Breath of the Wild was one of the best games I’ve ever played. Tears of the Kingdom is simultaneously even better and less perfect. Pretty much everything about the game feels great - the movement through the world, the powers, the combat (even if it’s still pretty simple), and especially the exploration. They’ve packed so much stuff into this huge world , and in my whole time playing I felt like I could always see multiple things in the distance that I wanted to check out. And any time I set off to do one thing I’d always get distracted by something else, like an unexpected cave or sky island. Because of this I often found myself getting into a flow where exploring one area led organically to exploring another. This happened to me in the skies and on the surface and in the depths, and that flow felt very different to me in each location. I think it’s some of the best exploration I’ve seen in a game.

At the same time, the world is possibly too big. There’s so much stuff to do, and a lot of it is very fun, but it can definitely be overwhelming. Particularly in the earlier parts of the game, I felt like I had so much freedom and so little guidance that I constantly suspected I was missing something or doing something wrong. I knew it was possible to miss the glider; what other key items or abilities might I have missed out on by going the wrong way? Was I going to ruin the pacing of the story for myself by collecting all of the memories as soon as possible (it turned out I kind of did)? The sky and the depths are both very cool but I felt like there could have been more to them. The sky islands especially ended up feeling kinda same-y. The rewards for exploration and major side quests are also largely underwhelming (mostly armor that came from DLC or amiibos in BOTW). The quests and exploration are rewarding enough by themselves, but it felt like a weird choice to give these types of things as rewards.

I enjoyed the story a lot, especially Zelda’s part in it. I really appreciated how much agency they gave her this time. I do wish they gave us more of Ganondorf, partly because he is very hot but mostly because giving him a human form allows for more exploration of who he is as a character and what his motivations are, beyond just being a giant monster who wants to destroy/rule the world. We didn’t really get any of that here, beyond one or two scenes. It’s a shame because overall I thought the writing and characters were very good.

For all the flaws I mentioned and others (e.g. dungeons were hit or miss), I still had such a good time with this game. As always I can’t wait to see what’s next for the Zelda series.

My favorite thing about Nintendo platformers - or at least the very best ones - is that each level throws a new concept or challenge at you. Super Mario Bros Wonder does such an amazing job of this, constantly introducing new elements and then putting an additional twist on top of them with the wonder flowers. I never quite knew what to expect going into a level.

The whole experience was just so much fun! I know some people might say it’s too easy, but I thought it was just right. I don’t really go to Mario games looking for a tough challenge; I go to them looking to bounce on mushrooms and take in the colors and cheerful music, and Wonder absolutely delivers in those areas.

If I have one complaint it’s that I’m not the biggest Bowser Jr. fan (and I prefer to have more varied bosses) although he works well enough here and the boss fights were all pretty fun. The last couple of bosses were especially great! So yeah I basically have nothing bad to say about this game.

This game rules. It’s all about decoding languages to solve puzzles and climb a tower (based on the Tower of Babel myth). The process of using context clues to identify words and translate phrases is very satisfying, and I can’t imagine how much thought and creativity went into designing the player’s experience. The developers found some really brilliant ways to introduce certain words and concepts, and everything comes together beautifully by the end of the game. The game’s aesthetic - visually and musically - is also very much my kind of thing. I love how each area has its own distinct character and tone. I enjoyed the fixed perspective a lot, and it’s used really well throughout the game.

It’s not a perfect game. While some words are introduced in very creative ways, others could have used some more effort (there are a few times where you’ll just see things like a giant picture of a book with the word for book written next to it). Other times you might need to just use process of elimination to find definitions, which isn’t the most satisfying.

I’m also not sure how I feel about how much the game translates for you once you’ve defined all the words in a language. For example, if you figure out that someone is saying the words “me seek key,” the game translates that to “I’m looking for a key.” I think it’s cool that it gives you a little more context for how the different peoples in the tower talk, and it definitely makes the game feel more user friendly, but sometimes I wished the game would have let me figure out the meanings of translated phrases myself.

My last gripe is that the final section of the game feels kind of unnecessary. It was pretty cool but narratively I don’t really get the point of it, especially since it comes at a time when the story is wrapping up beautifully. Just seemed like a weird choice.

None of these flaws really impacted my enjoyment of the game, so I’m still giving it 5 stars. I’m so impressed by what the developers accomplished here and I desperately want to see more games like this.