The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Review (Switch 2)

So Zelda notes was a negative thing for BOTW but positive for this one?

I actually played Tears first, well, kind of. I picked up Breath for WiiU and did the Great Plateau and went to Kakariko Village and Hateno and then gave up. I simply did not like the game.
I hated the weapon breakage, which I now love and release why it exists. I couldn't understand why stamina was there, thinking why give an open world playground if you are just going to nerf me, I now see it's a puzzle in and of itself and adore its presence in the game. I stuck to the paths, stupidly . I played the game all wrong and as a result I did not enjoy myself. So, i sold it with no regrets.
Roll on summer of last year and I picked up Tears and I loved it. I had done over 120 shrines, most of the side quests/adventures I could and was about to start the temples when I decided to pick up Breath and give it another try before continuing with Tears.
To say I fell in love with Breath is an understatement. It all clicked. I had seen the world in Tears, yet despite this, exploring in Breath hit different. It felt magical, as if I was seeing this world I knew well for the first time. The atmosphere was calm, welcoming, yet carried an air of sadness.
Before I returned to Tears I did EVERYTHING Breath had to offer, all Koroks, Shrines, side quests and all upgraded armour bar 2 and all the DLC. I have since finished Tears, doing everything except Koroks, which I will not be doing, and absolutely love the game. But, Breath for me just tops it as my favourite. I think a good way to describe the two games is Tears is a masterfully made game and Breath is a masterfully made experience. Tears is for epic fun and to fool around on a grand adventure, Breath wants you to truly exist in its world, to live and breathe it and most importantly, to feel it.
There is no right or wrong to which is best, they are two sides of the same coin and both can stand proud.
I have since completed Breath again, 120 shrines and side quests included and I will be starting Tears again soon. Its safe to say I am in love with these two now and without Tears existing that may never have happened . I may have been late, perhaps there was a reason for that, but at least I arrived.

The busier world was my biggest gripe with Tears so I’d appreciate the better management but having to use a mobile app in conjunction with the game? That’s a line for me.

The Galaxy 2 of Zelda games running smoother than ever is honestly enough of an excuse to upgrade tbh

Thankfully I haven't played this one yet on Switch, so I'll be able to savour it in its best incarnation (yet) once I'll grab Nintendo's latest console. One of the very few instances where having a huuuge backlog actually made things better... Meanwhile I've also put every other Switch game with, ahem, benefits on Switch 2 that I haven't completed yet at the end of the backlog queue.

Been playing this non stop on switch 2, honestly I suggest doing limited or no Zelda notes until you beat the main game then seeing what you missed. Just my opinion, going for 100 percent minus koroks not doing all of those. The filter to turn off found items is such a blessing while doing hunts, and cave entrances. The biggest thing is the repetition of the "go north" it definitely needs to be less frequent

The game looks and runs incredible !!! ... Zelda Notes is alright although I use a tablet instead of my phone for the bigger screen. .... Gonna miss my easy dupe glitches from 1.1.1 version though. LOL

I'll probably give the game another shot on the Switch 2 but at least on my initial run I really didn't enjoy it. Got about 70 hours in, with about 3/4 of the shrines and three of the dungeons done, and then reached a point of, "Yeah I'm just going to go beat this," and haven't touched it since. At a point was like 30 feet away from the last dragon tear and didn't even bother to pick it up because I just wanted to get things over with.

Honestly one of the rare cases where I regret that I mostly buy things digitally because if I had gotten it physical I probably would've sold it by now.

Missed opportunity to add some sort of small dlc with this upgrade. Even just adding in a master mode would’ve been something

@JimNorman Dude, I can't believe you used evz in your review

I got really excited to pick it back up again after all the hub bub with the switch two version and spent about half an hour in the depths before I decided that I wasn't actually that interested in seeing it all again.

Still it a great game, just think I'm ready for something new.

@PikminMarioKirby haha, right? This should have been a two in one review of both games with one author... though it does show how subjective these reviews actually are

@Lizuka

i felt the same way. after loving just about every zelda game upon release, i handed over 70 bucks without even a second thought.

its the most ambitious, laziest, busiest, most boring game in my collection.

