It has everything a good sequel needs ~ but I just couldn't help feel as if I was playing the exact same game as before
After 220 hours, I finally completed Tears of the Kingdom. It was a long journey that I started off in absolute awe of but towards the end grew tired and a little bit frustrated with. I loved so much about this game but I've come to recognise it's far from perfect. It's hard to talk about this game without mentioning it's prequel 'Breath of the Wild', which I want to mention is one of my favourite games of all time, in fact it's one of the few games I consider close to perfection. Although it didn't really do anything that revolutionary ~ I still hadn't played anything like it in my life. It kind of felt like being a kid again... running around and exploring the outdoors ...looking for any secrets...dangerously climbing up rocky ledges and diving into lakes. There was always something off in the distance that caught my attention and distracted me from my current objective. The world itself was the playground instead of the mechanics around it.
Anyways, enough reminiscing. Tears of the Kingdom does all of this and more. It took Breath of the Wild and expanded it, adding even more to explore, both in the skies and in the underground depths below Hyrule. It also gives Link new abilities that makes traversing feel fresher, faster and more creative. At face value, it is a perfect sequel. Yet, even with all of these new additions, after a while their novelty wore off and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was playing the exact same game as before. Only this time, the flaws crept through the cracks and became all the more apparent to me.
I'll start with what I loved most about the game, and that's the exploration. Tears of the Kingdom absolutely perfects this. It has the best sense of exploration than any other game I have ever played, easily surpassing Breath of the Wild. There is always something lurking in the corner of your eye. I would often finish one objective and right away without purposefully looking, find something off in the distance that piqued my interest ~ whether it was a korok seed puzzle, a shrine, regional tower, stable or a town. The game puts you into this flow feeling by always giving you something to do. The map is so perfectly crafted to the point that the finish point of any kind of task or objective immediately puts another objective right in your view. You don't really need to look at your map at all, you can just look around a little and find your next point of interest. It's one of the only games I can think of where I can literally just explore with no specific goal in mind, other than to see and find as much as possible. You aren't guided by waypoints, you are literally just looking around and saying to yourself "hey, that looks interesting, I'll go check that out next".
Tears of the Kingdom shares the same map as Breath of the Wild, but with noticeable changes to some locations. Having the same map was a double edged sword. Revisiting old locations and seeing how they've changed was a fun experience. It was comforting being in a place you've visited before ~ much like re-watching your favourite movie for that feeling of familiarity. However, after a while I got a little bit tired of it. I lost a little bit of that sense of discovery as I had been to all of these places before and knew what was around every corner. For example, in Breath of the Wild, finding the new small little towns/villages of Kara Kara Bazaar and Lurelin village was such a pleasant surprise ~ but Tears of the Kingdom didn't really have any new surprises like these. Of course, this is just the base ground map. I will get to some of the new additional areas a little later.
Much like in Breath of the Wild you are given complete freedom to go anywhere on the map at anytime. In fact, you can go right to the final boss, skipping all the main quests. The game doesn't hold your hand at all and lets you figure out things on your own. The main quest primarily consists of visiting the 4 regions/races of Hyrule. I started off by visiting Zora's domain, then making my way North for Goron City, eventually making my way to Rito Village and then finally Gerudo town. I loved just being able to decide where I wanted to go at anytime without any restrictions or hand-holding.
However... this actually leads me to my first smallish problem with the game. The complete freedom as to where you go and what order you do things led me to missing out on vital upgrades/unlocks/items until very late in the game. For example, I didn't unlock the great fairy who upgrades your armour until around 120 hours in. It was locked behind a very specific side quest that was nearby Rito Village (the 3rd region I visited). So even 100+ hours into the game, I was getting one shot by many of the enemies. I feel like such a vital part of the game should of been a lot easier to unlock, perhaps at lookout landing, the main hub town in the game. As I was trying to avoid looking up guides online, I ended up just embracing the lack of armour and viewed it as playing the game on hard mode. Another example was the auto-build ability, which I also didn't unlock until 100 hours in. It was unlocked through a side quest in the underground depths. But as I decided to explore there later on in the game, I missed out on a very useful ability that would of saved me a heap of time with building. I suppose I just feel like imporant upgrades like these should of been unlocked through the main quest early on. That way I wouldn't of spent the first half of the game struggling with combat and taking forever to build stuff.
