Zelda - Breath of the Wild 2 - Tears of the Kingdom

My gaming time is so limited these days that I'm still only one temple in and just pottering around, vaguely heading toward some of the towers and shrines.

I made it to Kakariko village. Then I saw one of the massive dragons in the sky start to nosedive. Not knowing anything about them, I raced over to see if I could hitch a ride. It gave me a tour of the depths and came out at a different part of the map!

I miss having the time to put into games as much as I used to, but on the flipside I am more discriminatory about playing quality games. Experiencing bite-size moments of wonder like that make having the Switch worthwhile.

Yeah I took the depths tour too - quite special. It also helped me find a few more shrines by tagging lightroots in depths areas I've not yet visited.

I’ll take 50

Tbh it would just be an extra cumbersome step to have to go to certain regions to get the best prices, so I like that everywhere pays the same prices. Although there are also certain side quests where you can get extra money for specific stuff.

You can sell them to any nearby bokoblins in exchange for bokoblin horns.

Personally, I am relieved. I’ve probably got another 60 or 70 hours ahead of me as it is, which means I’ll have put twice as much time into this game as I did playing BotW through twice (getting all Shrines, Towers and Quests done). This game is so chonky, I will never play through it ever again, unless the games industry collapses and everyone stops making games.

gamingdave If you manage to track down and do every sign guy spot

There is probably more left to finish the game than you realise.

Yeah I thought as much - assume there we will finally be able to do something with that ring I wasn't allowed to get near. Tried to avoid spoilers but read nearly everything in hear so am aware there will be some big gloom fights to come too then obviously a showdown at the end.

Yeah, I completely get that. I’m at 240 hours now and whilst I’m milking it dry, I don’t think it’s as good as BotW. In that game you’re only so powerful. Eventually you can slay anything, but you are still limited by your environment. You can’t magically pull an airplane out of your backside.

It’s technically a more fleshed out world, with more interesting side quests and some better placement of objectives, but it’s also sooooo big. If I ever return to these games (which I’ve technically done once already), it’ll be BotW. Not this one.

But this is still probably the second best adventure game I have ever played. The second best open world game I’ve ever played, too.

(RDR 1 is 3rd. Far Cry 2 4th. GTA 3 5th).

Just gave this to the lad for his birthday. So I'm expecting to he helping out a lot with what to do or where to go.
Looking forward to giving it a try myself as I always wanted to try Breath of the Wild. Though I doubt I'll have the time to dedicate to it properly. (wish it had drop in co-op!)

Based on the past 3 Zeldas he's tried (Ocarina, Majora, Windwaker) he'll love it and get really into it for about a week before getting to a point where he won't know where to go next or what to do, and at that point he'll never touch it again.

Is grabbing those free items going to unbalance the game for a new player?

Those freebies are nothing items really, you'll pick up loads on the way and probably never do anything with them except maybe cook a fish.

I’m nearing the end of my mammoth run through this game. I thought I’d put it down weeks back, to make time for other games, but I just keep getting drawn back to it.

It’s definitely an excellent game. One of the best I’ve ever played, but I still prefer the simplicity of Breath of the Wild overall. It’s not just the abilities and challenges the game has, but just it’s general set up.

You’re an explorer in that game. Your path is being carved out by whatever has caught your eye. The open world felt like the core experience, and you made your own adventure within that.

With this game it’s much more heavily quest driven. You’re still free to do as you please, but you’re also told what to do and where to go constantly. There’s a lot of back and forth, which I don’t mind, but I feel less attached to the world when I’m constantly warping between areas, rather than exploring each one carefully.

Granted, you can teleport in BotW too, but it felt less necessary to me. I was more likely to walk or use my horse to get around as each area felt more contained. It meant that perhaps I wouldn’t revisit areas too often, but I was more keen to fully explore them, which in turn made the word feel bigger and more impressive.

I enjoyed marking a destination on the map and working towards it, whereas in TotK I can simply build a plane and fly there in a matter of seconds. Not only that, but TotK doesn’t reward you for exploration anymore. It rather cleverly has moved everything closer to the player. There’s no need to investigate the pit in Akkala anymore, for example, as it has been gutted for all it’s worth. Rather, the rewards are placed closely to the path most players will likely tread. Or in other words, everything is close to the pathways marked on the map. I can confirm this as I have found almost all the armour and around 830 Korok seeds now.

This is a common practice all over the world map, meaning some open areas have become quite barren and lack any real purpose but to remind you of how big the world is and that not every adventure has a reward. At times that can be rather disappointing or even annoying, but it is my fault.

I still love this game, but it isn’t expecting players to play in the same way they might have in Breath of the Wild. If I had known this when I first started playing, I would have played it very differently. I’d have chased the quests more vigorously. I’d have spend more time laser focused on what I was being asked to do and I would have spent less time doing my own thing. I would have enjoyed the game more than I have and I would have saved myself at least a hundred hours in the process.

It’s still a fault of my own, rather than the game. It’s much bigger than BotW in terms of content, but I greatly extended that runtime by playing against its design. It wasn’t meant to be explored as much as it was meant to be messed around in. Hyrule isn’t the main character this time, but rather it’s the toys and people it contains.

TLDR

My approach to playing this game hindered my own enjoyment somewhat, but it’s still an excellent game. It’s a big game, but I made it a massive game.

Hmm I was still mainly focused on the main stuff and still binned it. Hated all the new mechanics. Botw = one of my all time fsvs. This = bored and sad, sad because I thought it would have been another one of my favs.