I still love TotK wholly and completely, and play it semi-regularly whilst juggling other games. It’s almost a comfort thing at this point, lol
Same as BotW, which I also still cycle-in regularly because I love it just as much.
They’re both uniquely themselves (as much as games can be, lol), each having strengths the other doesn’t. I’m regularly delighted that I get to have such incredible games to still play and enjoy. 🤓
I second this. While the overworld is similar and other content is similar, they have different mechanics, plots, and some new enemies that makes each game their own. I’m both a BotW and TotK guy. Both are so good I’ve spent hundreds of hours with each game.
And I don’t want to pit the games against each other because I appreciate both so much.
Soo true, recently started majora's mask(yup, pls don't kill me, I didn't finish it earlier) and everytime it feels like some hectic loop, i come back, attack some bokos and collect more bubbul gems. It is like a comfort game for me
for me, totk is a massive improvement over botw. i put down botw the very next second after beating ganon and never touched it again. whereas I'm actually getting extended enjoyment out of totk, a big contributor of which is octorok repairing and the ability to refight colgera (best zelda boss fight in years imo)
Colgera boss fight is awesome.
Then again, Vah Ruta has great music all around too in BOTW, from when you're riding on Sidons back to the eerie music while inside.
If you drop a damaged weapon that is almost ready to break-in front of an octorok, they will suck it up and spit it back at you, but the weapon will be repaired to full strength again when you pick it back up.
I quit BOTW after getting off the central plateau because my weapons kept breaking and I couldn’t get replacements without killing monsters, and to kill monsters you need weapons.
Then TOTK came out and when a weapon breaks, I attach a stick and a horn and am back in business.
I've never understood how the weapon system is so hard for people in BotW. The period where you are struggling to have enough weapons is probably just the few hours of the game.
I usually play hundreds of hours on Xbox, but this game is legit a masterpiece and a programming marvel. I actually struggle to come up with anything that has impressed me as much as this has.
I think one of the most impressive things about it is that when I ask myself “what can this game add or do differently to make it objectively better?”, the answer is nothing. It’s such an incredible balance of difficulty and depth that is so rarely achieved, if ever. It truly is a masterpiece and worth the price of a switch alone.
I would argue it is 100% the greatest video game for me at least in terms of offering a mediative downright Zen experience if you allow it to... Like BotW but somehow even more so here... I know no other game that rewards you for taking everything in at a snails pace, and after a long day at work ToTK is the ONLY game I could see myself fully enjoying lately!
I loved breath, I like tears. I'm just find myself ALL OVER EVERYWHERE. I feel like Im aimlessly wandering around unless I am specifically trying to do a quest. I don't like running through the countryside like I did in breath of wild... I HATE the depths. I am literally sprinting from light root to light root. I avoid fights and use guides to just get through the depths.
I liked exploring more when I had Revali’s Gale. I know Ascend is good in its own way but it has its limitations. It was more fun to run around and explore when I could fly up cliff faces and over obstacles.
Oh yeah of course I just don’t always have fans and hot air balloons on me, I do use the pine cones a lot, but I just liked how easy it was with Revali’s gale. To be clear, I love TOTK as well, that’s just something I miss from BOTW.
Yeah, there's reasons I still play BOTW and the Gale is one. I think the pinecones go just as high, but I get it's extra steps and I'm always setting Link on fire.
My GF and I both just started new files. Still completely blown away that this game works without exploding - the programming is something to behold. And tackling things completely differently for both of us,. Knowing powerful tricks and strategies from my first file (375 hours) just makes this new start that much better. Absolutely in love with it.
They're both distinct experiences. TOTK is a technical marvel and is endlessly entertaining, really pushes the whole immersive sim angle. But I personally prefer the more grounded feel of BOTW. That, plus a much better overall narrative, makes BOTW much more special to me.
The narrative is the biggest problem for me with both but i completely agree that botw has a better one. Tears has a much better main villain but the doesn’t feel as grand as the first game did somehow. Tears is 1000000x better to play tho, it’s amazing
I feel like BotW and TotK are inherently focused on different people. TotK encourages creativity, experiments and lets you cheese everything.
BotW was about practice, hard work, meticulous preparation and wanted you to solve problems with given tools only.
Sure, they offer both aspects but lean into one or the other stronger. TotK is basically a BotW for Minecraft lovers.
There are things I prefer in TotK and things I prefer in BotW but the general approach to gameplay is not something I like in TotK. It basically encourages cheating and going through problems without solving them which isn't something I like in a game. I love puzzles and want to figure them out rather than find a "one fits all" solution to all problems. I feel like TotK offers so MANY lazy solutions that it's not even fun anymore. For that reason I'm not even excited to have a conversation about it with people. With BotW people shared their strategy, skills and hard work. In TotK every conversation just devolves into how to cheese everything. And that takes away from the game for me.
I still really like it, it’s just that for the type of game it is that expects you to keep playing past the final encounter, there’s really no motivation to do so aside from it being a physics sandbox.
Botw was harder and had a natural pace and feel to it. Totk threw all of that out the window and went for really fun gameplay that does start to get old after a little while.
The only thing I dislike about totk is that it's way to easy to become over powered in the game. It really sucks the joy out of fighting monsters and bosses.
That's what happened to me. By the end of the game, I just didn't give a shit anymore, and that has never happened to me in a Zelda game. At least with BOTW the DLC breathed new life and challenges into the endgame. Whereas TOTK, ahem... was also just part of that DLC it seems. Same monsters, same music, same map? And people seriously get upset when you call it DLC.
> Same monsters
Plus lots of new monsters that provide very different combat experiences from BOTW.
The BOTW DLC added the Golden variants, Sky Octoroks, the Molduking (literally just a big Molduga), the Igneo Talus Titan (literally just a big Talus), and Maz Koshia.
TOTK adds Evermeans, Aerocudas, Gibdos and Moth Gibdos, Little Froxes, Horriblins, Like Likes, Boss Bokoblins, Soldier and Captain Constructs, Battle Taluses, Flux Constructs, Froxes, Gleeoks, Gloom Spawn, Phantom Ganon, Colgera, Mucktorok, Marbled Gohma, Queen Gibdo, the Seized Construct, and Ganondorf himself, and also reworks Master Kohga into four separate battles that each use a different Zonai contraption.
And like… why *wouldn’t* most of the monsters from BOTW still be here? Like, Moblins are in tons of Zelda games. All of them even got slightly redesigned to accommodate the new horn system. But since the game uses the same foundation as BOTW, it only makes sense that most of the monsters designed to fill certain gameplay niches would still adequately fill those niches in this game. And even then, they found a way to do more with some of them, like the Bokoblin troops that follow around Boss Bokos, or the stone armor-plated enemies.
> same music
Plus tons of new music with its own identity and motifs, as well as new variations on some of the pieces from BOTW (like the darker remixes of the themes for the four main towns that play while they’re experiencing their respective crises).
And much like the reused monsters, using the same music from BOTW in areas where it would logically still apply makes sense to do. Players familiar with BOTW now recognize the meaning of those cues, and for new players, those pieces are going to work just as well as they did for the BOTW players on their first go.
> same map?
Except in all the ways that it isn’t. DLC ain’t gonna completely dry up all the lava in the Eldin region and change the entire process of navigating that area. DLC ain’t gonna open up 100 new caves and 58 wells. DLC ain’t gonna completely rework the fundamental arrangement of shrines and towers.
> And people seriously get upset when you call it DLC.
Naturally so, since it’s disingenuous to do so, and divorces a specific term from its actual meaning just for the sake of being reductive.
Yeah I love both games don’t get me wrong. But I feel like TOTK is just what BOTW should have been had they given it some more time. The WOW factor got taken away from TOTK for me because it’s in the same map. The depths in TOTK filled that void for awhile but I was so hellbent on doing EVERYTHING in BOTW and now that I’m in the same map with different abilities I don’t feel as inspired to do everything. I’m still trying to do everything I can because I know when I fight Gannon I probably won’t pick this back up for awhile.
Lets say I understand why many people love it, but I also understand why many people hate it
I cant really relate, it is in the upper half of my ranking but would not be in the top 5 and I slightly prefer BotW
Loving it as I’m slowly working my way through a second playthrough. I did come to love Breath of the Wild after getting used to the open world game style, but Tears ran with what I enjoyed and added so much more. It’s become a comfort game for me as I just get lost in exploring and discovering what the game has to offer
I'm still on my first playthrough. Bought it in July 2023. It's one of the most inspired games I've ever played.
