The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

 Switch
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9840 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7,514 out of 9840
  2. Mixed: 734 out of 9840
  3. Negative: 1,592 out of 9840
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  1. thehexgames
    Jul 14, 2023
    10
    What a masterpiece. Just when I think Nintendo has peaked, they come out with a banger like TOTK.
  2. mepphy
    May 13, 2023
    10
    Game Is Amazing
    gameplay Is incredibly fun and story very cool, fighting old enemies of the series is also Extremely good
  3. TheWonderPie
    May 13, 2023
    10
    The FPS and resolution dips are too much for me. BotW, even with its occasional dips, wasn't having as much performance issues as TotK. I know that even when it was released, in 2017, the Switch's hardware was already quite outdated, but I feel like more optimization patches will be able to solve those dips. Either way, the Switch 2 is really more than welcome right now
  4. Cyb3rfr3ak
    May 14, 2023
    10
    A masterpiece, something all other publishers should take a closer look at. It's such a shame that the game is only available for the dated Nintendo Switch. It deserves so much better..
  5. polter15
    May 14, 2023
    10
    Masterpiece. Somehow they did it again. The legend of zelda series must be the most consistent franchise in terms of quality
  6. taaa
    May 13, 2023
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. コラ！ゴキちゃん！君たちのだーい好きなFF16がゼルダにぼろ負けしてるからってサブ垢作りまくって頑張って評価下げようとしたらダメよ！あまりにもチンケ過ぎて笑いが出るよゴキちゃん… Expand
  7. ikkiy84
    May 14, 2023
    9
    Ho tolto un punto solo per i cali di FPS, ma bisogna dire che far girare un gioco del genere su un scaldabagno come la Switch ce ne vuole parecchio! Un punto in meno solo per ricordare a Nintendo che forse è il caso di smettere di dire che la Switch è a metà del suo ciclo vitale. Nintendo, forse è il caso di fare una "Switch 2"! Detto questo il gioco è godibilissimo e appasionante,Ho tolto un punto solo per i cali di FPS, ma bisogna dire che far girare un gioco del genere su un scaldabagno come la Switch ce ne vuole parecchio! Un punto in meno solo per ricordare a Nintendo che forse è il caso di smettere di dire che la Switch è a metà del suo ciclo vitale. Nintendo, forse è il caso di fare una "Switch 2"! Detto questo il gioco è godibilissimo e appasionante, divertentissime le nuove meccaniche! Non farò nessun tipo di Spoiler, GODETEVELO!… Expand
  8. Estebandelpino
    May 14, 2023
    10
    De los mejores juegos que he jugado, además quien lo halla votado con mas de un 8, sinceramente pienso que no le sabe al Zelda
  9. tarodnet
    Jun 6, 2023
    10
    This game is the perfect example of adventure and entertainment. Every Zelda game is a great game, but this one (+ Breath of the Wild) has probably the real and true spirit of this lovely saga.

    The story is more epic than ever, and the main characters are more complex and intense than BOtW.

    If you love videogames, nature, friendship and adventure, this is your game.
  10. ShadyYST
    May 18, 2023
    10
    The game is absolute masterpiece . The gameplay mechanics and that gorgeous masive open world make me "lost" in game in hours . Well done Nintendo you proved one more time that not everything is in the power of hardware , but in the genius of the devs !!!
  11. I5S4C
    Jul 15, 2023
    10
    Masterpiece, BOTW was awesome but this is the next level of being awesome, this game is just beautiful, funny and enjoyable. A great game.
  12. Ziix
    May 22, 2023
    10
    Just a few words about Tears of the Kingdom.

