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Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

CJD87

TOTK is stellar of course.... but BOTW was such a nicely compact experience, and just felt so 'fresh'.

Nothing beat diving off the Great Plateau for the first time, utterly amazing.

TOTK suffers from the same issues as Spiderman 2, GoW Ragnarok, Horizon FB.... more of 'the same' but bigger/better - ultimately though the special feeling of the predecessor games.

Nonetheless TOTK still great, but I would have personally preferred a new/different map as well as slightly 'less' game to avoid burnout

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Oracles_fanboi

@Not_Soos Well I agree with everything you had to say save for one point: I didn't even like the story. Specifically, the ending soured the experience for me. They say that an ending can ruin an entire experience and it rings true here. The reason why I hated the ending was because of Zelda being too afraid of having consequences, when in the past it had no issues with killing off characters like in WW.
In TotK they set up these rules for its story and the way it resolves itself in its ending just doesn't make sense and is such a massive cop out. It's like they established those rules for the Secret Stones only for it to not matter in the end. They even fix the issue that Link had for no reason lolol. It's just terrible writing.
The story was actually interesting until that part. The setting was darker and more serious, only for it to have the happiest ending in the series in ways that betrays its own rules rofl. Just doesn't make sense. Probably the worst story in the series if I'm being frank.

Re: GameStop Hit By Layoffs As Analyst Predicts 'Unsustainable' Sales Decline

obijuankanoobie

I feel like a vacuum is forming, GameStop hasn't been hardly anyone's first pick for years. My hope is that a new chain, or a smaller existing chain, that's kind of everything we love about our smaller retro stores, steps up. Better environment, deals, employees. I know it would hurt a lot of people in GameStop fell that like work there, but for the industry, I think it would make things better.

Or GameStop takes a 180 I'd be happy with that too. It's happened before, like subway stepping up their game like a decade ago.

Re: GameStop Hit By Layoffs As Analyst Predicts 'Unsustainable' Sales Decline

MeloMan

As there's been an ongoing discussion about the world going from physical gaming to digital, so too do brick and mortar stores suffer from this change. Even the once powerful resale market that Funco Land once was driving has dried up more and more-- If the gaming giants can distribute the games directly to consumers, what then becomes the point of a middleman digital reseller? More specifically, even if GameStop became a digital only reseller, they would have to come up with something that would make it worthwhile, and besides unique sales/deals, I can't think of anything sustainable. At this rate is only a matter of time before GameStop goes the way of Game in EU.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Coalescence

Love them both equally as they have a pretty different vibe. But if I had to pick one right now probably Totk. Dungeons are lesser and I don't really care much for the overall story, but it has better designed puzzles, the crafting systems are outstanding, and most of all the multi tiered world is an absolute joy by taking the spirit of the first game and multiplying it by a hundred and also finally cashing in on Skyward Sword's blown potential.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Maxz

Tears offers the player significantly more freedom. That much is as clear as day.

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…But I would argue that Breath better captures the spirit of adventure — and adventure has always been at the heart of what makes Zelda tick.

The feeling of embarking on an epic adventure is not simply about making the world feel big, but making the player feel small within it. Without that contrast, there is no sense of awe or wonder. And without wonder there is no wanderlust: no motivation to explore. And without exploration there can be no adventure in the first place.

Tolkien’s epics feel epic precisely because they are mainly carried out on foot or horseback, filled with detours, stopovers, and memorable encounters en route. If Frodo and co. has simply flown on broomsticks from A to B, the scale would technically be unchanged, but the sense of scale would be vastly different.

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Even beyond the world of fantasy and fiction, we find ourselves drawn to accounts of adventure: continent-spanning bike rides, epic hikes, and voyages over oceans by boat, navigating fatigue, hunger and stormy seas. If the same trips were to be completed by helicopter or private jet, there would be almost nothing to write about. It’s the graft we’re after, not the distance.

To me Breath feels epic because it makes you work at the act of traversal. You have to fight for height; no sailing gaily up into the heavens on a stone elevator that convenient crashed down to earth moments earlier.

