so... zelda, am i right?

I really love the discussion surrounding how much freedom is given. On one hand, it's awesome that the game lets you get away with this stuff, but on the other it can mess with the experience because potentially clever puzzles, dungeons, and fights can be skipped with a well built helicopter or rocket. Still, totk is one of the best games ever because it unlocked the war criminal inside all of us. That has to be worth something.

I played this game for well over 300 hours. I finished every side quest, conquered every shrine, did about everything I could in the game (besides the god forsaken koroks) Towards the end, I started almost resenting what I was doing, but I couldn't bring myself to confront Ganondorf. I kept searching for other things to do because I knew that if I fought him, it would all be over. I didn't want this beautiful masterpiece of a game to end for me, but I almost ruined it for myself in the process. This video helped remind me why I love this series so much in the first place. Thank you.

I love the name of part 2 "The weight of infinite freedom" sounds like the title to some psychology book diving into what it means to be human, but no its about a zelda game. Amazing

As someone who beat tears of the kingdom, and has never played breath of the wild. This game blew my mind 💀

No one can capture the spirit of presentation and writing quite like Yakko. Love your vids man, you are a personal inspiration to me.

I really resonate with that statement towards the end of "ripping myself away because I didn't want things to end" massively. I was procrastinating on going to fight Ganondorf for so long because I was having way too much fun and I didn't want to leave this world. I eventually accepted fate and went to face Ganondorf and was blown away again by Nintendo's ingenuity in the fight. And after it was all over, I felt a mix of both joy and sadness. Joy filled from being able to play this amazing game from start to finish but also sad that it had come to an end. But no matter what, I'll always look upon this game nostalgically.

I had the EXACT same experience with 5th hidden temple. found it by just being desperate to get there and when It was revealed in the story 100 HOURS LATER I was had already completed it.

I feel like I would have enjoyed both BoTW and ToTK more if only one of them existed. Tears improve so much on what BoTW did that the latter does feel invalidated aside from very minor details. On the other hand, sharing so much with BoTW meant that ToTK lacked a unique identity. I was definitely burnt out from exploring the same world across 2 games.

I finally, after two failed attempts due to getting distracted, finished BotW and went right into this game. As soon as the game made it extremely clear that you could staple ANYTHING to your weapons, I was just laughing so hard at the silly combinations you could make, even if they are something as dangerous as the Boomerang Bomb. Most of my vehicles end up failing like that boat, but that's part of the fun sometimes.

You're right, i imagine being able to eat mid battle WOULD remove all steaks from battle

For you segment at the end, I wanna say that's why I like your content so much. Everyone forgets that art is a very emotional and bias thing, and there is no such thing as "Objectively perfect." Some of the best games that people say are "Objectively" the best are games that I can't stand (like Hollow Knight). But you, you aren't afraid to dive into that. You give good objective and technical points, but you aren't afraid to talk about how a game makes you feel and your personal experience with it, which is just as or possibly even more important. Love is to enjoy something despite it's flaws. My favorite game of all time is Persona 5 (either version). Is it a perfect game? No. But the experience as a whole let me feeling something that I never felt before from another game. Every journey has some ugly bumps, but the journey as a whole was an incredible one. You always make it a point to talk about your personal journey with a game, and It's a great reminder about what's important most.

One thing you didn't mention that I think is super important: the game launched fully functional. There were minor hiccups, but it's a breath of fresh air to see a game even more ambitious than the first and with systems this complex launch in a better state than 80% of modern releases

I was someone who didn't like BotW but playing TotK felt like playing the BotW that got the critcal and commercial acclaim. I'm personally so happy with the direction it took and that I could finally understand that same joy.

I'm just starting the video, but, I have to say, you're quickly becoming my favorite game reviewer with the sheer depth of your videos.

for me i liked both games, but my biggest disapointment is that they didnt fix any of the problems i had with the menu system in totk, in fact they made it worse with the ability to fuse arrows

I’ve personally been super conflicted about my feelings on this game. I 100%’d botw, so I went into totk with massive expectations. And somehow, even after putting in 200 hours, I can’t help but feel like it didn’t live up to what I wanted it to be. I really enjoyed my time with the game, but it didn’t improve any of the major flaws of botw, and in many cases, it created its own issues. It’s scope is massive, and yet somehow the meaningful content feels so sparse. A part of me really wants to love the game because of those few incredible moments, but the experience feels bogged down by repetitive tasks with disappointing rewards. But it’s possible I didn’t really grasp the full potential of the game’s unlimited freedom. Now that I know what parts of the game I do and don’t enjoy, I know what parts to skip on repeat playthroughs. I’m hoping it’s a game that will age better over time (for me), but at the moment it genuinely just confuses me

