Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - update: 10+ million copies sold worldwide in first three days (fastest selling title in the Zelda series)

[crispy4000]

15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Not to put too much of a damper on anyone's excitement, but several of these previews mention that the game's performance can be somewhat...uhhhh..."dire" on occasion:

 

 

What preview is this from?

 

I don't doubt they experienced performance drops.  But BoTW used a double buffered vsync.  The harshest drops hang briefly around ~20fps before jumping back.  Either the game runs that much worse than the first, or there's some degree of hyperbole here.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

What preview is this from?

 

I don't doubt they experienced performance drops.  But BoTW used a double buffered vsync.  The harshest drops hang briefly around ~20fps before jumping back.  Either the game runs that much worse than the first, or there's some degree of hyperbole here.

 

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Preview – Another Classic In The Making

WWW.WELL-PLAYED.COM.AU

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Take a deep breath, it's about to get even wilder

 

[Mr.Vic20]

I've already accepted that the poor resolution, jagges on everything, and wonky frame rates will be the screen door through which I will witness this, likely, amazing game! 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

More previews:

 

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hands-on: it’s just like riding a tricked-out bike - The Verge

WWW.THEVERGE.COM

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Tears of the Kingdom is the upgraded return to Hyrule you’ve been waiting for.

 

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During the couple of hours I had to spend exploring two small (relative to the rest of the map) but still sizable chunks of Tears of the Kingdom’s overworld, the game felt more cleverly evolutionary than boldly revolutionary. Anyone who’s been playing Breath of the Wild in preparation for Tears of the Kingdom will be at home with most of the game’s controls and the basic aspects of getting around the world — burning through stamina wheels to run, climb, and glide will feel comfortably familiar. But once you start really using Link’s new abilities to interact with the things around him — the monsters, the weapons, the bushes full of bomb flowers — Tears of the Kingdom reveals itself to be a much more technically complex and imaginative game than its predecessor, which is saying something.

 

 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hands-on: A sequel with endless creative potential | Engadget

WWW.ENGADGET.COM

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With the addition of the new Fuse and Ultrahand abilities, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom provides endless ways of customizing combat and traversing the map..

 

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After my 75-minute demo session, all I could think about were the endless number combos and possibilities I wanted to try. It feels like Nintendo has really leaned into the sandbox nature of the previous Zelda game, and even without touching the story I can already tell how easy it will be to get sidetracked by Tears of the Kingdom’s creative opportunities. But my biggest takeaway is that coming from Breath of the Wild – which was a game so good it made me rethink how I score video games – Tears of the Kingdom is already giving off similar vibes of magic and wonder. In a lot ways, Tears of the Kingdom could be what Majora’s Mask is to The Ocarina of Time. You have the same engine, the same map, and the same basic mechanics, but with building and fusing instead of playful masks and that divisive three-day cycle. Some of Tears of the Kindgom’s new abilities might not be your cup of tea, but even so, it’s already feeling like a must-play.

 

 

Hands-on with Tears of the Kingdom’s Zelda-meets-Minecraft construction set

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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Get ready to build your own unique solutions to Link's many challenges.

 

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Players used to the near-constant exploring and adventuring of past Zelda games may find this focus on Kerbal Space Program- or Minecraft-style device construction a little off-putting. And it's true, standing in one area for minutes at a time to carefully manipulate objects like so many Lego bricks isn't really an action-packed thrill ride.

 

Thankfully, there is a feature that helps streamline rebuilding construction projects that you have built in the past. But this all depends on having enough of the basic resources you need to reconstruct those complex devices or to build them in the first place. Our demo featured a number of giant gashapon-style machines where Link could exchange a specific in-game coin for a random array of powerful building blocks (while these can be stored in your inventory, other construction objects have to be scrounged from the nearby environment).

 

Even in our short demo, though, I found myself running out of basic resources as some of my early building experiments failed for one reason or another. Here's hoping that Tears of the Kingdom isn't stingy with its basic building blocks because the prospect of backtracking just to pick up the few extra hot-air balloons I want to complete a puzzle could get annoying pretty quickly.

