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

I wasn't the biggest fan of Breath of the Wild but honestly this game clicked for me in a way that makes me interested to give it another attempt, as it's been a long time since I got this hooked mechanically on a game, and had a story moment genuinely blow me away like this has. The abilities feel genuinely game changing, especially in a game like this. In the last game it felt as though the best way to play was to just wait for your abilities to recharge and spam them to not waste resources, but in this game they are more versatile and less explicitly combat focused, making the combat and puzzle solving more engaging. The ultra-hand (and by extension the auto-builder) are genuinely outstanding and have so many unique interestions in the game it's mind-blowing. Starting off simple with making basic rafts or cars and progressing to full on vehicles and towers to help you easily traverse the environment makes you feel so big brained, and the shrines can showcase unique and interesting interactions just in case you didn't find them naturally. Ascend and Fuse are the other two powers and they feel like they were designed to directly address criticism of the first game. Fuse is a great way to make every weapon viable for the future by attaching monster parts, and with the increase of monster parts it makes losing a weapon not feel as bad, as now it's an opportunity to create an even better weapon in the empty slot. As someone who really felt paralysed by the weapon degradation and my insane need to consistently have the best equipment I could, this power really made the game so much better for me, and helped me push through and actually finish the story. Ascend feels broken in many ways, helpful to completely bypass annoying areas or get yourself out of caves easily, it's such a unique ability that I feel will definitely be lifted for other titles. The main narrative was a genuinely surprising highlight for me, especially as the story progresses and you see more of the parallel stories of Link and Zelda. The story feels a lot "darker" and more "mature" in the way that a Nintendo published Zelda game could be, but it still has a lot of levity, including some of the strangest sidequests I've seen this year (and I did beat a like a dragon game this year as well). The world feels incredibly fleshed out and fun to explore. It is very overwhelming at first, but as you make gains and find shrines it's a genuine treat to see more of the land and the unique areas/characters that hide within. Which leads me to the big marketing push and the big secret, the sky and underground sections of the world. The sky islands are gorgeous and have some great puzzles, but do feel a little underutilized. The depths however are insanely fun to explore and once again, could genuinely have been a mechanic of a whole separate game as you have to slowly light Lightroots that illuminate the darkened sections of the underground. Exploring the depths became an obsession for a good gew hours, especially at the realisation it was the size of highrule, and the locations on the surface had counterparts down below. There are some faults, one being that the general combat is a bit lacking, leading into combat you have so many options and abilities it would have been nice to do something more than block, dodge and hit, but I understand the need to keep it somewhat simple. Which leads to probably the biggest fault, the clunky nature of the controller mapping and ability management. It's obviously hard to keep on top of everything you can give the player, but the controller constantly feels cumbersome as you're having to use unintuitive combinations that the game doesn't do a great job of explaining to do some pretty basic things. I also understand that the game is designed to be experienced in anyway, but unlike say an immersive sim, where the game is tailored to your specific experience and you can solve story beats however you wish, this game uses a system of similar points of interest across the map, so whatever direction you choose you'll experience enough story beats and tutorial-esque encounters that you won't get too blindsided by anything. Which is smart design, but can lead to boredom when you find yourself down a path or sidequest obviously meant to be easy to understand for early players and you smash straight through because you're too powerful now. It also means every sage has basically the same story/cutscenes which definitely becomes repetitive by the end. All that said, the combat was fun and rewarding enough, the level of player expression is unmatched in the AAA gaming space, the quest design is great, the story is fully engaging and slightly heartbreaking and the overall game is a masterfully designed package that has so many strengths in its favour. It's a little janky and the design of the game makes certain parts feel dull or unnecessary but that's because it's built to be experienced in a multitude of ways. Your 50th encounter with a Lionel might be someone's first, your annoying sidequest you already have the necessary items for might be someone's first quest that sends them on an hours long detour. It's imprecise but incredibly effective at creating an experience for each individual player.