Got better score then BoTW S2 because Note is a + this time lol

Duality of Notes.

@PikminMarioKirby

Different reviewer.

I love the Zelda notes. To be able to share items with friends is awesome.

Both look amazing and Zelda notes is a great addition. Love the navigation 2nd screen

@PikminMarioKirby wondered this as well - however despite there being two different reviewers, TOTK is the larger / better game of the two so I’m not overly surprised.

It’s still odd seeing two 10/10 game experiences getting lower scores for objectively better versions… but I digress, I get the conditions around it.

Took me a short while to get used to the buttery smooth framerate, but it is night and day from the Switch 1 version, which I still loved to pieces, of course.

Never got excited for this. Can’t stand the construction content. Just give me traditional dungeons…..

Now THIS upgrade I will get day one. Worth every cent.

I purposely skipped this the first time around bc I really wanted to save my first playthrough for the Switch 2. I figured it would be a Remaster at launch, and I'm now very happy to be experiencing it for the first time the proper way!

@dartmonkey Yes because mechanically, sure, it's pretty much BotW, I can gel with that. But there were mounting frustrations throughout the experience that just annoyed me more and more as I went and by the time I was done I wanted to be done with it.

Ultimately on its own, yeah, sure, game's probably fine, whatever. But end of the day in my view it's just a more bloated BotW with awkward crafting mechanics shoved into everything so I can just play BotW instead if I really want to do that. And BotW while I like it is definitely around the bottom when it comes to 3D Zelda games for me anyway.

Only reason I even specified the amount of time I played it was pretty much because I didn't I'd be receiving the exact opposite of your comment telling me I didn't give it a chance. I did and I didn't like it.

Still searching for a definitive answer, and thought someone here would be able to finally share: are Switch 2 Edition games fully on the cart (i.e. could it be played day one if you had no internet connection) or is the S2 patch a and it's just the S1 game on a red cart? Thinking about selling my S1 copies and upgrading down the line, but won't if the upgrade is not on the cart. Thanks!

I started Tears on Switch 1 but barely got beyond Great Sky Island because of being too busy with other games cough*Splatoon 3*cough so this will fortunately be almost all new to me. Still expect to like it more than Breath. I get that people liked Breath's more chill atmosphere, but there were often times I wanted things to be more lively, chaotic or action-packed, which this sequel is apparently much more like.

I love the super-speedy load times already!

@dartmonkey I spent 90 hours too. And I didn’t enjoy it at all. It’s an OCD (Obsessive Completionist Disorder) Zelda thing since the NES. Having to play them all to the 100% finish line.
One of the worst “Zelda”s in my experience.
Ambitious, yes… boring and dull? Definitely

To me this experience was akin to playing the second time and so on, the Temple of the Ocean King in Phantom Hourglass on repeat for 90 hours.

Gotta agree with @Lizuka here.
I’d rather experience it to make my own opinion

Can't wait to give this a go on switch 2. Finally, the best Zelda (in my opinion) can run perfectly.

Well good thing i haven’t beaten it yet. Lol can enjoy the improvements as is.

Not sure how people are calling BoTW or ToTK boring. The old Zelda formula was pretty stale by Twilight/Skyward. These games reinvigorated the franchise.

I played around a bit just to see the performance enhancements but I really did have my fill the first time around. I accomplished everything I wanted to in my initial playthrough, and the game is just way too big to play again from the start.

@DennyCrane sounds like you really grew up and got a good understanding of game design. good for you, it'll open your eyes to so much of what nintendo does right.

@Lord they did. for 25 years

@PikminMarioKirby Different reviewers, I'd imagine

I'm curious what led BOTW to get an editor's note distinguishing it from other reviews. Mainly because I don't seeing that editor's note on any other Switch 2 edition reviews. Am I missing it because it's addressed differently with others?

I would love to see the editor's note be used in a more uniform way to distinguish these reviews if they are all coming from the same place. My apologies if I have been missing it as I didn't look to doublecheck to see if memory has been serving me well outside the BOTW review.

