>Main story: Find Zelda
>Immediately know where Zelda is
>Link doesn't tell anyone wasting time looking for her after he learns where she is
???

>>714963120 (OP)
He's mute

>>714963120 (OP)
Doesn't the game mention that draconification is forbidden/taboo? Maybe Link doesn't spread it around because of that. He would probably investigate the mysterious Zelda "appearances" even if he knew where she really was.

>>714964159
He tells impa and it's only because she is part of the memory sidequest and the writers were too fucking lazy to account for this in any other quest or dialogue

Remember, TotK was outsourced to a contractor writing team so that Nintendo could spend 6 years on the LEGO car mechanic where 99% of puzzles can be solved with the low-cost Steering Column + Fans

>>714965563
Good. Story doesn't matter. It shouldn't even have one desu

>>714963120 (OP)
the story in this game is dogshit, as expected of all time-travel isekai bullshit shenanigans
should have been a dlc like it was originally planned and have a simple post game story of discovering ganondorf and king rauru's tomb underneath hyrule castle with the former getting freed from his prison and link having to find the sages in the sky islands to receive their powers and defeat ganondorf in the depths
the depths could have been much smaller, an actual finale of botw where you dive into the deep darkness of hyrule to purge the malice forever
also really hate how they had planned a lot more sky islands but decided "no the bloated depths should be kept in the final version of the *sequel* while we gut down the fun new parts of the world"

>>714964159
Cope harder

>>714964159
>this thing we didn’t know existed from the ancient culture we know nothing about and are trying to study as part of this game’s story is actually a cultural taboo topic that Link can’t discuss with the major NPCs
Even if you weren’t just making shit up to make TotK’s story sound better than it actually is, it’d still be dumb.

>>714967176
People don't know about it anymore BECAUSE it's so taboo

>>714967306
Okay then just tell people she's gone forever without going any further and the braindead npcs wouldn't doubt Link anyway
Also Link himself acts surprised when its revealed the Zelda sightings in the story and the penn sidequests even if he saw the final memory prior
It's not some clever explanation its just total laziness

>>714967306
the magic stones you do it with not having existed for like ten trillion years might also have to do with it. how would we know, or care if we did, what was taboo back in the amoeba days of Earth.

>>714967463
Look if something is so taboo that all knowledge of it has vanished then that culture must have had a damn good reason, I just wouldn't even mess with it without understanding why

The story in this game sucked so fucking bad I can't believe there are still people defending it even if they otherwise liked the game

>>714963162
he literally talks with every npc he meets you retard

>>714963120 (OP)
>Country was in a state of anarchy for 100 years
>National government is finally established
>It consists of three people
>Head of state turns herself into a dragon
>People act surprised that the remaining two members of the national government keep quiet about this

>>714968183
It's retarded even by Zelda standards.

>>714966625
Ignoring the fact that the Zelda series always had at least a coherent excuse plot (unlike the Mari games), the core gameplay still sucks.

>Zelda lost 50 IQ points between one game and the other
>Zonai "came from the sky" but there's nothing in the sky in Rauru's time so that must mean they came from space? It's not established how or why
>The game's not sure who has what power exactly between Rauru and Sonia
>All other Zonai died or left, it's never addressed
>Zelda is implied to be of Rauru and Sonia's lineage, it's never made apparent they had heirs before Sonia died
>Mineru can store her consciousness in a tablet from the future because... SHE JUST CAN
>Ganondorf is evil because... HE JUST IS
>The game's not sure if Ganondorf wants to rule everything or destroy everything or just have a good fight with a strong opponent, probably all at once because who cares, right?
>completely buttfucks Sheikah involvement despite having Sheikah people in the world still, Impa shows up and does nothing
>in the end Zelda is healed, Link is healed, everything is returned as it was before with no effect on any land or character (except the castle and the sky bits are still floating for some reason and they have five out of six secret stones still available to them)
>repurposes Malice, the consciously chosen Skyward Sword connection for another set of generic evil goop
>ignores most other traditional Zelda lore elements even more than BotW did

>>714968529
>hey why are we all listening to some dumb teenage bitch again?
>oh it turns out she can turn herself into a huge dragon
>yeah nah fair enough I'm behind her being Queen then
No reason to keep it secret

>>714968529
Yeah, best to just keep quiet about where Zelda really is as "Zelda" goes around doing baffling evil shit. That's probably helping matters and reinforcing everyone's faith in the current government.

