The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite video game series. As a fan, I’ve probably had a blind spot about certain aspects of the Zelda game over the years, but I’ve tried to be as objective as possible with each new installment. It’s been hard for me to explain my thoughts on Breath of the Wild (BOTW), but it’s equally, if not more, difficult to discuss Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK). Both games are very ambitious and great in their own right, but at the same time they were almost equally disappointing for me. Nintendo obviously sells tons of copies of BOTW and TOTK, so something must be working, right?Why don’t they keep making Zelda games like this in the future?After all, they’re selling like crazy. This is a valid question and I would like some clarification. Tears of the Kingdom is certainly a great game, but it was still a fundamentally disappointing Zelda experience for me. More content and things to do aren’t necessarily better.
The story of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is told in much the same way as Breath of the Wild. There are various “memories” scattered around the world map that the player can view or ignore entirely. You can complete them in any order, which gives you a lot of freedom, but also gives you a pretty disjointed experience overall. The player doesn’t really need to be involved in the story, and I felt disconnected from it for most of the playthrough. The voice acting is so-so, but I didn’t mind it being completely gone. It feels a little too dramatic at times and usually takes me away from the scene rather than getting me into it. The freedom to find memories in different parts of the map is nice, but it would be nice to be able to cycle through the cutscenes.
Overall, this kind of storytelling is not my favourite. Ganondorf is cool that he’s part of this game, but he never really feels “in action” in this world. Most of the cutscenes in the story tell what he did in the past, but now he’s really just hiding in the basement. Find him and the final battle will begin. I don’t think he has that much “presence” in the world. I expected a bit more character portrayal, but he’s kind of one-dimensional throughout the game. In Breath of the Wild, Calamity Ganon felt too clueless a monster, but Ganondorf is less opaque. Sure, there are definitely things he’s motivated by now, but he had more depth in The Wind Waker and even Twilight Princess. I won’t spoil the story too much, but it felt just as good as Breath of the Wild, if not a little better. Although I wouldn’t call it the pinnacle of the Zelda series in terms of story.
There isn’t much to say about the story, but Tears of the Kingdom adds an incredible amount of new abilities, and no other game can match the variety of gameplay experiences that TOTK does. It’s a real feat of engineering to see all of these gameplay systems work so well together, even though there are actually some new abilities mixed in a bit. An intricate building system that allows the player to build things in his 3D space, Ultra His Hand is Victory. You can combine all kinds of items from all over the world to build almost anything you can think of. This is a very novel tool, but I often used it less as the game progressed. Eventually you’ll get the ability to let you build things faster, but even so, I wasn’t too interested in using it. Ascend is a fun new ability with a clever implementation of combat and puzzle semantics. Hughes was a decent ability, but more often than not it was more of a hassle than an asset. My biggest problem with this ability was the inability to deconstruct fused items. Recall is interesting in theory, but in practice I never really needed to use it. Sure, it can be used to flip enemy projectiles in combat, but why?
Please tell me how Justin really feels! I know, I know, I’ve been a little disappointed with the game so far, but let’s dig into some aspects that I really enjoyed in Tears of the Kingdom and what really improved from Breath of the Wild. One of the biggest improvements for me is boss fights. These are vastly improved over Breath of the Wild. Each boss has a unique design, different attack methods, and interesting strategies to defeat. Each one felt a little more “puzzle-ish” and was exactly what I was expecting. The final boss fight was especially epic. New abilities are pretty fun. However, I was a little disappointed that it acted as a replacement instead of being based on Breath of the Wild’s abilities. Ultrahand and Ascend are used a lot, but Recall and Fuse haven’t given much thought. Fuse ended up taking more time than it was worth. It was really hard work to fuse the arrows you shoot each time. Scrolling through all the items and merging them into an arrow was similarly tedious. Wait, this is a list of pros, not cons.
I can say that the caves they added to the main overworld were fun. You can drop wells or find caves on mountainsides. There are actually many different types of caves, each with countless items, flora and fauna. These are some of the most interesting new biomes added to the game. The Depth is a completely underground area about the same size as the main world, with some interesting things to discover, but it’s very dark and gloomy in there, so we didn’t stay there too long. Sky Island is one of the major showcases Nintendo has shown in its recent trailer, but it’s probably the one I’ve spent the least amount of time on. They are all very similar aesthetically and I mostly used them as a starting point and not much else. There are some new enemy types, and I applaud their design. The Greeks are happy to be back, and the deep frog enemies are fun new world bosses. There are also many new outfits such as wingsuits and frogsuits. These provide some mobility in certain scenarios, but they don’t work as well as I would have liked. Wingsuits don’t improve glide much. Frogsuits can help if you’re climbing in the rain, but they won’t completely prevent you from slipping.
Moving on to what the game calls “dungeons” or temples. They’re an improvement over Breath of the Wild, but still quite inferior to previous Zelda games. The openness of each dungeon meant that you could easily “cheese” or work around solutions with your own hodgepodge of solutions. Some may like it and find it ‘clever’ to find a workaround, but I’ve always felt like I’m missing something and I’ve had the opposite feeling. The Gerudo Temple is probably the closest thing to a traditional dungeon, but it still falls short. The ultimate irony is that while Discovery is the name of a game in Zelda’s Overworld, these “dungeons” are given a map layout and the position of each “switch” to activate from the start. When you do something in the temple, the sense of mystery and accomplishment is completely removed. I always know exactly where everything is and can easily line it up for the next ‘purpose’. It’s a boring Ubisoft-level open-world design that gives you a ton of icons and says, “Go crazy.” The sooner Nintendo abandons these “dungeons,” the better. I know it’s tough, but these dungeons don’t have much of a saving grace. Yes, they finally returned to themed dungeons. It’s not all the same aesthetic there, which is a good thing, but it’s pretty much the same as what you’d experience in the Overworld, only in a more enclosed space.
To be honest, I was really disappointed to see the exact same battle in Tears of the Kingdom. It also has the exact same menus/UI, art style, and half of the overworld is pretty much the same. Before Breath of the Wild’s success, each new entry offered a completely unique Zelda game. Sure, Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask shared the same art style, but the overworld, gameplay style, tone, etc. were all vastly different. Breath of the Wild and Tears of Kingdom are too similar. If you like Breath of the Wild, that’s fine, but for those who don’t, it just lingers on your disappointment with the state of Zelda games. A lot of the time in Tears of the Kingdom, when I found a place I visited on BOTW, I didn’t feel like checking it out again. I was like, “Oh, I’ve seen it, move on.” This leads to another big criticism – the reward isn’t worth it. Treasure chests found in shrines and dungeons are the most basic “treasure” imaginable. Hoping to find nice shields and weapons in dungeon treasure chests? No, here are some arrows. I often got what I would have found while mowing grass in previous Zelda games. I was used to Zelda games being about exploring whole new worlds, unraveling new dungeons, solving puzzles and fighting bosses. Now Zelda games seem to be more focused on collecting, crafting, and cooking. I know that’s a pretty harsh term, but Tears of Kingdom feels like there’s a lot to do, but very little substance.
If you love Breath of the Wild, you will definitely love Tears of the Kingdom. It honestly feels like a more “fully realized” version of Breath of the Wild. I don’t think Breath of the Wild 2.0 or 3.0 is an understatement. No, I’m not saying Tears of the Kingdom is just “DLC”, but it feels inherently tied to the first game. This is no surprise for a game that was born as a sequel to Breath of the Wild. It really feels like the closest sequel in the Zelda series to date. Again, if you enjoyed BOTW, that’s definitely a plus, but for me it’s a minus.
