The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Review

Breath of the Wild’s sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, is much more than that. Even though this latest Zelda game is most obviously identical to that one from 2017, it builds upon the foundation in such a profound and transformative way that it feels like a revelation. This is The Legend of Zelda at its very best, combining the best elements and traits from across the franchise’s history to create a fresh experience that is emotionally impactful, fascinating, and endlessly rewarding.

By offering an expansive and lush open environment to explore—a reimagining of the unguided experience of the original Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System—Breath of the Wild upended the Zelda model. Tears of the Kingdom continues the naturalistic theme of its predecessor, although the environment has undergone significant changes. There are several options for exploration and curiosities, and nothing is precisely the same or where you’d expect it to be. You’ll hardly ever round a corner or reach the top of a hill without discovering something new to do or interact with. Even though it is teeming with life and activity, Hyrule exudes calm. The music is both grand and understated, underlining a tense combat or a precarious escape with a thrilling up-tempo rendition of the theme before relaxing off with softer tones to let you take in the surroundings.

The fact that your instruments for interacting with it are so much more versatile is a big part of the reason why the world feels so different now. You don’t even enter the open world until you’ve discovered four crucial talents in a tutorial section, much like the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild. Together, these skills form the heart of Tears of the Kingdom; just as Breath of the Wild focused on using your arsenal of skills to explore the wilderness, these new tools make Tears of the Kingdom more about creating and experimenting with solutions to problems. What made Breath of the Wild so unique has been expertly evolved in this game. In terms of how much you can express your own creativity, it is more ambitious than Breath of the Wild, yet it does it without tripping over itself.

Ultrahand and Fuse are the two most crucial skills because they are the foundations of both fighting and exploration, respectively. With Ultrahand, you may assemble practically anything you come across, including a wide variety of brand-new building supplies and antiquated Zonai machine parts. In a method that is conceptually similar to Ultrahand, Fuse allows you to customize your melee weapons, arrows, and shields by attaching stuff to them. The two function as opposite half of the same whole, enticing you to continuously experiment with fresh variations of a dizzying variety of combinations just to see what happens. Depending on how you arrange them, attaching Zonai fan components to a raft can either enable it to traverse a river or propel it into the air. Naturally, a bomb on an arrow makes for an explosive shot, whereas a bomb on a shield will give you the opportunity to launch far into the air with a shield-surf or be a messy surprise to an enemy who tries to attack you.

What struck me is how weapon deterioration, which caused controversy in Breath of the Wild, is reframed in Fuse. While the added durability that comes from fusing goods helps to allay certain worries, there is a deeper, more philosophical layer at work with how these new systems interact. Breath of the Wild’s concept of durability revolved around resource management and scarcity. In Tears of the Kingdom, it seems more like an encouragement to experiment with different pairings. You stop being as particular about each and every object you find when you realize that every tree branch or rusted sword you come across could serve as a test tube for a brand-new experiment. Everything is a toy, and Tears of the Kingdom encourages you to play with your toys, knock them around, and enjoy the surprising outcomes.

Recall and Ascend, the other two skills awarded in the tutorial section, have a smaller range of application but are nonetheless quite significant. You may quickly throw a bomb back at a foolish Moblin with Recall, which turns objects into their prior states. You can also use Recall to create a moving platform to span a gap. You can simply navigate through solid rock with Ascend, getting to places that would have taken longer (or been impossible) to manually climb and rapidly finding your way into hidden areas.

As you develop a variety of machine parts and face more difficult barriers, one more crucial ability becomes optional and completely missable yet becomes increasingly crucial. The Autobuild extension of Ultrahand easily sews the necessary components for a design that you have either saved recently or that you have designated as a favorite to save indefinitely. You can construct a hot air balloon or small plane utilizing components that are lying around and fill in any gaps with the stash of Zonai parts that are currently stored in your inventory rather of having to build them from scratch every time you need one.

