Tech: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review

We knew for quite some time that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would be a "more of the same" sequel, but what we didn't know was how much more - more world, more characters, more everything:

As with its predecessor (2017's transcendent Breath of the Wild), Tears of the Kingdom throws you into an enormous landscape with total freedom as to where to go and what to do. This is a game where you can battle a three-headed frost dragon, race to stack stuffed animals into a wagon, and fly a hot-air balloon to survey a rock carving on the side of a mountain, all in the space of minutes. 

Unlike other open world games, which spoon-feed the player "activities" via map icons, or gate progress behind story beats, Tears of the Kingdom trusts you to discover things on your own (there is a map and integrated quest tracker, but they only get populated after you find the quest first).  That's why the game took me over two years to complete, delivering a surprisingly emotional story and a truly epic final boss fight. I really only have two complaints.

First, since the game largely re-uses Breath of the Wild's map and mechanics, the experience isn't quite as fresh this time around.  There are some big changes to Hyrule's geography, plus huge added landmasses in the sky and underground, but it's still basically the same world. And pretty much all of Breath of the Wild's core gameplay systems re-appear here, including cooking, shrines, horseback riding, and the ever-controversial item durability system.

Second, and more troublesome, is the iffy performance of Tears of the Kingdom on the original Nintendo Switch hardware. This game pushed the first Switch to its limits and beyond, with sub-20 fps performance when manipulating physics objects or in complex battle scenes.  On a Switch 2, after (*sigh*) paying to upgrade to the "Switch 2 version," you'll see massively improved framerates and resolution, but I don't like that they nickel and dime you for the upgrade.

Rating: 94/100 on Switch 2 with performance upgrade (89/100 on Switch 1)