The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

This game is incredibly fun. It's not perfect, but the open world is so well designed that I wanted to do almost everything, even the optional content, because it was all enjoyable. I played for about 110 hours and never got tired of it. I didn't play Breath of the Wild before this game, and I only realised halfway through that it would have made more sense to play that one first. Even so, it wasn't a problem.

One of the best parts of this game was playing alongside my almost 10-year-old son. We each played on our own account, but we shared discoveries, strategies and interesting places we found. Watching each other's progress helped us improve faster, and it made the adventure much more enjoyable. More importantly, it strengthened our connection as father and son, and that is something I will always remember.

The beginning was probably my least favourite part. I think it's a bit boring, especially if you haven't played Breath of the Wild. At first the game feels complex, Link is very weak, and character progression is quite slow. It also takes a long time to increase your hearts and stamina, and sometimes it feels tiring to complete so many shrines before reaching a comfortable level. However, once I understood how the game works and what it expects from the player, everything changed. The game stopped feeling slow and became amazing. After getting a reasonable amount of hearts and stamina, exploration, combat and travelling became much more fun, smoother and faster.

The world is one of the best parts of the game. The map is huge and divided into 3 layers: Sky, Surface and Depths. There's always something new to discover, including caves, dungeons, shrines, side quests and completely new areas. Exploration is constantly rewarded, and the world feels like it was built with great care and attention to detail. Nothing feels unfinished or rushed. Even though the game has a huge number of items, many of them aren't very useful for most players. This isn't a serious problem because many open world games are like this, but sometimes the number of items creates more confusion than it helps. It's also possible to focus mainly on the main quests if you want to finish the game faster, although the game doesn't always make that obvious.

The shrines deserve special praise. They are one of my favourite parts of the game. Each shrine offers a unique challenge that is usually short and can be completed in just a few minutes. Some are easy, while others require more thinking, and that variety kept them interesting. Solving shrines is fun, rewarding and encourages you to search for even more of them. There are 152 shrines, so there's always another challenge waiting.

The graphics are excellent, and the Nintendo Switch 2 version improves the experience even more with 60 Hz and HDR support. I find it difficult to go back to the original Switch version, which runs at 30 Hz and sometimes has frame rate drops. The soundtrack is also fantastic. It uses sounds and musical references from older Zelda games, which adds a nice feeling of nostalgia throughout the adventure.

The UI is another highlight. Considering how complex the game is, the menus, inventory and systems are organised very well. The controls are also well designed overall, but I really don't like having to hold the B button to run because the jump button is X, and they aren't close together. I played with a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller and mapped the programmable GL/GR buttons to make Link run. That made the game much more comfortable. I think players using the standard controller may have more difficulty running while controlling the camera at the same time, so the experience is noticeably better with a controller that has extra programmable buttons.

I also liked that Link starts the game very weak because there's a story reason for it. On the other hand, I think the difficulty balance is sometimes inconsistent. Some enemies are much easier than expected, while others suddenly feel much harder. At times the progression doesn't feel perfectly balanced, but this never became frustrating enough to reduce my enjoyment.

The game is also very long. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but some parts take longer than they should. There were several moments where it wasn't clear where to go next or what I needed to do. I had to watch YouTube videos a few times to understand how to continue because it's easy to get stuck. I probably would have figured it out eventually if I had more time, but I didn't want to spend even more hours searching for the solution.

The final boss is hard but very enjoyable. My only complaint is that you cannot save right before the final battle. I often switched accounts with my son because we were both playing on our own save files. Having to repeat the lead-up to the final battle every time we changed accounts was frustrating. This happened about 3 times because it took me a while to beat the final boss, haha.

Finally, I wish Nintendo had a proper achievement or trophy system built into the console like PlayStation and other platforms. There's something similar through Zelda Notes in the Nintendo Switch app, but I don't think it's a good solution. Using a mobile app feels strange and much less convenient than having achievements directly on the console. Even so, this doesn't have a significant impact on the main experience.

At this point, I think almost everyone already knows how good this game is. If you have never played it, I definitely recommend giving it a chance. Don't let the beginning discourage you if it feels too slow or too complicated. Everything starts to make sense quite quickly, and once it clicks, it becomes one of the best games I have ever played.