It couldn’t have gone any other way, right?
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomwas a perfect crescendoed sonata of how to wow an audience. At first, I was just impressed with how magnificent and sprawling the sky islands were. By the time I had brute-forced puzzles with unique object manipulation mechanics and discoveredthe depthsof the underground, I was completely enamored.
Breath of the Wildmanaged to sing a similar song back in 2017, but this felt considerably different. That’s worth talking about because at first, some were worried thatTears of the Kingdomwould crib way too much fromBreath of the Wild. I’ll admit, I was even curious to see just what Nintendo had in store for us here; not just from a freshness standpoint, but in terms of the greater reaction from fans.
LikeBreath of the Wild,I reviewedTears of the Kingdomin complete isolation, and I was in awe at the open-ended approach of how to approach nearlyeverythingin this game. I went into a shrine and solved it three ways,knowing full wellthat one of my peers had a devilishly different take in mind. It hearkens back to the days of the ’90s and 2000s when people would share their quirky strategies with one other, and come to a collective conclusion that would then become canon. Millions ofTears of the KingdomTikTok videos later, that theory is sound.
As someone who regularly returns toZeldagames,Tears of the Kingdomjust permanently threw a wrench in my lifetime replay plan. Not only am I going to have to workTearsin going forward: but I’ll need to spend a considerable amount of time with it to see just how all of my life experiences up until that moment influence my next playthrough.
Tears of the Kingdomis the very definition of a lifestyle game, and that’s why it took the crown for Best Switch Game of 2023.
