Put a bit more time into Zelda and yeah it's literally the same game as BotW. Graphics, play mechanics, shitty shrines, shitty stamina, scour the countryside for memories, terrible horse controls, (and if you get busy and lose the horse you are fucked unless you want to quick travel), annoying cooking, and of the two dungeons I've been to, same "dungeons" except now they're called temples to make it look like they are proper dungeons. But they aint no dungeons.
Physics are good, like the first game but that can get really old quickly. If a stronger enemy knocks you down you go rolling for 4 minutes and then link gets up with absolutely no sense of urgency. Dude there is a giant rock monster about to trample your dick, would you mind getting your ass up please.
The goal for each temple is even the same as before. Activate the 4 remaining doodads because only one is working due to x or y, fight boss, get heart container, and you have a companion which has some sort of power. Bird kid gives you a boost when using the glider (actually that is fairly helpful) and hangs out with you until you beat the boss and then "I must leave you to do whatever the fuck, but here's a ring that will summon my spirit to use the power.
Fish dude is the same, gives you a 1 hit water shield. I can only imagine that the other NPCs will have a similar routine, just like the first one.
Also just like the first one, there is SO MUCH WAITING. A lot of the cut scenes are not skippable, and that gets annoying since literally every conversation is the same outline.
Get to a new area, little unskippable 'this is what you're looking at looks like' and you can't move until link takes it all in.
That shit gets real old real fast. Ok, I get it. I have you 4 spirit orbs or whatever, now I have to watch the same animation every. Single. Time.
If I have say, 16 orbs, then let me level up more than one at a time already. You still have to go through the whole animation, 'tada!' just to upgrade your hearts or stamina. Korok thing still does its dance (but it is skippable, just not the 'tada' like heart upgrades.
Weapon breaking is still shit. There's a new mechanic called fuse that lets you merge two items like a sword and a rock, or other sword/weapon, same with shields (won't work on bows though). But still no repair option.
The "shieka slate" is called something else but it's just the shieka slate. So far I have fuse, ultrahand (magnesis from BotW) but now it works on a lot of stuff, not just metals. You can also use that to attach stuff to other stuff. There's a whole modular building mechanic that I will also admit is fairly useful and needed literally everywhere.
Fuse is meh, there's a rewind thing that is moderately useful and then there's some other power that lets you go through ceilings only. It helps but it's limited in range.
Nintendo literally just slapped a new set of tires on the same Honda Civic. Same game.
So far I don't see a real connection to Skyward other than just having floating islands, but so far there's no flying like in that game. Just skydiving and hang glider stuff. Who knows maybe that's coming up.
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