Many of my thoughts about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are shared with Breath of the Wild (BotW). My thoughts about stamina, weapon durability, and recipes are unchanged. However, Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) has sparked some new ones.
As much as I enjoyed the story of BotW, I liked the overall story of TotK more. After the events of BotW, Zelda and Link explore a secret passage under Hyrule Castle. Gloom has started taking over Hyrule, and Zelda thinks exploring this passage will lead to a solution. They find runes and carvings depicting ancient Hyrulians and Zonai working together. The Zonai descended from the skies thousands of years ago, and were considered gods before they disappeared. Among the carvings was one depicting a great war between Hyrule and The Demon King.
Zelda and Link continue go deeper, and find mummified remains held in place by an arm. The arm detaches and drops a stone. Zelda picks it up. The mummy awakes, shoots out a bunch of gloom, and decays the Master Sword. Link loses an arm, and passes out. Zelda disappears. Link wakes up in another cave with a new arm. He’s told by a mysterious voice that he must find Zelda. This becomes the main quest for the rest of the game.
TotK starts off better than BotW. In BotW, I did not have a good handle on what I should be doing after leaving the tutorial area. In TotK, the game holds your hand for a lot longer. In most games, this is a bad thing, but it feels right in TotK, especially if you didn’t play BotW. Even after the tutorial area (while I was still getting my bearings), TotK shoved me in a specific direction. I could go off the path if I wanted, but it didn’t feel right, mostly because of the urgency of the story.
When I was finally let loose, I felt prepared. However, the story suffered. The story of TotK is actually two stories. Link must find Zelda, but in order to do so, he has to uncover what happened during the war between Hyrule and The Demon King thousands of years ago. The story of the war is told through memories found in the world. As a result, I could find these memories in any order. I ended up getting a later memory early on, and it spoiled the story for me; it bummed me out. It would have been way more emotional if I had experienced it in order. I ended up relying on a guide afterwards, so I could at least experience the story of the war in order. The story is great, but I really hated how it was told. On top of that, the English voice acting isn’t great. It has the same “Bad Anime” feel as BotW.
Exploration is a key ingredient in the new Zelda games. After beating BotW, I had no desire to ever replay the game again. I was worried that returning to that world would lose the magic found in exploring it. I already know what’s on top of that mountain, so why would I climb it again? TotK proved that I was right to be worried. It uses the same Hyrule map from BotW. I really didn’t want to explore the same places I did a few years ago in BotW. However, TotK does add to the world.
Caves and wells are great additions to the old map. Wells are usually short, but contain a chest. Caves are a little longer, but each one contains a collectible that is usually hidden. Some caves are larger, and are fun to navigate. Caves usually have great rewards, including armor pieces. I was motivated to complete every one, because they were fun.
TotK adds a ton of verticality. There are islands in the sky, and they can be explored. This recaptured the exploration feeling from BotW. Sky Towers on the ground can now launch Link. Using my glider, I could glide to these sky islands. A couple of the dungeons are in the sky, and required me to progress through quests in order to reach. Some required the use of vehicles built with the Ultra Hand (more on that later). The islands are pretty sparse, but each grouping has some goodies to get. I had a good time exploring the sky.
TotK adds one more area: the Depths. The Gloom has eaten chasms through Hyrule, which open up to the depths below (hence the name). The sky islands are scattered, so it makes the sky feel small. However, the Depths are as big as the map of Hyrule, and feel just as dense. I spent a lot of time in the Depths, compared to the sky. Unfortunately, I hated my time in the Depths.
The Depths are dark. I can’t see anything that doesn’t glow. I had to activate Lightroots in order to solve that problem. There are around 120 Lightroots, so even activating one only lights up a small area. As a result, I spent a lot of time in the dark. It was not a fun time.
Here was my process for lighting up the Depths. First, I had to find the closest Lightroot. Even though they glow, they can be obstructed by the terrain; the Depths can be very mountainous. Later on, I learned some things about the Lightroots that I won’t spoil here. This knowledge helped me pinpoint the location of the Lightroots, but I still needed to get to them in the dark.
Second, I needed to know the terrain. Until I could see the Lightroot in the area, I would use bloomseeds to light my path. I had plenty of bloomseeds from picking them on the surface, but even giant bloomseeds give off nominal light. Shooting out seeds was more so for telling me what kind of terrain was around me.
Once I had an idea of the terrain, I could make progress towards the Lightroot. I had to figure out if it was best to climb a cliff, or go around. It was always disappointing to spend a ton of time and stamina climbing up, only to discover it would have been easier and shorter to walk around.
While overcoming the terrain, I had to address any obstacles in my path. Gloom has a very light red glow, but it is still hard to make out. Gloom covered enemies also give off a light glow. Fighting just sucks in the Depths. Gloom made it so I couldn’t recover my health using food. I could only get back lost heart containers from the sun or Lightroots, but then I am still expected to heal them. It’s annoying, and I avoided all non-essential fights in the Depths.
So why bother with the Depths? That’s an excellent question, and I found no good answer. I found a lot of a particular resource which could be used to upgrade one of my meters, which is nice. Of course there are quests in the Depths, but there aren’t many. There are some chests with armor pieces and schematics in them. However, none of them are very great. There isn’t anything interesting there.
Not once did I feel compelled, “Oh, what’s over there?” in the depths. I was always thinking “When can I get out of here.” It goes against the (assumed) design philosophy for the game. So, I hated the Depths and thought they added nothing fun to the game.
Unlike the Depths, the Ultra Hand is fun. I could use it to pick up certain objects, and stick them together. I built boats, cars, and planes. I built some Mad Max type shit, which was a good time. Turrets? Sure I could build those. Death Roombas? Yep. Many of the shrines have the correct way of solving the puzzle, but it’s fun to use the Ultra Hand to solve it in a different way! Alas, the Ultra Hand cannot save the Depths. There are some relatively flat surfaces that make cars viable, but not many. The ceiling can dip unexpectedly, so planes are hard to take advantage of. There are some lakes and such, but not too many.
Zonai parts can be bought from vending machines. They are relatively inexpensive considering how useful Zonai parts are for building stuff. Having a bunch of fans on hand to build a hover car is invaluable, honestly.
The Ultra Hand can also fuse items to weapons. In TotK, weapons still decay. Fusing items to them can add durability, increase damage, and add status effects. Adding a rock to a sword can create a handy tool for destroying boulders. I mainly used it to boost my weapon damage.
The grind I hated in BotW is back in TotK. Armor needs a ton of rupees and ingredients to upgrade. I decided to sidestep it by looking up a way to dupe items. This shaved several hours off my already too long playtime. I needed at least three of an item before I could dupe them, and there are some items I couldn’t dupe. Still, I would not have enjoyed my time with TotK as much if I weren’t able to do it.
And I think its important to point out I had a ton of fun with TotK. Despite my hatred of the Depths, I think it is a better game than BotW. If I had never played BotW, the joy from just exploring would be multiplied in TotK. It’s a great game, and I am happy to have experienced it. Like BotW, I never want to play it again.