The developers behind botw said they wanted to have space between locations and have less load times. With a couple tweaks I think we could have the truly perfect version of botw and totk, like if they improve on the dungeons and fill in the world a little more

Mr aonuma, wanna know why I want to go back to a more limiting game? Tears of the kingdom took 6 years to make, and it was the most expensive Zelda development ever. I forgot most of the story less than a year later. Majora’s Mask was made in 18 months on a shoestring budget ran on 8mb of RAM and told and unforgettable story I’ll never forget.

the algorithm has chosen you

7:02 yes!!! I really effing liked the fire temple. I turned off the terminal locations and got lost in the dungeon and it really felt like a blast from older dungeons. These BOTW era dungeons really struggle with the “unlock these four terminals and you’re off to the boss” cycle. They really have to do away with it. Great video !

Playing through the story is a very important storytelling device. People are more likely to forgive story issues and plotholes if they feel emotionally and connected as they insert themselves into the playable character, in this case Link. That's why, for example, I can overlook some story issues in Twilight Princess because the game gets you so emotionally invested in the story as your actions directly progress what's happening. You're the first person to echo my sentiment of not wanting to play Minecraft in Zelda. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm not a fan of games that rely too much on crafting mechanics. I just want to solve puzzles with set constraints instead of having an open sand box. I've been a Zelda fan for about 20 years, beginning with Wind Waker in my childhood. My love for the series will never totally go away, but I'll be sad if we don't get some structure and story driven gameplay back in future games.

It's similar to how I preferred having less freedom in Dark Souls 1 as opposed to Elden Ring, navigating that world was SO fun for me, sorta reminded me of Super Metroid. The original LoZ also had an interesting take on how to balance freedom and limitations...My big dream is they learn from all the ways they've structured worlds before and get the best out of all of them. I'm thinking the world should be quite a bit smaller than the last 2 games. I get that the size is part of the appeal for those who like it, but it does come with some massive compromises that I hope they won't go with for every entry from here. I like seeing them switch up the formula, but that quote that disregards the advantages of the older entries is a bit scary.

Bro i am (relatively) new to the franchise and that intro still gave me chills you are a FABULOUS editor and writer, thank you for sharing all of this with us!

I like the restricted games more because they're simply more fun, and they have better stories, I couldn't really care less for a more open world in a zelda game, I just want to have fun and get invested

Here are my thoughts on the matter (spectacular video by the way!): -A lot of what I missed was a true sense of progression. I am actually playing through Minish Cap myself at the moment, and I feel such a high when I get a new item like the Flippers and I think, "There was a heart piece that was past some water that I couldn't get before, and now I can go get it, because I put in the work and got this new item." The Wild engine games don't have that. The closest I got was getting a new weapon or piece of armor that had a bigger number next to it. Items in particular were such a force for Zelda because they kept opening up new things every time you got a new item. In BotW, all of the "items" (runes) are given right to you, and the rest of the game is just spent grinding for better gear and the Champions' abilities, which don't open up the world at all, they just make it easier to traverse or survive in. In Tears, it follows the exact same formula, but the Champions' abilities are borderline useless. -Speaking of formulas, the Wild engine games feel copy pasted. You wake up naked and weakened in some closed off area, you get a power conduit, you meet a ghost who tells you to go drip mystical liquids in your power conduit, you visit four shrines, get an essence, and leave the area. That's just the opening hour of both games - they are almost identical, save for the change in scenery. You then charge off, you face four dungeons in the four established regions, each of which have five points of control which lead to one central doohickey which summons a boss. Once you complete those dungeons, you get a new mystical power with which to pummel Ganon(dorf) into submission. After all of them are done, you do just that, and after the actual boss fight, you are led to a cutscene boss battle where you attack weak points on the body of some form of Ganon before hitting him one last time in the forehead. There are a whole lot more parallels, but this comment is already long enough. What made Zelda Zelda was that the only formula was, there is a problem, but you can't solve it, so go gear up and solve other problems before you solve the main one. No two dungeons were the same, every dungeon had a new item that changed the way you played the game, and every dungeon had a new boss tailored both aesthetically and functionally to fit the dungeon before it. -The fact that the story is largely optional in the Wild engine games due to the memory format only hurts. Don't get me wrong, finding a memory that lore drops something monumental and game-changing is really cool, but it would have been cooler if there was any semblance of story beyond "the races have been troubled by monsters, go be pest control or something". We need an actual ongoing story - maybe with the bare minimum of Ganon(dorf) doesn't like the fact that you're killing his pets, so he does something in retaliation. Instead, it's just crickets and time-biding. Sorry for the long comment! TL;DR: -We want item progression -Wild engine games are too formulaic -The story is too barebones and optional

