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. FadingDawn
    May 14, 2023
    6
    it's not a new Zelda game as much as it's a DLC to / reskin of BotW.

    The game gets better once you manage to escape the very poorly optimized tutorial area (shadow flickering is nauseating), but if you had a hard time finishing BotW, you might just list it on Ebay for half the price. I liked BotW but the jury's still out for this one, so giving it a conservative 6, mainly because it    it's not a new Zelda game as much as it's a DLC to / reskin of BotW.

    The game gets better once you manage to escape the very poorly optimized tutorial area (shadow flickering is nauseating), but if you had a hard time finishing BotW, you might just list it on Ebay for half the price.

    I liked BotW but the jury's still out for this one, so giving it a conservative 6, mainly because it hasn't really brought anything new to the table so far.    … Expand
  2. RdeRuben
    Jul 3, 2023
    6
    Muy aburrido
    No te obliga a usar las nuevas mecánicas, por lo tanto, mal diseño de niveles.
    Buen Zelda stranding.
    Mal Zelda Minecraft
  3. BlinksFave
    May 27, 2023
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Dungeons are a joke. No unique items like in past zelda games. Mastersword should be called "Battery Sword". Good Open World Game but bad Zelda Game.… Expand
  4. Markytos
    May 15, 2023
    6
    Es un juego bonito, pero es muy lento.. la optimización tampoco es buena. No es ni de lejos el mejor juego de la historia como dice la prensa
  5. Bashbach1
    May 28, 2023
    6
    Pros:
    - Confusing but intriguing story that expands and diversifies the story from BOTW
    - Building system isn’t janky, and is fun to mess around with from start to finish - Sky islands an amazing addition that are great to explore and solve puzzles on - Combat flow is much “smoother” than BOTW - Fusing items to arrows is the best idea since sliced bread - Attention to small details is    Pros:
    - Confusing but intriguing story that expands and diversifies the story from BOTW
    - Building system isn’t janky, and is fun to mess around with from start to finish
    - Sky islands an amazing addition that are great to explore and solve puzzles on - Combat flow is much “smoother” than BOTW
    - Fusing items to arrows is the best idea since sliced bread - Attention to small details is incredible
    - 200+ quests for the 250 or so quests in the game are actually fun.
    - Game is harder, but not less fun because of it Cons:
    - The Depths are a barren, boring, and lazy attempt from Nintendo to add a “New map”
    - The original world map is literally the same, with the only changes being weather patterns and caves - The sheer amount of glitches acted as a difficulty slider for players with how game breaking so many of them were
    - The graphics are unchanged
    - On older gen switches, the game runs as smooth as sandpaper - Drearful, cringeworthy voice acting and repeated dialogue from so many characters that have no correlation - All enemies from BOTW are basically the same and how the exact same attack patterns
    - Almost all new enemies have the same attack patterns as BOTW enemies - Shrines range from fun to stupidly boring the cheeseable to near impossible.
    Shrine rewards at all non-multi stage quest based shrines are laughably bad (with the exception of a few shields and a few expensive items”
    - tutorial takes a minimum of 3-5 hours depending on how long it takes you to find out mechanics that they never explain - Explaining mechanics without actually explaining them (ex: You can un-fuse weapons, said but never told how to)
    - Mouth movement isn’t matched up to voices - Ridiculously difficult upgrade process for armor which requires multiple quests to be active at once,and has a 5+ hour major quest involved just so you can unlock the ability to upgrade - 70, dollars - Amibos are basically useless
    Extra note:
    - If you haven’t already, buy the game, cuase it’s not dropping price anytime soon. It’s a fun time and has so much going for it, but know that there are also a lot of problems, and that the 100/100 reviews are what I like a call a load of hoopla -    … Expand
  6. Persona5Royal
    May 13, 2023
    6
    I just don't understand all the hype for this game; not only does it heavily inconvenience the player with fragile weapons and limited stamina (just like BotW), but it's also incredibly grindy when it comes to resources and Zonai devices, not to mention bringing back the downright-awful Korok Seeds. It also neglects to give the player a sense of direction, by deliberately leaving outI just don't understand all the hype for this game; not only does it heavily inconvenience the player with fragile weapons and limited stamina (just like BotW), but it's also incredibly grindy when it comes to resources and Zonai devices, not to mention bringing back the downright-awful Korok Seeds. It also neglects to give the player a sense of direction, by deliberately leaving out developer-placed map markers, meaning if you can't see something you would have no idea something is even there; not great, for a huge open-world game with multiple layers.
    This game is a 6/10 at most, not 9, and definitely not a 10 - it's way too flawed for that.

