Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

@JaxonH Thank you, please keep posting for others in the thread but I got mine yesterday. Best Buy went up while I was in line at GameStop lol.

@Rambler
Gotta love those vouchers, right?

$50 day one digital, not to mention the 5% back in gold coins and 2% back using a CC to buy eShop credit from Raise that was already discounted by 8%.

Grand total of $88.86 for TWO games, Zelda being one of them. That's $44.43 per game. 😋

But I still have the collector edition on the way, and the OLED.

I won't lie, the TotK OLED looks mighty fine.

I would be tempted if I didn't already own an OLED.

I'm jelly of YTber Beat'em Ups and his sketchy, scandalous connections.

@JaxonH Nice. I have to replace my AV receiver this year (old one went into storage and didn’t come back out ok) but plan to work on headphones next year. Hope your purchases pan out! Ended up getting the OLED from BB. I had the game preordered there so that’s ok. Just glad I got it. Now I can focus on my IT certs in peace lol.

@Ryu_Niiyama
When it comes time to pick out headphones, let me know if you want some recommendations for whatever price range you're shopping. And if you need a DAC/Amp or portable DAC/Amp dongle for your phone. I've spent countless hours researching and I've tried out a fair few headphones and DAC/Amps.

I got the collector edition and amiibo through BB, but switched the OLED to Target because BB only allowed store pickup, and I'm lazy 😀

@Magician I don't usually watch influencers (I hate all the talking, most of them have grating voices and they ramble) but that Switch is gorgeous. looking forward to next month. I'm getting the white zelda joycon grip so that it better matches the joycons. I was nervous about the gold on green (despite green being my favorite color) but it really pops in person (or rather good camera lighting on youtube). Hype has gone up significantly.

I'm taking off. When it releases, the most stressful period of my job will be over, and I'll be in desperate need of a mental health day. Hell, I'm in need of one now. If you have teacher friends, folks, please check on them.

It is strange to even say it (and most likely I will not stick to it in the end) but I am inclined to not buy TotK day one... The direct was a big bummer for me as it double down on more of what made BotW a success but nothing of what I wanted it to be aka with a bit more Zelda staples mixed in (dungeons, story, gadgets, etc). I cannot see myself using the tools for vehicles and only using fuse to achieve better weapons (but for me removing the weapon degradation and using different weapons with stats and special effects would be much much better...)

@Balta666 They showed off weapons, and virtually no exploring. I have to believe Nintendo heard the common complaint about botw and people missing dungeons. Yesterday's direct seemed to purposely avoid showing the world. They haven't shown any underground stuff, or sky island worlds(except for the one), or shrines, or anything like shrines. We do know there are more caves! Who's to say they haven't added sailing to the the game? (Maybe that's not realistic.) I think there's a lot they haven't shown. We'll see. I understand your concern, though.

edit: Although, NL's article seems to believe it's going to be more of BOTW. https://www.nintendolife.com/features/soapbox-nobody-does-mor...

@Balta666 I'm also concerned but I feel is most Nintendo not wanting to spoil anything than the game "lacking content", I also hated the direct but probably Nintendo wanted to focus on younger audiences that loves the sandbox aspect of BoT. In term of weapon degradation is more likely pushing players to use the fuse stuff to increase weapon durability, also we only saw low durability in a branch which is totally expected, I don't think BoW would be a much better without weapon degradation though, in BoW you can start literally whatever you want, in Elden Ring even if is openworld there is some kind of progression where some areas are inaccesible if you don't have good stats.

@WoomyNNYes it may be but I am no longer that sure. It looks like a sandbox to have fun but that is just not my way of playing games. That is the reason I may wait for reviews to see If what I an looking for is there or not as I don't see Nintendo showing more than this at this point

@huupawel that is exactly my "problem" as for me and open world should naturally be divides by levels of difficulty and if you want to challenge yourself you can but if not you follow the "story" route and level up as you go. Games like Witcher 3 did it the best imo

The sticking ability looks really cool but I wonder realistically how often I'll see a body of water or something and think "I should build a makeshift boat!" rather than shrug and take a detour or explore somewhere else. Maybe it's just a me thing. Kind of wish diving was a thing (which it doesn't look like it will be) but that's a bit indulgent to ask for when there's already so much stuff to explore.

