This is a very premature review, and I want to come back and give this game a better shot... Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

I died once, and I'm discouraged from coming back.

I bought this game on Steam and Switch. It's been on my wishlist for a while, I've avoided watching playthroughs of it, I was really looking forward to it. I can tell that there's a lot of charm and care and things to love with this game, but I'll cut to the chase—

The writing in this game pushes me away from immersion at almost every turn.
- So often I feel like I should have a choice in how I respond, with the prompt literally asking me how, yet there is only one option to select
- The themes and narrative is clearly very diverse, accepting, and understanding to personal struggles, but is written with such modern internet quirks and - albiet - charm that it already feels dated and young
- Lastly, this game has a personality and humour to its writing that can bee seen in almost every aspect of dialogue, whether it's side characters, background character, or your own internal narration, there is an attempted humour at nearly every turn, and it almost never clicked with me, instead taking away the severity of immersion that I want to feel with text that is made far more bloated than it needs to be because of this

The game seemed fairly linear and slow at the beginning, and at least, according to other reviews, that doesn't go away. Unfortunately, that made a big impact on my impression of the game, because after only a few hours I went searching for reviews to try to see if others were in the same boat.

What really tipped me off was that first death. My character was described as someone capable for exactly the scenario I was in. I, as the player, had the agency to explore the area myself. Both of us were capable, yet a scripted event caused us to fail. An underwhelming death on its own, only to be paired with the game's narration insulting the protagonist's stupidity. I get that this moment was about our character feeling that way about themselves, but I wasn't convinced as a player. I didn't feel bad for them. I didn't feel mistaken myself. I just felt annoyed.

I don't want to be annoyed with this game. I hear it's very good, but unfortunately, there was a lot rubbing me the wrong way that caused me to look for similar feelings shared elsewhere, and the rest of the game doesn't seem very appealing for me to continue.

Maybe I will, I would like to, but this was my very brief first impression

TLDR: This game is a beautiful, surprising, mechanical masterpiece in a bigger, yet more diluted world with a frustratingly lackluster story narrative that defied my expectations in ways that are both good and bad.

I don't think I will ever play a game like this again, and I kind of hope I never do. Never before have I sat down and engaged in something so consistently in such a brief (yet still fairly long) time period. 200 hours in 20 days is not a normal amount of gameplay for me, but this game had me completely hooked. The second I put it down, I knew I probably wouldn't touch it again for a while. As time went on, the reasoning behind that became more, and more apparent, as I looked back on how I used to feel while watching early teasers and trailers, realizing that this was not at all the game that I was expecting.

Pros: Beautiful, mechanical masterpiece in an incredibly big world

Everyone's said it, but sincerely, it's a wonder how they got a game of this scale to look so good, and on Switch hardware no less. The world is three times the size of BotW, the mechanics are so unique that I often watch players forgetting they have such abilities, and the sheer modularity of these abilities blow me away with how much careful thought and planning had to go into every physical object and open space throughout the entire game in order for it to work. Seriously, there's even some magic behind how the camera function works in this game, and it's used for a gimmick. There's so much to explore, so many new experiences, as well as new ways to interact with the old experiences from BotW. The mechanics, and the experiences had throughout this game were some of the biggest reasons that I was so hooked.

Mixed: The storytelling and world building

To clarify, this is specifically about the ways in which this game presents its world and narrative to the players - I think. Full disclosure, I don't know how to talk about these aspects, but I know I have to.
The more you progress throughout the game, the more development you'll see in your central hub area. You can see changes in certain locals from BotW, and you can make very direct changes yourself. There's an element of growth that's seen as a result of your efforts from the previous game, as well as this one - so why does NO ONE know who Link is, save for a couple dozen people??
This is one example of how the gameplay and the storytelling clash. Combined with the lack of awareness from the events of the previous game, there's also the distinct lack of tech from BotW (which I had to try and come up with a reason myself to defend), a surge of new threats and opportunities without explanation (which I, again, had to try and justify myself), and storytelling methods that really hurt the impact of the story they're trying to tell. We see the Gameplay over Narrative philosophy shine no greater than in the enjoyment of finding each narrative beat, and the whiplash when it comes at the cost of discovering the story in random order. Not to mention the consistently, repetitive narrative beats told from different, yet pretty much identical perspectives, with nearly every major arc completed. And to top of my mixed feelings, there are hints of bigger stories hidden across the world, or sometimes not hidden at all, but we are left with very little explanation of them. This would be interesting, if it weren't for the nagging feeling that these aspects are merely theory fodder, or remnants of a bigger story that will ultimately go untold. Which brings me to my biggest complaints.

