The code and data behind xeiaso.net
videos/2023: publish TOTK video
Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@xeiaso.net>
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lume/src/videos/2023/totk-review.mdx
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lume/src/videos/2023/totk-review.mdx
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---
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title: "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is 10/10"
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date: 2023-12-07
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type: blog
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index: true
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tags:
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- totk
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- botw
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- NintendoSwitch
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- review
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---
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export const PercentageRing = ({ percentage }) => {
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let color = "green";
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if (percentage < 50) {
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color = "red";
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}
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if (percentage < 80) {
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color = "yellow";
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}
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return (
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<div className="relative inline-block mt-2 ml-20 md:ml-6">
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<div
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className={`w-36 md:w-48 h-36 md:h-48 bg-bg-2 dark:bg-bgDark-2 border-8 border-${color}-light dark:border-${color}Dark-light rounded-full`}
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>
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<div
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className="absolute top-0 left-0 w-full h-full border-8 border-green-500 rounded-full"
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style={{
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clip: `rect(0, 1em, 1em, ${(percentage / 100) * 2}em)`,
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}}
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></div>
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</div>
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<div className="absolute inset-0 flex items-center justify-center">
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<span className="text-2xl md:text-4xl font-bold">
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{percentage / 10}/10
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</span>
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</div>
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</div>
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);
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};
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export const ThreeColumnLayout = ({ children }) => {
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return (
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<div className="flex justify-center not-prose bg-bg-1 dark:bg-bgDark-1 rounded-md w-fit mx-auto md:p-4 p-2">
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<div className="grid grid-cols-1 md:grid-cols-3 max-w-3xl place-items-center flex items-center justify-center">
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{children}
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</div>
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</div>
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);
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};
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export const Col = ({ title, children }) => {
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return (
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<div
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className={`bg-bg-1 dark:bg-bgDark-1 px-2 h-full place-content-center w-full mx-auto`}
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>
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{title && <h2 className="text-2xl font-semibold mb-2 mt-2">{title}</h2>}
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{children}
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</div>
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);
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};
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<div className="my-4">
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<XeblogVideo path="video/2023/totk-review" />
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</div>
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2023 has been full of bangers in the video game department. There have
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been so many good games that have been released this year that it's
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difficult to actually rate any of them. Much less coming up with a
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game that is, "the game of the year". One of the most frustratingly
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difficult games to rate has been this year's release of The Legend of
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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
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Don't get me wrong here. This is actually a really good game on its
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own rights. This game is S tier, generation defining, and probably one
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of the best games ever made. The main problem with trying to rate this
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game is that it's so easy to compare it to the previous release the
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Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It is not fair to the developers
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or to the user experience to compare the two games, but they are so
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similar that it's almost impossible not to.
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the fire that the industry
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needed in order to make open world games fun again. You can see such a
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stark difference in the types of open world games that have been
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developed and released before Breath of the Wild came out and after
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Breath of the Wild came out. The development team behind Breath of the
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Wild redefined open-world games so much that it's difficult to express
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how they used to be. Even though they were called "open world" games,
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they were really just a railroaded set of instructions on how to free
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different parts of the place from some nebulous oppressor.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/Fv5rJa3aMAEJnlV" />
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Breath of the Wild changed this. It was a truly open world game. It is
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not open world as in you had freedom of movement between objectives.
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It is open world as in you are dumped into Hyrule with little to no
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context of what's going on and told to kill Ganon. If you wanted to,
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you could immediately get through the tutorial and then run to the
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castle to kill Ganon in thirty minutes. It takes a lot of restraint in
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order to give the player that much freedom.
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It is a game that does not drown you in tutorials or "Mega Man, Mega
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Man, you have to shoot the enemy with your Mega Buster!" It simply
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dumps you into the world, gives you stuff, and shows you that you must
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figure it all out for yourself.
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After several hundred hours in Breath of the Wild, I have really come
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to appreciate this game. It is going to be a special game in my heart
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for a long time. It is the defining game of the Switch generation.
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This year, Nintendo finally released the sequel to Breath of the Wild,
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Tears of the Kingdom after a seven year wait. The Legend of Zelda:
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Tears of the Kingdom, takes all of the basic systems from Breath of
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the Wild and then enhances them so much that it's almost a completely
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separate game.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/GAstJHraUAApSWx" />
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In the process of developing this game, Nintendo fixed core aspects of
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interactive world physics like gear interaction. Most of the stuff
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that Nintendo casually does in this game is either impossible or
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almost unsolved problems in other facets of the gaming industry. You
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are able to assemble vehicles that you can ride around without the
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vehicles flying apart or turning into physics cannons.
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They made the user experience of the game so good that it fades away
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to nothing and feels like it should have just been that way the entire
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time. This allows them to have a very subtle design that is very
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effective for the kind of game they are trying to make, but because it
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is so subtle it ends up looking shallow compared to its older brother.
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In a difficulty sense, Tears of the Kingdom rests between Breath of
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the Wild's normal mode, and master mode from the DLC. When you step
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into the world of Hyrule for the first time, you feel utterly
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powerless. Relatively minor threats kill you instantly if you're not
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careful. Your early weapons are disposable and the game reminds you of
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that constantly by taking them away from you almost as soon as you get
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them. It is simultaneously all the best parts of open world games and
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Dark Souls put into one. In order to survive, you must be clever. You
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must take the systems that you are given and use them to your
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advantage in order to thrive.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/GAsr5e4bsAAnJSj" />
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And then they give you systems that allow you to break the game in
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amazing ways while still retaining balance. One of the main examples
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of this is the Fuse ability. Fuse lets you connect objects to your
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weapons, arrows, and shields.
