Friday for many a Switch owner was the much anticipated highlight of the year, with the long awaited release of the latest entry into the Zelda series and sequel to Breathe of the Wild, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
I had been hoping that my pre-order with Amazon would arrive the day before. But sadly it did not.
Instead Friday morning I woke to an email saying my pre-order had been dispatched. There was no indication of when in the day it would arrive.
Lunchtime the only clue Amazon were prepared to give me was I’d have my copy of the game by 11pm. It wasn’t even showing as out for delivery.
If I was lucky maybe it’d arrive before I got home.
Next time I checked I had a delivery estimate of between 3pm and 5pm. It would most definitely be waiting for me. I could breathe a sigh of relief.
Mum said the game had arrived in the morning. So much for Amazon’s tracking of your package.
But I had the game that’s the important thing.
After tea it was time to return to Hyrule.
Tears of the Kingdom is beautiful.
I love the art style. It looks amazing on the Switch Lite lcd screen. The soundtrack is pretty awesome too. There is some speech in the game that is reserved for cutscenes. Otherwise it’s little speech bubbles you have to read.
After the initial cutscene and limited interaction that launches the plot for this instalment you are starting up in the clouds on some of the floating land masses.
I was pleasantly surprised by this. I had been expecting to start on the ground and having to wait and open up visiting the floating islands. But instead I’m right up there experiencing the new mechanics in this sequels version of the plateau.
As you gradually get introduced to the new mechanics that power up the artificial arm Link has (yes technically Link is a cyborg now!) you get to start crafting stuff that you need to access bits of the map, reverse time, or pass through solid objects.
I love the crafting. I can’t wait to start trying stuff out. Although I’m not that creative.
Definitely as I’m moving between floating land masses I was getting Bioshock Infinite vibes as I rode along rails.
As I get near to the edge of the floating land masses I start to feel nervous. It’s hard to describe the feeling for sure. But with the long drop mere pixels away my fear of heights is kicking in.
I don’t know why this happens when I play video games. But it does. I first noticed it as a thing back when I was playing Half Life 2 on my Xbox360 up in County Durham.
Maybe it’s an immersion thing that I’m so immersed in the game that it becomes real to my senses.
So you can imagine how I felt having to jump off the floating land mass and sky dive down to ground level on Hyrule.
I did not enjoy that initial having to look down and jump off the edge. But once I was falling the feeling went away.
Although visually Tears of the Kingdom looks just like Breathe of the Wild, it does feel different as you play it.
I’ve only just started to the scratch the surface of what Tears of the Kingdom has to offer. This is such a rich rewarding game I can’t wait to see what treats the game has in store.