4.5/5 ★ – chibistevo's review of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

A part of my less generous side wants to suggest that TOTK is probably a game far too big for its own good. But when I think about it, I probably only logged 60+ hours on BOTW, while I managed to hit around 90 hours on this before concluding I'd seen enough, so here we are. It's still true, TOTK is monumentally huge even just with its exploration content, ignoring side quests, ignoring collectibles. The world is just gigantic with the addition of the depths and Sky Islands. And the big question is whether or not the size is complimented by quality. And, for the most part, it is. It's by no means Elden Ring good in this regards, but what is? I've seen a lot of the industry reviews trying to convince people that they occupied the world with far more content per square mile; considering a main complaint of BotW was that it was just a barren set of environments with a few enemy encampments shoehorned everywhere. Honestly, TOTK doesn't exactly change much in that regards. Why would it? it's effectively the same map. It still doesn't change the fact that exploration is still a joy... Though how you experience it can vastly differ to BotW, which brings us to the new additions of zonai contraptions, and their potential to bring both vast variety to your playthrough, but also unsatisfactory ease. While the mechanic can potentially offer up thousands of different options and physics based shenanigans, the whole thing becomes a passing novelty when you discover how to fly around everywhere with the simplest of contraptions. Why try to build a complex ladder or bridge to climb a mountain when you can hover bike your way up it? Why explore on foot and discover things the natural way when you can survey with a helicopter? This train of thought dovetails into the intrigue of the depths and the only major fault of the game; the temples. The Depths is a neat twist on the game and will at least provide a semblance of alternate exploration as you navigate the pitch dark, a la Subnautica. However, yet again, this can be as exciting or as dull as you like, depending on how you use zonai contraptions. And this is true tenfold for the temples, which, to begin with, are utterly pathetic in design compared to the series' past games. But they're just so disposable and meaningless with zonai building. And while it's mostly a marvel that TOTK crafted a game where you can explore and succeed in so many different ways, I don't really understand why they brought this mindset to the temples. The Sky Islands offer up a few interesting puzzles depending on when you find them. Considering you likely want to explore them first as you scour the land for sky towers, there's a chance you'll encounter some neat Traversal puzzles that inaugurate you to zonai building. But, yet again, if you already know how to fix up a hover bike, these gimmicks are again somewhat wasted. But apart from all this, TOTK is a resounding success. A worthy sequel that did what it needed to do and more. Whether it bests the first game is hard to say and probably irrelevant. What it is, is 100 hours of pure , joyous escapism.