The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Breath of the Wild 2)
 

Here is the trailer, just released:



Which isn't actually the first trailer. There was this teaser, originally:



And this one only a year ago, promising and lying that it'd be released this year:



So it looks like... we keep all the overworld from Breath of the Wild, but now there's floaty castle things you can go up to? And clearly the latest Zelda gimmick is whatever is going on with Link's arm/hand.

Its almost as if we were deep into a pandemic and it hit the gaming industry as much as everything else.

True. Game developers couldn't go anywhere and basically had no choice but to work on the comput -- er... wait, what? That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, I noticed that very dramatic phrasing as well. Who knew a team of developers separated and isolated in their homes were just as swift and efficient as a team in a working environment designed for game development with direct communication to one another.

I've seen some people claim the thing in the mural looks like either Majora's Mask or the Fused Shadows. My first thought was Kaepora Gaebora.

Yep. Teleconferencing, instant messaging, file sharing and communication haven't come any further since when we were kids. Definitely if they were in cubicles next to each other drawing and coding it would go much faster.

Well you would know with all the video games you've developed. Nintendo are just a bunch of mean liars... The f*cking audacity of some people.

Obviously not. Though humor me. How would COVID have hampered video game developments in any way that wouldn't have been self-inflictedly? As in, "go home to your awesome computers you have there since you are f***ing video game developers and absolutely do NOT work one moment on any games we need you to make (or maybe just drag your feet a little?) that we could easily cloud you in on while you continue to develop and please ignore any and all emails, phone calls and group teleconferences and chats! Because it's not like you could log your time and still get paid or anything."

Like, I've worked for the better part of 2 decades in an industry that absolutely came to a standstill during COVID. As in, no two ways about it... it exists or it doesn't if people are at home. Video game development? lmao... no, no. That's not one of them. I wish I was in that field to have filled out that year and a half doing that.

I say all of this, but I don't believe COVID had anything to do with the delays on this game. As they've admitted, it was supposed to be DLC #3 but they kept growing the idea. Between now and that trailer where they said "2022," I'm sure they just kept going, or their newly plugged in stuff required new refinement. I'm also not casting shade on Nintendo. They were initially overly ambitious. Which is rare to see of Nintendo for many years now. Generally speaking their modus operandi is just put out 1 new legacy series game every system, and anything else is a bonus and might take a bunch of years. At least, lately. In an age where systems last long beyond old models, they don't know what to do. They can't even get a hold on a proper virtual console, even now. OK, now I'm casting shade.

Except nothing can replace direct communication in a shared environment.
And in general, your argument sounds like it comes from someone who don't know how group work.

Different PCs, security concerns, no instant and effective means to communicate (and imagine that, instant messages do not replace real communications), longer process of checking which party did what and so on.

Believe what you want, it is a right of all sentient beings, but it is obvious that pandemic HAD impacted game development and not in a good way.
It is easy to call developers liars and whatnot, but in this case they had a point.

Given this is coming 6 years after Breath of the Wild, I expect a full huge game completely different than before. You got to hand it to Nintendo here, they could have quickly done a rehash of Breath of the Wild with some changes and gotten a sequel out in 2-3 years, but they took their time.

You guys should be glad it took them this long, this isn't Ubisoft.

For some people diamonds are too small.

Remember that Zelda is always known for being delayed for over more than a year, especially when they give a release year but no complete release date.

Not only are you exposing just how ignorant you are to the work culture of game development by trying to equate working at home to working inside an actual studio/work environment. But you just contradicted yourself by admitting that working from home can have "self-inflicted" consequences. Who knew people slack off when they're in their PJs 2 feet away from their bed, TV, toilet, and fridge...

Nobody here claimed that video game development was brought to a standstill. Progress was slowed down. This is an industry where getting together a trailer/demo for an event like E3 slows down development, which is why some developers don't even bother with it so they can get more time to work on the game. It's rare to see games in action during their early stages these days, which is why so many games get announced with CG trailers.

