While traversal can be acomplished through the use of Ultra handed made vehicles of varying complexities, Tears of the Kingdom ends up feeling like a toybox demo than a fully fledged sequel.
The rejigged open world is welcome otherwise this would drag the game signficantly lower in anyones estimations.
In an odd way this game shares similarties with Banjo Tooie, a sequel with plenty of ideas but not fleshed out into a cohesive experience.
There's plenty to do and yet there's an air of uncertainty present that is apparent from the constructs left behind by it's predecesor breath of the wild.
I enjoyed my time playing however it gives off the impression that allowing anything to be a solution is not always the most rewarding experience.
Many shrines are solved in a matter of seconds due to the arsenal of abilities that serve to get you from point a to point b.
There's also sticking objects together like garrys mod which may confuse and irratate those who just want to progress without fiddling around with the finicky building mechanics.
A criticism that has been dug into the ground and levied at botw about the weapons is also not fixed here.
While you will never be in short supply of materials to craft weapons, it becomes tedious scrolling and sorting through a long list just to remake an effective weapon that you crafted before.
What's more confusing is that there is a favourite feature but it is only present for the contraptions menu and not the fuse weapons menu.
The tedium can be somewhat reduced by using an unlockable ability that auto-builds schematics of previously made creations but it ends up costing zonaite, and this is where there is a clash in design.
The sky is under utilised and less sprawling as imagined before it's debut in those trailers years ago. Skyward sword had character in it's approach to the sky section with unique buildings populated by npcs.
The sky being the main draw becomes the least developed compared to the depths which make up a majority of the terrain.
The depths are more challenging than the land or sky due to the blight condition which prevents you from replenishing hearts once you touch or are attacked by blight afflicted enemies.
Your reward for exploring the depths comes in way of easier ways to acquire zonaite to power batteries and collect what were previously amiibo locked outfits from botw in chests.
The cycle becomes this, Build 2 fan and 1 seat flying machine with a brightbloom seed to light the way; find lightroots, mine zonaite repeat.
There are a few bosses sprinkled around the depths as well as above but they suffer from copy and paste that you will get so sick of encountering the 6th hinox that you'll opt to skip it.
As for the regions they have seen a makeover in layout whick makes revisting interesting, there's a lot more thought put into what sidequests there are this time around.
At the same time there is a lot of repetition when it comes to some of these.
The travelling band requires you to find a band member, complete their task before hauling them all up a hill in a towed wagon to a great fairy that does the same thing as all the other great fairies which is upgrade your armour rating but only with the required number of materials for each piece.
Another involves seeking out caves and wells that are seperate to the depths to kill bubuulfrogs that drop buubul gems which can be traded in for items also present in botw.
The four dungeons in the game are a huge step up in comparision to botw and the bosses encountered also are improved but not as clever to solve like in previous zelda's prior to botw.
The champions also make a return with their abilities allowing you to do different types of attacks.
The least helpful one comes with sidons water barrier that will absorb one hit and if you attack it shoots a jetstream slice that clears muck which really only affects the zora domain and some parts of the depths.
Riju will use lighting if you shoot an arrow after it charges up, tulin shoots arrows and propels you forward with a gust of wind and yunobo barrells towards anything in the path designated. Yunobo's ability can be annoying as he will automatically cling to any vehicle you pilot, including tiny ones which blocks a lot of view.
Luckily you can disable any of these at any time, but a majority of the time these abilities are quick lackluster.
I would mention the additional ability but it is considerd a spoiler but even it is a let down when initially you think you can do a lot more with it than you actually can.
Overall Tears of the kingdom is a sequel to breath of the wild, if you enjoyed that then this is more of the same but with a different look. Does it break new ground and redefine the genre? Absolutely not.
It feels held back by what groundwork was laid before it that now it falls victim to the same formulaic curse that it tried to escape from.
Will I return to this years later who knows but it certainly isn't the best Zelda game
The rejigged open world is welcome otherwise this would drag the game signficantly lower in anyones estimations.
In an odd way this game shares similarties with Banjo Tooie, a sequel with plenty of ideas but not fleshed out into a cohesive experience.
There's plenty to do and yet there's an air of uncertainty present that is apparent from the constructs left behind by it's predecesor breath of the wild.
I enjoyed my time playing however it gives off the impression that allowing anything to be a solution is not always the most rewarding experience.
Many shrines are solved in a matter of seconds due to the arsenal of abilities that serve to get you from point a to point b.
There's also sticking objects together like garrys mod which may confuse and irratate those who just want to progress without fiddling around with the finicky building mechanics.
A criticism that has been dug into the ground and levied at botw about the weapons is also not fixed here.
While you will never be in short supply of materials to craft weapons, it becomes tedious scrolling and sorting through a long list just to remake an effective weapon that you crafted before.
What's more confusing is that there is a favourite feature but it is only present for the contraptions menu and not the fuse weapons menu.
The tedium can be somewhat reduced by using an unlockable ability that auto-builds schematics of previously made creations but it ends up costing zonaite, and this is where there is a clash in design.
The sky is under utilised and less sprawling as imagined before it's debut in those trailers years ago. Skyward sword had character in it's approach to the sky section with unique buildings populated by npcs.
The sky being the main draw becomes the least developed compared to the depths which make up a majority of the terrain.
The depths are more challenging than the land or sky due to the blight condition which prevents you from replenishing hearts once you touch or are attacked by blight afflicted enemies.
Your reward for exploring the depths comes in way of easier ways to acquire zonaite to power batteries and collect what were previously amiibo locked outfits from botw in chests.
The cycle becomes this, Build 2 fan and 1 seat flying machine with a brightbloom seed to light the way; find lightroots, mine zonaite repeat.
There are a few bosses sprinkled around the depths as well as above but they suffer from copy and paste that you will get so sick of encountering the 6th hinox that you'll opt to skip it.
As for the regions they have seen a makeover in layout whick makes revisting interesting, there's a lot more thought put into what sidequests there are this time around.
At the same time there is a lot of repetition when it comes to some of these.
The travelling band requires you to find a band member, complete their task before hauling them all up a hill in a towed wagon to a great fairy that does the same thing as all the other great fairies which is upgrade your armour rating but only with the required number of materials for each piece.
Another involves seeking out caves and wells that are seperate to the depths to kill bubuulfrogs that drop buubul gems which can be traded in for items also present in botw.
The four dungeons in the game are a huge step up in comparision to botw and the bosses encountered also are improved but not as clever to solve like in previous zelda's prior to botw.
The champions also make a return with their abilities allowing you to do different types of attacks.
The least helpful one comes with sidons water barrier that will absorb one hit and if you attack it shoots a jetstream slice that clears muck which really only affects the zora domain and some parts of the depths.
Riju will use lighting if you shoot an arrow after it charges up, tulin shoots arrows and propels you forward with a gust of wind and yunobo barrells towards anything in the path designated. Yunobo's ability can be annoying as he will automatically cling to any vehicle you pilot, including tiny ones which blocks a lot of view.
Luckily you can disable any of these at any time, but a majority of the time these abilities are quick lackluster.
I would mention the additional ability but it is considerd a spoiler but even it is a let down when initially you think you can do a lot more with it than you actually can.
Overall Tears of the kingdom is a sequel to breath of the wild, if you enjoyed that then this is more of the same but with a different look. Does it break new ground and redefine the genre? Absolutely not.
It feels held back by what groundwork was laid before it that now it falls victim to the same formulaic curse that it tried to escape from.
Will I return to this years later who knows but it certainly isn't the best Zelda game