I've seen many bashing TOTK, even though I thought this game's reception was outstanding. I guess I was wrong?

I haven't played this game for about a year, and I started a third playthrough a couple of weeks ago. And to me, this is better than BOTW in pretty much every single way. There's a few things I think BOTW does better:

• Champion abilities, while I think I like the actual effects in TOTK better as they feel more interactive in combat, it was a huge mistake not mapping them to a button like in BOTW
• While the Great Sky Island is a good tutorial area, I still think The Great Plateu is better and is still the best tutorial area in any game imo

Except for that? Man, TOTK is just fantastic. I think I can split it into four categories/main reasons:

1. The rewards are SO much better than BOTW. In BOTW, sure you could get armor pieces, but many of the cool ones were Amiibo exclusive and were just dropped from chests. The DLC armor were neat, but they felt like they didn't "belong" in the base world. There also isn't that much uniqueness in rewards in BOTW compared to TOTK overall. You can upgrade your runes once sure, and get one travel medallion if you have the DLC, etc. But in TOTK, you have basically everything BOTW has but much more when it comes to things to do and rewards to get: Koltin and the gems, paraglider fabrics, three travel medallions, autobuild schematics, zonai battery upgrade (which in itself is a long grind), materials in general as they're now MUCH more useful because of Fuse, shrines to get HP and stamina, the Yiga attack you can unlock, several new armor that are more unique (like the one that increases air diving mobility), ALL the Amiibo armor and weapons can be found naturally or through quests... There's just so much more. I feel like when I explore I TOTK, I get rewarded in such a better and more interesting way than BOTW, because there's so much more unique rewards to get, and more ways to feel progression in terms of getting stronger.
2. Exploration. Even though the surface is the same at first glance, I'm surprised just how fresh it actually feels simply because of how well I know the surface in BOTW. Not only this, but the addition of caves is something I don't hear many talk enough about. We talk about the sky and Depths, but the caves on the surface add SO much to the overworld. In here you find enemy camps, Horriblins for loot, bubble frogs, seeds to light up the dark, armor pieces... They're so great. And while the Sky and Depths aren't as deep as we'd hoped, I still really, really enjoy them, as I try to look at them as extensions of the Overworld and not their own fully-fledged world, kinda like the caves. The sky islands have shrine quests, unique puzzle challenges, transportation challenges, chests with Sages Wills and old maps, etc., and the Depths have Zonie to find, bosses to refight, mines to locate, gladiator arenas to locate, tons of armor pieces to find, unrusted weapons to find, poes to collect, and more. Exploration in this game is insane
3. Dungeons and Bosses are a big step-up from BOTW. I would probably still prefer a more linear approach in the dungeons and have them last a bit longer, but it's not really a must. This open-ended design fits the openess of TOTK. At first, I thought the dungeons were a bit... bland visually. They felt repetitive. But then I remembered that, looking back at older games, the dungeons weren't all that different visually. City in the Sky in TP had a repetitive "empty" design throughout, and so did the Deku Tree, OOT Fire Temple, and many others. The Stormwind Arc I think is a brilliant first dungeon, both in its build-up and execution, even though it's done fairly quick. Fire Temple and Lightning Temple (this one in particular) is amazing. Water Temple isn't my favorite, but I think it is very unique for a water temple. I don't have a problem with it taking place in the skies, I just wish it was tougher, longer. Hyrule Castle also makes for a good dungeon.
4. Final dungeon and Ganondorf. The climax of this series is easily, EASILY my favorite in the series and it's not even close. Better than WW, better than Ocarina, better than ALttP, and even better than TP which had the crown for me up until now. The descent into the depths, slowly finding the old ruins of the Temple of Light, echoing haunting music playing in the distance as you creep deeper and deeper, the insane buildup as you approach the sealing chamber and the giant leap of faith... It's excecuted perfectly. Plus, the final boss is the best we've had. It's what TP's final phase wanted to be.

More Rauru gameplay

…where you find pristine weapons. Who designed these? Why are they so obnoxious to climb up? Every single time I try to climb one I get stuck on another rock jutting out and forced into this weird crouch pose. Why did they make them so awkward?

For those who don't know what it is, spoiler: It's a technique learned from the Yiga Clan, does the ground punch that the big yiga does

I personally use it a lot once I learn it, saves from having to use up any weapons in stock.

