- Platforms
Before reading this thread, know that there will be spoilers. The entire story can be discussed so once again, beware of spoilers...
I felt like it was a fairly strong story, but Nintendo didn't execute it at full strength. It's considerably more difficult to have a great story in an open world game imo, but there were still tons of things that Nintendo could have done better to make this the best TLoZ game yet. I only spent about five days to maybe ten days with Mineru on my team so when she left it was like okay I guess that's that. Honestly, Mineru was shoehorned into the game, that was all pretty weak stuff as she didn't have a proper Temple to get through. They used fetch quests in the Depths to construct her an odd and tacky looking vessel. Poorly done there if you ask me
Zelda going back in time and fighting throughout entire millennia, sacrificing herself and even her humanity + mortality was a shocking decision. It made the game great, but there could have been a bit more lore and details added to illustrate her fight to save the Kingdom and all other places in the world. Princess Zelda made it all possible to overcome, so I just think that her story should have had more to it. It was kind of complicated, what she did, but at the same time we can boil it down to her being a Sage and sowing seeds for the future with past fallen heroes by lending her wisdom and what she knew. In the end, she made one decision that impacted everything, and it was obviously a huge decision, but besides that she was kind of just a spectator. There have definitely been much better portrayals of Zelda in past games and stories that revolve around her contributions towards the games' stories
Ganondorf resurrecting The Imprisoning War upon modern Hyrule was perfect imo. He brought an immense plague upon the land of Hyrule, from the Depths to the Sky and everything in between. Perfect idea and it paid off in countless ways
I felt like the civilians all being aware of the Upheaval and the many mysteries going on was amazing too. All of Hyrule stepped up to the call and fought to protect their Kingdom and pitch in towards being peace to the land of Hyrule in ways that they could. Researchers, Cooks, Army Factions with limited resources battling hordes of vicious enemies at enemy camps, Lookout Landing was incredible, regular inhabitants becoming soldiers to guard their only safe haven and elsewhere (Lookout Landing, Gerudo Town, etc.) overall NPCs were more active in their roles in the overworld and what they do and say in story related events, and current events. Although the NPCs were still kind of vanilla and ordinary, at least they all were a lot more active. I was actually thinking about who my favorite non-core NPC was and almost nobody of interest came to mind... I thought of Addison, Kilton, Colton, and Hudson but tbh all those characters are not all that great. In the end, I chose Nappin lol. NPCs need to be much better in the next Zelda game but I digress
The core characters were solid but their stories were not executed perfectly and I would argue there were just too many things lacking to make this game the greatest Zelda game of all time so overall, the descendants of the ancient sages had stories ranging from okay to just good. Nothing great. It was annoying that they all saw Zelda's puppet and were so oblivious. Any fan of these games knew instantly after the game gave it away that it was a phantom replica of Zelda conjured by Ganondorf. Not sure why that theme persisted so long after the twist was easily given away very early in the game depending on how much you explored Hyrule...
