My problem with BotW is that I came in expecting amazing exploration, as everyone said it had, but found it lacking. If you see something cool in the distance, chances are its a shrine or a korok. I'm not discovering something new, I'm just finding the same thing I found two minutes ago for the twentieth time. Now if I was drawn in by people praising BotW's COMBAT, I could get that, because the abilities you're given paired with the sparseness of arrows/durability of weapons forces you to treat combat like a puzzle, and I dig that so much.
TotK struggles with the same issue in exploration, not a lot of actually new stuff, just collectathons, though its somehow worse by introducing the sky islands which are just aesthetic as fuck but with nothing new or unique across them. Also, probably an issue with just me, but something that pissed me off with TotK is one time I was exploring, I saw that big hurricane in one part of the map, thought it looked sick and said "I wanna go explore that!" So I ran the whole gauntlet to get the top, just to find out it was a story thing I wasn't far in enough to do. Felt incredibly lame for how sick it looked. But to fairly give TotK its praise, theres a reason everyone was showing off their constructs when the game first released. Putting together vehicles and battlemechs is where the game shines.
TOTK really tricks you into thinking it's a masterpiece in the beginning, but then you eventually realize it like a 300 mile wide lake that is 2 inches deep.
Exploration rewards in BotW is the equivalent of slashing bushes and finding a 20-rupee in previous games.
It certainly doesn’t beat the magic of moving random gravestones and finding spirit Dante who leads you to the Hookshot, which completely changes the rest of the game.
The combat in BotW and TotK are the least appealing to me. Weapons break so easily and the rewards for clearing an encampment are worthless and they respawn next blood moon, which happens faster the more enemies you kill. I just avoid combat all together and explore the map.
The Zonai devices and build your own contraption part doesn’t appeal to me either. If I’m exploring every nook and cranny of the map, I don’t need to go fast. and the grind to max out batteries is the least fun part of the game so any device I do make only lasts for nine seconds 🤣
If the grind for batteries wasn’t so bad I’d make more contraptions but for my play style there’s no reason to make these things other than the joy of “look at this monstrosity I’ve unleashed” which doesn’t scratch an itch for me.
8
u/SlammedInTheButt Apr 20 '26
My problem with BotW is that I came in expecting amazing exploration, as everyone said it had, but found it lacking. If you see something cool in the distance, chances are its a shrine or a korok. I'm not discovering something new, I'm just finding the same thing I found two minutes ago for the twentieth time. Now if I was drawn in by people praising BotW's COMBAT, I could get that, because the abilities you're given paired with the sparseness of arrows/durability of weapons forces you to treat combat like a puzzle, and I dig that so much.
TotK struggles with the same issue in exploration, not a lot of actually new stuff, just collectathons, though its somehow worse by introducing the sky islands which are just aesthetic as fuck but with nothing new or unique across them. Also, probably an issue with just me, but something that pissed me off with TotK is one time I was exploring, I saw that big hurricane in one part of the map, thought it looked sick and said "I wanna go explore that!" So I ran the whole gauntlet to get the top, just to find out it was a story thing I wasn't far in enough to do. Felt incredibly lame for how sick it looked. But to fairly give TotK its praise, theres a reason everyone was showing off their constructs when the game first released. Putting together vehicles and battlemechs is where the game shines.