I really loved the even greater emphasis on the physics of Breath of the Wild with the ultrahand and the zonai gadgets. The sky is quite spectacular, and it lends itself to a lot of natural puzzles. Overworld caves are also delightful.
Nitpicks: The underworld is quite disappointing, and it doesn't go far enough in separating itself from Breath of the Wild (Not just in map, mechanics as well)
Nitpicks: The underworld is quite disappointing, and it doesn't go far enough in separating itself from Breath of the Wild (Not just in map, mechanics as well)
Talvez eu devesse postar isso em outro lugar mas eu acho que aqui ainda é adequado pra um textão.
Normalmente quando algo dá o sentimento de familiaridade, e ainda por cima expressa qualidades que são transmitidas por outras obras, seja no mesmo meio artístico ou não, um recurso que me vem na cabeça pra poder descrever a experiência com mais precisão é o da figura de linguagem da metáfora. Ainda, quando penso no que The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pode ser comparado implicitamente, a quantidade de opções se parece como jogo, menos vasta e mais profunda. Entretanto, por mais que sequels boas sejam incontáveis, acho que o melhor mérito comparativo não é o que transparece por "qualidade" ou por "categoria", como no caso de encontrar outra sequência de jogo ou filme que se destaque da mesma forma que ToTK se destaca de seu antecedente, mas sim por algo tão difícil de descrever quanto "vibe", e seguindo essa linha de raciocínio, um pensamento que seguiu minha jornada inteira pela segunda versão de Hyrule em mundo aberto foi: "Tears of The Kingdom é o The Burning Crusade de Breath of The Wild".
Hyrule em Tears of The Kingdom em primeira vista não parece ter mudado muito, até que minutos depois de uma introdução que nos explica apenas o suficiente (digo isso de forma positiva), o jogador se vê jogado em um lugar alienígena, com apenas as mecânicas remanescentes do primeiro jogo para servirem de ponto de referência e traçarem uma certa familiaridade, que é cada vez mais subvertida com a introdução de cada habilidade nova, as quais te ajudam a atravessar a ilha tutorial cada uma de seu jeito específico. Mesmo durante esse processo, mas principalmente após ele, o jogo se mostra mais linear, mais guiado que seu antecedente, mas não de uma forma que prejudica a imersão e a possibilidade de explorar tanto os céus e as profundezas completamente desconhecidos quanto a superfície modificada pelo tempo que se passou e pelos eventos desencadeados no início da gameplay. Resumidamente, o jogo não subtrai do mundo pré-estabelecido, apenas modifica-o e adiciona em cima de sua fundação bem alicerçada.
A estrutura narrativa da história, que passa a ocorrer paralelamente à exploração a partir do momento em que a missão principal é dada é claramente o foco maior do jogo dessa vez, e a troca do extremo livre arbítrio de BoTW por uma aproximação linear é mais uma das mudanças que entra pra lista de "diferente, não pior". A história inicia de um ponto em que poderia se presumir, mas não determinar exatamente que é de onde a prequel finaliza seu arco principal e, após isso, dá um foco para a personagem titular do jogo e da franquia inteira, constrói a relação entre ela e Link de forma satisfatória, de forma que acabar tudo isso com "Ah Link... Eu estou em casa." traz uma catarse enorme e permite ao jogador por trás do controle sentir aquilo com um peso que já é forte de início, mas é mais intensificado com cada lágrima recuperada e cada detalhe encontrado ao longo do jogo. Ao contrário do antecessor, onde a concentração do jogo está mais em Link e na sua trajetória para recuperar as Divine Beasts e derrotar a calamidade, aqui o objetivo de destruir Ganon só vem mais depois, visto que durante mais da metade do percurso que o jogador percorre na primeira vez é encontrar a princesa, descobrir onde ela pode ter ido parar, mesmo com tantos avistamentos dela. O enredo é amarrado em si e não deixa a desejar, e a estória, por mais que simplista, é fácil de acompanhar e surpreendentemente adequada pra um jogo desse calibre.
O combate e o Game Design, por fim, seguem uma abordagem expandida se comparada à de Breath of The Wild, a habilidade de fundir coisas e construir objetos no estilo "Nuts and Bolts" molda e permeia os shrines e as masmorras, que junto com os sábios (por mais que esses tenham genuinamente uma forma abominável de serem utilizados), mostram-se fundamentais para o aproveitamento do que o jogo oferece, e obrigatórios também na maioria dos casos, mas não sinonimamente limitantes. Cada um dos ambientes modificados pelo evento do despertar de Ganondorf propõe uma ameaça diferente, similar ao primeiro jogo da duologia, mas ampliado pelas condições nas quais esses mesmos meios se encontram narrativamente, mesmo que as masmorras sejam guardadas por constructos iguais... De qualquer forma, a diversidade nos puzzles (que podem ou não ser seguidos, infelizmente) e os chefes são aspectos que fazem das masmorras algo mais divertido, mas, ao meu ver, menos memoráveis que as Divine Beasts, bem, dessa vez não são interiores idênticos, pelo menos.
Afinal, essa "Crusada Ardente" para franquia de The Legend of Zelda, faz exatamente o que eu gostaria de uma sequência de um jogo tão charmoso, intrigante e interessante quanto Breath of The Wild, trocando o charme mais acolhedor por uma ferocidade ágil que permeia cada quesito da re-visita a um mundo sofrido, que aos poucos se reconstrói mesmo com uma ameaça em cada canto, que faz da história algo que mantém a estrutura, mas muda a forma que cabe dentro dela, e que juntamente à gameplay pensada e sinceramente única a essa experiência, faz desse jogo um reconfortante retorno, que assim como Zelda, te faz dizer: "Estou em casa".
