2023-06-02 20:16:13
Six years ago, Zelda: Breath of the Wild set new standards for open-world adventure. His successor is very similar to him – but even surpasses him.
Link is back on horseback in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.Nintendo
There are many reasons why the “Zelda” franchise has remained so popular to this day. The most compelling: The games just keep getting better. At the latest after “Breath of the Wild” from 2017, you could not have imagined that. At that time, the title set completely new standards for adventures in so-called open worlds, no other game had come closer to the promise of the genre name.
As in all “Zelda” games, the story was rather secondary, it usually goes something like this: The kingdom of Hyrule is being destroyed by the villain Ganondorf, and the mute, pointy-eared hero Link must defeat him to restore harmony. The eponymous princess of Hyrule is usually not idle, but rather works in secret, only to be reunited with the hero at the end.
Chosen Link has always paled as a character. He sweats, freezes, gets a fright every now and then, but otherwise offers himself generously as a largely empty shell that can be filled with emotions and ideals and at the same time allows considerable freedom of action. Because Link can do a lot. He can climb, fight, swim, fish, cook, play music, ride a horse, paraglide and catch animals. In “Tears of the Kingdom” three new skills that are essential for the course of the game are added.
In addition, this time the hero can reverse the path of physical objects, move up through massive ceilings as if floating to the surface, and most importantly, assemble just about anything they encounter on their way through Hyrule . It sounds complicated and it is: If you haven’t played “Breath of the Wild” and are not familiar with the basic mechanics of the gameplay, you are faced with enormous challenges. With a lot of patience you could master these, but playing the previous title first only has advantages.
Many ways lead to the goal
Good open-world games are characterized by two important characteristics. Firstly: Many roads lead to the goal. Second, you don’t have to go to all of them. “Goal” usually means the resolution of the central conflict, most often in the form of one last great fight, as in most “Zelda” titles. The majority of game designers keep guiding their players back to this one big main quest, even in a largely open world – the opposite happens in “Tears of the Kingdom”.
Distractions abound in Hyrule, which this time doesn’t just consist of one level, but includes two parallel kingdoms in the sky and underground. Here an exhausted forest spirit who wants to be taken to his friend’s camp, there a strange well that suddenly leads somewhere completely different, and over there such a beautiful wild and potential riding horse that you will certainly not find again anytime soon! On the way there is a cave with a worm-like monster inside, whose legacies you could try to attach to an arrow. And so forth. Suddenly 20 hours have passed without getting any closer to saving Hyrule. Being more excited than frustrated because it means you can keep playing longer is a testament to how good this game is.
You have to say goodbye to the fear of missing something that plagues many gamers. This is due to the size and nature of the map, but also to the fact that you can act freely in it in an unprecedented way. In a game, if there is a treasure chest on a high mountaintop, there is usually exactly one way to get there. In Tears of the Kingdom you can: cook and climb up an endurance-boosting meal; find a mountain cave and “swim” to the top from there; stick a balloon on an old wooden door and climb up with a torch; paragliding from an even higher mountain; build a jet plane. To name just a few options. That there is no one right way here is an intellectual liberation that immediately opens the visor.
Unfortunately, the controller of the Switch all too often sets limits to this freedom – there can be no question of intuitive control. This is where Nintendo needs to improve, and is probably already doing it. Tears of the Kingdom is said to be the last major console title.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo Switch, 60 Euro
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