Being able to beat this game without the *Paraglider,* with absolutely no hard gating preventing me from accessing the final area without it, and instead allowing me to use my patience, luck, and a little bit of cleverness to come up with my own ways to make it all the way down to the final sequence, was what cemented TOTK as game of the year for me, it was honestly one of the most fulfilling gaming experiences I’ve had in a very long time, especially since I had no Sages or Master Sword and had to one-man army the entire boss rush. So yes, I am praising the game for the fact that it allowed me spend ~30 minutes climbing into a hole without the very easily obtainable key item that would let me jump down and reach the bottom in a matter of seconds.

Great video. I would add, regarding the weight of infinite freedom, that it's also a huge issue on the narration level. Like, how many people have found out what happened to zelda before finishing all dungeons, and then watch link going around still asking the leaders if they know what happened to her? Or how "you can do any of the regions first! But we REALLY REALLY would like you to go see the birds first! We've locked half the important mechanics like inventory expansion and armor upgrades on the way there!". I feel like the devs were forced to follow the botw formula even when it didn't fit. Blood moon is another example of that. It really didn't need to be there again, and it really ruins the feel of the new side quests with npcs clearing out monster camps, like "wow nice job we cleared the camp until they spawn again tonight." And don't get me started on armor upgrades. But as you said, frustration comes most of all from flaws in greatness.

WOW you hit the nail on the head with this video. It's so easy to break the game (with rocket shields, airbikes and recall elevators) that I found myself self limiting a ton. Personally I loved seeing how the puzzles evolved throughout the regional shrines to their respective dungeons; and even the sky islands had a lot of cool puzzles I didn't wanna miss out on With that being said, I also did love the BotW divine beasts a ton and still do!! Being able to control the dungeon on a macro level for puzzle solving and traversal was awesome, and very few Zelda dungeons hold this design style (Majora's mask and skyward sword do it a bit too, but other than that it's like one dungeon per game)

I played this game without playing breath of the wild, and absolutely loved it, I'm super excited to pick up botw

Honestly my one big problem that stayed true from BOTW into TOTK is the story. Its much better in totk since it more actively involves link and other characters in the fights and I appreciate that, but the memory system still has too much of the important story beats that are told to you rather than experienced. Not only that, but the memories are often so seperate from one another that its hard to see what the "right" order to go for them is, and it leaves some massive gaps. Like one thing I genuinely dont know if its explained is why the gerudo ended up betraying ganondorf. In 2 of the memories we see them serving him, and then all of a sudden we have a gerudo champion trying to destroy him with others. Was it the queen sonia incident? I have 0 clue. Gameplay totk is nothing but an improvement adding a metric fuck ton of new mechanics and embracing some of the older zelda staples like dungeons and unique bosses. But the story is still just... Meh? I liked the characters but little feels fleshed out. Like truthfully i have no clue why this ganon wants to destroy hyrule anyways, other than I assume just the demise curse giving him a one track mind. Though for all we know, this story could just be a total reboot too since the story also just feels like a retelling of all past zeldas with sky islands (SS), and ganon swearing loyalty to rauru only to betray them (OOT). There's some great ideas, but they just don't feel fleshed out and properly interlinked enough to tell a truly amazing story like MM or TP. I obviously would like gameplay changes in the next zelda which we already know will stick with the BOTW formula, namely improvements to more varied weapon types that rid the durability system (i like the system, but it also feels a little bit unnecessary and as a way to encourage "varied weapons", but theres only 4 types including the bows"), but above all else I want the memory system to be ditched because it feels like its actively harming my enjoyment with the story.

Hey! I’ve been watching and really enjoying your videos for a while now, but this one in particular felt really special. I think you captured something really special in the final chapter of this video which is really difficult to put into words, and that’s something I honestly appreciate 🙂

Dude the funniest part was where you talked about thunderhead isles and exploring it without clearing the storm. I actually did the same thing as you, except I LUCKED myself into the door instantly. within 30 seconds of landing I was just at the shrine on the dragons head, and just found Mineru lol.

