I think it’s fair to say that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games I have ever played. Frankly speaking I don’t feel there’s much for me to add to the conversation at this point, so I will just briefly go over why I like it so much. The biggest selling point is that it is just a blast to play from front to back. The mere action of running across a field is made into a buffet of choices for the player: go check out a strange looking rock, investigate some ruins, head towards a shrine, activate another tower, fight some enemies for new gear? All of these and countless more are options at any moment.
These options are further expanded by Link’s abilities in this game. By this point everyone is no doubt familiar with his power to build all manner of vehicles and doohickeys with Ultrahand, turning every object in the overworld into a potential component for a new contraption. Likewise, the ability to use Fuse to create new weapons out of two separate parts makes enemy materials far more useful than they were in Breath of the Wild, where they only were used for upgrading armor and making elixirs. On top of that, fused weapons can vary wildly in length, making weapon size another consideration in combat. Rewind allows the player to send objects back in time, which is simultaneously extremely funny and also very useful for puzzles. And Ascend gives Link the power to swim through solid objects placed above him, which not only has puzzle-solving applications but also allows for easy escape from caves.
Speaking of which, the Hyrule of Breath of the Wild is massively expanded in this game, with one of the main additions being caves. There are dozens upon dozens of them littering the ground of Hyrule, filled with monsters, shrines, and gems, among other things. But the caves are only the tip of the iceberg. High above the surface are the sky islands, which also possess all manner of treasures for the player to discover. And if Link jumps down the massive Chasms that have opened up across the land, he will end up in the pitch darkness of the Depths. The Depths are a desolate area where Link temporarily loses max health if he takes damage, but unsurprisingly there are even more rewards to be had if he survives. All of this comes together to form a gameplay loop that simultaneously feels similar and yet wholly distinct from the one present in Breath of the Wild. While that game was always fun (evidenced by the fact that I have completed it seven times), it does not even come close to Tears of the Kingdom when considering the sheer breadth of things one can do in it. It may feel a bit unnecessary to bring up Breath of the Wild so much, but I think it is very important to consider when appraising Tears of the Kingdom. So much of this game is directly built off of it, but in my opinion the developers expertly handled the reuse of assets here to create a game which is clearly taking a lot from its predecessor while still being a brand new experience.
Much like the rest of the game, Tears of the Kingdom also improves upon Breath of the Wild with its new story. While the story present is far from perfect, I think the core narrative is strong and the way Zelda takes her own parallel journey makes a great contrast to Link’s adventure. That said, it does still suffer from some of the same problems as the last game. The plot can largely be experienced out of order because the cutscenes can be found in any order, which removes a lot of the intrigue depending upon what order the player finds them in. Also, I wish that Link had more actually happen to him, because once again it feels like the plot is really not all that concerned about him. I love that Zelda has been getting more spotlight, but it feels like a shame that Link is being neglected when he has traditionally been an interesting character in 3D Zelda (albeit mostly in subtext). On the whole though I do think that the actual narrative here is just better, and it was a lot more of an interesting ride from start to finish.
There is still tons more I could talk about with Tears of the Kingdom, like the new enemies, the beautiful art style (returning from Breath of the Wild), the smart use of music and sound effects, and the incredible finale of the game, but I think I have hit all the main points. Tears of the Kingdom is firmly committed to being a reimagining and expansion of the ideas put forth by Breath of the Wild, and it succeeds in that nearly perfectly. Better performance would have been nice, but I cannot really fault the developers for that given that the Switch’s hardware is currently nine years old (and the game has no loading zones in any segment of the overworld). Anyone who even slightly enjoys open world games, or even just exploration in general, should give this a shot if it seems remotely up their alley.
Score: 94/100
These options are further expanded by Link’s abilities in this game. By this point everyone is no doubt familiar with his power to build all manner of vehicles and doohickeys with Ultrahand, turning every object in the overworld into a potential component for a new contraption. Likewise, the ability to use Fuse to create new weapons out of two separate parts makes enemy materials far more useful than they were in Breath of the Wild, where they only were used for upgrading armor and making elixirs. On top of that, fused weapons can vary wildly in length, making weapon size another consideration in combat. Rewind allows the player to send objects back in time, which is simultaneously extremely funny and also very useful for puzzles. And Ascend gives Link the power to swim through solid objects placed above him, which not only has puzzle-solving applications but also allows for easy escape from caves.
Speaking of which, the Hyrule of Breath of the Wild is massively expanded in this game, with one of the main additions being caves. There are dozens upon dozens of them littering the ground of Hyrule, filled with monsters, shrines, and gems, among other things. But the caves are only the tip of the iceberg. High above the surface are the sky islands, which also possess all manner of treasures for the player to discover. And if Link jumps down the massive Chasms that have opened up across the land, he will end up in the pitch darkness of the Depths. The Depths are a desolate area where Link temporarily loses max health if he takes damage, but unsurprisingly there are even more rewards to be had if he survives. All of this comes together to form a gameplay loop that simultaneously feels similar and yet wholly distinct from the one present in Breath of the Wild. While that game was always fun (evidenced by the fact that I have completed it seven times), it does not even come close to Tears of the Kingdom when considering the sheer breadth of things one can do in it. It may feel a bit unnecessary to bring up Breath of the Wild so much, but I think it is very important to consider when appraising Tears of the Kingdom. So much of this game is directly built off of it, but in my opinion the developers expertly handled the reuse of assets here to create a game which is clearly taking a lot from its predecessor while still being a brand new experience.
Much like the rest of the game, Tears of the Kingdom also improves upon Breath of the Wild with its new story. While the story present is far from perfect, I think the core narrative is strong and the way Zelda takes her own parallel journey makes a great contrast to Link’s adventure. That said, it does still suffer from some of the same problems as the last game. The plot can largely be experienced out of order because the cutscenes can be found in any order, which removes a lot of the intrigue depending upon what order the player finds them in. Also, I wish that Link had more actually happen to him, because once again it feels like the plot is really not all that concerned about him. I love that Zelda has been getting more spotlight, but it feels like a shame that Link is being neglected when he has traditionally been an interesting character in 3D Zelda (albeit mostly in subtext). On the whole though I do think that the actual narrative here is just better, and it was a lot more of an interesting ride from start to finish.
There is still tons more I could talk about with Tears of the Kingdom, like the new enemies, the beautiful art style (returning from Breath of the Wild), the smart use of music and sound effects, and the incredible finale of the game, but I think I have hit all the main points. Tears of the Kingdom is firmly committed to being a reimagining and expansion of the ideas put forth by Breath of the Wild, and it succeeds in that nearly perfectly. Better performance would have been nice, but I cannot really fault the developers for that given that the Switch’s hardware is currently nine years old (and the game has no loading zones in any segment of the overworld). Anyone who even slightly enjoys open world games, or even just exploration in general, should give this a shot if it seems remotely up their alley.
Score: 94/100