almost all of your posts are jumping to conclusions and being dissapointed at what you've convinced yourself of. There is nothing anyone can say to this outside of just wait for the game to release and see if you are correct or not
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Preview Thread - no spoilers / no leaks
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Of course. They've spent 6 years on this game and have done a shit ton with it. It's not exactly shocking to think they may have tweaked the structure and setup of Shrines even if they've retained the general concept. And maybe they haven't and they are the exact same, but again we don't know for certain right now, but we do at least know that Malice Holes exist which suspiciously are showing up over a lot of former Shrine locations, the odds they are another Shrine type but likely something different is pretty good too. So even if BotW type Shrines return completely unchanged but with a Zonai coat of painting on them they aren't likely to be the only game in town. There's a difference between keeping expectations in check or lowered and expecting/assuming the absolute worst in a thing.
Have we seen shrines inside? No. Have we seen shrines? Yes. Do we know what the theme(s) of shrines are? No. Do we know if there are varied visuals or music? No. Do we know what puzzles are in them? No. Do we know what the rewards are? No. Do we know how many? No.
How the hell is anyone supposed to know what's improved, when none of us have the game, and not even those previewing the game 2 weeks before release, were allowed to see inside? It really isn't that complicated, and we all wish we could tell you whatever you want to hear, but we can't. We'd also wish we could say "Sorry, shrines are unimproved" to at least settle your fears. But we can't, we got nothing to work on. We assume shrines work pretty much exactly (I say this in the context of the concept, not the execution - making sure I'm clear, though the bullet points below were intended to be the clarification) as they did in BoTW, because BoTW exists in our hands:
- Smaller puzzle-boxes, mostly interior in a space. More constrained than overworld puzzles.
- Rewards some sort of progression.
- Is not inherently displacing larger scale puzzles, nor smaller-scale puzzles.
It's the same for dungeons. Do we know they exist? Yes. Have we seen inside of them? Yesn't. Do we know what the theme(s) of dungeons are? Yesn't. Do we know if there are varied visuals or music? Yesn't. Do we know puzzles are in them? No, but also yes. Do we know what the rewards are? No. Do we know many? No.
It's the same for sky islands. And the same for the underground. And the same for changes to the mainland of Hyrule. We can't tell you the details only the broad concepts, because the game ain't out and they ain't lettin' people see much.
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You're responding to multiple people as if these opinions are coming from one person. I don't think I, personally, have contradicted myself.
They may be shrines in the sense that they contain puzzles and unlock fast travel points. But most critiques about shrines were that A) the puzzles were easy/repetitive, B) there was too much visual uniformity within the shrines and C) some felt the focus on shrines undermined resources that could've gone toward "proper" dungeons.
Obviously none of us have any info on TotK's "shrines" that answers any of A, B or C, and that's the crucial part.
Well at least you admit you're in denial
And that logic makes absolutely no sense. You can have puzzles in Shrines and puzzles in larger dungeon, all these being warp points would mean is that that something that could've been gameplay content and a teleporter is now just a teleporter
You can dislike Shrines all you want but I can't take any argument seriously that says that replacing them all with teleporters would be an improvement. Mini-puzzles like that throughout the world are, imo, borderline necessary to keep exploring worthwhile. There is an argument to be made that Shrines were too repetitive, but the issue isn't solved by getting rid of Shrines, it's by increasing the amount of other content that exists (which we know is happening through the more densely focused Sky Islands) and making Shrines more diverse (we have no idea what's happening on this front)
Yeah like there was maybe some plausible deniability early on but it's become steadily more and more clear that these are Shrine replacements, to the point that it's now basically borderline delusional to believe otherwise
I mean, ignoring the fact that none of these speculated numbers have any basis in fact, supposing they are true, wouldn't it make more sense, by your logic, to improve something most people didn't care for (Runes) than something most were ok with (Shrines)?
There's a 0% chance that Nintendo is keeping anything out of sight for this game due to them not wanting to know about it for negative reasons.
