Hogan Reviews

Ah yes, another one of those “does the internet really need another review praising this game?” review. Still, I’ve played it a lot, want to talk about that experience and also have a review to link to when this game inevitably ends up on my Top 10 Games list for this year. So, let’s look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, shall we?

Background:

This picture perfectly shows you how my first few hours in the game went.

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released worldwide for Nintendo Switch on May 13^th 2023. Unusually for a Zelda game it’s a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, rather than the usual reset of the cast (minus the names and general look of Link and Zelda, obviously)

Unsurprisingly given not only its quality but its quality on what is now out-dated hardware the game has received pretty much unanimous praise across all media outlets.

Gameplay:

Like Likes make their grand return! … They never were much to look at before but yurgh…

The gameplay is much the same as Breath of the Wild, with the exception of the rune powers, which I’ll get to in a bit. So it’s open world, the same map as BOTW except a bunch of sky islands floating WAY up high and an entire second map WAY underneath Hyrule called the Depths, plus the overworld itself has undergone several changes as well, so it doesn’t really feel like a “cheat” that it’s the same map. You can once again head straight for the end boss and ignore the entire story or you can do some key missions, side quests and other missions and generally “level up” Link ready for the final fight. Sadly the key story layout is very similar to its predecessor: you wake up in a tutorial island cut off from the rest of the game, then you have to go to four key locations, recruit an ally from each by conquering a location with them, each time gaining a new power from them and hearing a bit of story involving an ancestor of theirs, all while you can fill in gaps by collecting memories from specific points on the map, before doing the big final few missions. Now this time you do dungeons rather than the Great Beasts but they work much the same in that you have to hit switches via your ally’s unique abilities then face a boss, and the memories are more important to the narrative than the ones in BOTW, but still. It’s a shame to see such a lack of imagination in the story structure when the rest of the game is full to the brim with it.

You thought climbing the mountains in Breath of the Wild was perilous…

So I mentioned rune powers being different this time and its here where the game shines. The new abilities are Ultrahand, which allows Link to connect any two objects on the map together thus giving the player a chance to create anything from simple bridges to flying mech death machines (thanks to modern equipment-like devices helpfully left all around from the Zonai, a lost civilization with far more advanced tech than modern Hyrule); Fuse allows Link to fuse anything to his equipment, giving you the ability to create all sorts of weapons and shields, plus attach all sort of objects to your arrows to give them various effects; Ascend allows Link to rise up through any surface above him; Recall allows Link to rewind time around a specific object, for example allowing him to ride up a large stone that fell from a Sky Island by reversing it so it “falls back upwards”; and lastly Autobuild allows Link to, well, automatically build things he’s build with Ultrahand before. Funnily the last one isn’t compulsory at the start of the game and I actually didn’t unlock Autobuild until near the end of my story run. I just assumed I’d “get it at some point” and it wasn’t until I did a fifth Dungeon and still didn’t unlock anything that I looked it up and a side quest that sounded dull I’d been ignoring was actually it…

Certainly didn’t see an ariel battle where I fired missiles at a large creature ever happening in a Zelda game!

Honestly just the Ultrahand would be an amazing gimmick, Fuse, Ascend and Recall just make things even more crazy, addictive and extremely fun to mess around with. The Shrines return in the game and as you’d imagine the developers had a great time coming up with puzzles surrounding these varied gimmicks, and I had fun playing through them. They’re how you get more Hearts (life) and Stamina (um, stamina), while restoring health comes from eating food which once again you can cook via a wide variety of food you can collect during your travels. Your travels by the way are also helped once again by the Paraglider, which is still fun to drift across the sky with. When you’re in the Depths you can get infected with “Gloom” which will permanently block a heart from being able to be healed until you stand under sunlight by either exiting the Depths or standing under a Lightroot (which are located in the Depths wherever a Shrine is located in the regular overworld, which a fun thing). Oh and Blood Moons are still a thing, every few nights you get the same damn cutscene telling you it’s a Blood Moon (as if the evil red lighting and creepy music hadn’t already done so) and it signifies that enemies have respawned in areas you’ve already cleared out.

The idea here was to start a fire and use the updraft to sail across. I just Ultrahanded a bunch of trees together and walked it…

Speaking of clearing out enemies, let’s talk about that! A much wider variety of enemies as well, though the combat is still pretty uninteresting in my eyes (especially after the fluid and fun combat from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor I was playing leading right up to this): you can attack, spin attack and jump attack, block, dodge and if you dodge in time to count as a parry you can then do a slow-motion flurry attack. It works, but it does feel outdated, mostly the lock-on and movement animations. Most of the time I’d take out opponents via varied arrows, Ultrahand-ing a heavy or explosive object above their heads, or maybe Recalling something thrown at me back at them. Another advantage of the varied abilities! The enemies “level up” with you as well, so (sadly in my eyes) you never stop feeling challenged as they go from red to blue to black and then finally the dreaded silver enemies. You can also unlock parts of the map via Skytowers, tame and train horses, own a house and add to it over time, and yes sadly Korok seeds are back, allowing you to expand how many weapons Link can carry at one time. This time there are ONE THOUSAND of them… screw that! Thank goodness I’m not a complitionist. There are also things called Bubbul Gems you get from killing specific creatures in caves, plus Poes to collect in the Depths. Oh and I should mention Zonai devices are powered with special energy that you can expand by collecting special rocks and energy thingies. They’re represented by very modern-looking battery symbols.

