I know I am going to get so much hate for this, but I am prepared for it.
Breath of the Wild is a critically-acclaimed game and a favorite among Zelda players both new and old. It was an exciting step for the Zelda franchise and a game I thoroughly enjoyed upon release, but it has gotten to a point where I need to discuss it on a more critical level.
Today, I’m going to explain why I am not excited about Tears of the Kingdom.
The first trailer for Tears of the Kingdom piqued my interest, but in the pit of my stomach, a feeling of bitter disappointment festered. I felt like I had thoroughly explored this world and was ready to move on to something new. The past few years have been oversaturated with Breath of the Wild analyses and discussions, and while I liked the game just fine, I feel like I’m drowning in it.
Just like everyone else, I was so excited when Breath of the Wild was announced. The trailers were shrouded in so much mystery, with some in the industry even trying to throw us off our guard. Was that blonde-haired, pointy-eared protagonist actually Link, or would we be playing as a brand-new hero? Of course it was Link — you can’t fool me, Nintendo! Still, just the fact that it got people to doubt and speculate was an experience in and of itself.
The first two trailers for the sequel were attempting to do exactly the same thing. I do wish on some level that I could join in on the excitement, but unfortunately, this is the first Zelda game in a long time where I just can’t seem to hop on the hype train. Still, even though I am not nearly as enthusiastic about it as my crewmates here on Zelda Universe, it has been fun watching the Directs with them and seeing how they react to each new trailer. Not certain they felt the same with me being the buzzkill who couldn’t get on board with the whole thing, but I hold fond memories nevertheless.
Though there was so much to speculate about with the original Breath of the Wild trailers and so many details to analyze, I personally stayed away from most of it, wanting to go in as blind as possible. I believe this to be the reason why I was able to enjoy the game to the fullest. What, you thought I hated the original game based on my lack of enthusiasm for the sequels trailers? What an odd assumption to make.
Breath of the Wild was my very first experience with an open-world game. I know, I was a little behind at the time. Still, it was amazing how vast the world of Hyrule was. I enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny, searching for new treasures, locations, and adventures. I fondly remember scaling cliffs for hours, trying to make a straight path across tall peaks that I probably should have just walked around. I recall taking a mountain path strewn with Guardians that I was not prepared to face off against, and it was an exhilarating challenge just trying to escape unscathed. I loved collecting horses of every color and giving them all unique names and styling their manes. Then there was Hyrule Castle. Oh, how I love this game’s interpretation of Hyrule Castle! Infiltrating the cursed fortress and creeping my way into the heart of it to confront Calamity Ganon was a true dungeon-crawling experience I will never forget.
All in all, even though it doesn’t break into my top favorite Zelda games, I truly did enjoy my time playing Breath of the Wild. However, I set it down around the time the DLC came out, and I never picked it back up again. I felt like I had no real reason to complete the DLC, especially since I wasn’t interested in the final reward of the Master Cycle. (In fact, I personally have major issues with it being in a Zelda game to begin with, but I digress for now.) Besides, I had finished the majority of the game by this point, and all I had left to do outside of the DLC was find all the Korok Seeds, which wasn’t appealing in the slightest. It was disappointing enough to learn that you couldn’t update your inventory anymore after getting 500 of them, so really, what was the point of completing this tedious task? I do not need a golden poop. (Seriously, Nintendo, who green-lit this?) I had explored the land, and though I did not find every single hidden Korok, I did see all the major attractions that Breath of the Wild had to offer. I finished the story, explored the map, and completed each sidequest.
About a year or so later, I thought about playing through it again, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. At first, I wasn’t sure quite why; I honestly thought that my reluctance to revisit the Divine Beasts was the subconscious reason I did not want to start the game over. I haven’t bought Skyward Sword HD because the thought of facing the Imprisoned again frustrates me to my very core, so the idea wasn’t an implausible one.
But then it hit me: the real reason I was hesitant to start a new file was because I would never be able to play the game for the first time again. I will never again learn the secret of Satori Mountain, and I will no longer be caught off-guard by lurking Lynels or Guardians. I know where they are, and as a result, the adventure becomes less suspenseful. Just learning how to properly fight these fearsome foes was a journey in and of itself. But now that I know how to take down these behemoths — and how common they are compared to other mini-bosses from other Zelda titles — it just doesn’t hit the same. Is it still fun? Of course. As I said, I had a wonderful time with Breath of the Wild, but subsequent playthroughs just feel lacking when compared to replays of older Zelda games.
