Out of the 29.8 million people (fresh stat from Google) that have bought and played Breath of the Wild, I might be in the top 5% of people in terms of just how much I dislike it. I think it’s an okay game, but I despise it. I feel like Nintendo took Kylo Ren’s advice a bit too seriously and completely blew up everything I loved about the franchise, gutting everything fantastic like some of the excellent level and visual design found in the dungeons to the timeless music in favor of “look, if you burn the grass it creates an updraft!!!” and music that sounds like someone accidentally sat on a piano aside from a few cases. I get that it “redefined how you can approach exploration in video games” and [INSERT IMPRESSIVE SOUNDING PHRASE HERE] but that meant nothing to me because that wasn’t what I was looking for. I just wanted a 3D Zelda game and as a traditional 3D Zelda game, Breath of the Wild was absolutely joyless and devoid of soul in my opinion. I still remember how crushingly disappointing the divine beasts, the very thing that was put in the game to “please traditional 3D Zelda fans,” were to this day.

Tears of the Kingdom does a decent amount of work to alleviate that feeling, but part of why I enjoyed it a bit more is because I accepted that 3D Zelda is never coming back. I will never feel the same type of wonder I felt while exploring the Ancient Cistern again, not from a Zelda game at least, and that’s okay because going forward, 3D Zelda games are going for a different type of wonder that does nothing for me but checks other people’s boxes.

That’s not to say I like it more just because of that, though. Not at all. The big one is that yes, Tears of the Kingdom has dungeons. In actuality they’re “””dungeons,””” nowhere near as elaborate or as good as the ones found in traditional 3D Zelda titles in general but much better than the divine beasts. They’re themed, have puzzles you can’t break, have central gimmicks that aren’t boring or annoying and have actual boss fights at the end of them. There’s actually a good story this time around as well. Most it is, frustratingly, told through flashbacks again but the way they tie them into the present day events is actually very, very smart. Just like BOTW, most of the flashbacks are optional but they are much, much easier and a lot more fun to find. Shrines also make a return and they’re basically the same, but the puzzles are a lot more creative by virtue of the new toolset.

The new tools are honestly pretty incredible. Ultrahand alone is more impressive than the entirety of BOTW’s mostly boring toolset, and Fuse is also mindblowing at times. Recall and Ascend are mostly situational and are just there for the most part, but they’re still impressive. I constantly forgot about Ascend though, but that’s probably just a me thing.

The open world is mostly the same, but feels a lot more…intentional this time around for lack of a better term. There’s a sense of direction there that simply wasn’t in BOTW and it makes it feel a lot more well designed. It might be due to the addition of the sky islands (which are pretty great) as well as other areas, but I honestly can’t really put my finger on it. It felt like there was a lot more to do this time around as well, as I was constantly stumbling upon caves and the like.

Most of my issues with the game are unfortunately carryovers from BOTW. The weapon durability system is still frustrating and the fuse function doesn’t go a long way to help with it, the music is once again mostly ambient/nonexistent aside from key story moments, the horse controls are still really weird and traversal in general isn’t as fun as it can be, and the combat just doesn’t feel as fun or snappy as it does in the older titles. The English voice acting is once again not the greatest and genuinely dampens some otherwise great story moments, which is really disappointing. An issue that’s unique to this game is that there seemed to be a larger focus on resource gathering this time around which led to some infuriating moments here and there, especially when it came to bombs. TOTK fixes a lot of what was bad about BOTW, but there’s still plenty of glaring issues that were just not touched on at all.

As a traditional 3D Zelda superfan, BOTW left me absolutely hopeless, so much so that it knocked the franchise out my top 10 and down to…God knows where. TOTK, on the other hand, has given me hope. It’s just a small glimmer but maybe, just maybe, Nintendo could merge the best parts of those games with modern 3D Zelda successfully. I couldn’t see it before but I can see it now. We’re not there yet and we won’t be there for a very, very long time, and it’s going to take a lot of refinement and a few games until we potentially get there but…maybe it’s all going to be alright.