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See my answer above for my personal take on this. TotK is a bigger, longer game with far more things to do, but in filling the delicate emptiness that’s at the heart of BotW, they also made TotK… mundane. Greater, by most metrics. But mundane.
When I played TotK, I enjoyed myself a lot, then moved on to the next item on my pile.
When I played BotW, I experienced something unique, and it stuck with me since.
EDIT: Folks, maybe don’t downvote OP just because you disagree with them? They opened an interesting discussion and I for one am glad for it.
Then I’d pick BotW.
Like another poster said, BotW is a once in a lifetime experience, and somehow strikes a kind of beautiful perfection even as, oddly, TotK is mechanically better in most respects.
BotW achieves something unique by dropping you in what’s left of Hyrule a century after Hyrule was defeated. And it’s a wilderness that could have been desolate, but it’s not: it’s beautiful. Things are growing back, despite everything. Wildlife, but settlements, also. It’s all sparse, this renewal, and there’s so much woe yet to fight. But it’s there. And the mood is both mournful, and quietly hopeful in a way I find comforting and deeply healthy.
BotW is built around a core of emptiness, but that emptiness is not a void: there are countless secrets and little wonders to unearth everywhere, everywhere. Sometimes it’s a treasure, or a trace from the past. Sometimes it’s the shapes that rain drops draw on wet moss. There’s wonder everywhere, just a wander away. BotK understands this, and elevates the wandering.
Where TotK is full of activities and minigames and quests everywhere, so you’re never at a loss for what to do next, and it’s by all measures a richer, bigger, fuller game. But it’s also, squarely, a lesser experience.
Of the two I’d pick BotW in an eyeblink and it’s not even close.
But that’s my answer, not yours. Only you know what you’re looking for in a video game.
Oh man flying to planets manually is TOUGH, the physics engine is just realistic enough that doing it manually takes more skill than I care to develop.
Just use the autopilot. Yes, you have to be careful about not starting it when there’s something else between you and your destination. But for real, use the autopilot.
Mind you, you are still going to die a lot because the universe is as amazing as it is unforgiving. You WILL die in that one specific way that will be your own damn fault because everyone does sooner or later. It’s okay, and it’s fun.
And it’s very, very worth it.
Astounding, isn’t it? That’s publicly traded companies for you. The company’s objective is to keep its stock up and up and up. That means shareholders must want to keep buying the stock, which in turn means that the company must demonstrate that its value will keep growing, so that by buying the stock today the shareholders will get a positive return tomorrow.
Of course, the universe is finite and no growth is forever. The end state for such companies is not bankruptcy, at least in the immediate, but, more or less, the IBM fate: a previously uber-dominant mastodon whose market capitalization is now worth maybe one tenth of its modern competitors. The fact that it’s still turning a profit is only secondary: none of the big tech shops want to be the next IBM. Their executives are, after all, mostly paid in stocks.
And that’s how you end up with companies that are making amounts of revenue you and I can’t even comprehend flail in a panic like they’re on the edge of the precipice whenever the technological landscape shifts.
It’s both fascinating and remarkably dumb.
I was pleasantly taken by surprise when I got around to playing Angels With Scaly Wings. The title and the trailer had given me a very incorrect idea of what the game was going to be like. Once past the somewhat contrived set up, it ended up being a very well paced sci fi story that keeps throwing curve balls at you loop after loop.
The DLC has a couple of game design choices that I’ve felt detracted from the experience, and put it a notch below the main game. I’m still glad I played it, because the core Outer Wilds vibe is still there, and finishing the main game again after wrapping up the DLC had a worthwhile emotional payoff.
I had the same problem on my first try! I’d been trying to do everything and talk to everyone about everything and just drowned in words.
On my second try, though, I took a different approach: what if I am this guy, just want to get the job done, and only do stuff for the purpose of trying to progress the case? That worked great for me, and the game is structured so this still takes you through much of its contents – only, now, there is a purpose to it.
So, thanks, friend! I am indeed now enjoying this game, and I hope you are enjoying whatever you are playing also.
Nah, that’s valid. I loved it to bits, myself, but what made me love it was how adroitly I felt it curated feelings of dread and sincere awe as I explored deeper and deeper; and that’s highly subjective. I hope you’re finding as much joy in your own fave games as I did in Subnautica!