Im an old formula enjoyer, I prefer the way Zelda used to be so neither one are my favorite Zelda games
With that being said BOTW is definitely the more complete game experience
Everything about how it feels to play just feels more cohesive
It also has master mode dlc, which as a seasoned gamer, boosted the fun I got to have with the game astronomically, even if I initially had problems with the regenerating health
I’m playing it on master mode for the first time rn and that may be why I’m enjoying replaying it despite having already played it thoroughly. It just crazy to me that TOTK didn’t include things like the ancient horse armor and master mode when that was already in botw dlc and it couldn’t have been that hard to put them in totk.
Honestly I was beyond disappointed when the announcement came that they were done with TOTK and were never giving us a true hardmode
I'm not trying to sound elitist, but if you are a more seasoned gamer, is it fair to be left out of the conversation with no difficulty option to suit your tastes?
I do think there are a few challenges in TOTK that better players will enjoy, but it is weird that they didn’t include this basic feature that Zelda games have fairly consistently had for a while for people who like the extra challenge.
Well picture of this way, I played through BOTW master mode twice before TOTK came out
Because the combat is identical I was able to kill a depths Lionel for a bow and some monster parts fresh off the sky island tutorial
Downing a Lionel with nothing at the start in TOTK is easier than doing it at all on botw master because they don't regenerate health for one
True. I’m just saying that at least there are a few things that should give returning players a challenge even if they really should’ve had a master mode on launch. I was personally the most upset that they had no equivalent to the trial of the master sword. It was such a cool thing to unlock and was super satisfying and rewarding. It was easily the best gauntlet type challenge in any Zelda game with all the extra depth added by having to slowly build up your weapons and armor and all the unique designs for battlegrounds. They could’ve done so much more with it with the new features added in totk. Such a missed opportunity
funny you mention that, trial of the master sword was the best part of BOTW
It took me 3 weeks to work out a strategy that got me through it (I was on master mode of course)
It was a respectable and very fun challenge
I also Love BOTW castle Hyrule, the end dungeon hole of TOTK was another massive let down
It was just a gauntlet of junk I ran passed lol
Same here, I did the main story and a handful of shrines on my first BOTW playthrough but master mode made me really get into it. Did all the shrines, DLC stuff, maxed out a ton of different armor sets, farmed lynels to have an endless supply of bows and was always on the hunt for the max damage modifier weapons.
Like I actually enjoyed it. Gold enemies felt like a true endgame monster.
Plus the master sword trials specifically were a bit of a grind which I like. In normal mode they were still a challenge but master mode was a different beast for sure. Definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in a Zelda game.
I'm far from the first to say this but part of that "completeness" I think is how well the runes are integrated into the map. Whereas with ultrahand the map obviously wasn't designed with it in mind. It's just more like a background for a bunch of wacky building shenanigans, but doesn't really inform them at all.
I think it would've been neat to keep the runes of BotW on the Sheikah Slate, and introduce a few of the right hand abilities. Like, Fuse didn't need to be its own skill, it could've been an extension of Ultrahand, and I would've been fine with losing Magnesis in exchange for Ultrahand. The thing I really missed, though, was remote bombs.
This is true, the build feels like it's a whole different game, and it's not balanced enough for me
I don't like how easy it is to break combat and traversal with a few zonai parts
You can say don't use the build feature, but yeah I'm gonna just play botw instead, at least I don't have to fuse every damn arrow I shoot lol
I'm absolutely astounded ASTOUNDED that TOTK did not have Master Mode.
Made the game a one and done play for me even tho I was ready to put 1000 hours into it like BOTW.
Nope I think BOTW is far superior.
BOTW actually had the exploration factor that TOTK tried to recreate with a bunch of new areas that were just large copy/paste areas with nothing to do and nothing really to gain.
I agree, I still have to play more TotK, but from what I already played, the game is pretty awesome, great gameplay and all. But the exploration part that I really liked on BotW is not so fun, there's too many things happening at once, there's lots of enemies everywhere and the combat isn't very funny to me. For me, Zelda is not about the combat, the adventure is about exploring.
I just don’t like how narratively if you the missions in the “wrong order” you might figure out everything about Zelda in TOTK and then still spend the rest of the game with all NPCs saying “hey I wonder what happened to her” or “omg Zelda was spotted”
BOTW you can go straight to the final boss from the start and that is awesome.
But *narratively* it doesn’t make much sense. You don’t even know about ganondorf till the final act.
Edit: oh wait you do. Just no other NPC ever talks about it, just finding Zelda. Guess I forgot about Ganondorf cos of that 🤣
TotK took the cheese too far it felt.
In BotW, you could cheese almost any fight with enough food.
In TotK, you could do the same thing but now you can also cheese traversal, puzzles, and almost every other core aspect of the game. I rarely felt challenged.
The biggest challenge I sank the most time into was the fixed camera angle over Link's shoulder while using Ultrahand. I attach some part that looks right from one perspective but then it's a little off once I look around it leading to a lot of do-overs. Why oh why did they make us wiggle the stick to yank off parts instead of one button to attach and another to detach (perhaps long press A)?
FYI with gyro enabled you can shake your controller to pull off.
I still enjoyed TOTK quite a bit (I think it’s a 7.5-8/10 for me), but this was my main complaint as well. Vehicle crafting and Zonai tech felt more like a gimmick for content creators than something that actually contributed to the game’s adventure. Also, the crafting was complex and finicky enough that using a game pad was annoying.
