I recently got a switch 2. I had a switch a while ago and played BOTW and loved it so I got TOTK on switch 2.
I keep seeing people picking up BOTW with their switch 2s or when people ask on the sub which one to get everyone says BOTW.
I know the obvious reason is it’s the first installment, but since TOTK is essentially BOTW on steroids why wouldn’t they recommend the newer one?
Free up precious weapon slots by fusing Stone Talus hearts to your shields and break down ore w/shield parry. Now you don’t need to carry weapons specific for rock hammering. Make a few though because they will wear down, and there’s plenty of shield slots.
In order for him to give me the green crystal, Baddek wanted to see the Giant White Stallion he had been hearing about. I already had the giant horse that the stable system transferred from BOTW to TOTK so I rode up on that horse instead. Baddek must be colorblind because he didn't bat an eye and gave me the crystal, lol.
I got this game 7 weeks ago and wasn't able to dive right in but I've had more time to play it lately. I saw a post in here from some time ago that showed an "easy way" to defeat the Frox. I was skeptical but decided to immediately try it because I needed zonaite. I just stunned him with dazzlefruit then hopped onto his back and walloped the stones there with a claymore fused with a talus heart. It wasn't hard at all. Coming from me, a self proclaimed scaredey cat when it comes to monsters, that says a lot 😅 Anyway so it was scary but I did it and you can too! I have faith in you guys 💚
Number 15. Pikida Stonegrove region
Best parts are definitely the snowfield, which is one of the only places to fight on horseback and which makes for a great starting area, and the labyrinth. Skies and depths are both lacking, the caves are good but sparse, there isn’t much questing, and the shrines are alright. Main issue are that a lot of areas that I enjoyed from the original lost their purpose and feel less meaningful: now that you get to the summit by moving through Rospro pass, many of my favorite areas no longer feel like they help you “enter” Hebra mountains, like the river did.
Also I can’t believe Drena mountain has LESS going on now. That place is so cool but so empty.
This place was my least favorite in botw, and even then it did have an appeal: it was empty, hostile, and out of the way, which made it have this very intense aura. Tears of the Kingdom’s improved movement kind of defangs that.
Its sky and depths are really good though! I love hunting for royal guard swords down there. The yiga hideout and its quests are also such a great addition.
The caves suck ass, which is a shame, and a lot of the area feels less cared for than other sections of the overworld.
This place lost Lake Floria and gained Blatchery Plains. And it’s missing all of the interesting points of the latter area. Big RIP.
Lurelin village is the highlight - such a highlight that it makes up for this having some big disappointments. A lot of the region had mountainous areas I wanted to see fleshed out which didn’t get much love. The worst offender is definitely Tuft Mountain: it has less going on than the original despite being so memorable! Not to mention there aren’t many caves or shrines, and while the depths has cool stuff, the sky is kind of middling.
Eventide Island is obviously less interesting than the original, but it was given a lot of love and continues to be a landmark, which is awesome.
Overall that Lurelin quest carries, along with this area just being so god damn beautiful.
This is an area that just got straight nerfed: a lot of southern Lanayru is no longer a part of it. The stuff that is here, though, is pretty nice.
A lot of the overworld is sparse compared to other regions, especially the valley that contains Ovli plain (Necluda deserved better), but Mount Lanayru was really done justice in my opinion, and this place has some great shrines.
The two biggest strengths are its sky, which is full of so much awesome stuff to do, and Hateno village: THE best town in the game. So many amazing quests!
Oh, Deplian Badlands, my beloved. Its old vibe doesn’t really work here, so they made it more full of life and full of content, which was a good choice. Not quite its old self, but deeply nostalgic and tons of fun to ride your horse through.
The sky is alright, but the depths are where it’s at. Not only is there a King Gleeok fight, but you have this great journey to save the Deku Tree which is one of the highlights of the game.
I just wish that all of that journey happened in this region! It’s missing its stable and the entrance to the woods! It makes the whole thing hard to judge, almost like this means of splitting up the world is entirely arbitrary!
A lot of the overworld here is pretty sparse, too.
We’re getting to then point where making choices is really hard.
