This review contains spoilers
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the most refreshing video games I've ever played. It totally revitalized the Zelda series. In those years, I was almost ready to give up on Zelda and accept it as nothing more than a franchise I would hold dear to my childhood, but then Breath of the Wild came out and made me fall in love with it all over again. But even as good as it was, it wasn't perfect:
- I think it was a mistake to not include temples; the Divine Beasts were fun, but were no where near as cool as a temple.
- The weapon durability system was flawed, as many others have pointed out.
- The boss fights weren't very interesting.
- The puzzles became a bit repetitive quickly.
Even still, even with those flows, the game was still an incredible experience. There is NO OTHER game that made me feel as satisfied exploring as that game did. I was filled with awe and childlike wonder the whole time.
But enough about BotW, I want to talk about the sequel. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the all-time greatest achievements in the artistic medium of video games, and may be one of the greatest sequels to any game ever. It improved on its predecessor in virtually every single way. A good sequel should do three things:
1. Take what its predecessor did well and build on it.
No need to fix what isn't broken. This game stuck with the core concept of the first by keeping a lively open world, rewarding exploration, and having inventive puzzles.
Hyrule has never felt more alive than in TotK; I loved how NPCs would react differently based on the time of day, the weather, the area of the world they are in, etc. Each town felt unique, each major city had its own flair, and each landscape provided different environmental challenges.
Exploring was the most fun part of BotW for me, and it is no different here. The Hyrule map was updated to include caves and more monsters, and on top of that, they added the sky. I had so much fun figuring out how to get from one sky island to another. Towards the end, I ended up getting a little lazy and sky biking everywhere, but the most fun bits of the game involve seeing somewhere, saying "I want to go there," and figuring out a way to go there. And the developers were keen enough and had enough forethought to reward you for that desire for exploration by giving you a sweet piece of armor or another valuable treasure. And they added the Depths... holy shit I was not expecting the depths. I'll never forget the feeling when I jumped into the depths for the first time. My heart was racing as I was falling, and the pitch black mechanics invoked a lot anxiety (in a fun way).
The puzzles in this were also a delight. A lot of people complain about too many shrines, but the amount never bothered me. There were a few I thought were poorly designed, but overall they were so much fun, in large part due to the new Zonai abilities you receive. I did 114 out of the total 150ish. I love that these puzzles weren't black and white; you had to be creative and think outside of the box to solve a lot of them. This creativity is what inspired a lot of the gameplay mechanics for TotK and it is a breath of fresh air to see such innovation. I've never had to use my imagination to solve a puzzle as much as I did in this game.
2. Take what its predecessor didn't do well and figure out a way to improve it.
The very few complaints about BotW were all improved upon in this game. Starting with temples. I was SO HAPPY to see temples again in Zelda. The Wind temple may be my favorite temple of any Zelda game. I like how each temple had a sort of build-up to it, such as jumping through the ships to get to the Wind Temple. The adventure getting there was almost as exciting as the temple itself. As I was doing that, I was just thinking "this game has platforming?! What DOESN'T this game have?"
They doubled down on weapon durability, but made it way more interesting and in-depth with the Fuse ability. It felt like you had more control over it and, again, allowed you to be creative. It didn't seem like they made any major tuning to the durability, but for whatever reason this mechanic did not bother me in TotK.
The Sheika Slate abilities were fun enough gimmicks in BotW, but the Zonai abilities in TotK took it the next level. I want to highlight Ultrahand, which may be one of the most fun tools in any video game. I thought I got creative and funky with it, but I did nothing compared to what other people online were able to build.
3. Tell a new, interesting story.
The story of BotW was great, but this... may be the best Zelda story (though I will always cherish Ocarina the most because of what it meant to me as a child.) The cinematics were so powerful and a few of them made me well up in tears. Each character has so much life and personality. I've never felt so attached to Zelda than in this game, either. Her sacrifice was powerful and hit me harder than any other Zelda series moment.
I've killed Ganondorf a dozen different times at this point over the course of 25 years playing Zelda games, but they still find a way to make it satisfying as hell. This was one of the best versions of him, second only to maybe Twilight Princess Ganon. He was so cold and sinister and they didn't hold back his cruelness either. The voicework by Matt Mercer wasn't the best bit of acting I've ever seen, but it was chilling at times.
So yeah, it succeeds in every way as a sequel. Before I write my thoughts on the rest of the game, in the spirit of fairness, here are a few critiques I have:
- The Water Temple was poorly designed. I don't get why it had to be up in the air and the puzzles weren't interesting.
