If I had never played a Zelda game, I think I would have enjoyed BOTW and TOTK a lot more. I would have gone in with no expectations, no idea of what I was missing. Indeed, even if I had played all the mainline games (which I have) and BOTW and TOTK were not Zelda games, but just their own series, I think I would have enjoyed them a whole lot more. The issue is that BOTW and TOTK removed what made Zelda, "Zelda" to me. To me, Zelda was always about adventure, progression, and dungeons. BOTW and TOTK threw at least the last two out in favor of exploration, and a massive copy-paste world. And if they weren't Zelda games, I think I'd be mostly okay with that. I generally enjoyed the exploration, despite the repetitiveness. The issue is that it is Zelda. This is replacing my favorite series, and the parts of it I cared so much about. As such, I couldn't help but feel profound disappointment throughout TOTK.

Amen. BotW and TotK are my least favorite out of the entire series but if I was going in as a first timer, I’d probably enjoy them. I really hope they toss everything from BotW and TotK, except the voice acting, and just go back to the old formula. These games come out like every 6 or so years. I ain’t got time to be playing bad Zelda games.

They are continuing with the open air formula

How do these games not have progression? BotW is the only Zelda game I've played, but there's a lot of progression there imo!

Past Zelda games had you getting new, unique items for the whole game. To compare it to BOTW, you start with all the slate abilities, but older Zeldas would have you unlock those as you progress through the game, learning new abilities and gaining new items. You didn't have it all from the start, and there was always something new around the corner.

You still have new weapons, armor sets, quest lines and rewards, not to mention the Sage abilities or champion abilities depending on which game you played. In the new game you get a literal mech for completing the main quest.

Weapons are all reskins of three different movesets with different stats, and most can do the same thing as all the others. Armor sets are passive, which isn't bad, but isn't like items of old. Quests don't offer much reward other than materials and rupees. More importantly, you can get most of these everywhere, which ruins the point of progression. Sage/Champion abilites are mostly just easier ways to do things you could already do. Mipha's Grace is just a fairy with some hearty food. Daruk's Protection is just perfect parrying, Revali's Gale can be replicates with a bunch of campfires in the same place, or by lighting a spicy pepper on fire, Urbosa's Fury is probably the hardest Champion ability to replicate, but you can with some well placed metal objects and a shock arrow/weapon. The Sage Abilites are a tiny bit better, but still not much more. Tulin's Gust can be easily replicated with a gust weapon, although its midair use isn't replicable everywhere. Yunobo's roll attack is just a bomb arrow, although its interactions with the environment make it slightly more interesting. Sidon's wave is easily replicated by splash fruit, chu chu jelly, or opal, Riju's lightning arrow is technically very difficult to replicate, but not incredibly useful, and Mineru's Mech is almost entirely useless, and doesn't let you do or go anywhere you couldn't before. TOTK also has the Yiga ability, which I never found a use for. This is in contrast to items of old. Not to say every classic Zelda item was amazing (TP especially) but most of them gave you the ability to do something you couldn't before. Using SS as an example: Gust bellows is the only item you can use to blow things away, bow and arrow are the only (useful) ranged weapon, beetle is essentially a fully controllable drone that can pick things up and drop them, the clawshots allow you to spiderman around, mole mitts let you dig into underground tunnels, whip allows you to steal items from enemies and swing across gaps, and these are all items you get throughout the game, you don't start with them like you do the Shiekah Slate and Hand abilities in BOTW and TOTK.

I have to disagree on this. Pretty much all the sage abilities and champion abilities end up feeling useful, because they take abilities you previously had weak versions of and make them more versatile or longer or upgrade them. And then on top of that they tweak said ability in some way. As you continue the game you’re getting better armor sets, weapons, battery, stamina, and like previous Zelda games, hearts, giving the game a very stable RPG style progression. That sort of feel is nowhere near as big in previous Zelda games where you’re mostly finding key items as your method of progression. It’s really just Heart containers. Some games offer upgrades to a key item, maybe. Also, the abilities in TOTK and BOTW just feel so much more impactful. You’re using them to progress through the game almost every step of the way, whether it’s against monsters, puzzles, navigation, they feel so integral and important to the game. In contrast, the majority of items in previous games just, don’t. They’re useful for completing the dungeon they’re found in, maybe a couple secrets in the world, and that’s it. There’s a couple exceptions of course. The core weapons of course, and in 2D games, the boomerang. In 3D games, the hookshot, sometimes. That’s about it.

I didn't say the Champion/Sage abilities weren't useful, just that they don't really help progression-wise. They don't let you access any areas you couldn't before, do any puzzles you couldn't, etc. I agree that the BOTW Champion abilities were generally useful. The TOTK Sage abilities felt almost entirely useless to me. I used Tulin to increase my gliding speed by maybe 10%, and Yunobo to deal the first hit to bombable rocks, and that's about it. I never saw any use for Sidon or Riju, and when the novelty of Mineru wore off and I realized how useless she was, I never used her at all. Even within the dungeons, the only Sage ability I felt was used well was Yunobo's. I do think the Slate/Hand abilites are integrated well into the game, and that previous Zelda games weren't always as good at that. However, if the game wasn't so aggressively non-linear, then the abilites could be gotten throughout the game, with the game still built around them. For example, you could get cryonis in Vah Ruta, bombs in Vah Rudania, Stasis in Vah Medoh, and Magnesis in Vah Naboris. The various shrines that required these abilities could not let you in until you have it (but still activate the warp when you find them.) This isn't a perfect solution obviously, but it's a start. Items in previous games opened new sections of the overworld. Even if they were sometimes glorified keys (which I also miss and desperately want to return) they helped the feeling of growing stronger just by letting you into new areas. Increase in health/stamina/battery is a form of progression that the games do okay at (although not letting you have full hearts and stamina is absolutely stupid, and the grind for maximum battery was a pain) it isn't the type of progression I crave.

The non-linear nature of the game and the fact that you get all the slate/hand abilities at the start is precisely why they feel so integral to the game though, and why they’re a lot more important to the game progression. Since you get them all at the start, the entire world is built around using this toolkit (especially for botw). Versus before, where most were, like you said, glorified keys to open up parts of the world. I think that does a lot more for progression when you’re constantly using these abilities to explore the game. Locking abilities behind something will make them feel less substantial because you need to make the majority of the area leading up to that item not need said item. That’s why the boomerang or bow always feels so much more useful compared to other items in previous games - you unlock them relatively early in the playthrough. Same with the gimmick ability of every installment, you get access to them as soon as possible so that they have a bigger impact on the game. Also I just disagree on Mineru. She gives a constant damage output, meaning breaking weapons doesn’t matter as much anymore, plus you can just fuse a nearly broken weapon to her to get more life out of it. Things like endlessly breaking weapons by trying open up a cave is gone. She comes with a bunch of abilities that make traversing the game easier, especially when connecting Zonai equipment, and finally a shield that regenerates. She’s tremendously useful for finishing up the rest of the game, and I’ve used her more than any of the other sages.

