Trigger Cut Game Reviews

Writing a review for Tears of the Kingdom is similar to how you feel when you first land in Hyrule after you finish the tutorial section. Where to start? I suppose I will get the necessary Breath of the Wild comparisons out of the way first. Is TOTK better than BOTW? The answer is yes. While it may lack the novelty of the first game, the sequel is a marked improvement over the first in nearly every aspect. The powers are all better, more useful, memorable and fun than the first game. Ultrahand feels finicky at first but after a while you will get used to the controls and it will feel more natural. Going into this game knowing that I am not the type of person that is capable of thinking of crazy contraptions to make, I was worried the game wouldn’t be for me but I was pleasantly surprised that Nintendo gives you all the tools you need to make basic builds that will get you through the game without the need for creativity. Nintendo also is smart with how it uses shrines to give you ideas on what potential builds you can make. Fuse is a deceptively simple mechanic where you can attach any item to a shield or a weapon. Slapping a rocket on a shield and blasting high up in the air to sequence break a puzzle or attaching a cart to my shield to skateboard down the many mountains of Hyrule all felt like peak gaming moments where I had a sense of agency and ownership over my ideas and creations. The rewind feature is the least interesting power in the game because it is only really useful in specific shrines to solve puzzles or if you accidentally drop something off a cliff. Ascend is a smart way where Nintendo gives players a way to traverse the game more easily and create shortcuts. For example, when I am done exploring a cave, I do not have to run back to the entrance. Instead I can use ascend to pop out at the top. One of the portions of BOTW that disappointed me were the dungeons or divine beasts.  TOTK improves upon this portion of the game significantly. Most of the dungeons in this game are more elaborate and better designed than those in BOTW.  The sheer scale of this game mostly works in its favor however, most of the side quests are underwhelming and most of them are simply not worth doing.  Other than a few standouts like the quest where you put your hand on the scale for a mayoral election in a small village, most quests are of the fetch variety and rarely contain any interesting narrative or unique mechanics. The narrative is far more compelling here than it was in BOTW and I recommend finding all the tears that give you cool and well made cutscenes that give you juicy bits of context to the narrative that is at play here. The Sky Islands that hyped up in the marketing are a bit of a disappointment since the play space is small. The depths are more compelling as the area is as large as ground level Hyrule. The depths are mostly there to farm important resources that increase the amount of time you can power your creations. The depths has a nice horror element to it as well since it is pitch black and you will need to use light from plants to navigate the area. Having not finished the story in BOTW, I am glad I stuck it through to the ending of TOTK because it is truly epic and narratively satisfying. In summary TOTK is a near masterpiece that has endless content, surprises, and secrets all waiting to be uncovered by players.  It provides a massive sandbox with tools for players that are more creatively inclined to have a ball with.