Both Gerudo and Goron City fall under "locked until you solve" type of ordeals...difference being Gerudo is one solution, and one solution only, Goron City has multiple solutions. I like Goron City approach - it advertises loudly to player he is not ready "if XYZ requirement is not met", and to come back when he is...I like that in games, I liked that in classic Zeldas. Sure, they had a lot of "one solution only to a problem" type of things, and while I don't mind that, because sometimes some problems do have one solution only, that was certainly potential area to be improved upon. Richard Garriot, when he was designing Ultima VI back in late 80s, was precisely sick of that "one solution to a problem" and went on to design virtual world that behaves consistently and logically - thus giving the world first immersive sim with "emergent gameplay" that got tossed around these days so much...as if it is something new.

I won't spoil too much, but now that I've seen bit more, TotK has areas you can't access if you don't have certain item. I don't know how much this holds true for the rest of the game, but it was a surprise to me...somewhat pleasant. It seems that TotK has bit more of a structure than BotW.

As for physics - as I said on many occasions, I like it, always have - if it's consistent and not reserved to certain objects and areas. Which unfortunately BotW/TotK are guilty of.

That said, it seems TotK will be very mixed bag for me - I loath Fuse, since it makes for some ridiculous and downright atrocious looking combinations, I find everything around Ultrahand to be way overused, shrines are as pointless as they were in BotW giving you equivalent of orbs and combat is pretty much as unsatisfactory as it was - you fight enemies to get more replacements for your constantly breaking stuff. But that hint of better structure, no matter how frail, gives me hope that I will at least not like it less than BotW - which from the first few hours it seemed I would.

Gerudo town is immediately solvable though, it doesn't tell you to go away, do a dungeon first, then come back like classic Zelda does. That's the key difference. BOTW doesn't demand the player do the game in a certain prescribed order.

The kind of unrestricted use of physics you're talking about isn't realistically achievable in a game like Zelda for reasons both technical and mechanical; the implementation they do have is widely considered one of the best of any game of their kind.

And you may not like shrines, physics shenanigans, or the core combat loop, and that's fair enough, but clearly the audience loves the new formula, so of course Nintendo is gonna largely stick with the model that brought them 30 million sales instead of 3-7 million.

I've avoided videos and spoilers. With ease, I might add. There's hardly any official material.

My copy should arrive tomorrow. No hype, but low expectations. I already know that I won't warm up to the Fuse system, because I've never liked stuff like that. Nor did anything else from the Aonuma gameplay video look cool. But on the plus side, going into TotK almost blind sets up the game to be able to surprise in a positive sense.

You're definitly not Reggie, cause your body doesn't seem to be ready

Got my key from Best Buy and installing it now!

24 hours left for me. I'm so fucking ready!

30 hours to go for me. Tick tock!

16 hours over here.

On another note the in console daily countdown on the Switch itself was a clever touch by Nintendo.

Seems that Underworld is not what I was expecting (was hoping for classic approach), but it seems to me somewhat more interesting than Overworld.

I'm thinking after Elden Ring (for all its flaws), a lot of topographical design will look quite bland in most games for some time...to me at least.

My copy didn't arrive today. I suppose the gaming gods are blessing me, because now I am able to finish Harvestella's story before I move on to Tears of the Kingdom.