Normalmente quando algo dá o sentimento de familiaridade, e ainda por cima expressa qualidades que são transmitidas por outras obras, seja no mesmo meio artístico ou não, um recurso que me vem na cabeça pra poder descrever a experiência com mais precisão é o da figura de linguagem da metáfora. Ainda, quando penso no que The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pode ser comparado implicitamente, a quantidade de opções se parece como jogo, menos vasta e mais profunda. Entretanto, por mais que sequels boas sejam incontáveis, acho que o melhor mérito comparativo não é o que transparece por "qualidade" ou por "categoria", como no caso de encontrar outra sequência de jogo ou filme que se destaque da mesma forma que ToTK se destaca de seu antecedente, mas sim por algo tão difícil de descrever quanto "vibe", e seguindo essa linha de raciocínio, um pensamento que seguiu minha jornada inteira pela segunda versão de Hyrule em mundo aberto foi: "Tears of The Kingdom é o The Burning Crusade de Breath of The Wild".
Hyrule em Tears of The Kingdom em primeira vista não parece ter mudado muito, até que minutos depois de uma introdução que nos explica apenas o suficiente (digo isso de forma positiva), o jogador se vê jogado em um lugar alienígena, com apenas as mecânicas remanescentes do primeiro jogo para servirem de ponto de referência e traçarem uma certa familiaridade, que é cada vez mais subvertida com a introdução de cada habilidade nova, as quais te ajudam a atravessar a ilha tutorial cada uma de seu jeito específico. Mesmo durante esse processo, mas principalmente após ele, o jogo se mostra mais linear, mais guiado que seu antecedente, mas não de uma forma que prejudica a imersão e a possibilidade de explorar tanto os céus e as profundezas completamente desconhecidos quanto a superfície modificada pelo tempo que se passou e pelos eventos desencadeados no início da gameplay. Resumidamente, o jogo não subtrai do mundo pré-estabelecido, apenas modifica-o e adiciona em cima de sua fundação bem alicerçada.
A estrutura narrativa da história, que passa a ocorrer paralelamente à exploração a partir do momento em que a missão principal é dada é claramente o foco maior do jogo dessa vez, e a troca do extremo livre arbítrio de BoTW por uma aproximação linear é mais uma das mudanças que entra pra lista de "diferente, não pior". A história inicia de um ponto em que poderia se presumir, mas não determinar exatamente que é de onde a prequel finaliza seu arco principal e, após isso, dá um foco para a personagem titular do jogo e da franquia inteira, constrói a relação entre ela e Link de forma satisfatória, de forma que acabar tudo isso com "Ah Link... Eu estou em casa." traz uma catarse enorme e permite ao jogador por trás do controle sentir aquilo com um peso que já é forte de início, mas é mais intensificado com cada lágrima recuperada e cada detalhe encontrado ao longo do jogo. Ao contrário do antecessor, onde a concentração do jogo está mais em Link e na sua trajetória para recuperar as Divine Beasts e derrotar a calamidade, aqui o objetivo de destruir Ganon só vem mais depois, visto que durante mais da metade do percurso que o jogador percorre na primeira vez é encontrar a princesa, descobrir onde ela pode ter ido parar, mesmo com tantos avistamentos dela. O enredo é amarrado em si e não deixa a desejar, e a estória, por mais que simplista, é fácil de acompanhar e surpreendentemente adequada pra um jogo desse calibre.
O combate e o Game Design, por fim, seguem uma abordagem expandida se comparada à de Breath of The Wild, a habilidade de fundir coisas e construir objetos no estilo "Nuts and Bolts" molda e permeia os shrines e as masmorras, que junto com os sábios (por mais que esses tenham genuinamente uma forma abominável de serem utilizados), mostram-se fundamentais para o aproveitamento do que o jogo oferece, e obrigatórios também na maioria dos casos, mas não sinonimamente limitantes. Cada um dos ambientes modificados pelo evento do despertar de Ganondorf propõe uma ameaça diferente, similar ao primeiro jogo da duologia, mas ampliado pelas condições nas quais esses mesmos meios se encontram narrativamente, mesmo que as masmorras sejam guardadas por constructos iguais... De qualquer forma, a diversidade nos puzzles (que podem ou não ser seguidos, infelizmente) e os chefes são aspectos que fazem das masmorras algo mais divertido, mas, ao meu ver, menos memoráveis que as Divine Beasts, bem, dessa vez não são interiores idênticos, pelo menos.
Afinal, essa "Crusada Ardente" para franquia de The Legend of Zelda, faz exatamente o que eu gostaria de uma sequência de um jogo tão charmoso, intrigante e interessante quanto Breath of The Wild, trocando o charme mais acolhedor por uma ferocidade ágil que permeia cada quesito da re-visita a um mundo sofrido, que aos poucos se reconstrói mesmo com uma ameaça em cada canto, que faz da história algo que mantém a estrutura, mas muda a forma que cabe dentro dela, e que juntamente à gameplay pensada e sinceramente única a essa experiência, faz desse jogo um reconfortante retorno, que assim como Zelda, te faz dizer: "Estou em casa".