I'm not disappointed, but we literally have people in the last 50 or so posts of this thread insisting that the Shrines are the exact same (by the way, I'm not the one saying this--I'm referring to what others have said), so when I make a post trying to parse through why some people (not me) find reasons to be disappointed about what we know of TotK so far, and then people turn around and say, wait, you're reading too much into it, we don't know the Shrines are the same... yeah, that kinda bugs me a bit.
Again, go back and read the last 50 or so posts. We had people outright saying this, and that's why I made the post I did.
Read posts #1517, 1522, 1523, 1524, 1529, 1540, 1541. And that's just on the last page. That kind of conversation is what I was responding to. Now read my post 1539. I wasn't the one bringing up the Shrines being the same as in TotK. I was simply using that in an attempt to parse through why there's been such a disconnect between different people's response to the game.
It's basically a shrine orb with a new aesthetic. There was even a shrine orb puzzle where you had to nick the orb from a Hinox's necklace (three Hinoxes, to be more precise—they were labeled as three brothers). I wouldn't expect all shrines to require them.A neat detail found over on Reddit, the stone hanging from Hinox's necklace is the same one that we saw during the previews:
It seems like these stones turn on the shrines?
But your argument is that shrines are necessary to make exploration rewarding is also flawed. That was entirely my problem with Botw actually. Instead of enemy variety, progression in the overworld, integrated dungeons sprawled over the map (just hyrule castle), involved quests, story that wasn't optional in flashbacks, unique boss fights, we got ... shrines and seeds as our rewards. Shrines that take you off the map....
There is a lot yet to be seen, but the core gameplay loop seems almost unchanged.
You did not read, I don't understand why you'd call out posts for things they didn't say. In post 1,541, the one you just wrote in this comment, that I wrote, I said...
"Yeah sorry, they're shrines. You'll get puzzles in dungeons and puzzles in shrines. We couldn't tell you if the shrines use the same visuals or music cus we ain't seen shit of 'em. Literally, no footage or screenshots within. But we know they're shrines."
That's as clear as daylight on the context, you just read "They're shrines" and blotted out everything else. I appreciate it, thank you for not reading my comment trying to address the exact specifics of what we know beyond their existence, and interpreting that as if I suddenly know more than even those at the Preview event.
No, nobody said "Shrines are the exact same"... what people said, is that the major concept is known; you have them as fast travel points, you walk in them to other spaces, they have a blue icon, an orange part when incomplete. That's what we know, and it tells us... Shrines exist. Everything else is unknown. We can't tell you what is or isn't the same, because we don't know. And you're taking that lack of knowledge, and people like me trying to explain what we do know - and don't - as validation of your beliefs that Nintendo has done nothing to improve things people find flawed. We can't tell you if they have or haven't! Nobody can! Don't validate beliefs founded on an absence of information, it's not healthy.
I understand beyond this, you're trying to explain some thoughts people are having. The post directly above this explains perfectly why they don't like shrines, and why they hoped they weren't present. I get it, it's a solid explanation. There's still grey space founded on a lack of knowledge, but what we do know indicates they'll be disappointed in at least the area of shrines. Even if they address most criticism (which is probably unlikely, there are lots of things people can single out, some of 'em are sure to not be addressed), the concept of shrines is just not what they want.
People aren't going to like, argue the opposite... in fact, that's what my post - post 1,541- is about. If the user's complaint about shrines wasn't the concept, and more the execution, there was still hope. But as the above says, that's not the case and it is in fact the concept, and that's disappointing. But for those to whom it's the execution, in two weeks we'll have a grasp of that.
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This is good. The shrines that had overworld puzzles/challenges to unlock were some of the best parts of BotW.A neat detail found over on Reddit, the stone hanging from Hinox's necklace is the same one that we saw during the previews:
It seems like these stones turn on the shrines?
I mean, personally I didn't mind getting Shrines and Seeds as rewards instead of the stuff you mentioned (Elden Ring, a game that does all of what you mention, feels much less rewarding to explore to me than BoTW did), but I can obviously get why people would
That being said, we already know ToTK is making improvements in at least some of those areas. The green rocks being Shrines instead of teleporters doesn't change that
Agreed. Upon a couple replays of BotW I've found that the shrine quests are the only shrines I really feel compelled to do. Something about being integrated in the world just makes them more enjoyable.