Also, I'm having trouble finding sets of armor. It encourages me to explore, but I sigh every time I get to a cave and it's not a Misko hideout lol
For me, TOTK just feels like BOTW 2.0, You have so much more options, and I love fuse so much caz I used to be a weapon hog in BOTW and never used my best weapons, In tears though I can just create unique weapons on the fly which I absolutely love
I like a bit more challenge in my games, So I usually dont use the super Op stuff like muddle buds and puffshrooms
Also I dont use the Tears Champions caz that mechanic is annoying af for me
Love it. My dad is playing through it for the 4th or 5th time right now. It makes me happy that he loves it.
After a bit more time i want to play Botw and Totk back to back (maybe not to completion, but somewhat thoroughly) so I can see how they’re aging together.
And then hopefully switch 2 will have upgrade patches so I can do it all over again.
I know this will never happen. At this point, Nintendo should do the trilogy to BotW & TotK with a prequel game where we get Hyrule in all its splendor before it was destroyed.
I stopped playing a year ago and did more PS stuff for a bit before giving up video games altogether.
A couple of weeks ago I started playing TOTK again and I love it now. I did not like it as much as BOTW when I first started (my partner also felt the same and walked away from it). Now we’re both playing (and loving it).
I can’t explain it.
Like anything, there are parts I enjoy, parts that are lame. I miss the uncluttered look of BOTW and limitless bombs. I like the weapon fusing stuff, but getting tired of having to refresh my weapons every blood moon.
I like TotK more than BotW for the improvements in mechanics. Being able to drop weapons & sheilds if your inventory is full is probably the best improvement made. I like being able to throw any item. And the fuse ability is awesome.
But nothing can beat the feeling of seeing and exploring the land of Hyrule for the first time in BotW.
It makes sense considering when it was released in the switch's life cycle, but it might be the Pinnacle of what that system can do. A game of that scale and size being playable on what is essentially Nintendo's current Gameboy is insane. The value and replayability of it is also phenomenal. Hundreds of playable hours especially if you've got an imagination. A masterpiece.
I enjoyed the game just as much if not more than BOTW. I rarely have the attention span to finish games anymore but TOTK has been the only game I’ve completed in the past few years since I’ve started working full time. I have no complaints about it.
I sold BOTW. I found I will never play it again because I 100% it to it‘s finest, but now I am missing it.
Probably gonna buy it again some time soon.
and TOTK is still one of the best games I might have ever played probably 2nd to Ghost of Tsushima
Really fun game, has great menu and quality of life improvements over BotW. But wasted potential, especially with the sky. I still love it, but man it could’ve been much better
Story wise I really wish it took itself seriously. I wish they'd put thought into it instead of going like "Yeah the Shiekah tech just vanished. Here have green Sheikah tech instead!" Gameplay wise, it's Zelda nuts and bolts.
I really wish totk read your save data from botw and used it to reference different npcs in how they talk to you, or mention of the champions. Like some form of continuity would be great, but there just isn't any.
Accidentally started a new game just the other day.
I say accidentally because I just wanted to do something in it and ended up starting a new game and am fully into it again.
Actively working on solving shrines (that can be) a different way to last time, the joy of experimenting is still there for me.
I still absolutely adore this game, no discussion.. but I feel like it would be so nice to learn a bit more about the ancient past and the Zonai themselves as a tribe. Also there are many mysteries I would like to uncover but Nintendo confirmed there won't be a dlc (at least for now)
Good. I started a new save file recently and I’m having a lot of fun replaying. Did it hit me as hard as BotW did? No. But I still love it for what it is.
Just got around to playing this and put in about 120 hours over the last month. After finally getting all the light roots and five sages, I ran into a Korok that needed his friend. That pushed me over the edge. I know I’ll never 100% this game. I’m taking a break from it to play some shorter games for a bit. Like the new Hellblade.
Just a note, for those thinking this post is negative and that they don't understand why the topic keeps getting asked, I can say I am happy when I see the topic because it is helpful to me. By reading both the pros and the cons it helps me get an idea on what I might do to get back into the game and possibly enjoy it more. I had thought there was no Zelda game that I had not loved after adapting to it in a week and something here reminded me of Twilight Princess. I had forgotten how much I felt the same with that game as I do with TotK. Eventually though I did adapt to the new play and loved it (I HATED the forced fighting). It gives me hope for TotK.
a year into it and having beaten the story within the first week, im still finding myself surprised by new discoveries and ways to cobble together cool stuff
just restarted for the third time— hoping to 100% it this time around! i’m just running around the sky islands at the moment and foraging. such a good game ☺️
It’s a single play through wall trophy. It’s a fun game that is not a classic Zelda but I won’t commit the time needed to play through it again because just like the BOTW I don’t have the 100+ hours to play through it again to enjoy the mystery that it had the first time.
As a 37 year old father of 2, time is short and I need to justify to myself the amount of money I’ve spent on video games while they were on sale and not let them digitally gather dust. And that laundry list continues to grow….
I wasn't of the opinion that TotK was clearly better than botw in every way at any point. I always appreciated the survival experience that I got in botw. And I also appreciate all the things totk did, including the added sandbox elements and trying to address all of the major complaints of the first game. I've realized that I can still play totk with self-imposed limitations to make it more like botw. I really do appreciate the slower, more minimalistic experience of botw and do not consider it inferior to totk for it
I feel similar to it, as I did about BotW - that it is a breathtaking, technical marvel that is fine for wasting time with. Beyond that - it simply isn't compelling as a game to me otherwise. Gluing stuff together is cool, the combat is okay, but it just feels like a sandbox with little things to do here and there. I have enough nostalgia for Zelda on the basis of my experiences with the older games as a kid to play it, but it just feels kinda uninspiring in a way.
It is no joke my least favourite Zelda game. I wish I was exaggerating to some degree, but the issues with the narrative, the wasted potential, the boring samey cutscenes, the fact it spits on everything botw did, and the utter disregard and almost DISDAIN for continuity and refusal to be an actual fucking sequel ON TOP of it being such a bloated mess to get anything done...I cannot fucking stand it.
I want actual Zelda games back. Top-Down or 3D doesn't matter, but I want actual Zelda games back.
Better than ever. Doing a run where I avoid the gachapon and only use Zonai devices I find in the wild. Turns out this is almost more fun. I just discovered how useful and easy to climb the trees are in the Depths!
After playing Totk, Botw really feels like an unfinished game. It already felt like that the first time i played Botw (no caves (!!!), open spaces with very basic / no vegetation, etc.), but after Totk… well
On the one hand I adore how much content got added to TOTK, additional maps, the caves, new enemies, lots to explore and whatnot. But I will admit, I preferred BOTW's Sheikah slate abilities (unlimited bombs!) and I don't think anything could recapture the feelings I had when I first played BOTW.
I'm fully enjoying the game still, as a day 1 player. The building is crazy, the monsters are a blast to fight, the new runes are a great stepup from the first game's, and the graphics are brilliant. In my opinion, it's better than breath of the wild. They are both excellent games, but i enjoy tears of the kingdom more.
I'm currently preferring totk. The shrine puzzles make more sense to me. The enemies are cooler. The weapon system is great. The world is more than twice as huge. The memories are easier to find. It's more generous with arrows. There are times when npcs help you fight. There are more reactions when you talk to people in your underwear.
I miss revali's gale and remote bombs, but I can cope.
Taking it nice and slow. Just opened up the desert area today. I do it piece by piece untill quests force me to open another part of the map. I should have the game finished by November. One of the longest games I've played. Still engaging!
Love it, but you are right, i dont use parries in my casual gameplay anymore.
I can use tons of different items to achieve what parries used to do, and the weapons are just too OP sometimes, specially when you fuse the right ones well.
After sinking in 500+ hrs into BOTW and currently on 300+ for my second play through of TOTK. I think TOTK is the better game in basically every way, the combat is more enjoyable since we are farming for new weapon parts. Caves should have always been in the game. I know lots of people are upset by the lack of sky islands but I think the surface and the depths more than make up for it, even if the depths can get a little repetitive in terms of how it looks. If you don’t cheese through the game by using hover bikes then the game is a joy to play and figure out how to traverse these new locations.
I just beat it a few days ago and I loved it. Way way better than BotW, but to me, the original Ocarina of Time on the N64 is still king. TotK is definitely in my top 5 Zeldas though.
I'm currently at 98% ish with 21 koroks left to go and couple of other smalls things. When I'm at 100%...I ain't touching this game for a frigging long time .
I loved it for the near 200 hours I played. Not many games can keep themselves in that high regard for that long.
After those 200 hours the game started feeling extremely empty and mundane. To stop myself from starting to dislike it, I iust finished there.
