Soapbox: FOMO Nearly Ruined Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom For Me

I tend to ignore news outlets about games before they come out or rumors because they bombard you/ruin the experience for clicks and then just approach open world games in a “structured wanderer fashion”. If there is a main quest I loosely use that as my guide and then meander through side quests and discovery organically. Because of that I am able to just enjoy the game. No obsession over what I missed or the “correct way to play” because these games are designed for the player to set the pace. That allows me to “live” in games for a long period of time. It’s weird, I think older gamers that didn’t have a lot of games did that by necessity so it is just a natural disposition where some younger gamers that are used to information glut overwhelm themselves and make gaming a chore. Rather than an escape.

It would help if this article somewhere explained what "FOMO" is.

Interesting read. I am curious about the dungeon you are referring to. Personally, I felt like these were the best 3D-Zelda dungeons in the series.

@Dr_Corndog Fear Of Missing Out

@Dr_Corndog As Mattesdude said, Fear of Missing Out. You could have also taken a couple seconds to simply Google the word and you would have gotten it quicker than having to wait.

I just want all the 'armor' if you can call earrings armor and beat Ganondorf's mummified rear.

@Ponyolovesgames probably the lava one

“I still think the temple-which-shall-not-be-named is atrocious given the sheer quality on display elsewhere” why cant you name the dungeon? having spent over 200+ hours playing this game, i found all the dungeons tedious… so have no clue which dungeon you are hinting at?

I don't see what changed, since you were obviously playing "at your own pace" in the first place. 25 hours in a few weeks? That would be very little playtime even for a casual gamer, nevermind someone whose whole job is playing the switch. I also have no idea what dungeon you're talking about, and apparently nobody else does either. You can only do this when there is a consensus on which dungeon is terrible, like the Water Temple in OoT (even if everyone is wrong about it).

FOMO is such an awful thing. Not acting on your FOMO perpetuates the anxiety, but acting on it, i.e. trying not to miss out, rarely results in actually experiencing the thing you are afraid of missing out on.

It's like someone who wants to have the perfect vacation or family event, but they ruin it by obsessing over photos and planning every moment. Ironically you can't experience it because you're too focused on experiencing it.

It's hard to resist. I got that feeling playing TOTK too. Sometimes I have to remind myself that there are a lot of games I've played later than most people and absolutely loved them. BOTW is an example of this. I don't know how I could have benefited from playing it on release.

Yes, as difficult as it was: I blacked out gaming media before ToTK launched, and a few weeks after. It was great. Likewise I am not watching any videos for Wonder for the same reason. I love gaming media, but I also love going into a game with as few spoilers as possible. Thanks for the article!

I get it. I actually think they kind of built it into the game on this one though, with so much grind outside the not too lengthy story.

Is it the Fire Temple?

I hated botw and just got this because I got a good deal on it and I actually love it

@BriskSunrise, we shouldn’t have to google it, good journalism would explain what it is in the article. No offense to the author of this article.

i cant belive im gonna say this, despite waiting all those years in the mental state of a puppy about to go on a walk, but it's not enough. I know it's not true since there's so much content, but SOMETHING is missing. I think it really comes down to the sky islands and the depths. The depths are huge but soooooo bland. Theres little leeway in environment and biome change, and theres nothing NEW to find. And the sky islands are awesome, but THERES LIKE 7 UNIQUE ONES AND THEY TAKE 5 MINUTES TO KNOCK OUT IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOURE DOING! And i can already hear the arguments against my complaints, that my expectations were out of whack. Which is fair, but when youre drip fed for 6 years and only shown islands YOURE GONNA START EXPECTING THINGS. I think my biggest regret is playing the original too thoroughly out of hype. This game is perfect for the person who never played the original, or didn't like it. But if you really loved and played the ever-loving hell out of botw, i think you may agree with some of the things i say here.

The sense of wonder we had while exploring BOTW's Hyrule is gone in favor of a completely messy, bloated map with copy-pasted tasks filling the gaps.

My biggest gaming disappointment of 2023, that's for sure.

I too have no idea which dungeon they found frustrating. They're all cookie-cutter designs, boring but certainly not challenging. My daughter solved them all except one without help, and she asks me for help with everything. And that one, she solved when I reminded her how to switch between levels on the map.

