Tears of the Kingdom was basically "More of the same" but within an "expanded scope".

It's not bad... But Breath of the Wild was so new, unique and a breath of fresh air... It's successor that is literally built from it's foundations couldn't possible measure up in terms of how unique and fresh Breth of the Wild was at the time.

I completed Breath of the Wild on WiiU and Switch... Haven't managed to sink more than a few hours into Tears of the Kingdom yet.

Do you know what’s sad about this discussion for me? It’s that BotW was so good when it came out for me, that it basically spoiled the whole open world genre for me. I bought Elden Ring a few weeks ago, started playing it and I simply cannot get into it. The way, I as player, interact with the world in BotW completely makes me not want to play any other OW game.

Why is it sad? It’s sad because all I wanted TotK to be was a game as adventurous as BotW but with cool dungeons (dude freaking Hyrule castle is the perfect dungeon. Why not expand on that?) and tougher/varied enemies. But all I got was dumb narrative, boring Minecraft like abilities, an underworld that felt like an afterthought and caves with stupid bubble frogs. I cannot believe Nintendo did this. No wonder why the sales have slowed down so much. Very Sad.

There are two arguments I don't understand that I see on this site and others.
1. Breath of the Wild feels like a proof of concept or tech demo compared to Tears of the Kingdom. I don't get this argument. Breath of the Wild is already a large game with plenty to do.
2. Tears of the Kingdom feels like DLC. This I really don't understand. Tears of the Kingdom has changed more than enough from Breath of the Wild in content and its structure to be its own game.
All that being said, I do prefer Breath of the Wild after having just finished the final boss in Tears of the Kingdom. Breath of the Wild had more of a wow and newness factor, and better lore to the game. The crafting in Tears of the Kingdom is clunkier than I would have liked, and I don't feel any impetus to really go crazy with it. The depths offer a lot of area to explore but I'm not overly fond of exploring in the dark and gloom. The gloom mechanic is also a negative to me, and harvesting sundelions to deal with it is annoying.

The gloom mechanic actually made surviving in the Depths a lot easier. Enemies drop plenty desperate strength weapons so I used the gloom to keep my health at 1 heart for the double damage. I only had 4 hearts total so any hit from anything but the random spawns was fatal anyway. Plus you can run through the gloom if you stop for a second in any bit of clear spot. Later when I had tons of hearts, losing a couple of the top didn't matter at all, rather pointless mechanic.

I got tons of anti gloom stuff from quests, I never ever used sundelions, all the meals I made with them are still in my inventory. And you can always teleport out of the Depths to get rid of gloom damage. Place a medallion to go right back. It's just a hindrance rather than affecting game play.

I did enjoy exploring in the dark, but not as much as exploring BotW with it's much better fitting landscape for BotW's traversal mechanics and quests.

This is exactly how I feel, including hating the fuse mechanics. I really wish could they could just went for botw with far more refinements and news areas then this approach which is just far too grindy.

This is a weird thread?? What happened to all the praise the game received at launch? Hm…regardless, I personally will say that BotW is a nostalgia trip for me. An absolute masterpiece! It’s literally the game that made me start playing video games…at all!! Certainly the most impactful game I have ever played.

That being said, however, I will say the gameplay and overall feeling of TotK absolutely trumps BotW. They take two polar approaches so it’s very hard to honestly compare the two…however, TotK has 370hr on my Switch; whereas BotW has 265hr. Most played and second played games of all time: what do you want me to say??

It's usually referred to as "The Honeymoon phase is over".

Having thousands of games and decades of gaming experience under your belt helps to (mostly) not fall for that initial hype anymore and to discern things behind the curtain for what they are, but, admittedly, it can, on many occasions, make lots of the things being relegated to "seen that, done that" category.

Nothing happened; it's still one of the highest rated games of recent years and widely beloved, it's just that nothing is universally popular and everyone's taste is different. 

I actually get where @firebush03 is coming from. I remain puzzled by the poll results and the comments so far. I expected a 60-40 split in favor of Tears of the Kingdom, based on the feedback I've seen on this site and elsewhere for the past six months. I'm not complaining -- I prefer Breath of the Wild myself -- but I am surprised.

I'm a bit surprised too. I get that Breath of the Wild is 1 point higher on Metacritic and the honeymoon phase of Tears of the Kingdom is over for most, but a lot of other sites seem to have the majority consensus of Tears of the Kingdom with around 60-75 percent of votes.

I still voted for Breath of the Wild, but the games are still pretty comparable in quality to me. 

If we're talking number scales for a rating I would say...

Breath of the Wild: 9.5 or 10 depending on the scale.

Tears of the Kingdom: 9 or 9.25 depending on the scale.