"Do not look away. You witness a king's revival, and the birth of his new world."
Allow me to introduce myself, to the uninitiated. I've been a fan of the Zelda series since Ocarina Of Time, and I was in the minority of people in 2017 who didn't enjoy Breath Of The Wild. (I was in the argument that Horizon Zero Dawn was a better game, at the time.) Coming off of Skyward Sword, my personal favorite 3D Zelda game, you couldn't even imagine my shock to the overhaul in traditional Zelda game design. Temples are non-existent, story is totally lacking, and the overall non-linear approach, in favor of exploration, is one that I wouldn't consider a good move. I'd even question why Aonuma didn't just brand this "reboot" as a new IP, because its lore refresh and sandbox nature doesn't feel like Zelda. I shrugged it all off, finished it and the DLC, and moved on with my life.
So what did I do here? At its initial announcement, I groaned at the sight of a direct sequel to Breath Of The Wild, although I ultimately decided to give this one my fair shot. Nintendo had an opportunity to redeem themselves in my eyes. And with the first game's necessity on player discovery, I decided to go on media blackout entirely, and blindly spend $70 on a sequel to a game I wasn't too impressed by.
After 40+ hours, with a good chunk of shrines solved and the main quest finished, my thoughts:
Tears Of The Kingdom is not only a huge leap of improvement from its predecessor, but one of the finest, most impressive sandbox adventure games I've ever experienced. HOWEVER, I still don't think it's the "10/10 masterpiece" that everyone claims it to be. Here's my take.
The open-world sandbox nature of it all: immaculate! From the opening moments when I earned the tools to build and fuse, I immediately knew this sequel would smash the first one right into the ground. Along with that, the Recall ability that allows you to reverse the time flow of objects (reminding me a whole lot of the recent indie The Entropy Centre), as well as the Ascend ability to shoot yourself upward through pretty much any surface in range, which I admittedly forgot I even had until later parts of the game required it. In Nintendo's toy-like design approach, the toolset handed to the player here is absolutely incredible, and it opens up the world to WAY more possibilities than Breath Of The Wild's "here are two bombs that are different shapes". Every puzzle I solved with a solution that didn't feel as intended, and every crevice of the map explored with my abilities, I can't even imagine all of the playtesting that was required for every little variable to work as intended.
Exploration in Tears Of The Kingdom is simply engaging and flawless. Before approaching the four main quests of the story, I found myself distracted for a clocked 20+ hours just by clearing towers, each one shooting me skyward and enticing me to see what I can find on the floating islands above. And don't even get me started on the Depths area, a whole third map underneath the overworld. (Seriously, don't. I was too stressed to even explore half of it.) Some other things I really enjoyed were small additions, such as cool boss designs and neat overall tone of the world. The iconography on Link's arm alone is refreshing, as well as the Zonai themselves.
For things that I was a bit mixed on, let's start with the attempts at improving what I didn't enjoy from Breath Of The Wild. Firstly, I do appreciate that the team found a way to mitigate the annoying weapon degradation a bit... but this combat just still sucks. Even more-so now with the enemy difficulties adjusted to encourage fusion, which ultimately takes too many button presses than it should, everything I attack feels like a sponge. And even in some of the later boss fights, the time window needed to perfectly dodge and counter-attack is slim, causing you to lose your shield and temper quite quickly.
Secondly, while I'm absolutely hooked by the dark, mysterious feel in tone this time around, especially with the cold opening and excellent soundtrack, this is still one of the more lacking narratives in the franchise. Definitely a step-up from its predecessor, the Asian-inspired revival of this lore is unfortunately pulled back until the very last quest or so, due to the game's non-linear approach. The four main missions feel like one-off character episodes, and the return of the "memory" cutscenes, while are fortunately easier to find this time, tell a side story that ends up being more bizarre than memorable. And because of this non-linear storytelling, there are memories that you can discover early on that somewhat spoil the main quest itself, which ultimately puts it at fault. (I was also pissed that there were so many hints and nods to Skyward Sword, and yet nothing resulted from them, but that's beside the point. I'm sure Nintendo is trying to just rid of that canon entirely.)