You should play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity!! It’s very very very different gameplay-wise. But I still found it fun. It’s a big love letter to BotW and it puts you right in the middle of the plot. It feels very powerful storywise, imo, and I found it so FUN

I miss old zelda.

BOTW is the true spirit of what Zelda is. It was the spark, the magic. Ocarina (and to a lesser degree LTTP) was the chains on that spark.

You've got a great way of expressing yourself. I enjoyed listening to your thoughts about current Zelda. Unfortunately Tears made me drop all hope of the series shaping more like what I would prefer it to be. Great video !

Dude, I 100% agree with the story part. ocarina of time was my first zelda game. My parents weren't even together when it came out, but looking back There's no denying the impact it had on video games forever. what really stood out to my stupid 5 year-old girl self at the time was how so damn good the story was. The idea of a hero who lost literally everything and having to live with it because no matter how much he tries to run away, time won't stop flowing is Beautiful. tears of the kingdom's story was soo disappointing. The game is beautiful and I LOVE how fleshed out zelda is but at the same time it was weirdly paced insanely predictable. every Zelda game is different though, I'm excited to see what the next Zelda game will be.

The legend of zelda lost it is spark

I loved this series so much that i named my daughter after it. I enjoyed botw and totk but they weren't zelda games. They felt more like a well made ubisoft game than a zelda game

The crazy thing is, those are still the exact same producers and developers as from the old classics. It's not like these dudes suddenly just LOST their spark and passion! No, this is a deliberate decision to distance themselves from the old games, which can, in my view, only be explained by a huge level of insecurity concerning their older achievements. Deep inside, these guys are feeling as though their old games weren't really fully respectable video games, given they had to work with limitations and "tricks" (like strong linearity to ensure immersion). As time and technology went on, they were so consumed by this shame of not being "state of the art", that they started to look at what other studios like Ubisoft, Bethesda etc. were doing, thinking that "nowadays, games have to be open world!", which is a huge oversimplification and motivated by all these unproductive and negative emotions, that they took a wrong turn somewhere and can not see it.

Im gonna love to see what people are saying about botw/totk 10-15 years from now. Seems like people always complain about new zelda styles & game play at first

For me to not loose the spark of the traveling, I just never did shrine besides a few

Great video! This is something I've definitely thought about, especially when they announced echoes of wisdom, which seems to be taking parts of the "formula" of botw and totk and putting them into a 2D game, I'm still excited for it but there really wasn't anything that compared to that classic Zelda puzzle world experience

I fell in love with aLttP as a child. I really just want refinements on that concept. I accept that this does not have the mass market apeal of the latest entries. I enjoy cheap wine more than I do expensive because I do not have the refined palate of a sommelier and I do not care about tannin balance. I am frustrated that Nintendo is going in the opposite direction as studios like FromSoftware. Nintendo seems to seek a wider audience by making their games more accessible, FromSoftware seems to be building a niche audience by making their games less accessible.

I totally agree. I was very disappointed on the story of these games... we are passive in front it instead of living through it... and I feel like it's not even related to the game play in any way. Creating Zonai constructs is not what TotK's story is about most of the times... I feel like they are two different concepts put together and mix badly. Everytime there is a shrine, I feel like I am stopping an adventure and I'm wasting my time on a random puzzle completely unrelated to the story or whatever I was doing before finding the shrine, too, as it's something distracting and disturbing me. I won't replay these games as I am not engaged with their stories... but in the end they're good games, I like them, they just don't feel like Zelda games. It's not a nostalgia thing as many people would point out, as I played some of the older games later than BotW or TotK and I loved them more. Minish Cap for example.

same experience on my DSI with R4 cards!! But I played phantom hourglass instead, I never really played it for the story(I was a kid) but the multiplayer aspect with friends was extremely FUN!

dude... like 5 minutes in, I checked to see your subscriber count, and IT'S 35? Bro, for this level of presentation, you need way more subscribers. Keep up the good work!

