If you’re a fan of the gaming scene, you likely have heard about Nintendo. A massive gaming company that has produced various fan favorite series. One such series is The Legend of Zelda. Have you ever heard of The Legend of Zelda? Well, now you have. And because you have heard of it, you must have heard of its latest set of games.
Namely, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
You have possibly even heard reviews of the game. Five stars for Breath of the Wild (or BotW) and often lots of discourse over the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (TotK).
Let’s talk about why TotK did not match up to its predecessor.
First of all, we need to establish why BotW was so phenomenal. To start, BotW was the first of its kind. Especially in the Zelda series. It was the first open world game and actually changed the open world gaming industry altogether.
What do I mean by that? To be clear, an open world game is a game in which the player can explore anywhere at anytime and do anything. The world is “open” for the player to explore.
Now how did BotW change open world gaming? Despite it’s post-apocalyptic (or post post-apocalyptic, depending on who you ask) setting, the world is filled with adventures for the player. Before, open world games, while allowing the player to go everywhere, often had a lot of empty space that had nothing of interest for the player. BotW changed that by filling the world with quests, trials, and story. Ever since, the gaming industry has shifted.
TotK on the other hand…was less exciting by comparison. It ran on the same engine as BotW did. Meaning that the foundations of the game remained the same with some changes to design, game play, and story. Not enough for it to look different from its previous game, however. It brought less of a new experience for players, which made it rather dull in comparison. The ten minute introduction did not help players become interested. At least not enough to replay the game.
Yet, I believe there is a more crucial difference to BotW and TotK.
The story.
BotW opens with the player, a character named Link, waking up alone. Immediately they are thrust into game play without any answers as to where they are or what is happening. The player is quickly introduced to the game mechanics and they
are built upon as the player continues. One may immediately notice the lack of people, except for a single old man who reveals the land had been ravaged by an apocalyptic event one-hundred years prior. The rest of the game follows the player assisting the few survivors of the land, exploring, and learning about the apocalypse a century ago. Even more, the enemies are terrifying. Even now the Guardian theme echos in my head. Yet, most importantly, it was a tragedy. A story of grief and moving on. Despite the land being ravaged a century later it is filled with life. With nature. Hence the “Wild” in the title. Despite all the damage, the ruins, nature has reclaimed the kingdom. It is healing. BotW is a beautiful story of grief and healing.
TotK does not manage to capture the same story. The game takes place an unspecified number of years after BotW. The player (still playing as Link) is in a cavern with their companion, Zelda. And, despite many fans hopes, Zelda is not a playable character. Instead, after a series of shenanigans, Zelda is sent to the past to before the original apocalypse in BotW occurs.
The player is able to uncover some of her memories, much like in BotW, to see what happened while she was in the past.
Nothing.
Nothing interesting at least.
There is Zelda, a king, a queen, and the villain.
The villain is named Ganondorf. He is part of a race called the Gerudo. They are loosely based on Arabic cultures and, because they were originally created back in the olden days, tend to serve as a racial caricature more often than not. Ganondorf was responsible for the apocalypse that occurred in BotW. Yet, Zelda has gone to a time before he even committed those atrocities.
One may think that with the time travel and the ouroboros symbolism within the title of the game, that Zelda in the past may unknowingly cause the events of BotW to happen.
They would be wrong.
Instead of finally bringing more than a vague racial caricature of the villain and his people, they are labeled villains, and the story rewards you for thinking that. In this day of tragic villains, that was a missed opportunity. Especially because BotW added so much to this race of Gerudo people. Making them more than killers and thieves, but rather a proud and powerful people. They had a society and life. TotK managed to diminish that back into a dull and flat race.
Which is the worst part. The Zelda world was beginning to feel full. Races living together, grief and mourning, healing, and now it is as if all of that meant nothing. The Gerudo society loses its laws, the people show less character, the other races have such little prescence and importance as that in BotW that the player won’t tend to feel as attached to them as they had previously.
In the end, TotK tried so hard to be everything, with its new gimmicks, old monsters, and bland story, that it managed to be anything. The game lacks the replayability of BotW and forces itself to stick to close to certain game mechanics that it does not truly feel like its own game.
Nintendo built themselves a creative box to work in, which should not be the point. It is about exploring new ideas and themes and design.
Tears of the Kingdom ended up not being worth the six year wait nor the seventy dollars.
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