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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Mr. Aonuma Gameplay Demonstration

Tg89

Member
TIL sweeping innovations are a requirement for a $70 title. GAF must not play many games.

I'll take an iteration on one of the best games of the last decade any day.
 
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Hurahn7

Banned
Personally I can see why people can feel skeptical. Totally fine with me. Doesn't affect me. It does look like DLC.

But the more I think about it the more excited I am to play it. What happens if you put an eyeball on a bomb? No idea let's try it. What happens if you put a bomb into a giant Boulder? No idea let's try it. What happens of you put sleep mushroom shield traps on the ground like land mines? No idea let's try it. It will be that for 100 hours. Just constant discovery. Plus dungeons, time rewind, sky islands, and whatever other new shit is in there.

More than enough to be day 1 for me.
The new Zelda videos are going to be crazy once people like PointCrow gets their hands on the game.
 

HofT

Member
Complete and utter bullspit. Like, this is so demonstrably false it is nutty that you even reached for it.



Even better, just make weapons one use. That would be the ultimate in "forced variety of play."
No silly, obviously can't do that cause then you'd have no weapons' left :messenger_winking_tongue:
 

GHG

Member
I think this looks great. Some of the new abilities are great innovations. Some of it is a more streamlined/creative version of scrap mechanic, all in a proper open world game. How fucking jaded do you need to be to call this "DLC"?

And that comes from someone who really didn't get on with the first game.
 
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Field

Member
Kinda feels like we should have got this sequel 3-4 years ago. And a proper new Zelda coming whenever Switch 2 is out next year.
 
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Mozzarella

Member
Wow, they kept mostly the same assets, i dont have a problem with that but they surely expect some backlash for that, anyway i was unimpressed at first but when he started messing around with the abilities i started to get interested, im pretty sure its going to be a great game but im worried the dungeons are going to be mostly basic and repetitive, hopefully they designed some good dungeons there.
 
Kinda feels like we should have got this sequel 3-4 years ago. And a proper new Zelda coming whenever Switch 2 is out next year.
Covid. And I bet this is the 3ds Zelda team getting experience with modern development.

Theyre probably working on another Zelda already for several years in pre production.
 

Tg89

Member
I think this looks great. Some of the new abilities are great innovations. Some of it is a more streamlined/creative version of scrap mechanic, all in a proper open world game. How fucking jaded do you need to be to call this "DLC"?

And that comes from someone who really didn't get on with the first game.

yeah this seems far less iterative than 95% of the sequels we get in the gaming space. and most of those are sequels to considerably worse games. they took the freedom of BOTW (arguably the best part) and jacked it up to 10.

DLC stuff is always such a lazy smooth brain complaint. Saw the same thing with God of War, Elden Ring, etc. Not sure what it takes to be a worthy sequel under that context. People also overvalue innovation and undervalue iteration. Nothing wrong with refining something great.
 
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EruditeHobo

Member
Really not into building a bunch of Hyrule-mobiles to traverse the world? I think that's incredibly lame. And the complete lack of visual upgrade, while not unexpected, is also pretty underwhelming. I'm sure it will again be everyone's best game in the history of videogames though. And I'll be with the minority, be like "yeah... it's good".

Considering the established world, I think fuze makes sense for weapons, so to me that's the biggest improvement -- fuze is likely going to mitigate the annoyance of breakable weapons. Which I do appreciate.

Rest of this feels a lot like an expansion rather than a proper sequel. I'm not holding my breath for proper dungeons, bosses, or better enemy variety (aka the touchstones of the Zelda franchise in the best games the series has to offer).
 
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Really not into building a bunch of Hyrule-mobiles to traverse the world? I think that's incredibly lame. And the complete lack of visual upgrade, while not unexpected, is also pretty underwhelming. I'm sure it will again be everyone's best game in the history of videogames though. And I'll be with the minority, be like "yeah... it's good".

Considering the established world, I think fuze makes sense for weapons, so to me that's the biggest improvement -- fuze is likely going to mitigate the annoyance of breakable weapons. Which I do appreciate.

Rest of this feels a lot like an expansion rather than a proper sequel. I'm not holding my breath for proper dungeons, bosses, or better enemy variety (aka the touchstones of the Zelda franchise in the best games the series has to offer.
I bet they actually visually downgraded. Seamless sky transition. Putting gameplay over visuals.
 