I also hate shrines, but that's an execution problem not a concept problem. There's no reason why they couldn't be better in this game. The idea that you would play through a section of sky island gameplay, solving puzzles and fighting in the overworld, to then be met with a puzzle to enter a shrine, to then play through a shrine and get something. That sounds like a ton of fun because I'm theory you could get the best of both worlds. The sky island gameplay could be training grounds for a shrines deeper application of a certain concept.
Botw's overworld shrine puzzles were some of the best stuff in the game, but it sucked when you were met with a shrine that was just the reward with no gameplay in it. If totk fixes that then that's great. Do that kind of thing on top of what already looks like more overworld dungeons type stuff and that's perfect. Just execute on it properly.
Botw's overworld shrine puzzles were some of the best stuff in the game, but it sucked when you were met with a shrine that was just the reward with no gameplay in it. If totk fixes that then that's great. Do that kind of thing on top of what already looks like more overworld dungeons type stuff and that's perfect. Just execute on it properly.
I agree with your general dissatisfaction. I've written at length for years about the deficiencies of Shrines and how I would like to see them go or drastically change, but honestly I'm not too worried as the rest of the world we've seen looks to be a great deal denser and filled with content this time around. The Skylands are chock full of shrine like puzzles out in the open world. We have extremely good evidence of real themed dungeons in the world itself underground and in the Skylands. And again while we know the Spiral Rocks from the outside are this games stand in for Shrines we don't know shit about them beyond that. They will lead us somewhere and it will likely involve short puzzles, but it's all speculation on how it will be presented, if there's any different kind of progression to them, or what not.
At this point they don't look to be the main staple of the game like they were in BotW, but one of several activities and options, which I think works fine. While I think there's some fundamental flaws and contradictions between Shrines and the open world approach the biggest issue with them in BotW was that was the the real meat of the game when it came to traditional puzzles, but TotK doesn't look to have that problem. So it's a much smaller issue.
This is the conversation I was responding to.
My comment was a follow-up to that, and an attempt to explain why some are getting a very different vibe from the gameplay demonstrations than others are.
And thank you for not reading my own post, too, by the way. I wasn't even making a criticism about the Shrines themselves. My point was that what we've seen so far suggests Nintendo put its focus on one element of the game moreso than others, and that this is what is creating the difference in enthusiasm levels around the game. I genuinely don't understand how this is even a controversial opinion.
But you're right, this discussion isn't healthy, and I'm done with it.
See y'all.
idk...i just dont think this is going to be the case, just because we have "shrines" (we dont even know if they are, maybe they're caves or who knows) doesnt mean the gameplay loop revolves around them, or that the other stuff is not much more prominent in totk, we have already seen that enemy variety is gonna be bigger, even in this preview i counted like 5 variants of bokoblins with different elemental gear, and thats just on the starting area of hyrule.
again, if they were a prominent part of the gameplay loop and they were unchanged Nintendo has no reason to just block people from entering them, to me that just screams that there's something surprising there.
might be wrong tho, im speculating here.
oops my bad, i wasnt following the conversation you were having
so im in another camp from those people, i do think they're going to be kind of like shrines, but much better and not the main attraction of the game.
first thing Nintendo shown from this game was weapon breaking, there's koroks in this previews, Nintendo is not hiding stuff that people found controversial on BOTW, i dont think they care frankly the game sold 30 million copies with that stuff in the game.
...so i dont find thats a reason for it, for me, they're just something different that Nintendo doesnt want to spoil just yet, there's really not much more to it than that from my part of the conversation.
about the new abilities, well a lot of people find them much better than the runes so thats why i think the idea was to have much more prominent abilities.
I think they were allowed in the caves? We already knew the sky islands had caves from the gameplay demo a few weeks ago so theres nothing to hide there.
The thing they were told not to enter was the shrines
yeah i think they were ok to enter but cant discuss anything thats there
This games 'rune abilities' are designed with far more ubiquitous utility/application. I understand the tendency but try to avoid carrying BotW baggage in to this new game.
