#totk rant

[partialmarshall23]

controversial maybe (not really) but totk had literally so much potential for it to be anything other than what it actually was. like I guarantee you they didn't plan half that shit after they were initially done with botw, and then just to rub salt in the wound they released aoi, like that game is the biggest dogshit spinoff I've ever seen. the craziest thing is totk isn't even a bad game on its own but the fact that it's a zelda game is just sad, the only good parts to me about that game is the zelink content ig and music

[gensnix]

Notice how botw and totk don't have a line that connects them like the other games

[1hellofacookie]

Honestly tears of the kingdom could have been so much better if they had actually given it the chance to be a progression from breath of the wild, and not just the same thing but bigger and in a slightly different font.

Tears is absolutely beautiful, like this game is so goddamn pretty, specifically on the great sky island. It's breathtakingly majestic.

But they immediately fall back into Wild's formula. You wake up, are greeted by the ghost of a King long gone and are supposed to go to shrines. (Shrines that look disappointingly ugly but thats not the point right now.) You go through the same mechanics to figure out how the world works; wake up in cave -> hear mysterious voice -> activate main gimmic that'll be upgraded later on -> get piece of clothing -> climb tiny wall to exit -> walk through corridor -> beautiful scenery + intro cutscene. You even meet a guy at a fireplace again to figure out that you can roast stuff by the fire. Four shrines to aquire modules, where one of which IS the same as in Wild just upgraded.

I'm not at all saying that this is bad per say. It worked once, it worked again.

But I'm just asking

What if they had changed it up? Imagine!! they had changed it up!!

What if they'd made you find actual valuable items instead of spirit orbs? What if they didn't section it into those damn shrines? What if they'd AT LEAST NOT called them shrines? What if someone or something physically present had woken you up in the beginning? Imagine the place you woke up in was already puzzle or a set of puzzles that you had to solve to get used to the controlls and get out.

I don't know, just something that sets it apart from Wild. Something, so you don't constantly go "oh, haha they did it the same way as in BotW!"

People were already severely burnt out from the shrines in Wild, and then you start the game and make them do it again?? Same concept, same everything??

And all this for a world that is nearly the exact same on the ground as it was in BotW?

Why?

There's so much more to talk about and this theme drags itself through the entire game, but this post is already too long, so I'mma leave it here for now.

[legendofzoodles]

Genuine question: how does the Royal Family line continue from the King of Light? I’m legit serious. Sonia dies in TotK. We don’t see or hear of her and Rauru having any children. How is Zelda related to Sonia and Rauru if Sonia died before she could have children? 

You could say that Zelda is the descendant of a family member of Sonia, a cousin, aunt or uncle etc who also inherited time powers. But Zelda is royalty, she’s the princess of Hyrule and has inherited both time and light powers. Rauru was the ruling King and we know Sonia to only have been ‘Queen consort’ since Ganondorf stated in a cutscene that Rauru took “a Hylian woman” to be his wife. Any legitimate heirs to the kingdom would have be related to him, not Sonia. 

When Sonia said she sensed a blood connection I’m sure she meant to include her husband. So...did...did he marry one of Sonia’s relatives after her death? Or...did Mineru marry a relative of Sonia? 

Am I missing something or is this an actual plot-hole? Because that’s the only way Zelda can be related to both. 

[thenmichael]

SPOILERS FOR TOTK DRAGON TEAR MEMORIES

One of my biggest problems with totk is the story, like from what i understand and believe, the dragon tear memories take place after the advents of the word of god timeline, where old hyrule (the hyrule from the old games and the one from in the great sea in wind waker) is unfooded after hylia knows how long and civilisation starts again with the Zonai descending to help the hylians who came back from the new hyrule (spirit tracks hyrule) and Rauru officially refounds hyrule with Sonia.

I don’t like the sages, like i get wanting to revamp the old ones from ocarina, but the only sages i have beef with are mineru and the lightening sage, like it was perfectly fine before, allow the gerudo to keep being the sage of spirit and make mineru be the sage of shadow, i think it would make more sense anyway as mineru is tech based, eg her constructs, and she is the one to make the purah pad teleportation functionality work in that time, so it would make sense as the shikiah of botw are very tech heavy.

Another point on the shikiah tech is that it is gone, left, evaporated, apart from the purah pad (which I don’t necessarily count as it is new), one guardian on the top of the hateno tech lab, and the telescope in the akala tech lab. I get our lore “explication” for it was they all just disappeared after the calamity, but that doesn’t hold up because of the former. I also hate how its all about the zonai, i get that they were heavily speculated upon in botw, but that was mostly because of their ambiguity, now you can’t go 5 seconds without seeing anything zonai related, and the shikiah have been pushed aside to some fetch quest for the 5th sage that you really don’t have to do, and after that nothing, (i know there are a few quests there, but its not to the extent that botw had.

I don’t like Zelda in this game either, she seems so out of character in the DTM (don’t get me wrong she is perfect in the intro) but like she has the triforce but fails to mention it to rauru or Sonia (at least that’s what i am led to believe) as yes your “power has dwindled overt the past 100 years” but common girlie that secret stone amplifies ur power what was stopping you from blasting ganondorf into the next cycle?? But instead she was like “queen Sonia no 😔” and just watched rauru try and do something, and then she made them piss off like YOU HAVE THE TRIFORCE, THE POWER OF THE GOLDEN GODDESSES THEMSELVES, USE IT.

