#i think i dislike it so much bc it feels like the zelda world might be heading towards a too modern one

[ganondoodle]

so, i have thought more about what we now know about botw2 and honestly, setting aside the smaller things i am not a fan of (like the building aspect) my biggest gripes about it are the plot looking like its gonna be very generic, especially regarding ganondorf, while i hoped it would perhaps finally give us a little more interesting take instead good vs evil; and the oh so mysterious figure you see in in the trailer very likely to be hylia, since shes mentioned constantly in the first game (among other things like her design being pretty much a carbon copy of zelda for the most boring reasons imaginable)

and no its not just bc of my stupid little fanworks (that i do bc i love the franchise, as much as i am critical of it, it comes from being very passionate about it, hence me working my fan lore around the canon so it doesnt disturb it much, its more meant to expand it on parts i think are a little lacking without me trying to sound superior, literally just as an act of love (and a little spite ill admit that) to add something to it)- BUT bc i have little hope they would do anything more than just going full blown "this monstrous beast is pure inherently evil, and this is the pure inherently good white little girl goddess whos just protecting her god given perfect and unshakable good tm monarchy" with no little to no nuance (theres also alot more to be critical of the general structure and implications like racism, orientalism, nationalism, that while i can see alot of wrong or questionable things in the games i lack the eloquence to talk about in its full range) yes i am personally biased bc i just .. hate that kind of story/worldbuilding structure, but i dont think im the only one who would think of it as boring and .. disappointing?

i dont need ganondorf to be redeemed, i dont need him to be the good himbo bf that some people think all ganondorf stans want, i just want him to be more than to shout "i will conquor this kingdom bc i am evil and want it" and send a horde of monsters after you, at the very least id want the game to just aknowledge that there must be a reason for it, why it turned out like this

the zelda series and its world has so much potential, which is probably a reason for its popularity in fanworks, but also keeps not using it, no i dont expect a company like nintendo to deliver on all my hopes, of course not, im not that delusional, but the further i think and learn about this universe and concepts they created i find myself asking "why" more and more where the games never elaborate, never question

i like a clear structure, i like when your choices dont have a big or any impact on the story bc i want to live the story, not worry about every decision like i already do every second of my life IRL, i want to partake in a movie, in a theater piece i can influence the pace of but not change the outcome, yet i feel kind of ... ignored? let down? asking why and how, how do they know this is right and this is wrong, how do they keep enacting this seeing it never works out, keep saying defeat this evil, but evil yet returns stronger than before over and over, how do they never ask "is this the right way?", they say "we need to kill it more next time"

i know they are fictional little characters made up to sell a game, with a convevient plot point to ever repeat the same structure, but it cant be wrong to say "i love this world, i want to see and know more, i want to see it grow and change, break the cycle and be better, show me characters not puppets"

theres very surely nuances and ideas i am sorely missing bc i lack the knowledge of japanese as a language, culture, and mythology, but i dont think it invalidates all that i feel for it ..

.. right?

#ganondoodles talks #botw2 #tloz totk #rambling #long post #just to comment on the building aspect again #i think i dislike it so much bc it feels like the zelda world might be heading towards a too modern one #i dont like how alot of series of all entertainment treat industrialization as inevitable #that every world will have cars and planes and phones the way we have #botw took some modern concepts and very elegantly remade them into something that fits and doesnt feel out of place #maybe im just boring #maybe i just dont like alot about the world we live in and it pains me to see the escapist relief of it be turned into a copy of it #maybe im just autistic and think too much about stuff that doesnt matter #lmao #or something

[minijenn]

Just finished Breath of the Wild as part of my huge Zelda marathon to prep for Tears of the Kingdom, so I guess I might as well rank all of the games that I played for it! Keep in mind that was I bit pressed for time so I had to skip a few entries. For this marathon I did not play: Zelda 2, the Oracles games, Minish Cap, the Four Swords games, Triforce Heroes, or Age of Calamity. As for the games I did play... Here’s how I (personally) think they stack up: 

1. Breath of the Wild: Wow, completely not surprising that my favorite game of all time is my favorite Zelda game too! But honestly this game just... hits in all the right places. I love exploring its massive world, finding its little secrets, just basking in the immersive environment of it all. I love its story and how its told to you little by little, how we get such an interesting take on Zelda and her relationship with Link, I love the champions, both old and new, I love the gameplay, the atmosphere, all the little tools and tricks the game gives you to play with, I love almost everything about it! Only thing I’m meh on is the shrines but that seems to be everyone’s opnion. Other than that, its a fantastic game, still at the top of my list and the top of my heart. 

