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very-not-emo · 4 hours ago

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LONG ASS RANT ABOUT WHY I DIDNT LIKE TOTK + TIMELINE STUFF

"mediocre gameplay" for botw makes my eye twitch a bit but i have no problem with totk's gameplay beyond it barely adding anything new. it's not a bad game but it is a bad botw 2. the main thing i thought while i was playing it was "this would be so much better if i hadn't played botw" which makes me think it's a bad sequel

botw did so many new things for zelda series. gameplay wise you got weapon variety, a whole new set of combat mechanics, a giant ass map, a physics engine, all the stamina stuff, cooking, i could go on and on. story wise you got eldritch ganon (gave me some absolutely world ending brain worms when i was 11 that i still have and could yap about for hours), real human being zelda, in-universe exploration of link being stoic, champions with notably different, charming, believable personalities, npcs that behave like they have lives outside of the quests they give you, a generally immersive feeling universe to match the big open world

totk gave us... a build mechanic that i wasn't that into, fuse (which fucks btw one of the best things they added), underground map that was just a mirror of the surface with almost nothing interesting in it, caves (cool but felt like dlc), new armor and items (felt like dlc), just not innovating much. and the story had ganon do the same exact shit he did in oot with a different coat of paint, rauru/sonia/mineru were boring one-dimensional plot drivers, phantom zelda was kinda cool but that wasnt nearly enough to carry, the "zelda is a dragon" thing was cool i guess but it makes no sense given how time travel works in zelda (zelda going back in time should have made a new timeline, but link is looking for zelda, which means it's the same link whose zelda disappeared, even tho he lives in a time where zelda has been a dragon for 10000 years already???)

which leads into my next point that there's no continuity between totk and botw at all. what happened to the sheikah tech. i know that nintendo guy said it had "served its purpose" but why does nobody even mention "hey remember when all of our tech teleported away never to be seen again?" also they still have a little bit which means it wasn't like, hard-coded into the materials to disappear when calamity ganon was gone either. also, ganon was still there, so unless they linked it to that specific form of ganon it would have stayed to help fight ganondorf, also what the fuck is up with ganondorf, why did nintendo retcon "his transformation into malice created the horror you see now" into "that one was fake and the real one was underground lololol" in literally the next game that's so wimpy. also why did link instantly go back to being a "stoic sigma badass" if he only did that cuz of pressure and he had years to unwind and be a person again?

also when is "the past" in this game supposed to be? it was nothing like skyward sword, unless the zonai just fucking showed up sometimes after the game ended to establish hyrule. but that means totk ganondorf would have been alive, in stasis under the castle, AT THE SAME TIME as oot ganondorf was alive, which is not how reincarnation works, which means the only timeline of events that makes sense is: every pre botw zelda game happens -> hyrule is destroyed -> an indeterminate amount of time passes -> new hyrule is founded by rauru and sonia -> sheikah tech is invented -> 10000 years before botw -> botw -> totk

i will admit that the only zelda games i've played are oot, tp, ww, ss, botw, and totk, and i played ww and ss one (1) time when i was about 13 and remember jack shit about what happens in them. but i do know about the timeline, and it doesn't help me understand what they were trying to do with totk in the slightest. and i don't think fan timeline theories should be mandatory just to justify what doesn't make sense in the games themselves. you shouldn't have to do mental gymnastics on nintendo's own lore for them, they should have written totk to not actively complicate and negate everything they've ever done with it in the past

also it's just not compelling. idk what it is but the story of totk just felt uninspired to me. magic rock. special guys who you need on your team to beat ganon (they all act basically the same). unquestionably good boring ass king and queen who ganon betrays (blatant copy of oot). link zelda and ganon play their roles completely straight despite ganon not being the same guy (all the old zeldas had one incarnation of ganon, it makes sense he would be the same cuz he literally is the same person) and it having been tens of thousands of years. also can we PLEASE have a zelda game that isn't about time travel we just had aoc please

botw was trying to distance itself from all that, they were actively trying to innovate and THEY SUCCEEDED. they said what timeline it's in doesn't matter cuz it's so far in the future. the king was a conflicted character who knew what it would cost if they failed but still wanted his daughter to be happy. zelda was an insecure teenager trying to live up to the monumental stakes that rested on her. ganon was this ancient abomination who had been completely degraded by the millennia of hatred and failure. even link had some interesting tidbits.

it's the change in creative direction at the expense of everything else including continuity that really bothers me. botw did something new, didn't shy away from being dark and metal at times, tried to flesh out these characters in a modern twist and it felt so fresh and compelling. totk went the safe route and it was boring as fuck and had no emotional appeal. even zelda herself in totk didn't really have character. she's just a curious hero who loves link. she had no arc