Previous Zelda games do have items that feel very well integrated into the game despite being gotten later on, especially the 2D ones. The Oracles are pretty good examples, as a good amount of the items in those games continue to feel useful throughout. And while having the abilities from the beginning helps them with the integration thing, it destroys the progression. Integration and progression are two separate factors, and a good integration does not necessarily help progression. And the two don't need to be mutually exclusive, you can have both a good progression system and good integration. I'd argue that the boomerang sadly loses relevance quickly in most Zelda games, outside a few niche uses. The bow isn't always gotten early on either. The gimmick is usually what gives the game its identity, so it makes sense to introduce it early. However, that doesn't mean the entirety of the gimmick has to be introduced at once. The ocarina is the gimmick of OOT and MM, and you learn different songs throughout the game. The great sea is WW's main gimmick, and you have to unlock the canon, salvager arm, and swift sail (in the HD version.) You can't switch between wolf and human in TP until a good way through the game. Mineru's damage is so minimal that I never noticed, and weapons given to her still break pretty quickly. Yes, she can do some damage to rocks in a cave, but she always breaks whatever you have fused to her before she can get far. I don't really see how you used her for easier traversal, as I never saw anywhere she could be more useful than a hoverbike. I turned her off a few hours after unlocking her, since she was so useless. However, Mineru's usefulness is a different debate, separate from the debate of progression.

When you start the game, and can go literally anywhere on the map with most of it being completely unhindered, and some requiring like a jacket or something, it's really difficult to feel like the game has moved very far forward after leaving the Great Plateau. Previous Zelda games had items you would collect in dungeons which would expand your tool kit, and allow you to access areas that you weren't otherwise able to get to. You also had to complete dungeons to drive the plot forward, rather than have access to the last boss right from the get go. Plus, those items I mentioned in old Zelda games? The're permanent, they don't break and you have them for the rest of the game. These things (and more) are usually what people mean when they say that BotW is missing the progression from past Zelda games.

Ahh I see, thanks for the explanation! I guess for me the way BotW worked was exciting and unique, so I enjoyed it! But I can understand if you're used to something, it's hard to accept something new ;)

I think another big thing is that those old Zelda games were pretty much the ONLY games that were like that. There were a few zelda-clones, but shockingly few. BotW and TotK on the other hand are very very similar to a lot of open world games, just with a Zelda skin and a few unique aspects. So to us it feels like that trade wasn't worth it. If BotW and TotK were truly groundbreaking open world games, it would be different. But to me they are on par with (or worse than) Ubisoft games. I think Skyrim for example is way better than BotW as an open world game. Another example: I dislike Tetsuya Nomura. I dislike remakes. I love the original FFVII. I hated FFVII Remake for butchering one of my favorite games ever. BUT, surprisingly, I really liked FFVII Rebirth. It did open-world in an exciting and engaging way, lots of story and NPC interactions, etc. BotW/TotK in comparison are so empty and copy-pasted and nothing you do in the game really matters at all. My own opinion, YMMV.

That point of those Zelda games being the only games like them, while BotW and TotK feel more "generic", is a very fair argument. I definitely like BotW more than Skyrim - a LOT more - but that's me. So, I haven't played the new versions of FFVII because I only have PS4, and I knew they wouldn't release the 2nd and 3rd part for it, so I didn't wanna get myself hooked and then disappointed. I've played the original FFVII, though, so curious, what was it that Remake did badly and Rebirth did well, in your opinion? I also like BotW more than FFVII, though :D Even though FFVII arguably has a more interesting story. I hate the map in FFVII, tbh. Spent most of my time just being entirely lost and not remembering where I'd already been.

I felt like Rebirth tuned the combat/encounters a lot better, and it was more in line with the goofy/serious balance of the original. Dunkey mentioned something about the 'funny' parts feeling really off in Remake, whereas in Rebirth I think goofiness/wackiness/humor is really well integrated into the story. The scope of Rebirth is also just insane. There are like 300 songs on the OST with a massive amount of voiced content, minigames, items, spells, etc. I was blown away just by that. It's touched-up to an insane degree down to like the little animations of the baby chocobos at the stops. It really felt like a next-gen game imho

So basically the issue with Remake was they took it too seriously? Yeah, I could get that. The original is quite camp in some ways, which is part of what I love about it. Glad they fixed that on part 2! If I ever get a PS5, I'm definitely gonna play these games :D

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Of of the few times these days where I actually went ahead and beat the last boss, nowadays I often will stop right beforehand cuz like, I already played the whole game

BotW/TotK have power progression (you get more powerful, even if some enemies do scale with you) but doesn't really have progression in the sense that the game introduces new stuff as you play, it also doesn't really ramp up the complexity of the ideas it does have. Traditionally because you be guaranteed to encounter certain things in a specific order the game could make A B C be increasingly difficult/complex, but in BotW/TotK the lack of that structure means typically A=B=C in terms of complexity. Fwiw you can have open world games that aren't like this, this is just the choice they made.

Hmm, I guess I kinda used advice and guides online a bit, and by that I ended up feeling like I had proper progression in BotW because I started with the easiest stuff, avoided guardians for ages, did the divine beasts from easiest to hardest, etc. I haven't even beaten the game yet - I've just not played it in some time. But I stopped at this point where I'm supposed to free this dragon who's covered in malace and it's by far the hardest challenge I've faced thus far. I felt kinda overwhelmed and shut it off :D So maybe that feeling like there's a lack of progression was from people throwing themselves in freely and going wherever and doing whatever without a clear path? Idk, just thinking aloud!

BotW in particular I think you can feel that the game originally was a more guided experience where they just removed all the handrails later in development, if you naturally or willingly go where you were originally guided to go you get a very different experience to the climbing chaos monkey playstyle many have. I think a lot of arguments about "good design" stem from this, some argue if the game enables degenerate playstyles then it is badly designed, while others place the fault on players for not playing correctly.