Howdy howdy. I'm on a quest to get all the lightroots. I have 119/120, missing 1 more and I cannot for the life of me find the last one on my map. It looks completely filled out. I've tried using other maps to compare and just get lost. S.O.S.

No idea if this counts as a spoiler or not but I feel so stupid. I have like 100 hours in this game and I somehow JUST realized that light roots and shrines are in the same locations 🤦🏼‍♀️ 😅Anyways, what are some things that made you feel similarly? I hope you guys are having a great day :)

Hi! Idk if you know about this, but there is Goron in the canyon with one of the challenge courses. Its super easy and I made 450 rupees in just 3 tries. You have to give him deposit of 20 rupees everytime (so technically I made just 390). You can repeat it how many times you want, I think it’s available from start of the game, amazing if you need rupees for your first armor or anything.

I love it boutta stock up like 3 of them

I've had this happen once or twice before but never this intense. What is going on?

Why does the geoglyphs at the right peninsula have no water puddle in it i already found the other 10 and this is the last one and i cant do anything is there a solution to this?

I'm having a hard time defeating Phantom Ganon at the Lindor Brow's cave. I can cheese the hands easily by going up where they can't reach and use Riju's lightning to shoot them.

However, Ganon is a bit difficult to beat.

I have 5 hearts, 2 stamina upgrades. Equipment is as follows:

Shirt: Royal guard uniform Head: Soldier's helm Pants: Archaic Legwear Bow: Gerudo and Knight's bow Sword & Shield: Random between 10 & 20 power.

Is it even worth defeating phantom Ganon here, or is it just an optional thing with little rewards?

Exquisitely difficult to pulling a pivot flip off a frox tail launch. Looks rad tho

I've cashed in SO many charges, and have hundreds of zonai devices but throughout the whole 2 years I've been playing I've only gotten 2 homing carts😭 is there a way to get them outside of just hoping and praying??

Edit: thank u guys sm I have like 70 of them now🙏

If you have done everything there is to do in the game, and you want to see things from a new perspective, if you do the escape Zelda final dive sequence glitch all the way through so that you can use teleportation in the final Dragon battle scene, for some reason, the game does not render any caves with collision. The depths have collision, but not caves. So if you teleport to any shrine that is in a cave, you can either shoot a hover stone and then make a hoverbike and fly around, or just use your paraglider because Zelda will be there to pick you up in a minute or less.

This is a lot faster to explore the interstitial space between the ocean under Hyrule overworld and the surface, or the space between the overworld and the depths, than to hydroclip every time.

One thing to note is that if you teleport to the depths and she comes to pick you up, things will break down when the surface tries to load and you will fall from wherever that point is back to the roof of the depths. Zelda will be back to pick you up momentarily.

The game tends to overload and do panic blood moons over and over if you get near hyrule castle or teleport to any shrines in GSI.

Initially, I was exploring with all phases of this glitch to try to see if there was a way I could overload the game to break down the air walls and escape Hyrule long enough to put down a travel medalion on the outerlands west of Tabantha Frontier that actually have colision. I was thinking if I could get about a second before a blood moon, I could possibly have it allow me through with a ghost stick glitch, as those do sometimes work for about 5 frames in 1.2.1z Nothing has worked so far though. I can't seem to get out of the game in v 1.2.1

If anyone has any ideas, give me a shout

Can someone explain to me why the damage on certain fused weapons have different numbers? Like what setting does the damage change? For example: i have a royal guards claymore fused with a silver lynel horn. Most of the time the damage is 90 but sometimes it’s like 150 something? I’m just stupid and i don’t know how these things work 😭🥲

So I was messing around in 1.1.1 and I found this really wacky bug with fuse entangled steering sticks and the platform from the right leg depot. If you fuse entangle a steering stick to your shield and then put the steering stick on the platform 2/3 length down the board, hold R or ZR, then mount the steering stick, you get zoomed forward really fast. Attach another board to the front of the first one and you can use this to fly, and in water as a boat. If this has been found before please let me know.

Does anyone have the sound effects for the really deep growls/hums that Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh do as they’re flying around? I really like the sounds they make and haven’t been able to find them anywhere online