MY IDEA OF BOTW 2

DISCLAIMER: yes i want things to make sense in lore but i am a giant metalhead and rule of cool enjoyer at heart so i am willing to make sacrifices if the results would fuck hard enough. we can have a little violating the lore as a treat. don't kill me if i say something that's disprovable. also if you call me a cringe edgy deviantart kid i will rapidly approach your location

gameplay first. i thought most of the game would take place underground with an entirely new map that was just as dense and varied and interesting as the surface. this would have hard carried tbh a new map with that dim lighting old ruins forbidden magic aesthetic would have fucking ruled. think of how many different cave aesthetics they could have drawn on for different areas. think of what kind of npcs could have been there. remember astor's cult from aoc? remember how the carvings on the walls in the first trailer could have been anybody? also i was hoping for more combat updates. imagine if they added different mechanics for light vs heavy or poleaxes or dual wielding or brought back hidden skills or

at the time i didn't really have one set idea of what the plot would be (i start making one later in this post dw) but i had ideas and a general vibe. and that vibe was dark and maybe (hopefully) surreal. i was ready for some twilight princess cutscene shit. more in the vein of spider ganon than demise. i wanted some real fucked up and metal zelda game and everything was lining up for this to be it. botw said fuck it we ball and went for it and i wanted botw 2 to take it further

i really thought they were going to follow the malice thing through. imo that was the most important lore change they made in botw except maybe the tech, they introduced this cosmic force of pure hate that had this ambiguous relationship with ganon as a consciousness. i never got the vibe that he created it, more like it was just part of this universe and he was a vessel for it. it completely possessed and destroyed him but it made him powerful but it's unclear how much of a choice that was for him. it just has this conflicting intrigue that's begging to be explored. i wanted them to really get into how it works and what it can do to people in some of the side quests and lore boxes. cuz emotion based magic? the descent into madness? reliance on spite and rage to keep you alive when all else has failed? hidden cosmic horror that lurks within us all? that is my shit. THAT IS MY SHIT and yes i know 10 year olds will play these games but my brain worms need feeding. we've had a t rated zelda before. c'mon man

so i really didn't want to give up the idea that calamity ganon was this era's ganondorf reincarnation, but i still had faith they could make it work with the corpse. we don't know who that guy is or how long he's been there, we just know that "he kinda looks like ganondorf". so he could either be the corpse of a ganondorf from before the one that became calamity ganon, OR

he was a regular male gerudo who was not ganondorf. he was born between the battle 10000 years ago and the battle 100 years ago and wrongfully killed under suspicion of being the prophesized return of the calamity. "that's not ganondorf" could have been a great twist

this is how he died and nobody ever moved his body from this spot. when this trailer came out we had no idea whose hand that was. he was killed by someone who was much more powerful than him, who had him cornered in a fuckoff nowhere passageway buried underground. the hand wasn't guaranteed to be good. the game could have kept it mysterious for as long as it wanted, it could have never explained it at all. maybe it belonged to some overzealous warrior who thought they were the link to his ganon, or maybe it was a king or leader figure but one who was flawed.

but imagine this man's rage when he died. this already rare, different, probably outcast person was being accused of being evil incarnate through no fault of his own, the witch hunters were after him, he tried to escape and he failed. it would have been enough to become residual, and when ganon died where did the malice he brought into this world have to go?

i had this strong idea from the first time i watched the botw 2 trailer that you wouldn't be walking into the corpse room in the intro. that would have been about halfway through to kick off the climactic final act of the game. the malice isn't coming from the corpse, it's pouring itself into him to resurrect him. malice isn't sentient itself but it does have a "will" if that makes sense? it was drawn to him cuz he died under such uniquely unfair circumstances with such strong hatred for the world that never gave him a chance. but since he's dead there's nothing left of his actual consciousness anymore. this guy revived with the same malice eyes we saw in the goop in botw. we had never seen that on a person before when this trailer came out. the most important thing is that this is not him anymore. this is malice given form in a human body. and in this game malice would have been built up in the background before this. he wouldn't speak (at least not coherently), he would fight like one of those unhinged souls bosses, and you would dig up the lore of how the guy died and who he was before independently of the main quests. they could even do one of those bittersweet zelda endings where they realize like, it's possible to overcome for a time but malice is something we all have to either fight forever or let in yk?

technically there's no ganon here. ganon died in botw and has yet to reincarnate. but ironically the corpse guy took on the role of evil incarnate after death exactly because he wasn't ganon and was forced to be by the "heroes". and we finally get to see malice directly. now i know nintendo would never do something like this but in the wake of botw when they dropped that trailer i had hope that they might. and it didn't have to be this, or anything specific really, as long as they got the vibe right. and they did the exact opposite.

i miss botw 2. like we have totk but i miss the vision of botw 2 i created in my head from the first trailer (and second a little bit but i was kinda like "wheres the glowy cave" at that one). zelda game that takes place mostly underground where link is corrupted by malice and zelda actively does something during the game and isnt yet again a plot device you rarely interact with. and maybe ganondorf being well written and a real character. and the ui didnt get changed for literally no fucking reason. and we had more weapon types. and a darker story like that guy promised. and a new map that wasnt empty and predictable. imagine what we could have had

#its 4 am wtf is wrong with me #i gotta stop yapping and post this #im crashing out and not even realizing it #fml

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