2. Skyward Sword: STOP BEING SO MEAN TO SKYWARD SWORD GUYS ITS A FUCKING MASTERPIECE I LOVE IT SO MUCH no but seriously Skyward Sword is sooooo special to me. It just... fills me with so many raw emotions in a way that few other video games can. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me experience its beautiful, tragically simple story on such a lovely level. I love how it plays, how many items it gives you, how it has the BEST dungeon design in the whole series, I love Skyloft, I love Groose and Ghirahim and Fi and how this game probably has my favorite Link in the entire series (he’s so precious your honor I love him). It’s soundtrack is godly, everything about it is beautiful. If you dislike this game, you dislike fun and joy. I don’t make the rules. 

3. Wind Waker: Always in my top three, Wind Waker is such a delight. It also falls into the category of games that hit me in the feels. Its story is so simple yet it hits so right, its art style is simply lovely, exploring the sea is great, the dungeons are great, this version of Link and Zelda (or should I say Tetra) are great, the MUSIC IS SO GREAT (my favorite soundtrack in the series imo). I just love it so much. Only reason is isn’t #2 is bc I got hit so hard in the feels by SS this time around ahahah. 

4. Ocarina of Time: I know, very traditional. But the more I think about it, the more I just have to put it in the top five. OoT is just so fundamentally... Zelda, ya know? It established so much of what I love for the series, the lore, the asthetic, the gameplay, all things the series still follows to this day. Its story is honestly one of my favorites in the series, its music is just iconic in every way, its dungeons are (mostly) good, its overworld is really fun to explore, I adore it, always have since I first played it on a shitty emulator when I was 12. 

5. Spirit Tracks: Ok So hear me out please. I know this is an insane take but... I fucking love Spirit Tracks??? Like a lot? I love this version of Zelda so much she’s so FUN and I love that she goes on the journey with you. I love riding around on my silly little choo choo train, I like the dungeons well enough and the music? fucking peak. Honestly I just... got so immersed in this one while I was playing it? It just hits the right spot for me, I don’t know what to tell you. It gives me serotonin. 

6. Majora’s Mask : So I actually used to really hate Majora’s Mask? Crazy, I know. But playing it again this time... I don’t know. Something happened. It just geled with me in a way it never had before. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a bunch of problems with it. The time limit stresses me out too much, the dungeons are fucking awful, the bosses suck, the music is kinda meh, but then also like??? the sidequests are the best in the series, Clock Town is the best hub in the series, the masks are fun to collect and play around with. The game is fun. I can no longer deny it like I used to before. I like Majora’s Mask. 

7. Link’s Awakening: So this has and always will be my favorite top down Zelda. I love how it plays and I love the setting so much. It comes across as such a cute little game but there’s this underlying layer of tragedy that just... hits so well. Its music is great, the dungeons are fun, the sidequests are fun. What can I say? Just a really solid experience all around. 

8. A Link to the Past: Fun fact, playing ALTTP for this marathon was the first time I ever beat it! And I really enjoyed my time with it! Its much like OoT in that its a series trend setter but for the 2D games and it does a great job of that! The soundtrack slaps, the dungeons are very well designed, the story is nothing to write home about, but the overworld is very fun to explore. I liked it a lot! 

8. A Link Between Worlds: I gotta say I was... somewhat underwhelmed this time around with ALBW. Idk what it was it just... didn’t do it for me? Don’t get me wrong, I still like it, but it really did just feel like a Link to the Past but with a few new mechanics thrown in. And those mechanics are fun and well executed, but... idk. Underwhelmed 

9. Hyrule Warriors: I hesitate to say this even counts because its not a “traditional” Zelda game. But when push comes to shove, as much as I like the fanservice and sheer silliness of this game, the gameplay loop is very... samey and boring? Outside of this and AoC I’ve never played another Warriors game so idk if that’s a series standard but still, AoC does the concept a lot better and if I had time to play it before ToTk I would but... eh. 

