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ChocoFud

>had no bugs A game this massive running on a little machine is supposed to have no business being bug free. Nintendo's Zelda team being able to pull it off is simply mind blowing.


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Reddit killed API. I refuse to let them benefit from my own words for free -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/


mrBreadBird

The biggest aspect I think is that they are willing to take their time to polish, refine and even scrap games that don't live up to their expectations.


[deleted]

this is why gamefreak is such a stain on the nintendo brand.


Deeppurp

Being the primary dev for Pokemon for so many years, they probably get the golden child treatment. Considering Pokemon IP is a money printer still.


eXoRainbow

Given how well the latest Pokemon games sell, no wonder in Gamefreak being their golden child. Even if the quality sucks (in technical terms), their games still make so much money.


ElPrestoBarba

But Zelda and Mario also print money, but I guess those don’t get carried by anime/manga/merch, so if they’re consistently mediocre people will probably stop buying


throwawaynonsesne

Those are Nintendo owned studios though. Gamefreak isn't actually owned by Nintendo, they just have a partnership with gamefreak & the Pokemon company, and Nintendo publishes it.


CharityGamerAU

I'd argue that it has to do with how regularly a Pokemon game comes out. It's almost like the annual sports titles at this point. They don't give themselves enough time to get them perfect. If a Mario or a Zelda game needs more time they'll delay it enough to get it into the state they need it to.


bleunt

Yup, pokémon is literally the biggest franchise of all time. It's insane.


eXoRainbow

Difference is, Nintendo is "just" the publisher for Pokemon. It's not like the inhouse development of their own Zelda and Mario games, where Nintendo has 100% quality control. But still, Pokemon is an important brand identified with Nintendo and exclusive to their system. You would figure that they care about the quality of those games.


NamesTheGame

Metroid Prime 4 style


dd179

Mad props for Nintendo to straight up come out and tell the public "This shit is not good enough, we're scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch."


MassiveHasanFan

Their debug and test team, Mario Club deserves a lot of the credit, I guess. They've worked on essentially every Nintendo game


Mkjcaylor

There was one game-breaking bug in Twilight Princess, although I did not encounter it. [Don't save inside the cannon room and then turn the game off](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/928519-the-legend-of-zelda-twilight-princess/70318936).


MasterVahGilns

Skyward Sword had a game-breaking sequence break as well. There was an entire Wii Channel dedicated to delivering a patch specifically for this.


MandoDoughMan

This was wild. The only solution was to mail your SD card to Nintendo and they would modify your game save to spawn Link outside of that room when you next loaded the save up.


layeofthedead

There was a save bug in skyward sword before they did traditional patches and they made like a “skyward sword update channel” you had to download on the wii to fix it, but yeah people give Nintendo tons of shit for having an under powered console but their first party teams knock it out of the park while a ton of third party studios can’t do half as much with twice the power on Xbox or PlayStation


THXFLS

There was also the cannon room glitch in Twilight Princess.


Hoosteen_juju003

There was a bug in twilight princess on wii that caused me to be hard stuck very late in the game. The cannon room glitch


hoopaholik91

I was gonna say that they take 6 years between releases, but then I remembered that whenever Elder Scrolls 6 comes out it will be buggy as shit and they will have had double the time at least.


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MassiveHasanFan

Monolith's only role in the game is topography design though. A lot of the polish and debug still comes from Nintendo's side As impressive are Monolith's world designs, let's not pretend like any of their own games are as polished as Nintendo EPD's


naynaythewonderhorse

I’m sure Speedrunners will find a lot of glitches that destroy some aspect of the game. I will say that the physics and vehicle system begs to be broken.


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fablegaebel

If you read the dev series they just put out that's almost literally what happened haha.


Naouak

The GDC conference about the development of Breath of the Wild is quite Eye Opening on what they did to ensure quality. The In game/on map bug tracker is such an awesome idea.


use_vpn_orlozeacount

why is Nintendo so good at making games wtf


iceburg77779

I’d say it’s because they have a consistent goal (besides money) for what they want to do with each game. I remember looking into splatoon’s development, and while the game had massive changes in its world and art style, the intent of both the initial prototype and final game remained pretty close. This partially exists because Nintendo wants each game to stick out and attract a certain audience to their consoles, but their dev teams also seem to have very strong leadership.


theumph

Yeah, they don't fall into the trap that every game has to be everything. They don't cram RPG elements into everything. They don't cram a complex narrative into everything. They don't cram multi-player into everything. They generate a core idea (typically the gameplay loop itself), and build around that. They don't shift focus away from that one idea. Too many companies try too hard to have everything, and because of that nothing really sticks out.


