Evolution of a Revolution.
Tears of the Kingdom somehow managed to exceed my expectations, it's arguably the best Open World videogame experience I've ever had and I absolutely love everything about it.
The world truly feels very alive, with a big enemy variety, and 3 entirely different maps to explore, it's overwhelmingly huge and there is so much to do.
First you have the overworld, which works in a similar way as Breath of the Wild, then you have the Sky Islands which exist in the sky, and they are fully explorable, they contain different rewards than the overworld and some shrines to do, and lastly there are the Depths which work as a farming area mainly for Zonaite, or you can fight again some bosses for loot. Obviously every area has some cool stories to tell, which makes exploring worthwhile, and the amount of content is insane.
The core gameplay is pretty much the same as Breath of the Wild, but the addition of the abilities is a game-changer.
With Ultrahand you are able to move around or build everything, from vehicles to weapons and literally every single thing you can imagine, which is genuinely crazy and changes the entire game. Fusion allows you to fuse every item you can find to your weapon, shield or arrow, which greatly rewards exploration and killing enemies, and is incredibly useful, because at first most weapons seem useless due to their low base damage, but fusing unique items not only increases the damage by a lot, but grants the weapon various buffs and different ways to use them. If you are stuck somewhere and you can't find a way to escape, you can use Ascend which helps you traverse the world and escape from caves or climb through terrain which makes exploration easier, faster and more satisfying. Last but not least, Recall rewinds time and it can be very useful during combat or while solving a puzzle, and there are so many clever ways to use it to your advantage.
These new abilities change the way we are used to playing Open World games, Tears of the Kingdom's world was made in a way for the abilities to be used without truly breaking the rules, while at the same time giving us absolute freedom and control over everything, and it's just so damn fun.
One thing that actually surprised me is the important main story boss fights, this time around every single boss is unique and that final boss fight is just phenomenal and quite challenging in a good way.
The game focuses a lot on physics, creativity, imagination and enjoyability, it's pure videogame bliss, and the fact that the player has full agency of their actions without the game interrupting or limiting the player's freedom and fun, proves to us that this game is not ashamed to show us what videogames truly are.
If Breath of the Wild was a Revolution of the Open World genre, Tears of the Kingdom is an Evolution, an improvement in every single way, which is unbelievable considering Breath of the Wild is one of the best videogames ever created, and Tears of the Kingdom managed to surpass it.
Final Rating: "Masterpiece" ~ 10/10.
Tears of the Kingdom somehow managed to exceed my expectations, it's arguably the best Open World videogame experience I've ever had and I absolutely love everything about it.
The world truly feels very alive, with a big enemy variety, and 3 entirely different maps to explore, it's overwhelmingly huge and there is so much to do.
First you have the overworld, which works in a similar way as Breath of the Wild, then you have the Sky Islands which exist in the sky, and they are fully explorable, they contain different rewards than the overworld and some shrines to do, and lastly there are the Depths which work as a farming area mainly for Zonaite, or you can fight again some bosses for loot. Obviously every area has some cool stories to tell, which makes exploring worthwhile, and the amount of content is insane.
The core gameplay is pretty much the same as Breath of the Wild, but the addition of the abilities is a game-changer.
With Ultrahand you are able to move around or build everything, from vehicles to weapons and literally every single thing you can imagine, which is genuinely crazy and changes the entire game. Fusion allows you to fuse every item you can find to your weapon, shield or arrow, which greatly rewards exploration and killing enemies, and is incredibly useful, because at first most weapons seem useless due to their low base damage, but fusing unique items not only increases the damage by a lot, but grants the weapon various buffs and different ways to use them. If you are stuck somewhere and you can't find a way to escape, you can use Ascend which helps you traverse the world and escape from caves or climb through terrain which makes exploration easier, faster and more satisfying. Last but not least, Recall rewinds time and it can be very useful during combat or while solving a puzzle, and there are so many clever ways to use it to your advantage.
These new abilities change the way we are used to playing Open World games, Tears of the Kingdom's world was made in a way for the abilities to be used without truly breaking the rules, while at the same time giving us absolute freedom and control over everything, and it's just so damn fun.
One thing that actually surprised me is the important main story boss fights, this time around every single boss is unique and that final boss fight is just phenomenal and quite challenging in a good way.
The game focuses a lot on physics, creativity, imagination and enjoyability, it's pure videogame bliss, and the fact that the player has full agency of their actions without the game interrupting or limiting the player's freedom and fun, proves to us that this game is not ashamed to show us what videogames truly are.
If Breath of the Wild was a Revolution of the Open World genre, Tears of the Kingdom is an Evolution, an improvement in every single way, which is unbelievable considering Breath of the Wild is one of the best videogames ever created, and Tears of the Kingdom managed to surpass it.
Final Rating: "Masterpiece" ~ 10/10.