Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

@Ralizah
I've always prioritized gameplay over story. I have a nice movie collection now if I want story. Not that I'm against it in games- some of my favorite JRPGs are heavily story focused. But to me, I don't care how good a story is, it accounts for 5-20% of the experience. The rest is gameplay. For a game like Xenoblade, it's probably at the 20% end. For Zelda, it's at the 5% end.

They could literally strip the game of every cutscene and I'd have 95% as much fun as I am now. It's just such an insignificant part of the whole it feels like wasted breath even discussing it. Probably why I like the tears more because from a gameplay perspective they're way more fun to track down and find. What they actually reveal is just a 2 minute cherry on top.

This is also why I find myself in sharp opposition to the general mindset and priorities of "modern gaming" (especially on PS platforms), where story is elevated to be the primary benefit of playing a game, while the actual fun of playing it is secondary. It's why games like Last of Us are treated like the second coming of Christ despite the fact that, if you strip away all the custscenes and story (and the showpiece graphics, but that's another discussion) you're left with a run of the mill game.

For me, a game's worth is determined by what's left standing after a trial by fire, burning away the excess of graphics and cutscenes and story. If you took said game, stripped it of all its story, stripped it of extravagant visuals and made it say, on par with an average Switch title, then how fun would it be.

Don't get me wrong, I do place some value on story (and extravagant graphics)- I'm not a complete extremist in that regard. But even for the most heavily story driven games, it's 20% at best. Game like Zelda? 5% is being generous.

All this to say, I just don't really care that much. It's like the story in a Mario game- a fun distraction that complements the gameplay. But that's because Zelda is highly gameplay-focused. Games like Xenoblade and Triangle Strategy, while it's still a minority factor, it definitely can impact the experience negatively if not done justice. Even if only a partial impact.

@Eel agreed. Definitely an odd choice

@JaxonH My general preference is for gameplay as well, by a country mile. But well-executed narrative elements elevate a game for me. While I love the gameplay and consistent theming, for example, part of the reason I enjoy Super Mario Galaxy so much is because of the gorgeously melancholy vibe it has, and especially that heart-wrenching storybook backstory you unlock throughout the game. A lot of people prefer SMG2 for its more varied gameplay and level designs, but the downgrades in atmosphere, narrative, aspects of the presentation, and consistency of theming lead to me liking it quite a bit less.

While I think TotK is a much better sequel than SMG2 was overall in terms of not sacrificing most of the what the original did well while building on its strengths, a lot of its additions do feel very Mario-esque in the sense that they're sort of just there because the designers thought they'd be cool additions.

I think that approach works better with some games than others. Some games just really don't require much of anything in the way of narrative contextualization, and those work best in this regard. Whereas others are heavily dependent on the appeal of their narratives, so a game being bad in this regard is damaging.

I'm actually not of the opinion that BotW has a particularly amazing story. None of the Zelda games I've played have, IMO, because, as you point out, the story isn't the focus, so the narrative elements tend to be subservient to the game design choices. With that said, BotW was cohesively designed in a way where I felt like its minimal narrative elements were tremendously beneficial to the overall experience with the game, and I don't feel like this is true of TotK.

Unless something happens to change my opinion, BotW is a top five video game, and TotK is in the top ten. Both are marvelous.

Just made it to the abandoned central mine, and my god was that fun. I knew it was the Yigas trying to make me rebuild the cars due to the dialogue clues, but I didn’t expect to see Master Kohga driving a giant car and crashing it into a wall several times. That man is peak comedy, and if you haven’t made it to the Central Abandoned Mine (go through the Great Plateau Chasm) and fought this man on his giant stupid spike car, please drop everything you are doing and engage that boss fight. I was laughing the entire time

@MS7000 The blessing shrines are one of the things I think were an improvement over the BotW Shrines. With the blessings in TotK, it felt more like you earned them, since most of them had some sort of puzzle or difficult way of finding them. In BotW, most of the blessings were kind of just dotted around in random places.

@Ralizah
Speaking of Triangle Strategy, did you fire it up and play the bonus chapter added in the latest update? I know you beat the game, and you have to have beat the game to play the new content.

@JaxonH Not yet. I might just do that once I choose to end my current gaming sabbatical, though. I assume it's something self-contained?

I need to eventually finish XC3: Future Redeemed as well.

Ever feel like the industry could grind to a halt for a year and you wouldn't particularly mind?

@VoidofLight I don't know. Like I said, I feel like they make the majority of shrines, but I also remember ignoring a lot of shrines when I found them (activated the fast travel but didn't bother going in), as I got fed up of being distracted by some random thing in the field. Perhaps because I then did them one after the other, the blessings just stood out more compared to the puzzles?

@Ralizah
I've felt that way for some time now.

I'm actually relieved at the prospect of a break coming as Nintendo winds down in preparation for the Switch 2 launch. Raincode is next on my list, which should line up around the time I finish Zelda. Trails Into Reverie can hit backlog since I wanna finish Trails of Cold Steel 3/4, Trails From Zero and Trails To Azure first. Pikmin 4 is the last "big" title that's an absolute must play day one. Sure, there's a new Sonic and Prince of Persia, Persona 5 Tactics, and Decapolice may be on Deck for 2023, but generally speaking, things should breath a sigh of relief after Pikmin 4. Well. That's assuming Nintendo doesn't drop a Direct and stack us to the hilt, but if Switch 2 really is on track for March 2024, I don't expect them to schedule too much. Maybe 1 or 2 must-play titles, but not back to back to back like it has been.

