When I heard my favorite game on the Nintendo Switch was getting a sequel, I knew I had to play it. “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” is hands down the Switch’s best game.

This review is going to be a comparison between “Tears of the Kingdom” (TOTK) and its predecessor “Breath of the Wild” (BOTW). If you haven’t played either game, I hope I can convince you to buy them both, but also help you see that TOTK isn’t just BOTW with a new cover.

First, without spoiling anything, I’ll give a brief overview of what both of these games are about. If you’ve never played “The Legend of Zelda” before, something happens to Princess Zelda, and Link has to rescue her in each game. 

In BOTW, there is a giant war, and Link is put into a temple to rest for 100 years. After he awakens, you play the game and eventually beat the bad guy. 

TOTK  takes place about 10 years after Link saved Zelda in BOTW. In this game, however, the Zonai civilization is discovered by Zelda and Link. Then there’s this bad guy that somehow comes back from the dead, and now we got to do what we always do in a Zelda game: save Princess Zelda.

The first problem I had with TOTK was that I was trying to play the game with my BOTW brain and not my TOTK brain. These games are totally different. The tools that they give you are different. Although the map is generally the same, in TOTK, there are underground depths to be discovered and the addition of Zonai civilizations in the sky. 

With BOTW, when you see a giant mountain that you need to get around, you have to strategically ask yourself how you can climb it with your allotted stamina. In TOTK, that same mountain can be traversed by building something, like putting a rocket on your shield, instead of climbing it. 

In BOTW, when you see a scary monster early game, you ask yourself, “Am I actually good enough at this game to defeat these monsters, or can I wait until they all go to sleep and murder them like the psychopath that I am after stealing all their stuff?” In TOTK, you just build a giant laser-shooting death machine that can wipe out everything from a whole village of monsters to a literal dragon. 

In BOTW, if you’re like me and it takes you several tries to defeat monsters and you just pause to heal yourself with potions and food mid-fight, you can kiss those tools goodbye because TOTK is way harder with much more difficult bosses and fights. Seriously, just build laser-shooting death machines. It’s much easier.

Lastly, without spoiling the story too much, this game does numerous amazing little things right. First, when you need bugs or other creepy crawlers on the ground you have to be quiet and move quickly. It’s so much fun to just get a sword and cut down grass, hoping to find a cricket or lizard. Climbing trees to see if there’s an item or puzzle up there is so much fun. The charm of the story is just beautiful with the addition of the sidequests. 

One that I didn’t realize at first is that the construction company that you helped in BOTW  now has an intern who needs help to mount a sign for the company.  Here, you have to figure out a puzzle to help him put the sign up and hope it stays. This is such a wonderful little detail, and I love it. Another awesome thing is that Link will hum classic songs from the franchise when he’s cooking something. So cute.

Everything in TOTK is a puzzle, and it’s your job to figure out how to solve it. Thanks to YouTube, this is much easier if you’re stuck on something and can’t figure it out. The game gives you these new tools for a reason, so use them to the fullest. If something seems too hard, you’re probably not thinking enough about it. Work smarter, not harder.

This game is so much fun that I hate it. Thank you BOTW for giving me hundreds of hours of fun, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of TOTK has for me — hopefully some DLC soon.