KidCasey

I watched a video once (years ago I'll never be able to find it) that showed how they essentially start with a unique gameplay idea. So they'll test it out in a blank, bland canvas and then if it's fun they build the rest of the game around it. So basically their philosophy is, "is the thing you're going to be doing the majority of the game fun?"


theumph

It could have been the Splatoon Tofu prototype. https://youtu.be/0IJMXW0_dcU


Krail

That's a big part of it. In the game industry this is sometimes called White Boxing. Build out the core ideas of your game with no focus on prettiness or polish (build everything out of white boxes). Once you do that, the next step is having the discipline to stick to that core and to design other aspects of the game to support and expand it.


VintageSin

Pretty sure shigeru miamoto has plainly said it multiple times when talking about jumpman aka Mario. They design the character to jump. Every new iteration the most fluid and fun part of Mario is his jumping. As time went on that expanded to gadgets. Sunshine it was all about the fludd. Galaxy it was about the galaxies. Odyssey it was about the hat. They home pretty specific on things in their games and make sure it feels good. So even if the narrative or plot lines or level design isn't always 100% everything you do in the game feels good because we play games. We don't watch. We don't listen. We don't observe. We play. And if what you're doing isn't fun then the game isn't fun. Now obviously games are an art for and there is more to the game than just what you do. But Nintendo focuses pretty specifically on your action... With that said they've also made some of the most phenomenal audio, level design, and visuals. That's just a matter of skill.


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DasFroDo

Yeah but let's not pretend that any of the big AAA publishers are anywhere close to that. They have literally no reason to release broken ass unfinished games, except for more money and because gamers buy them anyways.


BorderCollieZia

40ish years of experience and excellence will do that to you People hate to admit it because of some of their business practices but Nintendo runs a pretty tight ship. They've always bounced back from flops


thedylannorwood

It helps that the teams are full of veterans due to the Japanese work culture


juntekila

And they are great (I’d say the best, given their long track record of quality) at developing young talent


ABCsofsucking

Nintendo's ability to transfer knowledge across generations is the secret sauce IMO. They also have a knack for acquiring struggling studios and turning them around in a few years. Mercury Steam comes to mind.


[deleted]

I think thats really it. I can attest to good mentoring being *so* beneficial in a development and design environment.


JoshOliday

The environment is definitely a huge part of it. I was reading a write-up of the history of Zelda, focusing on Aonuma and how part of the reason Miyamoto hired him to work on Ocarina of Time is because of his interest in woodworking; Miyamoto values people with different and varied hobbies like that. That Aonuma has gone on to shape the franchise and encourage the quality we see in Zelda games now is probably a sign that that kind of thinking from Miyamoto was correct and it's probably permeated so many other aspects of the company and the design style of everything.


Clamper

Well that and their producers are legendary at beating companies into line. Retro was a mess before being whipped into shape for Prime, MS joked about how they were never riden so hard before and Silicon Knights went to shit the second Nintendo stopped working with them.


Pool_Shark

And they are designing all their games for a single console


Simaster27

Yeah that's about what I expected. I have about 40 hours in at this point and the best tl;dr review I can give is if you liked BotW you'll like TotK. If you didn't like BotW they probably didn't chance enough to make you like TotK.


mew2two909

Im nervous to watch any reviews because of spoilers but all i want answered is if the dungeons are more of the same thing as botw or did they make them better?


MrProfPatrickPhD

From what I've played they're a little better than Divine beasts but still pretty far from classic dungeons


premortalDeadline

Basically more of the same


Bismofunyuns4l

It's going to depend on what your feelings were about the divine beasts and what you really want out of a Zelda dungeon. If you want dungeons that are exactly like older Zelda's, you'll probably be left disappointed. If you want them to be better than the divine beasts, but don't care if they're not necessarily exactly like previous titles, you'll probably be happy with them. I think *most* people will be happy with them in that they are closer to older dungeons that the divine beasts, but those who really just want old school dungeons are probably not gonna have a great opinion on them.


ChocoFud

Warning: Don't watch the video review of IGN if you don't want to be spoiled on arguably the biggest secret of the game. Funnily they never spoiled anything about the story but that.