>>714968529
Yeah society is okay with the demon king stealing hyrule castle and severing their best knight's arm effortlessly but would lose their shit if zelda sacrificed herself to make a weapon capable of killing him

>>714968764
You'll forget all that gay shit when the next game releases and it turns out there was an entire other civilisation that nobody has ever heard of that were way more important and they exist in another dimension that's merging with Hyrule's reused map but they used to live in regular Hyrule before they moved there. Ganon's parents lived there.

>>714969101
There's no way they'd get away with the same map another time so I doubt it.

>>714968764
>Zelda lost 50 IQ points between one game and the other
She always was a retard.

>>714969187
This map will have a different map superimposed over parts of it, totally different
It'll mostly be little dark dimension caves and stuff scattered about that have a little puzzle in them to get a treasure or something cool like that. Look you're gonna have a great time with it stop being a fucking h8er

>>714969385
Add Riju sex and I'll bite

>>714969208
>Doesn't think to tell Rauru about the creepy, evil guy who recognized her and destroyed Link's arm in the future until he's assfucking everyone
>Doesn't immediately know who Ganondorf
Her and Rauru shared a single braincell, there is nothing she does in BoTW that is this retarded

>>714969459
She'll introduce you to others as a good friend, final offer.

>>714969481
>Mr Goat this man is evil
>yeah fucking DUH
>are you gonna do anything about it?
>nah

>>714968764
>The game's not sure who has what power exactly between Rauru and Sonia
What do you mean? The powers they have is consistent, they just gave them the exact wrong ones for it to make sense.
>Sonia is supposed to be the descendant of the light Goddess Hylia. Has time power
>Rauru is a priest or whatever of the Zonai Temple of Time. Has light power

didn't read the thread but you should probably be killed if you defend totk's story or even the game in general

>>714969656
nah it's way more retarded than that
>WHY DOES THAT NAME GANONDORF SOUND SO FAMILIAR
also the Ganon mummy knew both her and Link and mentioned Rauru by name to her so she should know with 100% certainty that he is going to rape everyone and she just takes Rauru's word on him being under control. like what the fuck. Entire plot of the game plays out the way it does because she is a massive fucking retard.

The next main Zelda game should abandon open world stuff for a more traditional Zelda experience.
The next side game/spin off should be a Dragon Quest Builders reskin and go all out with open world building autism and let you rebuild the various cities after Ganon took a fat shit on them again.

>>714969876
After BotW and Tears sold nearly 60 million combined that ain't gonna happen lol

>>714969876
Honestly a shrine maker or dungeon maker for the BotW/TotK engine would be so sick.

I dont think the community could deliver. Its a lot harder to make an engaging 3d trial then a mario level, but I'd like to see it tried.

>>714963120 (OP)
Did you even play the game? He doesn't know where she is at the start. You uncover that by finding all the dragon tears

>>714970376
Even if you immediately gather all the tears it's never brought up

>>714970376
You can recover the master sword before doing any content and this changes nothing with the subsequent story elements where everyone is looking for Zelda.

>>714970495
>>714970497
Your fault for playing the nonlinear game outside of the intended Nintendo order. Prease undastandu.

>>714970495
>>714970497
Genuinely didn't know that, you guys are right that is bullshit. While we're at it, how come nobody recognizes Link at all? Shouldn't Ganondorf's minions be afraid of him? Shouldn't people in Hateno recognize him? He literally owns a house there.

>>714970676
Except if you do any other quest out of order it's acknowledged.

What I wanted from TOTK:
>darker story
>faster development time
>return to an interesting ganondorf
I got none of these things, but it was still fun

>>714970497
Not true at all. You need a ton of hearts to get the master sword you have to do dozens of shrines

>>714965563
Best summary of TotK and its dev timeline on this site.
I wish people would make similarly succinct statements on BotW, as a game that found ways to cut down on the "costly" aspects of making Zelda content, by making more boilerplate copy-paste design with Open World gameplay, which is what BotW actually is.

>>714970958
You need 1 extra stamina wheel in Tears, not hearts

>>714963120 (OP)
i found the mastersword long before i bothered to look for all the cutscenes.
so i guess it made sense for my playthrough.

>>714964159
It's metaphorical to the fact that Zelda is blood-related to link in their ancestry, so there's a hidden incest-theme in Link and Zelda boning each other, that they've forgotten since Skyward Sword's point of origin. (Link and Zelda populated Hyrule first)

>>714969187
Eh, it's always the "same" map in every Zelda game, there's always a Death mountain, a Zora domain and a Gerudo desert, among other things. One of the reasons the series gets very stale after you go through a dozen or so games.

