The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom in 2024

Guest Blog post by Adam Foster @AngelicWiganer / @snoopfozziefozz

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Back in 2017, the world of gaming was a different place than what it is now. COVID hadn't been here and we was still playing our PS4 and the Xbox One. Nintendo was on the precipice of releasing a new console after the disastrous calamity which was the Wii U. As the Wii U came to it's end of life, we knew we was getting a new Zelda game. 

That game was Breath of the Wild. Released on Wii U and also as a launch title for the now legendary and highly successful Nintendo Switch. BOTW was considered a revolutionary title in the Zelda franchise. It was the first Zelda title to break away from the linear tradition of making your way from dungeon to dungeon, acquiring new weapons along the way to aid you in your quest to save Hyrule from Ganondorf in some shape or form. 

It was an open world adventure where the player could choose what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it and offered many ways how to get to the goals at the end. Breakable weapons, a new recipe system, and use of physics based powers such as Magnesis were a joy to behold. If there was one criticism of Breath of the Wild, it was the plot. It was paper thin at best, but the gameplay more than made up for any lacklustre story.

Fast forward to 2023 and after a delay in development we were given the release of ToTK. Anticipation was rightly high, especially after the trailers we saw featuring Link and his new powers such as Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend and Recall. Agreed Nintendo were using the same engine as BOTW but that didn't matter. We knew TOTK was a direct sequel so all we needed was a better plot and more things to do. It was revealed that not only did we have the land of Hyrule to explore, but also the Sky Islands and The Depths as well, essentially tripling the world we could explore. 

What could possibly go wrong. It seems as though Nintendo were onto a sure fire hit here. For me I feel Nintendo have produced a good game, but not a great game, not a 10/10 experience by all means. I have finished the game, by finished I say I have completed the main story of the game. In that process which took me I'd say close to 60/70 hours. I managed to complete 112 out of 152 Shrines. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, but I did not have the buzz or the desire to do everything like I did in Breath of the Wild.

Tears of the Kingdom provides beautiful and serene moments

I just want to say before I go on, that this isn't a bashing of Zelda, Eiji Ounuma or Nintendo, it's more or a frustrating experience which really hampered my gaming. 

Let's start at the beginning, we've all seen the start of the story as Zelda and Link are exploring the depths of Hyrule only fine the mummified corpse of The Demon King. We see an amazing cut scene with Link and Zelda coming away from each other. Zelda plummeting away to impending doom and Link losing a million hearts going back to 3, all his gear, the Master Sword, practically everything. 

He revives into the Sky Islands with a new arm and the voice of Rauru ringing in his ears. Rauru is the old king of Hyrule many many years ago. Rauru directs Link to Four Shrines across the Sky Islands to collect his new powers Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend and Recall. This is similar to the Great Plateau in BOTW where you obtained Bombs, Magnesis, Cryonosis and Stasis. 

This is where my problems started with this game. Zelda games tend to have a really really long introduction to their games, but the Sky Islands in my opinion took the piss. Four Hours to obtain your four new powers is beyond frustrating for me. It almost got to the point where I stopped playing the game. I knew that there would be better things ahead, but even so. Can you think of ANY other video game, where the tutorial was four hours long ? Not in my living memory.

Anyhow. I digress. After the laborious task of getting the four new powers and leaving the Temple of Time that's when the game finally opens up and you can explore that open world at your hearts content. This is the beauty of TOTK and BOTW before it. The Freedom. The Freedom to do what you want, when you want and also with the powers you have at your disposal. ANY way you want. 

It's still refreshing to have this open world Hyrule. I still think this is the way for Zelda as a franchise going forward. What needs to change is the main story line gameplay. It was almost the same as BOTW. Go to the same regions Rito Village, Zora's Domain, Goron City and Gerudo Desert and investigate "Regional Phenomena" where Princess Zelda has been sighted. Rinse and Repeat beat each temple, gain ability from said person from that region and then move onto the next one. 