    If weapons and shields were significantly more durable, and there were ways to repair damaged equipment, then that wouldn't be as much of an issue - just look at Minecraft, which is also an open-world game with stamina, breakable equipment, and zero direction given (even less than BotW/TotK), but wisely gives its equipment more than a hundred uses each, and even then has the Unbreaking enchantment to reduce the chance of durability loss, the Mending enchantment to auto-repair the equipment piece with it by absorbing EXP, and multiple ways to straight-up repair equipment (combine the same two tools in the 4x4 inventory grid, at the cost of all enchantments, or the Anvil to repair with the same type of resource [iron armour requires iron ingots, for example] or combine the same two equipment pieces and keep enchantments).
    That's way more player-friendly than what BotW and TotK offer, where every weapon and shield you find just feels like disposable trash that WILL break after a mere handful of uses, sucking the excitement out of earning powerful gear from defeating tough foes, or making your way to secret areas.

    As for stamina...face it, the game would work _just as well_ without this unnecessary green wheel. Sure, it can be upgraded to last longer, but that's just delaying how long you have before you're forced to slow down and wait for it to refill. This makes exploring this huge, multi-layered land even more tedious, for no benefit.
    It's telling when other open-world games, such as Assassin's Creed and Ghost of Tsushima, don't even bother with stamina, allowing the player to rush around their large worlds however they damn well please with no need to slow down and wait.

    Open-world games are already massive time-sinks; this one didn't need to be artificially lengthened further by forcing the player to grind rare resources, or wander this massive multi-layered world without an adequate number of map markers to guide them. That's just needless padding for padding's sake, and serves as a major turn-off for time-poor players (which is a large proportion of the adult customer base, and likely a large number of children too these days) as well as players without much patience.

    Due to all of this, TotK just doesn't deserve 9s or 10s when it's far from perfect or ideal; at the most, it's 6/10 and easily skippable. If you've already trudged and suffered through BotW, this is largely more of the same tedious crap.    … Expand
  7. Runwin
    Jun 2, 2023
    6
    Ocarina of Time was released on 1998, 25 years later we have Tears of The Kingdom. I can't believe in what Nintendo has transformed this saga. N changed the excellent design of the temples in Ocarina, to those little sandbox puzzles. Also, N changed the deep culture of every town and city, for those empty towns whiches are just hubs to give side quests. They changed the items what madeOcarina of Time was released on 1998, 25 years later we have Tears of The Kingdom. I can't believe in what Nintendo has transformed this saga. N changed the excellent design of the temples in Ocarina, to those little sandbox puzzles. Also, N changed the deep culture of every town and city, for those empty towns whiches are just hubs to give side quests. They changed the items what made Zelda like a metroidvania, for powers to make Zelda like Minecraft.

    And the worst for me, they changed a deep and complex space-time story, for something more similar to an anime. I'm very disappointing Nintendo lost the soul, to be more mainstream and sell more. If this is the new direction of Zelda games, I'm afraid to say, Zelda died.    … Expand
  8. 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
  9. Ariskal
    Jun 27, 2023
    6
    dari segi gameplay, grafick dan open worldnya sama aja!! ini harusnya di jadikan DLC BOTW ga harus beda game!!!
  10. Zerpad
    May 27, 2023
    6
    As longtime fan of zelda games, I'm not enjoying this entry. BotW was a big change to the mechanics of the game, so I was more forgiving of the faults. Tears of the Kingdom does nothing to address the minimalistic temples and bring the game back to roots of the series. It feels more like DLC for BotW, than a whole new game. While I'm sure that twitch streamers and their audiences areAs longtime fan of zelda games, I'm not enjoying this entry. BotW was a big change to the mechanics of the game, so I was more forgiving of the faults. Tears of the Kingdom does nothing to address the minimalistic temples and bring the game back to roots of the series. It feels more like DLC for BotW, than a whole new game. While I'm sure that twitch streamers and their audiences are happy, I really hope this doesn't continue going forward. Zelda games need good temples/dungeons to balance the time spent in the overworld, and they need non-destructible weapons to put more emphasis on combat than minecrafting.… Expand
  11. ZHSpartan
    May 26, 2023
    6
    Nothing to say about limited console graphics, but the gameplay and story is boring and tedious. this game had a such potential, but was wasted.

