With the release of 168澳洲𒐪幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, long-time fans have rejoiced to see the return of slightly more traditional dungeons. This series mainstay was absent from its predecessor, replaced by Divine Beasts which tr💦aded in item-based puzzles for stumpers centered on spatial manipulation.
I didn’t miss the dungeons too much in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild — the shrines offered a similar experience, but pared the length down to make them work in an open-world setting. But I have enjoyed seeing them make a comeback in Tears of the 🎐Kingdom. Still, as much as I like the old school dungeon design, I can’t bring myself to dismiss the Divine Beasts. Given the evolution Zelda underwent with Breath of the Wild, the Divine Beasts were a necessary stepping stone.
That’s because Breath of the Wild was built around facilitating a constant sense of discovery. To do that, the game effectively used “weenies,” an idea that originated in theme park design, which re💟fers to a vis♍ual element designed to draw people toward a certain space. At Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Cinderella’s Castle is an attention magnet, compelling visitors toward it. Breath of the Wild is built around the same principle. Wherever you are, there’s probably something interesting in the distance that you wanna go check out.
The Divine Beasts emerged from this design philosophy. They’re ♋striking visual pegs that Nintendo uses to hang the four objectives you need to accomplish to complete the main quest. Exploring the world or solving shrines or playing with the game’s chemistry and physics systems might be more immediately engaging, so Breath of the Wild plops a giant 🍷robot lizard on a mountain to get you to be equally interested in the overarching story.
This resulted in one of the defining moments of my first playthrough of Breath of the Wild: cresting the ridge overlooking the Gerudo Desert, climbing Wasteland Tower, looking off into the distance, and seeing a massive mechanical camel stomping around the wastes. I’ve 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:written about it multiple times before because it was such a mysterious, impactful visual. As much as I’m loving Tears of the Kingdom, you don’t get the same effect from a more traditional dungeon. Seeing the Lightning Temple rise up from the sand was cool, but it didn't have that same spark. The Divine Beasts offered a strangeness that Tears of the Kingdom's dungeons lack.
They were much shorter, too. That may seem like a negative, but when you’re building a game around exploration, it’s a bonus. I like the dungeons in TOTK, but you can definitely feel the amount of time that it’s keeping you away from finding the rest of the secrets the world is hiding. They aren't longer than normal Zelda dungeons and you can leave anytime you want, but in the context of Tears of the Kingdom, where there are a million things you could be doing, having to commit an hour or two to finish one task can feel much longer.