#totk salt

[blue-likethebird]

Reusing the memory system from botw for the tears of the dragon storyline in totk was such a terrible decision on so many different levels that it’s honestly kind of impressive.

While the botw memory system had flaws of its own, there was one small but significant thing that worked in its favour: botw’s memories were largely separate from the main plot in the past, and have absolutely no bearing on the story being told in the present. Aside from a few specific instances (ie the calamity striking, the ceremony, Link and Zelda becoming closer) the memories are all self-contained moments that emphasize character development over driving the story. Because there’s no major narrative throughline between them, it gives players more freedom to discover in any order regardless of how much they’ve progressed through the main quest without running the risk of stumbling across a memory that ruins something else later on in the game.

(This got long so the rest of my analysis is going under the cut.)

The biggest change between the memories from botw and the dragon’s tears from totk is definitely what kind of information these cutscenes relay to you as the player. Botw’s memories are primarily snapshots of small interpersonal moments that hold very little significance to the greater narrative taking place in the past. Totk’s memories are the greater narrative. With only one major exception -that I’ll touch on in a sec-, every cutscene in the dragon’s tears shows a crucial moment of story development with no time left to explore the characters driving that story forwards. There’s no organic moment revealing, say, a quirk of Rauru’s that Mineru finds annoying, or Sonia’s sense of humour, or any of our literal Main Villain Ganondorf’s motivations for going to war with Hyrule. If there’s any moments of character focus they only happen in ways that advance the plot (meaning the only real character focus is on the characters totk wants the entire universe to orbit around, namely Rauru and Zelda), and as such it’s harder to bring myself to care about what happens to anyone.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make here, compare the memories of the champions Link regains during the divine beast quests to the conversations with the ancient sages at the end of each temple. The memories make passing mentions of the ongoing preparations for the calamity, but the real purpose of those scenes is to showcase who the champions were as people before their deaths and give us a reason to mourn them, even though we know at the start of our journey that they’re all long gone. In contrast, the conversations with the ancient sages are all about the events of the imprisoning war and their promise to Zelda that their descendants will come to Link’s aid in the future, very obviously copy pasted for each of the five times that cutscene is brought up (which is a particularly egregious moment of bad quest design but that’s a rant for another time) in such a way that none of the 5 incarnations of that cutscene reveal anything new about the ancient sages as characters, to the point where none of them even show their faces. I care about Daruk because the game shows me that he cares deeply about the wellbeing of his fellow champions and brings out the best in others. So why should I care about the nameless, faceless sage of water? What’s there to move me about their struggles if my only interactions with the sages are a series of exposition dumps? If the game can’t give me a reason to sincerely care about its main characters, the whole rest of the story is meaningless.

(As an aside, I get the feeling someone on the dev team caught on to the issue I’m describing here, because the tea party memory sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the dragon tear cutscenes. It’s such a jarring change of pace to have the otherwise plot-heavy dragon’s tears come screeching to a halt for a scene where Sonia sits down with Zelda to have a cute little tea party and talk about absolutely nothing of significance that the whole thing almost seems like it was hastily tacked on to the story later. Given that the next (chronological) memory sees Sonia fall victim to an unceremonious death by chiropractor, it feels like someone realized that Sonia really doesn’t do or say much in the scenes before she dies and threw together the tea party scene so players would have at least one moment to look back on fondly when she’s fridged. But I digress)