- The Spirit Temple was also mildly disappointing; it wasn't even a temple, just a boss arena.
- Like I mentioned before, a few of the shrines were poorly designed to the point of downright frustration. But there were only a few, maybe less than 5, that I thought this way about.
- The Sage controls were a bit wonky. Having to run up to them to activate their ability was a little awkward at times.
So, the game engine. HOW IN THE EVER LIVING FLYING F*** DOES THIS GAME ENGINE WORK?! I'm no expert at video game design, but I've put enough hours into this medium that I feel I understand a thing or to. There is NO WAY the Switch should be able to handle what this game is giving it. How in Hyrule does this engine allow the Switch to process so much data at once? How are you about to jump from the tallest peak in the sky to the bottom of the depths with zero loading screens?! The fact that Recall keeps track of every items movements, the amount of information needed for Ascend to work, all of the interactable objects that can be used with several different Zonai abilites, it is just mind boggling to me that this system can handle all of this information. The Switch isn't the most powerful piece of hardware, so all of this can be accredited to precise engine refinement to maximize every volt of RAM the Switch can spare. They delayed this game by a year and I am so glad they did. This may be the most impressively built game engines I have ever played.
I did not do everything in this game. I must admit, there was a bit of burnout towards the end (through no fault of the game). After about 100 hours or so, I decided that I wanted to move on to some other games on my backlog and went on to finish the TotK storyline, beating Ganondorf, and putting the game to rest. If I was younger and had more free time, I would've likely put in another hundred hours. But nowadays I have limited game time, and 100 hours is usually the most I can put into any story-driven game, and even that much time is reserved for only the very best games. There is still hundreds of hours of content I haven't done but I am excited to watch speedruns and funny videos on the game to see other things I may have missed.
I put an entire month worth of my life into this game; every spare moment that I was home was spent playing this game. I couldn't focus at work, dreamt of Hyrule, and I canceled social events just to cram in another couple hours of game time. I stayed up way too late to play it several times (which made me feel like a kid again, even though it killed my sleep schedule). It was all well worth it.
Overall, this is one of the greatest video games ever made. I will cherish this game for the rest of my life and it will go down on my list of favorite games of all time. Thank you, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Eiji Aonuma, and all the other cast and crew that brought this game to life.
98/100
- I think it was a mistake to not include temples; the Divine Beasts were fun, but were no where near as cool as a temple.
- The weapon durability system was flawed, as many others have pointed out.
- The boss fights weren't very interesting.
- The puzzles became a bit repetitive quickly.
Even still, even with those flows, the game was still an incredible experience. There is NO OTHER game that made me feel as satisfied exploring as that game did. I was filled with awe and childlike wonder the whole time.
But enough about BotW, I want to talk about the sequel. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the all-time greatest achievements in the artistic medium of video games, and may be one of the greatest sequels to any game ever. It improved on its predecessor in virtually every single way. A good sequel should do three things:
1. Take what its predecessor did well and build on it.
No need to fix what isn't broken. This game stuck with the core concept of the first by keeping a lively open world, rewarding exploration, and having inventive puzzles.
Hyrule has never felt more alive than in TotK; I loved how NPCs would react differently based on the time of day, the weather, the area of the world they are in, etc. Each town felt unique, each major city had its own flair, and each landscape provided different environmental challenges.
Exploring was the most fun part of BotW for me, and it is no different here. The Hyrule map was updated to include caves and more monsters, and on top of that, they added the sky. I had so much fun figuring out how to get from one sky island to another. Towards the end, I ended up getting a little lazy and sky biking everywhere, but the most fun bits of the game involve seeing somewhere, saying "I want to go there," and figuring out a way to go there. And the developers were keen enough and had enough forethought to reward you for that desire for exploration by giving you a sweet piece of armor or another valuable treasure. And they added the Depths... holy shit I was not expecting the depths. I'll never forget the feeling when I jumped into the depths for the first time. My heart was racing as I was falling, and the pitch black mechanics invoked a lot anxiety (in a fun way).
The puzzles in this were also a delight. A lot of people complain about too many shrines, but the amount never bothered me. There were a few I thought were poorly designed, but overall they were so much fun, in large part due to the new Zonai abilities you receive. I did 114 out of the total 150ish. I love that these puzzles weren't black and white; you had to be creative and think outside of the box to solve a lot of them. This creativity is what inspired a lot of the gameplay mechanics for TotK and it is a breath of fresh air to see such innovation. I've never had to use my imagination to solve a puzzle as much as I did in this game.