Somehow better than the first one.
breath of the wild bufado
Better open world with endless creative possibilities,
terrible story
terrible story
it was an incredibly bold move by nintendo to make a game whose core mechanic is dropping the fps to single digits. if any other studio tried this, i'd call them crazy! but by god, those crazy mothertruckers over at nintendo pulled it off. attempting to outdo breath of the wild is no mean feat, but by god those crazy mothertruckers over at nintendo pulled it off. i don't care if its the same map, i played botw 12 years ago and my entire memory is limited to the past week, this may as well have been a completely new world to me.
i had a great time running around hyrule as my favourite little twink wearing gay little outfits, smacking monsters with weapons twice my size, and then scooting away on a tricycle i built out of wood and tyres. and that's only the beginning! there's so much to do in this game, its overwhelming. not only can you run around on the ground, but in the sky and the depths, too! wow.
and how about that story? if you told me that nintendo made a game with a story that was even better than breath of the wild's, i'd believe you because that one was kinda mid. this one's pretty decent, though. it all culminates in an explosive climax that really needs to be seen to be believed. but you know what the craziest part of the tears of the kingdom is? they mapped jump to X! what the fuck! why have they done that!
i had a great time running around hyrule as my favourite little twink wearing gay little outfits, smacking monsters with weapons twice my size, and then scooting away on a tricycle i built out of wood and tyres. and that's only the beginning! there's so much to do in this game, its overwhelming. not only can you run around on the ground, but in the sky and the depths, too! wow.
and how about that story? if you told me that nintendo made a game with a story that was even better than breath of the wild's, i'd believe you because that one was kinda mid. this one's pretty decent, though. it all culminates in an explosive climax that really needs to be seen to be believed. but you know what the craziest part of the tears of the kingdom is? they mapped jump to X! what the fuck! why have they done that!
Really great game, but sadly gets stale fast after seeing the new innovations.
The familiar feel in the beginning with the same map as BotW is great in the beginning, but disappoints in the later stages of the game when even the new things have become routine.
May complete some time.
The familiar feel in the beginning with the same map as BotW is great in the beginning, but disappoints in the later stages of the game when even the new things have become routine.
May complete some time.
Лучшая игра 2023 года в которую я играю и по сей день!
Honestly this game was amazing and being the biggest fan of BoTW ever I thought I would have loved this game and I would have liked it even more the BoTW but I didn’t don’t get me wrong ToTK was amazing but I didn’t have the same feel as BoTW. The enemies while fun unique and hard couldn’t compete with the guardians. The story was great but for some reason I liked BoTW’s more. I really hated the whole weapon combining system and how everything was decayed. I loved this game but it just wasn’t as good as BotW was.
I love big parts of this, but man is the story an absolute drag...
Remember that one thing you did in Breath of the Wild that was cool? Okay, so what if, you spent $70 to do it again? With barely any changes? Sometimes even removing content?
Basically BOTW but BETTER! How does Nintendo do it!?
A whole year already? Maybe the wait for the next one won’t be as bad as I thought.
Look, this is up there with the games I’ve talked the most about already, there’s so many things about it that I love and so many things about it that I can’t stress how much I despise. But given this game is still very important to me, I figured it was worth putting my updated thoughts out there (with the caveat that I have not actually played the game since my near-100% playthrough one year ago).
I’m gonna say the quiet part out loud that so many others seem scared to admit: Tears of the Kingdom was a disappointment. It did not live up to Breath of the Wild or its own series legacy, and most disappointingly of all, it is one of the worst sequels I have ever played. None of this is to imply that the game is bad, and honestly, that’s part of what frustrates me about this game so much. It pisses me off so much all while still having the gall to be, almost undeniably, a really good game in its own right. But I think we’re at a point where we just need to admit that this game was not nearly as good as it could have been or as it should have been.
When the game came out, I said that the story was better than Breath of the Wild’s. I no longer agree with this. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel that it’s actually quite significantly worse. For as much as I disliked BotW’s story structure, the story was built around that structure, it wouldn’t have made sense any other way. TotK’s story feels retrofitted to that structure, and so nearly every player will watch chronological events completely out of order. It’s got a singular great moment, but even that is completely undone by the time you reach the ending.
The dungeons I still feel pretty similarly about, which is to say that I believe they are better than Breath of the Wild’s but still far below the standard set by Zelda games of the past. I can articulate my disappointment better now though. Every individual puzzle is good, but they all feel incredibly disconnected from each other. There’s no through-line, no consideration of multiple elements working together at the same time, no logical sense of progression, because the developers feel that being able to approach these in whatever way you want is more important than any of that. I have to wholeheartedly disagree.
And this leads into a more general point I have on the design philosophy of this game. Freedom made Breath of the Wild exciting. The exploration and appreciation of Hyrule was front and center, with dungeons being secondary pieces. I wish they had made the dungeons more important, but fine. It fits with the game’s vision. However, the most critical flaw with Tears of the Kingdom is that its priorities are completely unbalanced.
Let me explain: Tears of the Kingdom approaches freedom in a completely different way. Instead of searching out what you want to do, you get to decide how to do it. BotW dipped its toes into this pool but TotK dives in head first. That’s why you have these incredible abilities that I still think are a remarkable technical achievement. However, if they were going to shift directions like that, they needed to change up much more than they did in every other area.
That goes for the dungeons like I mentioned, but more damning to me is the fact that this game is completely toothless in how it handles Breath of the Wild’s world. Everything is damn near identical, with extra additions in the sky and depths coming off as supplementary and relatively unnecessary. Where are the towns? Where are the interesting memorable locations? They’re on the surface level, and nowhere else. So the vast majority of the content is in the same space as it was in the map from the previous game.