I truly never thought I would find someone who shares my exact set of thoughts about totk. For my full 100 hour play time, i was deeply torn between the game's inability to live up to my impossible expectstions and it's breathtakingly engaging gameplay. This video has helped me to come to terms with totk as it is, and has encouraged me to enjoy it all over again

Honestly, you bring up a good point about expectations. As someone who played the majority of Zelda games, I've gotten used to a relatively similar formula, however despite it the series has had a fair share of experiments that changed up gameplay in a significant manner (cycles in Majora's Mask, two different time periods in OoT, weird-ass Wolf transformation in Twilight Princess etc), most of which I enjoyed. And then, BOTW dropped. It was so strikingly different that it barely had anything "Zelda-like" about it gameplay-wise except a small handful of things, which made it feel like someone put the series name label on a completely unrelated game, at least to me personally. I actually found that non-linear approach that BOTW went for a complete defiance of its roots in a bad way, considering how the series is popular for great curated linear experiences, even when the worlds are somewhat open (Wind Waker is a good example of this). Needless to say, I got bored with it quite quickly, and never bothered to finish it, because the gameplay barely introduced new interesting mechanics, which items in other games usually fulfilled. Hell, the Master Sword, one of the literal anchors of the plot of any Zelda game (except a select few), was also left out out of the story progression! They also desecrated the most important aspect of the series - the dungeons, all for the sake of making things approachable with just the starting tools that you get. As you can guess, I wasn't very happy when they announced a sequel to BOTW, which meant that this format was here to stay, so my expectations were lowered. However, when I did actually play TOTK, it did feel infinitely more fun than it's predecessor, because they "fixed" a lot of the things that BOTW destroyed, like more interesting dungeons with unique gimmicks, or allowing Link to use more unique tools, that one could use to beat said dungeons too. However, despite me enjoying TOTK and actually beating it, I still can't consider it a Zelda title for a myriad of reasons, all of which tie back into non-linearity. It's simply not possible to create an actually interesting dungeon without gradually giving the player more tools, because the Sages are just aren't enough to diversify the gameplay imo. Even despite TOTK having actually decent dungeons, they fall short in comparison to other games because they are simply hard-limited by the fact that they are designed with just the Sage and starting tools in mind, leading to far more simplistic and boring designs. As long as Nintendo sticks to non-linearity, old fans will complain, because such a drastic shift is simply too much to still be classified as Zelda games. I should mention that I don't think that BOTW/TOTK are bad games, far from it actually, I just find them alienating in comparison to the everything else in the franchise, which in turn muddies up the experience. Anyway, great video as always yakko

One note about difficulty, Zelda difficulty spike curves later in the game because exploring the world rewards you so much that the level progression feels seemless.

"But when I'm on my deathbed, I don't think I'll be regretting the time I spent on this [game]. And in the end, that means the game's pretty good!" That really resonated me. Glad you had fun!! 🎉

Terrific review, captured my thoughts exactly, so much they could have done and expanded upon, while at the same time being such a rich and fulfilling experience. Also love how you comment on how people are saying there is no need to play the first game, totk may have more in it, but the tools each game provide create such different scenerios that in order to fully appreciate this game youd have to go back and play botw first. Great stuff all around.

To me, Tears of the kingdom has truly become an experience. When you talked about how you discovered the last dungeon, it made me think of how I got the Master Sword without knowing any of the story. When I was on one of my Zonai construction sprees, I discovered the Light Dragon and when I got to it's head, there was the Master Sword. I had played around a lot, so when I got to it I gave it a try and pulled it out. Then when I experienced the story, that moment for me got enhanced so much more. It was truly an unforgettable experience for me

I was waiting to see your thoughts on this and it didn’t disappoint. I also went to thunderhead isle and sequence broke by doing the spirit temple as my second dungeon. Man, those four hours were the highest high. Going from a mysterious clouded island to building your own party member in the depths was the best thing I’ve ever done in a video game. Im sure you also got the true ending but it really is such a special game and even though I had to force myself to beat it I will never forget my time on this.

Hell no it's not 10/10 only someone who's extremely lenient with scores would give it that

Really loved the last section of the video. No amount of friction or missed opportunities are going to undo how I felt blasting through the colgera at mach 10 while the sickest song in the entire game played.

THANK YOU FOR THE SHOUTOUT TO NUTS & BOLTS‼️ As a weird freak who ended up playing it before the original B&K games, I have so many fond memories of getting lost in its accessible yet deep construction system for hours. Genuinely one of the most fun sandbox games I’ve ever played, and it blew seeing everyone say it was just the shitty Banjo Lego Car game.

man you are so amazing at writing. you can keep me enthralled for a full 40 minutes without adding family guy and subway surfer clips with constant vine thud sounds. keep up the amazing work yakko!

