WiC Debates: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom!

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the direct sequel to 2017’s smash hit Nintendo Switch game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This makes it somewhat unique among Zelda games, since they normally stand on their own, only sharing some of the same mythological concepts, such as being set in the Kingdom of Hyrule or featuring some variation on the villain Ganondorf.

Both editors at Winter Is Coming — Daniel Roman and Dan Selcke, no relation — have had the Tears of the Kingdom fever bad these past couple months, and like any self-respecting nerds, we have opinions about it! Now that we’ve had enough hands-on time with the thing, we’re here to share our impressions. There may be heated debate; there might be consensus. There will definitely be Korok references. Let’s discuss!

DANIEL: I’ll just come right out and say it at the top: I love Tears of the Kingdom. That might feel like a given, but for me it actually wasn’t. I was late to the party for Breath of the Wild, and since I was coming from a lot of story-heavy RPGs like Mass Effect, The Witcher 3, and Skyrim, it didn’t quite grab me by the throat out of the gate. Breath of the Wild was a slow burn romance; it took me a while to really get into it, but when I did I enjoyed myself.

Tears of the Kingdom has been the exact opposite. This is the odd Zelda game where I don’t know that I would actually recommend it to someone who hadn’t played Breath of the Wild first, because the connections to that game are so strong. This is a game sequel in the same way that something like Horizon Forbidden West is; it is a strong continuation of the first, and a huge part of what makes the game land so well for me is seeing how it is in conversation with its predecessor. That ranges from improvements in the mechanics to characters referencing prior events to how the map of Hyrule has evolved and countless other beautiful little flourishes.

So yeah, that’s my opening gush. Tears of the Kingdom is great. Is it the game of the year? It’s maybe too early too tell, and I do have to admit that at 70 hours in I’m starting to worry that I’m teetering on a point of slight fatigue over its ridiculously vast open world. But I’m sure that’s nothing another late night binge hunting for Koroks and shrines won’t cure. How have you been feeling about playing it so far, Dan?

DAN: I’m glad you made the point about not recommending this game to someone who hadn’t already played Breath of the Wild, Daniel, because it means I can start disagreeing with you immediately. Opposite! I actually think players would be better off playing Tears of the Kingdom first, and then probably skipping Breath of the Wild entirely because the new game one-ups it in pretty much every way.

Also, players wouldn’t have to experience crawling over the map from Breath of the Wild and then doing it again in Tears of the Kingdom. That’s one of my minor disappoints with the new game; as long ago as I played Breath of the Wild, I have gotten a sense of déjà vu sometimes as I explore the map in TOTK, even if the environments have been heavily remixed, not to mention all the new stuff in the sky and down in the Depths.

It’s true that the story picks up directly after the events of Breath of the Wild, which could be odd for a new player. But at least to me, Zelda games have never been about the story, which is pretty much the same thing over and over. They’re more about exploration, discovery, and in the case of Breath of the Wild and especially Tears of the Kingdom, the mechanical depth.

My favorite part of the game so far has been playing around with the terrific mechanics Nintendo has come up with. In Breath of the Wild, you could pick up objects and move them around. You can do the exact same thing to Tears of the Kingdom, but now you can also attach objects to other objects to make pretty much anything you can imagine, up to and including functional tanks, airplanes and all-terrain vehicles. It’s pretty crazy that it all works even half as well as it does, and it allows for a much greater variety of creative puzzles to solve.

What’s been your favorite part of the game so far, Daniel?

DANIEL: You make a fair point about revisiting the map, Dan! There have been moments where I feared that Tears of the Kingdom would recycle ideas too heavily from Breath of the Wild, like on my first visit to the Korok Forest, but thankfully it’s kept things interesting enough that that déjà vu you mentioned has only been a positive thing for me thus far.

As for favorite parts, you just hit on a big one! The abilities are a huge part of what’s made Tears of the Kingdom such a blast for me. Building anything you can think of with Ultrahand or sending things backward in time with Recall to ride falling debris up into the sky is just a blast. And after playing for so long, swimming through solid stone with Ascend is still just as awe-inspiring as the first time I saw it.

I’d broaden that and say that my favorite thing overall is probably the amount of freedom players have, and how the game is built to support that freedom. Doing whatever you wanted was a huge selling point for Breath of the Wild, but in terms of the mechanics the main ways we saw it manifest were in the cooking system and the exploration. It’s almost like Tears took that philosophy of “do whatever you want” and applied it across the rest of the game, from the building puzzles to customizing your glider to fusing together weapons that can look as awesome or absurd as you like. I know a few other people who’ve been playing Tears, and it’s been so cool to compare notes and see what completely different experiences we’ve all had.

