Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Wind temple down. I hope that's not what they're calling a dungeon because it was just like the beasts in BotW. They aren't punishing, and I could get through it early with only 4 hearts.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wind temple down. I hope that's not what they're calling a dungeon because it was just like the beasts in BotW. They aren't punishing, and I could get through it early with only 4 hearts.

The old formula was three or four easy dungeons, then five to seven harder ones.

Maybe that’s what we’re doing here? Either way, there’s certainly enough space and stuff for there to be more than four.

At least the prize we get from the Wind Temple is pretty useful. I haven't been to the other temples yet, nor seen what their rewards are. I have, however, collected three "Sage's Will", which seems to promise some sort of improvement to these Temple rewards.

I'm only just following the story, checking out Rito Village as recommended. But I can't stop grabbing shrines. And the towers, so fun. And then random things I find.

I'm also noticing I really did overuse the bombs in BotW though. And I'm missing infinite bombs right now. Being very stingy with my bomb flowers.

Stele wrote:

I'm only just following the story, checking out Rito Village as recommended. But I can't stop grabbing shrines. And the towers, so fun. And then random things I find.

I'm also noticing I really did overuse the bombs in BotW though. And I'm missing infinite bombs right now. Being very stingy with my bomb flowers.

Yeah, randomly choosing Rito was a good choice for the early game. I also completely overused the bombs in BotW.

Stele wrote:

I'm only just following the story, checking out Rito Village as recommended. But I can't stop grabbing shrines. And the towers, so fun. And then random things I find.

I'm also noticing I really did overuse the bombs in BotW though. And I'm missing infinite bombs right now. Being very stingy with my bomb flowers.

Yeah, beelining for towers in open world games to unlock the map is usually the first thing I do, even if it ends up making me backtrack later to complete quests. I just really like seeing the whole map (or as much of it as I can) as soon as possible. I've found a couple of zones where I could use one tower's provided altitude and converted that directly into landing on the next tower, which felt very cheaty. That said, it looks like I'm only at about half the map unlocked, because yeah, I got sidetracked.

I definitely miss having infinite bombs, particularly when it comes to popping ore veins. Thankfully the designers seem to have always provided a junky weapon and a rocks nearby to groupings of ore veins. I did end up using almost all of my bomb flowers (like 20+ of them) in one particular location, spoilered below:

Spoiler:

At some point, a small hole opens up inside the emergency panic room below Lookout Landing, and the person sweeping nearby gives a quest to figure out what's growling inside. Well, while it's very quick to find the thing making the noise, that cave system is HUGE, with lots of breakable boulders blocking the way. Also...

Spoiler:

...a boss fight at the bottom.

Finally had a good chance to fire it up tonight.

Whoever said it melts time, you were right. 5 hours gone in a blink, gonna be rough sledding at work tomorrow.

How is the tutorial island of this game better than like 80% of actual full games?

Really enjoying the game. But unpopular opinion here, how does Zelda get a pass on performance issues while most other games don't. It chugs like crazy. Average fps is way below 30.

All of the reviews that have given it 10/10. It's a good game, but the performance needs to be acknowledge as well.

Again, enjoying it, but it's not perfect to me.

I want to like the game but I really don't like building stuff - I skipped it in Fallout 4, never played Fortnight, etc. and it feels like everything requires creating stuff.
Maybe I am just not good at it because last night it took me 20 minutes to try to get a korok to his friend. There was a bridge out so I studiously glued all the pieces together only to find the last three sections were hanging vertically so he couldn't climb that. I glued him about half way up then climbed up and try to grab him from the top but he was too far away.
Unfortunately that was all the time I had to play last night which means I accomplished nothing for the evening.

I think the answer as to why the performance doesn't matter for lots of reviews is that performance is something of a niche issue. There's some people who (often loudly) are 60 fps or bust, but most people are fine with a game generally hitting 30 and forgive the occasional dips. The art style in TotK hides a lot of that too.

Also, in talking about this game, the ideas in the thing (even if they aren't something people respond to, as is the case with the reviewer who gave it 6) are way more interesting to discuss than FPS.

Additionally, everyone knows the Switch is a horse and buggy compared to the automobiles that are other systems. It's an accepted prior. X-box will get flak for a new IP like Redfall having FPS issues on their top of the line console, but I think the folks drawn to the Switch are more likely to just not care about that sort of thing if the game plays fine and isn't obviously glitching. Especially for something as universally popular as Zelda. I think many of the glowing reviews do mention the performance and there's nothing that says a game can't be a 10/10 and be a 30 fps game.

Spoiler:

Also review scores, as a concept, are dumb.

I will admit you can build some pretty amazing stuff
*edit and it is SFW
Gif won't embed but it is neat

https://preview.redd.it/v5ptmcry470b...

Sank another couple hours into it last night. Completed Tutorial Island. Which might as well have been called "Let's f*ck With Ben's Acrophobia Island."