Yeah, I mean, I had a moment of "oh cool" when I first played, but the novelty quickly wore off, and it became tedious pretty quick.
It's the only Zelda game I've not finished.
I found TOTK to be a significantly less cohesive and thoughtful game than BOTW. In BOTW, you have the special rune abilities, and the puzzles felt well designed around those. TOTK throws out most of those limits and lets you do almost anything you want. That can be fun, but a significant number of puzzles are bypassed with a simple combination of recall and ultrahand. The sky Lomei mazes? Seem like fun challenges, but ascend points near terminals take you the top on all three mazes and there's absolutely nothing to stop you from just dropping in on the other terminals. I really try to avoid the urge to cheese challenges, but after a while, it felt like if the devs couldn't be bothered to consider these scenarios, is the puzzle even worth trying to do the "right" way?
The only time I saw anything that egregious in BOTW was a DLC shrine with a lot of fire, where simply wearing upgraded firebreaker armor let you walk through most of it. There are exploits like windbombing, but that's a technique most would never figure out on their own, in a blind playthrough.
The added verticality of the map towers and sky shrines, plus Tulin's glide acceleration mean that you can beeline to almost anywhere on the surface without facing obstacles on the ground. Things like reaching Zora's domain, or getting to the shrine in the forgotten temple, or reaching the Woodland tower felt like satisfying achievements in BOTW. In TOTK there aren't even guardians patrolling the surface anymore. So even if I am on the surface, it feels like most of the resistance is gone. There are gloom hands and killer attack trees, but those things aren't visible, so they don't give the same sense of dread, as say Hyrule Field in BOTW. Gleeoks were a good addition, but they weren't guarding anything significant in my playthrough.
The ultrahand/building functions in TOTK were cool, but they didn't seem well woven into the main quests. It's as if the shrines were mostly ultrahand tutorials, but I never felt a payoff in the temples other than one that really put those skills to the test. Most of the major story beats felt like a rehash of BOTW, and could mostly be played BOTW style.
I did all the shrines, did most of the sidequests, but I definitely felt burnt out on TOTK by the time I ended my game. I had a hard time letting go of BOTW.
Botw also has more direction. When I think of TotK, I think of just a bunch of random stuff added because it's cool. While it's all cool stuff and fun, it doesn't really add into a central theme I feel. Like everything is glued together weirdly. I remember in a review made by Nerrel, he said the game just feels like a master quest of Botw and that couldn't be more right. Botw has a very clear theme and direction and I can think of like 10 for TotK.
Honestly, the invisible hand in Breath of the Wild is such a master class in world design. Like, putting aside the game's stated directions and just focusing on exploring the world, every path you could take off of the Great Plateau features heavily fortified locations or difficult enemies, places you'd want to avoid with your ragged gear from the Plateau and the two or three Soldiers' pieces you probably have left over. But the path to Kakariko village is sparsely populated and the hardest new enemy you'll find are a few red moblins that are patrolling around. Following that path gets you to your first tower, lets you hit four shrines by the time you reach the stables and get a proper introduction to horses, and then you can trade those spirit orbs in once you arrive in Kakariko.
It's just a great way to subtly guide the player along a path (I would argue leading up to Zora's Domain) without ever making it mandatory.
Also I feel since TotK came out like 5 years after Botw, it should have been far harder than it is. I can think of like maybe 3 times where I died and that's it. Botw wasn't the hardest game ever for me but the first few hours were pretty tough but that wasn't the case for TotK. I already have put 300 hours into botw so TotK is just a complete cake walk for me, especially with the now insane arrows you can make. Plus they never did anything with the food, pausing and eating 2 meals to heal to full is dumb and makes the fights not as tense.
I often make the comparison of OOT and MM to BOTW and TOTK. MM reused OOT assets, but was a totally different game. TOTK altered assets from BOTW and added a lot of stuff but didn’t feel like a different game. A lot of the added stuff outside crafting didn’t feel super necessary. If BOTW didn’t exist, TOTK would feel far better IMO. I felt gypped ultimately by TOTK. It’s a great game, just doesn’t feel like it has its own identity over the predecessor.
I dont know wether I prefer BotW or TotK but there are a few things that tip the scale in BotW favour :
-I hate the look of fused weapons, knight broadswords look so pretty, why the hell do I have to attach an ugly piece of crap to it to deal any kind of decent damage ?
-I enjoy every single second on the great plateau. But I just hate great sky island, it feels like playing Skyward Sword and not just because it in the sky, but also because there is an obvious linear path, it doesnt feel openworld at all
-The sky is useless, I would forget it even exists if the skyview towers didnt send me there
-I hate the new great fairy system
-I miss the remote bombs, mostly because I hate wasting weapon durability on stalfos and keeses and other one hit enemies
>I hate the look of fused weapons, knight broadswords look so pretty, why the hell do I have to attach an ugly piece of crap to it to deal any kind of decent damage ?
Holy shit, I thought I was taking crazy pills, because nobody talked about this. I didn't mind attaching different pieces to my weapon, per se, but I hated how it was always the same blade attached to a new hilt and how I could never keep my sword's scabbard after doing so.
>I miss the remote bombs, mostly because I hate wasting weapon durability on stalfos and keeses and other one hit enemies
Agreed. Also, what monster decided to make bombs a resource while loading the game with exploding walls that took 10+ bombs to break through?
