The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Review

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before we dive into Hyrule a quick note

about spoilers this review won't spoil

the story of Tears of the Kingdom but

just like breath of the wild before it

there's a real magic in discovering its

many gameplay surprises for yourself I'm

going to preserve that magic as much as

possible but there are some huge new

parts of tears that are introduced early

on that I will be talking about because

of how fundamental they are to what

makes it so impressive

you've been warned in case you want to

go in totally fresh now on with the

review

what do you want from a sequel to The

Legend of Zelda breath of the wild more

enemy variety better dungeons totally

unexpected new ideas or simply more

Hyrule to explore enough thankfully you

don't have to pick just one because

Nintendo's response to all of those

answers is a casual but confident sure

thing The Legend of Zelda tears of the

Kingdom doesn't necessarily

revolutionize what already made breath

of the wild one of the greatest games of

all time but it's not a sequel that's

simply more of the same either this

sandbox is bigger richer and somehow

even more ambitious with creative new

systems like vehicle building ridiculous

weapon crafting and a revamped map with

a dizzying amount of depth further

fleshing out the intoxicating

exploration that made the original so

captivating breath of the wild felt far

from unfinished but inconceivably tears

of the Kingdom has somehow made it feel

like a first draft

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oh

the initial structure of Tears is a very

familiar one you start in a masterfully

crafted introductory area where you

learn the ropes and get a set of

powerful new abilities then dive into

the open world with a main quest marker

that quickly splits into four and from

there you're free to do whatever the

heck you want

cutscenes and big story moments are once

again collected at specific spots around

the map shedding light on the history of

Hyrule in the source of the upheaval a

bombastic event at the start of tears

that opens up menacing chasms causes

ruins to appear floating in the sky and

peppers the surface with new structures

and strange anomalies rise rise my

servants this still isn't necessarily

the best storytelling format as it

leaves you without much direct

interaction with its Central characters

for most of your time playing but that's

very easy to forgive when the story of

Tears is so dang cool sure it's about

stopping another evil jerk and saving

Princess Zelda again link

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you must find me but the places that

familiar shell goes are Buck Wild in the

best possible way it's not God of War or

anything but its story can be a

legitimate High Point instead of Simply

entertaining background flavor our last

line of defense will be link

but exploring was the lifeblood of

breath of the wild and it's still an

absolute Delight in tears especially

when the impressive new building system

lets you do so in more imaginative ways

even ignoring that for a moment though

one of the most important lessons that

very few of the Games inspired by Zelda

since 2017 seem to learn is that a blank

map is more powerful than a full one you

have to mark down points of interest you

see or hear about in the world yourself

and filling it to the brim with your own

goals is so much more natural and

rewarding than being handed a checklist

of waypoints right away

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while this is the same fundamental map

of Hyrule it in no way feels repetitive

to explore it's a ton of fun to

recognize characters or locations and

see how they've grown and changed in the

years since the defeat of Calamity Ganon

but tears also sends you along

unexpected paths or to less familiar

locations breathing plenty of life into

a map that clearly still had more than

enough to give and if that's not enough

for you whole areas have been

significantly altered by the upheaval

what were once pools of lava might now

be large Open Spaces meanwhile the beach

town of laurelin has been attacked by

Pirates putting both its rescue and its

rebuilding in your hands

there are tons of things like this along

the main quest line and off the beaten

path alike and if that's not enough for

you I also loved stumbling upon and

exploring dozens and dozens of caves

Wells and Sky Islands these are mostly

self-contained little areas ranging from

hidden fairy fountains to expansive

obstacle courses with tantalizing loot

at the end

using one of the new Skyview Towers to

launch yourself into the air and lets

you easily Mark shrines on the ground

before gliding to a nearby floating

archipelago filled with its own

challenges to take on and if that's

still not enough for you then boy oh boy

did I save the biggest for last maybe

you still think Nintendo played it safe

by reusing the same map but diving down

a Chasm and Into the Depths below will

melt any doubts into pure joyous

amazement

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waiting underneath is a dangerous pitch

