The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom dares something most games don't: to trust your imagination. There is no one right answer -- only your own. It's freedom as play, where even the craziest solutions work because they're yours. One starts confused and ends up in love.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the ultimate open world experience — even for those who usually get off when the map gets too big and the goals too many. Where other games are drowning in endless icons and pointless fetch quests, Tears of the Kingdom manages to make everything one comes across both entertaining and meaningful. There's a reason the game is already being referred to as a new classic: it's not just another continuation -- it's a creative breakthrough.
Hyrule is bigger and more alive than ever. Three layers -- sky, land and underworld -- create a sense of depth and discovery rarely seen in modern games. Everywhere there are characters who balance on the border between the silly and the touching. You want to help them. Each character feels written with warmth and slant, and the many small stories one encounters along the way create a sense of cohesion with a world that might otherwise have been cold and overwhelming.
The real strength of Tears of the Kingdom, however, lies in the player's freedom to play with the building blocks of reality. Elements can be combined, physics bent, and weapons and items can be put together in creative solutions that feel like being in the middle of a Lego set with god complex. It's not about solving the puzzles right -- it's about solving them in one's own way.
It's an experience where you're constantly rewarded for thinking differently. Do you want to fly over a mountain, build a catapult, or just put logs in a line and walk? Everything works -- in its own strange way. And it is precisely this freedom that makes the game never feel tiring or repetitive. Each task is an opportunity to experiment.
As in previous Zelda games, the mood is a supporting element. The music, the landscapes and the changing moods of the different parts of the world create an emotional journey that is hard to shake off. Tears of the Kingdom captures the special blend of adventure, loneliness and hope for which the series is known — but renews it with a more open and complex world.
The game's first hours can feel tough. Weapons break, enemies strike hard, and everything seems unfair. But slowly everything is turning. You get a grip, find the rhythm, and then the adventure opens up in earnest. It's one of those experiences where “just one temple” quickly turns into several hours.
With hundreds of side quests, hidden treasures, collectibles and upgrades, it will never be necessary to follow the main story slavishly. The game supports both the targeted player and the curious explorer.
Let's just put it like this...
Tears of the Kingdom is not only the best Zelda game to date — it's a milestone for the open world genre. It does what Ocarina of Time did for its generation: set new standards for what the gaming medium can do. Not through graphics or realism, but through play, curiosity and the feeling that one is part of something bigger.
You don't have to be a Zelda fan to enjoy this. It's enough to turn it on -- and let it go.
