The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by ratsoalbion »

So, um. Anyone playing the new one?
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Rhaegyr
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Rhaegyr »

As soon as I can - it's the sequel to possibly my favourite ever game and I've just finished the RE4 Remake!

Unfortunately the delay in release has typically clashed with a weekend where I've got a lot of tedious 'adult' things to do like a theatre visit tonight and my girlfriend's dad's birthday dinner tomorrow.

Hoping to get on it around 11:30pm tonight for as long as I can stay awake.

You managing to jump on today?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by ratsoalbion »

Yes indeed!
Doing podcast prep for the next few hours but this evening, for sure.

I may have, erm, accidentally treated myself to one of the limited edition TotK OLED Switch consoles as well...
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Truk_Kurt »

I upgraded to an OLED too, just the normal one though. It's been delivered and can't wait to get stuck in tonight. I've heard it doesn't open out for about 4 hours which is a little annoying as I want to be let loose as soon as possible but I'm sure those 4 hours will be great regardless.
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by ratsoalbion »

Someone's already beaten the game in an hour and a half:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/ ... 94-minutes
:D
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markfm007
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by markfm007 »

Haven't even beat Breath of the Wild yet, or got very far past the tutorial.... Think I'll leave it for now and at some point make a decision if I want to play them both or just Tears.
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Pconpi
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Pconpi »

ratsoalbion wrote: May 12th, 2023, 1:25 pm Yes indeed!
Doing podcast prep for the next few hours but this evening, for sure.

I may have, erm, accidentally treated myself to one of the limited edition TotK OLED Switch consoles as well...
Lovely! I still appreciate the vibrancy of the OLED screen every time I fire it up. The TotK edition looks nice. Picked up my copy of TotK an hour ago and ready to dive in tonight. No expectations really, I'll be happy with more BotW.
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Alex79
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Alex79 »

I'm definitely interested in playing this but not in a mad rush. I've still not finished Breath Of The Wild, and one of my boys wants Tears Of The Kingdom for his birthday in a couple of months so will get it for him and play it then. I love Breath Of The Wild but ended up playing it in a weird way. I'd play 15-20 hours every few months, trying to make it last as long as possible. Still have one divine beast and the final boss to do, as well as tonnes of shrines I've not even found yet, let alone cleared. Got all the towers though. I think I'll go back to it when I get bored of Skyrim, which I'm really, really enjoying on Switch at the moment. 85 hours in under a month...
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See Mi Yah
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by See Mi Yah »

My number one prediction for 2023 (that I posted here last year) was that Tears of the Kingdom "would prove to be a fiercely divisive sequel."

Yep...


Anyway...

I played a few hours on PC last week. 4K and hovering in around 60fps with some occasionsal audio glitches. But definitely more than "playable". It leaked almost two weeks ago but the real work on it seems to be beginning right now so I guess within a few weeks it'll be the definitive version of the game, if it's not already. I'm not condoning it. It's just the reality. And in any event my conscience is clear because of course I went down to Smyths this morning and bought myself a white Switch OLED. And of course I can't really afford it right now. And of course I don't regret it.

I'm so pleased. Emulation just isn't my thing. I also played a few hours of BOTW when I first got my PC just because I could and because I wanted to see it looking so good and performing so brilliantly. But this is Nintendo and their games are fundamentally intertwined with their hardware. It felt wrong on PC. So I'll play it on Switch and eventually sometime down the line I'll play a bit on PC just because I can. But I'm so happy to have a lovely new Switch to play this on right now and to support Nintendo and what they do.

About the game. The only thing I can say with any confidence right now is that the game feels delightfully fresh in my hands. Part of that is the new additions in terms of mechanics, enemies and the map, part of it is the underlying fundamentals of BOTW being so strong and a part of it is my never having revisited BOTW in any serious or committed way since it released. I don't have the map memorised. There's things I definitely remember, things I'm certain are new and whole chunks that I'm not sure about, which in practical terms also feel new to me. So lightning really has struck twice in this version of Hyrule and I'm partying like it's 2016.
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Alex79
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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See Mi Yah wrote: May 13th, 2023, 2:25 pm My number one prediction for 2023 (that I posted here last year) was that Tears of the Kingdom "would prove to be a fiercely divisive sequel."

Yep...
Sorry, I'm not sure if this is a joke or not :lol:

I've seen nothing but positivity so far though.
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See Mi Yah
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by See Mi Yah »

It's definitely a joke. I'm laughing at how wrong I was.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by SludgeWizard »

For whatever reason BOTW didn’t really click with me, so I was positive that I wouldn’t pick up TOTK on day one.
Obviously I caved immediately and picked up a copy.
So far my takeaways are that I loved the intro for the big bad, ultrahand thing feels a little clunky to me so far but very cool, and going back to 30fps after getting used to 60fps on my PS5 is a bigger deal than I expected it to be.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Angry_Kurt »

The level of creativity is mind boggling. There was something I was trying to do in the open world in the first area and had to ask others what I had to do, each of the 4 people I asked came back to me with a different way of dealing with it. I love that about the game. It’s like an open world immersive sim.