>>714970958
Shrines aren't important story elements anyway. You only need to do like 20.

>>714970864
>return to an interesting ganondorf
At least the boss fight was better than in BOTW.

>>714971117
Bruh
There's a difference between structural similarities and literally reusing the entire level design.

>>714965563
>spend 6 years on the LEGO car mechanic where 99% of puzzles can be solved with the low-cost Steering Column + Fans
I just don’t understand why they had to dump this shit into Zelda of all things? Like why not make a new franchise with these mechanics??? I’ll be honest outside of when it was required I barely even built anything in totk

>>714971206
They saw people making videos involving glitches using the physics engine, and decided to develop that into a game mechanic.

>>714968529
>anarchy
It seems more like they were getting along fine and sucking Zelda’s clit over how much her brave sacrifice meant, but sure, nice headcanon.

>>714971309
fyi this anon isn't shitposting, the clips of people dicking around with the minecarts is what supposedly inspired the gmod shit

>>714971117
Those are recycled, this was a straight reuse

>>714971335
They weren't. Most people were living in remote villages hidden behind defensible chokepoints, and there is barely any trade because there are monsters hiding near most roads. Many people are outright suicidal.

>>714971556
The monsters still hide there though

>>714971206
>Dump it into a new IP, taking a huge risk that it doesn't sell well and all that work goes to waste
>Dump it into the sequel to the biggest hit bestseller they had in the last few years
Truly a mystery.

>>714969857
>game works on “closed time loop” logic despite the fact that there was no ancient Zelda Dragon in Breath of the Wild or any other previous game for that matter
>game isn’t even certain if the Zonai are the precursors to everything in the series or just BotW’s version of Hyrule
>the Sheikah tech all disappeared (except for the pieces that didn’t for memberberries) because it served its purpose, except it didn’t and Ganon is still a problem

>>714971846
>have an idea that you clearly have no faith in
>dump it into your company's golden goose series and taint the name forever
But that's the next guy's problem

>>714963120 (OP)
>>714964227
I will readily admit that this is a very funny thing for a grown man to do, but I dropped this game a couple hours in over this. I really dug the writing in Breath of the Wild but just could not bring myself to get invested in what was going on in Tears of the Kingdom.
It probably doesn't help that I kinda felt like I was watching Airplane II: The Sequel, also. Being given a new batch of memories to collect via Dragon Tears left an especially bad taste in mouth.

Maybe I should give it another shot sometime, but it just struck me as such a blatant rehash and even a bit of a retcon of a story I was hoping to play an actual sequel to.

>>714971654
They arw hiding so that they can ambush traders and travellers.

>>714971173
Low bar to clear. The big pig in BotW is legitimately one of the worst Zelda bosses ever.

Imagine giving a shit about the story in a Zelda game.

>>714971375
>>714971309
Don't forget TOTK started as BOTW DLC before the scope of it all made Nintendo realize the work that was going into it was too much to justify it being sold at a DLC price point, so they had to rush and staple some shit on to justify it being a full sequel. Everything that wasn't Link's abilities was an afterthought.

>>714972513
I’ll stop caring about it being bad, when the people dickriding the game stop treating it like a masterpiece.

>>714972602
Reminder "overrated" doesn't exist. Everything is properly rated for a reason.

>>714972513
Imagine giving a shit about dungeons in a Zelda game too. Imagine having standards.

>>714972513
Sounds like Nintendo's philosophy when it comes to new Zelda games.
They're so scarred by the negative reaction to Skyward Sword that they've overcorrected in the wrong ways ever since

>>714972513
I don't have to try very hard to imagine it. Fuck me for liking video games, I guess.
How are your twenties going bro.

>>714972735
>biggest criticism with Skyward Sword are the amount of backtracking and how fucking linear every bit of the game is
>remedy this by throwing structure to the wayside and being a “make your own fun” game
All I wanted was to not feel like I’m on a rail for the entire game…

>>714972943
It feels like they stubbornly went "oh, you don't like Skyward Sword? Fine, next Zelda game is going to be exactly the opposite" and threw all the good stuff out with the bad

I don't mind the new style of gameplay at all, but I really hope the next Zelda game is thematically a lot closer to Link's Awakening, A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. Very unique opinion I have here, I'm sure.