I think you can be a great journalist and not following social media at all.

@Olliemar28 What did you dislike of it?

I've come to grips with the fact that I didn't love this game as much as I wanted to. Like others have mentioned, the sense of wonder is not really there like it was in BOTW since it's just the same world except bigger, with essentially the exact same story progression and beats, and without much additional reward. I think its size maybe actually worked against it because there really didn't seem to be enough to fill this massive world to justify bothering to explore it. But that all might just be because I replayed BOTW fairly recently. Maybe I'll replay TOTK in a couple years when the memory has faded a bit and will like it more.

To me it wasn't that much different to BotW. Yeah, I get the new mechanics, but it didn't make for a different feeling game. Quests were also more boring. On paper it's "BotW but better" but in practice it was "BotW but it isn't anything you haven't played before" for me.

@Olliemar28 There's something to be said about wanting to be part of the day-one zeitgeist and discussion for a new release. Even though my Switch collection is substantial, I felt the need to purchase an Xbox Series X to feel like being a part of early Starfield discussion.

The Fire Temple was really hard for me because I always forget there is a map. Once I slowed down and realized that there was a map, I was finally able to get through it, but there were still a couple of tough sections.

What is FOMO? Never heard of it.

It's the fire temple.
I know it is.
It's...decidedly more challenging than the others, IMHO.
And if you don't know what something means? Look it up.
Cripes.

@abbyhitter I read about half the article and started to realize it wasn't going to tell me what FOMO is.

Weird..never heard of someone experiencing FOMO from feeling compelled to talk about it on social media with strangers...?

Sooo glad I'm not addicted to that nonsense like the rest of the somnabulist society.

@abbyhitter @FredsBodyDouble Fear Of Missing Out. Typically used in games with limited time skins so people feel they have to buy now or miss out forever.

FOMO is far, far worse in Splatoon 3 with the changing catalogues etc. One of the reasons why I actually stopped playing it. I loved Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 3 is much improved in many ways. But man, those catalogues...

In other words, a dungeon pissed them off so badly they deleted the game and left it for later. Who hasn't? This is a dog bites man moment.

I think Zelda games simply used to be better than they are now. In the early 2000s, I didn't care that I was the only person I knew playing Wind Waker. I didn't care that some thought the GameCube was childish. The game was sheer magic and I didn't just enjoy it - I experienced a piece of art.

Nowadays there's so much hype and acclaim about the latest Zelda, but it seems like many find them hard work to actually play.

Yes! I am this way with games, TV shows, and pretty much everything that I have hyped in my head.

My experience is that if I get too many opinions/experiences/whatever from other people in my head, it doesn't allow the natural formation of my own when experiencing it. Trailers and hype are usually ok, but anything past that I have to mute. Sorry you don't have that luxury in your current position.

All the dungeons are some of the WORST in the series. And I know you’re talking about the Fire Temple Ollie ….

And I’m glad that they hype is dying down, the narrative is changing and most people are seeing this game for what it really is … a disappointing step in the wrong direction for the series.

The more people realize it, the sooner we can get Zelda back into form.

I’m really enjoying this game. For me it was getting a little overwhelming but also I simply just didn’t want it to end. So I put it down for a couple months. Played some smaller indie titles. Just picked it back up this week. Still going to take my time and just wander.

I found the dungeons too easy and therefore boring. Here are five puzzle rooms. In each one, you will move an object to a spot. Fiddle fiddle fiddle fiddle. Congrats, you did it. Here’s a boss that is going to take one, maybe even two tries. Tired of Hyrule? Go stumble around in grey darkness with invisible barriers everywhere. Hoard all the zonaite you can, you’ll need it for the gadgets. Tired of that? Go find a tower so you can rocket up to the two or three nearby islands with barely anything on them. Hoard all the sundelions you can, you’ll need them for the depths. Pure tedium, albeit pleasant tedium.