As for Zelda specifically, both things can be true. While they had admitted that they were pushing the game back to "make the world more impressive," by the time Tears of the Kingdom releases, it will have surpassed the amount of time it took them to make Breath of the Wild from scratch, which I highly doubt is 100% attributed to ambition. Yes, they initially conceptualized the game as DLC before they decided to make it its own game but that's not uncommon in the game industry.

Yeah cause every single employee working on the game were going to take home their computers from work

Thats cool i guess? I dont know what boosting your own ego has to do with something that you yourself just said you werent in

Also

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ev.../1100-6489425/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact...tware_releases

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsl...he-video-games

But yes, COVID had no effect on the gaming industry. We get it, you're upset they didnt deliver on the 2022 release date that you believed was happening.

To build on the Majora/Shadows thing, I heard people claim that this game will have something to do with Termina or the Twilight Realm... Which I assume means like... What? An optional mirror mode or something?

Not sure how Termina factors into it, but Twilight Princess has definitely been a source of inspiration for many theorists. The Master Sword in the logo for instance has a very similar pattern and color scheme to the Twilight Realm and the mysterious Zonai tribe from Breath of the Wild whose symbols have been present throughout Tears of the Kingdom's marketing not only have an identical backstory to the interlopers from Twilight Princess, but their swirl symbol can be spotted all over Twilight Realm architecture, Zant, and the Fused Shadow.

Even Lanayru, the water serpent spirit from Twilight Princess who tells Link the story of the interlopers is covered in the same swirl pattern and the Zonai are said to worship a water dragon. These same swirl symbols can also be spotted in the Lanayru region in Skyward Sword. The dragons in the logo for Tears of the Kingdom are also very reminiscent of the dragon statues seen all over the Faron region in Breath of the Wild where the Zonai Ruins can be found. These dragons can even be spotted on Ganondorf's collar in Twilight Princess.

The 7 tears around the mysterious mural figure in the trailer are likely representative of the 7 Sages, or in Breath of the Wild's case, the 7 Heroines. The 7 Sages usually represent the 7 races of Hyrule which in Breath of the Wild are the Hylians, Sheikah, Gerudo, Zoras, Gorons, Rito, and Koroks. However, Breath of the Wild, at least to my knowledge is the first game to acknowledge an 8th race, being the Zonai who were said to have mysteriously vanished much like how the interlopers were banished in Twilight Princess and the dark tribe of sorcerers who created the Majora's Mask, which itself shares similarities to the Fused Shadow. There's even an 8th Heroine statue which can be found separated from the other 7, as if it's been outcast, which is likely what happened to the Zonai tribe, interlopers, and dark sorcerers because they are quite possibly one in the same.

Adding even more fuel to this, is the shattered Twilight Mirror nearby Lurelin Village in Breath of the Wild, which is the closest village to the Zonai Ruins and itself has the same swirl marking on the side of its houses. The Twilight Mirror is what was used to seal the interlopers into the Twilight Realm, so for it to be nearby and shattered could indicate one of 2 things. Either they escaped the Twilight Mirror, made refuge nearby in Lurelin Village and migrated deeper into the Faron region and vanished or they were native to the Faron region, migrated closer to the beach in Lurelin Village and were banished to the Twilight Realm never to be seen again. Interestingly as well, It was discovered that Lurelin Village had a very identical layout to Outset Island from Wind Waker and Link's belt buckle and sword hilt from Wind Waker are also swirls.

The Zonai are clearly important to Tears of the Kingdom and with the game taking us back to the sky after they just remastered Skyward Sword, could indicate that the 2 are likely related in some way. We know the goddess Hylia took the Hylians to the sky to protect them from Demise in Skyward Sword, but not everyone came back down to the land below as we can see in games like The Minish Cap and Twilight Princess which both have an active civilization living in the sky. If the Zonai were interlopers, could this explain why Zant's garbs were very birdlike and why his face resembled that of an Oocca, who themselves are said to be descendants of the Loftwings.