    Narrative Story same as botw. Best part of story are locked by memories. Age of calamity had better narrative and character development. Gameplay -You lose a lot fo hearts to auto-attacks -. +5 hearts/arrow -Too hard to play, feels like    Nothing to say about limited console graphics, but the gameplay and story is boring and tedious. this game had a such potential, but was wasted.

    Narrative
    Story same as botw. Best part of story are locked by memories. Age of calamity had better narrative and character development.

    Gameplay
    -You lose a lot fo hearts to auto-attacks
    -. +5 hearts/arrow
    -Too hard to play, feels like any attack can one-shot you.
    -Shrine as progression is boring
    - No dungeons like back in the day
    -No original BOTW bombs (bombs are classic)
    -I have to go to menu and eat every time, dodging and jumping because I don't wanna ruin my shield with non-boss enemies.
    -You have to build a lot.

    Weapons
    -Removes knight fantasy, I just wanna use a real sword and real shield. Ex: Combining stone and sword to do more damage.
    -I want to play fantasy game, the realism of the durability of the weapons is very disturbing, just add special feature to every weapon, like slow = +damage, fast = low damage, medium = medium damage (sword), special stats like defense, damage and speed, etc...
    -Scrolling is mandatory

    Things that you could have done
    -Expand the world. underground and sky doesn't count. Ex: I just wanted to explore far away from lost woods and gerudo desert, that the tribes were not in one place.
    -Put weapon durability in a very hard mode.
    -Heavy attacks only damage 2(+1 hard) hearts instead 8, normal attacks 1(+1 hard) instead 4.
    -Character development
    -Ocarina of time has 11 dugueons and 1 mini
    -More combat abilities, I was expecting hidden skills like twilight princess.
    -Materials to repair at least.
    -If there is a lot enemies in the world, add more things
    -Add transformations like majora's mask. After play age of calamity you could add zora, goron, orni and gerudo transformations and enemies to play around that (not all).
    -Orni: Arrow damage increased and more abilities, and YOU CAN FLY
    -Zora: More crowd control, less dps, + healing, SWIM UNDER WATER
    -Goron: very slow, but high dps and more tanky
    -Gerudo: Could be like Fierce Diety's mask but with gerudo appearance. with more strength and
    speed. (gigachad link)
    -Change the weapon's appearance
    -Have a sort of order of which weapon to use next after I break.
    -This is a fantasy game, add more powerful and cool stuff.
    -Enchance gear and weapons with materials and stuff like age of calamity, blacksmith.

    Good points
    -Rare World bosses
    -Cool (but hard) side quests.
    -Cooking is more useful
    -Some changes in map after botw events.
    -New powers are good (no reason to remove all old ones)
    -Cool narrative of old hyrule.
    -New champions grew up and can help you.
    -You can fall from the sky with style
    -Besieged towers
    -Lighting    … Expand
  12. BT302
    May 20, 2023
    6
    Too much like BOTW to hold my interest. It's a decent game but it seems they've just taken the BOTW world and crammed it full of stuff to try and fill out the world. The characters are samey and it just feels like they're trying to squeeze out a 2nd game from BOTW.
  13. Elkeiem
    May 13, 2023
    6
    Art direction is good, mechanivally it's quite enjoyable. But this kind of performance and resolution is not enough anymore, even if it was when BoTW came out. On different platform with 4K60fps it would shine bright.
  14. mario1892
    May 13, 2023
    6
    Good game, not a masterpiece as everoyone is saying, worth sequel of breath of the wild the best switch game
  15. Petrokolos
    Jul 1, 2023
    6
    This is a DLC priced as a new triple A game. If any other publisher did this they would be rightfully crucified.
  16. Gaebora
    Aug 1, 2023
    6
    AC:Valhalla + Dragon Quest Builders + Mononoke Movie

    A zelda game in the same sense as zelda 2. Everyone knows it doesnt belong, but its unique enough to respect, yet it still lacks fulfillment. Narratively: More story than botw, but definitely the same low quality. Like budget square enix bad. I get hylians have big ears, but making them furries was horrendous cringe. The voice acting    AC:Valhalla + Dragon Quest Builders + Mononoke Movie

    A zelda game in the same sense as zelda 2. Everyone knows it doesnt belong, but its unique enough to respect, yet it still lacks fulfillment. Narratively: More story than botw, but definitely the same low quality. Like budget square enix bad. I get hylians have big ears, but making them furries was horrendous cringe. The voice acting was somehow worse the worst part. Every VA should quit their careers, no emotion, just "i am profound guy reading paper." Low low quality. Zelda looked like a cat and the blood moon lines sound like shes taking a dump while on the phone at night. The O N L Y good part narratively was the ending and Laurelin village. Otherwise the rest is a huge waste of time thats fun factually half the time. Like you really dont gain anything emotional, inspirational, educational, substantial, or genuinely anything of value.    … Expand
  17. camarone2
    May 17, 2023
    6
    Estou escrevendo para te contar a decepção com o novo jogo Zelda. Sabe aquela nota que você ve? Pois é, não é o que eu esperava!