I replay games all the time, but what was special about Breath of the Wild was how awe-inspiring it was to discover new things. Memories, dragons, monster forts — to happen across them in this vast new world is what I believe to be the core of this game, and the fact that I now know all the secrets and will never just stumble across them again saddens me.
So why does all this make me wary of Tears of the Kingdom? Simply put, it’s because I don’t want to explore the same Hyrule again. I’m somewhat hopeful now that I know there will be air travel and floating islands akin to Skyloft in the sequel, but I also won’t hold my breath. Though the third trailer has eased my tensions just a bit, a lingering voice in the back of my mind keeps saying these new elements could very well be only scattered bits and pieces, with the remainder of the world being the Hyrule we worked so hard to traverse in the previous game.
The final trailer, released when I was in the midst of writing this article, has everyone in a tizzy. Ganondorf has finally made his return, so I should be excited, right? Truth be told, I’m more interested in the new boss designs like Gleeok and that cool-looking golem. The shallow pool of enemies from Breath of the Wild was one of my biggest complaints, only featuring 11 monster variants if you take color, element, and undead status out of the equation, so the new enemy designs are encouraging. This trailer also shows that it might not be the same old Hyrule we’ve explored before, and the new characters shown have potential as well. So in all fairness, I am now at least a little bit engaged. But as much as I want to be sucked into this world, there’s just no hook for me yet. I hope to be surprised about what the sequel has to offer, but for right now, I will continue to wear my skepticals.
However, the reason I write this is not to rant and rave about why I think Tears of the Kingdom will be bad; I merely wish to express my concerns. I know I am in the minority here, and that Breath of the Wild was a very special game for a lot of people. As I mentioned several times, it was special for me too. It’s revolutionary, but by no means my favorite. It didn’t have the adventurous spirit of The Wind Waker, the heart and tragedy of Twilight Princess, or the suspense of Majora’s Mask. What made it great, to me at least, was exploring and learning to survive on our own in this expansive world. Everything else was secondary.
While at the moment we are still not certain if this next story will see us venturing outside of Hyrule or not, I do hope that the game at least takes a different approach. It appears that this game may be more story-driven, which I think would be a vast improvement over its predecessor. I did enjoy the story from Breath of the Wild, but looking back at the cutscenes, I feel like something important is missing. I have a difficult time remembering a lot of them, while I can still vividly remember Link’s epic victory on Eldin Bridge in Twilight Princess and Ravio’s plea at the end of A Link Between Worlds. I believe the story of Breath of the Wild did have potential, and I hope that it gets expanded upon in the sequel.
But in truth, I am mainly writing this to satisfy my own curiosity. I want to remember all the ups and downs I experienced with Breath of the Wild, and I want to see if my feelings remain the same or change after I have completed Tears of the Kingdom.
I recently experienced something similar with Fire Emblem, another franchise I hold near and dear to my heart. I very much enjoyed Three Houses, but when they first announced the Three Hopes spin-off, I became quite irritated. (It was more or less how I felt when Age of Calamity came out, and that is not a game I am fond of in any regard.) I craved something completely new, which is exactly how I feel right now about the Zelda franchise. Anyone I have ever spoken to about it will tell you how antagonistic I was towards Engage when they first announced it. I thought it looked horrible in every sense, so much so that I nearly canceled my pre-order for it. However, with a little convincing, I kept the pre-order, and now I am happily eating my own words. Was it my favorite Fire Emblem game? Not by a long shot. But it was an extremely fun experience, and I am hoping that, despite all this skepticism and doubt, I will come to feel this way about Tears of the Kingdom someday.
Will I be proven wrong? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how I feel after I beat the game. So stay tuned for Part 2!
To celebrate the upcoming launch of Tears of the Kingdom, we are dedicating two weeks of columns articles to its groundbreaking predecessor, Breath of the Wild! Check out our Countdown to TOTK page.