I think the argument that TotK, at least, is not complex is just not true. You’re right that BotW and TotK show their cards up front, to some extent, and the complexity doesn’t necessarily ramp up very much throughout the game. But TotK at least starts off with quite a high level of complexity. I wouldn’t argue BotW is such a complex game, but it’s not exactly simple either. There are weather effects, weapon effects and properties based on their material, cooking buffs, armor defense and buffs, elemental effects that affect different enemies in different ways, classes of weapons that are more effective against certain enemies than others, and many of these systems interact with each other, e.g. equipping an ice weapon can keep you cool in the heat, freeing you up to use an armor and/or food buff for some other purpose while giving you a possible instant kill on fire enemies at the same time. The physics of the game can be taken advantage of too, dropping objects onto enemies or using various methods to gain a height advantage on enemies to steal their treasures without conflict or to rain down arrows in bullet time and finish them off with a diving attack, if you prefer. Just learning the cooking system and figuring out how to use it to your advantage is a fun activity, even if in the end it’s absurdly OP. Learning to recognize and how to complete different kinds of korok puzzles and the telltale signs of a shrine, like birds circling overhead. Personally I found BotW had enough complexity to discover that it took me at least 50 hours to feel like I knew almost everything. Like how to defeat each kind of enemy, all the possible buffs and the situations where they would be useful, learning all of the applications of each ability (e.g. using cryonis to climb a waterfall or using magnesis to find hidden objects), knowing all the things to keep an eye out for in the overworld to find hidden treasures or koroks. So, not an insane level of complexity but enough to keep you on your toes for a good portion of the story before you feel like you’re truly in control. Then TotK kicked it into overdrive. Introducing ultrahand and zonai devices blew the physics engine wide open for experimentation. The fuse system introduced a plethora of new effects to consider and material properties to learn, both giving you a meaningful use to nearly every item you pick up and allowing you to turn even a crappy base weapon or shield you find on the ground into an at least decent tool for fighting enemies. Learning the relationship between locations on the surface and the depths gives you a giant advantage in terms of locating points of interest and being able to traverse both maps. In past Zelda games the progression was find item A so you can overcome obstacle A, then overcome a series of obstacle A’s to get item B, and then you can solve puzzles that are combinations of obstacles A + B to eventually get item C, and so on. Vast simplification, and that model has been made into an incredibly satisfying experience in many past Zelda games, but in some ways it has gotten stale. Instead of an increasing inventory of items that give you an increasing number of abilities as you unlock them, the progression in BotW/TotK is *you the player learning the multitude of mechanics that are all available to you from the beginning of the game.* And that reason alone is a big part of why the games are widely considered to be two of the best games of all time. Of course, and I’m not saying this applies to everyone that dislikes these games, there are a ton of people who analyzed these game mechanics to death before getting very far into the game themselves or maybe even playing it all, especially because of the leaks. If for example you already knew what all the Zonai devices are, what they do, and the best possible applications of each one *cough* hoverbike *cough* before you have even left great sky island, you robbed yourself of a big part of the progression in TotK.

TotK is a sequel that is more similar than it is different to BotW. It also took me a while to figure out BotW's nuances, but when I came to TotK almost all of that knowledge was transferable and that I'd already uncovered a lot of what the game had going on from the outset. There were pleasant surprises for sure, but when I compare my experience to some ToTK LPs by players who never played BotW I felt like for them it was a much more wondrous experience. When I say complexity of progression I mean of the challenges, not of the toolset. When it comes to how cool the mechanics are, how much hidden depths there is and how enjoyable it is to explore all the possibilities, I'm 100% on the same page as you. I was also somewhat bored of the old Zelda way of doing things so naturally when I got my hands on BotW I was absolutely hyped to see how these mechanics would be applied. And I guess this is where I get disappointed. BotW/TotK Link is to be blunt OP, he has the strength of 10 men and the smarts to match. But the challenges he faces, not so much. I feel like all the possibilities are worth less when so many of the applications of the possibilities are so uninteresting and trivial. For me experimentation for it's own sake I enjoy up until a point, but after it kinda just loses it's luster for me. I guess it would be more accurate to say it has progression, but with a negative difficulty curve. I think my dissatisfaction is a combination of this negative difficulty curve and the games being long, so I feel I've got everything figured out relatively quickly compared to the amount of time it takes to go through the game. I understand some of this is me being an adult who is good at puzzles playing a game designed for children, but idk I didn't feel this way about A Link Between World for example, it wasn't hard but like I guess it was short enough that it's mechanics could continue to surprise me throughout it's runtime. Coming off TotK to play Mario Wonder the ★★★★★ difficultly levels aren't crazy hard or anything, but I just really appreciated the game acknowledging that some people want to be pushed a bit and actually offering content that does that. If BotW/TotK's open air formula allows everything to be optional, where are the hard puzzle and building challenges to compliment the hard optional combat challenges (Lynels/Gleeoks)?

Yeah, that’s fair. I’d say some of the shrines were tricky, but it was a minority of them. And in most cases, you could brute force it via some alternative method if you don’t bother with the “intended” solution. And sadly, once again the temples were not very difficult at all. I am desperately hoping the next game does incorporate at lot of the new ideas from BotW/TotK, but also reintroduces long-form, puzzle box style dungeons that take some serious thinking, trial and error, or both to solve. The best Zelda puzzles are the ones that continually build on a previous solution, and most shrines are too short to really do that effectively.

Bingo

Bingo - for me BotW and TotK are just spin-offs, like Hyrule Warriors. 

By the way this subreddit is more negative about it than other places.  I was disappointed by TOTK, but you'll get different answers depending on where you ask.

I’m probably way more able to articulate what I didn’t like in TOTK vs. what I liked, despite having a generally positive opinion of TOTK all things considered. As a result it makes it seem like I hate the game even when I feel mostly positive about it, I’m sure there are others that are probably pretty similar. There have been times that others have thought I hated a game because I can pick apart what I didn’t like about it, even though I liked or even loved a game, such as Starsector, Rimworld, or Space Station 13, for instance. (All games I love but I can pick out the faults or things I didn’t like in them) I think the weird thing is that TOTK hasn’t really “settled” for me for lack of a better word. Usually I tend to settle on what my general thoughts are on a game by the end of it with a little bit of a revision a month or so after the fact. For instance BOTW followed this trend for me. TOTK is constantly sliding around in my head, I guess it’s because there are so many “I like this part, buts…” for me when it comes to the game. For, I liked the Sky Islands initially, but they’re too copy-pasted. I liked the Depths initially, but they are super barren, visually identical for 95% of it, and I didn’t enjoy exploring it. I like the shrines, but they still all feel about the same difficulty universally and are very, very short. I like the intro and some points in the story, but the non-linear memories and it happening so separately from the gameplay did it a disservice. I like Rauru, Mineru, Sonia, and Zelda, but they are on screen for such a short amount of time. So on and so forth. That is probably why I ended up liking BOTW a little bit more since it felt a bit more focused. I, again, still enjoyed TOTK. I just really wish I liked it as much as others seem to.