@Kwyjibo_Kitsune for people who just started gaming maybe.
For people who have been in the Zelda landscape for quite a while, not by a mile.
It was mostly the same as its predecessor …. And it deviated too much from what Zelda used to be.
But this time you had a tacky building mechanic attached to it. (Which took away 3+ years of development time just to do that and took away focus of things that really mattered in the game)
(I, in my 38 years of Zelda, have never played the franchise to fill a need to build cars, spaceships and planes, for that there are other franchises)
And the Depths were a procedurally generated dull fest… and the islands not varied enough to be that interesting.

As always, that’s my opinion, glad some people enjoyed it. But this style has been around for 10 years now. It’s time to either move on or go back.

@croz yes, but by the time it grew stale there had been 10-15 games and 25+ years.
This, by just the second game, has grown stale. So…..
And let’s be honest, the formula just changed because Skyward messed up. Everything was fine before that.

@DennyCrane Congrats. I STILL hate the breakable weapons and the stamina bar, and always will. To me, it’s just a horrible way to try and extend even more the playtime of an already gigantic game. A very sadistic way, I might add. When I failed a battle for the nth time, breaking EVERY weapon I had in my very limited inventory, I finally decided that this game definitely wasn’t made for me. TotK is a little more forgiving, so I’m more likely to return to it in a few years, but not now. I pay to be entertained, not frustrated, and to me BotW is an extremely frustrating game. Oh, how I miss older and much more manageable games like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess… Echoes of Wisdom was a nice little distraction, even though it wasn’t as great as the mainline games before Skyward Sword. I really, really hope they’ll take some cues from it when they make the next mainline Zelda.

@Kwyjibo_Kitsune ohh god… the signs… taking away hours of my life in one of the worst activities I’ve seen in a game. And 81 of them!!

And I agree. BOTW at least had the “new” factor going on for it.
TotK had NOTHING.
Except a building mechanic, which, let’s be honest everyone, that doesn’t belong in Zelda just as it didn’t belong in a Banjo Kazooie game.
TotK is pure burnout. Its just, “let’s add hundreds of repetitive things because we ran out of creativity. Let the gamer take care of that”

@SplatRay001 Why would they miss the opportunity to release a “remake” a few years from now, this time including some sort of extra content? Give them some time… they’ll find a way to make you spend more money with something you’ve already payed dearly for.

@jwfurness All first-party carts contain the full game, IIRC.

@Ratmasterd21 I'm 44years old, not sure how much more growing up I can do
Honestly, I think it is part due to never really getting on with open world games and with life so busy at that time I simply didn't give it a fair shake.

@Yoshi3 You mean 15 years, the series was dead after Wind Waker and that’s only 6 games on home consoles. It’s been 8 years of this new formula and these games didn’t benefit from 2D to 3D tech and the improvements in controls schemes etc. I’m old now and I own and played them all, literally 1000’s of hours. BoTW and ToTK hands down beat out OoT and MM for sense of adventure, I do miss the classic art style of the N64 games though that’s pretty much all I miss.

@raccioly sadistic
I think there should be room for both, sadly it won't happen. The first 3 Zelda' in particular are held close to my heart.

A true all time great video game. I feel gratitude for playing all the Zeldas. No grumpy politics here. No using one Zelda game as a stick to beat another. I think the open world Zeldas have it as my favourites but I could easily replay more "traditional" Zeldas tomorrow.

Really looking forward to given totk "NS2" a spin again. I have more to polish off. Obviously done the A to B completion but that just one way to play this stellar game (like with BOTW).

I bought this game in Bali when it first came out. Three sons: A) to have something to play on the LONG flight back to the US. B) the price is cheaper in Bali than in the US and C) to have a memento from my trip. Never even opened it (Played Splatoon 3 single player on the flight back). Now I'm excited to play it as my first game on Switch 2 when I get one (unless Splatoon 4 comes out first haha)

@croz That's true actually. I think that is what I said around the time BOTW was released. It was time for a change.

I am almost nervious to play those games again, nowing I will be playing them for 200 hours lol.

