KoldLatte
2 reviews liked by KoldLatte
Tears of the Kingdom marks a bold new iteration in this new age of Zelda projects that hearken back to the series roots. Many call this a flat upgrade to Breath of the Wild, and it's not difficult to see where that sentiment arrives from. Many features of the prequel have been reworked to impressive effect. The careful damage rebalancing keeps the game stable and challenging, especially when compared to Breath of the Wild. Perhaps the most notable upgrade are the four new spells -- Ascend, Fuse, Ultrahand and Rewind -- which propel the play-space to astronomical proportions. Regardless of these, I feel that Tears of the Kingdom strives for a notably different goal than Breath of the Wild, and is more successful at achieving it.
Breath of the Wild is a soulful, quiet game, asking the player to meditate on their journey with mechanics grounded in realism. The simulative aspect feels more attuned to immersion than playfulness, especially since it's rather difficult to get any of the wonky physics glitches of the Twitter-virality sort without a perfect understanding of the game rules and engine. Make a fire to stay alive in the cold. Equip rubber armor so a thundershock isn't lethal. These are the thought processes travelling through a Breath of the Wild player's mind.
Conversely, Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical layers opens up the world of Hyrule and recontextualizes it into a playful sandbox. You're not as concerned about surviving the night as you are what the next Geneva-convention-breaking gadget you'll use to terrorize local flora and fauna with. The lack of major changes to Hyrule has me floored with how this identical game world excels so well at supporting two different mechanical systems.
Tears of the Kingdom then double-dips back into the immersive quality of the prequel with the Sky Islands and the Depths, the two new world zones that exist above and below Hyrule's ground floor respectively. The Sky Islands put the players new toolset to the test with challenging vertical puzzles, while the Depths' deep dark blackness evokes the survivalist elements of Breath of the Wild.
Ultimately what pulls the whole package together is the epic journey that a newer, fresher, and bolder Link sets out on. The arrival of King Ganondorf feels appropriately daunting for a Link that has braved a whole Hyrule's worth of content before. Where Breath of the Wild feels like an underdog story, Tears of the Kingdom is a Greek epic; we stand off against horrors beyond human comprehension as a hero armed to the teeth with borderline cheat-code abilities.
There are still many flaws of the game, of course. The strongest one that comes to mind is the story, which meanders and makes meaningless narrative gestures until just before the end. The conclusion, however, is so satisfying and bombastic that it almost makes me want to retroactively forgive the rest of the game. Although it definitely left on a positive note, I would hope to see this as the element that is most developed in the future iterations of this kind of Zelda, especially since Breath of the Wild didn't have a particularly great story either compared to the previous entries in the series.
Breath of the Wild felt like one of those impossible games that despite a AAA scope and multiple hundreds of developers, managed to achieve a design elegance and artistic focus we only really see on smaller projects. Tears of the Kingdom aims even higher for a grander tale and managed to surpass it's predecessor. Despite a number of flaws I could probably count on my fingers and never reach my toes, this game is a tour-de-force of our medium and a new benchmark for AAA open-world games.
Breath of the Wild is a soulful, quiet game, asking the player to meditate on their journey with mechanics grounded in realism. The simulative aspect feels more attuned to immersion than playfulness, especially since it's rather difficult to get any of the wonky physics glitches of the Twitter-virality sort without a perfect understanding of the game rules and engine. Make a fire to stay alive in the cold. Equip rubber armor so a thundershock isn't lethal. These are the thought processes travelling through a Breath of the Wild player's mind.
Conversely, Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical layers opens up the world of Hyrule and recontextualizes it into a playful sandbox. You're not as concerned about surviving the night as you are what the next Geneva-convention-breaking gadget you'll use to terrorize local flora and fauna with. The lack of major changes to Hyrule has me floored with how this identical game world excels so well at supporting two different mechanical systems.
Tears of the Kingdom then double-dips back into the immersive quality of the prequel with the Sky Islands and the Depths, the two new world zones that exist above and below Hyrule's ground floor respectively. The Sky Islands put the players new toolset to the test with challenging vertical puzzles, while the Depths' deep dark blackness evokes the survivalist elements of Breath of the Wild.
Ultimately what pulls the whole package together is the epic journey that a newer, fresher, and bolder Link sets out on. The arrival of King Ganondorf feels appropriately daunting for a Link that has braved a whole Hyrule's worth of content before. Where Breath of the Wild feels like an underdog story, Tears of the Kingdom is a Greek epic; we stand off against horrors beyond human comprehension as a hero armed to the teeth with borderline cheat-code abilities.
