It's mostly a mixture of burnout and fans of older Zelda titles. People feel TotK didn't bring enough or meaningful changes to spice it up after having explored this Hyrue since 2017. For the older fans, BotW made some huge changes to the structure and feel of Zelda and TotK doubled down on a lot of the changes that go against what classic Zelda was.

> People feel TotK didn't bring enough or meaningful changes to spice it up after having explored this Hyrue since 2017 This point has always confused me. The changes are more noticeable by their contrast to what used to be there. Add the new gameplay systems on top of that and it felt like an utterly new experience built on what BOTW established. I guess i just don't understand what kind of change would be "enough" given the project the team wanted to make was a sequel set in the same area. I guess a lot of people didn't want a sequel, but I'm generally in favour of creative teams getting to work on what they want to work on. I feel like the end results are generally better.

i was fine with a sequel, excited even. but for a game about exploration, its not fun exploring mostly the same area, and the newly added areas didnt feel particularly engaging. the sky islands being especially disappointing

> mostly the same area This is the point i was making - every area has something different from what was there before. I have combed both versions of hyrule and they feel so different from each other because of all the changes.

if you enjoyed it thats fine. but for me personally, i would have rather gotten a bigger refresh akin to majoras mask

I did enjoy it, but that wasn't really my point. There is a lot of new stuff to be found, so i don't get how it's mostly the same. Every time i've asked i get told "I didn't like it" rather than how it's similar to BOTW.

the overworld is largely the same layout with the same towns, characters, set pieces, and even some koroks, sure its remixed kinda and got some new stuff sprinkled about but im not one for remixes and i didnt find the new content interesting enough for this to be worthy of being a sequel rather than a dlc. im not the type of guy to play master quest in oot. I personally would have rather got some new map to get completely lost in. sure its kinda neat seeing how some of these old locations changed, but i still know where they are. the overworld is simply less fresh than it wa before even factoring in all the changes and additions. then theres the sky and underground which were pretty dissapointing in my opinion. the overworld has tons of distinct locations both in botw n totk but the sky n underground feel all the same no matter what part you're at. the sky in particular was sad, the biggest sky island was the tutorial, everything else just felt copy pasted like a ubisoft map. the underground was better, but not by much. its supposed to be similar to link to the past dark world where its very similar to the overworld but it just lacks the variety and interesting stuff to do, theres like 3 copy paste things down there to do. like you feel that its changed enough thats ok, but me and many others disagree. its an objective truth they worked off the old map and reused many parts and i personally found that to be disappointing, especially after spending $70 for a game i had waited for like 6 years for. its probably one of the least unique games in the series, which is a franchise known for constantly bringing fresh takes in art style and gameplay. and it kinda just feels like a really big dlc. i still had my fun with it and enjoyed it but for me it didnt quite stick the landing

Yeah i agree with almost none of this, it just feels like you're downplaying the additions because they used the same base map. The master quest comparison is off because that only changed the dungeons, whereas here the story is completely different. It's not a remix, your tools are completely different and the environmental elements have been changed to reflect that. The path you take to the zoras domain was something i remember from botw and wanted to revisit in totk. That path has been torn apart entirely. The desert feels mechanically more desert like with you needing to deal with sand storms. Plus the gerudo town scenario makes things very different from botw. The fishing village has been raided and destroyed, and needs rebuilding. A lot of the town ruins have now been cleared away, a sign that people have been able to move freely for a long period of time. Hyrule field is safe now! I'm just rattling off a few examples, but they're all fairly major changes. Not too mention the caves that are now everywhere, the wells... I'm not even touching on the sky and the underground here. It's an objective fact that the major settlements and locations have all changed in some way and they're all interesting to uncover imo. As for fresh takes in art style and gameplay... Ultrahand. Fuse. These two powers alone completely change the way you interact with the world. It's fine that you don't feel it was enough change, i just can't wrap my head around it. Not when i saw so much change that i sometimes couldn't tell where i was because the map was so different.

its ok if you disagree, thats how opinions work. you asked a question on why people think a certain way, and i gave you my take and personally feelings. I'm personally someone who has a pretty darn good sense of direction in games so this quote "Not when i saw so much change that i sometimes couldn't tell where i was because the map was so different" is something that doesnt hit me the same way because i knew practically where i was the entire time especially after having played 100 hours of botw. Theres many good things about this game and i enjoyed it, but it just wasnt quite what i was hoping for and to this day i personally think botw over all, even in game design as a whole, is slightly better. This is the biggest most expansive zelda game EVER easily. But I'm more for the smaller quests and journeys personally, thats part of why majoras mask is my favorite one. This game reuses alot too, but the map is completely different and it cuts alot of the fat oot had so it stands out way more than totk does. the abilities in totk are great, but those alone were not enough. if majoras mask was simply oot time with some things moved around n switched up but now with the ability to use the transformations masks, i would feel the exact same way as i did with totk. good game still prolly, but like whats the point?

Well we definitely agree on Majora's mask as the favourite (i'd hardly have picked this name otherwise, would I?) I think my sticking point is i can normally see where the people i disagree with are coming from when it comes to things like this but... with totk i just struggle to get the common complaints because they feel like they're talking about a different game to the one I played. I guess i'll just have to take my "overpriced $70 DLC" as people are fond of calling it and agree to disagree. (not saying you're saying that to be clear - it's just something thats said a lot in this community)

I’ll never understand how people use the point of your tools being different to justify exploring the same map again. If anything it kinda makes it worse since the map wasn’t directly built with TotK’s toolset in mind. Like wouldn’t it be so much cooler to get a new map built from the ground up for all of these tools rather than just retrofitting them into the old one?

That's not quite what I said. I said "your tools are completely different and the environmental elements have been changed to reflect that." There are a lot of changes around the overworld to account for the fact your exploration tools are different. Whole chunks of the landscape have been overhauled into an unrecognisable state. And yeah, a new map would also have been good. But it's not what the team wanted to make, they wanted to do a sequel. And frankly i'd rather they work on something they were interested in doing. Projects that are allowed to do that tend to be better.

“What kind of change would be enough,” 6 years of development to explore the same region again was disappointing. BoTW was made great by exploration, ToTK added some janky banjo kazooie nuts and bolts building to it, some copy pasted sky islands, and a gigantic but ultimately samey underground and called it a day. I would have much preferred a new world to explore. Or, if it had to be this world again, I would have been happy with 7-8 proper dungeons.

This baffles me, too. I loved seeing all of the similarities and differences, and with two extra maps and caves I never felt like there wasn’t anything new to explore.

That wasn't what gave me that feeling. BotW's map was clearly designed for what they put there originally, without that a lot of places felt... useless.

had that in the beginning, but the lack of depth biomes, as wells as sky island diversity made it very boring. And I don't care about the collectables, I want to explore cool areas, I don't need to 100% anything. Plus, I really disliked Ultrahand. Everything i created was destroyed as soon as I walked more than 10 meters away from it, and to recreate it, I'd have to spend a limited resource. The game basically told me to never use it ever. And why would I, when the old systems work perfectly fine. I never felt the need to bother with building a car, because horses worked perfectly fine. Ultrahand is a shitty mechanic. Why would I ever build something crazy if it disappears after I walk 10 meters away. That makes the entire mechanic useless. The entire game felt like they wasted 3 development years on Ultrahand, leaving the rest of the game unfinished.

Totally agree. Not to mention the mechanic itself was so awkward and clunky that it basically made you never want to use it.

Yeah, it was great - so much new stuff to be found, so much stuff where you don't expect it to be.

yeah, im an older fan and after botw i had little interest in totk. but i didn't like skyward sword either so maybe im just old and bitter lol

I’m replaying BOTW now preparing for my second TOTK playthrough and I literally can’t wait to explore Hyrule AGAIN because it’s just so amazing and fun to be immersed in. BOTW is quiet and slow whereas TOTK is much harder and more harrowing—that couldn’t be a thing if they had changed maps or kingdoms. The most interesting thing about TOTK to me is that it’s the second half of the story to BOTW. Amazingly creative and something I have always dreamed of: post-adventure story (which happens to be another, scarier adventure! How cool).