Elevation is the core currency of exploration, opening up your view of the landscape and letting you glide down to whatever catches your eye. But this currently is not freely given: it is the fruit of hard graft, which makes reaching the top of a mountain feel like a genuine achievement — even if the only tangible reward is a single Korok seed, or nothing at all!

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The main piece of concept art for Breath depicts Link staring out over an expansive Hyrule, which paints a pretty good picture of what the game is about. The other piece of key art shows Link scaling a nondescript rock face against the backdrop of a setting sun. This picture is perhaps easily forgotten, but I feel describes the game just as well. Link is going nowhere fast, and a long day of travel has already passed. It stands in contrast to the iconic Tears picture of Link perched on the edge of a sky island, staring downwards. One is about ascent, arduous and slow-going. The other is about descent: being at liberty to soar down to the world below, free as a bird.

Tears is definitely bigger and freer, but I greatly prefer Breath’s more measured adventure. The sun may have set on Link’s initial open-world outing, but to me it remains the closest we’ve ever come to a perfect adventure game.

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Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

dazzleshell

Although I preferred TOTK story, for me BOTW was a much better experience as everything was fresh in 2017. I wasn't a fan of Ultrahand as I was ***** at building

I hope the next one is set somewhere other than Hyrule. I'd happily see the current characters of Zelda and Link remain the same though.

Hopefully, they started work on the next game long before TOTK was finished.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Jerutix

I didn't have a Switch when TotK was about to release (had a Lite during early Covid and played BotW - sold it after because I kind of felt like that was the capstone of video gaming), so I watched a YouTube video with all the TotK cutscenes the night before it was released.

The next day, release day, my wife surprised me with a Switch as a semi-late birthday present! I put off getting TotK because I'd seen the story (which I liked a lot! Not much of a shipper, but I still really feel like Link and Zelda being a thing should have at least been hinted at in the last scene, but hey...). Finally got it a couple month later, but struggled to get into it. Is it the crafting? The less novelty? That I knew the storyline? Not enough years between? I don't know.

All that to say (probably surprisingly), I've picked it up again a couple days ago, finally headed up Death Mountain for the second temple. I think I like TotK better. Someone else commented that it seems happier, and I'd have to agree. Even with the Depths, I like seeing more people around Hyrule and less of an overarching sense of gloom. But, as many have said, that initial feel of exploration and discovery in BotW is unmatched. Setting that feeling aside, I think TotK is a better game, and one I imagine I'll keeping picking up and taking breaks from for years to come.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

MeloMan

I feel like BOTW was a big enough game and the grandest Zelda game to date that gave me the fullest adventure I could possibly ask for. With that said, I feel that it was more than enough adventure for one console generation. I absolutely love TOTK, but to take on such an even bigger world than BOTW on the same console has left me at least a bit worn out from this era of Zelda gaming, so I've been playing TOTK much slower than I played BOTW-- I really don't understand why they just didn't save the scale of TOTK for the next console. In summation, I can put one ahead of the other for different reasons. I can put BOTW ahead of TOTK because of the introduction and amazing feeling I got that Zelda managed to take the vision of the original Zelda and give us a complete, humongous, thriving landscape to play in where your next step truly is your next step you take. I can put TOTK ahead of BOTW because it is simply such a grand adventure that leaves no part of the firmament beyond your reach, and with so much to do that you truly cannot claim you're not an adventurer once you've explored between sky, ground, and depths.

Re: Site News: So, Where's Our MLB The Show 24 Review?

mjharper

I bought '23 for $5 a few months ago in a sale, and I still haven't gotten around to playing it. So, take your time NL. It's amazing how badly they're treating the Switch version of this game. The past couple years, they've been great about supporting the Switch.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

BodkinDQ

I prefer more "linear" Zelda games myself. A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds were the ones that made the biggest, classic impact on me. OoT was special too. As for BotW and TotK, played BotW for quite a few hours, enjoyed it, but burned out and eventually shelved it. TotK looked like more of the same, but with Minecraft esque elements when I watched friends play it. Both games are beautiful and have a wonderful OST. Fun games deserving of the hype. Personally, I'm just feeling haggard of everything going fully open world and being 100+ hr grand adventures where you can get story out of order, cos you got your nose easily led too far one way and made the story confusing. They're good games that have my respect, but I prefer old school Zelda.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Tchunga

TOTK is proof that bigger isnt always better. As much as I enjoyed the game, there certainly is a lot of unnecessary bloat in it. Like pretty much the entirety of the underground. Its just content for contents sake, the depths is a baren wasteland. There are no side quests or NPCs outside of generic Yiga to be found, the entire thing feels procedurally generated.

