one of my biggest gripes with botw was the limited item/armor buffs, especially once you started filling out your wardrobe and realized how few cool things like the climber's outfit there were. there's SO MANY now!! gamers i kind of feel my desire to do the grind a bit rejuvenated, because it's so damn satisfying this time around. still think it's mean of them to expect that from me, but credit where credit is due: they made a good video game

well i WAS going to be responsible and try to get some work done on godfeels, but then my best friend from middle school wanted to geek out about totk for an hour (we've done this for every zelda since wind waker) **AND THEN** my gf convinced me that my nascent botw/totk video essay idea is worth holding onto, so now i guess i'm hooking up my elgato capture card to capture some Choice Zelda Gameplay because now all i want to do is play more zelda

it's funny that "writing godfeels" is my definition of responsible when technically speaking "working on a video essay about tears of the kingdom" is the kind of thing i actually get paid to do

it's a funny ol life innit

oh yeah dude, totally, adventuring in your underpants was so inspirational

so pissed off that the returning botw grind functionally exists to dissuade you from doing it and instead utilize all the cool new systems they've got going on. it shouldn't work but it does. i am really mad at how good this video game is tbh

i haven't encountered any boring superfluous sidequests, they all feel relatively substantial and worth doing in a quintessentially zelda way. this really shows what's possible when you don't throw your entire last game in the trash (although paradoxically, for all that totk couldn't exist without botw, it's now retroactively made that gave SO much harder to recommend)

FARMING???

okay the farming thing looks to be about as robust as building your own house, which is to say: not very

not that this game needs More Stuff To Do but i was a little disappointed that you can't really customize the interiors of your home. similarly with the farming it's weird to hand some plants over to an old lady to do it for you

i cannot believe how much of this game i genuinely want to play

QUEEN GIBDO
LIGHTNING TEMPLE
yeah this is pretty cool

though if i can grouse a little... the threat of the gibdos is kinda tough to buy when they just totally crumble when you hit em with fire. i killed the first three i encountered before entering gerudo town without even thinking about it. their bones are INSANELY powerful for how easy they are to kill, idk i feel like i'm missing something

and this is clearly meant to be a later-game dungeon area too, shouldn't it be harder than this?

don't get me wrong i'm certainly having a blast, i just wish there was like... better difficulty scaling? i want the dungeon areas to have a passive skill barrier where there's a clear order from easiest to hardest, so you CAN do them in any order you want, but you make your life harder in the process. instead every ancestor gives you the same setup and the same cutscene. it's disappointing because this is a problem botw had too, and totk has so far avoided most of its predecessor's mistakes

it's just weird that the moblin/bokoblin/lizalfos crew are always such a pain in the ass to deal with if you aren't careful, but the gibdos have just like. a free off button. also REALLY weird that the new flying creatures die in one shot same as keese. idk i find the new basic mobs a welcome addition aesthetically but underwhelming experientially. it really doesn't bug me all that much this time around because you really need that surplus of materials. the gibdos should be harder though

PHANTOM GANON BOSS FIGHT FUCKING RULES WHAT

i love how much this game is deliberately rhyming past zelda games without being all wink wink nudge nudge over it. puppet zelda twilight princess style had me screaming

GETTING MASTER SWORD REQUIRES STAMINA THIS TIME???? oh my god i feel so fucking played. i have put all my orbs into hearts because i like the challenge i am about to blow so much money on a respec lmao

why is there such limited storage space in the purah pad for pictures??? nintendo what is your fucking problem actually

oh i guess i'd misread something at some point, respec only costs 20 rupees. that's not so bad

@sarahzedig ELLSEE: It doΣsn't fΣΣl likΣ it was supposΣd to bΣ latΣr, to us¿¿ So far (2.1 dungΣons in), all thΣ difficultiΣs fΣΣl about lΣvΣl to us.

But yΣah, thΣ Gibdos arΣn't Σxactly a thrΣat if you'rΣ Σngaging with thΣ gamΣ's systΣms (wΣ, uh, don’t all that much, hah).

@sarahzedig NO RUN AWAY VERY FAST (TELEPORT) (TURN OFF GAME AND LEAVE THE ROOM)

@sarahzedig I want to say this was inherited from BotW where it was the case bc the Wii U had a really low limit on save data size?

@sarahzedig VRISKA: W8, where's the f8rming?

@pleonasticTautology hateno village. become a teacher

@sarahzedig JUNE: oh!!!!!!!! gog. we have so many sidequests to do.

@pleonasticTautology there are a lot of sidequests

@sarahzedig JUNE: we have photos to t8ke, mall ninjas to fight, horses to catch...