The Ascend ability and all of these building tools effectively lessen the importance of using your stamina meter for ascending, but the building tools make the game so vertically oriented that traversing is effortless. That is also attributable to the Skyview Towers, which not only act as markers to complete the map but also as cannons to shoot you high into the air. The Sky Islands, which are located on a different tier of the globe and have their own secrets to be discovered, will be reached as you rise. Link launches himself into the air in a fluid motion. Every time you launch into the air and then plummet back to ground, it’s thrilling, and you may use the vantage point to drift toward a goal or scan the area for new locations.

To my surprise, the ascent to the sky and subsequent down to the ground went without incident. Tears of the Kingdom’s compatibility with the outdated Switch hardware has been a source of much anxiety, but in my experience playing primarily in handheld mode, I hardly ever experienced any lag. In fact, the very infrequent time that I did experience a modest frame rate decrease in both handheld and docked modes occurred during a smaller, more mundane activity, such as wandering the busy Kakariko Village during a downpour. Even then, the blips in performance were brief and modest. When flying high and in docked mode, it’s easier to notice a loss of some information on distant objects, although the painterly aesthetic effectively hides it. At this point in its existence, Nintendo has managed to wring more technical prowess from its own platforms than was once thought imaginable. (Monolith Soft, which contributed to development, has lately used Switch hardware to fantastic effect with Xenoblade Chronicles 3).

Once more, the map is strewn with objects of interest, particularly Shrines, which, like the Skyview Towers, also function as fast-travel hubs. The Shrines, which are once again brief, snack-sized battle and puzzle chambers, are essential for improving your health and stamina. I had a tendency to use them as fast-travel points before returning to complete a run of them consecutively. Your portable battery pack can be upgraded so that your Zonai machines can function for an additional period of time using a new, distinct consumable. Additionally, you can trigger unique bioluminescent plants that serve as their own fast-travel spots and use Brightbloom seeds to light your own path around the expansive underground environment. Exploration really does feel like it is taking place in a huge, unexplored universe because of the division between the three tiers of the open world, each with its own distinctly different atmosphere.

Tears of the Kingdom has a certain flow that feels exclusive to the Zelda series thanks to these tools and the expansive environment they inhabit. You are creating solutions rather than just fighting or solving puzzles. You might come across a barrier you can’t jump, a conflict you can’t prevail in, or a riddle you can’t figure out. But since you already have the necessary equipment and know where to look for the materials, all that is left to do is plan ahead, get your supplies, and implement your strategy. If that plan doesn’t work—which it occasionally will—you adjust your design or plan and try again. The immense freedom is not oppressive, either. You can definitely get through the story with simpler ideas, however inventive solutions are welcomed and may make some tasks considerably easier. Although it meets you where you are, it rewards you for using your creative muscles.

The four main dungeons, which are more conventional than the Divine Beasts from Breath of the Wild, are located in the four primary quadrants of the map. For starters, these are actually referred to as Temples and are each given an elemental name, such as Wind or Fire, in a wink of recognition. They are essentially similar—each revolves around a set of locks in some way—but their styles and tones couldn’t be more dissimilar. For instance, the Zelda dungeon in The Thunder Temple transitions from an Indiana Jones pastiche to a very classic Zelda dungeon complete with mirror puzzles. In contrast, The Wind Temple is a floating airship with a complex, overlapping construction. Each Temple has parts that feel bold and unlike anything you’ve seen in a Zelda game before, all mixed in with presentation and style that will please those who, like me, missed the Breath of the Wild dungeons’ nostalgic vibe.

However, each dungeon’s puzzle structure does not match to a specific item that you get there. Boomerangs and Iron Boots are nowhere to be found. As an alternative, each dungeon has a companion that is unique to one of the many other races in Zelda legend, such the Goron or Zora. You can solve puzzles and engage in combat using your companion’s strength, which gives the impression that you’ve discovered a special object and gives it personality. Each of the four main characters is endearing in their own special way and has wonderful character design that sets them apart from their contemporaries. The Temples largely downplay combat, allowing you to spend the most of your time there exploring and solving puzzles.