    Até os 20 minutos iniciais do jogo parece sim uma DLC. Mesmo depois de pegar todos os poderes o jogo não muda muito. Chega a ser a mesma coisa dos anteriores. Não sei se valeu a pena gastar tanto dinheiro nisso. Acho que vou voltar para o meu velho e bom    Estou escrevendo para te contar a decepção com o novo jogo Zelda. Sabe aquela nota que você ve? Pois é, não é o que eu esperava!

    Até os 20 minutos iniciais do jogo parece sim uma DLC. Mesmo depois de pegar todos os poderes o jogo não muda muito. Chega a ser a mesma coisa dos anteriores.

    Não sei se valeu a pena gastar tanto dinheiro nisso. Acho que vou voltar para o meu velho e bom Tetris.    … Expand
  18. Aaromfletchx
    May 26, 2023
    6
    Its better in alot of aspects better story but its wont be like Ocrina or Twlight good if thats what your hoping for. It can feel very samey to BOTW at times
    very very samey. But it has good bosses and bit better story although many story cutsenes are shown multiple times. Dungeons are better than the last game but nothing shocking. So overall it would have been rated better if this was    Its better in alot of aspects better story but its wont be like Ocrina or Twlight good if thats what your hoping for. It can feel very samey to BOTW at times
    very very samey. But it has good bosses and bit better story although many story cutsenes are shown multiple times. Dungeons are better than the last game but nothing shocking. So overall it would have been rated better if this was the first game but overall it feels this is what BOTW should have been but could not for that reason it loses atleast one grade score. Its not
    bad its not great but its good. For the Zelda series however this can be a let down as if you have played the old Zeldas you would know they usually are some of the best games of all time. If you havent played BOTW it is much more worth the buy. It for sure wont top the spot for Ocrina of time is all I can really say    … Expand
  19. Zquaranteneuf
    May 13, 2023
    6
    So far I can't shake the feeling that this game is literally just Breath of the Wild from a parallel dimension. SO MUCH of it is thematically, mechanically, or aesthetically the same, reskinned as a sequel.

    Some of the new stuff I like, some not so much.

    Fingers crossed that the story is better and more substantial this time around - too early to tell.
  20. Scamper
    Jul 7, 2023
    6
    BEGINNING of the GAME: 10/10
    Interesting new characters, mystery, and novelty.
    MIDDLE OF THE GAME: 4/10 It is the same game as BOTW. Same places. The sky islands are not nearly as compelling as they seem at the beginning. The sounds effects, animations, music, and themes of each area are literally copy and pasted. The only really fun part of the game other than exploration was the    BEGINNING of the GAME: 10/10
    Interesting new characters, mystery, and novelty.

    MIDDLE OF THE GAME: 4/10
    It is the same game as BOTW. Same places. The sky islands are not nearly as compelling as they seem at the beginning. The sounds effects, animations, music, and themes of each area are literally copy and pasted. The only really fun part of the game other than exploration was the leadup to the Wind Temple. The shrines get boring as hell. I was skipping them after I got the stamina wheel up a bit. It is the same game.

    MORE CONS: The vehicles in the depths sometimes don't even work (tire traction, too many hills for vehicles to roll, wing vehicles dont last long, etc... it felt like a CHORE.

    END: 9/10
    The ending sequences and boss fights are imaginative and emotional. Maybe one of the best endings of a zelda game. However, it does not compensate for the drab and dull midgame, which is essentially a DLC of BOTW.

    Conclusion: If you don't play this game, you won't really miss out on a ton, unless you like building and seeing which devices do what. I found the devices and builds served little utility throughout the game. You can survive with the same combat as BOTW... which, was already really basic. None of the bosses were that tough if you spent a decent amount of time in BOTW, which we all have.

    The dungeons were still clunky and no better than BOTW. Let's all move on. BOTW had a good run.

    The game is still fun, it just feels stale.    … Expand
  21. JOnasx
    Jun 2, 2023
    6
    I really, really wanted to love this game. I absolutely adored BOTW and waited so long for this.