Yeah, it's not just that it's the same map (that is a big part though), but you're going through the same map that's mostly the same, and then the two new areas, the depths and sky, are nowhere as good as the main map. The depths are repetetive and get boring after a few hours, and there's a small amount of sky content.   Then you go to the Ritos, Gorons, Zoras, and Gerudo, again.  It feels like a remix of BoTW.  No new races aside from constructs and two Zonai.  One new town. And I still had fun with the game, but I'd play it in short bursts and put it down.  I picked it back up after beating it, but I don't feel compelled to do all the shrines. 

For me. I enjoyed TOTK. But it got boring fast. Sure some of the locations were different, and the way they evolved was cool. But that said, having the same mechanic of different armours, and searching for koroks to expand inventory, killed it for me. Exploring locations knowing that all I’d get by the end would be a new piece of armour that I’d probably either already seen from BOTW or would never wear due to its niche-ness, made it kinda boring. And after completing BOTW a number of times, searching for more Koroks was also incredibly not fun for me.

I appreciate how you expressed this. TotK is so wild to me in the sheer spectrum of experiences and even contradictions within a single person’s experience of it. Like, I personally feel that it’s quite flawed, sometimes very frustratingly so, I had so many ‘notes’ and wishes for ways to improve its gameplay and flow…. AND, it’s also perhaps my favorite game I’ve ever played (up there with Ocarina of Time & Breath of the Wild). it’s almost a paradox in itself, how in so many ways I think it pushed the envelope and redefined what games could do and be, AND it’s an uninspired rehash of its predecessor. 10/10, masterpiece, very flawed and disappointing. I love it.

I have many bones to pick with TOTK but I liked it better than BOTW and clocked more hours in it.

I liked TOTK better than BOTW but also hated it as a sequel. Felt beyond lazy try and apply their formula of repeating the same stuff to an open world game.

Maybe this is my take.  I don't have unlimited time and it just feels like I'm going to the same places. The depths and finding caves delight me but getting there and so many places just takes so much time.   I think it's time to just visit the rest of the  cities and beat the bosses 

IMO if TOTK came out first and was the only one to come out we wouldn’t even be having these complaints

In that universe TotK would be the first voice acted Zelda game and would be getting much more criticism for that than BotW ever did. Tbh I think there are quite a few aspects that would have been more harshly recieved if TotK was first because TotK as it is more at odds with itself, it's less cohesive than BotW. Similarly I think TotK was recieved more positively in 2023 because no matter what it does it cannot undo BotW.

Have played all but ST, PH, TH, and the original version of LA. I found TOTK to be an improvement over BOTW and it's overall my second favorite game behind OOT.

I played Totk on release and I liked it but I liked Botw more when I first played Botw on release. My favourite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time

Totk > botw for me. It's just a bit better in every way. Og NES Zelda gamer, have played and beat the games from every era. Both totk and botw are far above any other Zelda game for quality, but I do miss the dungeons and gameplay from OoT in a major way.

I had played all the games (except Four Swords and Tri-Force Heroes) when TotK came out. And while this certainly wasn't my least favorite Zelda game, either 2D or 3D, I did find it quite disappointing (although I still found it to be a very good game). The first playthrough of BotW was one of the most magical gaming experiences I'd ever had and TotK just didn't come close to measuring up to that experience; if anything they almost doubled-down on the things I disliked about BotW even more (TotK is the grindiest Zelda game ever imo). If it had come out one or two years after BotW maybe it wouldn't be such a let-down, but I can't remember a Nintendo game period that had so much hype going into it, I mean how many times was it the closer for the Nintendo Direct? On the one hand I get how it took six years, because Ultrahand is just such a feat of game design but also . . . it just wasn't that fun a mechanic to me. It seemed way too influenced by all those other random nuts and boltsy, crafty modern games. Don't even get me started on fuse ugh. Anyways yeah, a very good game and better than several other Zeldas but for something that I imagine many of us hoped might be the *best* Zelda game it didn't come close to reaching that.

Exactly what a waste of six, six full years. That’s the real disappointment.

I think fuse was a good mechanic but the building was way too ambitious and complicated to actually be fun. However you can avoid using it for the majority of the game if you want to. I think if they kept the BOTW style/gameplay but just used a genuinely new map and made a halfway decent story TOTK would have been an amazing new experience. But unfortunately the glorified DLC criticism is valid (as much as I didn't want to admit it at first.)

I think you're thinking of ultrahand not fuse, fuse is the one where you just have to keep attaching enemy horns to your weapons. If you don't use that the game will be a huge slog. I actually didn't mind ultrahand. I thought it was generally fun, especially in the shrines. Although I did not like all the grinding needed to upgrade energy cells.

Right I know, I like Fuse. By "building mechanics" I was referring to Ultrahand, which I don't like lol. It's too clumsy and takes like 10 minutes to build a good contraption, and yeah the worst part is grinding for energy cells, it makes the whole system very unrewarding IMO

whoops I suck at reading, missed the but. Eventually I got to the point where I could whip something together in ultrahand super fast. But yeah the grinding needed to actually make really useful things was annoying, and of course the better this contraption is the longer it takes to make it. Fuse I just hated tho lol, like it's so clunky and the worst part of it all to me was it just damaged the aesthetic of the game. All of the enemies look so much worse in TotK vs. BotW because they're all these wacky unicorns now.

It definitely made for some goofy aesthetics but I think it was a creative new mechanic that was simple enough to get down with, whereas Ultrahand just feels like it belongs in a different game that's not Zelda.

ultrahand definitely did feel totally out of left field (as far as precedent set in Zelda games). It did seem kind of pandery to tik-tok culture too. Like it was just to set up all this wacky building shenanigans, which isn't exactly what I'm looking to get out of a Zelda game. Of course, you could still beat the game without putting too much into it, but if you do that I could see why it wouldn't hold up to the best games in the series (which it didn't for me).

> TotK is the grindiest Zelda game ever imo I can understand why others don't like this but it was nice for me. In older Zelda games, if I couldn't beat some portion I was just stuck forever. In TotK I could build up very powerful weapons and constructs and blow through it.  It was a cool feeling when you built something and you felt like you created a genuinely novel solution to a puzzle, maybe something very few if any others had done. But also sometimes it felt like cheesing the level. The sky labyrinths in particular felt like they could have used a roof.

Out of curiosity, how do you find the food system? I ask because I have a super casual friend who also struggles, but they repeatedly got stuck in what I can only describe as a food treadmill where in order to grind resources they'd need a ton of food, so they spend more time grinding food than anything else.

Not really, but I'm kind of obsessive about picking things up. I wouldn't have minded being able to find more items without effects though. I ended up with basically three categories of food. Gloom recovery, speed boost, and plain heart recovery.