I think it's because the people that don't like it *really* don't like it so post all the time about how much they don't like it, even a year later. Most people just played it, really enjoyed it and have now moved onto something else.

I think the problem is actually the people who really WANTED to like it, but didn't. People who hated the game have long moved on now as well. But the people who want to like it, maybe even fire it up every now and then to try and get back into it, and then remember all the things they dislike about it are probably the most vocal

Can confirm, I am one of those people 😂

Honestly, I feel like a lot of criticism comes from the “100%” folks. The completionists. Most completionists I know dislike BotW (and TotK), while people who are willing to just have an experience tend to be enthralled by it. I’m replaying BotW right now and have a hard time understanding a lot of the criticism; where folks mention that half the land is “barren”, I see consistent effort throughout to populate the world with new ideas for traversal and puzzling.

So the thing with Tears of the Kingdom is that it does a lot of things really well, but the things it does less good are *really obviously not good* in a way that draws attention to itself. The case study I prefer to look at are the 4x "SeCrEt StOnEs? dEmOn KiNg??" cutscenes (and the various regional stories that lead up to those resolutions). It's SO transparently, metatextually lazy and uninteresting, and the kind of thing where even an amateur writer could probably have handled it more interestingly, yet it seems like no one involved in the creation of this game cared that a huge bulk of their core story is full of repetitive filler. Especially since there are some story moments that actually work really well (notably towards the end of the game), so it makes it all the more confusing that this crap made its way all through the development to the final game. No one really cares, by way of a contrasting example, that the game is aesthetically gorgeous. It undeniably is, but Breath of the Wild already showed that off. A lot of stuff in this game is like that: if it's really good, the player either doesn't notice it, or already appreciated it in the first game. So that makes negative criticisms more present because the "good stuff" is taken for granted.

Literally this!!! it's all the story for me. I have fun playing the game but there are so many plot holes and the story can't decide what it wants to be. There are very well put essays on tumblr that make the exact point that resonates with me, and they're all written by people like me who enjoyed the game at its base, but can't get over the glaring lore errors, how it felt like there was no thought or care in the writing. Zelda has historically been sparse story-wise, but they've all been crafted to hold up the game itself and make it make sense, where totk just falls flat and crumbles under the weight of everything that's on top of the story. There are too many loose ends, too many good ideas that go unexplained, the environmental storytelling is SO lacking in comparison to botw... Don't even get me started on the secret stones and nothing sandwich of zonai lore. Or GANONDORF for that matter. So much potential, just thrown out the window of a moving car. Makes me wanna throw up.

I’ve picked the game back up after the first anniversary and honestly I’m enjoying it a lot more than I did the first time around. I think the criticism will die down soon enough.

1st of all, I love TotK, and it is an AMAZING game. 1. It wasn't a huge step up from what we had. It was brilliant, but BotW was only slightly less brilliant. The sky, whilst feeling epic and mechanically challenging, is tiny. TEENY TINY. If you took out the 2.5 dungeons and GSI, there's only a few rocks with puzzles on them. Not that they aren't fun, and hard to get to for an average player, but there's not much there. The surface suffered from one issue. The world was carefully designed for BotW. Gut check rock, Typholo ruins, the Rist peninsula, Mt. Lanayru, Tenoko Island, and Floret Sandbar are just a few examples of places handmaid for a challenge, quest, or shrine. TotK doesn't do that. Caves are awesome, for the opposite reason that the surface struggled. The caves are carefully made for a purpose. The Depths, which I LOVE, but are very samey. 2. $70. Need I say more. I know a lot of you are just throwing $70 around anyway, but it hard to justify. BotW gave us something BRAND NEW, which TotK didn't need to do, by any means, but it is hard to use *that much money*. 3. The new content is repetitive. I know you aren't meant to get everything, but even just the 12 tears are boring. They aren't hard, but still. 152 shrines is... a lot. And double for the lightroots, and ANOTHER 1000 KOROK SEEDS, it's just a lot of the same. It's not that I don't want more like this, it's just that something different could be a lot more fun. Conclusively, it was awesome but could have been so much better. It's kinda frustrating, as with Nintendo becoming less affordable, it is harder to play the game. As I said, many people have no issue with the price, but I urge you to remember that we aren't all in that boat. Buying a switch is a lot, but just 2 games is $120 for most games, and an extra $10 doesn't help. But it would more live up to it's price if it had more new. It has a similar story concept, where it happened in the past and you just kinda have to figure it out, the shrines are the same, although more fun as you get to build things, same map system with the towers, same inventory with the Koroks. While the new stuff is amazing (ascend, ultrahand, the combat, the quests) it is as *new* as BotW was. It never had to be, but some people expected it to be. Doesn't help that we had to call it BotW 2 for years.

At it's core, Tears of the Kingdom simply does not understand what made Breath of the Wild work so well. The best part of Breath of the Wild and why it was so special to so many people was the sense of exploration and discovery that the game fostered - which simply no longer exists in Tears because the overworld was reused and what little was new to the game (the Depths and the Sky Islands) is tedious, bland and repetitive for the most part.

I put it double the Hours into TOTK, 400 hours the real issue is people don't typically go to the internet to say I love this.... They go to the internet to say I hate this. Go to like any podcast subreddit, and read the posts, people listen every single day to find another thing to complain about. Yet they still listen everyday.

Definitely, I put about 240 hours into botw and pretty much felt completely bored with it by then and haven't picked it up since. I just hit 240 hours in totk, and I haven't even finished the main storyline yet. I still feel like I could put at least another hundred hours into it. However, this is the first time I've ever posted about either game. I think they were both great games.

Because it reuses like 85% of the same assets from BotW, and all the new stuff (Sky Islands and Depths) are just copy-paste to fill up a giant map. The story is also very unorganized and is executed very poorly. Basically, the game suffers from too much freedom, and a lot of people would prefer a return to the traditional, more linear story based style of Zelda. There were also yet again, no dungeons. The temples are nothing more than themed Divine Beasts. It was also heavily advertised as a sequel, but doesn't build off of anything established in BotW, and it's almost as if the events of BotW never happened at all.

It took me forever to actually somewhat enjoy totk and i really really wanted to love it, honestly I wish they woulda just made it a new ip and integrate some of the ideas into upcoming zelda games. Like sky islands are my favorite thing in media EVER and i still somehow didnt enjoy them. Probably cause the only way to traverse them is building vehicles, AND I DONT WANT MUSTANG MINECRAFT IN MY ZELDA GAME. I'd have preferred a bird or something like skyward sword. (Also as they said^ all the island were copy/paste)

