Why is the storytelling so bad in Tears of the Kingdom?

when the Legend of Zelda breath of the Wild released to Universal Acclaim in 2017 it was generally agreed that the story was the weakest element since I valued that game primarily for the exploration and Discovery the weakness of the story never bothered me much and let's be real Zelda games have never had great stories they've had iconic moments they've had incredibly well-designed and paced gameplay but I'd argue that there's no game in the series that has a truly compelling overall narrative or set of characters and that's okay Nintendo is a gameplay first developer and on that criteria they've obviously excelled tears of the kingdom is no exception it's clearly one of the best games released since breath of the wild although the experience isn't as fresh the gameplay the world and the creative possibilities all exceed the previous game but one aspect that hasn't been improved is the story even though I don't play Zelda games for the story I was really disappointed by the missed opportunities and obvious problems with this part of the game foreign the problem isn't so much the story itself it's the story telling a simple story can be perfectly fine for a game like this but tears of the Kingdom has a simple story told in a way that's bafflingly amateurish compared to the expert design and Technical implementation of everything else in the game like breath of the wild much of this game's story is conveyed through flashbacks to a distant past when a group of Heroes from the various races of Hyrule combined forces to stop a great evil which is once again threatening the kingdom in the present day in breath of the wild each of the game's four main dungeon quests introduced you to a champion and their culture the Champions had names they had relationships with Link and Zelda it wasn't much but it was something it made their sacrifices tragic in meeting their descendants and relatives more meaningful breath of the Wild's Calamity was only 100 years prior to the events of the game and that meant some members of the longer lived races were still alive the distant was connected to the game's present in a way that emphasized the tragic sense of loss and intensified the player's desire to set things right tears of the Kingdom's imprisoning war is set Untold Generations before the present the connecting thread this time is Zelda herself who was transported back in time at the start of the game hers is actually the strongest part of the story but we'll come back to that tears of the Kingdom swaps champions for sages there are six sages but only two are actual characters the other four go unnamed they don't even have faces they always wear masks for reasons never explained I assume it's because that prevented the need to animate their mouths and lips which feels incredibly cheap for a big Mainline Nintendo game that doesn't even have much voice acting to begin with at the conclusion of the four dungeons you meet one of the unnamed sages and are punished with long drawn out cut scene that conveys almost exactly the same information every time seriously it's like they copied and pasted the script changed a few words and phrases alter the timing of a few shots and called it good enough was still in its infancy a great evil doctor [Music] they're the same picture you'd think that each Sage might have something different to add to the story some new revelation or tragic twist the Gerudo Sage does mention Ganondorf was from their tribe but that's it it's one line that doesn't get across the unique perspective this Sage should have and by the way these cutscenes are all like seven minutes long it's important to the player's understanding of the story to hear this information once four times is an insult to our intelligence elsewhere the game is incredibly trusting of the player asking us to solve complicated puzzles with open-ended systems and mechanics but when it comes to story Revelations and Mysteries it's all sub Scooby-Doo level stuff if you've ever played a Zelda game before none of this is new or surprising the only surprise is just how derivative and uncreative it turns out to be I understand that it's challenging to tell a story when a game allows players a high degree of Freedom both breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom allow the player to go just about anywhere at any time provided you have the skills knowledge and resources to do so and because of that the game relinquishes tight control over how and when story threads are conveyed to the player but that's true of a lot of games and it's not an excuse for the bad storytelling here breath of the wild did this better because the Champions were actual characters the four main quest lines could focus on them and the Order of the information didn't matter each Champion Divine beast and race was distinct they all had to find relationships with link they had personalities but for some reason with tears of the Kingdom's four main dungeons Nintendo felt content to reiterate the same information over and over via lifeless NPCs with the rigid repetitive structure of a TV show for toddlers they had a chance to turn this around but didn't there's a surprise fifth dungeon Quest that reveals itself after the others since there's clearly an intended order for this Quest I assumed that we would finally be getting some new information maybe a Twist about the ancient past or ganondorf's plans perhaps a world altering event or a major change to the stakes instead you get another recap of the imprisoning war with basically no new information the storytelling isn't just boring it's also detrimental to the game's pacing there's very little momentum to the story very little excitement outside of the gameplay almost all of the cutscenes in the game are Exposition dumps disconnected from the mechanical and emotional experience of playing the rest of the game the one story point that is kind of interesting and works well is Zelda one of the game's big Mysteries is what happened to Zelda after the opening where she and Link inadvertently reawaken a mummified Ganondorf underneath Hyrule Castle when you finally find out what happened to Zelda and where she is what she is it's actually pretty cool and it feels like a fresh new idea in a Zelda story transported into the distant past Zelda has to figure out a way to help link in the future and the only way she can figure is to sacrifice her Humanity by becoming an immortal Dragon it's a very cool twist and a game needed more story surprises like this but in the end it's a little gutless because it isn't permanent Zelda's sacrifice is the only one that means anything to the audience we don't feel the sacrifice of raru or any of the other sages because we hardly get to know