set bonuses, but level 4 is just such a slog for anything I might actually want the defense on (like the FD armour, which is still at 2/1/1 because Hinox and Dragon parts aren't exactly the quickest to get) that I haven't pushed for it. The way the damage scaling works (namely, that it scales WAY faster than defense, but then plateaus whether you've got any defense or not), defense ends up feeling weirdly unnecessary because you have to learn how to avoid damage altogether if you want to survive, then by the time you can significantly increase your defense, you're skilled enough to (mostly) not need to.

I'd actually suggest getting the flight set before the Wind Temple, more so than Snowquill (I didn't even buy Snowquill until later). It helps a lot with the boss, both in terms of making it easier (which isn't altogether necessary, but still) and in terms of making it amazingly fun. It's also just a really helpful set in general, especially with the set bonus (negates fall damage).

adjl posted...

I've yet to fully upgrade any armour. I've got a couple sets at level 2 for the set bonuses, but level 4 is just such a slog for anything I might actually want the defense on (like the FD armour, which is still at 2/1/1 because Hinox and Dragon parts aren't exactly the quickest to get) that I haven't pushed for it. The way the damage scaling works (namely, that it scales WAY faster than defense, but then plateaus whether you've got any defense or not), defense ends up feeling weirdly unnecessary because you have to learn how to avoid damage altogether if you want to survive, then by the time you can significantly increase your defense, you're skilled enough to (mostly) not need to.

I'd actually suggest getting the flight set before the Wind Temple, more so than Snowquill (I didn't even buy Snowquill until later). It helps a lot with the boss, both in terms of making it easier (which isn't altogether necessary, but still) and in terms of making it amazingly fun. It's also just a really helpful set in general, especially with the set bonus (negates fall damage).

Dragon parts are actually pretty easy to do, just ride the dragon and farm them

I have the wild, and fireproof sets fully upgraded also. Also the Hylian set

Easy, sure (though I don't have the Flameguard or Snowquill set bonuses, so I'd need those before riding Naydra/Dinraal), but not necessarily how I want to spend my free time. My approach is more to check for the dragons periodically when I'm in the area and go grab a piece if they're around (though Naydra's claw is eluding me: my last attempt missed and got a scale instead, the try before that it landed on a mountain and yeeted itself somewhere I couldn't find). It's not hard, per se, but it's not fast either, and I really haven't been prioritizing it.

adjl posted...

I've yet to fully upgrade any armour. I've got a couple sets at level 2 for the set bonuses, but level 4 is just such a slog for anything I might actually want the defense on (like the FD armour, which is still at 2/1/1 because Hinox and Dragon parts aren't exactly the quickest to get) that I haven't pushed for it. The way the damage scaling works (namely, that it scales WAY faster than defense, but then plateaus whether you've got any defense or not), defense ends up feeling weirdly unnecessary because you have to learn how to avoid damage altogether if you want to survive, then by the time you can significantly increase your defense, you're skilled enough to (mostly) not need to.

The only set I can realistically upgrade is the hylian set as you tend to naturally acquire the mats while playing, rather than requiring you to go to a specific area and farm them.

I'd also disagree with defence being unnecessary, due to the linear nature of how it works it skews the damage output bizarrely. 20 defence is the difference between an attack dealing five hearts vs no damage. And with combat being so simplistic I find most of the time it's more of a numbers game of "can I face tank these enemies". Except for bosses who are without exception "can I hit his weak spot with an arrow".

I just discovered something, if you attack without a weapon equipped (or at least after the Master Sword breaks) Link will punch the ground and do some kind of air attack

Ogurisama posted...

I just discovered something, if you attack without a weapon equipped (or at least after the Master Sword breaks) Link will punch the ground and do some kind of air attack

It the attack you learned from the Yiga

Shouldn't punching the ground be an earth attack instead?

Revelation34 posted...

Shouldn't punching the ground be an earth attack instead?

Tbf, its called Earthwake

Ogurisama posted...

I just discovered something, if you attack without a weapon equipped (or at least after the Master Sword breaks) Link will punch the ground and do some kind of air attack

You learned that from doing the Yiga quest

The Fire Temple was great. I haven't been huge on how every temple has been "here's a slightly less open area than the overworld, go solve some puzzles to open up the 4-5 things you need to use your companion's power on in whatever order you want," since there really isn't the same sense of linear progression that traditional dungeons had. The Fire Temple, however, not only had some of the more interesting dungeon puzzles, they spanned the whole temple and built on each other in a linear progression, with the gongs feeling more like checkpoints along that progression than independent tasks that I had to check off to proceed.