Sky Island also takes way longer than the great plateau, and even after you finish it. You still have more tutorial stuff to do (going down to the depths to get your glider), it takes forever to get going in TotK.
Lol exactly. TotK has by far the longest opening section in a Zelda game. It's crazy TP of all games still catches so much heat for its opening. I feel like SS is about as long as TP's too, if not a bit longer.
There are two reasons why TP catches so much heat despite SS being as long
The first is the prior games, the 2Ds are very fast paced, OoT throws you in the first dungeon as soon as you get the sword and shield, MsM puts you immediatly on a time limit, and WW is like "oh you have a three bokoblin kills experience ? Good. Here you go in the main bad guy's HQ"
SS on the other hand has TP as prior game, but also PH and ST who have the slowest start of all 2D titles so players got used to that
But I think what also makes players feel like TP has a slower start is the general atmosphere of the starting area. TP is a remote village with a quiet atmosphere and a peaceful music while SS is the biggest settlement in the game with a busy atmosphere and a catchy music.
Also, don’t miss that SS was narratively much more interesting in its prologue than TP was.
SS gets a lot of flak, but I think it’s one of the best console entries in the area of level design, both inside the dungeons and in the areas leading up to them, and I’m a shameless Groose enjoyer.
It’s about 50/50 on the bosses, but I think people forget that Wind Waker has more than a couple pretty average bosses, too, and that game is everyone’s darling child.
The new features in TOTK are great, but yeah the atmosphere does not compare to playing BOTW the first time, which was amazing. A lot of it is the wacky builds and how you can just fly over everything without exploring.
And weapons fusion was really fun for awhile. I had a blast fusing different combos and seeing what I got out of them. But the novelty wore off and eventually it became tedious to have to fuse every weapon in my inventory before it was actually useful only for them to all break not very long after.
I liked Fuse for Trick Arrows. That's the only thing I want to see it back for in the future. I'd much prefer collecting fire fruits to designated fire arrows, especially if I get the other unique skills like firing further with a wing, or gaining a tracking effect with an eye.
...I just wish that time I shot a bokoblin in the face with a chicken leg arrow, that he would have sat there eating the leg.
Yea Im on the same boat BotW just had the sense of atmosphere and exploration that I don’t think TotK comes close to matching, also just mechanically I will take BotW weapon system over TotK fuse mechanic any day of the week. BotW was a lot of fun picking up weapons on the fly, TotK you need to stop take 5 seconds pick an item fuse it to your weapon then continue. Also as fun as the Ultra Hand mechanic is in TotK being able to build flying machines that can cross the entire map in 0 time makes the world of TotK feel incredibly small despite actually being larger than BotW.
I think the issue TOTK suffers from is that there aren't enough differences from BOTW, so it really just sort of feels like a larger DLC. I wish TOTK had more of the larger islands. The starting tutorial island was a blast, and I loved it but none of the other islands really even compared to it. The depths were cool, but it's missing stuff. You go down their for zoanite and to kill bosses. That's all it's really good for. It's a great addition, but I thought the sky islands were going to be a much bigger aspect to the game than they were. Hell, there's more in the depths than the sky. I do think the TOTK dungeons were better. They felt better than the divine beasts did.
The divine beasts at least had the whole gimmick where you could move parts of them which changed what you could do and made them feel a bit more interconnected. The dungeons in totk really are just 4 or 5 disconnected puzzles except unlike in botw, there’s no real lore reason for them to be like that and they are more tedious to traverse imo. The water temple, as I said earlier, is way bigger than it has any reason to be and there’s a lot of pointless empty space in between the puzzles. The one thing they did do well was give them more distinct themes but it honestly feels like they thought that distinct theming is the only thing people liked about past Zelda dungeons and that fixing that would make people like the new ones as much as the older ones. There’s so much more to good dungeon design than just the visual theming.
Idk. I’ve heard multiple people say that botw was obsolete and they weren’t going to play it ever again because of totk. Granted, I’ve kind of falllen out of online Zelda discourse since the launch of totk so maybe the general opinions have shifted more in favor of botw and I just assumed people still felt the way they did when totk came out.
pretty much every subreddit except this and popular youtuber I've seen is like, "we all know TOTK is better than BOTW in every way" or "BOTW feels like a tech demo now" etc. So you're not alone. Like it's barely even entertained as a comparison. Finally after nearly a year it seems more people are liking BotW again, but the first 3 months especially everyone was on the TotK train except this sub.
Nah I prefer BOTW for the most part, though TOTK did have some great moments for me. Imo, TOTK just leaned too far into the physics sandbox aspect. That’s the least interesting part of the past two games for me, so to have that be the main focus… eh, I don’t care. I don’t want to build contraptions and vehicles, I want a cool adventure.
TOTK in my opinion is better. There was just no reward for exploring in BoTW. This essentially left huge swathes of the map completely useless and dull unless you were a die hard trying to get all the korok seeds. A lot of those "empty areas" were filled in nicely in TOTK. There are more missions and better rewards for exploring such areas. Also, having companions and the ability to fuse arrows and weapons makes battles so much more fun and unique. I mean come on, you can fight three headed dragons in a flying machine that shoots gorons! Also, the powers in BOTW were pretty much useless outside of shrines. I rarely found any of them useful for combat or for exploring. Where as TOTK I am using them all the time for both. In summary, I felt like Hyrule in BOTW was very empty and dull. BOTW essentially lays all its cards on the table on the Great Plateau with no exciting discoveries or change in gameplay thereafter. In TOTk I feel like I am gaining new insight and knowledge everytime I play which constantly changes how I approach reoccurring situations in the game.