Definitely a step down from Breath of the Wild, which was a much more focused and exciting experience. Had a lot of the same problems, but it was new and difficult at times because it was unfamiliar. Now we know how to run away from a Talus or where Koroks tend to hide or how to handle shrines or we can just build a plane and boringly fly over all annoyances. I put in 85 hours, so it obviously wasn’t awful. I’m just very glad to be done with it

25 hours in 2+ weeks is nothing, especially for someone whose business it is to play games! If you had said you were burned out after playing 100+ hours in a week or 2 I would have said fair enough but the amount of game time you stated in the time specified really is a tiny amount. Particularly for a games journalist 😱

I didn't need FOMO to ruin Totk for me, it was my fear of spoilers that pushed me to immediately jump on the game along with hype, and the game just fell short of expectations, especially on the story and exploration department. Once you get over the 'wow, two entire extra maps??' you start to realise how samey a lot of the parts of that map are, alongside characters that got the life sucked out of them. I enjoyed playing it, but I'd never call it a masterpiece.

Not that I don't get the sentiment for FOMO ruining stuff. When Arcane came out and nobody could shut up about how good it is, all it makes me want to do is not watch it and wait until there's less of a giant mass of people pushing you to either love it or 'you just don't get it'.

I’m just surprised that there are people who still need FOMO explained to them.

I liked the fire dungeon actually 😢. In all honesty it was for all the wrong reasons. The solutions the game wanted you to take were so stupid but making your own way was fun.

It's the Fire Temple right? You're talking about the Fire Temple....aka everyone's least liked Dungeon.

I'm glad other people are coming around on Tears of the Kingdom not really being all that great. Not that I enjoy seeing people disappointed, but it felt like I was among an incredibly small minority amid all the hype the game had at launch.

The sky islands and depths don't add much in the way of substance. Other than shrines and capsules, pretty much the only thing you have to find in the sky are maps that lead you to treasure in the depths. And what does that underground treasure give you? The same exact costumes you could get in the last game by scanning amiibo! Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you still get them in this game from scanning amiibo? Which makes that aspect of the sky/depths completely worthless.

Let's see, what else can you do in the depths? You can mine for Zonaite to upgrade your battery. But first you have to convert it to crystallized Zonaite, which is a pointless extra step. You can upgrade your battery an insane amount, which feels like satisfying progression at first, until you realize most of your contraptions will flash green and disappear long before you even come close to running out of battery. Activating Lightroots and filling out the map was fun, albeit kind of pointless when the depths offer little of substance. And it can get so annoying when you spend 10 minutes trying to climb a wall in complete darkness, only to realize it goes all the way up to the ceiling and you can't actually go that way!

The sage spirits that follow you around are annoying. I can't tell you how many times Tulin blew away all my materials when I was just trying to press A to pick them up. Each of their abilities just fills like a way worse version of the Champion abilities from BotW. At its core, the game just kinda feels like they copied and pasted over BotW but added a lot of fluff that only worsens the overall experience. It's not fun to collect the same exact items I was collecting six years ago in the first game. There's very little in the way of surprise. Blood Moons are also far too frequent. If you just aren't that interested in crafting, this game has very little to offer that you couldn't already get from its predecessor. There also aren't any interesting new characters besides like I guess Rauru and Sonya.

Now to name a few things I did like: Ascend is a worthwhile new feature. I started playing some other 3D games after TOTK and kept finding myself wishing I could phase through the ceiling to quickly get to new heights. Searching through caves to find Bubulfrogs was kind of a fun little extra thing. One thing the game did significantly better than BotW was delivering a compelling story. I found the memories to be way more interesting this time around, as I honestly just found every cutscene with the Champions to be cringe as their personalities were such one-note archetypes. Rauru and Sonya aren't much better in this regard, but Ganondorf's role makes the whole thing much more captivating.

Honestly, this game probably has the best opening and ending sequences of any Zelda game. I thought the final boss was quite exhilarating, even if it took me several minutes to realize what I was supposed to do in the final phase. Also, the enemy variety is much better here than in BotW. It wasn't nearly as tedious and repetitive thanks to several new enemy types. Dungeon-specific bosses were also much better. And there was some good original music, which is to be expected.

