The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom: our review of the sequel to Breath of the Wild

Published by Laurent de Sortiraparis, Cécile de Sortiraparis · Published on May 30th, 2023 at 07:50 p.m.
Attention Link fans! The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to Breath of the Wild, awaits you on Nintendo Switch from May 12, 2023. We've tested it, and we'll tell you all about it!

Nintendo has managed to keep the suspense on the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild until the very end... and put its fans in agony too! In a presentation video hosted by the game's creator, Eiji Aonuma, on March 28, the Japanese manufacturer unveiled a bit of gameplay for the sequel to this eagerly-awaited opus, probably even one of the most eagerly-awaited of the year! This long trailer follows the one unveiled at a Nintendo Direct on February 8.

Ultimate trailer for The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo Switch :

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, now available on Nintendo Switch since May 12, 2023, awaits you for new adventures! In terms of gameplay, we learned more from Eiji Aonuma in a presentation video. Starting with the new powers and artifacts available in the game, allowing you to reverse the course of time for certain objects, or craft your own weapons from scraps of wood and pebbles, or create makeshift boats.

Thanks to the power of infiltration, you can also play the role of a sneak through the ceiling. The immensity of the map and the possibility of visiting various floating islands are also noteworthy, making the game even richer and denser.

A real hit for the first opus

As you know, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been a huge success for Nintendo, selling 22 million copies of the game since 2017. This open world to explore, the hundreds of hours of gameplay and epic quests, the beauty of the graphics has seduced gamers the world over, who have been clamoring for a sequel to this game for years. A success repeated here, given the game's astronomical sales:

The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom bat des records de vente en FranceThe Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom bat des records de vente en FranceThe Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom bat des records de vente en FranceThe Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom bat des records de vente en France The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom breaks sales records in France
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom stands out as the fastest-selling Nintendo game on any console in France. The recently launched title also passed the 10 million copies sold worldwide mark in just three days. [Read more]

Our review of The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom :

Playing time: between 30 and 40 hours, 95% of the story completed, set out to conquer all of Hyrule to advance in the side quests...

What can we say about the most eagerly awaited game of the year? The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a real hit, in every respect: the gameplay is much richer than the first opus, and much smarter too (yes, you'll have to put your math and physics lessons into practice to progress through the game), the map is just gargantuan without touching the original one, the new powers are interesting and change the way you play... It's a lot of fun, a lot of thought and hours of escapism in search of that rare outfit or weapon. In short, the Holy Grail of Open World, not to say video games...

In terms of gameplay, the game stands out for the depth of its combat system and its innovative mechanics for building vehicles and structures of all kinds. You can become a real McGyver by building a weapon or a vehicle from a piece of wood and a Soneau artifact! Construction elements that become crucial when exploring the Celestial Islands, where aerial navigation becomes a stimulating challenge. Put your knowledge of mathematics and physics to the test and build contraptions that allow you to travel from Heavenly Isle to Heavenly Isle, calculating"ejection power, angle, base positioning and sometimes even friction with the ground", as our JV. com colleagues so aptly put it (and they're right!).

As for combat, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom offers an enriched and improved fighting experience. You'll need to familiarize yourself with the wide range of combat moves to handle more intense confrontations. What's more, the integration of the Amalgam system opens up a new dimension of weapon customization, with various items fused together to improve their stats or give them special effects. These combat mechanics, combined with the strategic use of your arsenal, make every confrontation both complex and captivating.

One of Tears of the Kingdom 's greatest strengths also lies in the freedom of action offered to players. You can explore the open world at your own pace, choosing the direction of your story and deciding when and where to complete quests or missions. The story revolves around four peoples and cities confronted with the consequent problem of the "Cataclysm": the Gerudos, the Gorons, the Piafs and the Zoras. Each people finds itself under the yoke of a monster launched by Ganondorf, and Link, aided by one person from each people, will confront them to recover occult stones that will help him, aided by the Sages of Wind, Water, Lightning and Fire, to defeat Ganondorf and discover the end of the story about Zelda's disappearance. You'll need to explore the four cities and overcome the dungeons if you hope to defeat the Demon King. We could go on and on about the game's many good points and achievements, but we'd rather let you find out for yourself!

That's all well and good, but does the game have its dark spots and other shortcomings? The answer is yes, unfortunately! Starting with the story of Link's adventures. As far as the story is concerned, the scriptwriters didn't bother too much with the dialogue (yes, we'll say it loud and clear...), especially during the flashbacks after the occult stones have been recovered. With the exception of a few words, it's copy-and-paste for each flashback, in each dungeon, and that's a real shame. We would have preferred different dialogues, adding nuance and depth to the story. The repetition of dialogues and gameplay mechanisms (visiting dungeons, defeating a boss to recover a heart and an artifact) ends up being redundant, which was not the case in other games in the franchise, despite the fact that the same mechanisms have been tried and tested.

Another shortcoming, and not the least, is the graphics. In the portable version, the game is pleasant and detailed, even if this is debatable, but in the TV version... it's much less pretty, even messy. But that's of secondary importance when you consider everything else the developers have achieved, making The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom one of the most accomplished games of the year, if not of all time, from a story and gameplay point of view. It's a game we dive into with envy, pushing our curiosity to the limit as we explore every nook and cranny of the map. Could this be a GOTY? Perhaps...

A must-have! And if you haven't already, what are you waiting for? Go for it, folks!

And to discover the other trailers, click here :

Trailer 2 :

Trailer 3 :

Trailer 4 :

Practical information

Dates and Opening Time
Starts May 12th, 2023

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