There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head on this one. I have an opinion on some aspect of the game that finds its mark on every part of the spectrum from awful to outstanding. I have so much to say without the drive or inclination to weave all of it together in a coherent manner. Instead, I’m going to try something different to what I would normally do and use a bullet point esque structure for talking points to spring board off of.
———The (abyss)mal———
>Tears of the Kingdom is a masterclass on the importance of story execution and how said execution can impact the quality of an otherwise good concept. Conceptually, I think the story is typical Zelda fanfare. Nothing exceptional, but it does its job and I would even dare to say it has one of the strongest hooks of intrigue the series has presented to this point. This potential is sadly squandered for 80% of the game with the most asinine, formulaic delivery the developers could have possibly achieved. Go to area with something happening to it on map -> talk to resident villagers -> meet the sage -> “yes we saw this Zelda that obviously wasn’t Zelda, do you think that’s Zelda?” -> temple and boss to stop whatever is happening -> flashback to imprisoning war -> something something secret stone -> repeat 3x. I get that it’s an open world game, and thus it’s a necessary evil to design your game in a way wherein your player could go anywhere at any time, but they’ve already proven they can handle this better in, hell, the original Breath of the Wild. Super disappointing.
>I want to have words with the concept designers, developers and playtesters who all collaborated to allow the Sages spirit mechanic to be the way that it is. Why. Why? Who thought it was a good idea to have to run up to the dudes (that are constantly running away FROM you in the middle of combat) to use a context sensitive action that’s very specific about proximity? Anyone involved in the process of this needs to be removed from the kitchen immediately, I no longer want anything that they are cooking.
>A lot of my main issues from the original game are, in fact, still present here and largely unchanged. Look, I understand the weapon breaking mechanic. I really do get it, it’s designed in such a way to force experimentation without falling back on the comfort of reliability. I know why it’s a thing, I just wish there was another approach to this somehow. Do they not think I would experiment with different weapon types and effects if I’m not absolutely forced into it? I think this mechanic has the exact opposite effect it’s aiming for, in a lot of cases. I got the Fierce Deity Sword in my run, which is the coolest shit of all time, but I never ended up using it because I don’t want my insanely cool and unique weapon to break in my hands. Not crazy about the game’s “no music to establish that silent atmosphere, it’s just you vs the wilds” approach still, nothing has changed on that front sadly. It still rains way too much and it genuinely angers me that I finally thought they added an item to the game to help you climb in the annoying ass rain with the Slip Resistance stuff, only to find out that it just doesn’t work unless you have like a million of the buffs stacked on top of one another….and even then it only sort of works? Super, super lame and not communicated very well at all.
>On a similar note to the story point, I was really disappointed with the Dragon’s Tears/ToTK’s take on BoTW’s memories. I think they work much better in the original, both narratively and in a ludo sort of gameplay sense. In ToTK, none of them really…challenge or change our understanding of anything, it’s all stuff we already know from the main story repeating itself ad nauseam.
———The “eh”———
>The depths are the coolest concept ever for a Zelda game. If I had to pinpoint the main thing in the game I was excited about going into it, it was The Depths. I love horror-core and horror adjacent vibes in my Zelda games (the Skyward Sword Silent Realm sections are, still, a massive highlight of the series) and the series pretty consistently delivers on that tone when they go for it. Here, I think they could have taken it way further than they actually did but it’s not something I outright disliked. I did enjoy exploring around down there and the vibes are, in fact, pretty strong, but longer trips do start to wear out their welcome a bit and it’s not quite a centerpiece of the game’s world like the game itself seems to want you to think.
>Similarly, the Sky islands are also just kinda…alright. There’s surprisingly little content up here for how central a point they were in advertising. Nothing really major in the “story” that happens up here, either, outside of…one dungeon? Yet another area that I think could have really benefited from being pushed and explored a little further, but admittedly I’ll always have a soft spot for sky-based locations and the like so I still had a good time. The prettiest parts of the game for sure, for what that’s worth, and platforming between chains of islands is legitimately fun when the game gives you the chance to do it.
