(bright tones) - [Jake] Hey, and we're
back with another episode of Before You Buy, that
show where we give you some straight up gameplay
and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. As usual, it's me, Jake Baldino, and today we're talking about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Now, thanks for your patience on this one. Just know we didn't get it very early so here are just some first impressions if you were curious or on the fence. Big disclaimer though, we haven't yet seen all, what, like 80 to up to
hundreds of hours in this game, so keep that in mind. Also, just so you know ,the footage is as spoiler free as possible. Like, some people might be sensitive to seeing certain things and
just want a complete surprise, but we're doing our best here and most of the footage
here is early stuff. Now, there's a lot of
hype around this game and some of the highest review
scores we've seen in a while. Now, after spending a
lot of time in this game and binging it for a couple of days, I'll say I definitely like it. I also really liked Breath of the Wild. Now, if you didn't like
Breath of the Wild, well, just keep in mind that this is a lot more Breath of the Wild with a bunch of new stuff
dumped on top of it. So consider that. That stuff is really ambitious and has a lot of room for fun depending on your preference. The vibe, the Breath of the Wild-ness, all that is still kind of the same and some stuff hasn't changed. It's the new stuff that
is worth discussing and whether or not you jive with it and I'll get to that. Now, Tears of the Kingdom
has some story set up and then it just thrusts
you right into it. Without spoiling much at all, you are Link and you're on an adventure and the Hyrule you know has changed. Floating islands in the sky are filled with ancient secrets and then down below, on Hyrule, debris and
weather has somewhat changed the Hyrule landscape you knew before. There is quite a bit of
story up front actually, and it just feels like there's significantly more storytelling going on in this one. It took me by surprise,
you know, more dialogue, more cut scenes. I mean, there're still
hours of you just wandering through the open wilderness
and gliding around, but the game distinctly feels like it definitely just has more to say, more story to tell this time around. Now, again with these first impressions, I can only share my experience here, so here's how I think it's been going. The tutorial area, I spent
a really long time in. This area feels really new
and fresh and different, from, like, the enemies
to what you're doing, all of it is different and new. This is where the game teaches you a lot of the new mechanics, like the new abilities and
all that building stuff. It can actually be challenging at first and things feel pretty fresh, you know? Visually and story-wise, there's also some fun stuff going on here. Now, once you eventually
float back down to Hyrule, things start to go back
to feeling a bit more like just typical Breath of the Wild. The region has transformed, yeah, but, like, some of
the music is the same, the grassy fields feel
familiar, like you just go, "Okay, this is definitely
Breath of the Wild 2." And for a few hours, I
actually found it a bit dull. I kind of, like, half stuck
with the main quest line and I was just learning
a bit about what happened to Hyrule and, like,
how the NPCs are doing and they all have a lot to say. Everybody's really chatty. Some of the earlier shrines, that aren't called shrines now, are really straightforward,
not very interesting looking, and still train you up on
the new abilities, you know? For a few hours there, I started
to kind of lose interest. I didn't find a lot of
the building appealing and it just felt like more
Breath of the Wild, you know, cool but expected I guess. But, that being said, after spending more and more time in it, and, like, peeling back
more and more layers, you start to see and feel just how much stuff is in this game. Like, it gets better the
more time you spend in it. It starts familiar and
then starts to trickle in some weirdness, you know,
new enemies, weirder areas and biomes and music and
more and more reasons to use and flex your abilities
in more creative ways, so basically the deeper I got the more I enjoyed it and
realized just how ambitious and how different it can feel. First few hours on Hyrule, wasn't sold, but get some of the better
dungeons or the temples, hot damn, some of them, and there's some really
good gameplay there. So that's where I'm at now. Does it feel like the
game to end all games? Not exactly, but I'm having a lot of fun and this is a massive game. Like, if you're just looking
for a game to get lost in, I think this one will do just fine. Now, the building stuff, I
still don't know if I love. This is all personal
preference, of course. Like, I'm just not
naturally creative in games. I'm not usually into sandbox
building survival type stuff in game loops. I just want the right tools
and be told to do the thing. I'm not good at being
creative and coming up with stuff on my own. If you feel the same as me, I don't think Tears of the
Kingdom is gonna, like, win you over in the
building aspects that much. Control wise, it's fairly straightforward, and even a little bit
finicky and it requires a lot of trial and error and experimentation. I think some people are
gonna absolutely love this. I mean, they already do.