(cont'd)

So yeah, there's stuff to like, but this game was in no way worth 70 dollars imo, and I don't see how this game that largely just reuses assets took 6 years to develop. Overall, I can't give the game any higher than like a 7/10. I'm so done with the Hero of the Wild saga and am just ready for whatever is next for Zelda. Hopefully, a return to the darker, more realistic art style of Twilight Princess. With more powerful hardware coming, let's move away from the cel shading for one game. It can still be open world, but let's bring back some of the old Zelda conventions. I want my green outfit, I want my real dungeons, I want items like the hookshot, and I want weapons that don't break. Climbing and jumping are worthwhile features, so keep those and bring back underwater exploration.

@Ryu_Niiyama yeah I agree that is how I play to this day. Which is why I tend to play few games throughout the year. I’ve only really played xenoblade and Zelda so far. I’m still on Zelda but I’m looking forward to Mario wonder.

Still haven't bought this game! I really want it but... the price. I don't have that much cash to spend on whatever I want, sadly... So I'll be waiting for a cheap secondhand copy.

I'm lucky in that I've never really been prone to fear of missing out(FOMO). Don't worry, as I'm not bragging. I have other problems. I'm not saying I'm immune to hype, but the pull is not strong and I never really feel compelled to jump on things day one. I will share some general observations on gaming and game design. First of all, sometimes people are just not in the right place mentally for a game, even one that is otherwise their thing, at a particular time. Sometimes, a break from certain games, or gaming is all that's needed. I've encountered games I didn't like at first or just thought were okay that ended up becoming favorites of mine later upon a second or third go with them. I think with big, 3D, exploration and open-world games, it's a bit worse. There's so many hours involved, so much exploring, so many things to do that once I've had my fill, I've had my fill for quite a while. So when a sequel comes out that is largely the same thing, but bigger, it's not necessarily what I'm looking for, the novelty factor isn't there, or I haven't had enough time to miss it. Bigger games require more time for me to want to play again, And I'll admit, I'm less into exploration and narrative in games than others.

Yeah I try not to fall prey to FOMO. at the end of the day I played about 18 hours of TOTK and then ended up playing balders gate 3 instead. it was more up to what I felt like playing. I'd like to get starfield as well but I'll wait until it goes on sale.

@Not_Soos Yeah the crafting and weapons breaking etc. kind of gets annoying after a while. the first time I played TOTK I threw the master sword by mistake and it shattered. lol

I played like 70 hours of breath of the wild when It came out in the first month. I loved it. This one... IDk I played about 25 hours as well and idk just dont really like it. I stopped about 25 hours in and I dont have any desire to play more totk. I would have loved a 3d mario way more than a new zelda tbh.

@Cia The fire temple was a pretty awful experience for me.
Mainly I think because I easily got lost. I blame it on the layout and that everything look same-ish

what lol just play the game or don't, it doesn't have to be bigger than that

also the fire temple was my favorite one because of how open and sequence-breakable it was but maybe that's just me

I probably need to give this game some time, but in previous Zelda games it was curated places that were not the same. All was unique. I get it that this game is more about the journey than the reward, but the pre-BOTW games had both. I like BOTW and TOTK, but neither of them makes me want to spend hours and hours in the world just so I can get some zonai rocks. The economy of the game all works together, but it’s just not very… fun to me. I hate to say this. I hope I change my mind. I probably just need to play the story and side quests and ignore all the (arguably) bland in-between.

@epicgamner yes, I agree. Although I still consider the game great, and rank it in my top three of all time, you make valid points.

I’m surprised to see the turnaround here in opinion of this game. I for one loved it but I wonder if a bit of it is fatigue. I kinda ignored most of botw so totk was mostly fresh. I poured 75 hours into it the first couple weeks and loved it. I’ll probably go back at some point but totk is definitely in my top 5 games of all time.

I enjoyed the fire temple. I got to ride around on mine carts. It was a blast.

Too much time online and not enough time playing TotK, i think hahaha. I literally didn't watch any build videos for a month because i was like, who cares what other people are doing. This is my adventure (but basically didn't want to be influenced by other peoples ideas).

I think there's a much bigger problem to touch on with the game. Since it, I can't find anything else that makes me feel the same. I search, buy games, and then bounce off them, creating a backlog of stuff that feels like a chore. But in the end that's what makes a title like this so special. And perhaps its freeing too not to have such an addictive a game on hand all the time to be able to function at life.

