After playing Breath of the Wild, I thought that a sequel could be the greatest game ever made. I didn't love BOTW as much as the rest of the world but it had elements that could be greatly improved upon in a sequel. Unfortunately, I don't think Tears of the Kingdom is the amazing sequel I wanted. It certainly improves upon the previous games in certain ways but I probably enjoyed it less than BOTW.
The game is still great though. There is an amazing display of creativity that very few developers are capable of. The four new abilities that you get access to early in the game are fantastic and feel they make BOTW's abilities a bit boring in comparison. There's Ultrahand which allows you to manipulate and attach objects. This is the main one people are talking about. It certainly is imaginative and it can be very entertaining to create some horrible monstrosity that still manages to perform the task you wanted it to. It can be tedious to use and I did often just find myself making the same few things which is probably more my fault than anything. Fuse is another imaginative ability that allows you to combine almost any object in the game to your sword, shield or arrows. There's a lot to explore with Fuse although similarly to Ultrahand, I mostly made the same combinations. Recall allows you to rewind the motion of an object. It has an infinite range as long as something is visible on screen. It was one I often forgot to use but it certainly is a lot of fun and made for some decent puzzles. Lastly, there's Ascend which allows you to jump upwards and move through ceilings. In concept, this is probably the least interesting but it's the one I probably liked the most. It's the ability I wish I had when I was playing other games. Despite there being a height limit for how high Link will jump, there is no limit for the actual ascension through objects. You will literally never stop till you reach a surface. This is something that I feel would make a game crumble at the seams. It's incredibly impressive how few bugs this game has (I honestly can't remember experiencing any) and Ascend feels like the true test of that to me.
Exploration was the heart and soul of Breath of the Wild. Tear of the Kingdom uses the same map which takes a lot of the intrigue out of the world. There are two major things added to the map however. There are the sky islands which I found pretty disappointing. The first one which is the tutorial area is fantastic but the rest are pretty small and similar to eachother. You see everything they have to offer pretty quickly. The other major addition to the map are the Depths which I just find boring. It's a massive area but there's not much there and I don't enjoy navigating it. There is a host of new shrines to discover but the shrines are probably my main problem with the new Zelda games. All the exploration feels tuned towards them and they're the main source of puzzles. I really don't like that shrines are these seperate areas from the rest of the game. It takes you out of the world and it would be much better if the puzzles were integrated into the map better. I do prefer the aesthetic of the Zonai shrines over the Shiekah's at least. The caves are also a new addition which I did enjoy until it's either really small or there's just another shrine in there. Sometimes you wander into a cave and there's a genuinely new puzzle in there and those moments are magical. Those moments are few and far between though.
The dungeons are quite an improvement over BOTW. The Divine Beasts were pretty lame with the exception of the elephant one and the bosses were all the same. TOTK's dungeons are still far from the quality of some the best from the series but they're not bad. They do share the same formula of activating five triggers to reveal the boss but they're visually distinct and the bosses are unique. The boss fights are actually pretty great. The build up to the dungeons are pretty good too. They involve some navigation and puzzles that are not tied to shrines. These made me appreciate Skyward Sword more since that entire game is build ups to dungeons and then the dungeons themselves which were amazing in that game. The story is fairly good punctuated with decent setpieces although I was bothered by a lot of characters forgetting Link between games which is more a problem for the side quests.
I do not begrudge Nintendo shaking up the series' formula with Breath of the Wild even if I strongly prefer the older games. It clearly was the right choice considering how many people absolutely adore the new games. While Tears of the Kingdom improves on the previous game in significant ways, the reuse of the map diminishes its main strength, i.e. the exploration. It is not one of the greatest games ever made as I was hoping an improvement of Breath of the Wild could have been but a lot of people seem to think it is. It's clearly an amazing achievement regardless of how I feel about it.
The game is still great though. There is an amazing display of creativity that very few developers are capable of. The four new abilities that you get access to early in the game are fantastic and feel they make BOTW's abilities a bit boring in comparison. There's Ultrahand which allows you to manipulate and attach objects. This is the main one people are talking about. It certainly is imaginative and it can be very entertaining to create some horrible monstrosity that still manages to perform the task you wanted it to. It can be tedious to use and I did often just find myself making the same few things which is probably more my fault than anything. Fuse is another imaginative ability that allows you to combine almost any object in the game to your sword, shield or arrows. There's a lot to explore with Fuse although similarly to Ultrahand, I mostly made the same combinations. Recall allows you to rewind the motion of an object. It has an infinite range as long as something is visible on screen. It was one I often forgot to use but it certainly is a lot of fun and made for some decent puzzles. Lastly, there's Ascend which allows you to jump upwards and move through ceilings. In concept, this is probably the least interesting but it's the one I probably liked the most. It's the ability I wish I had when I was playing other games. Despite there being a height limit for how high Link will jump, there is no limit for the actual ascension through objects. You will literally never stop till you reach a surface. This is something that I feel would make a game crumble at the seams. It's incredibly impressive how few bugs this game has (I honestly can't remember experiencing any) and Ascend feels like the true test of that to me.
Exploration was the heart and soul of Breath of the Wild. Tear of the Kingdom uses the same map which takes a lot of the intrigue out of the world. There are two major things added to the map however. There are the sky islands which I found pretty disappointing. The first one which is the tutorial area is fantastic but the rest are pretty small and similar to eachother. You see everything they have to offer pretty quickly. The other major addition to the map are the Depths which I just find boring. It's a massive area but there's not much there and I don't enjoy navigating it. There is a host of new shrines to discover but the shrines are probably my main problem with the new Zelda games. All the exploration feels tuned towards them and they're the main source of puzzles. I really don't like that shrines are these seperate areas from the rest of the game. It takes you out of the world and it would be much better if the puzzles were integrated into the map better. I do prefer the aesthetic of the Zonai shrines over the Shiekah's at least. The caves are also a new addition which I did enjoy until it's either really small or there's just another shrine in there. Sometimes you wander into a cave and there's a genuinely new puzzle in there and those moments are magical. Those moments are few and far between though.
The dungeons are quite an improvement over BOTW. The Divine Beasts were pretty lame with the exception of the elephant one and the bosses were all the same. TOTK's dungeons are still far from the quality of some the best from the series but they're not bad. They do share the same formula of activating five triggers to reveal the boss but they're visually distinct and the bosses are unique. The boss fights are actually pretty great. The build up to the dungeons are pretty good too. They involve some navigation and puzzles that are not tied to shrines. These made me appreciate Skyward Sword more since that entire game is build ups to dungeons and then the dungeons themselves which were amazing in that game. The story is fairly good punctuated with decent setpieces although I was bothered by a lot of characters forgetting Link between games which is more a problem for the side quests.
I do not begrudge Nintendo shaking up the series' formula with Breath of the Wild even if I strongly prefer the older games. It clearly was the right choice considering how many people absolutely adore the new games. While Tears of the Kingdom improves on the previous game in significant ways, the reuse of the map diminishes its main strength, i.e. the exploration. It is not one of the greatest games ever made as I was hoping an improvement of Breath of the Wild could have been but a lot of people seem to think it is. It's clearly an amazing achievement regardless of how I feel about it.