on one of my posts someone said that totk is a sandbox game, and sophitia-of-hyrule (i hope its ok to mention) answered to it that that is its problem, the world doesnt feel real
and yeah, i think that is another big reason why the game felt so weird to play; botw, at least to me, holds such a special place in my heart in part bc i never felt so ... immersed in a world of a video game before, of course i felt immersed in others too, but never to this extend, botws world, as "empty" as some may see it, felt incredibly alive to me, i felt like i was there
their usage of stylized designs with incredibly fantastic sound design, usage of very little music at time and overall the enviroment and how it worked with its world and characters felt so good to be in
im not saying totk did none of those things, it took alot from botw afterall, but there is a strange sense of disconnect between the player and the world, the glue mechanic is impressive to pull off like that in a game that big (albeit id much rather have a smaller one with actually interesting stuff in it instead of monster camp 783), but i think it also made it feel much more .. "gamey"
like as i see it, the shiekah stones abilities in botw where fantastical to be sure, but i feel like they balanced it a bit more, sure using the stasis to launch yourself across the map is pretty silly and weird to consider in the games world, but it still seemed balanced out with the rest of it, and totk tips the balance
its hard to explain but while botw (not trying to make it seem perfect bc its not but im trying to get the point across) also did the "obvious thing placed there to serve the player and aid in a puzzle", i feel like it did it more subtle- you could go somehwere and see a boulder you know you can move with stasis or magnesis and it may or not may be a part of a puzzle, but it didnt feel out of place, it might as well have been just a boulder lying there
in totk it feels like much more overtly telling you "this is a puzzle for you, the player, here do the puzzle"? which is also connected to the thing with the whole sandbox aspect of it, in botw most things you could do stuff with where jsut part of the world, there was a denialability to it if it was solely there bc of the player, which is much less there in totk
like take the material you find on the surface or in the underground, the material deposits i thought where something like people are trying to build houses now in their effort to rebuild hyrule and while that is somewhat of what the game TELLS you it is, its pretty obvious its really only there for you to play with like those colored wooden blocks you had as a kid
when i first got to the surface i found one of those material thingy and tried to build a simple house from it as a shelter from the rain and thunder, maybe i was to dumb for it, but im pretty sure the parts couldnt even be built into a basic one; i assumed that these deposits would either be part of a bigger quest where it gets rebuild over time or that youd have to build the right thing with it and it gets a proper model you cant take apart again, but as soon as i went a few steps too far away it just reset itself like i was never there, and sure i know thats kinda what has to happen bc the game cant save every pebble i moved, but i still thought it would be used for soemthing else
but it didnt, i know there a sign that says its a material thing for people to use whenever, but is it actually? they have a firm foundation around them but then not even a roof that could shelter people or .. the material from rain? if the people in hyrule cant even reattach one wheel back to their wagon whats the use of deposits like this?
you give me the ability to build anything .. and then not let me build anythign that lasts, aside from what, a handful of building blocks for your 'own' house (since zelda steals yours lmao) that you are very limited on how many to use and barely has any options to glue it together without some part being exposed and the sign guys signs? the houses you rebuild in Anglestedt (lurelin?) are just the middle wood beam (doesnt it even somehow turn into and alive tree again after landa goes to town on it?) and that felt like the most substantial thing you can do
similar goes for the material things in the underground, it sticks out like a sore thumb moreso than any of the other sonau structures, yes its a 'material deposit', but it really is just a box of toys, you can tell me it isnt but i know that that is just what it is-
actually the sonau tech in general just feels extremely .... toy-y, and i know i have talked about it before but again, in botw, it was a balance between high tech and sort of mediaval "low tech", but done just right and integrated well enough that it doesnt feel weird; now in totk its the same world but suddenly all of the integrated stuff is gone and replaced with essentially a reskin of the same thing, but the game itself, including the people in it, suddendly both forget that previous one existed and all get obsessed with the new thing and PRETEND it was always there
literally rockets, wheels with suspension, stearing wheels- all that stuff is just, you know its there just for you to play around with, its even stored in essentially an in game gacha maschine! there is no denialability to it anymore, does it make sense in the world? does it feel right? who cares! play with your toys!