@mattesdude If only there was a way to search a vast library of data to find out what that acronym meant. Thank goodness you were able to help that poor soul, or else he would have needed to wait until something like the internet or Google was invented.

@Purgatorium It did get frustratingly convoluted, for no reason other than being convoluted, though.

Not hard to not give into FOMO just avoid social media as much as possible...

yea, gaming hypesters are just attention seekers.. blab from game to game.. avoid all talk about any game you really want to enjoy.

@CaleBoi25 cant you rake some leaves or something? There is all kinds of one day jobs out there. Work one day and then have a game to play for a month or two

Many people don't know what FOMO is and are upset that other people might know something they don't. 😉

@tseliot I loved it but there was something about it that wasn't satisfying. I completed a section and then wondered if I actually did it right.

I just loved riding the carts, hitting switches, rotating tracks.

@samuelvictor It's tough when people use slang and acronyms you don't understand. You feel like you're missing out on something.

@Dr_Corndog if only you had some recourse.

@Purgatorium I see what you did there.

I hate acronyms, anyway. It's a stupid and cheap way to talk or write anywhere.

Some of the comments here are just the Squidward meme with “me and the bestie! 10 mins later can’t stand TotK’s a**!”. Anyway the worst temple for me was the Water one, the low gravity was fun but the actual temple was a pain to get through. I loved Tears and I still do but I definitely need a break from it for a while. Also the writer of this article could’ve just stated he didn’t like the Fire Temple, no need to put a code name for it when the game’s been out for over 4 months

@Purgatorium Yes I undertand it can be quite frightening.

I don't know why people are giving others a hard time about not knowing what FOMO means. This is a place to discuss the article with one another. Sure, everyone could just look up everything they don't know, but that would make all discussion forums useless and boring.

I liked the fire temple, the zora one though was embarrassingly bad even by TOTK dungeon standards

I went mostly blackout in my time playing Zelda TOTK, but still lost out to some smaller spoilers. Luckily I wasn't spoiled on the big plot developments but avoiding the internet was rough. I do it for games I really enjoy or want to go in blind (Zelda, Xenoblade, even Kirby).

This is one of the reasons I didn't jump in right away — seemingly every article/feed I was privy to was talking about TotK, so I was happy to just go radio silent for a couple of weeks, then get lost in the game in my own time. I didn't start BotW til I got my Switch in 2019, long after the hubbub had died down, and it was nice to just play and enjoy the game on my own terms, and in my own time, without feeling like I had to rush along with seemingly every other video game player on the planet

@rushiosan This is easily the most ridiculous take on the game I have ever seen. Beyond ridiculous.

@Beefcakeyamato You can't even throw the master sword.

@BriskSunrise I did Google it. Can you guess why?

@LikelySatan That's not really the point, is it?

@mattesdude Thanks. I actually Googled it before leaving that comment. My point is that I shouldn't have to. English 101.

I always watch the first trailer of a new game/movie and that's it. Everything after that is full of spoilers.

And I'm not sure what 'dungeon' you're complaining about. TotK doesn't have any dungeons 😊

@Dr_Corndog I sincerely hope reparations are made available to you and I'm sorry for this trying, public ordeal.

@somnambulance I also don't have time to replay or restart games, but I almost never buy anything on launch, either.

Well, I don't do what you do for a living, and ever since early grade school, I've seen groups of people clinically - as an outside observer. It's natural for me to resist the crowd.

Is this article even serious?
Talk about a first world problems...😅

@Bobb same thing happened to me! I got about 150hrs in before I took a breath to slow down...

I remember a specific moment of being upset after playing non-stop for like two weeks, just rushing to see everything before it was spoiled somewhere on the net — and then seeing a headline on this site which spoiled some content for me. I was devastated. This wasn't nearly as bad as Kotaku just straight up spamming me with spoiler screenshots / headlines in the Google Newsfeed.

I was/am self-aware of how childish I was being, but I really wanted to experience this adventure alone — I've waited my entire life for an experience like this. And life was really tough for me at the moment, so it was my escape being crushed.

