Now Playing: Tears of the Kingdom

I stopped playing Tears of the Kingdom with about 120 hours on the clock. I say stopped, rather than finished, because I could have probably played for 200 hours and still not seen or done absolutely everything. Can a game be too big? I guess it’s a pointless argument to be made about a game like TOTK because like BOTW before it, this is a game where how much or how little of the content you engage with is entirely up to you.

Like BOTW, once you leave the initial tutorial area you’re free to run directly to the final boss and finish the game. I obviously didn’t do that. What I did do over my 120 hours of play was complete all of the main quests, cleared all 152 shrines (and all of the shrine related quests), completed about 62 of the 70 or so side adventures, and about 70 of the 130 or so side quests. I only found about 120 of the 1000 (?) korok seeds, but that was enough to increase my inventory to the size I needed so I wasn’t too fussed about hunting more down.

I fully explored the sky and the land, but probably only 40% or so of the depths for reasons I’ll get into later. TOTK is a game absolutely stuffed with content. I’d say it feels three times the size of BOTW. And the kind of incredible thing is that no matter what I was doing, it always felt worth my time. I can certainly say that some of the ‘rewards’ you receive for some of the more elaborate side quests are a little disappointing, but I still enjoyed doing them.

TOTK is a direct sequel to BOTW and that’s one of the aspects that I loved the most about it. I’ve seen some people disappointed that the game uses the same world map but for me, that’s actually a positive. I loved returning to a familiar world and familiar locations to see what had changed. And a lot has changed. I loved meeting up with characters from BOTW and seeing that they were now doing. A continuation like this of story, world and characters isn’t something we’ve typically seen in this series before and TOTK does a fantastic job of building upon the world of BOTW whilst also giving us something new.

The new abilities give you more freedom than ever in terms of how you fight, solve puzzles and traverse the world. Perhaps too much freedom given how easy it is to cheese your way through the puzzle shrines – one of the reasons why I’d have to say they’re not, overall, quite as good as those in BOTW. The ability to construct vehicles and all kinds of crazy contraptions is exceptionally impressive even if none of them are strictly necessary. Once again, it’s really up to you how much or little you want to engage with these systems.

The main quest, like in BOTW, takes you to the four diverse regions of Hyrule where you’ll find a unique Temple. These are, I would say, much better than the Divine Beasts of BOTW. They’re still not quite like a more traditional Zelda dungeon, but they strike a closer balance. They all offer a unique location, style, puzzles and boss. The story beats may feel a little repetitive as you go – because which Temples you do and the order in which you do them is entirely up to you, so the game has to structure itself and the story to allow for that.

And the story does strike a lot of the same beats as BOTW which I would say is both a good and a bad thing. Good, in the sense that it does allow this massive degree of freedom in terms of how you choose to progress, but bad in the sense of the aforementioned repetition of information (DEMON KING? SECRET STONE?) and predictability. I did enjoy it though, and the game does build to a suitably exciting conclusion and final boss fight. Better than BOTW? Overall, I would say yes.

The new sky islands are pretty fun but there’s not a great deal of variation between them. Travelling from one to another on your own custom built flying machine never gets old though. The sense of scale is truly impressive, particularly when you take a flying leap all the way from the sky, down through a chasm and into the murky depths below.

The depths is one of the strongest and weakest new aspects of TOTK. When you have an objective – a target – it’s great. But outside of those main or side quests that carry you through it, I didn’t feel particularly incentivised to keep exploring. There are no shrines. No koroks. Little in the way of unique enemies. Little to no terrain variation or landmarks which means navigation can be a pain.

As I said, when you’re progressing through it for a reason, it’s great, but I found just exploring the depths for the sake of exploring to not be very rewarding. Yes, there are lots of fun, unique and cool optional clothing items to find, but nothing that I would say is really worth collecting unless you want absolutely everything. Because you really don’t need any of it.

However, the way the depths, the land and sky connect is very clever – the shrines to the lightroots, the rivers above to the mountains below and, most importantly, the depths being the place where you’ll harvest the materials you’ll need to increase your battery capacity which then makes your exploration of the sky islands all the more easy.

TOTK is a game of systems built upon systems and all these systems connect in ways that kind of blows my mind. The fact that this all just . . . works, and works on a Switch is kind of nuts. The world, the physics, the Rewind ability – that alone would break most other games. And then we have Ascend. That’s even more crazy when you really stop to think about it.

And you’re free to use and combine all of these systems in incredibly creative or stupid ways but whatever you do, however you do it, it all just . . . works. If I was rating TOTK purely on the basis of its systems and mechanics it would be an easy 10/10. They’re f**king wizards.

I think I’ll wrap up this review here because I don’t really want to spoil anything about this game. It’s the kind of game that’s best experienced yourself, discovering things as you go. As a sequel to BOTW, TOTK is excellent. If you enjoyed that game then it’s safe to say you’ll enjoy this just as much if not more. I’d say I enjoyed it just about the same.

In some ways, it does feel a little too bloated compared to BOTW but once again, none of the content didn’t feel worth doing and it is all entirely optional. When you feel like you’ve done enough of any one thing, you can just stop. I loved returning to this world, seeing these characters again. The new abilities are all creative. The story, though somewhat predictable, is told well. The boss fights are all unique and fun.

TOTK isn’t quite the same revolution for the series that BOTW represented, more of an evolution. It’s familiar, but fresh. It looks lovely, and the fact it runs at all as well as it does on the Switch is an absolute miracle. It’s another easy contender for my GOTY. Not as strong, perhaps, as I was expecting, but a contender nonetheless. An easy recommendation, but you’ve probably already played it.