Back to the good stuff. The game looks stunning. It is seriously impressive how they made the game look so good with the Switch's limitations. I'm talking like one of the best looking games I've played for real. I played it in PRO mode which removes the entire HUD and just leaves you with the scenery. Leaves and grass swaying in the wind and clouds that look straight out of an oil painting. The game looks the best during the day when the sun is out providing the most beautiful lighting. My Switch's memory is nearly full just from constantly taking screenshots in the game. The game sounds as good as it looks too. Birds chirping, waterfalls pouring down, water softly rippling in lakes and dripping down from the roofs of caves. It just sounds so soothing and relaxing. Overall, it is just an absolute pleasure being a part of that world, it feels right out of a Studio Ghibli movie or something. Heading into the nearest town to restock on arrows, cooking your food and staying at the inn for the night. Making a campfire underneath some shelter to rest and avoid the rain. There are so many ways to immerse yourself and feel like you are truly existing inside the game.
The music is beautiful. It re-uses a lot of the stuff from Breath of the Wild but still has enough new music to enjoy. One track that stood out for me was the music that played as you dived into one of the chasms. As link glides down into the underground depths you hear this loud trombone howling... it is quite surreal and makes you feel like you've entered a new world. The music up in the Sky is also one of my favourites. It's this soft saxophone that quietly hums in the background. Otherwise, when travelling on ground, you hear light piano ambience that beautifuly compliments the sound of nature around you. Also, a special mention to the 4 temples having different phases depending on how much you had advanced through the puzzles. The music adds extra layers each time you progress through a stage of the temple. Very cool stuff. The only track I didn't really like was the combat music. It was just clunky, loud and annoying.
Tears of the Kingdom adds a few new places to explore that weren't there in Breath of the Wild. Firstly, the addition of the Sky Islands was genius. Seeing the land below you and all the landmarks you've already been to from up above just blew me away. Seeing the whole of Hyrule all at once made the world feel more alive, like it was all living on without Link. The autumn colour palette they used up in the Sky Islands was also very pretty, especially when the suns light beamed down, only adding to the vibe. It was such a smart way to expand the map. Flying and gliding through the sky from island to island while taking in all the views was simply stunning. It was truly magical and one of the best parts of the game.
Caves are another new addition to the map and there are SO many of them... hiding behind waterfalls & blending in with the natural terrain. These reminded me a lot of the catacombs in Elden Ring, mini dungeons/puzzles that reward you with loot at their end. They also acted as underground passages that linked different points of the map seamlessly. One cave I entered from the sunny green lands nearby Hateno Village and exited on the other side into the snowy Mount Lanayru. It made the map feel so natural and interconnected.
Another one of the biggest new additions to the game was the underground depths. You enter these by diving down into a multitude of chasms found in various locations across the map. The entire above ground map is replicated down below. Every shrine in the game has it's root found directly below it in the depths. So in essense, they doubled the size of the map ~ which is crazy impressive in itself. But I never really enjoyed being down there. For starters, it is completely pitch black down there, you get around by throwing or shooting these plants that lights up the area it lands. I found this a little bit annoying, every 20 seconds having to shoot or throw another plant...but hey it added to the atmosphere down there. So, what's there to do? You can find some pretty cool ruins, yiga hideouts, unique enemies and enhanced bosses as well as valuable materials. But I would always spend 5 minutes down there before getting tired or bored and wanting to head back up. Even when I tried to stay down there for longer periods, I would often get stuck at dead ends. Different parts of the map seemed cut off from each other by walls. It just felt like a much more boring version of the game. You couldn't ignore it completely too as Zonaite Deposits were only found here ~ which are needed to use Auto-Build. It looked really bland, ugly and repetitive too. Once again, the idea in practice sounds really cool to me and I'm a little suprised I didn't like it. Something about it to me just felt uninspired. By the end of the game, I had seen maybe 30-40% of depths and had no motivation to see any more.
For a game that has such a strong emphasis on exploration, it's important to ensure getting around the map is easy and fun, which Tears of the Kingdom absolutely does. One of the new abilities Link has is Fuse, which essentially allows you to combine any of the different objects you find in the game. The game also introduces tools called Zonai Devices, which include things like wheels, wings, fans, rockets, balloons, springs, sleds and steering sticks. So, Link can fuse these devices with one another, for example, a Wing with a fan attached at the back and a steering stick allows you to fly around the Sky. Or attaching a rocket to your shield allows you to blast yourself upwards saving you from slowly climbing up a mountain. You can also use Fuse on natural objects such as tree trunks or wooden planks. I often fused wooden planks with a fan and a steering stick to make a raft for crossing water. This allowed you to be creative and unique about how you wanted to get somewhere. It turned the game into a sandbox as there were infinite possibilites with what you could build to get around.
