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

I prefer Skyward Sword.

TOTK got to complicated for me - BOTW was a fairy tale

For me it’s the entire Trilogy. Yea I include AoC and feel it is important to the environmental storytelling of the series. All 3 show Hyrule in a different state but weave together to tell one story (with a number of potential side stories that could be used for future games). This is Nintendo at its most ambitious with the Zelda franchise while keeping the foundation of the franchise and I love it. I am excited to see how these games and their success influence the direction of the franchise further. I am very pleased currently as a Zelda fan. I’m steeped in wonder no matter which game I am playing. I haven’t felt this way about a game (set of games?) in a long time. I think the best part for me is it really feels like Zelda’s story. Standing alongside her as she grows, seeing her sacrifice and struggles and that of the people of Hyrule while also providing an engaging adventure is absolutely magical.

So to me it isn’t a clash, but rather a harmonious tale.

I think I have to go with BOTW. That game made a massive impact on me, hardly like any other. TOTK is amazing as well, but definitely wasn't as impactful.

BotW was amazing, a true masterpiece. I couldn't really get into TotK, though.

BOTW was quite the impact to me but I do like both games.

TOTK makes BOTW look like a demo

I find this poll and the video by Felix extremely interesting from the comments. I’m not a huge Zelda guy, I enjoyed both games, but replayed BOTW before Tears came out. From the super wonky dungeons, the meh bosses, and unsatisfying ending I’m really surprised people seem to like it more. I do recognize the impact and sheer sense of discovery and “wow” factor BOTW had

And as a necessary side note, obvi this is my opinion and super cool to whichever you like more, I could care less lol

I prefer TotK though both pale in comparison to the linear Zeldas like Twilight Princess and Wind Waker.

Breath of the Wild holds a very special place in my heart. i don't think any other game will impact me as much as that game did.

While i really do love Tears of the Kingdom... its BotW

Honestly, I love them both equally for different reasons. One is more calm, and tranquil in botw. Totk is more full throttle and action packed. I couldn't pick one over the other.

Tears of the Kingdom for me.

The only thing it's missing is a fully upgraded Master Sword.

TotK is "better" in many ways but BotW left the bigger impression on me for being first.

Although TOTK left me feeling like I missed a good chunk of its magic because building vehicles wasn't really my thing, I'm still going with TOTK. The weapon fusion technique was incredibly fun and the fact they expanded the already massive world of BOTW so effectively is mind boggling to me.

@NintendoByNature fair enough!

Tears Of The Kingdom was so much more fun and sidequests were more engaging. The world felt more alive and kinda happier.

Even so, I am missing traditional Zelda.

Tears of the Kingdom because there was more stuff to do. It was way more fun exploring than in BotW.

My take is that TotK is the better game of the two, but the experience of playing BotW for the first time left far more of an impact on me.

BotW is the theatrical version, TotK is the George Lucas DVD special edition cut.

They're both kinda "meh"...

I got addicted to Ultrahand.

@CinnamonRobin
That's a good take. I feel pretty much the same way.

I haven't beaten TotK, nor have I played BotW, but I love TotK so far!

Tears of the Kingdom is a better game. The physics engine is incredible and it's a deeper game in terms of area and story. But...it's not very replayable. The Great Sky Island tales longer to complete than the Great Plateau; there are too many shrines hidden in caves; and "powering up" takes forever (though it's a blast after doing so). In short, sometimes I replay Breath up to getting all the towers and shrines and then shut it off. That's just not that easy in Tears.

If TotK was the first one with all the same content and such, I would probably go with that one. However, it is tough, BotW, I spend well over 100 hours on that, maybe even closer to 200. TotK, I am lucky if I will break even 50 just because much of the game is basically what BotW was... so I am probably going to have to go with BotW just because it made a much bigger impact for me.

Hard to say, really. I like the larger scope of Tears, the ultra hand abilities from Tears, the champion abilities from Breath, the plot of Breath, Tears had funner (but easier) shrines...I guess I like them equally 🫡

While both are excellent in their own right, I have to go with Tears simply because of just how much more it offers on top of what made BotW great. For instance, I loved the addition of vast cave systems you could just wander into and get lost in, something that I actually thought was missing in the exploration in BotW. Not to mention the depths and the sky islands as well.

if totk was time travel DLC for botw i would like it a lot more than as a standalone game. I played a fair bit in and i dont think I'll be going back personally.

BOTW …. TotK is just more of the same and ditched the opportunity to do right all the wrongs from the previous game in favor for a feature that has no place in a Zelda game at all

I can’t choose! They’re both phenomenal. I guess there’s something to BOTW not having felt topped over TotK for me, but they hone in on different things and really trade advantages and minor stumbles in a lot of categories.

easy Botw. It was gaming magic

one of the top 20 games of all time for me

Definitely prefer Totk, but Botw is still great too. I think the biggest improvement totk makes over botw is the main quest. The quests leading up to the dungeons, the dungeons themselves, and the bosses were all a lot better in the sequel. Plus, the demon dragon is waaaaaay cooler than Dark beast ganon.

The initial impact of the BotW was game changing and redefining gaming as a whole was very impressive. At the time it was so incredible and I fondly remember exploring Hyrule in this era.

TotK is definitely the better game, though, and I do believe the impact was a little more dull due to the fact that BotW was what it was, but nevertheless TotK is supremely better.

I’d imagine if TotK was THE Zelda of this generation (no BotW) it would have had a much much bigger impact.

The crafting in TOTK takes a while to get used to, but once you're comfortable with it and understand the possibilities, it's a lot of fun. I feel TOTK is the better game with a lot more to do, but it can't replace the magic of playing BOTW for the first time and experiencing that revolution. Like how it was playing Ocarina of Time for the first time. Or the first Zelda all the way back in the 80's.

@Yoshif3

well said.

what is the "one feature" you allude to though?

Man… TotK is better in a vacuum, but considering that it was the follow-up to BotW I don’t think it reached its potential (such as deeper lore or improved dungeons).
A lot of the appeal seems to have been centered around creativity of fuse and ultra hand, but I pretty much never built things because it rarely seemed necessary or even efficient.
Still.. it’s hard to imagine going back to BotW after having gotten used to ascend, my own mansion, and the improved towns..

@batmanbud2 I'm finally getting it this weekend!

For me, TotK takes the crown due to the dynamic opportunities afforded by Ultra Hand. I had so much fun building ridiculous vehicles and then setting off on quests around Hyrule. In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to do a “no fast travel” replay of TotK. Might be somewhat gruelling, but would make it even more epic and would make the ad hoc vehicles even more important!

Breath of the wild was more focused and actually made you use the environment to your advantage.

Tears lets you skip too much and to compensate threw in several completely worthless areas.

I skipped Breath of the Wild, so Tears of the Kingdom is 100% new to me, and it has become one of my favorite games of all time.

I'm glad to see this rebalancing as the "new" of TOTK wears off. my opinion early on was so unpopular around here, I needed a blindfold and a cigarette. 😆

@Jiggies I would love to meet more people like that. I’m so curious what TotK is like if you don’t know BotW.

Outside of being more revolutionary, there isn't a whole lot I could really argue to say BotW is "better". As far as sequels go, TotK addressed nearly every issue people took with BotW, and added many incredible additions.

I don't see a need to really say one is better; because of the way the franchise is, with completely different worlds/art styles between entries, I pretty much consider BotW, TotK (and I suppose AoC, kinda) to be parts of a grand series rather than something episodic, which is what we're used to.

More than anything, I just find the whole conversation fascinating if not a bit odd - there was so much talk of "just DLC", then it swung back to "BotW is redundant", now back to "BotW was actually better". I dunno.

@Ryu_Niiyama I'm so glad someone recognizes the value of AOC as an equal pillar to the other two games. Truth be, I'd say AOC has the best story, characterization, and soundtrack of the trilogy. BOTW is best for pure exploration, and TOTK's crafting is immaculate. All three games have wonderful upsides and downsides, just like previous Zelda games that came before. TOTK is probably the best game of the trilogy but BOTW is arguably the most magical being the first one to take place in this setting.

All in all, I've gotten tired with the Era of the Wild (it's been going on for 10 years now since the 2014 teaser!) and I truly hope Nintendo moves to something completely new for Zelda after this.