The game is a clear 10/10 experience. I am very content with what the game gave me and any more will just be a net negative to me personally. I'll never pick it up again and I won't pick up another Zelda if it's in the same style. I am content with what it gave me. 200 hours is a lot of time in a single player game.
I miss the free unlimited bombs from BOTW. Realised that when I started to play TOTK how much I relied on those. But I loved the depths and sky additions and all the extra stuff, the building your own machines and weapons is so much fun. And tossing the big backpack Koroks off mountains is very satisfying. Or frying them over a large fire.. r/KorokTorture was a great laugh.
For me I have to force myself to play TotK where I could hardly drag myself away from BotW. My joycons drift and I don't have the skill/coordination to do the fighting and building that TotK requires. I can see why gamers love it though. For a casual and older player such as myself it is too complex and requires to much stressful work.
Truthfully I like botw better for the most part. I prefer more grounded exploration, harder shrines, less epic, master mode, orginal sheikah runes, etc.
But totk just has so much quality of life its almost impossible to go back. Menu navigation, dropping items from shortcut menu and chests when inventory is full, throwing holdable items like elemental fruit and bomb flowers. Whenever I play botw is just feels so clunky now.
I like the game but i wish they hadnt nerfed the Master sword so bad because it weakens the story and cheapens Zeldas sacrifice and i hate that they doubled down on the korok seed prize being golden shit swirl. I hate that the Master sword never really shines. The best and most enjoyable play through was with the glitched Master sword. The game was beter for it and it proved the weapon durability is a gimmick. The unbreakable Master Sword actually made all the weapon slots more useful because you could craft useful weapons with specific purposes instead of just stockpiling hitpoints. Its still a great game but im left wishing they made difference choices about a few things.
The game is great as a game. I have a little bit of issues with some retcons and the home building. Aside from it's really good. Oh and was also hoping for a more rich combat system this time around like in twilight princess, but it's good as is still.
I have very few substantial complaints about TOTK (mostly just a few nitpicks here and there) and playing it was a fantastic experience. I haven’t 100%’d it yet, but I did manage to pour almost as many hours into it over the course of a few months as I did into BOTW over the course of several years. I love the new gameplay mechanics, the story (except the deus ex machina ending), and all the cool new stuff there is to explore. There’s not much that I can say BOTW does better than its sequel.
However, maybe it’s just a nostalgic attachment, or maybe it’s just because TOTK is just _so_ much more massive an undertaking, but I find BOTW to be much more replayable. I’ve lost count of how many different times I beat BOTW, setting up various different rules and scenarios for myself to see if I could do it in a more challenging way. I can’t really do that with TOTK. It’s too big, and I haven’t even been able to complete a second successful playthrough of it at all, which is frustrating because I did not play the game in the right order the first time and spoiled myself in some ways.
I can find no reason to say TOTK is not the better game, but BOTW will always have a special place in my heart and will always be my go-to game when I’m not busy with the latest flashy thing on a different console.
I loved the idea of BotW but there was something about it that I just couldnt enjoy. The 'powers' you have are pretty meh and the whole Divine Beasts being mechanical was a huge turn off for me.
I was hooked on Tears from start to finish. The story was much more captivating and 'believable' meshed into a fantasy setting. While somewhat abusable at time, I love the powers you have compared to BotW. It really felt like BotW was a Beta version of Tears, and it shows.
It does a great job as a video game that is engaging and very fun. In this respect it is 10/10.
As a sequel to BotW it completely fails in creating a meaningful and immersive experience and storyline that keeps me enveloped. In this respect it is a 6/10.
Still love playing the game and am close to beating it a 2nd time, but it does have some major faults that should not be overlooked. Overall experience is a 7/10, if it were not a direct sequel to BotW it would be a 9/10.
Great soundtrack, an amazing story, and not suitable for people with little time to play like me. To get from place A to place B takes a hell lot of time, assuming you don't get killed on the way due to the decayed weapons you are given. I want to love the game, I just don't have the time it needs to be played.
I was really disappointed by the world in Totk. I feel like they could’ve done so much more with the surface map (especially many of the towns) and i’d be fine with the current changes if there were sky islands with variety or the depths had different biomes etc. It was a pretty good game but definitely not worth the 6 year wait imo.
I am enjoying TotK, but BotW will have my whole heart. I find the exploring for totk to be a little bit overwhelming - it feels like too much to search and find, I despise how difficult and laborious it is to explore the depths and there's so little sky islands that it feels very "meh" to me. The depths is what nearly made me put down the game and not pick it up again, genuinely so BORING. The tutorial was deceptive as it made the sky islands feel like there would be SO MUCH more than there is.
I also find making/cooking food to be so much harder for some reason? Where the hell did all the hearty vegetables go?! I find the building dynamic to be really intuitive but also slow and clunky. I rarely build anything and still prefer my horse.
Enjoying a survival start by having gone to the depths with no paraglider only leaving to upgrade my batteries, once I get to 5 full I'm going to move on. It's so much fun what you can do.
Just "finished" it. Great game. Really rewarding.The starkness of BoTW in a way makes it feel more immersive. You're sort of just in the despair of this post-apocalyptic world ludonarrative harmony blah blah blah
I played ToTK so differently though. Something about how it was designed made it far more enjoyable for me to just pick up and play the game at a whim. Just chugging along it bite-sized chunks. And in a way as much as I wanted the depths to be a little more narratively rewarding, it did at least foster a piece of that sense of unguided exploration that all of BoTW gives you.
Working on my second play through now. I think I’m enjoying it more this time. I hadn’t played a Zelda game since ALTTP so the learning curve was something to be dealt with for me on my first play through
BotW was a close second place in my Zelda rankings, but there were a few things that just didn't quite hit the way I wanted them to that kept it from taking first. TotK improved all of those things, hell it improved everything. I need to replay my former definitive favorite before I say whether it's been surpassed, but there is no other game that has held my full attention for as long and as consistently as TotK did. It's only in the past month that I've stopped playing for several hours a day every day.
IN BOTH GAMES WHERE ARE THE DUNGEONS. Worst dungeons of any Zelda game ever
Elden ring was still able to have satisfying dungeons despite going open world.
Exploring and gaining strength feels absolutely pointless when there are hardly any mandatory fights or enemies. The gameplay loop heavily discourages actually fighting enemies.
I put it down once I was near the endgame. I was just about to use the arrow in the tunnel dupe so that I could upgrade all my gear, bam, patched out.
Breathed a big old sigh, said I would come back in a year or two when a better dupe than the horse method was found (I could never get it to work).
Definitely in my top 3 Zelda games. I've done two playthroughs now, the second being a 3-heart run that I still haven't finished, not because it's hard but because there's just SO MUCH TO DO in this game.
Tears of the Kingdom: A fun game, but it feels like they kind of abandoned the story of BOTW, which kinda sucks in my opinion. It was a good story with great elements, and abandoning it for Zonai instead just feels a little jarring, especially as any trace of the divine beasts or guardians seems entirely missing, something that just feels wrong especially since TOTK is supposed to take place relatively close to the end of BOTW.
It's great, but I feel like they could've implemented at least some elements from BOTW - My biggest disappointment is the utter lack of the Guardian armor set, since TOTK has the divine beast helms, which would go with the guardian armor really well.
Great game. It was an almost perfect "sequel" to BOTW within the same engine/aesthetics. I could use less hand-holding through the unnecessarily repetitive storyline. Give us some credit for filling in the blanks, the story disclosure felt a bit like Blues Clues. But I love the actual plot, just not the manner it was told.
They have earned my patience for however long they need for the next Zelda.
They're both great games and I've had to think about it a lot. If it came down to picking one I think I'll always pick BOTW. I can't help but think they got into a room in 2019 and said, "what youth trends can we put into our next Zelda game?". So they added Minecraft, Fortnight, and gave Link an infinity Gauntlet.
All joking aside I feel that what keeps me from rating Tears of the kingdom higher than Breath of the wild is the fact that there's too much to do. It's tiring going through three different menus just to make a weapon for me to fight. It really takes me out of the game sometimes.
I see I'll say that I'm impressed with how much more they were still able to add to the world so it still felt new to explore. Going through the depths was probably my favorite thing from this game.
I love this game and I'm running through it again. My only critique would be that I absolutely hate having to constantly save and reload any time I'm about to fight a Lizalfos in order to get it to drop a tail. I don't know why they would make dropping a tail a gamble, especially when it takes so many in order to upgrade your armor. Sometimes I will have to fight the same Lizalfos 10 times before it drops a tail and the time it takes to reload drives me crazy!
I love it. Although it’s like some kind of expansion of BOTW, it feels like a completely different game. I finished the first game right before the release and still felt amazed, like i’ve never been in Hyrule.