———The good———
>The dungeons. So, as a lifelong Zelda fan, the dungeons have always been my absolute favorite thing about the series. My favorites tend to be the ones with really strong dungeon showings (Twilight Princess my beloved) and my…not so favorites are the ones that I think have weaker showings (sorry Wind Waker enthusiasts). Cue my disappointment with the original Breath of the Wild, featuring the worst dungeons in a 3D title with absolutely no contest for the spot. Visually uninteresting, mechanically repetitive, and frustratingly simple all combine their powers of mediocrity to create….something that leaves absolutely no mark or impression. Easily the biggest blunder of that original game, in my humble opinion. Tears of the Kingdom’s dungeons, on the other hand, are a huge step up and, yes, while the bar was in hell, it genuinely makes me happy as a fan of the series to be able to say that with confidence. I wouldn’t call any of them stellar or even great. There’s no Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak, Stone Tower Temple, or Sandships in the mix here but what we do get is all quite solid to good. They’re themed, have some very creative puzzles, unique bosses, etc. It’s good stuff!
>Building wacky shit. Now I’ll be real, I’m mo mastermind engineer but Tears of the Kingdom is very aware that 95% of the people playing this game wouldn’t be so there’s lots of fun to be had with experimenting and putting random wheels and rockets on things and just seeing what happens. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t work, other times it…doesn’t work, then there’s that time it…doesn’t work and I crashed into the mountain. Basically, it almost never works and you would have just been better walking to your destination because now you’re missing 5 hearts from your ass creation exploding on you but that’s the fun of it all. The whimsical inventive spirit pervasive in this game is delightful and I’m sure people more creative than I got even more utility out of it than I did.
———The fantastic———
>Your powers in this game are such a huge step up from BoTW’s it’s kind of unreal, the jump in quality is straight up ludicrous. In BoTW we had…turn water to ice….bomb…..bomb, but square….and like, yeah, it’s fine I guess but ToTK’s abilities are SO much more interesting and they all flow into each other perfectly. Ultrahand requires no mention for how insanely impressive and useful it is for literally everything the game wants you to do at all times. Ascend makes for very interesting vertical platforming and always makes you consider your positioning relative to platforms above you. Finding effective fuse combinations for weapons and shields is a lot of fun and spices up the moment to moment gameplay (and gives way more of an incentive to continue fighting enemies in the late game, since you’ll want their strong parts to make even stronger weapons). I’ve heard the streets calling Recall a washed ability but I can’t fathom how we possibly played the same game. And therein lies the answer: we didn’t play the same game. There’s two different video games here: Tears of the Kingdom, and Tears of the Kingdom: with Recall. I honestly believe it’s that important of an ability, especially once you master it and really get a grasp on how it works you can just casually break the entire game, in a fun way! The amount of times I “cheesed” puzzles with the Recall ability shenanigans are too numerous to count, but I get the feeling that all of that was something the designers did, in fact, consider Metroid-style.
>ToTK is just funny man. Like, the moment to moment dialogue in stuff that’s not the main story is…really good? A lot of the bigger towns in this game honestly feel pretty Majora’s Mask-core to me in how charming the residents can be and how they all operate on a schedule that can be studied and the like. Lots of charm virtually everywhere you look, I really liked some of the sillier side quests in general (the Yiga clan stuff is great) that give some much needed levity from your moment to moment climbing and running activities.
>Lots of really creative puzzles, in shrines and dungeons both. The ways they pushed your abilities and the Zonai devices with some of these puzzles is legit impressive, I smiled many times throughout the game after a particularly satisfying puzzle answer clicked into my head.
>A lot of the set pieces in this game are pretty stellar if I’m being honest. ToTK’s Master Sword sequence is super memorable, one of my favorites in the series, and that final boss…man. Immaculate vibes, very cinematic. The coldest version of Ganom we’ve seen in quite some time. It’s a really nice send-off to this version of Hyrule.