I'm well past where I think a majority of players have made it by now, so I stopped (literally) squinting when I browse this site and I've felt comfortable slowing down and just enjoying the scenery in the game for a few sessions. I have no regrets though, I was genuinely surprised by some of the mechanics (and still come across new ones!) and they're wonderful memories that I'll have for life. But still, I've blocked Kotaku from every feed I have.

None of the TotK temples represents the best of what that game has to offer.

@LikelySatan You seem a little confused. Probably best to stop now.

@Dr_Corndog thoughts and prayers.

@Bobb bah, that's awful! Who would even want to read that? I can imagine the overlap between those who don't mind spoilers and those who know what that even means is pretty damn small.

I can sympathise with this.

BotW was (is?) probably my favourite game of all time, so I was expecting to fall for Tears in the same way. But I just couldn’t.

Part of that was due to TotK inevitably not being as ‘fresh’ as BotW. A larger part still was due to the freer but less ‘curated’ game design (which lead the disorientating feeling of being pulled in a million directions at once).

Against this, the constant, suffocating buzz surrounding the game really didn’t help me find my own rhythm: it felt like I was in some sort of weird, poorly-defined race against the rest of the world.

I’d like to go back and complete it, now that the hype has died down. It’ll never surpass Breath for me (despite being an objective improvement in many, many aspects), but I’m sure there’s a lot of good, low-key fun that got drowned out by the buzz.

Incidentally, the only temple I’ve done is the Fire Temple, so it sounds like I’ve at least overcome the game’s nadir.

@Bobb
Truth. Then the thumbnail shows what the tag line teases anyway. Just the worst. Happens to me a lot as well.

@EriXz This is a video games site. Practically all video game problems are first world problems.

Perhaps we should replace ‘Soapbox’ with a series examining the ecological impact of mining rare metals for video game console production and the socio-geo-political lines along which those metals are distributed and manufactured.

But until then we will continue to get articles discussing the content of video games themselves: an inevitable mix of first-world joys and first-world problems.

Not sure if it needs stating, but this is a decidedly first-world hobby we’ve chosen to indulge in.

FOMO is a self-imposed sickness. If it inundates you, you have no one to blame but yourself, difficult as it may be to hear the truth.

It’s really odd seeing “FOMO” directed on a single player game that won’t disappear anytime soon.

On your next playthrough, get autobuild with a flying craft of some type (air bike is fine) before you try the fire temple and it turns into a walk in the park.

It's way better than MTX FOMO. Thank the gaming gods there's no DLC planned nor Passes, nor nickel-and-dime garbage like Smash. Oh wait. Is there Amiibo exclusive malarkey? I don't keep up on those plastic tchotchkes.

Honestly, I just struggle to find the time to really play a game like this anymore.

I don't use social media for reasons.Never used it and probs never will.
But pretty weird to see the word “FOMO” in an article like this.I only know the term related to selling tactics like the ''limited time only'' deals and stuff like that.

Great message.
Both of the last Zelda games are not meant to be played under outside influence. Try to create your own experience, or better yet, play with someone on the couch next to you to plan and discover together.

Water Temple was my least favorite. What was yours?

Sounds like the writer's issue isn't FOMO, it's social media saturation. While that's tricky for them to resolve, for anyone else... just don't engage.

Whether you like a game or not, your experience is your own. If you let anyone else impact your experience, be it through FOMO or comparing yourself to others or reviews you don't like, and so on, you are genuinely and truly an idiot.

Haven’t bought TotK, don’t think I’ll bother. BotW was fantastic, but I don’t want to play the same map again. Also not interested in “building” stuff.

I think I did pretty good at avoiding similar feelings with TOTK, I didn't watch anything and muted hashtags for the first couple months after the game launched.
I have a playlist of interesting looking TOTK videos on YT that im saving until I'm 100% done with the game, FYI 230hrs in still haven't done Ganondorf yet.
I'm now open to memes and shorts, and seeing people's Zonai creations but as for story stuff, nah im staying out of all that until im done.
Its not just avoiding spoilers either, I don't want to feel like I'm behind or not part of the zeitgeist until I'm ready, zero exposure means zero FOMO

For me it was quite the opposite: had I known about the prominence of ultrahand et al, I wouldn`t have pre-ordered TOTK. Next time I`m eager to play a game on first day, I`ll better miss out and wait whether it`s about crafting and an old map.