>>714971846
so by that standard we should never try anything new or create anything new if you have an idea just slap that shit into an existing IP even if it makes no sense. Because when I think Zelda the first thing that comes to my head is totally garys mod physics based Lego crafting building. I almost guarantee the people, like myself, who weren’t keen on the idea, would have been more accepting if it was a new IP instead of half ass slapped onto Zelda

I wanted to hang out with Zelda or at least visit her at our home in Tears of the Kingdom. >:|

>>714972227
this isn’t even unique to just BoTW/ToTK I’ve noticed devs lately develop sequels as more standalone games so audiences don’t even have to play the original to understand it (to get more sales)

>>714973193
Welcome to the mind of a corporate executive whose sole purpose is to make line go up, and pretty much the exact reason everything everywhere is slowly turning to absolute shit.

>>714972513
The story in Tears is so bad it's actively dragging the game down even when you don't care about it. I wouldn't say any Zelda game has a good story but at least it can present solid context and broad strokes for characters. Shit, Majora's Mask in particular is full of personality and that game reuses models from another game. Tears is at best lacking energy at worst actively stupid, contradicting both itself and BotW while still trying to drawn enough attention to itself for you to be unable to say "well I don't care".

>>714972515
the only area that felt fleshed out and developed was the tutorial island. This was clearly meant to be the DLC zone. Everything after was slapped on and half assed and it’s blatantly obvious as to why the reused the overworld. The tutorial island is the only interesting and unique part of the game. ToTK ends when the green toga is removed (which is almost immediately after leaving the sky)

I really am sick of the BoTW aesthetic and art style. After 2 mainline games and 2 spin offs can we please move the fuck on from it already? This version of Hyrule fucking sucks, the “sort of” anime but not but “sort of” cel shaded but not art style sucks, and it’s insane that they hired Zelda’s awful VA for 4 fucking games

>>714973625
>keep doing what people are buying
>take an unprecedented risk by doing something new
Not being able to understand why one is good and one bad is why you don't run literally the best company on Earth

>>714973625
fuck off fag, this era has the hottest women BY FAR

>>714974350
>it sold a lot so it must be good!
retard with a retarded opinion

>>714974506
>women
woman

>>714973459
True to form in the vidya industry, usually the first third of a hyped game is the most polished and presentable part since it's the part that everyone who buys the game is going to see, and the part that game journos will be reviewing in their mad rush to get a review out sooner than everyone else.

>>714974350
Zelda franchise is know for switching up its artstyle and aesthetics like every game. We had OoT Link, WW Link, TP Link, and SS Link all in like 13 years. (Not counting spin offs like the Oracle games) all vastly different looking links and different Hyrule. We’ve had BoTW Link and Hyrule for 8 years and 4 games

>>714972513
I had this exact thought when I saw this >>714968764 post, then scrolled down and saw yours. Very based.
Seriously though, Zelda games have never been good, just popular and accessible. it's always funny watching /v/ go through fits as they slowly realize this
>wait, the story is throwaway?
>wait, the characters are 1-dimensional memes?
>wait, the dungeons are boring hallways?
>wait, the puzzles are for 2 year olds?
>wait, the enemies are copypasted?
>wait, the combat is simultaneously too janky and too easy?
>anons fling shit back and forth at each stage of the coping process
>but slowly, surely, everyone comes to realize it's true
>slowly these games are seen less as masterpieces and more as overrated
One day we may even see OOT drop off the GOAT lists because there won't even be any posers left to pretend it's good. Amazing. The younger generations fill me with hope for the future.

>>714963120 (OP)
>Sorry everyone, Zelda was sent to the past and had to become a mindless immortal dragon to get back to the present day. She's flying around up there and only I can see her, and she's stuck like that because there's no cure we know of. So yeah, now our beloved princess is a magic sky lizard forever. But at least I got my sword back!

How do you think the people of Hyrule would take it?

>>714973453
This. While the story is never the main reason to pick up a Zelda game, Zelda isn't Mario. It needs an internally consistent and hopefully good narrative to drive the characters and plot forward. BOTW was fine for what it was, but TOTK just doesn't even try.

>>714975161
>I got my sword which is the only hope we have to kill the deranged lunatic who took over the castle and hurled it into the sky
IDK I'm sure they'd see the silver lining there

>>714972289
This just reminded me how much it annoys me when open world games have roaming NPCs who can't defend themselves even against the most basic of enemies 1v1 without player intervention, but I'm supposed to believe they're all professionals who travel around monster-filled territories for a living.

>>714975161
They would probably not believe him because nobody remembers who Link is anyway

>>714975161
Knowing TOTK, they'd say "wait, who are you?"

