The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[dwarf]

[EEVILMURRAY]

  On 5/19/2023 at 8:36 PM, Helmsly said:

The main thing that is on my side is that i learned attaching the stuff that enemies drop to weapons make them much stronger and also increase the durability,

Expand  

I've been meaning to ask, is there a quicker way to fuse weapons than having to select the piece, drop it on the floor and then use fusion?

It's a bit clunky

[Sheikah]

  On 5/20/2023 at 10:14 PM, EEVILMURRAY said:

I've been meaning to ask, is there a quicker way to fuse weapons than having to select the piece, drop it on the floor and then use fusion?
It's a bit clunky

Not that I know of.

[Ike]

  On 5/20/2023 at 10:14 PM, EEVILMURRAY said:

I've been meaning to ask, is there a quicker way to fuse weapons than having to select the piece, drop it on the floor and then use fusion?

It's a bit clunky

Expand  

Activate fusion then press up on the d-pad then use X to drop the material. It's a little faster, I guess.

[Julius]

Eiji Aonuma has a great interview with The Washington Post that just went up today, and it comes with the claim that the game was pretty much complete last March, but held for polish. 

The interview is well worth a read, but good lord, that's one hell of a choice to make! Kudos to them though, seems to have paid off and then some 

[EEVILMURRAY]

After one dungeon and some continued fapping about, if the series wants to follow this formula - this is the game Breath of The Wild ought to have been. There's actually stuff to do in many a place, with much less running across boring expanses. Some of the shrines seem more basic than others (teach me the ways of the bow several hours in, please), but on the whole is more variety than before, even if it's mainly fetch quests. I've got 2 full circles of stamina which is helping nicely. Good game? yes. Great game? I guess. Worthy of all perfect scores and enough ejaculation to fill every Olympic swimming pool on Earth? No way. But certainly an improvement.

It's curious as to where the series will go now, it shouldn't be set in Hyrule next time unless there's some giant continental shift which makes the landscape totally different, and something more substantial than many lil puzzle boxes sacrificing the number of temples/dungeons etc. Also new mechanics, as opposed to just renaming magnesis and giving it some tweaks.

Termina could be a good frame to work from (but more than 4 dungeons before y'all start)

[I do wish the clothing mechanic would fuck off though, sure you can alter the appearance, but maybe some sort of badge/enhancement system as you explore to allow for extra abilities as opposed to having to pause and switch to your cold/heat resisting trousers, or Zora armour if you get anywhere near water... I don't have enough shit to upgrade them all]

[darksnowman]

  On 5/21/2023 at 6:35 PM, Julius said:

it comes with the claim that the game was pretty much complete last March, but held for polish. 

Expand  

This is spin doctor for "didn't want to put it up against Kirby and the Forgotten Land."

  On 5/22/2023 at 7:29 AM, EEVILMURRAY said:

After one dungeon and some continued fapping about

Expand  

Oh, not you and the great fairies too...

Sounds like, on the whole, you're having a decent enough time with it. Promising.

[EEVILMURRAY]

  On 5/22/2023 at 9:59 AM, darksnowman said:

Oh, not you and the great fairies too...

Sounds like, on the whole, you're having a decent enough time with it. Promising.

Expand  

I spent Saturday and Sunday opening those fashion-obsessed broads from their botanical abodes. They're still as inappropriate as before with their unwanted advances and non-consensual behaviour. But they beefed up some clothes, at a cost of materials which seemed higher than previously, but I am trying to get away with something other than the Hylian getup. Except the hood because I haven't been able to get any other headwear, except for the enemy heads, but you can't upgrade those.

[FalcoLombardi]

Yesterday I set out to get the remaining skyview towers and geoglyphs. I managed to do that and actually ended up stumbling upon the Master Sword while doing so.

Though it's looking like my story theory from however long ago is going to be wrong.

[dwarf]

Kinda crazy how hard this game fucks. Like it's actually too good.

[Ike]

I found Hetsu on my way to the Rito village. Didn’t pay attention to where he said he would be next, anyone know where I can find him, I need some extra inventory slots.

[Glen-i]

  On 5/27/2023 at 1:18 PM, Ike said:

I found Hetsu on my way to the Rito village. Didn’t pay attention to where he said he would be next, anyone know where I can find him, I need some extra inventory slots.

Expand  

Wait! I know this one, I think? I saw someone on Discord mention it.

  Reveal hidden contents

Overlook... something? I think?

 

[darksnowman]

  On 5/27/2023 at 1:18 PM, Ike said:

I found Hetsu on my way to the Rito village. Didn’t pay attention to where he said he would be next, anyone know where I can find him, I need some extra inventory slots.

