Months Late Game Review ... Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The Good Things.
A state-of-the-art machine for Fun generation.
I think one of the big problems with game criticism now is that it's so rushed.
(Another big problem with game criticism is that, "Who cares? Don't you have real problems?" But let's set that one aside for now.)
When a hawt new game comes out, there is a 2-3 week window where everyone rushes to get out their Hot Takes. Then, barring a DLC release or sex scandal, it is forgotten forever in order to rush out the new takes about the New Sexy.
The problem is simple. A lot of the reason to pick games apart is to figure out what works and what doesn't, to make future games better. However, video games are big and complicated. To play them carefully and thoughtfully and then properly consider them takes time. Good theft is difficult.
If it was possible to make a successful, profitable web site for interesting, thoughtful video game criticism (It is not), I think such a site would return to the big titles 3-6 months later to ask, "What have we learned?" You'd say some bad things about beloved titles, to get readers to come in and argue. (Engagement!) I honestly think there'd be a market for that.
But this doesn't happen much. So you're stuck with reading me.
So let's talk, months late, about Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. (Z:TotK for short.)
The Whole Zelda Thing
One of the most surprising things about the Zelda games is that they've never actually been that popular. There sales are far less than their stature in gaming culture would indicate.
If you look at the list of best-selling video games, you'll see Mario all over the place.
Zelda, on the other hand, only cracked the list with its last game, Breath of the Wild, out in 2017. If that had slightly fewer sales, the most popular Zelda game ever would be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
And this makes sense. Because, at their hearts, Zelda games are puzzle games with a bit of combat bolted on. Puzzle games are a niche genre.
Yet, this is an amazing time for niche games to break out and become big hits. Persona 5. Elden Ring. Baldur's Gate 3. Lots of games from weird genres suddenly making serious bank out there.
(Which makes sense, because the AAA game scene right now is soooo tedious. If you want me to buy another Assassin's Creed game, set it in Newark. Or Barbieland. Otherwise, pound sand.)
So Z:TotK, a game about laboriously welding wheels to bridges, should not be making a giant fortune. But it is, which is good, because it's awesome.
Breath of the Wild broke out into the big time by getting rid of the ancient formula (boomerang -> bombs -> hookshot, plus puzzle bosses) and replacing it with highly satisfying physics puzzles mixed with Dark Souls-lite bosses. Since the two new Zeldas are making infinite money, all decisions made in them are, by definition, good. Let's take a closer look!
I Almost Didn't Play This
I played a ton of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. When I found out a new game was coming out, but the only big change was that you could stick items together to build stuff, I just felt very tired. But my kids got it, so I tried it.
Then I had to get over a chasm by yeeting myself across in a box I stuck rockets to. I was kind of hooked.
This is a huge, sprawling game. They put years into writing it, finished it, and spent another year polishing it! It is BIG. It is full of creativity, crazy design decisions, and lots of simple, dumb fun.
You may have heard many complaints about flaws in the game. Just so you know, all those complaints are valid. There are a lot of problems here alongside the genius. It contains multitudes.
Yet, it's an eccentric classic, and it contains so much to learn. This post is about some good things. The next post will be about problems.
In no particular order ...
Your Weapons Break!
I think the most fascinating design decision in nu-Zelda, easily, is weapon durability. Basically, you can only use any weapon to kill a handful of enemies before it breaks.
Weapons are plentiful, so you won't ever run out. However, that awesome mega-sword you found isn't going to carry you to the end of the game. Sorry. At least it does double damage with its final hit!
Humans are extremely loss-averse. They like to keep stuff and they hate losing it. Thus, this choice infuriates roughly 110% of people who consider playing this game.
It's also the right decision for the game.
I truly admire the designers for sticking to their guns on this. While this is a controversial decision, it has a lot of plusses.
In other RPGs, gear is a simple, linear progression, a one-way road. Pick the weapon that seems most optimal. Get the level 2 version of that weapon. Then level 3. Then level 4. And so on until you win. Snore!
Nu-Zelda has a huge variety of weapons. One-handed, pole, two-hander. Magic, with a variety of effects. Missiles. In Z:TotK, you can also weld many items to your gear with a huge variety of effects. It's a really cool system, which, if weapons lasted forever, most players would never interact with.
In a system like this, linear gear progression is just a waste ... As long as the weapons you're trying are fun to use. Which in Zelda, luckily, they are. Try sticking a bomb or spring to your shield. I know. Cool, right?
In my playthrough, I used everything at least once. I found which weapons and magical upgrades worked best in each situation. In the endgame, I used many different pieces of gear, depending on the situation. I can’t remember ever wanting to do this before in a game. Much respect.
If you hate this, I can't convince you otherwise. It's a weird system. But it works. However, if you are going to try the weapon-break trick in your game, you MUST make sure the player has fun, workable, VARIED weapons to switch to. Experimenting has to be enjoyable. Otherwise, don't bother.
And if you are in a college studying Game Design? (God help you.) If your classes haven't yet brought up this system and had a vigorous debate about its good and bad points, that is educational malpractice.
