By Sam Coles:
The Legend of Zelda is a series that has been around for
nearly 40 years, which is mind boggling to say out loud. However, the series
stagnated with its design over the years since Ocarina of Time as Nintendo
wanted to make lightning strike twice. Skyward Sword seemed to be the tipping
point, as fans didn’t welcome it with open arms. So Nintendo went back to the
drawing board, and in 2017 we got Breath of the Wild, which completely changed
the Zelda formula, and then in 2023 we got Tears of the Kingdom which expanded
Breath of the Wild’s ideas and concepts. I just want to talk about Tears of the
Kingdom for a few paragraphs.
Let’s talk about the introduction of the game, yes it is
slower than Breath of the Wild before it lets you explore the world however there
are lots of mechanics for the player to get used to. The island you first start
on teaches you about the new mechanics, specifically the Ultrahand a device
that lets you build things to help you traverse the world with little to no
restrictions. You see any objects you can pick up, well you can fuse it
together to make a platform, raft, cart or catapult and much more as I am
simplifying the creations you can unleash on the world of Hyrule.
Not only that, you have a fuse ability where you can make weapons with different elements and objects in the world, this took me a while to get use to as all the weapons I found were weak, and that is done by design. When you find objects such as Moblin horns, rubies and even food like apples you can combine them with a stick or a rusty sword and it will increase the damage you can do. So this really incentivises the player to engage in combat, as the reward is to make powerful weapons. They have forgone elemental arrows, as they are completely redundant as you have items like various Chu Chu jellies which have fire, electricity, water, ice and of course bomb flower arrows. However, you can slam anything on your arrows; you want to fire a mushroom at an enemy? Go ahead, it won’t do much damage but the game isn’t going to stop you.
After the initial island tutorial, you literally dive into
the game to the surface of Hyrule in a seamless transition that Skyward Sword
wish it could do. Once you are on the surface, you are free to do anything, you
could continue with the main quest or you can start conquering shrines which is
what I did. The first few shrines are simple as they teach you about certain
mechanics, specifically to do with combat. However, they do start to get a bit
tricky with certain puzzles, as you have to think outside of the box with the
Ultrahand. Thankfully, they got rid of those tedious gyro maze puzzles from
Breath of the Wild.
The shrines are not the predominant challenges in this game,
there are four temples to get through and these are a somewhat return to form
of the old days. However, these temples boil down to find and unlock four or
five locks or taps (faucet for my US audience). They are not that taxing on the
mind, but they make for a nice change from the shrines plus the boss fights are
fun and challenging.
Now to get to the meat of the game that I love, the
exploration which is hands off like Breath of the Wild but expanded. There is
something so peaceful and calming exploring Hyrule at your own pace, with no
goal in mind. However, this time you have three layers to exploration, the
surface, sky and the depths it just adds new ways of traversing the world
coupled with the new abilities. The Ascend ability is a fantastic addition,
also a technical achievement for the Switch as you can ascend (duh) through
more or less any ceiling as long as there is a surface above. You can find some
fun secrets with this ability, as you can get into places that are obstructed
by traditional means of entry. My mind when exploring in this game is always
set in Breath of the Wild mode, as I always forget that I have these more
elaborate ways of exploring. The game really encourages you to experiment and
think outside of the box, as a lot of scenarios are not straight forward most
of the time or in my case exploit the game with the auto-build feature.
The sky and depths portion of the map, change the way you
explore in the Zelda, as it adds literal verticality to the game. There are
shrines in the sky, where getting to them is a challenge within itself as well
as the shrine. The depths you unlock light roots, to brighten the dark and ominous
caverns and yeah these areas can feel empty underground but they serve to find resources
only found in the depths.
Now let’s talk about the visuals, yes you can argue that
from a technical stand point it is not the most cutting edge game in terms of
graphics. However, I would say that Tears of the Kingdom like Breath of the
Wild has a timeless artstyle, it really knows how to utilise light with the sun
as there some breath taking moments as the sun rises and sets. I found myself
just watching the sun disappearing on the horizon, as the sombre piano score
plays as I think about my next destination. It really pushes the Switch to its
limits with the bright and colourful visuals and the scope of the world, sometimes
a bit too hard as the frame can drop in certain moments but it doesn’t happen
too often.
Tears of the Kingdom is a game that will stand the test of
time, Nintendo took all the core concepts of Breath of the Wild and expanded
them making Breath of the Wild redundant. Easily one of the best games that
Nintendo have released in the past 20 years, and really elevated the Zelda
formula.
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