This review contains spoilers
Pros:
Seemingly endless content
Fantastic final boss
Some interesting puzzles
Story was alright
Cons:
By and large the puzzles felt like they were aimed at a much younger audience. Same with the story. Many shrines took no thought and the same can be said for many of the puzzles in the temple. Often times you would briefly think "How am I going to get up there?" and lo and behold there's a platform and a few rockets lying right there. It feels like they don't trust the player to use the tools they've been given at all.
The weapon system is annoying. Having to constantly construct new weapons removes me from the game. Every time I open a menu it is a slight break in the immersion. I'd rather just receive powerful weapons for defeating bosses and be able to use those throughout the game.
The characters aside from Zelda, Ganondorf, Link and maybe Riju , are pretty one dimensional and again, childish (no offense Tulin). None of them are very interesting to me.
In many ways the game is too open ended. For example, when I approached the Fire temple I attempted to navigate by cart for a bit but I realized that it would be much more efficient to just climb, ascend and glide through the temple. The temple was reduced to a mindless slog at that point. I understand that this was not the intended route, but I think that puzzles should be designed in such a way that players are more or less forced to engage with them in order to complete the dungeon or objective. This is not the same as saying there should be only one way to solve a given puzzle.
There were many small annoyances I had with this game as well. The random dispensing of Zonai devices, The voice acting, the uninspired ambient music, the demon dragon fight etc.
In total I think this game is great, but oversold. It did not challenge me mentally in the way I was hoping and, while at times I loved some of the game design choices I think that I strongly prefer the 2D Zelda games. I think the 3D voice acted version removes some of the mystery and wonder of these older games, not to mention the puzzles are simplified and often trivial. In a way it feels like the 2D games are the book and Tears of the Kingdom is the movie.
Seemingly endless content
Fantastic final boss
Some interesting puzzles
Story was alright
Cons:
By and large the puzzles felt like they were aimed at a much younger audience. Same with the story. Many shrines took no thought and the same can be said for many of the puzzles in the temple. Often times you would briefly think "How am I going to get up there?" and lo and behold there's a platform and a few rockets lying right there. It feels like they don't trust the player to use the tools they've been given at all.
The weapon system is annoying. Having to constantly construct new weapons removes me from the game. Every time I open a menu it is a slight break in the immersion. I'd rather just receive powerful weapons for defeating bosses and be able to use those throughout the game.
The characters aside from Zelda, Ganondorf, Link and maybe Riju , are pretty one dimensional and again, childish (no offense Tulin). None of them are very interesting to me.
In many ways the game is too open ended. For example, when I approached the Fire temple I attempted to navigate by cart for a bit but I realized that it would be much more efficient to just climb, ascend and glide through the temple. The temple was reduced to a mindless slog at that point. I understand that this was not the intended route, but I think that puzzles should be designed in such a way that players are more or less forced to engage with them in order to complete the dungeon or objective. This is not the same as saying there should be only one way to solve a given puzzle.
There were many small annoyances I had with this game as well. The random dispensing of Zonai devices, The voice acting, the uninspired ambient music, the demon dragon fight etc.
In total I think this game is great, but oversold. It did not challenge me mentally in the way I was hoping and, while at times I loved some of the game design choices I think that I strongly prefer the 2D Zelda games. I think the 3D voice acted version removes some of the mystery and wonder of these older games, not to mention the puzzles are simplified and often trivial. In a way it feels like the 2D games are the book and Tears of the Kingdom is the movie.