The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

God DAMNNNN this shit is fun.

An improved weapon system, way more shit to do, a more engaging story, and the same if not more care for detail in the map/level design compared to botw is truly an accomplishment. Is almost unbelievable that this game makes its predecessor feel like a beta test, taking all the old systems, mixing them with new ideas, and cranking everything up to 11, which would have seemed inconceivable just a few months ago. Botw is one of my favorite games of all time, but I have to admit that this is an improved game in nearly every measurable way, while not feeling like it's rereading the same beats. I wish dearly that this game and the devs who made it were given an opportunity to create on hardware that was up to par with modern standards, and it is honestly impressive what they were able to do considering the physical limitations of the Switch (I'm looking at you Pokemon Scarlet/Violet).

All things considered, this is one of the most joyus experiences you can have in gaming, and I urge anyone with a switch or pc to give it a try.

Ganondorf, the first that we've seen of his humanoid, Gerudo form since The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker [ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト], is an absolute motherfucker of a villain, and by far the most menacing we've seen in the franchise arguably since Gihrahim in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. While a far cry from that title's borderline sympathetic "fallen king," TOTK's Ganondorf strikes a comfortable balance between his iterations within The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [ゼルダの伝説 時のオカリナ] as a usurping diplomat and Skyward Sword's Demise as a world-crushing barbarian. Instead, TOTK presents a villain who, while still yearning for world domination, retains the same nuance in understanding the character that Wind Waker's demands. Ganondorf doesn't just want to shroud Hyrule in the same darkness he's vied for time and time again - he's hellbent on flexing the Zonai power he feels Rauru foolishly (and perhaps cowardly) is laying to waste as a self-proclaimed king. It is, after all, a gift from the gods themselves, and one that Ganondorf, ironically enough, appreciates more than anyone else in the story.

I have finished the game. Not 100%, but I've gotten every piece of armour, done every shrine, every lightroot, every sage's will, most of the side quests and finished all of the main quests. I feel like with the story the game was trying to tell they kind of pulled their punches near the end. We had the chance for something more subversive but it kind of fell into the same trap BotW's ending had. I feel like this is a consequence of the game's sandbox nature, and I understand that the story isn't that important for most people, but I guess sandbox-oriented games aren't for me.

It feels like BotW is completely irrelevant to TotK so much so to the point that I made the comparison to Persona 5 Royal and Persona 5. TotK really does feel like "Breath of the Wild Royal" Considering the game's structure is mostly the same, but in a more fully realized way. I appreciate that and I appreciate the amount of polish the devs put into the game's mechanics, but there's something less satisfying about the parts of the game where there is a clear objective and reward and it can be cheesed so easily because that is part of the intentional game design. At some moments I felt smart for solving things in that way, but at other times it felt like I was robbing myself of the opportunity of gratification it would yield had I actually solved something the intended way.

I enjoyed how streamlined the experience felt, but after I beat every shrine and held off fighting Ganon until I was extremely overprepared it just didn't feel as impactful as it would have had the game been much more consise. I sincerely think that the game should have had 1/10th of the amount of shrines, lightroots, collectibles, etc. because it just started to feel exhausting. Again, the sandbox-style gameplay isn't really my thing, but if it is your thing I totally get it. I put almost 300 hours into BotW and it still wasn't as gratifying as the 25 hours I put into OoT or MM or even TP.

I'm not a big fan of the whole mantra of "go big or go broke" that seems to be really popular within video games as of late, but I feel like any attempt to criticize it is like screaming into a vacuum. I want to see smaller games with more attention to detail and quality within those finer aspects as opposed to games that are impressive simply because of how breathtaking they are in scope. Day 1 of TotK's release I was pissing my pants because of how blown away I was, but now that I've seen pretty much everything the magic has worn off. If the game wasn't structured in a way where the whole point was to blow you away with its scale then I probably wouldn't be feeling this way, but it is probably important to note that previous Zelda games were also constructed with a similar ideology in mind--the difference being the fact that I played them in retrospect.

