I know there’s still one more month left until the year is over but a majority of this year’s titles are out aside from a handful dropping soon. Figured why not see what people have really enjoyed from this year and check out a few too! Personally my favorite game that dropped this year was probably Alan Wake 2 but I’ve enjoyed so many other titles like Super Mario Wonder, Lies of P, Resident Evil 4 Remake, etc. that it’s hard to choose just one lol

  • PMC-I3181OS387l5BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

    As much as the game reused assets from BotW, the new mechanics make it much easier to explore. I’m struggling to explain why it clicked better than BotW.

    • Weapons still break. However, the Fuse rune allows you to fuse weapons with objects/materials. The big difference is that you… always horde more materials than you need. If you weapon breaks, you can grab a simple stick and fuse it with a strong material to get a decent weapon. In BotW, if your powerful weapon broke, you had to retreive it elsewhere.
      • I personally ended up with a LOT more arrows than expected, like over 200, so for ranged combat, I was fine.
      • In short, you can get pretty confident with your equipment, which is less stressful in combat.
    • The Ultrahand mechanic allows you to build whatever you want to solve puzzles, be shrines, towers or Koroks. BotW’s runes felt a bit… restrictive on that matter. If shrines needed Magnesis, Statis or Cryonis, you had to use those. However in TotK, if you need a fire source or a way to go up, there are more solutions.
      • Towers aren’t about climbing them anymore, which is a relieve :)
    • The dungeons are better designed and more creative. It’s still about activating switches, but with the new runes and Guardians’ abilities, it’s more fun. For instance, building a ramp out of cooled lava stone slabs with water for Yunobo to roll up and striking a gong was genius.
      • The bosses are also better designed… and less annoying.
    • Both the sky and underground add more exploration, with new areas and even bosses. Rewards are also far more useful.
    • The returning characters now have their moments. I mentioned Yunobo, but Sidon, Riju and Purah have more screentime, dialogues and moments.
    • Ganondorf is there, and he’s the character we asked for. His fight is also noteworthy.
    • The entire story, while still split into pieces like in BotW, actually pushes you to know more.

      • !It resolves around Zelda’s whereabouts in the past and how Ganondorf rose to power. This is a bit more interesting than Link’s own story IMO.!<

    • The sidequests for shrines and items finally give you a better incentive to explore Hyrule. For instance, a newspaper sidequest “forces” you to reach each stable, as well as nearby shrines.
      • Speaking of shrines, there are still sidequests attached to them, but their solutions aren’t as dumb as in BotW. In BotW, you needed to bring a drink to a Gerudo who is hunched on a shrine’s terminal, thus blocking you from opening it. By contrast, a guy is willing to give a shrine stone if you bring him a large horse. While it’s kinda a chore to do so, you still get a new steed alongside the stone.
    • Speaking of shrines, many of them teach you the mechanics, such as combat maneuvers. They take the time for you to practice. There are even shrines that strip you of your gear, like that island in BotW, but again, these push you to use specific items in both intended and unusual ways.

    So yeah, TotK clicked with me :)