The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[Monocle]

exactly! I've got hundreds of hours in botw. This is looking like botw 1.1 instead of 2.0. I don't need to clock another hundred hours into this. not a day 1 buy from me at all.

[Moonface]

So it looks like whatever we see tomorrow will be the last chance to get any new information before the game launches in four weeks. At 3 minutes long I hope it addresses a lot of the gameplay/world related questions people have been curious about for a long time now, but I feel the marketing for this game has been so odd that I don't know if I want to build any expectations or hopes of seeing anything that convinces me this is worth my time at launch.

[Moonface]

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom | Official Trailer #3
The third and final pre-launch trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is here, showing off new enemies, locations, bosses and more!

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I felt this was an okay trailer but I'm not sure it did enough to persuade me to get the game close to launch. Seeing areas that look like dungeons is all well and good but I need to know they're better than what we saw in BotW and that there's a bigger number of them. I'm curious whether the companions shown are going to be locked into a quest/boss within their respective area like it was in BotW, and if that is the way it works here that makes a strong case that the dungeon count will be four again. It could be like OoT where despite having four clans we still got twice that number in dungeons, but I'm going to wait for the release to find out what the actual count is.

From a gameplay standpoint the game looks fun, but I've played a lot of games over the last year that were fun but still disappointed me a lot so I'm over throwing down $70 on games at the moment with the intention of going in blind. The story itself can be whatever but I don't want the most memorable experiences to be mostly found in the side content like it was in BotW.


Also, an interesting fact I read yesterday in relation to the limited marketing this game has had compared to BotW, the former hosts of Nintendo Treehouse, Kit and Krystal, said that the Zelda team were not thrilled with the amount of content they had to show for BotW, but were told they had to because of the game being a Switch launch title and Nintendo needed to make a strong case for that system after the failure of the Wii U. Since this game doesn't need to strengthen a console launch nor turn around Nintendo's fortunes, the marketing is apparently more in line with what the Zelda team would have done for BotW if not for the external circumstances they had to help mitigate.

[Frank]

To be completely honest, the only thing I wanna play at the moment is Tears of The Kingdom... only 2 weeks and 5 days!!!

[Moonface]

To be completely honest, the only thing I wanna play at the moment is Tears of The Kingdom... only 2 weeks and 5 days!!!

Having watched some of the previews that came out the other day, I'm still on the fence. It seems the sky islands are this games version of BotW's shrines, which deflates them a bit for me because some of the fun I had with the shrines in BotW was searching for them. If sky islands are those in this game, we can see them already so half the appeal that shrines had will be gone for me.

I also find it funny that the previews made a big deal about how much more expansive cooking is and that recipes are saved now, when the whole system will be redundant if Hearty ingredients are exactly as they are in BotW. I only recently learned that cooking a singular Hearty ingredient will result in a full heal dish, so the only reason I have to care for any other ingredients in BotW is if they give me status effects, but even on Master Mode I have rarely if ever actually needed to use them. The only useful effects the game has ever had for me are the temperature ones, but they're only good while you lack the armor that protects you from hot/cold/lava and then they're completely redundant, leaving just effects such as Defense/Strength/Stealth/Speed, which are worthless.

I also get the feeling the powers are going to be available at the start of the game, which if so I'm not a big fan of. I would rather have to earn those abilities this time around, especially since it would mean accessing sky islands would be something you have to work for instead of just reversing time or slapping together a flying machine or whatever right away to reach them.

I'm sure the game will be fun, don't get me wrong, but the focus on sandbox stuff makes me concerned there's going to be a lack of focus on what the player should/could be doing in favor of just aimlessly doing whatever with no concern for structure or order.

[Moonface]

Oh shit, so somehow this game got completely dumped online and is playable on emulator in its entirety 11 days before release!

I took a brief look at a list of things spotted in streams (that are being nuked one by one by Nintendo) to see if anyone has gone far enough to get better information on dungeons and such, but so far nobody seems to be making it far enough to reach anything resembling a dungeon. I expect the only way stuff further into the game gets out is from people who play the game and share the details rather than commit seppuku by streaming it.

Nintendo is going to be going scorched earth for the next 10 days though and whoever released the initial dump better hope they covered every single one of their tracks because the punishment coming their way is probably going to make that recent rom-hack guy Nintendo sued into oblivion look like an appetizer.

[Mr EliteL]

Not siding with Nintendo but it's no wonder why they're so uptight about certain things for their games. On this occasion I hope that person does get caught, just be patient and wait for goodness sake for the game to release on it's scheduled date instead of screwing yourself into what's likely will be a harsher punishment than the last guy they caught. 

[Moonface]

Not siding with Nintendo but it's no wonder why they're so uptight about certain things for their games. On this occasion I hope that person does get caught, just be patient and wait for goodness sake for the game to release on it's scheduled date instead of screwing yourself into what's likely will be a harsher punishment than the last guy they caught. 

I reckon a lot of people expect Nintendo to really come down hard over this, since anyone who did a stream of the game was generally using burner laptops and burner accounts I heard to try and avoid being tracked down at all. I heard most of that through @ShiraNoMai though so she probably knows the specifics better than I do.