There's Something To Be Said For Quantity
This is a very big game. There's an surface world. A sky world. An underworld. You can explore on foot. You can make cars, boats, or planes. It's almost entirely open-ended. A lot of the fun is just heading off in a direction and walking toward whatever looks neat.
I always love unguided exploration in games. I think one of the underrated good things about Minecraft is just having a pretty random world to explore.
Yes, there is a lot of repeating content, and not all of it is interesting. You can just walk past the challenges that bore you. (If you are capable of this. I'll get into this more in the next post.)
However, even after many hours in the game, I kept finding encounters that surprised me.
For example, I found this big cave system. It was in a remote area, far from anything, hidden behind a waterfall. I can guarantee most players will never find this place.
Inside, you find the parts to make a tank with big wheels and rockets and a laser gun. However, the floor of the cave contains huge expanses of thorns, and you need a vehicle to cross them. The safe parts of floor are covered with monsters. The only practical way through the cave was to make a tank and drive it through the tunnels, shooting hapless bad guys with rockets and lasers as you go.
This was really fun. How could it not be? Killing pests with a tank is ALWAYS AWESOME. Did Halo teach us NOTHING?
At the end of the cave, there was a reward. I have no idea what it was. Doesn't matter. The real reward was blasting and running over hordes of hapless monsters with my laser tank.
It is getting sadly rare and precious to find games where the things you do are their own reward. Not filling up a bar or farming loot. Just doing things that are fun.
There is a real, irreplaceable joy to this game, a relentless playfulness. I've been playing a lot of Diablo 4, and it's a useful comparison. Diablo 4 has monsters. It has dungeons. But it's just a long, unvaried grind. Shredding basically the same group of monsters, again and again, forever, to get the same weapon but with a slightly higher number. Depressing.
Of course, the secret sauce in all of this is being able to build stuff ...
The Physics Engine
A game's physics engine is one of those invisible things most players will never think about. If it's perfect, you take it for granted. If it is bad, you're annoyed, but you don't know why.
I'm not the first person to observe this, but one of the most amazing things about Zelda is how they use a 7 year old console that was underpowered when it was released and filled it with one of the best physics engines ever.
What is a physics engine? Well, suppose you throw an apple at another apple and they both roll away and then the wind catches one of them and rolls it off a cliff and it lands on a goblin's head and the goblin takes an appropriate amount of damage. That's the physics engine.
I won't go into the details of these engines much, except to say they're harder to make than you think. The basics are pretty simple, yes, but as more objects start to interact with each other in a confined space the math gets exponentially more difficult. Then, if you add, as in Zelda, wind and sliding and friction and buoyancy and springs and carts and wheels and all sorts of other reality-things, it gets HARD to do right.
I found all the things this game made you do relentlessly surprising and delightful. Remember, this is a puzzle game at heart. It kept coming up with weird new ways to make me fling items around. (My personal favorite was when you had to use slippery steel plates and fans to make a roller coaster car.)
Z:TotK achieves the most elusive, difficult, satisfying goal for any physics engine: It feels right. As in, we all live in physical reality. We all have a bone-deep instinctive feel for how objects interact with each other. In Zelda, if you predict how something will happen, it generally happens that way. And, if something fails to work, you understand why.
These two videos, inexperienced and experienced, are a pretty good demo. Honestly, this is some impressive stuff.
Games Are Still Allowed To Be Easy
Z:TotK has what I've come to call a two-tiered difficulty system. Basically, the core storyline has a base, not-too-tough difficulty level, and then there is a lot of optional content that's much harder. The recent God of War games do this too, for example. It lets the kids and casuals see all the good stuff, but it lets the Dark Souls maniacs stretch themselves a little.
Honestly, the optional fights in Z:TotK never get that tough. But whatever. The interesting thing is that the boss fights in the game are EASY.
There are two fights where you're basically in the sky fighting a flying dragon thing. In each case, I honestly think you'd have to go out of your way to lose.
It was a new experience for me: A chill boss fight. For the first minute, I was really tense. Then I realized I couldn't lose. Then I just enjoyed the graphics and sound and flying around and watching the enemy fall apart.
I'm not sure if I recommend this for other games. In a big, epic story like this, I think you want a bit of pushback from the major foes. I mean, there are casual gamers out there, but they're not THAT casual. Elden Ring was a hit, after all.
But this is another example of how the game stresses fun and variety. The chill boss fights were still fun to play, even without suspense. (There is a similar sort of low-risk fight in Elden Ring where you fight a giant lava monster with a giant anime sword, though you might die once or twice.)
However, I think more than one boss fight like that in a single title is a mistake.
Last Few Thoughts
It's a huge, sprawling game, full of amazingly good things and the occasional rough spot. Between that complexity and its massive popularity, it's really worth picking apart for choices to argue about and ideas to steal.
Soon, I'll write a bit about the bad choices, which are all pretty interesting. As I said, if you've read online any list of criticisms of the game, they are all correct.
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I am very much in the market for un-rushed game criticism. There really hasn't been anyone that I've been able to find in that space since the late, great Seamus Young. This was a pleasant read. Thank you.
+10 for using "yeeting" in the post.