This piece contains spoilers for the approach to the first dungeon in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
I can see now that I came toZelda: Tears of the Kingdomexcited but slightly nervous.
I think I was unable to easily put into words exactly what I hoped for from it.
This is because I lovedBreath of the Wild, but I didn’t always like it.
I would play it for hours on end.
Five or six hours into Tears of the Kingdom, though, something happened.
Easy to say, but hard to actually explain.
I still don’t have the words easily to hand.
Actually, let’s start a little bit before that.
There was comedy: I slowly pieced together a bridge with Ultrahand and immediately dropped it into the abyss.
This stuff was great, but it felt like Breath of the Wild with a bit of a makeover.
When I got down to Hyrule, this feeling continued.
Then stuff started to happen.
They feel broken down into smaller parts, filled with more tension points.
Too much room inside there.
Too easy to lose my way in the material without my arms finding the right sleeves to fit into.
Poor analogy, but hopefully you know what I mean.
I realise now that I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer sandbox potential of Breath of the Wild.
Now we’re getting to the point where everything clicks for me.
I have done an early bit of main questing and discovered an early hub town.
I head off to see what it’s all about and quickly find myself… And Zelda in winter is a magical thing indeed.
The approach to the first dungeon.
Dragon Roost Island inWind Waker.
Is this a sandbox?
It’s actually linear.
And in that storm?
The dungeon that, as with Dragon Roost, I know is there.
The dungeon that is almost drawing it to me magnetically.
What to make of all this?
The secret, for me at least, is the careful deployment of linearity inside a sandbox world.
(I want to point out: I love all that!
Here, it has enough width to give me things to do, and to allow me expression.
But here, working through the storm, something held me tightly in its grip.
And it was, undoubtedly, the Legend of Zelda.