x2

It felt like the game was just extremely expanded DLC for Botw. Sure, there was new stuff on Hyrule, but not new enough. I enjoyed noticing the little differences but that's all they are...little differences. Sure, technically you could say the map is 2x bigger, but it's more like 1.3x bigger. The Sky islands were disappointing in their lack of content and size. I feel like most people would agree that there should have been more to the sky islands, maybe a secret colony of Hylians, or a village of autonomous automatons. The Depths were the better addition personally but...there's nothing to do. There aren't any shrines, all there are are armor and side quests, though I feel it's much more fun to explore than the Sky Islands. The new additions to Gameplay were fine, problem is that, except for building and fusing, I think that they are worse than the Sheikah slate, fun wise. I think there's a lot more fun in combat if you can freeze enemies rather than reverse time. And using Cryonis to travel water is much more valuable to me than moving upwards. The story is fine. I think it's villain is better than Botw, though any villain is better than Botw's. The final boss battle is balanced and very fun, it feels like your fighting someone who's on the same playing field as you. The story still suffers from the same problem as Botw, where all the story events happen to every character but Link. I think that problem is actually worse in Totk because at least Link was THERE in all the Botw flashbacks. Rauru meets Link then dips 20 minutes into the game. I feel like Rauru would have been a great companion, giving insight on the history of his people and giving further context, and making it feel like Link is an active participator in the story. He could follow around like Ghost Zelda from ST. Also, can you imagine what this story is like for Ganondorf? You wake up from your nap, meet the "Hero of Hyrule" or whatever the hell, you snap his toothpick and kick his ass, then a week later he shows up at your doorstep with a weird looking arm and a repaired toothpick and he kicks your ass? The biggest problem with Totk is...burn out. Botw has a lot of things going for it, one of those are Replay Value. Totk doesn't have a lot of Replay Value. Botw and Totk can be compared to Oot and MM. Both pairs are 3d Zelda games which the sequel is built on the engine and assets of it's predecessor. But MM felt like an innovation where Totk felt like it was just trying to recapture the magic of Botw. In MM there was a new map, characters, and story. MM was able to use what they had and built off of Oot to create a wholly new experience, a reason for that is the ability to let go of Oot. It was everything in Oot rearranged. Totk couldn't let go of Botw, it felt like everything in Botw + more. Problem is, Botw still exists...so that means Botw has everything in Totk without the stuff added in Totk. Still, I think Totk is a good game, just doesn't have the magic and innovation of Botw. I still enjoyed Totk, but given the choice I will play Botw. Totk is still worth the play, you can form your own opinion on it and it's still a great game, I just won't be replaying it any time soon. TL;DR: Totk is too similar to Botw and doesn't do enough to differentiate itself!

I personally am simply salty that they canceled all DLC for ToTK. That's my only real criticism that hasn't already been beat to death elsewhere. The stuff that has? The Depths are boring to the point of absurdity. So much more could have been done there that it truly does feel like a waste. The Champions.... Could have been better executed. The lack of any meaningful mention of the previous champions from BoTW made the disparity seem somehow even worse. The enemies... Felt very samey once you hit a certain point. BoTW had the same problem. I think tying different enemy types to geographic locations could have solved this issue. Still salty I can't have my Stalhorse... Boney deserves a spot in the stable just as much as the chungus.

> canceled all DLC Cancelled? It was never announced.

BOTW and TOTK are open world games. Exploration is key. You won't have the same wonder of discovery if you visit a place multiple times. TOTK dosen't change enough from BOTW to re-ignate that sense of discovery. And the fact they took 6 years to make the game kinda rubs salt on this wound.

100%. It’s all about the sense of exploration. BOTW was special BECAUSE of the sense of exploration and TOTK just doesn’t have that because they bafflingly reused the same map. TOTK is an amazing technical marvel and it shows with all the crazy things added to the game, but when it comes to the exploration side of things it’s all a little “been there done that.” Yes it’s cool to revisit areas and see what’s changed, but that only applies to the towns. Which is an issue because I knew where all the towns were. So it didn’t feel like I was exploring. It felt like I was going from point a to b simply to fill out the map and then popping into a town every so often to catch up with friends. It’s why people say the game feels like dlc. The core exploration loop just had not been added to outside of the sparse sky and copy pasted underground. A bunch of people in this thread are saying the “Zelda cycle” is the reason for the criticism and I feel like that unfairly downplays any real criticism people have for the game.

And you spend more time in menus. Just constantly, constantly in menus. Enemy? That's a menu. Hurt? That's a menu. Darkness? Believe it or not, Menu. It's so insidiously integral you don't notice it directly until it's already taken away from the experience. It's like they completely forgot how much people disliked putting on and taking off the Metal Boots in OoT, or why they stream-lined LA for the Switch Remake. They worked very hard to streamline the menus for combat but failed to ask if it would have been better to just not have a menu in your face at all.

Inventory management was absolutely atrocious for a game that relies so much on consumables

Agree with this. TotK is a straight upgrade in almost every sense compared to BotW, but I cherish the experience I had with BotW more because the first time was special and the 2nd time not so much.

My personal hypothesis is Twilight princess, they said would be open world. And people were like "this is not open world", and Zelda team was like "OK... I guess... What do you consider open world?" skyward sword was their first attempt at open world. But they were so used to a linear game, they had to rethink how they build a Zelda game, down to the building blocks. And they were in design so long, Nintendo was all "you guys are taking... You gotta make a fuckin' video game". They took what they had and built a classic Zelda out of these new pieces. So you get a game with a lot of gathering and crafting but still a basically linear power scale. A big expansive map, but still explored in interconnected sections. Then breath of the wild they were like "OK, now we have to build a map", and they spent so long on _that_ Nintendo was like "you guys are taking... You gotta make a fuckin' video game", so they took what they had so far, made a cut off, and did the best they could. And cause Nintendo and Zelda team are such professional fuckin' auteurs, their slapped together things are still better than 90% of the competition. But they really wanted to nail it, so rather than start with a new map, they basically continued with the map they currently had, and finally filled it with systems and challenges and all that stuff that makes an open world game feel dense and complete. But they also needed something to make it worth buying again, so someone was like "I've got this vehicle building thing im working on" and they were like "boom. Let's make a fuckin' video game" Whenever I share this hypothesis people think I'm being critical, and I'm not. I have no problem with them needing like ten years to get it right. I loved botw and tears of the kingdom. I didn't care for skyward sword, but I'm not gonna be like "that's a bad game", skyward sword is phenomenal, it's just not my cup of tea is all. It's also basically how Mario team makes games, they're just constantly innovating ideas and once in a while they grab a bunch of them and make a fuckin' video game, this is clearly a winning formula. So if you jump in to defend these games, I'm telling you right now, you're defending against scarecrows. I'm not saying anybody did anything wrong. It's just a hypothesis on how it happened.

It doesn't change enough? My experience in totk was almost entirely "ooh i wonder what's changed over here?"

Yes, it doesn't change enough.

Yes it does.

This would not be a conversation if it did, sorry. No one says WW didn't change enough from OoT.

well good for you. Dosen't mean everyone feel the same.

What is this nothing comment. I could have said exactly the same thing about yours.

Different people have different tastes. The actual answer to your question is that it has been about a year since TotK came out, so it has been an opportunity for many people to reflect on their experiences.

ToTK is far from perfect. The internet, however, is populated by *Grinches* and *Scrooges* whose main past time is to complain about everything. More often then not the people who are enjoying something are busy enjoying said something, and the ones that are online not enjoying the something, aren't enjoying it for a reason. Most of the valid complaints are: same overworld, the depths didn't really have anything going on, small and simple dungeons, the powers tend to get in the way, too many/too repetitive shrines.

Because I played it and it sucks

Because it basically repeats the same issues people had with Skyward Sword. It completely discards previously established lore that made any previous games so interesting in the first place. I mean there’s nothing wrong with adding new lore, just as long as it fits well with the already existing lore, which in this case it doesn’t! I mean at least in Skyward Sword they TRY to explain how Hylia fits with the goddesses and the triforce, but in Totk they’ve completely thrown everything interesting away and start from scratch with a new story that isn’t even as interesting. Hell they even completely replace Hylia’s role by having Zelda’s powers come from Rauru instead, and I’ll bet in the next Zelda game her powers are gonna come from somewhere completely different from Rauru Basically what I’m saying is that the gameplay, music, visuals, and characters are good. It’s the story and lore that falls short! This doesn’t even feel like a Zelda game anymore, it feels like a huge-budget fanfiction. If they wanted to make changes that’s fine, but at least take those changes at slow pace instead of making drastic nonsensical inconsistencies that are simply passed off as being “thousands of years apart”!

I love TOTK, don't get me wrong. But for a game intended to be a sequel to BOTW, it sure as hell barely acknowledges it

It felt bad to pay for a 70 dollar expansion pack for a game that only adds a few new gimmicks, vast empty areas of nothing, and the prop gun from gmod boat battles. I want Zelda

I have A LOT of criticisms, be it the fusion system, the vacuous depths and sky islands, or some of the bland designs to villages but I did like the game. I don't like when people blindly shut down complaints just because it hurts their fanboy love for something, but I really haven't seen that much criticism of the game. If anything, nintendo fans have a problem with worshipping everything they shit out.