>>714975241
I CANNOT believe they opted to tell the story AGAIN through fragmented, collectible, missable, told out of order cutscenes. It’s insane that somebody oked that
>so THATS why it’s called the imprisoning war

>>714975281
Okay but as far as they know at the time, that won't fix what happened to Zelda, so they'd see that victory as a Pyrrhic one. Yeah, Ganon is dead and the Kingdom of Hyrule is saved, but the last living member of the royal line is still flying around in the sky as a magic bloody giant newt, she's hardly in the right mind to rule. They don't know there's a cure until Rauru and Sonia pull one out of their asses at the last minute.

>>714975161
>How do you think the people of Hyrule would take it?
"wtf are you smoking I just saw Zelda 20 minutes ago"

>>714975456
>>714975485
Christ they have a fucking newspaper now, he could just give an interview.

>>714975620
Great so instead of telling people just ignore it let everyone believe Zelda actually lost her mind and does evil pranks to everyone for the lulz
What a retarded cope to make up for what the dogshit writing

>>714975913
I like how the imposter Zelda storyline was spoiled for me almost immediately because of the first tear drop I found. Sorry for not playing in the intended order

>>714963120 (OP)
>>714972227
Since we're on the subject of nitpicks I hated how they gutted 90% of the Sheikah tech. imo Zonai architecture is uglier because green blends into the game's color pallet more easily, which is honestly the worst thing you could have in an open world title with multiple points of interest

>>714968764
>must mean they came from space
nintendo loves that japanese moon rabbit meme, after all.

>>714971846
yeah and because of it, I didn't buy Totk and I didn't buy Echoes of Wisdom.

I never liked playing with legos or knex as a kid I don’t have that “engineer” mindset so I didn’t enjoy TOTK

>>714963120 (OP)
yes, I also watched that youtube video

>>714963120 (OP)
too busy fucking half of Hyrule

>>714975580
There was no reason that the story of Zelda's memories couldn't play out in order regardless of when you come across them. At least in BOTW it made sense that Link's memory would come back to him fragmented based on coming across places or people that would jog his memory in no particular order.

>>714969876
The "traditional zelda experience" has always been open world. The NES games are open world games. Zelda 2 even has pointless NPCs and filler mobs in empty open fields just like BOTW/TOTK. The games have always been like this, I can never understand wtf anyone wants when they say they miss "classic zelda". It's just the same shit with better tech backing it up. They even recycle locations, NPCs, even whole dungeons between games. I've seen people suck off OOT and shit on BOTW, it's mind-boggling because they're the same. If OOT was made today with modern tech it'd be the exact same shit as BOTW.

>>714976803
What YouTube video?

>>714976953
you have to understand, most people consider LTtP or OoT as the original Zelda experience

>>714976482
same honestly
loved sheikah style but from what i remember the game explanation was some bullshit like all of it was salvaged or some stupid shit like that

>>714972513
i want tourist faggots to fuck off.
Zelda always had serviceable to decent stories.

>>714976953
>open world is “le true Zelda”
This Nintendo marketing point has been so thoroughly dismantled that it isn’t even worth addressing anymore.

>>714977581
It has nothing to do with marketing. Zelda games have had an open world since 1986. It may not be the first series to have an open world but it's one of the first. it doesn't have anything to do with what's "le true zelda" either it's just simply true that Zelda games have always had open worlds.

>>714975913
I'm not saying ignore it, I'm saying it was better to explain everything after the fact because telling everyone that the princess has incurably transformed into a fucking flying alligator so soon after the Calamity would probably break their spirits, and it wouldn't be much better when they find out that she was cured after all, because then you inflicted that on everyone for no good reason.

>Breath of the Wild
>>Zelda makes the ultimate sacrifice, sealing herself and Calamity in a 100 year battle, containing his influence and suspending the destruction of Hyrule until the Hero awakens
>>Nothing happens, she's fine, everything goes back to normal
>Tears of the Kingdom
>>Zelda makes the ultimate sacrifice, again, transforming herself into a mindless dragon for 10,000 years so she can transfer her power to the Master Sword so the Hero can use it to seal the Demon King
>>Nothing happens, she's still relatively sentient and somehow turns back into a 17 + tip year-old at the end
Whoa, what a compelling deuteragonist. I'm really feelin' it now, Mr. Krabs.

>>714978006
Sadly, the status quo must be maintained no matter what.

>>714977942
You have most if not all of the people related to Hyrule Castle and a good chunk of the main cast actively searching for her. In a GOOD story, telling them she's been located, even as a flying dragon, would result in those efforts being put to better use, instead of continuing to waste resources and manpower on a search that is now over.