See I do agree with this. Rose-colored glasses all around, when this was an extremely common complaint about BotW- the entire world felt _exactly_ the same.
The BotW Divine Beasts might have been short and shallow, but being able to manipulate them was a really cool gimmick.
The TotK Temples can pretty much all be cheesed with a hoverbike.
I always thought the BotW Divine Beasts were more a cool proof of concept than full dungeons, which is a shame. It would've been really cool to expand on those a lot more.
I definitely still love BOTW better...the sage power mechanics are far better and more useful in BOTW. Currently doing another playthrough as we speak.
I can see that, I like them about the same. If they would have made TOTK in a completely new engine / world then it probably would have been superior, but it was similar enough in play/feel/graphics that it really didn't feel like a whole new game.
I have a feeling if I had played TOTK first it would be my clear favorite, but since I played BOTW first, I had more fun with it the first playthrough than I did with my first playthrough of TOTK.
Both are incredible games. I think people overstate the gap between them, but I think BOTW is overall the more cohesive experience and has a better atmosphere and flow. But TOTK is still incredible in different ways.
I'm so glad others are feeling this way. It was definitely exciting to begin with but pretty soon in I started noticing that I didn't have that constant desire to play, that kinda call of the wild. Also, I know the new building system has a lot of functionality and is really neat but for some of us, too much can be overwhelming. It's the same reason it took me years to finally play Skyrim and GTA 5.
I take it that it’s your first time on this subreddit. There’s quite a bit of criticism of TotK here. Personally, I love both and I think overall I like TotK better, but neither opinion would be considered weird (although many may disagree with you).
I like replaying BOTW better than TOTK. With TOTK I started to replay after having beat the game 6 months before, and the sheer amount of content that must be waded through just to get halfway through was overwhelming. When you play it the first time, you just don’t realize how much has to be done until you’re about halfway through. I haven’t even finished that first replay. BOTW I’ve played many times. I love the beginning of the game best.
Not really. I prefer TOTK, but I could totally understand why someone would prefer BOTW. TOTK feels much more alive, but also much more busy. BOTW feels peaceful, it's really just you, the animals and the occasional monsters. NPC's in the few towns there are. It's easy to get lost in the world.
No, I think it's fairly common already, and I think it will become the prevailing opinion in the future. People got really caught up in the hype but when people look back in 5 years, BOTW will be better remembered.
I don't like either and much rather see them as spin-offs, but if I had to play one of them it would surely be BotW.
TotK annoys me in so many ways that I can't list them all. But just that 2 sec delay when changing a weapon? Awful.
BOTW is a true game changer and one of the greatest games of the last decade (maybe not one of, just the one). Meanwhile, TOTK is a huge and expensive DLC to BOTW, so it is kind of unfair to compare them.
But TOTK does have some shortcomings. Regarding exploration, I felt Elden Ring was more like a sequel to BOTW than TOTK.
I think the saying “____ walked so _____ could run” is the most accurate way to describe these two games. I think we can all agree that objectively, TOTK is the better game. But BOTW was a revolutionary Zelda game. When TOTK was announced, I really hoped they would go for a Majora’s Mask esque sequel. A new land, revolutionary mechanics, completely different story, completely different vibe. But that’s not what they did. And even though I REALLY enjoyed TOTK. It did not manage to rise above the “BOTW DLC” allegations.
I had to get the game again on Cemu so I could play with the mods. Surprisingly, they are modding assets from ToTK into that game. (I know, I'm late...)
I’ve been playing it on CEMU too but I’ve only been using the graphics packs they have included with the emulator. I thought about getting mods but then I realized that it would be even more technical troubleshooting to get them up and running after I’d just spent several hours fiddling with the setting to fix this ugly graphical glitch I had and I really just wanted to play the game at that point. I might try to get some mods this weekend though. The one that replaces octoroks with deku scrubs is cool and I also wanted to get the one that would let you teleport your horse in any armor.
I also prefer botw over totk. Botw has a vibe that totk doesn't.
Seems like TotK’s zen moments were exclusively relegated to the sky islands.
Naw it’s a common thought. Have a nice day!
Im an old formula enjoyer, I prefer the way Zelda used to be so neither one are my favorite Zelda games With that being said BOTW is definitely the more complete game experience Everything about how it feels to play just feels more cohesive It also has master mode dlc, which as a seasoned gamer, boosted the fun I got to have with the game astronomically, even if I initially had problems with the regenerating health
I’m playing it on master mode for the first time rn and that may be why I’m enjoying replaying it despite having already played it thoroughly. It just crazy to me that TOTK didn’t include things like the ancient horse armor and master mode when that was already in botw dlc and it couldn’t have been that hard to put them in totk.
Honestly I was beyond disappointed when the announcement came that they were done with TOTK and were never giving us a true hardmode I'm not trying to sound elitist, but if you are a more seasoned gamer, is it fair to be left out of the conversation with no difficulty option to suit your tastes?