Can I have the glider now? I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my acrophobia, it has been quite vocal on the subject of not being able to negate fall damage with a button press. Where's the glider? When are you going to get the glider? Why aren't you getting the glider now? And so on.

So, please. The glider.

So, please. The glider.

Follow the main quest for a very short amount of time.

Also, there is one more step to the introductory/tutorial content after that -- you may want to stick with it until you get the camera feature unlocked.

Balthezor wrote:

Really enjoying the game. But unpopular opinion here, how does Zelda get a pass on performance issues while most other games don't. It chugs like crazy. Average fps is way below 30.

All of the reviews that have given it 10/10. It's a good game, but the performance needs to be acknowledge as well.

Again, enjoying it, but it's not perfect to me.

I very rarely give a poop about performance unless the game just crashes and can’t be finished. I actually feel the opposite, that too many reviews/peers get hung up too much on performance rather than the experience and artistry, but I have had to come to grips with other opinions.

Blind_Evil wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

Really enjoying the game. But unpopular opinion here, how does Zelda get a pass on performance issues while most other games don't. It chugs like crazy. Average fps is way below 30.

All of the reviews that have given it 10/10. It's a good game, but the performance needs to be acknowledge as well.

Again, enjoying it, but it's not perfect to me.

I very rarely give a poop about performance unless the game just crashes and can’t be finished. I actually feel the opposite, that too many reviews/peers get hung up too much on performance rather than the experience and artistry, but I have had to come to grips with other opinions.

I don’t mind the 30fps, but when it dips below that, it gets very noticeable and annoying.

Faster is obviously better, but consistency is king.

For me, it's been pretty rock solid nearly everywhere (even in contexts where I'd expect issues, like rough weather or on busy sky islands with lots of graphical extras, like volumetric clouds) EXCEPT last night when I finally visited Kakariko Villiage (which was also a notoriously poorly performing location in the first game).

However, I've read/heard other people saying that it's been inconsistent elsewhere?

I wonder if that's just a docked vs portable thing though, since there's never a time where I'd ever consider playing undocked.

merphle wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:
Balthezor wrote:

Really enjoying the game. But unpopular opinion here, how does Zelda get a pass on performance issues while most other games don't. It chugs like crazy. Average fps is way below 30.

All of the reviews that have given it 10/10. It's a good game, but the performance needs to be acknowledge as well.

Again, enjoying it, but it's not perfect to me.

I very rarely give a poop about performance unless the game just crashes and can’t be finished. I actually feel the opposite, that too many reviews/peers get hung up too much on performance rather than the experience and artistry, but I have had to come to grips with other opinions.

I don’t mind the 30fps, but when it dips below that, it gets very noticeable and annoying.

This is what I meant. I don't care if it's 30. I only wish it was consistent 30. It's not. Dips below all the time, stuttering. I am playing on a day 1 Switch though. Not sure if OLED is better.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Wind temple down. I hope that's not what they're calling a dungeon because it was just like the beasts in BotW. They aren't punishing, and I could get through it early with only 4 hearts.

I found the Wind Temple to be underwhelming and a little confusing. I had to look up we’re to go a few times. The island hopping to get to the Temple was fantastic. I felt like that was more of a dungeon than the actual temple.

Has anyone done any significant exploration of the depths? I just started exploring a few chasms. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing besides finding the light roots. I don’t want to look anything up yet and will keep poking around, but so far it’s been a little underwhelming.

Does anyone know where the character is to start the find all the wells quest? There are a few quests it seems like it’s ideal to get early to avoid having a lot of backtracking to complete them. It seems the quest giver might move around? I’ve been to about 8 wells and haven’t found her.

I’ve been to about 8 wells and haven’t found her.

You'll get credit for whatever you've encountered whenever you do find her.

I think she was in a well at a stable, but I can't recall for certain? May have just been in some random roadside ruin? (If so, it might have been near a bridge?)

IUMogg wrote:

I found the Wind Temple to be underwhelming and a little confusing. I had to look up we’re to go a few times. The island hopping to get to the Temple was fantastic. I felt like that was more of a dungeon than the actual temple.

That's the part I am on right now. I was about to come in here and say can't hear y'all complaining about FPS because I'm too busy jumping on boat sail trampolines!

Haha this game is so fun.

zeroKFE wrote:
I’ve been to about 8 wells and haven’t found her.

You'll get credit for whatever you've encountered whenever you do find her.

I think she was in a well at a stable, but I can't recall for certain? May have just been in some random roadside ruin? (If so, it might have been near a bridge?)

Yes pretty sure it was the stable south of Rito. Found her on my way there anyway.

And zero is right, no backtracking. But she does give you rupees for what you've found so far. So you'll actually be doing great when you do see her.

hbi2k wrote:

Sank another couple hours into it last night. Completed Tutorial Island. Which might as well have been called "Let's f*ck With Ben's Acrophobia Island."

Can I have the glider now? I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my acrophobia, it has been quite vocal on the subject of not being able to negate fall damage with a button press. Where's the glider? When are you going to get the glider? Why aren't you getting the glider now? And so on.

