Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom review — Sky’s the limit

Tears Of The Kingdom improves on the already amazing Breath Of The Wild.

I am not sure when exactly I started falling in love with The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom.

It might’ve been when I dove from a floating island for the first time, surrounded by a vast blue sky that promised adventure, with mysterious ruins and majestic dragons in the distance.

Or it might’ve been when I learnt to combine objects, and I quickly understood I could create all manner of contraptions to solve puzzles in ways even the developers couldn’t have foreseen.

Or it could’ve been the sights of the familiar but changed kingdom of Hyrule, which was even more beautiful than when I last saw it in Breath Of The Wild.

All I know is that this feeling of joy started within the first hour of playing the game, and continues even after I’ve spent ... let me check my Nintendo Switch ... 70 hours in a week? Ah well, sleep is for other people.

At its heart, TOTK is an improvement and refinement of its predecessor, though this rather undersells how much was improved.

The kingdom of Hyrule, which is as much a main character as Link and Zelda, continues to hide surprising secrets and delightful discoveries around every corner, waiting for you to organically stumble across them as your curiosity drives you forward.

The difference this time is that Hyrule is so much more vast, as you even get to explore the skies of Hyrule, which are filled with the floating ruins of an ancient civilisation.

The difference this time is that Hyrule is so much more vast, as you even get to explore the skies of Hyrule, which are filled with the floating ruins of an ancient civilisation. (There are many nascent ideas from Skyward Sword that have been reused or remastered beautifully in TOTK.)

And how do you reach those sky islands? Why, how about building your own flying machines? The biggest gameplay addition is the ability to craft and invent functional devices that allow you to use (and abuse) the already expressive physics system to solve problems in creative (and/or absolutely bonkers) ways.

A good example is the new “Korok delivery” sidequests.

In any other game, this would’ve been a humdrum delivery or escort quest to get person A to destination B, but in TOTK, it’s a way to express creativity – with physics!

The biggest gameplay addition is the ability to craft and invent functional devices that allow you to use (and abuse) the already expressive physics system to solve problems in creative (and/or absolutely bonkers) ways.

You could build a car to chauffeur the Korok, create a Korok catapult, or even strap a rocket to the lil’ guy and hope for the best. (Though in the latter case, all my attempts just ended up sending those Koroks into orbit instead. Whoops!)

I’m giving TOTK a strong recommendation for anyone who loves a sense of adventure, wants to explore a beautiful living world, and enjoys creative problem solving.

The only question is, where can Zelda go from here now that it has already touched the sky? Outer space? If so, I think there are already a few Koroks waiting out there.