Tears of the Kingdom is a great game that, at least in my opinion, gets held back in a few aspects.
First of all, TotK addresses one of the biggest criticisms people had for the prequel.
Even though it's delivered in a similar way, the story has more structure this time around, which allowed for some actual mysteries and good payoff towards the end.
There's even a nice message in this story!
Another improvement over the predecessor is how much more reward systems and collectables TotK has, and therefore more to do throughout the game. Breath of the Wild was very minimalistic in its approach to rewards, so this feels like a logical expansion on the original.
The new mechanics focused even more on player freedom and creativity this time around and it's been a joy to experiment with them.
Every time I asked myself, "What would happen if I did this?", that curiosity would be met with either a satisfying or funny answer.
While I was hesitant at first to "waste" materials on builds or fusions, trusting the game that there would always be new materials to collect helped my enjoyment a lot.
People who didn't like the way Breath of the Wild handled its soundtrack probably won't be happy about this one either, but since I'm a big fan of BotW's music, I liked this one as well.
It doesn't get in your way during exploration, but uses strong themes at the right times during the story and always adds to the atmosphere.
I also liked that dungeons had actual themes in TotK and were more distinct. This also applies to the corresponding quests to reach each dungeon and the new boss fights.
Unfortunately, I can't help but miss the more difficult puzzles that are present in most other Zelda games, both on a micro and macro level.
Even if the individual puzzles were harder to solve, there's no real need for getting a sense of the whole dungeon anymore, as the dungeons mostly consist of a few separate, disconnected parts.
This also applies to the new shrines.
Now, I liked BotW's shrines even though they were a bit too easy, but the focus of TotK's shrines seems to be less on puzzle-solving and more on teaching you about the mechanics of the world.
This approach didn't really work for me, as it made many solutions immediately obvious, and made the execution of that solution take longer than the solving itself.
The biggest letdown for me was that the sense of exploration was not as strong as in BotW.
A big factor in this was that I'd already thoroughly explored this version of Hyrule in BotW, and while there were many differences between the two games, they didn't feel substantial enough to make me want to revisit every single location.
Additionally, because the world was originally designed for BotW, a lot of places that served as puzzles or quests feel empty and useless now.
Both the sky and the depths were great new additions that made up for the lack of new locations a little bit, but it felt like they didn't reach their full potential (especially the depths).
Once you've seen one sky island or one part of the depths, you've pretty much seen it all, except for the few places that are important to the main story.
As a side-effect of having so many mechanics, the UI isn't exactly the most efficient.
I'm not really sure if there's a better way to structure it without introducing other drawbacks, but some of the simplest actions you'll have to perform repeatedly (like fusing an item to an arrow) take way too long.
Finally, I don't think TotK is suited very well to 100% completion.
There are so many various items to collect and locations to visit without having a very good system in place to let you know where you might be missing something.
The Sensor+ helps a little bit in this regard, but it ultimately forces you to either run around all of Hyrule or resort to using a guide.
I don't necessarily see this as a flaw, because, as it turns out, not going for 100% and just collecting stuff like Korok seeds along the way makes for a very enjoyable experience where you'll always find something of value around the corner.
First of all, TotK addresses one of the biggest criticisms people had for the prequel.
Even though it's delivered in a similar way, the story has more structure this time around, which allowed for some actual mysteries and good payoff towards the end.
There's even a nice message in this story!
Another improvement over the predecessor is how much more reward systems and collectables TotK has, and therefore more to do throughout the game. Breath of the Wild was very minimalistic in its approach to rewards, so this feels like a logical expansion on the original.
The new mechanics focused even more on player freedom and creativity this time around and it's been a joy to experiment with them.
Every time I asked myself, "What would happen if I did this?", that curiosity would be met with either a satisfying or funny answer.
While I was hesitant at first to "waste" materials on builds or fusions, trusting the game that there would always be new materials to collect helped my enjoyment a lot.
People who didn't like the way Breath of the Wild handled its soundtrack probably won't be happy about this one either, but since I'm a big fan of BotW's music, I liked this one as well.
It doesn't get in your way during exploration, but uses strong themes at the right times during the story and always adds to the atmosphere.
I also liked that dungeons had actual themes in TotK and were more distinct. This also applies to the corresponding quests to reach each dungeon and the new boss fights.
Unfortunately, I can't help but miss the more difficult puzzles that are present in most other Zelda games, both on a micro and macro level.
Even if the individual puzzles were harder to solve, there's no real need for getting a sense of the whole dungeon anymore, as the dungeons mostly consist of a few separate, disconnected parts.
This also applies to the new shrines.
Now, I liked BotW's shrines even though they were a bit too easy, but the focus of TotK's shrines seems to be less on puzzle-solving and more on teaching you about the mechanics of the world.
This approach didn't really work for me, as it made many solutions immediately obvious, and made the execution of that solution take longer than the solving itself.
The biggest letdown for me was that the sense of exploration was not as strong as in BotW.
A big factor in this was that I'd already thoroughly explored this version of Hyrule in BotW, and while there were many differences between the two games, they didn't feel substantial enough to make me want to revisit every single location.
Additionally, because the world was originally designed for BotW, a lot of places that served as puzzles or quests feel empty and useless now.
Both the sky and the depths were great new additions that made up for the lack of new locations a little bit, but it felt like they didn't reach their full potential (especially the depths).
Once you've seen one sky island or one part of the depths, you've pretty much seen it all, except for the few places that are important to the main story.
As a side-effect of having so many mechanics, the UI isn't exactly the most efficient.
I'm not really sure if there's a better way to structure it without introducing other drawbacks, but some of the simplest actions you'll have to perform repeatedly (like fusing an item to an arrow) take way too long.
Finally, I don't think TotK is suited very well to 100% completion.
There are so many various items to collect and locations to visit without having a very good system in place to let you know where you might be missing something.
The Sensor+ helps a little bit in this regard, but it ultimately forces you to either run around all of Hyrule or resort to using a guide.
I don't necessarily see this as a flaw, because, as it turns out, not going for 100% and just collecting stuff like Korok seeds along the way makes for a very enjoyable experience where you'll always find something of value around the corner.