So, please. The glider.

I'm literally stuck on a sky archipelago island after using the recall feature to ride the falling rock up into the sky & onto the tiny floating island. I don't have the glider yet & it doesn't seem like there's water close enough that I can land in. I've fallen to my death about 5 times now.

Any ideas?

Warp to a shrine buddy.

Stele wrote:

Warp to a shrine buddy.

And then do the main quest until you get the camera.

I literally was coming on to post 'I'm an idiot, I can just fast travel' thanks Stele! I do need to get that glider, it's annoying not having it.

Did anyone figure out the Tukarok Shrine without looking up solutions? I got through it myself but in a completely different way that you could call the norm. It's the shrine were you start by taking the boulder across the lava on the vehicle then gets trickier from there.

On the second section of the shrine with

Spoiler:

the row of raised gates (each partially higher than the last) with the block that slides diagonally to the top, this was my solution: Stick the boulder on top of the block, use ultrahand to move the block right to the top, let it fall back down, go underneath it, use ascend to get on top of the block myself, then use the recall ability to rewind it back up to the top, jump off & quickly grab the boulder with ultrahand before the block slides back down to the bottom. I looked a video up & apparently you had to attach the wheel on the side of the block where the raised gates are, attach the long slab onto the wheel vertically then the slab pulls the block up by catching in-between the raised gates.

The third section

Spoiler:

the same thing had to be done on the raft, two bits of wood vertically attached to the left & right wheels, then when the wheels rotate the wood is used as a paddle. What was my method use all the rafts & long bits of wood to build a long bridge right across to the other side. Then carry the boulder over via Ultrahand to the other end.

Oh, two settings recommendations I've been meaning to make:


First, if you haven't tried the pro UI mode, give it a go. It changes to a super minimalist setup, with even core items like your heart gauge only showing when needed. As for the information that doesn't ever show (mini-map, heat and stealth gauge, etc), a lot of it is pretty extraneous or obvious from in game clues -- you'll know when pretty fast if Link is too hot or too cold, for example, and the world design is so good that you rarely if ever need a mini map. And, in a pinch all the information is instantly visible by pausing, so you can see it in a pinch.

I was actually initially hesitant on this one mostly because I worried about not having control guidance for the complex item manipulation modes, but I quickly realized I really didn't need it. Those controls became pretty intuitively remembered quickly, and now I just get to enjoy the beautiful art direction of the world without obstruction or distraction.


Second, try the Japanese voices. Older Zelda games were much more inspired by western mythology and medieval fantasy, but Breath of the Wild definitely shifted into a space more stylistically influenced by Japanese cultural touchstones, and this game leans into that even further, so it feels good to have the characters speaking in Japanese when they are voiced -- and the lip sync matches a lot better too. Also, the game doesn't let you turn off subtitles anyway, which is hugely distracting for me when people are speaking in English.

Granted, Zelda does have a super charming British accent in the English dub, but really, once you hear how perfect and awesome the Japanese voice work for characters like Ganon and Rauru are, you'll quickly see it as a fair trade.

As far as performance issues go, I was one of those people who defended BotW with "okay it's low-rez and has frame rate issues, but the art style makes up for it," so I was sort of surprised when I booted up TotK and within the first hour was saying to myself, "MAN those tree shadows are pixelated and ugly, MAN these models have a lot of jaggies, did it always look like this?"

Then I realized the difference: I was playing docked on a 1440p monitor, and I had played BotW exclusively in handheld mode. Sure enough, played my second session in handheld mode and the low-rez shadows and models didn't grate nearly as much. Turns out a smaller screen is a lot more forgiving when it comes to such things.

Maybe a few years down the line when I'm up for a replay I'll have a beefy gaming PC that can emulate it with texture packs and/or some upscaling and/or anti-aliasing, but in the meantime, I'm happy enough treating this as exclusively a handheld game, which is how most of my Switch gaming is done these days anyway.

As for frame rate dips, I haven't encountered any super noticeable ones yet, but I JUST got off Tutorial Island so I'm sure I'll run into them sooner or later.

Digital Foundry has a great perf deep dive for those interested. In general TotK is more stable than BotW was, and is an impressive technical achievement given this hardware is 2015 era and was considered old when the Switch was released. The XBox One has more resources than a Switch.

The one rough area being ultrahand. The physics are a bit much for the little CPU and frame rates can drop into the teens.

Holy crap, how did I not notice this?

I was wrapping up that Austin Walker launch stream from Waypoint and he just casually was looking at options in the menu (as is generally my habit early on with any game).

And lo and behold, on fused weapons and shields, you can remove the fused material and recover the base item.

zeroKFE wrote:

Holy crap, how did I not notice this?

I was wrapping up that Austin Walker launch stream from Waypoint and he just casually was looking at options in the menu (as is generally my habit early on with any game).

And lo and behold, on fused weapons and shields, you can remove the fused material and recover the base item.

It was in the tutorial bits with fuse. Maybe in that shrine or maybe after with the robots right after.