Don’t get me wrong, BotW’s Hyrule is incredible, but it is a map built for exploration and discovery. It is NOT a map teeming with unique content or interesting ways to use all the new mechanics in play. So if you try to play TotK like you would BotW, focused on exploring Hyrule, you’ll almost certainly be disappointed by the lack of changes. I think it’s fair to expect more significant changes than a town being covered by mushrooms or sludge this time around.
Because this world was not designed with these mechanics in mind, things get extremely repetitive extremely quickly. Many can attest to giving up on being creative as soon as they discovered the popular hoverbike technique, but even as somebody who never saw that, I also began using the same copy/paste techniques over and over throughout my playthrough. The more time you spend with this game, you realize how little you’re actually encouraged to use the mechanics that everyone loves so much. It’s not even fun in a sandbox sense because there’s no sense of permanence to your creations whatsoever. Why bother being creative when it’ll disappear the moment you want to go do something else?
The game is a lot better when you gun it to each major quest objective and try not to explore much, but that’s insane to me because the vast majority of content in this game is completely optional. In a game that took me 130 hours on my first playthrough, it’s inexcusable that I’m sitting here saying I regret at least 100 of those hours. There is so much unnecessary fluff in this game, more than any other game I’ve ever played. The shrines are admittedly quite fun, but I can only take so many mini-challenges when there’s so few chances to exercise these mechanics in a properly demanding environment.
It’s so frustrating to imagine that all of these problems could have been solved with an entirely new environment. I had so much fun with the opening island because it seemed like it was going to be everything I wanted from this game! But as we all discovered one year ago today, the rest of the game wasn’t like that first island. I don’t mind the Breath of the Wild formula, but I do mind how lazily it was reused here. These games will NEVER work with repeated maps, and this game was the ultimate proof of that.
Tears of the Kingdom is a good game because Breath of the Wild was a good game. It has a great open world, great mechanics, great atmosphere (even if it is a bit worse now that all the towns are uglier), etc. But it is NOT a good sequel. It blatantly reuses elements without considering how they would be recontextualized with the new mechanical focus. Its new additions content wise are lackluster at best. And because of this it is completely unable to separate itself from its predecessor in a way that every Zelda prior has done with flying colors, even the direct sequels. Hearing this game compared to something like Majora’s Mask is legitimately insulting.
Having had my thoughts develop over the course of the last year, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that this is my least favorite 3D Zelda, despite everything it has going for it. Nintendo should know to do better. We should know that Zelda deserves better.
Look, this is up there with the games I’ve talked the most about already, there’s so many things about it that I love and so many things about it that I can’t stress how much I despise. But given this game is still very important to me, I figured it was worth putting my updated thoughts out there (with the caveat that I have not actually played the game since my near-100% playthrough one year ago).
I’m gonna say the quiet part out loud that so many others seem scared to admit: Tears of the Kingdom was a disappointment. It did not live up to Breath of the Wild or its own series legacy, and most disappointingly of all, it is one of the worst sequels I have ever played. None of this is to imply that the game is bad, and honestly, that’s part of what frustrates me about this game so much. It pisses me off so much all while still having the gall to be, almost undeniably, a really good game in its own right. But I think we’re at a point where we just need to admit that this game was not nearly as good as it could have been or as it should have been.
When the game came out, I said that the story was better than Breath of the Wild’s. I no longer agree with this. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel that it’s actually quite significantly worse. For as much as I disliked BotW’s story structure, the story was built around that structure, it wouldn’t have made sense any other way. TotK’s story feels retrofitted to that structure, and so nearly every player will watch chronological events completely out of order. It’s got a singular great moment, but even that is completely undone by the time you reach the ending.
The dungeons I still feel pretty similarly about, which is to say that I believe they are better than Breath of the Wild’s but still far below the standard set by Zelda games of the past. I can articulate my disappointment better now though. Every individual puzzle is good, but they all feel incredibly disconnected from each other. There’s no through-line, no consideration of multiple elements working together at the same time, no logical sense of progression, because the developers feel that being able to approach these in whatever way you want is more important than any of that. I have to wholeheartedly disagree.
And this leads into a more general point I have on the design philosophy of this game. Freedom made Breath of the Wild exciting. The exploration and appreciation of Hyrule was front and center, with dungeons being secondary pieces. I wish they had made the dungeons more important, but fine. It fits with the game’s vision. However, the most critical flaw with Tears of the Kingdom is that its priorities are completely unbalanced.
Let me explain: Tears of the Kingdom approaches freedom in a completely different way. Instead of searching out what you want to do, you get to decide how to do it. BotW dipped its toes into this pool but TotK dives in head first. That’s why you have these incredible abilities that I still think are a remarkable technical achievement. However, if they were going to shift directions like that, they needed to change up much more than they did in every other area.
That goes for the dungeons like I mentioned, but more damning to me is the fact that this game is completely toothless in how it handles Breath of the Wild’s world. Everything is damn near identical, with extra additions in the sky and depths coming off as supplementary and relatively unnecessary. Where are the towns? Where are the interesting memorable locations? They’re on the surface level, and nowhere else. So the vast majority of the content is in the same space as it was in the map from the previous game.
Don’t get me wrong, BotW’s Hyrule is incredible, but it is a map built for exploration and discovery. It is NOT a map teeming with unique content or interesting ways to use all the new mechanics in play. So if you try to play TotK like you would BotW, focused on exploring Hyrule, you’ll almost certainly be disappointed by the lack of changes. I think it’s fair to expect more significant changes than a town being covered by mushrooms or sludge this time around.
