#can't you tell botw/totk zelda is important to me?

[derrickwildsun]

Post-TOTK Musings (TOTK Spoilers)

I think the reason Zelda didn't burst into tears at the end of the final boss fight was because she just caught up in the moment. She was hyperfocused on the immediate results of everything that had transpired: her centuries-long plan had succeeded, Link had destroyed Ganondorf, and she was back to her normal self again and eager to tell Link about her adventures in the past.

I don’t think the full impact of everything Zelda did in the past would have hit her until she returned to Hateno and reunited with all the friendly faces she had been so accustomed to prior to the Upheaval: the villagers, the children, Symin, etc. Seeing all their faces again and returning to her and Link’s house (and maybe seeing the new one Link built for just the two of them in her absence) would probably make her realize everything she would have left behind had Link et al not reversed her draconification. She formed all those bonds with the villagers through acts of kindess and earned the love and respect of the children by giving them a genuine love of learning like the kind she had her whole life. With Link, she had carved out a home where she could live comfortably and just be herself, doing research on whatever in privacy. The realization that she would have lost all that permanently would probably hit her like a sledgehammer. She wouldn’t just feel bad about herself, but she’d consider how devastated all those people (especially Link and the schoolchildren) would have been at the possibility of her being gone forever. After struggling with feelings of low self-esteem for most of her life, she would probably realize for the first time in her life that she actually matters as a person and that Hyrule is a better place with her in it.

Zelda would also come to realize just how much Rauru and Sonia meant to her. We don’t see her grieve either of them much in-game (likely due to time constraints), but it’s possible she mourned their losses somewhat before undergoing draconfication. But imagine how she must feel about them knowing that they enabled Link to turn her back to normal after thousands of years. Thousands of years ago, they promised to help her find a way home to “put Link’s mind at ease,” and not even death stopped them from fulfilling that promise. They were the parents she had dreamed of having her whole life, and in the end they did for her what Rhoam never could: they saved her. Her love for them would increase tenfold and she’d make sure that they would never be relegated to the dustbins of history.

And of course I can’t overlook her now-increased love for Link. If she ever had any reservations or inhibitions about tying the knot with Link, those reservations would be gone for good by now. She put all her faith in him to carry out her final wish, and he succeeded with flying colors. And not only that, he never gave up on her. Most people probably would have called it fate and declared her a lost cause, but Link didn’t consider his journey over until he had Zelda, the beautiful, nerdy princess he fell in love with hundreds of years ago, back in his life. They’re ride or die for one another, and they’ll never leave each other ever again.

[madamnerd]

I've deleted my Epilogue to my thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom post, basically because after a while, I realized that I don't quite feel that way at all, and was really only going off of what people said, so here's how I honestly feel about TotK. Spoilers ahead, so don't read if you haven't played it.

TotK is a fun game to play, and I enjoy playing it, but I have two major problems with it:

1. The game's mechanics and Zonai devices give the player unlimited freedom to the point of absolute ridiculousness. It's fun to play with, sure, but honestly I can't take it seriously as a Zelda game at all. It just looks too goofy... What I feel like they should have done is kept the concept of the Zonai as the Ancient Warrior Tribe of Faron (not bloody Ancient Aliens that practically replaced the Gods/Hylia, that was ridiculous) and made them magic users, while still keeping the Sheikah Tech from BotW... Sheikah Magitech combined with Ancient Warrior Zonai Magic... Now THAT would've been awesome!

2. The Story was shit. I'm sorry, but it just wasn't good at all... Not to mention that it makes a huge plot hole with Zelda becoming the Light Dragon for 10,000 years just so she could restore the Master Sword and return it to Link, like ??? Where was that in BotW then?

The total disregard for BotW that TotK has in general pisses me off so badly... I wanted a true sequel to Breath of the Wild, not a remake of it wiping out everything important before. Why is there still no Triforce? What the hell were these Secret Stones? Zelda doesn't need retconning like this (imo, it doesn't need it at all). Keep to the original driving force of the series, the Triforce. It's what's always been the center of the Zelda Universe.

... Maybe I'm just getting older and more set in my ways... I know that many of you out there love the game, and I'm happy for you, I am, and as I've said before, I like playing it too, it's fun to ding around with, but to me it just isn't Zelda. I know alot of older fans were really confused and let down by TotK. It was supposed to be huge, and, again imo, wound up being one of the biggest cash grabs Nintendo's put out there...

Hopefully Nintendo will learn from this mistake and combine some of the new elements with the older formula (cooking, multiple outfits, outfit dyeing, horse customization, multiple horses, ect.).

Feel free to comment and reblog. You think I'm wrong or an idiot? Go for it, tell me why. You agree with me or want to tell me something else? Go for it, tell me why. I welcome all opinions. Thank-you for your time in reading this.

[noraiir-arts]

Does anyone else have very complicated ways of shipping?? like when i say "i ship them" i don't mean "oh they love each other so much they kiss each other and will be together forever" i ship characters but in a way that's unique to only them and/or only in certain scenarios

Like, for example Zelink- I think pre-calam zelink was one sided, i dislike post-calam zelink, but i sort of like totk zelink (yes i know they are the same two people) but only certain dynamics??? but i also think that its the type of love that goes unsaid, they just look out for and support each other, maybe its not entirely romantic but they are closer than friends. It's the type of closeness you can only get by knowing that no matter what lifetime you are in the other will always be there. I don't think its necessarily the type where they hide behind pillars to make out, or try to stay in a committed relationship, but more of a tired love, one that has been renewed throughout hundreds of lives, each time being something different.

But take skyward sword, i believe that it's easier to see romantic zelink here

or Miphlink - I don't really ship this, but it's a tragic one-sided love story that Mipha knew was doomed from the beginning. The other woman. Was never given enough time to tell Link how she felt, yet even if she had time he might not have returned her feelings. Now he barely remembers her. Maybe 100 years later she's a little embarrassed of herself, of what she wrote in her diary. Maybe it was a simple crush, mistaken for undying love and has dwindled over the past century. But now it's a sad love, the type where she grieves for what used to be, and what never will. But after being saved from Ruta she switches her sights towards the domain. She can see how much her brother has grown and is so proud of him. She knows Link will never remember her fully, but maybe it's for the best. No matter what, she will always be there to heal his wounds.

Tbh i was dragged into Revalink kicking and screaming, but now it's one of my favorites. - Their dynamics work so well, but oh no it's so sad. Started from a one-sided "rivalry" to some sort of friendship. Link never hated Revali, he didn't even dislike him. And Revali just wanted Link to be impressed, to understand why he was chosen for his role as pilot, and he wanted Link to prove himself to Revali (honestly i can go on a on about why revali was harsh to link in botw if anyone wants me to) But over time they both start to realize that they are more similar to each other than any of the other champions. They weren't born into noble families or blessed with magic. Revali learns about the vigorous training Link underwent after pulling the sword, and Link learns that Revali isn't the son of the elder or was an important figure in his village before becoming a champion, but a simple warrior just like Link. Their friendship grows and they become a great team, surprising mostly everyone. Maybe it grows into something more. Maybe neither of them know it. Maybe they just never admit it. Revali knows Link doesn't remember him. He doesn't want him to. He tells Link not to go asking about him to the princess. It's for the best, he will still be there to help Link after all. Maybe it's cruel to keep him from knowing. Well, Revali will be gone soon anyway. Maybe he hopes that Link will at least remember good things about him.

Honestly I love revalink aus, they are my fav!!

I think of Zelimpa (aoc) like a mix of how i described miphlink and revalink but im too tired to explain it rnnnnn

oh also urbosa/zelda's mom but i think that goes unsaid

but anyway these are just a few. Most of the time i can't use words to exactly explain something pictured in my head, (synesthesia is so silly) but i tried my best

[tennybird]

I have opinions about TotK. This is your spoiler warning if you haven't played/finished it yet. Also all of this is, once again, just my opinion on it and not a decisive fact! I will probably misremember things!

Anyway.

Okay so basically as someone who got it on release and beat it within a week, I'm a little underwhelmed by the game now that I'm looking back over half a year later.

It's not a terrible game! I'll say that first and foremost. But after waiting so long for it, and trying so hard to not hype myself up for it (failing horribly at that), it feels just a bit... same-y. The story is nice, and it's different. The boss fights and abilities you gain during your travels are nice. Everything else, though...

