Game #17: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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 corpse of Ganondorf and a glowing hand keeping him down. The visuals and sound design is incredibly unsettling, and then suddenly he actually talks! That really caught me off guard. What a phenomenal introduction to this version of the Demon King this is, with him easily destroying the Master Sword and taunting the 2 about how weak they appear now.

This entire scene, while setting Ganon up as an incredible threat and very intimidating...does set high expectations for him as a character that aren't completely met. We do get to see him get dirty himself more than any past iteration, and it works well for making him appear threatening...but as a layered character there's a lot left to be desired. There's so much we don't know about this version of Ganondorf. How is he as the king of the Gerudo? What was his upbringing like? Why is he so determined to rule the entirety of Hyrule? Why do the Gerudo follow him, if for any reason beyond blind loyalty to their ruler by law? We don't know anything about what makes him tick, why he's doing anything beyond a generic lust for power. He's about as complex as an average cartoon villain, which is really disappointing when we *did* have a Ganondorf with clear and sympathetic motives two decades ago in The Wind Waker. So on one hand, more than ever before every scene with him will make you quake in your boots with what he does and his writing in certain scenes...but on the other hand Zelda is capable of villains with far more personality or motive to them, so it's a bit of a let down.

All that being said though, the main narrative and finding out what happened to Zelda had me far more hooked than in BotW. It's still not anything mindblowing but it's an improvement. I think the pacing of how you learn about everything is a big part of that. Whereas in BotW you got the gist of what happened from the King and Impa, here you still don't know much by the time you're set free and you're more encouraged this time to seek out the memories. This format is very similar to last time and the scenes are far more significant...but at the same time it falls into some of the same pitfalls. It does give you a hint for the chronological order but it's very easy to miss that and end up spoiling yourself on certain events. I really wish they just went in order regardless of the order you did the glyphs in. Not only that..but because they're effectively snapshots of specific moments with Zelda, there's so much I still feel like we could've learned about. The Zonai are still..largely a mystery, and I was really hoping we'd know practically all there is to know here. I want to see what daily life for Rauru, Sonia, and Mineru is like beyond interactions with Zelda and the main narrative. Or...why did the Zonai leave the sky in the first place? Where did they come from? And why did they all vanish? There's architecture from them all over the Depths with the mines and yet that's never mentioned in the past. I love speculating and making theories..but there's so much more I just wish the game told us about them. And not just the Zonai, we know basically nothing about the secret stones, the sages, or how the Kingdom in general operates in this era which I think is a big missed opportunity. Somewhat unrelated but since I mentioned the sages...man it kinda bugs me you just get the same cutscene note for note after each main dungeon. I get they have to plan for any of them being the first but they certainly could've still handled that better.

Okay that's enough complaining for now. Even though we don't know much about them I love Rauru and Sonia. They feel super kindhearted and wholesome in every scene where they're just talking to Zelda. And Zelda's fangirling of Link to everyone in this time period is adorable, and also serves to mystify him as rhis legendary swordsman and hero which is really cool. I especially love how that plays into the final moments for Rauru and Ganondorf. Rauru makes his ultimate sacrifice while warning Ganon of Link and his unstoppable sword, putting full faith into him based only on how Zelda speaks of him. Ganondorf's last words before being sealed away for countless millenia is simply that he looks forward to meeting him, which adds all the more to the opening. He's had Link and his sword built up tremendously just from Rauru, and what he finds is utterly pitiful. On another note, wow I love that we actually have groups of sages who FIGHT for once. It was cool seeing them fight Ganon...even if I wish that scene could've been significantly longer for more beautiful fight choreography.

Man..in general I was so much more engaged with the story and desperate to see more after most of the memories, ESPECIALLY towards the end with Zelda's ultimate sacrifice. You know, you don't have exposition like explaining the whole thing with swallowing a secret stone without someone actually doing it, so between that and a few other scenes it wasn't a big surprise that Zelda did it...but holy fuck that doesn't take anything away from how awe-struck I was watching her final memory. It perfectly captures how distraught she is about losing everything for, as far as she knows, the rest of time. Seeing her transform into the Light Dragon is roughly equal parts bad-ass as hell and melancholy. The music during the sequence and her last words really hit hard the fact that it was far from an easy choice to make.

The story in the present time, repeated sage scenes after dungeons aside, is massively better and very engaged. Lookout Landing is a really cozy hub and it's so nice how reps of each major race mix in with the Hylians there, and I actually like that they hold off a bit longer to give you the paraglider. Granted if you focus on doing the story it's not that much longer but for that bit of time you have to be very careful if you choose to explore, and makes getting the glider that much more of a relief. I love how so much of the story is figuring out where Zelda is, starting with her sudden and strange appearance at the castle. Everywhere you go you'll hear of people who claimed to see Zelda, and it's even the focus of a Side Adventure to track down rumors of Zelda sightings. A sense of togetherness and community is something this game does extraordinarily well. It's the complete opposite of how BotW feels so broken and alone. There's so much more of people traveling, talking about the major villages, and helping each other. I love that the sages not only help you out for their whole region questlines but effectively the rest of the game through their avatars. And they basically put Zelda theorists in the game with the Zonai Survey Team and I freakin love that. And the monster control crews!! And each of the 3 having 2 missions attacking monster camps!! They did so much to flesh out the more minor people of the game and the world to make it all feel so much more real. Not to mention thr whole story with Lurelin Village and how you can not only find it's residents scattered all over, but more people will be talking about what happened. I absolutely love how interconnected everything is.