>>714976953
For years a lot of Wilds apologists have been conflating open world with total lack of structure or guidance and indeed in BotW the game is structured in a way where the only structure is the Great Plateau and the showdown and everything in between is just an extended training arc. That is not what happens in most older Zelda games at all, not even in TLoZ1, and a system like this comes at a cost which is that every component between the beginning and the end is forced to be relatively unimportant to each other. And the story in Tears is written like a largely linear one and it's damaged by being shoehorned into BotW formula.

>>714977942
I imagine having the guy who literally stopped the calamity around would do a lot for morale, but that would require the whole kingdom to not have developed convenient amnesia towards Link so the writers don't have to deal with these questions

>>714976953
Zelda 1 was a maze, not just a map with things dotted around, which would have been much easier.

>>714977210
>from what i remember the game explanation was some bullshit like all of it was salvaged or some stupid shit like that
They didn't explain it at all and that's not even the worst part.
https://youtu.be/j5LSmGLq6fE?t=2691
You need literal out of game sources to learn what happened to the sheikah tech, and even then these sources provide no sound explanation besides "lol they just vanished one day." For how much TOTK relies on its predecessor, both in terms of setting and game design, you would think they'd do a better job of communicating that to players.

>>714979227
The comments on that video are physically painful.

>>714979525
>80% of the Zelda fanbase never touched a game prior to Breath of the Wild
And don’t it fucking show…

>>714979227
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you need expanded media, books, or interviews to explain elements of your story, then your story was not well told. In games it's particularly egregious when you consider how many ways there are to get a point across to a player.

>>714976953
Zelda II isn't really open world. There are progress gates via items like the candle, hammer and raft

>>714980036
To ACTUALLY live up to classic Zelda, TOTK would have put Zelda's tears in dungeons across the overworld, sky, and depths that reflected the theme of the place they were in and had items to find that would help in accessing or completing the other dungeons or spots on the overworld with power ups, armor, or hearts.
But then you'd run the risk of a player going to a dungeon without the tool required for it, and god knows the worst sin a game can commit in the modern age is to frustrate or gatekeep a player's experience, even if doing so leads to a much deeper sense of success later.

Actual problems with Tears of the Kingdom stem from the lack of not having answers. It all comes from Eiji Aonuma's autistic ambiguity.

1) Why is Link's house converted into Zelda's home without any attempt to explain this disconnect of the prequel's player home?
Aonuma wanted "strategic" ambiguity about the relationship. The player home was their base of operation, all their weapons/misc items were there. The villagers never say "This is Link's house" in the sequel, they never try to say you live with Zelda there or anything. This is genuine dogshit skirting the issue writing that's VERY PERVASIVE in the way Aonuma and his writers handle things. If they said Link gave up his house it would've solved the issue, but choosing not to infer the player makes it ambiguous because Nintendo mandated non-answers.

2) Why is it that NO CHARACTER IN THIS GAME EVER SAYS IMPA AND PURAH ARE SISTERS? Or that Purah is 100+ year old? NO ONE DOES.
Purah never even says her grandniece is the head of her village. She never asks what Impa is up to or call her sister at all. You might remember she does in the prequel, but not in this sequel. Why this change? Why are Impa and Purah so static NPCs that they never got a scene together? You never get a chance for all 3 generations of Sheikah family in one scene in the sequel, that's a crazy missed opportunity. No one questions why Purah turned back into an adult.

3) The Zonai and the chasm/abyss underworld have zero actual world building. We know they founded Hyrule and the new one is inferred to be built on top of it (quite literally underneath Hyrule Castle), yet how exactly did a fucking continent just appear on top of their Zonai world? How did rain even work in the abyss if there was a continent on top of them all along? The giant animal skeletons were present in BoTW and instead of explaining them once and for all, they chose ambiguity/nothing.

This is Dark Souls 2 level designers being the lore guys at the same time.

>>714981167
I think you're just overthinking it, the story bits were probably finished separately before from actual world. The memories are disconnected flashbacks on purpose, so they could just be dropped in anywhere. it's a shit mode of telling a story but it's zelda so the story doesn't really matter, and the developers know this even if the players don't

If you buy that Nintendo was doing all the gameplay first, why is the story/dialogue so inconsistent in Tears of the Kingdom? The idea that Zelda was the dragon and the Master Sword would be there the whole time would mean you'd have to write this shit first hand, wouldn't you? So they wrote themselves into this story and then built the gameplay around it and practically had to dumb down the entire cast or have no followup to pull it off. Impa and Purah would've worked this out but they had to be strategically be dumbed down for this game.