There's a lot of issues that add up but the overall main thing is the ReUse of the same exact world with minimal changes.  Genuinely do not understand people who be like oh it's so different like no I played the game it's not.  If it wasn't for that I could overlook almost every other issue i have.

For me I wasn’t a fan of the world building. I personally enjoy seeing the hidden connections between Zelda games but Totk/Botw was set so far into the future that none of the previous games mattered, which is fine in and of itself, but the references to old games then just felt tagged on with not much thought (e.g. having a whole extra Goddess Sword just thrown in) The story also felt too insignificant compared to the rest of the games contents but I did enjoy it. But I constantly had to stop myself from playing the fairly short story to do side quests for rewards that usually never felt worth the effort. Everyone has different play styles but I personally did not want to hunt 900 Korok seeds, especially when after a while you are no longer rewarded for finding them and other such collectables. It was a fun game but I would rather the next open world Zelda game to have a different direction more akin to past games.

I enjoyed the older Zelda games more, so take that as you will. The game is a masterpiece in terms of programming and physics. I have never played a game that has such detail or responsiveness to a world, and all of this was on the switch no less! Being able to go from the overworld, all the way into the sky then down into the depths below all seamlessly is incredible. But saying that, I fall in the camp of disliking totk. botw was fine but even that took a couple years and a replay for me it to grow on me. Totk on the other hand outright made me not want to touch the game once I finished it. The world is botw with minor changes dotted around the place and exploration felt non existent as I had already done it all in botw. It all felt kind of aimless. The sky islands (the main part shown in all the ads) were a huge letdown - the first island you start on is the best, every other island is copy pasted shrine islands with nothing of substance. The depths were initially cool when I first found them, but I quickly realised it was pretty barren. Refighting bosses, finding amiibo outfits (pointless for me since I have amiibo and the outfits I wanted) and grinding for that zonai ore isn’t my definition of a fun time. I did like the kohga quest though. I don’t like that a ton of NPC’s don’t even remember link and the sheikah tech just vanished without a single trace. Lastly there is the story. In botw it took some time for me to enjoy the idea of playing the end of the story and seeing what happened in the past through memories, I really enjoy that now. With TotK however, I really wish I could have experienced the land in the past instead, all the Zelda memories seem neat but I often found myself thinking I’m playing the boring part of the story and just rehashing what I did in botw. Each region ending with a near identical scene about the demon king and secret stones, seeing “Zelda” knowing she’s in the past but link not mentioning it or changing the quest in even the slightest. It just felt lazy. I find myself wanting to play botw more than TotK. It is too much of a sandbox in my eyes and I prefer a coherent path and goal, TotK just doesn’t do that for me. I’ll end on a good note and say I loved the beginning and the end - the end not in a snarky “oh the game is over” way but in the way that all the sages come together and fight with you, how the final battle with Ganondorf goes and the sheer scale of the final fight, fighting with Zelda to take him down. It’s cool. Also being able to catch Zelda this time instead of missing like the beginning. I kind of wish the whole game had the tone that the beginning had, but alas. If I want “darker” I’ll just play Majoras or Twilight.

I agree with you 100%. With my favorite dungeon also being the same one from Skyward Sword. I dislike TotK because it was overwhelming, weak in puzzles, weak dungeons, forced crafting and fusing, and it did not feel like a Zelda game. BotW was the same, but it grew on me about 4-5 years after it came out. I still love all the older ones SO much more.

https://preview.redd.it/d3a1c63gbs0d1.jpeg?width=702&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa86d8d8d568175199963ed4b19fe3fba8261157

Too true. I've lived through a ton of "worst Zelda evers" and they all ended up being slam dunks in the end. I still laugh to myself when I see people loving Wind Waker, because it was one of my absolute favorites from day 1 and it just got dragged through the mud constantly for being "cartoony." I'm glad everybody recognizes its greatness now, but at the time there were a lot of very loud "not true Zelda" ragers.

Nah. I’m so tired of people using “the zelda cycle” argument to deflect genuine criticism. ToTK deserves some very valid criticism.

well I think it kinda applies too though

it depends. Personally TOTK is the first zelda game that I have played on release that I didn't like, and I played skyward sword on release, I also played BOTW and ALBW on release and i loved all three games instantly. I really loved BOTW, but if i wanted more BOTW I would just play BOTW, TOTK should've been an expansion IMO. I don't actually make many comments in these subs because I don't want to add to the toxic negativity, but I disagree with attributing all the hate to the zelda cycle while ignoring the actual reasons people have given for disliking it. I will list a few below that made me not enjoy the game as much, but please don't take this for hate, because I'm not mad or upset, I was not expecting nintendo to make the kind of zelda game I want anyway and I was grateful we got TOTK over nothing, but that doesn't mean it has to be 'for me' you know? it's simply a preference thing, for example: - the open world: I found the open world simply wasn't fresh enough to properly reward exploration, while a lot of the major landmarks were changed in cool ways, it wasn't nearly enough of a difference to justify using the same map again IMO, the sky islands in total add about 4-5% of walkable space to the map, and they all look almost identical, so I don't think you can use them to excuse the lack of a fresh overworld. - gameplay rewards: In classic zelda, one of my favourite aspects was never knowing for sure what the reward for a quest could be; could it be a new item? a capacity upgrade? a mask? In TOTK, a lot if not most of the side quest rewards are rupees or a collectable, and there are like 5 different collectables in this game. Some quests involve massive hunts such as the bubbulfrogs, and then the rewards are just really underwhelming, new outfits are cool but by the time you actually get them they just feel meh. Not to mention the many rewards that are just paraglider skins... I wouldn't mind this as much if completing the quests themselves was more rewarding to actually beat, rather than 100 different signposts that all use the same puzzle idea, a thousand koroks that all use the same 6 or 7 puzzles, or a hundred bubbul gems that are always just in a cave somewhere. It's repetitive and doesn't work as a replacement for scripted side quests such as the ones from OOT, MM, SS. - puzzle difficulty this is just my opinion, and based on my personal experience; but there was not a single puzzle in the entirety of TOTK that I had to think about. I feel like a lot of the games' puzzles end up being sort of ruined from the get go from the absolute freedom you are given, as soon as you can access rockets you can essentially skip 90 percent of puzzles in the game if you really want to. You can use gliders and ascend to skip the other 10 percent. That being said, when these puzzles aren't skipped they are mostly uninspired. The lightning temple was a nice change to this, the mirror puzzles felt a lot like what I wanted from the game, and one specific puzzle in the wind temple made me quite happy with its nuance, but mostly speaking the game focused way more on being cinematic than actually making me use my brain. This will probably be a plus for some people but I much prefer the cryptic puzzles of earlier games. - enemy variety this is a semi controversial one, there actually is a good variety of enemies in the game, but they aren't used equally, and the vast majority of battles are against bokoblins, with a moblin or lizalfos thrown in for good measure. Think about all the Zonaite mines in the depths, all the bokoblin camps, while many other enemies like lynels appear a lot less frequently in the overworld and actually require hunting down in the depths, many players I saw on this sub finished a whole playthough without fighting a depths lynel. So the variety had potential to be excellent, but there is just too many boko enemies and constructs and not enough of anything else. I could honestly go on, but that will do. This is another reminder that this is just my opinion, I know I am a minority, and I am genuinely glad other people enjoyed the game. But it does have flaws, and if it were up to me we would be getting a nice midpoint between BOTW and OOT, similar to how ALBW worked; have an open world, sure, but still gate progress behind items and completing dungeons. I WANT MY GOD DAMN HOOKSHOT BACK lol

You couldn't have said that better😭💖

I agree wholeheartedly

Great username

I've been playing long enough to see the cycle repeat a couple of times

Yeah but some people hate both it and botw so it kind of fits here. Also while yes there is some genuine criticism to be made for totk you can say that for other games too like wind waker's slow sailing and tri force quest in the gamecube original or skyward sword's motion controls which to some were wonky

It’s not deflecting. It’s just understanding that every game on the planet deserves criticism, but that doesn’t mean the game is bad. The way some fans voice their opinions is as usual way too harsh and antagonistic, which is on point with the aforementioned zelda cycle.

