The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (contains spoilers)

I would say the Zonai are more Caprinae-esque than kangaroos.

Anytime we see Rauru's profile, that really comes across. Well, and then there's his other form, but that's a tried and true Lo Z staple.

Edited by ArthurEld on May 12th 2023 at 9:42:11 AM

Speaking of him, I can’t Unhear Dimitri from Fire Emblem whenever he speaks.

I keep waiting for him to tell me to kill every last one of them.

People tend to call them goat people online but there's definitely shades of Cartoon Creature going on.

Master Kohga somehow survived and returns as a Recurring Boss Can I give the game an 11/10 yet?

Oh definitely. Goats and sheep just seem the strongest influence.

Speaking of appearances, Purah now pretty much resembles her Age of Calamity form. I wonder if that's just because they wanted to avoid the implications of having an adult (a very, very old one at that), who looks like a child again.

Didn't BOTW already have some book or other that said it took place 10,000 years after the other games? That's so far back that the Kingdom of Hyrule very much could have been refounded after some kind of apocalyptic disaster. Hell it could take place after Wind Waker and be in New Hyrule, or the flood finally stopped and people migrated back to old Hyrule (and the Zora reevolved, I guess).

I think Purah was much cuter in Age of Calamity, but her design in this game isn't bad per se. Just not as cute to me personally.

Edited by PhiSat on May 12th 2023 at 11:03:02 AM

Creating a Champion provides a lot of background lore, including the identification of the ruins to be of Zonai origin. But it was also book that was deliberately speculative on many details and thus subject to change.

One thing is for certain. If it was intended for BOTW to be the last game of the Zelda Timeline, then TOTK essentially retconned that intention out of existence. It declared its origin story of Hyrule and Ganondorf to be the earliest recorded fact, thus any Zelda game placed before it would ultimately be irrelevant since it's clear that nobody in present day would know about them to begin with, including Ganondorf himself.

But Hylia is also stated to have been Zelda's divine ancestor... TOTK definitely awkwardly retcons some stuff.

Though that being said, it wouldn't entirely be out of the question for plenty to have happened before TOTK first recorded facts if enough time had passed. There's plenty of things we don't know about lots of ancient peoples in the real world. I still like the idea that the Zonai evolved from the Twili that somehow returned to Hyrule, they share colour schemes and a similar aesthetic.

In essence though, whether or not you can put BOTW, Age of Calamity, and TOTK into the general timeline changes very little about the fact that are clearly meant to be self-contained titles.

Honestly, I prefer that the BOTW games be its own separate universe if it mean broadening the very definition of canon in Zelda. No constraints, no obligations to any continuity if need be.

One thing that I do enjoy out of these new timeline revelations is that Demise's Dying Curse no longer applies to TOTK Ganondorf. Which means no moral agency issues, and we can say that Ganondorf is evil because he chose to be evil.

Long live the true King of Evil.

Ascent is pretty fun to use. Especially to get out of a cave after exploring it, your just in a completely new place suddenly.

For Ultra Hand I just wish the controls for turning objects were less clunky.

Finished my first dungeon, The Wind Temple and damn that was disappointing. It was almost exactly the same as the Divine Beasts. A very short dungeon with easy puzzles and a pathetic boss. I really, really hope that it’s the exception and not the rule because the one thing I wanted above all else was better dungeons.

I picked this up on whim and never played botw so it's all new for me.

So far it's okay? I've barely started and got the hand fuse thingy so maybe it's just a slow start or something. Can't say I've been particularly wowed by anything yet and idk who came up with the weapon system but uhhh having everything break in a few hits is certainly a choice. Also kinda hate how run and jump are opposite each other and seemingly can't actually be changed, just switched which is which.

I don't really know how you'd reconcile Ganondorf's backstory here with previous games? I think this has to be a new continuity

Exactly, with what’s revealed of said character’s backstory, there’s no way OOT or SS can happen.

And funnily enough, said character even pulls the same trick he does in OOT.

I've only been down there once so far, but The Depths are REALLY cool.

Did you get ambushed by a Yiga?

I was fooled by the NPC.

To whoever predicted that Chris Hackney will voice a character in the game. You were right! I literally saw it on BTVA and OH MY GOD... I knew the voice sounded familiar.

And thats the Wind Temple down. Honestly, my favorite part was probably the way to get to it, that was legit a really cool setpiece.

The temple itself then turned out to be way smaller in terms of content then what it looked like initially and the boss followed Windblights footsteps in that you would probably only die to it if you actively tried to. Though again, absolutely amazing in terms of spectacle.

With how much the game was pushing to go Rito Village as soon as possible, I assume this one was designed to be beaten pretty early on, so I'm hoping the other temples will pick up more.

In conclusion: Compared to the divine beasts this one was not a big step up in terms of gameplay, but a huge one in presentation.

So after waking up at the start of the game, is Link just James Sunderland as he immediately decides to jump down into massive pits without a second thought?

I mean, where else is he gonna go but down?

It's pretty funny to what ridiculous extremes this game takes Soft Water.

Link could probably survive atmospheric reentry completely unharmed if a tiny pond happens to be where he lands.

Edited by uncertanSearcher on May 13th 2023 at 4:28:08 PM

Wait a minute, this is all Skyward Sword shit. The floating islands, the robots, I swear if the mummy turns out to be Demise instead of Ganondorf I'm going to be pissed.

Holy crap. So I was just wandering across south Hyrule Field, making my way to the ol' Great Plateau, and decided to take a detour to look at some ruins along the path. As I get near it, a blob of gloom sprouts up from the ground, with a bunch of hands growing out of it, and this puddle of gloom chased me down and tried to grab me. And this puddle was actually pretty fucking fast. Anyway, the ordel scared the heck outta me. Eventually I got out of its line of sight (by the way, the hands have eyes on them. Eww) and it went away.

No. Tears of the Kingdom makes Skyward Sword impossible to happen unless you subscribed to the theory that Skyward Sword is a distorted tale of what really happened during Hyrule's foundation.