The story told in the dragon’s tears is a highly linear one. But the open-ended nature of botw’s memory system remains, meaning that these tears can be found and viewed in any order. At first this doesn’t seem so bad, since the first two tears you’re likely to find if you follow the game’s intended path are also the chronological first and second of the memories you can discover through these geoglyph tears. But after those first two, the game kinda gives up on guiding you towards these tears in a way that flows well with the story they wrote: the closest tear geographically to the two the game initially guides you towards correlates to one of the penultimate scenes of that entire storyline, while the next scene chronologically is found almost halfway across the map. As such, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll spoil yourself in some way without using either a guide or the (somewhat unintuitive and never fully explained by the game) little map in the forgotten temple. Finding memories in order didn’t matter so much in botw because the scenes you could find still worked well as standalone scenes before you discovered every memory and pieced together the full picture, and the game is never trying to surprise me about the characters’ fates at the end of this storyline: hell the first memory you’re guided to shows the calamity striking. But in contrast, viewing a dragon’s tear at the wrong time can completely ruin the story they’re trying to tell in those cutscenes. During my playthrough, for example, the first tear I found after the game stopped guiding me to them showed Ganondorf removing Sonia’s stone from her dead body. At this point I had known Sonia existed for all of like an hour, so every subsequent appearance she made was ruined for me by the fact that I already knew she was nothing but cannon fodder to be killed off for the sake of another character’s pain (Rauru and Zelda a-fucking-gain). I expected to be pissed that it was so easy to spoil myself, or maybe sad in passing that a character with her potential was so underutilized, but instead I just felt… tired. I wasn’t even halfway to the first settlement and already I was completely numb to the story the game was trying to tell.

But the worst was yet to come. And oh boy was it ever a low point for storytelling in the Zelda series. Remember how I said up above that the memories in botw had no connection to the story in the present? Let’s just say the same cannot be said for the dragon’s tears.

It’s May 2023. I’ve just finished the sage of wind questline. I still have hope that the story the game is trying to tell will be good. Deciding that I’ll go to Goron city next, I head towards the Thyplo skyview tower to expand my map, catch a glimpse of a nearby geoglyph from the air, and glide over to check it out. This geoglyph shows me a memory that not only recaps the entire dragon tear storyline, but also ends on a bit of foreshadowing about Zelda’s fate that’s about as subtle as a brick to the fucking face. By exploring -the thing the game claims it prioritized above all else in the design of its world and quests- I’d once again been hit with spoilers for a major story detail.

My main objective in this game is to find Zelda. It’s the only driving factor behind my journey towards all these different regions. The current big mystery I’m supposed to solve is why Zelda’s causing so much hell for the people of Hyrule. I now knew exactly where she was and what the deal with her appearances in other parts of Hyrule was, and I’d found it completely by accident by doing something the game says over and over again that it wants me to do. Unlike with Sonia’s death, this time I was a mess of emotions. I was pissed the fuck off that this open-world game had punished me twice already for trying to explore. More than that, I was disappointed that a game I had been so excited to play, from a series I had so many fond memories of, had let me down like this. With every subsequent quest where the sages and I chased a Zelda I knew was fake to our next objective, and every NPC wondering where she was that I couldn’t tell the truth to, that disappointment grew. The entire rest of the main story was ruined for me before I had progressed past 1/4th of the regional quests and a third of the dragon’s tears. There was no more sense of anticipation or mystery. I finished the rest of the game with a bitter taste in my mouth and haven’t touched it again since.

Do I think this story could have been good? Honestly, I don’t know, and by now I don’t really care either (that’s a lie. I care so so much and that’s probably why I hate totk as much as I do). But it’s all irrelevant, because like Cinderella’s stepsister cutting off her own heel so she can cram her foot into a glass slipper that’s never going to fit, totk is sabotaged by the devs’ insistence that everything fit itself into a world they custom-made for botw. This isn’t a new formula that the series is following, it’s Nintendo slapping a new coat of paint on an existing skeleton, and I’m not optimistic to see what this particular approach has in store for the Zelda series. Especially not at the price they’re charging for it.

[ezdotjpg]

also any game following botw that goes actually we need to reinstate the monarchy as it was again we just need to do it better this time has also failed its themes completely. like even if that was always intended to be the follow up it’s still antithetical to the game botw turned out to be

[smilesrobotlover]

Everyone says that totk hates women and stuff but honestly totk is just bad at writing characters in general

[gensnix]

Notice how botw and totk don't have a line that connects them like the other games

[arkon-z]

If you played Age of Calamity and sneered at it for daring to interpret the story of Breath of the Wild a little differently and then went on to play Tears of the Kingdom, you owe Age of Calamity an apology.

[snail-studios]

damn. the one time they make a character with dark skin who isn't the villain or fetishised to high heaven they have to whitewash her in their twitter posts

[eggman-1]

I am actually BEGGING some of you people to play other games than botw and totk.

