Highlights
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom introduces a reused map, opening up possibilities for how Nintendo handles future sequels.
- The game adds new exploration options with sky islands and a massive underground area, making it the most expansive in the series.
- Players can now ride a mech and Zelda undergoes a wild transformation, making this installment stand out from previous games.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a game-changer for the series. It helped sell the Switch when they both launched on March 3, 2017. Pardon the pun but it was like a breath of fresh air for the series. The game was a true open-world without a lot of linearity to the quests and it was more challenging than ever before.
There was the voice acting, weapon durability, and so many other wild changes, again pardon the pun. It seemed like an impossible task for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but the sequel certainly added a lot more things to the series for the first time. Can Nintendo ever go back on these new features now? There will be spoilers.
8 An Entire Map Was Reused
Technically, Tears of the Kingdom is not the first game to reuse a map. Assets have been used in the series throughout time such as the transition between The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds reused most of the map from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and it was like a sequel. That game was smaller scale and was probably easy to recreate in a 1:1 setting albeit with new graphics. Tears of the Kingdom, minus the below and above areas, is just the same map over again which opens up the gateway for how Nintendo handles future sequels.
7 Three Ways To Explore
The surface map may almost be the same in Tears of the Kingdom, but the sky islands and the depths below are certainly new. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword had floating islands too along with a surface area. The land mass between those areas is nothing compared to the amount of land mass in Tears of the Kingdom though. Even without the sky islands, no game in this series has ever had an underground area like this before. It is more impressive than the sky islands too because of how massive it is. It’s not very detailed, but that is beside the point.
6 Mecha Anime Action
The DLC for Breath of the Wild added a lot of mechanical things to Link’s repertoire. For example, the motorcycle was like a godsend as it handled a lot better than any horse in the game. Tears of the Kingdom upped the ante by adding a mech for Link to get around in.
It’s the most steampunk the series has ever gotten and it was one of the biggest surprises in the game. This mech was small in scale, so it’s not like Link jumped into a Gundam or anything like that. Still, the inclusion of a rideable piece of armor was definitely a highlight for a lot of fans.
5 Zelda Became More Than An Object To Save
Typically, Zelda is put in these games as the end goal for Link to save. Fans wanted her to be playable in this game but that hope was met with disappointment. She has been playable in the past like in the Hyrule Warriors games and Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda. In Tears of the Kingdom, she goes through one of the wildest transformations in the series to date and this includes her turning into a ghost in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. She eats a stone, becomes a dragon, and lives for hundreds of years waiting for Link to remove the Master Sword from her head. It has to be the most tragic and gruesome thing Zelda or any other character in the series has gone through.
4 Link Learned How To Build
Who would have guessed that an entry in this series would have taken a page from Minecraft? Players could build everything from bikes to houses to flying contraptions that dropped bombs. The game launched in May and players are still finding new ways to break the game. It’s the most creative the series has ever been and there have been light mechanics like these in the past. For example, the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening had a dungeon editor.
3 Weapon Fusion
Besides building things, there was also an ability that allowed players to fuse objects and weapons in Tears of the Kingdom. For example, players could take a simple sword and attach a giant boulder to it. The boulder would shrink and turn the sword into a blunt instrument capable of breaking harder objects.
Again, it’s a mechanic that players are still messing with to get creative results. Tears of the Kingdom did not fix the weapon durability problem of Breath of the Wild, but at least the fusion lessened the degree of frustration.
2 Link Got Friends
In Breath of the Wild, players could meet up with four Guardians and they each bestowed a power onto Link. One ability could create upward gusts of wind which was great to give the Paraglider some starting momentum. The ancestors of these Guardians return in Tears of the Kingdom and they also give Link abilities. Not only that but they can be summoned to fight alongside Link as spectral versions of themselves. This means that players can walk into battle with five AI-controlled partners at maximum.
1 Recall And Ascend
One of the key things a game in this series needs is a bunch of sub-items. The Hookshot is a classic item along with the Bow and Boomerang. In Breath of the Wild, these items were replaced with apps on a touchpad, and in Tears of the Kingdom they are stowed in Link’s new ghost arm. This is how players can build stuff and fuse items. Two other powers include Recall and Ascend. Recall lets players rewind time which allows them to solve puzzles. Ascend allows players to literally swim through a ceiling. These two powers truly changed the series and more games should try techniques like these out.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released on May 12, 2023 and is available on Switch.