TLZ

Banned
I pre-ordered this game months ago, but after watching I'm not confident I want to keep it. I'm not impressed. It felt very meh. Mostly because I feel I waited so long, a whole generation, for this. For some extra crafting. This looks like something you'd get in 2 years. 6 years, I expected more.

And I absolutely loved BOTW. I sunk 300+ hours into it.

I think I'll cancel and wait for after it comes out, watch a few tubes.

I might wait for the Switch 2 version even.

I'm honestly not happy I'm doing this. I was eagerly looking forward to it.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
So.. a shitty experience with the same old mechanics, a linier story in a fake open world for years on end is fine as long as it looks more and more like uncanny valley, but a game with a distinct art style, unique mechanics and player freedom is bad because it doesn't look like uncanny valley?
Got it.

Congratulations. "Doesn't look like uncanny valley" is one of the most creative excuses I've seen for crappy graphics yet. 😂

The hardware limits your software. You can only push your software as much as your hardware allows.

"I'm not sure what's unclear about this."

I agree. What is unclear?

As a developer you are bound by what your hardware allows you to do. This is a fact I doubt any developer or even anyone on a videogame forum would disagree to. You can't run Crysis/Last of Us 2 at full blast(absolutely no graphical compromises) on a PS2/PS3. BUT you can make SEVERE cuts in key areas to get some semblance of those games running on those hardware.

"APIs, optimization methods, drivers, and all that jazz changes" Are not magic bullets that when you say them instantly propel your game to graphical heaven. You are still constrained by your hardware and dictated by what your game design allows. If you are a heavily physics driven game you may face CPU bottlenecks even if your GPU can technically manage more. And even then, if you do expand and expound on that physics driven gameplay, you may run into even more bottlenecks and constraints given your hardware. Altho it is weird, I've seen people use 'optimisation' like it is some kind of magic bullet, as if the developers just simply 'optimised' their engine and it looked better when i encomapsses far more than that.

So all these developers who manage to squeeze more from the hardware later in all consoles' life cycle are miracle makers?
 

Tg89

Member
So all these developers who manage to squeeze more from the hardware later in all consoles' life cycle are miracle makers?
I dunno how we're establishing they aren't squeezing more from the hardware.

The world seems more expansive and I can only imagine the extra stress on the CPU from the fuzing specifically.

There's more (often better) ways to push the hardware than image quality. Not to mention we don't know that they haven't improved that. All we've seen are some compressed Youtube videos.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
The world seems more expansive and I can only imagine the extra stress on the CPU from the fuzing specifically.

The size of the world is irrelevant to image quality beyond a certain point, unless your tech is absolutely sub-par and you don't use cell streaming and LOD decently which... everyone has learned how to do in the past decade.
 
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Tg89

Member
The size of the world is irrelevant to image quality beyond a certain point, unless your tech is absolutely sub-par and you don't use cell streaming and LOD decently which... everyone has learned how to do in the past decade.

Guess Nintendo was too busy learning how to make an open world game worth exploring.
 

shiru

Banned
What’s wrong with people enjoying good graphics?
Nothing and that wasn't the point. It's when people obsess over graphics that it becomes obnoxious. This is a Switch game, open world, doing a lot of physics based gameplay. It looks fine for what it is. And it looks fun, which is what matters in the end. And I made that post due to some of the reactions I saw in the thread. Like people are somehow wrong for valuing gameplay over graphics.
 
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Nintendo being Nintendo, seems like they‘ve never read any opinions of their fanbase regarding their shitty weapon durability or stamina mechanic. Looks like an expansion. It‘s my most wanted game this year but it feels like it‘s going to be skyward sword all over again. Looks like BotW with an additional 100hrs bloat.
“What should we listen to: our sales numbers or 500 people on the internet with a big mouth?”
 

HofT

Member
Nothing and that wasn't the point. It's when people obsess over graphics that it becomes obnoxious. This is a Switch game, open world, doing a lot of physics based gameplay. It looks fine for what it is. And it looks fun, which is what matters in the end.
Funny thing is, everyone should already have this kind of expectation since PS5 and Series X are still essentially getting last gen games.
 

Tg89

Member
It's almost like you believe this is the only open-world game worth exploring. 😂
It's one of a few that actually justifies being an open world.

Elden Ring, BOTW, Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, FO:NV, MGSV, Rockstar stuff. If we want to throw in MMOs we can include World of Warcraft. Probably a couple I'm missing, but most devs suck at making open worlds.
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
It's one of a few that actually justifies being an open world.

