@beardalaxy I will be as bold to say that the CDi-games and the cartoon payed more respect to the source material than this shit, and those were realized long before the lore was fleshed out and established so at least those had somewhat of an excuse.

The fact that the story even contradicts itself is just laughable. Did Aunoma even pay attention to the story or was he so hyper-focused on the gimmicks he wanted to add in that he didn't bother supervising the writers? It was clear that the story was tacked on at the last minute.

I also don't get the point of having a backstory revolving around another technologically advanced race when the previous game had a backstory on a different race that was technologically advanced. Assuming that the Zonai were around before Skyward Sword, it would be a nice explanation on the magitek in Lanayru Desert, but that doesn't seem to be the case. But as it stands now, the Zonai are probably my least favorite race in the entire franchise. They're fucking goats, and have an Aztec-like aesthetic that doesn't fit the Zelda universe.

@xianc78 Yeah, back then they had pretty much nothing to work with and the series was still in its infancy so they could do pretty much whatever they wanted. At least we know that those aren't canon in the slightest and are securely in their own containment vault, which makes it easier to enjoy them for what they are. It's honestly the approach I wish these new games would have had.

It really makes you wonder what part of Tears of the Kingdom was supposed to be DLC and what pushed it over the edge into turning into its own game.

If it's the gameplay mechanics, that would make the most sense because there's no way any of that would have functioned on the Wii U (sometimes it barely functions on the Switch). Still, it's hard to think that they would have actually wanted to go back through the entire game and add all these new things you could do which would break the game entirely. Maybe it was conceptualized and they just figured it would be easier to make a new game instead.

If that's the case, then it would explain the story feeling super tacked on because they felt like they needed to have another story if they were going to make a brand new game. The Depths and the Sky Islands can feel pretty tacked on from time to time too, and actually I found the most enjoyment (especially over a long period of time) still exploring the overworld with how it had changed, rather than the new zones because it feels like a lot of the same stuff over and over again.

The story contradictions aren't just Aonuma's fault, Fujibayashi (the director) also said that all the ancient Sheikah stuff just magically disappeared and nobody knows why... but then why are the ruins of the Sheikah tech also gone? Like all those dead guardians? What about the one dead guardian that's still on Robbie's lab? It's a bullshit answer. If he just said "oh, we just didn't want to include any of that stuff in this game, there's no lore reason for it" it would have been 100x better of an explanation and an honest one at that. Either everyone calling the shots on the team is stupid and doesn't know how to write a story, or they're incredibly dishonest and are just trying to bait people. It's probably a bit of both, to be honest, because even the basic story of Tears of the Kingdom is probably the weakest one that actually has a coherent story.

They really did the Sheikah dirty, and the Zonai are just kind of boring too. For hell's sake, we only get to meet TWO of them. There aren't even any others in the flashbacks as far as I remember. These heavenly beings that brought "secret stones" with them that apparently can have absurd amounts of power, and there's only two of them, and they can't do anything to stand up to Ganondorf? Because, what, he's evil or something? It's just weird, man.

Then you get to Ganondorf and even though he's been wreaking havoc all across Hyrule with these massive pits that suck life away from you, and more deadly monsters on the surface than before, and puppeteering a phantom Zelda around, he's weak as shit. The dude straight up retreats and then you have to go fight him again at "full power" but even then like... you're just Link with the same old Master Sword that Ganondorf already destroyed at a much lower power level. You couldn't have like, made Link need to go to some ancient Zonai ruins in the sky and go through a whole dungeon to get some add-on to the Master Sword that would power it up with even more powerful Zonai shit? I guess even then, you'd have a power creep problem, because all of the sudden the Zonai are more powerful than the gods they descended from. They're already maybe able to circumvent the power of the Triforce itself, so who knows man.