

Later on, you can create physics-based devices using pulleys and other mechanical contraptions. Well, that and your Zonai battery capacity, which is what powers your more elaborate creations that use special Zonai devices.Īttach a stick to a board, for example, and you can generate wind with every swing. You’re pretty much only limited by your imagination. I’m talking about anything from simple vehicles to some out-of-this-world contraptions such as huge mobile fortresses with flamethrowers to giant walking robots with cannons. It starts out simply at first, with Link fusing rocks to swords or branches to create more powerful weapons with higher durability or attaching a Keese monster eyeball to an arrow to give it homing properties.Īs you gain access to even more items and parts, however, you can use Ultrahand and Fuse to build some crazy stuff that’s only limited by your imagination. Later on, Link learns to use the Fuse ability, allowing him to also join items together in order to create new fusions. It honestly makes Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom feel like a totally different game.Įarly in your adventure, Link gains an ability called Ultrahand, which allows him to levitate objects. To say that crafting and melding is a big part of Tears of the Kingdom is an understatement. The good news is that Tears of the Kingdom truly goes all out in fine-tuning the experience introduced by Breath of the Wild while also throwing in a bunch of new mechanics in the process.Īt the top of the list is the ability to craft and fuse items. Even if a place adds a lot of new things, you never quite get that same sensual flood of new perspectives that you did the first time.Īs such, Tears of the Kingdom really needed to come up with some new gameplay twists to truly stand out. It’s like visiting the same place for a second time. This actually raises a conundrum for the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.Īs a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild with the same visual style and base gameplay at its core, Tears of the Kingdom likely won’t elicit that same sense of novelty and newness that its predecessor did. It practically reinvented the Zelda franchise while continuing to inspire many new games in the process. But Breath of the Wild was ultimately the first one and for good reason. Some games such as Mass Effect 2 and Batman: Arkham City certainly came quite close.
#Legend of zelda breath of the wild case cover art professional
Basically, Breath of the Wild was the first game I ever scored as a 10 out of 10 as a professional reviewer. When the game first came out, I was about six or so years into reviewing games professionally as a journalist. Bob, er, Link the Builderįirst off, I’d just like to say that I loved the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It even uses some of the same areas from the 2017 game, albeit with some tweaks to the landscape.Īre Tears of the Kingdom’s new offerings enough to escape from Breath of the Wild’s shadow to be a masterpiece in its own right? To answer that question, we’ll need to dive right into Link’s latest adventure.


Review: Bayonetta Origins is one of the best surprises of 2023Īt the same time, Tears of the Kingdom also borrows heavily from its groundbreaking predecessor, literally serving as an extension to the popular Breath of the Wild. Whatever the reason, it was a great start to yet another long-awaited adventure in the Legend of Zelda franchise, which has somehow managed to churn out masterpiece after masterpiece in an industry where some have a hard enough time coming up with two great games within the same franchise. Or maybe it’s how Tears of the Kingdom just manages to absolutely squeeze every ounce of performance from the Nintendo Switch to great effect. Perhaps it’s the soundtrack, which gets bumped up one more notch over the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Maybe it’s the sheer scale combined with the on-point camera work. There’s just something about the way those early moments unfold that my inner Keanu Reeves just found wildly breathtaking - pun so totally intended. That was the first thought that came to mind as the scenery of Great Sky Island first unraveled before my eyes in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
