#4 of 2023
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.