\nZelda: Tears of the Kingdom early impressions \u2013 a feast fit for a short king<\/br>
\n2023-05-17 21:37:03<\/br><\/p>\n
The Legend of Zelda:<\/span> Tears of the Kingdom has only been out in the wild for a few days at this point, marking a mere sliver of the time players will spend unfolding Hyrule\u2019s fresh secrets in the coming months \u2014 and even years, if Breath of the Wild<\/em> is any indication.<\/p>\n For anyone avoiding full-game reviews and spoilers, here are some early thoughts on the expansive elf survival simulator\u2019s first 20 hours or so. This serves as a warning for spoilers<\/strong> about Tears of the Kingdom<\/em>\u2018s world from here on out. I won\u2019t get into much that\u2019s plot related here, mostly gameplay, map and mechanics stuff. But if you\u2019ve yet to play, some of the world\u2019s surprises are really, really worth saving. Do yourself a favor!<\/p>\n Out of the gate, Tears of the Kingdom\u2019s<\/em> starter area this time around is big<\/em>. Everything still looks very Breath of the Wild<\/em>, which is to say the game\u2019s cel-shaded vibes and lush natural setting remain, but Tears of the Kingdom kicks off on an interconnected series of mysterious floating sky islands dotted with esoteric devices and elaborate, crumbling ruins. Getting out of this area took me at least five hours, including a bit of side exploration but mostly sticking to the objectives: Trek to shrines, unlock new abilities, chill with the inexplicably sexy androgynous goat guy giving me spiritual guidance.<\/p>\n Tears of the Kingdom<\/em> establishes a few key things in these early sequences, introducing players to the sky islands that comprise the upper layer of the map and making it clear that almost every aspect of gameplay from the last game remains intact, right down to me repeatedly throwing my weapons by accident and dying left and right while panic-crouching before getting the hang of the combat controls again.<\/p>\n The tutorial is fun, right from Link\u2019s inevitable dramatic dive into the sky \u2014 a moment that moved more than a few Zelda players I know to tears. That grand skydive sets the tone for the equally grand adventure to follow: Jumping off that first cliff is a trustfall right into Nintendo\u2019s arms \u2014 a theme that Breath of the Wild<\/em>\u2019s successor repeats again and again. Trust the game, trust in Nintendo\u2019s astonishing trust in the player, and Tears of the Kingdom<\/em> will reward you again and again.<\/p>\n The G.O.A.T.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even more so than in 2017\u2019s Breath of the Wild<\/em>, Tears<\/em> is incredibly confident that the player is not only clever enough to carve a unique path through Hyrule but inventive enough to outsmart even the game\u2019s creators themselves. It\u2019s a minor miracle, but somehow all of this clever chaos works within the parameters of the game\u2019s physics engines, only reinforcing bigger, bolder and often dumber ideas. At every turn, Tears of the Kingdom<\/em> rewards creative thinking and incentivizes hijinks, gifting players a deep toolkit of abilities that are as much for mischief as they are for saving the kingdom or whatever it was we were doing before we followed our curiosity right over a cliff, down a well or into the clouds.<\/p>\n Back to the clouds. Once you\u2019re out of them, you\u2019ll be powered up with four new abilities that shape the gameplay in Tears<\/em>, opening up a world of possibilities for navigation and problem solving that somehow manages to make Breath of the Wild<\/em>\u2019s own options look narrow by comparison.<\/p>\n They see me rollin\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tears of the Kingdom<\/em> grants Link four new special powers: Recall, Ascend, Fuse and Ultrahand. Recall rewinds an object\u2019s path through time, while ascend lets you swim upward through mountains and buildings (hard to explain, very cool in practice). Fuse and Ultrahand are adjacent powers; the former invites players to transform weapons by combining them with other objects and the latter is a powered-up version of Magnesis from the last game, letting players pick up objects, manipulate them in space and glue them to each other and things in the world. On top of that, there\u2019s a whole system of ancient technology now (dispensed in hilariously literal gacha machines) that introduces devices like fans, wheels and rockets to Hyrule, imbuing the game with big Wile E. Coyote energy. It\u2019s a lot!<\/p>\n Players get all of these abilities early and picking a favorite is tough\u2014 they all bring a ton to the game. I won\u2019t spoil one cool use for recall here but\u2026 even if it\u2019s the only good way to use that power it\u2019s still very cool<\/em>. I only started remembering to use ascend more in my last few hours playing and it\u2019s already been a huge boon for exploration. Clear a cave and don\u2019t feel like backtracking to get out? Use ascend. Want to get up a mountain without making Link sweat it out? Scout a way into its interior and swim up through some geologic liminal space to the summit.<\/p>\n Fuse and Ultrahand sort of go together, but ultimately bring different vibes into the game. If you, like me, were disappointed to hear that weapons would again fall apart over time like they did in Breath of the Wild<\/em>, you\u2019ll be happy to know that Fuse somehow manages to make this process not only less annoying but actually extremely fun. In Tears of the Kingdom<\/em>, you can attach everything from giant boulders to mushrooms and monster horns to a stick or a sword, changing a weapon\u2019s properties in the process. In practice, Fuse solves the scarcity mindset that prevailed in Breath of the Wild<\/em>, where players hoard their best weapons just in case.<\/p>\n Nintendo\u2019s got jokes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In Tears<\/em>, you can stockpile moblin horns or other miscellaneous pointy items instead, effectively hoarding (yes, we\u2019re still hoarding) a ton of powerful stuff for later while doing incredibly stupid and fun experiments with whatever you find laying around Hyrule.<\/p>\n Fuse underlines Tears of the Kingdom<\/em>\u2019s general emphasis on a silly, worry-free experimental world that players should have a blast exploring. You\u2019ll still be collecting, cooking, sweating and freezing, but the last game\u2019s more tedious survival elements (managing your stamina while scaling huge peaks, farming new weapons, etc.) are leavened by the additional freedoms that the new Tears abilities bring to the table. And the weapons you come across even in the game\u2019s early hours do tend to last longer than in Breath of the Wild<\/em>, though they\u2019ll still hilariously smash into a million pieces the second you\u2019re about to deal a killing blow to some terrible, guffawing one-eyed demon, just like last time around.<\/p>\n That leaves Ultrahand, which in most ways is Tears of the Kingdom<\/em>\u2019s centerpiece. If you\u2019ve caught any content from the new Zelda game so far, you\u2019ve probably seen some wild Flintstones-looking contraptions rolling through Hyrule\u2019s vast meadows spewing flames (possibly with a Korok hood ornament). Ultrahand basically turns Tears of the Kingdom<\/em>\u2019s world into a giant set of K\u2019nex, adding a deep layer of Minecraft-like mechanical engineering that will keep committed players busy for years to come.<\/p>\n Personally, I am not this kind of player \u2014 I barely have the patience to put a crude cart together before I want to go back to whacking bokoblins. But Ultrahand does make even relative dumb dumbs like me feel like geniuses when solving shrines. Most importantly, Ultrahand is already being used to torture Koroks, who absolutely deserve everything they have coming to them (yahaha, bitch<\/em>!).<\/p>\n
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