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IIRC the cave network was in sky islands segment of the preview and people weren't allowed to take footage of it. Then there's another cave entrance on the 2nd part (where people starts from the ground) and this is the one where people are told not to enter.
This is my feelings about fallout 4. It was a disappointment for what I wanted out of a fallout but survival mode made it a fun game regardless. Also fallout 76 honestly but I consider it more an offshoot then a fallout game
Things change and that is sad but it is what it is and no reason not to enjoy the new thing cause it wasn't exactly what you wanted.
That's awesome if there's an overworld mission or puzzle to solve for every shrine in the game. This game could have so much content, it's going to be crazy.A neat detail found over on Reddit, the stone hanging from Hinox's necklace is the same one that we saw during the previews:
It seems like these stones turn on the shrines?
I think minimum 3 tiers of map/world is pretty likely. But the idea of there maybe being 5 different tier levels to the world also seems like it could be possible too. The land of Hyrule as the "middle", with "Sky" and "Underground" as the two immediate above and below tiers. Then a possible "Hell" and "Heaven" in Zelda terms lol. Hell, they could even possibly go beyond that too.
If they did go to that level, I'd have to imagine the further away from base Hyrule the smaller the individual tier would be. That if there were several tiers, the ones at the extreme ends would be smaller in size/scope than the others.
I'm also wondering if they've expanded the boundaries of Hyrule's landmass itself too.
A big reason that Hyrule felt so huge in the last game was because the fastest you could go (without exploits) was horseback or by jumping off the highest peaks and gliding. But now that you can build all these vehicles/interact with all these various physics objects and be extreme heights in the air then speed divebomb to the ground, the Hyrule of BotW will naturally feel smaller in this game. Unless they expand it.
Another thing that adds to all of this speculation is the fact that the XYZ coordinates on the map are 4 digits. If they are going to take full advantage of the limits in the units, it does seem like there's quite a lot more they aren't showing us yet...
Like they are around the ~1,000 unit count in the preview focused sky islands. That's about 10% of the potential max of 9999 yet it's already pretty ridiculously high up above Hyrule.
My guess is indeed three main exploration tiers and then one small "heaven" tier above all where we probably will get the last important story bit and a small "hell" tier where the last boss fight will take place
1. Heaven: a sky island above all that can only be reached by following the story (probably not reachable with zonai ultra hand made devices)
2. Sky islands
3. Overworld
4. Underground
5. Underworld "Hell"
Source: my ass
Just finished up WWHD again. It occurred to me while doing the Savage Labyrinth that the reason ReDeads are back is likely because the ability to manipulate light is back. ReDeads are always stunned by light. Or the Sun's Song as a stand-in, I guess. Is there even anywhere in OoT that you can actually use the Mirror Shield on a ReDead?
Despite me saying all this, I also think there's a non-zero chance the final battle is on or very close to the blood moon or something lol.
I don't really think this necessitates another tier, even if it's like a tiny one that mostly exists for a plot event. Just having the tutorial area 1.5 km up necessitates the coordinates be four digits. That's all that's needed to explain it. Plus, we've already seen sky islands that go way, way higher than the tutorial area that are presumably counted in the same "sky" tier. There's that column of stacked islands visible in some shots that goes so high the atmospheric perspective cuts it off and you can't even see where it ends.
Despite me saying all this, I also think there's a non-zero chance the final battle is on or very close to the blood moon or something lol.
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Even if there was a "heaven" in the sky and "hell" underground (an idea only really worth considering because Fujibayashi directed Skyward Sword too and played with similar themes in the Ancient Cistern there) I don't really see how those wouldn't just be considered part of the underground and part of the sky, still leaving us with 3 tiers.
I usually agree with you, but I'm not sure that those "things" are shrines. Maybe you are right, but I'm not sure as you.
The fact is: until now, floating islands really, really seem open air shrines. They have enemies, they have a lot of puzzle to solve, they have a lot more in common with shrines that with Hyrules regions in my opinion. They even - sadly - seem to have a common look (same architectures, same golden trees). I repeat myself, maybe it's like you are saying, but I don't see how it can't work this way. Because yeah, that green rock is a new shrine orb; but shrine orbs (in BOTW) more often inside shrines than outside shrines.
