"The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom"

 


    I did it, after spending basically all of October, and nearly 200 hours playing the game, I am satisfied with my Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom playthrough. Basically the only thing I didn't finish were some Korok seeds, the compendium, and some fabrics/schematics that ultimately didn't matter. Yet, I can't help but be reminded that it took me multiple attempts to actually get me into this game. It starts off pretty slow in the sky islands, and I really had to set aside this month to get back into things. I use the term "get back into" on purpose because this game very much feels iterative of Breath of the Wild for better or for worse, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that there's this very clear push and pull between.

    I mean can you hardly blame the developers? Open world games take forever to make, I'm looking at you Bethesda, but also BOTW also came out on the Wii U, and as of the writing of this review the Switch 2 is out. Honestly, one of my larger complaints about this game isn't that it feels too samey to BOTW, but honestly I wish there was more synergy in between the games. Obviously, some of the characters remember you, and the in lore reason for you becoming super deleveled again makes sense, but you really see absolutely nothing involving ancient Sheikah technology, or the beasts, or the fact that technically you already fought a version of Ganon? It just feels like it starts over with the whole Zonaite thing, with little care about what happened in the last game, despite it being the same map.

    Even still, I must admit, one thing I really did love about BOTW was the physics, whether it was gliding around everywhere, or shield surfing, or using the abilities, it just felt fun. And TOTK basically takes off any locks you have, making it more sandboxy than ever. While I do miss some of the abilities from last game, and think that other than Tulin and Yunobo the sage abilities don't do much, I must admit being able to build your way out of most things is pretty fun/convenient. Keeping with the theme of the sages, I thought they were fine, and story's never been the strongest suit of these games, but still, you kind of wish there was more to it. I mean it's called Tears of the Dragon but basically the only dragon that's mandatory is the light dragon. I think it'd be much more interesting if the other dragons played a much larger part in the story, especially considering the final fight of this game.

    Even still, in spite of all these flaws this is still at it's core a fun game. I can see why the sky islands might be annoying, but I thought they were pretty good, except for the really hard to get to islands like the one with the King Gleeok, or some of the mazes. Though, I basically just used a hoverboard for everything, and upgraded my battery fairly quickly. What I was really iffy on was the depths. I just wasn't eager to explore it because I thought the gloom effect was annoying, and I didn't want to do 120 lightroots. But honestly? By the end when I was just bum rushing them, it wasn't that bad. Do I think it needs 120 lightroots? No. Do I think it could probably be condensed like the sky islands instead of a full other map size? Yeah, but I had fun with all of the bosses down there, except for armored gloom lynels I hate those animals with a passion. If you liked BOTW you'll like TOTK, really the only thing you need to make sure is that you give it enough time in between them to appreciate the changes.

Final Score: 85/100

    I mean I spent like 200 hours on this game. Why else would I do that if I didn't like it. I don't think they can stay in this version of Hyrule any longer though. The ending felt pretty conclusive. I mean how many more times can you rewrite the big new tech/lore in the area, or have Link fight another version of Ganon? I think this iteration of the Zelda franchise has been good though, and has made a big fan out of them for me. So much so that I wouldn't mind trying out the older Zelda games myself. We'll see though I do have a bit of a backlog and Pokemon Legends: ZA is up next, so I have been making very good use out of my Nintendo Switch lately, is it time to get a Switch 2?

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