I first gave this game a go about a year after it came out, and I’ve gotta admit, I dropped it very quickly. As far as I could tell it didn’t really fix the issues I had with every other Zelda game I’d attempted to play; puzzle-filled dungeons, boring combat, and of course being on the switch didn’t help, the thing was dated on release. But Tears of a Kingdom looked so interesting, I thought I’d give it one last try, this time by emulating it. I must now apologise for my initial assessment, because this is nothing like any other Zelda game, and honestly unlike any other game, full stop.
What lacks in story, it makes up for with a feeling of genuine adventure and exploration. This is not to say the narrative is bad, it’s just simple and perfectly services the gameplay at all times. I especially appreciate how every gameplay mechanic that might be handwaved in other games, is explained in-world. There’s fast travel, but only to specific locations tied to an ancient, technologically advanced tribe. Enemy camps respawn, because of an evil blood moon caused by Ganon, which revives all dead monsters. It just really helps the world feel cohesive and works well with the systemic approach to gameplay the game takes.
Long, arduous dungeons focused on a single upgrade you got in the dungeon before are replaced with over a hundred small challenges in shrines, the tools for which are provided to you immediately. And these tools aren’t just used for shrines, you use them regularly in normal gameplay, and you are encouraged to be as inventive as you wish. But with systems for climbing, weather, and elemental effects, it still manages to keep it feeling natural and fun, whereas in other games it could devolve into feeling excessively numbers-orientated, or gamey.
All these systems are enough to keep you entertained for a whole playthrough, and I would say for the content they have, they couldn’t have done it much better than they did. My only complaint is that content can feel somewhat lacking, as if they expect the freeform nature of the game will make up for there not being a massive amount to do, and the things you do have to do feeling a bit samey. And they’re almost right, I just left with the feeling that it could all have benefitted from a bit more.
My other complaint is entirely not related to the game itself, but the Switch being an ancient console which unfortunately can give a bad impression of the games running on it. Playing this game on an emulator, with the resolution, fps, and draw distance increased, shows this is an amazing-looking game, the cell-shaded graphics perfectly scale up and it looks gorgeous, but switch players wouldn’t know, which is a real shame.
But really I shouldn’t let graphics detract from what is an incredibly well made, and most importantly very fun game. It feels like Nintendo put their full effort into this, like everything in the game was thoroughly thought-out, meaning I never came across anything that seemed weird or wrong.
Everything felt just right.