This region is stacked. All of the Tabantha Frontier, basically the entire canyon, and all of northern hyrule ridge. I do have a bias - hyrule ridge was the first place I explored in BOTW so it has immense nostalgia for me.
The sky here is a definite highlight; the first diving challenge, alongside that amazing mirror-puzzle island which doesn't have an easy way to access from a tower. The caves here are amazing too, especially the ones in the canyon. It feels like such an adventure finding them and god-damn excavating them.
Some areas definitely got more love than others. Thundra Plateau just feels so... empty. That said, most of it is great. Lindor's Brow is honestly a great case study in how what was once a pretty bland filler area got turned into a wonderful experience to explore. Just a shame that Mount Rhoam didn't have more done with it.
Hyrule Field is so good in this game. It's strange how it worked in BOTW so different from how it usually is. Typically it's a hub area that connects to all the others, but its role as the final area kept it from fulfilling it. Here? It is 100% a hub area, but also one you aren't forced to delve into. You're actually ushered towards Hebra. Going down south from Lookout Landing is a moment of pure exploration and curiosity, and still fills me with adventurous glee. And it has so many fun and well designed enemy camps!
So many iconic locales are in this region which really elevates it. On top of the souther Hyrule Field, you also get THE Great Plateau, which was shown exactly as much love as it deserved, and Satori Mountain, one of the best areas in the first game. It's funny, in BOTW Satori was basically designed like TOTK designs every area, so it's not quite as special here, but it is definitely a delightful place to go.
The sky is alright, but the depths are amazing here. The colosseum, the autobuild and the statue quest, and that little sanctuary under Satori Mountain! So much great, memorable stuff. Nothing bad to say, it's just that every other area impressed me more.
Another area kind of mangled together from parts hacked off of previous tower regions, and honestly it got some amazing picks. The Crenel Hills is a landmark I remember well from the first game for its amazing terrain design and how easy it was to get immersed in despite its small area. Here, it has some genuinely amazing content, and beneath it in the depths is my favorite farming spot.
The shrines here are strong, the environments gorgeous, the depths interesting to navigate, and the sky has 3 different archipelagos, 1 of which is the super interesting forge island. And Kakariko Village is such a lovely area, and I love what they did with the fallen sky ruins here. Some points are lost for not making use of the well here to do a fun callback, but overall, one of the best balanced areas in the game.
Akkala just works here, I don't know what to tell you. Akkala was already just a hodgepodge of memorable setpieces crammed together with some rolling hills and autumnal trees as filler, and every single one of those areas felt like it was done justice, more or less.
Citadel? Absurdly fun to explore (though perhaps a bit sad that the internal cave didn't have any architectural elements). Skull lake? One of the coolest use of both the depths and caves. The labyrinth is a huge win for it, the lab is used great, and my god, Tarrey Town is so well done. It's so developed, with so many interesting side quests, and all this interesting stuff with the transportation system and the caves. Also, it has Mogisari Shrine, the best shrine that isn't a proving grounds.
Of all the non plot important areas, I don't know, this one just feels like the one with the most OOMPH, whose ideas are the most exciting.
Every single one from here on out is in a league of their own, competing for first place in a very close race. I could order this in just about any way I want and make a compelling argument.
The Hebra mountains are a truly memorable area of BOTW, though that was in part due to their difficulty of traversal. Like with the Gerudo Highlands, that is less impactful here. Still, there is a lot to do. A ton of amazing caves with lots of fun spins inside; the mushroom one was a favorite of mine. The Hebra Mountains are huge no matter how you slice it, and the depths and the overworld are still huge adventures. They sky has a ton going on, too, which helps a lot!
It also has Rito Village, which is a ton of fun, alongside the great main quest here. The wind temple is amazing, but the climb up to it is even better, and as most people's first dungeon it set the stage wonderfully. You go so god damn high up, it's jaw dropping.
The biggest problem is that the overworld itself doesn't have much in it which wows me more than a lot of the above regions. It feels more like a normal region moreso than a "Main" one.
