Just when I think I’m in, they keep pushing me back out.
I’ve been leery of Tears of the Kingdom. It’s been clear for a while now that the world is largely reused. While that isn’t an inherently bad thing, it puts a lot of pressure on the game’s other aspects to justify its place as a sequel 5 years in the making. Trailers have been awfully cagey, showing as little as possible and contextualizing nothing. I was excited for this gameplay debut. We’d finally be able to start putting some of the pieces together. Unfortunately, I’m more uncertain of the game’s merit than ever.
Opening on a horseback ride by the Dueling Peaks is about the worst start possible. An old mechanic in an early-game area doesn’t inspire confidence in TotK’s innovation department. The UI is almost completely unchanged despite the teased shift in tone, with only a couple of small additions I can’t even bother pointing out. We ‘don’t have time’ to explain what’s actually changed down here, and nothing substantial is nearby, so we immediately look to the sky after reaching a stable playing the exact music from BotW.
Recall looks okay. It’s a clever way to get Link into the sky without granting him flight. It doesn’t inspire much imagination in my mind, though. We saw it used to push a spiked boulder through some enemies in a previous trailer, and I can’t think of applications that are much more interesting than that. The thing with BotW’s mechanics is that playing around with them has been so much less efficient than just whacking enemies and traversing as intended. I’m ready to be wrong, though.
We then explore a sky island, and I’m not compelled. They still aren’t given context, and we don’t see strong mechanical implications for their existence, so I’m as apathetic as the first time we saw them. The Construct enemies weird me out. They’re supposed to be some freaky magic-tech, but they seem to use the same behavior as Bokoblins, with the exaggerated demeanor to match. Again, no context, no new depth, no care.
Fusing feels like a stretch. While it’s great to have some more use for junky weapons like the Tree Branch, I doubt it goes much deeper than A + B, where a given object imparts a specifc effect or predefined durability and damage enhancement. The boulder used for demonstration shrinks, which is necessary for practicality but shakes suspension of disbelief (it’s an unprecedented type of magic in BotW’s world) and makes me question if massive objects should be fuseable in the first place. It’s a kind of “oh god what do we do with this system now” mechanic that reminds me too much of modern Pokemon: planting a shallow system on top instead of tweaking the underlying engine for massive implications.
That said, I like its effect on arrows. They lacked depth in BotW, only having five types with limited applications, and giving new value to somewhat junky monster parts like Chuchu Jelly and Keese Eyes is great.
Ultrahand has the most potential. It interacting with any free object speaks mostly for itself, I’d say. I just worry we’re going to have a Great Plateau situation, where it only feels great when the developers bothered to craft the area around it, and 90% of the map fails to offer the tools to maximize it. The demo just happened to have the three logs and two fans lying right there, which reminds me too much of the rafts in BotW. If one was there and you had a Korok Leaf, great. If not, have fun using Cryonis to cross water for minutes on end.
Ascend is just a convenience feature that allows them to put more caves in. Fine, but disappointing considering its spectacle and past tease.
WHY IS THE COLD AREA MUSIC STILL THERE. THAT GOT SO OLD.
The demo ends with yet another infuriating tease, and the promise that these mechanics are great as long as you have imagination. That’s fine to an extent, but I and many other players want to know what ends we’re leveraging our creativity for. What’s the goal this time? Why should we bother exploring? How does progression look? We’re no closer to those answers. It feels like they’re selling this game to the people who lose their minds over clips of BotW’s funky physics and flashy, overcomplicated kills. I hope they haven’t forgotten that many people don’t play to be as original as possible. There must be new fun in doing things the old fashioned way, or most people will get bored fast.
Between the unchanged basic mechanics and reused music, all I see here is BotW with some more creative tools placed on top. I can’t decide if the game’s worth buying, let alone worth the 5 year wait, until we know what we’re actually doing. Until then, I will do as I have been since 2019. Waiting and enjoying other things.