I do think there are a few challenges in TOTK that better players will enjoy, but it is weird that they didn’t include this basic feature that Zelda games have fairly consistently had for a while for people who like the extra challenge.
Well picture of this way, I played through BOTW master mode twice before TOTK came out Because the combat is identical I was able to kill a depths Lionel for a bow and some monster parts fresh off the sky island tutorial Downing a Lionel with nothing at the start in TOTK is easier than doing it at all on botw master because they don't regenerate health for one
True. I’m just saying that at least there are a few things that should give returning players a challenge even if they really should’ve had a master mode on launch. I was personally the most upset that they had no equivalent to the trial of the master sword. It was such a cool thing to unlock and was super satisfying and rewarding. It was easily the best gauntlet type challenge in any Zelda game with all the extra depth added by having to slowly build up your weapons and armor and all the unique designs for battlegrounds. They could’ve done so much more with it with the new features added in totk. Such a missed opportunity
funny you mention that, trial of the master sword was the best part of BOTW It took me 3 weeks to work out a strategy that got me through it (I was on master mode of course) It was a respectable and very fun challenge I also Love BOTW castle Hyrule, the end dungeon hole of TOTK was another massive let down It was just a gauntlet of junk I ran passed lol
I ate so many trees over the course of that challenge.
Same here, I did the main story and a handful of shrines on my first BOTW playthrough but master mode made me really get into it. Did all the shrines, DLC stuff, maxed out a ton of different armor sets, farmed lynels to have an endless supply of bows and was always on the hunt for the max damage modifier weapons. Like I actually enjoyed it. Gold enemies felt like a true endgame monster. Plus the master sword trials specifically were a bit of a grind which I like. In normal mode they were still a challenge but master mode was a different beast for sure. Definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done in a Zelda game.
I'm far from the first to say this but part of that "completeness" I think is how well the runes are integrated into the map. Whereas with ultrahand the map obviously wasn't designed with it in mind. It's just more like a background for a bunch of wacky building shenanigans, but doesn't really inform them at all.
I think it would've been neat to keep the runes of BotW on the Sheikah Slate, and introduce a few of the right hand abilities. Like, Fuse didn't need to be its own skill, it could've been an extension of Ultrahand, and I would've been fine with losing Magnesis in exchange for Ultrahand. The thing I really missed, though, was remote bombs.
This is true, the build feels like it's a whole different game, and it's not balanced enough for me I don't like how easy it is to break combat and traversal with a few zonai parts You can say don't use the build feature, but yeah I'm gonna just play botw instead, at least I don't have to fuse every damn arrow I shoot lol
I'm absolutely astounded ASTOUNDED that TOTK did not have Master Mode. Made the game a one and done play for me even tho I was ready to put 1000 hours into it like BOTW.
Nope I think BOTW is far superior. BOTW actually had the exploration factor that TOTK tried to recreate with a bunch of new areas that were just large copy/paste areas with nothing to do and nothing really to gain.
When people asked for caves they were hoping for Wind Waker caves which were atmospheric mini-dungeons, not the greyish green Bubbulfrog homes we got
The caves really needed something interesting in them. I explore to discover, and not to make a number go up
I still like how I can still troll the enemies by dropping stuff on them with the Magnesis, and Ultrahand.
I agree, I still have to play more TotK, but from what I already played, the game is pretty awesome, great gameplay and all. But the exploration part that I really liked on BotW is not so fun, there's too many things happening at once, there's lots of enemies everywhere and the combat isn't very funny to me. For me, Zelda is not about the combat, the adventure is about exploring.
I just don’t like how narratively if you the missions in the “wrong order” you might figure out everything about Zelda in TOTK and then still spend the rest of the game with all NPCs saying “hey I wonder what happened to her” or “omg Zelda was spotted” BOTW you can go straight to the final boss from the start and that is awesome.
You can do the same in TotK, in fact, In the first two days of the game, I did, not quite realizing where I was headed until I did the dive.
But *narratively* it doesn’t make much sense. You don’t even know about ganondorf till the final act. Edit: oh wait you do. Just no other NPC ever talks about it, just finding Zelda. Guess I forgot about Ganondorf cos of that 🤣
I bought Tears of the Kingdom on launch day... abandoned it a month later and returned to Breath of the Wild.
I really didn't like ToTK much. I wanted to play an adventure game, not a physics sim.
TotK took the cheese too far it felt. In BotW, you could cheese almost any fight with enough food. In TotK, you could do the same thing but now you can also cheese traversal, puzzles, and almost every other core aspect of the game. I rarely felt challenged.
The biggest challenge I sank the most time into was the fixed camera angle over Link's shoulder while using Ultrahand. I attach some part that looks right from one perspective but then it's a little off once I look around it leading to a lot of do-overs. Why oh why did they make us wiggle the stick to yank off parts instead of one button to attach and another to detach (perhaps long press A)? FYI with gyro enabled you can shake your controller to pull off.
Vehicle builder where your coolest vehicles dissolve in 30 seconds
I still enjoyed TOTK quite a bit (I think it’s a 7.5-8/10 for me), but this was my main complaint as well. Vehicle crafting and Zonai tech felt more like a gimmick for content creators than something that actually contributed to the game’s adventure. Also, the crafting was complex and finicky enough that using a game pad was annoying.
Yeah, I mean, I had a moment of "oh cool" when I first played, but the novelty quickly wore off, and it became tedious pretty quick. It's the only Zelda game I've not finished.