    I have 85 hours in it, and i think i'm done. I approached the game as a giant new adventure and took my time exploring, no googling when i got stuck on something, doing side quests, just generally roaming around and enjoying things. Around the 60 hour mark I started to feel that the    I really, really wanted to love this game. I absolutely adored BOTW and waited so long for this.

    I have 85 hours in it, and i think i'm done. I approached the game as a giant new adventure and took my time exploring, no googling when i got stuck on something, doing side quests, just generally roaming around and enjoying things.

    Around the 60 hour mark I started to feel that the game was a little more empty than BOTW. The shrine puzzles were for the most part super trivial, the story was kind of meh and seemed like a bit of a rehash.

    The new abilities are kinda cool, especially the zonia stuff, but with the battery factor just get rather annoying after some time.

    Speaking of annoying, the under world is just a giant load of frustration. Can't see without stopping every 20 seconds to throw a bulb, cant get to objective due to giant invisible mountains that really has no path around it, but since it's pitch black and you dont know that you spend 3 hours trying to make a huge circle back to a dot before you finally give up.

    I really don't know how to put it, the magic that was in BOTW just isn't there. It seems like a 70 dollar DLC, which would have been ok i guess if the game play was actually engaging. It really just feels like an add on to botw, and not a good one at that.

    I will say it does have the BOTW charm, the characters are fun, the music is wonderful. But after 80+ hours I just didn't care about playing anymore, much less finishing.

    I was really disappointed because I had anticipated this for so long.    … Expand
  22. TheLinkgirl
    May 22, 2023
    6
    The TLDR for this review is simply this: the more I play Tears of the Kingdom, the less I enjoy it.

    Truth be told, my experience with TotK has been hugely disappointing. While every aspect is technically proficient, it seems that very little has been considered regarding the Zelda series' history; from criticisms that ran near universal in Breath of the Wild, to the sky feeling just as    The TLDR for this review is simply this: the more I play Tears of the Kingdom, the less I enjoy it.

    Truth be told, my experience with TotK has been hugely disappointing. While every aspect is technically proficient, it seems that very little has been considered regarding the Zelda series' history; from criticisms that ran near universal in Breath of the Wild, to the sky feeling just as empty as Skyward Sword's, to quests that amount to nothing more than going back and forth over and over. There are even new issues such as the world not being designed for the layout of important landmarks, or the new abilities having a surprisingly high skill floor, making the accessibility that was available in previous titles less applicable here. It's not like any one thing breaks the game in its entirety, but a slew of gradual issues slowly wears away at what would be an otherwise excellent experience.

    Contrasting the above list of issues I have with this game, I do feel some improvements have been made, specifically over BotW, that make some areas of the adventure feel more fulfilling. Enemy variety has been increased, making for more interesting encounters. Dungeons and bosses have been changed up, resembling the aesthetics, and in some ways the mechanics, of classic Zelda titles. A new area known as The Depths is perhaps my favourite addition to this game, a terrifying world of darkness and danger that, in my opinion, far surpasses anything the overworld or sky can offer. Despite the amount of time I have spent being bored or uninterested in something in this game, I have found some stuff of worth.

