Nintendo finally released The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) on May 12, 2023, after a long wait following its announcement during E3 (a series of information about new videogames and videogames that would be coming out soon) of 2019. I had high expectations for this game because it’s a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW). I was not disappointed.
Originally, Nintendo planned to make this a DLC to BOTW, but I am so happy they put more thought into it and made it into its own game. When it comes to the style or way you beat the game, it resembles BOTW significantly, but there are so many jaw-dropping moments that make TOTK unique.
The first significant aspect is the new abilities you gain at the beginning of the game. There’s fuse, ascend, ultrahand, and recall. Ultrahand was by far the ability that I used the most. It went along with the whole theme Nintendo was going for with the creative “building anything you want.” Ultrahand is what you use to move things around and fuse things. My favorite thing to do was to make one really long stick with tree trunks. It was the superior stick. This is also the ability used to make all the creative vehicles and machines that TOTK has become known for.
Straying away from that, one ability I thought was very useful was ascend, although I often forgot it was there. Ascend allows you to jump through ceilings to get to higher places. It’s easy to forget, and I remember it’s there usually when I’ve already found another more difficult way to climb something.
Recall is an interesting ability. It lets you rewind time on objects such as falling boulders, which enables you to ride the boulder into the sky. I like that this ability seems directly related to Zelda and her role in the story.
Then there’s fuse. I didn’t like the fuse ability. Yes, fusing a boulder onto a stick and chasing monsters around was funny, but every weapon is useless until you fuse it to something else. There are regular weapons in the depths that you can get, but all weapons on the surface are rusted and weak until you use the fuse ability to combine it with a horn or something like that. There are other abilities, but you must explore the map to find them.
I remember being amazed at how big of a map BOTW had; it was one of its defining features. With TOTK, the size and detail blew me away. TOTK tripled the size of the map, adding the depths under the main map and the sky islands above the main map. The amount of detail put into the depths was astonishing. Everything there mirrored what was above it. Areas with lakes or ponds on the main map translated to giant walls in the depths, and mountains translated into huge pits that were seemingly endless. That little detail was very creative.
MINOR SPOILERS
Another interesting touch I noticed was that all the shrines and guardians that were such a big deal in BOTW were gone. Also, all traces of any guardians, along with the divine beasts, are completely gone. I feel that leaves a lot of questions, such as “What happened?” and “How did all of this stuff disappear?” because it was all imperative to the plot of BOTW. Even still, magic shrines from an ancient species called the Zonai replaced the old shrines. Now, with the Zonai, there are a lot of plot holes with this. Where did all of it come from? I don’t remember any mention of them in BOTW. I feel that leaves a hole in the plot. The only explanation was that they were all there after the Upheaval (when the sky islands and depths were formed in the beginning of the game), which I’m assuming is how everything disappeared.
The sage abilities in TOTK really make me miss the champion’s abilities in BOTW. I didn’t like that you had to walk up to the sages and click A to use them. It was very inconvenient, especially during a fight; tracking them down and using their abilities was difficult. It became more of a chore to use them instead of helpful. If there were a menu to choose their abilities from instead, it would have worked much better. I liked the idea of the sages walking around with you and helping you fight, but sometimes, they were just in the way.
As for the plot, excluding the weird plot hole with the Zonai, it was an amazing story. I felt for the characters, especially Zelda. Like BOTW, you have to run around to specific areas of the map, but the memories aren’t yours this time. Overall, it was a very captivating plot with lots of emotion.
To summarize everything, the game was fantastic. I loved the plot, most of the mechanics, and the amount of content. If you were a big fan of BOTW or open-world games, I’d recommend TOTK.
9/10
