I am almost done with Echoes of Wisdom and thought the map was the perfect size for the game. I always felt like Breath of the Wild’s map was too large for what was offered. Tears of the Kingdom kind of made that worse by doubling the map underneath and having it mostly be empty.
Of the games I’ve played, I’d pick Majora’s Mask. The reduced size and linearity combines well with the time mechanic and forced repetition. I don’t agree that the BotW/TotK map was too large, though. The “emptiness” was kind of the point of those games. The space allows you to appreciate the little things like grass swaying in the wind or the distant sounds of animals.
Breath of the wild. I love Tears but 100 hour games are getting too popular. One per year is enough
I think I sank 300 into each. Took me a whole year to play them
I liked A Link Between Worlds. It’s got the double the map size because of Lorule, but it’s not overwhelmingly large like BotW or TotK, so travelling from one place to another - especially with fast travelling - felt really fine. The secrets that are only accessible via travelling to Lorule were also cool.
I remember it feeling a game where I wanted to find all the secrets vs it feeling like a chore in some. I really need to replay it.
Wind waker and the HD remake improved on it by making the boat faster. But still to this day link to the past is perfection.
ALttP is probably the Zelda I’ve replayed the most throughout my life.
Me to few times on snes when it first came out then a few more times on the gba then again on my retro handheld
Agree with you on Echoes of Wisdom and Tears of the Kingdom. Another one that’s a perfect size is Link’s Awakening and its remake.
I 100%ed Link’s Awakening and a Link Between Worlds. I did not for Botw or Totk.
I know for a fact that getting 100% in BotW is not worth it. Your reward for finding all 900+ Koroks is golden korok poop that has no function. I assume something similar is true for TotK.
Oh yeah, I stopped once my inventory was maxed in both games. I honestly wish the korok mask was just part of the sheikah sensor. It was annoying keeping that thing on all game.
Both BoTW and ToTK needed room to make the various traversal methods necessary and worth the trouble of acquiring and learning to use them.
Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of exploring both maps entirely on foot.
Half way through totk I realized that I was missing a lot by hopping into the nearest tower and flying everywhere. I’ve started a new botw run now and so doing it all without warping, it’s quite a differ nice experience and I’m really enjoying it.
I really wish the ground based zonia vehicles were useful underground, 30s in and you run into a cliff and need to abandon your vehicle. I ended up exploring most of the game by foot. I do honestly think shrinking the map by 50% to being everything closer would have made the game more enjoyable.
- North Hyrule Field - Castle -
- South Hyrule Field - Move Hateno Here
- Hyrule Ridge - move Tarry Town here
- Tabantha Frontier - Rito Village - merge the region. Not much goes on here
Tabantha Tundra - NothingHerba Mountains - Nothing- West Necluda - Kakariko Village - only one Neuda
East Neculda - Lurelin + Hateno- Lanaryu Great Spring - Zora
- Lanayru Wetlands - Potentially removable, but sort of serves as a tutorial area
- Mount Lanayru - Dragon
- Faron - Move Lurelin here
- Eldin - Goron Village
Akkala - nothing- Gerudo Desert - Gerudo Village/Yiga
Gerudo Highlands - Nothing here - move the statues elsewhere, we don’t need a third cold region.- Great Hyrule Forest - Korks
