When the Nintendo Switch was first revealed I ordered one as soon as orders went live. All these years later I still have and use my launch Switch albeit not as much as my OLED model. I have an odd history with Nintendo products. The first game system I played was a Super Nintendo. The first game system that was mine was a Nintendo 64 and so on from GameCube onward. Despite owning a Switch since Day One I did eventually fall off in productivity when I, in my infinite stupidity, could not comprehend the directions of docking the system and connecting it to a display. I have been kicking myself mentally ever since…

Since the Switch had a light launch lineup, I ended up buying a single game with my Switch: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I have a bit of a complicated history with The Legend of Zelda. I played the mainline games from A Link to the Past, all the way to Skyward Sword. In fact the first Nintendo DS game I owned was 2007’s Phantom Hourglass despite never playing Wind Waker… Yet I have never properly finished a game in the Zelda series on my own. Another person would end up swooping in at the last minute to beat the respective game be it A Link to The Past or Ocarina of Time.

While I played a small amount of Breath of the Wild when I first used my Switch, I was rather turned off by it and simply could not get into it as it famously broke the mold set by the series and forged its own path. Despite this, I ended up buying the sequel to Breath of the Wild that released earlier this year; The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Little did I know that the sequel to a game I did not gel with would end up being my favorite game in the entire span of the series.

As of writing this I am nearing 100 hours invested in Tears of the Kingdom. I know that by saying Tears of the Kingdom is my favorite Zelda game, things can sound hypocritical seeing as how I never finished Breath of the Wild and therefore have little to no idea what is going on when callbacks occur. I am oddly okay with it. My real sense of fun with this game is the feeling that anything can happen in this version of Hyrule. Back before it became a meme, being told that if you see a location in a certain post-apocalyptic video game from 2008 you could go to that location and while it was true it felt anti-climactic when you finally got to the location. This feeling is one I failed to reach in Breath of the Wild but hope to reach one day…

The mechanics that are exclusive to Tears of the Kingdom rather than carrying over from Breath of the Wild are what truly caught my attention towards the game that being the fuse system which you clearly do not need explained to you if you are reading this. It was the tendencies I had developed when playing Breath of the Wild that ironically hindered my progression in Tears of the Kingdom as it took a bit of time before I thought about fusing monster parts to swords. The fact that I looked up “how to restore decayed swords in Tears of the Kingdom” early into my playthrough shows that I was still thinking of the game’s predecessor in my approach to combat. It was only once I started fusing decayed swords with other parts be it monster items or tools associated with the game’s new mystery civilization, the Zonai, that I was truly nearing a path to handling combat.

In addition to the Fuse mechanic, the Ultrahand is just as, if not more integral to the success of the player in Tears of the Kingdom. The Ultrahand ability lets Link grab an item that is not tied down or connected to something and MacGyver together a tool to get the job done. This can be anything from making a makeshift bridge to place in a gap between two spots, helping the Hudson Construction crew place signs across Hyrule, and more. This ability gives the game a feeling akin to Minecraft truly letting the imagination run wild and fly across the land of Hyrule.

Perhaps the greatest feature the Legend of Zelda has had going for it on Switch with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, is how wide and expansive the games environment is. As of writing this I have slowly moved forward with the main questline but I have discovered 75 to 80 percent of the game world. Unlike games that are open world in nature but have a sense of shallowness to them, Tears of the Kingdom is an open world you can truly get lost in as I certainly have done so myself. The subterranean depths which are opened early in the game are equally as addicting when it comes to exploring what lurks beneath the surface of Hyrule. It is here that you are set up for a challenge run as the enemies in the depths not only deal regular damage but gloom damage. Gloom not only does damage but restricts you from replenishing however many hearts have been afflicted by it. The first encounter with the gloom in the plot leads to the decay and destruction of the Master Sword, reduction of all your hearts, and stamina. Thereby taking your big bad Link from Breath of the Wild and making him start from scratch in Tears of the Kingdom. The Gloom is not simply found in the depths but in the form of Gloom Hands which will spawn multiple hands that aim to drain the life from you. Watching people’s reactions to this demonic pursuer upon first encounter validates how I first reacted.

I do not know if it was the Guardians in Breath of the Wild that caused me to not enjoy the game due to my inability to see them until it was too late, but Tears of the Kingdom feels a tad more free-er. Building upon this the citizens of Hyrule have started working on bringing safety back to the various regions in the game. These monster-hunting squads remind me of the way the “zombie apocalypse” quickly gets wrapped up in the original Night of the Living Dead film. There is also the brilliant handling of narrative storytelling via things such as the eponymous “Tears of the Kingdom,” the sky inscriptions, and the Zelda sightings questline. There are things that I have yet to discover that I have a feeling I may not discover due to how easily easter eggs can be hidden in this game. I am still not sure how I feel about the Nintendo Switch Zelda games having spoken voice acting when compared to the minimal voices in the previous games.

Expect to hear me go on more and gush even more during the VGU Game of the Year deliberations in the next month or so. I will simply say this, I have never felt as strongly toward a game in The Legend of Zelda franchise as much as I do toward Tears of the Kingdom…