The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

Interestingly I draw parallels with this game and Assassin’s Creed. I played Assassin’s Creed Origins in 2017 when it came out and enjoyed it in retrospective quite a bit. There was a ton of open world to discover and plenty of small quests, monsters to slay, bad guy outposts to tackle, fetch quests, and more. Obviously Asassin’s creed has a much heavier combat focus, which is why I think I could manage to play BoTW and the Origins in the same year.

In the intervening 6 years Nintendo has released no new games in the series until now (not counting DLC) while Ubisoft has released 2 sequels (and a remaster if you want to count that). Over the years I thought about getting back into AC but wasn’t ready for their sequels as it was too close in time to Origins and I just was worried about the huge time commitment those games require.

So I think Nintendo’s strategy of releasing less frequently with some of their series really pays off as it gets me craving that game style again and it allows them to perfect something new enough to feel fresh.

I have spent quite a while playing this game and am having an absolute blast going through. There’s so much I want to say but I’ll try to condense my thoughts as much as I can. No actual spoilers, just mostly mechanics and a bit of world design stuff.

• The durability system in my opinion makes much more sense to have in this game. You are constantly encouraged to fuse weapons and can create some pretty wacky combinations. The fear or frustration of losing a really good weapon no longer applies here because you can simply just make it again. That said, if you didn’t like the durability system before, it’s highly unlikely your opinion will change here.

• With the fuse system, there’s now more incentive to fight enemies. Every enemy and tier of enemy will drop fuse materials that often have varying attack power. The combat is still mostly the same, but I don’t think it needs to be deep in particular. Zelda combat in my opinion has never been particularly deep to begin with. It’s clear that their focus isn’t ever about combat. Though the high increase in enemy variety already provides, in my opinion, a fun approach to combat where you can simply brute force it by creating a ridiculously strong weapon, or make an elemental weapon on the spot to exploit weaknesses. Or honestly? Just attach a flamethrower or laser shooting device to your shield. (Or make a fully functional power mech and annihilate everything)

• The shrines have been really great so far. The new abilities really force you to get creative with how you approach them and sometimes have enough flexibility for you to solve them in a completely different way than intended. Though rewind might be a bit too strong because you can honestly solve so many things with rewind, even if it’s not intended to be used. The ones that play off the fuse mechanic sometimes hurt my head. Now… I’m no engineer, but man is it satisfying to create an absolute mess with fusing and seeing it actually work. Combat shrines seem to be completely gone in favor of adding shrines that strip you away of your gear and instead provide you with weapons they want you to use, similar to Eventide Island in BotW.. There’s still the issue that some shrines are just free, usually because they were accompanied by an overworld puzzle, but it still feels a little annoying when you run into a free shrine, despite not encountering a puzzle beforehand. Oftentimes the reward also ends up being just a core charge which is underwhelming.

• A few frustrating things I’ve noticed are ones that likely everyone has encountered. The UI and Ultrahand controls can be very annoying at times. I believe it’s a little ridiculous that selecting any material or weapon wasn’t better designed considering just how quickly your inventory will fill up. Even adding a second row would have vastly reduced the tedium of looking for the one material you need. As for Ultrahand, while the controls aren’t bad, it will definitely get frustrating when you’re looking for the rotation or right fuse point to get what you want, though really it’s not as bad as it might sound.

• Probably the most disappointing aspect of the game so far are the sky islands. It’s actually surprising to me how very little sky islands matter considering that’s the biggest thing highlighted in the trailers. The sky islands are pretty much identical to skyward sword islands where they’re just very scattered and only ever include maybe a small puzzle, shrine, or just one of those gacha machines. The tutorial island from the beginning is the only large mass I’ve encountered so far but I was expecting more of those and they’re just… not there. Though as a contrast, exploring caves and the depths has in a way made up for sky islands being very underwhelming, but then I wonder why they put such an emphasis on them in trailers but completely hid away the depths until release date.

Overall, I’m having a great time. I personally enjoyed BotW immensely so this is just.. BotW again but three times more. It’s also just a building simulator which, while I’m not smart or creative enough to take advantage of, has been real fun seeing the things people are coming up with. While probably not going to be my GOTY, this game is just pure fun to me. It really feels far more of a game than BotW did and also like the game they wanted to create in the first place.

Man this game did it to me again.

What’s that over there? That looks interesting. I think I can get up over there maybe. Yeah, and if I go there I can get to there. Woah, where is this leading? Oh my gosh, if I can just make it over there, maybe there will be a shrine. Well, I finally found a shrine but I can’t stop now. That looks like it is leading someplace even more interesting. If I can just get to that point… holy moly what is that ?!!