@Ratmasterd21 Oh and Nintendo is the only reason I still game really. Been a fan since the NES. The last console I bought that wasn't was a PS3, I borrowed a friends PS4 but wasn't for me bar a few exclusives. The big 3, Mario, Zelda and Metroid will always keep me gaming

@croz naah, the speech that Zelda needed a refresh in the formula was AFTER Skyward Sword released because it was extremely linear compared to the previous ones.
Nintendo heard this and then experimented to give us BotW …
I never heard people complain about Twilight Princess’ formula in its time and between it and SS.
And it doesn’t matter if it was on consoles or handhelds, (I don’t know why you would separate them at all if we are talking game structure) all Zeldas used the same formula before BotW and SS and they all worked fine. (Also your 8 years is still just 2 games with that stale formula)... So I’ll keep the 12-15 games and 25+ years argument.

There’s absolutely no difference in them having a 2D to 3D transition because the formula was kept intact. They all benefited from the Zeldavania style of progression, which BotW threw out of the window just because.

@DennyCrane I should say i meant no disrespect. I just happen to think we all grow as people all the time, and growing in the hobby, is always a good thing

great review, makes me wish i wouldnt have sold totk so i could play it on switch 2! at least i have botw. debating abt replaying botw or going to majoras mask or link to the past. also excited to try zelda notes when i get the chance
mannn why is there a war in every comment section lately can we js chill and happily talk about nintendo good grief

@Ratmasterd21 I knew what you meant, that's why my first line was meant to be silly. Like I say, I think it came at the wrong time for me, it was more than hectic in life then and I simply didn't/couldn't give it what it deserved. Whereas I think Tears came out at the perfect time, a time when I could sit down with a beloved series and see what they had done with it. Breath now sits very high on my most loved games.

@DennyCrane this was a really thoughtful and well done post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm looking forward to finally playing TotK!

@Yoshi3 it was definitely Twilight that ended the excitement for the series classic formula, at least for me and my friends. At the time, I because after Wind Waker (which is quite similar to BoTW in many ways) everyone wanted a dark and gritty Zelda with modern graphics and when we got it, the world that was provided was lifeless, muddy and mostly been done before. My opinion is that handhelds don’t count, they never pushed the series forward, they were typically space / time fillers, home console versions brought the innovation. I’m a huge fan of all Zelda’s but it had to evolve to stay relevant.

@Joshslone7 Thank you. I hope you enjoy it!!

It isn't $10.99, it is $9.99

@croz the thing is, I don't think we are agreeing because you're not talking about formula. You're talking about other things. The formula was made up from a different kind of structure that BotW and TotK forgot. There were temples, items, progression, etc.
Here, let the master of the Vanias, Igarashi, talk for me, its a good watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvUx43CrvaM&ab_channel=LimitedRunGames

I had hoped that the upgrade would give me the spirit to go on and find the last 30 shrines, finish the last side quests etc.
But I just cannot find more motivation for BotW and TotK. It was good fun for 400 hours though. But now I am out.

Still magical. I love it and I can't wait to jump back into this classic.

Maybe I missed a comment above pointing out the same, but I believe the game runs at 1440p docked, not 4K. I haven’t attempted a pixel count myself, but it’s noticeably blurrier on Switch 2 than emulating the game at 4K on a computer. Considering it’s a paid upgrade, I too wish Nintendo had gone the extra mile and included higher resolution textures and pre-rendered videos.
The Zelda Notes app got savaged in the BotW review here, and I was skeptical of it myself going in, but it’s proved to be a godsend for completionists like myself. I no longer have to keep a checklist open as I play—I can explore organically and the game will track my progress for me. The last thing I thought I wanted was even more items on that checklist, but the voice memories have proven a delightful surprise as well.
Only had my Switch 2 for less than a week, but I’m spending most of my time with it on a new TotK save file.

Great game that builds upon the foundation of BotW. I’ll still load my old save file, and just mess around in the open world, very relaxing just wandering around discovering caves and such. Very curious where the series will go next, that’s when I think I’ll be interested in picking up a switch2.

So this is the sublimiest version? I still haven't finished BOTW, so I have never played this. I think I have 70+ hours in BOTW but have barely advanced the story. So I may restart that one and work my way to TOTK. I'm very excited to have these enhanced versions to utilize for my (mostly) initial playthroughs.