Disagree. Respectfully,. but completely.

Minish cap will be forever engraved into my childhood memories as a kid playing it on my gameboy was the best

I agree that the storytelling was different, and obviously to some not as fun, but I felt that it was an incredible way to point out that Link is not the main character of the story. He definitely is the main character of the game, but I feel these two were the first pair of LoZ games that actually put the story focus on Zelda herself. It was also one of the only times we see another character in the game suffer or give up as much as Link; to hollow out and rebuild themselves into the person the world they live in needs. Does that make for a good game to be the story's side character? I also don't think so. I think it uses the gameplay as a means to a story. Some people really like that, others definitely won't. That comes down to preference. Thank you for your opinion and analysis though. Definitely valid and a significant number of people want the playable character to be story central like you implied. May your videos reach far.

Each game before Botw and Totk felt like true zelda games, these 2 games stray too far from what made the series so special ,therefore they are in need of more zelda 'sauce' ✨

Great intro brother. Making me feel some stuff

Then thing I hate the most about botw and totk is the voice of Zelda. Oh how I hate the sound of her voice.

From the first sentence, the already screams that you’re simply nostalgia blind to an insane degree. At least you acknowledge the Wind Temple was peak, though.

I like your look of this! I personally like how free and open Breath of the Wild is. But instead with tears of the kingdom, I think that it is too open. Just with Breath of the Wild it was a lot, but with three worlds to explore it becomes a little too big for me to really enjoy the game. 😅

Kinda newish Zelda player here! Went on a bit of a tear of some Zelda games during lockdown with A Link To The Past Ocarina Of Time Majora's Mask Twilight Princess Minish Cap A Link Between Worlds And I had a good time with all them! Got to Breath of The Wild and... eh. I wasn't a fan of the fact it felt like a chore to get anywhere, due to not being able to call Epona to your location, or transform into a wolf. Fighting was also bit of a pain, with your weapons and equipment breaking every two minutes, and it was getting so annoying it got to the point where I was actively avoid fighting. Because enemies were just getting overly spongy and I'd be going through several weapons at a time on one, which was quite frustrating. And all the dungeons and shrines looked the goddamn same! What happened to the creativity man? When you could see a screenshot of a dungeon and you'd be, "thats the Water Palace from such and such game." Meanwhile with Wild, you'd be struggling to know what stage you were looking at. But, despite these complaints, I finished Wild and opted to give Tears a try. After playing it for a few hours and seeing very little had changed with the world was big purely for the sake of being big. And weapons were still breaking in two minutes or less and the shrines still all look the same. Needless to say I was left wondering, why did I even buy this game? Also, just as a side note, isn't it not about time Link actually starts talking? Surely I couldn't have been the only one to find it jarring to have the other characters with full voice acting and Zelda would ask Link if he was alright, only to get crickets. Or Urbosa saying to Link to tell Zelda not to be so hard on herself, which made me wonder, "the hell is his mute ass going to do that?!" Perhaps he might use the medium of expressive dance! If it works, Link talking, in the Akira Himekawa mangas, it can work in the games! I miss old Zelda, and let Link talk!

this entire intro had me feeling chills from my ears to toes. (I also beat and loved the minish cap)

Commenting for algorithm boost. Thank you for speaking out on what too many people are afraid to say or blind to see.

Your so underatted, and damn you looking mighty fine 🤨🗿 I thing that porting the Wind Waker and Twilight princess to switch will be a good idea and I don't understand why Nintendo hasn't ported those classics yet probably PTSD from the wii u don't you agree? By the way im subbed on 3 different accounts. Keep up the grind and remember me when you get famous. Also give the turtle a raise he did his job perfectly🗿🐢WHY DID YOU THROW HIM