Exploring also feels way more rewarding thanks to the better balance of useful loot, equipment, and NPCs in far-flung locations. I sometimes felt the world was a little empty in Breath of the Wild, so the fact that I haven’t felt that way once in Tears of the Kingdom has been very welcome.

How about you Dan? Any highlights or favorite things about Tears of the Kingdom? Or, dare I say, things which have you bashing your forehead against your Shiekah Slate in frustration?

DAN: Nintendo definitely thought of ways to fix a lot of problems from Breath of the Wild, like with the loot. In the first game, all you could do with most of your excess monster parts was sell them or make the odd elixir. But in Tears of the Kingdom, I’m constantly fusing different varieties of chuchu jelly onto my arrows, or fusing my weapons with powerful spoils to make them more dangerous.

And you’re right about the abilities. There’s just so much more to them. Like I said, Ultrahand is basically an updated version of Magnesis, but with about a million more applications. Fuse, Ascend and Recall are all consistently useful and fun; there’s nothing like Cryonis from Breath of the Wild, which was useful so seldom you basically forgot it was there.

Because of these abilities, the shrines are much more entertaining on average. There aren’t dozens of copy-paste “fight the same robot enemy over and over again” shrines like in Breath of the Wild. The puzzles in general are great; the stuff in the sky is particularly creative. And of course, exploring the sky gives you another new frontier.

On the ground, I love the addition of caves. It’s always fun to discover a new one…although I wish Nintendo wouldn’t tell you how fun it is by flashing “Discovery” on the screen every time.

Nothing has been hugely frustrating for me, but I do know what you were talking about when you mentioned fatigue in your opening salvo. This game is so, so big. It’s too big, I’m just gonna say it. As many new things as Nintendo has invented for you to find (and as many new ways as they’ve invented for you use those things), there’s still a lot of ground to cover, and not enough variety to keep things feeling fresh all the way through.

Between the ground, the sky and Depths, I honestly feel like there’s too much ground for the player to cover and to stay engaged the whole time. I think slicing off about a third of the land mass would have helped.

Am I crazy, or do you know what I’m talking about?

DANIEL: I know exactly what you’re talking about, because here I am complaining about fatigue when I’m only around halfway through the game. At the same time, I don’t know that I’d want it to be smaller. The fact that there’s so much here is one of the most appealing things about the game to me. Otherwise, it’d be hard to get through 150+ hours. I’m not in full-blown exhaustion mode — I’m still excited to get back to Tears — but I can recognize the signs. The fact that there’s so much more to see is one of the main things keeping me returning to it.

In a way, the size and style of Tears of the Kingdom almost reminds me more of an MMORPG than a more traditional console game. There’s something about the vast zones, with their large arrays of loot and locales, that makes it feel like the sort of game where any play session can end up being wildly different.

And that’s largely a good thing, because the variety is what has helped me stave off the weariness. Now that I’m deep into the game, I’ll sometimes log in just to do menial things like cook, and get into the roleplaying by unequipping all of Link’s armor except for a casual shirt and trousers to make it feel like he’s just hanging out at Lookout Landing, whipping up stews. That’s the sort of thing I rarely do in console RPGs but used to do all the time in MMORPGs where other people can come across you looking ridiculous and it increases the fun. For whatever reason, Tears of the Kingdom is inviting that kind of engagement from me.

I also think the stories this game is telling are much better than the ones in Breath of the Wild, which is helping me a lot though the fatigue. The mystery of what happened to Zelda, what caused the Upheaval, and how your ultimate fight against the forces of darkness will go down are very intriguing. I love that’s it not as straight-forward!

Will it be enough to sustain me for another 70 hours through to the end? I don’t know. But I’m sure I want to see how it all works out! How have you felt about the story in this one?

DAN: I shaded the Zelda story up top by saying that it’s basically the same thing over and over, and I do more or less believe that. My feeling has always been that if a game doesn’t put much emphasis on the story, then I shouldn’t either. And the Zelda games definitely put the most focus on the gameplay, which is true of pretty much all Nintendo games.

But the story in Tears of the Kingdom is more extensive and interesting than the one in Breath of the Wild — I’ve enjoyed piecing together the tale of what happened to Zelda — but it still has some of the same problems, namely that it needs to constructed in such a way that you can watch the story sequences in any order and still be interested. That’s unique, which is nice, but kind of vague by necessity. And again, at the end of the day, the game just doesn’t care about the story as much as it does the mechanics, the exploration and the minute-to-minute experience, which is okay by me.

I don’t want to come across as judgmental, but it’s never occurred to me to unequip Link’s armor so the digital townsfolk would feel more comfortable, but if that helps you get into the experience, more power to you. (I think I failed in not coming across judgmental.)