Like, look on social media. People are already making
cool stuff and having a blast. But I just wanted to do the
basics to get the job done and sometimes I found it annoying. That being said, I'm 50/50 on it, 'cause, like, once you finally build the perfect flying machine
for the first time, it is really satisfying. Like, I'm not gonna lie, when
I first finally took flight, the game put a smile on my face. I was like that really weird
ad that Nintendo put out with the sad guy on the bus, that was me. Now, the way it works, you're grabbing and sticking stuff together
with the ultra hand ability. It's a magic big hand
that you use to grab stuff and kind of drag and drop
and snap things together. It works well enough, but like I said, control wise, it doesn't
feel like a revolution or like Nintendo cracked
a new code or something. What does feel pretty insane is just how many different things you can stick together and make. Like, there's a lot of
ambition in this game in terms of object
manipulation and physics and messing around. I'm actually really impressed
from a technical standpoint. Like, all of these
intense systems going on in a staggeringly big open world with a massive explorable sky box and you're just making
stuff and exploding stuff and the game doesn't fall apart and crash or lose sight of what it is. That's pretty good, man. So ultra hand, again, is
like the main grabbing thing and I'm not gonna spoil
all of the abilities, but just the foundational ones here. Also there's fuse, which lets
you essentially create things, you know, attach ingredients
to arrows, strap a boulder to a sword, fuse a stick
and a rock together. Like, it seems pretty simple at first, but you could do some
weird and nasty stuff. Again, if you're the player
that likes experimenting, and you're gonna need
to, because this is still a really harsh world, the
game can be challenging. Like, I can't believe kids play this game. Enemies will one shot you and there are dangers around every corner, so you're gonna need to
really cobble up together some weird stuff when you're desperate. You're definitely consistently
outmatched for a while, like Breath of the Wild, but this time you're
this, like, freak weirdo that's, like, sticking trees together and strapping bombs to your shields. So there's that, then there's also recall, which is a more puzzle-oriented ability to make objects reverse their action, and kind of go back in time. And then ascend. Now, this is the one you may
have seen Nintendo demonstrate where Link can jump up to a
ceiling and shoot through it and pop up on the roof, basically
teleport through ceilings. I thought at first this
was like no big deal, just another quick gameplay gimmick, simple teleport, you know? But I'm not gonna lie,
it is really, really cool and satisfying to use. Like, I haven't gotten tired of it yet. You can use this and all of your abilities pretty much anywhere, and this is where things get kind of fun. Like, you can really try to break the game or get yourself somewhere
where you shouldn't be, but it seems like the game
is cool with all of it. Everything is designed to be messed with and it's full freedom and, again, you're, like, a mile high in the sky, sometimes gliding around and
then diving back down to Earth on a totally different
map and it's all seamless. I've never really experienced
something quite like this in a game before except
maybe like flying around in Just Cause, but Just Cause as, like, a full Zelda RPG with
tons of physics systems and all these other things going on that I mentioned. And performance-wise, I
mean, I'm not gonna, like, beat around the bush with you guys. It's a massive open world Switch game. It's not 60 frames per second. There are only certain
intense instances in combat and a few select areas I've seen where the frame rate
does drop kind of hard, but most of my experience has been at least a stable 30 and playable. Honestly, it's pretty
much what I expected. If you have experience
with the previous game or just Switch in general, yeah, it's not great but it is what it is. Again, the game isn't a
technical mess at least. And from an art standpoint,
they embrace color even more this time around and there are some incredible
vistas and sunsets and stuff. Like I said, it starts off
feeling like the same old Hyrule with just a couple of
rocks here and there, but the deeper you go, the
newer it seems to really feel. So again, this is just first impressions. It gets more and more
interesting the further you go. It's very much more Breath of the Wild, but, like, what if it
slowly went to crazy town? You know, more Korok Seeds,
more shrines, more exploration, more breakable weapons,
which are still annoying, even more so, more treasures and secrets. Only this time, you could
build a weird flying car or a boat or whatever you want, and there's more story, a
seemingly really good one at that. So sorry if I'm being blunt, you know, again, this is after
like 15, 16, 17 hours. Don't want to jump the gun and
call it, like, a masterpiece or anything because I
think it's gonna depend on who you're asking. Either way though, I'm having fun with it. It's challenging, it's
ambitious, it's different, and it scores a lot of
points in my book for that. Even if I'm not like the
biggest building, crafting guy. I really liked Breath of the Wild and now I really like
Tears of the Kingdom. I think this game's gonna have some legs. I think you're gonna be seeing
people doing weird stuff in this for a long time. There's a lot of hidden
secrets in this massive world, so we're only scratching the surface here. So this is a Before You Buy,
you know how this goes by now. I just give you some pros, some cons, and some personal opinion,
and now I wanna hear yours down in the comments. If you jumped in immediately at midnight, you got any weird stories, have you discovered
anything cool, let us know. Are you still on the fence about the game? Was all those glowing 10 outta 10 reviews not enough for you? Or maybe it made you
skeptical, I don't know. Let's talk your experience with the game, whether you're considering it, what you think about Breath of the Wild, whether you even like this
new style of Zelda or not, 'cause that is a totally
separate conversation. Still, this game here, let's talk. Clicking the like button helps us. We appreciate it very much. Thank you guys for sticking
around all these years and watching these Before You Buy videos. Again, I'm Jake Baldino,
I'll see you in the next one. Have a good one. (birds chirping) (Link's footsteps)