TMU the Zelda formula was perceived to have been stale by Skyward Sword (and the game's sales reflected that - compare OoT vs MM, TP, SS). The fact that BOTW had (outside of some portion of the fanbase) outstanding critical response, and is like the #4 selling game on - and a cornerstone for - the Switch certainly is what Nintendo was looking for; as well as that if you count (undisclosed) online sales TOTK could be the #1 selling game of 2024. Exclusive games and console sales are a virtuous or vicious cycle, and making that virtuous is the core of Nintendo's strategy. That said, I think old-style Zelda fans should remember the business saying: a rising tide (in this case a massive one from BOTW and TOTK) raises all boats: TMU the sales of LA and SS HD equaled or surpassed the originals, which I highly doubt would have happened if BOTW was a flop. (no doubt many buyers were not just long time Zelda fans but new Zelda fans who wanted to try out the older games) So strong performance of the new game leads to strong performance for the ports. I think the evidence is very strong that WW and TP HD are done, and just waiting for Nintendo's marketing timing for release (presumably either with the Switch 2 or the Zelda movie next year). We'll also see how much the old-style fans like EoW............. now if they would just make OOT HD. (or OOT 4K for the Switch 2!!! And again, strong sales of all the new and ported games makes OOT/MM 4K much more likely)

I would trade my immortal soul for a truly remastered edition of ocarina of time and mask of majora.

I came from the very begining i played zelda on nes on its release date its not the same. There is way to much filler junk in the games now

quality/quantity dilemma

really glad people are seeing through the only gimmick tears had, because that games was a major letdown. oh boy, ten rupees or a single gem for… everything. and then it ends with a final boss that sits still and lets you win. lovely. lttp forever.

Trying the hype-measuring approach that the switch entries was why I was underwhelmed with it. The royale style picking up weapons and shield was something I hate. I don't want to take time fighting enemoes to get weapons only to break them in the next fight. The grinds to expand health inventories was frustrating. Then when I saw those block-building they put into TotK, I just gave up all together. I was hoping the next entry would've gone back to our roots of a more grounded LoZ adventure. No new twist or anything... you play as Zelda. I'm just tired of getting gut-punched. Nintendo is really becoming the Disney of the AAA industry and it killed LoZ for me.

I could definitely agree on some of these points. What I wanted in a sequel of Breath of the Wild was a game that took the scope of its predecessor, and improved where the previous one failed. Have engaging, unique dungeons that make you think a little, have a compelling story that I can get invested in and care about. And while Tears of the Kingdom did make distinct looking dungeons, expanded the overall scope of the game, and added tons to do in the world. It absolutely fell short in the story, dungeon pacing and challenge, and overall didn't over achieve where it could have. I would have taken better dungeons, a more expanded sky, and a way more compelling story over the Zonai devices. Because while I do love building things, it really can ruin the pacing and stunt some of the discovery and problem solving The Legend of Zelda is known for.

I always say, "stuff can be two things." These games are technological marvels, and incredibly designed. Character design, world design, the cultures, the style. All of that is 10/10 But they're simply NOT Zelda games. That's where rhey fail. I always use the analogy that, "you go to order lasagna, and instead you get served worlds greatest spaghetti. Its the worlds greatest spaghetti but i asked for lasagna." These are phenomenal games. They're juust not zelda games.

Breath of the Wild, imo, was building something fantastic on its own. The mystery and ambiance was great , the relationship between link and Zelda was great, the tech and especially the exploration was perfect for me. The over reliance on flashbacks weren't so great but thats all the complaints i have for botw. Totk however, took what made botw so great away. Maybe its not such a big deal but replacing the temple of time, and even taking away the broken recognizable piano tune feels like a representation of how totk is a bad sequel. Important things have lost their meaning in favor of giving the whole spotlight entirely to Rauru, Sonia, and their magic/mechanics. And it just wasnt good. Nintendo, more than before, are giving less of a shit about storytelling and care more about gameplay only. Totk is also too much and too little at the same time. Too much area to cover, while not developing what they already had enough. Iirc 1-2 years had already passed and what did Hyrule do with that time? One new settlement outside the castle, and a construction zone? Thats it? The depths is just ruins with breakables, enemies and some chests. Same with the islands which are just puzzles. Not much is even being Said about the Zonai, yet all the spotlight is on them while everything Shieka is just gone. Speaking of Shieka, it always annoyed me that all Sheika tech came from a time even far back which was never explained. The zonai also speak of ancient times from thousands of years ago while they themselves are supposed to be from 10,000 years back. How far back are they gonna keep going to avoid answering origin questions? Why is Hyrule still old as shit after over 10,000 years? Its just silly.

