You wake up in a cave you’ve never seen before after the tragic events that just occurred. You watched the princess you sworn to protect fall and turn into this glowing light. The evil known as Calamity Ganon is now free after being sealed for thousands of years. To top that off, your arm that was injured is replaced by this strange glowing one. You jump out of the cave, skydiving down as the camera pans around, letting you see the tons of islands floating in the sky that surround you. As the words The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom showed up on the screen while diving, the excitement I felt when I played the previous game nearly 7 years ago was back and better than ever.
Many people, along with myself, played Breath of the Wild, and had high expectations and hopes for the sequel. Breath of the Wild was beloved by many gamers, so of course people wanted the sequel to be even better. The expectations were high, and Nintendo definitely delivered. Though there are still some tweaks that could be done, I was blown away by Tears of the Kingdom, specifically the expansion of the previous map and new features when compared to Breath of the Wild.
After players get off the sky island previously mentioned, they are greeted with the land of Hyrule that they know and love from the previous game. However, there are some significant changes to the terrain and the cities including new shrines, which are challenges that players can complete in order to obtain the necessary items to get more health and stamina for their adventures.
In Breath of the Wild, there were around 120 shrines, but now there are 152 shrines. There are now around 1000 Koroks, forest creatures that give you Korok Seeds, which can be found to trade the seeds in order to increase inventory space. There is also new gear, including armor and weapons, to make the character you play as, named Link, stronger (or look cooler).Don’t forget about all of the new quests. There are 200+ quests to complete, giving players plenty to do and learn about the regions and characters.
But the biggest additions are the new abilities and the new areas. When I saw the sky islands when I first launched the game, I thought that was a lot of land to explore. Little did I know that there was an underground area called The Depths. The Depths is the entire above ground map but flipped, so if there is a river above around, it is mountains underground, and vice versa. This doubles the original map size of the game, providing tons of new areas to explore. The new abilities provide new and fun features, specifically the Ultrahand. This allows players to connect anything together, letting them build whatever they want. It provides a whole new aspect to the game, allowing players to do even more than they could imagine, like building a plane to fly around the map. I find it wonderful that there are so many options for people to do no matter how they want to play. You aren’t required to do anything and can play however you want, making it fun for everyone.
Tears of the Kingdom was one of my favorite games I’ve played recently. I have around 130 hours on the game and more hours are to come. There is just so much to do, even after you complete the main story of the game. Even though this game was amazing, nothing is perfect. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Sage Abilities, which are abilities you can get from progressing in the main story. The abilities similar to that in Breath of the Wild were much easier to use, you would just have to press or hold a button in order to use them. But with these new abilities, you need to go up to the spirit that follows you around, click the button on the right one and use it. The 5 spirits tend to group together or when you need them most, just run away from you. This is just a pain in the middle of battle and I wish the controls from them were easier. Maybe having some connection with Breath of the Wild would have been nice as well. Though the two games have the same characters and map, they feel like they don’t relate much to each other.
Besides those, the game was wonderful overall. If you liked Breath of the Wild, you will like Tears of the Kingdom even more. But if you didn’t play the first game, don’t worry, you can still play and understand the game without playing the previous one. Tears of the Kingdom is basically a better version of Breath of the Wild and a fun game for everyone, giving players a fun experience with new features such as the larger map.
