This review contains spoilers
My feelings on tears of the kingdom confuse me. The game improves on many things from BOTW including improved dungeons/ story quests, the world feels lived in with far more settlements, the memories are more interestingly implemented, story is better and the boss fights are much better also. All these improvements and yet I liked it a lot less than BOTW. I think the abilities in the game are incredibly implemented and far more impressive than BOTW. I feel the developers knew that these abilities were winners so they made them more integral to the gameplay loop than in it's predecessor. Ultra hand in particular is shoved into the spotlight which is incredible as a feat of game engineering but there is little need in the game itself to get to creative unless intrinsically motivated to do so. This isn't a fault with the game necessarily but building contraptions for the sake of building has never appealed to me personally.
The sky and depths are great additions on the surface that I loved at first but lacked meaningful long-term depth throughout my 150 hours of game time. The skys feel barren beyond the shrines giving serious great sea vibes and the depths initial foreboding atmosphere faded, becoming dull to navigate. There is great contents in the depths like the colosseums, boss rematches and the excellent master Kohga quest. Beyond those I didn't find much else in the depths compelling after my initial visits. Finding each Link's pants is neat but not exciting (there is some fun gear down there tho like Midna's helm).
I also feel the game is structured to similarly to BOTW to be set in the same world. You spend the game going to the 4 settlements and helping them to gain there help for the final battle, completing shrines to increase health/stamina, finding Korok seeds to increase inventory space and completing side quests. All the above are better than previously as mentioned but I can't help but feel an uncanny valley effect as I feel I have done this before. This is further felt as there is little to no mention of the previous shrines, rune abilities and the sheikah tech from its predecessor in this game. The abundance of zonai tech makes it feel strange that it has never been discovered previously.
I found the story in this game far more compelling with the mystery around Zelda and seeing more of chad Ganondorf was always a treat. I also enjoyed each settlements story with the only nit-pick being that the cutscenes around the dungeons basically being identical really got on my nerves.
The dungeons themselves are enjoyable and a step up from BOTW certainly but won't be cracking many peoples top Zelda dungeons lists. The dungeon bosses like the dungeons themselves are simplistic but a lot of fun to tackle. The champions abilities in BOTW were far to overpowered so making the sage abilities less powerful was a fine idea and the abilites all have utility in the game. The only problem with these abilities is how they are activated. Running up to the character and using the action works fine enough in dungeons but in the broader game it can be frustrating when you want to use an ability but the sage in question is running away from you (Riju I'm looking at you). The sage ghosts also spend most of the time just standing around and only occasionally engaging in combat lethargically.
The shrines are much improved in this game using the new abilities in clever ways, replacing the combat challenges with eventide light challenges and removing the gimmicky motion control shrines entirely. There sudden appearance may be odd but damn they are fun to complete.
The combat in tears of the kingdom takes 1 step forward and 2 steps back for me. The improved enemy variety is great and I enjoyed fighting all the new monsters in Ganon's army with phantom Ganon being my personal favourite. The two steps back come from the over abundance of enemy's in particular bokoblins, the frequency of blood moons and fuse's impact on weapon balance. I love the idea of fuse and found it fun to mess around with but late game enemies health bars feel inflated due to the ability to make OP weapons which when combined with weapon durability hampers the enjoyment when your weapons don't feel powerful on even bokoblins just because they are silver. This could possibly affect people in BOTW as well but didn't happen to me personally. I do love fusing rockets to my shield tho.
The quality of side quests has definitely stepped up over the previous game with some real standouts included.
Overall I liked Tears of the Kingdom a lot but it makes me wonder if my taste in games has changed since I played BOTW in 2017 as everything points to this game being superior but I preferred it's predecessor. Still a fantastic game in it's own right.
The sky and depths are great additions on the surface that I loved at first but lacked meaningful long-term depth throughout my 150 hours of game time. The skys feel barren beyond the shrines giving serious great sea vibes and the depths initial foreboding atmosphere faded, becoming dull to navigate. There is great contents in the depths like the colosseums, boss rematches and the excellent master Kohga quest. Beyond those I didn't find much else in the depths compelling after my initial visits. Finding each Link's pants is neat but not exciting (there is some fun gear down there tho like Midna's helm).
I also feel the game is structured to similarly to BOTW to be set in the same world. You spend the game going to the 4 settlements and helping them to gain there help for the final battle, completing shrines to increase health/stamina, finding Korok seeds to increase inventory space and completing side quests. All the above are better than previously as mentioned but I can't help but feel an uncanny valley effect as I feel I have done this before. This is further felt as there is little to no mention of the previous shrines, rune abilities and the sheikah tech from its predecessor in this game. The abundance of zonai tech makes it feel strange that it has never been discovered previously.
I found the story in this game far more compelling with the mystery around Zelda and seeing more of chad Ganondorf was always a treat. I also enjoyed each settlements story with the only nit-pick being that the cutscenes around the dungeons basically being identical really got on my nerves.
The dungeons themselves are enjoyable and a step up from BOTW certainly but won't be cracking many peoples top Zelda dungeons lists. The dungeon bosses like the dungeons themselves are simplistic but a lot of fun to tackle. The champions abilities in BOTW were far to overpowered so making the sage abilities less powerful was a fine idea and the abilites all have utility in the game. The only problem with these abilities is how they are activated. Running up to the character and using the action works fine enough in dungeons but in the broader game it can be frustrating when you want to use an ability but the sage in question is running away from you (Riju I'm looking at you). The sage ghosts also spend most of the time just standing around and only occasionally engaging in combat lethargically.
The shrines are much improved in this game using the new abilities in clever ways, replacing the combat challenges with eventide light challenges and removing the gimmicky motion control shrines entirely. There sudden appearance may be odd but damn they are fun to complete.
The combat in tears of the kingdom takes 1 step forward and 2 steps back for me. The improved enemy variety is great and I enjoyed fighting all the new monsters in Ganon's army with phantom Ganon being my personal favourite. The two steps back come from the over abundance of enemy's in particular bokoblins, the frequency of blood moons and fuse's impact on weapon balance. I love the idea of fuse and found it fun to mess around with but late game enemies health bars feel inflated due to the ability to make OP weapons which when combined with weapon durability hampers the enjoyment when your weapons don't feel powerful on even bokoblins just because they are silver. This could possibly affect people in BOTW as well but didn't happen to me personally. I do love fusing rockets to my shield tho.
The quality of side quests has definitely stepped up over the previous game with some real standouts included.
Overall I liked Tears of the Kingdom a lot but it makes me wonder if my taste in games has changed since I played BOTW in 2017 as everything points to this game being superior but I preferred it's predecessor. Still a fantastic game in it's own right.