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Tears of the Kingdom is a boring game

well, all I can say is that the depths may very well be my least favorite place, & the ugliest place, i've ever spent time in while playing a video game...
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
It's ok, it's the same for TLOU, assassin's creed and even days gone (I just dropped this one) and constant conversations in horizon zero dawn, at least for me. Not every game is for everyone.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Aidy Bryant Yes GIF by Saturday Night Live


I didn't enjoy BotW when I first played it. Came back to it and Tears of the Kingdom later and enjoyed them both. Much like anything and everything, you may not like it, and that's fine! No one is right and no one is wrong. I personally didn't hold them higher than everything else. But I enjoyed them a lot. Especially TotK, it's pretty wild that a game of that size, and with those physics can be on the Switch at all.
 
Tears was a massive disappointment. Unless you loved fuse and ultrahand, how can anyone say this game delivered after 6 f'ing years of development? All the backlash over people pointing out how much of a DLC it looked like when those concerns were totally justified.

It doesn't feel like a sequel it feels like they used the discarded ideas they had when making Botw to make a dlc then decided to call it a new game. With all that time and the luxury of reusing so many assets, even reusing the same world, why isn't there tons of fresh new content? This game has rocked my faith in Aonuma and Nintendos ability to deliver on whatever the next Zelda will be. The very design of this game isn't as good as Botw as exploration isn't as good, abilities weren't as good, and you gave to constantly pause the action to fumble around with lining up edges of objects to use ultrahand. They even managed to bungle to dungeons in Tears.

It's not a bad game it's just disappointing as all get out.
 
Honestly, I think it's refreshing to have a sequel be a true sequel (same mechanics, style, etc) without mixing up the formula or changing it completely. I can't tell you how many times I was excited for a follow up game only to be disappointed in how different it was from its predecessor. If BotW was a 10, making a follow up game in similar fashion can only be a win in my book. However, I think the next Zelda does need to be something different.

My only gripes, which are more just personal preferences:
I want to ditch weapons with durability.
I want more more dungeons and fewer shrines.

That's it.
 
While I prefer the older games (my favorite is a link to the past), TOTK is still a great game and an improvement over BOTW.

So you cannot say it’s a boring game just because it doesn’t match your taste. I could also say easily “Baldurs gate 3 is a boring game”, but I am old enough to know it is just not my cup of tea and can understand that it’s a masterpiece for other people.
 
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Dr. Claus

Banned
Tears was a massive disappointment. Unless you loved fuse and ultrahand, how can anyone say this game delivered after 6 f'ing years of development? All the backlash over people pointing out how much of a DLC it looked like when those concerns were totally justified.

It doesn't feel like a sequel it feels like they used the discarded ideas they had when making Botw to make a dlc then decided to call it a new game. With all that time and the luxury of reusing so many assets, even reusing the same world, why isn't there tons of fresh new content? This game has rocked my faith in Aonuma and Nintendos ability to deliver on whatever the next Zelda will be. The very design of this game isn't as good as Botw as exploration isn't as good, abilities weren't as good, and you gave to constantly pause the action to fumble around with lining up edges of objects to use ultrahand. They even managed to bungle to dungeons in Tears.

It's not a bad game it's just disappointing as all get out.

If you didn’t enjoy the ultrahand and Fuse, the creation or physics engine, etc - perfectly fine. But anyone who claims this is ”DLC” is full of it.
 

nikos

Member
I stopped playing as soon as it had me build the same stupid bridge more than once, probably within the first hour.
 

kunonabi

Member
Yeah totk was brutal. I hadn't played botw since I 100%ed it at launch, one of the worst decisions of my life, and I was still burned out trying to play TOTK. It got fun briefly but having to do so much of the same exact shit, for a lot of the same rewards, with the plot structure being a carbon copy to boot was too much for me. After they didn't bother to fix the shittiness of the Master Sword I just called it quits.
 