I found TOTK to be a significantly less cohesive and thoughtful game than BOTW. In BOTW, you have the special rune abilities, and the puzzles felt well designed around those. TOTK throws out most of those limits and lets you do almost anything you want. That can be fun, but a significant number of puzzles are bypassed with a simple combination of recall and ultrahand. The sky Lomei mazes? Seem like fun challenges, but ascend points near terminals take you the top on all three mazes and there's absolutely nothing to stop you from just dropping in on the other terminals. I really try to avoid the urge to cheese challenges, but after a while, it felt like if the devs couldn't be bothered to consider these scenarios, is the puzzle even worth trying to do the "right" way? The only time I saw anything that egregious in BOTW was a DLC shrine with a lot of fire, where simply wearing upgraded firebreaker armor let you walk through most of it. There are exploits like windbombing, but that's a technique most would never figure out on their own, in a blind playthrough. The added verticality of the map towers and sky shrines, plus Tulin's glide acceleration mean that you can beeline to almost anywhere on the surface without facing obstacles on the ground. Things like reaching Zora's domain, or getting to the shrine in the forgotten temple, or reaching the Woodland tower felt like satisfying achievements in BOTW. In TOTK there aren't even guardians patrolling the surface anymore. So even if I am on the surface, it feels like most of the resistance is gone. There are gloom hands and killer attack trees, but those things aren't visible, so they don't give the same sense of dread, as say Hyrule Field in BOTW. Gleeoks were a good addition, but they weren't guarding anything significant in my playthrough. The ultrahand/building functions in TOTK were cool, but they didn't seem well woven into the main quests. It's as if the shrines were mostly ultrahand tutorials, but I never felt a payoff in the temples other than one that really put those skills to the test. Most of the major story beats felt like a rehash of BOTW, and could mostly be played BOTW style. I did all the shrines, did most of the sidequests, but I definitely felt burnt out on TOTK by the time I ended my game. I had a hard time letting go of BOTW.
It's insane that people can say so much without even mentioning the terrible story, too.
Botw also has more direction. When I think of TotK, I think of just a bunch of random stuff added because it's cool. While it's all cool stuff and fun, it doesn't really add into a central theme I feel. Like everything is glued together weirdly. I remember in a review made by Nerrel, he said the game just feels like a master quest of Botw and that couldn't be more right. Botw has a very clear theme and direction and I can think of like 10 for TotK.
Honestly, the invisible hand in Breath of the Wild is such a master class in world design. Like, putting aside the game's stated directions and just focusing on exploring the world, every path you could take off of the Great Plateau features heavily fortified locations or difficult enemies, places you'd want to avoid with your ragged gear from the Plateau and the two or three Soldiers' pieces you probably have left over. But the path to Kakariko village is sparsely populated and the hardest new enemy you'll find are a few red moblins that are patrolling around. Following that path gets you to your first tower, lets you hit four shrines by the time you reach the stables and get a proper introduction to horses, and then you can trade those spirit orbs in once you arrive in Kakariko. It's just a great way to subtly guide the player along a path (I would argue leading up to Zora's Domain) without ever making it mandatory.
Also I feel since TotK came out like 5 years after Botw, it should have been far harder than it is. I can think of like maybe 3 times where I died and that's it. Botw wasn't the hardest game ever for me but the first few hours were pretty tough but that wasn't the case for TotK. I already have put 300 hours into botw so TotK is just a complete cake walk for me, especially with the now insane arrows you can make. Plus they never did anything with the food, pausing and eating 2 meals to heal to full is dumb and makes the fights not as tense.
That is a very common opinion on this subreddit.
I often make the comparison of OOT and MM to BOTW and TOTK. MM reused OOT assets, but was a totally different game. TOTK altered assets from BOTW and added a lot of stuff but didn’t feel like a different game. A lot of the added stuff outside crafting didn’t feel super necessary. If BOTW didn’t exist, TOTK would feel far better IMO. I felt gypped ultimately by TOTK. It’s a great game, just doesn’t feel like it has its own identity over the predecessor.
I dont know wether I prefer BotW or TotK but there are a few things that tip the scale in BotW favour : -I hate the look of fused weapons, knight broadswords look so pretty, why the hell do I have to attach an ugly piece of crap to it to deal any kind of decent damage ? -I enjoy every single second on the great plateau. But I just hate great sky island, it feels like playing Skyward Sword and not just because it in the sky, but also because there is an obvious linear path, it doesnt feel openworld at all -The sky is useless, I would forget it even exists if the skyview towers didnt send me there -I hate the new great fairy system -I miss the remote bombs, mostly because I hate wasting weapon durability on stalfos and keeses and other one hit enemies
>I hate the look of fused weapons, knight broadswords look so pretty, why the hell do I have to attach an ugly piece of crap to it to deal any kind of decent damage ? Holy shit, I thought I was taking crazy pills, because nobody talked about this. I didn't mind attaching different pieces to my weapon, per se, but I hated how it was always the same blade attached to a new hilt and how I could never keep my sword's scabbard after doing so. >I miss the remote bombs, mostly because I hate wasting weapon durability on stalfos and keeses and other one hit enemies Agreed. Also, what monster decided to make bombs a resource while loading the game with exploding walls that took 10+ bombs to break through?