Ha! Screenshotted JUST as lightning struck!

So basically, like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom is all about the amazing gimmicks and how much fun you can have with them. I’ll hold up my hand and admit that I don’t have the most creative mind ever, but I still had a lot of fun playing the game, even if the story structure and melee combat were both a bit tired. I also have to mention how crazy it is this game exists on the Switch. One time I jumped off a Sky Island and kept going through a chasm and into the Depths and there were no stutters or loading zones, it was all one experience. That kind of zero load times are what you expect on the PS5 or XBOX One, not the Switch! I mean I get the graphics, as impressive as they are, aren’t up to the same standard but still, it’s pretty crazy.

Graphics and Sound:

I didn’t really mention the amazing draw distance in this review. It’s pretty crazy!

The graphics are great for the Switch, a colourful cell-shaded look for the characters with some really good scenery and great lighting effects for the different times of day. At no point did I feel I was playing on older hardware, it looks great on the TV.

Sound is great, beautiful music used sparingly plus some good voice actors for Zelda and Ganondorf, as well as the other major characters. Can’t complain there either.

Story:

But who is she talking to?! Read below! (Unless you’re avoiding spoilers, in which case this will just be a tantalising mystery for you to find out about later!)

Link and Zelda decide to go poking around deep underneath Hyrule Castle and happen to stumble upon Ganondorf trapped and emaciated with a strange arm attached to his chest, a arm that falls off. This allows the evil warlock to regain some of his power, take away all the levelled-up health and stamina from Link (nice bit of Metroid logic there!) as well as his left arm, corrupt the Master Sword and then send Zelda falling into a chasm as the whole Castle rises up into the sky. This leads to Link waking up on a Sky Island and find that previously mentioned arm attached to Ganondorf had now replaced his arm and the image of a ancient Zonai called Rauru guides him to some Shrines that give him his new powers.

Link heads to the surface and soon meets back up with his surviving allies outside the floating Hyrule Castle and is told of four incidents happening at four major civilization points in the land and told to investigate, leading him to help Tulin of the Rito, Riju of the Gerudo, Yunobo of the Gorons, and Sidon of the Zora; each one unlocking a message from a distant ancestor who once stood up to Ganondorf and each receiving a “Secret Stone” that gives them greater power (and allows Link to call upon a fake illusion version of each of them to use their special abilities, handily!). Link then heads to Hyrule Castle and faces off with a fake Zelda and a phantom version of Ganondorf before deciding he should really get the Master Sword back before fighting the man himself.

*Spoilers from here until the next star-pounded and bolded sentence!*

Meanwhile through mysterious puddles that turn into “Tears” Link sees what happened to Zelda: as she fell in the chasm her necklace, which happened to be a Secret Stone as well, sent her back in time to the founding of Hyrule itself and met Rauru and his wife Sonia, the first King and Queen of Hyrule. She joins forces with them, the four ancestors of the big four other races previously mentioned and another Zonai called Mineru to take down Ganondorf, who tries to conquer the land. While he is initially unsuccessful he kills Sonia and takes her Secret Stone, gaining enough power to cast the world into darkness and overcome the combined might of the remaining “Sages”. Rauru sacrifices himself to seal Ganondorf via his arm (explaining that whole thing) while Zelda receives the withered and broken Master Sword from Link’s time period and knows she must heal it and make it stronger. With no other choice she swallows her Secret Stone despite being told it will turn her into an immortal dragon with no mind or memories, and keeps the Master Sword with her as she transforms.

Heroes unite! … Probably shouldn’t have equipped Link with an evil looking scythe weapon for this pose, but hey… I didn’t know it was going to happen!

Back in the present Link finds Zelda’s dragon form flying around the sky and removes the Master Sword from its head. He also finds Mineru who had transferred her consciousness to a Zonai robot and still had some degree of power. Now fully armed he heads down to the Depths below Hyrule Castle and with the help of his four friends from the different tribes and Mineru he faces off with, and eventually defeats, Ganondorf. Confused and angry the evil warlock swallows his own Secret Stone and turns into an evil Dragon, leading to a final battle of Link riding the large Zelda dragon in a dragon-on-dragon showdown in the skies above Hyrule. Ganondorf is defeated, and in a rather large cop-out Link sees a vision of Rauru and Sonia who not only revert Zelda back to her human form (something established as impossible) but also give Link his regular arm back as well. Link saves Zelda as they fall and a post credits cutscene shows Mineru also finally passing away, happy that the land is still protected.

*Spoilers end here!*

A fun story, and a really fun final battle. I’ll admit I was kind of annoyed nobody mentioned how just a few years ago the world was engulfed by an evil entity called “Calamity Ganon” and now this evil guy called Ganondorf has shown up, but hey-ho. I guess his evil will from being kept under the castle “spilt over” and created it, but it still wasn’t enough to free his body? *shrugs* Something like that. Ah, who plays Zelda for the story, anyway?

Thoughts Now:

Okay, I REALLY didn’t see a mech-on-mech battle in a ring with barbedwire ropes happening in a Zelda game…

While I’m not running around calling this the “best game ever made” like some, I can’t deny it’s not only extremely fun to play but equally impressive from a technical perspective. Says a lot about mastering a platform instead of moving onto a new one, I guess. The gimmicks in the game led to some much fun messing around and all the open world stuff means I’ll be dipping in and out of this for years to come. The Zelda team created a sequel to many people’s favourite ever game and a genre-redefining experience and somehow created an equally, if not better, experience. Amazing.