I like the map having stayed similar, with enough changes that I have to relearn some areas. The Depths are really fucking cool, and figuring out on my own that they're a negative of the overworld was incredible! But the sky islands were a little disappointing, I think. When we were told we'd be in the sky a lot, I thought there'd be more large islands like the tutorial one that you could walk around on. More references to Skyward Sword, too. It feels to me that they put more love into the Depths than the sky, in a way.

I like the main story. Figuring out Zelda was the Light Dragon (but not really believing it until the final Tears), and that she'd essentially spent thousands and thousands of years trapped inside herself, was AWESOME. Every cutscene involving her as the Light Dragon hit me hard, and I felt genuine sorrow everytime I saw her floating around the sky.

...That being said, I DO wish we could have a game where you get to actually travel with her. I WANT her to tell me about the minor lore of the world! I want to know about the various flora and fauna, and I want her to talk about Hyrule's history! Zelda is part of the royal family, and I'd imagine that part of her studies pre-BotW she'd have to learn about the history of her family (especially because of the importance of the Goddess' blood...). With how pre-BotW went between her and her powers, and her and her father, I'd imagine she'd make it a point to learn more about their history that ISN'T just the prophecy.

I, personally, did not like most of the temple boss fights. I can't really explain much of why- except for Queen Gibdo. I HATED Queen Gibdo because of all the smaller Gibdo chasing you, trying to chase down Riju for her power... It was a lot of things stacked on each other, and simply not my thing. Colgera was an absolute favorite however! The boss theme is AWESOME, the mechanics of being in the air and having to watch for projectiles, as well as crashing through the ice sheets to take it down? VERY, VERY FUN. Climbing through the sky just to get to the temple itself was one of my favorite experiences. Going up and up and up, and finally reaching the top where you break out above the storm clouds and see clear skies...

A thing that bothers me about the temples is that the cutscene at the end, where the ancient Sages gifts their powers to the new ones... I feel like they could've spent a little more time making them different, even if that meant more time in development. I would be okay with that! I think games should be in development longer in order to produce a good, finished product! Anyway.

The fight with Ganondorf was fun for me. I get SUPER immersed in it, so it was a fearful moment when I thought I'd beaten him, only to see his health bar fill again... and then go offscreen. And the DEMON DRAGON FIGHT? Holy SHIT.

I just wish there was more... substance to the game, I guess? It feels weird saying that. There are more things to do, but it's missing something I can't name. Something BotW had, but is now gone. I like TotK, like I said. It's clearly had love put into it, and I'm glad the developers spent more time on getting it as close to the perfect image they wanted as they could. Maybe it's just cause I've spent more time with BotW (over 300 hours), but I think I'm a little biased towards it. Maybe I'm just getting older and grumpier about vidya games, too. Who knows!

If you read all this, cool! I will reiterate that this is simply my view on it! If your view is different, good!! I'm happy to know there are people out there who enjoy it more than I did. Or if you hate it more than I do, maybe you have other things you want to point out about it that I missed.

[freya-howlett]

So, now that I finished totk, I'd like to share my insight of the game overall with y'all. Fight me or agree with me, I'd like to know other people's opinions

PROS

The soundtrack is amazing. Zelda has always been about awesome music and this is not the exception. The soundtrack plays exactly what the environment was to convey. You're exploring the sky islands? The music is then calm. You're in the depths? the music will help you shit yourself. Going even more down, looking for Ganondorf? coolest music ever, full of mystery.

World exploring. I feel like this time totk forces you to explore the world, in botw you could directly go to Ganon and beat the shit out of him with a stick, but definitely not here at all. You find yourself needing bombs so you'll have to look for caves, then you need Sundelion, so you have to go to the sky. In a certain way, I hated that for the first days because I was trying to finish the game as soon as I could, but now I appreciate it.

We have our first disabled Link! At least until the end. It was nice to see him different for once. It'd be cool if he had stayed that way.

World development. In botw, you have this whole piece of land that's mostly monsters and ruins, but in totk things have changed after the calamity disappeared. We have more people around who're in contact with each other. The places don't seem as lonely as before and even people help Link. And, did you notice there's less trees? It's a nice detail, since there's new buildings made of wood everywhere.

Fusing mechanic. Tbh, I didn't love Fuse at first, but then realized how useful it can be.

Link's clothing. There's more clothes available bc they used the botw DLC clothing, which is cool! And the new designs are... slutty.

Zelink. No one can tell me otherwise. All the signs are there, bitches!!!!

CONS

Overall, it doesn't feel like a sequel. And I hated that. Nintendo keeps giving preference towards new players and in this case, it's not worth it. I dare to declare that at least 80% of people who purchased totk played botw and knew exactly what they were getting. This especially has to do with the point below.

There's no mention of the Champions at all, the Sheikah technology is missing, and where tf are the Divine Beasts?? I get that, yeah, maybe the Champions shouldn't be thaaaaaat important anymore, yet what about everything else? Where's my Sheika Slate????????

We were promised a dark game and this isn't it, not at all. Maybe I'm tripping? But I remember clearly on the first years of development people mentioning this game would be dark like Majora's, and going back to the first two trailers I could actually see it was kinda the case. However, with the last trailer, I made a bet that they probs rejected the idea and I was right. I'd like to have something like Majora someday again.

The introduction of a new race out of nowhere. The zonai.... they weren't my piece of cake at first. It seems cheap for me, I'm not sure. I don't know if they intended to introduce something, anything, from them since botw but ended up scraping the idea, but overall the whole experience I have of them from both games is that they took the zonai out of their asses and were like "yup, we got this!"

The end was TOO happy. Like I mentioned before, I'd rather Link have his arm cut. Purah can make another one if Rauru really wanted his arm so bad. Zelda transforming back was okay, but what I didn't really get was why did Sonia and Rauru didn't turn her back before????? They instead waited until Link fought his ass hard, lol.

I hated that Zelda was thanking ME at the end instead of Link. Don't look at me, bitch, look at your boyfriend! This has to do with this other post of mine about how Nintendo can't let go of Link being an avatar despite they themselves providing depth to his character.

I may edit this longer but rn I'm out of ideas and I'm at work, lol.

[tirsynni]

I have another question! (Sorry if this is a

weird ask). I read a lot of your LoZ fics and love how you write the different pairings. I was wondering your thoughts on Sidon x Link? I haven't really seen any long fics with them and was wondering if that could be a possibility? Unless it's just not your cup of tea. Thanks again! <3

This is absolutely not a weird ask. lol No worries.

I enjoy Sidon/Link and I've written for them before. Hell, Sidon really comes as an oblivious guy with an insane crush in TotK. Like, chill, man. rofl It's incredibly easy to imagine everyone in Zora's Domain thinking that Sidon and Link actually had something going on (with Yona's full and enthusiastic support).

Overall, an enjoyable but possibly too-sweet ship? A little too easy? Not the right type of tension for me? Ironically, Sidon's enthusiastic adoration of Link, which is a great reason for their ship, is a turnoff to me actually shipping them. I love some snark, conflict, tension, etc.

TotK (and Yona) helpfully point out some things which could lead to some fractures in their outwardly idyllic relationship. Mainly, Sidon doesn't like conflict. He really, really doesn't. He does his best to be happy and to cheer others up. He avoids conflict and things which could lead to conflict. He smiles brightly and sparkles and is bright and extravagant and wants to pay attention to the happy and positive stuff, not on conflict and potential loss.

Link in turn is the type of guy who doesn't deal with that crap. Not "doesn't put up with it" like Yona. He doesn't deal with it. At all. Sidon avoids his responsibilities? Fine, whatever. Link will handle it. No conversation. No fuss. No making Sidon actually deal with the issues at hand like Yona forced him to do. There's no indication that it even occurs to Link to try to open Sidon's eyes. That's not how Link works. If there's an issue, Link doesn't bitch. Hell, it can be argued that he barely plans. He just handles it. One of the themes in TotK is that Link isn't alone, but when you get right down to it, Link would have done the whole thing alone without complaint or objection or even really asking for help. Zelda asked for him. People volunteered. People literally threw themselves into battles where he had otherwise been fighting alone.