I think the star of the show in this game (in many ways) would be not the main characters or the supporting characters, but the regular NPCs and how they changed the dynamic of the story. A kingdom thrown into chaos and waging war against the Demon King made for the most interesting moments. Even though the NPCs weren't entirely to my liking or even that great tbh, I think that all the NPCs and the unsung heroes made this game a lot more exciting and better than its predecessor, BOTW. At the very least, the NPCs made the overworld more lively and slightly more sentient than BOTW, although they are nowhere near perfect or even all that great, character for character imo. But as a whole, they impacted the game mightily in a handful of ways. Without all the characters and what they did, were trying to do etc this game's story would be very unconvincing and the overworld would be as empty feeling as BOTW's kind of negating the strength of having a story in the first place for a video game. I feel like if you don't have great gameplay compared with a well written story in these kinds of games then the entire thing was a bit of a letdown. So in a way, the characters of Hyrule kind of saved this game and made it considerably stronger even though most of them were not that special themselves as individuals. The collective approach of all these denizens of Hyrule working together and being more active because of the Upheaval bolstered TOTK on the whole
I felt like it was a fairly strong story, but Nintendo didn't execute it at full strength. It's considerably more difficult to have a great story in an open world game imo, but there were still tons of things that Nintendo could have done better to make this the best TLoZ game yet. I only spent about five days to maybe ten days with Mineru on my team so when she left it was like okay I guess that's that. Honestly, Mineru was shoehorned into the game, that was all pretty weak stuff as she didn't have a proper Temple to get through. They used fetch quests in the Depths to construct her an odd and tacky looking vessel. Poorly done there if you ask me
Zelda going back in time and fighting throughout entire millennia, sacrificing herself and even her humanity + mortality was a shocking decision. It made the game great, but there could have been a bit more lore and details added to illustrate her fight to save the Kingdom and all other places in the world. Princess Zelda made it all possible to overcome, so I just think that her story should have had more to it. It was kind of complicated, what she did, but at the same time we can boil it down to her being a Sage and sowing seeds for the future with past fallen heroes by lending her wisdom and what she knew. In the end, she made one decision that impacted everything, and it was obviously a huge decision, but besides that she was kind of just a spectator. There have definitely been much better portrayals of Zelda in past games and stories that revolve around her contributions towards the games' stories
Ganondorf resurrecting The Imprisoning War upon modern Hyrule was perfect imo. He brought an immense plague upon the land of Hyrule, from the Depths to the Sky and everything in between. Perfect idea and it paid off in countless ways
I felt like the civilians all being aware of the Upheaval and the many mysteries going on was amazing too. All of Hyrule stepped up to the call and fought to protect their Kingdom and pitch in towards being peace to the land of Hyrule in ways that they could. Researchers, Cooks, Army Factions with limited resources battling hordes of vicious enemies at enemy camps, Lookout Landing was incredible, regular inhabitants becoming soldiers to guard their only safe haven and elsewhere (Lookout Landing, Gerudo Town, etc.) overall NPCs were more active in their roles in the overworld and what they do and say in story related events, and current events. Although the NPCs were still kind of vanilla and ordinary, at least they all were a lot more active. I was actually thinking about who my favorite non-core NPC was and almost nobody of interest came to mind... I thought of Addison, Kilton, Colton, and Hudson but tbh all those characters are not all that great. In the end, I chose Nappin lol. NPCs need to be much better in the next Zelda game but I digress
The core characters were solid but their stories were not executed perfectly and I would argue there were just too many things lacking to make this game the greatest Zelda game of all time so overall, the descendants of the ancient sages had stories ranging from okay to just good. Nothing great. It was annoying that they all saw Zelda's puppet and were so oblivious. Any fan of these games knew instantly after the game gave it away that it was a phantom replica of Zelda conjured by Ganondorf. Not sure why that theme persisted so long after the twist was easily given away very early in the game depending on how much you explored Hyrule...
I think the star of the show in this game (in many ways) would be not the main characters or the supporting characters, but the regular NPCs and how they changed the dynamic of the story. A kingdom thrown into chaos and waging war against the Demon King made for the most interesting moments. Even though the NPCs weren't entirely to my liking or even that great tbh, I think that all the NPCs and the unsung heroes made this game a lot more exciting and better than its predecessor, BOTW. At the very least, the NPCs made the overworld more lively and slightly more sentient than BOTW, although they are nowhere near perfect or even all that great, character for character imo. But as a whole, they impacted the game mightily in a handful of ways. Without all the characters and what they did, were trying to do etc this game's story would be very unconvincing and the overworld would be as empty feeling as BOTW's kind of negating the strength of having a story in the first place for a video game. I feel like if you don't have great gameplay compared with a well written story in these kinds of games then the entire thing was a bit of a letdown. So in a way, the characters of Hyrule kind of saved this game and made it considerably stronger even though most of them were not that special themselves as individuals. The collective approach of all these denizens of Hyrule working together and being more active because of the Upheaval bolstered TOTK on the whole