    It is a Fantastic Game with stunning graphics for the Nintendo Switch.
  13. TurboCotton
    May 24, 2023
    6
    People who say this is game of the year clearly haven't played/experienced many good single-player games. I found the open world to be quite boring to traverse and the enemy combat to be shallow. Overall, this game is more of a 7/10 at best if you consider the restrictions of the Switch hardware, not a 10/10 as all the critics say.
  14. coconut0
    May 19, 2023
    9
    Awesome open world. Every 10 minutes I encounter something new to do in the open world. Every single time I am travelling to a pinned location I end up very far away doing some other side quest or just doing dumb stuff with Ultrahand and the abilities I have. It is amazing the scale, and how seemingly every corner of this games has something to do. Either a side-quest, or a shrine, or newAwesome open world. Every 10 minutes I encounter something new to do in the open world. Every single time I am travelling to a pinned location I end up very far away doing some other side quest or just doing dumb stuff with Ultrahand and the abilities I have. It is amazing the scale, and how seemingly every corner of this games has something to do. Either a side-quest, or a shrine, or new enemies. It all feels too much in a good way.… Expand
  15. cece111
    May 22, 2023
    5
    As someone who had so much fun in botw, put in 500 hours to be exact, I am beyond disappointed. Firstly, I’m so confused. This game does not feel like a sequel at all, nor is it trying to be in my opinion. Instead, I think the best way to describe it is as a soft remake and retcon of botw with some improvements and additions. I guess if you never played botw, great for you, but not for meAs someone who had so much fun in botw, put in 500 hours to be exact, I am beyond disappointed. Firstly, I’m so confused. This game does not feel like a sequel at all, nor is it trying to be in my opinion. Instead, I think the best way to describe it is as a soft remake and retcon of botw with some improvements and additions. I guess if you never played botw, great for you, but not for me cuz I’m basically just replaying :(. If it existed in a vacuum or a world where botw was never a thing, I think it would deserve all the 10/10 praise. But the reality is botw is its predecessor, and it borrows far too much from it to feel fresh from my perspective. I felt such immense wonder in botw and my curiosity drove me to explore the map. Unfortunately, I do not feel this at all in totk. Probably because the surface is just too darn similar and the things you find too predictable. One issue many people had with botw was that when exploring most of the things you would discover would be koroks or shrines. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them, and at the time they felt fresh. But while totk adds many side quests and notable discoveries, a majority of the things you come across are still shrines and koroks. If I know most of what I’m going to find and discover it quickly loses all the magic, mystery, and fun. It just becomes a checklist of things to complete like some chore. The newer areas alone cannot make up for this issue. The sky islands are very small and barren, not to mention that many are straight-up copy-pasted. The depths, while at first glance looking interesting, have little incentive for exploration besides tedious resource farming. I was really hoping there would be large elaborate dungeons to come across, I think that would’ve felt amazing to discover. Unfortunately, the dungeons are structured just like the divine beasts, go to these five terminals and fight the boss, rinse, and repeat. I will say tho, the look, music, and uniqueness of each dungeon are amazing and a step in the right direction, but that alone does not make up for the lack of substance.

    The story is another aspect of this game that feels incredibly barebones. There are major continuity issues from botw that break my immersion. For example, all the sheikah stuff is completely gone and it's never really explained. Npcs that interacted with Link in the previous game treat him like a total stranger. Hey I get it’s a game, and the devs might want to appeal to people who never played botw, but damn maybe a line or two referencing a previous interaction wouldn’t hurt. Now the Zonai, in my opinion, they’re just a reskin of the ancient Sheikah (an ancient technological/magically powerful tribe helps defeat the big bad). Now Zelda games do this all the time, there’s always some ancient powerful race whose power must be uncovered to help defeat Ganon. But something about the way the Sheikah and Zonai were handled just feels too half-assed, to the point where they just feel like a reskin of the Sheikah. Yet the game tries to gaslight you into thinking the Sheikah never happened by eliminating all traces of them. But to be honest I could’ve overlooked all that if it weren’t for the biggest offender in the game’s story, the Memories/Dragon Tears. In Botw I wasn’t the biggest fan of memories because it made the action feel like it was far away and done with. But they kinda made sense in the context of botw (it's post-apocalyptic and ur amnesiac). Totk reusing the same “memory” format to tell most of its story is such a waste, imagine how epic it would have been having more mainline story elements pan out as you’re playing the game.