Because this world was not designed with these mechanics in mind, things get extremely repetitive extremely quickly. Many can attest to giving up on being creative as soon as they discovered the popular hoverbike technique, but even as somebody who never saw that, I also began using the same copy/paste techniques over and over throughout my playthrough. The more time you spend with this game, you realize how little you’re actually encouraged to use the mechanics that everyone loves so much. It’s not even fun in a sandbox sense because there’s no sense of permanence to your creations whatsoever. Why bother being creative when it’ll disappear the moment you want to go do something else?
The game is a lot better when you gun it to each major quest objective and try not to explore much, but that’s insane to me because the vast majority of content in this game is completely optional. In a game that took me 130 hours on my first playthrough, it’s inexcusable that I’m sitting here saying I regret at least 100 of those hours. There is so much unnecessary fluff in this game, more than any other game I’ve ever played. The shrines are admittedly quite fun, but I can only take so many mini-challenges when there’s so few chances to exercise these mechanics in a properly demanding environment.
It’s so frustrating to imagine that all of these problems could have been solved with an entirely new environment. I had so much fun with the opening island because it seemed like it was going to be everything I wanted from this game! But as we all discovered one year ago today, the rest of the game wasn’t like that first island. I don’t mind the Breath of the Wild formula, but I do mind how lazily it was reused here. These games will NEVER work with repeated maps, and this game was the ultimate proof of that.
Tears of the Kingdom is a good game because Breath of the Wild was a good game. It has a great open world, great mechanics, great atmosphere (even if it is a bit worse now that all the towns are uglier), etc. But it is NOT a good sequel. It blatantly reuses elements without considering how they would be recontextualized with the new mechanical focus. Its new additions content wise are lackluster at best. And because of this it is completely unable to separate itself from its predecessor in a way that every Zelda prior has done with flying colors, even the direct sequels. Hearing this game compared to something like Majora’s Mask is legitimately insulting.
Having had my thoughts develop over the course of the last year, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that this is my least favorite 3D Zelda, despite everything it has going for it. Nintendo should know to do better. We should know that Zelda deserves better.
Breath of the Wild is like ice cream, a sweet treat that a majority of people love, but loses its allure when consumed in excess. Tears of the Kingdom, on the other hand, is like one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches. Just like plain ice cream, they’re pretty damn good, but they’re easier to get tired of and are arguably more divisive.
Tears of the Kingdom takes Breath of the Wild, slams some layers on either side of it and throws in some new stuff and story changes in the middle. It's great but it can certainly be a bit much. For example, the new layers - the sky islands and the depths - are massive additions to the game, but fall a bit flat when fully scoured. There’s a lot of cool stuff in both spots, but when the player delves deeper, they realize that it's a lot of the same cool stuff, making the whole experience a little less magical. Finding an underground coliseum challenge is cool the first time, but the second time? The third time? It's just not the same, and the first time isn’t as powerful as a result.
There’s certainly an argument to be made that the sky islands and depths should have either been fleshed out or shrunk, but maybe the excess isn’t so bad. After all, a vast majority of players aren’t going to be in the game long enough to see this repetition in the first place. Of course, unique content is always better than repetitive material, but in a game like Tears where the player is constantly getting new materials and tools, each new instance of a previously encountered situation or problem is a chance to experiment with new solutions, something that can’t be said for other games with repetitive content. Ideally, the new areas would just have new, unique puzzles, but a game like Tears is a case where it works, or at least can work depending on how the player approaches it.
Speaking of the tools Tears provides, gone are the Sheikah tools from Breath of the Wild, in are the new Zonai tools Link gained from his cool new arm. Rewind allows Link to move an object back in time, primarily utilized to solve puzzles and to gain elevation using fallen rocks, but also has uses in combat. Ascend is pretty simple, it allows Link to swim up through ceilings and pop out on the other side, very useful when exiting the caves, another new addition to Tears. Fuse lets Link attach items to his weapons, shields, and arrows, a cool way to strengthen Link early on, but almost a necessity to ensure fights with stronger enemies don’t take forever. Ultrahand is the big one, it lets Link build machines using his new arm to move things like magnesis did to metal items in Botw. It also allows Link to glue items together. It's a little clunky and the creations push the switch to its limits, but it's the selling point to the game for a reason, and gives the player more options than anything in Breath of the wild. Autobuild is the last new tool, and allows for the recreation of previous machines even without all the materials (at the cost of other materials of course). The camera also makes a welcome return, and works just as it did in Botw. Tears also incorporates most of the Sheikah abilities from Botw in some way. Bomb flowers work kinda like the Sheikah bombs, ultrahand does everything magnesis does and then some, ice flowers and ice weapons can create ice slabs on water, and rewind can freeze items temporarily if turned on and off right away (that one is a bit of a stretch).
The story is in the same format as Breath of the Wild: Link needs to explore the world and collect some memories to put together the whole picture. Unfortunately it doesn’t work quite as well in TotK. Because of how the memories are structured, seeing them out of order doesn’t work nearly as well as it did for the more disconnected ones in Botw. A shame, because the method of collecting dragon tears is far more interesting than simply looking at pictures and locating where they were taken. The order in which things are collected is actually a problem in other aspects of the game; the paraglider is missable now, as it is given after an interaction in lookout landing rather than when leaving the initial area. It's a baffling decision considering how important the paraglider is to exploration. Autobuild is also tied to a completely missable sidequest in the depths, another odd decision when building things is such a huge part of the game.
Tears unfortunately doesn’t fix some of Breath’s biggest issues, such as menuing which is even worse (especially the arrow fusing menu) and weapon durability is even more divisive considering how having good fusible items is almost as important as having weapons to fuse with in the first place.