 

 

 

I Played ‘Zelda: Tears of the Zingdom’ for Two Hours. It Lives Up to the Hype.

WWW.ESQUIRE.COM

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A sequel is a dangerous thing—but Nintendo is up for the challenge.

 

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And you're going to be in the sky quite a lot. Exactly how big is Tears of the Kingdom's open-world playground? Imagine another map on top of Breath of the Wild's terrain. Tears of the Kingdom introduces groups of sky islands called Archipelagos—and traversing them is a blast. From my short demo, at least, reaching one sky island from another can be a whole puzzle itself. The transition from ground to sky (and sky to ground) is seamless, by the way. For those thinking that they'll spend the entire game falling from the sky, Nintendo was smart enough to think up something for that as well. There's a new ability that reverses time. I've been sworn to secrecy on a few other incredible new inventions, lest the evil Ganondorf wipe me from Hyrule. But what I can say is that if you're asking yourself if something is possible in this game, there's a high chance that it is. Just like Breath of the Wild. Look no further than the handheld rockets I attached to just about anything—from mine carts to my shield—to traverse Tears of the Kingdom's map like a madman.

 

[eventide11]

11 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Twllight Princess’s overworld was vanilla as well.  Very sectioned off, not many secrets in it, and relied a lot on the Twilight Realm.  Riding the horse from area to area was more fun than the boat, but BoTW was still much more fun to explore.  Not to mention no stupid blue rupee glitch.

I'm basically saying for every good Zelda there's Twilight Princess where IMO they tried too much variation on what makes the series so good. I guess it boils down to I'm getting too old to be able to remember all these different ways they want us to play the games

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, eventide11 said:

I'm basically saying for every good Zelda there's Twilight Princess where IMO they tried too much variation on what makes the series so good. I guess it boils down to I'm getting too old to be able to remember all these different ways they want us to play the games

 

I don't really see the series that way at all.  Twilight Princess was the closest-to-the-mold 3D Zelda we got after OoT.  It dissapointed me a little by focusing too much on the dungeons, and dropping its more unique elements (twilight realm) less than halfway through the game.

 

I also think Skyward Sword's structure worked well when it didn't repeat itself, even though it was much more linear than the other 3D Zeldas.  I’d much rather have it that way than what WW and TP tried. But I'm probably in the minority there.

[gamer.tv]

So…does it have dungeons/temples or more bite-sized puzzles/challenges? 

[MarSolo]

The official art book that Dark Horse will inevitably put out for this game is going to be INSANE.

[eventide11]

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I don't really see the series that way at all.  Twilight Princess was the closest-to-the-mold 3D Zelda we got after OoT.  It dissapointed me a little by focusing too much on the dungeons, and dropping its more unique elements (twilight realm) less than halfway through the game.

 

I also think Skyward Sword's structure worked well when it didn't repeat itself, even though it was much more linear than the other 3D Zeldas.  I’d much rather have it that way than what WW and TP tried. But I'm probably in the minority there.

I just prefer the formula of OoT. One well sized map with high visibility that you get to explore after you have the right armor and weapons etc and a limited amount of abilities that are fun to utilize and easy to manage. And weapons that don't break after 7 uses to the point you have to clutter your inventory to even have something useable 

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, eventide11 said:

I just prefer the formula of OoT. One well sized map with high visibility that you get to explore after you have the right armor and weapons etc and a limited amount of abilities that are fun to utilize and easy to manage. And weapons that don't break after 7 uses to the point you have to clutter your inventory to even have something useable 

OoT’s issue, for modern games that follow its design template, is that it doesn’t feel big anymore.  The map is barren.  It’s basically a glorified hubworld between zones. If you compare it to 2D Zelda in particular, there’s very few secrets and interesting nooks and crannies.

 

Twilight Princess tried to take that part of OoT’s formula and scale it up further, partitioning it into zones that the GameCube could handle.  I don’t think it worked all that well, because an OoT-styled map wasn’t what made OoT good.

 

I was really skeptical going into BotW for that reason.  Thankfully Nintendo proved me wrong.  Now I think a large scale 3D Zelda about free exploration (and experimentation) can still be fun, and can be a lot more than a horse riding or sailing simulator.