There's a running gag in BotW and TotK that no one recognizes Link as the Hero and Champion. It's even funnier in TotK because he has spent so long saving and helping people and acting as Princess Zelda's Knight. As funny as it is, though, I would argue that there's a good reason for it: when Link is acting as Zelda's Knight, he plays the proper role and wears the highly visible Champion Blue, similar to Tony Hawk needing his skateboard to be recognized. Otherwise, he's just Link: the guy who wanders off and happens to come back to the stable riding a buck. The weird, quiet, but helpful guy who occasionally needs to scrub the cooking pot before anyone else can use it. Link and the Champion are as different as Clark Kent and Superman. Link doesn't really like to stand out. He doesn't like to draw attention to things. If there's a problem, he just quietly fixes it instead of pointing out that someone else really, really needs to handle their own shit.

On that note, it's Link being the Hero of the Wild and Champion which makes Link safe to Sidon, almost naively so. It's possible that Sidon's struggle with conflict stems from the traumatic loss of his sister at a young age. He avoids Yona in TotK because he is struggling with the fear of losing her like he lost Mipha and, again, can't deal with conflict. He hides instead and insists that he's performing another important duty. Unlike Mipha, Link came back. He literally came back from the dead, avenged Mipha, and defeated the Calamity. I think it's telling that, of all the moments to commemorate, Sidon chose when Link was being a powerful warrior with Sidon, proving his strength, proving that he was with Sidon and wasn't going to be easily defeated by the thing which took Mipha away from him. Again, pretty damned naive and feeds well into Sidon's deliberate and energetic optimism. The beginning of TotK proved how easily Link could fall. It doesn't matter. While Sidon is clearly fretting over Yona and about possibly losing her in TotK, he doesn't fret over Link like that. Link has proven that he's safe. That conflict that he has with Yona doesn't exist with Link, even if it possibly should.

So you have two guys who handle conflict in really unhelpfully opposing ways. There's the bonus that Sidon would probably tell himself that everything was great, there was no conflict at all, and Link probably wouldn't even recognize the actual nature of the conflict because he's so used to just shrugging and quietly handling matters himself.

Yona -- or someone like Yona -- being there helps with another hurdle in their relationship: I can't imagine the Hero of the Wild being trapped in a formal position like being the primary partner of a Prince/King. A good chunk of his backstory (even if it tends to get overshadowed by Zelda Angst) is how much the weight of being the Knight and Hero and Hylian Champion with all eyes on him fucked him up. He actually gives -- in canon -- a reason for being so quiet, and it's directly related to that stress. Sidon having a dedicated partner and Queen like Yona take the formal role while Link continues to be the Hero of the Wild would be helpful.

So yeah, I would absolutely be open to writing the ship. I've written them before, if not that many fics. The challenge, especially in regards to a long!fic, would be navigating these hurdles to create a solid, believable relationship while also writing interesting, in-character, plot-focused tension. Like, is there miscommunication based on a romcom trope or is there miscommunication because Sidon is willfully refusing to communicate and Link lacks the skills? How would Link react if he was forced under the spotlight again? How would Sidon's enthusiastic adoration and cheer react if there was actual conflict with Link, since we never actually see that in canon?

If you want just short and sweet fluff for these two? Very easy. Writing something longer and dealing with these things would require more time and thought. lol Definitely possible, though.

[neverchecking]

I'm not usually a very big Yandere fan but your content has me in a bit of a chokehold at the moment, especially Sage. This guy is haunting me, I swear. He is such a loose canon?? And I love it??

So I thought I'd share a bit of a moment I had while playing TOTK and telling Impa what happened to Zelda.

(Am I still bitter about Subdued Ceremony and Zelda's Resentment from BOTW and the fact that half of the missions basically confirm that Zelda is still running off without telling Link anything and thereby making his life harder? ...Maybe.)

I said out loud, "Can't we leave her like that? She's more useful like this." only a little bit jokingly.

Which, if Darling had the same thought, I feel would give Sage a giant Green Light to basically ensure that Zelda never comes back.

Hyrule spent 100 years without her. It can rebuild without her as well. She chose to do what she did. Who are they to go against that? They should honour her 'sacrifice'.

And his darling is always right.

Welcome to the club lmao Sage has as all in a chokehold and is laughing at us.

Okay, so the thing with Zelda/Natura still running away like...genuinely angers me. She has learned absolutely nothing. She did not learn that she, especially post Calamity, is such an important figure to Hyrule, should they choose to reinstate the Hierarchy. She has little regard for Link/'Sage's own safety because it doesn't pertain to her. She did not learn that she is so inexperienced and vulnerable in a world so cruel and hurting and I just- Wanna hug Sage so badly.

She honestly IS more useful where she currently is (During game play, ifykyk)

Should Darling mention the same thing, Sage is IN LOVE. He is falling to his knee right then and there. You are practically married now. Because everyone else tells him to just brush it off. Chase after her anyway. He's her knight. It's his job. Except for the fact that IT ISN'T. Not anymore. He's a reporter. He's a follower, but not for her. He's your dutiful serf and he has no plans on leaving anytime soon.

Especially because you are so right. Hyrule did spend a hundred years without her. It lasted and thrived. And you know what? It would continue to do so with or without her. She has made every one of her sacrifices and it's not on him to pay the price for it.

Not when he has his own Goddess to protect. To love. To follow.

[furrylibrarian]

I want to talk a bit about Tears of the Kingdom.

It's hard for me to do that, because all my feelings about it are contradictory and tangled up. I think its storytelling is incoherent and is actively hindered by the game structure, but it also has unquestionably some of the best story beats in the series. I find the open-ended creativity encouraged by its mechanics wild and engaging, but in practice I tend to just fall back on a few simple solutions and get frustrated when they don't easily apply to the thing I'm trying to solve. Most of all, I think it (alongside BotW) represents a much-needed shakeup to a series that was getting entirely too stale, but it is those very games that stagnated the franchise that made me fall in love with it.

Expanding on the second point I just made; I think TotK might be the only game I've played (that isn't a fighting game, anyways) that makes me feel inadequate. I know enough about its mechanics to understand that, conceptually, there's an incredible amount of potential Nonsense you can do with Ultrahand, but I just don't know how I should tap into that potential. I think it's admirable that the game doesn't tutorialize everything and lets you discover functions on your own, but because of that I've missed critical information about mechanics and felt like a complete fool for having to look up the information online (case in point; I had to consult the internet to figure out that I had to hit devices to activate them). I often have this background feeling that I could be doing something more interesting and effective when I'm playing TotK.

But really, most of my issues with TotK come from the lore implications. Gonna put a break here because spoilers. It's kind of just a rant after this point.

I've always been sharply aware that the devs aren't really concerned with adhering to an extended continuity and would rather craft a self-contained experience, but I just can't get over how weird TotK's story and backstory are. I'm still not sure what to make of the revelation that APARRENTLY there was just a SECOND GANONDORF the whole time who nobody knew about, and I'm still not really sure if Calamity Ganon was the classic Ganondorf degraded to a primal form after millennia of reincarnation (as I believed before TotK dropped), or if it was related to this game's new ancient Ganondorf? It's a messy situation that's only a problem when you're thinking about BotW/TotK in the context of the rest of the franchise WHICH IS COMPLETELY REASONABLE

Also the memories are just so strange. They feel like a warped retelling of OoT's first act, especially since a main character shares his name with an OoT character, a name which is not one of the many continually-recycled named the series uses which makes it sound way more significant! Like when I was playing through, I had this weird creeping feeling that this game was trying to replace OoT with this new backstory? Like obviously, no, it isn't, but it hit so many of the same important beats! Ganondorf allies himself with the king of Hyrule (even mirroring a shot from OoT), Zelda realizes he's up to something and tries to stop him, only to fail spectacularly such that Ganondorf gets the exact empowered artifact he was gunning for the whole time. Even Zelda transforming into a dragon to repair the Master Sword and sacrificing her identity in the process reminded me of Link in OoT drawing the Master Sword and losing his childhood, LIKE THEY'RE TELLING THE SAME STORY, WHAT IS GOING ON

I don't have a conclusion, I don't have a thesis, I just have opinions and I needed to vent them

[rotisseries]

🔥 okay tell me abt sidlink

ok it sucks so bad. first of all I'm sorry to sidon he's very sweet and cool and I am about to just rip him to shreds.