(And I have barely scratched the surface on the building aspect)

this is not really my type of game at all, as i prefer smaller, handcrafted, linear experiences that help keep me engaged in story and gameplay progression. and with that said im still having a lot of fun here -- really feels like what botw was trying to be. i still have my gripes (infinite item space, loud music box jingle, loss of health having mostly no consequence/danger that older zelda games had since you can heal right away*), but the sheer amount of variety in things to do and find seems to be outweighing my gripes this time around that i might end up actually finishing the game. the world just really feels lived in

(* yes im aware of the new gloom health mechanic, and im all for it)

I finished the fire temple last night. Definitely glad I started well stocked on items, but the boss actually felt easier than a lot of the overworld combat because you're not constantly being one-shotted from behind. Traversing the entire structure a second time because I'd missed one destructible wall was the pits though.

Prior to that point I'd only had minor framerate problems, but the entire dungeon was a blurry, lagging mess. Between the heat haze, sub-native resolution, and gross abuse of particle effects, I found it incredibly difficult to see where I was going. The Depths seem drastically less polished than the rest of the game, both in technical fidelity and actual content. A vast expanse of empty procedurally generated terrain is not an interesting environment. It feels like a Minecraft cave.

If you're still "trapped" in the starting island because you want to find everything before going to Hyrule, use this guide I just made to find all 19 koroks in there.

It's in spanish, but you can find captures and maps with the locations.

Give it some love. We're in need of clicks and I want to see the rest of the game too!

OK, just had a turning point for my opinion of this game and I have to spill my guts. Up to now, I was loving the game, but I really wasn't feeling much of the wonder I felt with Breath of the Wild, just because it's much more of the same. But I just had an experience with a minor quest that has really made things click for me... Putting in spoilers just in case, but just talking about game mechanics.

I was doing the troupe quest in Outskirt Stable, which is the second one of these that I've done. This is the quest where you have to use Ultrahand to escort a troupe of musicians to a Great Fairy Fountain to unlock the ability to upgrade your armor. For the first one, it was a pretty standard task to fix up a wagon and tow them up with a horse, which I did happily. For this second quest, the twist is that there are a bunch of rocks blocking the road up to the Great Fairy Fountain, so you have to get more creative. Next to the stable are a bunch of parts to make a big wheeler that can move over the rocks, but I thought "To hell with that, I'm doing this my own way." I had the bright idea to create a flying machine to take the troupe up to the Great Fairy. So I got to building a contraption: I found out that two hot air balloons were not enough to lift the wagon up, so my idea was to launch myself up into the air with a rocket and glide down to the Great Fairy using the nearby steering wheel. Unfortunately, I found out that this consumes a LOT of energy from my energy cells, so I ended up using most of my batteries to supplement my energy and make it to my goal. Unfortunately, on my third try, I crashed into a tree, which destroyed my entire contraption in the process. Back to square one. I upgraded to four hot air balloons instead of a rocket to give myself more lift. I thought this would make it a bit easier to control, which should allow me to reach the Great Fairy. I abandoned the idea of the steering wheel, because I didn't think it was helping me much with my first try. So I launched my contraption, and at first it went great! But unfortunately, I crashed into some rocks as I tried to land, and the flame emitters made the whole thing catch on fire! Back to square one again. At this point I almost gave up. The nearby free parts for a big wheeler were calling my name--an easy solution to this quest. But I was too committed at this point. I was going to make this flying machine work, and that was that. So I started over. I kept the four balloons because it had worked pretty well the first time. What I needed was more control for the landing, so I added the steering wheel back into the picture. I tried placing the balloons a bit further away from the cart to lower the risk of it bursting into flames. I used up the last of my batteries and flame emitters in the process... This was the do or die moment. I launched into the air... Everything was going great! But my lone battery ran out, and now my energy cells were rapidly depleting. In frantic desperation, I chugged as many Zonai Charges as I could to keep this thing afloat. I steered the thing directly into the Great Fairy Fountain, which was thankfully enough to complete the quest! For my trouble, I was rewarded with 100 Rupees, which didn't make up for the plethora of Zonai Devices I burned through in the process. But the satisfaction of knowing my idea worked was all that I wanted.

This game is pure insanity and this is why it'll probably take me weeks to complete... Still haven't tackled a second dungeon, and I'm 4 days into playing this thing. The exploration definitely gives me a "been there, done that" vibe, but Ultrahand is just incredible, euphoric fun.