    Never did I want to give a new Zelda game a score as low as this. Previously, I had given this game an 8/10, but that was before I put another 30 hours into it. That was before I found dungeons and quests that I simply abhorred. That was before I experienced more of what the game had to offer. Sufficed to say, Tears of the Kingdom is a good game, but when I am done, I feel I will simply return to other Zelda games, such as Breath of the Wild or Majora's Mask, and never consider picking up TotK again.    … Expand
  23. Kraid96
    Aug 23, 2023
    6
    Why did I give 6?
    well, because Tears of the Kingodm is an 8 video game, however in the context of a the legend of zelda it is already a lot if it takes a 3, for this doing an average it comes out a six.
    the video game is fun, has immediate gameplay that does not tire and is capable of making you spend hundreds of hours of fun, since facing enemies and completing the various mini-games    Why did I give 6?
    well, because Tears of the Kingodm is an 8 video game, however in the context of a the legend of zelda it is already a lot if it takes a 3, for this doing an average it comes out a six.
    the video game is fun, has immediate gameplay that does not tire and is capable of making you spend hundreds of hours of fun, since facing enemies and completing the various mini-games on the map is extremely fun due to the dynamism of the gameplay. thanks to the ultrahand it is possible to build incredible things and thanks to the compositor the crafting of weapons is fast and immediate. so what's wrong? well since building vehicles and completing minigames isn't the reason a person buys a Zelda game this game for me was a complete bust. Zelda as always is all about exploration and a sense of discovery, and when you fail this point you have failed the entire game. Let's start with recycling. The asset recycling in this game is disgraceful, and I honestly don't understand why people defend this, despite the fact that the game still cost 70 bucks. And stop comparing it to majora's mask which only recycled npc assets. Finding again enemies, weapons, fauna, flora and clothes from the previous game was a huge disappointment. especially when most of the enemies are bokobli, grublin, lizalfos, octorot and lynel again. also the Yigas appear in the exact same way. The map of the sky, so advertised by Nintendo, is nothing more than a group of tiny islands and copy pasted with the same puzzle. the exploration of the sky was disappointing because I find it extremely boring to explore to always find the same things. the underground may look cool at first but then it turns out to be nothing more than a wasteland with only one biome and with ridiculously repeated enemies. it has only 2 structures and it repeats them all over the map giving the feeling of exploring a procedural environment. Hyrule has remained the same, and no, I don't consider moving shrines and korooks to be a different map. I honestly found it extremely boring to explore a map on which I had already spent hundreds of hours botw. the only satisfaction was given by the caves, even if many of them are similar and a bit boring. Since Nintendo has decided that all the same rooms with a puzzle inside can very well replace the Dungeons, also in this game we have only 4 small dungeons (the castle of Hyrule has remained the same as that of botw). The temples in this game are none other than the divine beasts but dressed differently. Honestly I'm sick of this game being compared to the first zelda for NES, since the only thing they have in common is that they have an open map. in Zelda 1 dungeons were essential, just as it was essential to explore to get items without which you could not complete the game. in totk everything is made to be Optional, the really useful things are only given to you at the beginning, everything else is just finding useless things just for completion. if you don't care about Zelda or what it has been to date this game will be perfect for you, otherwise it was a complete disappointment.    … Expand
  24. Stuey
    Jun 14, 2023
    6
    I loved BOTW and I spent literally hundreds of hours playing it, but I'm finding TOTK boring and tedious. It's essentially the same game - it's the same Hyrule with the addition of some uninteresting floating islands and a very large cave area, which is pretty much empty. Exploring was great fun in BOTW, but now the landscape seems plain with large expanses of emptiness with nothing to do.I loved BOTW and I spent literally hundreds of hours playing it, but I'm finding TOTK boring and tedious. It's essentially the same game - it's the same Hyrule with the addition of some uninteresting floating islands and a very large cave area, which is pretty much empty. Exploring was great fun in BOTW, but now the landscape seems plain with large expanses of emptiness with nothing to do. My horse really gets on my nerves as it is difficult to steer and has a mind of its own. The dialogue with the characters is also tedious - too much reading, and there are so many cut scenes. The graphics are blurry and it really looks like an old game. TOTK hasn't evolved, it's just a rehashed BOTW with some additional powers, some of which I really can't be bothered to use. The building power just becomes repetitive very early on. Recent games like Elden Ring just make TOTK look outdated.… Expand
  25. Quilly89
    May 25, 2023
    6
    I'm sad. I love Zelda. I am a Zelda fanatic. But this game doesn't deserve all the hype it's getting. I almost feel as though review sites are paid to leave a good review or fear leaving a bad review. This is breath of the wild 1.5. Is it enjoyable? Yes. Is it a sequel? No. It's DLC that was beefed up to justify its 70$ price tag. The overworld is the same. There's nothing newI'm sad. I love Zelda. I am a Zelda fanatic. But this game doesn't deserve all the hype it's getting. I almost feel as though review sites are paid to leave a good review or fear leaving a bad review. This is breath of the wild 1.5. Is it enjoyable? Yes. Is it a sequel? No. It's DLC that was beefed up to justify its 70$ price tag. The overworld is the same. There's nothing new to discover it's literally the same map. Hateno Village, Kakariko Village, same location same music same people. The underground is mostly barren. There's enemies sure, and the same exact amiibo outfits from BotW are scattered around the underground. The sky is just more shrines. No new cities. Nothing crazy. The temples are the best part. And the characters. Seeing the characters 3-5 years later is fun. 3 of the 4 temples are amazing, albeit a bit too easy. We are also still missing a lot of classic Zelda pieces. Where is the triforce? Where are the intricate side stories? Where is the graveyard and dampe? Where is lon Lon ranch? So much is missing ... Lots of confusion. In ten years we will view BOTW and TOTK as a single package rather than two distinct Zelda titles. And I think I have an issue with that, personally.… Expand
  26. wxyboshy
    Jun 30, 2023
    6
    It's like transitioning from a vhs to a dvd. You get some nice extra features, improved controls and somewhat of a new coloring and rendering scheme, but in the end is the same film.

