Hey ya’ll, former Redditor here. Very stoked to be part of the community. :) I always enjoyed seeing what people were up to each week, because I definitely need to add more games to my backlog. So let’s discuss!
I’m currently obsessed with Tears of the Kingdom. I didn’t like Breath of the Wild for a multitude of reasons, but Tears seems to have fixed all of my issues and now I feel like I get to experience that “Wow!” factor that people got from BotW. Currently, my struggle is getting enough materials to make a giant Mecha to terrorize Hyrule.
I am super curious to know what the fixed issues are! I struggled to get into BOTW (I put maybe 20 hours into it over the course of a few months and then gave up?), and I think it was the constant weapon breaking and food prep that made the game feel like it was punishing me with chores, lol.
Oh boy, I have a lot of feelings on this.
BotW gave me the same feelings as you. It was like you were forever stuck in the menu screen and never playing the game. Honestly? Worst Zelda game lol. Tears hasn’t done away with the weapon breaking or cooking (but I like cooking in games). It has a new fuse ability that delays the weapon breakage. I think its much better; higher quality parts make the weapons/shields last for multiple fights now and give you a reason to hunt down monsters unlike BotW.
The new abilities in general are more practical and stupid fun. I can fuse a stick of butter to the Master Sword LOL The Shrines are easier, which I enjoy because there’s like 1000 so I don’t want to be too bothered by them. There are endless short quests, but some longer quests this time like being a stable photographer, making a monster museum a la Wind Waker (my true love), being a “journalist” to unravel a mystery! The temples and their bosses are way better! I absolutely hated the Guardian temples in BotW. The new Sky and Underground areas are fun. I love the Underground. I’m always looking for an excuse to go down there and suffer.
Overall, it feels like Tears was the game that should have come out years ago. It feels more silly, at times serious, but really captures the “Adventure!” feeling I was missing from BotW. Although I’ll never understand why the Master Sword “breaks” why, Nintendo?!? It still has some jarring issues that will make this post way too long to talk about and it’s already long lol. I give BotW like a 3/10 and Tears is easily an 8/10.