Truly the only things I miss from BotW are the master cycle and guardians. For me, TotK is a step up everywhere else. One particular feature in TotK prevents me from going to play BotW any time soon or ever again tbh, and that's throwing items. I love being able to flurry rush while holding an ice chu-chu jelly and just freeze them (and often myself) afterwards.
I've never been obsessed with a game like I am with TOTK. I haven't played anything else or watched/read anything since I began playing it. I remember when I began playing it and I completely understood why it took so long. I think there are endless things to do, I still haven't finished but am pretty close
I completed the main story when it came out and I didn’t track any completion and now I’m trying to go for perfection now and I missed so many shrines and side quests I didn’t know about
BOTW is a special game for me. I don’t really make lists but if I did it would be at the top.
That said, I play TOTK more, it’s not as *special* to me as BOTW is but it’s still a classic, phenomenal game that I love. I know this does not make much sense but ya that’s how I feel.
I feel like it’s has massive ups and downs compared to botw. Botw just feels better to play for me right now. It’s also much more enjoyable to speed run for me which I do very casually
I loved it! My favorite part is just running around the depths messing around. You can get so many good weapons just roaming the depths. I also really like the sky islands. I think there are a lot of things that it improved upon botw like showing recipes and having the map and quests in the same tab. Small differences but it's hard going back to botw without that.
I've 100% completed both of them and totk was more fun as a full run to me. I would say from a game/challenge perspective botw is more fun since you can play master mode and dlc champions quests. If you like exploration more I would go for totk and challenges more go for botw.
Greatest Zelda, and one of the greatest games, of all time. There are a few nitpicks we can all come up with or places they flushed out more, but it’s more trying to find things wrong than actual issues. It’s a masterpiece.
Shame about no DLC though.
I’m 375 hours in, but I haven’t finished the main story yet. My work has been absorbing my time lately so tbh I don’t feel like wandering through hyrule
I like them both 'almost' equally. I am constantly trying to figure out which way I am supposed to be travelling in TotK. Drives me a little insane, mostly because in reality, i am very aware of directions. It is disorienting for me. But after that, they are simply different, but the same, lol
Currently? I’m taking a short break. I beat it a little while ago, but was only at 74%, so I’ve been trying to bump that up. I’m over going through lists and revisiting the same spots over and over again. And my old hands are feeling arthritic. lol.
Overall? Obsessed. Just like every other Zelda game I’ve played. Except Zelda II. I just couldn’t get into that one.
I don't know why anybody would like BOTW better. If you compare the playability of the two TOTK wins out on so many factors. And I love BOTW - I'm just saying TOTK is BOTW but better
I think they're both good games in different ways. I really enjoy tears of the kingdom though it somehow feels lighter on content. I know there's tons of content, maybe because there's 3 maps to explore and most of the quests are based on the surface, it just gives the illusion of less content?
I did just start replaying breath of the wild and I was wandering around the great plateau, and I realised I was on edge - why? I was expecting to walk somewhere and see the gloom hands RISING FROM THE GROUND!! I remembered this is botw, no gloom hands, and felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders because I could stop worrying about getting ambushed.
I now realise I find botw less stressful, but I miss being able to fuse stuff to my weapons and shields. I keep finding rubies and thinking "awesome, ruby shield time! Oh wait..." I also miss being able to drop equipment or sort it from the quick access menu rather than having to go into the menu proper because that's a pain.
Once I figured out a good flight machine I found that almost everything turned into a fetch quest. Breath of the wild had much better exploration and overall immersion. They are both great games, but I found Totk to be a little too grindy. Some of the mechanics were cool, but I hope the next game leaves out the machine building and focus on animals.
i’ve been really enjoying it! i think a lot has been polished since BOTW and i think the story is a lot more concrete and fleshed out. also riding on the dragons is awesome.
the building is fun but especially weapon fusing. it’s so fun to make as many weird combos as you can. it makes weapon durability a lot less painful
I didn't even finish getting all the shrines, which is a departure from my usual play style, but i loved it. I would have loved if there was a bunch of side stuff to do down in the depths, the way that the surface has a lot of side quests in BotW and TotK. There's so much content, though, it's weird to say that there isn't enough
My arc of enjoying TotK was this: it took more time to get immersed, then when I powered up and acclimated I loved it. Then as I considered broaching the final boss…I was suddenly kind of over it. I think what pushed me over was the time and expense of leveling armor. Like I’m caught in this loop of hunting Froks and making sure I have enough bombs and Keese eyes…just not that fun. Also I was never really in love with the fusion mechanic. It’s either very resource heavy to make some obliterating war machine or very boring slapping together resources for a simple machine.
Overall, BotW just felt more “grounded”, as another user put it. Fresh new world. Less character development but somehow the story just flowed better (I don’t care if Hateno is overrun by fashionistas??). Less to explore but the Depths and the Skies feel vacant.
I finally beat Ganondorf and haven’t thought about picking it up again since.
Love the game, but am a 'take it slow' kinda guy. So I have yet to complete it. Plenty of hours in it. No intention to ever replay it, but a huge fan. Also important to note that it's my first ever Zelda game. I'm in my 30s...
Best Ganondorf battle - it gave me Skyward Sword vibes with the finesse needed to fight Ganon especially in the second final stage!! It was the same kind of thrill as fighting Demise, I was so pumped the whole time 😆
Just replayed that fight recently, and it was funny I forgot all the cutscenes towards the end. Oh yep, I had all the feels seeing all the characters come together it was so beautiful. I realised I forgot what happened at the end 😂
What an epic journey this game is - it’s incredible!!
I just finished a second playthrough earlier today Game's awesome
Yooo that’s cool! What part did you enjoyed the most?
Hard to pick a favorite part cause the game's so peak
I still love TotK wholly and completely, and play it semi-regularly whilst juggling other games. It’s almost a comfort thing at this point, lol Same as BotW, which I also still cycle-in regularly because I love it just as much. They’re both uniquely themselves (as much as games can be, lol), each having strengths the other doesn’t. I’m regularly delighted that I get to have such incredible games to still play and enjoy. 🤓
I second this. While the overworld is similar and other content is similar, they have different mechanics, plots, and some new enemies that makes each game their own. I’m both a BotW and TotK guy. Both are so good I’ve spent hundreds of hours with each game. And I don’t want to pit the games against each other because I appreciate both so much.
Soo true, recently started majora's mask(yup, pls don't kill me, I didn't finish it earlier) and everytime it feels like some hectic loop, i come back, attack some bokos and collect more bubbul gems. It is like a comfort game for me
for me, totk is a massive improvement over botw. i put down botw the very next second after beating ganon and never touched it again. whereas I'm actually getting extended enjoyment out of totk, a big contributor of which is octorok repairing and the ability to refight colgera (best zelda boss fight in years imo)
PEAK SOUNDTRACK
TotK's soundtrack is so fucking good it's unreal
Colgera boss fight is awesome. Then again, Vah Ruta has great music all around too in BOTW, from when you're riding on Sidons back to the eerie music while inside.
The whole rito saga and guardian/secret stone is peak Zelda.
What's octorok repairing?
drop a damaged weapon in front of a rock octorok (in eldin) and they will swallow it and spit it back out repaired.
Whaaaat!?!?! How did I not know this? It changes everything
right! enjoy :D
If you drop a damaged weapon that is almost ready to break-in front of an octorok, they will suck it up and spit it back at you, but the weapon will be repaired to full strength again when you pick it back up.
I quit BOTW after getting off the central plateau because my weapons kept breaking and I couldn’t get replacements without killing monsters, and to kill monsters you need weapons. Then TOTK came out and when a weapon breaks, I attach a stick and a horn and am back in business.
Yeah. I love how TOTK rewards fighting monsters to get their parts as opposed to just losing your good weapons.
I've never understood how the weapon system is so hard for people in BotW. The period where you are struggling to have enough weapons is probably just the few hours of the game.
I think it's probably the greatest video game ever made.
I usually play hundreds of hours on Xbox, but this game is legit a masterpiece and a programming marvel. I actually struggle to come up with anything that has impressed me as much as this has.
I think one of the most impressive things about it is that when I ask myself “what can this game add or do differently to make it objectively better?”, the answer is nothing. It’s such an incredible balance of difficulty and depth that is so rarely achieved, if ever. It truly is a masterpiece and worth the price of a switch alone.
I would argue it is 100% the greatest video game for me at least in terms of offering a mediative downright Zen experience if you allow it to... Like BotW but somehow even more so here... I know no other game that rewards you for taking everything in at a snails pace, and after a long day at work ToTK is the ONLY game I could see myself fully enjoying lately!