BotW was, and still is, my favorite game of all time, so I was as hyped for TotK as possible. But when it finally released, it was just a game full of stuff. You could build a car, you could fight a robot, you could hold up a signpost eighty-one times, but it all felt empty and meaningless.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but BotW felt real, it felt alive, and TotK just doesn't have that feeling.
The most feeling TotK ever evoked for me was when I built a fan-powered plank boat and sailed along the beach, humming the Wind Waker theme.

What happened to Wind Waker HD?

100% agree. You get to oversaturation and iyour hobby feels like a job just to make it thru, and you drop a game.

Altho I did just start it and am really enjoying it disconnected from everything. All I know about it is a large contingent of folks thirsting for Purah and/or Ganondorf and you can basically get anywhere without necessarily having the expected solution (a few examples I stumbled on before getting off Time Island). Makes it fun to just get lost without expectations or pacing.

@ChakraStomps Yeah I can but I also don't want to spend a lot of money on a game that I can only play basically on weekends for like an hour at a time... but thanks for the suggestion.

Kind of curious what temple they're referring to, they all seemed fine to me.

So... your problem was the social networks? Well, then, don't use them.

I would add the burden placed on the game by the higher price point didn't help either. I know it was only $10 USD more, but that's still the most I've spent on a videogame to date. That made me really feel like I should squeeze my money's worth out of it rather than enjoy it for what it is.

Given the recycled Hyrule, I don't think the price increase was all that justified in retrospect.

I never read anything online about a game I'm currently playing. You'd have to be pretty daft to do that.

I need to know which dungeon!

I really don't even get what the author is trying to say here.

I've done 3 of the 4 main dungeons and honestly? I haven't enjoyed any of them at all really just like BOTW's. Thankfully though most of the rest of the game is good so all is not lost.

I've slowly been chipping away at the game all year. I do like it but I'm definitely no where near as enthusiastic about the game as some folks but I like it still.

Without really agreeing or disagreeing with anything else said, I just want to chime in about the dungeons. I enjoyed to various degrees all but the fire temple, which was confusing to navigate without constantly referencing the map and even that didn't help. I feel bad because I ended up just building a hover bike and cheesing my way through it. And I feel bad about feeling bad because surely the game was made such that solving the dungeon in my own way is perfectly legitimate. The dungeon had probably the best "dungeon-like atmosphere" it just wasn't fun to navigate the "intended" way.

Wind Temple was a solid start, I think.
Water Temple was way too easy.
Lightning Temple was fine.

I felt it was a step in the right direction compared to Divine Beasts but not the masterpieces that Zelda dungeons were in virtually every other title since A Link to the Past. It might take another couple games before they get back to the quality we want but with the new open format. It's a creative puzzle. I really don't know how the Zelda team manages to keep making forest and fire and wind and water and ice and desert themed dungeons and have them all feel unique. It's kind of insane to expect that they could just churn them out indefinitely. It's only the fact that they've done it literally dozens of times before that makes me hope they can do it again. In the meantime I guess I'll just replay the classics.

Next up: Finishing Skyward Sword HD, then replaying Oracle of Ages, then replaying Majora's Mask.

@TheMegaMarshtomp
Agreed. I highly prefer BotW. TotK just seems so full of stuff. Too much controls makes the controls bad. Too much clutter on the environment makes it look bad. Too much items to fuse makes the weapons look bad. Too much chatter from npcs makes the dialogue bad. Too much space makes the space look empty and meaningless (looking at you, Depths and caves). Too much characters aiding you makes playing bad... although you can at least turn the sages off.

The list goes on. BotW had just the right amount of everything. A perfect game followed by an overstuffed mess. Which I still enjoyed because the foundation is so good.

@TheMegaMarshtomp „it all felt empty and meaningless“
Funnily enough, that’s exactly how I felt about BotW.
I am happy for all the people enjoying that game, but I think I will never be able to see the appeal.
Interesting to see rather many people here now apparently felling about TotK the way I already did about BotW.