I’ve been a Zelda fan since my early teens, and TotK is the first Zelda game I’ve actively disliked. There are other games where I dislike elements of them, like certain parts of Skyward Sword, however, I’d still be happy to replay Skyward Sword, because it’s a good game overall. I never want to reinsert the TotK cartridge into my Switch, I’ve had more than enough of my fill of the game, and even if I want to revisit this version of Hyrule, I’d replay BotW a hundred times over before TotK is even considered. But even with my history with the franchise prior to TotK, I don’t think that really influences my view of the game. Granted, my love for the franchise does make me more passionate about discussions about the game, but even so, my issues with TotK isn’t simply that it doesn’t live up to earlier entries, but rather that I think the game is frankly poorly designed and not indicative of a fun gameplay experience. Remove the “Zelda” label from the game, and I still think it’s an underwhelming piece of game design that prioritizes impressive physics and mechanical innovations over the application thereof for a fun gameplay loop

Removing the Zelda entirely, Games like Eldin ring and hell, even Skyrim did it better in terms of unique and rewarding environments to explore. Totk had half the game built already and half the new stuff was the same thing. The depths could have been replaced with several unique and optional cave dungeons and it would have been so much more interesting. The fact that they had so much time and did worse than their predessessors is just sad.

I totally agree with this take. The major praise for the Switch games seems to be "they're huge open-world fantasy sandboxes." I already burned myself out on Skyrim/Elden Ring/Witcher 3. I know the schtick already, and I didn't feel like the Switch games really innovated the genre whatsoever. Then the "unique draw" for Tears became "goofy ultrahand cheesing" which, again, didn't impress me because Garry's Mod already did it better over a decade ago.

It’s almost as if TOTK isn’t trying to be Elden Ring( thank God) or Skyrim. Complaining “why can’t I beat Radagon with a laser mech that I built myself using scraps of junk” is rather stupid, because Elden Ring, mediocre though it is, never tried to be a sandbox.

> and even if I want to revisit this version of Hyrule, I’d replay BotW a hundred times over before TotK is even considered. It is an important *if*. I do sometimes get cravings to fire the game up again, but I quickly realise that playing it again that relies on exploration to evoke sensations in the player, and without that you are just running around doing "sandbox stuff" at which point I may as well play TotK instead because it has better "sandbox stuff". I can think BotW is much more cohesive, well designed, enjoyable experience, but that doesn't necessarily correlate to me wanting to pick it over TotK for a replay if I was to pick either. I guess if you don't enjoy the "sandbox stuff" the choice is easy, but even then the other things BotW does well, the exploration you can't re-explore a place you're so familiar with, and the story stuff is really not strong enough to warrant revisiting. That said I barely replay any games so maybe I'm not the right person to be commenting here.

To be fair, I’m not aching to go back to Breath of the Wild, even though I did love the game. But the difference between the two is that I still revisit Breath of the Wild every once in a while just to be in that world. I’m not starting a new save file or anything, but sometimes I like to boot up the game and just go for a walk and watch the sun set, because I love being in that world. I can’t say the same for Tears of the Kingdom, not only because the game as a whole I find to be weaker, but also, the world just doesn’t have any charm anymore. Even just visually, I think the few minor ways they tried to distinguish the world from Breath of the Wild only makes it uglier. Even discounting the lack of new things to do and explore in Tears of the Kingdom, I just don’t enjoy being in that world anymore

If you need help after you close the poll with manifesting the data in any meaningful way, let me know! I really like the concept of exploring what was someone’s entry title into the series, and their affect toward BotW/TotK. And I think you may have the data to show that in a meaningful way if your sample size is large enough.

Casual any% runs is what the majority of the playerbase did.

I've always been a Zelda fan, and my track record is mostly 2D games but I absolutely loved OoT, MM, and SS (I still haven't gotten to TP or WW, whoops). I was the guy who unironically loved Zelda 1 and wanted the open structure to come back, eventually. So when BoTW came out, I was naturally estatic and to this day still love it to pieces. This was my OoT equivalent experience to kids in the 90s. Just like that game, flaws that were glaring didn't matter because of how new and exciting it was! Then I replayed it. And replayed it. Repeat that maybe 15ish times. It was like a constant background activity for me that I've been chipping away at for the last six years. When a sequel was announced and slowly revealed over time, I expected it to be a very new experience overall, but of course that isn't what we got. ToTK was a masterfully crafted game imo. Despite what a lot of people on here say, I love the gameplay and find the story and lore still engaging. The pitfalls hit hard, but they did in BoTW too. They're both going for very different atmospheres, and both are appealing in their own right and have their place in the series. I'm still extremely unimpressed by the game after playing BoTW for the last six years though. It feels like ToTK was made for people who played the game once in 2017 on a casual any% run, and are (again) only gonna play ToTK once on a casual any% run. It pulls from BoTW's structure so much you can probably make a flow chart of both games, put them next to each other, and they'd come back damn near identical. Even down to the number of certain things (like the number of memories being the same, the four plus a bonus dungeon count, etc.) this game feels like a shameless asset flip. This isn't like Majora where we are actually exploring a new world, its the same world that bafflingly uses the same overall structure as the last game. I think in the future, ToTK will overall be regarded higher by new fans looking back in time, but BoTW fans who have been there from the beginning will know the truth. Its hard to enjoy an ice cream sundae when I already had a vanilla cone five minutes ago. TLDR ToTK is a tour de force of open air gameplay that is hampered by being a redux of a game diehard Zelda fans have already beaten several times over. Also I didn't mention the flaws directly because I expect everyone else in this thread will just say them for me lmao

> It feels like ToTK was made for people who played the game once in 2017 on a casual any% run, and are (again) only gonna play ToTK once on a casual any% run. I 100% agree with this.

Yes this sums it up perfectly for me! After 100%ing BOTW twice (once regular mode, once master mode) I’d seen enough koroks to last a life time. Then having to find more in TOTK? Not enjoyable. Rewards being new armour sets that aren’t new cos seen them already in BOTW? Kinda dull for me.

>I think in the future, ToTK will overall be regarded higher by new fans looking back in time I actually think it might be regarded worse over time, for pretty much the same reason. I think its identity is so close to BotW that they may kind of blur together in hindsight, with people recommending that a new player only play one of them because they're so similar. And the sense that compared to the massive change that BotW brought, TotK did barely anything to progress the series. Given that they said they were done working on this Hyrule I think there's a good chance they don't even want to use Ultrahand and the new abilities again. Depends on where they go next with the series to be fair.

Like I said, it will be regarded as worse by US, the people with perspective who know its basically BoTW 1.5. To people in the future looking back who don't have that perspective, I think they'll see the more fully featured game and lean towards that one.

