So good, the kingdom weeps! (Tears of the Kingdom impressions!)

     Hey friends! If you're not aware, a new game came out a few weeks ago that has really taken the world by storm. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the name, and honestly I think you would be hard pressed to find a game that people are more excited for than this. Not only is this game the long awaited sequel to the "Open World Action-Adventure" defining Breath of the Wild, the system seller that kicked off the Switch in style back in 2017 (sorry, 1,2, Switch), but we've been waiting for about 6 years now for another new 3D Zelda game! I don't want to talk too much today about the game's contents, since I've actually not finished the game yet, but I've played enough of this game to discuss it a bit today. There's a lot to this game, and honestly it's pretty overwhelming, so let's just leap into it from our place in the sky!

What does it mean to be a Zelda Sequel?

    It's curious that The Legend of Zelda has been a series since 1986 and we've only gotten a handful of direct sequels to games. What does that mean? It has been explained that over time in Hyrule, there have been many incarnations of Link, as well as Zelda, and that they rise to the challenge throughout history to confront and defeat the evil of that time (which most commonly manifests in Ganon). Therefore, the Link from the original Legend of Zelda isn't the same Link as in Ocarina of Time. There are some exceptions to this rule, however, which is where the direct sequels come in, where one Link will go on multiple journeys. The Link from the original Legend of Zelda continued on in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Ocarina of Time continued on to Majora's Mask, Wind Waker's Link went on to Phantom Hourglass, and now we have Breath of the Wild continuing on into Tears of the Kingdom. I think this game may be the closest tied to the other one out of any games that we've had in the whole series. In the contexts of the other games, even though it was the same Link, there are different areas or worlds that he travels around in. In Tears of the Kingdom, however, Link travels the same grounds that he came through in the previous game. The big difference here is that there have been many other areas added to the world due to the "Upheaval," which is an event that occurs at the beginning of the game and causes Hyrule Castle to be floating in the air and also for many flying islands to float through the skies of Hyrule. In addition, there's also an underground area known as the Depths which not only has some crazy gimmicks to it, but also probably doubles the landmass of the game. It's insane how deep these Depths go, as well as being completely in the dark until you yourself light up the area. 

    With this game being a sequel, you run into a lot of characters from the past game, and it's great to see how society has advanced with rebuilding from the horrors of Calamity Ganon. I will say that it's sad that the former champions from Breath of the Wild hardly have anything said about them, but it's also good that the villages have moved on and accepted their new leaders with open arms. There's a lot to say about the different societies because even as they have tried to move on, these different villages all have new and serious issues threatening them in this game. The Zoras are dealing with constant pollution falling from the sky, Gerudos face sandstorms in the desert, The Rito have lots of snow, which bird people don't like, as you could imagine, and the Gorons have... a weird and way too complicated plot happening to them, which I won't describe here. In a similar way to Breath of the Wild, these mini plots are fairly separated from each other, but they do a good job of bonding you with the various side characters and descendants of the champions of legend. Speaking of side characters, the vibrant side quest of Tarrey Town is back in this game following the big wedding at the end of the previous game's questline. Hudson now has a daughter who is about to leave home to learn about being a Gerudo like her mom, it's a very sweet storyline, and one that I've really just started. Now that I'm getting closer to the end of the game, I've taken a lot more time to do side quests, and I'm really enjoying all of those, and learning a lot more about the different characters inhabiting Hyrule. I don't want to talk too much about Zelda's involvement with the plot, but I will say that it's nice that she has a much bigger role this time around compared to older games in the series.

Tearing from series conventions!

    So this game is obviously incredibly different from the Zelda series, as was the game that came before, but while the last game laid out the rules of this new type of open-world game, this game steps into the new world and goes crazy with it. The Ultra-Hand ability alone completely changes the game, and allows anyone to build their own contraption that will let you get around much more quickly, really implementing an idea where the main limitation is just your own sense of creativity. What's more impressive to me though is just how well this system works, even if you're someone like me who has a hard time thinking of creative solutions for video game problems. It's amazing the levels of creativity that people have gone to in the few short weeks since this game has come out, but this ability is just the tip of the iceberg, especially considering that eventually, you get the power of Autobuild, which will let you replicate something that you've already made before, or allow you to make things based on different blueprints that you find around the world. Honestly, this system is what Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts wanted to do when that game came out years and years ago. On top of the Ultra-Hand power, there's also Ascend, which allows you to phase through any platform that's above you in a certain height, allowing for even more verticality in your climbing potential, and potentially even traversing all the way from the Depths to the surface world. Fuse, which allows you to combine your basic and potentially weak weapons with basically anything you can find lying around, which boosts the attack power and even gives different properties to the weapons. You need something to break an ore deposit but you only have a sword? Fuse that sword with a rock, and you've got a rock hammer which is perfect for smashing that ore in the wall. Finally, there's the rewind feature which allows you to reverse the movements of an object that may have just fallen from the sky to make it like an elevator. It's really an upgraded version of the Stasis rune from the Shekiah Slate in Breath of the Wild, and it's also a fantastic addition to the game.

Director's Cut?

    This game reminds me a lot of Super Mario Galaxy 2. That game was built on the bones of Super Mario Galaxy's incredible space exploring quest, and just riffed on it for a long time with many more ideas that they couldn't fit into the first one. In that sense, this game is the Super Mario Galaxy 2 to Breath of the Wild's Super Mario Galaxy. This game honestly feels very similar in how it's played, and in the overall setting, of course, but with little tweaks and new systems thrown in. The big differences in this game are mostly cosmetic, as the Sheikah shrines are now replaced with Zonai shrines, the Sheikah Slate is gone, replaced with the Purah Pad (named after the brilliant inventor of the same name, of course) which is basically the same thing, and the Great Towers are now replaced with Sky Towers. The towers actually are a pretty major change, since the towers now launch you into the air in addition to charting out a section of the map, whereas the towers in the previous game just charted out a section while giving you a tall vantage point to look out for more shrines. The shrines still work the same as they did before, each one giving you a special orb to offer to Goddess Statues in exchange for more maximum health or stamina. It's all very reminiscent and oddly nostalgic for the past game. That's definitely not a bad thing, and I certainly understand the concept of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.," and it does a good job of pointing out just how much the new mechanics help to make even crazier shrines. Again, it's akin to the way that adding Yoshi and many other new power-ups in Super Mario Galaxy 2 really elevated the old mechanics to new heights.

    Zelda is always going to be a wonderful time in my book, and though these last two games in the series have been very different and more open-world, which is not exactly my cup of tea, I've loved interacting with this world and it's different people. While I'm still not finished with the game, I've sunk hours into this game already and if I was to get 100% here, it would still take an insane amount of time. The land of Hyrule is bright and frankly exhausting to get through, but with all of the advancements made in this game, it's a much more easily traversed land than it used to be. It's a truly commendable achievement to make something that uses mostly the same map just feel so new and refreshed by these new mechanics, making the land seem new once again.

    Thanks so much for reading my impressions of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, friends! I know this is a lot of writing for a game that I'm not even finished with, but there's a lot of stuff in this game. It's crazy to me that this game took 6 years for the team to make, but it completely makes sense. They really built on almost every system and storyline that they put out back in Breath of the Wild and touched on some relationships that I didn't even really think about. I hope you're enjoying the game as much as I have so far, and I hope you're having a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed hero of Hyrule, and I'll talk to you again soon!