However, this ice cream sandwich tastes kinda good actually.
For all the issues this game has, actually playing it makes them melt away, especially early on. Tears is not a game meant to be 100%, it's meant to be played as long as the player finds themself engaged. The sheer inventiveness on display here is staggering, Tears allows the player to do and try things that no other games do, and that's an accomplishment. Problems be damned, there’s plenty of fun to be had and memories to be made in Tears, and it deserves the recognition its garnered.
Tears of the Kingdom takes Breath of the Wild, slams some layers on either side of it and throws in some new stuff and story changes in the middle. It's great but it can certainly be a bit much. For example, the new layers - the sky islands and the depths - are massive additions to the game, but fall a bit flat when fully scoured. There’s a lot of cool stuff in both spots, but when the player delves deeper, they realize that it's a lot of the same cool stuff, making the whole experience a little less magical. Finding an underground coliseum challenge is cool the first time, but the second time? The third time? It's just not the same, and the first time isn’t as powerful as a result.
There’s certainly an argument to be made that the sky islands and depths should have either been fleshed out or shrunk, but maybe the excess isn’t so bad. After all, a vast majority of players aren’t going to be in the game long enough to see this repetition in the first place. Of course, unique content is always better than repetitive material, but in a game like Tears where the player is constantly getting new materials and tools, each new instance of a previously encountered situation or problem is a chance to experiment with new solutions, something that can’t be said for other games with repetitive content. Ideally, the new areas would just have new, unique puzzles, but a game like Tears is a case where it works, or at least can work depending on how the player approaches it.
Speaking of the tools Tears provides, gone are the Sheikah tools from Breath of the Wild, in are the new Zonai tools Link gained from his cool new arm. Rewind allows Link to move an object back in time, primarily utilized to solve puzzles and to gain elevation using fallen rocks, but also has uses in combat. Ascend is pretty simple, it allows Link to swim up through ceilings and pop out on the other side, very useful when exiting the caves, another new addition to Tears. Fuse lets Link attach items to his weapons, shields, and arrows, a cool way to strengthen Link early on, but almost a necessity to ensure fights with stronger enemies don’t take forever. Ultrahand is the big one, it lets Link build machines using his new arm to move things like magnesis did to metal items in Botw. It also allows Link to glue items together. It's a little clunky and the creations push the switch to its limits, but it's the selling point to the game for a reason, and gives the player more options than anything in Breath of the wild. Autobuild is the last new tool, and allows for the recreation of previous machines even without all the materials (at the cost of other materials of course). The camera also makes a welcome return, and works just as it did in Botw. Tears also incorporates most of the Sheikah abilities from Botw in some way. Bomb flowers work kinda like the Sheikah bombs, ultrahand does everything magnesis does and then some, ice flowers and ice weapons can create ice slabs on water, and rewind can freeze items temporarily if turned on and off right away (that one is a bit of a stretch).
The story is in the same format as Breath of the Wild: Link needs to explore the world and collect some memories to put together the whole picture. Unfortunately it doesn’t work quite as well in TotK. Because of how the memories are structured, seeing them out of order doesn’t work nearly as well as it did for the more disconnected ones in Botw. A shame, because the method of collecting dragon tears is far more interesting than simply looking at pictures and locating where they were taken. The order in which things are collected is actually a problem in other aspects of the game; the paraglider is missable now, as it is given after an interaction in lookout landing rather than when leaving the initial area. It's a baffling decision considering how important the paraglider is to exploration. Autobuild is also tied to a completely missable sidequest in the depths, another odd decision when building things is such a huge part of the game.
Tears unfortunately doesn’t fix some of Breath’s biggest issues, such as menuing which is even worse (especially the arrow fusing menu) and weapon durability is even more divisive considering how having good fusible items is almost as important as having weapons to fuse with in the first place.
However, this ice cream sandwich tastes kinda good actually.
For all the issues this game has, actually playing it makes them melt away, especially early on. Tears is not a game meant to be 100%, it's meant to be played as long as the player finds themself engaged. The sheer inventiveness on display here is staggering, Tears allows the player to do and try things that no other games do, and that's an accomplishment. Problems be damned, there’s plenty of fun to be had and memories to be made in Tears, and it deserves the recognition its garnered.
Best game of 2023
Really loved this!
Really loved this!
(The discourse on this game is fascinating, but exhausted. I'll start this review with my worthless two cents, then end it by attempting to contribute something new to the conversation)
I loved Breath of the Wild. I started playing it somewhere around January of 2019. I played it many times, I ran through the great plateau countlessly, I played on Master Mode, I attempted to hunt down all the koroks, I attempted to learn speedrun tricks and did challenge bingo runs with my friends, I watched hours upon hours of content from the likes of SmallAnt and PointCrow, among others.
By mid 2022, the only thing I felt towards Breath of the Wild was burnout.
Above all the hype and expectations, the only thing I could truly hope for was for "the sequel to Breath of the Wild," whatever it ended up being, to respark the wonder I felt with its predecessor.
So, by all accounts, Tears of the Kingdom is a massive success.
Like many people, I was worried about how a re-used map could fill the shoes that Breath of the Wild left. In retrospect, such a concern feels silly, it's for precisely that reason that being back feels wonderful. For as dynamic as Hyrule felt with its physics and chemistry systems, the one thing it lacked was a changing sense of time. How fulfilling it is then to see not only the grandeur of the sky and the mysteriousness of the depths, but also to learn how the people and places you once knew are not the same.