Totk failed in so many aspects that matter to me (and not to discredit it, it succeeded in others that just weren’t that impactful), while Botw managed to beat it even in those areas I thought Totk would have the easiest time surpassing what came before. I don’t feel like Botw did it’s story exceptionally well, for example, and somehow Totk managed to tell a less impactful, less interesting narrative. As a sequel, it didn’t capitalise on using the same world again much at all, with characters also feeling like shells of their former selves if they did get reused. In that way, it’s a failure in my eyes… a failure I played for about 100 hours so yeah, still a great game but in large and small ways, Botw still beats Totk for me, even if I fully expected the opposite to be true.

No option to say they are both generic open world games with a few gimmicky mechanics

Breath of the Wild was revolutionary where as Tears of the Kingdom is just more of the same 6 years later

@Minfinity It’s interesting to see how discourse around a game changes through time. Like Sonic Colors was a similar case: loved upon release, then the fans started ragging on it, and now it feels like it’s back to being well-liked. Odd stuff, but interesting.

Breath of the wild had me interested for 20 hours at least, Tears of the kingdom lost me after a couple of hours. So I guess botw, but I will never play them again, felt like a waste of time. Way too generic of an open world game.

Ironically, I haven't finished TotK yet, but I definitely enjoyed it more than BotW.

The only thing I didn't like about Tears of the Kingdom is how they ignored all Sheikah teach and Divine Beasts.

@Grumblevolcano You're a legend, so good to see someone say this. I wonder how many others agree. The Zelda magic just didnt carry through to the open world for me.

TOTK is objectively better ofc, it is the same as BOTW but bigger, with better mechanics and a better story but.... I just prefer BOTW.
The best part of these games by far is the sense of adventure and discovering new areas, and altough there were certain changes to the map in the sequel + the addition of that underworld and sky islands; the underground is very repetitive and the islands are just not too many nor big enough.
Discovering the BOTW map for the first time is something unmatched that TOTK simply couldn't replicate.

I love making dumb robots in TOTK. My favorite is gluing lasers and cannons on the roomba bot thing.

I'd have to say Breath of the Wild just because exploring open-world Hyrule for the first time was genuinely magical and revisiting it was never going to be quite the same, even with all of Tears of the Kingdom's new bells and indeed whistles. Both phenomenal games though.

Watched my daughter play BOTW the other day (she plays just to collect horses 😅). The game seemed so empty and…lifeless compared to TOTK. I’ve never completed the DLC but I don’t know if I could ever go back to try…

I think the ugly weapons in ToTK really pull me out of it, and alot of enemies just look worse because their Horns need to be used for weapons. Also not addressing where the Shieka tech went still leaves me feeling weird. I like ToTK story a lot more but over all BOTW is where it's like to be, Even if it is "smaller."

They're about on the same boat for me, great games with not so great replay value.

I really don't like the shrines in BotW though so that may give the edge to TotK at the end of the day.

@-wc- Ultrahand …. The Minecrafty abomination that destroyed the few bits of Zelda that that game already had.

It even took away years of the team’s development time.

So, instead of having good dungeons, a new world, items, good sidequests etc … we got THAT.

BOTW had a much better storyline, and it was fun to explore hyrule, however, TOTK was simply better. The ability to create whatever you want allowed for much more creative solutions, compared to BOTW, where there was usually only one way to beat a shrine. TOTK also had two other worlds to explore, and I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I enjoyed that a lot. I don’t think BOTW could compare to TOTK.

I just started Tears of the Kingdom a few days ago. After being generally disappointed with Breath of the Wild, it took a while to work up the motivation to give it a go. I've only just finished exploring the first area of the surface, but so far I feel like it's a massive improvement. It has more enemy variety, more interesting map design, and more diverse and fun combat options. From what I've seen, it's still missing most of my favorite Zelda elements and mechanics, and I still really wish they'd just made these games a new IP so I could have kept getting the Zelda games I actually want, but I can't say I haven't been having a good time. My only concern is that I'll hit the same point I did with Breath of the Wild, where I felt like I'd seen everything, but still had 90% of the game to go through.

TOTK was a superb enhancement of BOTW. But BOTW had more impact on me. The first truly open world Zelda. TOTK is the better game overall, however.

I think BOTW was more impactful and was a huge gaming surprise hit, but ToTK is slightly better imo and possibly the best game Nintendo have ever made.

botw has better story and overall feeling, but totk has better gameplay and map.

I think TotK might be the better game overall but my first playthrough of BotW was way more special to me because it was something completely new whereas TotK just expanded upon BotW

I haven't finished TOTK yet (I'm in no rush to finish it, I'll only have too wait another 6+ years for the next one), but I have put more time into it than my first playthrough of BOTW and my current opinion is....
TOTK is better.
The Crafting is real awesome, the three layer approach to the open world is very cool. The story appears a smidge more serious and darker (but by no means 'the darkest' Zelda).

There’s a significant amount of sentimental value in BOTW because it was our introduction to this version of Hyrule. With that said, I greatly appreciate the expansiveness of TOTK with the addition of the sky islands and depths, as well as the Zonai tech. I voted “I love them both equally.”

Both games had serious balance and design issues, but botw was a simpler and more cohesive game despite the poor durability mechanic, painful cooking, and late game lack of feeling like you really
got any stronger. totk failed to improve on any of those issues despite the promises, but then added a bunch of poorly thought out additions like the depths and annoying resource grind just to have enough to use the new building mechanic to get around the huge regions. While I enjoy both games for what they are, totk is just objectively messier and less tight and tidy.

People are allowed to like what they like, and I literally don't have the power to stop you. If my criticism takes away from the experience for you... well, I don't mean to sound insensitive, but that's kind of a "you" problem. We need to learn to not only tolerate--but welcome--opinions different from our own. If we can't do that with something as inessential as games, how can we ever come together to solve real problems in the world?

With all that said... I really did not like Tears of the Kingdom. I felt obligated to play it to completion because, I mean, it's a new Zelda game--how can I not? But much of that experience was a chore for me. BotW was a fantastic experience the first time through, but after 200+ hours, I was just so burned out on that map. I wasn't particularly thrilled to re-explore the same areas again, and to be honest, they really didn't change that much.

The surface felt largely the same, but they did more than double the game's size with the addition of caves, the underground, and sky islands. None of that new content felt particularly meaningful, though. A lot of the islands were pretty much copied and pasted, consisting mostly of two types: 1) the star-shaped islands where you just snap a photo of an ancient text that can be translated for 100 Rupees and some uninteresting lore drops, and 2) cross-shaped islands with a shrine on one end, a zonai machine on the other, and catapult in the middle where you have to launch up to another island to bring back the crystal to open the shrine.

Outside of those, there wasn't a whole lot going on up there. The only real rewards were just treasure maps that show you where to find chests in the depths. As for the depths themselves? They largely feel barren and pretty much the only worthwhile thing you can find down there are the costumes you could already get in the last game by just scanning an amiibo. There's nothing exciting about getting the same exact rewards you already got in the last game. It just felt pointless.

The depths could also be a huge pain to navigate. It's often too dark to see when there's just a giant wall in front of youm you spend 10 minutes trying to climb it only to realize it extends to the ceiling and you can't actually get around that way, so you have to take a massive detour to get where you want to go. I will say it's satisfying trying to activate all the light roots and gradually illuminate the darkness. But there's really not much of a point to it at all.

Even putting the costumes aside, the other rewards aren't that good either. I can upgrade my batteries to make zonal devices stay charged longer, but what's the point if my hovercraft is just going to flash green and disappear when I still have half my battery left? The game encourages you to craft different builds, but if that's something you're not interested in like I wasn't, a big aspect of the game just isn't going to appeal to you.

The game also creates a lot of problems that weren't in the original. The spirits of the descendants that follow you everywhere are annoying. Stop blowing my spoils away, Tulin, I'm just trying to pick them up. Revali's gale was way more efficient than having to build a fire and throw a pinecone into it. Magnesis had a further reach and was less tedious for pulling chests out from the ocean floor compared to Ultra Hand. Cryonis was more efficient than having to throw an ice fruit to make platforms on the water. And instead of just picking up a flaming sword, I have to take the time to pause my game and manually fuse two weapons together every single time because the base weapons are useless now. Bomb rocks can also run out, whereas I had infinite bombs in BotW. I could probably go on about the steps backward.