I also felt as though the temples were boring and tedious. I don't feel that they are as intricate or designed as well as the old school dungeons. Yes I know we have 152 Shrines which act as mini dungeons and have the traditional puzzle solving and so on, but this feels lazy. 

I did enjoy the extra quests in the mainline story before you go to Ganondorf as that added an extra layer to the storyline in general. Now. The storyline is MUCH better than BOTW. There is some actual substance to this, you need to find the Dragon Tear pools which are scattered across Hyrule. Again, not too different from the "memories" in BOTW. However these feel much meatier in content and really get you involved in the cast of characters such as Rauru, Mineru and so on. But there is one massive oversight here.  You don't feel as though you have a connection to Link. 

After all this time, I feel as though he needs to start speaking in games now. His limited emotions and noises he makes aren't enough for me any more. I need to be invested in Link. For decades, we got to name the hero, but for BOTW and TOTK he is named as Link. Let's have a bit of depth into his character next time, let him speak, let him show some happiness, sadness, pain, anguish, grief. Whatever it may be. Please Nintendo make it happen. 

Let's talk about the music shall we. This is something I cannot fault whatsoever. It's beautiful and just really sets the scene wherever you are. Granted there are some tracks which are repeated from BOTW, but that's to be expected 8 suppose. 

As far as our new abilities go. I like them, or should I say the idea of them. They are all genius in their own unique ways. Ultrahand gives you the ability to manipulate objects and stick them to other objects to craft things to help on your way, whether that be an extra platform, a vehicle, moving a Korok. My gripe with Ultrahand is it takes a while to get familiar with moving the object under your control, and if you don't get the sticking correct it can delay what you are trying to achieve. 

Ascend is great. Probably the most user friendly of them all. It gives Link the ability to move up through surfaces to gain access to platforms, and you can raise to the surface if you are in caves or in the depths. Truly a great asset to have in your arsenal. As is Recall. Recall gives you the ability to rewind time. It makes the player think too, Recall could probably have been used more times by myself in combat or situations where you need to craft a moving platform. Simply genius. 

Then we have Fuse. Fuse gives the player the ability to make stronger weapons, stronger shield and arrows with things attached which gives Link the advantage against stronger foes which he will encounter through the game. My gripe with Fuse and this ties in with the combat in general is that nothing is seamless or smooth.

By that I mean in combat if you want to shoot an arrow with something attached it's scrolling all the time through the items scroll bar to find what you want. If you want to use your weapons and attach things to them, it's not a simple process. You have to go to the item screen, hold said item, drop said item and then fuse. It's not simple at all. Surely it could have been done in a different way to make the process a little stream lined.

So after you make your way through the main story of the game, you finally get to Ganondorf. I would strongly advise, getting a LOT of hearts, great weapons, great armour, a lot of food (especially ones that get rid of gloom)and a travel medallion. If you don't. You will have to have the gaming skills of the six people in ten world who beat that manic level made in Super Mario Maker. 

I have to say the ending of the game was fulfilling and rounded the story off nicely. There is so much more to do in TOTK such as side quests, collecting all armour, weapons stuff like that if you want to do it, but time is precious to me. If I did all that, I'd still be playing TOTK months later.

After reading what I've written about the game. It does seem as though I'm bashing it a lot. I did enjoy the game, it's much better than most stuff that's been put out there and if you enjoyed BOTW, you will definitely enjoy this. 

My gripes here may not matter to any of you out there. I just feel Nintendo have been lazy in some areas, and in others generally not thought about how the constant menu access contributed to a stop start experience, especially in combat.

Nevertheless, it's still a game you should play. Overall I give Tears of the Kingdom an 8 out of 10. Good but certainly not great. Nintendo really need to pull their fingers out with the next installment of Zelda. They need to try something new. How do they do that though. That's the £64 million question. 

In the meantime. Keep Gaming and I'll be here again soon with my Spider-Man 2 review. 

​Guest Blog post by Adam Foster @AngelicWiganer / @snoopfozziefozz

---