9/10

Gallery: Cereza and the Lost Demon

Now Playing: Link’s Awakening (2019)

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was originally released on the Game Boy in 1993. I don’t believe I played it until a few years later, perhaps around 1996, and I later played the Game Boy Colour DX version. It was, I believe, my first Zelda game and it is, in many ways, kind of an odd entry in the series in terms of its story, location and characters.

Although it’s a game I have fond memories of I can’t honestly say I recall much beyond the opening few dungeons. Spin on 20 years and here I am playing a Switch remake of Link’s Awakening. So is it a good remake? And how does Link’s Awakening feel to play now?

Visually, the remake replaces the 2D graphics of the original with a charming and colourful 3D world. I am, however, kind of torn on this visual ‘upgrade’. It certainly looks lovely but there was something so appealing and timeless about the 2D visuals of the original that I feel has been lost a little in the transition to 3D.

I have similar misgivings about the upcoming Advance Wars remake. Advance Wars was one of my favourite Game Boy Advance games and its 2D visuals were glorious. I’m just not sold on the transition to 3D based on the videos I’ve seen. Maybe it’s just misplaced nostalgia speaking. It does, I admit, have a charm all its own, but I do think I just prefer the original 2D graphics over these slightly too shiny, ‘toy’ like 3D interpretations.

I also don’t recall Link’s Awakening being so damn easy. Maybe I’ve just gotten better at games. Maybe it’s the controls with easier access to more tools. Maybe it’s the seamless overworld, or the map on which you can now mark points of interest so you don’t lose your way or forget locations you need to return to later. Maybe it’s the improved range and ease of movement that makes all the boss fights entirely trivial.

I breezed through Link’s Awakening much faster than I expected to. Having watched some comparison videos I have to say it’s certainly a faithful recreation of the original. Every dungeon. Every room. Every enemy. But it does feel a hell of a lot easier than I recall. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing, as such, but it did mean I found the game lacked any real challenge.

The dungeon designs are all fun, as are the boss fights, but I wouldn’t say any of them are particularly memorable. I do still love exploring the overworld though, meeting the weird and wonderful cast of characters and hunting down the various collectibles and optional items. That’s as fun and engaging in this remake as it was in the original.

This remake has a new ‘build your own dungeon’ mode which I thought was a little pointless. You’re not really building your ‘own’ dungeon, you’re just stringing together assorted tiles from the existing dungeons in the game. You can’t customise those tiles. You can’t really be creative to any degree with it. And you can’t share your own creations or download others.

Technically, this remake isn’t great. I experienced frequent and noticeable frame drops, particularly when exploring the overworld. And it felt far worse when I played docked than in handheld mode. And a game like this really shouldn’t suffer from such a problem. The fact that none of this has been fixed so long since its original release is pretty disappointing.

As a game, Link’s Awakening remains a very fun and unique title in the Zelda series. I don’t think I enjoyed it as much now as I did back in the day, but I still had a good time with it. As a remake, I’d say this version is decent, but not great. I’m not totally sold on the visuals, but that’s really a matter of personal preference. What’s not a matter of personal preference though is the poor performance. I expected a lot better. The new dungeon building mode is also shallow and pointless. The improved controls are welcome, but they do make the game feel significantly easier as a result.

It’s also a shame this remake doesn’t include the original and DX versions of the game as unlocks upon completion. That really would have been great and added more value to the package. I kind of wish the new Advance Wars remake offered the same, but I know it won’t.

Overall, if you’ve never played Link’s Awakening I can’t say this remake isn’t a good way to experience it for the first time, but a part of me just feels like it’s missing something, some timeless quality that the original version possessed and something that can’t really be replicated here.

7/10

E3 Special 2023

It’s that time again! E3 but not E3 because E3 is dead! Long live E3! Sony were up first with a showcase that should have wowed us all. But no. Not unless you’re excited about a load of third party live service multiplayer shooters. They had Spider-Man 2, I guess, but that’s about it. I just really want Horizon: Forbidden West to be announced for PC already. Come on Sony, get your shit together. I want to give you money.

Summer Game Fest is still a thing but all that really caught my eye was Alan Wake 2 because I liked the first Alan Wake and Control was pretty fun. Wait, what’s that? EGS exclusive? F**k off. Star Trek Infinite Paradox might be cool, even though it does kind of look like a Trek Stellaris mod.

Ubisoft? LOL I’m not going to waste my time.

The X-Box and Bethesda Showcase was easily one of the best showcases in years unless you’re a Sony fanboy who desperately needs to believe that your plastic toy box is better and more successful than the other plastic toy box.

Fable is a game I don’t have much interest in given I’ve not played the previous games and have no history with the series. Plus, the trailer didn’t exactly give a lot away. South of Midnight had style but once again, not a lot of substance in terms of actual gameplay or any real indication about what kind of a game it is.

Star Wars Outlaws is maybe the one thing Ubisoft had that looked cool so I’ll keep an eye on it. Avowed from Obsidian might be good, but I’m obviously wary after the dull as f**k Outer Worlds. Hellblade 2 had a trailer. It wasn’t a very good trailer, but I’m still interested because I liked the first game.

Path of the Goddess looked pretty fun. There was also Jusant a climbing game in which you . . . climb. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be fun. We also had a look at the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Phantom Liberty which I’m really looking forward to, not just for the new content, but the big overhaul patch accompanying it. Unfortunately it releases not long after -

Starfield. Ok, Todd, you got me. I’m f**king hype. Starfield looks like my dream f**king game. It’s like they thought of everything I’d want and put it into the game. I honestly can’t wait. But I know I need to be wary. This is Bethesda we’re talking about and we all remember that absolute f**k fest that was Fallout 4 at release. Don’t let me down, Todd. Don’t break my heart.