I guess that's actually the same gripe I have with the main story: Because they've set it up to be done in any order, completing the four "Regional Phenomena" just feels like ticking boxes to unlock further progression, rather than having any sense of progression between them. It doesn't help that I get basically the exact same cutscene after each temple, meaning there really isn't any story progression associated with finishing them. It would have been much more enjoyable if each one revealed a new piece of the historical story they all tell, whether showing their own part in it or just telling a four-part story in whatever order you reach them.

Getting some actual story progress after getting the fourth sage, though, was quite fun, even if I already finished the geoglyphs many hours ago so I knew Zelda done got dragon'd and that whatever Zelda was appearing and making people evil wasn't actually Zelda.

Blightzkrieg posted...

I'd also disagree with defence being unnecessary, due to the linear nature of how it works it skews the damage output bizarrely. 20 defence is the difference between an attack dealing five hearts vs no damage. And with combat being so simplistic I find most of the time it's more of a numbers game of "can I face tank these enemies". Except for bosses who are without exception "can I hit his weak spot with an arrow".

Eh, I haven't really found myself looking for facetank opportunities. Anything I might want to facetank, I tend to just ignore. Battles with lots of easier enemies, I unleash the death roombas and watch the carnage from a safe distance. Anything I do want to fight, I have a better time flurry rushing or fishing for weak point stuns than I would beefing myself up and mashing the attack button while facetanking them. Of course, a large part of that is probably just that I haven't bothered upgrading most of my armour so I can't simply facetank most things, but I also just don't feel much need to get to that point.

adjl posted...

I guess that's actually the same gripe I have with the main story: Because they've set it up to be done in any order, completing the four "Regional Phenomena" just feels like ticking boxes to unlock further progression, rather than having any sense of progression between them. It doesn't help that I get basically the exact same cutscene after each temple, meaning there really isn't any story progression associated with finishing them. It would have been much more enjoyable if each one revealed a new piece of the historical story they all tell, whether showing their own part in it or just telling a four-part story in whatever order you reach them.

The repeat cutscene is infuriating. It's just bizarrely lazy.

Yeah. Especially so where all four of them have a point in the present-day scene where the ancestral sage says "You don't know about the Imprisoning War? Let me tell you... *exact same scene with a different narrator saying the same things*." Even if they didn't want to put in the effort to make four different scenes, absolutely nothing was stopping them from only playing it the first time and having the other three say "I see you've already learned about the Imprisoning War," cutting down the post-temple cutscene slog by like 60-70%.

adjl posted...

Even if they didn't want to put in the effort to make four different scenes, absolutely nothing was stopping them from only playing it the first time and having the other three say "I see you've already learned about the Imprisoning War," cutting down the post-temple cutscene slog by like 60-70%.

Tbf, that would make sense if it was only Link there. But it seems like the story was more for the benefit of the sages instead. They could have just went with a fade out, though

LinkPizza posted...

Tbf, that would make sense if it was only Link there. But it seems like the story was more for the benefit of the sages instead. They could have just went with a fade out, though

Narratively, yes, that's what's going on.

But this isn't exactly a game that chains itself to the narrative, and games that are more narrative driven would handle this more elegantly.

The real reason is because you can do the dungeons in any order and they didn't want to create alternate cutscenes.

I think I've realized that BotW and TotK are games that I enjoy playing even though I don't think I enjoy the core gameplay "loop". Because the real gameplay is the vibes, and not the dumb shit mechanics that Nintendo has created.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Narratively, yes, that's what's going on.

But this isn't exactly a game that chains itself to the narrative, and games that are more narrative driven would handle this more elegantly.

The real reason is because you can do the dungeons in any order and they didn't want to create alternate cutscenes.

Yeah. I get that. Which is why I didnt care much when it did it. I knew why it did it But, eh

They should have showed us the final battle against Ganondorf from each sage's perspective, instead of just showing everyone standing around each time. Then we'd get the same info but actually get to watch something interesting.

For a dozen games now the go to anti-Ganondorf strategy has been a few sages standing around and 50% of the time it works every time

Yeah, but those were the sages of standing around, and these are supposedly the sages of kicking ass.

LinkPizza posted...