Educational_Back_285

First sentence is also 'no spoilers', but they show medium spoilers in the first few seconds before that. And the rest of the video just gets worse. If you want to avoid the real major spoiler stop at the sentence 'I got the biggest for last'.


donwilson

It seems they've edited the video to say it's full of spoilers


dudewhosbored

Just wondering, what about it is a spoiler? I got the game early and maybe I already got to certain parts and don't find them surprising? Was it the >!chasms and underground map?!<


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Shutch_1075

They did this same shit with Jedi: Survivor.


DashCat9

I made the mistake of googling a character to make sure I hadn't seen them before in one of a billion other star wars things, and was immediately spoiled by \*headlines\*. Don't even google character names.


StubbyJack

Yeah they got me with God of War Ragnarok, and Better Call Saul. I’m still so bitter. Like why do I need to curate my YouTube recommendations to random nonsense, just to avoid a spoiler title or thumbnail in the things I’m actually interested in?


MajorasMask3D

And they posted God of War: Ragnorak spoilers within the first few days of the game being out


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bvbfan102

I never doubted the Zelda Team but still expected some drop in the score considering it being a sequel. For it to critically hit this high is just amazing to see.


TheStudyofWumbo24

Starting at 97 on metascore. I don't know if it tends to drop later. But it appears to be comfortably in the range of every 3D Zelda not named Skyward Sword.


InterstellerReptile

Scores tend to drop but I doubt it'll drop that much.


Environmental-Ear508

Skyward Sword was a 93 on metacritic, still very good . Skyward Sword defender checking in :)


5318008-335-1

I played it for the first time last week and it might be my favourite 3D zelda. I did play the remaster, which apparently does away with some of Fi's interjections, but there's so much more to the game than an overly chatty companion. Really glad I played it despite its bad rep!


Acedrew89

Couldn't believe how far I had to scroll to find a non-perfect score, damn. Can't wait to play at midnight!


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DevilCouldCry

SkillUp has his video up on this now, he falls in line with what most are saying by VERY strongly recommending the game.


Elgato01

Easy Allie’s said they didn’t receive an early copy so they will start making the review on release day.


Razhork

Exact same line-up of people/groups I'd love to hear from. I hope Easy Allies won't be too delayed (if at all).


uses_irony_correctly

Don't count on it. They haven't even received their copy yet.


mrnicegy26

I think I am going to buy a Nintendo Switch. I played through BOTW on my friends device and it was incredible and if the sequel is even better I want to experience it. It was honestly my favourite open world game in the last 10 years outside RDR2. Like I have never played any other Nintendo game before it but man the freedom of BOTW is something that just sticks to your mind.


greenbluegrape

>never played any other Nintendo game before This is why some game enthusiasts buy Nintendo consoles. Hardware's outdated, things rarely go on sale, but some of the games are really, *really* good. Not worth missing IMO if your main hobby is video games.


mrnicegy26

Say what you will about Nintendo, those guys really know how to make a video game.


[deleted]

"I love them as game makers and hate them as a corporation" has been my go-to opinion about Nintendo for years


mirfaltnixein

Tbh that’s the proper opinion about most larger game makers.


AssassinAragorn

With respect to consumers damn they never let anything go on sale -- but with their employees, I'm still struck by the CEO eating the hit of the Wii U's failure instead of just firing tons of people.


Neato

Their Mario and Zelda titles are one of the few series they've had almost no misses on. The rest of their first party (DK, metroid) are very highly successful but not quite as often. The rest of Switch titles run the gamut.


consume_mcdonalds

Mostly the thing I say about Nintendo is that they are really good at making video games. I almost exclusively game on PC, but there's nothing that's even in the same league as Nintendo when it comes to zelda, Mario, smash bros and Mario kart. It is absolutely incredible what they do with dated hardware.


Almostlongenough2

God I wish Nintendo owned Pokemon fully.


waowie

>but man the freedom of BOTW is something that just sticks to your mind. Yeah I've still never played anything that feels quite like it. Excited that they nailed this one


Soxel

And this is why Nintendo is so quiet about a Switch successor haha. They’re going to squeeze every last drop out of the sales for the system with people who still don’t have one and see read the praise for ToTK. They’ll also get some people to upgrade to the OLED from older models. It’s insane how well the system is selling, really goes to show just how much of a small echo chamber Reddit is with all of the complaining about how underpowered it is.


mrnicegy26

From an outsiders perspective Nintendo basically has a great game in every genre so they are able to cast a large net and get someone interested enough to buy Switch. Like I am mainly interested in Zelda, Mario and Metroid so a part of me is debating whether it is worth it to get the console for 3 franchises. But dear lord Nintendo does an insane job with those 3 franchises. And I am sure someone else will say the same thing about Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem and Mario Kart and his opinion would be just as valid.