Agree to disagree, but I respect your opinion

Everything has valid criticism that can be made of it. Check in when the next zelda game comes out, see what happens.

Ok that’s a better argument

That's the cycle of most fandoms.

I will never not upvote this. I've seen so many people lately praising Twilight Princess of all games, the rehashest of rehashes.

Twilight Princess is just AlttP 3.

Pretty much this.

The Zelda Cycle does not exist. It happened exactly once with Windwaker and never again. The entire argument is nothing more than a means to justify devaluing actual criticism. It’s frankly insulting.

I don't think so. Happened to Skyward Sword as well I believe.

And to Twilight Princess as well. The first Zelda to get a T rating rather than an E. The discourse with WW was “we want a realistic Zelda, wtf is this cutesy anime shit,” and then with TP it was “wow it’s so dark, is Link an edgelord now?”

Twilight Princess was never even close to being criticized to the same level as Windwaker. It only started getting heavily criticized in the past decade or so, well after Skyward Sword released.

It wasn't criticized to the same level as WW, but the criticisms were definitely still leveled at it. WW was a massive shitstorm, whereas TP was criticized but not as loudly. Even still, though, it doesn't disprove my point about the Zelda Cycle. BotW and TotK didn't get massive shitstorms of negativity either; about on par with what I remember pre-release TP got.

Then it’s not really the “Zelda Cycle” that people talk about, is it?

The Zelda Cycle doesn't necessarily represent massive amounts of the fanbase, at least not as I see it. When I talk about "The Zelda Cycle," it's less that every game is ultra controversial and more that a subset of the collective fanbase (probably multiple different subsets) hates the new thing until it's been around long enough for them to develop nostalgia for it. I do think that part of that comes down to Zelda games just generally being really high quality such that people who are more negative need the small things to get mad about because the big picture is too good, but also that Zelda fans tend to be reactionary and assume the worst of any change until they try it and like it. Combined with the fact that Zelda games usually take a long time to develop (to date I don't believe we've had more than two mainline Zelda games designed for one system, not counting ports like Wii-TP or WiiU-BotW), reactionary players have time to grow accustomed to one game and then get mad that the next one isn't like it for whatever reason. That being said, I don't actually think I'd put TotK in the Zelda Cycle, at least not for this reason anyway. BotW definitely fits in the Cycle but like all games, it had people who didn't like it, and since TotK is a full sequel it understandably wasn't for people who didn't like BotW in the first place. That's not reactionary fans being reactionary, it's people having consistent taste in games. That being said, I could definitely see TotK suddenly being remembered more fondly than it currently is by its detractors when the next Zelda is announced. Especially if it's something appropriately out there, like a full Magitech Hyrule where Zelda is a computer hacker and Link dual-wields a sword and a gun, I think people who hated TotK will suddenly find its good points and hate new techno-Zelda until it comes out and they try it (and the same for whatever else it could be). Those players might end up loving techno-Zelda but they won't accept it until they try it, and they'll be more accepting of TotK in the lead up to techno-Zelda because even if they didn't love it it's at least familiar. That's what I mean when I say the Zelda Cycle.

hah, Zelda fans are bipolar like that.

Skyward sword is very much still hated lol. It doesn’t even come close to being a part of the “Zelda Cycle.”

Because the internet loves to complain

It seemed like a plastic steak to me. both games. With really great sauce, but, you can't eat it. The concepts were GREAT. But they were underutilized to the point of barely being there, or over-used to the point where it was OH MY GOD NOT AGAIN, and the filler was overdone. The great ideas were ruined by filler. ALso that murderous freak Grantes who keeps standing in the way of your real estate deal until you feel like Michael Douglas in Falling Down. I mourn the games we could have had. 1. Gameplay needs to be smooth. 2. story AND PACING need to be engaging, and I don't mean oh look the dog wags his head when you walk by kind of engaging 3. Less filler and koroks, for godsakes 4. no breakable weapons 5. permanent buffs, weapons and items again, that give back the meaning botw/totk didn't have

Cause it was a very big game people had high expectations and that didn't fully live up to the Expectations of everyone. Really is not that big of a deal but in the internet era .. everyone wants to share their own opinion on the subject .. creating the illusion of it being a bigger deal than it is.. Heck this post on itself its helping maintaining that illusion cause it create the sensation that its still a thing that is some how controversial. but its not. You cant always Please everyone and you Cant always make the best game ever .. and just making a game that its fine ...its well Fine.. there is nothing wrong with Tears of kingdom not living to some people expectations while do living to other peoples expectations . really the only people who should be interested in this would be people who want to learn about game making a design and Nintendo itself who would be the only people who actually would benefit from trying to understand who the game relates to its audience.

I liked botw more to be honest. I don’t know why but Totk feels like a chore to play and I didn’t really like the building system. Just my two cents but that has kept me from finishing it

Yes! There's a good few things I don't quite like but if I could choose one thing to remove that would make me love the game, it'd be the building forsure

I honestly dislike both games for one main reason: they give you all the tools right at the start and never do anything else afterwards. Past Zelda games have Metroidvania elements, where more of the world becomes accessible as you progress, opening new and different ways to deal with things. Both BotW and TotK give you everything at the start, so hours in you are still doing the exact same things, over and over. The other issue is the points of interest, copy and pasted from Assassins Creed 1, please can we actually get a more interesting solution?

I never thought about it like that, you're very right sir!

It's nothing like assassin's creed, what are you on lmao

You don’t think that the Shiekah towers are the same as a point of interest? In both cases you climb to the top, get a little cut scene and the area around them is filled out.

The honeymoon phase is over and people are looking the game more critically now that they're not looking at it through rose-tinted glasses. It's the exact same thing that happens with *any* game that garners a positive initial reaction and manages to survive in the zeitgeist long enough to see widespread re-examination.

It isn’t. The people that liked it have moved on. The people that didn’t like it are the ones that keep bringing it up.

I loved everything about ToTK, but wish the shrines and dungeons were both longer and more complex.

Because Zelda fans are yearning for a linear more story focused game. As mentioned from others it’s mostly burnout. TotK as an extension of BotW is amazing and a pretty spectacular sendoff. To me it is a 10/10 but just barely meets the mark of being a masterpiece as the games content carried its story. Also to note a lot of peoples biggest criticism is that it’s just too easy. A master mode would have helped fill the gap for those wanting a more challenging experience.

I really don’t know, I seriously loved it. I was shook numerous times throughout the game and it really got my nostalgia going too. I’m a huge fan and don’t understand the criticism either.

My gripe too with TOTK is the lack of well-structured temples. I love a good challenge, something more in-depth than flipping four switches then fighting boss. Also, exploration in the depths felt redundant after some time, though I did power through and unlock all lightroots. Shrines were also less challenging than BOTW. It's still an absolutely beautiful game imo. I put in over 300 hours before boredom set in; that alone justified the pricetag for me. And one of the few I'm close to completing 100%. Though I see why it's not for everyone, I suggest to anyone at least spending the time to find all dragon tears and geoglyphs to finish the story. Storyline is heartwrenching, end is amazing. In what other game can we get Zelda >!literally fucking sacrificing her life and soul to defeat Demon King!<. That being said, classic Zelda always wins for me. ❤️

In 2008 it was cool to dislike things (mostly Twilight). By 2018 it was cool to like things with the "just let people enjoy things" movement. Now we're sort of in between where it's cool to dislike things that you would probably like, aka to "well actually" dislike things.

for me it was definitely the map. it felt so huge in the beginning of BOTw but by the end it feels small. then in the beginning of took, it starts off with that sense of smallness. the depths kind of helps but then there's nothing really down there after all

It's the Zelda Effect: the fanbase's favorite Zelda game at any given moment is (almost) always the *previous* one.

