Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I'm sure that it's been mentioned before, but the game seems to be harder than BoTW. The initial sky island seemed to have quite a steep learning curve, at least for me. It clicked once I had the skills from the island and played around making some things, but the size of the map was quite off-putting.

My Link is being quite a pacifist at the moment, although that is by necessity rather than ideology!

I would say that this is definitely a sequel rather than companion game - BoTW is easier to grasp I think, and, while this doesn't require any knowledge of that game, it is definitely at help.
Like me riding to Kakariko Village as I knew where it was despite not having the map!

@Rambler I would only say that TotK is more difficult than BotW in the sense that it builds a lot on what BotW and is more complex as a result. I think the new abilities in particular require a lot of out-of-the-box thinking that might be intimidating to new players. I probably wouldn't recommend TotK over BotW to a casual gamer.

That said, I wouldn't say the moment-to-moment gameplay is significantly more difficult than BotW. I remember getting my ass handed to me a large number of times at the start of both games.

That is very true!
It's probably familiarity, but I feel like there is much more to do in the first few hours once you have left the training section, which is good. But also means more monsters and environmental dangers!

@Rambler

Yeah TOTK is definitely a little more complicated. I wasn't expecting it to look much better than BOTW but it does! When i first started up the game and came out into the sky world my jaw dropped all over again like the first time i played BOTW!

Being able to explore central Hyrule and most of the castle without hearing an aggressive piano playing every three seconds actually made my first few hours in Hyrule feel easier than in BotW.

@Eel false sense of security cuz of the gloom hands/floormasters.

@StarPoint I know, I just miss his traditional content. The clubhouse games series was great though

@Eel I asked a while ago but I dk if anyone saw. Is it safe to explore hyrule castle early? Like, I won't get into any final boss stuff correct?

@NintendoByNature I haven't really explored the floating part, but the part still attached to the surface is safe to explore. If you don't mind the odd encounter with a certain cluster of life-sucking hands.

I assume the floating part is ok to explore too, since I'm fairly certain the final boss is in the cave under the castle, where the game began. Speaking of which, even if you go there early, it's pretty easy to tell when you're getting too close to the final boss, so don't be afraid of going there early if you want to snoop around.

@Eel well then. I guess you just gave me another reason to get side tracked from my current objective.

On a side note: Finding shrines in caves has to the best feeling. Now I find myself scouring for blossom trees to offer fruits. Then marking all the cave entrances and exploring all of them until the region is secured. I've found quite a few shrines underground that way.

I rank this game so far alongside Wind Waker; not amongst the very best in the series overall for me, but does have some of the best moments in all of Zelda.

We can reveal spolier content in this thread, Shirley?

Seeing a dragon fly into a chasm for the first time was stunning.

There's no final boss as far as I saw. Search the floaty part of castle.

@NintendoByNature The final boss isn't in the castle, so you're fine.

@VoidofLight @WoomyNNYes perfect. I got the master sword last night. So I'll do some castle exploring later today.

Yeah, so what hell is the master sword's damage? Why is this the only sword without a damage point value? Why is the the game's flagship, iconic weapon treated like they forgot to finish the game? At least give me an NPC saying, it's a mystery, or SOMETHING. It just looks like something is broken, or forgotten, when everything else in the game is self explanitory or explained.

@WoomyNNYes Think it’s the usual 30? But yeah it’s pretty weird that they left it out.

Anyone know any interesting side quests/adventures to do? Wanted to take a break from shrines, been doing a lot in order to take on the final boss.

Also I completed the last temple (gerudo) and got the master sword yesterday 😃. Pretty happy with my progress so far, currently 60 hours in.

@Breeze23 I'm in a similar boat. Im going to work on the Gazzette horse stable quests next, you know, with the white pelican bird guy (new paper reporter) standing at every horse stable. This news paper quest rewards the frog armor, which I really want, it lets you climb in rain or wet caves.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the horse stable nearest to Rito village is now a news paper, and if you go to that stable, it will trigger the news paper/Gazette side quest with the white pelican bird guy.

@WoomyNNYes Yeah I’ve done a couple of those. Really want that frog suit too. It rains a lot whenever I go to the south east region of the map, so climbing is practically impossible… Never thought that I would come to miss Ravioli’s gale, or any of the champion’s abilities for that matter.

@Breeze23 Have you gotten access to put your hylian hood down yet? You can do that Cece/Reed election side quest in Hateno. It's like a few missions, and after the election, the CeCe lady in the clothing store will recommend putting your hood down.

All the TOTK marketing is link with his Hylian hood down. I just completed that recently.