No tears about the kingdom

Possibly the largest release for Nintendo in 2023, and the largest release since Pokemon Legends Arceus, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom, is far from a sequel to Breath of the Wild.

This immense and popular title, released on the 12th of May, 2023, was directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi, who worked alongside the producer of the entire Legend of Zelda franchise, Eiji Aonuma. It features many of the classic characters, like Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf, with many of the same important characters from Breath of the Wild, as well.

Although it is set in the same world as the immensely successful Breath of the Wild, it is a vast improvement, met to meet the standards of 2023, not just to build on the standards of 2017.

Tears of the Kingdom‘s structure involves the same structure as Breath of the Wild; lots of training in a large area, then thrown into an expansive open world, so you can prepare for the final boss fight, with shrines, and massive amounts of quests. It also has large, regional dungeons that unlock special heroes to help you in your adventure.

However, it takes the large open world that made BOTW so special, and triples its potential, by adding the Sky Islands, and the depths, both beautiful and containing heaps of content. This large amount of content is what sold the game to everyone. The shear size and depth of the world, made with all the Nintendo polish, lets you dive in, and not come out, leading to hundreds to thousands of hours in
the game, in a blink of an eye.

However, running 2023 software on 2017 hardware is difficult, and the Switch often has trouble keeping up with TOTK’s more taxing moments. However, even though there are some faults in the performance, the game holds up, and does more, and is utterly beautiful and a joy to play.

Robbie N, Year 8