The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) • Page 135

I miss being hyped for an upcoming Zelda game.

 

I’m gonna jump back in and wrap this game up soon the one year anniversary around the corner along with much warmer weather is putting me in the mood

 

I still have a couple caves to find which has been pissing me off. Still have about half of the koroks left as well.

 

Oh I never even thought to get all the Koroks, because fuck that.

 

I’m also thinking about playing this again but not sure if I’d start a new save or just do side quests on my mostly-finished file

 

I got all the koroks. I needed the useless prize for doing so.

 

I finished the game last night. No way I would ever 100% a game like this, so I just ripped through the back half of the story over the last few days. The ending was much more satisfying than BOTW felt.

 

been getting the urge to play OoT. I never did finish that one

 

I have tried to get back into OoT several times and it just isn't for me. It's not obvious enough about what I'm supposed to do next in the game

 

I agree the ending (and story in general) was much more cathartic than BOTW's story/ending.

 

The only thing that I hated about the end of the game was the fact that Zelda lives/becomes human again because it just ruins the sacrifice and makes it lame.

 

It allows for the story beats to come full circle when Link finally grabs her hand and saves her vs the beginning where he misses and she falls away. I don’t think losing that would be in any way satisfying. They even let you be the one who makes it happen and it’s not purely a cut scene. Felt great to end that way. The point is that she did it thinking it was permanent. There was no hint or hope otherwise. She committed to it. That speaks to the strength of her character. That’s what actually matters in the story.

I definitely have some negatives for the game (the depths being too much of the same stuff, too few sky islands, allowing memories to be out of order while only one has a big reveal), but Zelda’s ending just isn’t one for me. Obviously how someone feels about it can vary. And there absolutely stories where someone is brought back and it feels cheap or unearned. This doesn’t strike me that way at all. *shrugs*

 

I liked the ending was Link and Zelda finally reconnected on the ground and the last words spoken are “I’m home”
Very return of the king ending vibes

 

I would be pissed if they didn't end it the way they did

 

I think Zelda typically is pretty bad at telling stories and TOTK is a perfect example of it

 

Zelda games do have good stories. OoT, TP, WW, ALttP just to name a few. I like the story in TotK too

 

You should listen to Sam Claiborn from IGN. A massive Zelda fan who thinks all the storytelling is shit haha

I'm definitely not that extreme on that side, but I think more often then not it's a fine/good story that's executed with pretty mixed results.

I think OOT is one of the strongest because it's pretty simplistic and concise.

 

The creators have always said that game play comes first and then story. TOTK may be an exception since it started off as ideas for DLC. But perhaps the new abilities spurred this, not sure how specific they got with TOTK. Regardless, it is true that story isn’t always the strongest. Anybody saying it’s all shit is kind of irrelevant to any conversation as that’s just silly. But yea, Zelda does have some great stories, just not all the time.

I think TOTK’s is better than BOTW, but I do hope the next game has a story that happens in present time. I want Link active and in the main story cut scenes. I think we’ve had enough of memories.

 

Yeah, I don't think most of their stories conceptually are bad, I think Nintendo tends to go for the most basic, surface level stories in their primary franchises. I think they usually aren't fantastic at marrying it with gameplay, but that's also not why I play Nintendo games. I like the worlds, characters and mechanics Nintendo builds not their stories.

I feel like they'll do something pretty different next time.

 

I will saw this: first time I played BOTW I was blown away by some of the environmental storytelling. When you're going through the remnants of a 100 year old battle in the Blatchery Plain with a field filled with disabled guardians during your initial hike after leaving the plateau? Incredible.

 

This is in part why I don’t really see BOTW being displaced as my favorite game any time soon

 

Wind Waker has the only good story. Dying on this hill

 

LoZ is about vibes. If I wanted stories with complex lore I'd go play Elder Scrolls.

 

the problem is they're toymakers, not storytellers. they reeeeally don't give a shit as long as the experience is there. environmental storytelling fits into this. aonuma specifically was a puppet maker before he was hired. when the cutscenes come in he's probably like yeah thats fine whatever anyway back to revolutionizing the way video games function

 

That being said. Link's Awakening has the coolest vibes