Expand  

Try these co-ordinates:

  Reveal hidden contents

  Quote

if you’ve already completed at least one temple but haven’t yet ventured into the Lost Woods, you should be able to find Hestu near a tree at the coordinates (-0220, 0063, 0018), right between the clothing store and the stable.

Expand  

Otherwise, you can do Korok Forest/ Lost Woods stuff to get him to appear there.

Taken from here if you need more pointers:
https://www.polygon.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-guide/23703120/hestu-locations-where-to-find

 

[Ike]

  On 5/27/2023 at 1:20 PM, Glen-i said:

Wait! I know this one, I think? I saw someone on Discord mention it.

  Reveal hidden contents

Overlook... something? I think?

 

Expand  

That's where he was, apparently I never looked in that corner.

[Glen-i]

 Nailed it!

Not even touched it, and I'm helping out. I must be some sort of Zelda savant!

...Anyway, back to Theatrhythm.

[FalcoLombardi]

I was in the Depths and something absolutely frightened the shit out of me. Good thing my couch is brown.

[EEVILMURRAY]

  On 5/27/2023 at 3:55 PM, FalcoLombardi said:

I was in the Depths and something absolutely frightened the shit out of me. Good thing my couch is brown.

Expand  

The hands? I first encountered them on the overworld, but I was on a ledge so they couldn't grab me. In the Depths though I had to use nearly full stamina to get away

  On 5/24/2023 at 12:02 PM, FalcoLombardi said:

Yesterday I set out to get the remaining skyview towers and geoglyphs. I managed to do that and actually ended up stumbling upon the Master Sword while doing so.

Expand  

I "found it" too! Granted it was part of a quest set by the tree dude, but it's mine now. Shockingly enough it still fucks up and needs to recharge. After all it went through.

About the hands though...

  Reveal hidden contents

How did people manage this? I normally just hide above the ground until they fuck off, but this one remained... In the end I had to climb a little higher, launch myself off, fire a bomb arrow at it, then run to the opposite wall and repeat. Phantom Ganon after that was way easier

Later on...

  Reveal hidden contents

I had the Master Sword at this point, so just kept circle swing attacking with it occasionally grabbing me, whilst my ghost companions helped out. Again, made Phantom Ganon my bitch after that again

I've cheated in the mazes, I'm not ashamed, they bore me. And just cheated again for the last Fierce Deity piece

 

Only one region left with dem Gorons, I trust I will find some heat resisting shizzle along the way. The desert stuff doesn't seem to be cutting it. But I'm fapping about with some side quests at the moment, no rush.

 

 

[MindFreak]

  Reveal hidden contents

I met the hands first time when I was in a cave. Tried to fight it but didn't have enough arrows to kill them.

Found out later that the only appear during a blood moon. When they appear, I just get to a ledge and wait for it to go away. Boring stuff once you've escaped. 

Like rain. Fuck rain, it does nothing good to the game. 

 

[EEVILMURRAY]

  On 5/30/2023 at 1:05 PM, MindFreak said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I met the hands first time when I was in a cave. Tried to fight it but didn't have enough arrows to kill them.

Found out later that the only appear during a blood moon. When they appear, I just get to a ledge and wait for it to go away. Boring stuff once you've escaped. 

Like rain. Fuck rain, it does nothing good to the game. 

 

Expand  

I think for those 2 instances I had they're there no matter what, to prelude the other thing.

  Reveal hidden contents

Would explain why I've only come across them 2-3 times in the wild. I like to fuck over the blood moon by ducking into a shrine at 11.55. It's worth it to avoid hearing Zelda say "Shines" as I mash to end the cutscene

 

[FalcoLombardi]

I only have the Gerudo story left to do on the main quest. But as I was making my way there I decided to do some exploring. And in doing so I stumbled upon a separate main story quest. While I only planned on playing for maybe 90 minutes last night I ended up powering through this new main quest and played for over three hours. My mind was a bit blown when I found this.

[Julius]

Haven't really chimed in on the game, because outside of the first weekend with it when I put in over 30 hours, I haven't really gone back to it consistently. 

I'll save cohesive thoughts for when it's done I think (uncovered about a third of the map from central to NW, but got plenty of pins down that I want to visit), but overall, I've been loving it. I'll give some quick thoughts. 