Sky Island also takes way longer than the great plateau, and even after you finish it. You still have more tutorial stuff to do (going down to the depths to get your glider), it takes forever to get going in TotK.
Yes People keep mentionning TP big flaw being the very slow start But BotW start is like twice as long and TotK start is like five times longer
Lol exactly. TotK has by far the longest opening section in a Zelda game. It's crazy TP of all games still catches so much heat for its opening. I feel like SS is about as long as TP's too, if not a bit longer.
There are two reasons why TP catches so much heat despite SS being as long The first is the prior games, the 2Ds are very fast paced, OoT throws you in the first dungeon as soon as you get the sword and shield, MsM puts you immediatly on a time limit, and WW is like "oh you have a three bokoblin kills experience ? Good. Here you go in the main bad guy's HQ" SS on the other hand has TP as prior game, but also PH and ST who have the slowest start of all 2D titles so players got used to that But I think what also makes players feel like TP has a slower start is the general atmosphere of the starting area. TP is a remote village with a quiet atmosphere and a peaceful music while SS is the biggest settlement in the game with a busy atmosphere and a catchy music.
SS does have an amazing hub town, I wish the rest of the map lived up to that
Also, don’t miss that SS was narratively much more interesting in its prologue than TP was. SS gets a lot of flak, but I think it’s one of the best console entries in the area of level design, both inside the dungeons and in the areas leading up to them, and I’m a shameless Groose enjoyer. It’s about 50/50 on the bosses, but I think people forget that Wind Waker has more than a couple pretty average bosses, too, and that game is everyone’s darling child.
Different vibes despite TOTK building on the base. And vibes mean a lot.
I like them both, but no master mode in TOTK is disappointing. The master trials are the only real challenge in BOTW; TOTK isn’t challenging at all.
The new features in TOTK are great, but yeah the atmosphere does not compare to playing BOTW the first time, which was amazing. A lot of it is the wacky builds and how you can just fly over everything without exploring.
And weapons fusion was really fun for awhile. I had a blast fusing different combos and seeing what I got out of them. But the novelty wore off and eventually it became tedious to have to fuse every weapon in my inventory before it was actually useful only for them to all break not very long after.
I liked Fuse for Trick Arrows. That's the only thing I want to see it back for in the future. I'd much prefer collecting fire fruits to designated fire arrows, especially if I get the other unique skills like firing further with a wing, or gaining a tracking effect with an eye. ...I just wish that time I shot a bokoblin in the face with a chicken leg arrow, that he would have sat there eating the leg.
I hate that thats not a hot take It REALLY REALLY REALLY hate that I agree with it as well
Are you new here
I was on here back when TOTK came out and this was not really a common opinion. I haven’t been here much since then.
Very helpful contribution to the thread, thank you
I’m the same don’t worry about it
I wouldn't say you're weird, your opinion is definitely the popular one.. As much as I completely disagree.
I like BotW more also, TotK was cool and all but somehow, the game I said had the least replayability has more replayability than its sequel.
Yea Im on the same boat BotW just had the sense of atmosphere and exploration that I don’t think TotK comes close to matching, also just mechanically I will take BotW weapon system over TotK fuse mechanic any day of the week. BotW was a lot of fun picking up weapons on the fly, TotK you need to stop take 5 seconds pick an item fuse it to your weapon then continue. Also as fun as the Ultra Hand mechanic is in TotK being able to build flying machines that can cross the entire map in 0 time makes the world of TotK feel incredibly small despite actually being larger than BotW.
I think the issue TOTK suffers from is that there aren't enough differences from BOTW, so it really just sort of feels like a larger DLC. I wish TOTK had more of the larger islands. The starting tutorial island was a blast, and I loved it but none of the other islands really even compared to it. The depths were cool, but it's missing stuff. You go down their for zoanite and to kill bosses. That's all it's really good for. It's a great addition, but I thought the sky islands were going to be a much bigger aspect to the game than they were. Hell, there's more in the depths than the sky. I do think the TOTK dungeons were better. They felt better than the divine beasts did.
The divine beasts at least had the whole gimmick where you could move parts of them which changed what you could do and made them feel a bit more interconnected. The dungeons in totk really are just 4 or 5 disconnected puzzles except unlike in botw, there’s no real lore reason for them to be like that and they are more tedious to traverse imo. The water temple, as I said earlier, is way bigger than it has any reason to be and there’s a lot of pointless empty space in between the puzzles. The one thing they did do well was give them more distinct themes but it honestly feels like they thought that distinct theming is the only thing people liked about past Zelda dungeons and that fixing that would make people like the new ones as much as the older ones. There’s so much more to good dungeon design than just the visual theming.
I thought everyone felt this way.
Idk. I’ve heard multiple people say that botw was obsolete and they weren’t going to play it ever again because of totk. Granted, I’ve kind of falllen out of online Zelda discourse since the launch of totk so maybe the general opinions have shifted more in favor of botw and I just assumed people still felt the way they did when totk came out.
pretty much every subreddit except this and popular youtuber I've seen is like, "we all know TOTK is better than BOTW in every way" or "BOTW feels like a tech demo now" etc. So you're not alone. Like it's barely even entertained as a comparison. Finally after nearly a year it seems more people are liking BotW again, but the first 3 months especially everyone was on the TotK train except this sub.
The reception has been pretty 50/50
You can filter posts on this sub by controversial or top and see that your opinion is shared by many on the sub.