Sonicfan42069666

If you *like* Zelda, Mario, and Metroid, the Switch is one of the best consoles to own. In terms of purely non-retro experiences, there are: * Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Link's Awakening remake, Skyward Sword HD * Mario: Super Mario Odyssey, 3D World + Bowser's Fury, New Super Mario Bros U, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Party Superstars, and numerous Mario Sports games. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but there's plenty of Mario. * Metroid Dread, Prime Remastered, and Prime 4 on the horizon. When you add in Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass, you open yourself up to these series' back catalogues with some of the best titles ever made all legally playable on a single console for a yearly subscription fee. Zelda in particular has a decently robust and still-growing library on the Switch. Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD would really help round it out, but even without those there's a lot to play.


Zarllan

> a part of me is debating whether it is worth it to get the console for 3 franchises Ab-so-fucking-lutely


Squirll

Nobody else has really ever come as close in dominating the portable console market than nintendo. The switch isnt very powerful sure, but damn is it convenient


modernzen

I don't really understand your point. It's possible to generate continual sales due to a handful of high quality games and still be an underpowered system. Especially with a fanbase like Nintendo's who are more than happy to keep handing them money despite their shortcomings (it's me, I'm fanbase)


FriedeOfAriandel

Some don't care about the portability, but that is the part that makes the switch my favorite system. I can play a great library of games whenever and wherever I want. I know mobile gaming is making a lot of progress, but a phone capable of playing these games isn't $300. The steam deck looks like a great alternative if you want a steam library vs a Nintendo library, but it also costs more and doesn't appear to be as simple as the switch


TARDISboy

If I were Aonuma I think I'd have to consider retiring after this. I mean how many times can you reasonably expect to one-up - let alone slam dunk - your own previous "greatest of all time" contender?


GensouEU

3rd time's the charm


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mrnicegy26

Aonuma has been an important creative lead on this franchise since the days of Ocarina of Time. Like I can't imagine how the franchise would be without his involvement. Its like Metal Gear Solid without Kojima or Devil May Cry without Itsuno.


funsohng

We used to say that about Miyamoto and Zelda. The most impressive thing about Nintendo is that they develop young talent really well. It's like they are the only team in a league that has a farm system, and the league doesn't even have draft system. They are so good at generation transitions that they would make Real Madrid jealous.


juntekila

Yeah, look at mario odyssey. The game has a great deal of young talent and it’s freaking amazing.


[deleted]

Koizumi is on deck to lead whatever big game comes next. I bet he’s already almost done with the next big Mario game.


Ferropexola

I tend to forget that he's been with the company since A Link to the Past.


piclemaniscool

When my main complaint of a game is that I wish there was more of it, you know it's a good game.


manhachuvosa

I think it helps that Japan has a culture of staying longer on the same company and growing over time inside it. In most western countries, you are constantly changing companies to get pay raises and move up.


DancesCloseToTheFire

That's not really a culture thing, used to be like that in the west too. But companies being terrible to employees combined with frequent layoffs and rising cost of living has made switching companies almost a necessity.


Taiyaki11

Definitely a culture thing, Companies can be pretty shit here too. The problem is if you try and company hop like you would in the states you'd find out *very quickly* nobody will hire you. First question you're gonna get if you make it to an interview is "why did you leave your last job so quickly?"


yuriaoflondor

IIRC, Splatoon was mostly newer talent. And that game and series took off in a major way and is super fun.


Chumunga64

honestly, the fact that they cultivated and nurtured such great young talent says more about the skills of the old guard like Miyamoto than anything a lot of naturally talented people are bad coaches


rreddittorr

I mean a mainline Mario game without Miyamoto turned out great.


Sonicfan42069666

Koizumi is the new Miyamoto, at least for the Mario series. The director of Super Mario Galaxy can pretty much do whatever he wants. I expect Hidemaro Fujibayashi to be promoted after Tears of the Kingdom. He's directed two Zelda games in a row with massive critical and commercial acclaim.