    The only thing in this game that I would say isn’t just another botw rehash reskin is the runes and building mechanics. They provide for some really silly moments and feel so fresh and fun in a game with so much repetition and monotony. But in my opinion, these mechanics alone do not elevate the game from a soft remake or dlc to the realm of a sequel. If only they would’ve taken the same kind of interesting approach for the other aspects of the game then it could’ve been a true successor to botw. Man, it really hurts to come to this conclusion I love the Zelda series and I especially loved Botw, but this just is not it. Also f u nintendo for buying out all these review companies for perfect 10s, false advertising fr.    … Expand
  16. Thunderud
    May 22, 2023
    7
    Breath of the Wild was a great game and I was really excited for the sequel when they announced it. However I think that the sequel is a little underwhelming, but also overwhelming at the same time. It feels like playing BOTW with new game + and a extra expansion pack. Also the tutorial is unbearably long when the first game's was short and sweet. Still the core game mechanics of BOTW areBreath of the Wild was a great game and I was really excited for the sequel when they announced it. However I think that the sequel is a little underwhelming, but also overwhelming at the same time. It feels like playing BOTW with new game + and a extra expansion pack. Also the tutorial is unbearably long when the first game's was short and sweet. Still the core game mechanics of BOTW are still there and they are some of the Best game mechanics any game has had ever.… Expand
  17. yopzo
    May 23, 2023
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Take Zelda Breath of the Wild, add some more stuff some nice like the sky exploration or the amalgam mechanism some not that good like the underground exploration part, then remove every bit of story writing from BOTW and keep almost all the issue of BOTW you'll have Zelda tears of the kingdoms.
    Pretty average game, still a good basics but cooking is till a pain in the butt, having rain when you start climbing is infuriating and THE STORY IS ASS, like very bad. I feel like I've heard every piece of the story 5 times and I have yet to finish the game, I may not finish it at that point this is boring    … Expand
  18. MrAleksander
    May 24, 2023
    7
    As someone who didn't play Breath of the Wild, I enjoyed this game very much. Story made me cry, both of sadness and of joy, gameplay addicting and rewarding.
    Why such a low score then? Simple, after beating the final boss I expected to wake up and do stuff but no, you cannot play after you defeat the demon king, the game will put you back before the fight for you to do stuff, but the    As someone who didn't play Breath of the Wild, I enjoyed this game very much. Story made me cry, both of sadness and of joy, gameplay addicting and rewarding.
    Why such a low score then? Simple, after beating the final boss I expected to wake up and do stuff but no, you cannot play after you defeat the demon king, the game will put you back before the fight for you to do stuff, but the demon king must still be alive, and that actually threw me off so hard I lost any interest in the game. I had so much will and hope to explore more of the map and find more shrines and get more buff but the fact that I cannot do that with the final boss defeated has killed every intention I had to keep playing. I wish I had known that before so I could've done some more exploring.    … Expand
  19. SE7VIIEN
    May 31, 2023
    6
    Honestly I really appreciated Zelda BotW for what it was band had a ton of fun but for some reason TotK just seemed to be a boring experience for me, I was even able to visit every sky tower to open the entire map in a few hours thanks to the time reversal mechanic riding fallen rocks and taking off from the sky. I just found it too easy with little challenge. I felt the underground andHonestly I really appreciated Zelda BotW for what it was band had a ton of fun but for some reason TotK just seemed to be a boring experience for me, I was even able to visit every sky tower to open the entire map in a few hours thanks to the time reversal mechanic riding fallen rocks and taking off from the sky. I just found it too easy with little challenge. I felt the underground and chasms to be underwhelming and not very much fun as well the sky and constructs to be as well equally boring…I visited each region and just felt like a chore instead of a surprise. Maybe it feels too much like BotW all over again and I’m just not interested in playing the same game again with the same map. I still think OoT and ALttP are the best Zelda experiences but that’s me. Oh and the shrines are really boring this time around. I wanted to love this game but it just didn’t happen. The opening though was a really great hook so I gotta give them that.… Expand
  20. MariaSanBar
    Jul 15, 2023
    10
    Quando comecei a jogar não havia sentido muita diferença se comparado ao título anterior, mas após um tempo senti que estava jogando algo totalmente novo e refeito, evoluído se assim se pode dizer e isso por si só já dá uma noção do quanto esse jogo é bom. Se breath of the wild era ótimo esse novo título é um passo adiante.
  21. GuyHasAFork
    Jul 15, 2023
    10
    This game changed me i have played this for days the art style the graphics i loved the dungeons and even the combat style was perfect there are so many references to the older games and this game is the perfect game even if you have played a Zelda game or not.
  22. Dubeau
    Jun 2, 2023
    7
    TOTK is certainly good but it has some flaws in it. The story is interesting from the Zelda side but the ending was just ok. I would have loved an aftermath. The story is dulled by a series of repeating events, which kinds of give away the suspense. There is a lot of fetch quests, way too much. Those who contained real stories, where just too few. There are 3 levels of maps: the sky,TOTK is certainly good but it has some flaws in it. The story is interesting from the Zelda side but the ending was just ok. I would have loved an aftermath. The story is dulled by a series of repeating events, which kinds of give away the suspense. There is a lot of fetch quests, way too much. Those who contained real stories, where just too few. There are 3 levels of maps: the sky, ground and underworld. I must say the sky part was fun to fly into, but there was barely anything interesting in it. The fighting was frustrating, I don't know how many times I was cheap killed from the back. The camera is to blame in most cases. This time around, the horse riding was horrible. I like the vehicule creation, but getting the auto create around 3/4 of the game isn't very good. Graphicly the game is the same as the last one. If anything there is way too much fog in this one. Weather effects are superb tho. Getting enough arrows is a pain. I wish the recipe could be obtained but there is a lot of variations in them. Weapons and shields still breaks. The item management (to attach or throw) is quite annoying when you hit 30 items and more. The special power were fun, like ascend and grab. Music was excellent. I give it 75%. If you want a RPG that has an enormous map with a lot of things to pickup and find, that's for you. For the story, it was kind of a generic one with some good parts.… Expand
  23. edxtan
    Jun 7, 2023
    7
    The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom attempts to fix some of the flaws of its predecessor by adding mechanical depth, but in doing so loses some of the simplicity and freedom that gave it a sense of wonder.
  24. krkr1234
    May 15, 2023
    10
    Masterpiece，my favorite game of 2023，Definitely the game of the year，greater than breathe of the wild
  25. HashtagJugando
    May 14, 2023
    10
    Más difícil, Más grande, más divertido y más épico .
    La experiencia de este nuevo Zelda no puede explicarse solo con palabras hay que jugarlo.
  26. drefiekmusic
    Jun 13, 2023
    6
    As a big fan of the Zelda universe I have to say I am almost as equally disappointed in TOTK as I was for BOTW.