Elden Ring, BOTW, Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, FO:NV, MGSV, Rockstar stuff. If we want to throw in MMOs we can include World of Warcraft. Probably a couple I'm missing, but most devs suck at making open worlds.

One thing is liking a game.

One thing is having one's view of other games completely skewed to artificially justify the shortcomings of said game.

This take of yours is beyond swallowing the copium. You're taking it intravenously. 😂
 
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HofT

Member
One thing is liking a game.

One thing is having one's view of other games completely skewed to artificially justify the shortcomings of said game.

This take of yours is beyond swallowing the copium. You're taking it intravenously. 😂
What are you talking about? He gave you a list of games that have great open worlds...
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
What are you talking about? He gave you a list of games that have great open worlds...

And if you think that's all the open worlds that are worth exploring and every other developer "sucks" at it you really haven't played many open-world games. Imagine thinking that Monolith "sucks" at creating open worlds, or CD Projekt, or so many more.

Even indie developers nowadays have become extremely good at creating open worlds, and anyone who sets foot on Steam can see that.
 
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HofT

Member
And if you think that's all the open worlds that are worth exploring and every other developer "sucks" at it you really haven't played many open-world games. Imagine thinking that Monolith "sucks" at creating open worlds, or CD Projekt, or so many more.

Even indie developers nowadays have become extremely good at creating open worlds, and anyone who sets foot on Steam can see that.
That user didn't? He gave you a list of games with great open worlds and yea he should have included the Witcher.

Though, your post still doesn't make sense. You make it sound like he only likes BotW lol
 
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Tg89

Member
And if you think that's all the open worlds that are worth exploring and every other developer "sucks" at it you really haven't played many open-world games. Imagine thinking that Monolith "sucks" at creating open worlds, or CD Projekt, or so many more.

Even indie developers nowadays have become extremely good at creating open worlds, and anyone who sets foot on Steam can see that.
Like I said, probably forgot a couple XC1 and Witcher 3 would definitely be there. It's still an incredibly short list and BOTW is near the top. You mentioned indies, can't really think of many I'd include in that tier. Depends on your definition though, if you bucket survival/procedurally generated stuff in the same category there's a couple more, different beast imo though. Not many indie studios out there with the means the handcraft a world of that scope.

The notion that people think Nintendo (or any dev) would release a game as critically and commercially successful as BOTW and then immediately take the franchise in a completely different direction is absurd. The entire industry is iterative, will happily take an iteration on one of the best games of the last decade. Might be different if it was their 8th time doing it (probably not, I'll still happily play every FROM game as well) but it's a game I played for 100 hours 6 years ago and have yet to play anything really similar.
 

Kumomeme

Member
those who said it looks like expansion, it is because originally this indeed supposed to an expansion. but because the volume of content is bigger than expected so they end up making full fledge sequel instead.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
The notion that people think Nintendo (or any dev) would release a game as critically and commercially successful as BOTW and then immediately take the franchise in a completely different direction is absurd.

There's no need to take the franchise in a completely different direction to implement half-decent antialiasing.

That user didn't? He gave you a list of games with great open worlds and yea he should have included the Witcher.

Though, your post still doesn't make sense. You make it sound like he only likes BotW lol

No. I'm baffled that he seems to believe that making a good open world is somehow rocket science that only a few miracle-makers can achieve. That's very far from the truth in 2023.
 
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James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
Seems like they're going all in on the Sandbox experience. If the Sandbox tools are interesting enough it can carry the game just like it did with BOTW, but I don't think I'll enjoy it as much as I did BOTW and it will never be on my top list of Zelda games.

If they manage to marry the Sandbox tools and environment with a cool story and engaging dungeons/bosses then it has the potential to be one of the GOAT, though. So while I'm not expecting this anymore, I am still somewhat optimistic.
 

supernova8

Banned
Seems like they're going all in on the Sandbox experience. If the Sandbox tools are interesting enough it can carry the game just like it did with BOTW, but I don't think I'll enjoy it as much as I did BOTW and it will never be on my top list of Zelda games.

If they manage to marry the Sandbox tools and environment with a cool story and engaging dungeons/bosses then it has the potential to be one of the GOAT, though. So while I'm not expecting this anymore, I am still somewhat optimistic.
The sandbox-yness is why I still play BOTW to this day and yet also why I still haven't finished it (I mean that in a positive sense).

