——ENTRY #2 - 8/8/23.
i meant to do more with my neocities over the summer since i had more time on my hands than previous years (no summer classes after three years of em yaay). unfortunately, i was busier than i expected in both good ways -- saw my friends and got to play minigolf for the first time; i came in 3rd out of 9 so not too bad -- and also in bad ways -- i got really sick for a few weeks and i'm still not sure what it was but i'm better now!
i did, however, play a lot of tears of the kingdom as i preordered it (i have never preordered a game and i never will again) and did end up getting it on launch day. it shipped from inside my state but i also got the majora's mask link amiibo which came from out of state and arrived on the same day, before the game made it to my house which i thought was funny.
i did kinda burn myself out on it pretty fast as i have 105 hours in it from just around the time it launched. (for reference, my most played game on switch is new horizons at 205 hours and botw is at 140 hours) maybe only part of why i stopped playing it for most of the summer was burnout and another was that i was at home and could play computer games i just simply can't when i'm at school. but i think a big part of why i got kind of tired of totk so fast compared to how botw had such a grip on me for so long was because of the map.
i love exploring the bigger caves and i think the depths are really neat, but with a nearly identical overworld, it got boring quick for me. i found myself just walking through the depths and exploring there for entire play sessions. not to mention, as beautiful as the sky islands are, i wish there was more to them, especially how highlighted they were during trailers and whatnot. the starting island i love to death, it's beautiful and i did shit in such a backwards way that i was up there for like 6 hours when i first started the game. it was such a joy to explore and i just wish there was more sky islands like that.
i don't know how to articulate my feelings on the dungeons. i liked the wind temple the most, i think. the fire temple confused the hell out of me so i just started figuring out areas i could climb it. i hate you, moth queen. and the water temple was. well, as someone that sincerly loves and enjoys the water temple in ocarina of time (you can't bitch about it when great bay temple is RIGHT THERE come on that one's a confusing nightmare), totk's water temple was just. boring?
regardless, none of the temples in totk brough any of the joy i felt when traversing the temple's of past games and i'm sure most of that boils down to the companion's abilities just not being on the same level as dungeon items. maybe it's not the abilities, maybe the temple puzzles just didn't implement creative uses for them, but i don't know; there was so much satisfaction after getting the dungeon's main item in past games and then figuring out how it can be utilized in the dungeon's puzzles and THEN how they can be utilized outside the dungeons/in other dungeons/in conjunction with other items.
something i do love about the game is the atmosphere it manages to achieve. before saving any area, there is such a sense of tension and something i can't really name that's set by the visuals and music. i think gerudo town and rito village achieve this the best with zora's domain also sparking a sense of dread in me while goron city was the weakest. gerudo town was genuinely very scary the first time around.
speaking of scary shit, within less than 20 minutes of the first time i touched the surface, i ran into gloom hands trying to scale the branches of a low floating island with a shrine atop it. i was so paniced and scared and why are they so fucking fast, why is my screen so red that i had to take a small break when i got away from it lol. i still don't like fighting those things; phantom ganon, sure whatever, but god i hate those stupid hands. i thought i was too old to be scared by zelda enemies anymore but nope! apparently not :)
the new outfits are also very, very good. i hate the three dragon sets that. up damage in certain weather but don't protect from that weather? like, sure, i know you're meant to eat stuff to protect you from the weather instead but, ngl that's kinda lame. 'it's for balancing' idc it's lame to me.
this is a real jumbled mess of my thoughts on totk, but i wanted to get Something out before classes start back up. my last year in college and soon i will have my bfa OTL please send strength thesis may actually kill me lol