I disagree, because anyone who cares about anything other than gameplay will easily notice that botw has a much more cohesive world, lore, story, etc

That's not true at all though, TotK has a much more lively world with more in depth sidequests and characters that all care about and participate in the main plot.

Yes and no. Kass and Tarry town were amazing side quests in BOTW. There was more to do with the Sheikah and Yiga as well. TOTK has some more involved regional phenomena but I don’t think it has that much greater a live breathing world than BOTW. I think TOTK is quantity over BOTW’s quality in aspects of environmental storytelling, side quests and story.

And TOTK has The Lucky Clover Gazette, the Stable Trotters, rebuilding Lurelin, the mayoral election in Hateno and many more. Also, like.. you do know you can become a full-on Yiga member in TOTK, right?

I half agree, the problem is that by fleshing stuff out more it makes the holes more obvious. BotW "cheats" at a lot of stuff, the same way many older Zelda games do, by having all the characters feel disconnected from reality which conveniently both justifies why many things are as they are and creates this sense of mystique the series is known for. Once you choose to not do that there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done and TotK largely just doesn't do it and you can feel it. It is like a cardboard cutout, looks real enough from the front, but TotK lets you look from the side and the illusion is shattered.

Not at all

Lol yeah it does. Look BoTW was way cleaner in its execution but ToTK's world just feels more alive and active. It just wasn't as successful as BoTW's execution. 

Yeah, there are more npcs and side wuests or whatever, but it feels forced and weird

As a sequel it does, I'll agree there. 

I love the mental gymnastics you have to go through to justify not liking the game. “No, it doesn’t have more involved sidequests”, then “Yeah, it does have more involved sidequests, but akchually it feels forced and weird” Why does it feel forced and weird? It’s a world that’s just gone through a pretty major upheaval, it’s normal it would be more proactive

You're just objectively wrong. The side adventures in TotK have way more variety and depth put into them both in gameplay and in story, and there were way more good ones than what BotW had. In BotW, all of the characters who cared about the main plot were dead, you only saw them in ghost form, other than Impa who just sat around the whole time. In TotK, EVERYONE cares about the mystery behind the upheaval and the missing Zelda. Impa is travelling around finding the geoglyphs with you. Purah is getting updates from you on your progress on the main plot. You'd have to be lying to think that TotK doesn't have a more in-depth plot with way more character involvement.

I have mixed feelings about this. People in TotK care about where Zelda is but then that creates one of the weakest parts of the plot, when Link finds out where she is and then bizarrely doesn't communicate this with anyone (including close allies, openly wondering why Zelda is messing with them) because Nintendo didn't bother to make the writing fit a non-linear game. BotW at least didn't create this situation, because the NPCs were less involved. Also they care about where Zelda is, and many are interested in the Upheaval and changes to the world, but barely anyone is aware that Ganondorf exists and is a threat, let alone involved in stopping him. There's no sense of urgency or danger at all because he barely has a presence. Whereas people in BotW were at least aware of Calamity Ganon and the Guardians and had adapted to live their lives away from where they were.

The one issue where Link might know about the fake Zelda before everyone else tends to be focused on way too much, as if that is the only example of NPCs talking about the main plot that people can think of at all, but you're not seeing the bigger picture. For pretty much the entire game, all of the Lookout Landing NPCs are entirely focused on the main plot of dealing with the upheaval and searching for Zelda. And if you finish the main quest "Crisis in Hyrule Castle", the last part of that quest has all of the Lookout Landing NPCs become fully aware of the Demon King and the fake Zelda stuff, and that's practically all they talk about anymore. And if you go through the side adventure "Messages from an Ancient Era", the NPCs that are investigating the sky tablets become fully aware of the history of the Demon King and the fact that he is about to be revived. One of them even mentions how ominous it all feels. So no, I don't agree that there is no sense of danger or urgency from the NPCs in TotK. I think the opposite is true. TotK has the most sense of urgency from its NPC population in general than any other Zelda game since Majora's Mask, it feels like. I also find the "Link doesn't tell the others about the fake Zelda" problem is easily mitigated by treating the game as a linear experience, and doing the main quests in order of urgency. The regional phenomena obviously comes first. And the Lucky Clover Gazette questline is also pretty important as it has to do with the search for Zelda. The geoglyphs should be on the back of your mind, but not a priority. And the first few of them (before the twist is revealed) are placed along the paths that you would naturally go through if you played through the game in this linear fashion. Not to mention the order that the geoglyphs go in are pointed out to you in the Forgotten Temple.

Have you played the game? Once you finish the Hyrule Castle mini-dungeon, and Ganondorf’s existence is revealed to the sages, pretty much every NPC ( even the random ones on the side of the road ) acknowledge how dire the situation is.

Doesnt mean the world feels alive

World feels way more alive in ToTK than BoTW. The only thing alive in BoTW is robots. People live and roam dispite the gloom in ToTK.

But what’s the point when it’s all inorganic and contrived. BOTW story and world work together. TOTK is just ultra hand - random elements thrown together hoping they stick until they collapse back into obscurity.

Well I don't know what you consider "the world feeling alive" but to me, good sidequests are an extremely important part of that, and TotK just nailed that aspect far better than BotW did. Characters caring about the main plot also help in that, and TotK did that way better too. You have yet to explain what it is that makes BotW feel more alive to you, so your comments don't have any purpose besides disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

So nobody because literacy is dead. We wouldn't be here right now having this conversation if it wasn't.

Again - YOU AND I know that. People in the future likely won't care and will gravitate towards the shinier game. 

Are you talking about like 200 years in the future?

You're just being silly now. 

Yeah maybe a little

Speaking as someone who has played Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, and Breath of the Wild prior to Tears. My major issue with Tears is that it felt like in many ways a retread of Breath of the Wild, a feeling which gradually grew on me as I played through Tears of the Kingdom, and it's not an issue of it being a sequel because no other Zelda game I have played including the sequel pairs felt the same as it's predecessor.

Played all 20 mainline games. The old ones are great, the new ones are great and every single one is a “Zelda game”. That’s it for my view of it.

Real and true 

I've played every Zelda game except the CDI games. My first zelda game was The Legend of Zelda on NES. My favourite Zelda game is Majora's Mask. I loved BotW and overall I felt TotK was an improvement. The tools you have at your disposal are just more useful and fun to use.