The discussion was amazing, but I have to emphasize your choice of music in an essay. I was in a trance focused on your essay on the weapons when you put Red Moon on. It was mesmerizing

I feel like they developed Breath of the Wild, wanting to make a game with a lot of freedom, but had the constraint of needing to release a Zelda game. And for Tears of the Kingdom, they wanted to make more of a Zelda game, but found themselves having the constraint of being required to release a game with a lot of freedom. Ironic.

The mid combat healing is very OP. I actually started a second play through where I didn’t allow healing through meals. My only way to heal mid combat was to use light dragon fusions. Honestly made combat much more interesting

The problem i have with TOTK is if you put 200+ hours into BOTW to find everything you possibly could on BOTW and get burned out on that game, it's highly likely you won't have as much fun on TOTK. Because its 75% the same damn game.

The most frustrating part for me about this game is that it's a Sequel-Lite. Some areas have major upgrades, while other areas are just sorta updated. Hateno village just kinda does not know you lived there or bought a house there? But Tarrey Town does. It's just too inconsistent. The Guardians are all gone. The Divine Beasts are all gone. The game never tells you what happened. They even left one of the destroyed Guardians at Robbie's old Lab. The second frustrating part, is that the story is overall bland? Time Travel is not my favourite trope and this game just has time travel as a plot convenience instead of it being a major thing. Like, for instance. There's a Light Dragon that's been around for years, but no one seems to know? It's not even named unlike the others. Where did the other 3 come from, since we now have an idea how they came to be. The intro to the game is so boring. Zelda as a character is much more expressive in the intro than she is at the end. She's more concerned about Link fighting 3 bats than him being there at the end. Also, her sacrifice is undone so quickly, and she wakes up immediately. I was thrilled to see the Princess Carry, but nothing came of it. Zelda just speaks. What I'm saying is, no hug, 0/10. Smaller ramblings. The sages are pure jank. The enemies are better designed, but it's still not enough (Age of Calamity has elemental enemies, there's only rock armor). The final boss has no scaling (as you show in your video he can do 1 heart. ONE.) The Master Sword never regains it's Shine in your inventory. Damage numbers lie. The fuse menu could have had more options to sort. The overworld music is again, just there. I had a lot of fun with this game. It's potential is just squandered.

The "scrappiness" of the early gameplay is a perfect way to describe it. The whole game(s) is good, but I can now identify why the first hours feel AMAZING to me and then it starts feeling more generic as time goes on. I love the feeling of not only having to get creative, but being able to with infinite solutions. This must also be why eventide island feels so awesome in botw. You most likely dont get there until you've played the game much longer since you need hefty stamina to reach it, and then when you do, it's a refreshing return to the scrappiness from the beginning. This is nitpicking, but I will say I think I liked this feeling better in botw than in totk because a lot of the "solutions" in totk end up being ultrahand. Which for me personally, the most creative solutions always felt like they interrupted gameplay with how long they take to make perfectly. And once I got autobuild, I found that the slots for custom builds ran out quickly!

So, someone else took a picture of the yiga frog in the chair on the roof

TOTK was the most 7.3 to BOTWs 7 I've ever experienced. The absolute bare minimum improvements, complete with 90% of everything that absolutely sucked.

One thing i did to deal with the big numbers on weapons issue is I dropped every weapon and material with an attack higher than 5 when I was 100 hours in. This put me right back at the bottom even though all the enemies were extremely tough which made me have to think before going into combat

This video is gonna be a frustrating 10/10

I couldn’t tell you why, but Breath never clicked with me. I played it for about 30 hours, did most of the towers and a lot of shrines but I just never really got into. But Tears for some reason got it’s hooks in me real bad. I think it’s because of the amount of traversal options. In BotW movement felt too slow, I know it was supposed to be chill like you said but I just got really bored of walking/climbing everywhere. But in Tears there are literally so many different ways to gain height, it’s mind boggling. Just a great game, more options, double the size, fusing is goated, I could go on.

I can't describe how well you've put my current feelings to words about this game. I felt a certain guilt that I've been playing almost daily and know I still have more to do in this game than I have completed. I work full-time and have a wife and kid to support so time is limited with games, and for three months the only game I can think of playing is TotK. Yet, there's also a thought in the back of my mind that nags at me telling me at some point I'll have to finish this game. I don't think I'm actually ready for it, because I know it will be a long time before I find another game that ticks all my gamer-brain boxes like this one does. Great video, I hope when I eventually make my TotK video I can express my thoughts as well as you have.

