r/tearsofthekingdom

That’s all. That damn fight raised my blood pressure and stressed me out more than any other enemy has so far, and I had just defeated my first electric Gleeok earlier the same day. Had gloom resistance, sunny food, some good weapons and still died. It’s my first play through, I’ve got about 17 hearts, not fully upgraded armor but still upgraded. So I may just not be ready. Dude ran up on me so fast lol. I don’t think I’ll be trying that again anytime soon. Just wanted to vent 😆😅 what’s the most stressful fight you’ve had in this game so far?

i'd like to start off saying i love the Legend of Zelda franchise and have ever since i played Twilight Princess when i was 8. when i first played breath of the wild in 2021, it felt like i was discovering video games for the first time and everything about the game seemed wonderfully intentional and for the most part worked very well with the other aspects in the game.

i played totk a bit a few years ago when it released but didn't play after i beat the wind temple. recently i decided to sit down and play through it, and i beat the game while doing most of all side quests and doing 110 shrines.

this game is an improvement in some cases from breath of the wild but i will say there is a lot to the game that i felt makes it not great which is a bit disappointing.

i think BotW is an amazing game because it doesn't assume you have any familiarity with most video games, let alone LoZ. the handholding was great, not too excessive but definitely great for new players. certain combat shrines were naturally on your way when you followed the main quest lines.

i think that TotK is a much more difficult if not frustrating game to play throughout without metagaming. a lot of combat shrines are not directly on a path that you'd find most intuitive and even the idea of upgrading your armor is borderline esoteric. if you didn't know it was a thing, in BotW it was pretty straighforward because the quest brings you to Kakariko village and from what i remember, it's pretty straightforward to discover the mechanic. you learn about it before going to any of the divine beasts.

in TotK how is someone who doesn't even know about armor upgrading supposed to come about figuring it out? yes, it's a relatively simple quest if you just go to the right stable but the stable is in the opposite direction that most people go when doing the main quest. and on top of that, it's completely normal for someone to just pass through stables without engaging all the quests and dialogues.

there were other moments aside from this where i really thought "how would you have known to do this unless you didn't metagame it or play BotW". you can say that in this case you SHOULD play BotW before playing TotK, but a big part that i love about LoZ is that you DON'T have to play any of the other games to enjoy one.

i also found the dragon tears quest to be less put together compared to gathering memories because the dragon tears quest actually has a very linear storyline so experiencing the memories in the random order that you do can really make some memories less meaningful because you got "spoiled". compare this towards BotW the memories did have a linear timeline but the type of memories was more exposition to the different parts of the world.

finally, i was very underwhelmed by the final boss fight. don't get me wrong. i love the cutscene of ganondorf and what he said, flawless cutscene, but the fight was SO underwhelming. granted using the master sword with a silver lynel blade literally cuts through him like butter, but i thought maybe there would be a difficulty scaling?

there's no reason that i should be able to kill the final boss in 2 flurry rushes with no potions. i also never upgraded my armor and didn't have to heal up during the fights. no i had no defensive potions. i straight up had the champion leathers, hylian trousers, and hair tye all level 1 for drip purposes and killed him in 2 flurry rushes.

then the final fight in the sky was somehow even more of a bore than using the light bow in the BotW fight. i spend 90% of the fight just gliding. and without tulin.

i say this in that i still loved the game and it was a great experience, but i was a bit disappointed because a lot of aspects about the game just seemed not as well intentioned and put together as it did in BotW and it seems like a lot of a player's experience can be determined purely by luck in how they stumble across things. though i will say shrines were a lot less painful to do because you could be more creative with your solutions compared to BotW.

i'm curious as to what other people thought who did their playthrough without looking for online sources and metagaming.

Background: I just completed the >!Gerudo desert lightning temple!<, I've completed all >!4 of the regional phenomena temples!< now. 19 hearts, almost 3 full stamina wheels. Desert Voe set upgraded to level 2, except the chest piece which is level 3.

I go into nearby ruins, and just a regular enemy group lead by a Silver Lizalfos is 10 times harder than any of the story bosses I've fought so far. Even a Silver Lizalfos by itself is faster, stronger, tankier, and more agile than the actual "boss" monsters with big healthbars. I basically have to utilize hit and run tactics with my spirits, actual melee combat feels too punishing because one mistake and the Lizalfos deals like 15 hearts worth of damage with a single hit. Especially if I don't have a shield (which you can't use with 2h weapons, which I seem to mostly get from drops...) it feels far too dangerous to attempt to hit it with melee, except it's hard to shoot it with a bow either, because it charges towards you fast in a zig-zag pattern and pretty much insta-kills me if it connects.

Feels like I have to spend half of my time cooking food and eating, since every hit deals at least 8 hearts worth of damage. I am not saying the game is TOO difficult, I am not stuck unable to proceed, it just feels absurd to me how difficult the regular open world enemies are. Boss fights have been quite easy though.

Now that the time has passed, mods, the game has been completed by several millions of people, Nintendo made a shish kebab out of money of it and they keep publishing remakes and charging for it, what would be the things you miss in the game? What would you do to make it even better? Did you miss something?