Not only is there a great sense of togetherness but the individual struggles the regions face are so much more interesting. While the rogue Divine Beasts were *a* threat...it was really just the *potential* other doing damage at *some* point. A raging blizzard for example feels so much more devastating to the Rito than a giant machine in the sky that *could* shoot them down. Like I know it's still deadly but comparatively it's like an inconvenience lol. The Zora story was a bit eh with the sludge, but I loved how harsh the Gerudo had it with not only the sand shroud but also a relentless army of Gibdos. And the Gorons essentially having a drug addiction problem is hilarious. What also helps the regional phenomenon quests is how great the sages are as characters. They've all had glowups from BotW....not even counting Tulin who was barely a character then lmao. Yunobo being corrupted was really cool and I liked Sidon's little arc, plus it was great seeing Riju in action training (then actual fighting) to protect her people. And Tulin is just..so fucking adorable, I love him. Best character ever.

Hoo....maybe I should actually talk about the gameplay in the Nintendo game? The main abilities are an absolute joy and a step-up from the ones from BotW. Whereas before they were fairly straightforward and direct with their uses, like moving metal objects or making ice blocks, the ones in TotK are more abstract. It was pretty obvious how to use magnesis for example, but Fuse, Ascend, Recall, and especially Ultrahand allow for so much creativity and experimentation. Fuse gives more incentive to fight enemies so you can craft better weapons with their horns, plus allows you to make weapons/shields/arrows with different effects which is incredibly fun to mess with. Ascend is easily the most straightforward, but it's just insanely useful. Plus you can try to cheese what surfaces are flat *enough* to go through, or find ways to make your own platforms to ascend through. Recall is great to undo mistakes with ultrahand or go "no u" with enemy projectiles. And Ultrahand...is of course game changing. Combining things together with the new Zonai devices leads to near limitless possibilities. I'm not one to make vehicles beyond the most basic stuff or crazy contraptions for combat, but I've gotten so much fun out of sticking things together to find my own solutions to puzzles. On that note, with the exception of the unnecessary amount of training ones, the shrines were a massive improvement. Combat shrines are so much more unique from each other thanks to making brilliant use of the Eventide gimmick. And the puzzles are so much more interesting either for more room for finding your own solutions. A lot of the fun in them for me was finding my own dumb ways to get around the problems. Doing something like strapping a rocket to my shield, making a tower out of the given supplies...or the good ole lift up platform, recall so it floats, then ascend up to it to skip things...all elevated the shrines to be far more enjoyable than they would've been otherwise.

The dungeons are a definite step-up..though still not to the level of past 3D Zeldas. It's great to have the unique theming back but now that comparisons are a bit easier than with the Divine Beasts it stings all the more how much simpler they are than I'd like. If I had to rank them I think it'd go Lightning > Wind > Spirit > Fire > Water, though tbh Lightning was the only one I really liked. The rest of them, while I appreciated what they did differently, were all just too simple to me. Lightning was great because I loved the the linear creepy labyrinth leading into big mirror puzzles that felt very classic Zelda. Though all that said, the bosses on a whole were fantastic. Special shout outs to Marbled Gohma cause I love seeing a veteran boss return and Colgera cause HOLY FUCK IT'S GIGANTIC AND THE MUSIC IS GODDAMN LEGENDARY THERE'S A PART OF DRAGON ROOST AAAAAAAAAA. One of the best goddamnn bosses and boss themes GOD that got me so pumped. I also really enjoyed the lead up to the dungeons, with the standouts being the platforming on flying ship trampolines through a goddamn blizzard and defending Gerudo Town from Gibdos..then going on to summon the temple Tower of the Gods style. Lots of incredibly memorable sequences through these story quests that kinda help make up for most of the dungeons being meh.

Now about the world itself...it's insane how they took the exact map from the last game and changd enough with a ton also added on to make everything feel completely fresh. The marketing focused heavily on the sky islands...which was kind of misleading? They're really cool to fly around between...but there's really not much special up there. A lot of it is very samey archipelagos with very samey shrine quests. I really wish there was more special conglomerates of islands like the tutorial area and the Thunderhead Isles. The surface may be the same map as before but there's so much new to see and do. Addison's signs are fun little distractions and the countless new cave systems are fantastic. The Depths being an entire other map is utterly mindblowing, with all the ways it's inverted from the surface feeling very clever. I love how the entire atmosphere and distinct foliage make the entirety of the underground feel so unsettling and alien. It's like a completely different world. I will say I wish there was a bit more down there, both in terms of story/side quests and interesting locations. But it's gameplay loop of throwing around brightbloom seeds to find the lightroots does a great job of mixing up the overarching gameplay loop. Also stumbling upon the Frox bosses for the first time was terrifying...as was the gloom hands! Holy shit those things are almost nightmare-inducing. In general I think they could've still done a bit better on the enemy variety but it's a massive step-up and I loved all the new ones added.

Only major thing left to talk about is the finale, and goddamn it's the most hype-inducing one in the franchise. The entire descent is super unsettling and foreboding, going through the same path from the opening is fantastic, and the sages coming in to help against the army was fucking amazing. All leafing to the best Ganondorf battle that's ever been done. Great challenge, seeing the health bar go crazy and him flurry rushing caught me way off guard lmao. Demon Dragon fight is not something I would've ever expected in a Zelda game. It suffers a bit from the same problem as Dark Beast Ganon in BotW with it being 2ay too simple mechanically, and I do really wish there was more to it in that sense..but also that level of spectacle and the accompanying music left me speechless. And then a bit afterwards...I freaking LOVE the game bookending with trying to catch Zelda. The music, the visuals, everything about that sequence is utter perfection.

Tears of the Kingdom is a special game beyond words, with so much of it surpassing anything I could've ever hoped for from the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Needless to say it's one of my favorite games now, and iminsamely curious to see where they go from here. It feels like a once in a lifetime experience, one that can't be topped in what it does well for a *very* long time.