TL;DR: A masterclass in game design in nearly every way, Tears of the Kingdom improves upon almost every single aspect of its predecessor tenfold. A much bigger, more interesting world, expansively useful new abilities, countless new and deeply fascinating mechanics to learn, as well as multiple (at least partially) amended weaknesses of the original, like improved weapon durability and increased usefulness for each and every item you collect.
Being a serious Game of the Year contender, there is very little holding Tears of the Kingdom back from the spot. Just like Breath of the Wild that came before (whose score I've had to retroactively decrease now that such a better sequel exists), it just might be one of the defining games of this entire decade.
Pros:
+ Improves on previous game's issues like weapon durability, way too situational abilites and making items more valuable and multi-purposed
+ Much more interesting tutorial area, with all of the overall additions to the overworld feeling very much substantial and worth the game's price
+ Combat and general enemy encounters have been improved hugely with new abilities (some of the new enemies are especially fun to challenge)
+ Despite being a direct ripoff of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the building mechanic is incredibly fitting for the game and works flawlessly. The year they delayed the game for just to iron out any problems or bugs clearly paid off, a certain Game Freak could learn from Nintendo.
+ The game has clearly been optimized to handle way more individual entities on-screen at the same time (at least compared to its predecessor, where you could seriously slow the game down with just a few electric weapons on the ground)
+ Excellent influence from Hyrule Warriors with the new bigger enemy camps and allied soldiers
+ A huge surprise bubbling beneath the surface even for people who watched the trailers
+ All pros from Breath of the Wild carry over to this game
+/- While the overall story and lore of the game is pretty good and definitely better than Breath of the Wild's, there are way less interesting character moments, which is weird since you actually spend much more time with every character in this game than you did before. Especially egregious is how each regional character's arc concludes with a nearly identical cutscene in both visuals and dialogue, which I won't spoil further. Needless to say, the focus in this game's development definitely went to the gameplay and world, not its story beats. Then again, Miyamoto hates having stories in games, so that might just explain it.
+/- I actually think the new champion abilities are much more interesting and balanced, but their controls are so clunky and bad that you almost never have the chance to properly use them. Only half of them are context-specific, so the others have to be activated by physically walking up to the champion.
Cons:
- Weak voice acting makes an unwelcome return in this game, as Nintendo is seemingly unable to give proper direction to its VAs. Characters like Sidon especially sound even more wooden and performative than before.
- Even though I did mention that the overworld additions are worth the game's asking price, I do have to say that many areas of the game's sky are sorely lacking in floating islands that could've really make it feel like a comparably huge part of the world with the surface.
- Not completely part of the game itself but I'd like to mention here that it's a damn shame the game's not getting DLC :(
Being a serious Game of the Year contender, there is very little holding Tears of the Kingdom back from the spot. Just like Breath of the Wild that came before (whose score I've had to retroactively decrease now that such a better sequel exists), it just might be one of the defining games of this entire decade.
Pros:
+ Improves on previous game's issues like weapon durability, way too situational abilites and making items more valuable and multi-purposed
+ Much more interesting tutorial area, with all of the overall additions to the overworld feeling very much substantial and worth the game's price
+ Combat and general enemy encounters have been improved hugely with new abilities (some of the new enemies are especially fun to challenge)
+ Despite being a direct ripoff of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, the building mechanic is incredibly fitting for the game and works flawlessly. The year they delayed the game for just to iron out any problems or bugs clearly paid off, a certain Game Freak could learn from Nintendo.
+ The game has clearly been optimized to handle way more individual entities on-screen at the same time (at least compared to its predecessor, where you could seriously slow the game down with just a few electric weapons on the ground)
+ Excellent influence from Hyrule Warriors with the new bigger enemy camps and allied soldiers
+ A huge surprise bubbling beneath the surface even for people who watched the trailers
+ All pros from Breath of the Wild carry over to this game
+/- While the overall story and lore of the game is pretty good and definitely better than Breath of the Wild's, there are way less interesting character moments, which is weird since you actually spend much more time with every character in this game than you did before. Especially egregious is how each regional character's arc concludes with a nearly identical cutscene in both visuals and dialogue, which I won't spoil further. Needless to say, the focus in this game's development definitely went to the gameplay and world, not its story beats. Then again, Miyamoto hates having stories in games, so that might just explain it.
+/- I actually think the new champion abilities are much more interesting and balanced, but their controls are so clunky and bad that you almost never have the chance to properly use them. Only half of them are context-specific, so the others have to be activated by physically walking up to the champion.
Cons:
- Weak voice acting makes an unwelcome return in this game, as Nintendo is seemingly unable to give proper direction to its VAs. Characters like Sidon especially sound even more wooden and performative than before.
- Even though I did mention that the overworld additions are worth the game's asking price, I do have to say that many areas of the game's sky are sorely lacking in floating islands that could've really make it feel like a comparably huge part of the world with the surface.
- Not completely part of the game itself but I'd like to mention here that it's a damn shame the game's not getting DLC :(