Tears of the Kingdom is an evil video game. It is a shallow, meandering homonuculus in the shape of a "critically acclaimed video game." It is sinister in how it slithers along wearing the skin of a game we all liked seven years ago. It is deceptive in how it tricks the player into thinking it's wealth of "content" is fun. It is manipulative in how it attempts to wring tears out from the player despite the story meaning nothing.

It is a game about nothing for everyone. It is formless sludge to keep your fingers busy and your mind vacant. It is the death of art. It loots the corpses of the good Zelda games and uses them for fuel for the content mill.

It's kinda fun to skydive though

I won't call Tears of the Kingdom the worst game I've ever played - that'd be obviously hyperbolic. It's mechanically sound, looks nice, and there is some meager bits of fun to be had. But I think it's absolutely one of the worst pieces of art I've ever experienced. It does nothing to justify it's own existence, seemingly satisfied with just being. It has nothing new to say, nothing interesting to do, nothing cool to see. But hey, there's 900 Korok seeds, 700 locations, 194 caves, 152 shrines, 120 lightroots, 58 wells, 35 chasms, 35 settlements, 60 side adventures, 31 shrine quests, 139 side quests, 18 memories, it's so awesome dude there's so much content the game is great it has content I like this game because it has content I love content

Reviewed on Feb 05, 2024


2 Comments


2 months ago

One thing I've never been able to get over since finishing Tears was when I visited the Depths for the first time. This was about a week days before the game's release, on an emulator. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it looked so unlike anything else in the game - the way you had to use light resources to navigate the bizarre void, paying heed to flora and decorations for platforms to stand on and paths to follow. I legitimately thought it was the bravest decision Nintendo could have made.

Then, when the emulator updated, I realised it was merely a glitch where the game wouldn't properly emulate all of its assets, making the Depths floor-less. Dumb as hell of me in retrospect, but it knocked me right back to square one. A mirror of the world above, but dark and boring and full of upgrade resources to poke at the dopamine receptors.

2 months ago

I wish I could like reviews more than once