similar with shrines, in botw the concept worked bc you had them be shiekah, a group of people long intertwined with the franchise, and made it so these ancients mysterious people built these things to test a hero specifically, each shrine being a personalized puzzle made by the monk inhabiting it, giving their last bit of life to strengthen the hero they saw bc they had visions of the future- again it may not be perfect but it works with long since established stuff and does something new with it, they dont say why they did it the way they did and it works well with them being very spiritual with deep ties to the royal family, all things that can and are complicated and its not hard to believe why they as characters wouldnt tell you everything, or prevent some things if they believe its how it should go
while the sonau ones .... they have no ties to anything of established things (when you could have given them a connection!! easily!!), they came suddendly into this and felt even more shoved in bc there was next to nothing of them in botw and now they basically own the world, its eveywhere and inescapable, even botw wasnt that shiekah focused, and then they also have shrines who suddendly appear out of nowhere, with supposedly it being to prevent mosnters from spawning?? (i dont remember seeing that said anywhere in the game but still .. doesnt seem to work either huh) at the end not an individual monk giving you the last of his life but a statue of the divinely appointed god king and his wifey giving you some lighty orb to combat the miasma in your arm, which CAN work but it just.. adds to this all feeling so much more artificial? putting it together with how strange of a decision it was to erase all stuff shiekah and replace it with a reskin of it and not even give it any connection..
and im not against sandbox games, heck, i LOVE them, but this isnt really a sandbox game .. or at least it shouldnt be, im not saying a zelda game cant be a sandbox game, but you cant make it sandbox while pretending it has a deep story, a sequel to botw no less!
people love to say zelda games have no story that matters to excuse totks baffling writing yet over and over again its proven that the story itself might be simple most of the time, but the characters are what grips people, the themes, the things carefully put into the game hinting to more than is directly told to you, totk doesnt have that, this game is FULL of narrative dissonances and theres nothing to theorize about, botw was full of mystery that hinted at more, that made you think, totk answers it all with "lol its sonau and totally always was", it gives you too many answers like that, drops the few things that were interesting, while also telling you not enough about the suddendly "always where there" race of people (which works way more in a new game, not in a sequel??) to make you care about them nor feel like they should be part of this 'story' but too much to let them be mysterious enough to be intriguing
and again its not like the sonau as a concept, i hate how it was executed, i dont have anything against introducing new tech, but i hate how it was executed
theres a balance to hold in games when you want to make it immersive, i can overlook things and work with stuff thats there just for you bc its a game afterall, i KNOW its a game, im not arguing i want bascially real life, but you cant put a carrot on my plate and put a sign next to saying its a can of yoghurt actually and expect me to just go with it over and over again with all things
i dont want reality, i want believability, you can put some yetis that never appear again in one single game and ill go, welp, theres yetis, its not something id be taken aback by even if silly at times bc its still believable; totk constantly breaks my willingness to believe it and its a big part of why it all just feels so .. off, artificial, the longer i played and the more i discovered the more i felt like the NPCs themselves were playing a role, not actual characters, pieces of cardboard put up when i walk by in the game
(and i know thats technically whats being done in a game but do yOU GET WHAT I MEAN???)
i am a firm believer that you COULD have made it work, you COULD have retreaded the same ground as botw and made it interesting, you COULD have written a good story with an open world like that, and not even with that much more work even, easily even, at times it was basically one step away from just drawing a single line bc the groundwork was already done with botw
knowing that the devs themselves think theres isnt anything they could think of adding into it really proves that they see it as nothing but a big box of toys and that clearly shows in the game, when botw DIDNT feel like that, even with all it shortcomings, which makes it all the more worse
some people may not care about it, some may laugh about me caring, but i did care, they made me care about all the characters, the world and its theme in botw only to chuck it all away and tell me i shouldnt have cared in its direct fucking sequel.
im not good with words and have trouble translating my feelings into text, theres surely a way to shorten this ramble into something way more coherent but here we are :(
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jacobvanloon
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