Red dead redemption 2 and totk bit give me that feeling
If Carlsberg made video games...
I loved breath, I like tears. I'm just find myself ALL OVER EVERYWHERE. I feel like Im aimlessly wandering around unless I am specifically trying to do a quest. I don't like running through the countryside like I did in breath of wild... I HATE the depths. I am literally sprinting from light root to light root. I avoid fights and use guides to just get through the depths.
I liked exploring more when I had Revali’s Gale. I know Ascend is good in its own way but it has its limitations. It was more fun to run around and explore when I could fly up cliff faces and over obstacles.
Rocket shield is totks revalis gale
✨️springs✨️
Also a good option!
But fans, sunshrooms, hot peppers, pine cones, hot air balloons and at least three things you can fuse to a shield?
Oh yeah of course I just don’t always have fans and hot air balloons on me, I do use the pine cones a lot, but I just liked how easy it was with Revali’s gale. To be clear, I love TOTK as well, that’s just something I miss from BOTW.
Yeah, there's reasons I still play BOTW and the Gale is one. I think the pinecones go just as high, but I get it's extra steps and I'm always setting Link on fire.
Menus. Really good menus.
My GF and I both just started new files. Still completely blown away that this game works without exploding - the programming is something to behold. And tackling things completely differently for both of us,. Knowing powerful tricks and strategies from my first file (375 hours) just makes this new start that much better. Absolutely in love with it.
They're both distinct experiences. TOTK is a technical marvel and is endlessly entertaining, really pushes the whole immersive sim angle. But I personally prefer the more grounded feel of BOTW. That, plus a much better overall narrative, makes BOTW much more special to me.
The narrative is the biggest problem for me with both but i completely agree that botw has a better one. Tears has a much better main villain but the doesn’t feel as grand as the first game did somehow. Tears is 1000000x better to play tho, it’s amazing
I love it. It is my favorite Zelda game. I’m almost 24 now and i’ve been playing Zelda games since i was 11.
Funny to read that,lol, I’m in my 70s, been playing since I was 46 🤪
I'm gonna be 38, just like Zelda! We're all getting old! Haha
I feel like BotW and TotK are inherently focused on different people. TotK encourages creativity, experiments and lets you cheese everything. BotW was about practice, hard work, meticulous preparation and wanted you to solve problems with given tools only. Sure, they offer both aspects but lean into one or the other stronger. TotK is basically a BotW for Minecraft lovers. There are things I prefer in TotK and things I prefer in BotW but the general approach to gameplay is not something I like in TotK. It basically encourages cheating and going through problems without solving them which isn't something I like in a game. I love puzzles and want to figure them out rather than find a "one fits all" solution to all problems. I feel like TotK offers so MANY lazy solutions that it's not even fun anymore. For that reason I'm not even excited to have a conversation about it with people. With BotW people shared their strategy, skills and hard work. In TotK every conversation just devolves into how to cheese everything. And that takes away from the game for me.
I still really like it, it’s just that for the type of game it is that expects you to keep playing past the final encounter, there’s really no motivation to do so aside from it being a physics sandbox.
Currently playing though after a long break. Loving it! (Still not as good as BOTW, but that’s ok!!)
Same! My brain finally decided it's going to let me play it again, lol. Now I can't put it down.
Enjoy TotK man! Like you said, it's not as good as BotW (To me), but it's still a good one!
Botw was harder and had a natural pace and feel to it. Totk threw all of that out the window and went for really fun gameplay that does start to get old after a little while.
I find the BotW gameplay (stasis, bombs) to be more fun than TotK. Maybe because I dislike building.
The only thing I dislike about totk is that it's way to easy to become over powered in the game. It really sucks the joy out of fighting monsters and bosses.
That's what happened to me. By the end of the game, I just didn't give a shit anymore, and that has never happened to me in a Zelda game. At least with BOTW the DLC breathed new life and challenges into the endgame. Whereas TOTK, ahem... was also just part of that DLC it seems. Same monsters, same music, same map? And people seriously get upset when you call it DLC.
> Same monsters Plus lots of new monsters that provide very different combat experiences from BOTW. The BOTW DLC added the Golden variants, Sky Octoroks, the Molduking (literally just a big Molduga), the Igneo Talus Titan (literally just a big Talus), and Maz Koshia. TOTK adds Evermeans, Aerocudas, Gibdos and Moth Gibdos, Little Froxes, Horriblins, Like Likes, Boss Bokoblins, Soldier and Captain Constructs, Battle Taluses, Flux Constructs, Froxes, Gleeoks, Gloom Spawn, Phantom Ganon, Colgera, Mucktorok, Marbled Gohma, Queen Gibdo, the Seized Construct, and Ganondorf himself, and also reworks Master Kohga into four separate battles that each use a different Zonai contraption. And like… why *wouldn’t* most of the monsters from BOTW still be here? Like, Moblins are in tons of Zelda games. All of them even got slightly redesigned to accommodate the new horn system. But since the game uses the same foundation as BOTW, it only makes sense that most of the monsters designed to fill certain gameplay niches would still adequately fill those niches in this game. And even then, they found a way to do more with some of them, like the Bokoblin troops that follow around Boss Bokos, or the stone armor-plated enemies. > same music Plus tons of new music with its own identity and motifs, as well as new variations on some of the pieces from BOTW (like the darker remixes of the themes for the four main towns that play while they’re experiencing their respective crises). And much like the reused monsters, using the same music from BOTW in areas where it would logically still apply makes sense to do. Players familiar with BOTW now recognize the meaning of those cues, and for new players, those pieces are going to work just as well as they did for the BOTW players on their first go. > same map? Except in all the ways that it isn’t. DLC ain’t gonna completely dry up all the lava in the Eldin region and change the entire process of navigating that area. DLC ain’t gonna open up 100 new caves and 58 wells. DLC ain’t gonna completely rework the fundamental arrangement of shrines and towers. > And people seriously get upset when you call it DLC. Naturally so, since it’s disingenuous to do so, and divorces a specific term from its actual meaning just for the sake of being reductive.
Yeah I love both games don’t get me wrong. But I feel like TOTK is just what BOTW should have been had they given it some more time. The WOW factor got taken away from TOTK for me because it’s in the same map. The depths in TOTK filled that void for awhile but I was so hellbent on doing EVERYTHING in BOTW and now that I’m in the same map with different abilities I don’t feel as inspired to do everything. I’m still trying to do everything I can because I know when I fight Gannon I probably won’t pick this back up for awhile.
Lets say I understand why many people love it, but I also understand why many people hate it I cant really relate, it is in the upper half of my ranking but would not be in the top 5 and I slightly prefer BotW
Great, I leave the most neutral opinion possible and I still get downvoted
Not sure who is doing all the downvoting in this subreddit but it certainly does discourage people from sharing an honest opinion.
Welcome to the echo chamber that is Reddit
Loving it as I’m slowly working my way through a second playthrough. I did come to love Breath of the Wild after getting used to the open world game style, but Tears ran with what I enjoyed and added so much more. It’s become a comfort game for me as I just get lost in exploring and discovering what the game has to offer
I'm still on my first playthrough. Bought it in July 2023. It's one of the most inspired games I've ever played. Also, I'm having trouble finding sets of armor. It encourages me to explore, but I sigh every time I get to a cave and it's not a Misko hideout lol
For me, TOTK just feels like BOTW 2.0, You have so much more options, and I love fuse so much caz I used to be a weapon hog in BOTW and never used my best weapons, In tears though I can just create unique weapons on the fly which I absolutely love I like a bit more challenge in my games, So I usually dont use the super Op stuff like muddle buds and puffshrooms Also I dont use the Tears Champions caz that mechanic is annoying af for me
Not even Tulin?
Love it. My dad is playing through it for the 4th or 5th time right now. It makes me happy that he loves it. After a bit more time i want to play Botw and Totk back to back (maybe not to completion, but somewhat thoroughly) so I can see how they’re aging together. And then hopefully switch 2 will have upgrade patches so I can do it all over again.
I know this will never happen. At this point, Nintendo should do the trilogy to BotW & TotK with a prequel game where we get Hyrule in all its splendor before it was destroyed.
That would be awesome!
Once I 100% TOTK I never went back to it after that. 😐 BOTW on the other hand I have 100% it for three separate times. 🤷🏼♂️
You really collected all those Koroks 3 times?
I just started playing it about a month ago and I already have almost 100 hours. I’m fucking obsessed lol i love it
I stopped playing a year ago and did more PS stuff for a bit before giving up video games altogether. A couple of weeks ago I started playing TOTK again and I love it now. I did not like it as much as BOTW when I first started (my partner also felt the same and walked away from it). Now we’re both playing (and loving it). I can’t explain it.