>>714982567
The memories are disconnected flashbacks because that's how BoTW did it but it doesn't work for this game's plot. Why do they beg you to go do the rito quest first and then put the memory where Ganondorf kills Sonia just a bit north

>>714982567
>the story doesn't really matter
Has someone told Aonuma and Fujibayashi that? They seemed awfully fucking proud of the “muh handz” theme that they ripped from Death Stranding.

>>714982692
>The idea that Zelda was the dragon and the Master Sword would be there the whole time
The purpose of the plot is to lead you to that twist. That's really it. It's a very simple story with a twist that was probably pitched and hashed out in one meeting. NPCs in the world don't interact with the plot because that could spoil the twist, that's all.

>>714982997
It was an awful idea. The other "twist" that the fake Zelda going around was evil went on far too long. The fake Zelda sightings were like 9 or 10, should've been 3 at most. It actually hurts the game because it makes everyone look retarded for falling for it.

>>714982997
What are you even saying. How would it spoil the twist if Link knows the twist. You can do the memory questline before you do any of the 50 quests pertaining to zelda's whereabouts

Purah be like: FIND GANONDORF QUEST NOTICE
Ganon
>Finding out where Ganondorf hid himself after his awakening at the beginning is treated like a mystery by the main cast which can involve Link chasing down Master Kohga until he reveals that Ganondorf is hiding underneath Hyrule Castle, which very likely would've been the first place the player guessed he would be since he was there in the first place, on top of all the Gloom lifting Hyrule Castle in the air and the underside featuring the most concentrated Gloom in the depths makes it clear it's the epicentre and possibly even the source since Ganondorf is there.
BRAVO AONUMA. AMBIGUITY! MORE AMBIGUITY SLOP, NEVER GIVE REAL ANSWERS, TWIST! It's like Eiji Aonuma played a Hideo Kojima game and wanted the retard twist champion belt.

Despite Nintendo officially placing the "Wild Saga" (Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom) at the very end of the Zelda timeline, some fans ignore this and treat it as a separate continuity from other Zelda games due to Tears of the Kingdom making the timeline even more convoluted by presenting radically different origins for both Hyrule and Ganondorf. A further subset of fans dispute Tears of the Kingdom's status as a sequel to Breath of the Wild, believing that the former seemingly ignores or outright contradicts plot elements from the latter, such as having much of the ancient Sheikah tech disappear with no explanation whatsoever, and implying that Calamity Ganon is merely a fragment of Ganondorf's power rather than Ganon himself. As a result, these fans prefer to view Tears of the Kingdom as a standalone game rather than a true continuation of Breath of the Wild.

>>714983392
Thanks, ChatGPT!

>>714983225
Again. Even the narrative theme of TotK is just slapdash copypasted from the open-world Kojima game that came out during its development.

>bro I like Zelda games for the story
ngmi, the Hyrule historia with split timeline bullshit was released by Nintendo just to take the piss and make you lorefags go bonkers.

>>714983875
There's pretty direct continuity between several zelda games and the only thing that could really be written off as trying to fit a square peg into a round hole was the downfall timeline

>>714983875
*knocks you to the ground with a single punch and farts on you*

>>714983875
There's a difference between wanting every bit of lore in Zelda to line up with every other game in a solid unbroken chronology, and wanting the story in an individual Zelda game marketed as a direct sequel to have internal consistency with itself and the game it's following up on.

>>714984478
>Calamity is referenced like 3 times in the whole game, one of which being a literal history lesson in a school house full of kindergarteners
They knew what they were doing kek

>>714972513
It's not that I don't like the story, lore, world or characters but I always view them within the same game, separate from all the others. I know some people dislike this idea but I just think of the series as basically a retelling of the same story across the ages. Any connections between each other I just see as references for fans rather than having deeper meaning.

>>714983875
Tears of the Kingdom is sold as a sequel to Breath of the Wild. It has massive continuity issues with each other. You play as the same character. There are quests in BoTW that involve Link helping start a community and the guy who becomes de-facto mayor even gets married thanks to Link. He and his wife have no recollection of Link (Tarrei Town). It's one thing for the house Link lives in for no one to remember him or care, like you wouldn't care much about some of your neighbors, but its another when the CEO of the construction company is down in the dumps about his career and Link helps him in BOTW kickstart his ambitions. Only for him not to recall Link at all, not even once in TOTK.