Everything I said about Hyrule Field and the theory behind it goes here as well. But add to that... oh god, so much. Hyrule castle itself is the home to one of the most cinematic moments in the game, and the depths here and the leadup to the final boss are iconic. Less talked about is the cave connecting Lookout Landing to the Castle. Best cave in the game. It feels like a dungeon. Not a Zelda Dungeon, but like, a DND Dungeon. Not to mention LL is an amazing questing hub itself.
So, this place is filled with big things, and that's amazing. But there is a lot it lacks. It's on the smaller side, a lot of the shrines are tutorials, and there's basically nothing to do in the sky. It's fantastic as a tutorial area, but as you replay it it does get a tad tedious at times. Overall, it has some weaknesses, but its amazing parts are so amazing I can't place it any lower than this.
Lanayru was always one of the best realized areas in BOTW. The way it blends into hyrule's geography so well, reminiscent of how hyrule field blended into zora river in oot, feels just right for the area, but as you go in it gets this incredibly distinct feel. It is full of these amazing, interesting areas, and would you look at that: TOTK actually uses them.
Amazing overworld exploration and caves, a fantastic quest leading to a pretty solid dungeon, and the whole area is brimming with small quests and fun details and hidden secrets. Zora's Domain was always amazing as an area. The depths are also really entertaining to explore due to just how odd the topography is down there. It's a fantastic, perfectly well rounded area.
The areas with the bosses were just done so god damn well. The way Death Mountain was transformed with all these carts and whatnot is just absolutely peak.
There are so many amazing cave systems in here, and among them is the fantastic Fierce Deity cave, which was a delight to find. There's just so much personality in all of them - remember the naked cave fight? Amazing.
It does have some flaws - the sky is only good and not amazing like many others this high up, and the fire temple is pretty easy to cheese. But I think the minecarts are so god damn fun, flying around and attacking those rock monsters and then diving down into the depths through the volcano... it's just such an amazing quest in a well realized area full of so much personality. I can't not love it.
Gerudo was the best region in the last game and it gets close here. The Desert itself is such a well realized, complete area, and they filled it to the god damn brim with things to do. It feels kind of empty and vast, but you also can't got 12 seconds without running into another weird activity. Gerudo Town has some of the best realized side quests, and my god, the tower defense stuff in the main quest, leading into the best dungeon in the game. It's amazing.
The are has THE best caves in the entire game, and while its depths are very flat, they have some incredibly interesting things to discover, making for a really solid depths experience. The main weakness is how little is in the sky.
I really can't choose anything else. Where to start?
Faron is one of the most beautiful areas in BOTW and TOTK, and it was so underutilized in the last game. Here, it feels amazing. Hyrule Field was always a little underutilized, and here I really can't feel that way, with the fight on the bridge and all the crazy stuff using the depths and the sky.
So many amazing cave systems, one of the coolest sky island chains in the game, some amazing stuff in the depths with the factory, all packaged into what is some of the most beautiful stuff in the game. Also shoutout to how much extra was added to this, we got Lake Floria for crying out loud!
Every area here got shown love. All these amazing areas that had so little to do in in BOTW are now super memorable destinations. And the main quest here was such a delight. It just has everything, does it so well, and in an area that has some of the most magical, beautiful scenery in the whole game. There's something about it that just feels right.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I actually had the first few sitting in a draft for years and discovered it now, so I decided to finish it. I got wordier, I noticed!
In away they are both reincarnated heroes they have that in common.
I was doing one of Addison's building quests near a cliff and when I got done my horse was nowhere to be found. I went to a stable and it showed I only had 3 registered horses, my main horse not being one of them. So I guess my horse just decided to jump off a cliff. Thankfully I was able to reload my save to get them back but seriously?
Edit: Yes I know about the horse God. I recently started a new file and loading my save and having to redo one Addison sign and one shrine was way easier than making the journey all the way to Akkala when the farthest I've been to is Hateno in the south and about half way to the Rito in the north
Things started off slow for me when I first started playing this game. But everything has just really clicked. I loved the Zora’s Domain quest line. It was challenging but not so obtuse that it was frustrating or made me look up solutions on YouTube. So satisfying. Loved every minute of it. Wish I had tomorrow off so I could just keep going:)
Zelda left her special flowers for all the people lost to the calamity and that just makes me really sad for her ):
Since her dad was dead