The rabbit hole is endless, but it's definitely interesting to think about. I thought the series was gonna lose some of its intrigue after they revealed the timeline, but they somehow managed to keep people guessing and making connections after just 1 game and it's honestly been way more interesting than trying to piece together which game comes before which game.

Very hyped.

I wonder about more basic stuff. Like, can you walk up to any one of the shrines from BotW? Is there more now? Can you go in them? Does it really start you out with only 3 hearts again? Are weapons more durable now?

I thought they said a long time ago that the sequel wouldn't have shrines?

As for breakable weapons... that was a pretty annoying feature of BOTW tbh. It made sense for old weapons, but some of those weapons looked brand new and made no sense for them to break after 12 usages or so.

Yep, it's true. You got me there. Seasoned game developers at f***ing Nintendo in 2022 working on the latest Zelda game probably only have sh**ty computers in their homes, and of course they wouldn't have access to even the basic most file sharing and cloud software that's been readily available to the world for 15 years now. They're completely helpless to work on any games unless they take their work computers home, you're right. Hands are tied.

Upset? Is this some kind of feeble projection? No, I don't care. BotW2 is just another game I'll get, play for a few days and forget about for a year or two, probably.

No clue. But if so, what... do they just get re-absorbed into the earth? Or are they still around but you can't enter them anymore?

And you just know they heard the feedback about that. So... a compromise, maybe?

I really loved exploring and getting to know the world in BOTW.

But I didn't do every single sidequest. I beat the game some months ago and never picked it up again.

It was a very fun experience until the whole map got revealed. Then the magic was a bit gone.

I think BOTW suffers from the same issue as Mario Odyssey. Good games but not the Mario and Zelda games with the highest replay values. That being said I think BOTW truly was the next step for the Zelda series. I can't say the same for Odyssey and Mario. I liked Odyssey, but kept waiting for that moment of "WOW" that never came. The Galaxy games are still the spiritual sucessors to Mario 64. Odyssey had way too many mok s and over half of them weren't memorable or required much effort at all. Almost felt like glorified Korok Seeds. Plus the game didn't have a lot of worlds and New Donk City turned out to be smaller than it looked.

Someday I'll continue playing Mario Odyssey. I was having a good time until I got to the big dragon fight and then I kept dying like 30 times and gave up.

It wasn't bad. The Galaxy games absolutely were spiritual successors to Mario 64 but Odyssey felt perfectly fine as the spiritual successor of those games. I don't think in this day and age people around our ages will ever see a new Mario game and find any big "wow!" moments anymore. If anything, Nintendo will find unexpected new gimmicks for Mario that may impress. That seems to be their trajectory for Mario since forever now.

Replayability and Zelda never really went hand in hand, but that's really true of any game with strong RPG elements. Like, "Congratulations! You beat Breath of the Wild! Real quick, think about all the items and stats you raised up and quests you completed. Now imagine all of those things gone and doing them again, right now!" Eh... no.

Yeah, that's why for me I don't dwell on "replay factor" because the only games I replay heavily are ones I can complete in a weekend at best. Like I played every Arkham game multiple times over earlier this year but I was doing a thing.

My most often-replayed games are by far wrestling games simply because I can play one for ten minutes or ten hours and make progress either way. It's always been that way for me. Conversely, I loved every second I spent playing Oblivion but am I ever gonna start it over from scratch and do another 200+ hours? Ehhhhhhhhh, I don't know. It's very daunting on its face, as you said.

I mean...

I can imagine myself replaying the Mario Galaxy games ten years from now on. Just like I can still pick up and play Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3 after all these years. But I can't imagine myself doing the same with Odyssey.

As for Zelda, I bought the 3DS remakes of Ocarina and Majora's some years ago. And I also replayed ALTTP many years ago. I don't think I'll do that with BOTW, since the experience it offers is something that can't be replicated on a 2nd run. After all there's only 4 dungeons in the game and they're rather meh. The game's selling points are the exploration of the massive overworld and the fact it's the first ever open world Zelda game. That's not gonna be as fun on a 2nd time I assume.