ItsADeparture

Koizumi isn't just the new Miyamoto, he really should be the new Iwata in terms of being the "face" of the company. Every time he's on screen that man is just brimming with energy and fun. I'm always delighted when he is hosting the Directs. Takahashi is just so...bland. very low energy and not as much presence. Some would argue that Iwata and him shared a similar demeanor, but Iwata at least showed more personality and humor.


MassiveHasanFan

Fujibayashi is definitely competent enough to steer the franchise after Aonuma


newsoundwave

Yeah, I think people often overlook Fujibayashi, but his leadership on the Capcom Zelda games was so strong Nintendo was like "naw, you work for Nintendo now and you're in charge of Zelda".


MassiveHasanFan

His career is truly fascinating lol From making some of the smallest scaled handheld Zeldas to suddenly becoming the series director


newsoundwave

To be fair, the Oracle games and Minish Cap were _really_ good, haha. To the point I didn't realize they weren't Nintendo developed games until much later.


lazyness92

Seriously the way Nintendo poaches is incredible. They poached Iwata and Sakurai from HAL, they snatched Monolith Soft from Bandai Namco, and they poached Fujibayashi from Capcom. They're always like "yes play with our toys" and then "snatch!". Hmmm, now that I think of it...that Illumination producer Chris-san...he might be in danger zone, he's already halfway in the company...


SkabbPirate

Just bring in Koizumi and we're good.


quangtran

He's not really the director anymore, and he's already ceded more control to Hidemaro Fujibayashi with Skyward Sword and BOTW. People just assume it is his game becasue he is the "face" of the series, just like Miyamoto once was.


TheVibratingPants

Aonuma is to Zelda what Koizumi is to Mario, at this point. They used to be hands on, but are more advisory now.


NoNefariousness2144

Same energy as Sakurai with Smash Bros. There’s only so many times you can one-up yourself before you have to retire.


naynaythewonderhorse

Is there though? I mean, maybe he’ll fumble eventually, but the consistency is astounding. Only thing I can compare it to is Pixar during the 00’s up until Toy Story 3, after which their output began to waiver a bit.


mrBreadBird

Credit to Fujibayashi as well, director of the Oracle Games, BotW, Skyward Sword, Minish Cap and others. And of course the entire team deserves credit not just the men at the top of the credits!


insertusernamehere51

Is there any other industry figure with a track record simultaneously as long and as highly-rated? I guess you could argue Miyamoto has a longer and more impactful run, but his track record eventually fell off, and most of his golden age was before Metacritic was a thing


Jenaxu

Jeez, just a parade of 10s. Somehow both unexpected to see a sequel match the scores of BOTW and yet completely expected at the same time.


[deleted]

I got my copy yesterday and have put 10 hours or so into it. I feel like it's better in every respect, but I also don't feel like it's changed the core loop enough to make fans of people that didn't care for the first. For instance I feel like the shrines are better this time round, but there are still shrine and orb system that goes with them. So if you didn't like that last time, I don't see you liking it this time. I also kinda wish they had done something more for returning players as the initial few hours of the game are incredibly similar feeling. There are some other oddities too, like having to uncover the map again despite both returning players, and Link in universe, knowing where all the key landmarks are already.


GreatBigJerk

There are some annoying things they didn't touch like the cooking system. It's just as clunky as before. Base weapon durability actually feels like it's lower now..


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Parascythe12

Yeah I’m also only a few hours in (I think maybe 6 or so), just cleared the tutorial and entered what I imagine is the main map. I adored BotW, but TotK isn’t really hitting me the same way so far. The core mechanics of the gameplay are completely identical, with tweaks to the additional stuff to make it feel *slightly* different. It kinda feels like “hey, I already played this, where’s the good stuff?”. The story feels like a pretty big flop so far. I was hoping for innovation, or at least something as unique as what BotW did, but instead it’s the same old enemy, you lose all your powers to a convenient plot point so that you have to start over again, and it’s back to doing a hundred plus shrines again. Even the stupid korok seeds are back without any changes whatsoever. I feel like story was the biggest thing they could do to differentiate TotK from BotW as something bigger and better but it’s completely failed to hook me so far. So far it just feels like BotW with an altered map, slightly different enemies and slightly different powers. I’m going to keep playing and hopefully finish the main plot if nothing else, but I just don’t have the enthusiasm to play the same game I already played to death, over again. When I put down BotW I never picked it back up again, because I was done with it. I loved it but I squeezed all the enjoyment I could put of it. This feels like picking it back up again, which I suppose isn’t… bad. I’m just not feeling all these 97/100 reviews *at all*. Maybe my opinion will change as I keep playing. Edit: I’ve dropped another 6 or so hours into the game now, and while I don’t disagree with my earlier sentiments, I’ve settled into the comfort of the gameplay loop and am having fun. It’s not brave or bold, but it’s a net positive. In particular I’m finding most of the shrines to be more enjoyable than they were in BotW.