Not really sure I'd bother buying TOTK until I've made some more progress with BOTW but it looks awesome. Being able to craft tools and vehicles is going to lead to some really wacky "pro BOTW" videos.
 

HofT

Member
There's no need to take the franchise in a completely different direction to implement half-decent antialiasing.



No. I'm baffled that he seems to believe that making a good open world is somehow rocket science that only a few miracle-makers can achieve. That's very far from the truth in 2023.
Can you give me a list of the plentiful open world games that you think are exemplary (but haven't been mentioned by Tg89) so I can comprehend why you are so insistent on proving that BotW doesn't measure up to today's standards?
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Can you give me a list of the plentiful open world games that you think are exemplary (but haven't been mentioned by Tg89) so I can comprehend why you are so insistent on proving that BotW doesn't measure up to today's standards?

Many survival games online and offline, Conan Exiles, Arc, Subnautica, Project Zomboid, Sons of the Forest... there's more, but it's a big genre with TONS of great games, from the super-indie to the AA.
Then there's games like Spider-man or Ghost of Tsushima, both of which have awesome open worlds.
Star Citizen (yes, it ain't finished. But it does all that BotW does better, bigger, deeper, and with more freedom to do wacky stuff and that's why people like it)
And yes, also some Ubisoft ones are great. Haters gonna hate.
 
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LakeOf9

Member
The idea that BotW is not one of the most influential, impactful, and best games of the decade but fucking Star Citizen is is laughable, but to each their own. The broader industry disagrees with nonsense like that.

--

That aside, this game doesn't look too exciting. I think BOTW is legitimately fantastic, but this so far is not showing the same brilliance. Some fun looking mechanics, but how does it all come together? Is there more to the game that thy are withholding from sharing, or is this the extent of what the game will be?
 

zizou6971

Neo Member
You had to choose those two games lol, I mean there are people who enjoyed playing those games just so you know. Why not RDR2 or TLOU🤣

Anyways BOTW isn’t a bad looking game. This new one looks outdated That’s what people are saying, no one can deny that.

Either way. I would rather have both. They are equally as important imo.
They are boring 3rd person shooters. Why would you compare them to Zelda? If you wanna watch highly detailed horse balls in 4k just do that.
 

zizou6971

Neo Member
Many survival games online and offline, Conan Exiles, Arc, Subnautica, Project Zomboid, Sons of the Forest... there's more, but it's a big genre with TONS of great games, from the super-indie to the AA.
Then there's games like Spider-man or Ghost of Tsushima, both of which have awesome open worlds.
Star Citizen (yes, it ain't finished. But it does all that BotW does better, bigger, deeper, and with more freedom to do wacky stuff and that's why people like it)
And yes, also some Ubisoft ones are great. Haters gonna hate.
Star Citizen is a scam lol
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Star Citizen is a scam lol

Sure. keep telling yourself that.

The idea that BotW is not one of the most influential, impactful, and best games of the decade but fucking Star Citizen is is laughable, but to each their own. The broader industry disagrees with nonsense like that.

The broader industry hasn't played Star Citizen. I don't know many who actually play it that don't come out at the very least impressed by the stuff that it lets you pull off.

They are boring 3rd person shooters.

Ah yeah, the ol "boring" argument. You're very easily bored.
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Learn to discuss like an adult without the constant passive aggressive and childish retorts/insults.
Like you said “haters gonna hate”.

Yeah. Lots of people irrationally and very vocally hate them. That doesn't mean I'm the only one or even in a measurable minority.

If you think few people enjoy Ubisoft's open worlds, you're more out of touch with reality than what it seems.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Yeah. Lots of people irrationally and very vocally hate them. That doesn't mean I'm the only one or even in a measurable minority.

If you think few people enjoy Ubisoft's open worlds, you're more out of touch with reality than what it seems.
Not really saying that, there are lot people Ubisoft games same way lot of people enjoyed BotW, doesn’t matter how much you hate on it. “Haters gonna hate”
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Not really saying that, there are lot people Ubisoft games same way lot of people enjoyed BotW, doesn’t matter how much you hate on it. “Haters gonna hate”

I don't really think wanting a game not to look like mud and holding a developer with massive resources and direct access to the platform's hardware to a higher standard, means hating it. 🤔
 
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