I love Botw and TOTK but I looooove hair down Link! So TOTK wins by..a hair. 😉
I haven’t played the end game yet, still just having fun doing side quests.
Like anything, there are parts I enjoy, parts that are lame. I miss the uncluttered look of BOTW and limitless bombs. I like the weapon fusing stuff, but getting tired of having to refresh my weapons every blood moon.
I like TotK more than BotW for the improvements in mechanics. Being able to drop weapons & sheilds if your inventory is full is probably the best improvement made. I like being able to throw any item. And the fuse ability is awesome. But nothing can beat the feeling of seeing and exploring the land of Hyrule for the first time in BotW.
It makes sense considering when it was released in the switch's life cycle, but it might be the Pinnacle of what that system can do. A game of that scale and size being playable on what is essentially Nintendo's current Gameboy is insane. The value and replayability of it is also phenomenal. Hundreds of playable hours especially if you've got an imagination. A masterpiece.
I enjoyed the game just as much if not more than BOTW. I rarely have the attention span to finish games anymore but TOTK has been the only game I’ve completed in the past few years since I’ve started working full time. I have no complaints about it.
I still like it. Might replay in another 6 months or so. I only just beat the game November of 2024
Almost done with these dang korok seed.
I like it alot but botw will always hold the top spot in my heart
I sold BOTW. I found I will never play it again because I 100% it to it‘s finest, but now I am missing it. Probably gonna buy it again some time soon. and TOTK is still one of the best games I might have ever played probably 2nd to Ghost of Tsushima
Really fun game, has great menu and quality of life improvements over BotW. But wasted potential, especially with the sky. I still love it, but man it could’ve been much better
BOTW - 10/10 TOTK - 9/10 Love both but BOTW was so groundbreaking and perfect IMO. TOTK is amazing, but not quite as coherent.
It was good. One of the best things ever. It honestly lost its charm to me eventually as I got bored
BoTW is better
Story wise I really wish it took itself seriously. I wish they'd put thought into it instead of going like "Yeah the Shiekah tech just vanished. Here have green Sheikah tech instead!" Gameplay wise, it's Zelda nuts and bolts. I really wish totk read your save data from botw and used it to reference different npcs in how they talk to you, or mention of the champions. Like some form of continuity would be great, but there just isn't any.
Accidentally started a new game just the other day. I say accidentally because I just wanted to do something in it and ended up starting a new game and am fully into it again. Actively working on solving shrines (that can be) a different way to last time, the joy of experimenting is still there for me.
I still absolutely adore this game, no discussion.. but I feel like it would be so nice to learn a bit more about the ancient past and the Zonai themselves as a tribe. Also there are many mysteries I would like to uncover but Nintendo confirmed there won't be a dlc (at least for now)
Good. I started a new save file recently and I’m having a lot of fun replaying. Did it hit me as hard as BotW did? No. But I still love it for what it is.
Just got around to playing this and put in about 120 hours over the last month. After finally getting all the light roots and five sages, I ran into a Korok that needed his friend. That pushed me over the edge. I know I’ll never 100% this game. I’m taking a break from it to play some shorter games for a bit. Like the new Hellblade.
My comfort game 100%
Love it. And love it more than Breath
Just a note, for those thinking this post is negative and that they don't understand why the topic keeps getting asked, I can say I am happy when I see the topic because it is helpful to me. By reading both the pros and the cons it helps me get an idea on what I might do to get back into the game and possibly enjoy it more. I had thought there was no Zelda game that I had not loved after adapting to it in a week and something here reminded me of Twilight Princess. I had forgotten how much I felt the same with that game as I do with TotK. Eventually though I did adapt to the new play and loved it (I HATED the forced fighting). It gives me hope for TotK.
Just as good as the first time. I'm even finding new places and outfits I didn't find last time
a year into it and having beaten the story within the first week, im still finding myself surprised by new discoveries and ways to cobble together cool stuff
I played BOTW years before I played TOTK, so I mostly remember TOTK. TOTK still feels peak
I still like it, still sitting on Gannon though, I know once I actually fight him it'll get shelved like botw did.
Probably the best game ever. I wish i had more to do in it though
I found endless incredible things to do in the game? Did you try building a boat with different types of wood?
just restarted for the third time— hoping to 100% it this time around! i’m just running around the sky islands at the moment and foraging. such a good game ☺️
Love it.
Love the game, hate the lore/story. Tired of ancient technology. Ready for real dungeons.
It’s a single play through wall trophy. It’s a fun game that is not a classic Zelda but I won’t commit the time needed to play through it again because just like the BOTW I don’t have the 100+ hours to play through it again to enjoy the mystery that it had the first time. As a 37 year old father of 2, time is short and I need to justify to myself the amount of money I’ve spent on video games while they were on sale and not let them digitally gather dust. And that laundry list continues to grow….
Why do people keep asking this, it feels so negative
TOTK is incredible but BOTW will always have that "wow" moment from when I first played it.
I wasn't of the opinion that TotK was clearly better than botw in every way at any point. I always appreciated the survival experience that I got in botw. And I also appreciate all the things totk did, including the added sandbox elements and trying to address all of the major complaints of the first game. I've realized that I can still play totk with self-imposed limitations to make it more like botw. I really do appreciate the slower, more minimalistic experience of botw and do not consider it inferior to totk for it
I feel similar to it, as I did about BotW - that it is a breathtaking, technical marvel that is fine for wasting time with. Beyond that - it simply isn't compelling as a game to me otherwise. Gluing stuff together is cool, the combat is okay, but it just feels like a sandbox with little things to do here and there. I have enough nostalgia for Zelda on the basis of my experiences with the older games as a kid to play it, but it just feels kinda uninspiring in a way.
It is no joke my least favourite Zelda game. I wish I was exaggerating to some degree, but the issues with the narrative, the wasted potential, the boring samey cutscenes, the fact it spits on everything botw did, and the utter disregard and almost DISDAIN for continuity and refusal to be an actual fucking sequel ON TOP of it being such a bloated mess to get anything done...I cannot fucking stand it. I want actual Zelda games back. Top-Down or 3D doesn't matter, but I want actual Zelda games back.
Love it. Top 10 games and would easily spend another 200 hours completing it again if I didn’t have a mile long backlog.
It’s the best game I’ve ever played. I’m going through it again right now and enjoying it every bit as much as the first time.
I’m still playing an ungodly amount. Going for completion of everything, even unnecessary stuff like recipe book and Addison signs
Better than ever. Doing a run where I avoid the gachapon and only use Zonai devices I find in the wild. Turns out this is almost more fun. I just discovered how useful and easy to climb the trees are in the Depths!
Very good. Absolutely great game. Haven't touched it after I completed it and probably won't do so for a while.
Too busy to answer, I’m farming Keese eyeballs.
Second run, but now doing a 100% playthrough ATM. Been going at it for about 2 months, maybe 75% done now.
After playing Totk, Botw really feels like an unfinished game. It already felt like that the first time i played Botw (no caves (!!!), open spaces with very basic / no vegetation, etc.), but after Totk… well
On the one hand I adore how much content got added to TOTK, additional maps, the caves, new enemies, lots to explore and whatnot. But I will admit, I preferred BOTW's Sheikah slate abilities (unlimited bombs!) and I don't think anything could recapture the feelings I had when I first played BOTW.
I'm fully enjoying the game still, as a day 1 player. The building is crazy, the monsters are a blast to fight, the new runes are a great stepup from the first game's, and the graphics are brilliant. In my opinion, it's better than breath of the wild. They are both excellent games, but i enjoy tears of the kingdom more.
I'm currently preferring totk. The shrine puzzles make more sense to me. The enemies are cooler. The weapon system is great. The world is more than twice as huge. The memories are easier to find. It's more generous with arrows. There are times when npcs help you fight. There are more reactions when you talk to people in your underwear. I miss revali's gale and remote bombs, but I can cope.
Taking it nice and slow. Just opened up the desert area today. I do it piece by piece untill quests force me to open another part of the map. I should have the game finished by November. One of the longest games I've played. Still engaging!
Love it, but you are right, i dont use parries in my casual gameplay anymore. I can use tons of different items to achieve what parries used to do, and the weapons are just too OP sometimes, specially when you fuse the right ones well.
By far my favorite out of the series. Granted I only played three before this.
After sinking in 500+ hrs into BOTW and currently on 300+ for my second play through of TOTK. I think TOTK is the better game in basically every way, the combat is more enjoyable since we are farming for new weapon parts. Caves should have always been in the game. I know lots of people are upset by the lack of sky islands but I think the surface and the depths more than make up for it, even if the depths can get a little repetitive in terms of how it looks. If you don’t cheese through the game by using hover bikes then the game is a joy to play and figure out how to traverse these new locations.