Regarding infinite freedom: I appreciated that I could get from point A to B in any fashion I wanted. However, I usually ended up doing things the “intended way” anyway due to it being laid out for me. I always would look back in retrospect and say “you know, I could’ve skipped all that if I had just done THIS” but I never usually think to do those things in the moment due to me being (for example) excited to ride the rails of the fire temple or the bubbles of the air/sky/water temple. Only when I’m having too much trouble do I ever realize I can resort to much simpler crafty methods for a solution. And I personally think that’s brilliant!

Totk is a banger game with so much soul put into every detail

I went blind through the storm too! I was mad at first when I was sidequest cleaning and found it went away 😂😂 However the whole finding a random mask to getting a underground mech was an unexpected and memorable experience for sure

yakko i hope i can meet you one day, i have been watching you for so long and have always enjoyed your content. You truly are the best video essay, game reviewer, ost analyzer, and so much more.

This is an extremely good video, and honestly just kinda gives me hope for whatever comes after Tears of the Kingdom. You and I had a lot of really similar encounters, like forcing through the Thunderhead Islands and discovering the 5th sage, like, way sooner than I was supposed to. It's such a cool moment, but nobody else I have talked to about the game did it that way. So cool, love this game, but man could it have been even more and it feels terrible to ask for that because of how great it already is lol.

Tears of the kingdom is a great game and I had a ton of fun playing it, but I honestly think I've had my fill of open-world Zelda now. Mostly because the story really does suffer a lot from the open world formula as they've been doing it. Instead of a rich narrative we get a bunch of cool moments that don't really fit together in a satisfying way. Does this mean my nostalgia for Twilight Princess is overshadowing what the new games have to offer? Maybe a little, but I don't think it's pure nostalgia talking when I say that Tears of the Kingdom's attempt to have the best of both worlds just didn't work. The sages are the best example, a bunch of really great characters that spend 90% of the game as really awkwardly implemented game mechanics, and replace themselves with mindless ghosts in-story because the open world designs make it all but impossible to actually have them stick around as actual characters. And let's also not forget that Ganondorf is so woefully underutilized that you can hear basically half of his lines just by watching the trailers. I just don't see how anyone who values the story aspect of Zelda wouldn't feel disappointed by what Tears of the Kingdom provides, even if they are clearly trying to do more than Breath of the Wild did. Side note, glad to hear I'm not the only one who just wandered blindly into the thunder isles and found the fifth sage by accident. It really is cool if you just stumble into it by mistake.

Listen to me totk can be a true work of art like one time i was in a cave and i found the exit and it was the cave coming from como shorline cave to highland stable and i came out to a beautiful sunset on the beach and i swear no amount of ray tracing can beat the look and feel of seeing something that is such a work of art in my favourite game in my favourite series i swear go there at sunset and go from highland stable well to the cave (which is technically the entrance) and just look at it at sunset. You may not have the same reaction as i had but its a work of art

One of, if not your best video for now. (Now i'm praying one of the next ones will be about or will have a segment about Bomb Rush Cyberfunk 🙏)

Fan of your channel for a year. This is your best video IMO, and I'm only 10 minutes in. Definitely your best script. Great job!

I literally only finished ToTK a few days back, perfectly timed review for me!

I think my favorite thing about Tears of the Kingdom is that feeling of "Wait? That actually worked?" when you do something completely nonsensical like slapping a few devices together, and it gets the job done. On the other hand, I think my most hilarious moments were when something in the plan I had in my head went wrong. The sheer exquisite levels of shenanigans and chaos that such could unleash never fails to make me laugh. As such, I tend to avoid Buzz Lightyearing myself around too much with rockets and just try to come up with the most contrived and ridiculous manners of accomplishing things.

This game took out everything I loved in BotW. I've never disliked a game while also being completely convinced that it's a 10/10 this much. BotW was character-driven storytelling with story fragments that worked because they told character moments. TotK has almost no real character writing whatsoever, and the chronological story events simply do not work as fragments.

Love the way you script and present your videos, its fun and interesting as always!

I just don't understand why they didn't just make a new map. According to the devs of BOTW, making the map was the easiest part of that game's development. They could've made a whole new overworld in under a year. Of course some people wont care about a remixed map, but some people will, but no one would mine a new map.

