"The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" - the first few hours (Version tested; Nintendo Switch, obviously!)

 

I'll readily admit that Zelda games usually just bounce off me, yet I have a habit of buying them. Owning 3 now on the Switch, I also came to the dim realisation that I've never actually finished a single one of the Zelda games I've owned across the years, not even back in the early days when the games were usually pretty small in scale, and could probably be polished off by a dedicated gamer in a few hours. 

But it's 2023, I'm no longer a dedicated gamer and so far after playing ToTK (as it's affectionately known), the latest Zelda game isn't even letting me out of the first 'tutorial' area. I'm having too much fun. 

The weird thing is I didn't even expect to buy this game, yet I kept seeing those videos online of people doing crazy things with the new "Fuse" ability - the main draw for this new game is the ability to find objects (conveniently) scattered around that you can glue together to turn into new stuff. Better than that, this time there's a whole bunch of technology that can also be used to make things move. Put the two together and you've got one heck of a clever game mechanic to breathe new life into a game series that by now should've gone the way of Final Fantasy, and just become a 'by the numbers' thing. 

Without digging into the game's hokey mythology, it opens with Link and Zelda skulking around in the caverns underneath a castle. For those of you who didn't complete Breath of the Wild (yeah that's me again) none of it will mean much to you, so it's kinda fortunate that the game does the usual Nintendo trope of separating the hero from their 'damsel in distress' leaving Link alone, semi naked, and wondering what the hell just happened down in those caves. A massive energy surge? Some strange scrawlings on a wall? Either way Zelda is missing and you're stuck on a bunch of islands high in the sky trying to find a mystical set of shrines that will help you unlock the door to the main temple, and hopefully find out what happened to Zelda. 

Stick with it

It takes quite a while before the game shows its hand, and lets you get on with the important business of finding out how all that fuse stuff works, but once you find your first shrine you are imparted with the knowledge of how to glue object A to object B. If you've ever played Half Life 2 and used the Zero Point device, you'll have a vague notion of how this stuff works, but soon Link can pick up boulders, planks, hooks and other objects and glue them together with some sticky green goo. 

Later you'll unlock another shrine and find out that you can fuse objects to your weapons. Found a nice sharp blade or horn out there in the wilderness? Glue it to a long tree branch and suddenly you've got a far more effective weapon. Glue a boulder to a branch and you've got a (literally) smashing hammer. 

The genius of the game's design is that it drip-feeds this stuff to you VERY slowly indeed if you're a player like me who hates minimaps (in particular I really do hate the maps in both BoTW and ToTK) and ends up aimlessly exploring and stumbling across stuff. In fact I would definitely urge casual players to largely ignore the map altogether for the tutorial area, you'll have a far better time of it (and tbh that whole 'stickers / waypoints' mechanic in these games is easily its weakest point, either that or I'm just lazy and used to far better waypointing systems in games and maps). 

The game does have a lot of pluses though, for example the combat is no fuss no muss and quite often it boils down to the bigger the stick, the more likely you'll succeed in hand-to-hand with one of the world's many aggressors. 

Sir here's your arse. I'm just handing it to you

At least that's how it is at the start but later on you'll discover that those 'boss mode' foes are going to need a bit more of a strategy in order to defeat them, which is where your sticky abilities come into play. You're going to need to construct things to beat the bigger baddies, and it'll take a while before you're proficient enough with the bonding and fusing abilities to be able to effectively construct death-dealing weapons of mass destruction. In fact once you discover how to do so, most foes end up easy prey and it's impossible to resist building something that's a total overkill for the battle you're about to enter into. 

Considering the Nintendo Switch's lack of processing and graphical prowess compared to the PS5 or the Xbox Series X, you won't care a jot because the game still manages to look really good (sure it's not exactly reinventing the wheel from BoTW but it does feel like there's a bit more of a draw distance, and frame rates don't dip dramatically unless there's a heck of a lot going on onscreen). Design wise though, the characters and all the little interplays link has with his world are just so neatly done. Who knew cooking a bunch of fruit in a cooking pot could be so compelling to watch - and listen to, because it's not just about the visuals, the sound design in the game is glorious. 

In fact that's what this game kept reminding me of. Those heady days when Team Ico ruled the roost and their games (though few and far between) had that gorgeous beautiful desolate feel to them in the same way ToTK does. Tiny little music cues here and htere, and the feeling that the world is colossal compared to you, that's where it kept drawing me back to how I felt when I first played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus and that's definitely no bad thing at all. 

So with a mere two shrines down after about 4-5 hours play (yeah I told you I'm slow), and a lot of fun already had I'm looking forward to seeing what else the game has to offer. Nintendo, love 'em or hate 'em, know how to innovate and that's the one thing so many other studios and developers seem to have forgotten - particularly in their haste to push out yet another sequel that brings nothing new to the table (Assassins Creed, Call of Duty, I'm looking at you). 

Never saw myself buying anything else for the Switch but this is great, and I need to play a lot more of it. If only work and home life didn't keep getting in the way.