Hello and Welcome to Realms Reviews!
Whether you’re new or not, Realms is a fantasy / sci-fi newsletter. As such, I consume plenty of sci-fi and fantasy media and contents!
Here’s how reviews work:
Every review has a bit of a summary - no spoilers - my take on the story and why you should consider reading it. And then I’m going to give a rating. I’m stealing my rating system from fighting video games. From best to worst: Z, S, A, B, C, D.
Z means whatever I reviewed is the absolute best of its kind and will leave you wishing you had more.
S is for media that is excellent, but not quite earth shattering.
A is for very good. Something that is worth your time.
B is good. Just good.
C is best summed up as “Meh” - it will make no difference in your life and is probably worth skipping.
D is a definite no. Skip it. Avoid it.
That said, take the time to review the media yourself, if it catches your eye (or ears.) I mostly review amazing media, so you don’t have to worry about it wasting your time.
Today, I’m reviewing the video game Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo Switch, which I’ll refer to as TOTK from now on because that’s a ton of words. A lot of you might not be gamers, so I’m going to make sure you can have a solid grasp of this game. I want to give you something valuable even if you don’t play video games yourself.
Legend of Zelda is a series, if you didn’t know, and it lives in almost every gamer’s head rent free. I bet every gamer in the world has played or watched one of these games.
Why are they so special? It starts with a simple story: A demon king steals a princess and a courageous knight must save her. Every game runs with this plot line, but explores it in new ways. That’s what makes TOTK so interesting - it’s a sequel to Breath of the Wild. Sequels doesn’t very often in the Legend of Zelda universe. So, within two games, the creators had to find a way to spin the same storyline.
How did they do this? By building new layers inside the previous world. It was already a massive open-world game where you could go anywhere and do anything. In TOTK, the developers added flying islands and an underground expanse spanning the entire above-ground map. Size matters, as they say, but so does quality.
In TOTK, you spend time with a cast of characters as wild and ridiculous as real life. You do quests with satisfying stories and extremely fun mechanics. You get lost in a world so picturesque and mysterious that you’ll long for real life. That’s what happens to me every time I play. I get lost in vast lands, and then I’d turn to my window, look outside and appreciate what lies out there all the more. Take this in contrast to the neverending iterations of shooting, military, or combat games, and TOTK stands to give players a meditative experience.
It’s also just darn fun to play. You can use your powers to combine shields and weapons with every item around. Put a bouncy mushroom on a sword. Put a spring mechanism on a shield. Create a towering robot to rain fiery death on your enemies! You can do all of that in one game. It’s like Minecraft and Zelda made a beautiful baby together.
TOTK takes the open-world gameplay style to its furthest extent, too. It doesn’t force any sort of linear experience on the player, which I can imagine is tough to create from the narrative side of things. You can start a quest, ignore it for hundreds of hours, and go back to it whenever you want. It’s liberating and true to its form, but it’s easy to forget what you’re doing if you’re chasing butterflies or hunting beasts or fighting Bokoblins along the way.
There’s so much more I could say, but seeing is really believing.
So, here’s a link to a TOTK play-through without commentary, where you can watch someone play the whole game.
And here’s another link to see some of the wackiest things players have built in the game.
My rating for Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom: Z. It’s the best of its kind and is absolutely worth your time (dozens of hours of playing) and money ($70 price tag, not including the Nintendo Switch.)
Now, normally I do notable quotes from whatever I review, but this game doesn’t have those. I have incredible moments.
Take this one: I was pursuing a mission to find the last Sage and completely got lost in flying islands covered in storms and lightning. I stumbled around for hours till I found the sage. Turns out I did the whole thing wrong and skipped at least two other quests, but because this game is so open world, it still worked!
Another favorite moment is flying as high as I can, then skydiving all the way to the ground. I usually build a hot air balloon-plane thing and enjoy the view as the sun advances through the sky and the sky islands float further away. When my vehicle runs out of juice, I jump and find something interesting to skydive toward. It always amazes me that there’s no loading screen or pauses from descending to the ground. It’s a seamless, beautiful experience, and might even be perfect.
You can buy the game here: https://zelda.nintendo.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/
That’s the review for Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. If you like this game or know someone who does, please share it and help Realms grow.
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Realms Reviews Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom