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Here at Nintendo Life, we are rather excited about a little upcoming game called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — you might have heard of it. It seems that after six years of waiting, the run-up to the game's release date has come about rather quickly and now we are awash with trailers, promotional material and, as of today, hands-on previews.
Yes, we can now start to get an idea of how this sequel actually plays on Switch before the big 12th May release date, and the consensus appears to be very positive indeed. To shed light on what the critics have thought so far, we have collected together a handful of the available preview write-ups so you can get an idea of what everybody had to say.
Before we dive into the thoughts of other outlets, however, let's first recap what we had to say after our hands-on experience. Simply put, we had a great time with what we've seen so far. The new mechanics are intuitive, the possibilities are endless and we can't wait to sink more hours into exploration: "we’re looking at history being made with this game".
For the most part, we were not alone in our admiration. Beginning with IGN, the outlet found the experience to be similar to Breath of the Wild, but with far more interaction and possibilities. In the write-up, Brian Altano praised the new abilities and checkpoint systems and commented on a steady frame rate throughout.
Nintendo has taken that ideology and legalized it in Tears of the Kingdom and that’s immensely exciting, even if it means there will be lots of hilarious fumbling and falling along the way.
Keza MacDonald from The Guardian continued this positive reception, commenting on how impressed they were by the new Fuse and Ultrahand options and stressing the emphasis that the game puts on fun experimentation.
It wants you to think of things and then immediately be able to try them out without worrying too much about the logistics, removing all the friction between idea and result.
For The Verge, Charles Pulliam-Moore found Fuse to be the most game-changing mechanic and a clear sign that Nintendo has acknowledged how people have played Breath of the Wild over the past six years.
once you start really using Link’s new abilities to interact with the things around him — the monsters, the weapons, the bushes full of bomb flowers — Tears of the Kingdom reveals itself to be a much more technically complex and imaginative game than its predecessor, which is saying something.
Many of these views were echoed in Gamespot's write-up by Steve Watts. The outlet found the preview to be extremely fun and they appreciated how many different solutions were available to the game's puzzles.
To my surprise, Tears of the Kingdom bridged that gap by presenting open-ended physics-based puzzles, but with solutions that felt so intuitive that I still got the satisfaction of finding my own complicated but "correct" way.
Finally, for Eurogamer, Lottie Lynn appreciated how the game appears to be changing the formula of Breath of the Wild while retaining all of its predecessor's joy. The write-up stressed Tears of the Kingdom's focus on creativity and praised how it never felt repetitive.
Tears of the Kingdom wants to fill players with a passion for creativity and experimentation in the same way Breath of the Wild urged for exploration. I can easily see myself spending hours constructing the perfect death machine, which will crush enemies without me ever having to unsheathe a sword.
Be sure to check out our full thoughts in the article above.
Have these previews got you even more excited for Tears of the Kingdom? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 47
The gamest game of all time.
I hope I can perform Link’s original smash bros DOWN + B move where you hold the sword downward in a stab position and I want to execute it from one of the floating islands. I want the sword to strike the ground and cause a shockwave the size of Hyrule castle. It will be like the reverse blood moon mechanic and instead of reviving enemies, it will completely decimate everything.
I’ll do it once a week to keep the bobobklins in check so they know wassup.
A little more than two weeks and we'll all be able to finally play it too, I'm so looking forward to it!
They got that kid from the Direct as CEO again. 'You can do ANYTHING!'
The hype is definitely overtaking me right now, can't wait for this despite having just started BOTW for the 5th time again. HAHA. I love that it seems to be just more of what we loved about the previous game, just more refined and expanded! So happy to have the Collector's Edition preordered & waiting for my TOTK OLED to ship out!
Really looking forward to playing!
I'd been pretty pumped about its upcoming release several years ago, but after several additional years of basically radio silence my hype had...dropped, to say the least.
Glad the most recent trailer re-ignited the hype engines, so to speak. And that those with early access are enjoying it. Next month should be a fun one!
Yeah it looks really fun. I'm glad they had a lot to show all along and some new mechanics. But I still don't want to get too hyped as two weeks is still some time but I've kept my pre-order after everything that's been shown. Will look forward to it then but am still curious for all the reviews.
Sounds like an 11/10!
The very notion they were able to put so much and make it open world game is what's possible other then a BOTW DLC. Which it in itself is laughable that only NintenDoomed fandom could do. But as closer it gets the more and more it seems likely this will be a defining game for open world where almost every possible notion can be implemented into a game or the impossible could be achieved to make it do or try or go where you want to without following a preset pattern. This is what I liked about BOTW and still to you don't have to follow a linear timeline and even then I found on YouTube a single shot of Ancient Arrow at Gannon more or less ended the fight scene. That to me just shows what those experimenting can do and what was possible since they didn't tell gamers if you do this - then Gannon was over before it started. A Quick end to a fight.
Once I get this game I’m probably going to spend an hour just attaching things together like those turret and science cube abominations from Portal 2
bUt iT'S JUsT oVErPriCed dLC!!1!
More so than any of the trailers, these snippets of previews from around the 'net has me super-hyped. All anyone has asked since the beginning of video games is to be able to use their imagination to solve a puzzle or overcome an obstacle in-game. And it's a Zelda game. Something special for sure.
@Maulbert Another complaint that aged beautifully.
I‘m a big Zelda fan, but I’m not looking forward to it. These days, I am so used to 60 fps gaming, almost all of the games I played in the last three years (both Switch and PS5, only exception Inside on Switch) were running with good 60 fps. And I just had no fun with BotW when I started it again two months ago, just because of (unstable) 30 fps. Who else feels the same as me about this?
Soon we will be able to experience this glorious adventure!
@Max_the_German Dang, dude. That’s really sad. Sorry you’ve sort of spoiled yourself for so many great games. Hopefully there’ll be a 60fps remake of TotK in 10 or 15 years.
This all sounds great but I wasn’t too big into the experimental side of BotW (don’t have the imagination for it); I was more enamoured with the exploration so I hope there’s plenty of new stuff to discover. I’m sure there will be, hopefully anyway- I’ll be disappointed if the discovery is more set in these gameplay possibilities rather than in the world itself
Dang, I need this game now. So excited.
I’m sorry if this is a hot take, but it’s not a puzzle if it has many different solutions
@ALinkttPresent There’s more than one method of solving a Rubik’s cube- does that mean a Rubik’s cube is not a puzzle?
@Max_the_German I feel bad for you.
I barely ever see a difference between 30 and 60fps. I was surprised when I found out that Astral Chain runs at 30 fps because to me the game looks extremely smooth.
The previews don't really add any new info to Aonuma's gameplay demo. Which is good.
@Max_the_German
I suppose you can't watch movies anymore either? Almost all movies have a framerate no greater than 24 fps
I remember playing WoW back in the day. The fps was always something like 120. I had absolutely no problem playing BotW after that.
@Max_the_German I'd tell you what I think of this attitude, but my comment would be removed.
And it's a rush to the Finish Line now....
So far the gameplay sounds top notch. Hopefully the story telling and game world will be improved over Breath of the Wild as well.
@Cia
The difference is you aren't playing a movie since framerate has an effect on the gameplay itself, a game running at 24fps would be a lot more noticable.
For me as long as its a stable 30fps im generally fine, in fact i would rather have a stable 30 than a game that aims for 60 but ends up all over the place (like the Klonoa remaster among others)
though on switch it can sometimes feel like a roll of the dice, im hoping with the theoretical switch-2 that more games end up having "performance" modes in more games since i would take smooth framerates over fancier visuals. (playing FFVII remake on ps5 for example i much prefer the performance option over the 4k "graphics" option)
The best part for me is a lot of this is optional. You can do as little or as much as you want. Just like BOTW.
Only watched SkillUp's preview and yeah it looks and sounds fantastic, i mean talk about a massive sandbox with endless toys to play with in it.
@Max_the_German
I don't mind the frame rate myself (although I do prefer 60fps if at all possible) but I do share a bit of your lack of enthusiasm. I can't really put my finger on why. I think it's just that from what I've read no preview has stated if there are classic style dungeons or not. I'm sure the fusing and whatnot is great and all but that's what I want to know about more than anything.
Sure we have seen teases of what look like dungeons in that last trailer but that's not what I'd call confirmation. That's literally the only holdup I got...well that and I'm still working on Trails into Azure and I doubt I'll be finished before Zelda comes around.
All that said though I'm sure I'll play it at some point and that it will be a great game all the same but I'm not counting down the days until I can play it.
I know you can save designs and respawn them but I want to keep the exact same vehicle loaded in the game world for a long time, to be able to form a connection with it.
@ALinkttPresent This seems like less of a hot take and more of a not take. (bah dong SPLISH)
Most conundrums can be approached from multiple angles, and if there really is only one clear solution to a problem then it’s probably not very ‘puzzling’ in the first place.
@ChromaticDracula
DO NOT READ THIS REPLY TILL YOU TRY IT, SO YOU CAN ENJOY DAYDREAMING.
I think you'd die from fall damage, and the shockwave size is maxed at like 15 meters in the first game. But fun idea!
These all seem to be quite worrisome.
I was hoping for Dungeons not Lego
I watched the gameplay I must say I liked a lot. It is different I was not expecting this. It looked weird for me a little I do know now what to say but I liked a lot. I still have not understand it completely that is it. I have a little idea now have the dungeons are but we still do not have the dungeons yet. This is a true Zelda game. Zelda team is incredible.
@Max_the_German
This is the first Zelda game in a long time that I haven't been excited about, but not just because of the frame rate. It's just that it doesn't look or seem like a truly new experience.
I think they did about as good as they could making this game look good on switch - and I think they did. But yeah, after playing stuff like Stray and Elden Ring on the PS5, everything but the indie games on Switch looks like a letdown.
That said, I have ordered the game and hope to be proven wrong about my preconceptions with new gameplay concepts, sheer fun, and whatever the game throws at me.
I've played Elden Ring and BotW. I have no problem going between the two because even if one runs smoother, you stop noticing once you play the other for more than 10 minutes. If you're that obsessed with the difference between 30 and 60 fps, be happy you didn't live through the PSOne and N64 era. I used to play games like Turok 2 at sub 20 fps and still had fun, because I appreciated their gameplay and ideas. 60 fps is great for Elden Ring, but that game has tons of other flaws that aren't technical (namely the entire second half and sharp decline in quality after the first big dungeon). Elden Ring is basically just a giant killing field. An open world with enemies placed in specific spots, but that is otherwise void of life. There are some killer dungeons in the game, but I'd take Dark Souls and BB over Elden Ring every day of the week.
@Korgon if it has traditional OoT style dungeons, I will be in. Otherwise I will probably hold off awhile. I enjoyed BotW but really missed the classic dungeons.
@ChromaticDracula that’s the downstab and it first appeared in Zelda 2 Adventure of Link.
With this kind of reviews, I'm expecting at least 112 on metacritic.
@Max_the_German i game on my PC with 120 fps but have no problem going back. You just need some time to get your eyes get used to it
@wanghosom "the greatest game of all the time"
Usually i would wait for the game to come out before say something like that.
BUT NOT THIS TIME
I agree with you 100%
@hd94
Yeah i had a similar experience after playing a large amount of Return to dreamland deluxe which runs at 60 then playing star allies which is 30fps, it made star allies feel really choppy until i got used to it.
@FredsBodyDouble
I remember the biggest annoyance of that era in europe was the dreaded PAL/50Hz issues, though yeah i tend to associate framerate issues in older games mostly with some of the more graphically impressive psone/n64 games and also the early HD era, though i tend to find those games harder to go back to than games with worse graphics but smoother performance (though quite a few of those games with poor performance have versions released later which fixed a lot of them like ocarina of time having the 3ds version or banjo tooie having the xbox version)
Aaaaaah i really don't care for dungeons, new gaming mechanics, groundbreaking graphics, or fps, I just want to save Hyrule again 🙂
@larryisaman sort of with you on that. I like the exploring and can't always be bothered with the crafting. This said, I'll give it a go, maybe they've nailed it in a way that is more engaging for me...we'll soon find out!
I hope there aren't a single dungeon in the game. I'm so tired of hearing the whining "boo- hoo we want a million old school dungeons with boring been there done that mechanics"...so I'll be enjoying the salt of all those people if there are no dungeons at all.
As for me, the dungeons have always been the most boring part of any Zelda game especially if there's only one way to solve the puzzles. Would be great if all the "dungeon" content and puzzles were seamlessly on the sky and underground layers of the overworld.
Also, the framerate has better not be stable at all times. I want salt. SALT!
@Sourcecode
They literally said in a preview you can skip the whole damn crafting part of the game if you don't like it and play it just like BotW. It's probably a lot harder and a lot boring that way, but at least you can!
"Tears of the Kingdom wants to fill players with a passion for creativity and experimentation in the same way Breath of the Wild urged for exploration."
Perfect description for the game's purpose. Or hopefully one of many of them. From all the gameplay I've seen, the only complains I can give would be the reusing of many BoTW sound effects and the lack of diving. But who knows, maybe when I play the game itself this will change to complete acclaim. This seems like one of those games that feel like another dimension when played.
But it's still a Legend of Zelda game, so I'm also excited for the story and narrative.
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