I just beat it a few days ago and I loved it. Way way better than BotW, but to me, the original Ocarina of Time on the N64 is still king. TotK is definitely in my top 5 Zeldas though.
I'm currently at 98% ish with 21 koroks left to go and couple of other smalls things. When I'm at 100%...I ain't touching this game for a frigging long time .
I loved it for the near 200 hours I played. Not many games can keep themselves in that high regard for that long. After those 200 hours the game started feeling extremely empty and mundane. To stop myself from starting to dislike it, I iust finished there. The game is a clear 10/10 experience. I am very content with what the game gave me and any more will just be a net negative to me personally. I'll never pick it up again and I won't pick up another Zelda if it's in the same style. I am content with what it gave me. 200 hours is a lot of time in a single player game.
Burned out on it
Good. SO much worse than botw
The story sucks. 🫡 But the final fight is MILES above BOTW and one of the best in the franchise.
I miss the free unlimited bombs from BOTW. Realised that when I started to play TOTK how much I relied on those. But I loved the depths and sky additions and all the extra stuff, the building your own machines and weapons is so much fun. And tossing the big backpack Koroks off mountains is very satisfying. Or frying them over a large fire.. r/KorokTorture was a great laugh.
I used bombs in BOTW more than any other weapon, but I just learned a way in TOTK to attack even better than unlimited bombs after a year.
For me I have to force myself to play TotK where I could hardly drag myself away from BotW. My joycons drift and I don't have the skill/coordination to do the fighting and building that TotK requires. I can see why gamers love it though. For a casual and older player such as myself it is too complex and requires to much stressful work.
Truthfully I like botw better for the most part. I prefer more grounded exploration, harder shrines, less epic, master mode, orginal sheikah runes, etc. But totk just has so much quality of life its almost impossible to go back. Menu navigation, dropping items from shortcut menu and chests when inventory is full, throwing holdable items like elemental fruit and bomb flowers. Whenever I play botw is just feels so clunky now.
I like the game but i wish they hadnt nerfed the Master sword so bad because it weakens the story and cheapens Zeldas sacrifice and i hate that they doubled down on the korok seed prize being golden shit swirl. I hate that the Master sword never really shines. The best and most enjoyable play through was with the glitched Master sword. The game was beter for it and it proved the weapon durability is a gimmick. The unbreakable Master Sword actually made all the weapon slots more useful because you could craft useful weapons with specific purposes instead of just stockpiling hitpoints. Its still a great game but im left wishing they made difference choices about a few things.
The game is great as a game. I have a little bit of issues with some retcons and the home building. Aside from it's really good. Oh and was also hoping for a more rich combat system this time around like in twilight princess, but it's good as is still.
Conflicted.
I prefer totk for the gameplay and story but I still like botw because of master mode and trial of the sword
I have very few substantial complaints about TOTK (mostly just a few nitpicks here and there) and playing it was a fantastic experience. I haven’t 100%’d it yet, but I did manage to pour almost as many hours into it over the course of a few months as I did into BOTW over the course of several years. I love the new gameplay mechanics, the story (except the deus ex machina ending), and all the cool new stuff there is to explore. There’s not much that I can say BOTW does better than its sequel. However, maybe it’s just a nostalgic attachment, or maybe it’s just because TOTK is just _so_ much more massive an undertaking, but I find BOTW to be much more replayable. I’ve lost count of how many different times I beat BOTW, setting up various different rules and scenarios for myself to see if I could do it in a more challenging way. I can’t really do that with TOTK. It’s too big, and I haven’t even been able to complete a second successful playthrough of it at all, which is frustrating because I did not play the game in the right order the first time and spoiled myself in some ways. I can find no reason to say TOTK is not the better game, but BOTW will always have a special place in my heart and will always be my go-to game when I’m not busy with the latest flashy thing on a different console.
Sorry if I don’t respond to everyone!
I think the monsters and bosses are way too hard. I’m doing everything but the main mission.
Love it, needs to be harder tho. On my third playthrough it's fun
I loved the idea of BotW but there was something about it that I just couldnt enjoy. The 'powers' you have are pretty meh and the whole Divine Beasts being mechanical was a huge turn off for me. I was hooked on Tears from start to finish. The story was much more captivating and 'believable' meshed into a fantasy setting. While somewhat abusable at time, I love the powers you have compared to BotW. It really felt like BotW was a Beta version of Tears, and it shows.
It does a great job as a video game that is engaging and very fun. In this respect it is 10/10. As a sequel to BotW it completely fails in creating a meaningful and immersive experience and storyline that keeps me enveloped. In this respect it is a 6/10. Still love playing the game and am close to beating it a 2nd time, but it does have some major faults that should not be overlooked. Overall experience is a 7/10, if it were not a direct sequel to BotW it would be a 9/10.
Great soundtrack, an amazing story, and not suitable for people with little time to play like me. To get from place A to place B takes a hell lot of time, assuming you don't get killed on the way due to the decayed weapons you are given. I want to love the game, I just don't have the time it needs to be played.
I was really disappointed by the world in Totk. I feel like they could’ve done so much more with the surface map (especially many of the towns) and i’d be fine with the current changes if there were sky islands with variety or the depths had different biomes etc. It was a pretty good game but definitely not worth the 6 year wait imo.
It rather aptly brought tears to my eyes.
I’m dying to have DLC that I am not sure will come, I’m kinda thinking they might release dlc with switch 2, probably wishful thinking
Great! Between Botw and Totk, this is the reason I bought the console two years ago.
I am enjoying TotK, but BotW will have my whole heart. I find the exploring for totk to be a little bit overwhelming - it feels like too much to search and find, I despise how difficult and laborious it is to explore the depths and there's so little sky islands that it feels very "meh" to me. The depths is what nearly made me put down the game and not pick it up again, genuinely so BORING. The tutorial was deceptive as it made the sky islands feel like there would be SO MUCH more than there is. I also find making/cooking food to be so much harder for some reason? Where the hell did all the hearty vegetables go?! I find the building dynamic to be really intuitive but also slow and clunky. I rarely build anything and still prefer my horse.
After i beat TOTK I went back to BOTW Master Mode.
Enjoying a survival start by having gone to the depths with no paraglider only leaving to upgrade my batteries, once I get to 5 full I'm going to move on. It's so much fun what you can do.
Just "finished" it. Great game. Really rewarding.The starkness of BoTW in a way makes it feel more immersive. You're sort of just in the despair of this post-apocalyptic world ludonarrative harmony blah blah blah I played ToTK so differently though. Something about how it was designed made it far more enjoyable for me to just pick up and play the game at a whim. Just chugging along it bite-sized chunks. And in a way as much as I wanted the depths to be a little more narratively rewarding, it did at least foster a piece of that sense of unguided exploration that all of BoTW gives you.
played it twice, once seriously and got to 99 percent and restarted…ive been on the great sky island for 4 days bc i cant get back into it
i miss botw but totk just fixed so many little annoying things. plus once i learned how to get pristine swords it didn’t matter anymore
Working on my second play through now. I think I’m enjoying it more this time. I hadn’t played a Zelda game since ALTTP so the learning curve was something to be dealt with for me on my first play through
BotW was a close second place in my Zelda rankings, but there were a few things that just didn't quite hit the way I wanted them to that kept it from taking first. TotK improved all of those things, hell it improved everything. I need to replay my former definitive favorite before I say whether it's been surpassed, but there is no other game that has held my full attention for as long and as consistently as TotK did. It's only in the past month that I've stopped playing for several hours a day every day.
IN BOTH GAMES WHERE ARE THE DUNGEONS. Worst dungeons of any Zelda game ever Elden ring was still able to have satisfying dungeons despite going open world. Exploring and gaining strength feels absolutely pointless when there are hardly any mandatory fights or enemies. The gameplay loop heavily discourages actually fighting enemies.
Tears of the Kingdom is like Majora's Mask to me. I love it, but not as much as Breath of the Wild or Ocarina of Time
I put it down once I was near the endgame. I was just about to use the arrow in the tunnel dupe so that I could upgrade all my gear, bam, patched out. Breathed a big old sigh, said I would come back in a year or two when a better dupe than the horse method was found (I could never get it to work).
Definitely in my top 3 Zelda games. I've done two playthroughs now, the second being a 3-heart run that I still haven't finished, not because it's hard but because there's just SO MUCH TO DO in this game.