After 4 months, 220 or so hours, and a whopping 81.34% completion, I've finally hit the credits. I took my sweet time, and explored everything thoroughly. This game accomplished many things that I hoped it would, like bringing back wells and caves, creating objectively better runes, and not relying on building/crafting zonai devices as a crutch for fun. It surprised me in ways I couldn't have imagined, like streamlining exploration and the limitless chaotic creativity possible with ultrahand. It makes a lot of embarrassing mistakes, like an arguably worse plot, an abundance of menu management, and champion abilities that are mapped to NPCs. And after all of it, I once again feel burnt out.
I'm very happy with what I played and very glad to be done with it. All joy from it feels lost, yet I can't deny how many weekends I lost spending hours with it and how much peace it brought me.
This is by a Hyrulian mile the biggest game Nintendo has ever made, and what I hope for the future is that it stays that way for a long time. There's no reason for them to immediately try and outdo themselves in scope. What I would love is a change in direction. From arguably as far back as Super Mario World, Nintendo's big first party titles, mainly Marios, have abided by the same philosophy: it's fun because you don't have to do all of it. You don't have to beat every level in Super Mario World, nor get every star in Super Mario 64. Pass on those blue coins, Super Luigi Galaxy can take a hike. Green Stars? Who cares? The Odyssey will do just fine with 124 moons. And now, every shrine and korok is at your leisure to collect. This approach works well for many things, but maybe we've seen the extent of what they can do with it for now. I'm not saying I want them to abandon secrets and player autonomy. But imagine what a team this talented could do with a bit more structure.
Whatever they cook up next, it can wait awhile. This meal was delicious, but very filling, and I don't want to eat again for a long time.
I loved Breath of the Wild. I started playing it somewhere around January of 2019. I played it many times, I ran through the great plateau countlessly, I played on Master Mode, I attempted to hunt down all the koroks, I attempted to learn speedrun tricks and did challenge bingo runs with my friends, I watched hours upon hours of content from the likes of SmallAnt and PointCrow, among others.
By mid 2022, the only thing I felt towards Breath of the Wild was burnout.
Above all the hype and expectations, the only thing I could truly hope for was for "the sequel to Breath of the Wild," whatever it ended up being, to respark the wonder I felt with its predecessor.
So, by all accounts, Tears of the Kingdom is a massive success.
Like many people, I was worried about how a re-used map could fill the shoes that Breath of the Wild left. In retrospect, such a concern feels silly, it's for precisely that reason that being back feels wonderful. For as dynamic as Hyrule felt with its physics and chemistry systems, the one thing it lacked was a changing sense of time. How fulfilling it is then to see not only the grandeur of the sky and the mysteriousness of the depths, but also to learn how the people and places you once knew are not the same.
After 4 months, 220 or so hours, and a whopping 81.34% completion, I've finally hit the credits. I took my sweet time, and explored everything thoroughly. This game accomplished many things that I hoped it would, like bringing back wells and caves, creating objectively better runes, and not relying on building/crafting zonai devices as a crutch for fun. It surprised me in ways I couldn't have imagined, like streamlining exploration and the limitless chaotic creativity possible with ultrahand. It makes a lot of embarrassing mistakes, like an arguably worse plot, an abundance of menu management, and champion abilities that are mapped to NPCs. And after all of it, I once again feel burnt out.
I'm very happy with what I played and very glad to be done with it. All joy from it feels lost, yet I can't deny how many weekends I lost spending hours with it and how much peace it brought me.
This is by a Hyrulian mile the biggest game Nintendo has ever made, and what I hope for the future is that it stays that way for a long time. There's no reason for them to immediately try and outdo themselves in scope. What I would love is a change in direction. From arguably as far back as Super Mario World, Nintendo's big first party titles, mainly Marios, have abided by the same philosophy: it's fun because you don't have to do all of it. You don't have to beat every level in Super Mario World, nor get every star in Super Mario 64. Pass on those blue coins, Super Luigi Galaxy can take a hike. Green Stars? Who cares? The Odyssey will do just fine with 124 moons. And now, every shrine and korok is at your leisure to collect. This approach works well for many things, but maybe we've seen the extent of what they can do with it for now. I'm not saying I want them to abandon secrets and player autonomy. But imagine what a team this talented could do with a bit more structure.
Whatever they cook up next, it can wait awhile. This meal was delicious, but very filling, and I don't want to eat again for a long time.
Totk was amazing at the start, it was a whole new zelda but... the more I played the more I realized I was just playing Botw again.
Breath of the Wild was an innovative entry in the Zelda franchise; this game takes what Breath of the Wild did and improves every aspect. Ganon makes an appearance, the music is spectacular, the combining system is awesome, the sky and depth areas add so much to do, I like that Zelda actually has a purpose like in Breath of the Wild, and overall the game is an impressive accomplishment for the Switch. I debated whether this game was better than its predecessor but after much consideration, I think it surpassed it; this is my favorite Zelda game and easily one of my favorite video games of all time.
Peak open world game.
this game saved my life i wish i was joking
משחק הזלדה הכי טוב בהליכה.
