To start off, I still thoroughly enjoyed the game. But for me at least, it's a 8/10-ish game vs the 10/10 BOTW was for me. I'm focusing on the negatives since the positives are very well documented and well-known at this point. Any review on youtube would tell you them.
1) The connected story/narrative of BOTW and TOTK leaves a lot to be desired. Having quite a few characters not know who Link is anymore, was a bummer. There was no adequate explanation of the sheikah tech just up and disappearing. Having so many of the same towns need Link's help again made me groan. It made what Link did in Breath of the Wild feel like it wasn't worth anything. Actually, in many ways, Hyrule overall feels in worse shape than BOTW, somehow.
2) I think BOTW had a "better told" story. There's no big mystery to unravel in Breath of the Wild, and as such, the memory system and collecting them out of order works just fine. Now we're told to unravel the mystery of what happened to Zelda, but with the exact same memory system, and its simply a mismatch. Therefore, if you get memories out of order, you can spoil the "big reveal" very early on. And then the story becomes awkward as Link knows what happened, other characters don't, and you can't even tell them. The ending sequence is giant upgrade though, props for that.
3) Both the sky islands, and especially the depths, were woefully undercooked. The depths being a complete inversion of the surface map was ingenious... and the first couple hours in there were amazing. But once you've figured out that it's completely monotonous with single biome, and not much in the way of unique places to visit, it loses it's wonder quite quickly. The first sky island you're on is by far the best, sets the stage up for the game very well. The rest of them feel tiny and inconsequential for the rest of the game.
4) Hyrule surface simply isn't changed enough to feel fresh. Caves and wells are a welcome edition. Theres also a lot of slight adjustments, that I came to appreciate as I came across familiar landmarks. But it just wasnt enough in my opinion, and the main quest sending to many of the same places doesnt help, either.
Adding to the two points above, they bit off more than they could chew (in my uneducated opinion, I'm not a game developer so I cannot say for sure)
With three big tasks:
a) Archipelago of islands in the Sky
b) A dark, gloomy, atmospheric underworld
c) A Hyrule that has seen significant changes since Breath of the Wild
All of them feel half-done. Couldve scrapped either one of the depths or the islands, and all the free-up development time into solely one of them, would've been better, in my opinion. For example. I would accept no sky island, and a somewhat-kinda changed hyrule, if the depths were fully fleshed out with biomes, towns, landmarks, etc.
5) The new abilities (which are mostly excellent still) trivialize a lot of puzzle solving, especially Ultrahand and just flying to places. The exception are a handful of shrines that take your equipment away. Sure, I can do the "intended method", but I dont like how a lot of the shrines, dungeons, etc can just be cheesed. Same with the overworld and acclimating yourself with the terrain. I feel like I did that much more due to how mandatory climbing was. Now though, zonai devices go brrrr.
6) The menu-ing feels somewhat worse in totk, somehow. Especially the process of making arrows mid-fight, plus the fuse abiltity. I sorely miss the bombs and pre-made elemental arrows, in this case.
7) Some overly opinionated nitpicks, dont mind me:
The game world feels a little less beautiful with the ugly hunks of rock floating in the sky, plus a lot of the fallen debris. A lot of goofy looking fusing options, goofy looking vehicles that are made with ultrahand. The shrine and tower designs were better in Botw, imo.
Botw's emptyness afforded the player a lot more quiet moments for the player to soak in, Totk can bombarded with stuff at times, in comparison.
Champions abilties > sages. So much easier and less clunkier to use.
Enemy variety was improved, but not enough.
Overall, I just feel like BOTW feels greater than the sum of all it's parts. Every aspect of the game worked in harmony with each other.
Totk adds A LOT, its an absolutely massive game. But a lot of it's additions don't mesh well with the holdovers from botw, especially, or even with each other sometimes. For example, horses still exist from the first game, but I find very little use of them now. It feels like a fan made a big-scale romhack of BOTW that's a ton of fun, but doesnt feel as curated and refined as the real thing, if you get what I'm saying.
