Video Games

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Hands-On Preview: It Lets You Test Out Your Craziest Ideas

It should come as no surprise to anyone that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would be an absolutely massive video game with an amazing amount of things to do and see. The sequel to the legendary Breath of the Wild and one of the biggest, deepest and most challenging open world games ever made. But it wasn’t just that there was so much to do that really caught me off guard playing Tears of the Kingdom. to this point. The core philosophy of Breath of the Wild is effectively “Can you see any landmarks in the distance? There are hundreds of ways to get to, and many of them may not work, but when they do, you’ll feel like a genius.

Let’s step back a little. In other words, it soars high in the sky. Hovering above Hyrule is Sky Island, and that’s where most of the Tears of My Kingdom preview took place. , the sky section feels a lot like The Wind Waker, minus the big red talking boats to get you around. There are countless islands out there, and it’s up to you to figure out exactly how to navigate between them, tackling endless puzzles, conflicts, and caves to get to the next one. Take to the skies with a reliable paraglider. I hope you have enough stamina to not only travel, but expand the aspect of what you’re trying to get on top of. I’m here. But this time there are more options, and things get very clever and sometimes very funny. I decided to. I can’t say why he decided to make it a two-story building, other than “I thought it was cool now.”

This time, Link got some cool new abilities. Chief among them is Ultra Hand, a remix of Seeker Slate Rune Power from Breath of the Wild. The Ultra Hand basically works like the Force in Star Wars. You can use it to push, pull, or rotate objects in the surrounding environment before pasting them onto other objects. It cannot be used on organic matter such as animals or enemies, or anything bolted to the ground like tree stumps or rock structures, although there are some interesting exceptions to that rule. A Korok tried to reunite with another Korok on another empty island and needed help, but he was carrying a large hiking backpack, so I was able to use my Ultra Hand to pick him up and put him on the minecart. Done, recruit him back and get two Coloc seeds as a reward. So let’s see how often these exceptions occur worldwide. I hope there are enemies with or accessories that you can grab and throw. don’t judge me.

The Ultra Hand basically works like the Force in Star Wars. You can use it to push, pull, or rotate objects in the surrounding environment before pasting them onto other objects.


Back to the stupid double-decker bomber. Using her two conveniently located large fans, she uses the Ultra Hand to stick them to some ship parts, then pulls the steering stick Zonai device out of her inventory for in-flight steering. I gave the ship sex. Almost friendly skies. Zonai devices are new this time around and can be found in giant capsule toy-like machines scattered around the world. can be used to manipulate or enhance One example I’ve seen is a rocket-shaped Zonai his device when fused to Link’s shield, similar to Gale of Revari from Breath of the Wild, this time limited to the number of rockets on hand, He could jump rocket anywhere in the sky. It definitely leads to crazy clever puzzle and combat solutions rather than abilities that need recharging. The build process was a bit cumbersome at first, but I think it will come naturally after playing for a long time. Breath of the Wild is a bit untraditionally controlled compared to standard issue open world games, and Tears of the Kingdom throws in some interactive systems, radial wheels, and object manipulation. You’ll probably hit the button on the horse whistle by accident (sadly, I couldn’t summon Epona into the sky. Somebody get that pony a jetpack!). Luckily, you can save the custom vehicles and contraptions you create and recall them whenever you need them if you have the right ingredients, so you don’t have to rebuild everything from scratch each time. Sticking them together makes sense, but you soon realize it’s a very silly idea. For example, if you glue this hot air balloon to a box fan, you’ll have a decorative hot air balloon attached to a normally functional box fan. in addition. Well done, brain.

This trial and error, the song and dance of geniuses and idiots, is best exemplified in my attempts to solve the world’s great puzzles. I had to return the glowing stone to a marker on the map with some gaps and a huge spinning sphere in between. all. In addition to having Ultrahand and Fuse at my disposal, I had the power of Recall, which reverses the time of actions performed, much like rewinding a video file. After several valiant attempts to launch the stone into the air, using gusts, hang gliding, and bare arms, it was ultimately inefficient, but the entire puzzle ball was shot with his Ultrahand. I realized that I could rotate it to create a walkable path to the finish. line. Again, well done, brains.

My puzzle attempts, bombers, and pretty much everything else I assembled to travel around the world had a decidedly Looney Tunes quality. Put on a wingsuit and pursue the road his runner. This plan always seems like a good idea until it backfires or he looks down on you. There’s a lot of trial and error in Tears of the Kingdom, which means a lot of failures, falls, or barely putting to the finish line, but there’s a new tool called the Travel Medallion – a blue circle symbol that can be dropped onto most surfaces. in the world – you can respawn wherever you put it. If you have a particularly tricky section where you can fall to your death multiple times, keep a travel medallion nearby and start experimenting without worrying about backtracking. You can undo it from the map screen whenever you want and place it elsewhere later. Breath of the Wild was already pretty free with checkpoints, but Tears of the Kingdom lets you place checkpoints basically anywhere. This is a great new feature.

Speaking of putting things anywhere, Fuse is another super fun new tool. Fuse allows you to take objects and materials found in the world or inventory and apply them to shields, weapons, bows and arrows. I was attacked by an army of tough bad guys in my fort, saw a giant spiky ball in the world, and instinctively used Ultra Hand against the bad guys, like I used Magnesis in Breath of the Wild. I tried to whack it… before I knew it I was able to fuse it with my weapon and turn a pretty crappy sword into a much more powerful pointed ball sword. , Weapon durability has been increased, making it less likely to break. In theory, you can fuse something into the same weapon over and over again to keep it from shattering. No, but it does give you a lot of options on how to get around it while also allowing you to play with a lot of new weapon combinations. Sword, Ruby Fused Arrows depleted inventory of rare stones to create elementally charged projectiles. .

Everything I played ran at a consistent framerate – so far, at least.


On a technical level, everything I played ran at a consistent framerate – so far, at least. The frame rate could drop in outdoor areas where For years, Nintendo fans have believed that Tears of the Kingdom will launch alongside a more powerful Nintendo Switch Pro model so the bigger, more resource-intensive game won’t run into framerate issues. We’ve been speculating, but unless Nintendo is secretly hiding Tears of next-gen consoles from Kingdom’s launch date (spoiler: it’s not), the six-year-old Nintendo Switch hardware will have to do. Most of the Tears of the Kingdom sections I played took place in the sky and went pretty smoothly, so what happens when Link starts fighting hordes of enemies in the deep forests of vast Hyrule? I need to see if…under the clouds. Either way, if you didn’t personally have these issues with Breath of the Wild, you’ll probably be fine here.

All in all, from Ultra Hand to Fuze to dozens of Sky Islands, these are just some of the things that make this game (a rare direct sequel to previous Zelda games) feel fresher than ever. That’s because many of the animations, objects, costumes, sounds, etc. are very similar to Breath of the Wild. The way we do things is evolving in creative and dramatic ways, so there is no doubt that there are countless new things to do and see. full game. For now, I’m dizzy not only to experience it all myself, but to see how a admittedly huge player base makes and breaks this game in brilliant and ridiculous ways. Puzzles and conflicts have very silly solutions, and the results can be endlessly surprising and entertaining. Especially when you see what hardcore Breath of the Wild players have done in the game over the years, you can often feel like yourself. I shouldn’t have done those things. Nintendo took that ideology and legalized it with Tears of the Kingdom. This is very exciting, even if it means a lot of hilarious fumbling and falling down along the way.

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