Getting Vertical in Tears of the Kingdom

 I was hesitant to get Tears of the Kingdom. Breath of the Wild was, for many, the ultimate expression of what a Zelda game could be, but this massive acclaim left me, and others who liked the more structured format of previous Zelda games, feeling lonely and left behind. When it was announced that the next Zelda game would look similar to Breath of the Wild, and even furthermore that Zelda games moving forward would, I was disheartened.

I haven't made my mind up about this one.

But that's due in part to the fact that the tutorial is freaking long. I think I played for three or four hours, and only now have I finally reached the ground level of Hyrule Kingdom.

Like Breath of the Wild, you're given a ton of abilities right at the start, earned by completing a number of Shrines. The abilities from Breath of the Wild are gone (largely) and so here we learn the Ultrahand, which lets us pick up big objects and stick them together with magical glue, the Fuse ability, which lets us combine weapons and shields with various objects in the world (including other weapons). We get Ascend, which lets us leap up into any flat surface above us to come out on top of whatever is up there. And we get Rewind, which lets us cause an object to start moving in reverse for a limited time.

Once again, it becomes a lot to learn all at once. But I do think that in this case, the features are somewhat easier to grasp (except maybe Fuse). We also get an energy capacitor that powers various Zonai (the new ancient civilization) devices, including fans that we can stick onto constructed vehicles to travel around.

This game seems to be a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, but there's a justification for Link losing all but three heart containers and the de-powering of the Master Sword.

Weapons will still break after a small number of uses, but the good news is that if you use the Fuse ability to construct your own weapons, these seem to last significantly longer.

Still, despite coming out several years after Breath of the Wild, this feels very much like how they did Majora's Mask - many of the assets and gameplay systems are the same, like Korok's giving you little "seeds," the same kind of sound effects, the same volume and temperature gauges, the same stamina meter, and the same use of shrines to get the equivalent of heart pieces (that I assume can also be used eventually to increase Stamina).

So, to me the proof in the pudding will be whether we have more distinctive monsters in different regions and particularly if we have unique-feeling dungeons.

Still, if this is how long it takes to get through the tutorial section, I feel like this is a game that is going to expect me to pour a ton of hours into it. I'm no stranger to playing games that require a big time investment (see World of Warcraft, Elden Ring) but I wonder if this game is geared more toward people who enjoy things like Minecraft - where the game's stated objectives aren't really as important as building the cool thing you want to make, which is a format I'm less inclined toward.