While BG3’s Game of the Year win was very well deserved, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. My personal favorite, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) was passed over for the award. Instead of GOTY, it ended up winning Best Action-Adventure Game Award.
I strongly believe Tears of the Kingdom deserved that trophy too. Here’s why:
Setting on the imaginative, fun, exciting, and wondrous journey of TOTK is a feeling similar to stepping into a boundless realm of imagination. Unlike many games that dictate the path you must follow, TOTK empowers players with unparalleled creative freedom, encouraging them to shape their own inventive adventure within the enchanting world of Hyrule.
Virtually Endless Creative Exploration
From the very beginning of the game, even as the massive tutorial unfolds, it becomes evident that there is no one ‘right’ way to play this game. While there will be a common ground, no two players will play the game exactly alike. The unseen constraints that often limit players in conventional narrative-driven games are replaced in TOTK by a liberating sense of creative agency that allows you to forge your own path and tread it in a way that suits you.
One of TOTK’s defining features is its expansive world, providing a canvas for creative exploration that knows no bounds. The game doesn’t just permit you to apply your own inventive solutions; it actively celebrates and encourages it. Scaling towering mountains, traversing dense forests, or soaring through the skies with your own fantastical creations – every landscape, region, and geographical feature becomes a playground for your creativity.
While TOTK does have its set of boundaries, they are extremely hard to break, and reaching them is a challenge in itself. The game’s structure doesn’t impose restrictions that restrain creativity; instead, it sets a stage where the only limits are the ones you create. This masterful blend of structure and freedom creates a harmonious balance in gameplay, ensuring that players can explore and experiment without feeling confined.
Non-Linear Gameplay Opportunities
In the world and narrative of TOTK, linearity takes a backseat, giving way to a unique gameplay experience that is both refreshing and liberating. The game refrains from enforcing a specific order, granting players the freedom to embark on their quests without the need to complete a checklist of ‘must-do-before’s.
Once you complete the tutorial, you are pretty much free to do anything you want. Whether you choose to face formidable mini-bosses, confront Ganondorf, unlock the maps of diverse regions, or embark on a treasure hunt in intriguing locations, the choice is completely yours.
Want to buff up, armor up, fill your inventories to brink and finish the main story? Or focus on following a certain charismatic NPC and solving their problems? Maybe go all around Hyrule helping a construction worker put up signs of his overbearing boss? Or you just wish to relax, find shrines, and some Korok seeds? The game says Yes to everything you throw at it, even going further with limitless creative possibilities, as if saying ‘Yes, and…’
Building Dreams with ‘Ultrahand’
The ‘Ultrahand’ ability not only facilitates creative freedom but also lets you gain mastery in constructing your own virtual wonders. Building everything from awe-inspiring planes to nimble hoverbikes and colossal battle bots armed with loads of enemy-obliterating weapons becomes a delightful reality.
TOTK invites gamers to revitalize their inner child, providing a platform to manifest their imaginative visions within the game’s dynamic universe.
The introduction of a whole new (technically ancient but lost to time) civilization called ‘Zonai’ brings forth exciting new possibilities. These Zonai people were once masters of technology and used it to create a peaceful kingdom called Hyrule.
With a massive lineup of new Zonai devices, players can utilize various new elemental forces, including fire, shock waves, laser beams, and bombs. These devices can be used on their own or fused to a large variety of weapons (including arrows) as well as shields to create more powerful ones.
Zonai devices also offer a wide range of basic machines, such as wheels, wings, fans, sleds, balloons, homing carts, and steering sticks, which can be mixed and matched to create unique creations for a variety of purposes. You can build flying machines, monster trucks, airplanes, hot air balloons, and even powerful battle robots with their help.
With TOTK, your only limit is your imagination (and your battery pack’s stamina)!
Engaging and Unique Side Quests
The narrative of TOTK intertwines seamlessly with its commitment to creative freedom. Side quests, far from feeling repetitive, offer a diverse range of experiences. Each quest is a unique journey, and no two gamers are likely to complete them in the same way.
Shrines, scattered throughout Hyrule, also offer a fun chance to flex your cognitive muscles. These miniature puzzles, taking anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to solve, offer a delightful mix of platforming, creative problem solving, combat, and good ol’ puzzling.
Game’s massive cast of NPCs also present limited yet captivating stories before guiding players on quests, adding layers of depth to the overall narrative. With over 152 shrines and 139 side quests, all unique and different from one another, you will definitely have a grand time procrastinating and side-tracking from the main storyline.
An Open World Like Never Before
In a gaming landscape often defined by linear narratives, developer-designed rigid paths, and barren open-world games that offer limited side-questing, TOTK emerges as a breath of fresh air. It invites players to immerse themselves in a world where the only limit is their imagination.
For me, TOTK is a warm and faithful companion on a rainy day. It offered me an experience akin to what I feel about the Harry Potter series. To quote Pam Beesly-Halpert from The Office series finale,
“It’s like a long book that you never want to end and you’re fine with that, because you just never want to leave it.”
While Tears of the Kingdom failed to achieve TGA 2023’s GOTY, the competition is far from over. With many more award events yet to take place, there’s still a pretty good chance that the latest adventures of Link might be given a proper recognition.
