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Published May 15, 2023, 5:20 a.m. by Monica Louis
The Legend of zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best reviewed games of all time. It has a 97% rating on Metacritic and a perfect score of 10/10 on ign. The game was released on the Wii U and was developed by nintendo EAD Tokyo and published by nintendo. The game is a sequel to The Legend of zelda: Skyward Sword and is set in the kingdom of Hyrule.
The story of the game follows Link, who is on a quest to save the kingdom of Hyrule from a evil sorcerer named Ganon. Link must travel across the kingdom to find the tears of the goddesses, which are the only thing that can stop Ganon.
The gameplay of Tears of the Kingdom is similar to that of Skyward Sword, with the player having to use the Wii U GamePad to control Link. The game also features a new mechanic called the "Tear of the Goddesses", which allows Link to use the power of the goddesses to defeat Ganon.
The Legend of zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best reviewed games of all time and is a must-play for fans of the series.
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[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
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