(Minor spoilers for the game) At the start of the year, if you asked me what game I thought would be my favorite game of the year, I would've told you Tears of the Kingdom. However, on release, the prevailing word that I would use to describe the game is simply disappointing. Tears of the Kingdom isn't a bad game by any means, but it certainly doesn't live up to it's processor. The game feels way too safe, failing to really do anything incredibly new like every Zelda game before it. Going into Tears of the Kingdom, my expectations were that similar to a Majora's Mask type sequel, being a very quickly made sequel that uses the original formula to add new and interesting elements to the game and take risks. The game really doesn't do this at all. To find why I feel so negatively about the game, the first place to look is the back of the box with it's three main features "Explore," "Discover," and "Create".
Let's start with "Explore," mainly highlighting the addition of the two new types of areas to explore in the game: the sky and the depths. As these are good additions to the game, they aren't huge new features like the lead up would have you believe. The sky area isn't very expansive and there's a limit to how many islands you can explore before there is literally no one to get to any others and you just need to explore the ground to then get to other islands. The depths have a very similar issue with only chucks of the depths being able to be explored before having to go back to the surface and explore there more to find more holes, but it's also completely dark in the depths, making the entire design philosophy of BOTW of turning a corner and seeing more areas to explore, non-existent in the depths. This isn't great inherently in my opinion, but it gets even worse when you realize there is virtually no reason you should be exploring the overworld apart from finding different ways to explore the over sub areas, as the open world is literally the same as BOTW, which is BY FAR, the biggest issue with the game. The overworld is also a lot less interesting to explore with the lack of one key enemy type, guardians. Guardians made BOTW really fun to explore since these dangerous enemies could pop out of nowhere and just entirely fuck you up, but nothing like this exists at all within ToTK.
The issues with the overworld really fall more under the "Discover" aspect of the box since you really aren't going to be discovering anything. The overworld, which is the main area you are exploring through the game, is not new. Sure, the developers alter it slightly but it's the same layout with the same collectibles and same exact towns. Most of the weapons and clothing and shields are from BOTW, yeah there are some new ones, but me and my roommate literally counted and only like a third of the items are actually new.
Finally, is the "Create" part of the box, which can be described very easily as a janky mess. The overworld and systems in BOTW weren't created for random machines to be used to explore them and it makes it more awkward than anything to use them. Not only that but actually creating items in the game is really fucking annoying as even the slightest piece out of place or the machine being placed in a slightly wrong area will just make it so your machine simply doesn't fucking work correctly. It's so frustrating and this is the big new selling point.
Quickly going other issues I had with the game is how the systems overall are just way too overcomplicated compared to BOTW, with all the new abilities being also very clunky and not as simple as in BOTW, mainly is fuse which is a fun idea, but having to navigate menus to do anything really interesting with the ability and pulling out items just kills part of the enjoyment of fusing. Finally, as much as I'm sucking BOTW off in this review, it isn't a perfect game, but none of the major critiques of BOTW are really addressed. Starting off wit dungeons, sure, they are better than BOTW's but like, not much at all. The dungeon themes were better but the designs were just about the same, the next game better at least go back to the key dungeon design of the prior Zelda games. The other major critique of BOTW is the rain effecting climbing and making exploring basically impossible in the rain, and TOTK addresses this a bit with the frog suit, but it barely does anything and takes most of the game to even fucking get it.
This review has been more of a rant than anything at this point but I didn't outright hate the game, there are some positives of the game. The ending section was a lot meatier and overall just better than BOTW with entire fight sequence being really fun and well designed. The fusion system had it's issues but it was fun to fuse weapons with items you scavenged to make even more powerful weapons. The recall ability was also really fun, had a lot of interesting uses and led to some cool and inventive puzzle solutions. The towers were also better in ToTK with more interesting ways to unlock them apart from just climbing. One of the champions was really really cool and was fun to screw around with. The story was a bit more interesting than BOTW's, even if it fucks up the entire Zelda timeline for no reason.
After 6 years of waiting, overall, Tears of the Kingdom was very disappointing for me, being a safe sequel that really fails to understand what made the original so great.
Let's start with "Explore," mainly highlighting the addition of the two new types of areas to explore in the game: the sky and the depths. As these are good additions to the game, they aren't huge new features like the lead up would have you believe. The sky area isn't very expansive and there's a limit to how many islands you can explore before there is literally no one to get to any others and you just need to explore the ground to then get to other islands. The depths have a very similar issue with only chucks of the depths being able to be explored before having to go back to the surface and explore there more to find more holes, but it's also completely dark in the depths, making the entire design philosophy of BOTW of turning a corner and seeing more areas to explore, non-existent in the depths. This isn't great inherently in my opinion, but it gets even worse when you realize there is virtually no reason you should be exploring the overworld apart from finding different ways to explore the over sub areas, as the open world is literally the same as BOTW, which is BY FAR, the biggest issue with the game. The overworld is also a lot less interesting to explore with the lack of one key enemy type, guardians. Guardians made BOTW really fun to explore since these dangerous enemies could pop out of nowhere and just entirely fuck you up, but nothing like this exists at all within ToTK.
The issues with the overworld really fall more under the "Discover" aspect of the box since you really aren't going to be discovering anything. The overworld, which is the main area you are exploring through the game, is not new. Sure, the developers alter it slightly but it's the same layout with the same collectibles and same exact towns. Most of the weapons and clothing and shields are from BOTW, yeah there are some new ones, but me and my roommate literally counted and only like a third of the items are actually new.
Finally, is the "Create" part of the box, which can be described very easily as a janky mess. The overworld and systems in BOTW weren't created for random machines to be used to explore them and it makes it more awkward than anything to use them. Not only that but actually creating items in the game is really fucking annoying as even the slightest piece out of place or the machine being placed in a slightly wrong area will just make it so your machine simply doesn't fucking work correctly. It's so frustrating and this is the big new selling point.
Quickly going other issues I had with the game is how the systems overall are just way too overcomplicated compared to BOTW, with all the new abilities being also very clunky and not as simple as in BOTW, mainly is fuse which is a fun idea, but having to navigate menus to do anything really interesting with the ability and pulling out items just kills part of the enjoyment of fusing. Finally, as much as I'm sucking BOTW off in this review, it isn't a perfect game, but none of the major critiques of BOTW are really addressed. Starting off wit dungeons, sure, they are better than BOTW's but like, not much at all. The dungeon themes were better but the designs were just about the same, the next game better at least go back to the key dungeon design of the prior Zelda games. The other major critique of BOTW is the rain effecting climbing and making exploring basically impossible in the rain, and TOTK addresses this a bit with the frog suit, but it barely does anything and takes most of the game to even fucking get it.
This review has been more of a rant than anything at this point but I didn't outright hate the game, there are some positives of the game. The ending section was a lot meatier and overall just better than BOTW with entire fight sequence being really fun and well designed. The fusion system had it's issues but it was fun to fuse weapons with items you scavenged to make even more powerful weapons. The recall ability was also really fun, had a lot of interesting uses and led to some cool and inventive puzzle solutions. The towers were also better in ToTK with more interesting ways to unlock them apart from just climbing. One of the champions was really really cool and was fun to screw around with. The story was a bit more interesting than BOTW's, even if it fucks up the entire Zelda timeline for no reason.
After 6 years of waiting, overall, Tears of the Kingdom was very disappointing for me, being a safe sequel that really fails to understand what made the original so great.