They also couldn't just keep shrines in the exact same locations as the first game because that would take away from the sense of discovery. But because it's the same map, they're no longer placed in optimal spots that make them convenient fast travel points. It was just a worse experience all-around, in my opinion.

One problem I had with Breath of the Wild that this game actually did manage to rectify was an increase in enemy variety. Horriblins, Aerocudas, Phantom Ganon, Gleeoks... I can appreciate the effort that went into designing those. But it's incredibly lame how they made these cool designs for the Aeorcudas only for them to die in one hit. They're basically glorified birds.

I also actually enjoyed the story this time around. I kind of found the cutscenes in BotW to be pretty cringe, but it was great to see Ganon return. The opening and the finale of the game were two of the most cinematic moments in a Nintento game ever. I also wasn't expecting that cutscene in a family-friendly Nintendo game, so I respect them for having the guts to go there. I found Queen Sonya and to a lesser extent Raru to be insufferably boring Mary Sue archetypes, though. But the rest of it was good. Some great new music like in the Colgera boss fight as well. And the caves were also really neat to explore.

But my praise for the game ends there. There's hardly any new NPC's outside of the traveling minstrels that aren't particularly interesting. There weren't enough changes to the surface world to justify re-using the same map in my opinion. What they added to Hyrule was mostly just padding, like holding up a Hudson sign a hundred times to get 20 Rupees and some rice.

The dungeons were not a marked improvement like we were all hoping for; they're maybe slightly better than the Divine Beasts but pale in comparison to dungeons from Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. Even the 2D games have more creative dungeons.

This is probably going to be quite the insulting comment to a lot of people, but the game really does just kind of feel like a glorified ROM hack of Breath of the Wild to me. In fact, I've seen ROM hacks that I've found for more interesting. I genuinely do not understand what took this game 6 years to develop; blaming the pandemic only goes so far. As with Splatoon 3, it really feels like Nintendo largely re-sold the game game with some minor alterations here in there on the same hardware as it's predecessor. But unlike Splatoon 3, they added and extra $10 to the bill this time. I don't get it.

I would give Tears of the Kingdom a 7/10 at best. If you never played BotW, I'm sure the amount of stuff you can do is mind-blowing. But if you did? I just don't see much of an appeal here. They didn't add a lot of the features people requested like bringing back fishing or swimming underwater, for example. Swimming is one of those things that would have really helped justify reusing the map. But unfortunately, no.

Then you have the same old, tedious Korok missions in there with the same exact reward. They have a couple new Korok missions in there, and while the ones where you have to pop the cork are kinda neat, having to build a vehicle which I already don't want to do to take a Korok to his friend who is completely out of the way from where I'm going just isn't fun.

I would have been happy with a new 3D Zelda game that offered a more compact but wholly original experience like Bowser's Fury was after Odyssey. Would prople have preferred a Super Mario Odyssey 2 instead if it just meant revisiting the same kingdoms with each of them having their own inverted shadow version? Maybe, but I would have personally found that really lame. Just make new kingdoms at that point. Horizon didn't have to reuse the same exact same map, and it still came out a year sooner than TotK.

I really loved BotW my first time through, but even then, once I hit maybe the 40-hour mark or so, I had largely caught on to the game's format. I was no longer surprised by what I found in the chests I came across, and I already knew the solution to all the Korok puzzles and how a quarter of the Shrines don't actually have a puzzle. After killing my 30th Stone Talus, I wasn't looking forward to fighting another anymore. TotK didn't really do anything to fix that. I was just... ready for something new.

And as great as BotW was, I was never really keen on the art direction. The world itself looks beautiful, but this is one of my least-favorite incarnations of Link. I would have preferred a more realistic game similar to the Zelda Wii U tech demo.

So from the moment Nintendo announced a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild was in development, I was already a little disappointed out the gate. It reused a lot of assets from that game, but it didn't repurpose them in what I felt was a meaningful way like Majora's Mask did. It had all the same NPC's, but they all had different personalities and roles to play in society because Termina was truly an inverted Hyrule. And they made that game in a YEAR.

So, what do I want from the future of Zelda? Well, if the "Switch 2" is really more powerful than the PS4 as rumors suggest, I think it's time to bring that Wii U tech demo to fruition. I want an open-world game in that art style, but Hyrule doesn't have to be as massive. Make it like one-third of the size but cram it with meaningful stuff to do.

No more Korok quests or having the same boss appear in 40 different locations on the map, though; that's already been played out. Get rid of runes as well, especially Ultra Hand. Zelda is not about building things at its core, and Zelda games should start placing a lesser emphasis on technology again and go back to being more medieval than sci-fi.

Give us about 8 traditional dungeons that each have a unique item like the Hookshot and Ice Rod. No more breakable weapons. Keep the climbing and being able to jump/glide, because those were game changers. Give us a cohesive narrative that isn't just told through flashbacks. Bring back swimming and fishing and give the minigames meaningful rewards again; I don't want to do a shield surfing race for a silver rupee, but if it's for a Heart Piece, now you're talking. Put more effort into the voice acting; given the sales numbers, they don't need to skimp out on hiring actors with a pedigree.

And make a direct sequel to Wind Waker alongside it, too. Keep the realistic and the cartoony Zelda games separate instead of combining them into what I feel is the worst of both worlds. Toon Link and Twilight Link are both fantastic character designs for different reasons. Champion Link is just derpy. And let the hero dawn his iconic green tunic again.

That's my essay on TotK that took over an hour to type. Sorry for those of you who were annoyed by having to scroll past it. But if you actually took the time to read all this, it's greatly appreciated. Would love to hear your rebuttals.

Certainly TotK, I played it for over 100 hours and am yet to finish it. I tried to get into BotW twice, but couldn't.

They are my least favorite Zelda games. I could never really get into them past the deep exploration.

I have a favorite but I don't know which it is. Does that make sense?

Breath of the Wild was, a breath of fresh air. Tears of the Kingdom, while a great story and better "music" and kinda sorta better "dungeons," was made tedious by the sage assistants and endless need to build build build.

Can we please just get an Ocarina of Time-esque open world Zelda, please. You know actual music, actual dungeons, and more of that Zelda magic and adventure? And less of all that breakable weapon nonsense, too, please.

Im feeling the sheer magical feel and atmosphere of games like WW and TP just doesnt make the transfer to open world.

I like the simplicity of BotW, however, it also has shrines with gyro puzzles…. 🤔

It doesn’t make sense to prefer one or the other; they are two halves of one (really big) game.

Hard to say. BotW gets points for the impact, but also I think it had the better shrines. Almost every one of them could be solved in different ways, while TotK's felt a little more redundant, skippable, or one-dimensional--in part because of the versatility of the toolset.
TotK was mesmerizing for me in the beginning. The sky and underworld both offered a new thrill--the former provided the sense of dizziness and danger that come with heights, adding greater stakes to every action. The underground, meanwhile, was menacing, uncharted territory with new enemies, max-health drains, and unending darkness.
But both started to wear pretty thin by the end.
I won't say TotK didn't have any great sense of discovery, even though the aforementioned new dimensions were fairly one-note, and even though the world was technically the same. I loved finding Gerudo Town changed by time (and the sandstorm). The underground element of the city definitely evoked feelings of covid lockdown. Even if I think that particular town was better in BotW.
The flying and tower launches took away from the exploration quite a bit in TotK, I thought. I'd see so much from above that I rarely stumbled into the new things. Inventive caves helped a bit with that, and shame on me for flying that much at all, I guess.
TotK's rupee economy and armor grind were also a little out of sorts IMO. I didn't feel like I could sell anything, because I needed so much of it for my armor sets. And I didn't even start working on armor until I was tired of being one-shot by bokoblins some seventy hours in.
(That's another thing I didn't particularly like, but perhaps shame on me again for not finding armor upgrades sooner.)(I guess the souls-like thrill did help set TotK apart, and if I hated it that much, perhaps I would have tracked down armor upgrades sooner.)
Also, TotK's story sucked, but not as bad as the way that story was told, redundantly, throughout the adventure. Cool final boss, though.

Is my answer, then, BotW? I don't know. I honestly enjoyed TotK, despite my numerous problems with it. Especially one adventure where I dropped into the thundercloud, blindly felt my way through the rain, and stumbled upon a temple. Which culminated in me effectively controlling a mech. When the sense of discovery was there, it was REALLY there.