I restarted BOTW and loving it even more. The upgrade is gorgeous, 60 fps is massive and really enjoy getting lost in it. 10/10 for me.

@Lord I couldn't agree more

@DennyCrane well put! On mh second Botw playthrough now and after 8 years I'm feeling this game very diffently. As if it was kind of...new? At least a new me, a 43yo boy father of two, enjoying more of life nowadays than when Botw launched.

Botw became, in 2017, one of my goat games. Totk was also great but something was missing (I'll find it out after I finish Botw)

Wait so only 3 characters received audio memories????

I was hoping mineru and ganondorf would too

@Yoshi3 factually false. By twilight Princess the formula was painfully tedious and predictable. Botw and totk did the right thing by returning to the original formula from the nes game

@Lord there literally is traditional dungeons

@Novuscourvous First: You cant say anything "factually" when you're giving your opinion.
Second: I've heard this argument countless times. The only thing going on in BotW and TotK that was like the first game was the exploration.... and that's it.
In the NES game, they didn't give you all the items from the get go. You had dungeons. You had an item focused structure of progression which would later be know as the Zeldavania formula. There were special items, in this case Heart Containers or other items, that could only be reached and found with certain special items, which you had to get by beating dungeons.

So... no... BotW and TotK are as far away as the "original formula" as they can be........ just because you could enter SOME dungeons out of order doesn't mean BotW and TotK are like it ... LMAO

And... oh god... if you think TotK had traditional dungeons... you have quite some Zeldas to really catch up on to understand the franchise at all.

@jwfurness According to all available information, everything is on the cart. So I think you'll be fine upgrading to the Switch 2 physical version.

For me, TOTK is the game of a lifetime. I stopped playing right after completing the main quest, saving the rest of the experience for a future playthrough. WIth a completion rate of 44% , there were plenty of shrines and light roots left to discover. That said, even I had an S2, I feel it's too soon for a replay. It's only been 2 years.

I am glad I waited playing Tears of the Kingdom until Switch 2 arrived. The game has been in my possession since day 1, but I knew it would be a big time drain.

I have zero interest in the Zelda notes app, because I play games to escape and not hold my phone all the time. I have a very rigid amount of time I want to spend on my phone max, which is 2.5 hours a day. And even that is still about 10% of a day...

I can only see myself using it if I get stuck, which has already happened once, when I was looking for the fourth shrine in the starting area. This game does not really hold your hands and that's fine, up to a point. But I thought it was pretty frustrating if you miss certain landmarks and are left to wonder how you're supposed to reach the dot on the map only to find out you're on the wrong level to find it.

Nevertheless, I love the sense of adventure and I feel that TotK is way more fleshed out than BotW in of world building. Can't wait to see what happens next!

I see they still give you the most creative tools ever in a video game but then leave a convenient stack of wooden planks next to all the environmental puzzles.

This put me right off the original.

@RadioHedgeFund
This is a really strange thing to put you off, it's not something you have to use afterall but equally they need stuff like that to make sure younger or more inexperienced players can make progress. It's actually good game design.

@Yoshi3 Zeldavania... really Yoshi?

Regardless of where inspiration came from, it is absolutely Metroidvania. It isn't who or what creates, it's who or what popularises the term.

@Rosona it’s a widely used term. It’s not my fault you’re not familiar with it.
In this case it doesn’t matter. I usually call it that when talking about Zelda and Metroidvania with its respective similar games… to avoid the usual misunderstanding from newcomers who say Zelda is not a Metroidvania because it’s not “2D” 🙄.

Regardless of the “term” … it’s is the Zelda formula through and through and people who just recently came into the gaming scene don’t understand the gaming design, philosophy and structure of it if they think BotW and TotK fall into it’s original sub genre or it’s an “evolution” of it.

This game is firmly in my top 5 of all time, out of thousands of games played since the Atari 2600. I replayed it this year and found it just as addictive as my first playthrough at launch.

I promised myself I'd play TotK all over again after having re-played BotW, but I need to get used to this Zelda Notes and so far I haven't used it at all lol Habits are hard to die, but I feel like it can turn useful to completionists like me.

