Jess’s Game Clearing Reviews

Release Year: 2023 System: Switch Date Finished: June 23rd Status: Beaten Tears of the Kingdom feels impossible. It's lightning caught in a bottle for a second time. Breath of the World redefined not only the Legend of Zelda series but the open world genre as a whole. And now the sequel..did almost everything even better, exceeding all possible expectations. Neither game is perfect of course, and while TotK addressed many of BotW's issues, it still fumbles at times. The story as a whole is..a bit of a mixed bag. To start I absolutely love how the game opens, immediately making it clear the much greater story focus than the last game. Link and Zelda walking down a decrepit pathway under Hyrule Castle, which had been forbidden from seeing any of, evokes strong feelings of mystery and uneasiness. The further down you go the distorted voices get more and more prominent, their true intent completely lost. At the end you find the focal point of the early marketing: a mummy-esque corp...

Release Year: 2017 System: Switch Date Finished: May 11th Status: Completed First non-Metroid search action game I've played to the end! This is far more linear in its structure than I imagine most games in the genre are, and honestly I don't mind it. I appreciated the game being pretty clear most of the time about where to go and making backtracking for items very simple. Annoying fall damage aside, I really enjoyed the mix of side-scroller search action with the tank and top-down Mega Man type action on foot. And I really liked the game's unique weapons system and the different utilities for them...though 99% of the time there's no reason to use any main weapon on foot but wave if you have it. I didn't end up seeing much use for the sub weapons but I'm sure others could find good times for them to come into play. The tank weapons I felt were a bit more balanced and I loved how they all had their purposes for different enemies and scenarios. The boss fights wer...