Anyway, great games all around. Hopefully the next titles do better with the overarching plot, because they did great with the side stuff. Big fan.

Breath of the Wild all the way. Like some others said, the impact on me was huge. TotK felt to me like a part two, never enjoyed as much or lost myself in it like Breath. So easy choice.

BotW truly BLEW OUT my mind. I had never played anything like it.
However... TotK is better in pretty much every way XD (except for Nyel).

I’d be most interested in gathering up a bunch of people who played TotK first THEN BOTW and seeing what they think. I wonder how many people there are in this boat - it must be small, like a rowboat

It’s hard to separate whether a person enjoyed BOTW more or just that BOTW gave them a new feeling which couldn’t be replicated again for the similar TotK.

I guess what I’m wondering is: would many people just prefer the one they played first, and for most people that’s BOTW?

I would normally say i prefer TotK mainly cause overall it has more than BotW and makes BotW look and feel even more like a tech demo than it already felt. But because I played BotW first, a lot of it just felt too samey and ultimately felt repetitive faster. So I ended up not even finishing TotK and I haven't gotten the motivation to continue it since the month it dropped

Breath of the Wild 100%. The main issue I find with TotK is that it just feels like a rehash of Botw. The story is told in the exact same way and that simply just doesn't work. Botw's memory system works so well because it emulates how one would recover memories in real life. Randomly, and out of order. The story being relatively unfocused, and one that you have to piece together. Totk has the same storytelling style, and is much worse for it. The dungeons are fine, but they're just divine beasts with more flavor. The new mechanics are fun but I personally am not really a creative gamer. Also Zelda being absent from the main story is an absolute travesty, it's so annoying how we were given in my opinion the most interesting Zelda we've ever gotten and she's sidelined yet again.

Theres nothing like playing Breath of the Wild, but Totk is definitely the better game

@Not_Soos I just want you to know I read your entire comment lol. I always enjoy a good wall of text, even if/especially if they open with a disclaimer!

But do we really need another game with fishing in it haha

TOTK is superior in every single way. People voting BOTW are just nostalgic, because it was all so fresh and unexpected at the time. A bit like how people still clung to OOT being the best Zelda for years because exploring in 3D was brand new. Same goes for Mario 64.

@Manguy888A People that played Totk first would definitely prefer it. As much as I personally prefer Botw, totk has so much more content added on top of Botw. I think the reason why the Botw players didn't have the same feeling with Totk is because its pretty much the same game. It's just botw.... again.

@Baker1000 The totk story structure is so much worse than botw. Take the two games and pretend that they aren't related at all. I'd personally argue that Totk is slightly bloated with quantity over quality. The underground is quite lame imo and the sky islands I find to be underused. As a complete package, botw is the better game.

Ocarina of time

@Zaruboggan Did you, though? I found an exploit where NL will limit how long your initial comment can be, but if I go back in and edit it, I can add as mamy characters as I want. So it might not have even been finished when you read it. Unless you actually got to the part where I said thanks if you actually read this whole thing. 🤣 Either way though, it's appreciated! Glad my effort wasn't for nothing, lol.

TOTK is a sequel. And it's rare for a sequel to pack the same punch as the original. I have to say, TOTK was a bit too big for me. I have never put 180 hours into a game before this one. And it's a clear masterpiece. I just... sometimes like to play a Nintendo game that's a little tighter.

TotK upped the high fantasy gonzo and cranked it to 12.

BotW already had too much for my taste, but at least it was sort of more subtle and mostly relegated to the temples and beasts. I enjoyed all the parts between that, but TotK threw that into the game world.

So BotW for me.

I got tired of building stuff in TOTK. Got old fast.
Story was better in TOTK though but still prefer BOW over TOTK.

BOTW got me back into gaming. I fell in love with it. TOTK felt like a chore and I didn't finish it. The heavy focus on crafting / fusing wasn't really my style. Maybe I'll pick it back up some day when I have more time.

Tears of the kingdom was great, but I couldn't get into the creation aspect of it (the core mechanic that makes that game different from the original).

Ergo, I gotta go with breath of the wild

Totk is the better game but Botw has that nostalgia that we like to cling to

@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?

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.

Tears of the Kingdom was such a letdown. So much potential wasted

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.

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.

Both of them are amazing, but TotK just can't capture the magic of exploring Hyrule in BotW for the first time.

@andykara2003

I agree (at least I think I do). I just know the open world concept will be with Zelda for the foreseeable future. For better or for worse. That's why the series desperately needs huge, massively magical dungeons with orchestral melodies bouncing about to take one out of the samey open world. That's my wish anyway given the series trajectory.

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

The castle in BotW and the guardians around it were more thrilling than everything else combined in TotK. BotW was a much purer, focused experience, with real traveling, while TotK felt more like a permanent fast-travel plus endless walking in the underground. There’s no doubt that BotW is the superior game!

BOTW and TOTK are like two chapters of the same book series. You can read one or the other, but you really need to read them both to get the full story. Both games are essential - they're almost like one giant game cut in half. My vote is that I love both equally.

@Tchunga Yeah I share this sentiment. The Depths is a place for the devs to recycle content. There's virtually nothing interesting to find down there outside of a handful of costumes and Ultrahand utilities.

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.

Only right answer to me is both of them.

I really dislike Tears of the Kingdom. There's far too much technology in the game. That just ruins the setting for me.

39% vs 34%. Nice to see that both games are so amazing that they can stand toe to toe against each other.

@FlashmanHarry It definitely makes the setting less interesting. BotW's setting revolved around that already happening, but over 10,000 years ago from an extinct civilization. I adore that kind of setting. But TotK normalized it and now it's everywhere, losing the original concept and vibe.

WAND OF GAMELON

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.

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.

I have to say that, TotK blew me away, even more than BotW, so, that's now my best game I've ever played. But, before it, BotW had that spot hehehe. My kids are playing it again (on Wii U, imagine that!), and, it gave me huge urges to play it again! The best games ever, and they are from Zelda. What else can we ask for.

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.

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

…But I would argue that Breath better captures the spirit of adventure — and adventure has always been 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. had simply flown on broomsticks from the Shire to Mount Doom, the scale would technically be unchanged, but the sense of scale would be vastly different.

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 works as 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!

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.

TotK built upon what was already a masterpiece and made it even better. TotK for me.

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.

Breath of the Wild is a superior game.

I am not a Zelda fan, but BotW is probably the greatest game ever.

@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.

I hope we get a classic styled 3D Zelda soon again. I'm so tired of open world games, filled with bloat.

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

I'm personally just happy that we will continue to get more Zeldas in the same style. Cannot wait to see what the Zelda team gives us next.

BOTW for me as TOTK didn't have the same impact as the first game.

BOTW was a first game for me on Switch. But after 3 days I stop playing it, because it was too boring. So I don't plan to play TOTK ever.

Tears of the Kingdom had more of that Zelda charm for me. The world of TOTK felt fuller than BOTW, if that makes sense.

Tears of the Kingdom is the better game, hands down. People only say they like BotW more because they played it first and thus have that nostalgic attachment.

BotW is very good, but too much of the really cool stuff requires creative crafting way beyond my ability.
TotK actually made crafting simple enough that I could feel like a genius. Also, the challenge and variety of enemies/bosses is way better.

BotW I had to work to appreciate. TotK was effortlessly one of the most fun games I've played in 40 years of gaming.

There were way more immersive sidequests in TotK and also, the shrines of TotK were WAY better than BotW. No contest, IMO.

My only preference for BotW is that it's a little less intimidating because there's way less interesting content for me to feel like I completed it. But in TotK, I want to do absolutely everything, making returning to the game a little more daunting.

BOTW to me was a challenge and still is. I am almost done with the last Guardian Camel to finish before meeting Gannon and TOTK same one last main quest then meeting with Gannon. But TOTK with the glitch before they patched made it over powered game for me but for both I liked running around collecting much as I can of stuff. BOTW is more challenging to complete in my opinion compared to TOTK. But I would like a new Zelda truly Open world and choices you make affects what happens and what quests or routes you do to complete the task. Nothing like a End BOSS but continuation of quests and depending on level Hardness will determine how the quests starts or ends.