[thedarkstark]

3 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

OoT’s issue, for modern games that follow its design template, is that it doesn’t feel big anymore.  The map is barren.  It’s basically a glorified hubworld between zones. If you compare it to 2D Zelda in particular, there’s very few secrets and interesting nooks and crannies.

 

Twilight Princess tried to take that part of OoT’s formula and scale it up further, partitioning it into zones that the GameCube could handle.  I don’t think it worked all that well, because an OoT-styled map wasn’t what made OoT good.

 

I was really skeptical going into BotW for that reason.  Thankfully Nintendo proved me wrong.  Now I think a large scale 3D Zelda about free exploration (and experimentation) can still be fun, and can be a lot more than a horse riding or sailing simulator.

I love zelda games it's a top 3 franchise for me. At one point I considered OoT my favorite game ever and it was certainly a crowning achievement in what a 3D game could be. Without looking at it through the lens of nostalgia however its just not that great of a game anymore and I don't thinks it's very replayable. I've replayed a Link to the Past probably 15-20 times, it's a timeless classic.

 

I think every 3D zelda game since OoT has gotten progressively worse, they're all great games but I think they were having a bit of an identity crisis in the wii/ds era (the ds games were awful) and they tried to experiment with too many gimmicks and tried to be too much like other popular games.

 

I think BotW changed all that and they've hit their stride again they stopped trying to imitate and got back to innovating I love the direction they seem to be headed.

 

One thing I'm not big on though was the shrines, I would much rather have 7-8 fully fleshed out dungeons/bosses than the shallow one off puzzles strewn about.

[eventide11]

2 hours ago, thedarkstark said:

One thing I'm not big on though was the shrines, I would much rather have 7-8 fully fleshed out dungeons/bosses than the shallow one off puzzles strewn about.

That's definitely a thing that I miss

[MarSolo]

Yeah, everyone touts OoT but they seem to forget how lifeless and boring Hyrule Field was. Enemies didn’t even show up until night time!

[BloodyHell]

On 4/27/2023 at 10:21 AM, eventide11 said:

I'm basically saying for every good Zelda there's Twilight Princess where IMO they tried too much variation on what makes the series so good. I guess it boils down to I'm getting too old to be able to remember all these different ways they want us to play the games

Wait, you think TP is a bad Zelda???

 

Have I entered an alternate universe??

 

Skyward Sword is the only bad mainline zelda in its history, imo.

 

zelda and Zelda 2 are classics.

A Link to the Past is still one of the best.

Ocarina is one of the best games ever made.

Mask doesn’t get enough credit for how good it is.

Wind Waker shocked me with how good it it.

TP was a great game.

Skyward Sword has too many problems. I enjoy the world byt hate everything about the gameplay(both the og, and its controller setup)

BotW was a great first step into a new Zelda experience, though it lacked some staples I love.

 

I would have to say it’s one of the most consistently great series in gaming. That and Mario maybe. 

[BloodyHell]

9 hours ago, MarSolo said:

Yeah, everyone touts OoT but they seem to forget how lifeless and boring Hyrule Field was. Enemies didn’t even show up until night time!

You’re judging it by what games can do now. At the time it was revolutionary.

[eventide11]

13 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Wait, you think TP is a bad Zelda???

 

Have I entered an alternate universe??

 

Skyward Sword is the only bad mainline zelda in its history, imo.

 

zelda and Zelda 2 are classics.

A Link to the Past is still one of the best.

Ocarina is one of the best games ever made.

Mask doesn’t get enough credit for how good it is.

Wind Waker shocked me with how good it it.

TP was a great game.

Skyward Sword has too many problems. I enjoy the world byt hate everything about the gameplay(both the og, and its controller setup)

BotW was a great first step into a new Zelda experience, though it lacked some staples I love.

 

I would have to say it’s one of the most consistently great series in gaming. That and Mario maybe. 

I just didn't care for it. It was the first Zelda I lost interest in. Wasn't a fan of the twilight realm or Link dog etc 

[Xbob42]

On 4/27/2023 at 6:59 AM, gamer.tv said:

So…does it have dungeons/temples or more bite-sized puzzles/challenges? 