I think what I want from a video game I play is a really good 30 hours and not 150 hours with a lot of grinding and menial tasks and some good parts, and more importantly I just prefer games with more structure. I know that it's unlikely that I'm ever gonna see a new Zelda game a la something like Majora's Mask ever again, but I will at least hope so. I still think TotK is something to be respected and celebrated because it demonstrates how valuable quality is within the gaming industry, and maybe it will encourage other studios to grant their developers more time to work on games to give them more polish and to think of creative solutions, but at this point I don't think I'm putting TotK in my top favourite games anymore. Still a great game, and one of the best games on the Switch by far.

Despite my critical-sounding take I'd probably give the game an 8.5-9/10. It is a major improvement over BotW, but is still burdened by many of the design choices that held BotW back in the first place. Since I haven't changed my rating system on here I'm going to round up to a 9/10. Discovering all of the new enemies and bosses in the game for the first time was a treat for someone who has played BotW first, but I don't think you have to play BotW to enjoy it. I think this is probably the GotY, but not the greatest game of all time like some may have been hyping it up to be. Overall, I tend to sound pessimistic and cynical but I really think things are looking up for the games industry. I have a feeling we're going to see a wave of a lot of really high quality games come out over the next five or so years and I'm all here for it.

Players of 2017's Breath of the Wild were treated to a lush and expansive open world full of enticing and creative paths of gameplay. It was a game that captured the spirit of previous games in the franchise, harkening so far back as the first game by showing you the starting line and the finish line, then saying, 'Whatever you do in between these lines is completely up to you. Go have an adventure.'

You could say that Tears of the Kingdom is more of the same. The game shows you the ropes, tells you what you eventually have to do, then nudges you off the ledge to literally dive into the world. Exploration, puzzle-solving, quests, side quests, the whole shebang. It even reuses the exact map from Breath of the Wild, so great swaths of the gameplay experience even look and feel the same. Clinically one could say that of course it's a different map because of the obvious additions but look-and-feel-wise, it's more like Breath of the Wild 2: This Time There Are Caves and Shit.

The reason this is so damn impressive is that these changes make it feel like an entirely new game. This isn't glorified DLC, this isn't laziness; this is reinvention. Breath of the Wild is still the best-selling Zelda game with a ten-million-copy lead on Tears of the Kingdom and a twenty-million-copy lead on the third-best-selling game (Twilight Princess), so the 2017 rendition of Hyrule is, by now, a thoroughly-explored and familiar territory for a lot of people. They told us all to explore it and we did. Then they took the same map and gave it every reason to explore it again.

The Sky Islands and Depths are the biggest additions, but the Upheaval opened up dozens (hundreds?) of caves in what you can consider the 'surface' map. Regular old mountains and hills now have new things to explore. I don't know about you, but I always found it conspicuous that all the wells in Breath of the Wild were conveniently filled in. Well (ha), now they're not. There's stuff down there, and plenty of reasons to go interact with it. Towns have changed, familiar characters have changed, and many of them have little side-quests to compel you toward finding out why.

Mechanically the skill wheel of the Sheikah Slate has been replaced with a new palette in the form of the Ultrahand. I won't spoil exactly how that happens, but you have five fun new abilities that change the way you engage with puzzles and enemies. Again, no spoilers, but all I will say is, 'All hail Recall. May Recall be with you, so say we all.'

There are even little quality-of-life things from Breath of the Wild that they fixed here. Dropping weapons from the quick-change menu, dropping items when you open a chest and find one you want more, saved cooking recipes, that kind of thing. I almost don't want to spoil it, but they added items and clothing to counteract one of the biggest BOTW annoyances, even for those of us who loved that game.

Nothing this big comes without its flaws, of course. You get used to the building mechanics, but that doesn't change how cumbersome it is. Like getting used to the N64 controller, which is a reference for the elderly people in the room. You also get the ability to fuse certain items to your weapons, but you can't do that conveniently when the item is already in your inventory. I won't say what it is, but this game's version of Champion abilities also leaves a pretty wide margin of error. Aside from being more things you just get used to, these gripes are just as small as BOTW's in comparison to the magnificence of the game.