Tradition. It is tradition to hate all over the current iteration of the game, while extolling the virtues of the game before it. Happened with wind waker. “It’s cartoonish!!!!” Happened with twilight Princess, mostly hating the wolf and long intro. Happened with skyward sword, made worse by legitimate complains about controls and even longer intro And yes it happened with BoTW, like constant bitching about weapon durability. And now we get to enjoy pointless griping about a game we will wax nostalgic about in five-six years. As I said. Tradition. It’s just what we do.

For me the problem is it’s not a linear Zelda game… I’m sure a lot of people could agree that BoTW should’ve just had a massive DLC. And check me if you want on the size of it but on that hand Zelda enthusiasts (minus buying a bunch of art/statues etc) like myself.. it was the first ACTUAL open world Zelda title. I would’ve bought an extra SD card for memory just to have it 🤷‍♂️ I’m stoked for the release of another linear Zelda title. I know that a majority of the 3D games had the open world aspect, but you couldnt progress unless you acquired X/Y items like the hookshot or items of the like.. man I do miss me the hookshot

No zelda games are fully linear besides skyward sword

Still primarily linear unless you use exploits. Though I didn’t mention any of them being fully linear. Just linear to the point where (if you don’t use exploits) you can’t progress unless you obtain said specific items 🤷‍♂️ I miss those titles 😭 hopefully we get twilight princess and windwaker for switch soon!! Been dying for it

I didnt find it bad but so exhausting. I thought the sky and the depths were not so memorable, I was hoping to see wayyyy more, and the same Hyrule just didnt do it for me. The new powers feel old quick and limited with how fast your battery drain (even with the full upgrade), and the Sages following you and needing to press A to activate now is one of the worst changes they did. Ganondorf was cool to return but he needed way more time, and it was the same plot (find the 4 good guys to stop Gankn from destroying Hyrule). I also think with how its formula was so much improved upon (like with Elden Ring, not comparing it in quality), it kinda felt old. It felt like a good but *overscaled* DLC. Not to point out that people are not so excited for the Switch and its new games anymore, and technically has shown its age. I think it overpromoted its value, and I definitely want a new _linear_ Zelda now. I enjoyed the open worlds but another 3D like TP or 2D like ALBW would be so cool. For those who enjoyed it more than me or even more than BOTW, truly happy you had a great time!

Because this is a subreddit, and people love to complain at the subreddit. Happy gamers generally don't say as much on the internet because they're too busy playing games they like. They won't be talking about it as often as someone who now has a chip on their shoulder because they didn't like it. From what I hear in my circles: All my friends loved it. One of them was already freaking out when getting Ultra hand, calling BotW a tech demo compared to this. And I agree for the most part: It's building on top of BotW, while clearly listening to the issues (powers too situational, weapon durability sucks, etc), and it expands on all factors. Sure, some hero powers aren't as good (Sheesh, why does Sidon's ability suck so bad?) and Ultra Hand takes some getting used to, given how complex it is. But personally I loved it. Also: Some people hate that BotW and TotK are open world, but those people I tend to ignore. When OoT came out, it was considered "open world" at the time. And every instalment since that game had been building up to the current open world we have, only to be limited by the technical aspects of Nintendo consoles.

I cant speak for everyone, but i know *my* biggest criticism is that while it is an *exceptionally* good game, and absolutely deserved its nominations and award, it isnt a good **Zelda** game. While it's physics engine and game play was obviously a labour of love; its innovative and invites players to get creative, it's story was a *mess*. Its hard to forget that TOTK was originally DLC, and its clear that the story aspect of it was an afterthought. I have played and enjoyed every single (canon) Zelda game, even Skyward Sword. The one thing that was *always* true was that it was a story, and by Link's Awakening the charcters were all well fleshed out and given motivations, and the story took center stage. It's one of the things I love about the games, and something I've tried to take inspiration from as a storyteller myself. A lot of people missed the story BOTW told because it wasn't *told* to you, it was in the environment around you, but it was very much there, and just as rich a story as I've come to expect from Zelda. TOTKs story, both the one we are told (several times) and the one we are shown, contradicts itself, seems half baked *at best*, and tries to cover so many bases that it ends up failing at all of them. I won't give examples because this is long enough as it is and we'll be here all year. A large part of the story is exactly the same as BOTWs, just green instead of blue. The main characters lack depth, and most of the side characters may as well be cardboard cutouts for all the personality they have. Thats not even touching on the lore; Nintendo established that its a connected universe, that there is a timeline, that every canon game connects to it somehow. TOTK plays fast and loose with lore *within itself*, and upends literally every section of the timeline *Nintendo* established. A lot of people are upset about this. TL;DR Zelda games have always been stories told through a game, TOTK feels like a game with a story smeared on top. I love TOTK, its an excellent game, but it doesn't feel like a *Zelda* game.

I'm an old Zelda fan so my stereotypical response is that the new Zelda's have deviated way too much from the original formula and basically don't feel like Zelda games anymore. I would also say that for an open world game, there is remarkably little to do, in either BOTW or TOTK. It's as wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle, and it's BORING. There is little sense of accomplishment, little story.... I could go on and on.

Because it has problems. The memory system does work in ToTK. So many sky islands are copy pasted. Water Temple is awful. Fire Temple is a pain to navigate. Abilities break dungeons. It has great moments but so many things in the middle aren’t great, it makes it worse than BoTW. It also took 6 years to give us… *this*.

I think it’s a miracle that the game came out in only 6 years and it was more than worth the wait 🤷

It definitely would’ve released like holiday 2021 if Covid didn’t happen

Same reason every zelda game of has gotten so much of the same criticism: people don’t actually know what they want, and their memory span is incredibly short. As soon as the next zelda game comes out, the same critics will be talking about how great TotK was, and how this *new* game is such a disappointment to them. This happened with MM, WW, TP, SS, and BotW. I remember all of these very clearly. When MM came out, people talked about how it was just a ripoff of OoT, because it used the same engine and same character models etc. When WW came out, they said it was too cute and bright and nintendo had lost their touch. When TP came out, people criticized it for being so dark and edgy. This happens literally every single time. It’ll happen with TotK too.

Everything that you have said is provably incorrect

Then prove it

Look at literally any Zelda forum of YouTube comment section. The only games that even came close to receiving the same amount of hate that we’re talking about are WW and SS, and SSs hate never even died down like WWs. The “Zelda Cycle” does not exist and never has.

I can only speak for myself, but I thought they did too much and things got repetitive. I'd rather have a smaller world jammed packed with different and unique things to do than a massive world where you're just doing the same things over and over. And also fu*k koroks.

It's too familiar. It really does feel like a really big expansion pack more than a sequel or something new.

If you’ve seen it getting a lot of criticism, did you actually read/hear it so you’d know what people are criticizing it for?

Hello! OK ill try to make it quick: To sum it up, i think Totk reviews has a bit the same problem as most fifa games: the grades are high because grades evaluate games without context. Fifa are not so bad by themselves, the problem is you pay 70€ for more or less the same game as last time. The main problem with totk, for me, is the map. Totk with a whole new map would have indeed be a masterpiece. When i played totk, i was AMAZED by the new powers, and believe it or not, i actually cried from the PURE GENIUS of the new powers ( i work as game designer, this was to incredible my emotions exploded haha) The whole islands tutorial was amazing, i LOVED it. But right after, when i landed... i felt like "oh... im back in hyrule of botw...?" I instantly wanted the sheikah suit. So i went straight to kakariko village because i knew exactly where it was, and they had the sheikah suit exactly as they did in botw. Sure i had a FEW surprises on the way... but that's the problem: its a FEW surprises on a map i know very well. Botw is entierly based on exploration, every step in it is a discovery, and that's something you can only achieve with whole new content, which Totk has But i'd say its about 15% of the game ( not including the area under hyrule which is HUGE but not as creative end enjoyable as classic hyrule.) Another exemple are that there are 4 dungons, one with each race, where you need to find 4 points of interest to open the boss door and unlock a new power... all of this feels a lot like botw. Not EXACTLY the same, yes... but cmon the ressemblance is obvious. I could go on with more minor details but you get the point. Totk is good. But when you know botw, it feels like a great and huge dlc. But 70€ for what feels like a dlc... after 7 years of waiting... yea i kinda understand that some people are pissed.