10. Twilight Princess: Ohhhhh boy I can see ya’ll freakin out now. Just cool it for a sec and let me explain. My most recent playthrough of TP was... fucking abysmal. I did not have fun with it. I hated the dungeons, I hated how dry and dull the gameplay loop in general was, I was very bored with the world and the music. Hell, the only things I actually liked in the game were Midna (of course) and surprisingly, Wolf Link? Idk I just thought it was a nice break from the norm. But outside of that, i dunno man, it just frustrated me. By the time I got to the final boss of the game, I was so burnt out and ready to be done with it. Guess my grudge is lasting even still.

10. Phantom Hourglass: Oy. I was dreading this one and I can safely say its just... Ok. Not good, not awful, just... Ok. The Temple of the Ocean King fucking sucks asss, and the world as a whole is generally umemorable but there are other things about the game  I enjoyed like, uh... Linebeck. He was cool. And... that’s about it. :| 

11. Legend of Zelda: I don’t enjoy the NES Zeldas. I think they’re too fucking archaic and cryptic for their own good. There I fucking said it. Leave me alone. 

#so yeah ahaha jen once again dishing unpopular zelda opinions #here's hoping totk blows all of these out of the water #i wanna be wooed again #legend of zelda #jen plays

[cheekbites-moved]

ok i still havent gotten the secret ending but farming for it might take me a bit so im gonna make a thoughts post for age of calamity now:

Major spoilers obvs so ill put it under a read more

things i enjoyed:

revali beatdown simulator

the controls for the divine beasts are a bit clunky, but i think the angles they used for them did an excellent job at really making the player feel like we were actually controlling a divine beast. so i think it was done well.

link’s personality really gets to shine full force in this game with the amount of cut scenes and it was wonderful to see

every character clearly had a lot of love put into how they operate. they truly all feel unique, & all of their play styles fit them really well in my opinion

the game does a really good job of making you understand what a real threat the monsters are. like in botw they’re intimidating at first, but once you’re far enough into the game they become just an inconvenience to work around if anything. this game managed to actually make certain monsters intimidating for me again, and i think that’s a real accomplishment

the blight battles are actually somewhat challenging in this game and that is truly a commendable achievement lol i think all the bosses are good tbh. i didnt rly dislike or not enjoy any of them.

the way daruk and link’s friendship & urbosa’s motherly relationship towards zelda got to shine was. so good. it’s all i could’ve ever wanted

seeing the descendants again was really nice & it was awesome to see the champions interacting with them!! especially sidon and mipha omggggg. that was. really fucking good shit

kohga. just. kohga in general. getting to see more of him was really rad, he’s such a fun guy! and his english va was Excellent. you could really tell he was having a lot of fun playing him, and it was lovely to see! :)

zelda getting to really shine in this game was also lovely to see. and her being so assertive and badass by the end? omg. it was so wonderful especially after botw. man. 

the combat is done very well imo. im rly glad that they took so many elements from botw, but also added their own flares to make it feel fresh. it was rad.

sidon’s tagline is “winning smile” and his power is “boundless optimism” and i think that’s beautiful

the music in this game is SOOOOO good oh my god. multiple times during playing i had to pause to just appreciate it. it’s pretty much all remixes of botw with a few originals for the new characters, but they all slap. there was not a single song in this game i didn’t like. it is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks officially. maybe one of my favorite overall soundtracks in general tbh.

the visuals obviously look just like botw, but it still looked fucking gorgeous at some points. like. man. they really went off to make it look not only faithful to botw as far as appearance goes, but also as far as capturing botw’s beauty and it was. excellent to see!

if anything is true to botw’s backstory, it’s definitely how op link is. cause he was established to be op in botw, & when u finish botw he is also op as hell. he is so fun to play as the higher leveled he gets. he absolutely kicks ass. especially with a two-handed weapon??? daaaaammmmnnn. thats my badass baby boy!!!!

