Daily Debate: What is the Biggest Improvement in Tears of the Kingdom over Breath of the Wild?
Posted on May 18 2023 by Emi Curtis
Spoiler Warning: The article below contains minor spoilers for some returning mechanics in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It is possible the comments section could contain spoilers in both pictures and words. Please click at your own risk.
It’s quite rare that we get to revisit a particular version of Hyrule, even in sequels. Majora’s Mask shifted its setting to Termina, Phantom Hourglass was in another region, and Link’s Awakening was on Koholint Island. As such, there’s not often an opportunity for the Zelda team to get to directly look at the mechanics of a specific game and improve on them in a sequel.
As we all know at this point though, Tears of the Kingdom was a chance for them to do just that. Just about everything from Breath of the Wild, from weapon durability to Korok Seeds, returned in Tears of the Kingdom. So with Tears of the Kingdom in hand now, what do you think was improved the most out of everything?
I balked at first to see weapon durability return. I knew it was going to return — the system just doesn’t work without it — but I’m still not a big fan of it. I was really pleased to see just how much the Fuse ability makes it much less of a pain though. Slapping random objects onto my worn-out weapons just feels really fun, and it feels extra good when you get that cyan text of a particularly good combination of things.
Sticking objects to arrows, as opposed to having to maintain all kinds of elemental arrows and swap between them, also feels much more intuitive. It even adds a bit of mystery over what each thing will do.
What are your thoughts? What do you feel improved the most from Breath of the Wild? What do you feel took a downgrade? Let us know in the comments below!
Emi Curtis is an associate editor with Zelda Dungeon, having originally joined the team in late 2020. She is a freelance artist, programmer, and streamer with a healthy love of both the creative and analytical. She can frequently be found playing RPGs and Adventure games, her favorite of which being The Wind Waker. She is also quite fond of playing Zelda Randomizers. Currently, she hosts a tabletop RPG series on Twitch and operates a freelance illustration business. She can be found on Twitter and Twitch as her VTuber alter-ego Gwen Myoty, creating nerdy artwork, dungeon mastering tabletop games, and playing RPGs.
