One of my favorite parts of returning to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has been how clearly I remember it and how much fun I still have in the game despite my near-perfect recall of every part of it. I can probably direct anyone who wants it to about two hundred or so Koroks, I can find every single shrine unaided, I know where all the good armor is located, and I can beat more bosses without much effort because I can perfectly recall how each battle goes, how to apply the mechanics, and know the game’s systems well enough to show up with weapons powerful enough to make short work of any fight. Despite this, I still enjoy every single moment I’m playing the game. Though it might be better said that I remember so much of the game because of how much I enjoy it, how deeply engaged I am with it at all times, and how playing it gives rise to a delightful mixture of familiar comfort mingled with striking wonder every time I find something I never encountered before. Truly, there is no game that I have a better recollection of or active experience with. What strikes me as odd is that, despite the similarity in overworlds, I only have a somewhat normal recollection of Tears of the Kingdom. Sure, I know where stuff is with my usual familiarity (my greatest skill in most games is never getting lost and remember where random things were, which has mostly only served me well in games without maps like Minecraft), but I can’t just walk up to a shrine and perfectly recall what’s going on inside it before I’ve entered.

Conversely, this lack of complete recall is probably a result of how disengaged I’ve always felt with the game. Despite the map similarity, there’s no overlap between the two games in my head. There’s so much wonder and majesty stored in my recollections of Breath of the Wild, but very little of it in my memories of Tears of the Kingdom. Even with maps so overwhelmingly similar, the differences in Tears of the Kingdom are enough that there’s no threat of me mixing the two up. I mean, I definitely remember where stuff from Breath of the Wild was when I’m playing through Tears of the Kingdom, but there’s no part of me that could make the mistake of thinking I’m in a different world that I am. So much is different, after all, and most of it not positive. Just like the game seems intent on forgetting it’s own past, I can’t really remember all that much of my time playing the game. Sure, I know where most stuff is, but I couldn’t describe how to get to most of it without opening up the game. I couldn’t guide you to any Koroks (though I could probably get you into the general area of a few), and I might not even be able to spot the signs of them before you do in this game, like I can in an instant in Breath of the Wild. I’m just not as attached to the game.

Sometimes, when I think about these two games and my desire to compare them (to TotK’s detriment), I feel like I’m beating a dead horse. This opinion of mine isn’t a new one. This won’t be the first time I’ve written about how hard I was trying to like Tears of the Kingdom and how much I just couldn’t in the end (it’s definitely closer to the tenth than the first). I just feel so disappointed. I don’t think I’ve had a game that just could not stick the landing quite as much as Tears of the Kingdom couldn’t and I’m going to be thinking about it for years, maybe the entire rest of my life, because I’m not sure how the franchise is going to continue or grow following the incredibly lackluster game they released (specifically in the “what’s the next mainline entry going to look like?” way, not the “will the franchise be able to continue” kind of way). I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as it call it my least-favorite Legend of Zelda game, nor would I call it the worst. I might call it the least fun, though, if only because it falls so short of its prequel. Few other games in the franchise’s history exist as direct sequels and none of the rest suffer as a result. None of the rest feel worse for following so many years after their previous entry and for falling so, SO short of it. Hell, I can’t even think of another franchise where something like this happened. I’m sure one exists, but I can’t come up with it at two in the morning as I’m anxiously avoiding sleep and writing this blog post.

Part of me still wants to go back to the game. If nothing else, it’s a decent game to listen to podcasts to. I’ve also enjoyed watching Dimension20 on my tablet while playing it since I don’t mind looking away from TotK to watch D20 for a bit. I REALLY want to like it. I want to find the moment that makes it click for me, that brings me into the fold and wraps me up in a warm embrace I’ll still be feeling the better part of a decade later. I just don’t think it exists anymore. I’ve put in an earnest few hundred hours of play time and never found anything like that, so I just don’t think I ever will at this point. I feel no urgent need to return to the game, not when I’ve got other stuff like working through Final Fantasy 14, finishing my second playthrough of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a plethora of other smaller games, and Diablo 4’s expansion to go through at some point. I mean, all those games offer new and interesting stuff, not to mention interesting challenges and perhaps a personal challenge (like Wanderstop calling me on my “work myself to exhaustion and collapse” bullshit in the first fifteen minutes and then immediately calling me on skipping steps and getting ahead of the game when I finally decided to start doing what the game was telling me to rather than fighting against it). I might return to it someday, just for something to do, but I might just play Breath of the Wild instead. It might be nice to revisit a Hyrule I fell in love with rather than push myself to continue exploring a pale imitation of it.