2017’s Breath of the Wild represented a monumental step forward for The Legend of Zelda franchise and Nintendo. It represents Nintendo finally entering the modern era of gaming, embracing the advancements and innovations of other top-tier developers.
Fans and critics agreed with this statement; it’s one of the most beloved games in the Zelda franchise and, according to Metacritic, one of Nintendo’s best games ever. So when Nintendo announced in 2019 that they’re developing a sequel to Breath of the Wild, everyone took notice. Not just because the game would, presumably, expand on what made Breath of the Wild great but also address some of its criticisms.
You see, for all that is enjoyable about the open-world game, some of its detractors have valid points. Yes, this take on Hyrule is an absolute delight to explore, but the common joke of Breath of the Wild being nothing more than a “climbing simulator” has some merit. Furthermore, weapon durability is, indeed, an absolute drag.
Most importantly, Breath of the Wild lacks the iconic moments that make recent 3D Zelda games memorable. While the game brought the franchise back to its roots, it trades in iconic dungeons and memorable musical numbers for smaller puzzles and a somber, subdued score.
With Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo embraces what works in Breath of the Wild, adapting its open-world formula while addressing all those concerns. To be blunt, the result is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a video game.
Tears of the Kingdom Is A Game That Should’t Exist, Yet It Does
Being a direct sequel, many wondered how Link would lose all of his powers gained from Breath of the Wild. Not even five minutes into the game, Nintendo addresses this while setting up its plot: Link and Zelda are exploring beneath Hyrule Castle. They stumble upon a mummified and downright terrifying Ganondorf, who, upon awakening, depletes Link’s heath, shatters the Master Sword, and destroys his right arm. After falling into a chasm, Zelda disappears, and Link awakens in the newly created Sky Islands above Hyrule.
Don’t let you think for a second that you’re back at square one, however. During the game’s tutorial, you’re assisted by the spirit of Rauru, a Zonai who gives Link his right arm and the key abilities that will assist you on your journey. Ultrahand allows Link to grab objects and move them as you see fit. You can even attach items together. Fuse lets you combine items with your weapons or shields to enhance them. It may seem trivial, but it turns out that durability is less annoying when you can take normal, unassuming items and make them into powerful weapons.
The recall ability lets players rewind the trajectory of items. Its usefulness ranges from solving puzzles and fixing mistakes to incredibly clever methods of defeating enemies. Finally, there’s Ascend, which, well, lets you ascend to otherwise unreachable areas.
These abilities seem like the soup du jour for the latest Legend of Zelda game. In reality, they allow Link to remain powerful and, arguably, god-like, despite the game’s opening events. Sure, you don’t have the Master Sword anymore, and your health and stamina aren’t maxed out anymore. But, on the other hand, you can manipulate the world to your desire. This is how Tears of the Kingdom makes Breath of the Wild, again, one of the best-reviewed games of all time, feel outdated.
Your Tears Don’t Fall; They Crash Around Me
Like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom’s progression plays out similarly. The main-story quest requires you to venture into Hyrule and traverse through four Divine Beasts temples as you help the various races that populate Hyrule. Along your journey, you’ll dive into shrines allowing Link to increase his health and stamina. As you progress through Hyrule, you can use the countless recourses you find, whether cooking food for beneficial buffs or discovering new weapons.
So far, it all sounds familiar, but where Tears of the Kingdom excels is using your new abilities to allow you to play the game at your own pace. Completing shrines no longer feels mandatory. It doesn’t matter how much health you have when you can build literal death machines with the Ultrahand ability. Weapon durability doesn’t matter when you can constantly Fuse arbitrary items to make weapons more powerful than you’d otherwise loot from chests.
Yes, the game’s temples feel like traditional Zelda temples in name only, but here’s the thing: the entire game is one gigantic temple with infinite puzzles to solve and secrets to discover. There are numerous ways to reach the objective marker on your map. You can traverse the main road, climb the mountainside, or ascend one of the game’s towers and glide through the air, only to detour and head to something else entirely. I’m not talking about shrines here; mysterious labyrinths, chasms, enemy encampments, and more populate Hyrule, begging for your attention. Each of them offers something beneficial for my journey.
Before long, you’ll realize that you’re spending hours just exploring Hyrule, trying to figure out how to reach that island or landmark in the distance you see. Thankfully, you can reach everything you see, which isn’t a novel idea, but there are multiple ways to reach every part of Hyrule. The game pushes the limits of your creativity to a point where even if you’re following an incredibly detailed walkthrough of Tears of the Kingdom, your experience won’t be the same as everyone else’s.
Tears of the Kingdom Delivers a Hyrule Worth Exploring
One key reason for this is the amount of “Eureka!” moments you’ll have while playing. Upon learning how to reach an objective, it feels like a part of my brain is unlocked, allowing me to experiment more and more throughout the game. Thankfully, the world itself has been forever changed, allowing the player to experience a superior world to its predecessor.
Where Breath of the Wild takes place after the “Calamity,” the major event in Tears of the Kingdom is known as the “Upheaval.” While it serves as a MacGuffin to kickstart the plot, it also allows Nintendo to explain the changes in the world we’re about to explore. One key question leading into Tears of the Kingdom was how different Hyrule would be compared to what we remember from Breath of the Wild.
