The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Review
“Soaring High” Written by: Hunter (ReaperHunter23)
The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom has been one of my most anticipated games since its initial announcement. Breath Of The Wild is one of my all time favorite games and I have been pretty confident that the eventual follow up to it could be even better. After several years of anticipation and a very slow drip feed of information, Tears Of The Kingdom is here. So let's take a look to see if it lives up the immense levels of hype behind it.
Image Credit: Nintendo
One of the most impressive things about the gameplay of Tears Of The Kingdom is its commitment to detail and the level of creative problem solving that it allows for. If you think you can do something in this game, there is probably a way to make it happen. Tears Of The Kingdom takes full advantage of the foundation laid by Breath Of The Wild to get even more creative with its puzzles and possible solutions. And it does this all while giving you a brand new and even more interesting toolset to work with.
Tears Of The Kingdom swaps out the Sheikah slate runes for the new abilities of Link’s magic Zonai arm. Ascend allows Link to vertically pass through any solid surfaces that are above him. Rewind reverses any movement an object makes. Fuse allows you to graft items and other materials to your sword and shield. And finally, Ultrahand allows you to move and connect any object you come across.
The game does a great job at giving these tools a nice balance between pure utility and creative freedom. I may not have been using Ultrahand to create any of the wild contraptions you’d see on a Twitter clip, but I was able to wrap my head around the mechanics of it enough to be able to create an airship or raft that would get the job done.
The same can be said for the rest of the abilities as well. At first blush Ascend and Rewind can seem kind of situational but I quickly found myself rewinding all of the rocks and barrels that moblins would throw at me. And once I decided to try ascending through a Stone Talus, it completely changed my approach to how I dealt with them.
Fuse might be my favorite of the new abilities. One reason is that it made all of those monster parts I was getting feel like they had a purpose. I didn’t really bother with making elixirs in Breath Of The Wild so I constantly had a surplus of Keese wings and Octoroc eyes. In this game however, seeing what kind of horn a monster would drop made me rather excited whenever I came across a new foe. Fuse was also the ability that I feel like I was having the most fun coming up with silly ideas for. These silly ideas included: Luminous Talus hearts on shields to light my way through the depths, mine carts on shields for a makeshift skateboard, and a flame emitter fused to a boomerang for a flaming tornado attack that is way more flashy than it is effective.
The other rather impressive element of Tears Of The Kingdom is how enticing they made it to explore. I was constantly looking off into the distance and saying “Hey what’s that?” and setting up a beacon or stamping my map. I very rarely set out on an objective and finished that objective without being enticed by something else that I came across along the way. This is especially impressive when you take into account that I’ve already explored this version of Hyrule before.
Tears Of The Kingdom does a lovely job at making Hyrule feel familiar without making it feel stale. It does a great job at capitalizing on all of the built in intrigue that comes with simply returning to a place. My first several hours of the game were spent running to places like Hateno Village, Eventide Island, or The Great Plateau and they all had something interesting to do there. All of the major towns are right where we left them six years ago but they all have something new going on in or around them. Shrines make a return but now we have a whole new set of abilities that they’ve been designed around. Temples return in Tears of The Kingdom as well. I feel like they did a good job of blending the more free structure of the divine beast with the unique presentation that was present in the older Zelda games.
And that’s just what they did with the familiar elements of the world. When you factor in the Sky Islands, The Depths, and the rather expansive network of caves on the surface, there’s so much to do in this game and most of it manages to be quite interesting.
Image Credit: Nintendo
Going into Tears Of The Kingdom, the story was one of the things I was most interested in. I was not disappointed. The story of Tears Of The Kingdom feels like it has a sense of urgency that Breath Of The Wild lacked. A good example of this would just be comparing the main regional quests. For instance: In Breath Of The Wild, when Link shows up to the Rito Village, Vah Medoh is just kind of menacingly circling the area. In Tears Of The Kingdom, Rito Village is on the verge of being buried under a blizzard. I feel like the same could be said for the other three regional quests as well.