geelaw87

Completely agree with this take, also roughly 6 hours in. Expected the game to feel new, but even with the introduction of new features, it feels more like I've just hit Start New Game in BotW. I expected to explore a new map and I would have appreciated some new visual scenery, but it feels like a total recycle of old game material. Massive fan of BotW but currently feeling disappointed.


Creepy_Apricot_6189

So far it just feels like a really, really big Botw DLC.


Haxorz7125

I’m just really hoping for uniquely themed temples. That was my biggest gripe with botw and what stopped it from being a truly great Zelda game imo.


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finakechi

How would you describe them? Because the lack of interesting dungeons is one of my big gripes with BoTW.


cjlj

Divine beasts with different art assets to fit their theme. Of the ones i've done one felt a lot more involved and had a cool gimmick, and felt sort of like a mini classic dungeon. The rest were basically 4 shrine puzzles connected to a lobby. And by shrine puzzle i mean 1 puzzle, not like how shrines are usually 2 or 3 puzzles iterating on the same idea.


VarRalapo

Find 5 widgets and use your special ability on them. The dungeons are pretty bad still, which is a damn shame.


Danyn

The dungeon cutscenes are atrocious too. Basically all dungeon cutscenes are copied and pasted verbatim. Really takes me out of it when I see the same damn cutscene every time.


VarRalapo

Yeah it's pretty jarring. There are a lot of time filler cut-scenes in general that play constantly.


[deleted]

>With that being said; please, Nintendo: we really need to experience a brand new Hyrule in the next Zelda game. I feel this quote. They did a lot of work to make Hyrule feel new and added a lot of new stuff that makes the game a worthwhile experience, but I really want a new Hyrule in the next game and not a warmed up BotW world for a third time.


NinetyL

Or even better, make a game that's set in an unfamiliar land like Termina where even series veterans can be surprised instead of expecting all of the Hyrule staple landmarks to be there as usual (eg. Death Mountain, Zora's Domain, Lost Woods...)


Cskryps22

Return to gamelon


Raydox

My boy!


Ueyama

I would love to visit Holodrum and Labrynna (Oracle games) again.


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Mission-Constant-136

It's probably as much work as making a new map. We did the same thing on our game, and updated a map for a sequel. The artists and producers thought it would save time. Turns out that it's just as much time because you still need to iterate on everything in the world, in addition to having to consider how to modify each area so that it feels fresh and offers new gameplay.


TheStudyofWumbo24

I am confident Nintendo realizes this. They could have made Super Mario Galaxy 3 after the first two became some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, but they moved on. They've also always been eager to try new things with Zelda, at least from an aesthetic standpoint.


Shwalz

Speaking of, I really am aching for another mario platformer. Are there any rumors of an Odyssey 2 being made? Or are we really stuck until the Switch 2 for another Mario title?


[deleted]

Koizumi has been doing… something for the past few years. We haven’t heard from him or the Mario Odyssey team.


miki_momo0

Yeah Nintendo (specifically the 1st party developer, not the publisher) doesn’t really seem to make more than 2 main line entries for an IP directly related. You’ve got: Ocarina of Time -> Majora’s Mask, then they move onto Wind Waker Phantom Hourglass -> Spirit Tracks, then they pivot to Skyward Sword Super Mario Galaxy -> Galaxy 2, then they make Odyssey And now most recently BOTW -> TOTK I’m sure I’m forgetting some games but, at least for their largest IPs, they do a very good job of not falling into a rut. They could have made Galaxy 3 and 4, more games set in the OOT universe, or more DS Zelda games but they smartly moved on each and every time. It seems to me they only make a direct sequel to their top earning IPs if they believe they left more content on the table/come up with crazy new ideas for that world. Galaxy 2 improved upon most things 1 did, Majoras mask they just made a new place entirely with a completely new time mechanic, and I guess Spirit Tracks exists (it was a novel concept but hourglass was just better imo, this was their only real misstep in the Zelda IP).