link eating rocks not once, but TWICE. just showing PEAK gremlin energy. 10/10 for those scenes they were great

the ending was really beautiful actually and i did cry like a little baby for it what about it

things i didn’t like:

obviously first and foremost.. this is not the game we were advertised. and no matter how much i overall enjoyed the game, it will always have some layer of being tainted attached to it due to the false advertising. this is not the prequel we thought we’d be getting. & not using “prequel” specifically doesn’t matter when all the advertising, including the box art talks about this being the story of what happened 100 years ago. with no indication it wasn’t the story of what happened 100 years ago in the botw timeline, but a separate universe/timeline entirely. i do hope we get dlc for the game at some point giving us what we were advertised, but at the same time... rly wish that the story that’s in the final game was dlc, & the story we were promised was the original :/ or just having the game have two separate storylines originally would’ve been cool. i just wish it wasn’t falsely advertised. 

fort hateno can fucking eat my whole entire shit WHY is that part so needlessly obnoxious compared to everything else oh my god

being forced to fulfill revali’s power fantasy TWICE hurt my soul

fuck any mission where you have to protect the useless hylian guards. i hate them. they suck.

the ai for player characters when you aren’t playing as them can also be pretty useless. it was really frustrating failing missions because my fellow party members weren’t helping me, and i was basically expected to be in two places at once to get shit done myself. :/ ik you can just switch between characters to make it easier, but like. i like playing as link the most. he’s my favorite character, & ofc since he’s mandatorily played for most of the story, he’s gonna be the most leveled up character regardless so he’s just the best to play as in general especially for harder missions. it was annoying to be forced to play as other people Solely cause the ai was so useless.

king rhoam’s attempt at a redemption arc. i’m not sorry that i just fucking hate this man. i don’t mind him entirely in botw bc you can see clear, genuine remorse during the cut scene at the end of the great plateau. but the redemption arc he gets in this game? after all the fucking shit he does in this game? especially when after his ~redemption arc~ i had to sit through a cut scene of him being an absolute fucking asshole to baby zelda after her mother just died????? absolutely fuck that shit. i don’t appreciate that crap at fucking all. he’s a verbally abusive piece of shit and i hate his guts.

obviously there was gonna be some retconning of how certain things worked in botw in order to make this kinda game work but the way sheikah technology works in this game is so goddamn confusing i do not get it. the works of botw are never outright said or explained completely, but it’s straightforward enough that it doesn’t really matter. this game does try to explain certain things and it just becomes. really clunky and confusing very quickly. 

the story is alright, i guess, but..... really confusing/convoluted as hell at times to a point that it’s. really fucking distracting. especially in comparison to how straightforward botw’s story is. like..... cannot help but be annoyed that such a problem wouldn’t have been a thing if they stuck to botw’s story.

i was sad when the egg thing died but i dont like the egg thing.... it is the MAIN reason shit was retconned so much & i just. dont get its purpose. but i did really like the reveal that zelda made it herself. that was good shit!

also the egg glitched out like. a LOT. idk what the fuck was going on with the poor thing but there was multiple times during a cut scene or when i was just sitting there that it was freaking out in the background and it was rly weird

elemental overworld boss monsters................. obnoxious. especially elemental guardians like goddamn bro what the fuck

i know warriors’ games aren’t about exploring anyway but the limitations for exploring was really sad/frustrating. this is still somewhat the world of hyrule before the calamity, which is something we’ve always wanted to see. not being able to explore even the immediate area at certain points because of shit like timed missions was really upsetting, man. :( i just wanted to see hyrule castle Before the calamity why was did they have to rob us like that.....

creepy corrupted egg’s transformation. why. what was that. what the fuck

even though i did enjoy the boss fights, it did get. incredibly taxing eventually to have to fight the SAME bastards so many times. like yeah botw is also guilty of this with the blights, but goddamn.... at least i have a choice to avoid certain encounters with them? this game has you fighting the same bitches like upwards of 3-4 times. it was. really annoying tbh. like the fights themselves are enjoyable, but damn we added new characters and it still inevitably lacked variety in boss fights.

no playable kass >:( if he’s available later in dlc then fine but i wish he was playable in the original game. so many random choices you’d never expect are. why couldn’t he also be there >:(

overall:

it will forever have that sour taste for the false advertising attached to it unfortunately, but that aside, i overall did enjoy the game! i think it has a lot to love in spite of the issues i encountered. as someone who has this as their first warriors game as well, it did lend itself to letting me see the appeal of them. idk if i’ll get more, but i do get why they’re so beloved/popular now. it was an alright time, with some amazing highlights that i’m gonna think back on very fondly for a very, very long time. if i had to rate it..... 7/10 