@JaxonH I'm anxious to see how Rain Code reviews. The Danganronpa games are modern classics, so I'm curious to see how the mystery-adventure style of storytelling the creator is known for works in a bigger budget format like this.

Yeah, I'm largely dropping off after Pikmin 4 as well. At least for a while. Actually play and enjoy some of these games I already own. I have so much stuff that I've beaten, but that still has more content to dig into. Like all of the post-game content in Xenoblade 3 (especially now that I've purchased the DLC).

I’ve made the ultimate segway

It’s so tall, bokoblins don’t even notice me when I drive by.

That's not quite true. There are only two blessing shrines in BotW that don't have an associated shrine quest with them, and they're both in pretty tough places to get to. Some of the Shrine Quests can skipped, but we're still only looking at a handful of shrines that you could potentially just blunder into by accident.

The big improvement, I'd say is with the combat shrines. Rather than twenty copy-pasted Tests of Strength, we've got a whole bunch of different Proving Grounds. Not only are they all individually designed challenges, but the music that plays during them is an absolute banger.

@MS7000 I agree with you on the Rauru’s Blessing Shrines. The only reason they are there is to increase the amount of shrines in the game, but they come off as an afterthought. 2-3 would be fine but there have to be 20+ in this game and that’s not acceptable.

The BotW template of every region needing to have a minimum number of shrines, means that a lot of those shrines are just going to be copied/overly simplistic because it’s very difficult to make 150+ unique puzzleboxes.

Quality over quantity every time. 50 great shrines would’ve been enough.

Anyone here like Metal Gear Solid? This player made an awesome Rex build!

Another case of doing something out of order? A bit stumped.

I finally got to the depths of the Tingel Islands.(are they still called tingle islands in TOTK?). I got to the southernmost depth-island of that chain. I defeated the gloom hands and got the chest there, then the game showed me a cutscene of a mini yiga clan or sheika? shrine/temple thing unlocking (it looked like it probably had another reward/treasure chest in it?), but I have no idea where that mini yiga/sheika temple thing was - it's nowhere visible I've seen. I'm baffled where I can locate that thing that I unlocked.

Anyone know?
Edit: (youtube hasn't helped. I saw someone else get the chest I got, but they skipped fighting the gloom hands & ran. They didnt' get the cutscene/unlock that I got, I'm guessing because they skipped fighting the gloom hands)

@WoomyNNYes No idea as I'm pretty sure I've never been there, but it sounds like a glitch. I assume you've been to a Yiga settlement in the Depths before? Because that sounds like what happens when you kill the one Yiga with a red circle/shield thing in front of him and it unlocks the shrine.

@Professor_Plumber

I agree with Austin John Plays, if you see gloom hands, they're a waste, just avoid them. Just run, climb, or fast travel to get away. I don't think they are worth the resources needed to to beat them. Gloom hands cannot climb. They're easy to get away from if you can climb up a 5 - 6+ foot wall - usually enough to thwart them. And they have a limited existence. After about a minute or so, they expire & disappear.

Tips for fighting gloom hands: IF you fight them, I use A LOT of bomb arrows and ice elemental arrows (you could throw bombs & ice chuchu, but throws don't allow you to keep your distance). I've seen someone else here say they use thunder elemental arrows, so you can probably use them, too. The key is to strike the hands when they are close together, and use a weapon that deals damage in a wide radius. The ice freezes the hands when they are close together, which makes them easier to manage & take out. But I use a lot of bombs/ice weaponry, it's wasteful. I'm assuming you've seen that if the hands space out, they will heal & regain their health. Anyway, if you beat the hands, that triggers stage 2, Phantom Ganon (creepy af/ but cool looking?), it's easy to dodge his charge, I don't think he's tough to beat. In the end, the reward for beating gloom hands & phantom ganon might be a gloom sword or gloom bow. The gloom sword hurts you when you strike an enemy with it (unless you fuse it to another weapon), and the gloom bow is fine? The gloom bow damage depends on how many health hearts you have. I have 16 hearts right now, and a gloom bow only offers like 30-32 damage. I already have stronger bows and just repair those with a rock octorock.

The only reason I fought the gloom hands in my above post (the depth area of the southern most tingel island chain) was because they blocked my access to a chest, and I was already on an elevated wall the hands cannot climb. So, it was like shooting fish barrel. Since I have TOTK ver 1.1.1, I use a duplication glitch to dupe more bombs/ice materials afterward. **Although, I could have just jumped down, quickly opened the chest, and ran back out, and probably not touched the gloom hands.

@Xyphon22

No😆😁😁 (scaredy pants emoji) Their settlement/fortress looked so scary, I didn't engage with them. So there's that issue too.

Yeah it kinda sounds like some random yiga gatekeeper died and you saw the door opening cutscene.

Kinda like how in BotW you would randomly get a Korok, because its puzzle solved itself.

Btw don’t be afraid of the yiga camps, they’re super easy to deal with. Even easier if you have a certain armor set.

@WoomyNNYes As @Eel said, they're no big deal. I'm not talking about some big fortress. They just look like a treehouse or any old Bokoblin camp on the surface. There are some that I've found that only even have the one Yiga in it and he doesn't even attack until you do first I think. So just look around for any buildings like that, and the unlocked house is probably there. They are usually near the top and take some work to get up there with Ascend or the like.