1) The connected story/narrative of BOTW and TOTK leaves a lot to be desired. Having quite a few characters not know who Link is anymore, was a bummer. There was no adequate explanation of the sheikah tech just up and disappearing. Having so many of the same towns need Link's help again made me groan. It made what Link did in Breath of the Wild feel like it wasn't worth anything. Actually, in many ways, Hyrule overall feels in worse shape than BOTW, somehow.
2) I think BOTW had a "better told" story. There's no big mystery to unravel in Breath of the Wild, and as such, the memory system and collecting them out of order works just fine. Now we're told to unravel the mystery of what happened to Zelda, but with the exact same memory system, and its simply a mismatch. Therefore, if you get memories out of order, you can spoil the "big reveal" very early on. And then the story becomes awkward as Link knows what happened, other characters don't, and you can't even tell them. The ending sequence is giant upgrade though, props for that.
3) Both the sky islands, and especially the depths, were woefully undercooked. The depths being a complete inversion of the surface map was ingenious... and the first couple hours in there were amazing. But once you've figured out that it's completely monotonous with single biome, and not much in the way of unique places to visit, it loses it's wonder quite quickly. The first sky island you're on is by far the best, sets the stage up for the game very well. The rest of them feel tiny and inconsequential for the rest of the game.
4) Hyrule surface simply isn't changed enough to feel fresh. Caves and wells are a welcome edition. Theres also a lot of slight adjustments, that I came to appreciate as I came across familiar landmarks. But it just wasnt enough in my opinion, and the main quest sending to many of the same places doesnt help, either.
Adding to the two points above, they bit off more than they could chew (in my uneducated opinion, I'm not a game developer so I cannot say for sure)
With three big tasks:
a) Archipelago of islands in the Sky
b) A dark, gloomy, atmospheric underworld
c) A Hyrule that has seen significant changes since Breath of the Wild
All of them feel half-done. Couldve scrapped either one of the depths or the islands, and all the free-up development time into solely one of them, would've been better, in my opinion. For example. I would accept no sky island, and a somewhat-kinda changed hyrule, if the depths were fully fleshed out with biomes, towns, landmarks, etc.
5) The new abilities (which are mostly excellent still) trivialize a lot of puzzle solving, especially Ultrahand and just flying to places. The exception are a handful of shrines that take your equipment away. Sure, I can do the "intended method", but I dont like how a lot of the shrines, dungeons, etc can just be cheesed. Same with the overworld and acclimating yourself with the terrain. I feel like I did that much more due to how mandatory climbing was. Now though, zonai devices go brrrr.
6) The menu-ing feels somewhat worse in totk, somehow. Especially the process of making arrows mid-fight, plus the fuse abiltity. I sorely miss the bombs and pre-made elemental arrows, in this case.
7) Some overly opinionated nitpicks, dont mind me:
The game world feels a little less beautiful with the ugly hunks of rock floating in the sky, plus a lot of the fallen debris. A lot of goofy looking fusing options, goofy looking vehicles that are made with ultrahand. The shrine and tower designs were better in Botw, imo.
Botw's emptyness afforded the player a lot more quiet moments for the player to soak in, Totk can bombarded with stuff at times, in comparison.
Champions abilties > sages. So much easier and less clunkier to use.
Enemy variety was improved, but not enough.
Overall, I just feel like BOTW feels greater than the sum of all it's parts. Every aspect of the game worked in harmony with each other.
Totk adds A LOT, its an absolutely massive game. But a lot of it's additions don't mesh well with the holdovers from botw, especially, or even with each other sometimes. For example, horses still exist from the first game, but I find very little use of them now. It feels like a fan made a big-scale romhack of BOTW that's a ton of fun, but doesnt feel as curated and refined as the real thing, if you get what I'm saying.
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