Been playing Zelda games since 1987 and Breath of the Wild somehow turned out to be my favourite of them all, long after I had come to terms with that the best days of Zelda was behind me. So I had really high hopes for TotK and while it's a great game in it's own right, it did not instill the same sense of wonder and awe that botw did. But I still spent 260 hours on my first playthrough before beating Ganon, so I by no means think it's a bad game, it's great, but it did fall short of my own very personal hopes for the game. Crossing my fingers for a breath of the wild like game set in Termina next :D

I fully agree with the Part 4 - The Usual Artsy Emotional Thing. I also wanted to write a video about Totk but it I wasn't able to share the full emotion, feel and personal impact of what I was presenting. Great videos man, keep it up!

Honestly having found yakko from MagikarpUsedFly league videos back in 2016, the amount of growth and exploration that this absolute gabagoon has done to find his own style and voice is extremely impressive. Godspeed funny long hair man, godspeed!

I love that people are willing to call it out for what it is, they are just not doing enough IMHO. This game's components, both artistic and technical, are rather ... Bland. With the exception of it being a "mechanics marvel", eveey other aspect is rather terrible. I don't think I am being harsh since I very much gave the developers a pass for a lot of shortcomings in BoTW becasue it succeeded on multiple other fronts: Soundtrack, atmosphere, exploration and the open world, the shrines were a brand new concept (So I was dather fine with the level design, even tHough yes I would have liked proper dungeons), and the story which, while rather simple, was still effective with likeable characters and an interesting take on the Zelda formula. The freedom thing was rather new, and wasn't tried out as many times as it has been since then. ToTK has none of that, the only thing it does "exceptionally well" is the physics engine. Again, I look at the whole package when judging something, and I examine each component individually. This is a bad game y'all, one that came off the heels of a GOATED one, and took even more time in development than that first one. 😅 Sorry... 😑 no, genuinely am sorry that I have to say that. Not saying this to insult anyone or deride their experience... I think you guys may have underestimated the "candy crush" effect. It's a game that does one thing. It does it very well, but it's own aspect of what should be a AAA title. And since the shrines and temples are designed around those mechanics, look bland AF, and are just a rehash of something they did before I can't give them a pass on the level design. 😑

the feeling is not of a new game in the franchise, but of a continuation of a game. it's not going from Ocarina of time to Majora's mask, it's going from kid Link in Ocarina to adult Link after the 7 years time skip, and it's wonderfully executed

I enjoyed your comments on eldin ring as someone who has played BOTW and TOTK several times but is on hour 10 in my first ER gameplay. It’s interesting how similar but how drastically different they are. I find myself saying, “hey that mechanic is in Zelda too!” To my husband who asked me to start playing for him to watch. We are having the best time and it is a great game to play after beating Totk.

Can't wait to see your future videos man!

Totk fixed every problem i had with botw (the few i had) except for the obscene level of completion however it does make it feel so easy to come back to and jusg have fun

I felt like the first game was so much more full than totk, it made me want to explore and run around. It's like how majora's is deeper than oot. The characters in breath of the wild felt less like npcs with petty squabbles than in totk. Like for example the cece vs reed quest felt like an npc quest rather than a quest for real people, like the frogs quest, or the tarrey town quests from Breath of the wild. TLDR, I thought totk was more empty than breath of the wild

This is a great video dude, really nicely done. To answer the question posed at about 28:00, I actually think forcing/mildly forcing creativity to be the solution on the player would not be the right choice. Personally while I love the building mechanics in the game, but a big part of that is the ability for YOU, the player, to make your own unique experience. However, I do agree, there should be more encouragement of creativity in stuff like backpacking koroks or whatnot, I think the forcing of it would be detrimental, in my opinion

Really amazing Video yakko!! It would be really interesting to see your prepesctive on the other legend of zelda games in the future

As a hardcore traditional 3D Zelda fan, who loves all 3D Zelda Games (yes, including Skyward Sword), I find the enjoyment from dungeons comes from how they utilize a "playground" mentality. It's less of them being structured and linear, and moreso how they blend linear ideas into an open space. It's the "illusion" of freedom, so to speak. No other Zelda game captures these feelings other than Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess, which have the best traditional 3D Zelda dungeons in my opinion. Majora's Mask has 3 central transformation masks that each area of the game takes careful effort to teach you the ins and outs of, and then the puzzles within the dungeons test your experimental knowledge within them. Your ability to manage "where am I" along with playing with your new toys in fun and creative ways is what creates the immersive experience that not only lets you experience the gameplay, but also the setting itself. Stone Tower Temple is an incredible example, as it tests your knowledge on all 3 masks while also presenting some of the toughest challenges in the game, which requires knowledge of every mask, as well as a more nonlinear approach to every puzzle. Twilight Princess designs its dungeons more linearly, but it also designs its dungeons around very *very* fun gimmicks. Like the Snowpeak Temple, it's just a big abandoned mansion that is now inhabited by Yetis. The fun of the dungeon comes from the fact that you have to navigate what feels like a blend of a house and a dungeon, with the navigation of the Yetis who apparently can't keep their belongings straight. It makes a substantial and memorable experience, not because it's streamlined, but because it's a product of a linear game doing its best to bypass those conventions, and immerse you in their creeping halls and expansive architecture. I think TotK took a much better direction, but the Fire and Water Temples were substantial low points. I stand by my hate for the Divine Beasts. Cool in concept but I am not a fan of their execution

