[Review] The Legend Of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom

 

The Zelda team releases yet another masterpiece of a game

Source: twitter.com/NintendoUK

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out on May 12th 2023. Since this time I have completed the main story and done many side quests. At the moment I am continuing to beat more shrines and side quests that I didn't do during the main story. I have gotten more than a taste for the game so I will go into all my thoughts now. This review will be broken down into four parts, with my overall thoughts at the end.   

Gameplay

Tears of the kingdoms gameplay is pure fun. The new mechanics are all very useful and allow for so much creativity. These mechanics make puzzles extremely complex and allow for players to come up with many solutions to the same puzzles. Combat is also made more interesting with these powers with you being able to recall back an enemies projectile or use ultrahand and pull out a certain part of an enemy to damage it. The fuse system gives players so many options in terms of weapons building and what they want to go for. For example fusing a ice material onto a weapon will make that weapon an ice weapon which is very handy, especially for fire based enemies. Unlike Breath of the Wild, this game features more traditional style dungeons though they are kind of a mix between traditional and the divine beasts. I think this is the best way they can do dungeons in an open world Zelda and they really were well done in this game, creating the perfect example for following games. The general gameplay loop is similar to Breath of the Wild's though there is more emphasis on story in this game which I will get on to now. 

Narrative

The story in this game is really good. I would go as far to say it's the best Zelda story. Though the story may have a slightly simple direction, there is plot twists that I didn't expect and many amazing moments in the game. It really feels high stakes in this game, with Ganondorf being such a intimidating villain. Also, I would like to note the characters of the game are all very good too. Zelda absolutely shines in this game, her story is a very sad one and she really does so much to help Link in his journey though I won't say more on that. Even minor NPC's just like Breath of the Wild have a lot of personality and you find yourself loving all of them. The Sage's are all returning characters from Breath of the Wild (except for a certain one). These are all written greatly and their story segments allowed them to get the screen time they needed as they didn't get much if any in Tulin's case in Breath of the Wild. The story being more active in Tears of the Kingdom is definitely a nice change from Breath of the Wild's direction.  

 

Design

The Design for this game is next level, like mentioned before the powers allow for so much possibility. The shrines and dungeons all make such great use of these abilities with their layouts and puzzles. Each dungeon is also quite different in visual design to give them a nice different feel. The world of Hyrule has had many changes too with the addition of caves and wells being explorable. On top of this there is a whole underground area in the game too that puts link in a very dark and creepy atmosphere while looking for things called lightroots to expose the surrounding area more. If that wasn't enough there is of course the sky islands too. The sound design is definitely improved from Breath of the Wild, following sound is made much easier in this game. Even more collectibles such as poe souls and zonaite have been added to further fill the world of things to do. How the world is designed allows for the player to go anywhere and do anything and never get bored on the way to their destination, just like Breath of the Wild but even more so with the additions that have been made to Tears of the Kingdom. 

Presentation

Just as Breath of the Wild was at the switches release, this game is one of if not the best looking game on the system. When I look at this game it amazes me about how great it looks when there is so much in the world. I can't even imagine what the Zelda team can do with visuals when it comes to the next game which will most likely be on the next generation console. The cutscenes are great too and are on par with Age of Calamities cutscenes if not better at times. When using ultrahand the game can have a few hiccups sometimes but it's more than a worthy price to pay for such beauty and doesn't personally bother me at all. The UI and other visuals all look expertly done and are nice to look at. Just like Breath of the Wild there is also the option to straight up turn off UI if you just want to see the full beauty of the game without any UI elements.

 

Overall 

To conclude this game was such an outstanding experience and I didn't think Breath of the Wild would be topped but here we are. I can see myself playing this game for soo many more hours and not getting bored even one bit. I am ever grateful to the Zelda team for their amazing work and look forward greatly to the future of the Zelda franchise.   

Rating: 10/10 

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