Daily Debate: How Have Your Feelings Towards Tears of the Kingdom Changed Since You First Played It?
Posted on October 07 2023 by Nick Miller
We all know that feeling of getting a new game, especially one as highly anticipated as a new Zelda. You read the back of the case and flip through the manual on your way home, dreaming of the adventure that lays in store for you. You pop the game in and as soon as that title flashes across the screen, a rush of emotions overcomes you. Excitement, anticipation, or just the simple wonder that the game you’ve waited so long for is finally here. It’s easy to get caught up in the luster of a new game and it isn’t until that excitement wears off that we start to see the cracks, or our attitude towards certain aspects of the game shifts.
On the other hand, there may be times where a new game doesn’t quite click with you from the start, and it isn’t until you gain a deeper understanding of the mechanics or story that you truly appreciate it for what it is. Either way, our attitudes will always shift in one direction or another as our experience with a game broadens and our feelings become more grounded.
Think back to the first time you played Tears of the Kingdom and how you felt. How does that contrast to how you feel now?
I know when I first played it, I was immediately blown away by the Great Sky Island. However, I compared it to Breath of the Wild and was mildly disappointed by Tears of the Kingdom‘s more streamlined tutorial. I understood though that Link’s new abilities required more instruction than his abilities in Breath of the Wild, so I gave it a pass. Regardless, I was impressed with all of the new abilities as well as the game’s visuals, with the autumn-like theming of the sky to contrast the green grass of the surface. The Depths were also entirely unexpected and the prospect of having a new map to explore under Hyrule was incredible. The visual presentation of diving into a chasm in real-time, coupled with the bwaaaaahhh! of a horn, invoked a sense of dread, and I love it.
Almost five months later, some of those feelings have changed. I still love the Great Sky Island and still believe that its restraints were a necessary part of the tutorial, but I’m disappointed that the rest of the sky islands aren’t as interesting or fleshed out. I also find abilities like Fuse and Ultrahand impressive but feel that they overshadow a lot of the other things Tears of the Kingdom has to offer. As such, Tears feels more to me like a building game with an adventure than an adventure game with building — if that makes sense.
The Depths are another aspect of the game that I don’t find quite as impressive as I did when I first found them. The idea is great, and it was a worthwhile inclusion to the game, but it really feels like an afterthought. Every corner of the Depths just looks and feels the same, even down to the mines and other landmarks which are mostly copied and pasted one to another. The more I explored the Depths, the less interested I became because after a few hours of exploration there was nothing new to see.
My opinions haven’t all soured though. The more I’ve played around with Fuse, the more my opinion has deepened that weapon durability is necessary to both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I also find myself increasingly impressed with the game’s physics, even more so now than when I first played. Another thing that continues to impress me the more and more I play is the side quests. There are so many, and some of them have so much creativity poured into them that I am impressed the developers were able to pack them all into an already massive game. Between the side quests, the exploration, and the limitless possibilities of Ultrahand, Tears of Kingdom is one of the few games that can keep me excitedly saying, “You can do that?”, even after over 150 hours of gameplay. That is a quality very few games can claim.
So how do feel about Tears of the Kingdom? How have your feelings changed form when you first played it? Have they changed for the better, the worse, or a bit of both? Let us know in the comments.
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders. His other favorite video games series include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, and Ratchet & Clank.