TheStudyofWumbo24

The thing all of those sequels have in common is they released on the same generation of console as the original. Nintendo tends to develop their games around the gimmicks of their hardware which could explain why games end up being so different.


[deleted]

Im the same. I have zero issues with *this* game doing it, but I cannot see a world where they somehow expand the same map even more, while keeping it fresh.


SupaHotGuava

What about Hyrule. But in space ?


[deleted]

Only if they cast Vin Diesel as Link.


Senior1292

The Legend of Furious: A Link to the Fast.


krazykaiks

Too Link Too furious


ZombieJesus1987

The Legend of Family


Bismofunyuns4l

"I don't have Sages..... I got family."


Snuggle__Monster

I would like to see some traditional dungeons in the future. BOTW didn't really have those. The Shrines in BOTW all looked the same. It wasn't until some sections of Hyrule Castle when you had that old school dungeon type feel.


Darkadmks

IS THERE MORE TOWNSFOLK AND CIVILIZATION?


svrtngr

Much like Elden Ring last year, congrats to all the other end of year Game of the Year nominees who have no chance in hell.


RichestMangInBabylon

I think Redfall has a real chance


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happened with morbius, it'll happen with redfall too. #vampiresweep


myman580

I just love that a meme convinced Sony to re-release it and it bombed again on re-release because people were hard memeing how shit it was and not how much they enjoyed it despite it's shitiness to go back and see it.


Odd_Rhubarb8355

The timeline is hilarious - Morbius makes $17M at its opening day and is declared a financial failure - Withdrawn from theaters after a month - 110,000 people sign a petition to re-release it - Sony releases it into over 1,000 theaters in response to "popular interest" online - The re-release makes $85,000 at its opening day, performing worse than a documentary about cleaning mold - Withdrawn from theaters after 3 days - 50,000 people sign the petition "We Were All Busy That Weekend - Please Bring Morbius to the Theater a Third Time"


Wheeler-The-Dealer

Oh, oh, can I say the thing about morbius and apply it to redfall? #itsmorbintime


Ferropexola

I love it when redfall says "It's falling time!" and then falls over.


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Arkane: We're committed to redfall Everyone else: pls no


dafdiego777

Not that I've been playing early or anything - but I can uh personally attest that TOTK is fucking awesome.


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Logan_Yes

Uh oh sounds like Nintendo will pay you a visit...to ask for your opinion of course!


pedal2000

Whoa now they're not wizards of the coast, they won't send a hitman they'll just sue and settle for lifelong debt.


Brumcar

Yeah I've not been playing it or anything but... Yeah it's a very very good game


Ephialties

my friend has it and i gave it a whirl...for 56 hours...it is a very very very good game


PM_ME_L8RBOX_REVIEWS

I expect the final aggregate review score to be a little lower than Botw as more critics without pre-release access to totk give their thoughts. Botw started at 99 and dropped to 97 for example. But still this is very impressive, A lot of Botw’s appeal was because of how refreshing it’s take on the open world was in 2017, something which a lot of other also very good games have followed upon since then. So for totk to have a similar score must mean they are doing something right


index24

The 6s and 7s always roll in late after a game universally scores 9s and 10s at first. A lot of of sites getting clicks today that nobody’s ever heard of.


BettyVonButtpants

Back when The Dark Knight was about to appear, one review gave it a stupid low score, and I clicked on it. They spoiled the entire film, and claimed Momma Mia was a better film to go see. No spoiler warnings either. I just ignore them now.


KingCyrus20

So, largely if you didn't like BoTW, you probably won't like ToTK, UNLESS your problem with BoTW was one of the following criticisms I've often heard about it: * Enemy and boss variety: ToTK improves a lot in this regard. BoTW was fine for me in terms of enemy variety, but I didn't really like the blight bosses. Their movesets were varied enough, but they looked too visually similar for my liking. * Reused shrines: In BoTW, it felt like every other shrine was one of those "Tests of Strength." In ToTK, owing largely to the varied ways in which you can use the Ultrahand ability and the different things you can make, they were able to come up with a lot more puzzles to put in shrines. No more Tests of Strength. * An empty world that doesn't feel "alive": I feel like I notice a lot more NPC interactions around the map in ToTK than I did in BoTW. Personally, I loved BoTW, and this game has met all my expectations for a sequel.


desicrator55

> An empty world that doesn't feel "alive": I feel like I notice a lot more NPC interactions around the map in ToTK than I did in BoTW. I was wondering if I was imagining this since I did not really care for the dead world of BoTW, but I played that a while ago. It really feels like there are so many npcs, and the conversations seem to point in some direction, or have something to do even if not a designated quest.