Haven't played either

There are many things I loved about TotK, and some things I thought it did better, but overall I think BotW is the better game. Both outstanding though.

@NeonPizza

And no blur effect.

A difficult question. In my opinion, Tears of the Kingdom is absolutely the better game. There's more stuff to do and the exploration element is unmatched. But Breath of the Wild was such a radical change from its predecessors that I just kept coming back for more. Before TotK, I would hop back into BotW every now and again to just wander around. I haven't once felt the urge to return to TotK since I rolled credits. It was a blast beginning to end, but I had my fill. There's still a lot I left unfinished like acquiring gear, taking down all the mini bosses, and finding all the caves, but after clearing all the shrines and lightroots, I was done.

Technically Totk is the better game, but exploring the same map really killed the game. It's boring to just revisit the same map. The fun of an open world is the unknown. I had a lot more for playing Botw

BotW for impact on release. TotK for elevating the game further.

So even if TotK might be the better game;
The first cut is the deepest !
So it's BotW to me for being the pioneer !

totk feeling like a ubisolf open world exploring recycle gameplay Too easy solve the every puzzle and didnt have a DLC master mode.
i prefer botw enjoy every single part

Couldn’t enjoy Breath of the Wild. I found the game confusing and clunky. It was the prototype for the true game Tears of the Kingdom. Even after I played TotK for a long time then went back to BotW, having gained a new appreciation for the style of game, I just wasn’t having fun with it. And I actually didn’t notice reused maps in TotK, but granted I gave up on BotW so it didn’t bother me if there was a lot of reused locations.

BotW should never have existed and Nintendo should have continued working on it so TotK was the only game instead of there being two.

I love both games, but BoTW was much more impactful . It released at a time i was sick and had week off of work. So that may play a part in it

Breath of the Wild provided a zen atmosphere and less overwhelm and allowed you to simply BE in the world. It was ambient gaming at its finest. TOTK tries to do too much and give you too much to do. Both are fantastic games but BOTW is the masterpiece people will still be raving about 30 years from now.

Holy Frickin Moses where tf were all y'all when I was getting piled on for not considering TOTK 10/10 GOTY 9 months ago?? 😅

I actually played and beat both games back to back in about 3 months.. just finishing totk about a week ago. My opinion may be a little biased as I played Botw on cemu with some graphic enhancements, 60fps and at a 2k resolution. The game is drop dead gorgeous. I also added an infinite stamina, arrow and weapon integrity cheats which were all pretty useful. Never cared for stamina in games to be honest. I know it's realistic but I'm playing an elf in a made up kingdom. Spare me. I found the environments to be more pleasing in botw. Not sure if that's due to the graphic overhaul or the fact that totk has a more darker tone. I didn't like the underground aspect of totk. It felt tacked on and didn't add much to the gameplay. The sky islands were fun and more diverse. Everything looked the same in the depths however, just different undulations and cliffs. Building is fun and weapon upgrading was kinda cool but the exploration and quest lines/story is what makes it a Zelda game. I was equally enthralled by both games but I have to give it to botw even though I spent 15 more hours on totk due to it's size..by the end, I was ready for it to be over. After 94 shrines, I was burned out and there's still 60 more lol. Great games all around though 👏. Not sure what it was about botw but I couldn't put that one down. Totk, it felt a wee bit grindy and the scope was a bit much and intimidating at times. Not terrible just not as enjoyable as botw.

The mildly better boss variety is the only thing about TotK I think is an improvement. Otherwise it just feels like the same game with worse puzzles, jankier mechanics, way too much bloat, and a lot of the quality of life features removed with laser-guided precision.

Like, I've done all of the shrines in BotW multiple times over. TotK, I bailed out with like 60 of them still to go and without doing the last two dungeons and I have doubts I'm ever going to play it again.

Breath of the Wild because it was the first game and Tears of the Kingdom felt like a (very good) expansion

Breath of the Wild for being amazing, fresh, engrossing.

Tears of the Kingdom for adding substantially and telling a new original story on the same foundations.

A wonderful pair of games that compliment each other beautifully. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II of the gaming world.

@NintendoLife:
Why no option for "I hate both equally! ?"

@NinTempo
Breath WAS a Demo!

Too many hipsters.
TotK is objectively a far better game.
More to see and do.
Far more involved and versatile set of abilities. (Abilities which work incredibly well ... Y'all are just too sore your deranged messes don't immediately work)
Literally everything, but the story, that the first game had.
COME ON PEOPLE!!

TOTK was too cluttered and messy for me. The draw for BOTW for me was the natural and cozy feel of the exploration, TOTK loaded the map up with junk for using to make the vehicles or rewinding up into the sky and it got stressful for me pretty fast. I didn't enjoy making vehicles. I wanted to ride my horse, but even though they gave us extra horse slots and the ability to upgrade our horses, they then nerfed the horses by locking them in to a small area with irremovable barriers or respawning bosses. They also removed the teleportation saddle, which I know was no coincidence since just about every other piece of armor made it over. They didn't want you getting your horses through there—they wanted to force you to make vehicles, which I didn't want to do. The story was also too convoluted for me, and i accidentally did it in the wrong order by stumbling across spoiler geoglyphs early on, which exacerbated the feeling of stress. I have replayed BOTW but I don't think I will replay TOTK.

@-wc- it’s what I’ve been saying too since release. It’s the Zelda Cycle 10x with TotK … not even a year from release and people can now see the game for what it was. Give it another year and it won’t even be in the top of lists.

And people called me crazy when I was having discussions with no end on release. How things are turning. The fanbase has spoken.

It was a good game but a terrible Zelda experience.

Leave out Minecraft away from Zelda.

I don't know why these "TotK haters" don't take up politics or something.
You're ALL just flexing your ability to make an argument against someone... Go do debating for a job.
TotK is quantifiably a way better title built on an amazing foundation.

BotW makes TotK look like ugly mess with bad controls.

Just because TotK has "more" everything doesn't make it automatically better. It feels like 90% of it is filler.

The worst thing after the ability wheel, sage controls and the stop- and go gameplay with arrows are the weapons. Most of BotW's great looking weapons were removed or replaced with decayed crap you need to fuse on, and if it happens to be a sword say goodbye for the sheathe after fusing.

It even looks worse than BotW. Grass is all jagged and the apparent "better" draw distance makes distant landmarks look uglier. The clutter doesn't help either.

The cherry on the top is the fact you can just cheese almost every shrine by using bombs or rocket shields. What's the point of making a puzzle if the player can just run past it?

It's annoying when people say BotW is "better because it was more impactful." No, it's better because it's a BETTER GAME in most aspects that really matter.

@Ryu_Niiyama I feel I should this but my brain is fried from a long day…what’s AoC?

I prefer the Wii U version of BotW.

Since BotW came first, I feel that that game had a bigger impact on me. However TotK addressed almost every issue I had with BotW.

Mind you since I personally didn’t care for building stuff, I guess BotW wins for me by a very very small margin.

@Spider-Kev
If BotW is a demo why does it have better controls, shrines and more solid story compared to the "full game?"

Also, if BotW was a demo then what are other open world games such as Skyrim? Some kind of barely functioning alpha versions of real games?

I'm kind of torn. Tears of the Kingdom fixes some issues and balances some less-than-balanced aspects of Breath of the Wild. And the expanded overworld, including sky, caves and depths is certainly a plus. And the ultrahand, plus spiking weapons with parts is a delight.

But at the same time, it doesn't have the wow factor from the first game. BOTW broke ground in the franchise with the open world approach, which means TOTK sadly is always going to be compared unfavorably.

But the biggest issue to me is the sheer amount of content. It was already an issue in BOTW, and TOTK dials that up to an insane degree. Let's break it down:

I beat Ganon, but I still have:

1. Over 150 Korok Seeds to collect.
2. About 6 side quests left to uncover and do.
3. 3 leftover shrines.
4. A TON of armor still left to upgrade (requring a TON of money and materials).
5. Plenty of weapon pictures to add to the compendium (I might just buy them).
6. A few caves and wells remain unexplored.
7. I have yet to find all of the Hudson signs.
8. I have yet to fully upgrade every horse I have.
9. I still have quite a few Hinox and Stone Taluses to beat (plus one final King Gleeok left untouched).
10. I haven't killed 10 of every enemy (a ton of Gleeok fights left, plus 5 Ganon battles left to do). I care about maxing out the score.
11. I haven't found the Hylian Shield yet (I heard it's easy, but I'm leaving it alone until AFTER I killed 10 of each foe).

