Zelda Dungeon’s YouTube Crew Shares Their First Impressions of Tears of the Kingdom
Posted on May 25 2023 by Charles Xavier
Now that Tears of the Kingdom has been out in the wild nearly two weeks, many of us have probably played the game quite a bit, at least enough to formulate an impression on the game’s approach to both gameplay and narrative. Our very own YouTube team, consisting of our friends Gooey, Corey, Nico, and McKenna, recently sat down to go in depth on their early thoughts on the game.
I was actually quite surprised with how much they covered, and how a lot of their thoughts aligned with my own! It’s worth noting, while the video doesn’t delve into major spoilers, they do mention a specific aspect of how some story parts are conveyed to players, if that’s something that is still a mystery to some in their playthroughs that feels like a spoiler, just be aware that this is touched on. Besides that, they do go into a bit of theorizing, but it’s only about subjects established pretty early on in the game. The talking point of focus throughout is mainly on how they feel about the new gameplay mechanics, and how the intro to the game seems to imply the game will have a more focused narrative. They talk about the Great Sky Island, how it parallels the Great Plateau, as well as very early exploration aspects of the surface. I highly recommend giving it a watch in the video above!
Going a bit more in depth, I did find it interesting that Corey brought up Zelda’s mentioning of the Imprisoning War, which the mural in the game’s intro depicts. The Imprisoning War is an event exclusive to the Hero is Defeated split of the Official Zelda Timeline, mentioned only in the backstory of A Link to the Past. This is something that crossed my mind as well while playing through the intro. I was almost convinced this was finally confirmation of where Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are placed on the timeline; however, now that I’ve played through the game more, my thoughts have drastically changed. As for Nico’s theory that this Rauru could be the same one from Ocarina of Time, it’s a very interesting thought, but I’m not sure if I can buy into it given some details of the story for Tears of the Kingdom.
If you watched and enjoyed the video, consider subscribing to our YouTube channel for future insights on Tears of the Kingdom, and other content such as Tier Force Heroes, where Gooey, Nico, and Corey create tier lists to rank various aspects of the Zelda series!
What are your first impressions of Tears of the Kingdom? We’re interested to hear in the comments below!
Charles is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. He is a Visual Development artist focused on enviroments and pitch paintings. Check out his Instagram and Twitter to see his latest artworks, a lot of which is Zelda fan art! His favorite candy is Skittles – he feels the world should know this.