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IAmRei

Member
6 years for a glorified BOTW DLC with tacked on building mechanics nobody asked for and the exact same combat system. This game feels like a gigantic chore. You just get tired of doing shrines over and over again…finding korok seeds….rinse and repeat… The map is huge with the multiple depths, but it’s also empty and dead. I was really excited with the sky island, but when I dropped back down to Hyrule, I suddenly felt like I was just playing BoTW all over again. All of the BoTW burnout came rushing back. I have tried very hard to like this game but it's not for me.
Is it troll? How come is boring? There are lot of people who also like it. Combat is also difference. Shrine is having different puzzle. Maybe the game is not for you?
 

Kenpachii

Member
never finished it, got all the dark spots and the shrines however but was beyond burned out. It's a nice one playtime experience until a certain point. I would have liked it more probably if they sticked with a new world to explore and dropped the air/underground/building stuff entirely.
 

Sojiro

Member
Definitely can't agree here, I felt it was a big step up over BotW which was already pretty amazing for me back in 2017. With that said, I would like to see the next Zelda play like the older ones. I like both the old and new styles, but think a good mix between the two could still work. I will be honest, I don't need every Zelda game from here out to try and be a 100+ hour affair.
 

Robb

Gold Member
abilities weren't as good
I will never understand this opinion. The abilities are so much better in TotK it’s ridiculous (both standalone as well as the synergy between them). Magnesis is strictly improved upon with Ultrahand. Cryonis was useless throughout 95% of BotW. And then they padded out the rest of the runes with the exact same rune just using a different shape on the bomb. The only worthwhile addition to keep in TotK would’ve been Stasis, and even then all of the new additions have way more utility than that one.
 
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Porcile

Member
Tears of the Boredom, amirite. Actually I also dropped the game after about 15 hours but will get back to it one day. Personally Majora's Mask and TotB are my least favourite Zelda games.
 

sigmaZ

Member
6 years for a glorified BOTW DLC with tacked on building mechanics nobody asked for and the exact same combat system. This game feels like a gigantic chore. You just get tired of doing shrines over and over again…finding korok seeds….rinse and repeat… The map is huge with the multiple depths, but it’s also empty and dead. I was really excited with the sky island, but when I dropped back down to Hyrule, I suddenly felt like I was just playing BoTW all over again. All of the BoTW burnout came rushing back. I have tried very hard to like this game but it's not for me.
There are certain parts where I agree with you. If you go and try to do everything this game is just chore with lot's of copy and paste. And I hate the grind required for equipment etc., but I felt the exploration was handled so much better than BotW. In BotW I explored maybe 50 to 60 percent of the map before I was like f it and beelined the final dungeon. In TotK I enjoyed being able to fly around everywhere and more readily access verticality in a way that was just impossible in BotW. That said, I don't think my experience would have been as great without the dupe glitch though. Being able to mass produce essential building resources greatly enhanced my overall experience. I'm not a big fan of forced scarcity in games that are long enough with their core content. In the end, this game for me fulfilled the potential of BotW.
 

yamaci17

Member
I felt like it was boring for the first 30 hrs or so because everything felt so familar: like how playing valhalla feels like after playing odyssey

but then story picked up the pace and imo story was more engaging for me than the 1st game. look I know zelda games are not going hard for story but in Botw it was really secondary. in totk it felt like it at least made some attempt and got me hooked. and then new mechanics with more advanced zonai devices made it fun and I started to forgot it shares the same gameplay core from botw. from that point onwards it became a fresh, new experience for me
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I liked it way more than botw but they didn't solved almost any flaw of the first title like bad combat, enemy/boss quality, meh dungeons, lack of challenge or interesting loot that doesn't break, bad story etc. and it felt extremely samey.
 
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HofT

Banned
Zelda being the light dragon was a great twist. TotK had a great story and the end was a great pay off. Allowing you to dive in the sky to catch Zelda was a masterful emotional "tearful" moment and one of the best in gaming history.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
any flaw of the first title like boss quality
It didn’t? BotW was 4 copy-paste blights and then the final boss was yet another version of those four but smashed together alongside a final form that basically just stood in place on a big field..

Meanwhile TotK has unique bosses in each area. And the final boss/act is up there with the best in the entire franchise imo.
 

