Parameters: the #reTOTK is on my OLED Switch b/c reading about Switch 2 upgrades to it & BOTW got me all hepped up. -I just finished re-playthrough of BOTW. -I'm not sure I would've survived the pandemic w/o BOTW so it's somewhere between a fave & a personal saint. -Biases will ensue.

For example: -I am very leisurely making my way through the Sky Islands "level" which functions similarly to BOTW's marvelous Great Plateau "level": it's huge, it's open world, but it's also the training level that boxes you in until you've learned the basics. -It feels...miserly? #reTOTK

Work calls, so I hope to get into it more later but.. Let's say the choice to use a single limited melancholic music cue throughout the entire level literally sets the tone for the game. And the tone is "Should I adjust my SSRIs?" #reTOTK

I think the music for BOTW was basically perfect--Link was alone, so most of the music was just a solitary piano. Depending on how long you take on the Sky Island intro, it's just one minor orchestral cue, over and over. #reTOTK

I finally got off the island and back down to Hyrule, and the music has opened up--as I suspect it's supposed to help you feel like your world has dramatically opened up--but the effect of the early repetitive cue remains. Things feel new but also a bit stale? #reTOTK

That said, it's not all bummers! In Sky Island, you encounter caves--which are a fabulous addition to the landscape, so much so I was confused in my re-replay of BOTW when they weren't there--and the Zonai gacha machine, which are fun and addictive (and underused). #reTOTK

The same way I wish Nintendo had just used built out the horses into their own sequel/DLC, I'd jump at the chance to play a TOTK DLC where everything is accessible by gacha, with different gacha only taking different items. It'd be fun as hell. #reTOTK

And this, I suspect, is a topic that will come up in the re-playthrough: how much the devs built TOTK to be "fun as hell" for a certain type of player, and how the gacha is one of the most successful areas at crossing over between that type of player and me. #reTOTK

OK, day two! (1) argh, I forgot how much more this game keeps you on leash--I didn't go to see Purah so I don't have the glider so I'm just dying all over the place. (2) But they kept the jaunty piano music when you're riding the horse. Can't mess with perfection. #reTOTK

Day three! Got the glider but wow do they put you through useless fetch quests before they give it to you…and all for a (not especially interesting) cut scene plot point. Boo. #reTOTK

I need to get back on the ToK horse, was really enjoying it and then got completely distracted, I feel like I’d have to entirely relearn it at this point. And it feels significantly more … complicated than Breath. Like, I don’t remember what I learned about building things. Or the Undercroft.

Yeah, I get it—it is definitely denser than Breath, though you can still cut loose relatively early…but I think you should just re-start it at that point? I don’t think that was especially painful, especially since it’s such a “fuck around and find out” game.

How far are you? I don’t want to spoil anything by asking if you got to a certain thing yet.

It’s a re-playthrough and I played the crap out of it first time through so feel free to spoil! I just made it through the first two shrines—Ultrahand and Fuse—so not far at all.

I never finished it, but I was shocked by how much I loved the dark world. It scared the hell out of me at first but once I had a few tools to navigate it I spent almost all my time down there going from tree to tree, bringing light to the darkness

Yeah, I’ll be curious to see how it feels on the replay—on the one hand, the dark world is a stunning achievement that I spent probably hundreds of hours in. On the other hand, my after-the-fact impressions are that it was too empty and undercooked.

Stunning. Beautiful. Insane physics? But a bit empty

Yup! Kinda the case right now for me and I’m trying to suss out if the devs intend that experience and I guess they do?

Shameful admission: I never played much Breath of the Wild. I bought it! Played an hour or three, but when all the mobs respawned during the Blood Moon I got really annoyed and quit.

Yeah. Sort of my feeling about the game in general?