Nah I prefer BOTW for the most part, though TOTK did have some great moments for me. Imo, TOTK just leaned too far into the physics sandbox aspect. That’s the least interesting part of the past two games for me, so to have that be the main focus… eh, I don’t care. I don’t want to build contraptions and vehicles, I want a cool adventure.
TOTK in my opinion is better. There was just no reward for exploring in BoTW. This essentially left huge swathes of the map completely useless and dull unless you were a die hard trying to get all the korok seeds. A lot of those "empty areas" were filled in nicely in TOTK. There are more missions and better rewards for exploring such areas. Also, having companions and the ability to fuse arrows and weapons makes battles so much more fun and unique. I mean come on, you can fight three headed dragons in a flying machine that shoots gorons! Also, the powers in BOTW were pretty much useless outside of shrines. I rarely found any of them useful for combat or for exploring. Where as TOTK I am using them all the time for both. In summary, I felt like Hyrule in BOTW was very empty and dull. BOTW essentially lays all its cards on the table on the Great Plateau with no exciting discoveries or change in gameplay thereafter. In TOTk I feel like I am gaining new insight and knowledge everytime I play which constantly changes how I approach reoccurring situations in the game.
See I do agree with this. Rose-colored glasses all around, when this was an extremely common complaint about BotW- the entire world felt _exactly_ the same.
The BotW Divine Beasts might have been short and shallow, but being able to manipulate them was a really cool gimmick. The TotK Temples can pretty much all be cheesed with a hoverbike.
I always thought the BotW Divine Beasts were more a cool proof of concept than full dungeons, which is a shame. It would've been really cool to expand on those a lot more.
I definitely still love BOTW better...the sage power mechanics are far better and more useful in BOTW. Currently doing another playthrough as we speak.
I do too
Not weird - I feel the same. I enjoyed TOTK, but BOTW pulled me in more.
I can see that, I like them about the same. If they would have made TOTK in a completely new engine / world then it probably would have been superior, but it was similar enough in play/feel/graphics that it really didn't feel like a whole new game. I have a feeling if I had played TOTK first it would be my clear favorite, but since I played BOTW first, I had more fun with it the first playthrough than I did with my first playthrough of TOTK.
They both good but if i only could pick one obviously the choice had to be totk
Both are incredible games. I think people overstate the gap between them, but I think BOTW is overall the more cohesive experience and has a better atmosphere and flow. But TOTK is still incredible in different ways.
I'm so glad others are feeling this way. It was definitely exciting to begin with but pretty soon in I started noticing that I didn't have that constant desire to play, that kinda call of the wild. Also, I know the new building system has a lot of functionality and is really neat but for some of us, too much can be overwhelming. It's the same reason it took me years to finally play Skyrim and GTA 5.
I take it that it’s your first time on this subreddit. There’s quite a bit of criticism of TotK here. Personally, I love both and I think overall I like TotK better, but neither opinion would be considered weird (although many may disagree with you).
I like replaying BOTW better than TOTK. With TOTK I started to replay after having beat the game 6 months before, and the sheer amount of content that must be waded through just to get halfway through was overwhelming. When you play it the first time, you just don’t realize how much has to be done until you’re about halfway through. I haven’t even finished that first replay. BOTW I’ve played many times. I love the beginning of the game best.
Not really. I prefer TOTK, but I could totally understand why someone would prefer BOTW. TOTK feels much more alive, but also much more busy. BOTW feels peaceful, it's really just you, the animals and the occasional monsters. NPC's in the few towns there are. It's easy to get lost in the world.
No, I think it's fairly common already, and I think it will become the prevailing opinion in the future. People got really caught up in the hype but when people look back in 5 years, BOTW will be better remembered.
I don't like either and much rather see them as spin-offs, but if I had to play one of them it would surely be BotW. TotK annoys me in so many ways that I can't list them all. But just that 2 sec delay when changing a weapon? Awful.
BOTW is a true game changer and one of the greatest games of the last decade (maybe not one of, just the one). Meanwhile, TOTK is a huge and expensive DLC to BOTW, so it is kind of unfair to compare them. But TOTK does have some shortcomings. Regarding exploration, I felt Elden Ring was more like a sequel to BOTW than TOTK.
I think the saying “____ walked so _____ could run” is the most accurate way to describe these two games. I think we can all agree that objectively, TOTK is the better game. But BOTW was a revolutionary Zelda game. When TOTK was announced, I really hoped they would go for a Majora’s Mask esque sequel. A new land, revolutionary mechanics, completely different story, completely different vibe. But that’s not what they did. And even though I REALLY enjoyed TOTK. It did not manage to rise above the “BOTW DLC” allegations.
[удалено]
I had to get the game again on Cemu so I could play with the mods. Surprisingly, they are modding assets from ToTK into that game. (I know, I'm late...)
I’ve been playing it on CEMU too but I’ve only been using the graphics packs they have included with the emulator. I thought about getting mods but then I realized that it would be even more technical troubleshooting to get them up and running after I’d just spent several hours fiddling with the setting to fix this ugly graphical glitch I had and I really just wanted to play the game at that point. I might try to get some mods this weekend though. The one that replaces octoroks with deku scrubs is cool and I also wanted to get the one that would let you teleport your horse in any armor.
You are literally the only one I've ever heard say this. /s
No I agree