After a long wait,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomhas finally hit store shelves. The game has been a fantastic treat for fans of the franchise, but the hardware it released on has definitely begun showing its age. While first-party titles likePokemon Scarletseem to be struggling on the aging hardware, Nintendo has played it very safe withZelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Aside from a few bugs and FPS drops,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomruns great onthe six-year-old Nintendo Switch. The game is massive and has loads of brand-new features, but the console seldom falters under all that weight. It is impressive what Nintendo has been able to pull off on 2017 hardware in 2023, but it may have also heldTears of the Kingdomback to accomplish that.
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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Does Not Take Many Risks
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis a very different game thanBreath of the Wild, but it is also similar in some regards. Nintendo introduced a slew of new abilities to make this the sandbox to end all sandboxes, and itexpandedZelda: Breath of the Wild’sHyrule immenselyto give players a massive playground to run wild in. Players also embark on a brand-new adventure, but everything else about it feels exactly the same.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomlooks practically identical toBreath of the Wild. While there may have been some graphical tweaks, the games look the same in a side-by-side comparison. The studio did not try to do anything particularly different with the look and feel of Hyrule. Instead, it seems to have just updatedZelda: Breath of the Wild’sgraphicsslightly and, basically, crafted a brand-new story around it.
The graphics ofZelda: Tears of the Kingdomsis not the only thing that played it safe as the world is the same too. Nintendo tookZelda: Breath of the Wild’smapand gave it a few tweaks forTears of the Kingdom. It did expand with the addition of a sky and underground map, but the rest of the open world is the same. It is just as impressive today as it was in 2017, and the additional locales make it feel even grander, but this sameness may also turn some players off.
While thevarious abilities inZelda: Tears of the Kingdomare different from the Sheikah Slate runes inBreath of the Wild, the rest of the gameplay has not changed and fans know just what to expect when they boot up the new title. The menus are the same, combat has not changed much, the same music cues fill the world, and even cooking has not been updated. Direct sequels tend to have similar gameplay styles, but it feels too similar here sometimes.
The Nintendo Switch has been on the market for over six years, and it has begun showing cracks. Nintendo can only do so much with the aging hardware, and that is likely whyZelda: Tears of the Kingdomfeels so much like its predecessor. Nintendo was not able to take major risks with the formula, and instead had to craft something thatit knew would work on the Switch.
Zelda: Breath of the WildandTears of the Kingdomare fantastic games and great system sellers for Nintendo. However, it would have been nice to seeTears of the Kingdomlaunch on a next-gen console. That would have allowed Nintendo to innovate uponBreath of the Wild’sformula immensely, but it had to play within the confines of the Switch instead. Hopefully, the next chapter will not have to deal with those same constraints.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis available now on Switch.
