DISCLAMER: This is going to be a long post, so prepare yourself for some TotK insights not suitable for anyone who's not ready to discuss with passion the mechanics and philosophy of the game.

With all the love being thrown to the most recent Zelda title, I found rather difficult to express my somehow convoluted feelings about Tears of the Kingdom. No doubt it is a hell of a game, bigger in scale (both "physically", in terms of extension, and "mechanically", in terms of gameplay) than anything that has been done previosly. And, however, as it usually happens to me whenever a new Zelda arrives, I can't help to feel a little (medium?) dissapointment with all the "not so round" edges of the title.

I have already mentioned in other posts how the lack of diving/underwater exploration and Hyrule reconstruction (village ruins restoration) prevented both BotW and TotK from developing their whole potential, since the world they had created easily paved the ground, with all that enormous masses of water and all that diverse abandoned settlements giving the developers the perfect oportunity to expand the already gorgeous world and gameplay in these directions. Along with some smaller absences, like the lack of classic, beloved enemies (Darknuts), items (Hookshot), animals (Cats and Pigs... they were in TP and WW, why not here!?), more traditional, item centered, miniboss filled and linearly progressed dungeons, more enemy variety, etc., these "lacks" prevented both titles from being a 10/10 for me.

After finishing Tears of the Kingdom, however, I've found some more negative points more related to the actual design choices and direction of the game than to the previously mentioned underdeveloped potentials, which have definitely hindered the experience for me. First of all, I have to clarify that I have completed every mainline Zelda title since the original, which I played and finished several times during the 90's, and have lived the evolution of the series since then. Maybe because of that, the steps backs of the two latest titles (and, specially, of TotK) became so obvious for me. Moreover, The Legend of Zelda is my favourite videogame series ever, with Majora's Mask (and proly BotW) sitting at the top of my favourite videogames of all time, so I am far from being a "Zelda/Nintendo" hater, or somehow "Nintendo Biased" in the bad sense of the expresion.

So let's start with the most obvious problem for me: the return of the (almost) exact main map. Yes, there have been some (minor) changes to Hyrule. And yes, The Sky, the new cave systems and The Dephts (SPECIALLY The Depths, where the exploration and sense of wonder really shines in this title), provide new maps and experiences that prevent TotK from being just a revisit of Hyrule. But the fact that Hyrule remains mostly the same, with some changes in some villages and chasms and sky ruins here and there, totally banish the feeling of discovery while exploring the surface in which BotW excelled. Except for the mentioned appearance of a new cave, well or enemy encampment, and aside from Lookout Landing (the only new "village" in the game), all the main locations in Hyrule remain essentially the same. There is a new layer of snow in Rito Village and its surroundings, some dirt and a couple new monuments in Zora's Domain, Mushroms in Hateno Village and a rail and circuit in Tarrey Town, but these don't make enough changes to awake the sense of surprise and even wonder that visiting them in BotW caused in the first place. The rest of the surface remains, saldy, almost the same as it was in the first game. There are 2 great exceptions: Death Mountain, where the lack of lava opened the way for an almost unrecognizable landscape, and Gerudo Town, where the extensive and cool underground refugee, and the actual restoration of the upper town when you finisht their main quest, truly provide a new experience. These 2 were the only places where I really found surprise and joy of exploration in the surface. The rest, sadly, became a matter of revisiting places I already knew only to realize I wouldn't find anything too new, too changed or too interesting to consider the map an improvement over what BotW delivered. And, since you spend more than 50% of the game traveling and exploring the surface, this definitely hinders the experience for me.

Another VERY NEGATIVE issue is the lack of proper rewards. BotW already suffered from this problem: you spend a lot of time exploring or solving puzzles only to receive a chest with an item that you can easily find mining or cooking, or a Weapon/Shield that won't last more than 2 o 3 battles, which totally breaks the feeling of true accomplishment in the gameplay loop. How can I feel rewarded by getting a Topaz over an over again, when I can find that exact item by hitting some rocks in any cave or mountain...? The only good rewards are Armor Pieces, since many of there are cool, useful and don't break with use but, still, you don't use nor change between most of them often, and not having more varied and better rewards (such as more unique and way more durable weapons/shields) makes the joy of exploring and solving puzzles a little disapointing... Even armors can become a dissapointing reward when, after completing an enormous 3 parts labyrinth, all you get is a piece of an armor you already got in BotW... -.-'