God I hope not. I know I'm alone on this hill, but fuck I fucking hate most Zelda dungeons. To me, the best part of Zelda is the open air adventure in a big world full of secrets and weirdos. Even as a kid I'd get annoyed every time I had to go into a dungeon. It's definitely a problem, since for many people the dungeons are like the core part of the game and they can't even fathom why I'd like Zelda to begin with if I don't like the dungeons, even then once I finished a dungeon I got a new toy I could go use in the overworld.

 

It's probably why I loved BotW so much... for the most part. Obviously there were 10 billion definitely-not-in-the-overworld shrines, and their rewards almost never gave a new toy that could be used in the overworld, but they were often quite short, whereas some mainline dungeons could take multiple hours. More importantly, shrines were optional.

 

That said, if we had more dungeons in the style of that one island where you start from scratch in BotW (which was one of the coolest parts of the game for me) I'd be down. Maybe even something like that big maze area that didn't fuckin' have anything worthwhile despite screaming to be explored.

 

God I hope they've moved away from the predictability and general disappointment of shrines. Or that if we do get proper dungeons, they're built into the overworld in a way that makes them interesting to approach from multiple angles rather than being just a dank, dirty ass cave where I'm unlocking rooms sequentially, which at this point is the most tedious shit ever since the puzzles are always so obvious and the challenge is rarely very high.

 

I'd be totally down for a completely overhauled dungeon formula, or perhaps no formula at all, where they're just allowed to come up with wild ideas that don't fit into an easy mold.

[BloodyHell]

I’ll take all the dungeons!

[Xbob42]

Boy oh boy how do I solve this puzzle do I shoot the eyeball with my bow and arrow or do I kill these 4 nonthreatening enemies?

[thedarkstark]

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Boy oh boy how do I solve this puzzle do I shoot the eyeball with my bow and arrow or do I kill these 4 nonthreatening enemies?

What do you even like about Zelda games then? That's like 2/3rds of the game is puzzle  solving and most of the rest is basically just filler it's certainly not winning awards for its story or combat.

 

Breath of the wild was great because of the exploration and discovery but it's really the only game in the series like that aside from wind waker to a lesser extent but sailing was tedious and shallow. 2/3rds of BotW was still puzzle solving but the vast majority were shrines which were less engaging and less complicated.

 

[nublood]

On 4/27/2023 at 4:45 AM, Mr.Vic20 said:

I've already accepted that the poor resolution, jagges on everything, and wonky frame rates will be the screen door through which I will witness this, likely, amazing game! 

It will definitely be amazing. But come on Nintendo, get with the times and make a next gen console already. I mean, What is The Deal??

[Mr.Vic20]

55 minutes ago, nublood said:

It will definitely be amazing. But come on Nintendo, get with the times and make a next gen console already. I mean, What is The Deal??

I would really, really, love to be playing this on Switch 2 or whatever they make, but that's just not Nintendo's way. 

[crispy4000]

8 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Boy oh boy how do I solve this puzzle do I shoot the eyeball with my bow and arrow or do I kill these 4 nonthreatening enemies?

 

The best Zeldas break that mold with puzzles that stretch across rooms.  When it doesn't keep them from being too obvious, it still can feel clever and interesting to parse through.

 

That's where BoTW's Shrines were the most problematic for me.  Or most of Wind Waker's dungeons.

[Xbob42]

11 hours ago, thedarkstark said:

What do you even like about Zelda games then? That's like 2/3rds of the game is puzzle  solving and most of the rest is basically just filler it's certainly not winning awards for its story or combat.

I don't feel like that number is accurate at all, at least not for how I play. I find with secret hunting and general exploration, minigames, side quests, etc., I spend dramatically more time in the overworld than in dungeons.

[Fizzzzle]

I replayed Ocarina of Time as recently as 2019 or so, it still holds up like a motherfucker. Especially the 3DS version. I don't know what you guys are smoking. Yes, Hyrule field is just... well, a field, but the variations in themes between different zones makes the world feel epic.

 

Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, feels like mostly empty space. The world is huge, but the places to actually do things (once you strip away the 500 puzzle shrine things) comprise very little of the map.