Currently at 92% completion. Feels like it too. This game killed my sleep for months. I'm ready for a shorter Zelda game.

I did find all the Old Maps, plus almost all Sages' Wills and every single Yiga Schematic and Schema Stone.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a couple of Glider fabrics.

@Cia
Breath was a Tech Demo
Skyrim is an unoptimized, buggy mess
Most games are unoptimized, buggy messes nowadays!

@Real_Obsi

*"You're ALL just flexing your ability to make an argument against someone... Go do debating for a job.
TotK is quantifiably a way better title built on an amazing foundation."*

your inability to see the irony in this couplet is very entertaining to me 😊 cheers.

After the TOTK skills, it would be REALLY hard to get back to BOTW. I love both though, I just think that once you play TOTK, with everything it has and what you can do, it's hard to even turn on BOTW.

BOTW has the advantage of coming first and blew my mind in a way I couldn't imagine from previous Zeldas. It felt the culmination of everything the Zelda concept could be. TOTK was incredible but lacked the purity of BOTW. TOTK was like a super sized BOTK meal with every extra added on whether it was good for you or not. I loved that about it but would go BOTW if pushed.

@Thumbsofsteel Age of Calamity 👍

Imo

BotW is the better game because it’s simpler and less overwhelming. It has focus and many moments of calm.

TotK is just more fun. The powers are better. The physics are amazing. Falling is a blast. Temples are better. Puzzles are better. Beating the game “cheating” feels amazing. Villain is more engrossing. But it had too many things!! — it can be overwhelming. 70 hours in I paused and I still haven’t finished it.

@Thumbsofsteel Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

@olliemar28 why aren’t the % advancing? The number of votes go up but the results seem stagnant.

I’ve noticed Some weird things happen with the polls lately. Like the one where suddenly thousands voted for Super Mario Land as the best Mario game in a matter of minutes…. What was up with that?

@Grumblevolcano I'm really intrigued to see where Nintendo takes the franchise next. They said they're working on the next game already. A lot of people would assume that they have to stick with open world exploration after BOTW and TOTK and that going back to linear would feel like some sort of downgrade. Knowing Nintendo, they're gonna come up with something completely outside the box that none of us could predict.

I kinda wish there wasn't the "love both games equally" option. As someone who voted that option and then saw the current polling, I have to wonder what the results would be if everyone had to choose one.

@Ryu_Niiyama ah yes. I should have figured that out thank you. Loooong day lol

@Jalex_64 thank you! Yeah I should have known that

TotK had too much focus on building things. It kept getting in the way of me playing Zelda.

BOTW, as TOTK borrowed almost all of its graphical and audio assets. If you only look at what was newly created for TOTK, it pales in comparison to the amount of what was new in BOTW. Both are fun, but you can't even have the second without the sizable foundation of the first

Totk is a great game, specially when u think of the rubbish they're releasing lately ie suicide squad etc.
But, don't know what it is, once I finished it, never want to go back to it.
But now going through my 5th playthrough of botw

Personally I lean towards BotW but that's only because I just don't have the time to play like I did 7 years ago. I've only played maybe 5 to 7 hours of TotK. Wish I had the time for more.

Honestly, I voted both because they offer individual experiences that I will treasure forever.

BOTW is impactful for where it threw away the Zelda formula to give us something unique and new, and TOTK is iterative in its design and freedom in which it gives the player the developer tools to use in ingenious ways.

BOTW edges the exploration feel because the map is brand new to the player, but realistically TOTK has a lot more content on offer in comparison when you consider what was added in and around Hyrule via the remixed landscapes, caves, wells, sky islands, and depths - there's far more here to explore than anything BOTW originally offered as unlikely as that feels.

So TOTK edges as the better game for me. The scope of what is on offer and what you can do makes BOTW feel very "beta" in comparison. That's not to throw shade at BOTW either - it's just how much better and enhanced of an experience TOTK offers the player in comparison in almost every way.

There's some real technical magic going on underneath the hood of this game that will be talked about for decades to come - it didn't take Nintendo 6 years for nothin' to rebuild that world in a new engine, and it shows in the results.

Love these games. But Nintendo - new map next time yeah?

How is this even a question? Neither are actually good and proof that Aonuma is a fraud and a hack.

Anything pre-Skyward Sword is better by a century-wide mile.

They are both equally amazing but I honestly prefer Ocarina of Time and possibly Majora's Mask over either of them.

I have to go with both. I enjoyed how funny the golfing shrine in BotW(if you know, you know) and just how much you can mess with enemies in TotK and how much better getting around is(thank goodness for the frog armor that lets you laugh at rain). I even decided to do the tutorial area in BotW with the Master Mode thing to prepare for when TotK came out.

I hate them both, I fully went into 2018 buying a switch expecting to enjoy the new Zelda games (link's awakening did achieve that and even skyward sword), but now all of my hope is on Samus' shoulders because Link's latest adventures have let me down thoroughly.

@OctoCallie20 You know Aonuma-san was in a director role for the Zelda franchise since 1998 right? So that includes games prior to Skyward Sword.

"Do you prefer a cheeseburger or do you prefer a cheeseburger with soda and fries?"
Let's not pretend ToTK isn't BOTW 1.2, it's the same exact story, same map and same objective with new toys to experiment with. ToTK makes BoTW obsolete, no reason to ever boot it up again.

TotK was the first new Zelda game that released since I became a Zelda fan in 2017. It’s really just as special to me as botw was for some people when it first released. Don’t get me wrong, Botw is one of my favorites, but TotK felt like a far bigger and better version of it

Seeing 40% say they prefer BOTW is a little shocking to me, but also totally understandable. Personally, I prefer TOTK, but BOTW’s simplicity, for lack of a better description, is refreshing. Still think TOTK is a much bigger and more expansive game, though.

TotK has more content, but so does watered-down soda. It's not an objective measure of game quality.

ToTK was a half baked (storywise) game that didn't live off the expectations, to me, the abysmal gaps between the story killed

TOTK is a great game with the dungeons and boss battles of old and the huge worlds to explore.
But as far as replay value, it's BOTW for me.

Technically TOTK is my favourite. So much is improved. But BOTW raised the bar like no other. So TOTK is my favourite with a "but." I guess it's true and the same as birth order. The first born is the wow newness to parents whereas the second born is better, , but not as wow as the first. Only child thinking here...

TOTK wasn't even a Zelda game, it was just Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts with a BOTW skin. I'm not even a fan of the open world change of BOTW but even then I consider it more of a 'Zelda' game than TOTK.

BotW was great, but it really just pales compared to TotK imo. People always cite the openness of BotW, but where they saw openness, I thought “I get to explore the way I want to explore.” TotK just blew that out of the water with the options it gives you. As a child, whenever I got stuck I’d think “I would have done things this way based on my understanding of the physics”. Now, I can actually do things the way I intend to (or sometimes didn’t intend to). I do like my multiple choice exams, but while BotW gave me A,B,C,D, TotK gave me A-Z.

Both games are masterpieces

Both games are brilliant, and on paper tears of the kingdom is better because of ultra-hand and the crazy mental awesomeness of how this interacts with the physics etc.

But the breath of the wild experience, and because it came first, and just the sense of wanderlust this game gave me for the first time…. Breath of the wild wins for me. No idea if this even will make sense or resonate with others, but this is the only explanation for my experience with these awesome games.

Here are my two cents, if there's ever a point to add to this long thread of comments!

I have loved both BotW and TotK, two very different games with very different vibes. I actually spent 350h in each game, which I though was a funny coincidence (that includes the DLC).

Maybe if they had changed the graphics like with every other Zelda game, more people would have enjoyed it, while now it's suffering from the comparison.

Before I started TotK, I wondered how it would work with all of the armours. Would you need to find them all again and upgrade them all again? I thought it wouldn't make sense. Same with horses, and weapons, and the stamina bar and hearts.
I then realized that this is what happens in every single Zelda game in any ways. You always start from scratch and you always collect armours, even in older Zelda games, it was the same armours.
So I think that this allowed me to "get over" this aspect. And without this, I just wouldn't have enjoyed TotK so much.

