Upon firing up Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last night, I noticed my last save date was — gulp — July 4th! Ouch. Have I been that busy? Yep. But no worries. My purple retro-Gamecube wired Switch controller and my blue wired headphones were plugged in. So was I.
Jumping back into Hyrule felt like putting on well-worn shoes. Muscle memory mapped my fingertips to the the controller buttons. Ultrahand was as handy, and fun, as ever. The game is still huge and offers so much great gameplay. Surely I can pause other life stuff in order to play this game on a regular basis.
So that’s my aim this Blaugust, to blog and play TotK everyday. I probably won’t blog about Zelda every single day though. But last night, Tears flowed. I mean, I played TotK, and tears did actually flow. But not mine. I kinda laughed in amazement. But it wasn’t me doing the crying.
[spoiler alert]
[It was Zelda. And the Light Dragon. They did the crying. Last night, I bee-lined two last towers to fully reveal the Hyrule overworld map and find two remaining geoglyphs. Success! I finished unlocking the geoglyph (Impa) stories, which were very good. Ganon, the Demon King, yikes! And then, to my surprise, a final-final dragon tear fell from an eye in the sky. I found it on the ground, watched a story unfold, and — wow!]
[end spoiler alert]
So now the entire overworld map is revealed!
Also, I found three more Korok seeds without even really trying. Because this is BotW/TotK. That’s how this works.
Note: I still need the Master Sword!
At this point in the game, I estimate I’m 50% through the main story. But I’m like 25% through the entire game (all side quests, exploring everything). I have over 60 hours gameplay so far. I should easily double that. Maybe by the end of August, I’ll hit the 100 hour mark.
So my game session last night was the kind where I take on specific goals and simply bust a move, git’r done. But the thing I love about TotK is its open-style world and setup. It’s a beautifully crafted game world — of course, by the legendary Zelda developers themselves. The world is meant to feel alive with wind and wildlife and nature. Many gameplay sessions find me simply exploring without any objective at all. Just see what’s around a corner and discover something new, whether a secret big or small. The game is wonderfully filled with such things.
Except for a few weeks here and there, I’ve been enjoying TotK this way so much. I can just wander around, trying out things like cooking or crafting. I can have fun by finding enemies to defeat so I can pillage their loot and repurpose it. I can choose to engage side quests or the main story beats to reveal more about the game’s people, places, and events connecting them.
TotK is a masterpiece and will likely earn (and win) Game of the Year 2023.
So that’s where I’m at in gaming right now. Of course, I’ve got a huge backlog I can’t wait to tackle (JRPGs). But I’m giving myself time to soak up TotK for all it’s worth.