 

I don't think Breath of the Wild was a bad game by any means, but I did get bored with it and never finished it. It's the only Zelda game I've ever started and not finished. And the dungeons were boring as shit.

[Bacon]

8 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Hyrule field is just... well, a field

And it's like two feet long when compared to modern games. You spend minutes at a time in it, not hours. OoT is great.

[Kal-El814]

14 hours ago, thedarkstark said:

What do you even like about Zelda games then? That's like 2/3rds of the game is puzzle  solving and most of the rest is basically just filler it's certainly not winning awards for its story or combat.

 

I don't think there's a single mainline Zelda that comes even remotely close to 2/3 of the games being puzzles, and until BotW the most popular don't even touch 1/3.

 

Somewhat ironically BotW has more puzzle solving than a couple other Zeldas put together, they're just not doled out within dungeons.

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I replayed Ocarina of Time as recently as 2019 or so, it still holds up like a motherfucker. Especially the 3DS version. I don't know what you guys are smoking. Yes, Hyrule field is just... well, a field, but the variations in themes between different zones makes the world feel epic.

 

I think it holds up in spite of later games improving on its open-world concepts.  It’s just that Hyrule Field isn’t compelling game design in 2023.

 

5 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, feels like mostly empty space. The world is huge, but the places to actually do things (once you strip away the 500 puzzle shrine things) comprise very little of the map.

 

I see the argument, I just don’t totally agree with it.  There is a lot of empty space, but still many more towns and points of interest than in prior 3D Zeldas.  Parts of the world are also much more of a challenge (but still possible) if you don’t have certain equipment, cooking items, divine beast powers, enough stamina, etc.  So it’s a lot more than just “doing things” at the landmarks.  Figuring out how you’ll climb and glide your way to a waypoint is a big part of it too.

[MarSolo]

One thing I loved in Breath of the Wild was running into undercover Yiga Clan members.

 

It actually made me very cautious whenever I came upon solo travelers out in the world. Would this be a merchant, someone that actually needs help, or someone that’s going to try and kill me?

[thedarkstark]

8 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

I don't think there's a single mainline Zelda that comes even remotely close to 2/3 of the games being puzzles, and until BotW the most popular don't even touch 1/3.

 

Somewhat ironically BotW has more puzzle solving than a couple other Zeldas put together, they're just not doled out within dungeons.

What?

 

Literally the entire pre-botw games were just one puzzle after another. What object do I need to give to this person (or song do I need to play) to progress the story? Where/how do find that object?  It might not be a visual puzzle but it is a logic and context check. 

 

BotW the whole world is a puzzle. How do I get up there? The difference is that in BotW if you are creative there is often more than 1 solution . The shrines are as deep as a kiddy pool though and most of the puzzles are just rehashes of other shrines. 

[EternallDarkness]

On 4/29/2023 at 3:58 PM, MarSolo said:

One thing I loved in Breath of the Wild was running into undercover Yiga Clan members.

 

 

 

honestly hated that almost as much as the breakable weapons. Stupid guys showed up way too often and at horribly inopportune times. I can still remember trying to deal with a guardian and having some of this idiots pop up. 

 

actually replaying botw at the moment and doing everything I can to avoid them

[Kal-El814]

5 minutes ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

honestly hated that almost as much as the breakable weapons. Stupid guys showed up way too often and at horribly inopportune times. I can still remember trying to deal with a guardian and having some of this idiots pop up. 

 

actually replaying botw at the moment and doing everything I can to avoid them

 

They’re so easy to avoid, they’re the only characters without name previews.  

[Brick]

One of the things that Skyward Sword did right that I'd like to see more of was putting more elaborate puzzles into the overworld. Made the overworld itself feel like a dungeon. 

[EternallDarkness]

8 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

They’re so easy to avoid, they’re the only characters without name previews.  

 

 

I'm mostly referring to how they pop up randomly after you do the Yiga base section of the game

[Brick]

It leaked early, so be weary of spoilers out there 

 

Fans Freak Out As Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Leaks Two Weeks Early [Update]

KOTAKU.COM

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Some people are already playing the Breath of the Wild sequel