anyway he is the no.1 most boring character in botw I'm sorry. of the ones with any effect on the plot. like there is one other notable male character people will ship link with (revali🫶🫶🫶) and he is far more interesting. that is better. anyway so sidon is VERYYY boring, but he's hot and sweet

so people want to fuck him so they just use link as their SELF INSERTTTTT AND THEY SHIP LINK WITH HIM AND ONLY TALK ABOUT THIS GUY TO THE EXCLUSION OF ANY OTHER CHARACTERS BUT ESPECIALLY ZELDA. and listen. this fish is gay. maybe even gay for link. this does not make the ship suck less. because link and him have next to nothing going on. where is the flavor. but mostly because again. it results in fans who COMPLETELY ignore zelda. not only in the franchise named after her btw but specifically in the games that are the most "about zelda" that a zelda game could POSSIBLY GET. I cannot stress enough how much botw zelda is the most fascinating character with an incredibly interesting arc and she does just get relegated to link's platonic wingwoman bestie. and that's if people are being kind. like ok for example link and zelda live together in totk. we're not gonna go over the details you've probably seen them before anyway from me but they do. but technically, there is just a *smidgen* of plausible deniability about this. technicallyyyyy it's theoretically barely possible if you're fucking blind, that link doesn't live in the house with zelda. the house in question was link's first. so after totk there were SOOO many fandom """jokes""" about how zelda just kicked link out of his house which grates on me for multiple reasons 1. because even if you don't ship them I think their close bond is really important and it manifests in things like the fact they live together. why can't they live together and just be friends why. do you even know what they went through together of course they live together. this is a dilution of the importance of platonic bonds. 2. after botw, people (reddit gamer dudebros in particular, I do not want to unjustly assign blame to sidlink shippers on this although I am sure some participated and/or were aware of this well enough to remember it when totk came around) would RIP into zelda about how mean and terrible she is, because she has the audacity to initially dislike link. they said she was SOOOO mean and awful to him. "zelda kicked link out of his own house" jokes just grate on me cause they remind me of this again. y'all want her to be a bitch soooo bad. 3. this pissed me off the MOST because this is the ONLY time and the ONLY way I would see people talk about zelda AT ALL. totk is even more zelda centric than botw. we are wasting our fucking time talking about that stupid ass fish when zelda has CRAZY and INTERESTING shit going on. in conclusion. fujoshi disease dot jpeg. shipping sidlink is for losers who would rather die than talk about women for 5 minutes

[randomboo256]

BotW and TotK, Revisited

So it's Tears of the Kingdom's anniversary already.

I ended up replaying the game a few months ago. I'm not sure if I've ever played a game so rife with good ideas and great potential that failed so hard to take advantage of any of it.

This will be long, please stay with me.

Before we talk about TotK, we need to talk about it's predecessor: Breath of the Wild.

I played this game when it came out, and for what it's worth I thought it was decently fun. However it lacks a lot of the design that made previous games work. Before you ask, no I'm not nostalgia blind. I played the entire Zelda series for the first time in 2016, and I played BotW just a year later. If anything, I'm just as nostalgic for old Zelda as I am for BotW itself. This is just an honest critique of the game's design.

BotW is a game that felt like a rough draft of what a modernized 3D Zelda game could be. The idea of making the world larger, more open, and more inspired by the 2D games is a brilliant one. The execution however felt less like 2D Zelda and more like every other open world game.

What BotW mainly suffered from was bloat. The world was too large and less rewarding. Your main reward for exploring a Zelda game are new items and heart pieces. When you relegate all of those to copy/paste shrines, you're removing the main incentive to actually engage with the world.

In old Zelda, you had no idea what you could find! Any random chest could have a heart piece or even a brand new item. Any sidequest could give you an awesome reward. That's what made it so much fun and so compelling to do everything you can! Old Zelda also loved to show you something you wanted, without telling you how to get it. Often you'd have to come back WAY later. It makes you remember that location, and when you can grab it it's so satisfying. Metroidvanias are like entirely built on this principle.

However, BotW's map is simply too large to be constantly engaging like this. The devs can't ensure you'll find the upgrades, important NPCs, and discoveries without just telling you. In old Zelda, the devs can naturally guide you to all of that with level design. To remedy this, BotW tries to give you items and upgrades constantly, but they do so in a way to make sure that it makes no difference if you missed them. That's how we get things like interchangeable swords that break instead a permanent sword upgrades (I'll get back to that).

It doesn't help that BotW pushed it's nonlinearity too hard. It wanted to make everything in the game accessible immediately as well as completely skippable, which ruins most sense of player progress as well as obliterating any form of a difficulty curve. BotW never has that "Oh, I can get that now!" moment. You know, I actually don't mind the weapon system in concept. I love resource management in games. The problem is that enemies are optional, and killing them is rarely ever worth the swords you broke. Other games with resource management don't allow to just effortlessly ignore every enemy. The worst part of BotW's over-nonlinearity is the dungeons. Dungeons have always been the heart of this series, even in the original game. In BotW, they were simplified down to "do these 5 points in any order" and it's just really boring and underwhelming.

On top of all of this, I haven't mentioned the stamina system, which quite literally just exists to waste your fucking time. By stripping out so much of Zelda's game design in favor of interchangeable everything, it just all adds up to a game that's very repetitive, often boring, and not as satisfying to play as the older titles. If BotW had a map half the size, it could let Nintendo actually pack it to the brim with something interesting and engaging to find in every step you take. Combine that with a return of the old item/heart piece system and a bit of linearity, and it could be great. The happy medium between old and new Zelda is basically just giving the game a more Metroidvania-esc game design logic, as I alluded to earlier. It's a simple fix, but I think it would make everyone happy.

However, TotK took a different route....

Finally, the topic of the today's post. I played Tears of the Kingdom right around launch, and again for what's worth I thought it too was decently fun. However while I could be a little forgiving of BotW for its various missteps, this game doubled down on all of BotW's worst issues.

Instead of removing bloat, TotK TRIPLED it. We have a mostly empty and boring sky and a mostly boring and empty depths. What's left is the shamelessly reused map from BotW. So now everything in the game is either something you've already seen or something you don't care about. This choice is baffling, to be frank. Of all Zelda games, BotW especially is all about exploring the map.

Like, it literally didn't have anything else!!! Why would I want to explore this map again?!!! I've seen it already!!! There wasn't that much there the first time!!!

cough cough

Getting back ahold of myself....

TotK's main excuse to explore the map is the introduction of caves (which somehow weren't in BotW). Caves certainly add a ton of life to the world design, but we still run into a problem of them too getting very stale by the end. On top of that, they removed any challenge in the physical effort of exploring the world. While the stamina system in BotW mostly sucks, it's main strength is that you can't just climb to the top of every mountain. You gotta look around and be a bit more clever. In TotK, towers alone shoot you up a million feet, so you can just glide everywhere. It's faster, I guess, but what's the point of having world map if it's smarter to just fly over it? It's like they knew that exploring again would be boring so they just let you skip over it.

Well exploration is mostly a bust, but what else changed?

Well to start out positive, I adore the weapon fusing system. I already enjoy resource management, so adding whole fusing layer on top of it is super fun. However, I still rarely have a reason to actually fight. By far the most fun part of TotK were the Proving Ground shrines. When I walk into one of these shrines, it's like the game comes to life with so much fun and energy. It's like I'm teleported to a world where the combat clicks and is insanely fun and in-depth. It's funny, because all those shrines did was limit my weapons, limit my healing, make enemies more punishing, and forced me to actually beat them.

WHY WASN'T THE WHOLE GAME DESIGNED LIKE THIS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well we know why. By making the enemies unrelenting, the weapons and healing limited, and forcing you to fight, the game is limiting what you're capable of. Working around and with limitations are the core of what makes, not just video games, ALL games fun. However, the modern Zelda games are so allergic to the idea of limitations in general that they're sabotaging their own carefully designed combat system at pretty much all times. The only way to enjoy it is for the player to decide to place the limit themself, which is a lot to ask of us.