That’s another thing, don’t mention that Sonia and rauru are blood connected to Zelda and then kill them off without a child in sight??? How does that work

It’s so very annoying and I could actually rant for hours about it, and this is only scratching the surface of my problems with the story, the gameplay and another rant of its own

Also don’t get me wrong I will defend this game with my life, I just have massive problems with it

[cinnamonpretzelboy]

Raurus morals are definitely questionable and the divine right to rule is pretty shit but that doesn’t suddenly make ganondorf a good guy. Just because you understand someone’s motives doesn’t make them a good person and ganondorf is undeniably a massive shitstain. Is rauru a benevolent god king? No the Zelda writers wrote him like every other king in Zelda, a massively arrogant dumbass who might have good intentions but it doesn’t matter because he let a demon into his home because he believed himself untouchable (king Rhoam and king daphnes aren’t really what I mean but they aren’t perfect, I mostly mean oot king, alttp king and I can remember if it was minish cap or one of the fourswords games)

[giosprey]

Woah.

Okay. How long is it since I last wrote something on tumblr? Like two years and a half? Right now I’m feeling so overwhelm by mixed emotions I still don’t know where to start. But my intention isn’t to write a long rant.

There is a specific thing that happened in these last two days that lead me to this decision.

Anouma said that it’s the end of the Wild Era and that they won’t make a totk sequel

While a part of me kinda expected this, I cannot help but feel a bitter feeling of sadness. Not because botw was my first Zelda, I still treasure it like it came out yesterday when in reality it’s been more than 4 years. It’s because of how much I expected from totk.

Do you know what they usually tell? Do not rely on expectations.

I made this mistake. I really felt this wait. But… was it actually worth it? Of course I’m not saying that I don’t like this game. It’s just I can’t believe they just left us with all of these plot holes.

When botw came out there were some plot holes as well but at least they overcame them after the Champions Ballad DLC, and it wasn’t even necessary since you got to see more of the characters than you actually do in totk.

Calamity Ganon was a mystery, yes, they didn’t actually tell us why and how it was born, but it felt right not to tell. Botw developers didn’t want players to focus on a distant past (as they did in totk), so it was okay not to fuss about it.

But in totk not only did they focus on a distant past by they purposely showed us some cutscenes of it despite letting the player play in the present. But what do we know about the past?

Absolutely nothing. This game was focused on the Zonai tribe. I remember when people used to make a lot of videos about them and their influence on the Hyrule chronology. But what did they tell us about them? Nothing. We don’t know why they got extinct. We don’t know how Hyrule was born and why they descended from the sky. We don’t know how we got Zelda since both Soniah and Raul died. And I could just mention so many other examples.

And as for Ganondorf? I don’t even know where to start. They purposely made him good looking but at what cost? Why? For the solely purpose of fan service or because it was actually useful for the plot?

Oh, right. What plot? The plot where he just wanted the secret stone just to… be powerful? Okay, I can see that he’s “pure malice” and so on, but come on. Give at least a little bit of context. It’s GANONDORF. And it’s been fifteen years since his last appearance. And what did you do? You made him a one dimensional, boring and flat character…

And do not get me started on the champions descendant and the Depths. I simply don’t want to talk about them because there is nothing to say you don’t already know. 🙃

Anyway, long story short: should they have made a DLC? No. Not necessarily. Or at least that’s what I thought. In the very few hours I read the interview. But given how few much they have done to contribute to the botw plot… yes, maybe they should have.

Well… goodbye Botw era. At least botw did touch me and inspired to create my OC with my own prequel (I will not accept AoC as a prequel since it’s not canon sorry lmao). I just feel sad that after playing totk I just didn’t feel anything. No particular excitement. Nothing.

I just hope the next Zelda chapter will be more than that. Until then, we’ll have to wait.

[cwazytvthings]

Just some more Totk thoughts:

I love the game and I love exploring but I'm finding it hard to complete. Not because it's difficult or anything, the gameplay is fantastic. The reason why It feels hard to complete is because I'm not vibin with the story. It's been out for what two months now? And I'm just playing at a snail's pace because I can't get into what we were given.

I really wished they delved more into the sheikah tech instead of leaving basically none of it behind. Including the sheikah monks, divine beasts, ancient flames... they're just all gone. They had so much left untold, like if we don't get a dlc I'm going to be really disappointed. I also can't stand the heavy focus on Link and Zelda because it always leads to a ship war. Like, link is supposed to mirror the player yet I feel so disconnected from him. I also dislike how the cliche, "Zelda is strong because she needs to love someone." Like why couldn't we just get a strong female character who attained her power from realizing she is more capable than what her father thought?

Also don't get me wrong, Zelink is cute but It takes away from the story when everybody is basically shipping "you" and Zelda lmao. In my opinion, Link is the player, and it just throws a lot of stuff off when people are telling you to go save your girl. Botw and Totk did this and that's where I feel like I'm old school and just kinda want Link's "love interests" to be anonymous. (I.e. ocarina of time, twilight princess.) I'm a major story person so yeah, this game's plot bothered me a lot. Might honestly just go back and replay wind waker or oot, hell might even replay Botw. I genuinely miss the ancient sheikah stuff. And as I've said before, Totk feels like a disconnected story atm.

Like it feels as though it takes place in an alternate timeline because yeah, time passed but damn, no way y'all moved a whole Sheikah tower for the heck of it; Sheikah technology should have at least been preserved in a museum somewhere no matter how dangerous one might have previously thought it was. Also don't get me started on Ganondorf. I've also said this before; his story is lackluster. Boss fight is cool af but story... it's so empty.

Sorry ik this is an incoherent ramble and mostly just personal biases but yeah, just wish the story was a little stronger. Everything feels absolutely thrown off.

I seriously enjoy every other side plot over the main one 💀