...what takes us to another field where "variety" becomes and issue: enemy diversity. Not because it doesn't exist, but because of the abuse of a small group of enemy tipes. I am SO bored of fighting Bokos, Moblins and Lizalfos over and over again (specially after doing it for hundreds of hours in BotW) that the otherwise brilliant combat mechanics have become painfull for me. All these 3 tipes of enemies are just sparrings even in their diferent versions. This is a problem that, with less enemies, BotW also shared, but the inclusion of more varied and more difficult enemies in TotK doesn't solve it, since the inmense majority of enemy settlements, encounters and, in conclusion, fights, occur just with these 3 tipe of basic enemies. I felt extremely dissapointed when, after battling hundreds of Bokos, Molblins and Lizalfos, someone told me that pirates had invaded certain places of the kingdom. "Oh, pirates!", I thought, thinking that maybe I would face a new tipe of enemy, or even actual pirates like the ones we saw in Skyward Sword... Just to find that AGAIN an anoying horde of Bokos and Moblins were waiting for me over a otherwise cool pirate ship in a shore or a river. Frustrating, specially when BotW and TotK have delivered the best combat mechanics, the best enemy of the series (Lynel) and the best battle encounters EVER (again, with the Lynel) of any Zelda title, wich proves that there was room to deliver a lot more in terms of enemy variety, behavior and challenge. I think Great Bokos and their interactions with normal Bokos are a great addition, BTW.

And speaking of enemies, I can't help but to mention the bosses. The blights of BotW where all too similar and all to... unspired? And then, the bosses in TotK have become the complete oppossite: extremely varied, but also extremely uneven. Even if I'm not 100% conviced of some design/artistic choces, I find some of them (for example, the ones in the Wind and the Water Temple) extremely funny and enjoyable to fight. I'd go on to say that some of them (including some miniboses, like the Frox), although eventually easy, have become some of the funniest and more enyojable battles in the entire series for me. But others (like Gohma and the Gibdo Queen) are simply a forgetable obstacle/routine that pale in front of previous bad boys/girls of the series. We can agree that titles such as a OoT and Majora's had a very consistent roaster of bosses and minibosses. But these last 2 main Zeldas have failed to challenge the quality and quantity of previous Zelda bosses/minibosses (except, again, for the Lynel, wich reigns over all we have faced in the Zelda series and even in most other adventure/rpg games). Specially, sadly, in terms of the final boss. As spectacular as they are in terms of design, both BotW and TotK have failed to deliver a great final battle vs Ganon. In BotW the lack of actual, more traditional Ganon, the weirdness of the 1st phase and the dissapointing 2nd phase totally destroyed the epicness of the final battle. In TotK, the design of all the Ganon phases is ashtounding, but the actual battle is just a repetition of moves, attacks and mechanics you have already seen when fighting other particular enemy that lurks both the surface and the dephts, and the last phase, as epic as its setting and design are, doesn't provide the challenge and excitement of an actual one to one battle... So this is a field where I found there is a lot of room to improve to reach the levels of the more traditional/classic titles.

And last but not least, MINIGAMES. SO uneven, too... OoT, MM and even TP and WW had great minigames: great shooting galleries/minigames, horseback archery, horse races VS actual competitors, diving minigames... Both BotW and TotK explore new ways to develop minigame around these mechanics, but lack the greatness and enjoy of traditional minigames. I really miss competing against something else that the clock, like actual horsemen. I really miss minigames built around shoting arrows to something diferent than Korok Ballons, and specially doing it with time contrains and trying to improve my scores... (specially if it's done over a moving platform/vehicle, sucha as in Horseback Archery in OoT or the Koume and Kotake swamp circuit in MM... And BotW and TotK had such a great, unused place that would have been a perfect fit fot this in Necluda! -.-'). Courage Island challenges are great, but flying or crossing rings AGAINST some Ritos would be way better... At least this time we have been given proper, awesome colosseums where we can fight enemies over and over if we want some battle challenges. But, in general, minigames is a field where I expect lots of improvements for the next Zelda entry.