#hw #aoc #hw aoc #hyrule warriors #age of calamity #legend of zelda #botw #danni plays hw aoc #mine #long post #v long post sorry lol i have so many thoughts/feelings

[watermelinoe]

I liked the style of X/Y but I don't think it'd fit a LoZ game. I have entirely forgotten the looks of whatever came after. A Link between Worlds was... I won't say ugly because I do like it but, different. It was clearly the new version of aLttPs style, and that alone was enough for me to like the style. And the Maiamai were so cute, the annoying little brats. Getting themselves stuck in hard to reach places and crying about it. (1/5)

i liked the x/y overworld look, but to me all the 3d pokemon models just have this... lifeless quality to them or something, idk how to explain it. tbh it’s weird bc it’s gamecube but i liked how the pokemon looked in pokemon xd: gale of darkness lol. they actually look like they’re solid and a part of the environment they’re in. maybe it’s bc nintendo hasn’t updated the 3d models in a while that makes them look pasted in to me, i’m not sure. again, i liked the albw overworld look (and it was cool how they did the slanted top-down perspective in 3d!), but i thought the cutscenes looked a little goofy bc of the character models. but yeah i love those maiamai, i would die for their annoying asses fdkjsghkf

I know there’s a map for LoZ1 in Hyrule Historia, I’ve used it before. My mom got me LoZ2 when it was rereleased for the GBA, I played once. I do like the odd references to the game, such as the names and ‘it’s a secret to everybody’ but my do I dislike the game itself. I was alive when the 3rd and 4th games were released but only just. My mom bought a SNES when I was like 5 and I've been hooked on LoZ since. It's been a while... (2/5) 

aww, it’s so cool that your mom got you into zelda! my first video game was pokemon sapphire on the gba sp (it was a blue one). my mom learned to play pokemon so that she could help me when i got frustrated :’) and now she plays animal crossing so i help her with that. i’m glad i played zelda ii bc completion and the references are cool, but yeah it was just like, too hard in a not-fun way, but in that how-did-that-even-hit-me way lol. i don’t play very “hard” games tbh (maybe hollow knight? idk if people find that hard), but with most newer games the difficulty is intentional and not caused by the engine being weird (cough super mario sunshine). i like that nintendo games are so accessible, that you can decide whether to take on additional challenges or not

If it was about making clear they were just infected they should have altered the first and fourth boss too, but they didn’t. I do remember people saying Goht and Gyorg were very difficult and with the time limit it was a bit of a hard task. Their dungeons weren’t the easiest either, especially the water temple was a maze. But the original battles were so much more fun because they were hard, so I’m still bitter. Also, nostalgia. (3/5)

i think that’s fair, to me the boss battles didn’t leave that much of an impression, but if i had grown up with mm i’d probably notice the difference. like, i get why they didn’t actually render all the friend areas in the new pokemon mystery dungeon remake, but for me i remember being little playing it and i loved going through the actual camps seeing my teammates. so just having a menu feels like a letdown. nostalgia’s a valid reasoning tool imo and it is weird that they didn’t change the first and fourth bosses

Honestly, I would hate for LoZ to go actually realistic. While I love the way the FFVII remake looks I can’t imagine LoZ like that. But if it’s Zelda I’ll play anything once no matter how ugly I think it is. Nintendo doesn’t seem to have any plans for a new console yet so we might be in luck. Personally I’d rather have SS or the Oracle games rather than TP but they do love TP the most. It’s already been released for three consoles so what’s one more, right? (4/5)

honestly same. i know some people really want it, but for me hyrule warriors is abt as “realistic” as i want zelda to look (and i thought the twilight realms looked really cool in that game. i’d just make them slightly less colorful for an actual tp remake). i’d like it if nintendo focused on remakes for a while during this pandemic... i could be wrong but i’d think remakes are less work than a brand new game from scratch. ss and the oracle games are so underappreciated :’( idk how they’d have to reconfigure the motion controls for ss but i’d love to see it in hd. and the oracle games could be combined somehow... we’ll see. that one picture of mario in shorts eating a watermelon made everyone jump to sunshine remake, we’re all so desperate lmao