I loved the character development in BotW but the story telling in TotK is much better imo. Yes the enemies look dumb with their new "horns", and the fusing mechanic belongs to an RPG game, it's indeed anoying that first your weapons break and then you need parts and to fuse them. I think that's the overall design choice that I didn't enjoy so much. That's purely because I'm an action fan and I always find RPG elements tedious.

I found that the feeling of going on an adventure was much stronger in TotK. Maybe due to the sidequests being more engaging and included in the bigger plot, and the main quests sending you much further away. The feeling of exploration was better in BotW, since the world was new and in TotK there's only really the Depths to explore, which were I think intentionally a bit creepy.

Like many people mentioned BotW was THE new Zelda, while TotK was just the sequel. I've completed both 100%, and am still playing TotK. I don't think I would go back to BotW, and certainly not do another playthrough from scratch, but who knows. So that's why I've voted TotK.

@Not_Soos I have also read your full comment, and appreciate you took the time to make it this detailed. I can agree with many things you have mentioned, and these are all perspectives that have crossed my mind. But at the same time it really got me thinking about how they approached the game and how they choose to design the follow-up.
I had so much fun with both games, and you sound like such a fan that it makes me a bit sad that you couldn't enjoy TotK as much as BotW, but like I said it's a perspective thing, and who knows, in the future, with a different mindset, maybe you could still enjoy it.

Finally, like some mentioned here, Age of Calamity also holds an amazing story. Now gameplay is something else of course, more a spin off than a Zelda game. But really glad other people feel that too.

BotW for me.

I wasn’t especially taken by TotKs fusion stuff both to build vehicles and to speck up weapons. Think that in turn made aspects of the game a tad bit more of a grind than it otherwise would be. That’s on me a bit, but I liked BotWs more basic approach.

Also found TotK too big, with the underground bit not being overly entertaining to me. The ground was the more interesting environment but it was more fun running through that the first time in BotW than TotK.

Both good games, but BotW resonated with me in a way TotK never really did.

Each one has their own merits for me. I like BOTW for its heavy emphasis on exploration, but the story took a back seat to that, and I like a good story in my games; that's why I like Skyrim and Genshin Impact so much: they don't skimp on the story and world-building, even when they have to cram the world full of places to explore.

TOTK did a bit better in that regard (but not by much), they also had better dungeons, and different ways to play. But that sense of wonder of exploring a brand new world felt a little lacking, since it was mainly the same world as before with minor alterations.

But good lord, did we really need 900-1000 Korok Seeds in both games? Why not just 500? As it is, you only need about that much to max out your inventory slots, especially in BOTW. And what about the ability to craft or repair your favorite weapons? Even when using the Fuse ability in TOTK, it still doesn't repair the base weapon.

So both games have good things about them and some not-so-good things about them. I would hope that Nintendo takes the customer feedback into account for their next Zelda game and create a more robust story with more traditional dungeons. They can keep the open-world mechanic, but as long as they bring back the traditional dungeons and have a more fleshed-out story, I know I'd be happy.

But until that day comes, I'll still be playing games like Skyrim and Genshin Impact. Especially since those games have far more replay value than Zelda does, in my opinion (especially the latter game, since there are regular events and updates to the game that expand the story and world).

I loved both equally, they are both fantastic, but as Felix said in his video - it was the freshness, the new discoveries, the wonder that Breath of the Wild brought that tears of the kingdom couldn't... I still put 150 hours into tears of the kingdom, but without the master mode i am not as keen to go back for a second dip so soon!

For me dev Tears of the kingdom. The fact you can do lit everything in this game you set your mind to.
With this game, breath of the wild felt like a demo.
Also the story line in Tears of the kingdom was really good, wish that part was a bit longer. Would be cool of link could actually travel through time, where you would see two different worlds. A crowded Hyrule and a destroyed Hyrule.

Easily BotW. TotK uses the same overall formula, but didn't feel like a Zelda game. I ended up finishing BotW (which I've done with most Zelda title) whereas I had to stop ToTK. It felt like it was contradicting itself as it was trying to be a Zelda game, but a new type of game too. The puzzle solving most definitely is not Zelda.

Lol at the 101% result. NL polls don’t work. The same numbers have been stuck for almost 20 hours now. I predict that TotK must be around the 25% mark by now

Where's the "neither" option?

Only played BoTW and it disappointed me so entirely I'll never touch another Zelda game until they decide to stop being fad followers and return to true Zelda formula.

A shame to see your favorite franchise you've played for 30 years crumble to dirt in front of your eyes as $70 DLC.

I love them both, so I can't really say for sure which one was better. Breath of the Wild became my favorite game ever, which is shocking to say, since I'm old and every other favorite game is pretty much just SNES era. Then TotK came out, and became my favorite game ever. That's two games in a row that shattered my nostalgia glasses and helped me love something outside my box.

I guess all I can say is that I'm very excited for the next Zelda!

Tears by a huge margin. BotW is legitimately a 6/10 IMO. The open world is nice and almost completely empty, I felt almost no compulsion to actually explore the world. TotK, on the other hand, had so many cool things to find and discover, it kept me engaged for much much longer.

BotW absolutely has great gameplay but zero story and a mindless villian. So easily Tears is the better imo.

I'd say Tears is my favorite overall.
I think it's probably a WW/TP case tbh. TP is objectively the better game but WW has so much charm and identity and was so important to the franchise that it is said to be most people's favorite.
I feel like it's sort of the same thing going on here.

@Ryu_Niiyama that’s what I talking about someone else who thinks it’s a trilogy and a great all together story. You rule.

I loved BOTW and completed in time for YOTK launch but only now feeling like I might be ready to go back to that map

Gonna have to go with BOTW. Totk is incredible and makes many improvements of course, but the first one was just such a revelatory gaming experience. I didn’t quite reach that level with totk, but mostly cuz everything was so familiar already. The newness of it wore off much faster imo. Having put significant time into both, I can safely say I am very sick of it overall lol

BOTW. TOTK just felt too same-y to me. Same map, same graphics. A big appeal of any new Zelda game for me is a new look and feel to Hyrule. Just felt like I was playing the same game but I have to build stuff. BOTW felt revolutionary.

Both are great games! The added features to TotK makes BotW unplayable. Arrows are almost meaningless in BotW compared to TotK and that alone makes it unplayable. Transportation is awful compared to TotK.

Votes for BotW are solely out of nostalgia, at least, that is what everyone is saying in the comments.

Switch the order of release of the games and BotW would be a MASSIVE disappointment.

Glad to see that the initial euphoria around TotK has made room for some common sense.

Both are terrible “Zelda” games…. But BotW was better…. At least it was something new and TotK was just a rehashed disappointment in all the few Zelda bits it had with terrible un-Zelda ideas thrown to the wall to see what stuck. The result was just a mess.

More isn’t always better, and in TotK’s case it was far WORSE

OoT is my all-time favorite game, so I understand preferring a game for the sake of nostalgia. I can understand people liking BotW for being so unique and new. However, TotK is undoubtedly a better game. It's bigger, with much more to explore, much better and more varied enemies, so much more to do, better challenges, and a significantly better story. It's not perfect, but it's a far superior game.

@Ryne-Gaia it has been an amazing ride hasn’t it?

@batmanbud2 It's crazy to me that this is the most liked comment, even with the bump from being first. Not because I disagree, but because I've been wondering where all the other Skyward Sword fans went for the last decade. The Zelda cycle is a very real and very weird phenomenon.

Breath of the wild is the better game for sure. The stuff that was added into Totk was a mismatch. The world was designed with botw abilities in mind which alone is a huge hit to the quality of the sequel. A great example is coming across those patches of boulders and slowly and stupidly smashing my way through them with a rock attached to a conveniently placed rusty weapon in the walls every time. The areas added in totk are empty or pointless. Ur better off looking up where the armor set you want is underground than exploring it all. The only thing I like is the ganon fight.

I genuinely was not a big fan of either, but I found BotW at least pretty enjoyable, whereas I absolutely hated TotK to the extent that I persisted with it for a few hours, but the had to stop as I was just not having any fun at all.
Perhaps I am just the wrong sort of person for that sort of game, but I really hated the overly open nature of it all, with dozens of different ways to accomplish every task. I like it when there is one (or a small number) of solutions to a problem, a specific item I need to use or a certain skill I need to do in order to get last an obstacle rather than just a load of possibilities, none of which feels like the "right way" to do it.

