Game review: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Hello readers! I’m reviewing something different today. It isn’t a film, it isn’t science fiction, and it isn’t terrible. For those of you who aren’t familiar, The Legend of Zelda is a long-running series of video games focussed around exploring a fantasy world populated with logic puzzles, eccentric characters, and curiously adorable monsters. The latest instalment was released on the 12th May, and for those of us with an ecological niche in the unfortunate “gamersphere”, it’s all anybody seems to be talking about.

Now, I’m going to try and review this without any spoilers. This is a game which is so huge and open-ended that most people won’t be anywhere near finishing it, and players will be making discoveries at their own pace, in no particular order. As such, to avoid ruining surprises, I won’t mention people, places, enemies, items, music, mechanics or story. What, then, will I actually be reviewing? It’s hard to say. The philosophical soul. The metaphysical vibe. The idiosyncratic essence, if you will.

Where to begin…?

This is probably the question most players ask themselves when the game kicks off. It is also the question I am faced with now that I have sworn not to mention anything that this game contains. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have started this post by describing it as “not terrible” – because although this is true, it does set the bar a bit low. Make no mistake: this game is very, very good. It stands on the shoulders of giants (the largest giant being its predecessor, Breath of the Wild) and so it sees much further, not only in terms of its render distance, but in its artistic vision.

From the beginning, the game instils a sense of awe and wonder. The world is filled by technological mysteries from a long-forgotten past, and nearly everyone you meet is searching for answers. The game puts you on a mission to explore and understand, and the environment is so rich with details that it’s impossible not to find your curiosity piqued.

The world feels more alive than ever. Each character, however irrelevant they may be to the overarching plot, has a niche interest of some sort, whether it’s history, culture, ecology, fashion or food. The characters you meet don’t just serve to make the world look populated, or to give you arbitrary quests; they are actively investigating the world for themselves, providing you with hints and insights, but also tying your sense of intrigue to the game world and its inhabitants. You feel at home there, rather than being a mere spectator – and it really brings the world to life.

Speaking of life…

A common complaint about Breath of the Wild was that the enemies lacked variety. For such a huge world, there were only a few different species, with a few different levels of difficulty, or different elemental types. Tears of the Kingdom has taken great strides towards rectifying this issue. I won’t put a number or a name to them for fear of spoilers, but know this: there are more enemies, more variety in enemies, and more combinations of enemies than you can shake a stick at. And, at the start of the game, you will be shaking a lot of actual sticks.

Just like its predecessor, Tears of the Kingdom has a steep learning curve. It is safe to say that, starting out, you will be unequipped to deal with the various challenges that the game throws at you (often literally). Expect to die a lot. However, this isn’t to its detriment, because the entire game is based on learning and solving problems – and you can’t learn without experimentation, finding out what doesn’t work as well as what does. In any case, most of these instant death episodes in the early game are highly amusing, because the ragdoll physics are back in full force. Being swiped or splatted or stomped out of existence will never fail to be funny. It’s just slapstick comedy, especially when you get slapped with a stick.

The Nintendo school of physcraft and physicsry

There must be something in the water over at Nintendo HQ. Most of their flagship games involve some sort of rule-bending, where age-old gaming conventions are turned on their heads with miraculous results. One of my favourite examples of recent years is the 3D-to-2D mechanics used in Link Between Worlds and then in Mario Odyssey, where your character could phase in and out of paintings on walls. Something similar happened in Splatoon, where your character could dive in and out of a paint-splattered floor. Other crazy ideas have included borrowing enemy powers by absorbing them (Kirby) or capturing them in a hat (Mario Odyssey), providing the player with creative ways of using the resources around them to solve problems. Even the ability to climb walls was pretty ground-breaking when Breath of the Wild introduced it.

These sorts of ideas are the lifeblood of Tears of the Kingdom. I won’t go into details, but there are mechanics prevalent in this game which turn everything you thought you knew about game engines into a mind-melting mess. However, as game-breaking as these powers may seem, they are a lot of fun (if a little clumsy at times).

The physics engine powering Tears of the Kingdom makes it more than an open world exploration game. The mechanics are so open-ended that there is a good chance you might think up a solution to a problem that the developers could never have predicted. Of course, part of your ingenuity might stem from your own ineptitude, because there is often a blindingly obvious answer staring you in the face while you scurry around looking for a convoluted alternative. Other times, you may come up with a solution so simple and elegant that the developers’ puzzles cause you no puzzlement at all. Does this make you feel like a genius? Yes. But does this remove some of the fun? That depends on your personality.

The world

Exploration in Tears of the Kingdom is taken to whole new levels. The world is bigger than it was in Breath of the Wild, and places are interconnected in clever and satisfying ways. Puzzles are not just instances scattered within an overworld: the world itself is a puzzle. At the simplest level, you are faced with the challenge of getting from a to b. Thinking a little more deeply, you are forced to strategize your exploration approach: do you cover a lot of ground first, surveying the landscape and highlighting points of interest for further investigation? Do you head in a straight line, investigating everything that coincides with your path? When the road diverges, which route should you take first? The freedom is almost overwhelming.

Luckily, the game sets you up with some main objectives. Although I’m nowhere near finishing the game, I imagine that if you follow these, you’ll progress the main story and reach the main end goal. However, the bulk of the game lies outside this structure. You’ll be spending your time exploring and experimenting – and that’s not because you have to, but because you want to. It is very easy to get distracted by something new and mysterious, and you’ll often find yourself chasing after something strange and enticing that you spotted in the distance. In this sense, the game makes you go full dog-vision, mindlessly chasing after every bone it throws your way.

Some final thoughts

This game is inspiring. Somehow, after many decades of fantasy games, in a genre at risk of feeling tired, it manages to be innovative and engaging, not just in its gameplay, but in its world and characters. Yes, there are some very familiar elements from previous games, but these are used in new and interesting ways. There are some character designs that feel entirely fresh, and the art direction is fantastic. Animations, sounds and particle effects combine to invoke powerful emotional responses, from awe to fear to joy to revulsion. The game manages to elicit a sense of childlike wonder – that feeling which starts occurring less and less as we age and start seeing the same stories and tropes repeated whichever way we look. Tears of the Kingdom manages to tap into our sense of adventure, in a way that very few games can. Or books and films, for that matter.

In summary…

I would highly recommend this game. Of course, video games might not be your cup of tea – but I think the creativity of Tears of the Kingdom will influence plenty of art outside the realm of game design. It is by no means underrated or in need of attention; millions of people are talking about it, and rightfully so. This blog post wasn’t intended as advertising, because Nintendo hardly needs help on that front. Instead, I just wanted to share the inspiring sense of wonder that this game evoked – the kind of response that most authors aspire to instil in their readers – and I think there is a lot to be learnt from the approach Nintendo has taken. It’s a great game, and I’ll happily sink hundreds of hours into it. There’s a reason this blog was posted so near the end of the day…