The cap of the mission?
Vague memory chat
Yeah, awesome stuff. I ran around like crazy trying to âcatch upâ, island hopping, warping, building things like crazy and having them not work, then landed on an island that had a killer flying machine ready to go. Itâs like it was just made for it! I donât know if stamina has an actual impact but I had enough, super stuff. They leaning right into Miyazaki / Ghibli. I feel like I got a sense of whatâs gonna happen in the end
1 Like
Iâve got two memories left. Got distracted by accidentally finding a certain recurring Zelda-series sword, did not expect it to be the way it was!
1 Like
Definitely a highlight
I was thinking also that maybe the old school dungeon stuff doesnât heaps matter anymore. You get SO MUCH in the game through the myriad of approaches, who cares. Itâs a different format but all the ingredients are still there
2 Likes
Iâm gonna have to disagree with you there, bud. While thematic importance is also good, which TotK does fairly well- the current state of most of the dungeons feel like mini fetch quests.
To have such a build-up just to plateau is a shortcoming in the game- and im sure theyâre aware of it. Itâs an incremental process. They took another stab at it this run- to a magnificent degree i might add- embellishing more on the brilliant toe in the water approaches that BotW introduced. They channeled it well.
But its still a hindrance in the most cinematic elements of their bold step forward
Yeah, maybe Iâm letting them off the hook. I donât disagree that a huge, labyrinthine dungeon full of clockwork style puzzles would take the cake, and not going full bonkers on Recall and Ascend in those situations seems to have been a missed opportunity (so far) - but you do get bite size versions in the Shrines, tho.
I think for whatever reason, Nintendo decided to make the dungeons âeasyâ so that players from any skill level can progress the story/game without trouble. Shrines actually remain the environments with the tougher puzzles, but you can take or leave them and bail if u canât figure it out, they also have no bearing on the story.
2 Likes
Totally. And Iâm willing to give the credit for how the game was enhanced from older games.
Theyâre trying a new formula- which is something bold, brave, and necessary. I heard that them working on BotW was the most invigorated they felt working on a Zelda game for a long time- so I get it.
Again, im sure that theyâre still trying to refine the new dungeons from what Iâve seen.
To make this Goliath of a game is not something to snub my nose at, I just notice parts in my gameplay thatâs like âwellâŚthats kinda a drawâŚâ
I think people of all crafts are trudging up the hill of magnificence- while also understanding pragmatism.
Lucas Pope, From Software, Team ICO, and the Zelda Team have made the best, most groundbreaking, games Iâve played. And thatâs admirable to me.
Now with âsimpleâ games like Return of the Obra Dinn from Pope or Shadows of Collosus from Team ICO there are fewer elements to keep mind of. Something like TotK which has SO MANY THINGS going on at once- it can be difficult to spread attention to refine everything to be the best it can be.
The emotionally resonant parts- they nailed. I think they backburnered a portion of the segments between the build-up and the payoff.
I might be spiraling out. From an artistic perspective, it seems easier to make the build ups to the dungeons feel super epic and make the dungeons super simple.
From an audience perspective, it helps if you consider the build up to the dungeons as part of the dungeon.
Climactically- it would be build up â boss battle. For a better narrative flow. So maybe the dungeon was more just fan service than desired mechanic.
Maybe the removal of dungeons alltogether might have liberated the designers. Maybe the dungeons were just put there to appease moreso than serve.
If they do a trilogy, Iâd be interested to see their non-dungeon approach for a better ride
1 Like
Sorry for my thinking out loud response 
Well I still have Gerudo to go so weâll see haha. But thereâs obviously a reason why theyâve ditched the old key map miniboss big key boss structure. I donât mind that itâs gone, but I think itâs more a problem around limitations like I was discussing earlier. In the Shrines you canât use any outside Zonai devices, or summon sages. Thereâs something in that I think, and also the walls react differently. Edit: thinking again theyâre mostly âopen airâ dungeons, which is very different from the old school 4 walls approach.
Honestly I thought from the trailer for instance the Death Mountain Temple was going to be gigantic, but it turned out to be kinda tiny.