I couldn't have agreed more with you if I wanted. Zelda has lost its spark for me as well for all the reasons you've said. I like to just add that its soundtrack has fallen as well compared to older Zelda games.

Great games, they missing dungeons and a little linear purpose

Not gonna lie and that will sound silly but I felt more when playing sonic frontiers than Zelda botw and Sonic clearly got inspiration from Zelda but was made with a small budget and team and yet they cared about the story and the character and what was established before the music was better than ever and the bosses silly enough the Titans in frontiers were used incredibly well compared to zeldas approach I was exited on each island yes the game has 4 smaller open worlds to fight those titans they were hyped up pretty well and despite frontiers being a smaller game and a more unpolished one I had fun

Hell hath no fury than a gamer scorned..

As a kid my first zelda was ALTTP alongside OOT, later MM, WW, TP, Minish Cap - u name it. Back then, I felt just like you did. Zelda was lit. It was excitement, it was that type of feeling where you for some reason felt really fulfilled when you've randomly encountered a cave or a secret side spot in the game that you never knew existed although you already played through the game a dozen times over the years passing by - even if the reward was just a red rupee - it didn't really matter because you wanted to be the wiz of that sandbox; the more you knew the sandbox you were in, the more you wished it was just a tad bigger to explore. In contrast, botw initially stopped giving me that desire of exploring any more of its "open" world already after the first 2 weeks of playing, while I consider myself a snail-like sluggish player treating each area of a game like its own little sandbox while spending massive amounts of time before moving on to the next area. But in botw, I already knew that these new unknown areas wouldn't give me the same sensation as they did in many previous entries. The reason for that is, that botw starts feeling artificially inflated rather sooner than later because of the recycling formula they gave a big priority on and which follows through the game like a red thread. In botw, the Great Plateau felt like the most rewarding experience ever - you were overflowed by the new mechanics, granted with new base items (runes) faster than you could believe already having found the next "main Temple item". Jeez, you fell from that height and were actually getting *serious* damage and the damn cold was not enterable unless you get creative at cooking or get that warm doublets from the old man. Everything in the very beginning of this game felt like fresh air on steroids and consider *this* was JUST the beginning! .. ..and that's what it actually was. As not far after it, the game lost its magic like a party ballon being pumped too much until it popped. The entire time I was playing botw after the Tutorial it never even came close to its beginning nor towards the mentioned desire to "really wanna know every last corner of this, well ..'open, unlinear sandbox' "; at least until.. I eventually started modifying the game on pc, not just with fan mods, but also with a completely new made up Souls-like challenge rule set, where I have to restrict myself from elsewise free available stuff like gathering overpowered weapons until certain game progress, a gradually increasing penalty system for too much dying, a paraglider-less enforcement over the whole game right from the start (yes some dungeons require glitches like Wind Bombs to clear them) alongside a modded combat system that QoL-enhanced Link's (or Linkle's in my case :) combat and moving physics as a compensation for the missing glider. I added self restricting rules relating to each of the games "areas" (defined by the empty map's borders) and treated them as single sandboxes each in their own, semi-non-transistable right, where for example, you weren't really allowed to carry weapons being found in one area to take them into another (with the exception of "boss weapons" or non-respawnable "chest weapons"). Picking up weapons at all is not blindly related to the spot where rarer ones would spawn after each blood moon but by links current "Level" and "Strength" being able to "carry" them, depending on their "weight" - so yea, my system had a real leveling integration that's progress was uniquely and one-time'ish scored by "defeating camps" within a certain amount of "tries". You weren't allowed to sell stuff blindly, but mostly only gems, which you weren't even allowed to mine unless you've gathered enough "boss tokens" before. So yea, the fiat system aka "real" rupees of this "DS meets Zelda" mishmash were actually a scarcity and a necessary evil in order to upkeep your sheer own existence - and you were still always glad if you had the chance going for luxury spendings for stuff like strong weapons like bomb arrows (not really allowed to collect on the go) or for 'unlocking' the next 'layer' of your "skill tree"-like invisible board (well, semi visible as I used the map markers as a counter-system for game-sytax related stuffs that worked similar to an octet-like numerative system). I know all that sounds like wild incoherent stuff but it wasn't anything like it, as it had a really refreshing and difficult type of loot-loop that prioritized and benefitted skill and creativity over a dull farming mindset and inconsequential thinking. For example, there was a "debt system" if you weren't able to pay for your deaths to "The Devil", then it's not just something like "Game Over" and "just try again til u GidGud" no - at least not as one might think, since once you aren't able to pay for your fault then you're not allowed to save progress anymore until you can "buy your soul back" - and the higher your debts were the longer it will need you to stay in "Hollow mode" where each death resets you back to your fix save (this can be so nasty at times that you may consider starting over the entire game) so if it's actually a real "Game Over" depends on your own decision, skill and consistency rather than the game telling you that it is one. Everything, what I've made out of this game over many months even years had a survival-based feature adding towards the core concept - and this was the first time when I actually started enjoying a new Zelda game - not as something that old ones had been either - but certainly as a project I've put many coherent thoughts and math into that I wished would be possible to syntaxally create into a mod where the player doesn't need to do the constant thinking for engine-related stuffs and by self-limiting with sheer discipline only - as in fact this was that one major drawback that ultimately stopped me from playing and enjoying my own "modification", as it turned at some point more into a digital board game where every marker had to be set by hand and where you ended up more calculating than really playing the darn game; but still I can assure anyone reading until here it was an experience I believe not many players have had with a Zelda- or even video game in general.

