I wasn't sure how Nintendo would find a way to top their work in Breath of the Wild back when it came out, but I feel they have here – with years of more polish applied and refined exploration. [Issue #66 – July/August 2023, p. 71]
Tears of the Kingdom is a remarkable sequel. Not only does it improve on every single aspect of Breath of the Wild, but it expands the characters, locations, and setting in new and exciting ways. It provides the most ridiculous toolset imaginable that at every turn has left me astonished at what I’m able to achieve.
This game is amazing. The combat is fun and the enemies, the normal ones and the bosses, are very creative. It has epic moments and the final boss fight is perfect in it’s difficulty. The new abilities are fun, especially autobuild and fuse. The dungeons are way more fun than the one it’s prequel had. The controls are perfect and not difficult to master. I like Link’s new look with his long luxurious hair and Zelda’s new look with short hair. The world is massive, you can get lost in the tutorial area alone. When you think you have seen everything, you always stumble on something fun, creative or just awesome. The story is nothing special, but enough for an open world rpg. Something that I personally don’t like is that the characters have little to no personality in this game, except for, weird enough, the main villain Ganondorf and some random npc’s. I know Nintendo wanted to make Link silent so the player feels more connected with him, but this doesn’t work for me at all. I can’t feel connected with a long haired elf guy. And they could have given at least the other characters like Zelda some more personality. This game had everything Breath of the Wild had. Ironically, this makes the game a lot worse. Another thing that makes the game just not perfect is the fact that it looks a lot like it’s prequel Breath of the Wild. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played both and both are amazing games, but I don’t feel like exploring the whole overworld another time, it’s kind of the same. I know there is another world under Hyrule, the Depths, but this underworld is emptier than my love life. There are also Sky Islands, and these are very fun to explore with lots of extra side quests, but after a while they all look the same. I am very disappointed there isn’t coming a dlc. I think you could add plenty of things to the game, like new armour with references to older games, or just some extra side quests. But if you haven’t played Breath of the Wild, you probably won’t have any issues with it. For that reason, it feels unfair to give this game a lower rating than its prequal, because it is technically a better game. Overall, this game is amazing and a must-buy for everyone, especially for someone who enjoys open world rpg’s (like me). 9,7/10
Ultimately, the lore isn’t the main attraction, and isn’t the reason the Zelda series has endured for almost half a century. What’s more compelling is the game’s nod to the collective story of how human imagination pushes us through our toughest challenges, and sometimes sends us soaring to heights unseen.
Tears of the Kingdom handily exceeds the sky-high expectations surrounding it. It’s an instant classic — and a testament to the unmatched ingenuity of Nintendo’s game design.
Building off the foundation of Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way. It's filled with wonder and discovery throughout, constantly rewarding your curiosity. New mechanics like Fuse, Ascend, and Ultrahand transform how you interact with the world and give you even more opportunities to think differently about traversal and problem solving. Temples are a good upgrade and feel more clever and fleshed out, and the new sky and underground areas are excellent and serve as stark contrasts to the surface. Some technical aspects can get in the way at times, but not nearly enough to diminish the experience. It's been a long time coming for Tears of the Kingdom, but Nintendo has once again delivered a fantastic adventure that shouldn't be missed.
Outstanding, outrageously big action-adventure that builds on the strengths of its predecessor and puts playful freedom above everything else. It offers a good mix of the familiar and the fresh and just barely misses the perfect rating.
If you’ve yet to step foot into the open world of Hyrule, Tears of the Kingdom is the best way to experience it, with just enough new ground to keep things interesting. But if you didn’t gel with the 2017 release, the story alone might not be worth the second attempt.
So much is reused from BOTW, the map and even the plot seemed the same. The depths and sky islands I didn't find interesting. Ultrahand really saves this game, I enjoyed every power they added, it made for some interesting puzzle solving where I could solve puzzles in multiple ways. I feel like this game would be better if I never played BOTW cuz I'd actually want to explore the map more.
I loved Breath of the Wild but this sequel was the most overrated and disappointing game I have ever played. Halfway through I really just wanted the game to end but kept playing and regret it. Maybe you have to be a minecraft type player to enjoy this game and I am not. I found the building system, while technically impressive to be tedious and it's the main selling point. Another selling point, the sky islands are underwhelming. They're just shrine puzzles basically and there's not enough of them. There needs to be some cool lore up there or something. The depths are also uninteresting. There really isn't much to do down there and again there is basically no lore or story there.
The story is bad. Due to the non-linearity of the game, every dungeon repeats the same story beats. It feels like you can play the game for hours and hardly progress. If you find the tears early and know the story it also makes it frustrating because you know what is going on but the characters don't and keep talking about it and Link just stands there not saying he already knows or ever even emote anything.
The dungeons are a joke. Getting to them was sometimes fun but the dungeon itself and the dungeon boss was usually so easy it felt like a joke. Using the sage abilities is so annoying it makes them useless.
Combat is ok. Enemies seem like they're able to one hit you too much but since you can pause anytime and eat food it is not too difficult.
Exploration is key to open world games and a big reason why I loved BotW but here it is not good. In BotW I would climb to high points to see shrines and glide to places but in TotK you can just fast travel to a tower which shoots you up in the air and glide to where ever you need to go. Many shrines are hidden in caves which make them harder to find but the result was me just not looking for them as much. The shrine puzzles are usually kind of straight forward because the building system and materials the shrine gives you makes it obvious what you need to build. Rewards for basically doing anything are never good enough.
The fuse ability actually makes weapons breaking worse. In BotW you can just pick up another weapon and start using it. But in TotK weapons are basically useless until you fuse something to it. So you have to go into the menu, select something, drop it on flat ground so it doesn't roll away, equip the weapon, select fuse ability, and finally use fuse. How do people think that is good or fun? There is way too much time spent in menus generally, whether is eating food or selecting an item to fuse to your arrow among the thousand items you have in the menu.
The other abilities are ok but I often forgot they even existed unless a shrine required me to use them.
I don't think the professional critics spent enough time in the game to realize how tedious and repetitive the game is. I genuinely do not understand how this game has such high reviews.
This game is a disappointment. Really unimaginative and unchallenging puzzles for a BOTW sequel. Where BOTW was groundbreaking, imaginitive and the perfect balance of challenge without being too frustrating, TOTK is just unbelievably easy, redundant and a rehash. Hard to believe it took so many years for this to come out.
SummaryAn epic adventure across the land and skies of Hyrule awaits in The Legend of Zelda™: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo Switch™. The adventure is yours to create in a world fueled by your imagination. In this sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’ll decide your own path through the sprawling landscapes of Hyrule and the ...