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This is a very subtle tool that allows you to get away with a lot of
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crazy things. One of the main weaknesses of Breath of the Wild was the
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lack of variety in weapons. There were a bunch of archetypes of
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weapons and some minor ways that they could be modified. But
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realistically there were only 40 weapons in the entire game. Some of
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those weapons were useful, others were situational, some were
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obviously joke weapons. But overall, everybody had the same build by
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the end of the game.
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Tears of the Kingdom expands Link's arsenal through a method that can
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only be described as combinatorial explosion. If you have a wooden
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stick and a Korok leaf, you can combine them to create a weapon that
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allows you to blow away enemies; much like the Korok leaf from the
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first game, except you can make this one single-handed.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/GAssF3raYAAlYa6" />
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As an example, consider how the Korok leaf works in Breath of the Wild.
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This weapon is a random drop from trees when you cut them down. It is
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a situational tool that led to you blow away enemies off of cliffs and
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kill them instantly, but when you hit enemies with it, it only does
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one damage. One of the main annoyances about pulling this thing out is
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that it's a two-handed weapon, so you can't have a shield active. This
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means that this weapon is simultaneously overpowered and balanced
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because you can use it to do amazing things situationally.
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Now consider the same weapon in Tears of the Kingdom. In tears of the
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kingdom, the Korok leaf is not a bespoke weapon, it is a part that can
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be fused to other weapons. Including arrows.
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This is a very subtle change that allows you to get away with a lot of
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fun. Before you could only use the Korok leaf to blow away enemies
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that were close to you. But now that you can attach them to arrows,
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you can use them to blow away enemies from anywhere. If you attach it
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to a wooden stick, you now have the ability to blow away enemies
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without giving up your shield.
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Now consider this level of customization but for everything in the
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game. This means that everybody's endgame build is entirely different.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/FwC9heWaQAALpEw" />
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One of the other big things that they fixed in tears of the kingdom
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was Link's movement. Breath of the Wild has a fantastic movement
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system. A lot of the time when you're playing the game, you don't even
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notice that there's a movement system involved. However, when you get
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to the point where you beat the first dungeon, you unlock the ability
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called Revali's Gale. This allows you to create a jetstream that
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pushes you upward and makes a lot of the climbing irrelevant.
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I'm not going to deny, this change does actually make the game a bit
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more fun in a lot of ways. It removes a lot of the boring parts of
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climbing. It means that it's easier to get up taller spaces. But you
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end up having to wait for it to recharge. This means that a lot of
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your time is spent running around and waiting so that you can fly
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upwards again and then run around some more.
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Tears of the kingdom fixes this by removing Revali's Gale and instead
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giving you tools that you can use to craft a better climbing build.
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They added sticky lizards which let you build potions that increase
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your adherence to surfaces. They also buffed the climbing gear so that
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it gives you more speed than it used to. And movement speed potions
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still work as normal. This makes climbing more fun than Revali's gale,
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but it does require a lot of work to get there.
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At the same time though, they did give you the ability to make
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climbing even more powerful through the use of Ultrahand. Ultrahand is
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a tool that lets you combine objects into vehicles and then ride them.
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This can let you turn a couple of fans and a control stick into a
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hover bike that lets you fly around wherever you want.
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<XeblogPicture path="video/2023/totk-review/GAsrbIrbgAAIO22" />
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At some level, this bike is literally just two fans, a control stick,
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and some clever placement. It is fairly trivial to make, very cheap in
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terms of the Zonaite that it costs to create it, and it is the best
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tool to fly around Hyrule with. But when you are using it, you are
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both completely defenseless and you are limited by the battery that
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you have.
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This is much better than Revali's Gale ever was because it is not just
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a cheap tool that removes all of the fun of movement. This lets you
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finesse your own way to creating a better way to move things. This is
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something that you can use to create your own fun.
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Now that I'm going through the motion of writing all of this out, I
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wonder if a lot of the reasons why I don't want to call Tears of the
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Kingdom one of the best games of all time is because I have nostalgia
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for the first game in the series. Breath of the Wild was such an
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amazing and expansive game that it really changed what video games
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mean to me. Tears of the kingdom is a fantastic game, but because of
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all of this nostalgia for the first game, I don't know if it's really
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ever going to be able to compare.
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The two games complement each other perfectly. One is a sonnet of
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possibilities. The other is a swan song of progress. They are both
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amazing games in completely different ways. I will be playing both of
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these games for years to come, and I can't wait to eventually 100% my
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Tears of the Kingdom file.
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<ThreeColumnLayout>
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<Col>
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<PercentageRing percentage={100} />
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</Col>
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<Col title="Pros">
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<ul className="list-disc list-inside">
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<li>Game of the year material</li>
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<li>Total mechanical freedom</li>
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<li>Flawless execution</li>
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</ul>
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</Col>
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<Col title="Cons">
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<ul className="list-disc list-inside">
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<li>Too easy to compare to Breath of the Wild</li>
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<li>Aging Switch hardware could use a refresh</li>
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</ul>
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</Col>
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</ThreeColumnLayout>
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is my open world game of the
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year for 2023. It is a 10 out of 10 experience. It's something that is
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well worth owning and worth the $70 price tag. If you have a Switch,
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you should definitely pick it up. If you don't have a switch already,
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you should buy one just to play Breath of the Wild and Tears of the
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Kingdom.