The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) [Switch] first impressions

A first impressions piece ought to be about gameplay. Sure, we can discuss the plot of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but I feel like that’s missing the point; judging by the hours I’ve spent in the game without having to worry about it, I suspect the game itself would agree. No, the interesting point here is looking at what the game can offer you in terms of qualities unique to games. That’d be gameplay.

Tears of the Kingdom’s big addition to the series is construction; we might actually be better served saying “reconstruction.” That’s the overarching theme here. The kingdom of Hyrule, barren after the Calamity that preceded Breath of the Wild, needs to be rebuilt. There’s signs of this everywhere, right down to little prefab house construction kits strewn across the realm with signs next to them encouraging interested settlers to get to work.

Moreover, it’s the theme of Link’s powers and abilities this time around. You can take materials and stick them together to make something new. That works on a macro scale with the Ultrahand ability, allowing you to construct vehicles, buildings, bridges and pretty much anything else you can imagine; it’s also possible on the micro scale with the Fuse ability, allowing you to combine weapons with other objects to create implements of destruction all your own. Tears of the Kingdom is, writ large, about making new things.

Typically, I tend to find that it’s easiest to talk about games by comparing them to other games. This can lead to some pretty interesting analogies. Halo? Well, that’s Half-Life in space with vehicles and regenerating health. Rimworld? Dungeon Keeper with a side of Harvest Moon. When we’re talking about Tears of the Kingdom, then, we end up with nothing less than “Breath of the Wild (itself The Witcher 3 with concessions to Zelda) meets Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.” Yes, seriously. This amazing game is amazing in no small part because of the DNA it shares with a mostly-forgotten vehicle-building sequel to a collect-a-thon series.

Of course “it works”. You don’t come to The Pixels for us to tell you the obvious, right? There’s plenty of sites happy to talk about how they had tears streaming down their face while they stood up and applauded at a game’s credits sequence. They’re pretty good fodder if you’re into sympathetic embarrassment, but that’s not us. We’re The Pixels, the cool kids, the site that’s all about convincing you to think about something rather than telling you what you should think, and gosh darn it, that’s what I’m going to do.

So here’s my pitch: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was a fantastic game that was way ahead of its time and was largely ignored because it went a different direction than previous games in its series. If you don’t remember it, this was a game where the heroic bear and bird of Rare fame were tasked with building vehicles to solve challenges, ideally with as few limits on what the player could build as possible. The bits of that game that were great got mixed into the great parts of Breath of the Wild and golly, that’s just great on great, like peanut butter and granola or French fries and soy sauce.

Specifically, the magical synergy that makes all of these games special is their focus on a free-form approach to problem-solving. Nuts and Bolts, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom all value and reward player creativity, with the latter being the most advanced expression of the concept yet. Where most games encourage you to see obstacles and think about ways around them, TotK wants you to see opportunities.

Work smarder not harder pic.twitter.com/N7HDKcvXCa

— the Well-Red Mage (@theWellRedMage) May 15, 2023

If you see a river in most games, how do you get across? Sometimes you find an item that helps. Sometimes you find a bridge. Sometimes you just don’t get across at all and the river’s just a stand-in for a wall. In Tears of the Kingdom, though, the river represents a wide array of possibilities to choose from. You could swim across, maybe. You could build a raft, or maybe an aircraft if you want to travel in style. You could freeze the river. You could forget about the river and find a way around.

Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t just offer you these possibilities, it ensures they’re all viable options. It then goes a step further by incorporating the lovingly detailed world and mechanics of Breath of the Wild. This makes for a high degree of emergent gameplay, that experience where exciting and interesting stuff just sort of happens in the process of play. The raft might be blown off course. The aircraft might fly you somewhere interesting that you hadn’t expected. The ice might break and send you down the river to a new adventure. You never know.

To me, that’s the real beauty of the game – it’s a huge world full of interesting things to do that you can explore however you want. As you do so, you’ll be experiencing your own unique adventure in Hyrule. Give players enough opportunities to express their creativity and you’ll make a game that’s a little different for everyone. For my money, that’s why Tears of the Kingdom works. You should probably check it out if you haven’t yet.

Cory G. believes the pen is mightier than the sword…well, depending on how sharp the pen and sword are. A child of the ’90s and a prolific writer, he strews his work about like Legos made of words, just waiting for your brain to step on them. He enjoys a devilish challenge, so when it comes to talking about some of the more difficult games out there, you might just run into the Infernal Accountant Mage. Some advice: hold on to your soul around this guy, and don’t sign anything. Read more at popzara.com.