I know it’s long, but this is a pretty well thought out critique of Tears of the Kingdom - giving a lot of thought into what the game got right, what it got wrong, how/why the wrong parts were wrong, as well as how they could have been better.
I think the whole video is pretty well thought out, but I found myself agreeing most with the critique of the control system - I put 245 hours into the game and, while I only lost my weapon while trying to use ultra hand a few times (Almost lost it a whole bunch of times though), pressing one button when I meant to use another was a constant theme of my playthrough.
Another pet peeve of mine that didn’t get mentioned is that you hold B to run on land, but X to swim faster in water. What’s up with that?
[heavy story spoilers past this point] I do wish the video talked a bit more about the story. I think it was a good story, but that it could have been done a lot better - the entire thing with the secret stones and dragons seemed pretty cobbled together and deus ex machina-y. After a comment someone left in a different thread I made, I found myself wishing Zelda remained trapped as a dragon at the end of the game - since they did go through a lot of effort trying to drive home the point that it was a permanent change. This would then both make her sacrifice feel a lot more significant, and be a pretty neat setup for another direct sequel - where our goal is to go on some elaborate quest involving the other three dragons, who may or may not be the literal Din, Farore, and Nayru that created the Triforce. Only at the end of that game, once we’d assembled the full Triforce (For the first time in a while), would we then be able to use its magic to save Zelda in what I think would be a much more satisfying way than how TotK actually did it.
Story spoilers
I wish they wouldn’t have repeated everything so frigging often all the time. I get that it is difficult to create an interesting narrative while simultaneously giving the player the freedom to discover everything out of order, but they could still have split the main story into different parts. I mean, each of the Champion cutscenes were the same: “We were too weak, we got Secret Stones, we were still to weak, Rauru sacrificed himself, now here’s the dang stone, go kill Ganon.”
At one point I honestly found myself mocking the dialogue. Blah blah Secret Stone blah blah Secret Stone blah…
My idea of a split storytelling would be:
-
Sidon gets told that the “old” champions were too weak to defeat Ganon but not how they tried to solve the issue or what happened afterwards. As his sister was basically the “healer” of the BotW party and Sidon worries about the safety and wellbeing of his people all the time, it might be important to him to learn that the old Champions didn’t have a way to heal.
-
Yunobo gets told that Rauru was the one who gave them the Secret Stones to make them stronger. As a Goron, the old Champion would have been pleased to know that stones of all things were the key element of their plan to defeat the BBE. He does not tell why they still lost in the end.
-
Riju’s ancestor urges her to rid the world of the “evil” that the Gerudo race brought into this world, but at the same time warns her not to underestimate this enemy as they were no match for him even WITH the Secret Stones. She does not mention Rauru’s sacrifice or where the stones came from.
-
Tulin on the other hand gets told that Rauru sacrificed himself without an explanation as to why this was necessary. Rito are dang proud people so it would be no surprise for the “old Champion” not admitting defeat, and not mentioning where the “help” came from, but thinking highly of someone who threw his very life away to save his people.
That way, each champion would have unlocked an important part of the narrative without duplicates, and frankly I don’t think it is important to tell these four bullet points in a specific order.
Something like this would have been better than what we got. For the most part I didn’t do much critiquing during the game, and just let myself enjoy things - but the repetitiveness of the Sage cutscenes was a bit too obvious to overlook. It’s telling that even Nintendo didn’t think they were worthy of spots in the Memories section of the Purah Pad.
I do wonder if a Goron should be told explicitly that they should never eat their stone…
-