these characters even calling them characters is generous If Zelda actually actually had to stay a dragon forever that would have been a very brave and bittersweet ending just think about it she would have outlived everyone continuing to watch over Hyrule as the princess she once was passed into Legend how perfect how appropriate but I knew they weren't going to do it and I wasn't proven wrong the reversal makes the ending feel weightless and trite the other big problem with the story is the wasted potential of a direct sequel Zelda games don't often get those the last time we got a home console direct sequel was 23 years ago with Majora's Mask that game used Ocarina of time's engine graphics and mechanics but it didn't much leverage the story of the previous game it transported link to a new location with a new set of characters and a different central conflict tears of the Kingdom not only shares the engine gameplay and graphics with its predecessor it also uses the same map and the same characters there was a lot of concern before release that reusing the same map would kill any sense of exploration and discovery that formed the heart and soul of breath of the wild but tears of the Kingdom's brilliant new mechanics change how you interact with the world and the world itself is expanded and cleverly remixed the developers recontextualized how players interact with this version of Hyrule and preserved the spirit of Adventure and discovery they did not do that with the story major plot elements like the Champions the Divine beasts Calamity Gannon and the sheikah tribe are footnotes in this game if they're mentioned at all they've been transplanted with new archetypal versions of the same basic concepts the ancient chica are swapped with the zonai the Divine Beasts for more traditional temples and Calamity Ganon for the Demon King Ganondorf this makes the story elements feel incredibly gamey artificial formulaic and that's a familiar feeling when it comes to Zelda a feeling I had hoped this new direction for the franchise would avoid so why is the storytelling like this as I said up front Nintendo is a gameplay first developer and that's reflected in how they treat stories in their games when the Legend of Zelda premiered in 1986 stories and games were usually Bare Bones they existed to provide context and flavor but they didn't usually Drive the game design or progression and they certainly weren't innately satisfying fiction while the story presentations have become much more sophisticated over time the basic outline of a Zelda narrative has changed surprisingly little Zelda Link and Ganon have been the central characters since the beginning sages Sacred Stones dungeons the master sword ancient races and prisoning Wars all of these ideas have been recycled many times before tears of the Kingdom after more than 30 years Zelda stories are still dictated more by formula than theme character or even emotion Nintendo does this with most of their franchises I mean how many Mainline Mario games have Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach most of them the fact that it's such a common recurring plot Point well charitably it's an over-reliance on tradition uncharitably It's a lazy cliche but Mario is a cartoony platforming series the story in those games is fairly unimportant and unobtrusive it has very little impact on my enjoyment of the series Zelda on the other hand is a high fantasy action adventure series there's a much higher capacity and expectation for decent storytelling here than in the cartoonish world of Mario there's no reason Zelda's narratives need to be so formulaic and repetitive an overly familiar story is a much bigger problem in a series that's about Adventure and Discovery it doesn't feel very adventurous to go through the motions to read a madlib story with slightly different words filled in the blanks each time the Zelda series has a built-in excuse for the repetition it's the Legend of Zelda Legends are retold over and over changing bit by bit as they pass through time different storytellers cultures and mediums similarly the Zelda series has changed as it passed through decades console generations and different development teams with different aims for some the repetition isn't a bug it's a feature the thrill isn't in finding entirely new things to discover but in seeing how each game plucks from a common pool of shared elements and rearranges them into a new collage there's definitely Merit to this seeing the familiar recontextualized with a new spin a new art style a new structural Arrangement a new gameplay function that can be fun but that has to be balanced with truly new and fresh ideas tears of the kingdom is in the unique and awkward position of reusing more than any previous game in the series and that makes the unoriginality of the story so much more Stark and disappointing breath of the wild was all about breaking and Reinventing the Zelda game design formula that's a huge part of what made it so special it was as close to an official reboot of the franchise as we're likely to get and that's why I excused the very traditional Link vs Ganon setup everything else had a new and Fresh Approach it was fine for the main plot to be a retelling of the foundational Zelda story but having re-established that the sequel needed to break the storytelling conventions of the series instead it feels like we're settling into a new formula for both gameplay and story that has the potential to become just as stale as the old one the real story and tears of the Kingdom the one I'll remember and cherish is exploring the world solving puzzles and discovering the possibilities offered by The Game's mechanics and systems meanwhile the game's written plot was trapped in Shallow repetitive cut scenes separated from all that made the game truly special Nintendo is great at charm polish mechanics level design and game feel they're bad at storytelling and World building and that's a shame because they've created a world well worth exploring in all other respects a game as good as tears of the Kingdom deserved more than a routine story there are plenty of things I love about breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom that I'd like to see carried over to the next Zelda game but there's also a growing list of things that I want left behind over-reliance on formula slowly killed the series before it can happen again finding new stories to tell and new ways to tell them is one way the Zelda series can keep things fresh as it moves into its fourth decade and Beyond [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: DEBUG MODE

Views: 49,312

Keywords: gaming, video games, Debug Mode, commentary, review, analysis

Id: Mw1H1X6pNn8

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023