Gallard

Member
TotK is awesome. The game has 150+ hours of content, and the pacing is entirely up to the player, so I can overlook if some segments are boring/repeated.

If Nintendo had cut out all the fat so it was just 30 hours of main quests, story cutscenes, and then final boss - it'd all be really interesting and varied scenarios. To recap, we had:
  • Rito village snowed in. Reaching the ark in the sky was badass
  • Gerudo city underseiged by zombies - loved seeing the townsfolk hiding in a shelter and the pyramid dungeon was one of my favorites
  • Gorons on mystery drugs - riding the mine carts, the underground city
  • Zora city polluted - mario sunshining
  • Climbing the castle in the sky to fight the phantoms
  • Saving the Koroks & figuring out the master sword
And there's tons more additional side content I'm forgetting to mention. But because Nintendo gave players the freedom to choose their own path - they'll chart the most boring path possible and then complain. So, really, it's a player problem 😤

With that said, I wouldn't mind if the next Zelda game was more guided and removed flight so that we'd see more cool, designed scenarios, and it was less possible to trivialize them. I could tell Nintendo had some cool set pieces - for example, a cliff edge in the depths stacked with enemies for an epic fight - but you could just fly over it.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
It didn’t? BotW was 4 copy-paste blights and then the final boss was yet another version of those four but smashed together alongside a final form that basically just stood in place on a big field..

Meanwhile TotK has unique bosses in each area. And the final boss/act is up there with the best in the entire franchise imo.
They are extremely simple boss fights with no challenge at all if you are even a little bit skilled in action game.

So yeah they changed them, but what we got is still terrible.

The flying dragon was a nice idea but again, too fucking simple unless you are terrible at playing videogames.

The 4 head dragon or an advanced variant lynel were harder than any boss in the game when you fight them the first time.

If the game had modern lock on and evade move that doesn't suck it would be even easier.
 
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Loved BOTW when it came out, even though there was so much empty and/or boring space. Watched the trailer/reviews for TOTK and knew right away this would bore me to tears, no pun intended. I'm glad I never picked it up. I'd like this series to ditch the open world approach in the future in favor of traditional dungeons and a hub of sorts or something.
 

ahtlas7

Gold Member
Loved BOTW -a decade ago.
Dropped Tears after ~20hr because felt like I was slogging through Breath again while playing someone else’s story. And forever loading screens. The success of Tears probably convinced Bethesda that loading screens are still cool.
 

Robb

Gold Member
They are extremely simple boss fights with no challenge at all if you are even a little bit skilled in action game.
Yeah I’m not arguing difficulty, they’re easy by design. But to say it’s not a huge improvement over the copy-paste stuff we got in BotW just sounds bonkers to me. It’s night and day.
 
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StueyDuck

Member
6 years for a glorified BOTW DLC with tacked on building mechanics nobody asked for and the exact same combat system. This game feels like a gigantic chore. You just get tired of doing shrines over and over again…finding korok seeds….rinse and repeat… The map is huge with the multiple depths, but it’s also empty and dead. I was really excited with the sky island, but when I dropped back down to Hyrule, I suddenly felt like I was just playing BoTW all over again. All of the BoTW burnout came rushing back. I have tried very hard to like this game but it's not for me.
I mean.... so is botw.

They aren't very good legend of Zelda games 🤷‍♂️. I know 'everything' is overrated these days according to gamers but those games are quite literally overrated, some of the highest gaming scores of all time.

In reality they are like mid 80s like your average ubisoft game.
 

nkarafo

Member
I agree with the OP.

They fixed none of the original game's issues. The weapons breaking after a couple of hits? Yes please. The boring/distracting Korok seeds? They are back. Shrines using the same visual style? That's back too. No way to fast switch armor sets? You don't need that, shut up. An incredibly ugly, washed out color style? Just use Yuzu and fix it yourself with reshade or something.

And on top of all that they added all the tedious crafting system.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Yeah I’m not arguing difficulty, they’re easy by design. But to say it’s not a huge improvement over the copy-paste stuff we got in BotW just sounds bonkers to me. It’s night and day.
I can praise the change, but i'm not gonna overly praise the final result, does it sound better to you?