[symmetrycrypt]

thinking about how much i fucking hate totk again, like sorry, it really tainted my entire love for the series that was literally my special interest for so long growing up

[waywardsalt]

bc its been bouncing around in my head i think another little tiny grievance i had with totk is that i got to the end and just felt a sense of ‘well what the hell was that all for then’

[mememan93]

Im sorry but i can't stand totks new lore. I do not like the zonai. Rauru and Mineru's designs are cool, but also. I'm sorry i hate their addition to the lore of the series.

[blue-likethebird]

Something I find irritating about the minor resurgence in discourse about totk's story and its ideological standings is the argument that Zelda games have always had uncompromising black and white morality, so any criticism of Hyrule/Rauru/Sonia is inherently futile.

That's not entirely correct. It's true that Zelda games have fairly obvious good guys and bad guys, but plenty of Zelda games have touched on the flaws of Hyrule's monarchy. For example, there's the Shadow temple and bottom of the well from OoT, the twilight realm from TP, BotW's pre-calamity flashbacks, basically all of windwaker's final act, etc. Even Skyward Sword -and as much as I love that game it does have some unfortunate 'divine right of kings' implications to it- is more critical of Hylia's plan and the effect it has on the people involved than anything totk's cast can muster up about Rauru. Zelda games having simple stories that their intended audience can grasp doesn't mean that they haven't at least attempted to touch on more complicated moral questions in the past.

I can't speak for everyone but I and most other people I see in the totk critical tags don't mean I want this children's game to provide a definitive critique of divinely-ordained monarchy when I discuss Ganondorf's complete lack of motivations or the story's refusal to question Rauru's leadership the way previous games questioned Rhoam, Daphnes, or Hylia. I know Nintendo aren't gonna bother fitting a scholarly review of fantasy imperialism between the archery and bowling minigames, but I'd be more willing to accept that if they would at least give the central narrative a shred of nuance or staying power in return.

[smilesrobotlover]

Hi, I’m back to ranting about totk.

I really hate the idea of this specific Zelda being a playable character, but the story and game would’ve been infinitely better if it was from her perspective. The calamity happened to both Zelda and Link, Link had some connection to the champions, he experienced the tragedy, so you felt that as well as a player. But with the imprisoning war, it wasn’t as good as the calamity. Sure the tears were there to show what happened, but except when the light dragon happened, it was hard to care about anything. I didn’t care when Mineru died, I didn’t care that Rauru sealed himself and Ganondorf away (tho that was an awesome scene), and even tho she was an interesting character, I didn’t care about Sonia. The ancient sages were blank slates and didn’t even feel like the real people, so everything just fell flat. But from Zelda’s perspective, she KNEW these people. She cared about Rauru, she cared about Sonia. She clearly worked with Mineru a lot, and I’d imagine that they’d have a lot in common with their love for machinery and stuff. She worked with the sages and clearly cared about their loyalty to Rauru. This was a new Hyrule which could’ve had a new map, new monsters, and new characters. And they could’ve had time to develop the sages, Rauru, Mineru, and Sonia where we actually cared about them. Idk how’d they do this with the world of totk from Link’s perspective, maybe once you get a tear, you actually play as Zelda and see things in more detail? Or Link is actually there with Zelda and she sends him back in the end with her time power, but can’t send herself because I imagine it’d be hard to do that on purpose, and then she turned into a dragon? Idk, but either way, the story would’ve been far more impactful with the characters being interesting if Zelda WAS playable. And I hate saying that but I can’t deny it. The story they went for, it would’ve been better.