An example of the fuse function ~ here I fused a washed ashore boat found on an island with fans and a steering stick so I could make my way into this hidden cave.Now, although I do believe this should of been a great addition to the game, I personally didn't love it in practice. I often found myself sticking to walking/running or using my horse as much as possible. Building quickly became a chore for me. The game really encourages you a lot of the time to build and I found it always took me out of the flow of exploration I mentioned earlier. It just became an annoyance for me. The act of building itself felt very clunky. A lot of the time I didn't have enough room to move and rotate certain objects into the right position, or the camera would get in the way, or objects I took out of my inventory would go sliding down a hill, or I would accidentally put a part in the wrong place and have to take it off by shaking the joystick and re-attaching it again. Building took a decent 30 seconds to a minute at times. You can unlock auto-build which does make building a lot easier and quicker but a lot of those annoying quirks I mentioned still remained for me, and as mentioned before, I personally didn't unlock it until very late in the game. For myself, the idea was very cool and it forced you to think in creative ways, but it just wasn't implemented well enough in my opinion. Of course, you can try ignore building as much as possible, but there are many times where you are pretty much forced to build. Like I said in my intro, the thing I loved about Breath of the Wild was its simplicity and how the map itself was the playground and you could only use what you found in front of you. Tears of the Kingdom loses this simplicity a little bit with the addition of Zonai Devices and building.
I... didn't like the combat either. In Breath of the Wild, I thought it was fine. I don't remember getting too frustrated. Maybe, I was willing too look past some of the issues as I was seeing that incredible version of Hyrule for the first time. Breakable weapons/weapon durability makes its return in Tears of the Kindgom, and I hated it. It's something that didn't bother me at all in Breath of the Wild but for whatever reason this time it did. Weapons are so incredibly weak. I think on average you might get 5 or 6 combos in before your weapon breaks. Having your weapon break mid fight, just felt so disruptive. I understand it's part of the identity of the game and that's fine, but they really needed to increase the durability of the weapons to last longer than 1 or 2 fights. Not to mention, enemies in this game have way too much HP... like unnecessarily high HP. Unless your weapon has at least 40 attack power, you can be constantly hitting enemies over and over without them dying. I could go through 2 or 3 weapons when fighting some of the harder enemies in the game. The combat just felt boring. Parrying was never worth it as the window for attacking after a successful parry was way too small. A lot of the time you are just dodging at the last moment for a flurry attack, which slows down the combat a lot. Combat doesn't evolve itself at all from the first hour of the game to the last. Towards the end I was just running past enemies looking to avoid combat. To be fair, I didn't utilise some of the new Zonai devices that can also be used in combat. But, building some contraption before each fight didn't seem worth the time.
I also quickly want to mention the menu system. I found it ridiculous that in order to heal, you had to pause the game, go into the menu and eat a meal. Yes it is obviously easy enough but surely they could off added a quick menu or some kind of hotbar that allows you to use items or meals while in play. Pausing all the time was just another example of slowing down the pace of combat. It would of been a solid quality of life improvement over the first game. Also a huge nit-pick, but the simple ability to be at the top of your inventory and press up to go to the bottom of your inventory instead of scrolling down for 10 seconds would of been nice too...
I won't go to deep into the story. I thought it was fine enough. It has some nice cutscenes that deepen the lore of Hyrule's past. It has some really amazing moments too, in particular to do with Princess Zelda and the master sword. The ending is also phenomenal. However, it has a lot off fluff too. Going to each region and defeating the boss leads to the same revelation every time. You get a copy and paste cutscene that explains what we already knew after the first region. You can also find 12 dragon tears spread around the map that each give you a flashback cutscene explaining everything that happened up until this point. I would highly suggest looking up a guide to watch these in the correct order.
I hate to sound super negative about the game. I realise I spent a lot of this review mentioning so much about what I didn't like. But don't get me wrong. The game is utterly incredible. It's an adventure I would recommend to everyone. Also, as much as I love Breath of the Wild ~ I don't think I could ever go back. I know I've preached how much I prefer its simplicity... but quite simply Tears of the Kingdom is a better game in every way. While most of the new additions didn't really work for me, they flesh out the game and let players decide how they want to play the game. It provides even more freedom than BOTW which I didn't think was possible. Going back would feel so limiting. Which is exactly what a sequel should strive for. And, for the first 50 hours of the game, I was telling myself this was going to be one of my favourite games of all time. Sadly though, I just couldn't ignore some of the underlying issues this time around as the wow factor started to dwindle. I think that was a big part of the problem actually. I just spent too much time in the game. I had a fear of missing out and wanted to see and do everything. But there was no need for that, the game doesn't force or encourage you to do everything. I think I became burnt out towards the back half of the game and had less patience for the games flaws. I still have amazing memories with this game though and hope this review encourages you to give it a try!