    Open world is good for certain franchises but for Zelda it just doesn’t work for me. Not sure what the Zonai devices were about, I hardly used them outside of the shrines. Fusing devices together didn’t work properly half the time and my frame rate dropped to about 2FPS at    As a big fan of the Zelda universe I have to say I am almost as equally disappointed in TOTK as I was for BOTW.

    Open world is good for certain franchises but for Zelda it just doesn’t work for me.

    Not sure what the Zonai devices were about, I hardly used them outside of the shrines. Fusing devices together didn’t work properly half the time and my frame rate dropped to about 2FPS at times…

    A slight improvement on BOTW simply due to the unique and individual bosses. The return of seeing the word ‘Temple’ on my screen made me quite happy too. But the dungeons were divine beast rip-offs.

    I just want a good old fashioned traditional linear Zelda game again.    … Expand
  27. Andres-Arambula
    May 15, 2023
    10
    Espectacular en todo el sentido de la palabra! Nintendo siempre sorprende con su jugabilidad, historia y es increíble que este juego corra en la Switch!! Bien hecho
  28. assailor
    May 30, 2023
    7
    Nice experience, as good as the BOTW, but with certain drawbacks:
    Nice map, but I have seen it in BOTW; sky islands are great, but they are too small; dungeon map is large, but only filled with monsters and not very fun to explore.
    Too much material collections are needed for the battery upgrade, and again, most parts of the dungeon are boring to explore; the new mechanism drives higher    Nice experience, as good as the BOTW, but with certain drawbacks:
    Nice map, but I have seen it in BOTW; sky islands are great, but they are too small; dungeon map is large, but only filled with monsters and not very fun to explore.
    Too much material collections are needed for the battery upgrade, and again, most parts of the dungeon are boring to explore; the new mechanism drives higher need for all types of resources which makes me feels bad worrying about spending resources, which is less fun than if I do not need to worry about those.
    The Y+B bug solved the problem, but the version update is forced without prior notice, which ruined this trick for me.    … Expand
  29. Hatmann
    May 15, 2023
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I want to first address the ppl giving low scores or Average scores as well as negative reviews (7 or below). I read about 10-15 of them. I would say 12 of them didn't like the first game or at least saw BOTW as a 7 (based from there review). If u loved the first, you will love this one MORE.

    Now regarding the comments stating that the map is reused- the map IS brought back, however, it is revamped as well as the shrines are in different places and shrines themselves are completely Different puzzles and brand NEW. If anyone here has played Bloodborne - the old hunter DLC took an already played area but COMPLETLY revamped it- basically making it feel like a new area and fresh and almost unrecognizable. It's the same here in this game. You go to a familiar place and your not like "oh this is the same old place" - its more like "Oh i didint even know this was that place from b4".

    I want to say this as my final thoughts. Zelda BOTW was my first Zelda game ever and when i bought it i had no expectations and didint know what to expect, and was blown away which lead to be replaying it 4x over the years. When i got this game I told myself im sure this is the same thing as b4 there's no way they can change it up, AND for the first few hours i was like "yea this is just more BOTW" BUT when I continued i realized that i was so wrong and much better and more then BOTW2.    … Expand
  30. Henrblack
    May 15, 2023
    10
    A Nintendo simplesmente pegou a essência do Bafão Selvagem e elevou o seu nível 3 vezes mais
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Awards & Rankings

1
#1 Best Switch Game of 2023
1
#1 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2023

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
96

Universal acclaim - based on 150 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 145 out of 150
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 150
  3. Negative: 0 out of 150
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Mar 18, 2024
    100
    I wasn't sure how Nintendo would find a way to top their work in Breath of the Wild back when it came out, but I feel they have here – with years of more polish applied and refined exploration. [Issue #66 – July/August 2023, p. 71]
  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 22, 2024
    100
    The good thing is that, thanks to the limited possibilities, the creators couldn't go crazy and swing for hundreds of game miles. Instead, they created what could be called Elden Ring in a travel pack. [Issue#328]
  3. Shacknews
    Dec 28, 2023
    100
    The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has lived up to the high expectations created by the success of Breath of the Wild with its exquisitely intertwined gameplay systems, outstanding music, and a legendary story culminating in a magnificent denouement. It's not every day that such a special video game like this comes around. Truly the stuff of legend.
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