I am continually amazed at how much there is to do, and how they took a new approach to a lot of the fundamental aspects of the game. Everywhere I go, I'm looking for more little details and things to do. Zelda is still handing you a world and telling you to go have an adventure, and it is downright incredible that they manage to make that adventure spellbinding with such a familiar canvas and palette.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild [ゼルダの伝説 ブレス オブ ザ ワイルド] is easily one of the best open world games of all time. It is a relaxing, fun, accesible game about exploring the wildlands of Hyrule by walking, running, galloping and flying aimlessly around a large map. So. it's tempting to make a sequel that's the same game with some new gimmicks tacked on. And it's tempting to say that Tears of the Kingdom is just a rehash sequel, but that would be an exaggeration.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is indeed a fairly derivative and often uncreative game, mostly in how it draws so much from its predecessor, and also in how it's easy to pin down the possible inspirations for most of the new abilities. However, this new game still manages to feel very different to play, mostly because of a few important additions.

The main catalyst for change, and in my opinion the most fun and creative part of the game, are the sky islands. The floating islands completely change the way I approach exploration in the game. No longer am I wandering aimlessly around the map, but rather I am constantly teleporting to the floating islands and the towers in order to examine the world from the sky and decide which way to fall down.

So walking around the land plays second fiddle to falling from the sky, and that's good because the land is the main reason why the game feels so derivative. It's literally the same map as Breath of the Wild with some cosmetic changes. The shrines are pretty much the same, but they tend to be simpler and often work as tutorials. These are puzzle-based fun, but it's the exact same type of fun as in the previous game.

The real problem arises with the third choice you can make when it comes to consuming content in the game, which are the depths. Huge empty areas punctuated by reskinned enemy camps and farming locations. The visual style there is reminiscent of Subnautica, and there are a couple of solid quests you can do in there, but exploring them on my own I mostly see endlessly copypasted assets and enemies.

What makes Tears of the Kingdom stand on its own as a pretty solid expansion are the new abilities and the expanded story. The new main quest and new memories in particular are clearly an improvement over Breath of the Wild. The new characters are also more fleshed out, the memories are more dramatic, and the set-pieces and temple bosses are more epic and cool.

The coolest new ability is Ultrahand, an ability inspired by games like Besiege and Bad Piggies that lets you build contraptions and vehicles as long as you have the necessary parts. Sadly, this is constrained by the fact that vehicles are expendable, and that both parts and energy charges need to be farmed. Also, I think they are only really useful when traveling in the sky islands and the depths.

Another fun ability is Fuse, which is reminiscent of the crafting systems found on a million survival games since the age of Minecraft began. On one hand, it's great to be able to craft some really crazy and weird weapons; on the other, the combat system remains mostly the same. So often you are just attaching a bomb to an arrow, when the previous game had bomb arrows instead.

I think Ascend is possibly the most unique and original ability of the bunch, and the one I don't remember seeing in any previous game. Personally I don't find it super interesting, and its use is very situational, but it certainly adds a new dimension to exploration and traversal that leads to rethinking the way you interact with the environment.

Recall is possibly the coolest-looking ability, but it's also the one that's more easy to pin down as inspired by games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Braid. Also, the inspiration is especially obvious because there is also mirror puzzles just like the ones in The Sands of Time. This is not really a complaint though, I liked the Prince of Persia games and I like seeing someone else do those kinds of time rewind puzzles.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom [ゼルダの伝説 ティアーズ オブ ザ キングダム] is a fun game that maintains much of what made Breath of the Wild great, and it doubles down on the playground approach to open world gameplay that I often praise. What I think drags the game down is how it's so derivative of its predecessor, and how the depths are so boring and frustrating to explore. And while the vehicle building mechanic elevates the game, it's not really the core of the experience, which is a shame.