    It's pretty much the same game as Breath Of The Wild, now with side quests that involve some basic sandbox mechanics. - Main quest is super short, and super easy if you play the first one. - Same map,    It's like transitioning from a vhs to a dvd. You get some nice extra features, improved controls and somewhat of a new coloring and rendering scheme, but in the end is the same film.

    It's pretty much the same game as Breath Of The Wild, now with side quests that involve some basic sandbox mechanics.

    - Main quest is super short, and super easy if you play the first one.
    - Same map, with more NPCs, and the same design flaws. One giant map that's still mostly empty. Narrow it down to the main shrine quests, and you'll get 5/15 regions worth of content. All the rest (including the new "maps") is just "exploring" and side quests.
    - The new physics engine doesn't really add anything new to the main quest, it just let's you move faster or build weapons with the same feature set as the previous game.
    - All shrines can be done in any order from the beginning, therefore, all shrines can be completed with relative ease without any experience level.
    - You get to explore new areas, only to collect items that make you explore more areas faster...
    - The "sequel" part only applies to the story, that in my opinion, are leftovers or uncompleted content from the first game that were not released due to time or development constraints. It's like the saying, SSDD.
    - Most new features are improved or patched versions of the previous game
    - After 50 hours of playtime, I'm officially done with any more Zelda games. Makes me feel like all my investment in the previous game (200 hours+) was for nothing.

    In summary, it's Botw with a green tint instead of a blue one.    … Expand
  27. LukeLx
    Aug 15, 2023
    6
    While the graphics partially improved (when the resolution is not tanked and you just see a blurry mess due to switch limitations), how the world and puzzles has been designed lead to a world that is always a different alternative to a cohesive one, so you will rarely be able to explore in a pragmatic way.
    You ends up bouncing around 3 or more different levels, and to be honest the lowest    While the graphics partially improved (when the resolution is not tanked and you just see a blurry mess due to switch limitations), how the world and puzzles has been designed lead to a world that is always a different alternative to a cohesive one, so you will rarely be able to explore in a pragmatic way.
    You ends up bouncing around 3 or more different levels, and to be honest the lowest one is just ugly - yea the phasma comes from underground but when you play it seems they just added it because Elden Ring got one, no other reason up to the end.
    What happens is that the world is so uninteresting and the exploration so interrupted that I would continue playing again the first game for the 2nd time - as I was doing - then going on with this.
    Everything is an alternative of what was great, powers included. The only exception is "ascension", but I really would like bombs, glacius and the other set.
    The attempt of copyrighting physics and basic actions should deserve a 0 but it would not respect the game quality.
    Not Diablo 4 delusion level, but to me it is still a delusion    … Expand
  28. Toastedturtles
    May 14, 2023
    6
    If you liked Breath of the Wild, then you'll like this, as it's more of the same. If you didn't, like me, then you'll probably dislike this even more.

    The days of old Zelda game design philosophy are gone. I have to accept that, but I don't have to like it. Rather than creating interesting puzzles for players to solve, we just create our own solutions. Sounds great on paper until you    If you liked Breath of the Wild, then you'll like this, as it's more of the same. If you didn't, like me, then you'll probably dislike this even more.

    The days of old Zelda game design philosophy are gone. I have to accept that, but I don't have to like it. Rather than creating interesting puzzles for players to solve, we just create our own solutions. Sounds great on paper until you realize how shallow the system really is. Materials right next to a bottomless pit. Gee, I wonder what I'm supposed to do. It's so brain-dead simple, I'm genuinely amazed at how many people consider this the "next level" of adventure games.

    Rather than address the complaints of weapon durability (one of the stupidest mechanics of any video game), Nintendo double down and force you to use its "fuse" system to "fix" the problem yourself. Now only it's worse since fusing requires you to pause the action to do it. Bomb arrows? Going to need to pause every single time you craft one, taking you out of the experience each time. Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone solved this problem by having a radial wheel that only slowed down the action to craft, rather than stopping it, but Nintendo think they know what's best.

    Cooking in BOTW was easily broken by using hearty ingredients, and if you knew where they spawned, then great, because you now have a steady supply of meals that remove the entire point of experimentation, rendering the entire system moot. Instead of making this more interesting by adding in a sort of tolerance system where meals become less effective over time until you make something else, they left it the exact same. You also need to pause the game to heal again, which is just... lovely.