And I agree that it’s cool how you can play the game in different ways. That’s another one of the main selling points. Personally, I tend to enter a new area, find the tower, and then explore the new section of map thoroughly before moving onto the next one. And it’s my intention to explore everything, as ginormous as the map is.

And I know I don’t have to. It’s like the game has a built-in way to avoid fatigue; if you want, you can just hit the main points of the story and continue to the end, which I almost accidentally did, by the way; I dropped into the chasm below Hyrule Castle without knowing that’s where the final boss was. It was exciting to just stumble on that, but I retreated because I didn’t want the game to finish just yet.

How have you been playing the game?

DANIEL: Oh, I’m not taking my armor off to make the digital townsfolk feel more comfortable, I’m taking it off so Link feels more comfortable. Have you ever tried to cook stews in an indoor setting while wearing full plate armor? Me neither, so why should Link?! Let a Hylian bust out his Link’s Awakening threads and kick back a bit!

I’ve been doing almost the exact opposite of the way you’ve been playing. My map has been filled out for hours already, because you can so easily fly from tower to tower in Tears of the Kingdom. I’m still trying to mostly explore the zones in a somewhat sequential order — farther north regions first, then moving south — but even that can fall by the wayside on a whim. Mainly, I’ve been playing Tears with one main operating principle: do whatever the hell I want, when I want. Sometimes it’s worked out, other times it’s led me to run into a group of Gloom Hands in the bowels of the Depths when I was woefully underprepared. But even in the direst situations, it’s kept the fun high and that’s what matters most.

One thing I will say is that I wish those tear memories you mentioned happened in sequential order. It’s cool that you can stumble across any bit of the story at random depending on which tears you find, but I think I’d have rather them feed you the cutscenes sequentially no matter what order you tackle them in on the map. A small quibble, but one I’ve thought about more than once.

I guess the biggest question I’m facing now is: just how much of the map do I explore before I finish off the main quest? I’m the sort of gamer who loves exploring a good map and finding tons of side quests, but I also don’t need to knock out one hundred percent of everything before wrapping up the main mission. Usually I let the narrative decide that for me a bit; if a story feels pressing enough, I don’t feel right having my heroic character resting on their laurels for weeks on end. Breath of the Wild made me feel a bit of urgency about it, since Zelda was trapped in the castle with Ganon. But for Tears, I feel no such pressure, and thus it’s a lot harder to decide whether to turn over every rock in Hyrule before I return peace to the land.

You mentioned you’d already had to stop yourself from completing the main quest, so I’m guessing you’ll keep on exploring till there’s nothing left to do before you finally remember your responsibility to the people of Hyrule? And I have to ask: have you done the Master Sword quest yet? I went into that one without having finished off all the Tear memories, and it came as quite a shock!

DAN: I didn’t even know there was a Master Sword Quest; that’s how big this game is. I’ll find it when I find it!

I guess that’s the ethos of this game, for better or worse: you find it when you find it. It’s a very flexible game that supports multiple kinds of playstyles, and how much fun you have with it somewhat depends on how much fun you’re willing to have. Is there a “right” way to play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom? I don’t know, but I think it’s cool that it’s made in such a way that you can switch how you play it partway through and find yourself playing a different kind of game.

I do indeed intend to explore everything before getting to the end, with the caveat that I don’t expect to actually find everything worth doing. But maybe I’ll switch it up, who knows? That’s part of the magic.

I do have some issues with the game; I wish the map were brand new so the thrill of discovery was more consistent like how it was in Breath of the Wild, but with so many new vistas to explore — from the caves to the sky to the Depths — it’s hard to complain too much, and very hard not to be impressed.

Have any final thoughts on the game, Daniel?

DANIEL: Oh no, did I spoil the fact that there’s a Master Sword quest? Eh, it’s Zelda, there’s always a Master Sword quest! My understanding is that it actually fits in as part of the late-game main questline…but you can also just do it whenever you want, because it’s Tears of the Kingdom and that’s how Link rolls now.

My final thought for now on Tears of the Kingdom is that one of the words I’ve seen repeated often throughout this discussion is “fun.” If there’s one takeaway for me from Tears, it’s that this is a fun, relaxing RPG that gives players so much freedom that it’s easy to sink into it and unwind for hours at a time. You’re right when you say the story has never been the main focus of Zelda. With this one, I’d say fun is the focus. I’ve been playing it a ton, and also have young nieces who’ve been starting their runs with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. These games are accessible to a broad range of people, which is one of the most wonderful things about them.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a gem of a game, and I’m grateful we live in a time where we can play it. Here’s hoping the next 70 hours are just as fun as the first!

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now for Nintendo Switch. Have you been playing? If so, let us know some of your favorite stuff about the game in the comments!

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