Going nuts on Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
Total departure from any format of any kind other than fangirling over #TOTK
As I said in the description, I’m going to completely abandon anything normal this week and just walk you through some early scenes from playing Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom this week. And as much as I loved Breath of the Wild, WOW! I am impressed so far with the follow-up.
Fair warning if you read on, there are some spoilers! But I will try to keep it surface level so if you play yourself you can still enjoy the story.
Starting in the sky
The lengthy video sequence that sets up TOTK is Link and Zelda post calamity/BOTW age, exploring under Hyrule castle. After discovering mysterious runes and a fabulously creepy mummy, things (surprise surprise) go haywire, culminating in an explosion under Hyrule castle that creates a massive chasm Zelda is lost to, while Link is grievously injured.
When this iteration of Link awakens, he is on an archipelago of mysterious floating islands in a futuristic version of a ghost town. Small robots, “constructs”, fussily order him around as they toil over piles of busted-up device components. He learns these sky cities were made by a civilization called the Zonai, and his Zonai spirit guide Raaru guides him around his first few tasks including some incredible new successors to BOTWs rune powers.
In quick order, you find out about your new powers, which are bananas. I would worry more about spoiling the fun if the powers weren’t so fun that I think that would be impossible.
New Powers
First up, your ability to forge weapons - I’m not a huge gamer, but I have to say this implementation of weapons forging is one of the most kvetching and hilarious I’ve ever seen. Take a look at this beauty I created.
Yep, that’s a sword with a mining cart stuck to the end of it. It made for surprisingly good damage. But you get the idea, the sky is the limit in terms of whatever ridiculous thing you can imagine forging to your melee weapons, AND/OR(!) your shields or arrows.
But my favorite, favorite favorite new power is one that allows you to combine almost endless combinations of arbitrary materials to build, eh pretty much whatever you want. A new element of the game is a category of items I’ll call “Zonai materials”, which include specific machines and the components made to create and power them. Here’s where another favorite game of mine (Bad Piggies) seems to collide with TOTK. As someone who has always loved physics simulator-ey building games I have been going absolutely nuts on the endless options you have to build things with Zonai materials.
A fan-powered raft? Sure!
Wooden planks attached to three hot air balloons? Why not!
(Although you do have to be careful with the hot air balloons, as I found out when I accidentally sent off this side quest character in hot air balloons with no direction or way to get back down. Whoops!)
Another favorite is this sort of roller-coaster reminiscent hook and plank traveling system.
There are also more basic components like these Zonai air surfing birds, that you can attach other components like fans, or rockets(!) to.
It’s not all fun and games though. Since this is a Zelda game, eventually we know we’ll run into adversaries.
New enemies + old villains
Ok SO.
I love/hate the new enemies. We still have Lynels, whyyyyyy. And it seems like there are more of them!
There are also GIANT CAVE WORMS(!) (see that upper right archway, it is lurking in there). Luckily to battle, they aren’t so bad.
We also have gigantic box monsters, which I still haven’t fought since I don’t know what reward I’m supposed to get from them. (He’s not clearly guarding any treasure and none of them have blocked my way to anything so I’ve skipped, it for now).
Our old friends the Talus are also back, and they are now Bokoblin encampments! WTF. Left that one for another day as well.
Although in good news, it seems like we have left behind the Yiga and the Guardians from BOTW.
What else.
Oh yeah: pink is the new black, and Gloom is the new “Guardians”, if I had to compare BOTW to TOTK. If that’s gibberish to you, don’t worry you’ll see soon enough if you play.
We also have something I’m calling Pope-oblin which is a giant, GIANT bokoblin (also makes me think of Bad Piggies, tbh) with what looks like a cross impaling his head. Oh yeah, and trees can now beat you up. Thanks, I hate it!
New scenery
It would be impossible to be disappointed with the scenic elements of the game, which equal BOTW and add some new breathtaking views. Hard not to feel zen looking at these. Not too much else to say but they really are part of why I love these games.
Old friends
One thing I ADORE - ADORE - about TOTK is that the plot throughlines from BOTW are strong, much stronger than I expected. I thought we might see a character or two from the last game in this one. I was wrong! So far, many to most characters I recall have equivalents and ongoing stories with new arcs in TOTK.
The koroks show up. They’re still goofy AF. And they also have stoves now that you can’t use. (Rude).
Kilton is back, with his brother KOLTON! No I’m not kidding. I can really see the family resemblance.
And Hudson and Rhondson are well over in Tarrey Town, with a daughter Mattison who looks like exactly what their child should look like, I guess.
So far I’ve only been to (of main “city” areas) Rito Village, Hateno Village, Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle area, and Zora domain. ALL have most all of the characters I remember, with new plot points, as well as some new faces and stories.
Which brings us to our first boss, and the adolescent version of young Tulin from BOTW from Rito Village. (Probably the biggest spoilers below).
Boss battle 1
We quickly learn that Rito village has become victim to a mysterious, skyward storm shrouding the town in blizzard and making it impossible to get food. We reunite with Teba and others and learn that Tulin has gone off on his own to try to solve the mystery of the blizzard.
After a somewhat lengthy series of tasks we connect with Tulin and ascend to the sky. I have to say I loved this whole storyline. The scenery was haunting and beautiful. TL:DR, you are climbing up in a series of ghostly, animated arks swirling around the eye of the blizzard.
Eventually, you arrive at what is the clear parallel of a divine-beast-level challenge from BOTW. In this case, landing on a main ark full of enemies and puzzles to solve.
Surprise surprise, your reward for solving them all is an encounter with this guy.
But as far as bosses go, he isn’t all that bad. Boy byeee
On to boss 2
I don’t know if I’ll do more of this type of newsletter(s), but I’m currently in Zora domain where things have changed for the worse :(
Other scenic, calm spots like Lurlelin village also are rumored to be in trouble.
All in all, I am enjoying this game just as much as BOTW and absolutely love what they’ve done with it for the most part (although I miss my bomb rune!) Well worth the $ to pick this game up in my opinion.