black map that is literally the size of

Hyrule itself I cannot overstate this it

is massive I have played over 100 hours

of tears and I have explored maybe half

of it

this new map is not entirely like the

surface in that it doesn't have much in

the way of side quests or story moments

but it is full of treasures to seek out

and plenty of awesome surprises worth

discovering for yourself that red

substance is called gloom and whenever

you take damage from it it lowers your

maximum health that forces you to either

return to the light or eat a Gloom

removing meal to recover them which adds

a very fun pressure to every fight down

here

you also have to throw out bright Bloom

seeds to see where you're going

which gives exploration a totally

different and much more tense feel and

while there are no shrines in the depths

there are dozens of light Roots which

heal Gloom and illuminate a part of the

map around them when activated

that's yet another completionist goal

that's equal parts compelling and

extensive

taken together the depths and the sky

islands act as brilliant compliments to

the more traditional surface activities

stretching a structure I was already

intimately familiar with into beautiful

settings and wild situations I very much

wasn't

there are now uncountable opportunities

to get endlessly distracted until you're

wildly far away from wherever you only

thought you were going

one time a friendly drummer asked me for

some honey and it wasn't long after I

went to get it for him that I was in the

literal underworld being murdered by a

giant robot

I just wanted some honey Nintendo had

different plans for me

I beat tears of the Kingdom's main quest

around the 82 hour mark you could

certainly do it faster but even with

more than 20 after that I still have

dozens of light routes to find plenty of

shrines left to complete a huge list of

side quests and so much more

it's hard to overstate how big this game

feels even in the context of a

predecessor that made me say the exact

same thing

feels like a response to the handful of

complaints people had with breath of the

wild for example the Divine beasts got a

lot of flack for bucking usual Zelda

dungeon Trends what's replaced them

doesn't scratch the itch of collecting a

compass map and key item like in older

Zelda games but they are at least a lot

more thematically interesting and varied

the more unique and often super

entertaining boss fights both in and out

of them can occasionally stand with the

greats of the series too I don't want to

show too much but a standout for me was

a gooped up monster that felt like a

Splatoon villain had somehow infiltrated

Hyrule

enemy variety as a whole has been vastly

improved and it's elevated the still

rather straightforward but extremely

satisfying combat as a result armored

enemies can force you to use a blunt

weapon horror Blends menacingly crawl

along cave ceilings like likes will try

to devour you

and little frocks will Scurry out to eat

your bright blooms it's a much wider

Menagerie

there's also the absolutely absurd new

weapon Fusion system which lets you

attach any item or object onto any other

weapon Shield than often even arrowheads

monster horns now act as powerful blades

or bludgeons to buff your base weapons

but you can also do extremely dumb stuff

like put a flamethrower on a boomerang

or a mine cart on a stick because I

don't know why not it's a system that

just says yes to whatever you throw at

it and then trust you to figure out

what's good bad or incredibly funny and

because of this the weapon durability

system feels totally different suddenly

having a bag full of monster Parts is

the equivalent of having dozens of

backup weapons just waiting for a handle

to be attached to

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any weapon can be a fire sword if you've

got the Horn of a fire dragon to slap

onto it

this brings additional Nuance to combat

with throwing items letting you quickly

toss out things like the excellent new

muddle Bud which makes enemies attack

each other

there are also bomb flowers you have to

collect making them both more valuable

and Powerful now that they aren't

infinite

items can be attached to arrows too and

shields can even become a sort of

offhand weapon with Fusion it's a super

intuitive system once you get the hang

of it letting you try out cool

strategies that just weren't possible in

breath of the Wild

the complementary ability to weapon

Fusion is the ultra hand building system

you can now pick up rotate and attach

almost any objects to one another with

ease this is supported by special

devices like gliders and fans you can

pull out of your inventory at any time

giving you an immense amount of Freedom

during exploration

the building tools are fairly Snappy and

easy to use while allowing for a level

of customization it's hard to find the

limit of

one time I was driving a car I'd made

only to reach a dead end but instead of

abandoning my creation I channeled my

inner Doc Brown and turned it into a

flying car so I could drive right over a

canyon

this might sound silly but that simple

Act was honestly one of the most

rewarding gaming moments I've had in a

long time I'm not sure I was supposed to

do that but it worked sort of felt like

The Unofficial tagline of breath of the

wild and tears leans even harder into

that creativity

most shrines use building in neat ways

too but this system doesn't warp tears

into something unrecognizably about

building either shortcuts are provided

for people who aren't as interested in

this side of things while simultaneously

empowering those of us who are to

Pretend This is Kerbal Space Program

getting from point A to point B can

become an engaging puzzle all its own

whether that's making a traveling band's

Carriage fly to get them up a mountain

or helping a korok get to its far-off

friend

well close enough

amidst all of this cleverness is a

hysterical air of Looney Tunes lunacy

letting you strap literal Rockets to

anything and everything and then watch

like Wiley Coyote as your plans

disastrously blow up in your face or

simply drive off out of your control

sometimes failure is just as fun as

success

foreign

I could be here all day praising a

million and a half other little quality

of life improvements like the brand new

recipe system but one place tears hasn't

necessarily improved over breath of the

wild is performance this can be a

beautiful game as you soar through the

air but you'll also see the same frame

rate dips that the last game suffered

from during busy moments they can

certainly distract but it's also not any

worse so the only harm they ever truly

caused is the emotional damage of making

me once again Pine for a switch Pro as

we've all been doing for the past

several years and it's really quite

remarkable that I saw essentially no

bugs whatsoever positioning tears far

away from a mess like last year's

Pokemon scarlet and violet honestly the

fact that you can jump from the very top

of the sky and dive all the way to the

surface straight through a Chasm and

down to the floor of the depths

seamlessly with zero load screens feels

like a genuine miracle

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The Legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom

is an unfathomable follow-up to one of

the greatest games ever somehow

improving upon it in nearly every way be

that with simple quality of life

improvements a genuinely exciting story

or wildly creative new building

mechanics that make you rethink what's

possible it both revamps old ground and

introduces vast new areas so immense it

somehow made me wonder if breath of the

wild was actually all that big

it's loaded with an almost alarming

number of tasks to complete Mysteries to

discover and delightful distractions to

keep you from ever reaching that place

you naively thought you were headed

Nintendo has followed up a Triumph with

a Triumph it expanding an evolving a

world that already felt full Beyond

expectation and raising the bar even

higher into the clouds

you can read my full written review on

ign.com for even more about what makes

this game so stunning and we have lots

of tips tricks and more on tears of the

Kingdom to come until then for

everything else keep it right here on

IGN

thank you

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