Many of the sidequests are also much more involved this time around. Each of the major villages all have some kind of interesting story happening around them. Hateno Village is in the middle of electing a mayor, Lurelin Village has been accosted by pirates, Kakariko Village is investigating the ruins that got dropped on them. Even the stables all have this overarching newspaper quest to partake in. And yeah there are some quests that are still just the “Gather up 10 apples and give it to Scorpis” kind of affair, but having more substantial quests around them helps to make the less involved quests more palatable.
I love the characters in Tears Of The Kingdom. This game has arguably one of the best casts of NPCs in the series. I was rather excited to see characters like Hudson, Paya, and the whole of Gerudo town again. On top of that the main players like Sidon, Riju, Purah, and a strong slate of new characters are all very charming.
Breath of The Wild already had my favorite version of Link and Zelda, and now Tears Of The Kingdom can add “Favorite Ganondorf" to the list. His introduction at the start of the game was ice cold. And the more you see of him the more it becomes clear that this is the most threatening and possibly the most unhinged he’s ever been. As for Link and Zelda, they are still the emotional core of the story. Link still has the duality of being stoic in the cutscenes but an absolute goofball in the gameplay. And Zelda’s story is a very intriguing follow up of where she left off in Breath Of The Wild.
Overall, between returning to one of the best versions of Hyrule, the grandiose story moments , and the immensely strong cast in this game, Tears Of The Kingdom has quickly become one of my favorite stories in the Zelda series.
Image Credit: Nintendo
Tears Of The Kingdom has some of the best character designs in the series. I really enjoy Link’s new hairstyle and all of the new armor sets he can get are pretty cool. Zelda’s new look is also really neat. Ganondorf looks the best he ever has. The man looks like he could beat an army to death with his bare hands before he even unsheathes his sword. And there were plenty of new character designs or updates to old characters that I thought were visually interesting.
I enjoyed the voice performances in this game as well. The two stand outs to me were Matt Mercer as Gandondorf and Patricia Summerset as Zelda. Matt Mercer manages to go from being smug and in control like the opening scene of the game, to unhinged and mad with power later pretty perfectly. And Patricia Summerset improved as Zelda immensely between the two games. She manages to portray the moments of hurt and exhaustion that Zelda goes through so believably. Conversely all of the more pleasant moments that Zelda gets to have are elevated because she does seem genuinely happy. All of the other characters with voice performances are pretty solid as well. Whether it was Sidon’s overall excitement when he was on screen or Rauru and Sonia’s comforting parental dynamic that they had with Zelda.
Another aspect that Tears Of The Kingdom absolutely nails is its moments of spectacle. I would not say that there were any dungeon bosses that I found particularly difficult. But oh doctor, I had a lot of fun fighting them because all of the set dressing was so grandiose and cool. The new overworld bosses are more challenging on the mechanical side of things but also maintain the sense of spectacle. I was in absolute awe the first time I fought a Gleeok.
The music in Tears Of The Kingdom walks a nice balance between the more subdued soundtrack that Breath of The Wild had, while also having some absolute ear melting jams in all of the right places. All of the game’s more grandiose moments were punctuated by a really lively score. The main theme of Tears Of The Kingdom has become one of my new favorite songs in the series, and the game has a plethora of other tunes I’ve been humming or thinking about constantly since beating the game.
Image Credit: Nintendo
Summary
The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is an absolute must play video game. It is easily the most fun I’ve had with a game in the past three or four years. The sheer commitment to detail allows for such a broad level of player creativity and freedom. I played this game over the course of about three weeks and it never felt like it was outstayed its welcome. Everyday I played Tears Of The Kingdom I felt like I accomplished something. Sure, sometimes it wasn’t always something stat wise like doing a crazy amount of shrines or side quests but I always felt like each day contained a nice adventure for me. When this incredible gameplay experience is paired with a world that I’m invested in and characters that I adore, Tears Of The Kingdom comes out to be one the best video games that I’ve ever played.