Yako at it again with his reviews about video games

Happy to see another vid of you talking about how much you like a thing. Those are my faves :)

The reused map really killed this game for me

Nuts and Bolts will forever be my favorite game of all time, I go back to play it 2-3 times a year

Every single one of my exact thoughts playing this game was described here so accurately. Just wow

I hate it when people say, “Why do you want the same game in a new coat of paint?” My brother in Christ, none of them were. Every final fantasy had a different battle system, different musical setting theming, different enemies & world maps. More different than TotK. It’s such a stupid claim to make that it’s the “same game”. The point of the franchise is to share some core that’s noticeable whilst everything else is different, so I can’t stand these people saying FF16 is justified for being unique when ever final fantasy is unique, at least from 16-bit onward.

Obviously this video was coming, but a 40 minute review from your perspective (and video production obviously 😅)was such a treat. Thank you 😊

IMHO TOTK is an amazing sandbox game, but a lack lustre RPG. After the credits rolled and i had time to ponder my overall experience i couldn't help but feel underwhelmed. I think the main issue is that similar to BOTW TOTK somewhat crumbles under the weight of it's open ended nature. The amount of crazy things you can do and build is truly incredible and the devs definitely deserve credit for what they were able to accomplish. But by the 25 hour mark TOTK felt like it had lost all challenge, and anything done from that point onward was just checking boxes where the only moments the story has any impact are at the beginning and end of the game. It's a game that's great at building and exploring, but it's a somewhat disappointing role playing experience. The lack of meaningful progression, ability to cheese nearly every challenge, disjointed story, and easy street pacing that makes me implement artificial limiters on my abilities just to give some semblance of challenge leaves a feeling of wanting more out of the experience. What i think would work best is to implement some linear roadblocks in the overall exploration like Elden Ring or Ghosts of Tsushima. Still give the player an immense amount of things to explore in the overworld and experiment almost as much as they want to. But when side quests and especially the main story are involved take a hard stance in saying "alright you've had your fun, but now it's time for a challenge." I would gladly sacrifice the ability to rush straight to the end boss, or explore everything immediately if it meant we could have better paced dungeons, items, enemies and story progression.

10 out 10??? You crazy. Is a 7 at best.

Your video made my day. I was a bit getting bored at totk and to me it felt like "it's botw post-game again" but then I realized my 230 hours in totk felt better and jam packed than botw that clocked in at 350 hours for me. And then it hit me, this game I was getting bored with was actually one of the games that really made me so delighted and really gave that fuzzy feeling upon finishing the game with the cinematics, final battle and everything. It still felt a bit short to me, after 125 hours in finishing the story, but only just because I wanted the game to go on forever, I was not ready to put down the game, which unfortunately is never the case. I felt like I don't have to force myself to 100% the game anymore as (with no DLC coming sad) I have been satisfied with this game more than any other games I've played. For context my 230 hours in totk felt shorter than my 90 hours trying to finish AC Valhalla which became a snoozefest after the first 60 hours, more than my 50 hours in every sports games, shorter than my first playthrough of GOW at 40 hours, and even shorter than my experience with Dark souls at around only 35 hours

Man I really hope hard mode is more than more health and health regen. I hope caves are mixed around and the depths have more monsters wandering around. Dungeons limiting options would be amazing for breeding creativity. fighting multiple mini bosses at once would be cool. There are a lot of cool ways to handle hard mode. I know some of these take a lot of work. Honestly just a randomizer mode would be incredible so that I can keep that feeling of surprise every time I play

Loved the vid! Personally didn't manage to finish totk. Unquestionably it is very different from botw but for me just still felt too samey. The core combat is what really killed it for me. Link has access to by far the biggest arsenal he has ever had but the movesets are so limited it feels wasted. Also, I hated fusing weapons lmao. Why did they think that having to open a menu and push a few buttons in order to make a weapon worth using was a good idea. Especially when I am constantly having to grab new ones. Truly baffling. I might go back someday but it was just kind of a hassle to play. All that said I don't think its a bad game, just not my jam sadly. Anyways, any plans on playing or covering baldur's gate 3? Would love to hear your take on it if theres room in the schedule for it.

