The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Review – A Perfect Sequel (Switch)

Six long years have past since the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game praised as one of gaming’s greatest achievements and often is seen as the best video game ever made. However, after 150 hours playing the sequel in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I can confidently state that it improves on its predecessor in every way. Tears of the Kingdom takes the 2017 masterpiece to new heights (and depths) and is a worthy successor that any fan of video games will appreciate. This review is spoiler-free except for the first hour of the game.

The Legend of Zelda series is one of the most popular adventure game franchises in gaming. Almost every mainline game follows the same format: complete dungeons, collect items, solve puzzles, and defeat bosses to ultimately save the land of Hyrule and Princess Zelda. However, starting with Breath of the Wild, the franchise took a completely new direction with an open-world. You see a mountain in the distance? You can climb it. There were no limitations for the player anymore. With Tears of the Kingdom, the open-world is much larger, along with countless ways to traverse it. The only limitation is your imagination.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available on the Nintendo Store for $69.99 USD.

Story – Engaging From the Start

When you first load into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you take control of Link with max hearts and stamina as he and Princess Zelda traverse underneath Hyrule Castle. A mysterious gas known as gloom has been seeping out from the depths of the castle, and Zelda and Link decided to investigate. What they find underneath are centuries old ruins of people known as the Zonai.

Further into the ruins depths is a man, seemingly dead, being held down by a glowing hand. Link and Zelda approach him, when suddenly he wakes up and causes an earthquake of gloom that crumbles the earth. The princess is attacked, but Link steps in the way, only to have his arm grasped by gloom, losing all of his hearts and stamina. Zelda falls into the depths and disappears in a glow of light. Link blacks out and wakes up in a cave with a new arm and a voice speaking to him. When he walks out of the cave, he finds himself above the clouds on a sky island. This is the first 15 minutes of the game.

Link is tasked with finding Princess Zelda after awakening on a mysterious sky island with a new arm.

After the introduction, the game opens up in a very similar way to Breath of the Wild. Link must traverse the sky island, collecting new abilities to help him in his adventure, before ultimately diving down back to the land of Hyrule. The story is told through spots around the world known as Dragon’s Tears, which play cutscenes about where Zelda has gone and what she is doing. Tears of the Kingdom introduction draws you in and afterwards allows you to engage with the story or just explore the open world and complete quests at your leisure, with no consequences. This way of storytelling allows the player to choose how they want to approach the game, which is something Breath of the Wild did extremely well.

Gameplay – Let Your Imagination Soar

The Legend of Zelda strives on its gameplay the most, and Tears of the Kingdom is no different. Following up Breath of the Wild is no easy task, but Nintendo found a way to make the gameplay even stronger. Firstly, the abilities. One of the most useful and game-changing abilities is Ultrahand, in which Link can pick almost any objects and attach them together. This is especially useful with the Zonai devices, where you can attach a fan to a stack of logs, put them in a lake and sail across. Or, you can attach a rocket to a glider and zoom through the sky. These are just a few ideas from a limitless pool of them.

This ability alone fixes an issue that was unknown to many players in Breath of the Wild until now: traversal was very limited. Besides riding a horse, there was no fast ways to travel around this humongous world. But in Tears of the Kingdom, you can drop a few wheels and a steering stick together and create a motorcycle to get to where you want to go. If you need to get to someplace high up, Link also has access to Ascend, an ability that lets him dive upward into a flat surface and ascend through the ceiling to above. This allows Link to travel up any mountain with ease, which was a nuisance in Breath of the Wild, especially when rain was involved.

Fusing Through Combat and Exploring Hyrule 

One of Link’s other new abilities is the Fuse ability. This allows Link to attach any object or material to his weapon, shield, or arrow. This ability expands the combat exponentially, allowing you to increase the durability and damage of your weapons, or add special powers. For example, attaching a bomb to your shield and shield surfing blows up the bomb under you and sends you flying in the air while damaging all enemies underneath. Or, attach a flame emitter device to a spear to set your enemies ablaze. To make combat even more expressive, you can place cannons atop homing carts that approach and attack your enemies for you as you watch from afar.

Attaching a cannon to a weapon lets you fire shots at your enemies!

The world of Tears of the Kingdom is three times as big as its predecessor, and exploring it is the main draw of the game. Whether you are exploring the skies above or the depths below, or just walking through Hyrule Field, there is plenty to discover. Shrines, caves, and bosses are littered throughout the world for you to discover, each holding different rewards and puzzles to solve. The quests also send you on adventures including, aiding soldiers attacking an enemy base, discovering armor hidden by a pesky collector, or working with the local newspaper to investigate stories around the world. No matter where you go in the game, there is something to discover.

Audio and Visuals – Immersive and Mesmerizing 

Imagine walking through Hyrule, no enemies around and only the grass at your feet as sky islands loom over the distance, and a simple few piano notes play as Link’s feet pitter patter. The audio in this game immerses you immensely. The sound of water as you swim down stream, or the sound of birds flying away as you approach them. You feel a part of the world, and the cherry on top is the music. Simple piano chords accompany your journey, and it brings a soothing feeling that everything is peaceful in that moment. Most games have an overture playing as you explore the world, but Tears of the Kingdom takes a different approach. Being in the quiet as you walk through a forest, listening to the ruffling of leaves and birds chirping, further immerses you without an epic orchestral arrangement playing in the background. 

The art direction in Tears of the Kingdom is breathtaking at times.

The visuals of the game have moments that leave you staring off into the sunset and taking a screenshot. Running on the Nintendo Switch, Tears of the Kingdom has amazed players with the stable frame rate to match the stunning beauty the game offers. And in a game that is three times the size of its predecessor, it’s hard to believe. The game does still offer some frame drops when there is a lot of particles on screen, but these happen rarely enough that it does not take away from the enjoyment.

The UI is almost identical to Breath of the Wild, and it does take some getting used to with all the abilities, map, and inventory management. This doesn’t come without flaws though. There will be times when I’d want to fuse something to an arrow, and would scroll for a minute just to find what I wanted. Other times I’ll want to quickly switch armor sets to fit my needs, but sorting through the inventory can become a hassle due to a poor sorting system. But besides these niche problems, the beauty of the game is amazing. 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.