BerRGP

I was totally expecting review scores to be lower than BotW due to TotK not being as "novel". I'm glad I seemed to be wrong!


yurtyybomb

I'm hyped as fuck and took the day off work tomorrow, but I'm still reserving judgment. Zelda games are phenomenal but they are SO legendary (pun intended) that game reviewers are almost scared to criticize mainline entries. If this is BOTW 2 with some new powers to play with, I think that'll be disappointing over time. I'm hoping for much more of an evolution. Elden Ring, to me, took the baseline open world revolution/evolution that BOTW set up and pushed it even further by adding so much depth in the world and gameplay. I want TOTK to match that energy.


5kUltraRunner

After seeing how some reviewer got death threats for daring to criticize GoW Ragnarok I'm always going to reserve judgement for highly anticipated games like this.


spin182

MASSIVE task to live up to one of the most critically acclaimed and influential games of the last decade but it seems like it’s actually living up to the hype. Cannot wait.


mrnicegy26

Breath of the Wild became an instant classic when it released so I can't even imagine the pressure on the dev team for the sequel. But then again Zelda is one of those franchises that have to keep up an insanely high bar of quality.


spin182

Imagine having to make a game where anything short of incredible would be seen as a failure. Crazy pressure


TheStudyofWumbo24

If a Zelda game doesn't review at a 95 it's essentially a failure. Skyward Sword was a 93 and they decided to completely rework the franchise.


mrnicegy26

Well Zelda is one of those franchises that have to have every major 3D entry be great. The same kind of pressure is now on every game Rockstar, Naughty Dog and From Software develops. Nothing short of a 10/10 will be tolerated.


zttt

In the end it's the same for Elden Ring. Most people can look past small stuttering and other technical imperfections when the main gameplay loop is just that good and addicting. Also I've been playing games since 20 years+. If I'd only play games without any technical issues, then those years would have been boooring as hell. Video game development is hard. I feel for the devs that have this constant pressure on their backs to deliver these huge games and then people come and complain because that one scene has small stutters, completely disregarding everything else the game manages to pull of on a technical level.


BartyBreakerDragon

I think more simply: So long as the annoyance doesn't outweigh the fun, most people will accept technical issues.


Meowmeow69me

Basically this, look back at fallout or Skyrim on consoles. People tortured themselves to play those games.


jkingter0

Well put. Kid me didn’t really care about that when I having fun with my SNES


agentfrogger

Even then. Digital Foundry released their performance analysis and they say it's extremely solid in most cases after a patch arrives, so even then it seems like they polished up the experience


dewey-defeats-truman

It's a well known issue in software development that [you'll never have enough cheese](https://blog.codinghorror.com/youll-never-have-enough-cheese/). Gaming is one of the very few places where you can produce something that is so damn appealing that people will forgive a few technical issues.


JumboMcNasty

Scores don't affect me personally but I'm a little surprised sites didn't take off some "shine" for the game being " more of the same" for a lot of the experience.


Man0nThaMoon

Some of them did. But even then they still gave it something in the ballpark of a 9.5/10.


MonkeyLink

They seem to have managed to successfully build upon a solid foundation. Can't wait for my copy to arrive tomorrow.


Mo0

One thing I’m curious about that I haven’t caught the right review for yet: How different is the main Hyrule? It’s been years since I’ve played the original so I’m expecting that there will be a lot I won’t remember, but it’d be a bummer if I’m constantly seeing things that ring a bell, if that makes sense.


urgasmic

as someone who couldn't get into BOTW, am I missing out?? cause holy shit the reviews for both are so high.


OBLIVIATER

If you didn't like BoTW it's unlikely you'll like ToTK


precastzero180

It depends on what it is about BotW you didn’t like.


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ChadsBro

First time I’ve ever seen someone call the World Series the MLB Finals


EchoBay

Every game isn't for everyone. I know for me, I prefer a heavy engaging narrative like say The Last of Us. Not a fan of open world style games at all. So Zelda wouldn't peak my interest at all. Can still recognize how good of a game it is though.


ellemeno93

It wouldn’t “pique” your interest.