Loading…Review of Legend of Zelda—Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK). AKA, Baby’s Got a (Hot-Glue) Gun

See me riding my blue horse with my Blupee armor up there? Yeah, I got what I came for….

I was seriously conflicted about playing Tears of the Kingdom when the announcement came out. I had just finished playing Breath of the Wild (yes, I realize, I was several years late to that party), and it was such a landmark experience for me that I just wasn’t sure I was up for a sequel. I mean, Link’s got a hot-glue gun? Hmmm. Bokoblins are riding around on taluses? Hmmmmmm. Malice (aka Gloom) all over the place? Gross. But then my friend Jen started playing it, and she texted me like, “Hey, guess what? I went to a stable to register my horse, and they already had all my horses from BOTW!” And my eyes turned into hearts, and I went online and bought the game.

I was SERIOUSLY invested in my horses in BOTW. I had as many as they would allow you (5), all named on a theme: Artax, Gygax, Shadowfax (the blue one), Ajax, and Corax. I fed them apples every time I took them out and styled their manes and tails. There’s a lot of talk about “play style” with BOTW and TOTK, since it’s an open world and there are many ways to interact with it. Some people’s play style is to fight every monster in the game; some is to build Zonai contraptions and machines; some is to get every available armor set; some is to 100% every side quest and Korok puzzle in existence. My play style is riding my horses around. Everything else is secondary: If I get into fights, it’s to save my horses; if I do side quests, it’s so I can get more horses, or things to dress them up with or feed them; if I beat the final boss, it’s because I think I might be able to do it on horseback. So, naturally, the horse thing tops my list of reasons to play TOTK, which is as follows:

***MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW*** If you want to know nothing about this game, stop reading. But I’m not spoiling anything major.

• Did I mention horses? You can register up to 10 if you want (my new 5 were named Pax, Parallax, Jax, Flaxen, and Spot). I came up with excuses to ride them all over Hyrule, like finishing the “Where are the Wells?” side quest, just so I could show them all love and change their hairstyles.
• Relatedly, the Stables! I loved the Stable Trotters band with their side quests and evolving soundtrack. Finding photos to display in the stables was fun, too. And I totally bought into the Pony Points Ponzi scheme for getting more horses and perks (Endura carrots, anyone?)
• The Sky Islands. These were really tranquil and beautiful; I loved their sunlit aesthetic and the ambient sounds and music up there. I loved that you can hear the steward constructs snoring when they sleep. I spent as much time as I could in the Sky (as opposed to the Depths—see: things I didn’t like about TOTK, below).
• The shrine puzzles: these were generally fun and engaging without being infuriating, which some of the BOTW shrine puzzles definitely were. And the puzzles were an excellent opportunity to drive-test the mechanics of all the new abilities.
• Speaking of new abilities, Ascend for the win. Man, that saved me SO much time and frustration, and I loved that you could call backsies if you didn’t like where you were going to pop out up top.
• RIDING THE DRAGONS AROUND. Public transportation at its most majestic. Plus, you get to listen to the best soundtrack in the game while you’re aboard. I ❤ Naydra. Not to mention, very convenient, as upgrading the Champion’s Leathers involves shooting so much stuff off the Light Dragon you start to worry she’s going to go bald.
• Tulin. MVP of the game, of which I spent at least 50% paragliding. And the number of times I heard a chuchu behind me just to turn and find it already shot to gummies by my stalwart little Rito spirit buddy…priceless. Honorable mention to Yunobo. Never again would I have to look at a rare ore deposit and curse in futility b/c I didn’t have a weapon or bomb arrow.
• BTW I liked the new weapons crafting system, where you have a smaller number of weak weapons but can Fuse different findings to them to greatly increase their damage and generate different elemental effects. Ingenious and fun IMHO, and since you can pause mid-whatever to switch weapons or attach things to arrows, not a problem for combat timing, at least for me.
• The dungeons. Generally, I found them to be not as hard as in previous Zelda games I’ve played, but not boring either. Zelda purists might feel they’ve de-emphasized dungeons too much in TOTK, but for me they hit a sweet spot between challenge and frustration.
• The Yiga. I found them stupid and annoying in BOTW, but somehow I found them adorable in TOTK, and it’s actually worth completing all their side adventures, in terms of the rewards. Glory to Master Kohga.
• Addison and his Hudson Construction signs. If you don’t think too hard about Capitalism taking over Hyrule, it’s super fun devising various solutions to keep his motley array of advertising signs upright. Fair warning that if you want to 100% this particular part of the game, there are 81 signs with no in-game tracking mechanism. I logged a lot of hours and quality time on IGN sussing this one out. But, upside: I got to ride my horses around more! So, win.
• Link’s Dream House. The building (or remodeling, really) process was tedious at times, but I loved the final result, with the amazing views off the deck and the little koi in the pond—genuinely relaxing and charming. Did I mention you can add a mini-stable where you can keep one of your horses?
• Honestly, I loved the Guardians being gone in this world. Hated those guys.
• The final boss fight. I won’t give spoilers here but will say it’s harder and more satisfying than BOTW, and so a good climax to this arc in the Zelda games.

Things I didn’t like about TOTK:

• Setting the game in the same world was tough motivation wise. The game designers did a good job of setting main quests that forced a certain amount of exploration, but since they added a Sky layer and a Depths layer at the same time, I left a lot of territory on the table, partly because I felt like I knew what was there from playing BOTW and partly because I felt like I would NEVER finish the game if I poked around in every corner.
• Gloom Hands. Enough said.
• I swear if I went for Ultra-Hand and ended up looking at the ceiling for no reason with Ascend one more time, I was gonna tell Rauru good luck with saving Hyrule.
• The Depths. Didn’t like ‘em. Never gonna. I spent as little time down there as absolutely necessary.
• Relatedly, mining Zonaite to build up Energy Wells to pilot Zonai vehicles. Hmm, spend a bunch of time breaking rocks in a place I hate so I can tediously increment my ability to pilot machines that break on me midair, when I could be paragliding or riding my horses around instead? No thank you.
• Please let me skip the stable owners repeating the exact same three-bubble lecture on some inane topic that doesn’t help me every SINGLE time I check a horse out. Please. You let me skip the Blood Moon cutscene, and this is much, much more terrifying.