And... that's almost all of it. That's why I can't feel that BotW and, specially, TotK are the definitive Zelda experience for me. They deliver awesome things, but with them also come a lot of unexplored potentials and possibilities that make the experience not completely round for me. And building stuff is not enough joy to forget the lack of actual rebuilding of the ruined towns and villages of the continent of Hyrule  =P

So here is it. I had to say it. And you... what are your not so popular thoughts on BotW and TotK...? (Maybe some day I'll make a post about all the things both titles do well, very well even... But most of them have already been said in the hundreds of reviews praising these masterpieces  =P ).

P.S.: Have I mentioned how ANOYING are the new battle companions, how dislikeable are Yunobo and Tulin compared to Darunia and Revali/Teba, and how I miss essential abilities like Mypha's Love and Revali's Gale...?

P.S.II: I forgott to mention another terrible design choice. In BotW, they purposely built the world so players wouldn't go from tower to tower in a straight line avoiding the game essence: exploration and experimentation. In TotK, however, towers bouncing you to the sky cause the completely opossite effect: you are somehow inclined to reach the next "objective" (be it a new Tower, Shrine or Point ot Interest) in the easiest way possible: flying in a straight line from point A (a Tower) to point B (your objective), often missing all the wonder that BotW provided in form of landscape exploration during your ground travels from place to place. With TotK I feel Nintendo has made a step back in terms of game progression, being now much more similar to these Ubisoft titles where you simply choose an icon in the map and go straight for it. In TotK you still don't have so many icons in the map, but the new Towers make you do the same: pick a goal in the distance and go straight for it glidding from the air. A step back from what BotW achieved (but otherwise, in some terms, logical, since having the same map would make walking the same paths way too familiar/repetitive for these who already spent hundreds of hours in Hyrule).

I really appreciate these detailed thoughts on the game. Thanks for sharing your perspective. Also, I'm glad to see another fan who wanted some kind of simulation gameplay related to the reconstruction of Hyrule. I've long been a champion of a BotW spin-off in the style of Little King's Story :)

For me, Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games of this generation, and among the finest Zelda games. I definitely agree that the reused overworld creates issues, despite Nintendo's valiant attempts to redefine it. I was actually happy with the diversity of enemies, not to mention how hard-hitting many were. This game doesn't pull its punches, that's for sure.

For me, TotK isn't a perfect game, but its good stuff is so phenomenally great that its flaws feel insignificant in comparison.

Yes, yes, I totally agree with you. I hope that me focusing in the "lows" of the game doesn't make it sound as if I think it is a bad game. I'm actually enjoying it a lot, and have had a blast with many of it's new proposals (specially The Depths and the cave systems, but also the path to the actual Temples). I also really enyojed suffering the hard hitting enemies in the first dozen of hours... They put a good challenge and forced me to prepare myself better for any encounter, rather to blindly go into battles. I think too that, as with BotW (which I personally like most, for the sense of novelty and wonder it had) the flaws don't overshadow (in fact, usuall get overshadowed by) the way more abundant, excellent highs  =)

How dare you to slander my boy like that? Reported

But really, I love my Sages... I just hate how unreliable they are. But not Tulin, Tulin is amazing, helped me paragliding and frequently give headshots at enemies, gamechanging

I really like how Tulin's ability helps paragliding faster... But I HATE how easy is to have it activated on the ground, sending your stuf (like orbs or monster parts) away... Same with the other companions abilities: it's anoying to have them unpourposedly activated (Specially the Yunobo Fireball, it destroys or scares bugs, birds and lizards whenever I'm trying to quietly aproach them... And I hate that humongous yellow, electric circle being activated randomly and hindering my visibility...  -.-' )

I only played BOTW, i should be playing TOTK in 2 weeks. My main complaints were enemy variety, breakable weapons, bosses and dated melee combat system. The sense of exploration was amazing though. it's just once you understand the game's mechanics, cooking and furry rushes which have a massive window to dodge the games combat becomes broken. Aside from that all you do is find shrines with the same looks with puzzles and get's repetitive , especially cause you really don't need level up anymore cause the game is already easy after getting 60-70 shrines, so your basically just finding these things to do puzzles. In saying all that the sense of exploration was amazing for the first 50-60 hours and still gave it 9 out 10 but its been 3 years since i played it.