Think it should be noted these review scores are for the update, not the entire game. It's still a 10/10 game, but with a 9/10 update over the original

I'd say BotW is the stronger overall experience, while TotK is the better game to play. The narrative and world are in better sync with what they do and how they do it, while TotK fully copying BotW's narrative choices actually detract from the world.
A great example is the Dragon's Tears, it would be pretty emotional story if told linearly, but the game just reuses the old Link's memories format that denies it momentum & it detracts from the ghost Zelda thing that's driving most of the main story, rather than providing insight and context to it like Link's Memories did in BotW.

How can you write a review on this technical upgrade without any mention of HDR being present or not is beyond me. I guess Digital Foundry is the place to go, as always.

Does the game look better plus improved framerate without spending the £7 on the upgrade?

@SplatRay001 There is already so much content; what more would you add to TotK?

@RadioHedgeFund This is actually only half true; in the outer edges of the map, or in the caves and underground, they do not hand-hold the player.

@Antraxx777 Master Mode seems like a pretty low-cost way to significantly improve the game’s replayability if you ask me. Kind of wild we never got one

A masterpiece built on the foundation of another masterpiece (BotW) and made better than its predecessor (BotW) to a staggering degree… in objective ways, and as a matter of personal preference.

Objective ways:
There’s greater enemy variety. There’s no more backing out of chests to drop an item so you can get the item that’s in the chest. The ability to now sort items by “most used”, which is a great addition. Recipes that save to your cooking log for much easier food prep. A log that records prior conversations so you can refer back to them when you forget something. Being able to see the selling value of each item without needing to hover over each individual item. The stamina boost given if you fall into water when your stamina is at zero. The ability to throw an item, not just weapons. Fuse increases weapon durability, greatly mitigating the frequency of breaking, which was a HUGE complaint by a lot of people about BotW (I wasn’t one of them). Coordinates are provided on your mini map. Horse stables emit smoke so you can better spot them from a distance. More ways to ameliorate the problem of slipping while climbing in the rain. The shrine sensor is more accurate. The slow-mo effect no longer depletes stamina unless you shoot an arrow.

I could go on about even more ways that, from a game standpoint, TotK objectively improved upon and/or fixed things from BotW.

Personal preference:
The story is just plain better in TotK. The premise and introduction are much more compelling, the main villain is actually an interesting character, and Zelda’s story arc is very touching and even makes her likable. (PSA: You can easily watch the memories in order by simply collecting them, skipping the cutscenes, and then watching after you’ve collected all of them.) The entire ending sequence, from storming Ganondorf’s stronghold to when Link catches Zelda is a chef’s kiss. The voice acting, especially for Zelda, generally seemed a lot better to me than in BotW. The finding/pulling of the Master Sword is easily the most epic of the series. The bosses are better, and they’re visually and mechanically very distinct from each other. Dungeons are much closer to classical Zelda dungeons than BotW’s, even quasi-simulating the “key item” mechanic via how the companion character in each dungeon is utilized. The cave systems are overall fantastic and really add a lot to the exploration aspect. The Depths, which I know are disliked by a vocal minority, are a great time and a wonderful addition in my opinion; it’s the Light World/Dark World concept brought back to life, and something BotW was missing. Loved it. There’s a lot more to do in the world, if you want to, and for those who say there’s too much, to them I will always simply say— you don’t have to do most of it. It’s there if you want to do it, but you can easily ignore most of it and get on with the critical path if that’s your preference. Same goes for building/crafting with Ultrahand; you can largely ignore that mechanic after the brief tutorial area, if building stuff isn’t your thing. That’s the beauty of TotK. You’re given plenty of options to try out and determine how YOU prefer to play, and they’re all viable.

TLDR: Bottom line is, if BotW is “The Hobbit,” then TotK is “The Lord of the Rings.” It takes a superb foundational work and then fleshes it out, matures and deepens it, and turns it into an even greater masterpiece.

Anyone who has the physical of this on S2 able to comment if the full game is on the cartridge, or does it require a patch/content , for the upgrade pack for example? I know the DLC is separate, which is crazy, but not my question.

Thank you.