I don't really care for hype around a game and it doesn't effect my playthroughs. The way people play on youtube is interesting and their business but I don't let it worry me as to "am I doing enough?", "how did I miss that?", "why can't I build or fight thay way?". I am a gamer who started playing in the atari era (through my life my interest in gaming peaked and troughed), so maybr that is why? Bar the social multiplayer games they have always been me and the game and how/when I want to play it. We are all individuals. There is also the fact that I heavily gamed before the rise of the " global information super highway" that is the tinternet.

EDIT: The hype is before the release but once the game is in hand, it's me and the game.

I assume the dungeon in question was the Fire Temple. My brother hated that dungeon enough to stop playing the game entirely. For me, it was the highlight of the game. I haven't the slightest idea what the puzzles were in the Fire Temple, because it was so open that you could circumvent every single one in your hover bike. It was like the ultimate culmination of the promise of this game, that you could just opt out of every single puzzle in an entire dungeon by being clever and inventing your own solutions. I loved it.

@Olliemar28 I’m so glad you liked it more the second time! I was sad to see you drop off of it in the “What Are You Playing This Weekend?” things. I definitely agree with what you said, and I actually completely avoided social media for that very reason.

Does the "temple that shall not be named" rhyme with the words "Birit Bemple"?

Eiji Aonuma ruined totk for me by making it almost identical to botw. A 6 year wait for an identical map, empty sky and underground maps, and the worst parts of botw ramped up to 11.

I bought this game the day it came out, had every intention of playing it on a 16 hour flight, didn't play it then, and still haven't played it. I really like being outside in the summer months, so once it gets to be cold out, I'll start playing. I have no expectations, and since I never played Breath of the Wild, I think I'm going to really enjoy this.

I bought this game the day it came out but didn’t play it until mid June on vacation. I avoided spoilers and the overall chatter, and played it my own pace in my own way over the course of 4 months. You will get more out of your games by not succumbing to FOMO or the silly need of playing it at the exact same time it drops and when everyone else does. That’s not the best way to experience anything honestly.

As an adult with a job and other responsibilities I've never been too affected by FOMO, just for keeping my own sanity. I don't really like social media so it makes way easier for me to be honest. Couldn't get it day one and enjoyed it through June and loved it.
But, a lot of friends suffered this FOMO and I'm still convinced they couldn't enjoy it as much because of that.

This is why I like physical media, there isn't really any FOMO as you buy a game and you then have all the time in the world to play it at your own pace. In terms of keeping up socially with what's popular then I would say don't worry about it too much especially when it comes entertainment media like games, movies, music etc as theres always something new every 2-4 weeks, Zelda was the talk of the Internet but after a month it kinda died off and people moved onto the next big release.

I don't get it. You wrote an entire article because you forced yourself to play through a game out of the fear you'd miss out on something like being at the birth of a "new meme"?

It takes all kinds, I suppose.

I only watched the very first teaser for TOTK. I never read any coverage never watched any videos or trailers. I skipped all the coverage in Nintendo Force magazine until I had the game and went back. It's really not that hard to stay fresh and unsaturated on a game, I've found, even with something as big as Zelda. It just takes discipline. And the experience is immeasurably richer for it. I had no idea ToTK had the Depths, until I was exploring Hyrule and jumped down what I figured was a little grotto and just kept falling. I can't count how many times I lit up with a big smile in the first ten hours because of all the incredible new discoveries that I'm sure would have been spoiled.

It feels like I’ve had so much TOTK pushed in my face that I can’t bring myself to buy it.

FOMO is a problem that plagues me even more in this day and age, and I've come to realize that while pulling all-nighters was certainly an experience I will never forget when the game first launched, I only truly began to enjoy the game on-the-go, in shorter increments at a time.

The sense of progression felt much more natural as I tackled this adventure whenever I was commuting on the bus and streetcar to school or work, and even today, I still haven't finished the entire game yet. That progress would have burnt me out a lot faster if I've done it in a few longer sittings.

Man. Made me feel real old with that playing wind waker as a kid statement. I think my wife was pregnant with our first when wind waker came out