In what way were the Galaxy games "spiritual successors" to Mario 64? They're way more linear in structure, especially the 2nd one compared to the sandbox levels of 64 and Sunshine. Odyssey is a return to that sandbox formula but feels more open-world in its progression because you're not constantly being removed from the level everytime you obtain a moon.

Hmm perhaps I should rephrase that.

Obviously Sunshine and Odyssey are also inspired by Mario 64. Sunshine clearly uses almost the same formula, but the game is just... not as good and fun as the others. I can't really explain what makes it my least favourite but it's just not as enjoyable as others. I remember playing it back in 2002-2003 and just thinking "eh good game, I guess". Didn't wow me like 64 and Galaxy did.

The Galaxy games are the best and most repayable 3D Mario games nowadays. Perhaps spiritual sucessors isn't the right term, but to me 3D Mario peaked with them. And even if they're rtager linear in comparison to Sunshine and Odyssey, it's not like they deviate from the Mario 64 formula either.

Odyssey just seems like they went for quantity over quality. I mean, you land on a new world, walk behind the balloon, pound the ground and catch a moon 30 seconds into the new world. That's not really challenging or memorable. About 70% of the moons you catch in the game are not very noteworthy. Instead they should have reduced the number of moons significantly and made more worlds. The Clouds world and the world where you fight the Dark Souls dragon are so small they feel almost like cut content.

I did like Odyssey, but I feel like it could have been even better. It definitely has the best gameplay of any 3D Mario game to date, and the 2D SMB wall and ground sections are pretty cool, but I think the game doesn't fully live up to its potential.

I think in the sense that the Galaxy games have Mario, are 3D, play like Mario 64, and, like Mario 64, don't really have a gimmick beyond "different planets!" which really isn't a gimmick as much as it is the setting.

Also that. Sunshine has FLUDD as a gameplay mechanic. Odyssey has Cappy. Not a huge fan of FLUDD. Cappy is alright but I feel like that mechanic could have been done even better maybe.

Linear stages isn't exactly a small deviation. That's a game defining difference, which was kind of the whole point of Odyssey. It was getting back to Mario 64's formula because the series had been getting closer and closer to their 2D roots with course based levels and a clear end goal as opposed to the open maps of 64 and Sunshine littered with various objectives to complete like beating a boss, collecting 8 red coins, or stomping on a stake to free a chain chomp, except the level doesn't just end there in Odyssey. So of course some moons will feel more arbitrary than others when you're getting them seconds apart from eachother because you're not just restarting the level and retreading the same ground just to accomplish some nearby task you could have just walked to without leaving the level.

The levels in Odyssey are much more expansive and filled with all sorts of secret and cryptic moons, linear style deviations, mini-games, challenges, bosses, and collectibles so the abundance of moons isn't really an issue for me. It's an open environment and so rather than have the game feel empty and directionless, you're constantly rewarded for exploring and using Mario's abilities. At the end of the day, these are collectathon games and they've always had a low ceiling for progression so kids can reach the ending and if that means sprinkling in some easy moons, I don't see the problem. It doesn't hurt the level design or make the game less fun when controlling Mario has never felt better. I also wouldn't call Cappy a gimmick, unless power ups in Mario games are considered gimmicky now...

I personally don't understand the hype of Mario 64. I guess for the time, it was an impressive game but there's been far better Mario games since then and even before it, yet a lot of people still swear it's the best Mario game ever. Having played it all the way through for the first time last year, it doesn't exactly hold up too well either as It can be a janky nightmare at times, especially in some of the later stages. I'm probably in the minority here, but I much prefer Sunshine. The setting, music, and visuals just completely propels the game for me and I never understood why people had issues with FLUDD. He expanded Mario's moveset and the abilities themselves were great.

But for as much nostalgia as I have for Mario Sunshine, even I can acknowledge that it's got quite its fair share of problems. I actually got to replay it earlier this year and while I had much more fun with it than Mario 64, Mario's movement is quite slippery feeling this time which can make certain obstacles a lot more nerve-racking, especially when you don't have FLUDD to fall back on. But there's also a handful of levels which are just complete f*cking garbage too and because of that, it's hard to call Sunshine a favorite of mine when there's just way better Mario games to choose from.

