(no subject)

[kradeelav]

TotK playthrough, tiny thoughts for the first ~6 hours of the game, at least until you get to the Lookout. no real spoilers.

• got this yesterday mid afternoon. the most consistent reaction i've had is 'BOTW feels like a tech demo compared to this feeling like a whole ass game, story and emotions and all'. BOTW's mechanics were on point and the world was cool, but i had many a time after exploring all of it and going "now what?". in fact, i think i'm going to give away my copy of BOTW without finishing it, that game was just feeling tedious in ways that this one feels designed to not be.
• a coworker (my former intern actually lol) who's also playing this and I were just chatting about this in our 1:1 - we both called BOTW sparse in a way that this wasn't. ironically both of us miss the Guardians though, those little spider critters added a really neat wrinkle of quasi-horror.
• i feel like the "technology" is woven in here much more seamlessly; while the Purah Pad looks like (and is) a glorified switch, the way Zelda was using it like a camera was much more acceptable to my brain (cameras existed in WW and MM after all) than the sheikah slate which felt like it came out of nowhere. likewise the shrines are done much more acceptably; they're still kind of same-y, but they actually look like temples/sacred spots, and are mixed up enough with the environment that it's not as jarring.
• i've mentioned elsewhere that parts of this game feels like a 1990's-2000's era OoT fic that I used to love that centered around dark link adventuring with link and zelda and investigating a great evil down in some caves below hyrule; i wish i could find it again but it was hosted on a personal site, not ff.net (and this was a decade+ before Ao3). legit got chills in the first few minutes of gameplay, for obvious reasons, because it was almost beat for beat the same, and I know there's more coming.
• there's also large parts of TotK that are reminding me about the last two thirds i had planned for iron crown, what with hands being a reoccurring piece of symbolism (there was a city with zones legit called the flanges), ditto everything related to the gloom/[mini spoiler that starts with a D]. literaly, the gloom was going to be a plot point in how demons in IC worked. I guess i have to change that part now if i ever revive IC.
• personally shrug-emoji about most of the character designs/outfits, but link's new claws are yummy. kinky.... i hope artists/authors (sidlink fans looking at you) are taking advantage of those. :P
• this game is gorgeous. and massive. i'm honestly having a lot of fun taking it wayyy slower than my BOTW playthrough and simply enjoying wandering the hell around. the fact the "introductory island" feels (and probably is) bigger than the entirety of skyrim is. nuts.