Cons: The world and story itself

While these aspects are still conflicting, they're enough to make me look back at this game with resentment. I've mentioned my fascination for the world we got, and I don't hate this game's story at all. In fact, I've never had a Zelda game make me tear up before, and the climax of the game is one of the best because of its narrative weight. When I say all these things it's almost enough for me to forget about my biggest gripes. Almost.
In this big, massive world, that is thrice the size of BotW's and full of new experiences... It's just not full enough. And that sounds incredibly entitled, but my point being that they didn't need to make this world so much bigger. But by doing so, they had to fill it with even more content, which works really well for the beginning of the game, but after a while, it gets old. BotW had this issue with certain aspects of what you'd find across the world, but not the whole world itself. Sure, you'd find your 100th Korok puzzle and might feel tired of it, but you still have areas of the map left unchecked that will almost undoubtedly surprise you with its own locals. TotK has a very different problem where we are given two massive extensions to the original world and both of them act as a gimmick that can be seen through rather early. Sure, there are some new things to find, and like Korok puzzles, they can often times surprise you. But man... All of this is just to say... The sky. The Sky. The SKY. THE SKY!!!!! It's so... SO disappointing. But, I'll come back to that later.
The story itself, like I said, is not bad. Zelda rarely has really deep stories, but they're still a big part of the journey that we go on. BotW introduced a new way of doing that, where Link's journey is very seperate from most of the story. It's isolated, the world is big and seemingly barren, there's very minimal music, it's all about exploring the wilderness and making due with what you've got. TotK turns that up a notch, which feels great and powerful mechanically, like you're a master of a more modular sandbox, but for story, it just feels like you're left out again. Once again, most of the story happens without Link. Once again, our actions don't really have a direct impact on the story, at all. And to top it off, the powerful yet isolated gameplay style is at odds with the world that presents itself as feeling more lived in and united. Link has also been very distant from other characters, save for a companion of sorts, but when the story itself is also very distant from him, it just feels very different as a result. That difference worked well enough in BotW, but not as well in TotK. And all of this... is really just to say... Ganondorf. Ganondorf. HOT GANON—

Expectations:
I knew that I was going into this game with bigger story expectations than I probably should've had, but... When you look at the trailers, and the teasers, can you really blame me?
The teaser, alone, painted a really dark tone for the entire game. In reality, the game does have dark moments, but is largely removed from that kind of atmosphere.
The main trailer painted a crescendo of epic proportion, with spooky and powerful and action packed and filled with so much depth, only for most of that to be taken right from the cutscenes that we, as the player, aren't even a part of.
They did it with BotW, and they did it again with TotK.
Those trailers undeniably set expectations to be far greater than the game's storytelling themselves.
I really thought the sky would be something special. It's special for two parts of the game, and one of them is optional.
I really thought we'd get a unique perspective on Ganondorf aside from evil bad man. He's done in one of the coolest ways we've seen so far, but still flat as a character himself.
And to top it all off, BotW set all the necessary points for a really unique sequel, seperate from the timeline, in a world that still acknowledged the existence of past stories, to have done something truly remarkable. Doesn't have to be a crossover, multiverse thing, but something other than just a casual mention of past games and their armour pieces.

This game... Is so frustrating. There's so much that is incredible to every gripe that I have, but they are gripes nonetheless. The games that I saw when watching those trailers, I feel like I'm still waiting for them to release. I'm still waiting for a Zelda game that takes it's narrative to bigger depths. That plants seeds that are worth investing in. Zonai? What are they? Do the creators even have a backstory for them? Does it even matter when we may never see them in another game ever again?

Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece that hurts to look back on, because it did so much with gameplay, while ignoring its potential for a story to be just as great.

I have only watched this game, and I've probably seen less than half of what it has to offer, so this is a very premature ranking.

I had no idea what to expect from this game, but it's reached such narrative and philosophical depths that I can't help but continue to think about it. I don't think I fully understand its message yet, if it even has a single message to say, but what I have managed to compile has been incredibly moving and meaningful.

Even though I've barely scratched the surface, I feel as though this game is having exactly the impact that it was meant to on me. The art style and voice acting mold incredibly well to the scenes at hand, their consistencies only adding to their differences, with writing that truly manages to capture a wide range of voices and perspectives.

I hope to play this game myself, so this score might change. But, if anything, at least this might help convince others to try it that much more, because it is a very fascinating, simple, complex experience.