It turns out that it is incredibly different.
My biggest memory of Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule is the picturesque landscape that, honestly, was more fun to look at than explore. Of course, you could argue that the limitations of the Wii U held the game back (did you forget that Breath of the Wild was released on Wii U? It’s okay if you did.) It’s ironic, considering that a big talking point for Nintendo games today is how the Switch hardware holds games back. Tears of the Kingdom laughs in the face of this discourse; Hyrule is filled with an impressive amount of things to see and do, and that’s before you consider the floating islands in the sky.
Or the underground depths that are as big as the original Breath of the Wild map.
Best of all? Nothing feels mandatory or required.
Call For Us, The Power In All Of Us
More often than not, open-world games only offer an illusion of choice. Sure, there are plenty of different character builds or ways to play the game presented, but there’s almost always a “best” way to play the game. With Tears of the Kingdom, there isn’t a single “optimal” way to play, and this ties back into the abilities Link is given at the start of the game.
Once you leave the tutorial area and enter the game at large, you feel empowered to tackle anything the game throws at you. It’s a similar approach to FromSoftware’s game design, particularly in Elden Ring (speaking of which, get ready for plenty of comparisons between Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom). A key difference here is that you’re not gated by personal skill but instead by your creativity and imagination. Sure, some game areas aren’t accessible until you’ve upgraded your character enough, but it’s not locked by story progression. You can get creative reaching areas you’re “not supposed to yet.”
Then, of course, there’s how you can use your tools to play through the game. By now, you’ve seen memes and clips of people building fighter jets, bomber planes, and literal mechs to combat enemies. While these are the flashiest examples of what you can build in Tears of the Kingdom, there are infinite possibilities. From obvious puzzle solutions, creative brain teasers, and the simplest ideas you’ve never thought about, the game constantly encourages you to think outside the box. It encourages players to flex their brain muscles, often pushing mental capacity to the max.
The result is an experience you’re able to make your own. You can build that gigantic mech, but you don’t have to. Instead, you can go about it in a more subdued, traditional way. You can find a balance between the two, constructing vehicles to bypass the obstacles in your way easily. Tears of the Kingdom isn’t great because you can design and build anything you can think of. It’s great because of what becomes possible after constructing these vehicles.
There’s One Legitimate Gripe I Have With Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo delivered impressive polish to ensure Tears of the Kingdom works. There is, however, one aspect of the game that falls short: combat.
Part of this is due to Nintendo’s Joy-Cons and, admittedly, has nothing to do with the game itself. The number of times I accidentally crouch while running away from enemies is too high. I get that this is a user error and no fault of the game, but being able to remap controls so I won’t accidentally click the left joystick would have been nice.
As for combat itself, it’s the same experience as Breath of the Wild. You’ll dodge oncoming attacks by jumping away from them, sometimes triggering a special counter-attack. Unfortunately, this system makes the game’s combat feel dated. If you struggle with timing, you’ll find yourself dying repeatedly. Again, this could be user error, but I also wished that iframes existed in this game so I could better dodge out of the way.
A Quick Aside…
I wanted to spend the final moments of this review doing something I’ve never done in my 20 years in this industry: breaking the fourth wall.
Many view “games journalism” as a dream job. Being able to turn your hobby and passion into a sustainable career seems like a great idea. The problem, however, before you even get into the business side of things, is that playing games is the smallest part of my job.
Most of my time is spent writing, editing, collaborating with my team, working with management and ownership to keep the lights on, networking, and analyzing traffic data. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. When it comes to actually playing the game, most of the time, I’m only playing a game I’m “allowed” to play based on what I need to cover and write about, and doing so with a very strict deadline. Publishing a review is often a race to get your opinions out as soon as possible. Obviously, with this review being published a week-plus after Tears of the Kingdom was released, we’ll be lucky to break even on the costs associated with publishing this. Even if we were to get an advanced copy of the game and launch our review along with the embargo lifting, it’d get lost in the shuffle.
So while some view this career as a dream come true, there’s an insane amount of work that goes into it. By the time we log out for the day and want to relax, we’re often just sitting on the couch and enjoying some peace of quiet. Sometimes, even playing a game for leisure feels like work, or we feel guilty that we’re not playing games we “should” be playing.
Why does any of this matter? Because the highest praise I can give Tears of the Kingdom is that once this review goes live, I will play it again. I will continue to ignore my gigantic backlog of games, delay other assignments for as long as possible, and enjoy my time in Hyrule. The worst part about Tears of the Kingdom is that it ends. What better way to prevent it from ending than by starting it up again, even with everything on my plate?
Wrapping Up
Tears of the Kingdom evokes feelings and emotions as few games can. It’s a treasure trove of ideas that all work together to deliver an experience that defies the odds, not just in gameplay but in literal functionality. The fact that the game doesn’t break when you manipulate everything around you is a miracle. Likewise, it doesn’t punish the player for solving puzzles with gimmicky solutions, instead encouraging us to push the game to its limits.
There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” way to play Tears of the Kingdom. The world is truly your oyster. Nintendo delivers an open world that other developers can only dream of. The game knows when to guide you along the right path and when to leave you alone to your own devices. By the time the adventure ends, don’t be surprised if you boot it up again, just like I plan to.