Also tasks that were once simple in BOTW are now needlessly tedious in TOTK. It was bad enough that your weapons broke before but now that you have to constantly fuse them together only exacerbates this problem. Building various vehicles to traverse the environment and solve puzzles is fun for the first 20 or so hours but by the end it just becomes tiresome.

People say that BOTW was a "demo" for TOTK like thats somehow a good thing. But BOTW was already arguably too big to begin with. If anything a sequel to BOTW should have had a smaller, and denser map. Not a larger and more baren one. For me BOTW is the better game because it feels more focused, TOTK just got too carried away with itself. Less is more in this instance

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Ravenmaster

BotW because it had that brand new Zelda game feel to it. Totk felt more like an extension of BotW because a lot of the overworld was re-used. The depths were too repetitive and the sky islands were mostly forgetable, aside from The Great Sky Island itself. I loved the Zonai tech but a lot of TotK felt overcluttered with grindy sidequests that didn't yield much of a reward.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Oracles_fanboi

I feel like a minority here, but I think BotW is a great game but its sequel isn't that great. Most of the content in TotK felt like padding to me. Nintendo's idea of making a bigger and better sequel was to add a few more things to it (caves, a couple new enemies) and then just shotgun spray those things all over the map and call it new content. I had gotten so sick of fighting the same bosses over and over again while filling out my map.
Ultrahand/Fuse are neat ideas, but they crack the game's balancing into pieces and make a once too easy game even easier. Adding to this is these excessively broken consumables like Muddle Buds or Puff Shrooms that destroy any semblence of challenge that the game once had, and you can find hundreds of those things in the Depths so you'll never run out.
I have a laundry list of other problems with the game but the reason why I liked BotW so much was because it felt novel and new, it felt like a superb attempt to reinvent the formula and with a little bit of fine tuning, a sequel would probably be an outright stunning game. But to me, TotK felt like a safe retread of BotW and it didn't do much to stand out. It just felt like BotW again, but bloated.
Still waiting for a proper sequel to BotW personally, so I'll see it in another 6 or so years I guess lol.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

CupidStunt

Tears if the Kingdom was insultingly easy compared to Breath of the Wild. Everyone was excited to see the return of Dungeons; however, they were so uninspired and easy it turned out 5he challenging puzzles and excellent level design of the Divine Beasts were much better. TotK had so much uninspired and easy filler. The Depths felt pointless, repetitive and boring.

Re: GameStop Hit By Layoffs As Analyst Predicts 'Unsustainable' Sales Decline

GamerGrandpa

I'll hate it if they don't make it. But it's the way of the world now. It's nice having a dedicated gaming store, but it's obviously not feasible since they do not make much money off of new games. I do not want to ever have to rely on Walmart or Amazon for my gaming, I use them as sparingly as possible anyway for whatever I may need. I won't mind going digital I guess.

Re: Poll: So, Do You Prefer Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Or Tears Of The Kingdom?

Zaruboggan

@Not_Soos I thought I had lmao (your edits kept pushing down the "Leave A Comment" box while I was trying to type mine!), but it looks like you got in a few more paragraphs. I have NOW read it all the way through.
I am up for your hopes for a future Zelda, though I love the artstyle of BotW/TotK, and do find it to be a sort of best of both worlds.
I'll see your WW sequel with another Wild game, and keep your underwater swimming: the same BotW overworld has now been flooded, and it can be explored via underwater swimming, and the highpoints are now WW-style islands.
Fishing and sailing intact.
Would you be willing to dive into BOTW's world one more time?