Basic Blond Boy
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2022
As someone who holds up BOTW in high regard, Tears is alright. A great game, but one that doesn't excel at anything and I feel misses the point of BOTW.
What the game does better than BOTW is mostly down to dungeon design and boss variety. The 5 dungeons were more unique this time and the bosses were all different rather than Ganon 4 times. The side quests also got a bit of a bump as there are more multi-part ones. Story content is also quite a bit better, it feels like the Champions are more fleshed out and have more to do.
The problem is that past those, there is not much to say is better, it is either stuff on par or actively worse.
I believe the runes are worse this time around. Ultrahand is an interesting gimmick, and a technical marvel, but I rarely use it. For those willing to waste hours building, it is a good time. I feel it halts the game and can make things too easy/difficult compared to BOTW. Fuse also feels annoying. It is another gaming the system mechanic that makes weapons worse and not worth finding unless you go out and get the parts to stack the stats. The benefit is that it makes one fight enemies more, but I never really cared for this and feel the UI getting worse doesn't justify it. Ascend and recall are good additions.
I miss BOTW's runes. Bombs were a nice back up for no weapons and made for unique kills, Cryonis was nice for some travel and puzzles, Stasis made for cool interactions and puzzles, and magnesis was easy to understand. BOTW's runes were practical and lent themselves to puzzles, while TOTK was more obtuse and only one can make for a decent puzzle item, being recall.
The open-world itself feels worse in many ways. Not only does Ultrahand create factors that undercut it, but it lacks personality. BOTW was a somber game where Link travels around a destroyed world. It felt oppressive given the Guardians, and sad when looking at the remnants of the past. Tears has no personality. It is the same destroyed world, maybe even worse, yet has random new structures and life far apart. There are no big enemies to scare the piss out of you and make you reroute like the Guardians did. It feels more hollow, only aided by how infrequent Koroks are in this title compared to BOTW. Add in some changes like lava gone missing in Eldin, which makes it less unique. The only area that was fixed was Hebra, the rest got worse and the map geography is worse in general. They should have kept the previous map and region design.
Vertical movement options are improved. The map also is not completely barren prior to climbing the tower, which helps navigation if you are like me and don't set up the map as you want to keep totals on regions. Better dungeons and end bosses.
The depths have some non-corrupted weapons that are fine, but yeah.
Pretty much. It is a simplicity versus complication problem. Ultrahand and Fuse are more impressive and lead to more player creativity, but cannot be reeled in for puzzles and generally feel like a waste if not into collecting parts to build the ultimate battle tank.
Feels less frequent to stumble onto them, I say as a guy who left off with 407.
Depends on area, but I would say most of the Depths and Sky leave little to be desired.