Outside the upgraded combat system, the main difference between BotW and TotK is a new move called Ultrahand, which strangely a reference to an old Nintendo toy. Ultrahand "functions" by letting you grab any physics object, twist it around, and then stick it to other physics objects. If you're thinking "that just sounds like the fucking Psychics Gun from Garry's Mod", then correct! The only difference is that the Physgun actually works properly. For what it's worth, it's pretty impressive technology, however that doesn't mean much when it's not actually fun to play. Moving an object around with Ultrahand feels extremely stiff and awkward. As for the glueing aspect, it's even worse. With the controls alone it's hard to make anything, but what's worse is that you can't detach one item at a time. If you glue one thing on wrong, shaking it loose will probably make it all fall apart. As you might imagine from a system where any two things can be glued in any way, it's all extremely fucking janky.

When the game's systems for Ultrahand are properly flowing and working properly, it can be pretty fun, but for every "pretty fun" Ultrahand moment, there's a thousand annoying moments.

In a way, Ultrahand is basically just an upgraded and reskinned Magnesis, a move from BotW. Magnesis also barely worked, but it wasn't used nearly as much. Ultrahand meanwhile is literally the entire game. I'm not exaggerating. Pretty much every puzzle and a majority of side missions are about Ultrahand. Ultrahand is this game's gimmick. You know, like how Ocarina of Time's gimmick was time periods, Majora's Mask's was a time loop, Wind Waker's was the ocean, Twilight Princess was the wolf, Skyward Sword's was motion controls, and Breath of the Wild's was extreme nonlinearity. Tears of the Kingdom's gimmick is Ultrahand, and wow holy shit is it the worst 3D Zelda gimmick so far.

Honestly what sucks is that Ultrahand could've been a lot better. On occasion, they do have some really fun puzzles with it. However, because these modern Zelda games don't have difficulty curves, the Ultrahand puzzles won't get more challenging over time. The majority are just too easy, and I'm spending more time thinking about how awful the controls are at doing what I want.

As for the dungeons, well don't get your hopes up. They're identical to BotW, except now with Ultrahand gimmicks! Well, that's not totally true. They do have two big changes. Firstly, every dungeon has a long linear segment leading up to it. These sections are genuinely great, and they feel more like Zelda dungeons than the actual dungeons. However they are just short preludes to the lackluster main event. As for the other change, this game reintroduces companions.

Companions are classic aspect of Zelda that BotW sorely missed. They're usually small and out of the way. They exist for three important reasons: For one, player guidance. They'll occasionally chime in with hints on where to go and what to do. For two, they add worldbuilding. You can freely talk to them and sometimes you can learn some interesting details from them. For three, they give Link a voice. Link is barely a character, so having another character follow him around and speak for him in cutscenes is a great way to remedy that. Of course, they could just... let Link talk but HEY HEY let's not get too crazy.

Unfortunately TotK once again dropped the ball on this. This game has four companions that you unlock over the story, and they're not small. They're full human sized NPCs that constantly follow you around and get in your way. Now honestly, I could forgive that. I love Final Fantasy VII Remake, and those games have that issue. I don't really care that my party members get in my way in those games, because they're great characters and they're constantly chiming in with fun dialogue. However TotK somehow didn't think to do that. Your "party" never chimes in at any point. Neither in gameplay OR cutscenes. What a huge missed opportunity! They're just lifeless robots that follow you around.

You might be thinking, "I thought the whole point of Zelda companions was that they'd talk. If they don't talk in TotK, what do they do?" and that's a good question hypothetical-person-I-made-up. For one, they fight in combat with you. That sounds fun, but you can't control them at all. They're completely AI. For two, each one has a special move you can use by walking up to them and pressing A. This means they essentially act like a dungeon item. That's a huge improvement for the quality of the dungeons. But remember, they get in the way constantly. Combine that with the strange controls, and you will be constantly setting off your partners without wanting to. Did nobody playtest this???

Giving Link party members is a fucking amazing idea, but they botched the execution of this so hard that most people just turn the party members off. What a waste of an idea. I hope they revisit this concept. I'll be really sad if they don't.

So all in all, Tears of the Kingdom is a really upsetting video game to me. It didn't do the one thing I was hoping, and that was "make a version of Breath of the Wild that took more advantage of it's concept".

On top of that, it kept piling on new great ideas that they also fucked up. Like adding caves, sky islands, and depths to an open world Zelda. Yes! Great idea! However, they were really fucking boring and repetitive. They gave the game an amazing combat system, and then punished you for using it. They gave the game a complicated physics puzzle gimmick, but it was really fucking janky and overused. The added fun build ups to dungeons, but still skimped out on making the actual dungeon part. They gave Link party members, but they're boring and get in your way.

When I look at Tears of the Kingdom, all I can see is the insane amount of missed potential this game had. They could've done so much. They TRIED to do so much. But they didn't do any well at any of them! I can't help but think this all just comes down to a case of some extreme overambition. They tried to do so many things, on top of having an insanely large open world. BotW's map was way too big. TotK's map is insanely oversized. That's why my number one prayer for the next Zelda is that they SCALE THIS SHIT DOWN!!

Overall, Tears of the Kingdom isn't a bad game. When it works, it works very well. However it works so occasionally that I really wish Nintendo stops doing this new modern formula. It seems like Nintendo just doesn't know how to improve upon BotW. With TotK, they just figured "Well if we take BotW and just shove more shit into it, it'd be good right?". Well, it's not good. It's fucking mid.

As for what I want Nintendo to do instead? Well I hope that the next Zelda is just something that's radically new. You might not have expected me to say that, huh? Well honestly, I don't really care if old Zelda ever returns. If it ever did, I'd be happy for sure, but it's not like those old games are perfect either. The reason we're even in this mess is because Skyward Sword was so hated that Nintendo backpedalled so hard in the opposite direction that they fell off a cliff.

At this point, all I want is a new Zelda game that I can love again, and these modern ones just aren't it.

[clovers-adventures-in-hyrule]

Since I can tell you really like Rauru, this won't be something that I think you'll enjoy seeing, but I feel like I have to point it out...

He's basically an imperialist.

Yeah, I said it.

Think about it; this guy has the Hylian equivalent of the world's entire nuclear stockpile, he and his wife each wear one as jewelry, and presumably the two of them have "peacefully" asked each ruler to form an alliance with Hyrule. Is that not mildly creepy? And he doesn't give anyone who isn't a Hylian a Secret Stone until they swear absolute loyalty to him.

I'm not saying I think Rauru is the sort of person who would actually use his stone to wipe out a nation that defies him, because I don't, but just that possibility freaks me out.

And as for his one political interaction with Ganondorf, you've probably heard about the racist implications of the Middle Eastern-coded race being effectively strongarmed into swearing allegiance to the British Empire-coded race.

I'm sorry if this isn't something you wanted to see, but I feel the need to ask around about this.

I'm not entirely sure what your intention with this ask is so if you're trying to get me to get defensive or slip up and give weird poilitical opinions so you can call me out please don't, I'm just trying to have fun playing a game here.

That said I think you're absolutely right.

I've said I like Rauru because I think his character design is asthetically really cool, which it is, and I liked the emotion and drama in that one scene which I assume you've seen the post about. I also think he's great compared to king rhoam from botw who was in many instances playing a similar role, he's nicer to Link in the opening tutorial sections, and he's a much better father figure to Zelda in the memories.

You're completely right about the questionable political and imperialist implications of what goes on in the game though. Like right from the very beginning I was feeling kinda iffy about the whole gods coming down from the sky and ruling over hylians thing with the zonai, my brain was screaming colonialism, and the racial coding of the Hylians vs the Gerudo in loz has always been a problem. Which is something I liked better about BOTW and TOTK where they're the "good guys" (with the exception of Ganondorf) and there are acutally nuanced and important characters from that race, compared to earlier portrayals in games like Ocarina of Time where they're basically just evil thieves.

I haven't got all the memories yet, so I haven't seen everything and I don't know everything about the specific events with Rauru, Sonia, Ganondorf and Zelda and I can't give too many opinions on that.

The memory where all the sages swear undying fealty to Rauru as king is creepy as and I hate it. It felt very cultish and had very questionable implications.

I do like Rauru as a character and a person (so far), but i'm well aware of the problematic system he's a part of and the things he represents.

[gensnix]

I'm gonna combust if I don't get this out

Totk rant underneath

I know I did review and I put a small rant in it but I got more shit to say and yes I might be repeating things because I have the need to point shit out

The writing is bad a lot of characters I loved in botw have turned into stale biscuits

I can't take the fact that the game goes against its own lore multiple times

"to become a dragon is to lose oneself" K. why tf was Ganondorf still fighting us in dragon form.