I am sure for someone who loves getting a big box of random Lego pieces and putting them together into some random design, the game is an absolute treat, but for someone like me, who enjoys following the instructions to make a specific Lego model, the game is borderline unplayable as it just feels like everything I do is wrong!

Also, I really do despise limited use weapons, especially when they have such low durability!

From the moment they announced they were reusing the map I was worried it'd lose the sense of exploration, and even though TOTK surprised me in many other ways, the lost sense of exploration means BOTW is the easy choice for me.

@Yalloo

Don't feel too sad for me--like I said, I was a bit disappointed when we first learned it would be a direct sequel to BotW, so my expectations were tampered pretty early on. Even if it had been a wholly different map, I was just ready for something in a different style and knew we wouldn't be getting that for a very long time. While I was definitely hoping to get more enjoyment out of TotK than I did in the final product, it's not like I was hyping this game up for years and years or anything.

But that was okay, because I've had plenty of other Zelda content to play. I didn't get into the franchise until Ocarina of Time 3D, and while that's been over a decade now, there are still a lot of Zelda games I needed to catch up on. I had played Skyward Sword but never finished it until the Switch port. The Link's Awakening remaster was my first time playing though that game as well, and I had never played the Oracle games or Minish Cap until they came to Switch.

Given all those gaps in my history with the series, I'd say I've eaten pretty good over the past several years. Even playing the N64 version of Ocarina for the first time felt like a brand-new experience, and the NES Zelda holds up shockingly well! If I'm being completely honest, despite starting a new file on them several times and getting very close to the end of the game, I still have yet to actually finish A Link to the Past or Majora's Mask, which are two of the most renowned ones!

If I had already played every Zelda game by the time Breath of the Wild came out and had nothing else worth playing between then and TotK, I imagine I probably would have been pretty disappointed. Nintendo also still had a pretty stellar 2023 even without Zelda, between all the Pikmin games, Super Mario RPG, Mario Wonder, etc.

Honestly, all I really want are Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on Switch, lol. Those are my two favorite games in the series, so if Nintendo would just give me those im a portable form factor, I'll be more than content with what we have and can wait patiently for the next mainline Zelda game.

If you want to feel sorry for me, let it be over how long I had to wait for Paper Mario to go back to its routes; now THAT was painful, haha.

Breath of the Wild was the game for me. I haven't even finished Tears of the Kingdom yet.

@Oracles_fanboi

I get it, the ending was kind of a deus ex machina. I've read fan theories as to what could have justified it, and they sort of make sense. But Mineru was very explicit that Zelda's transformation would be irreversible. If they were going to give a loophole, they should have made it more clear. Same with the corruption in Link's arm.

That said, the ending wasn't enough to ruin the story for me, personally. I think because I enjoyed the rest of the story so much more than BotW's, which frankly made me cringe every time one of the Champions opened their mouths, I was able to look past that. The final boss was also so cinematic and the music was so bombastic and the cutscene was so epic that I was able to suspend my disbelief and just be in the moment experiencing it without thinking too analytically about it.

And while I usually hold Zelda to a higher standard, Nintendo often sets the bar pretty low when it comes to storytelling in most of their other games. The story enhances the experience of each Zelda game, but it's never the main focus for me. The cutscenes were impressive, and that was good enough for me. If this was a turn-based RPG or something, I'd be more critical of the story because it would have an elevated sense of importance to the overall game. But in Zelda, it's not as essential to me for it to be fully free of potholes.

I totally get where you're coming from though, and you're objectively correct. It's just a matter of how much importance you place on the overall narrative in Zelda games. As someone who sees it as supplementary, I thought the story was satisfactory. But if the story is essential to your overall experience--yeah, I can see why you were underwhelmed.

I still think BotW's story was worse, though. Zelda was able to keep herself alive and young for 100 years while keeping Calamity Ganon at bay how, exactly? The power of love and friendship? With Link it makes sense because he spent that time in a healing chamber while also in a coma. There's not really a good reason why Zelda didn't just get old like Impa or die, other than "the goddess' blessing was upon her."

@Zaruboggan

Oh man, haha, I didn't realize it would do that! Sorry about that, I probably annoyed all kinds of people with my edits! I thought you'd have to refresh the page to see it. But yeah, I ended up adding another paragraph or two even after replying to you because I thought, "Ooh, I really should've mentioned this other thing!" So it probably was complete when you saw it until I decided to go back and make it even completer-er, lol.

But yeah, I think I'll definitely replay BotW again someday, but probably not for a very long time. I'll probably even replay TotK eventually as well. Something I should mention that tainted my overall experience is that I have a little nephew who got obsessed with BotW when he was just 3 years old, and he wanted to play it with me ALL THE TIME pretty much until TotK released. So, if I wasn't already burned out enough I'm BotW from the 200 hours I spent with it, I probably invested another 100 hours or more into the game just with my nephew. So by then, I don't think it would have been physically possible for me to have been any more sick of Champion Link than I already was by that point, lol.

If I hadn't played BotW since like 2017, then TotK probably would have felt a lot more fresh because I would have forgotten much of the map and rewards. But fresh off the heels of TotK, it just felt like I was doing all the exact same stuff but worse. I need a very long break from the formula, but in a few years I imagine I would still really enjoy BotW like I did when it first came out. Even though I said TotK is no higher than a 7/10 for me, I still think BotW deserves at least a 9/10.

I love my nephew more than anything and wouldn't trade the time we spend together for the world. But that experience does make it hard to look at both games objectively anymore. I still think TotK is the inferior game by a pretty wide margin and don't expect that to change if I replay it years down the road, but I do think BotW is a really great game even if I got burned out. I think I will still enjoy my time with it if I play it again someday. I think TotK will probably still feel mediocre for me, though. But, who knows?

Haven't played enough. But to me it feels TOTK is better story wise, and has developments pretty regularly that drive it forward. Whereas in BOTW I felt I was just running about for ages with nothing happening story wise, just beating enemies here and there.
But it could be just arbitrary that I was lucky in TOTK so far bumping into the good bits.
But over all they are pretty similar.
The underground and sky are awesome though. I like the mysterious feel to the exploration in TOTK. Luckily I have gotten the fast build ability, which makes it less of a chore to build the same thing over and over. I can imagine someone playing for a long time without that, and becoming bored of building stuff.

@Not_Soos I guess only time will tell!
Thanks for sharing about your time spent with your nephew!
I think my time with TotK was definitely improved, initially, by me not remembering a thing about the overworld, other than maybe broad swaths of 'the desert is in this corner; this town is over here.' But it all came back by the end.

@Zaruboggan Sure thing! Yeah, BotW was unfortunately so fresh on my mind, I knew exactly how to get to eeeeeevery major landmark in TotK. When you play them back-to-back like I did, more or less, you realize just how negligible the chances to the overworld really were.

@Not_Soos Ok, good. Glad you've got plenty of cool (Zelda) games to play!

My favourite Zelda was Twilight Princess, just love the characters, the vibe, the story, all of the quests and items, and the music!

I used to love A Link to the Past, but I think I have overplayed it. I know it by heart, it's not fun anymore. Still really enjoy the soundtrack once in a while though.

Now, I haven't played the Oracles games, but seeing how much I did not enjoy the Minish Cap, I don't even have any interest in getting into them. Who knows maybe in the future. But I mean, I also have my "disappointing" Zeldas!

I'm going through the Wind Waker HD with my kid at the moment and I'm still amazed at how much of a job they did there. Already on the Gamecube planning a sort of open world game. Amazing!

Cheers!

That's kind of a hard question for me. I really like BotW, and Tears is my least favorite Zelda game, despite me considering it quite good. There are many things in both games that are great, and that frustrate me to no end. As a result I can't really decide which I like more. There were multiple occasions where playing Tears made me sorely miss playing BotW, but if I went back to BotW, I'd really feel the absence of the Caves, Recall and Ascend, and some of the new armor sets. If Tears just had some alterations to story execution, I'd love it so much, but overall I really struggle to not be aggravated by how the Tears and Dungeons are handled narratively. Say it with me, y'all; "Secret Stone? Demon Lord?"