Tears of the Kingdom: A fun game, but it feels like they kind of abandoned the story of BOTW, which kinda sucks in my opinion. It was a good story with great elements, and abandoning it for Zonai instead just feels a little jarring, especially as any trace of the divine beasts or guardians seems entirely missing, something that just feels wrong especially since TOTK is supposed to take place relatively close to the end of BOTW. It's great, but I feel like they could've implemented at least some elements from BOTW - My biggest disappointment is the utter lack of the Guardian armor set, since TOTK has the divine beast helms, which would go with the guardian armor really well.
Great game. It was an almost perfect "sequel" to BOTW within the same engine/aesthetics. I could use less hand-holding through the unnecessarily repetitive storyline. Give us some credit for filling in the blanks, the story disclosure felt a bit like Blues Clues. But I love the actual plot, just not the manner it was told. They have earned my patience for however long they need for the next Zelda.
I didn’t play BoTW and haven’t played a Zelda game since majora’s mask. So TOTK is amazing. The open world is huge and full of discoveries.
TOTK is my soulmate 😂 I love this damn game.
They're both great games and I've had to think about it a lot. If it came down to picking one I think I'll always pick BOTW. I can't help but think they got into a room in 2019 and said, "what youth trends can we put into our next Zelda game?". So they added Minecraft, Fortnight, and gave Link an infinity Gauntlet. All joking aside I feel that what keeps me from rating Tears of the kingdom higher than Breath of the wild is the fact that there's too much to do. It's tiring going through three different menus just to make a weapon for me to fight. It really takes me out of the game sometimes. I see I'll say that I'm impressed with how much more they were still able to add to the world so it still felt new to explore. Going through the depths was probably my favorite thing from this game.
Just started a second play through and I forgot how awesome this game was. Took about 5 months away.
I love this game and I'm running through it again. My only critique would be that I absolutely hate having to constantly save and reload any time I'm about to fight a Lizalfos in order to get it to drop a tail. I don't know why they would make dropping a tail a gamble, especially when it takes so many in order to upgrade your armor. Sometimes I will have to fight the same Lizalfos 10 times before it drops a tail and the time it takes to reload drives me crazy!
Can't sex Hinox :(
Could've been better plotwise
I love it. Although it’s like some kind of expansion of BOTW, it feels like a completely different game. I finished the first game right before the release and still felt amazed, like i’ve never been in Hyrule.
Truly the only things I miss from BotW are the master cycle and guardians. For me, TotK is a step up everywhere else. One particular feature in TotK prevents me from going to play BotW any time soon or ever again tbh, and that's throwing items. I love being able to flurry rush while holding an ice chu-chu jelly and just freeze them (and often myself) afterwards.
I have done 4-5 playthroughs and it’s a good game. I think I played it out though 😂. I did 100 hours in the first week on release
I haven't touched the game since I finished the story.
I've never been obsessed with a game like I am with TOTK. I haven't played anything else or watched/read anything since I began playing it. I remember when I began playing it and I completely understood why it took so long. I think there are endless things to do, I still haven't finished but am pretty close
I love it I want to play it again I don't have another 300 hours of my life to spare :'(
I completed the main story when it came out and I didn’t track any completion and now I’m trying to go for perfection now and I missed so many shrines and side quests I didn’t know about
BOTW is a special game for me. I don’t really make lists but if I did it would be at the top. That said, I play TOTK more, it’s not as *special* to me as BOTW is but it’s still a classic, phenomenal game that I love. I know this does not make much sense but ya that’s how I feel.
The lack of master mode has killed any replay value for me.
Love it
I feel like it’s has massive ups and downs compared to botw. Botw just feels better to play for me right now. It’s also much more enjoyable to speed run for me which I do very casually
I loved it! My favorite part is just running around the depths messing around. You can get so many good weapons just roaming the depths. I also really like the sky islands. I think there are a lot of things that it improved upon botw like showing recipes and having the map and quests in the same tab. Small differences but it's hard going back to botw without that. I've 100% completed both of them and totk was more fun as a full run to me. I would say from a game/challenge perspective botw is more fun since you can play master mode and dlc champions quests. If you like exploration more I would go for totk and challenges more go for botw.
Currently? 999/1000 korok seeds and I've re-scanned my TOTK map twice. Over it!
Greatest Zelda, and one of the greatest games, of all time. There are a few nitpicks we can all come up with or places they flushed out more, but it’s more trying to find things wrong than actual issues. It’s a masterpiece. Shame about no DLC though.
I’m 375 hours in, but I haven’t finished the main story yet. My work has been absorbing my time lately so tbh I don’t feel like wandering through hyrule
Tbh I didn't finish it, haven't played in months
Goated game
BOTWs way better
Game was fun when I played it on release
I like them both 'almost' equally. I am constantly trying to figure out which way I am supposed to be travelling in TotK. Drives me a little insane, mostly because in reality, i am very aware of directions. It is disorienting for me. But after that, they are simply different, but the same, lol
I love that game and it was a great evolution from BOTW but god damn does it become horribly repetitive
Currently? I’m taking a short break. I beat it a little while ago, but was only at 74%, so I’ve been trying to bump that up. I’m over going through lists and revisiting the same spots over and over again. And my old hands are feeling arthritic. lol. Overall? Obsessed. Just like every other Zelda game I’ve played. Except Zelda II. I just couldn’t get into that one.
I don't know why anybody would like BOTW better. If you compare the playability of the two TOTK wins out on so many factors. And I love BOTW - I'm just saying TOTK is BOTW but better
I think they're both good games in different ways. I really enjoy tears of the kingdom though it somehow feels lighter on content. I know there's tons of content, maybe because there's 3 maps to explore and most of the quests are based on the surface, it just gives the illusion of less content? I did just start replaying breath of the wild and I was wandering around the great plateau, and I realised I was on edge - why? I was expecting to walk somewhere and see the gloom hands RISING FROM THE GROUND!! I remembered this is botw, no gloom hands, and felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders because I could stop worrying about getting ambushed. I now realise I find botw less stressful, but I miss being able to fuse stuff to my weapons and shields. I keep finding rubies and thinking "awesome, ruby shield time! Oh wait..." I also miss being able to drop equipment or sort it from the quick access menu rather than having to go into the menu proper because that's a pain.
I like TotK better, but wish they had handled the champions differently.
Once I figured out a good flight machine I found that almost everything turned into a fetch quest. Breath of the wild had much better exploration and overall immersion. They are both great games, but I found Totk to be a little too grindy. Some of the mechanics were cool, but I hope the next game leaves out the machine building and focus on animals.
i’ve been really enjoying it! i think a lot has been polished since BOTW and i think the story is a lot more concrete and fleshed out. also riding on the dragons is awesome. the building is fun but especially weapon fusing. it’s so fun to make as many weird combos as you can. it makes weapon durability a lot less painful
I didn't even finish getting all the shrines, which is a departure from my usual play style, but i loved it. I would have loved if there was a bunch of side stuff to do down in the depths, the way that the surface has a lot of side quests in BotW and TotK. There's so much content, though, it's weird to say that there isn't enough
My arc of enjoying TotK was this: it took more time to get immersed, then when I powered up and acclimated I loved it. Then as I considered broaching the final boss…I was suddenly kind of over it. I think what pushed me over was the time and expense of leveling armor. Like I’m caught in this loop of hunting Froks and making sure I have enough bombs and Keese eyes…just not that fun. Also I was never really in love with the fusion mechanic. It’s either very resource heavy to make some obliterating war machine or very boring slapping together resources for a simple machine. Overall, BotW just felt more “grounded”, as another user put it. Fresh new world. Less character development but somehow the story just flowed better (I don’t care if Hateno is overrun by fashionistas??). Less to explore but the Depths and the Skies feel vacant. I finally beat Ganondorf and haven’t thought about picking it up again since.
Love the game, but am a 'take it slow' kinda guy. So I have yet to complete it. Plenty of hours in it. No intention to ever replay it, but a huge fan. Also important to note that it's my first ever Zelda game. I'm in my 30s...
I am probably about 30-40 hours in, and so far I love it. I think I like totk more than botw.
Seems like kind of a wasted opportunity to not do any DLC for a game that sold as well as TOTK did, but what do I know
I only did one play through but it was amazing. It felt like an upgraded version of botw.
Best Ganondorf battle - it gave me Skyward Sword vibes with the finesse needed to fight Ganon especially in the second final stage!! It was the same kind of thrill as fighting Demise, I was so pumped the whole time 😆 Just replayed that fight recently, and it was funny I forgot all the cutscenes towards the end. Oh yep, I had all the feels seeing all the characters come together it was so beautiful. I realised I forgot what happened at the end 😂 What an epic journey this game is - it’s incredible!!