    General combat has been completely unchanged from BOTW. Flurry rush, an easily abused mechanic, is no different, even the animations are the same as well!

    Perhaps the worst thing about all of this is how people give Nintendo a pass with a 30 FPS target, but expect other triple A developers to have a stable 60 FPS, showing how two faced a lot of the gaming industry really is.

    Honestly, Nintendo should be held to a higher standard going forward, and despite this game obviously selling millions of copies, I think it just shows how little a developer can change and people will simply accept it because of name alone. But when Ubisoft does it, people drag them through the mud for not changing enough.    … Expand
  29. Dangusse
    Jun 23, 2023
    6
    [i've come back to this review with over 100 hours played, and i have to say that this game is disappointingly imbalanced, poorly finished, and that the enemy AI is consistently rigged even into the late game. the removal of the vast majority of hearty ingredients makes this even worse, so that even minor combats might have to be redone multiple times because the last remaining enemy has[i've come back to this review with over 100 hours played, and i have to say that this game is disappointingly imbalanced, poorly finished, and that the enemy AI is consistently rigged even into the late game. the removal of the vast majority of hearty ingredients makes this even worse, so that even minor combats might have to be redone multiple times because the last remaining enemy has the outlandish ability to 1 shot you with perfect accuracy at the very end of the fight EVERY SINGLE TIME. this is not good game design, it's utter trash tbqh. it's cool for enemies to become more panicked or take it up a notch when they are low on HP, but it does not work in this game. enemies flagrantly deal more damage on this last shot with the most rudimentary weapons than link could do even with attack up X3, and they hide and wait around until they can crit you.

    this might be a good development from botw if the game was balanced and the combat system truly thought out, but coupled with input lag, stubborn predictive pathing that makes you do things you never pressed the buttons for, and the fact that so many of the regular enemies are just irritatingly strong bullet sponges, it just makes for a highly frustrating experience with very inconsistent behavior that makes every combat entirely 1 sided. the fact that i can't really make healing items anymore just adds to this, since i'm not realistically able to prepare for difficult combat in the way that any other game in the series would allow. if they wanted to make this more similar to older zelda games, then they should stop making it so difficult to stock up, since it's ALWAYS been easy to collect a bunch of fairies or potions in every single entry prior to this. the fairy fountains don't even work right on the sky islands, since our companions will scare them away even if the fountain doesnt have a built in rocket archer that immediately makes them leave as soon as we arrive, whether we kill it or it shoots at us.

    the majority of quests, main or side, are outrageously bugged, the rewards for minibosses are often just useless amiibo drops that nintendo made stop working since botw, the visuals are decidedly more gloomy, less detailed, and lower contrast, there are far too many obnoxiously slow and repetitive cutscenes, NPCs talk WAY too much and say completely pointless and convoluted things that make it seem like the creators were trying to show off their middle of the road english skills, and all of these aspects make totk's hyrule a place that i simply don't feel enthusiastic about exploring. this game is more of a headache than a source of relaxation or entertainment, and that's really disappointing given just how many years nintendo had to make a finished sequel out of a world and platform that they had already made 90% of. yes, there is still a lot of cool stuff in this game, but it's just buried under a heap of unfinished jank. the developers CLEARLY saw how bad the recent pokemon games were and decided they didn't need to bring any kind of integrity to this new project.

    TLDR: if they don't patch this heavily, i'm never buying another zelda game, and it's really messed up that they are screwing with my childhood like this. i guess i can always go back to ocarina of time romhacks.]    … Expand
  30. KumaWilson
    May 14, 2023
    6
    Tears of the Kingdom is a really tricky situation. Does it deserve a higher rating than BotW because there's clearly just more to do? Or does it deserve a lower rating because every criticism of BotW hasn't been addressed at all? (Weapons break, rain interrupts climbing, and ridiculous/nonexistent rewards for exploring)
    Due to the increased price, I'd go for the latter, which always    Tears of the Kingdom is a really tricky situation. Does it deserve a higher rating than BotW because there's clearly just more to do? Or does it deserve a lower rating because every criticism of BotW hasn't been addressed at all? (Weapons break, rain interrupts climbing, and ridiculous/nonexistent rewards for exploring)
    Due to the increased price, I'd go for the latter, which always deserves a lower rating if it doesn't come with a noteworthy increase in quality. This is just a standalone expansion after all. A decent one, but not $70 decent.    … Expand
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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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