Lastly, just the controls in general weren't to my liking. As mentioned earlier, for a game that makes it necessary to constantly fuse weapons together, it can be quite annoying to go through several button prompts just to get what you want. That's not just present in fusion either, but with building as well, which can be even more cumbersome when the framerate noticeably drops each time. And later through the main quest, when having your companions summoned on the field, I found myself frustrated trying to approach a specific character to trigger their command. Some quality-of-life features could've gone a long way, in these cases.
As for what I didn't like at all, there's only one major thing: the dungeons.
They're just poorly designed that I actually prefer Breath Of The Wild's Divine Beasts over them, as at least those were more refreshing in concept. The approach to unlocking these traditional Zelda dungeons, simply "temples", almost always involves 15-20 minutes of just trekking, whether it be through an empty desert or a stormy sky of floating blocks. I would say only about two of these sequences do something unique and interesting, but that's an unfortunate number in contrast to the other repetitive level designs. The journey may be satisfying sure, but it almost always leads to some small temple that requires you to essentially unlock multiple locks. That's the design... done several times... with the Water Temple particularly being just a boring set of floating islands. Little to no differentiation between dungeon designs, which is incredibly disappointing for me personally, as someone who wished for traditional dungeons to make a return. Most of the shrines I discovered were more satisfying than these temples. Like, come on, man.
Tears Of The Kingdom is impressive as hell, but with its continued shift away from traditional lore and familiarity of the 3D approach, it's just difficult for me to call this a "Zelda" game. The non-linearity still makes this reboot less engaging for me personally, although I can totally understand how many will get lost in experimentation and exploration. With its brilliant set of tools and exploration design, as well as smaller things like the soundtrack, the pros here definitely outweigh the cons. Honestly, the best comparisons I can make this game to are Death Stranding and Minecraft, both games that give you the tools to create your own solutions. This is ultimately not my favorite game in the series, nor my personal favorite game of 2023. Yet, it's still undoubtedly a swan song for the Nintendo Switch hardware, and one that makes me even more curious what they're gonna do with this series next. Just be grateful I didn't go off and give this one another 4/5 rating like the first game.
Allow me to introduce myself, to the uninitiated. I've been a fan of the Zelda series since Ocarina Of Time, and I was in the minority of people in 2017 who didn't enjoy Breath Of The Wild. (I was in the argument that Horizon Zero Dawn was a better game, at the time.) Coming off of Skyward Sword, my personal favorite 3D Zelda game, you couldn't even imagine my shock to the overhaul in traditional Zelda game design. Temples are non-existent, story is totally lacking, and the overall non-linear approach, in favor of exploration, is one that I wouldn't consider a good move. I'd even question why Aonuma didn't just brand this "reboot" as a new IP, because its lore refresh and sandbox nature doesn't feel like Zelda. I shrugged it all off, finished it and the DLC, and moved on with my life.
So what did I do here? At its initial announcement, I groaned at the sight of a direct sequel to Breath Of The Wild, although I ultimately decided to give this one my fair shot. Nintendo had an opportunity to redeem themselves in my eyes. And with the first game's necessity on player discovery, I decided to go on media blackout entirely, and blindly spend $70 on a sequel to a game I wasn't too impressed by.
After 40+ hours, with a good chunk of shrines solved and the main quest finished, my thoughts:
Tears Of The Kingdom is not only a huge leap of improvement from its predecessor, but one of the finest, most impressive sandbox adventure games I've ever experienced. HOWEVER, I still don't think it's the "10/10 masterpiece" that everyone claims it to be. Here's my take.
The open-world sandbox nature of it all: immaculate! From the opening moments when I earned the tools to build and fuse, I immediately knew this sequel would smash the first one right into the ground. Along with that, the Recall ability that allows you to reverse the time flow of objects (reminding me a whole lot of the recent indie The Entropy Centre), as well as the Ascend ability to shoot yourself upward through pretty much any surface in range, which I admittedly forgot I even had until later parts of the game required it. In Nintendo's toy-like design approach, the toolset handed to the player here is absolutely incredible, and it opens up the world to WAY more possibilities than Breath Of The Wild's "here are two bombs that are different shapes". Every puzzle I solved with a solution that didn't feel as intended, and every crevice of the map explored with my abilities, I can't even imagine all of the playtesting that was required for every little variable to work as intended.