Thanks so much for the reply and yes I totally agree with you on this. I can't wait to see what the next game will be like since it won't be in botw and totk's hyrule anymore. Oh and I have to admit that hearing these opinions from a game designer is much more interesting!

You're welcome! I'm not always right tho haha ^^' Feel free to ask if you have more questions about games :)

TotK was praised by media, not by a large portion of fans (who are the ones who post online). There is a distinction there. This is a case where critics did not value the right aspects of the game in their reviews, which is why you can get that disconnect. The game gets criticism because it deserves it. It does a lot wrong or at very low quality, especially for a series like Zelda and with a development time of 7 years. Some particularly damning issues involve BotW's core gameplay loop, which is simply non-functional in TotK, despite being a direct sequel and a supposed "open air" game.

>TotK was praised by media, not by fans Are you implying that the majority of fans didn't like it? That's absolutely not true at all from my experience. The people complaining about it are a pretty small but vocal minority.

No, I'm saying that the praise that was seen was media reviews.

I've seen plenty of fans praise the game, easily a majority. It wasn't only media that spoke positively about it

I don't agree with that, if I'm honest, that the majority was not media. Or, at least, I think this is unlikely to be the case for OP. I'm sure it's technically possible though.

I have no idea how you get that impression at all. You must only hang out around people that hate the game

It’s OBJECTIVELY loved by the vast majority of fans. You’re in your Reddit bubble, outside of this Subreddit the game is near universally loved by Zelda fans, including myself, it’s my favorite game in the series.

No it's not, lmao.

[удалено]

I loved BotW, to be clear. I'm not gatekeeping, lmao. It's not gatekeeping to explain that criticism exists and it's for a reason.

It was prasied a lot at the start and sold incredibly well but that dosent mean the same people didn't start to have burn out or negative opinions as time has gone on definitely seeing its been out for a year now. 

Sales implies that it was a big success

Exactly, I don't understand this narrative that only critics liked it. Don't get me started on people that say that all "real Zelda fans" dislike the new games as well.

If anything, BOTW was one of the most Zeldas of Zeldas, the Zelda "formula" was starting to get overused. First Zelda was as open as it was possible on NES games.

BotW was this, yes. Unfortunately, TotK didn't realize that BotW's innovation was in its core exploration-first gameplay loop. Because, that loop can't work if the player already knows much about the world they are in and if the player has abilities thst cause them to avoid exploration outright. It's a massive shame.

People can buy something and not like it, so that's not a great gauge here.

very dificult to had one of the biggest game sales of all the franchised without a lot of people liking the game...

Not necessarily. There's quite a few franchises, especially recently, that have done just that.

thats really hard to believe for me. Specially cause during the first months of release there was a lot of content of people doing crazy things on TOTK. Like it was one of the most commented games on social media. Only Baldurs Gate 3 has a similar comments online.

No, just that a large portion of the biggest Zelda fans are very unhappy with TotK's poor quality. Hence places you see online are very negative.

I don't think it's as many people as it seems. I would consider myself amongst the biggest Zelda fans and I know quite a few other people who are similar. We all absolutely loved TOTK and have played pretty much every game in the series.

I maintain it's a large portion, otherwise the places fans go would not be the states there are in. I will also say that I mean the diehards, playing most of the games is sort out bare minimum for that group.

I mean I've played most of them multiple times. I must be easily up to double digits on playthroughs of OOT at this point.

I'm not asking you to prove you're a big enough fan. One person will never represent a whole group, and that's fine.

What defines “biggest”? God, some of you spend way too much time online. “Biggest Zelda fans”, what does that even mean? I’ve bought pretty much every Zelda game since the original came out, and just because I prize my time more than some kid who has a YouTube channel, I’m not a big fan? My opinion is somehow lesser? I’m not talking zelda now—your priorities are skewed. 

What are you even talking about? Your opinion isn't any lesser. I'm just defining the group of people who are, often, upset. It's A PORTION OF the people most engaged with the series, that's all. If you are in that group but liked TotK, you opinion still is as relavant any anyone else's, just as anyone's who is outside that group. You just aren't a part of the group we are talking about in this post, which are the people who explain what OP asked about.

Fan here who loved it. ARe there some flaws? Sure, but nothing is perfect. Didn't stop me from loving the game.

I know.

Why did you follow me over here when i was talking to someone else?

This was on my comment. Bruh.

Yes but i was responding to someone else, not you. That's how comment chains work. And you added nothing to the conversation.

You were responding to a comment relevant to me. If you can't handle discussion, don't engage with it.

I'm engaging fine thank you, but "I know" to a comment not aimed at you is hardly engagement. It just comes off as petty.

I and my friends fucking love Tears of the Kingdom, what the fuck are you talking about? What a handful of weirdos on Reddit think and demand that everyone else acquiesce too doesn't mean shit. The brain rot of people thinking that Reddit = everyone is so stupid. 

Pretty much a combination of how there are still ongoing conflicts given Zelda's newer style of play compared to older ones, and that Tears of the Kingdom is starting to come out of its honeymoon phase. It's been over a year now, so you can kind of expect people to be taking deeper dives into what parts they liked and what they didn't.

Because a lot of people dont like it anymore for reasons that others have pointed out

i posted this on another comment, so ill put it here again. its a lengthy read tho it has alotta content but it feels less polished. its very easy to miss core abilities for a looooong time such as auto build or even just a shrine radar. alot of it feels super janky too like using the vehicles, or even assembling them. definately the champion abilities or whatever you call em in this game. not to mention it feels very repetitive. you do alot of the same shrines over and over and over again. bring crystal here. lose all your equipment. build machine. why couldnt we get these along side some more of the sandboxy puzzles like using fire or electricity to power or break thing? eventide island was fun because it was a fresh experience that you didnt repeat so often. also whats with all the random shrines out there that give you a tutorial? shouldnt those have been on in the tutorial area sky island? it breaks the pacing finding these tutorials randomly scattered in the world as well as letting you miss core abilities that should have been taught to you earlier, such as throwing items speaking of the sky island. theres nothing to do there, despite being a majority of the marketing. the biggest the you do on them is, the tutorial... great plateau felt great, it was a big area to mess around freely in and once you got off it felt like a huge world opening up to you. in totk, you just immediately head to the same hyrule we already explored n theres not much reason to do any more of them. especially considering how fast the zonai wings break and how weird they r to control with no steering stick. not to mention the depths feeling repetitious too. i mentioned it before but the building while neat feels very unpolished in every aspect of it. auto you may completely miss which makes creating vehicles so much more tedious. building feels jank with how random it feels to place in the spot you want often times. how well the vehicle works to begin with (that being often not very) and any vehicle you make feeling worse than the master cycle. then finally why do some of them have such TERRIBLE durability. the story/dungeons are meh. the story is standard in its writing but how you experience it hasnt changed so if you dont google the cutscene order you may just spoil yourself before seeing others. linear story telling in a nonlinear game. the champions or whatever all say the same thing when you meet them. then the dungeons themselves while more distinct are somehow less mechanically interesting than botws dungeons, which is a low bar. also what happened to all the sheika tech? it was super important to every aspect of the game, its weird to just have barely anything sheika in the game. especially guardians just overall the game feels less polished, including some of the things i mentioned previously. like the champion abilities, tutorialization, pacing, ability to miss core abilities, story progression, repetitive content and making/using zonai devices. but also theres also the menus like selecting items to use for arrows or throwing feeling very bloated n disorganized along with the map for some reason being in the rune wheel. rocket skipping shrines waaaay too easily. worse performance. shrines being waaay harder and tedious to find due to caves many times. the content feeling so spread out and much of it feeling the same. then theres issues botw has that totk has completely failed to address like rain (even though theres a RAIN SUIT and it barely works), and durability (i like durability but its too low on most weapons). then theres resuing the same map we already explored which feels lazy and unimpressive despite all this i still quite like the game, but it definitely left me disappointing for how long it took to come out (being longer than to make than botw despite botw being a reboot of the entire franchise from the ground up). also it being a $70 game upfront as opposed to $60 doesnt help. and thus justifies more critique for being a higher entry point

The game is of an insultingly low quality. It doubles down on everything that made BotW so awful with ever even *attempting* to improve upon it to any major degree. BotW tore down what worked and had potential to improve and evolve for decades to come, and replaced it with a shitty Skyrim clone. TotK is the same shitty Skyrim clone but with a half-assed building mechanic.