Tulin is by far the Sage I activate the less by accident, because he's a ranged unit, while the other 3 are all meele units. Unless you only fight with bows the odds is that you will never be as close as Tulin as the others Sages. 

Riju being a meele unit when her abilities needs your archery to be activated is something that still bothers me, because she often run towards the enemy and you can't use her 

Overall the control schema to the Sages are AWFUL. By far the worst mechanic of this game, it's was clearly not well tested. 

Weirdly enough Tulin is the only companion I like to keep around. Yunobo is useful for breaking rock but gets in the way every. damn. time.

I agree with a lot of what you said here. But I think overall, I'm just ready to move on from this era of Zelda. Breath of the Wild is in my top 3 games of all time and TotK improved on a lot of what BotW did. But somehow...I just don't feel the same way about Tears as I do Botw. I guess I just value completely new experiences more than familiar ones. While the sky islands and the depths were vast, they became really repetitive along with Hyrule which is changed but not in the ways I would have hoped.

The new enemies that were introduced kinda sucked ass. I don't think I ever took damage from a Horriblin, Boss Moblin, Gibdo, Like Like or the new flying things. The Gleeok and Gloom Hands were the only ones I really enjoyed fighting. The Flux Constructs were cool too. But man am I also tired of Bokoblin and Moblin camps. I too thought "oh my, there are gonna be pirates in Lurelin Village, let's go!" and then yeah it's just more lame enemies. The Yiga Clan thing got really old really fast too. I also wish the real companions followed you throught the entire game (and not the blue ghosts) but yeah they did get annoying at times.

Tears has some amazing gameplay ideas and features but I think overall it's an unbalanced experience. I'm just not a fan of the sidequests, doing silly expeditions just to unlock something that was already there in Botw, most enemies are not threatening a few hours in, the story is again a cutscene collect-a-thon, the 4 "dungeons" were kinda underwhelming, and I feel the music just isn't as strong as it could be. In terms of combat, while it is extremely varied, I wish using the weapons felt more impactful. In Twilight Princess for example, it felt so nice to use the Swords. They felt weighty and chunky if that makes sense. Botw and Totk has this thing where the weapons feel like putty moving through an enemy.

I hate to have to be so critical of Zelda, it's my favorite franchise. But I want the series to be better. When I played FFXVI I kept asking myself "why can't Nintendo make a compelling Zelda story like this"? Or while playing Elden Ring I asked "why can't Nintendo make more varied enemies or have more neat gauntlets to explore"?" And this is not to say what Nintendo did with Tears wasn't innovative, but I hope story, music, and combat are changed/improved in the next game more so than from Botw to Totk.

I am glad the game has been such a huge success and I enjoyed my time with the game. But as you said there is much room for improvement and that's exciting. I know I probably sounded like a whiny biyatch but I'm just being honest about how I felt about Totk.

PS: PLEASE NINTENDO, NO MORE KOROKS!

This.

This isn't talked about enough. There's no wonder or mystery in TotK and it's not just because it's the same map, but especially because of how trivial they made it to traverse the map. Every time I need to get somewhere I just fast travel to a tower and put on the gliding gear. The game is essentially telling me that exploring its world is pointless.

Also all the new devices and ultrahand and stuff are cool and all, but they only add to this feeling that traversal is trivial. It's like the developers kept watching those twitter videos of the crazy things people could do in BotW, and decided to design the whole game around it. But then suddenly it's not exciting anymore.

To put it simply... BotW felt like an adventure. TotK feels like a sandbox.

Thank you.

Tulin is literally the only character I like in this game.

Pretty much agree with everything you said.

I've been really tired of gaming in general lately, I hoped TotK would bring me back but it's failing. I'm starting to think that it's not all of gaming I'm uninterested in, and moreso the kinds of games I get to play in the Nintendo 'circle', which is where I put myself in... Because I can't remember a single Nintendo game that I've actually gotten into since my playthrough of Guardians of the Galaxy. It's not a coincidence. Guardians opened my eye to how far storytelling has come in gaming, it blew me away, and going back to anything Nintendo is painful because the writing and voice acting and direction of their narratives in general is just awful in comparison.