פיינל בוס הכי טוב של נינטנדו ובבוסים בכללי
יופי שיש סיפור אמיתי
כל כך הרבה מה לעשות ולחקור
בעיות:
רוב ממשימות הסיפור היו בולשיט מוחלט וסתם גרועות ברמות
זהו עם הבעיות
פיינל בוס הכי טוב של נינטנדו ובבוסים בכללי
יופי שיש סיפור אמיתי
כל כך הרבה מה לעשות ולחקור
בעיות:
רוב ממשימות הסיפור היו בולשיט מוחלט וסתם גרועות ברמות
זהו עם הבעיות
This review contains spoilers
I loved Breath of the Wild, and I wish I could love this game too. I wish this game gave me the same feeling of exploring a desolate world gripped by this hanging sense of dread, instead of this treading the same ground where little has changed. I wish the new abilities really did anything for me other than just be frustrating, seemingly punishing creativity, rewarding building another car or just feeling like you've a set of abilities that this world wasn't designed for. I wish the new locations of the game were worth exploring, that they might have recaptured that bliss of discovery the first game had instead of being sparse in the worst ways possible or yet again frustrating. I wish I could use the ascend tool to actually ascend out of the underground instead of being forced to do it in four or five pre-picked little places in the whole underground and otherwise be encouraged to fast travel. I wish weapons weren't so useless unless you glued an ugly horn or rock to them. Every change to this game, or new addition, just feels like a downgrade. By the time I got towards the end of the game and they just went "now fight an unending horde of bastards on your way to two boss fights with multiple phases" i'd decided my response was finally going to be "no". I can't say I hate it, because structurally it is the exact same game as Breath of the Wild, with the exact same world, exact same gameplay and exact same plot. There are minor alterations but it is essentially a carbon copy. That said those minor alterations are all detrimental for me, and that made this one of the more disappointing games i've played when summing up the whole experience. Maybe one day i'll go back to it and have a proper, less cynical go at things. I slightly doubt that though.
Been playing this but I get stuck occasionally but overall beautiful very fun game
A continuação de um dos melhores jogos já criados, mas agora aprimorando tudo já visto anteriormente. Historia fantástica, mais dificuldade, mais desafios, mecânicas mais elaboradas. O jogo é fantástico, mas jogar no mesmo mapa pode em algum momento fazer parecer que o jogo é apenas uma DLC.
Better than Breath of the Wild in nearly every way.
Possibly one of the best sandbox games I've ever played. The absolute freedom in choosing how you want to approach anything at all is incredible--built on the framework of Breath of the Wild, meaning even choosing not to build and create your own solutions can be fun. Combat is consistently fun and rewarding to absolutely decimate anything in your path. Easily my favorite Zelda game of all time.
haha this game makes me cry as well. I love the story, and the gameplay was just as fun as BotW.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an incredible sequel to Breath of the Wild. The best part of Breath of the Wild by far was just the large amount of freedom you had to solve problems, and Tears of the Kingdom gives you even more of that. The ability to pick up any item you find around and just attach it to any kind of vehicle or build you imagine is a level of freedom I could never have even imagined. One aspect of the game that is by far an improvement from Breath of the Wild is the temples. In Breath of the Wild, all the temples had the exact same look with just a different elemental theme to them, however in Tears of the Kingdom, all the temples are unique and stand out from each other, as well as the bosses inside of the temples. In pretty much all the areas Breath of the Wild was lacking, Tears of the Kingdom improves. I do wish however that the game used a more distinct map than that of Breath of the Wild, as while they did make changes to the main map, the most unique and distinct parts of Tears of the Kingdom are in the sky and underground. If you enjoyed Breath of the Wild, there is no doubt you will enjoy Tears of the Kingdom.
idc if its the same map, if you like fun and the banjo kazooie nuts n bolts vehicle building mechanic this game is peak. you dont like this game you dont like fun stupid bitch
I finished this game a couple of weeks ago and have been struggling to find the right words to say about it.
I enjoyed my time with Breath of the Wild, but wasn’t blown away, so going into Tears of the Kingdom I didn’t have expectations of any kind. Well, TotK absolutely blew me away!
This game has become one of my all time favourites, whether it’s because of the exploration being deeper and wider than before, the combat allowing for so many unique varieties of attack and defence, the level of creativity just using the abilities or even the secrets to find within Hyrule, Tears of the Kingdom was an amazing experience and not one I’ll forget any time soon.
The level of freedom I felt in this game is unmatched so far, the shrines giving you the tools to use and letting you figure out how to get through the puzzles with them was always rewarding. The different contraptions you can make and build, whether it’s a simple hoverbike or machines bordering on combat mechs, I never felt like I was running out of ideas to get through the game.
As for the visuals and storytelling, while the story wasn’t the strongest part of the game, both of these factors still felt great in the game. Especially the ending, which was just amazing to play and amazes me as to how Nintendo managed to make it work on a Switch!
What an amazing game, truly it is an experience I will treasure forever!
I enjoyed my time with Breath of the Wild, but wasn’t blown away, so going into Tears of the Kingdom I didn’t have expectations of any kind. Well, TotK absolutely blew me away!
This game has become one of my all time favourites, whether it’s because of the exploration being deeper and wider than before, the combat allowing for so many unique varieties of attack and defence, the level of creativity just using the abilities or even the secrets to find within Hyrule, Tears of the Kingdom was an amazing experience and not one I’ll forget any time soon.
The level of freedom I felt in this game is unmatched so far, the shrines giving you the tools to use and letting you figure out how to get through the puzzles with them was always rewarding. The different contraptions you can make and build, whether it’s a simple hoverbike or machines bordering on combat mechs, I never felt like I was running out of ideas to get through the game.
As for the visuals and storytelling, while the story wasn’t the strongest part of the game, both of these factors still felt great in the game. Especially the ending, which was just amazing to play and amazes me as to how Nintendo managed to make it work on a Switch!
What an amazing game, truly it is an experience I will treasure forever!