How does one start a blog? Like this, I suppose.
I've been playing a lot of Tears of the Kingdom lately. What with my new job at the local grocery store deli section keeping me plenty busy, I haven't gotten too far; just finished the Rito, Goron, and Zora sections. It feels like this game is much more dense than Breath of the Wild, so I'm sure there's plenty more to go through. I'm not sure, though; I'm going in as blind as possible.
That said, I've had a hard time putting my heart in it; not to say TotK is a bad game or whatever, because it really isn't; in many ways, it improves the gameplay of BotW immensely... but, I find myself missing much of BotW's presence in TotK. Technically speaking, TotK is a sequel, and in many ways, it expands BotW; in other ways, though, it feels more like a rewrite of BotW, if that makes any sense. Much of the Sheikah tech that was so integral to Link's journey in BotW is just absent; replaced instead by Zonai tech. Don't get me wrong, Zonai are cool as hell! It's just odd to see almost all Sheikah tech just reskinned to be Zonai now. I get why they did it; every Zelda game has the potential to be someone's first, but it definitely hurts the idea of TotK being a true sequel. It only bothers me so much, though, because as much as it added amazing things to the world of BotW, it simultaneously removed the very first thing that ever captured my imagination about the game in the first place; the Divine Beasts.
My first BotW experience is one etched in my memory forever; I was just a wee Link, exploring with just three hearts to my name and a single wheel of stamina (and a tiny bit extra, from the great plateau.) I was exploring the Gerudo desert, just avoiding enemies as much as possible and trying my hardest not to be killed. I was mostly just trying to unlock the Sheikah towers as fast as possible, so I could fast travel and unlock the map and decide what I wanted to do from there. I hadn't even gone to Kakariko Village yet; "Impa, who?" my Link would say at this point.
I was climbing a particularly tall cliff face when I saw it; something, in the expanse of the desert before me, something big, and moving. It stomped rhythmically, its movements bringing hot sand into the air wherever its hooves(?) landed. I stopped and stared at it from the top of the cliff. I brought out my Sheikah Slate camera and zoomed in to watch it. I watched it move, and my breath caught in my throat. "What is that?" I'm sure Link said, just as captivated as I was; We had to investigate.
I scrambled off of the cliff and glided as far as I could towards it; I wanted to see what it was. I had no idea what a Divine Beast was at this point; neither did Link. All either of us knew was that it was unlike anything we had ever seen, and it was huge, bigger than anything we had ever seen before. (Somehow, we had missed Vah Medoh, who is much more visible than any other Divine Beast!) We scrambled towards an oasis that we saw; I had hoped to grab provisions in preparation, as running towards a giant unidentified Something was pretty stupid to do at that moment. Link and I both froze when we heard the beast cry; Vah Naboris, the Divine Beast of the desert, sounding its distinctive, echoed bellow. I was captivated. Already, I enjoyed that the game let me just run off without going to do plot things, but I had stumbled upon the plot anyways, and I was enthralled.
I soon learned that its name was Vah Naboris, that it was part of the main plot, and that I needed to progress to Kakariko to find out what was going on. But I will never forget the magic of that moment, when Vah Naboris was just an unidentified Something that caught my eye in the distance, and convinced me to cross the desert just to investigate it thoroughly.
So far, I haven't seen any trace of the Divine Beasts in TotK; the most I've had was references. Rito Village still is built around Vah Medoh's perch; the Zora kept their statue of Mipha, though she is now relocated to a new expanse of the city that ranges Ploymus Mountain; Daruk still stands as the protector of Goron City, carved into its mountainous face; I have yet to go to Gerudo Town, but I assume the Thunder Helm is still a precious heirloom there; yet, with all of these calls to the events of BotW, the huge beasts that I dare say defined the game seem to have just... vanished. Were they taken apart in the years that passed between BotW and TotK? Did they degrade, and crumble away? Were they relocated? Or did they just stop working, no longer piloted by the lingering souls of their respective champions? Where could they possibly be? For such huge, destructive weapons, they disappeared like they had no significance at all; it's kind of heartbreaking. In BotW their presence was felt everywhere; the hole in the Hebra mountain range is a great example, a powerful plasma blast created during an ancient, climactic battle between the Demon King of Evil and the Divine Beasts built to blast him to oblivion.
BotW was always deeply interested in the scars of the past, the way that past etches itself into every facet of modern Hylian life. To see that past just gone, suddenly, no trace left? 100 years of the past lingering, erased in just 6 years? I don't know how I feel about that. I love TotK's additions as I've said, and the gameplay is fun, but... was it worth all of this?
On the bright side, I did get spoiled that apparently the Yiga Clan's hilarious and adorable leader, Master Kohga, survived the fight we had with him in BotW; I'm looking forward to seeing him again. :)