For BotW, I do hope it won’t be the whole game with Link and Zelda. Part of the ‘epicness’ of the games for me comes from the whole doing it alone. I’d love for the dragons to play a bigger part, of even for their existence to be explained. Ganon looks a lot like the WW zombies though, and those are even worse than the OoT ones. So I’d really rather not. But yeah, pulling whatever he is now from wherever he is now will probably involve loads of redeads. Woe is me. - Pokenon (5/5)

agreed! i still really want playable zelda, and i’m mainly a zelink fan lol so i like seein em together, but having zelda around the whole time would kind of kill the vibe bc every two seconds i’d be like “look at how cute she is!!” so i’m curious how it’ll play out. i’d like to see parts of the game with them together bc the only other game that did that was spirit tracks (also underrated...), but i feel like they’ll be separated somehow. i definitely wanna see more of the dragons. and tbh it does seem like we’ll be getting some undead action, i’m sorry. u can do it, i believe in u

also this is unrelated but a question for ALL the nintendo ladies out there: who do you wanna see in smash?

#answered #pokenon tag #loz #i changed my answer format so it reads better woohoo

[ganondoodle]

Hello! I hope you are doing well. I have been following your concepts on [cursed bird app] for a while now and find your stance on the totk rewrite intruiging. Since twitter ofc is never a good place to elaborate on anything lmao, I figured I would ask on here after finding out about your tumblr.

You are welcome to take as much time as you need for this, but I was very curious to hear more about why you feel totk 'fails as a sequel' in terms of writing. I can agree that the whole zonai thing did come out of left field a little, and I never did like the whole "zelda is once again separated from you for 90% of the game," bit (bc c'mon Nintendo again? Really??) but I was curious about what else you found dissatisfaction in and sought to redo

If your plan though is to do so gradually as you go with the new rewrite concepts you piece together and post, that is fine too. I just get more curious about your opinion bc you always seem to have a *lot* you want to say outside of just tag ramblings xD

Thank you for your time, ik this is a rather long ask, but your view is very vast and different, and I wish to understand the development of it more as I find it on my timeline

Thank you for this ask!

i have talked alot about the things i dislike about totk, all my general talking (not just about totk tho) is tagged with "ganondoodles talks" and all my longer rants should be tagged with "ganondoodles rants" (tho that tag is new idk if i remembered to put it everywhere) so i think it might be easier if you searched for these on my blog bc thats were all my ramblings go and, with no ill intent, have talked about it so much already i kinda dont want to spend hours writing out something that just ends up repeating myself really

somethign i can say that the main thing on why it fails as a sequel to me is .. bc its not .. a sequel really, it reuses map and models but doesnt elaborate on anything from botw (the zonau were barely even a thing in botw and now in totk their stuff looks way different and they have been here all along actually(tm) ) the shiekah stuff is basically erased despite it having been so build into the world of botw (and you could have just .. explored them more bc theres lots of cool stuff to do with them still), characters act weirdly off, stuff that was seemingly build up and was a perfect slide into a sequel either gets ignored or just straight up erased, themes dont match up at all and more

it just feels like they tested the glue mechanic for 3 years and everything else was an afterthought, i felt empty at the end, in a bad way, it felt like the game was actively mocking me for caring so much about botw at times and totk actively hurts botw too imo (with some reveals etc)

they should have just called it an alternative dimension thing like majora and half my complaints could be dismissed, but its not so im super frustrated bc i love botw a ton

if there are more specific questions you are free to ask about it again of course! this is not meant to sound dismissive but me typing out stuff can take a long time and im behind on so much work already qnq

also all development both visual and writing concepts for my rewrite are tagged with "ganondoodles rewrites totk" so you can find everything with that too :D

#ganondoodles answers #ganondoodles talks #i am ... very frustrated about alot of stuff both nitpicky and huge problems #so i could spent hours talking about just one thing if it bothers me enough #but do note that all of this is coming from a place of love #i love this franchise #and i was so let down despite my low expecations out of fear of being let down #and yet here i am #and do note that when im passioantely talking about sth i both misstype and sound agressive at times #but im as dangerous as a limp salad leaf lol