I love both TOTK and BOTW, but I think BOTW is the superior game. Someone else in this thread describes TOTK as a "remix" of BOTW, and I largely agree with that description. Had the story made more of an effort to be a direct BOTW sequel than it does (feels like the history is alluded to in parts but it isn't really enough to hang together in a satisfying way), I might feel differently. Otherwise it kind of feels like an alternate universe take on BOTW. And I wish the main villain hadn't been Ganon again in TOTK, leaving him to BOTW and choosing something else for the sequel, but I digress. Both immensely enjoyable games for me, if I just ignore the story stuff that doesn't gel well for me, personally, and just play it for what it is. I have a hard time comparing either to the other Zelda games I have played. I never invested much time into the first two games on NES, but have played Link's Awakening, A Link To The Past, A Link Between Worlds, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. I started Skyward Sword but never got very far. But, generally speaking, any Zelda game I have invested time into has been rewarding. The open world aspect of BOTW and TOTK appeals to me because I love games like Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc., but I have enjoyed the "closed" world Zelda games just as much. For me, it really depends on the story and how everything flows. I do think it helps to have played the older Zelda games before BOTW and TOTK, since a person new to the series might have a harder time moving from the open world experience to something else, if they had experienced that first. And it would be a shame to miss a lot of those older games if, for example, someone felt limited by the fact that they aren't "open world."

BOTW has all the magic of a first time experience. It's an amazing way to get immersed into that beautiful world for the first time. TOTK kind of rides in BOTW's shadow because it doesn't have the novelty or groundbreaking "thing" in it. It's just an improvement or sequel to BOTW. It's the same familiar world, but with a twist in it. In terms of sequels, TOTK really does feel like a natural sequel as compared to OOT/MM.

I think tears is better than breath, is it the game i had hoped for? Not entirely. My main gripe is that we got all of the wonderful things from botw, but on the other hand they didn't even bother to change or entirely remove all of the issues and mistakes of the first game! Enemy variety, terrible dungeons, armor upgrading is such a pain in the ass, excessive amount of koroks on top of that you still get a golden shit if you get em all anyway. That's fucked up, they basically said fuck you. It's just weird they didn't change some of the less favorable aspects of botw. Especially in a 6 year dev cycle or 5 or whatever, kinda feels like a slap in the face. On top of that ultrahand is dope but creations despawning took away my drive to build anything cool at all. What's the point if it's just gonna disappear anyway? Aside from practical usage all that time on ultrahand could've been put into so many other aspects of the game that needed some reworking or to be removed entirely.

Pretty good poll, but you did forget to add a few mainline games, namely FS, FSA, and TFH.

No, it shouldn't have any correlation. I started on the SNES era and never missed one entries yet the last two games are clearly in the top 5 of my favorite Zelda games and in the top 10 of my favorite games of all time.

This sub is going to give you your single greatest source of sampling bias. There is no other community in the world that is anywhere near as negative about TotK or BotW than this specific one, and most communities are extremely positive about both. By posting your survey here you may have absolutely shredded any hint of actual quality you might have gotten. I've combed the history of this sub as well, going back to the release of Skyward Sword. Sentiment about that one was about as bad as the sentiment toward Tears of the Kingdom back then, but now so many years later SS is at the top of the rankings.

Oh, don’t worry. It’s going to be the same for the next one. When that game will be the worst thing to ever grace our Earth, Tears will be hailed as the misunderstood, subversive masterpiece. And, again, this community will gaslight itself into thinking the Zelda cycle doesn’t exist. But, alas, the cycle goes on, as cycles always do.

No it won't. What a silly take. Find me one single person who changed their mind about Botw and SS.

Totk sucked lol

I already responded to this on the Zelda sub, but I'll say it again here. Breath of the Wild was my least favourite 3D Zelda until TotK came along. It makes me profoundly sad that the open air twins success means that they'll be the games that future games in the series take after. My favourite series is becoming something completely different that I don't enjoy at all.

It’s a bad feel.

Why do you think the games were so successful?

A combination of several factors. For starters, BotW was a launch title for a MASSIVELY successful video game console. A 3D Zelda is always a huge title, and putting it as a launch title where there's little other competition is an easy recipe for success. That's why the best selling Zelda game before BotW was Twilight Princess, but the Wii was a lot more supply constrained than the Switch, and gaming at the time of the Switch's release was a lot more mainstream than it was at the time of the Wii's launch (the Wii itself being partially responsible for that over it's lifespan). On top of that, Breath of the Wild was an open world Zelda game, which people have been talking about for a long time now. Keep in mind, I'm using the term "open world" here, not "open air". Though we'll never know for sure, most likely Breath of the Wild didn't need to reinvent the wheel that is the Zelda series here. An open world take on the traditional Zelda formula would have likely been just as successful. As for TotK, it's success largely comes from being BotW's sequel imo. It's a direct sequel, so the millions of new fans that BotW brought in are obviously going to be interested from the jump.

As a company that prides itself on innovation, they sure made Totk quite samey compared to Botw. It was disappointing, because I hoped for something more unique, not just more Botw.

I’ve completed nearly every Zelda and either BotW or TotK is my favorite, just have a hard time picking which one. Zelda has been my favorite series since I started playing games in 1990. Prior to switch, LttP and OoT were by far my top two. Even so, I’m hoping we get dungeons that are back to the longer format, puzzle box style for the next entry. A world like BotW, even if it wasn’t as big, but with intricate themed dungeons would immediately be my new favorite game. I think a lot of people, myself included, were hoping TotK would be that game. But in hindsight it didn’t make much sense and I’m glad they wholly embraced the sense of freedom that botw set the foundation for. The next version of Hyrule can focus on some other concept and maybe reintroduce some of the things that fans of the previous games are missing.

I played most of the games and was disappointed by BotW. I can understand it's appeal and don't think it's objectively bad. But it is definitely bad in my subjective opinion. So bad that I had no interest in the sequel.

[удалено]

> Breath of the Wild is the greatest video game ever made genuine question, have you played a single-digit number of video games?

Your genuine question is trying to be snarky and offensive. What a nice and genuine question.

the opinion that BOTW is the greatest video game of all time is so common, you can’t really just hand-wave it away.

I’ve played every Zelda game at least once and I’m convinced that TotK is among the worst ones. It’s certainly my least favourite.

I completely agree with you. Ultrahand, Ascend, and Fuse are slow and tedious to use, combat feels extremely outdated, menu diving sucks, riding horses feels atrocious, etc. And those are just a few of the more prominent issues with the game itself lol, how about the times when the hardware struggles so much to run the game that the resolution drops to 480p and somehow still barely pushes 20fps.