Also Zelda knowing when to join the fight or the fact that she cries her memories into the ground and the fact that she's perfectly fine at the end. Zero repercussion

Link your arm is fucked beyond repair... jk lol it's fine

Everyone talks about the shrines and sheika towers but no one talks about the giant sheika pillars that surrounded Hyrule castle I miss them :(

Link would you please react to something besides food and horse points I know you can, especially in a place where you were completely alone

Nope I'm not accepting that the ancient hero is part Zonai cause 2 things. there were only two zonai left that I don't see Mineru having kids and wouldn't that mean that hero and princess would be related or why isn't it just the princess. That is NOT A ZONAI WTF IS THAT IT IT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE TAPESTRY mf got blue skin and clearly wearing boots in the pic and I know that Hyrule can be racist but if the zonai were sooo important why would they make him look like a hylian(gerudo?) it really just feels like they just put Zonai stuff everywhere without actually thinking

I like the idea that the three dragons were once Zonai and went through with swallowing secret stones but shouldn't they have three eyes? Idk that's just a nitpick In fact, who even made the secret stones we get no explanation why do they do that.

another nitpick I have is that they should not be speaking the same langue in the past. Zelda shouldn't be able to understand a word of what they're saying

If Zelda gets her light magic from Rauru and time from Sonia why in botw does the triforce appear when she seals Calamity Ganon Sonia is the one with a triforce tattoo and yet they don't even talk about the triforce once in this game and correct me if I'm wrong but don't Sonia and Rauru not know what the master sword is

This game is trying way to hard to convince me that the Zonai were good people. An entire race of good people doesn't die out like that. They also don't have robots that kill everything on site. or doors that drain the life out of people. Or not correct anyone when they are called gods. Or have mining facilities everywhere underground. Or have a gerudo cemetery near all their underground shit

I want this game to stop trying to be Ocarina of Time it's not working.

Why are the labyrinths different especially the one that had all the guardians down there. All of them are gone. Who even went there to get them was it Link. The Zonai researcher makes it seem their the first one to ever go there

I usually see this on twitter saying that the missing sheika tech was stated to be decommissioned in Purah's diaries. Except what the FUCK are you talking about like is it different in other languages or are twitter people just saw one person say it and decide to spread it around. Please ya gotta tell me I know how bad American Nintendo translates their games

also about the shrine of resurrection I see a lot of people say that the yiga took it down. but uh... the whole reason the yiga started is cause one of the old kings banded their tech shouldn't they y'know use some of it and at least fuse it in some designs I know they can

As much as I love them I don't think the yiga really fit in this since everything sheika related got pushed off a cliff

I love the depths but there really isn't much there Like I feel like there should be some sheika stuff down there all destroyed and stuff. cause a lot of chasms are where old sheika shrines were wouldn't it be cool to go down there and see an old sheika shrine in ruins

demon king??? Secret stone????

Idk why I seem to be the only one who wants to know where the actual thunder helm is. I looked high and low for it. I even wore the replica to see if I'd get a reaction and I did but it's only for the speech bubbles above the gerudo's heads Most of them being "that helm..." one being "I want a helm!" Even RIJU with the fucking "That helm..." GIRL WHERE IS THE ACTUAL ONE. This game makes me confused about which side quests are apparently actually canon. Did Link lose it?? Why would they react like that?

Yunobo I love you please please please use your shield why are you not using it

Yunobo why won't you question why Zelda gave you a mask that possessed you please my baby boy don't let people treat you like a doormat be mad you are allowed to be mad that you got possessed

I will never not be mad they sidelined Teba. I didn't spend all those years convincing my friends that Teba was a crazy bastard cause they don't talk to npc's like I do and then proven right in Age of Calamity for him to not even get a redesign. Hell, he's fucking bored as an elder and he doesn't say the injury he got while fighting Medoh was lethal he shouldn't be standing if it was. In botw his wife, best friend, and elder all talk about how Teba acts without thinking and has been like that since a child. Who are you what have you done to my crazy speaks his mind bastard. It's hard being one of so few Teba simps but hey at least I'm not a Sidon simp who had to go through with his marriage.

Saki didn't even want Tulin to be a warrior why is she so ok with him being a Sage

Once again cause this pisses me off the most. In her diary Zelda says that Link follows her everywhere in there attempt to rebuild Hyrule. Everyone and their mothers knows Zelda she's the princess. But they don't recognize Link..? Does she not talk about him to them. Strange since she was so happy to share about him with her ancestors. They should know him he carries the fucking master sword and is always with Zelda. Hell I believe that they live in the same house but I guess Link's not important to them. Even though he's the reason that Zelda was able to seal away the calamity away.

Why does all of Hyrule just accept she's the princess? You guys haven't served under a monarchy in 100 years. You guys are so skeptical of Link but not her... and you're not gonna question anything she does. Even if it seems evil cause yeah that was a plot point in game that was completely dropped. the evil zelda thing could have been great. Get people questioning shit but you know whatever I guess

I don't know how true it is but I saw someone on twitter say that botw and totk take place in different universes (not from the timeline who cares about that but from each other) as stated on an official Nintendo site, even showed a picture, but it was in Japanese so I wanted to try and find this website cause it's easy to be fooled but couldn't cause once again it's Japanese I can't understand Japanese and I don't remember where that tweet was. And at this point I am going to believe that proof or not cause what is this story I know Nintendo is gameplay over story but I have never been upset at a plot like this before.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay this ended up being a little bit of a rant, I apologize

Most of the rewrite that my best friend and I are working on is just character devlopment tbh!! Like I think what totk tried to do was make their story both character driven and plot driven, they just failed miserably at both. Like imagine if Zelda and Mineru were parallels!! We have an entire plotline written involving making Rauru a secondary antagonist with that! And if Zelda and Sonia were foils instead of half assed parallels! Like yes, Zelda's a terrible character as is, but she has SO much potential because of her position, both politically speaking and emotionally speaking. It's like you said, it's really stupid that she's just in charge of all of Hyrule again. Why not like. Do something else with her?? Anything else??? And did we just. Forget about her father's abuse in botw? Because she shows exactly NOTHING as a result of that. This is an entirely different Zelda who happens to look the same. For all we care, the real Zelda in game could be the imposter and it wouldn't change a thing!!

Oh yeah, the characters in the game definitely needed more attention from the writing. Or like... literally any amount of attention.

For the record this might just be a case of me doing some sequence breaking and getting through things too early (via setting off the fifth sage plot AFTER finding all the memories and retrieving the master sword), but I truly, genuinely do not understand why Mineru exists. I can't tell what she adds to the narrative. Maybe she was supposed to tell me that Zelda's a dragon go rip a sword out of her head, just in case I hadn't figured that out? But it's kinda weird to have that failsafe, considering that the game is quick to spell it out for you that you should find the geoglyphs to learn what happened to Zelda, and we KNOW she was the last one to have the Master Sword. So Mineru is just a redundant reminder of something the player's probably already done, because yknow going to hyrule castle after four temples feels like a finale, so you'd obviously want to handle unfinished business first.

I mean, I guess the spirit temple boss fight was okay, if only because I found the robot fistfight to be so ridiculous that it was absolutely delightful (though the actual fight mechanics were tedious and annoying). But she didn't tell me anything new, I already knew that Zelda had vored a rock to become her fursona. Sharing that information was apparently the only thing Mineru was there to do, but the game had already spelled that out for me ages ago. She didn't contribute anything. I don't even know if she was supposed to contribute anything. Mineru was just there to force us to sit through the same fucking story about Ganon's sealing for the fifth goddamn time in a row. And then despite being literally the only person left from the actual war, she had literally nothing to contribute. WHY WAS MINERU IN THIS GAME. HOW DID SHE CONTRIBUTE TO THE NARRATIVE. I started jokingly referring to her as Mineral after I got started on the fifth sage plotline, because I knew from the dragon memories she was supposed to be haunting the Purah Pad, but she'd spent the entire game being about as important as a random rock. And apparently I was right, Mineru did literally nothing the whole time!