Exploration in Tears Of The Kingdom is simply engaging and flawless. Before approaching the four main quests of the story, I found myself distracted for a clocked 20+ hours just by clearing towers, each one shooting me skyward and enticing me to see what I can find on the floating islands above. And don't even get me started on the Depths area, a whole third map underneath the overworld. (Seriously, don't. I was too stressed to even explore half of it.) Some other things I really enjoyed were small additions, such as cool boss designs and neat overall tone of the world. The iconography on Link's arm alone is refreshing, as well as the Zonai themselves.
For things that I was a bit mixed on, let's start with the attempts at improving what I didn't enjoy from Breath Of The Wild. Firstly, I do appreciate that the team found a way to mitigate the annoying weapon degradation a bit... but this combat just still sucks. Even more-so now with the enemy difficulties adjusted to encourage fusion, which ultimately takes too many button presses than it should, everything I attack feels like a sponge. And even in some of the later boss fights, the time window needed to perfectly dodge and counter-attack is slim, causing you to lose your shield and temper quite quickly.
Secondly, while I'm absolutely hooked by the dark, mysterious feel in tone this time around, especially with the cold opening and excellent soundtrack, this is still one of the more lacking narratives in the franchise. Definitely a step-up from its predecessor, the Asian-inspired revival of this lore is unfortunately pulled back until the very last quest or so, due to the game's non-linear approach. The four main missions feel like one-off character episodes, and the return of the "memory" cutscenes, while are fortunately easier to find this time, tell a side story that ends up being more bizarre than memorable. And because of this non-linear storytelling, there are memories that you can discover early on that somewhat spoil the main quest itself, which ultimately puts it at fault. (I was also pissed that there were so many hints and nods to Skyward Sword, and yet nothing resulted from them, but that's beside the point. I'm sure Nintendo is trying to just rid of that canon entirely.)
Lastly, just the controls in general weren't to my liking. As mentioned earlier, for a game that makes it necessary to constantly fuse weapons together, it can be quite annoying to go through several button prompts just to get what you want. That's not just present in fusion either, but with building as well, which can be even more cumbersome when the framerate noticeably drops each time. And later through the main quest, when having your companions summoned on the field, I found myself frustrated trying to approach a specific character to trigger their command. Some quality-of-life features could've gone a long way, in these cases.
As for what I didn't like at all, there's only one major thing: the dungeons.
They're just poorly designed that I actually prefer Breath Of The Wild's Divine Beasts over them, as at least those were more refreshing in concept. The approach to unlocking these traditional Zelda dungeons, simply "temples", almost always involves 15-20 minutes of just trekking, whether it be through an empty desert or a stormy sky of floating blocks. I would say only about two of these sequences do something unique and interesting, but that's an unfortunate number in contrast to the other repetitive level designs. The journey may be satisfying sure, but it almost always leads to some small temple that requires you to essentially unlock multiple locks. That's the design... done several times... with the Water Temple particularly being just a boring set of floating islands. Little to no differentiation between dungeon designs, which is incredibly disappointing for me personally, as someone who wished for traditional dungeons to make a return. Most of the shrines I discovered were more satisfying than these temples. Like, come on, man.
Tears Of The Kingdom is impressive as hell, but with its continued shift away from traditional lore and familiarity of the 3D approach, it's just difficult for me to call this a "Zelda" game. The non-linearity still makes this reboot less engaging for me personally, although I can totally understand how many will get lost in experimentation and exploration. With its brilliant set of tools and exploration design, as well as smaller things like the soundtrack, the pros here definitely outweigh the cons. Honestly, the best comparisons I can make this game to are Death Stranding and Minecraft, both games that give you the tools to create your own solutions. This is ultimately not my favorite game in the series, nor my personal favorite game of 2023. Yet, it's still undoubtedly a swan song for the Nintendo Switch hardware, and one that makes me even more curious what they're gonna do with this series next. Just be grateful I didn't go off and give this one another 4/5 rating like the first game.