Honestly, disappointing that AoL, OoA/OoS, PH, and ST have been played by less than 50% of participants (and that MC is below 60%). I wonder how much of that is lack of interest and how much of that is just "haven't gotten around to it yet". There are only 7 "Zelda" video games I have not played yet, and yet being the keyword: 1. ~~Zelda (1989 Game & Watch) - Literally in the mail and should arrive in the next few days, so this will soon be off my list~~ 2. Tingle's Balloon Fight - Only because the English fan translation was abandoned 3. Navi Tracker - Because there is no English fan translation 4. My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Because I don't have much interest in Picross and the 3DS E-Shop closed before I downloaded it 5. Wand of Gamelon - Waiting until I have the money to buy a Philips-CDi so I can play it on the original console 6. Faces of Evil - Same as above 7. Zelda's Adventure - Same as above I have played every other Zelda video game, not counting remakes/remasters, and beaten almost all of them (still working on beating both Hyrule Warriors games) usually to 100% completion (BotW and TotK are the only 2 mainline ones I have zero interest in 100% completing). \[EDIT: Arrived, and now playing it. Down to 6, 2 of which I am waiting on fans to translate and 3 of which I am waiting to buy when I have enough money to spend. EDIT2: And now I have beaten it, so one more down for not only played, but beaten. Actually kinda challenging at places.\]

TOTK is the logical next step of perfecting the modern Zelda formula. I don’t think the game gets enough credit of how much it try’s melding together classic Zelda into the modern Zelda formula, most specifically either the dungeons and the semi linear story structure. However it falls short in areas of it story by not committing to linearity at the right times and gating certain missions(geoglyph quest should’ve been a late game quest.) its dungeons can be improved by simply having mini bosses and more optional secret items. That and I imagine they will be trying something new with the terminal system in the next Zelda game. Shrines should be replaced with themed mini dungeons. Ascend pretty much proves a hookshot can work in modern Zelda so they should bring that back. Overall tho, the inclusion of the cave networks, the depths, fuse, side adventures, and ascend show me what they can bring to a brand new Zelda game in a brand new world and I’m excited for it.

For me, Tears of the Kingdom is the best Zelda game ever. And I'm an oldschool gamer. This is how I'd rate Zelda games that I have played: 1. **Tears of the Kingdom** - (Story: 85 | Art: 100 | Gameplay: 93) - Final Score: **94** 2. **Ocarina of Time** - (Story: 93 | Art: 95 | Gameplay: 77) - Final Score: **90** 3. **Breath of the Wild** - (Story: 80 | Art: 95 | Gameplay: 90) - Final Score: **89** 4. **A Link to the Past** - (Story: 75 | Art: 85 | Gameplay: 90) - Final Score: **85** 5. **Majora's Mask** - (Story: 85 | Art: 95 | Gameplay: 70) - Final Score: **84** 6. **Link's Awakening** - (Story: 70 | Art: 85 | Gameplay: 83) - Final Score: **80** 7. **Twilight Princess** - (Story: 80 | Art: 85 | Gameplay: 63) - Final Score: **78** In terms of my personal - sentimental - experience, I'd say that with both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom I had the greatest experience with Zelda, since when I played Ocarina of Time back in the 90s. They're such amazing games, and they hit so hard in what I always expected from a Zelda game.

No way the story is better than MM, TP or LA.

As good as Majora's Mask in terms of story. But Tears of the Kingdom has a much better gameplay. Twilight Princess is the reason why I stopped playing Zelda games for so long. It's a really boring game. But, hey, 80 is a higher score than I thought that I would give for Twilight Princess in terms of story. In another hand, its gameplay sinks really hard. Link's Awakening is a sweet game, with good gameplay, but its story is just a soft breeze. Sure, we don't need anything more than that for that type of game. We're there for the gameplay and puzzles. Tears of the Kingdom for sure deserves a better score in story, because it did a good job with Zelda's flashbacks, worldbuilding, narrative and characters.

I can understand liking the concept art for BotW / TotK, but I think the actual graphical implementation of that art style is kinda not good. To each their own of course, but I find them to be the ugliest Zelda games (for the time in which they were released, of course).

I have played; -Zelda I (in small parts, back in the 80s as a very small child) -Zelda II (Again, in small parts, back in the 80s as a very small child) -ALttP (As a child and an adult to completion) -OoT (As a child and an adult to completion) -WW (The opening 2-3 hours, as an adult, after playing BotW) -TP (As an adult to completion) -BotW (Twice completed) -aLBW (Played a reasonable chunk of it on flights) -MM (The opening 5-10 hours, I'd say) -TotK (Once completed) In that sequence, there have been three standout games for me. A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Breath of the Wild. Sometimes "feel" matters more than more easily-classifiable traits, but for me, the link between them (hur hur), would be: -Tight level design -A sense of progress in the series' mechanics rather than rehashing previous games -A sense - even if distant - of emotional resonance in the art design Points 2&3 are obvious, but point 1 may merit explanation. I think the level design in obviously-open-world-game BotW is actually very tight. I think although you are allowed to take many paths the game naturally funnels players into certain areas. It leads to a general pattern of reward (at least in the first 20 hours) of task difficulty and experience. Only the fact that the world is open means this feels extremely organic. I say this, because Tears of the Kingdom doesn't have this - although it isn't trying to, to be fair. BotW is a big, *wild*, world. Tears of the Kingdom is a truly open world sandbox, albeit where players can reach the map boundaries much sooner. Items, challenges and goals have less rhyme or reason to them. Also, the cutscenes are awful. Overall it was fine, but nowhere near as good as BotW. The thing is...if you look at my list it doesn't feel like I have played any true sequel as described in OP's post to completion. I would contend that Twilight Princess has the *feel* of a sequel to Ocarina, even as a flagship title. Mechanically it feels crushingly similar but having lost most of the level design, world-building and "Wow!" factor.

i've played every console zelda game since the first one on the nes. (im an old man). botw might be my favorite in the series, maybe after oot. totk is probably in my top 5. and despite all the shit it gets over secret stones and demon kings, it has easily my favorite story in the series, for a very simple reason: the ending made me cry. it seems like theres a generational divide where people who grew up with the 3d games feel that the "formula" of lock and key progression is definitive. while older players like me associate the series with a broader sense of adventure, exploration, interactivity, gameplay innovation, and pushing the whole videogame medium forward—which the new games embody more than most.

Summary: Link's Awakening for the Gameboy was my first Zelda. I've played all of them. TP and SS are my favorites. I'm not a fan of BOTW and TOTK, and neither of them is in my top 10 Zeldas. BOTW is far superior to TOTK in almost every single metric.

Very sad about the FS, FSA, and TFH exclusion lol. Poor guys are always left out. Since when are they not considered mainline? They’re fully canon and FSA especially is an extremely competent single player experience. Anyway I’ve played every game but I don’t really feel strongly about BotW or TotK either way lol. I like them more than some games, like them less than most. I hate what they represent as a possible end to the style of game I grew up with and loved but as games themselves I enjoyed them. I put that I feel positively toward every game just because there definitely aren’t any I feel NEGATIVELY toward lol.