In Breath of the Wild there were Zoras who shouted at Link for being responsible for the death of someone 100 years ago and having a grudge against him. In Tears of the Kingdom this type of continuity doesn't exist. These aren't major plotholes, but there's so many little things like this between so many NPCs that it becomes a major problem in the back of your head. Tears of the Kingdom has a very poor main storyline with dungeon exposition that repeat themselves ad-verbatim. There are NPCs like the stable owners who would know of Link as a regular and even have his past horses, but don't talk like they know him.

The Guardians which were the game's version of World War 2 style walking landmines just disappear and no one talks about this. There's so much poor writing in ToTK that have nothing to do with the Zelda timeline. You're just a brainlet, someone who has 9IQ at most. What bothers me the most is Link's house situation, because the player is never given a straight answer about why Zelda lives there other than poor attempt at ambiguity and ship teasing from Nintendo's clearly Miyamoto or Aonuma mandated sloppy writing department. Just say that Link gave up his house, Jesus, it's one sentence.

>>714984739
>I know some people dislike this idea but I just think of the series as basically a retelling of the same story across the ages.
Did you know that nearly half of the Zelda games are sequels to each other with most of them having the same protagonist? Did you know this? Or choose not know because you're an idiot? Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 are direct sequels with the same character. So are Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. The Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass? Same. All true, all canon, all in the manual.

So by definition you're wrong, lol. I'm not telling you that Zelda has to have a direct timeline that is consistent, some of the world building even accounts for what you say about legends passed down, but let's not ignore the elephant in the room that are direct sequels to each other. Oh and Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are part of those direct sequels I just talked about, complete with the same protagonist.

>>714985281
>Did you know that nearly half of the Zelda games are sequels to each other with most of them having the same protagonist?
I know, I just genuinely don't care because Nintendo isn't a company I expect to give a shit about its own story. Plus trying to connect the games just makes the repetition far too evident. Is Link just a really common name in Hyrule just in case one of them is the hero of time? Is every princess named Zelda? It's like trying to make Mario some character across time, I'd rather it'd just be the same guy each time.
Like I said, I know some people don't like it but I prefer the idea that this series is a literal legend being passed down across generations, each one adding or changing something from the last. So you always have the same trio but the circumstances change. Perfectly good excuse for the repetition as far as I'm concerned.

>>714975096
You have a point that the artstyle changes but they also don't exactly jump ship and go to a new artstyle with every game.
>mm reused oot artstyle
>oracle games reused la artstyle
>minish cap, fsa, ph and st reused ww artstyle
>link's crossbow training reused tp artstyle (this is the biggest stretch if you can even consider that one a game)
>triforce heroes went back to the ww artstyle
>echoes of wisdom reused the la remake artstyle
If SS wasn't released at the end of the Wii's life and wasn't panned by fans I wouldn't be surprised if another game in the same look was made.

At least we can agree this was kino, right?

>>714967306
Then it's so TABOO that nobody knows it's taboo in which case it doesn't matter

>>714987235
Rauru saying "remember this name" was a very good shounen fighting cutscene. The Master Sword retrieval and the final cutscenes were the highlight. Everything else was very poor. Nintendo needs better writers for their 3D Zelda games. I am very annoyed that as a sequel they chose not to answer the open-ended mysteries of BoTW and act like 90% of the population has amnesia about the WW2 walking landmines (Guardians), the Divine Beasts being gone would be like 9/11 style disappearances of major skylines for the population, and no one but like a handful of people remember Link despite the sequel having confirmed questlines done in BoTW (some people live in different locations because Link helped them move).

>>714971947
I think more people in Hyrule should be mad at the Sheikah for building a bunch of murder drones that got easily hacked

>>714971057
They're not related. You're an idiot.

>>714987569
Good thing that no one in Tears of the Kingdom, besides like literally just Impah and Purah, remember the Guardians. And if you bring up this major inconsistency some brainlets will say "STOP TALKING ABOUT THE TIMELINE NO TIMELINE AAAHHHH". I consider both BoTW and ToTK to be in their own timeline/parallel universe disconnected from the rest of the franchise, like a soft reboot, what bothers me more is how inconsistent Tears is with its direct prequel. The writing is so astonishingly bad it constantly distracts you.

Shouldn't Purah ask once about her grandniece who's the head of her own village now, not once in the entire game. Holy smokes. The whole ToTK dialogue is so dry. I think Purah is the only character with bite to her dialogue that makes her memorable besides her smoking hot body. In BoTW there's so many of them that are memorable like the NPC. The flower lady guarding a shrine was memorable as hell.

>>714987235
The fight sucked and the ending made no sense at all but it was pretty to look at and it had good music. 7/10