My highlight of the game were the new skills, making a puzzles hater like me solve puzzles in the "wrong" way was refreshing.
Superhand and ascend and the time thing are some incredible shit, not gonna lie, even if just cause series did parts of ultrahand well before tokt.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
I can praise the change, but i'm not gonna overly praise the final result, does it sound better to you?
I don’t really care. I’m just saying it’s a huge improvement over what we got in BotW.

Saying it’s not an improvement reads to me like you’d rather just fight the same “flying dragon” in four different color variations in each temple.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I don’t really care. I’m just saying it’s a huge improvement over what we got in BotW.

Saying it’s not an improvement reads to me like you’d rather just fight the same “flying dragon” in four different color variations in each temple.
I get what you say, but being a huge improvement while still being super meh is not something that i want to praise that much.

I admit they changed them if this is your problem with what i said.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
I admit they changed them if this is your problem with what i said.
It’s all good, I get what you mean. I’m just saying that even if you’d consider the bosses to be equally crappy in both titles, the variety alone is better in TotK so it’d still be an improvement either way, strictly speaking.
 

Fess

Member
I loved it and it was my GOTY, for awhile.

But I dropped out after 70 hours and ended up not finishing it. Played everybody’s GOTY Baldur’s Gate 3 for 25 hours and then dropped out of that too, ended up playing Starfield for 300+ hours instead which was my GOTY, I also enjoyed tiny indie game Loop Hero more than just about everything AAA last year.

Sometimes you have to realize that people like different things just like how they like different food or music. And it’s okay.

If you don’t like something others love, don’t fight it, just stop playing, it’s obviously not your thing.

If you like something even though everyone seem to hate it, just keep playing and be glad you found something that aligned with your interests.

I plan to go back to TOTK some day anyway. Hoping for a Switch 2 upgrade. The framerate is a problem for me.
 

Thaedolus

Member
Tears is pretty much a perfect video game. If you can imagine a way to solve its puzzle, it just lets you do it instead of forcing you to do some intended method. I finished so many shrines just by using the tools they give you, like the ascend ability, but not in the most obvious “intended” way. I also skipped a huge section of the game just by seeing a floating island and thinking I bet I can get there, then I did, then I realized holy shit I should go check out the actual intended route to get here, but it’s wild it just let me do it with the tools they give you.

In conclusion, TotK is the best game on Switch and I feel bad OP doesn’t get it
 

Hohenheim

Member
I was going to be snarky but for the love of God, stop doing this to yourself. Hundreds of games are released every day, just find something that better suits you.
Amen. The whole "i've tried so hard to get into this" mentality is beyond stupid.
 

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
Underground level was boring yes, but as someone who hasn't played BOTW, I had a lot of fun exploring Hyrule and the skies with plenty of cool toys. I find myself looking for the ascend feature in some games; I've normalized it so much in my mind. I also got BOTW, but because the map is the same, I'll play it later. Otherwise, I might find BOTW boring too.
 
I think TOTK, is an improvement in almost every area of BOTW. I don‘t love Godhand, but I agree it expands the game for kids.

Yet, it is NOT as a good of a game as BOTW, nor will it have the impact.

I bounced off TOTK very early. Partially, i believe due to performance. Partially, because I can’t help but wonder if TOTK should have been saved for Switch 2. I don’t know, it just didn’t do it for me.

I do agree with Nintendo that the next Zelda will be something different. Personally, I think a Remake or Reimagining of OoT with BOTW elements or a Dark Souls inspired Zelda II would be smart ways to go For 3d Zelda.

The next game outside of BOTW, TOTK, WW or Twilight Princess ports will clearly be a remake. Not just a port or enhanced version. Due to the dev time required, it will be easier to get a ground up remake out than an original game. I am sure Nintendo is targeting 2026-2027 for release of that game. Around the time next gen was supposed to launch.

There is only two ways imo for 2D Zelda. Either they “BOTW” style 2d Zelda, or remake LTTP in HD2D or some other clever art style.
 
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