the controls, jesus christ the controls. This game feels like something that was designed for the keyboard and ported to console even though that's obviously untrue. And on top of just having half again as many verbs as Breath of the Wild, which unavoidably requires more controls, it also scores a bunch of totally unnecessary own-goals:

  • The "skip cutscene" button is either X or +, seemingly randomly determined for each cutscene type.
  • There are two totally separate "first person mode with a reticle" controls which have totally distinct sets of functionality for no obvious reason.
  • You can hold materials but not drop them from the pause menu, and drop materials but not hold them from the d-pad menu.
  • Because of the above, the easiest way to throw something like a bomb in combat is to hold R, hold d-pad up, use the right stick to select the material, release d-pad up, then release R once you've actually aimed at the enemy.
    • Don't dawdle when pressing d-pad up or you'll throw your equipped weapon instead.
    • Don't release R while the d-pad menu is up or you'll immediately hork the material as soon as you exit the menu.
  • Trying to equip a new bow when your old one breaks is even worse: hold ZR, hold d-pad right, release ZR, use the right stick to select a bow, release d-pad right, hold ZR again to use it.
    • Don't hold ZR the whole time or you won't actually pull out the bow and aim once you exit the menu. Yes this is the exact opposite of what you need to do for throwing materials.

You gotta be a NASA space pianist to play this game I swear!


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in reply to @nex3's post:

After playing a number of games inspired by BotW, but with very very different controls, coming back to BotW/TotK controls is miserable

Elden Ring in particular comes to mind. I know Nintendo tried to not put things on "push sticks" for various dexterity reasons but my god the game suffers from having buttons dedicated to actions that could have been a stick press

fuse is EXTREMELY fiddly for no apparent reason, making in-combat applications at best stressful, and at worst a Game Over while a like-like eats you alive.
but really the biggest own goal in this game is [SPOILER FOR DUNGEON CONTENT]
...

...
the companion abilities. you have to walk up to your companion, press A to ready your ability, and then press another button to actually start that ability up. In combat, surrounded by 15 [SPOILER ENEMIES] that you can't kill without that ability? not ideal.

love this game like a child and absolutely agree the controls are like too-tight shoes you're forced to painfully squeeze yourself into as the price of admission

it seems like in-world cutscenes are X and "cinematic" ones are +, perhaps to make it slightly harder to accidentally skip the cinematic ones (especially since X is a regular button you might be trying to press at the moment)?? i don't know. i think this is unchanged from botw

the camera and Super Zoom were also separate in botw. i have no explanation for this. i guess it made a bit more sense in botw where there was a much greater delay between getting R3 and getting the camera, so they felt like relatively different things? R3 for shrines (far away), camera for lizards (close up)

it sure is A Decision that fat-fingering tossing a light seed will cause you to throw and probably destroy your weapon. that said i haven't managed to do it yet despite frequently mashing the wrong buttons. on the other hand i think i might just be religiously holding onto R because i notice that after i rotate something with Mage Hand i keep R held until i put the thing down. sometimes i get briefly confused about how to move it closer or farther because i don't even realize i'm still holding R

ho ho, the bow switching is also unchanged from botw. except there was arrow switching too, and it was very bad! it might have just used the shield button but that always felt deeply unnatural to me for some reason

for what it's worth you can put your bow down without firing by pressing B. and if you release ZR fast enough that you haven't fully notched an arrow then you won't fire it then either

also there's no sort by attack power for weapons? what