Tbf, that would make sense if it was only Link there. But it seems like the story was more for the benefit of the sages instead. They could have just went with a fade out, though

Alternatively:

Modern Sage: "The Imprisoning War?"
Link: *Gesticulates to indicate that he's explaining*
Modern Sage: *Whatever response they give after the cutscene*

All the narrative consistency, none of the reruns.

Spirit Temple is done. That was really fun. It was very much not a traditional temple, and also fell into the formula of "do these four separate things and then you can fight the boss yay," but it felt significantly less contrived this time and each of the four tasks was a really interesting way of playing with the vehicle mechanics. Mineru is kind of underwhelming as a sage companion, though. The idea of riding around on a custom death robot seemed really cool on paper, but the execution is really clunky and not particularly different from just fusing a zonai device to one of my weapons. The boss fight kinda sucked as a result, especially where there was so much visual clutter in that arena that I could barely see the parts I was supposed to use to deal damage. Watching the robot Naruto run when I used a fan on the back was hilarious, though. I think that's all the main story content done now, where I finished the whole Depths questline a while ago and got the Master Sword even earlier than that. I'm definitely getting the impression that the game expected me to get the Master Sword later, given how many of the sequences around finishing the Spirit Temple have said something to the effect of "Oh look, you already have the Master Sword! That's convenient," but that's just the nature of the game.

I also found all the Lightroots, and was rewarded with a medal saying I got all the Lightroots. Great. I'll keep picking away at shrines, sidequests, and exploring the rest of the sky for a bit, grab the last few dragon and Hinox parts I need to upgrade the FD set past level 1, then I'll probably finish the game and call it quits. It's been a fun ride, but I don't want to waste the first bit of actual story momentum I've seen in the last 100 hours and lose my motivation to finish, and pretty much everything else after experiencing all of the shrines is just ticking boxes.

I do kind of wish I'd learned how pristine weapons work sooner. I've been largely ignoring any pedestal that had a Traveller's or Knight's weapon on it since very early on, since even their pristine versions aren't really worth throwing away a Royal or similar weapon, but apparently that's prevented new weapons from spawning with every blood moon, and those new weapons could be not-useless ones (specifically, any weapon type that I've already broken, with some regional limitations). My inner min-maxer now wants to run around the Depths and clear out as many as possible so that after the next blood moon I can stockpile a bunch of pristine Royal and Royal Guard weapons, but that sounds hideously tedious and largely pointless, so I'm not going to be doing that. I'd call this a mechanical blunder, given that respawning all of the weapons each blood moon instead of just the ones I've taken would single-handedly fix the issue and make exploring the Depths for weapon upgrades a reasonable plan, but as it stands I'm just going to keep ignoring pristine weapons unless a useful one somehow falls in my lap.

adjl posted...

Alternatively:

Modern Sage: "The Imprisoning War?"
Link: *Gesticulates to indicate that he's explaining*
Modern Sage: *Whatever response they give after the cutscene*

All the narrative consistency, none of the reruns.

Maybe. I still think a fade out is better. The Sage still gets to talk to the new Sage, and doesnt feel useless And in the end, you still dont have to get the reruns

It works roughly the same either way. You either have Link gesturing as a representation of the story being told, or you have a fade out. representing that it was told in the interim. I think Link gesturing is more consistent with how the game handles similar things in other contexts (games with non-silent protagonists need a fade out because otherwise they'd have to write out the dialogue, but here it's routinely implied that Link has said something, skipping the need for that), but either works.

adjl posted...

I do kind of wish I'd learned how pristine weapons work sooner. I've been largely ignoring any pedestal that had a Traveller's or Knight's weapon on it since very early on, since even their pristine versions aren't really worth throwing away a Royal or similar weapon, but apparently that's prevented new weapons from spawning with every blood moon, and those new weapons could be not-useless ones (specifically, any weapon type that I've already broken, with some regional limitations). My inner min-maxer now wants to run around the Depths and clear out as many as possible so that after the next blood moon I can stockpile a bunch of pristine Royal and Royal Guard weapons, but that sounds hideously tedious and largely pointless, so I'm not going to be doing that. I'd call this a mechanical blunder, given that respawning all of the weapons each blood moon instead of just the ones I've taken would single-handedly fix the issue and make exploring the Depths for weapon upgrades a reasonable plan, but as it stands I'm just going to keep ignoring pristine weapons unless a useful one somehow falls in my lap.

I wish games would just explain their weird stupid mechanics

Why does the game need to straight up lie about weapon stats? Who benefits from that?