I much prefer the new powers to the ones in BOTW, I feel like there are less unknowns for something like Recall compared with the Remote Bombs (range, timing, etc.), and so it just feels tighter when it comes to using those powers for me, and much more direct and purposeful when I do use those power. I will say that Recall + Ultrahand is super OP in shrines and the like, super early on at the Great Sky Island I found myself smoothly moving things around with Ultrahand, then just jumping on and using Recall to skip completing some puzzles the "intended" way in favour of just using a platform as an elevator instead. Works for anywhere with a high ledge and multiple platforms to move. One of my favourite boss fights that I've encountered so far heavily depended on using the new powers, which I loved! Also, I don't know if it's just me and my consistently inconsistent commitment to the game, but I've forgotten on a few occasions that I have Ascend, such as one time in a cave where I started to backtrack and then 90% of the way back to the entrance went "oh...hold on a sec, I can just use Ascend"  anyways, in short: puzzles have been great. 

What's been weird to me is noticing some of the QoL improvements made being inconsistently applied, maybe I'm misremembering, but things like getting the option to drop a sword or shield when picking one up from a chest I can't remember being it BOTW? Which is a cool addition in TOTK...until you realise it's not an option outside of those circumstances, so going around picking things up after an enemy and spamming 'A' means you're still met with a message saying you don't have enough space for it. 

Which I guess brings me onto how this game sort of half solves some of my problems with the first, but doesn't go all the way. For me this is seen with things like Fuse and storage, where both honestly just bring about the same issue that was around in BOTW when it comes to the game kind of turning into an item management bonanza. Also seen it rightly mentioned in here that there's no way to fuse items into weapons with what's already on your person, which just seems like an odd choice, think they could've done something similar with how you fuse items to arrows, but maybe DLC? Which reminds me to bring up the lack of the Hero's Path, it's not a massive complaint, but getting that in BOTW DLC was wonderful, so taking it away to - I would assume - bring it back in TOTK DLC is a bit frustrating, because it lowers the QoL compared to the completed form of BOTW. 

Small aside: I'm playing with the Pro HUD, so thankfully can't see it, but I can't believe the coordinates were kept on the small corner map as shown in the footage from Aonuma's powers showcase. That stuff looks hilariously amateur and tacked on. 

In terms of the story, enjoying it much more this time around, it feels like there's a lot more taking place and the game does a better job of leading you to those important quests and storylines I feel than BOTW did. The geoglyphs basically fix the problem with memories in the first game depending on images to find a certain location, so you can now spot them from a mile away, but I'm not sure if I wanted them to return in any form when it comes to TOTK. 

Also, before I get too far in the story, I feel like my early prediction based on the game's opening is coming to pass but I'll put it down here...

  Reveal hidden contents

Zelda is totally the dragon, right? 

That's what I immediately clued in on during the title reveal in the game when Link is diving and *LITERALLY* the only other living thing in frame as LEGEND OF ZELDA came up on screen was a new dragon (from what I remember of the old dragon designs). A lot of games have been making a habit of doing that sort of thing lately, where if you pay close attention to the first hour it feels like there are very overt hints of what's to come. 

 

As for it being half confirmed, stuff like finding a tear and then them talking about how they've never heard of dragons crying, etc. That + Zelda showing up (but not really) makes me imagine she became a dragon to live long enough to come back to the present day, but I guess I'll see how that plays out. 

Anyways, playing through it, I think it's superior to BOTW but doesn't necessarily fix it's perceived problems (many of which I would agree with). It's just more, a whole lot more, and I think justifies the price hike seen in some territories, to be honest. Like in BOTW, the level of exploration - the main draw for me being how experiential it all is - is just bananas (mighty bananas).

There's so much to see and do that they didn't advertise, and really early I latched on to a certain item on the Great Sky Island and wondered if they were doing what I thought they were with its ability...and they did.

And then some.

It's really silly.

Nintendo are silly geese. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Absolutely love The Depths, jumping in for the first time and hearing that brass sent chills down my spine. Love how it's pitch black (what I was talking about before was the Brightbloom seeds - you get some in the mining area in the pitch black of a cave on the Great Sky Island, which is what made me think we were going to get something like this...but I expected pockets, not an entire other world to explore, however desolate it may be!). I ended up back at the Great Plateau super early into my adventure and completed the quest for the Bargainer Statue with a whole lot of sprinting around. 

Also, much respect to them for having the Lightroots directly underneath Shrines, but further yet - THE NAMES OF THE LIGHTROOTS BEING THE NAMES OF THE SHRINES, BUT BACKWARDS! I absolutely love stuff like that. 

I haven't really done all that much in The Depths besides run around lighting the place up and getting the extra power that's down there, I tend to pop in when I see something but not for particularly long, as it definitely feels like they want you to prepare before diving in! 

Is funny how we've had two years in a row where the obvious GOTY winner has a sizeable underground area not shown in advertising...wonder what this means for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth 

So for me it's one of the best games in its class, like BOTW, for exploration for me...but I think combat in general is sorely lacking. I thought the same in BOTW, but there just isn't enough to it. Does there need to be? Maybe not. But I think the only thing - besides minor nitpicks and returning issues from the last game - major that I'd take issue with TOTK is how stale the combat is compared to just how rich and refined other areas of the game feel. 

