I didn’t like Breath of the Wild. I assume this is where I get beaten to death with clubs by people that are more familiar with the anatomy of Bokoblins than with their own family. Honestly, I’ve never loved the Zelda series as much as others. I grew up with PlayStation ruling the roost, and Nintendo was about to release the GameCube, it was never going to be my scene. I had a couple of attempts to get into BOTW, but every time, I thought that it really wasn’t for me.

When Tears of the Kingdom was announced and advertised (as I saw it) as Breath of the Wild but with six more years of polish, that didn’t appeal to me. It still doesn’t. So why, after more than 20 hours with Tears of the Kingdom do I find myself enjoying a Zelda game more than Link’s Awakening? Although being “the same,” Tears of the Kingdom focuses on fun emergent gameplay more than strictly sticking to the previous several years of action-adventure titles. The cooking, weapon degradation, and annoying weather effects simply did nothing for me.

These things are still there, but more as the foundation for which the rest of the game is built-on. Tears of the Kingdom from the get-go set out to do something different from the start. That was evident when, on the sky islands shown in the few trailers we’d all seen, the game basically said “Get over this gap” and didn’t directly give me a bridge to cross it. So my stupid-genius developed by Besiege meant I made my own Danyang–Kunshan bridge from logs and my new Spider-Man goopy wrist-liquid. From there, and beyond the rather lengthy linear tutorial, the strange thoughts and creations go far and beyond.

Of course, as a first impressions editorial, I’ll leave the final opinions to Alexx at some indeterminant time. However, I have to say that unlike before, I finally get it. The locked-down advertising for Tears of the Kingdom and keeping much of this a secret only to appear like BOTW again didn’t work to sell the game to me. Nothing did until I was actually playing and saw just how experimental Nintendo had actually gone. By that point, reviews were just coming out, fans were claiming the second coming before playing much, and I was (of course) ignoring all of them.

Without spoiling anything too much, Zelda needs rescuing again to the point that Link is in second place for the World Stalker Championships behind an Italian plumber. The world has gone topsy-turvey and the lands between (yes!) Eldin and Gerudo have been shattered to pieces. All the basic story elements are still there and the world is still BOTW but shaken up a little with more to explore. If I was told in the ads there was more to explore, I might have been more excited. Sadly, the marketing was more or less “it is still the same map, go explore it, again.”

It is the new tools and additions that Tears of the Kingdom brings which make an open-world Zelda more appealing than what we had during the Switch’s birth and Wii U’s death. One new tool allows you to attach things to weapons and shields. Still held down by the calamity of ever-prevailing weapon degradation, being able to attach a claymore to a halberd and become Arjuna is great fun, for a while at least. The thing is, it is not just that. You can attach shrooms on sticks to bounce Bokoblins to Faron, freeze various enemies then attach bombs to arrows, or simply have a fire shield.

Tears of the Kingdom feels rewarding for figuring out or remembering what you have at your disposal. The trouble is remembering all the button combinations and how to get to everything. This is of course a fundamental flaw with a controller with limited buttons. Beyond my goopy-glue powers, I often forgot about the others, which is weird given one of them is amazing. Stated as starting out as a developer cheat, this is why we should get cheat codes back into single-player games. Being able to fire yourself up through the floor should be the most memorable thing about a game with puzzles based around that.

It is this new idea of traversal, movement, and combat that stands out through building your own car, skateboarding on top of your shield, warping through the floor, and altering your weapons. It is one of the few experiments from a large developer on a significant title. Not only is that rare but it worked. Admittedly, this was a safe experiment given it is still at the core the same BOTW as before with a few additions. However, I won’t argue like some that Tears of the Kingdom is “just full-priced DLC.” I’m stupid but not that stupid.

To answer my question: “If I hated BOTW; Why do I love Tears of the Kingdom?” I believe putting the stupid decision-making moments (mushroom stick makes Bokoblin go bounce!) in my hands makes me enjoy and (almost) forgive weapons breaking every few seconds. It also makes me forgive Zeus for smiting me every time, or having to stand about waiting for the rain to stop so I can climb a rock. With a world so ready to be explored and explored in interesting ways, Tears of the Kingdom makes me want to sack off this princess-chasing nonsense and go spelunking in the ruins of the Uhl palace with stupid-fun weapon combos.

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