I really did enjoy my time with Tears of the Kingdom more than I thought I would as someone very vocal on not being in love with the open world direction the series has seemingly taken for the foreseeable future. There are some kinks that remain to be ironed out, but I came out the other end incredibly satisfied.
———The (abyss)mal———
>Tears of the Kingdom is a masterclass on the importance of story execution and how said execution can impact the quality of an otherwise good concept. Conceptually, I think the story is typical Zelda fanfare. Nothing exceptional, but it does its job and I would even dare to say it has one of the strongest hooks of intrigue the series has presented to this point. This potential is sadly squandered for 80% of the game with the most asinine, formulaic delivery the developers could have possibly achieved. Go to area with something happening to it on map -> talk to resident villagers -> meet the sage -> “yes we saw this Zelda that obviously wasn’t Zelda, do you think that’s Zelda?” -> temple and boss to stop whatever is happening -> flashback to imprisoning war -> something something secret stone -> repeat 3x. I get that it’s an open world game, and thus it’s a necessary evil to design your game in a way wherein your player could go anywhere at any time, but they’ve already proven they can handle this better in, hell, the original Breath of the Wild. Super disappointing.
>I want to have words with the concept designers, developers and playtesters who all collaborated to allow the Sages spirit mechanic to be the way that it is. Why. Why? Who thought it was a good idea to have to run up to the dudes (that are constantly running away FROM you in the middle of combat) to use a context sensitive action that’s very specific about proximity? Anyone involved in the process of this needs to be removed from the kitchen immediately, I no longer want anything that they are cooking.
>A lot of my main issues from the original game are, in fact, still present here and largely unchanged. Look, I understand the weapon breaking mechanic. I really do get it, it’s designed in such a way to force experimentation without falling back on the comfort of reliability. I know why it’s a thing, I just wish there was another approach to this somehow. Do they not think I would experiment with different weapon types and effects if I’m not absolutely forced into it? I think this mechanic has the exact opposite effect it’s aiming for, in a lot of cases. I got the Fierce Deity Sword in my run, which is the coolest shit of all time, but I never ended up using it because I don’t want my insanely cool and unique weapon to break in my hands. Not crazy about the game’s “no music to establish that silent atmosphere, it’s just you vs the wilds” approach still, nothing has changed on that front sadly. It still rains way too much and it genuinely angers me that I finally thought they added an item to the game to help you climb in the annoying ass rain with the Slip Resistance stuff, only to find out that it just doesn’t work unless you have like a million of the buffs stacked on top of one another….and even then it only sort of works? Super, super lame and not communicated very well at all.
>On a similar note to the story point, I was really disappointed with the Dragon’s Tears/ToTK’s take on BoTW’s memories. I think they work much better in the original, both narratively and in a ludo sort of gameplay sense. In ToTK, none of them really…challenge or change our understanding of anything, it’s all stuff we already know from the main story repeating itself ad nauseam.
———The “eh”———
>The depths are the coolest concept ever for a Zelda game. If I had to pinpoint the main thing in the game I was excited about going into it, it was The Depths. I love horror-core and horror adjacent vibes in my Zelda games (the Skyward Sword Silent Realm sections are, still, a massive highlight of the series) and the series pretty consistently delivers on that tone when they go for it. Here, I think they could have taken it way further than they actually did but it’s not something I outright disliked. I did enjoy exploring around down there and the vibes are, in fact, pretty strong, but longer trips do start to wear out their welcome a bit and it’s not quite a centerpiece of the game’s world like the game itself seems to want you to think.
>Similarly, the Sky islands are also just kinda…alright. There’s surprisingly little content up here for how central a point they were in advertising. Nothing really major in the “story” that happens up here, either, outside of…one dungeon? Yet another area that I think could have really benefited from being pushed and explored a little further, but admittedly I’ll always have a soft spot for sky-based locations and the like so I still had a good time. The prettiest parts of the game for sure, for what that’s worth, and platforming between chains of islands is legitimately fun when the game gives you the chance to do it.
———The good———
>The dungeons. So, as a lifelong Zelda fan, the dungeons have always been my absolute favorite thing about the series. My favorites tend to be the ones with really strong dungeon showings (Twilight Princess my beloved) and my…not so favorites are the ones that I think have weaker showings (sorry Wind Waker enthusiasts). Cue my disappointment with the original Breath of the Wild, featuring the worst dungeons in a 3D title with absolutely no contest for the spot. Visually uninteresting, mechanically repetitive, and frustratingly simple all combine their powers of mediocrity to create….something that leaves absolutely no mark or impression. Easily the biggest blunder of that original game, in my humble opinion. Tears of the Kingdom’s dungeons, on the other hand, are a huge step up and, yes, while the bar was in hell, it genuinely makes me happy as a fan of the series to be able to say that with confidence. I wouldn’t call any of them stellar or even great. There’s no Arbiter’s Grounds, Snowpeak, Stone Tower Temple, or Sandships in the mix here but what we do get is all quite solid to good. They’re themed, have some very creative puzzles, unique bosses, etc. It’s good stuff!
>Building wacky shit. Now I’ll be real, I’m mo mastermind engineer but Tears of the Kingdom is very aware that 95% of the people playing this game wouldn’t be so there’s lots of fun to be had with experimenting and putting random wheels and rockets on things and just seeing what happens. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t work, other times it…doesn’t work, then there’s that time it…doesn’t work and I crashed into the mountain. Basically, it almost never works and you would have just been better walking to your destination because now you’re missing 5 hearts from your ass creation exploding on you but that’s the fun of it all. The whimsical inventive spirit pervasive in this game is delightful and I’m sure people more creative than I got even more utility out of it than I did.
———The fantastic———
>Your powers in this game are such a huge step up from BoTW’s it’s kind of unreal, the jump in quality is straight up ludicrous. In BoTW we had…turn water to ice….bomb…..bomb, but square….and like, yeah, it’s fine I guess but ToTK’s abilities are SO much more interesting and they all flow into each other perfectly. Ultrahand requires no mention for how insanely impressive and useful it is for literally everything the game wants you to do at all times. Ascend makes for very interesting vertical platforming and always makes you consider your positioning relative to platforms above you. Finding effective fuse combinations for weapons and shields is a lot of fun and spices up the moment to moment gameplay (and gives way more of an incentive to continue fighting enemies in the late game, since you’ll want their strong parts to make even stronger weapons). I’ve heard the streets calling Recall a washed ability but I can’t fathom how we possibly played the same game. And therein lies the answer: we didn’t play the same game. There’s two different video games here: Tears of the Kingdom, and Tears of the Kingdom: with Recall. I honestly believe it’s that important of an ability, especially once you master it and really get a grasp on how it works you can just casually break the entire game, in a fun way! The amount of times I “cheesed” puzzles with the Recall ability shenanigans are too numerous to count, but I get the feeling that all of that was something the designers did, in fact, consider Metroid-style.
>ToTK is just funny man. Like, the moment to moment dialogue in stuff that’s not the main story is…really good? A lot of the bigger towns in this game honestly feel pretty Majora’s Mask-core to me in how charming the residents can be and how they all operate on a schedule that can be studied and the like. Lots of charm virtually everywhere you look, I really liked some of the sillier side quests in general (the Yiga clan stuff is great) that give some much needed levity from your moment to moment climbing and running activities.
>Lots of really creative puzzles, in shrines and dungeons both. The ways they pushed your abilities and the Zonai devices with some of these puzzles is legit impressive, I smiled many times throughout the game after a particularly satisfying puzzle answer clicked into my head.
>A lot of the set pieces in this game are pretty stellar if I’m being honest. ToTK’s Master Sword sequence is super memorable, one of my favorites in the series, and that final boss…man. Immaculate vibes, very cinematic. The coldest version of Ganom we’ve seen in quite some time. It’s a really nice send-off to this version of Hyrule.
I really did enjoy my time with Tears of the Kingdom more than I thought I would as someone very vocal on not being in love with the open world direction the series has seemingly taken for the foreseeable future. There are some kinks that remain to be ironed out, but I came out the other end incredibly satisfied.