I can kind of understand it in this case, just so fusion works more consistently (the alternative would be having weapon power stated accurately, then having the hidden multiplier weapon power gets now applied to fusion items' stated power amount when you attach them). It also simplifies comparing weapons to each other: Higher weapon power=more dps. The damage per hit varies, thanks to the hidden multiplier, but if you've got a spear with 20 power and a greatsword with 20 power, they're going to be doing roughly the same amount of damage overall.

Well, at least that's the theory. I'm not 100% sure how it plays out in practice.

I'm finally building my "dream home," I'm honestly having a bit of fun with it but wow the 15 unit limit is harsh. Also somebody will need to explain to me why they have the guy following you everywhere while you're building and literally preventing you from moving certain things since he's in the way

And the lack of windows

SilentSeph posted...

I'm finally building my "dream home," I'm honestly having a bit of fun with it but wow the 15 unit limit is harsh. Also somebody will need to explain to me why they have the guy following you everywhere while you're building and literally preventing you from moving certain things since he's in the way

And the lack of windows

Yeah. I want a big limit I could only do so much with the limited blocks

Oh yeah, I've gotta do more homebuilding. If nothing else, I've got a boomerang I'll never use to stick on a rack, so that'll take me back to Tarrey Town.

I'd like to build a home that's not a series of cubes

They do have triangles, though I can't say I've explored how to use them and fitting them in with all the rectangles and only 15 blocks may be tricky.

adjl posted...

They do have triangles, though I can't say I've explored how to use them and fitting them in with all the rectangles and only 15 blocks may be tricky.

Triangles probably work better for building up But youll have less room, so I wouldnt say they are worth it unless you like the shape, or have a cool design in mind

What I mean is triangles dont seem to work well for one floor. Squares also work well for building up. Not saying triangle are better for it, but if you want to use triangles, building up it better

I slapped a triangle on to one side of my house and liked how it turned out. It's kinda wonky, but then so's the whole house, so it worked. I get what you mean about being better suited for building up, with their smaller footprint and being able to use fewer rooms to close off the walls of a tower, but I was okay with just having one level of it.

I'm more than a little bothered by the fact that the only way to get a door is to use a foyer, though, as well as that gaps between rooms remain completely open when the build is finalized so you need to close everything off. At the end of the day, it's just a silly little minigame that has very little bearing on the game as a whole, so it's not the end of the world, but I'd really like to be able to just add walls and doors instead of needing to fit a whole other room in to close off an opening. Also flipping rooms. I had a setup I liked, but I only had one square's worth of opening into my bedroom, and it opened into the bed half instead of the emptier half and that just felt awkward. I had to flip the entire build to get it positioned the way I wanted, and that screwed up other parts because the foyer is asymmetrical.

Walls would have been great. That would actually allow for a dream house

Finished the game last night. This might just be one of the most quintessentially "Nintendo" games ever: It's overall a fantastically fun game and there's a lot of really good stuff in there, but there are also many baffling design decisions that just made things tedious or frustrating for no real reason and I frequently found myself thinking "this could be so much better if this small change were made." Still, it was a good time overall and had a lot of really high points, including doing a fantastic job of encouraging creative problem solving. By and large, the puzzles weren't *hard*, per se, but there were many where arriving at what seemed to be the intended solution just felt really satisfyingly clever, and that's just great.

I've got all the Lightroots, maxed all the armor (except the Ancient Hero's Aspect), finished most of the side quests/adventures, and I have about 15 shrines left (most if not all seem to be in caves). I was thinking about going for 100% but I think I'm just gonna clean up the shrines and side quests, then beat the game. I've got a couple of gripes but it's definitely a great game overall. It helps that I don't really remember BotW's world all too well outside of the towns so exploration didn't feel too stale to me

Blightzkrieg posted...

I think I've realized that BotW and TotK are games that I enjoy playing even though I don't think I enjoy the core gameplay "loop". Because the real gameplay is the vibes, and not the dumb shit mechanics that Nintendo has created.

OoT, MM, WW, TP > totk and BotW imo

i like the more structured approach to Zelda games

I've mentioned this before, but I like having structure, but I also like the freedom to go through a set of dungeons in any order I choose--maybe not ALL dungeons, but some here and some there like in aLttP--and try to do the quests and exploration at my own pace. If anything, the problem I had with post-OoT Zelda games is how much it tried to cram the timeline that should never have existed down our throats. Having the same zone or elemental themed dungeons over and over again could get tired, to the point where you're going through the motions, but the biggest culprit of this was the game that tried to be a "better" OoT by copying OoT and then adding tons of shadows and cutscenes.