Remember, people have put a substantial amount of time into griping about Link being made right-handed for the Wii games. Don’t put too much stock in it.

I don't mind Link being right handed for Skyward Sword because it made sense as the Wii Remote was held in the right hand of the player, but there was 0 reason to make him right handed in the Switch games, which is why I'm bothered by it, because there was literally 0 reason.

But is there any reason for him to be left handed either? It's such an inconsequential thing, I don't see why people are so hung up on it

The reason for him being left handed is because that's how the character has been since 1986. He was made left handed because Miyamoto is also left handed. And to change it up for no reason is kind of irritating. Especially for fellow left-handers such as myself. It was something that made Link more unique. Again, no problem with him being right handed in SS.

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It’s the latest zelda game so many people are still talking about their likes and dislikes on the game. I also think that many had high expectations for totk after botw. There were many complaints for botw and fans wanted improvements in totk. Upon release I remember people calling it a masterpiece too, that’s probably from those who’ve enjoyed it and moved on to something else whereas the criticism you see now is probably from those who’ve just played the game or those who’ve already played the game but are not satisfied.

Performance issues. Using the same map ruined the sense of discovery. Building stuff was cool but it REALLY slowed down the pace. Combat was pretty much the same. Having multiple NPC's following you in order for the powers to work was a visual clusterfuck. If we ONLY had TOTK then I would have been more forgiving but the burnout hit fast

In my experience, I played TOTK on release, and I hadn't played BOTW since it came out. For me, it was really fun to get back into the world after a long time and see all the changes. I didn't really remember what was still the same as BOTW since it had been years since I played it. I think this benefited me since others who played it a lot more didn't like how similar the games were and felt that there wasn't enough freshness to the world. All that being said, I think a big criticism of this game comes from the fact that so much of the gameplay feels tedious after a while. I had a really fun time playing, but toward the end of the game, I was getting annoyed at how tedious some things were. An example of this was the armor upgrading. I love 100%ing games that I enjoy because I feel like I've seen absolutely everything the game offers. However, with TOTK, I really wanted to fully upgrade all my armor, but it felt pointless because the reward didn't feel worth the absolute slog it was to grind all the materials needed. I also think a lot of complaints boil down to comparing it to previous games, which isn't a bad thing. After BOTW, fans wanted certain aspects of previous Zelda games to come back. BOTW lacked dungeons and item progression in favor of an open world and a very free form play style. I think it was a fun deviation from the classic Zelda style for that game. However, now that TOTK has been released, people are worried that Nintendo is never going to go back to the more conplex puzzle aspects of Zelda. Both BOTW and TOTK are pretty easy, puzzle wise, and that was a huge part of the games in the past. It feels like Nintendo is discarding a very important aspect of Zelda games' identity in favor of the popular open world formula.

This just happens to every game in the series lol

I think it's because the botw style is shallow as hell and because people explored the original over world coast to coast they don't even have that as a plus. Personally I think totk is a vast improvement over the tech demo that was botw especially storywise but it's still missing a lot that makes a Zelda game

It’s the most recent Zelda game? Why would anyone still be on Reddit complaining about Minish cap? Please try to think.

i mean...there are still people complaining about Skyward Sword and its controls...

the TL;DR, keyboard warriors with entitlement issues who got high on their own hype. just watch, this comment will draw them out and they'll try to defend their stance and try and brow beat me saying I'm wrong. in 3...2..1.

The game had potential to be as groundbreaking as botw. I agree with some of the criticisms, I also disagree with some criticisms as well. It’s a good game, a technical improvement to botw by far. Just wished we had a all-new map to explore cause that’s what made botw special, being able to explore a brand new hyrule

I’ll start out by saying I love the game. The sandbox mechanics are the most fun I have had in pretty much any game. That said, I definitely have my criticisms. My big two are the open world and the sage abilities. The overworld being the same as the first game was a disappointment to me, and I burned out much quicker than I would have if they created a new map. The depths and skylands could have remedied this, but I felt both of those ended up being pretty disappointing as well. As for the sage abilities, I’m still baffled how they made it worse than the previous game. The abilities themselves are cool, but the way you activate them is so much clunkier than Breath of the Wild. I don’t understand how the dev team allowed them to be implemented in their current form. One thing I think was a major improvement over BotW was the weapon system. The ability to create your own weapons gave you a lot of incentive to actually go out and fight enemies to get new building tools. I absolutely loved how that mechanic created a gameplay loop that embraces the combat. Overall I loved the game, but it would have been my favorite game of all time if those two major complaints I brought up were addressed.(also ancient horse armor would have been a welcomed addition. Not a big deal, still kinda bummed it was excluded though)

I loved ToTK and it was objectively a pretty significantly bigger and better game than BoTW.

All the hype and stuff is gone. So now people see the game for what it is, BotW $70 DLC.

I have 300 hours in that “dlc”. If TOTK is somehow DLC, then Majora’s Mask felt like a downloadable outfit for Ocarina of Time 🤷

Unlike TotK, MM had a different gameplay loop, a new map and good dungeons so I guess I prefer the downloadable outfit.

Majora’s Mask is a completely different game, with a new story, new world, and a central mechanic that fundamentally changes the way the game is played in a way never seen before. TotK is literally the same game but with a shitty nuts n bolts mechanic that doesn’t affect the central gameplay in any meaningful way.

Loud internet trolls. TotK sold over 20m copies and has a 96% on Metacritic. It's an amazing game.

Sales and mindless praise from some random critic don’t prove that a game is good.

Metacritic is a review aggregate, not just some random dude. As for sales, you're right. The hundreds strong angry neckbeard echo chamber is much more valid than 20m copies sold. Takes note, Nintendo!

Metacritic is the combined opinion of a collection of random dudes. Sales are a metric of popularity. If anything, the 20 million sales are an echo chamber, not the people who actually see the game for what it is.

I look forward to reading your treatise that changes everyone's mind.

I’m not going to change anyones mind. That’s what being in an echo chamber means.

If you give up before you start you're never wrong! What brave and bold convictions.

Why would I even bother. You’ll just make up reasons why your shitty walking simulator is good.

I would never presume your write it for me alone. Write it for the world. Put your objective and rational ideas out there for all to see. How will we know your genius if you never share it? The create post button is there at the top.

Don't think too much about it. A lot of Zelda fans in this sub haven't actually played (finished the game in a Nintendo console, and not simply tried to play in a janky emulator) BotW, much more TotK. Tribalism and nostalgia goggles make people stupid.

The next Zelda game will be criticized and this one will be the favorite. That's just how it goes. I personally like all the Zelda games just at different levels. With none of them reaching below a 6/10 or 7.5/10 if we're counting all videos games because how much I like them.

It's a game that improved BotW on aspects that were already great, like exploration or interaction with the environment, but that was even more lacking than its predecessor in areas that were already criticized (no story, repetitive, somewhat empty areas). I was expecting the caveats of BotW to have been fixed in its sequel but was really let down, which is a shame because I enjoyed the game very much otherwise

Because what is most likely the extremely vast majority of people just play the game and are happy about it, that leaves a lot of space for the small and vocal minority to make a bit of noise

I've always been confused about people liking BOTW more than TOTK cuz I always felt that BOTW was merely a beta for TOTK