Tears Of The Kingdom's Big Boss Fights Are A Bit 'Meh'

The main bosses in Tears of the Kingdom–those who pop up after each temple–feel lackluster compared to their predecessors (the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild), missing crucial elements that usually give boss fights their spine-tingling allure and heart-pounding thrills.

[Flawlessmic]

Only just on the final path to ganandorf now.

I have beat all the temple bosses and have to agree with the writer, the bosses were definitely mehh, only the wind temple boss fight was cool.

The water one was the lamest of them all

[GoodGuy09]

Again, as a longtime zelda fan, the temples and bosses are.... disappointing. Way too easy as well.

[CrimsonWing69]

I wasn’t digging the “McGuffin” like turn on 5 facets, turn on 4 batteries, unlock 5 locks…

Look, I get people love this game and I’m not taking away from that, but if you play something like A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time, I just feel the design is so much better. Like each dungeon was so uniquely themed and worked around a new specific tool you unlocked and bosses had to test your ability with the tool. Things were so unique looking, too.

I’m old, I know, but I miss Zelda how it used to be. This gets so boring to me over time, and constantly building things, and using physics for almost all puzzle solving irritates me.

I’m glad people love it though. I’m not trying to sh*t on the game, I’m just stating I miss old Zelda is all.

[Cuzizkool]

I love everything about the formats of BOTW and TOTK, except for the dungeons. I miss the traditional style so much.

[Inverno]

I actually liked the water one, and the wind one. They both reminded me a lot of Mario Odyssey bosses. But comparing em to previous games non were as good. I'm still at disbelief that they called these temples, cause they were not anywhere near the level of design of previous games.

[Antnee534]

Hope it gets better but from 5-7 hours with the game it's just botw 1.5 not enough to call this a sequel so far.

[SullysCigar]

This was my issue. It feels like a copy and paste (including the problems) from BotW, with a new story and couple of new mechanics thrown in for building and the like. It looks SO bad for a 2023 game. I've stopped playing and might pick up years down the line on newer tech, so at least we might get a graphics and performance overhaul.

It's still good, just dated - and WAY too similar to the last game. I could understand 10/10s if BotW didn't exisit, but I couldn't give TotK more than 7.5-8 tops and that would only be if I leave it for long enough that it doesn't feel quite so familiar.

[shammgod]

TotK is GOAT

[JEECE]

It is wild that it's being treated as a revolution when it's such a direct sequel to the prior game.

[JEECE]

When someone describes something as "meh," it's always more instructive about the person than the thing they are describing.

[z2g]

So some people don’t like the new direction, the graphics are mediocre, performance is mediocre, resolution is stuck in the year 2008 and now the boss fights are lacking…. Let’s give it….. 10 out of 10.

[M0chit0]

We don't need more Souls like boss's. Zelda is for everyone.

[anast]

It's an average game. Definitely not a 10.

[lucian229]

I mean botw boss fights were all a big meh. Especially final boss lmao

[IanTH]

Reading the comments here, glad I'm not the only one underwhelmed by TotK. I don't understand where all this insane praise is coming from. A lot of reused BotW map, very little "sky islands", which surprised me given the focus on it in most of the advertising. The shrines feel like where most of the content is, and it's just a game of run around the open world (or use sky towers) looking for the shortest route to more shrines.

The new gimmick isn't all that interesting to me - it is cool in theory, but rarely is it truly necessary. And when it is, the solution is usually very easy, with many having the necessary materials right nearby to essentially tell you what you need to do, and so you just...build the answer, instead of coming up with one. There are 1000 materials, but they mostly feel like clutter. The weapon durability is still an awful mechanic. It feels like it lacks direction. The writing, what little of it there is, is just not up to standard. Most things aren't voice acted....

I don't know. It's an OK game, but I am absolutely dumbfounded that it is one of the highest rated games of all time.

[M0chit0]

Haters gonna hate.

[IanTH]

I guess. I mean, I don't hate Nintendo. I'm not blindly hating on it. I spent $70 on it (one of the VERY few brand new games I have bought at launch at full price in a long time). It was one of the few games I was still looking forward to on my Switch. I'm just not feeling the magic with this one.

Power to you if you do, not trying to take that away from anybody. I loved BotW, put like 80 hours in it. One of my favorite Nintendo games, as was Odyssey. I'm just having a hard time understanding how this got so many perfect scores. It doesn't feel like the bombastic sequel I was expecting after 5 years of development and a bump to a $70 MSRP. It feels like something, with as much of the map that was reused, that could have been a $30 expansion, or a game that came out a couple years after release.

I'd still rate it well, just more like maybe 7.5 or 8. Clearly just one of those times where things personally don't line up with the majority for whatever reason.