The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[OCH]

It's funny that arrows can be both scarce and plentiful within the space of an hour. At the start of my session today, I actually ran out of bows. Which, considering fusion doesn't work on them, can really leave you in the lurch sometimes. While I am still enjoying the playthrough, I do agree with what @one-armed dwarf and @mfnick said: the menus in this game are dire. Having to scroll through 20-50 items to load up bomb or Brightbloom arrows for example, every time. It is so counter-intuitive. Surely arrow attachments should have been their own submenu? Or you know, just bring back specific arrow enhancements for the next game??

[spatular]

^ you can sort arrow attachments by most used (press y), which puts bomb and brightblooms right at the start for me - although yeah depends what you use a lot of, and yeah i agree the menus can be annoying having to scroll to find stuff etc.

[Pikman]

On 08/06/2023 at 11:26, spatular said:

^ you can sort arrow attachments by most used (press y), which puts bomb and brightblooms right at the start for me - although yeah depends what you use a lot of, and yeah i agree the menus can be annoying having to scroll to find stuff etc.

noooooo, I never thought about this, amazing!!

[mmmark]

Just going into what I assume to be my first dungeon. All be it high in the sky. Still haven’t come across a giant fairy.

 

Spoiler

 

[OCH]

It's a fun proof of concept that most of us have done these dungeons in a completely different order. The sky being the last one I did.

 

10 hours ago, mmmark said:

Still haven’t come across a giant fairy.

You'll know when you do. They are very distinct in this game. 

[HandsomeDead]

Pretty much everyone I've seen did do Wind first.  I'd be curious if this is tracked at all to see what the most common is.

 

Spoiler

I went Fire, Wind, Water, Lightning 

 

[OCH]

Spoiler

I went Fire, Lightning, Water, Wind. 

I'm told in terms of environmental hazards, I probably did them in the hardest order. But that was just how I came upon them. I was unlocking Skyview Towers and those happened to be nearby.

On 08/06/2023 at 10:26, spatular said:

although yeah depends what you use a lot of,

Yeah, unfortunately I dedicated a whole play session to unlocking recipes. Which changes the "most used" option quite a lot. I got a workable system from sorting to "most powerful". Although that still isn't all that helpful, when you've got a lot of stuff.

[mfnick]

I did Wind then Fire currently working towards water.

 

It heavily suggests you do wind first if you do the critical path stuff at the beginning. 

[OCH]

19 minutes ago, mfnick said:

It heavily suggests you do wind first if you do the critical path stuff at the beginning. 

True. I mean I didn't even find/look for Kakariko village until I'd finished at least three dungeons. So I just must have glanced over the early game prompting.

[mmmark]

I was just mulling around myself and came across a stables that lead to a guy telling me about his blown away newspapers, that lead to a girl and a downed bridge that lead to rito village that lead to the next story chapter by chance as I’ve not even looked at the mission menu once since the very beginning of the game. 

[Metroid66]

Why does my anti slip potion have no effect. 

 

Anyway I'm taking a break from this. Over 40 hours in, so that's enough for now. I still like it but I think I've moved into the 'is this game just too effing big' camp.

 

 

[OCH]

1 hour ago, Metroid66 said:

Why does my anti slip potion have no effect. 

A little bit about unseen mechanics.

Elemental resistance buffs have a two-pip meter bar.

Strength up, Climbing Speed and Anti-Slip have a three-pip meter bar.

A lone potion will give you one pip. That leaves a two third chance for error.

 

You won't see these bars until you pick up matching gear.

Spoiler

I'd recommend becoming a reporter in the Stable near Rito Village...

 

[mfnick]

2 hours ago, Metroid66 said:

still like it but I think I've moved into the 'is this game just too effing big' camp.

Yea I’ve had to start mainlining it now. Starting to get a bit tired of it all. 

[OCH]

I get the sentiment. Today, I did so many side quests I can't even name everything I've done. Yesterday,  I finished the last of the three cube mazes and got a sick looking armour set out of it.

 

I finally entered

Spoiler

Lost Wood/Kokiri Forest

Fighting a cool legacy boss for my trouble. Given how unusual it is to gain access to. I thought this area would be plot relevant. As it was in previous games. Apparently, not🤷‍♂️

I think I might go to Hyrule Castle tomorrow. Get my ending and come back later.

[one-armed dwarf]

As good as this game is, I prefer the simplicity of BOTW's mission where you can kill Ganon whenever you want.

 

I don't think TOTK does anything like this, it sort of seems to want you to do all the main missions like a more traditional game. 

 

It's a bit annoying to me. I beat BOTW with just 3 divine beasts (a few weeks ago I picked my save back up). It was cool how the game was designed for you to spend as much or as little time in its world as you want. Sometimes when you've had enough it's nice to just walk away from it and feel good about the time you spent playing, rather than an obligation to just trudge on forward and check the list off. 

[OCH]

Underworld mapped!

That took a lot longer than I expected. I'm going to skip over the arena fights though. I think I've got one more fight with Team Rocket. Exploring something unexpected in the south of the map. Then I'm done with the underworld. Was the addition of essentially a third map worth it? No, not really.

On 14/06/2023 at 11:41, one-armed dwarf said:

I prefer the simplicity of BOTW's mission

So you liked BOTW for being the least Zelda a Zelda has ever been? Which is what put me off it completely. BOTW could have been any game. Totk has at least a vague series vibe. To me, it's a step in the right direction. Either way, these two games could have easily been a brand new open world IP.

[one-armed dwarf]

Tbh, I don't give much of a shite either way or the other about Zelda or what it should or used to be. I just think BOTW's approach was very liberating in that particular respect and is in a certain regard one of the only 'true' open world games I've played

 

You don't need to see and explore every square inch.

[spatular]

Im still playing this, done all the shrines and lightroots, done some more fighting, mainly against lynels which has been pretty fun when i got into it like in the first game. Upto about 200 hours. Should probably stop playing but i dont know i might carry on, still loads of sidequests to do, and ive still not really built anything oher than basic vehicles, so i could look into building a laser death tank or something. I read somewhere that you could do a 

Spoiler

Water/boat race type thing

So had a go of that yesterday. Think there might be some other minigames ive missed too. Loads of caves/wells/koroks to find (and taxi about the place).

 

edit - i really liked this and botw but would like to see some more old school type zelda games in the future too. 

[OCH]

Blasting off again!

That sidequest ending with a far more blatant nod than I was expecting. I don't know who okayed this enemy type en masse. But the Yiga Clan is so lame. In isolation, the first couple times you encounter them are fun and interesting. By the time you get to the leader... It was definitely taking a neat idea too far. Before ultimately smashing it into absurdity. 

 

Considering how serious Ganon is taken in this game. There isn't really a place for slapstick, ineffectual villains.

[spatular]

^ i really enjoyed that quest (assuming we're talking about the same one), great boss music too

 

Spoiler