The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NSW) Review

Searching high and low.

 

 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the highly anticipated follow-up to 2017's smash-hit The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I've been excited for the sequel ever since its reveal being a fan of Breath of the Wild and couldn't wait to play it. Link and Zelda are back for another adventure and this time, Hyrule is under threat again! Building upon its predecessor and introducing new gameplay elements, Tears of the Kingdom aims be an improvement in every way. I've got a lot to cover about the game, so it's going to be a long one.

 Years after the events of Breath of the Wild, Hyrule is slowly rebuilding from Calamity Ganon's defeat. Link and Princess Zelda are on an expedition to uncover more of Hyrule Castle's past and they come across an ancient race known as the "Zonai". However, things take a turn for the worse when they wake the evil Ganondorf, who unleashes his dark plague onto Hyrule and lifts up Hyrule Castle to the sky. Link's right arm gets completely burned off in the attack and Zelda has seemingly disappeared. With no leads to her whereabouts, Link will need to scour Hyrule and team up with its residents to find clues for Zelda.

Jump into a world that's both familiar yet new.

  I loved the story as it left a big first impression and felt a lot more involving compared to Breath of the Wild. It incorporates time-travel themes where you get to see Hyrule 2,000 years in the past and the Zonai race who inhabited it, which was cool. The adventure was thrilling when it reaches the finale, with a final showdown and ending that left me satisfied. Characters from BotW also got some needed development with Yunobo, Riju, Sidon, and Tulin being a lot more memorable.

 Tears of the Kingdom is an open-world adventure game where you control Link as you explore a Hyrule ravaged by an ominous plague. Like its predecessor, you're free to explore your surroundings and pick story objectives in any order you wish. The sky's the limit (literally) this time around as you get to explore the sky islands above Hyrule with the Zonai ruins as well as deep underground in dimly-lit caverns. The combat was good as you get to block, parry, dash, and sneak attack enemies using stealth. 

 Returning mechanics from BotW are the crafting/cooking mechanics, the paraglider, shrines that grant you extra hearts and stamina, and weapon-durability system. The latter was still annoying as equipment tended to break at the worst times like in the middle of boss fights. There's also a larger selection of weapons, shields, and attires to collect by thoroughly exploring or by visiting shops across the land.

The gameplay was good and the new enemies were a challenge. 

So what's new?

  Tears of the Kingdom offers new additions to gameplay such as the Zonai devices and Link's new arm abilities. The Zonai devices are objects such as tires, rockets, fans, batteries that you'll either find in capsules or lying around. With Link's new abilities, you can use them to craft new methods of transportation like an off-roader, hot air balloon, or just attach a rocket to a shield for a boost upwards. The Zonai devices were cool and even though I'm not the most creative mind out there, it offered a nice change in the gameplay formula.

 Link's "Ultrahand" ability that allows him to move objects and attach them together to create bridges and other forms of transportation like a cart or glider. "Autobuild" will allow you to instantly rebuild any Ultrahand creations at the cost of Zonai ores. The "Fuse" ability allows you to fuse two items together to make an entirely new item. For example, you can fuse a wooden stick with a stone to make a stone axe that'll cut down enemies and ores. "Recall" has the ability to rewind moving objects to access new paths and reach high spots, though sadly it was situational in shrines. "Ascend" is by far the neatest ability as it lets you vertically phase through objects like ceilings to reach higher floors. It's especially neat when you're exploring caves and want a quick way out.

Flex your creative muscle with the game's new features.

 All these features offer you near limitless creativity in how you explore Hyrule and tackle the game's various challenges like dungeons and shrines. Some of the Ultrahand creations online were both stunning and hilarious to see. The game sees the return of traditional dungeons as each area of Hyrule boasts an element-based dungeon that houses treasure chests, puzzles, and boss fights. The latter were an improvement over BoTW as each were varied and take more skill to beat. My favorite boss had to be the Wind and Thunder temples. Without spoiling much, the final boss fights were also grand and challenging fights.

 After beating each temple, you're accompanied by a hero's spirit, which are phantoms that aid you in combat. For example, Sidon's phantom fights with a spear and lets you charge your attacks with water, meanwhile, Tulin will shoot enemies with arrows while giving you a gust if wind when you're paragliding, all of which were helpful. The game took around 85 hours to beat with me doing a handful of side-quests, beating over 70 shrines, exploring a lot, and getting the true ending. Needless to say, the game is filled with content that'll last you long after the story's over. Granted, there were some drawbacks with the game's pacing being slow towards the end, as story chapters tended to drag-on before reaching the end. 

 As with the Switch's many visually impressive games, Tears of the Kingdom boasts a beautiful art-style and lush backgrounds. The colors pop-out more with the Sky Islands and lighting was good as you explore the Depths as well. That said, it does suffer from technical shortcomings due to the ageing Nintendo Switch hardware. There were occasional frame-rate dips, pop-in textures, and low-res screen as you fight groups of enemies and explore Hyrule. 

Tears of the Kingdom looks stunning, aside from some drawbacks.

 Thankfully it never got unbearable as the experience remained stable with no instances of crashes whatsoever. The voice-work was solid, featuring many good performances. Link's his usual quiet self and that's how we know and love him. The soundtrack is nothing short of amazing, featuring a good mix of ambient, quirky, and grand tracks that compliment the game's ambitious tone.

 

  The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was an outstanding experience and one that I enjoyed more than its predecessor. The story was a lot more engaging, characters were fully developed, world was interesting to explore, and gameplay being as fun and experimental as ever. It was a thrilling journey that left me satisfied and I'm eager to see where Nintendo will take the series going forward. Will they go for three and make an "open-world trilogy" or create something entirely new again? It's a tough spot (as with the Switch), but they always have a tendency of surprising everyone.