So. BOTW on the left, TOTK on the right
you reach a shrine / you reach a sky island
you activate a shrine, it's orange and blu / you activate that "thing", now it has a green door and an orange/blue icon
you enter a shrines / you take the green rock
during the path, you have an optional coffer to open
you have to solve the shrine solving a puzzle / you have to take the green rock to that "thing" solving a puzzle
you take the reward, the shrine is blu / you take the reward, the shrines is blue
It really seems to work to me, like the shrines that gave you only the reward, because the task was outside the shrine itself.
If it is the way you say, you have to solve a long puzzle to enter the shrine, then another one to solve the shrine itself. I'm not sure.
(sorry for my english i'm in hurry)
Alright, so I'm surfacing this post because I came across this bit in the Guardian preview
So the stone glider IS NOT aerodynamic enough to glide without propulsion! Unless they were making it out of a plank or something.
I wonder if launching it with a rocket would be enough to get it gliding?
Why is all the metal in at least the Traveler's and Soldier's weapon classes decayed though. They're not rusty. There's a Rusty Claymore on the left. This is something else. The Gerudo behind Link near the end of Trailer #3 also looked as though her spearhead was similarly decayed. Meanwhile, the Royal Claymore earlier in that same trailer was not decayed. That Royal Claymore was also fused though; not sure if that matters or not.
Gameplay-wise, I'm sure this is some excuse to encourage the player to use Fuse. Narratively why though.
Or it could just be a blessing shrine because you already solved it, same as BotW.
If people are still going to assert that the zen garden rocks aren't shrines because "the sky islands are this game's shrines," then you also have to provide an explanation for why the spiral rocks would also be on the surface in non-puzzle locations. And why they would ever want to remove all the shrine puzzling to only the sky islands, which seems like a truly terrible design decision for keeping the world interesting.
And, you know, why everything seen so far in the UI regarding the spiral rocks is identical to how shrines work. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.
It does have some kind of actual aerodynamics physics though. I saw a clip where someone had gotten it up to speed and then let it take off into the distance. It swooped and then lifted its nose too high, lost its momentum, then swooped down and back up, lost its momentum, and kept doing that until it got too far away and poofed out of existence.
Upon closer inspection of the third trailer, and i know i'm probably late to this, the skyships just seem like oversized trampolines inside the tornado area (which has a dedicated boss). It would be disappointing if the dungeon equivelants in this game are just more linear sky islands w/ companions (suggested aswell with the zora area). Another possibility is that these are pre-dungeon areas, similar to BotW but perhaps a bit better in it's execution (fuck the yonobo part). There's also the gerudo temple, which might 1) be launched into the sky to be a dungeon, 2) reveal something underground to be a dungeon, or 3) zelda devs gives us a more traditional temple.
Where exactly is the Centra Hyrule archipelago? I wanna head there as soon as I get off the sky island.
Probably not all of them. It's probably just like sometimes you had to put a sheikah orb into a thing to make a shrine appear in BotW.
The islands in the preview are the south Hyrule archipiélago and they are just above the great plateau.
Just going on to buy this from UK Amazon and:
Nintendo Switch
6K+ bought in past week
Lots of orders going in it seems!
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo Switch)
PEGI Rating: Ages 12 and Over | 2023Nintendo Switch
6K+ bought in past week
Lots of orders going in it seems!
One thing I saw from a preview video that I didnt even thought is that now you can just THROW whatever material you want at an enemy/puzzle
instead of fusing it to an arrow, you can just throw a elemental chuchu and burst an enemy on fire wtf this is so cooooool
instead of fusing it to an arrow, you can just throw a elemental chuchu and burst an enemy on fire wtf this is so cooooool
One thing about fuse that i still don't know is if we can fuse weapons with elemental objects like the chuchu jellies and stones as we can with arrows, is that possible? Seems like a no brainer but i haven't seen anybody do it so I think it's probably not possible
I assume you can, since you can add other in world items like rocks to weapons so it'd be inconsistent if you couldnt add other stuff. And it'd be a way to make quick elemental weapons.