Regarding the frame rate, on PS5 I always have to out the game at 60fps mode as I also really notice when a game is running at 30 now, however I haven’t with ToTK. Maybe it’s because I’m playing handheld so it’s not as noticeable on a smaller screen but yeah, can’t say it’s been an issue for me yet.
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See Mi Yah
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by See Mi Yah »

Angry_Kurt wrote: May 14th, 2023, 8:55 am Regarding the frame rate, on PS5 I always have to out the game at 60fps mode as I also really notice when a game is running at 30 now, however I haven’t with ToTK. Maybe it’s because I’m playing handheld so it’s not as noticeable on a smaller screen but yeah, can’t say it’s been an issue for me yet.
It's also less of an issue for me when playing handheld. In fact it's a complete non-issue. Ditto the resolution.

It's worth noting that amongst a lot of the Steam Deck playerbase lower framerates are the norm as well. Okay, they hover in around the 45fps but it's still just accepted by the type of people who ordinarily worship at the alter of maximum frames.

It seems that the sheer novelty of playing a 'big' game in the palm of your hands, whether that's Switch or Steam Deck, is a novelty that doesn't real lose its shine.
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Rhaegyr
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Rhaegyr »

Decided to go with the Pro HUD for TOTK (used the standard one for BOTW) and I'm really glad I did - seems much more immersive.
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Something I have found minorly annoying is that when using a bow and arrow there is a shortcut to fuse an item from your inventory to the arrow, but for fusing to a shield or weapon you have to go into your inventory, drop item to the ground and then fuse them. There's no shortcut.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by JadePhoenix »

Alex79 wrote: May 13th, 2023, 3:41 pm
See Mi Yah wrote: May 13th, 2023, 2:25 pm My number one prediction for 2023 (that I posted here last year) was that Tears of the Kingdom "would prove to be a fiercely divisive sequel."

Yep...
Sorry, I'm not sure if this is a joke or not :lol:

I've seen nothing but positivity so far though.
Then let me add a different perspective.

I logged at least 30 hours over the weekend, so I'd obviously by lying if I said I hated it, but I definitely have mixed feelings. For reference, I didn't love BotW either. TotK feels like BotW with everything cranked up to 11, both the good and the bad. BotW had a big, sprawling, mostly empty world, TotK has *3* big, sprawling, mostly empty worlds. Every weapon in BotW broke after 20 attacks, the weapons in TotK only last 15.

One of the developer interviews mentioned wanting to make the dungeons more interesting and unique this time around, which was super exciting to me, since that was one of my biggest issues with BotW, but the 2 I've done so far could have been copied and pasted from Divine beasts with nothing more than some texture changes. The bosses, on the other hand, are a *huge* improvement, and the Wind Temple boss is possibly one of the best in the entire series. The shrines are another area where I think there has been a big improvement, I found the ones in BotW to be largely repetitive and not that interesting, but TotKs have been a ton of fun, largely due to the new powers being a lot more fun to play with. I'm not the sort of person who's inclined to spend half an hour building some elaborate contraption just to save 15 minutes of overworld travel, but when given specific challenges in the shrines, I've had a lot of fun building things to meet them, except for the less than stellar controls.

Combat, on the other hand, is a nightmare. I don't know how, as developers, you see that weapon durability is the single biggest complaint about the original, and decide to make it *worse* in the sequel, but that's where we are. Even apart from that, Link moves like he's walking through molasses, and every enemy seems to kill you in 2-3 hits, max, not a good combination. I understand the appeal of allowing players to come up with alternative solutions to enemy encounters, but that's no excuse for making it nearly impossible to handle 3 bokoblins at the same time in a straight fight.
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Rhaegyr
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Rhaegyr »

I honestly never understood people saying BOTW felt 'empty' - always felt like there was something to do/see/interact with over the next hill, doubly so in this game.

Using the Fuse ability has negated a lot of my issues with weapon durability - weapons seem to last at least double (sometimes triple) the time they did in BOTW once you've fused something to it, even a simple rock.

My own pet peeve so far is having to attach a brightbulb to an arrow every single time I want to fire one - am I missing something?

Only 4-6 hours in so far but if I'm being honest I'm loving it - it helps I only played BOTW through once but it all feels so fresh again. Wish I'd booked the week off to play it.
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Rhaegyr wrote: May 15th, 2023, 2:05 pm
My own pet peeve so far is having to attach a brightbulb to an arrow every single time I want to fire one - am I missing something?

To fire an arrow or do light up a brightbulb? If the latter you can just throw a brightbulb on the ground and hit it with your weapon and it will light up.
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Rhaegyr
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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Post by Rhaegyr »

Truk_Kurt wrote: May 15th, 2023, 3:41 pm
Rhaegyr wrote: May 15th, 2023, 2:05 pm
My own pet peeve so far is having to attach a brightbulb to an arrow every single time I want to fire one - am I missing something?

To fire an arrow or do light up a brightbulb? If the latter you can just throw a brightbulb on the ground and hit it with your weapon and it will light up.
It's to fire an arrow - same goes for bomb arrows, keese eye arrows etc. As far as I can tell I have to hold 'Up' on the D-Pad to attach a material every time I want to fire a specific arrow type (even if I've just fired it).

Not a dealbreaker, just a tiny quibble.
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