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If you're a grown up watching a youtube playthrough of a puzzle or whatever isn't cheating. It's just getting through the game.

As The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sails toward its destiny at 2023 GOTY, there's one consistent question that keeps coming up. How did Nintendo make this game?

Not as in, how did Nintendo make a great game after a history of making great games. But as in, the actual game development of it, because things that you can do within Tears of the Kingdom have baffled many game developers who simply do not understand how Nintendo could do everything they've done with Link's new building/physics powers to get past world puzzles, and do it all on the Nintendo Switch of all places.

The building mechanism is one thing, sticking pieces together to make little carts to ride around or crucify Koroks on. But it's the way the building combines with the physics of the game, and the design of the puzzles in the first place.

The physics in Tears of the Kingdom are insane, even more insane than what we saw in Breath of the Wild where Link could launch himself across the map riding boulders and things like that. There is just an incredible amount of work that goes into the physics of every possible configuration of things you can build in the game, and how it will interact with both other objects and the world itself, be it combat encounter arenas or more frequently, puzzles.

Then, if that wasn't complicated enough, you have to layer on additional powers like the ability to reverse the physical momentum of objects, essentially winding back time for individual, moving items, wherever they had just been launched. And the game does all of this without actually breaking anything, where in modern games full of bugs where players routinely run into errors doing simply normal things, all these physical impossibilities barely ever result in actual crashes or soft locks. If you think you're stuck, you're probably not, and the worst thing that ever happens is Link dies. And then you try again.

But it's not just physics wildness, it's also puzzle design. It is complicated enough to design video game puzzles, much less physics-based puzzles, with even one correct solution. In Tears of the Kingdom, practically every world puzzle or shrine puzzle and many of the dungeons will allow Link and the player to "break" the puzzle by concocting some absurd solution that likely even Nintendo didn't anticipate. People are far more creative than me, and already I've brute forced my way past a bunch of puzzles with solutions that were clearly not the "correct" one, but they worked anyway. In some janky fashion, they got me through the door, they got me up the ledge, whatever.

Again, to be able to do this without breaking a million different things in the process is absolutely wild. It's something I feel like I haven't seen since the Portal games, where you could sometimes bypass the "right" answer to a room puzzle with some creative tool use, but this is a level I have never seen in a game before. I'm not sure anyone has.

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Well then ToK is worth the price of a switch. I play on big screen with the hand held controller.

Playing on little switch screen and controls just doesn’t do it justice. Especially the sound.

Sorry for the hijack. But if you liked those 2, then a switch and the game are worth it. 100s of hours.

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lol Breath of the Wild was on wii u?

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Yeah

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Can't wait to give this to my kid for his birthday. He absolutely destroyed BOTW and he's only 7!

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I’m absolute trash at using the new mechanics.

But, I’ve beat three Hinoxes while I’m still at 4 hearts.

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I keep telling myself I won't cheat but then get stuck on a shine for 30 minutes and have to research ridiculous solutions like purposely getting hit by lasers

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This fusion stuff is getting out of hand.

Attached File


Reddit Link

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Is anyone getting the strategy guide from Piggyback? I used to love getting game guides to play games, especially RPGs like The Fallout games and was really sad when Prima went defunct.

I see Piggyback is making a TotK guide, I’m going to get it. It comes out on June 16th. I’ve been using the interactive map that was posted in this thread but there’s just something about being able to flip through a book as you’re playing that’s awesome.

https://www.piggyback.com/us/guide/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom/

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Are you using the..uhm…”battering ram” approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SNcR5qobuo

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Thanks a lot arfcom

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/231568/IMG_9017-2821066.jpg

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Finally took a break from exploring and ended up at the Wind Temple.

Apparently I didn't need to climb all the way up there and could have just used a freaking hot air balloon

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I'm super excited for the guide.






So I went to Gamestop today I was going to also buy BotW. Why is that game still $60?

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Sadly, you're probably right. I will end up buying it at some point.

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The Switch was dated when it was new and they're still selling special editions in 2023. People really don't care about frames.

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The Switch was dated when it was new and they're still selling special editions in 2023. People really don't care about frames.

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Which is why I still play my classic consoles.  Sometimes simple is good.
First NES game I ever beat was Legend of Zelda when I was 7.  Sadly I haven't played a Zelda since Windwaker.

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Nintendo is for the games. I got a xbox series x and a desktop with a 3070Ti if I want to graphic out.

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The Switch was dated when it was new and they're still selling special editions in 2023. People really don't care about frames.

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Negative, amigo. BB had it for 40.99, and Target had it for 39.99 for months (maybe still). Physical and digital versions.

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Yeah I'm just being flippant. The Switch is like the third best selling console of all time right now.

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That's interesting.  I was thinking Nintendo was fading away.

But then of course they just released a Mario movie and they probably got a big bag of cash to allow Universal to build a Mario Kart ride at their theme parks.

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Nintendo has or is building their own theme park. They're pivoting from games to being a multimedia company.

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They've had plenty of movies and television shows in the fairly distant past. The Mario movie was a tremendous hit, but it certainly isn't a new thing for them to try.

Nintendo owns a huge share of the Pokemon IP for instance and that's had approximately a zillion movies released and a TV show that has been running for over twenty years.

Nintendo certainly isn't fading. The Wii U was a weak entry, but Nintendo has always done their own thing and typically been pretty successful at it, even when they aren't putting out the same raw numbers.

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Admin, can we move this thread into the Wargaming forum?