2. Take what its predecessor didn't do well and figure out a way to improve it.
The very few complaints about BotW were all improved upon in this game. Starting with temples. I was SO HAPPY to see temples again in Zelda. The Wind temple may be my favorite temple of any Zelda game. I like how each temple had a sort of build-up to it, such as jumping through the ships to get to the Wind Temple. The adventure getting there was almost as exciting as the temple itself. As I was doing that, I was just thinking "this game has platforming?! What DOESN'T this game have?"
They doubled down on weapon durability, but made it way more interesting and in-depth with the Fuse ability. It felt like you had more control over it and, again, allowed you to be creative. It didn't seem like they made any major tuning to the durability, but for whatever reason this mechanic did not bother me in TotK.
The Sheika Slate abilities were fun enough gimmicks in BotW, but the Zonai abilities in TotK took it the next level. I want to highlight Ultrahand, which may be one of the most fun tools in any video game. I thought I got creative and funky with it, but I did nothing compared to what other people online were able to build.
3. Tell a new, interesting story.
The story of BotW was great, but this... may be the best Zelda story (though I will always cherish Ocarina the most because of what it meant to me as a child.) The cinematics were so powerful and a few of them made me well up in tears. Each character has so much life and personality. I've never felt so attached to Zelda than in this game, either. Her sacrifice was powerful and hit me harder than any other Zelda series moment.
I've killed Ganondorf a dozen different times at this point over the course of 25 years playing Zelda games, but they still find a way to make it satisfying as hell. This was one of the best versions of him, second only to maybe Twilight Princess Ganon. He was so cold and sinister and they didn't hold back his cruelness either. The voicework by Matt Mercer wasn't the best bit of acting I've ever seen, but it was chilling at times.
So yeah, it succeeds in every way as a sequel. Before I write my thoughts on the rest of the game, in the spirit of fairness, here are a few critiques I have:
- The Water Temple was poorly designed. I don't get why it had to be up in the air and the puzzles weren't interesting.
- The Spirit Temple was also mildly disappointing; it wasn't even a temple, just a boss arena.
- Like I mentioned before, a few of the shrines were poorly designed to the point of downright frustration. But there were only a few, maybe less than 5, that I thought this way about.
- The Sage controls were a bit wonky. Having to run up to them to activate their ability was a little awkward at times.
So, the game engine. HOW IN THE EVER LIVING FLYING F*** DOES THIS GAME ENGINE WORK?! I'm no expert at video game design, but I've put enough hours into this medium that I feel I understand a thing or to. There is NO WAY the Switch should be able to handle what this game is giving it. How in Hyrule does this engine allow the Switch to process so much data at once? How are you about to jump from the tallest peak in the sky to the bottom of the depths with zero loading screens?! The fact that Recall keeps track of every items movements, the amount of information needed for Ascend to work, all of the interactable objects that can be used with several different Zonai abilites, it is just mind boggling to me that this system can handle all of this information. The Switch isn't the most powerful piece of hardware, so all of this can be accredited to precise engine refinement to maximize every volt of RAM the Switch can spare. They delayed this game by a year and I am so glad they did. This may be the most impressively built game engines I have ever played.
I did not do everything in this game. I must admit, there was a bit of burnout towards the end (through no fault of the game). After about 100 hours or so, I decided that I wanted to move on to some other games on my backlog and went on to finish the TotK storyline, beating Ganondorf, and putting the game to rest. If I was younger and had more free time, I would've likely put in another hundred hours. But nowadays I have limited game time, and 100 hours is usually the most I can put into any story-driven game, and even that much time is reserved for only the very best games. There is still hundreds of hours of content I haven't done but I am excited to watch speedruns and funny videos on the game to see other things I may have missed.
I put an entire month worth of my life into this game; every spare moment that I was home was spent playing this game. I couldn't focus at work, dreamt of Hyrule, and I canceled social events just to cram in another couple hours of game time. I stayed up way too late to play it several times (which made me feel like a kid again, even though it killed my sleep schedule). It was all well worth it.
Overall, this is one of the greatest video games ever made. I will cherish this game for the rest of my life and it will go down on my list of favorite games of all time. Thank you, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Eiji Aonuma, and all the other cast and crew that brought this game to life.
98/100