I’m not going to deny that they are good games, they definitely are. However, there are some design choices made with BOTW and TOTK that really make me separate them from the rest of the series.
The item degradation, the voice acting, the open worldness, all these things aren’t what I want from a Zelda, and because of that, I doubt I’ll ever replay those games again. Again, not bad games at all, and if anyone said they were their favorite games, I’d totally understand that.
But does anyone else wish that we would get a more traditional Zelda game again?
Really the only thing I wish would go the hell away is item durability. It makes the rewards for things less cool. Like, oh look I did this long ass chain of fetch quests and got a beautiful sword that’s a reference to a past game; better make the most of it before it fucking explodes. Get outta here with that.
I do wish the world was more open. I despise huge walls and climbing. Especially when explosives are abundant. We invented dynamite specifically to not have to deal with huge fucking cliffs everywhere; let’s use some bomb flowers and really open shit up.
Item durability really is the biggest gripe I have, for the exact same reasons you said. It feels less exciting to get an item.
On that note, I love Breath of the Wild. I thought it was a great game. While I do also very much enjoy Tears of the Kingdom, I am endlessly frustrated with the unclimbable walls in the depths. I get so frustrated that I have to put down the game.
Oh those can fuck right off. Especially because you absolutely can climb them. You can waste lots of time and stamina and resources climbing them. You just can’t fucking get anywhere because the ceiling is an invisible wall.
Oh yeah. Those can also fuck right off.
Why don’t you just look at the map and go around?
I haven’t gotten enough of the lightroots to see much of anything as far as the underground map goes. I’m trying but it’s hard to get around with all the walls. Not being able to get around the walls is the main thing preventing me from getting more lightroots.
You can predict where the walls are going to be if you compare the depths map with the surface map and look for patterns.
to your point about the retro weapons, they did kind of address it by making them available from the poe statues, once you’ve gotten the item. imo it’s a good compromise, but I also don’t mind the item durability system lol