"Put all these together, and it makes sense why Zelda discourse can feel like watching strict parents get upset that their kid would rather build Bionicles than pass the SAT at age 7."😨😱 *OUCH!* I felt that!😰💔😭

What a fuggin video man. Thank you, this must've taken literally forever, and that's not even considering the absurd number of hours put into the game itself, and we all appreciated every single second of the experience of watching it. I will say that I've always been intimidated by massively expansive games, and I still have yet to even beat the original game because I constantly feel like I'm not playing it to the full extents of the game, or I get lost, or i struggle for hours fighting an enemy or group of enemies way out of my league. I wanna find every secret but I have no idea how to realistically go about it. Not to mention idk if I wanna spend all of that time doing it. As someone who grew an unhealthy obession with 100% games, and then quickly burnt out of the mindset, something like this intimidates me to this day. That said, I think all it'll take is some easing into it from this new, less completionistic, mindset for me to truly experience the outstanding things these games have to offer. Not to mention my horrid decision anxiety because I actually want to create content of my own, but I feel that restricts my own ability to just enjoy it naturally. A double edged sword, content creation is, but I'm sure I'll figure it out as long as I keep working at it.

This was a really good video, im glad i found your channel. Its a treat and this review was incredible

The fact that you can shield surf on minecart tracks like they're grind rails is proof that Tears of the Kingdom is the best 3D Sonic game.

There needs to be a balance to freedom. Enough to let you do what you want but not so much that you can just use the same cheese over and over. For example inventory limits. If you had an endless storage box you can only access in towns and giving each item or type of item a cap (like when Dark souls stopped letting you carry 99 firebombs to just 20 or how tools in Death Stranding have weight), you can allow players to use the tools they want but not let them use it as a the answer for everything.

You get it, with the reconnection with an "old friend" part! thanks for pointing that out, this couldn't be done with an "DLC"

I say this as really big fan of totk: I think equating it to other franchises and branding it as the argument of “Franchises have to change to stay fresh” as an answer to the “it doesnt feel like a Zelda game” criticism is a bit short sighted and lacks an understanding of what the fanbase loved about the 10+ games before it. Zelda has a built in audience. Their audience wanted a specific kind of game. It’s not like, say, Mario- a franchise that’s tried a variety of different kind of game styles (some liked by the mainline fans and some not). When it doesnt work for Mario, they look at it and say ‘that was just playing with it! Here’s your next standard Mario game!” Whereas with Zelda- theyve toyed with other ideas but the fact that they look at BotW as ‘The basic formula that we should use from hereon out’ is inherently worthy of critic of the modern franchise. This shouldnt be something equivocated to other properties from other franchises- these things are not the same. This isn’t an experiment from the Zelda franchise more than it is the modern take on what should be from now on- and that requires legit criticism on what should be from here on. Tldr; do not oversimplify the criticism to equate it with other franchise changes; the fanbase is more a Grateful Dead fanbase than it is anything else.

Play Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, and you'll see what people say is missing from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom

Seeing the changes in the world was crazy for me, mostly cuz I just did a re-play through of breath of the wild and finished the day before release. Idk about anyone else, but I’m deff satisfied

Thank you for this video, it's absolutely an appreciation of all the hours of hard work and love into this game while being fair about the setbacks. It's not endless ranting like all the other videos I've seen.

BotW and TotK can be boiled down to "simplicity vs complexity." If you want a quiet, more laid-back experience, play BotW. If you are a more experienced player and want more challenge and interesting systems, play TotK.

Totk to me was so freaking good and of course I’ll I’ve botw but man I adored the horror of Totk and the fear you feel in the darkness it was truly amazing to me genuinely an amazing video one’s of my fave reviews I’ve seen for Totk

I am so glad I dodged every spoiler for this game. This created some unforgetable moments. The whole Rito Village quest is probably my favorite part of any game I ever played.

A fun point about the physics in this game: its so accurate that my university has a class in the engineering school dedicated to building machines with ultrahand to teach prototyping. It was the coolest class I’ve ever taken

I just can't find the words to express how much I love your writing, and more generally your videos. I've been following you for League for a long time but the way you talk about games that have marked me so much like Celeste or Tears of the Kindgom always impresses me. Love you Yako ! :D