But yeah, I can't blame Nintendo if they decide to go fully scorched Earth over this. The game breaking street date early and someone leaking details is one thing, but to actually dump the whole game to be playable on emulator is another thing entirely. Now not only are details going to be leaked from dozens of people, but it's surely going to steer people away from buying the game when they can go get an emulated version for free that last I heard already has a 60fps patch available. I don't blame people wanting to go grab that because I've seen BotW running on emulator and it's gorgeous, but at least that happened way after the game launched when anyone who got the emulated version likely already played the game on Wii U/Switch.

Does anyone know if this is also the first time a game has been fully available to pirate before it even releases? I can't say I've ever heard of a game having a downloadable playable version prior to being released officially.

[queenzelda]

I'm actually enjoying TotK a lot more then I thought I would. XD Who knew that Nintendo giving me direction & lore would get me to like it.

Does anyone know if this is also the first time a game has been fully available to pirate before it even releases? I can't say I've ever heard of a game having a downloadable playable version prior to being released officially.  

Yes, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet released via piracy before it released.

[Moonface]

Yes, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet released via piracy before it released.

Oof, that's really rough for Nintendo then to get two of their biggest releases suffer that fate. I won't be surprised now if the next Mario game ends up that way too.


So @ShiraNoMai's coworker bought a copy of the game for her as a surprise so I'm playing this when I wasn't necessarily planning to get the game this soon. I have to say it's actually very good so far and it definitely feels harder than BotW did; I've died quite a lot despite beating BotW on Master Mode.

I finished the tutorial area last night and got into the full game proper, but I didn't play for much longer after that to have much of an opinion on it yet.

The new abilities are incredibly good too and don't make me miss the BotW ones at all.

[ShiraNoMai]

Big TY to Scott, good dude. Even got the free "Adventurer's Pack" that you get when you get a copy from Target.

I... did my shrines on the sky island out of order, I think. And I'm also taking the super long way back to the Temple of Time. I'm nearly out I swear

[Moonface]

Big TY to Scott, good dude. Even got the free "Adventurer's Pack" that you get when you get a copy from Target.

I... did my shrines on the sky island out of order, I think. And I'm also taking the super long way back to the Temple of Time. I'm nearly out I swear

Does that pack come with anything but the hip pack? I didn't really get a good look at it before you opened it and I don't know if you placed any other stuff somewhere within the piles of random stuff that live on our couch.


And yeah, the starting island definitely gave me a vibe of wanting things done in a particular order. Same with the game pushing you to a particular dungeon first similar to how it did in BotW.

Map Elevations

Anyone else ventured into the depths yet? I've gone down there in a few places but so far I find it rather underwhelming and wondering what it has to offer beyond an interesting environmental concept. Enemies aren't any stronger and finding uneroded weapons is okay but nothing to make me go out of my way for. I'm not looking for an answer of what of interest is down there btw, just sharing my views based on what I've experienced from it so far.

Tulin's Quest, don't read if you want to be fully blind for this quest

Just finished what I presume the game wants to be its first dungeon, given the heavy push towards the Rito village when you're talking to Purah and other NPC's. Definitely had a better vibe to it than the divine beasts of BotW but still felt pretty basic; however, the lead-up to the dungeon itself was very good and I can see why reviews from critics and users ahead of release were saying they viewed the lead-ups as part of the dungeons themselves. I like that the bosses seem to be unique this time around like older Zelda games instead of just taking on the same thematic appearance they did in BotW, although the Wind Temple boss was incredibly easy. For now I'm going to chalk that up to it being what the game wants to be the first boss so I'll wait and see what the other bosses in the game are going to be like whenever I reach them. It'll probably be a while because I'm probably going to focus more on exploring now that the game is going to be less pushy on what direction I go in.

I do like Tulin's power and get the feeling that the game pushes you to his quest first because of how useful it will be for traversal in the skies. I'm also glad the game didn't do an OoT and have whoever becomes a sage just disappear because that would really suck since I like Tulin a lot.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah nah it's just a dang hip pack. Nothing more or less.

I think I like the more "hint-hint-nudge-nudge" approach this time over the complete open-ended nature of BOTW. Even @queenzelda seemed to put it in a higher regard for that reason. I still like that you could in theory do all those things, they just make them exceptionally challenging/hard to overcome.

[Moonface]

I think I like the more "hint-hint-nudge-nudge" approach this time over the complete open-ended nature of BOTW. Even @queenzelda seemed to put it in a higher regard for that reason. I still like that you could in theory do all those things, they just make them exceptionally challenging/hard to overcome.

Yeah, even outside of the Rito's main quest the game still has things it gives you as a loose form of guiding the player. I've had multiple NPC's now direct me to find a particular area before I can receive something from them and there are diaries laying about alluding to places of interest. BotW did that a little bit but I feel it's way more prominent in this game, which is probably going to be a good thing in the long run given the size of the world is basically more than double now.

[queenzelda]

I've so far have done the wind and fire temples/shrines, so I have two done. I'm working on getting the master sword, so I did a whole lot of unlocking lore for that I won't spoil. I've just been trying to get higher up without use of zoni(sp?) devices without much luck. Pfft, I miss old Zelda where everything was on the ground or you could warp to the dark world. <_< lol

I've also opened up all of my map, I just need to get the master sword, find the Hylian shield and them I'm gonna go for the thunder temple next, I think.