Tears of the Kingdom is a fantastic game. The new abilities drive players to make amazing contraptions and explore the world with few limitations. While I have qualms, the full world with endless fun, polished content is an unforgettable experience worthy of succeeding Breath of the Wild.
Remember, this review reflects my experience and therefore everyone else’s as well. If you disagree with any point I bring in this post, then you should reflect on your opinion until you agree with me as I am correct and you are wrong. Thank you for reading!
Ultrahand
No feature sets this game apart from Breath of the Wild more than Ultrahand. The controls for rotating objects are intuitive and the system in place for connecting two objects works great. However, I think that wiggling the stick to disconnect objects is a bad choice; a button press would feel better. Otherwise, the control scheme is easy to pick up and makes building stuff easy.
And oh boy do you build stuff. Practically half the game is building stuff, and it’s awesome! So many different Zonai devices with unique physical properties keep the process engaging. My favorite one has got to be the stabilizer. It’s basically a big Weeble Wobble but doesn’t take any other object’s shit. The amount of weight this thing can take is insane, and seeing it launch something stupid-big when activated is a blast. Unfortunately, I feel many of the devices are underused. I want more challenges which focus on creating complicated machines. Regardless, the creativity on display with the Zonai devices is staggering. After beating the game, you likely have accumulated so many devices that the game is practically a sandbox for creating whatever machine you can imagine.
Endless Distractions
My favorite part of Breath of the Wild was the endless distractions provided to the player. It was so easy to get off track with random small tasks that drew away your attention. I am happy to see that this came back in full force.
You can be on your way to a Skyview Tower and spot a korok who wants to reach their friend. You just can’t say no to and make a weird platform with 3 wheels and a fan. On the way you see a group of constructs and bokoblins battling. You check it out after the korok and see a geoglyph in the distance and put a waypoint, later maybe! Now what was I doing again? Oh yeah, the tower. Man, it’s night now, is that a star fragment!?
So yeah, they succeeded in keeping the player motivated to explore everything that catches their eye while adding new things to see. I’m especially impressed with the new minibosses. The battle taluses are really cool, and I was exhilarated when I learned that you could ascend through them! My favorite has to be the gleeoks though. They’re a great challenge for later in the game and have brutal attacks. In their final phase, they fly high into the air. You must follow them up using the updraft from their projectiles. It’s so intense and I love it.
The Underground
The weakest part of the game has to be the Underground. While there is lots to explore here including abandoned mines, Yiga hideouts, and treasure map locations, there also isn’t nearly enough to get the “endless distractions” that exists up above. With no normal people or villages and with no koroks or buildings or much of anything in terms of civilization, the underground feels dull. Nearly all of it looks the exact same which sucks since it stretches under the entire overworld.
What if there were towns of constructs that still live down here. We see them in the abandoned mines, but there are so few, and they don’t have unique personalities at all. I guess they are robots, but there is no reason they couldn’t live together in bigger communities where you can get unique items and complete side quests for them. Maybe some Hylians fell down here as well, and we are tasked with helping them survive. The Rito have no presence in the underground even though they can fly! They are in the perfect position to explore this place. The possibilities are endless, yet so little ended up being done. In short, there are not enough interesting events or locations in the Underground, so it feels more boring than the rest of the game.
Highlights
- The Great Sky Island is a fantastic introduction to the game. Jumping off progressively higher cliffs until you jump without seeing where you are going is a rush. Traversing the islands here feels like a 3D maze, and the environment encourages the player to experiment with Ultrahand.
- Reaching these towers feels a lot more monumental while also providing more value than in the first game. While it doesn’t make much sense that Hudson Construction would build 15 towers across the world which can launch Link and only Link high into the sky, it doesn’t matter because you can reach so much after getting into one of these things.
(Spoilers Ahead)
- The build up to the final boss is so intense. The trek underneath Hyrule Castle is a neat final challenge. When the music started building up to the point where you take one final jump off the cliff to the final boss is one of my favorite moments. My favorite parts of the boss itself were the first two forms of Ganondorf. When you eventually get the hang of his attacks and manage to get flurry rush, you’ll find that he dodges out of the way! After he dodges your flurry, you can dodge his counterattack again to finally get some real damage. It is hard to pull off but feels so satisfying. I do wish that this boss was a little harder though; Ganondorf really doesn’t do that much damage and his moves get a little predictable. The true final dragon form of Ganondorf is a fitting finale, but I wish I had direct control of dragon Zelda and attacked using her instead of flying down as link.
Problems
- The quest to clear the sludge from Zora’s Domain felt significantly weaker than the other main quests. It starts with you going back and forth between Zora’s Domain and Sidon and just talking about the problem. Then, you find King Dorephan behind a waterfall, and then finally you get the riddle which tells you how to get up to the sky islands. I wish the moving between locations was cut. The quest should start when you talk to either Yona or Sidon and they should immediately give you this riddle. This would give you a clear goal right out of the gate. I also felt the Water Temple was less interesting than the others in general. Additionally, the boss was much worse. Mucktorok makes way too much sludge which is so slow to get through and Sidon’s ability sucks too bad to ever get rid of a lot of it before Mucktorok makes more.
- There is just enough off about the world to make it feel fake. Consider Rito Village. This town is home to the entire species of the Rito and only has like 3 houses. Where do these people live? This problem also comes from how most NPCs behave. It gets tiring to hear the complaints of villagers who refuse to do anything to help themselves. It’s like everyone expects Link to do everything all the time. Otherwise, there are other small things that make the world feel programmed such as NPCs who say that dragons are a legend that they don’t believe when they can be seen on the daily around the world. Immersion is important for a good game, and problems like these broke it for me.
Score
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a great game. The control scheme for rotating and connecting objects is something I bet we’ll see replicated in future games because that’s just how good it is. The new mechanics of Skyview Towers and ascend make getting high up a snap while gliding makes going down just as fun. However, the Underground feels underdeveloped. It looks the same everywhere and has little interesting to offer on its own. Despite that, Tears of the Kingdom offers a grand new adventure in this world with a more engaging story and lots of fun new things to experience.