[gensnix]

Me looking at the "lore" in the new zelda tears book

[only-by-the-stars]

TotK is so frustrating because there are genuinely several things I would love to incorporate into fics (mostly items, but also some NPCs and a handful of concepts and little areas), but Unfortunately the Plot. if it was just mediocre, that'd be one thing, but it's so disconnected from BOTW and so disjointed from itself that I'm at a loss for how I'd even begin to salvage it without doing something else that barely resembles it. at that point I might as well come up with my own plot, you know?

what I'm gonna end up doing is just... taking all those little scraps and working them into various AUs. like the Adventure Time one, for instance. that one's the most ripe, I think, for a lot of this.

hmm. gonna make a list, I think, under a cut.

first of all, let's not lie to ourselves: 'secret passageway under the castle that contains long-concealed/sealed Horrors' is a banger of a concept. unfortunately. unfortunately this was not executed as well as it could've been. I would love to do something neat with this sometime. I think it would fit especially well in the AT AU as stated. perhaps even with a take on those nuclear warnings.

Penn was a genuinely entertaining new NPC and I enjoyed the Lucky Clover Gazette chain of sidequests for the most part. like, could've done without the stuff setting up Zelda as being omni-talented and so super special (it really flattens her character, you know? such amateurish writing), but the concept of investigating rumors for a newspaper was fun. also the All-Clucking Cucco one was hilarious.

the Stable Trotters were so charming! I really liked this sidequest chain too.

the Stormwind Ark was actually kinda cool too, gave me Skies of Arcadia vibes. I wonder if I could do anything with it...

I want to stress, before I go any further, that if you've read or are planning to read my fic Song of a Champion... Yunobo using the Boulder Breaker and Riju using scimitars are things I had planned before the trailer revealing this was a thing in TotK. it is yet another entertaining instance of me predicting/guessing things correctly. xD

if I ever do anything with a version of the Depths, they're gonna have more, well, depth. they should've had settlements, or at least the ruins of them, or... something, you know? love the concept, meh on the execution. :/

same with the sky islands. and the explanation for the Great Sky Island in that one sidequest there was... really not satisfying, sadly. deffo something I could toy with and improve on.

Hyrulean pizza. 'nuff said. I applaud wholeheartedly the decision to give us cheese and tomatoes and let us make one of the greatest culinary creations known to mankind.

I'm iffy on the mushroom fashion/additions to Hateno, but I like the idea of Cece opening a shop in Hateno and selling some of those new outfits I like. I especially liked the sets based on the three dragons, this would be a neat way to get them on Link in that SoaC follow-up I wanna do. especially because Mipha NEEDS to see him in the slutty ones

if I ever do a version of the episode Wizards Only, Fools for the AT AU, the Depths outfit would make a neat disguise to get Link in.

obviously I plan to have AT Link lose his arm. obviously.

the wells and caves were pretty fun. though I do wish there'd been something genuinely creepy at the bottom of at least one well...

the Desert Rift is something that I would love to put into the desert area in the AT AU, it has tons of potential. I definitely have Ideas.

I really want to have Mipha and Link go to the salt spa in Lurelin as a couples' thing. it's a small thing, but I think it'd be cute.

I do actually enjoy weapon fusion and I think those magic rods/staves in particular would be a neat addition to some AUs.

almost every enemy was a great addition to the roster (I say almost because THOSE ARE NOT PROPER GIBDOS I AM STILL MAD ABOUT THIS). hopefully the next game will have even more things to fight (I especially want ReDeads and ACTUAL Poes back).

speaking of Poes, I just. sigh. so many interesting things that could've been done there, that just... weren't. at bare minimum, if they were adamant about making them a form of currency, it would've been more fun to bring back the Poe Collector than have those statues. I want to work him into the AT AU (and I have ideas that kinda meld how Poes worked in past games with this one, I just need to sit and nail them down).

back on foodstuffs, I liked all the new ingredients. I already worked golden apples into Under a Strange Moon, and I'd love to find uses for the elemental fruits somewhere too. stambulbs and sundelions are neat too, as are the new pumpkin, the oil, and the mushroom and fish that make you glow.

on the less edible side, puffshrooms and especially muddle buds were a LOT of fun to play with.

on the "dubiously edible" side (because you can turn these into elixirs but not straight up FOOD), I really like the design of the deep fireflies. the sticky frogs and lizards were also really handy!

brightbloom seeds/flowers could be neat to use too...

that's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I'm forgetting something

[snail-studios]

[eggman-1]

Every NPC talking about pirates in Lurien village and stuff got my hopes up abt actual pirates. but of course it was just bokoblins