Feels like it's time for a new poll. Check out the old results here:

Nintendo already confirmed there will be no DLC for TotK. I would like to play WindWaker again but can do that on the WiiU so just bring on Switch 2 already!

After completing TotK I'm giving it an 8. My score has been all over the place while playing the game, started out as a 6 on Great Sky Island, went up to a 10 for the Lightning Temple and Wind temple approach (without using Zonai stuff), yet overall it feels like an 8. It took me 132 days to finish the game at a bit over 2 hour a day average. No desire to play again with such big time investment, just like BotW.

The positives definitely outweigh the negatives (UI and re-use of overworld), however I was still attempting to throw my weapon when wanting to use the power wheel and vice versa as well as other problems with the UI. A configurable UI would have made the game a 9 for me.

I bounced off Tears of the Kingdom when it first came out; played the great sky island and made it to the surface, but I just wasn't READY for it. I had Final Fantasy on the horizon and was still periodically breeding in Pokemon, so I was content not getting too fussed about it. Plus the building system and other mechanics really did feel overwhelming at first.

So I watched like 40 episodes of Game Grumps, and it grew on me through that. Picked the game back up again and it clicked. Clicked HARD.

Honestly, not sure how anyone can complain about the overworld map being the same as a problem. IT's similar enough that it's familiar, but it's changed enough that even places you know feel fresh. You have enough knowledge and understanding that you have an internal compass, but the shrines are different, there's plenty of topographical changes, loads more features to work with the game's new mechanics...it feels fresh while still being familiar and I think they balanced it all VERY well.

On top of that, the entire depths area is slowly opening up and the sky islands really does give a sense of adventure no game has ever given me outside of Breath of the Wild and maybe Elden Ring.

It's games like this that remind me why the medium really is at its peak right now. IT's so easy to dismiss games as a whole due to some greedy or shitty publishers/developers, but that completely ignores the VAST amount of great shit. like, if you don't want games with season passes or collector's editions or pre-order bonuses or microtransactions/loot boxes....like, Zelda exists. Mario exists. Ignore the yearly sports titles and call of duty and shit from EA/Activision and there's still tonnes of shit out there. Baldur's Gate III exists. come on, people.

Anyway, I'm still very early in my run but I'm loving it. I think I've done like 28 shrines and barely explored beyond the Hyrule field and Great Plateau area. The more comfortable I am with the building mechanics the more I love this game. It is going to be SO hard to go back to relatively linear or constrained Zelda after this utter triumph.

It's hard going back to any other game after TotK :/

The down side of using the same map is that I didn't feel the draw to explore the mountains, rivers, lakes and coast again. Luckily the Depths provided the feeling of discovery from exploration. I still covered a lot of ground, according to the game 71% of the map. (Surface Map spoiler, although it's the same map as BotW...)

Spoiler!

It's that the map was tailor made for BotW, its traversal system and quests. TotK does a good job to add new quests, yet you still see all the quest 'furniture' from BotW while TotK quests aren't all that much integrated in the landscape. Plus you can so easily skip everything thanks to the sky towers launching you up very high (I didn't use them, nor fast travel) or simply fly over, that barricades make little sense.

I restricted myself to travel by horse and on foot for maximum immersion. Much better than hover biking or dropping down from the Sky.

I wonder what will be next for Zelda considering what a massive undertaking Tears of The Kingdom was.

A couple new Zelda shirts up at the Yetee:

Source

I don’t know how I feel about this game anymore. I am very conflicted. The world is beautiful, exploration is as great as in BotW, but I just don’t have any will to reply it.

I found the main missions in the game super boring and easy. I think Nintendo should just ditch the ideia of missions altogether. Let me just find the dungeons and figure out how to enter them on my own without having to talk to stupid NPCs for the sake of “story”.

Few complaints about exploration though: make it more rewarding and when I enter a cave, please let me fight some frightening foes and stop making me collect shit like bubble gems.

Building feels like a waste of time for me. And fusion just makes my weapons look like shit. Abilities were no where near why I played and loved BotW so much.

It is not a bad game at all, I probably spent 80 hours on it, but it feels like it could have been so much more. It makes me sad.

Yeah the dungeons were frustrating. Why doesn't this work

Oh, need to find the matching NPC first and basically do an escort quest before you can finish the dungeons.

I played it for the exploration and being in the world. The story was delivered all out of whack, might as well have not been there. I spend very little time of my 300 hours with the game building anything. It just disappears anyway. And caves would have been a lot better if they were actually dark.

I did enjoy the side adventures, well those that aren't fetch quests. The quests at the stables were fun.
The most useless part was the house building, the best exploring the Depths and The lightning temple, since that's the only one that flows naturally and is one coherent dungeon which you can't accidentally get stuck in before finding the quest NPC.

It kept me busy for nearly 5 months, that's a lot of money saved on other games :p

That's about the time I've spent in it, maybe few more hours - and as I said in my review, it is not bad game, I found it to be between decent and good, but ultimately it felt me with emptiness in the end...for I can vividly imagine what they could've done to fix all the BotW problems and make it really stand out, and this is so far off the mark.

Yea the game doesn't really have a good gameplay loop. Nothing feels satisfying or rewarding,  too much much grind and collecting crap. The building is dreadful as well. They really could have made it special but they just doubled down on all the complaints.