There are still many flaws of the game, of course. The strongest one that comes to mind is the story, which meanders and makes meaningless narrative gestures until just before the end. The conclusion, however, is so satisfying and bombastic that it almost makes me want to retroactively forgive the rest of the game. Although it definitely left on a positive note, I would hope to see this as the element that is most developed in the future iterations of this kind of Zelda, especially since Breath of the Wild didn't have a particularly great story either compared to the previous entries in the series.
Breath of the Wild felt like one of those impossible games that despite a AAA scope and multiple hundreds of developers, managed to achieve a design elegance and artistic focus we only really see on smaller projects. Tears of the Kingdom aims even higher for a grander tale and managed to surpass it's predecessor. Despite a number of flaws I could probably count on my fingers and never reach my toes, this game is a tour-de-force of our medium and a new benchmark for AAA open-world games.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
NO SPOILERS
Final Fantasy XVI challenges me as to whether I should judge a game by what it gets right, or what it gets wrong. The peaks are jaw-dropping moments of pure spectacle and grounded character-driven storytelling, while the valleys sacrifice everything the game excels at for middling fetch quests and undercooked lore. It comes as no surprise that this project was an all-hands-on-deck affair at Square Enix, rallying efforts from in-house teams such as the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts teams, as well as partnered studio Platinum Games. If anything is evident about this game, it's the sheer volume of cooks in the kitchen. So how's the dish?
The game easily justifies the price of admission with glorious Eikon battles, where Clive faces off against iconic Summons in kaiju-sized conflicts. Every single Eikon battle feels revolutionary, constantly outclassing the one that came before it. These gameplay sections mix and match QTE's with standard gameplay controls to achieve an exhilarating performance. Some have levied the criticism that the Eikon battles are 'too easy.' I am a staunch defender of video game difficulty, but these moments are not meant to be overtly challenging, and that would take the player's focus off of the presentation. If anyone can play the Bahamut boss fight and tell you they didn't taste the tragedy in the culmination of visuals, music, narrative context, and boss design just because it didn't ask them to perfect dodge enough, they might not like games very much.
The DMC-inspired core gameplay loop sparks fleeting moments of joy but offers very little motivation to engage with it in a meaningful way. If there's one thing they nailed, it's game feel; Clive's moveset is full of perfected Japanese-style game juice, and the cinematic slow-downs upon perfect dodges and parries never get old. Despite this, the repetitive enemy designs fail to pull you out of the standard loop of dodging and dumping cooldowns. For how much Final Fantasy purists complain about the action gameplay, this one feels strikingly turn-based. I had a lot of fun completing the optional challenge Chronolith trials post-game, which taught me to use abilities I wouldn't have dared touch otherwise. I couldn't help but wish that the rest of the game had this style of implicit tutorialization. You could argue that the game is meant to be replayed with a stronger understanding of the underlying mechanics, but that kind of NewGame+ loop works for a nimble 15-hour DMC campaign and not a 40-hour epic.
Clive effortlessly charms as the protagonist, and his grief-laden traumatic backstory is handled with as much care as you could ask for, even if other aspects of the narrative falter. All of his key moments, especially regarding his younger brother Joshua, land as ferociously yet sensitively as a Chocobo fluttering upon your heartstrings. With a younger brother myself, I may be biased toward the narrative, but I can't imagine most players won't feel at least a little teary-eyed at Clive and Joshua's tale, especially the incredible opening hours. However, the game struggles to make surrounding characters hold their emotional weight, particularly the supporting cast of Jill, Cid and Dion. These characters have moments of greatness that reveal what a tighter story could have accomplished, but the scope of a "Kill God"-style main plotline muddies this potential. With clear-as-night inspiration from dark fantasy epics like Game of Thrones or Miura's BERSERK series, it might have done the writers well to focus the story on the character drama before plunging headfirst into doomsday scenarios.
Other than a handful, which really should have been the only ones, the side-quests are completely skippable. The vast majority are single-note and feel effortless, which makes the occasional diamond in the rough feel that much more conspicuous. I was lucky enough to have a friend tell me his favorites, which I would recommend to any player going in blind.
