xav's 2023 media thread: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

with the arm abilities and zonai devices, from the jump you have so many tools at your disposal to use to get over obstacles and go where you want to go. when i went into the game i thought i had a good grasp of hyrule based on how many hours i put into BOTW, but the difference in how you explore the world with the sheikah slate and champion abilities vs how you explore it with the zonai arm and sage abilities are two WILDLY different approaches. for example; crossing bodies of water is handled so different because there's no cryonis equivalent in this game. in fact, there really arent direct equivalents to the sheikah slate abilities. the closest connections you can make are with ultrahand and magnesis, but ultrahand works on literally everything and lets you make whatever you want. i guess recall and stasis are kinda close to eachother too, in the sense that theyre both time powers, but the similarities end there.  the limit is literally your own creativity.

its astounding how they made an already freeform game with BOTW be even more open ended.  shrines also dont feel the same like they did in BOTW, theyre their own challenges here; my favorite especially being the combat shrines which make you start with literally nothing; like eventide island from BOTW. there's so many interlocking systems and the game rarely if ever tells you outright that you cant do something

the combat in TOTK has several layers to it too. the fusing system allows you to create your own weapons and enter encounters from multiple angles. there were so many times i saw other people online playing and went "wait, fusing that to a weapon/arrow/shield does THAT??" and immediately ran to try it in my own file. weapons having their own traits to them which modifies how you fight with them is also another great bonus to combat- you start to really think about  what weapon to fuse with what material to best fit in a situation, like how zonai weapons pair the best with construct horns, doubling the amount of damage they deal. as the game goes on you learn to fuse greater and more powerful weapons with newer and newer materials and i love the sense of progression that comes from that.

i saw someone complain that the game doesnt let you be overpowered and i could not disagree more, if you know what youre doing you can make absolutely cracked weapons, like how zora weapons gain vastly increased damage while link is wet. and given that one of the sage abilities literally allows link to be encased in water at any time, you can imagine how broken zora weapons can get. if youre smart and resourceful enough, the game lets you create incredible things. here's some examples from my own playthrough

and shit sometimes they dont even have to be powerful from a combat perspective! need an axe real quick? fuse a sharp rock to a club!  wanna fuse a mushroom to a stick? cool, now you have something that does incredible knockback damage just to get enemies away from you. wanna fuse a bomb to a shield? alright, now you can go flying through the air. just. FUCK man i love the fusing system so much, i already loved BOTW's combat and this just takes it up to 11.

the dungeons in this one trump the divine beasts from BOTW 100%. switching to genuine temples with their own unique bosses again feels just SO RIGHT, and you can still tackle them whenever and however you feel like. i will say however that as much as i like the sages, a part of me did miss the champions and their abilities.

but i think its interesting how in BOTW you felt very...solo most of the time, but in TOTK the sages actively adventure and fight alongside you as companions, giving the sensation that link isnt as alone.

a developer interview actually goes into this a bit; they mention how "hands" is one of the major themes, like with link's new appearance and abilities, but also with the idea of "joining hands", and cooperating with other characters- not just the sages, but also cases where you help lead adventurers and soldiers into combat. there's also (and this is more my own interpretation) the concept of joining hands with the old (the zonai) and the new (modern day hyrule).

the music is amazing, while it does reuse some tracks from BOTW here and there it has its own flavor of themes too- my favorite being the prologue theme which has a certain "evil" motif that you can also hear in the BATTLE theme too!! when i found that out i was so damn hyped. speaking of the "hands" theme again, they also talk about how hand claps are a part of the music as well

i loved the story itself in this one too. first, that fucking intro to the game? absolutely godlike. perfect setup for the rest

ganondorf is set up as a really effective villain compared to calamity ganon- he rivals WW's interpretation of him for my favorite, and the dread you get from him and his influence permutates the entire world.

you can actively feel his presence in a lot of cases, like with gloom/chasms being everywhere and actively decaying weapons (which is such a cool fucking case of ludonarrative harmony- its why everyone in the world, including enemies, use improvised weapons for the most part). everything in hyrule is still kind of fucked and you get frequent reminders of that. and then the whole thing with the dragon tears??? god.  also while i wont elaborate on this point, the final boss fight? RAW.  i think one of the coolest moments for me when i played was how i accidentally STUMBLED into a major story beat and i didnt find out until LATER that it wasnt how that was supposed to go- the game plays it completely normally.

on top of the "hands" theme, i also feel like a major theme in TOTK is that of "curses" and "blessings". link's body is corrupted and you go through divine shrines to get lights of blessing to remove the gloom in link's body and restore his strength. the world is cursed in of itself, between the upheaval and the regional phenomena going on that link has to deal with. idk thats just what i think

i...do have some of my own complaints in this department, though. for one, i feel like some things that were in BOTW's world are kind of absent in TOTK with questionable explanations. the in universe lore for why there's such a stark lack of sheikah technology is that there was quite a gap of time between BOTW and TOTK where sheikah technology was deconstructed in hyrule...and while that makes sense for the smaller things, it doesnt explain things like the divine beasts, the massive pillars outside hyrule castle, and one HUGE CASE in the great plateau. that last example was incredibly jarring when i found it and i felt like it was some kind of joke when i first came across it...

show us the sheikah technology being in the process of deconstruction, show us the remains of the divine beasts, or hell at least SHOW us where all of that technology even went to begin with? in general i feel like the game couldve used more direct ties to BOTW. i get why they tried to have TOTK be its own thing, so that new players wouldnt be confused....but it's a direct sequel. it should be expected that it references events from the first game more

another thing too is that after beating the temples you kind of get a similar cutscene across all 4 temples where you learn about a great war to seal ganondorf that happened, and theyre all sort of written the same way- right down to several lines which are literally said with little variation.  and its like, while i didnt HATE it and i even kind of understand seeing as how you can tackle the regions in any way that you want, i feel like they still could have done a bit more to diversify them. those are the only two major grievances i have with the plot, though i do feel like the game couldve been a touch darker than it ended up being, but thats just me

im trying to think about what else to talk about here, as i feel like ive hit all my major points...idk man this game is just wonderful to me. absolutely my game of the year for sure. its kino. to get slightly real for a second, there was a very long period of time where it was the only thing i was looking forward to. im really hoping we get news on story DLC for the game or something because i still feel like there's more to the game to be explored and im not ready to say goodbye to this world yet. it means a lot to me...zelda means a lot to me