If someone wants to take Bloodborne style combat and fuse it with BOTW/TOTK's exploration I seriously think that would be the pinnacle of what can be achieved in a game like this. 

  On 5/30/2023 at 1:05 PM, MindFreak said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I met the hands first time when I was in a cave. Tried to fight it but didn't have enough arrows to kill them.

Found out later that the only appear during a blood moon. When they appear, I just get to a ledge and wait for it to go away. Boring stuff once you've escaped. 

Like rain. Fuck rain, it does nothing good to the game. 

 

Expand  

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm not quite sure that's right re: they only appear during Blood Moon? They make the sky look like a blood moon is taking place, turning it red and dark, but I've encountered the Gloom Spawn/Hands/Floormaster 3000s out in the open during broad daylight (and after they vanished it went back to being the middle of the day) – I'm pretty sure they're tied to a location and then respawn during the Blood Moons just like every other enemy. Maybe there's an increased likelihood of them turning up leading up to a Blood Moon? No idea. 

First time I encountered them they scared the ever-living Hylia out of me, I was just swimming from one side of a small stream to another and, well, yeah. Horrifying to encounter out of the blue.

Loved it. 

 

[drahkon]

  On 5/30/2023 at 3:22 PM, Julius said:

Which reminds me to bring up the lack of the Hero's Path

Expand  

 

[Julius]

  On 5/30/2023 at 3:56 PM, drahkon said:

 

Expand  

  Reveal hidden contents

Ah okay, so I'm guessing it's in - is it any Hateno by any chance? 

If so...how have they managed to repeat the Hyrule Compendium issue from the first game?!  between that and how easy it can be to miss the paraglider, man, there are certainly some strange decisions in this game

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Julius

[drahkon]

  On 5/30/2023 at 4:14 PM, Julius said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Ah okay, so I'm guessing it's in - is it any Hateno by any chance? 

If so...how have they managed to repeat the Hyrule Compendium issue from the first game?!  between that and how easy it can be to miss the paraglider, man, there are certainly some strange decisions in this game

 

Expand  

  Reveal hidden contents

Ding ding ding. It's there. (sorry for ruining the surprise, but I thought I'd let you know that Hero's Path is actually in the game)

And yes, some strange decisions indeed.

 

[Julius]

  On 5/30/2023 at 5:01 PM, drahkon said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ding ding ding. It's there. (sorry for ruining the surprise, but I thought I'd let you know that Hero's Path is actually in the game)

And yes, some strange decisions indeed.

 

Expand  

  Reveal hidden contents

Ah no worries, I'd been frustrated that it was seemingly left out, so I'm glad you pointed it out! Something to look forward to 

But yeah, it is really bizarre then. I'd gone from Central Hyrule > NW and Rito Village first to do the first temple because that's definitely the direction the game tries to shunt you in (everyone talking about the freezing temps around Rito Village, not being able to get food into them, the Gazette, etc.), and while I don't think it's as essential as, say, the paraglider to the enjoyment of the game, it is definitely sending you a wildly different direction.

I don't think I unlocked the Hyrule Compendium until late on in BOTW because I'd gone in a different direction at the start, and so didn't bother at all trying to fill it out after I picked it up because I'd already been most places! If I'm remembering right I went immediately east to Lanayru and the Zora in BOTW, and then anti-clockwise from there, so Hateno might've been one of my last spots (unless I teleported back at some point, might need to check my Hero's Path in BOTW!)

Does leave me in a weird spot, as I had been wanting to go anti-clockwise from Rito Village to take things on in a bit of a different order to how I did them in BOTW, and even going clockwise I doubt I'd get to Hateno for a good while, so either I just beeline for it and teleport back...or maybe just forget it until close to the end of my journey and get it when I get it? It's not a massive deal, would just be nice to know I'm not retreading the same path in some cases, or to help spot what I've missed. 

Hmm, I'll mull it over, doubt I'll be on it the next few days as I'm busy at work. But it is odd to not give as much as you can to the player at the start, again maybe less so the Hero's Path (or even stuff like the teleporting horse armour if it's in here? Think that was also DLC so probably Hateno too, that doesn't bother me too much as I'm on foot 99% of the time) and more so essential stuff like the paraglider.

This game essentially has a 3 - 5 hour tutorial if you follow it up to the paraglider and so the fact that there are still functions you had in the first game that are missing at that point is kind of what's puzzling me. Doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the game much, but again, it's just weird! 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Julius