...Actually now that I think about it, what the fuck did ANY of the modern sages do? Their abilities were just the old powers except worse (give me revali's gale over tulin's thing any day of the week, jesus christ), except for Yunobo's ability which was just to replace remote bombs as a convenient infinite mining tool. The sages apparently were just there to show up at the end as a Big Damn Hero moment to rescue Link from the absolute terror of... red bokoblins. Seriously, WHY did they do all the 'ooooh ganons summoning an aaarmy' scenes using mainly the lowest tier of enemies??? Sir, I'm armed to the teeth, fully armoured, and loaded up on hearts and stamina, why the fuck am I supposed to be intimidated by enemies that were still cannon fodder when I was stark naked and armed with a tree branch. At least the four sages were characters we already knew from BOTW, and they got to do some stuff (though using Tulin instead of Teba was complete bullshit, I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE THIS RANDOM TEN YEAR OLD INTO A WAR ZONE. I FOUGHT A GIANT MECHA BIRD WITH TEBA, LET ME KICK ASS WITH BIRB DAD AGAIN)

Eugh. Just so much bad writing in this game, it's a constantly unfolding minefield of horrible decision making. Good luck with your fic though, and I hope you and your friend end up posting it! I've been finding pretty slim pickings on AO3 so far tbh; it seems everyone like me that's been trying to pick this story apart for good content is still trying to figure out what the fuck nintendo just handed us, so the AO3 has been mostly just people writing awful generic Link/Zelda content, mixed with the Link/Sidon shippers trying to fix the whole clusterfuck of Sidon getting a wife out of nowhere. Though I will say I have been very pleased with the fandom unanimously responding to that whole subplot with "Okay so this is some hetero nonsense because nintendo wanted to sink SidLink, BUT we love and respect Yona anyways". I guarantee if something like this had gone down like a decade ago, Yona would be the single most hated character in the game for it. I'm glad that she's being given love and respect despite having been made to be a shipbreaker!

Anyways my point is, I am a huge slut for character studies and worldbuilding, and dear lord have I ever been starved for content. There's so much ZeLink. All power to y'all that ship it of course, I'm glad you're happy, but their dynamic is the single most boring pile of dogshit I've ever seen in my life, and I'm way too aromantic to put up with it. My kingdom for some good character studies and/or platonic fics. Or even just interesting shipping fics that aren't focused on some shitty generic romance. There's a reason I love GanLink and it's not (just) for the porn, it's because those two literally always have some spectacular issues if they're together, regardless of the context. They're a walking psychological thriller, I love them.

[waywardsalt]

okokokok so on the topic of botw/totk link having little to no emotion in cutscenes. ive said it in other posts but in botw it honestly makes sense given his present scenario and you are given a pretty good reason for it in the past. he's under a lot of pressure and he's just trying to do his job. in totk it does not work because he should have new memories now and he has memories with these new sages and with zelda and yet he's all but stonefaced with this people. there are some micro expressions and that's fine. but to me the problem with his lack of emoting in cut scenes is that it makes him very devoid of personality. he doesn't talk, so you're going to get the most of his personality from the way he moves and emotes, but in the cutscenes he just comes off as... dutiful stoic knight. with no meaningful feelings towards these people supporting him.

i'm not asking for him to be animated with all of these flourishes to give him some bombastic personality, but i just want to see him... react to stuff. see him express some extra emotion asides from determination.

people argue against botw/totk link having no expression by pointing out that he DOES emote quite a bit in gameplay and pointing that that there! there's his personality! and yes! i see it! and that kind of makes his lack of emotion in cutscenes worse! he can be and has been animated with personality and preferences and reactions and for some reason none of it is in the story important cutscenes! normally it's the other way around!

this isn't even fully about him having minimal expressions: i get it when people say it's maybe an autism thing, and that makes sense! i personally don't do a whole lot of expression when i'm under pressure, so i get it! that makes sense! i don't necessarily want him to have the facial expressions that skyward sword link had, i just want to see some shred of visual personality out of him in these cut scenes.

i mean... in ocarina of time, when the great deku tree is done telling his little story, you see that link has been sitting down. that's... something! stuff like the way he gets out of his bed and the speed at which he walks or runs in cut scenes... the engines oot and oot3d were done on can't allow for the same kinds of animations as botw/totk, but we still got little bits of personality just out of the way he moved his body. you emote with your body as much as your face. i may have a fairly straight face, but the way i may move gives away how i feel and how i act.

i wanted something like what we got in that first scene under hyrule castle- i wanted more of the moment when he gently takes zelda's torch because he knows her, understands that she may need both of her hands, and is willing to hold this torch for her while she grabs her stuff. you get a bit of personality out of that, you get that he knows zelda and how she works to some degree, and you get that there is trust between them because of this.

as far as i remember, this is the only instance of link being animated in such a way that suggests personality and his relationships with others. he emotes and is animated plenty outside of story beats, so he's very lively in dialogue options and little extra cutscenes, but in story beats, where he is interacting with his friends and discovering history and incredible secrets and trying to help the people he cares about and the world he cares about- it's all washed away, and it's kind of frustrating. i don't want anything big, just subtle little things, like his taking zelda's torch for her. something that isn't just him interacting with his environment and tepidly reacting- something that suggests little things about him and his opinions.

[riddlemearose]

okay you know what I'm mad enough about totk writing to go off about this too lmao.

While it's never been specifically stated (at least that I know of, pls someone somewhere correct me if I'm wrong) the Kingdom of Hyrule is largely implied to be a matriarchy.

There are no princes, the Kings all seem to be in some kind of regent position — that, granted, does treat them as kings, not as a lower noble standing in for one but still they're kinda... saving the throne for Zelda to come of age — and only the princesses possess the Triforce of Wisdom/Hylia's blood/etc etc insert-deus-ex-machina-here.

Sure, each game is largely about Link doing his usual "gotta go save the Princess so she can yeet Ganon or whoever back into a box", but in terms of actual structure, Princess Zelda is always treated as the future ruler, God-slayer, and overall personification of a goddess (which is not abnormal, given the whole 'Divine Right of Kings' that exist(s/ed) in monarchies and empires around the world).

So the narrative decisions in totk Astound Me. And not in a good way tbh.

The actual breakdown is below:

1. Zelda & Sonia's Time Magic

Let's all be real, this was shoe-horned in out of nowhere so the plot could have time travel elements, which the writers then never properly utilised or expanded on anyway.

In BOTW, Zelda's magic is wholly focused on light and divinity, given she bears the blood of the Goddess Hylia and in line with all the queens who have come before her, her destiny was to manifest said magic to seal Calamity Ganon away.

At no point did she ever possess time magic (but I can and will argue that Link is actually the one with time magic, but that's neither here nor there). There's a minor argument to be made that the most time-based magic Zelda has is being able to sustain herself and Ganon in stasis while Link slept his death off, but that's really it.

Yet in totk, all that divine sealing magic — and the importance of said magic — is gone, replaced with Recall which is just the plot device used to launch her who-knows-how-far back in time and little else.

Rauru, not Hylia, is the one who brought divine magic to the gene pool, and Sonia (who is the most interesting of the characters introduced in totk imo) has a less powerful version of Recall, which Zelda quickly overtakes proficiency in despite never being shown training.

Mmmkay then. Sure.

Interesting decision, Nintendo. Certainly one of the decisions of all time.

2. Queen Sonia herself

I already said it but to me, out of the entire new character line-up introduced in totk, Sonia is the most interesting one of the lot.

Both Rauru and Ganondorf were pretty flat and dull with a few basic character traits (kind for Rauru, evil for Ganondorf) to their names and little else.

To this day, I cannot tell you what Ganondorf's motivation is in totk, nor Rauru's. They were there bc the plot needed an evil king and a good king and that's that. Contrived plot is contrived.

Mineru... well plain and simple, I don't have any real thoughts about her, because she barely got any screen time and her 'Secret Stone' power was pretty mid.

But Sonia? She intrigued me.

BOTW had already established that all the women in Zelda's bloodline are descendants of Hylia and powerful mages with divine magic. I was so excited to see what she could do and what she would bring to the plot.

And she proceeded to bring one (1) scene of Zelda gushing over her boyfriend—I MEAN LOYAL KNIGHT, and then she was fridged.