I hope I have painted you a picture of XVI as a game that excels at more things than most games could ever hope for, but happens to add more content anyway. I believe this is in part due to the "size matters" insecurity that plagued most of the last gen, with ballooning game sizes and lengths to compensate. However, in an age where gamers are happy to shell out 60$ for impactful 10-hour experiences, I see no reason that XVI couldn't have cut the fluff to become a perfect 25-hour game rather than a mostly good 40-hour game. It would help the replayability too.
Overall, I do recommend this game, especially to Final Fantasy fans who will enjoy the numerous hidden fan-service details. As I said in the second paragraph, experiencing the Eikon battles single-handedly justifies the price.
Final Fantasy XVI challenges me as to whether I should judge a game by what it gets right, or what it gets wrong. The peaks are jaw-dropping moments of pure spectacle and grounded character-driven storytelling, while the valleys sacrifice everything the game excels at for middling fetch quests and undercooked lore. It comes as no surprise that this project was an all-hands-on-deck affair at Square Enix, rallying efforts from in-house teams such as the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts teams, as well as partnered studio Platinum Games. If anything is evident about this game, it's the sheer volume of cooks in the kitchen. So how's the dish?
The game easily justifies the price of admission with glorious Eikon battles, where Clive faces off against iconic Summons in kaiju-sized conflicts. Every single Eikon battle feels revolutionary, constantly outclassing the one that came before it. These gameplay sections mix and match QTE's with standard gameplay controls to achieve an exhilarating performance. Some have levied the criticism that the Eikon battles are 'too easy.' I am a staunch defender of video game difficulty, but these moments are not meant to be overtly challenging, and that would take the player's focus off of the presentation. If anyone can play the Bahamut boss fight and tell you they didn't taste the tragedy in the culmination of visuals, music, narrative context, and boss design just because it didn't ask them to perfect dodge enough, they might not like games very much.
The DMC-inspired core gameplay loop sparks fleeting moments of joy but offers very little motivation to engage with it in a meaningful way. If there's one thing they nailed, it's game feel; Clive's moveset is full of perfected Japanese-style game juice, and the cinematic slow-downs upon perfect dodges and parries never get old. Despite this, the repetitive enemy designs fail to pull you out of the standard loop of dodging and dumping cooldowns. For how much Final Fantasy purists complain about the action gameplay, this one feels strikingly turn-based. I had a lot of fun completing the optional challenge Chronolith trials post-game, which taught me to use abilities I wouldn't have dared touch otherwise. I couldn't help but wish that the rest of the game had this style of implicit tutorialization. You could argue that the game is meant to be replayed with a stronger understanding of the underlying mechanics, but that kind of NewGame+ loop works for a nimble 15-hour DMC campaign and not a 40-hour epic.
Clive effortlessly charms as the protagonist, and his grief-laden traumatic backstory is handled with as much care as you could ask for, even if other aspects of the narrative falter. All of his key moments, especially regarding his younger brother Joshua, land as ferociously yet sensitively as a Chocobo fluttering upon your heartstrings. With a younger brother myself, I may be biased toward the narrative, but I can't imagine most players won't feel at least a little teary-eyed at Clive and Joshua's tale, especially the incredible opening hours. However, the game struggles to make surrounding characters hold their emotional weight, particularly the supporting cast of Jill, Cid and Dion. These characters have moments of greatness that reveal what a tighter story could have accomplished, but the scope of a "Kill God"-style main plotline muddies this potential. With clear-as-night inspiration from dark fantasy epics like Game of Thrones or Miura's BERSERK series, it might have done the writers well to focus the story on the character drama before plunging headfirst into doomsday scenarios.
Other than a handful, which really should have been the only ones, the side-quests are completely skippable. The vast majority are single-note and feel effortless, which makes the occasional diamond in the rough feel that much more conspicuous. I was lucky enough to have a friend tell me his favorites, which I would recommend to any player going in blind.
I hope I have painted you a picture of XVI as a game that excels at more things than most games could ever hope for, but happens to add more content anyway. I believe this is in part due to the "size matters" insecurity that plagued most of the last gen, with ballooning game sizes and lengths to compensate. However, in an age where gamers are happy to shell out 60$ for impactful 10-hour experiences, I see no reason that XVI couldn't have cut the fluff to become a perfect 25-hour game rather than a mostly good 40-hour game. It would help the replayability too.
Overall, I do recommend this game, especially to Final Fantasy fans who will enjoy the numerous hidden fan-service details. As I said in the second paragraph, experiencing the Eikon battles single-handedly justifies the price.