4/5 ★ – lizzer's review of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

I was so hyped when it came out and it was as if I was playing botw the first time. Keen to explore every nook and cranny, bringing my switch out and about with me so I could play it during in between moments (ie. on break, on the train), and when I wasn’t playing the game I’d be thinking about it and planning what I wanted to do next. It was so fascinating to see how hyrule had changed since the events of the first game and how it’s citizens evolved. Seeing new monsters was thrilling. The depths, caves and sky islands were pretty neat. I completed the rito and the zora, and then the honeymoon phase started to wear off when I reached the gerudo. I thought the battle with the gibdos was pretty pathetic and I didn’t much enjoy that quest. I had hit a wall and now everything felt sort of samey. I didn’t appreciate how they reused old armour and made me search for it again. The map was the same as botw so the things that were fresh wore off after a while. I didn’t really have the urge to explore and found it hard to motivate myself to play the game. I didn’t play it for a few months. When I play botw I normally like to complete all the side quests so I can delay the game ending but in totk this felt tedious and put me off playing, so I just decided to get on with it and just make it through the story. I did the Gorons and they were fine. I found mineru and her goofy ass mecha suit. After that I felt a little more motivated to explore and do side quests but not by much, so I just pressed on and finished the game The story had some really great moments. Zelda being the light dragon was spoiled for me but that scene was still breathtaking. And don’t even get me started on how moving and beautiful the ending was I couldn’t much get into building things because that felt tedious and I’m no engineer. It was fun but I wish I could be like those people who build insane contraptions or if I could download others creations and have fun with those. Overall it’s a great game of course but not as enjoyable as breath of the wild was which is really unfortunate. I’d say like 70% of my time with the game I was having a blast, and I just didn’t play as much of it as I did botw (I suppose what with the depths and sky islands there was heaps more to do as well). I’m sure I’ll continue playing it in the background as I wrap up side quests and collect / upgrade more armour