The bosses, though, are some of the hardest I’ve encountered in any Zelda game, so that isn’t the case. These fierce creatures are meant to test your abilities and those of your companions, and more than once I had to completely exit a dungeon in order to improve my preparation. Tears of the Kingdom, which lets you fast-travel out of dungeons to spend time elsewhere and then simply pick up a combat again when you fast-travel back to the closest waypoint, allows for and even counts on that. I was happy to see that. Your friends don’t travel with you when you go, but once you’ve beaten a dungeon, you can use them whenever you need to.

Your unique skills cannot be relied upon to stack on top of one another in an open structure, which is its one disadvantage. Since the dungeons were linearly ordered, older Zelda games could rely on you having the items from the fourth and fifth dungeons by the time you reached the sixth dungeon, which would eventually cause the puzzle difficulty to increase. Puzzles in Tears of the Kingdom can only be designed around one critical ability at a time because you can play dungeons in any sequence. This is the cost of having an open framework, but it’s a reasonable trade-off given how much use the game makes of its dungeon riddles.

The main plot is connected to exploring these dungeons and finding these allies. The narrative of Tears of the Kingdom is my favorite part of the game, and it is unquestionably my favorite Zelda narrative in a long time. It starts with Link and Zelda looking into the Gloom, a blight that seems to be coming from under Hyrule Castle. The two come across a desiccated body that Zelda fans will immediately recognize as Ganondorf being restrained by a glowing, inanimate arm, which is an uncharacteristically unsettling touch. Link is hurt by Ganondorf, who suddenly comes to life, and the Master Sword is broken. Zelda disappears into a pitch-black void during the ensuing commotion, and when Link recovers, she is nowhere to be found. His left arm, which was discovered clutching Ganondorf, is now in place of his right.

The narrative continues by describing how, long ago, the first King of Hyrule allied the Sages—representatives of each race in Hyrule—against Ganondorf’s army of the Demon King. With your new arm, you now have the ability to combine the Sages and access their abilities, which motivates you to go across the country in search of people who share their lineages and who can carry out the pacts their ancestors made a millennium ago. Because each of these new Sages struggles in a different way with the duty, each temple develops its own unique mini character tale with its own unique payoffs. Diversity is a strength in the world of Tears of the Kingdom, which was created by people with the courage to strive for the benefit of all. As each of them accepts their role, some more reluctantly than others, there is a tangible sensation of weight. Some are self-assured leaders who feel bound by ties, while others are troubled by mistakes or fed up with being taken for granted. They are some of the most impactful tertiary characters in Zelda history; they are endearingly likeable and compassionate individuals who emphasize the importance of heroism and group duty in their own unique ways.

But this tale actually belongs to Zelda more than the Sages or even Link. Finding Zelda is the primary objective of the game, both narratively and physically in your task log. The whole thing has an air of mystery about it, and there have been sporadic tales of Zelda sightings all around the kingdom. The story of finding out where she’s gone is nonsequential, with the mystery progressively revealing itself in the direction of an amazing, moving realization. One particular scene in this tale will forever be remembered as one of the most moving in the entire Zelda franchise.

I’ve always associated the Legend of Zelda series with transcendent, epic events, such as removing the Master Sword from its pedestal in A Link to the Past, awakening the Wind Fish in Link’s Awakening, and the three main characters in Ocarina of Time representing different facets of the Triforce. Each of those are represented in a scene in Tears of the Kingdom, and I was moved to tears by its magnitude and impact. Even though I adored every aspect of Zelda’s backstory, I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt as strongly about anything.

And of course there is the narrative you create for yourself through gaming, such as when you devise a cunning device to cross a gap, venture into a mysterious tunnel using nothing but your wits and a few arrows, or ride through a rainstorm in search of safety. With Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you can express your own creativity by writing your own stories in the book and inventing your own legends for the world. It invites you to soar, burrow, engineer, solve, adventure, and explore and rewards you for your efforts in equal measure.

Source: gamespot