I don't need close to an hour before the first dungeon because of a narrative that may or may not be decent, and however many hours in between the dungeons. I need a sense of being dropped in a world worth exploring with the tools necessary to go one of a few directions. If I wanted to sit through half a full-length film explaining ten minutes of plot or worldbuilding before I can play an otherwise good game, I'd start another file of Star Ocean 2.

So to that end, BotW and TotK sort of work, because the only reason it takes time to get to the first "dungeon," is because you're actively exploring and getting to know the world... unless you're a speedrunner who's all about going Points A-B-C in as little time as possible without any thought to the care put into the majority of the game. I can respect those gamers to a degree.

What sort of doesn't work for BotW and TotK, imo, is the amount of resource management and grinding just to go do the next thing. Including picking up more resources. For a game like Minecraft or Terraria where that is the point, that is one thing. For a Zelda game, I'd rather keep down the resource management much the same as I'd like to keep down level or skill grinding in any rpg. I don't mind if there is some gathering or foraging to enhance your experience, but BotW and TotK take it far from what I play a Zelda game for.

Also: Korok poop. Nuff said.

That all said, I did enjoy BotW, and look forward to doing my own file of TotK once my backlog is down to the one game instead of the four and a half games remaining (it was over a dozen two months ago).

Just now dove down the Death Mountain Chasm, so heading to my temple #2. I did a LOT of fucking around between Temple #1 and now. Also, Diablo 4 distracted me for a bit.

Finally went ahead and beat it, and the final boss might well be the best one in the series. Demon King Ganondorf is downright imposing, from the extra long health bar to straight up deleting your hearts. That fight is also the only time I actually liked the durability mechanic, because shields break after he hits them 3 or 4 times, so missing a dodge and shielding an attack instead is still punishing (I only had 2 shields left at the end of the fight). Best spectacle final phase in the series too. Seeing the "Destroy Ganondorf" objective complete after watching die in an atomic blast is satisfying.

Did the Fire Temple, and a lot of sky/surface/depths Akkala exploration. The Fire Temple had a really cool design, may have been one of my favorite temple designs. Really loved the mine cart tracks and switching thereof components. Boss was bleh, especially compared to the Wind Temple bosses' epicness, but both were easy. Rolling Ynobo up and around the ceiling to hit the legs was kinda cool though).

Wind Temple boss is just straight up one of the best bosses in the series. It's just so fun to fight.

So I've

-advanced the plot to the "beat the last boss" mission and done all the main story related side missions
-done about 80% of the shrines
-explored about 66% of the depths
-leveled up most of the sages
-fully levelled the hylian set

I think I'm just gonna go beat the g man? I'm not sure what else there is for me to do that won't make me resent the game.

How the fuck does this guy tie in to OoT Ganondorf? The time line is the biggest fucking lie Nontodont ever told.

So for the entire game, was Ganondorf just sitting in that chamber he woke up in, doing nothing?

He was crossdressing as Zelda please pay attention

Also the final boss theme absolutely slaps and highlights the problem that they don't play enough fucking music in this game.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Also the final boss theme absolutely slaps and highlights the problem that they don't play enough fucking music in this game.

At some level, I can appreciate the more atmospheric, background approach for environmental music, especially where we're spending a long time in each area and therefore anything more noticeable would risk getting tiresome after looping so many times, but having good music for boss fights and (some) temples kind of highlights just how underwhelming everything else is. It's also not like it's impossible to give a massive exploration-focused game strong environmental music without having it get too repetitive (Xenoblade X coming immediately to mind because I could listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajBDGwumWcA all day). It's also very possible to have that music be understated without disappearing entirely (Xenoblade 3 coming to mind, especially compared to how bombastic 2's environmental themes were), so... meh.

I'm realizing that the lack of distinct background music is probably a major contributing factor to so many of the areas kind of blurring together. A lot of them don't really have a distinct visual identity beyond falling into one of "Grassy," "Snowy," or "Rocky," such that not being able to associate them with a track leaves them feeling very samey. Even the ones that do feel more distinct (like "Jungle," "Desert," or "Volcano") would stand out even more if they had music that supported those unique themes. The game's overall soundscape still works, particularly the dynamic music changes based on various activities, but I do think I prefer a more comprehensive soundtrack.