The gameplay showcase failed to answer the biggest question about the game, will the fishing rod return as it’s very obviously suited to this survival take on Zelda that it is odd it wasn’t in the last game.

@jump Or if we can fuse bokoblins to.... hug? each other? XD Or two dragons together.

EDIT: I saw the same stupid dog (we can't pet) at the stable in yesterday's TOTK direct. I wonder if we can finally pet the dog.

I remember playing botw when it launched and kept waiting for it to finally be purchased or crafted 😥. Maybe THAT was zelda: sad

@TheBigBlue Doesn't sound like the haters you've been talking to are giving much detail on what they think is being reused. I do like some of the things on display here but in general I agree with the haters, so I can give you a bit more insight into why it looks so samey.

The big problem with TotK is that the map appears to be similar. I brought this up on the Soapbox article about "more of the same", but there's a huge difference in how a game like MM followed up OoT or Banjo-Tooie followed up Banjo-Kazooie, they had similar characters and gameplay mechanics that could also constitute as "reused assets" but different maps and levels. This still made the game feel different even though the developers just recycled the same art assets. TotK takes recycled assets to a whole new level than those types of sequels though, because the clips show pretty much the same map of BotW with just the sky islands and a few subtle tweaks. There are comparison videos readily available that show this off:

If you're just re-exploring an area you've already explored before, it's not as fun if there aren't sweeping changes and there isn't here. And since a large part of Zelda's appeal is exploration, that's a pretty big turnoff for a large part of the fanbase.

Now they could still be hiding something, but every new trailer that comes out continues to show an 80% similar Hyrule to the one from BotW and doesn't really address the concerns of "well how different is the map". So that's why you keep getting repeated complaints of "recycled assets", "DLC", "shouldn't be $70", because they keep not showing something that proves otherwise.

Aw man there are even TotK naysayers here well some can't help seeing the glass half empty ig.

Anyways, I just saw this and thought I'd relay it. At the point in the clip where Link hits the water after diving from sky islands, if you watch the Ascend "rune" it stays greyed out while he's falling but once he goes underwater it temporarily un-greys. They were saying that coulddd be a sign that underwater exploration might just be in the game if it seems as though it's working underwater as well.

I swear that gameplay view was chock full of goodies. What is going on with death mountain? Crop circles? The platform near the stable, can you do something with it? Are the sky islands chunks of Hyrule or had they been floating out of sight the whole time?

Most of the surface looks to be the same, but I noticed quite a few differences. Outside of the settlements most likely changing with time, the mini-map displays different boarders for the regions for some reason, so it's safe to assume the map is split into new regions which is odd. In the stables scene, you can see smoke rising from one of the stables, as well as pink smoke in the background. The guardians are completely gone and tons of fallen sky island rocks are in their places.

Outside of those smaller changes, you have those spiral rock things which seem to be fast travel points for the game due to the shrines being gone, giant holes in the earth which have malice rising out from them, the entire lost woods seems to be actually gone (further cemented by the Korok being at the stable with a massive backpack), death Mountain has Malice erupting from it, the glyphs are all over the place on Hyrule's surface, you also have caves which push you to explore a bit more. The surface overall seems to be more similar to the original game's surface, however there's still a ton packed in just this small bit of gameplay alone, and it seems like you'll spend more time in the skies and under the ground than you will on the surface alone.

Oh, and not to mention how the abilities that you have now are going to change how you explore and interact with the same world from the original game, so the overworld could probably feel more fresh despite being mostly reused and kept similar to how it was in the original game.