Good critique

The copy & paste formula and directionlessness/inconsistencies is what really messed up Totk. It had the potential to be a great game. Freakin' Tragic. I actually loved Botw and how it reimagined what a new Zelda world could be like, but I agree that it being the first concept of it's kind, didn't have alot of the delicious things from previous zelda games such as enemy variety, classic dungeons, weapon variety, and more padded stories and unique quests. Really believed that they were going to bring at least some of these gameplay staples back for totk but that's not really what ended up happening.

Zelda hasn't lost its spark, it's as bright as ever. 1000% disagree

Really good video, I'm really happy it got recommended to me! I agree completely. BotW and TotK just felt lacking and empty to me, it missed a lot of the charm and excitement of being in de middle of it all..

this was great man

I'm playing Spirit Tracks as I'm watching this. Back in 2020 I was playing an online game (TF2) and my username is Basically Link, so somebody in chat said: "Oh look it's a botw fan" and I was in shock. I had a grudge against botw for a solid 2 years because of what happened that day. I already had somewhat of a grudge because of the attention Zelda was getting for a game in it's series that was nothing like a normal Zelda game, so this really was like the last straw for me. Just to be clear, I always saw botw as an incredible game, I just had a silly grudge against it for that.

Lol just another typical boomer video talking about nonsense of how botw and totk aren't real zelda games because of some dumb reasons and just because it's different from the older games, whether it's the damn dungeons or the story You don't get to decide what a zelda game is or what people want, nintendo and the zelda team does and so do the a ton of the other fans. They know zelda better than you or any other so called zelda youtuber could ever hope too

Botw and totk are two sides of the same coin. They are both the fundamental issue with zelda right now. Big empty world with fragmented storys. Nothing gluing it together.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, amd much respect for going against the grain, but BotW amd TotK were just flat out epic. And this is coming from someone who played the original LoZ in 1987 and everything in between.

*its

They just became lazy because they knew it would sell. Too much content means lower quality across the board, they went for content and gave up everywhere else. They lost the spark because they forgot why these games were good and they just became lazy and greedy. And as a game designer myself I see laziness everywhere. The past was good for a reason, it was full of passion and hardship and you can feel it. These games are like eh... What can we do? I clocked in today and made a useless shrine here, etc etc. You tell they really did not care about game balance or quality at all. Couldn't even be bothered to figure out even the story. Don't get me wrong I like aspects but I can never love these.

The sales numbers for the games disagrees with you

I can assure you that this is mostly nostalgia speaking in your case. The dungeons are not nearly as good as one would think and do not fit with the new zelda mechanics. Basically this is the same situation as with people complaining about modern minecraft. The old games really aren't that good when you have the modern standards of gameplay quality. So there is no point arguing, you are probably just to old. Honestly no matter how I say it it will sound offensive but it kind of just is like that

Have you ever thought about Zelda might be having a new spark?

