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A potential 2023 GOTY? | Trailer Impressions - Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

3K View2023-04-15

This is it. Another trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has finally dropped, one month before the release date, and I am very, very excited from what I've seen so far.

The new trailer is just short of 4 minutes, but it packs a lot, full of brand new footage that will surely leave fans excited and eagerly anticipating the release of the upcoming game.

It is looking like Tears of the Kingdom will include a lot of much needed verticality in its gameplay, as one of the main focuses of the trailer is seemingly the floating islands that suddenly popped out of nowhere above Hyrule, brought forth by the awakening of Ganondorf and the ensuring war that broke out.

The new added verticality will probably allow players to travel back and forth between sky and land: from what we've in the trailer, via Battle Royale-esque free falling and paragliding, as well as going back up via a rocket ships or some kind of magic sky elevators.

Not only we are going to explore the sky above, but also a network of caverns deep underground, including lava-filled regions (probably under Death Mountain). It's looks as equally as interesting as the sky exploration aspect. The aesthetic for the caverns are predominantly red/orange and brownish and will probably house much of the more dangerous enemies in the game, and we've also seen exploration and combat involving good 'ol mining carts .

Much of the Hyrule landscape that we know and love have been mostly retained, so the setting has moved on to much more lower and higher altitudes. However, that's not to say nothing as changed on the surface: new or evolved settlements, camps, and strongholds are now present, as well as new mysterious structures and towers.

Aside from the evolved landscape and new areas to explore, the combat of the game seems to be have been improved further, we have another footage of the new feature "Recall" mechanic here -- stopping thrown projectiles and throwing them back at enemies, as well as parrying enemies with a shield fused to a sword.

The trailer also showed some of the potential bosses that players are going to be soon encountering. Including the return of Gleeok, a three headed dragon. We've also seen many new exciting platforming and puzzle sections -- again including verticality in the equation -- Platforming and puzzle sections in the sky above, navigating through Mission Impossible style laser obstacles, and paragliding in narrow passageways.

So far, everything looks amazing. While the graphics are mostly the same --- understandably because of the aging hardware of the Nintendo Switch --- it at least looks visually as breathtaking as its predecessor, Breath of the Wild. Another Game of the Year for Nintendo this 2023? It's highly possible.

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