*Bruh SFX*

All we know about her is that she was a priestess (to WHOM tho?? Hylia?? Rauru?? I have Thoughts if it's the latter lmao), she was highly intelligent, and she had time magic that wasn't as strong as Zelda's.

That's literally it.

You can't even argue that she existed for anyone's character growth because at the end of the day no one got any character growth anyway. Rauru barely had any actual character to begin with, and the writers straight up regressed Zelda's character from the complex, multi-faceted woman with the whole Kingdom on her shoulders she was in BOTW to a Mary Sue.

So, In All

There was so much that could be done with Sonia. The priestess angle would've been amazing, especially as both a descendant and priestess of Hylia. Swapping her and Rauru's magic around also would've been better because, once again, the women of the Royal family have all born the divine magic, and it would've made more sense given established lore.

But the biggest thing, to me, was quite simply that the writers should've given Sonia more scenes full stop.

Zelda's mother died when she was six and, while she had Urbosa who somewhat filled the role of mother-figure, a lot of BOTW's plot came from the sheer fact that, following the loss of her mother, neither Rhoam nor Zelda were able to understand what was needed for her to unlock her magic.

She needed compassion, empathy and most importantly a guiding hand, not unrelenting pressure from all sides at all times.

I love the BOTW memories, especially with the knowledge gleaned from Rhoam and Zelda's diaries. The pressure Zelda was under and the solitude she felt are such visceral parts of the plot, and while the game blames Rhoam for it, it also makes sure you understand where he's coming from too.

Because it's important you realise he is just a man who makes mistakes like everyone else. They're not small mistakes, and they certainly weren't good for anyone, but they are mistakes anyone can make.

And that emptiness is a space Sonia should have filled in totk. Finally Zelda has someone who's got the same magic as her and who's more experienced than her. She has someone who cares for her and wants to teach her how to harness her magic, and wants to see her flourish, no matter what happens.

If the totk Dragon Tears were about this relationship rather than the atrociously messy plot they were actually about, I definitely would've enjoyed the game more.

But we have canon instead

:/

Spoilers for totk—I know it’s over a year old now but…

Im still so fucking mad about Sonia. Nintendo really said “hey here’s a woman character who is shown to be strong but literally only exists to be motherly and get fridged so her husband can save the day and have something to fight for!”

like!!!!

She should have been the founder of Hyrule straight up!! UGH Sonia, sweetie, I’m so sorry those ugly ass writers should even give that storyline to you 😤😭

[aleakybiro]

This articulates something I was trying to write about a while ago, which I'll probably finish eventually. Totk never touched me in the same way botw did, and I put this down mostly to the atmosphere of botw. The quiet mourning, the way the whole world and format of the game is built to convey to you how very alone link is. How isolated link and Zelda are from each other.

But actually, on reading this, a big reason why I loved botw so much is that it's character focused. The memory system is fantastic in botw because there's no need for things to be in chronological order. You know the story. You know vaguely what happens before the calamity. You know how it ends. There's no need to watch the memories in order for each to be felt with full potency. Where in totk what you're uncovering is a story which honestly doesn't make much sense until all together, in botw you're uncovering two people. Link and Zelda. Where the whole worldbuilding revolves around isolation, specifically their isolation from each other, the memories show you them together. Their relationship. Who they are beyond their duties and the legends.

Totk had a few footholds with growing from this, but it never expanded on them. I play it because I want to see how the world has changed from botw. I don't play it for the actual game or story, really.

So with the worldbuilding, it starts to demonstrate how things have began to move on; people found all over the map, people rebuilding, less loneliness. Link and Zelda are specifically involved in establishing that connection across hyrule, and that's so important to their character arcs. I have not finished the game, but from what I've seen of the light dragon plot that's also focused on Zelda's character development.

But nothing else is. The focus of the game is the zonai. Their architecture, their technology, and the storyline from the imprisoning war. But I'm not interested in the zonai. I don't have any attachment to them from the last game. The focus on zonai devices isn't that interesting, cause sure it's cool but where the sheikah tech complimented the worldbuilding, the zonai tech is a lot of effort to engage with and doesn't really link to the characters. They tell us everything about the zonai at the start, so looking at their architecture in the depths or skies isn't that interesting cause you don't learn much about them.

I think in totk the insistence on following the gameplay structure of botw was a downfall. The memory system worked in botw, cause it was a story focused on the past, where totk is focused on the future. Being isolated from Zelda worked in botw, cause the story was centered around isolation, where in totk it's about connecting and rebuilding, and attachment. The shrines, the tech, the visiting each region for a quest, the threat of ganon in the castle...everything is structured the same way, but why? It doesn't bring out the strong elements of totk's themes.

Botw was revolutionary for loz. Open world, non linear gameplay with basically infinite choice for the player. Totk falls in it's shadow, but only because of the restrictive structure. Why can't we play as Zelda? Why can't she be our companion? It had so many interesting themes and a lot of potential, but the game was more focused on being a sequel to botw instead of taking those elements and figuring out how through gameplay, story, and structure they could bring that out and revolve around what the game was trying to say, the same way botw was centered around its themes.

Anyway sorry op for jumping on your post there just some of the things you mentioned really resonated with how I feel about the game. Some of it was great, I just felt like the priorities weren't in the right place

actually bc im never gonna shut up abt it while im still on this im gonna ramble abt botw and totk and maybe how i wouldve written a sequel . & i will pay u money to listen i promise

my favoritest of totks ideas are what it expands from botw. botws whole atmosphere is drowned in quiet mourning. something bad has happened but it was a long time ago. it still hurts but theres nothing to be done now but move forward. something is still missing but all you can do is find something else. nobody has resources to rebuild and you can hear deafening echoes of better times but the alternative is giving up. you are in this frozen state of not quite moving on and not quite in despair. like the numbness stage of grief. and the pivotal element of all of that is that link is alone. like, oppressively alone. its the primary vehicle of conveying this mood. and its interesting because this can be read not only as what link is experiencing through the player but what zelda is feeling as she holds back ganon. its an interesting contrast to have zelda mature faster than link in the flashbacks, only for link to pull her the rest of the way by growing himself

and the reason why i so strongly adore the light dragon aspect of the plot is because it shows how attached to everything zelda has gotten. arguably, zelda held back ganon in botw because she loved link. in totk, she becomes the light dragon because she loves hyrule, which had previously been so unimaginably cruel to her. the crux of her character is learning that attachment is good. loving is good. you deserve to leave an imprint on the world in a shape of Your choosing instead of being another factory print on a paper. on a surface level, shes making the same choice, but the motivation and growth behind it is really powerful

i could waffle for literally ever about all that and the point is that totk takes these ideas and implements them really well through in-game worldbuilding and specifically zelda turning into the light dragon. i would occasionally get extremely emotional just seeing how things have expanded because it feels like the world is finally moving on. theres a catharsis in seeing hyrule finally heal after knowing its desolation so intimately, especially because the state of the land itself is such a strong parallel to the arcs of the two main characters, so you get the sense that not only can people move on, link and zelda specifically have started to as well. thats my favorite part

thats why i think its an odd choice that they decided on a time travel plot. if zelda HAS to be the one getting saved, if she cant be a companion in some way either via sheikah facetime or spirit tracks shenanigans or whatever, there are lots of ways to do this without her being magic fruit snacked ten bajillion years into the past. why spend all this effort intertwining her and link with the land, only to remove her from the equation and have no further growth? in botw its understandable that hyrule is stagnant and only changes when link does because zelda is stagnant and link is doing the one changing during the game. in totk its the opposite. there are lots of ways to do this with out Having to play as zelda (though honestly that would be the way id go about it)

also a lot of my own ideas have to do with the wasted potential of a place like the depths???? what the hell do you mean theres this mind bogglingly big cavern underneath the entirety of hyrule which mysterious people used to live in and it has almost no story relevance beside being a cool setpiece???????? I FEEL INSANE?!?!??!?!? there are so many good ideas in totk that never get expanded dude FUCK

i think no matter how much i speculate and draft my own preferences of how i wouldve liked totk to elaborate on the things it introduces i cant ever bring myself to present them like they couldve realistically happened and gotten thru the nintendo writing room simply bc of the games format. if it were up to me doing certain story missions would radically change the open world as events happened in real time and thats not the MO of the game's design philosophy. honestly totk's biggest enemy is the memory system and i need to kill it with fire