Na it’s just the Zelda cycle wait a few years and everyone will be saying that botw and totk are actually masterpieces lol just look at all the recent past games like skyward sword etc; they all go through the same thing

The legend of Zelda hasn’t lost it spark it’s trying to due new things

i disagree but good video

Note: this got way too long because along the way I got really interested in thinking about the role of assumptions and subjectivity in dialogue. Not trying to be a dick, just wanted to share my thoughts about what my disagreeing with you in this video brought up for me. Upfront, I’m not a fan of 3D Zelda and a general appreciator of franchise experimentation. And while I have no love for TotK, BotW, like, defines what it means to feel the spark of wonder in a game for me. This may be our point of contention, but in general I just have problems with the rhetoric here. I think it’s valid to not like a game, but to characterize it as “losing its spark” for breaking the mold and trying new things is really strange to me. I think a good comparison is Metroid Fusion. You can say that you didn’t like its linearity, but to say that 2D Metroid had “lost its spark” because of it is wild. What Fusion did was take something Metroid usually takes for granted, nonlinearity, and reevaluted its relationship to it, making linearity part of the narrative so that it could break into nonlinearity as Samus gains power. That is a brilliant, inspired decision, so why would you write it off as “bad because it’s not what I want in a Metroid game?” And same for BotW, which reevaluated Zelda games’ fundamental relationships to certain tropes and made interesting choices as a result. It may not be the 3D Zelda game you want, but it’s so weird to me to call it a diminished piece of art because of it. And I did watch the whole video, so I know you said you acknowledge these games as brilliant in their own right, but you see how that’s incompatible with your thesis, right? They can’t be brilliant and devoid of spark at the same time. Most of your criticisms are “it’s not what I wanted” anyway, which is so real, but there’s a big difference between wrong for the artwork vs wrong for satisfying your tastes. I guess in future videos, you might feel a bit of freedom in placing your feelings in the context of your own subjectivity: you can still express yourself without arguing for something. Here’s mine: I didn’t like the Pikmin 2-style removal of time constraints in Pikmin 4. I understand why it exists: the game is so much bigger and more beautiful than the others that they probably want you to take your time, but part of what I love so much about Pikmin is the relentless pressure to optimize your play, which is most absent in Pikmin 4. Would I have liked a juice system or something a hell of a lot? Yes. Do I think the game is flawed for not having that? No. I mean I can criticize other things about it but not this specifically. I love media criticism, I think it’s the shit. So I guess I would just advise you to think about what your relationship is to the work you’re critiquing, what you’re trying to convey, and how best to frame that conveyance. Because “it’s not as good because it’s not what I wanted” makes a lot of assumptions about your priorities when critiquing media where unless you establish and justify why those are the way they are, you’re just not going to be able to have satisfying dialogues with people who don’t already agree with you before you start that those priorities are good ones. Are you trying to argue that adherence to formula is important? Okay, why? What motivates your feelings about that? Genuinely, I would be very interested in your thoughts on how source media ought to influence new works. But you lose people like me who don’t instantly empathize with where you’re coming from without that.

Why would i want to play a game where i limit myself? I dunno i feel breath of the wild punishes the player for trying to explore. Maybe im dumb but goodness climbing is a chore and combat is just so unappealing to me in this game. World design and characters are fine but get rid of the stamina wheel and breakable weapons and at least you get anime skyrim

Two Zeldas in a row of near infinite possibilities for discovery, potentially endless ways to approach any given problem, and yet there's a never ending tirade of people bitching about what isn't there and hoping for a return to one solution for every problem. Yall are boring lmao

Not EVERYTHING has to be open world. Plus, Tears failed. They [for no reason] avoid talking AT ALL about the sheikah tech. They avoid talking about link saving the world. The dungeons are extremely lacking. IT IS NOT WRONG to say tears of the kingdom is bad, ESPECIALLY for THE AMOUNT OF TIME we've waited. Yes, the mechanics are cool, but they avoided all story other than the COPY AND PASTE "zonai-overwriting-sheikah-ohnogannonshere" story completely ignoring all story from the previous game. Not only are the dungeons the lifeblood, but also the Story as you said. And tears FAILED, and i stand by it. We've lost the link and Zelda connection, too.

Bro why… 🤣

My man knows! We all know deep down modern Zelda isn't Zelda.

Damn and here I thought MCU fans were dramatic.

Dude chill.

Well I’m glad it did cause all the previous games prior to botw suck