While I have no personal preference for what style Mario should be in 3D, what I do know, is that every 3D Mario game since Sunshine, with the exception of 3D Land, has become my favorite in the series before being dethroned by the next one. I've enjoyed just about every one of them for different reasons and they just keep getting better for me. I can't really think of any other series that I've felt that way about. Mario just works and is easy for anyone to pick up and understand without having to think too hard about it. It's just pure joy and I'd gladly replay any of them, which I have done already thanks to the Switch ports and I'm definitely going for Galaxy next sometime.

However, I do admit that I'm more hesitant to restart Odyssey and not because I wouldn't love to play it again, but because it's way too much of an undertaking and just like Breath of the Wild, Nintendo stupidly limited the saves to one profile and I'm not exactly looking forward to deleting my original save anytime soon. But otherwise, I would have probably replayed it by now.

Any tips for beating the dragon?

What are you struggling with specifically? He has a very typical boss pattern. Maybe don't stop moving, be quick, and give yourself plenty of distance for when he does his electric shock wave so you can have enough room to dodge them before you get too close to his head. Also, if you need more air time, you'll really want to master jumping off of Cappy by throwing him mid air and quickly diving towards him mid air to get another jump in and then dive again mid air just for some extra time before landing. That combo is really useful in general for traversal because it gives you lots of control in the air and stalls your falls.

I just beat him! Very pleased with that. It only took me about 3 tries this time and last time it was seriously about 30. This time in the big screen with the pro controller and last time was trying it handheld on the couch next to the wife while she was playing RDR2... I think that has a lot to do with it. Onto the last level, apparently.

The game comes out tomorrow. I actually caved and bought it for $65 online (got it $10 cheaper as it's $69.99 plus tax coming out to nearly $75 which is insane).

This is the most amount of money I spent on a single game in about a decade. Since the last Zelda game came out nearly 7 years ago I made an exception. And all the reviews say it's better than Breath of the Wild and addresses some of the criticisms of the first game like lack of dungeons.

Man, it almost feels "weird" to spend real money again. I actually forgot what it felt like.

The game just came out! I started playing it, I played for about an hour so far, it’s really beautiful and I’m enjoying it!

In theory it will be waiting for me when I get home today.

Just picked up the collectors edition. Beautiful game, can't wait to really dig in.

I just bought it with severe case of FOMO....I went to Walmart and thought I wouldn't find one but the game is out in full force with a ton of copies out. I've never seen so many on display, Hell, I had to wait a couple of weeks to get Breath of the Wild.

But what I really want is the special edition Tears of the Kingdom Switch.

Also just read about a speed runner who beat the game in 90 minutes. Like I don't know why it annoyed me to high Hell. Everyone is free to play how they want but the fact that on the first day it comes out you speedrun the damn thing? I just find speedrunning games annoying I know it shouldn't but it does...oh well.

I can't imagine playing a new game for the first time and rushing through it. For an older game you already played through a million times? Sure, but a brand new experience should not be rushed, you're basically just ruining a game for yourself.

I only have 1 dungeon left in the main story now, I decided to go to the Goron area last this time (in Breath of the Wild it was the second area I visited after the Zora's).

Funny if you just follow the main story the game actually isn't that long, maybe 15 hours tops, it's doing everything else or just exploring that makes it a 100+ hour game. I already activated all the towers so I see the full map, and I'm almost done viewing all of Zelda's memories (same as the first game, you have to find 19 of them in the overworld to watch cutscenes of what Zelda is doing).

I actually did all 120 Shrines back in Breath of the Wild, I'm not sure if I'll seek them all out this time around though.

Mostly my daughter has been glued to it. She's mostly amazed that if you have a BotW saved game on your Switch, TotK retains horses in your stable.

Do the dungeons FEEL like real Zelda dungeons? I'm not super keen that it seems like it may be "Shrines: The Sequel!"