Where Breath of the Wild was the lonely and solitary journey of one man using everything at his disposal to save the day, Tears of the Kingdom is the epic and sweeping follow up tale that aims to raise the stakes and expand upon its predecessor's world. Breath of the Wild was the proof of concept, and Tears of the Kingdom is the victory lap.

While Nintendo already hit it out of the park with 2017's first open world Zelda adventure with myself and swarths of other fans singing its praises, the pre-release reception to the early views of TOTK was... lukewarm? The "it's just BOTW DLC" had quite the fair point in looking at a game whose only new aspect that added to the previous iteration of the world were some islands in the sky. I was mostly unmoved by this game until I actually started playing it. The game's title may have been BOTW 2, but a simple sequel this game is not. Tears of the Kingdom adds layers upon layers to BOTW's gameplay and exploration and then heaps on extra helpings of goodies onto what was already a gargantuan game.

The world of BOTW as we know it is the same, but different in the sense that it has been packed to the brim with stuff to do, along with a re-shuffling of some locations and new wrinkles in the overworld. There are a bevy of shrines to take down once again, plenty of new and exciting bosses to face, caves, wells, and of course, the sky islands and the depths. If that somehow wasn't enough, add on some dungeons and an endless list of things to build and weapons to fuse with the extremely fun ultrahand and fuse abilities, and you have yourself a game that can suck up hundreds of hours of your life. I really cannot emphasize enough how much fun the new abilities are. They make things as innocuous as traveling a joy and the way they are utilized in the new shrines make each one a great time.

Tears of the Kingdom has a larger emphasis on story for those who were begrudged by its passive presence in BOTW, but the open world structure still causes hiccups in the pacing and overall extent to which things can be fleshed out. Most Zelda stories aren't masterfully deep, but while it certainly isn't bad, I can't help but feel like the story this game has to offer could have used a more cohesive structure that allowed it to be more expansive. Still, the emotional resonance of this game is powerful, with some amazing moments and a final sequence that might be a tearjerker for some. No spoilers, but the final boss is an incredible spectacle that might just be one of the best in the series.

Despite my glowing review of it, Tears of the Kingdom is not exactly a perfect game. There are the aforementioned story bumps, some issues with the structure of the dungeons, the depths being somewhat barren after some exploration, and the fact that exploring and questing generally begins to feel less rewarding as you rack up more hours... but I can't really bring myself to knock the game that hard for its few flaws. An experience as rewarding and just flat out fun as this one deserves to be rated in kind. This game delivers on nearly everything players wanted in the wake of Breath of the Wild: more enemy variety, better dungeons, more meaningful quests with better loot and rewards, new armor sets, a better story, new abilities, the list goes on. Tears of the Kingdom is a spectacularly unique and bold entry in the Zelda franchise, and even though I'm beginning to feel a craving for a return to the series more linear 3D roots, this is yet another world that I will be returning to a lot, even after the credits have rolled.