I still like the way itâs panned out, maybe it just takes too much resources to go so deep on dungeons with everything else going on. Itâs funny that all the elements are there, but just not combined in the ratio or arrangement fans would prefer. I think tho, actually, it would be extremely hard to know from a dev point of view what kind of limitations and problems youâd be hamstrung by with the physics and abilities available.
If they do go trilogy I feel like itâd be a time traversal thing going on. Would a third be too much? I also wonder if weâll get DLC
2 Likes
Lol, yeahâŚtheyâre probably not going to do that. Iâm just spitballing.
After the two massive projects with massive acclaim, theyâll probably do something simple.
Not just for themselves- I donât think the world(me) can handle that much consecutive hype.
Theyâre apparently already working on ideas for the next Zelda game- which is astounding to me, as I thought, before TotK, that it would be a great sign-off game.
MORE TROUBLE FOR HYRULE SOON PLZ 
2 Likes
I was thinking, back before the name Tears of the Kingdom was announced, Nintendo was pretty quiet about it, and I think they decided to hold it back for a while or something because they felt that it was a spoiler. Then when the title reveal happened, everyone was like huh? How is that name a spoiler, it doesnât tell us anything.
Now that Iâve finished the geoglyph quest line I think they actually changed the name to be less of a spoiler, because if youâve finished that quest youâll see the name of the last memory, I think that was the original name of the game.
2 Likes
mildly spoilery question
Where are the Lynels? I just did the Wind Temple for now and despite quite a laaarge chunk of exploration I havenât encountered one single Lynel so far. Will they appear after the difficulty-adjustement after beating more of the main quest? Or did I just not explore the right areas?
Thought Iâd ask here â should be possible to look up the answer, sure, but usually the Google results come with all sorts of other spoilers.
theyâre around, thatâs for sure
2 Likes
Daaamn, one would think that 40 hours of almost entirely just exploration one would stumble across at least one of them. 
Perhaps itâs purely based on difficulty setting moreso than BotW where it was a part of the plot of the Zora Divine Beast buildup
I just checked my playtime for my playthru of TotK
âPlayed for 120 hours or moreâ
Geez loueez! This effing game.
Yeah, time to be productive 
1 Like
Iâm actually shocked that Iâm hardly playing TOTK at all. Too engrossed in IRL exploration. Probably will binge when I return home and can play on a bigger screen.
That said, itâs easy to pick up again after having not played for a few days. Binge playing isnât the only way. 
(this is a commentary on my own approach to gaming, not a dig at anyone here)
2 Likes
Honestly thereâs a ton of stuff I havenât come across. 50ish hours here, and if I look at where Iâve been, there are huge gaps in my exploration. Iâve somehow threaded the needle between enemies/ events/ cool things on a regular basis.
2 Likes
80 hours here, although I often leave it on while Iâm about the house just for the chill music, or maybe just lazy pausing
I have no idea how anyone can complain about the cost of games when you get so much out of it. I mean movies go for what 2 hours and theyâre $20?
I have a couple nephews who are playing also, weâll FaceTime and share screens of where weâre at. Iâm slaying them progress wise but they YouTube the heck out of it. They donât quite have the same âdonât spoil me let me figure it out myselfâ approach, they watch walkthroughs online and find out about all the secrets that way. In that way they know a lot more about the game than me and Iâm like âShhh! Donât tell!â
Anyway, I just had a pretty rad sesh in Hyrule Castle. But my nephew was like
hyrule castle spoilers
âJump down the hole where the castle rose upâ and I was just like whoa, I hadnât thought of it. It is CRAZY down there. My dumb old gamer brain probably just thought of that as a bad donât-jump-you-will-die gamespace, but no, itâs a chasm and it goes way way down.
I suspect that is where ole G Dorf hangs and I had a quick peak and teased some lynels and stuff down there but then proceeded to gtfo - saving that one for later/last
4 Likes
Oh yeah. I tentatively went there for a little bit. And I was like that âIâm in dangerâ meme the whole time
3 Likes