Song of Storms
First impressions of "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" and what I saw during the Chicago Critics Film Festival.
I once dreamed of writing for Electronic Gaming Monthly, my magazine of choice as a teenager in the time before online outlets dominated video game journalism (and the first publication that ran a letter I wrote). Even if the print industry hadn’t shriveled before I graduated college, I’m not sure I could have cut it at EGM — I still don’t know how the staff played (and then wrote about) enough games to fill out phonebook-sized holiday issues. Since the latest Legend of Zelda game has dominated my time over the past few days, I’m living out my dream by turning this week’s Attenuator into a miniature gaming magazine, complete with a Review Crew of one.
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Hail to the Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released a little more than a week ago, so I’ve spent much of the past few nights gliding between sky islands, slashing at swarms of monsters, and gathering ingredients to cook health-restoring dishes. I’m probably less than 15 hours into the game (I’ve cleared one of the dungeons and done a bunch of aimless wandering) and it feels like I’ve only scratched the surface of this sequel that somehow makes the previous game in the series (the massive Breath of the Wild) feel minuscule by comparison.
What follows isn’t really a review. I love the game, I can’t wait to play more of it, and I’m wondering why it had to come out just as summer arrived? Instead, these are some stray impressions of Tears of the Kingdom in its early hours, before I get wrapped up in the story (which seems particularly lore-heavy) and distracted by a litany of side quests (I’m very excited about moonlighting as a reporter for Hyrule’s newspaper, the Lucky Clover Gazette ). I don’t think there’s much in the way of spoilers ahead, but if you want to go into the game totally fresh, you might want to skip this issue.
Hyrule all over again
It’s pretty rare for video game sequels to simply reuse the previous game’s world, as most developers seem convinced that players need to traverse entirely new topography to justify a $60 $70 purchase. The two most recent Spider-Man games were set in the same abridged rendering of Manhattan and most Yakuza games share the fictional Kamurochō district of Tokyo, but these are exceptions to the rule.
Nintendo decision to return to the same virtual slice of Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom might seem like a cost-cutting measure on the surface, but in practice it’s a stroke of genius — at least as it pertains to folks who played Breath of the Wild. Exploring this iteration of Hyrule is akin to visiting the neighborhood you grew up in and seeing how it has changed over the years. New buildings have appeared, people have grown up, and some of the scenery has changed, but it’s still familiar. For me, it’s been fun to jump into the game and have a general idea of where I am and where’s I’d like to go. Enough has changed that it doesn’t feel like a total rehash, but the map is mostly the same — on the surface, at least…
What lies beneath
I’ve known that I’d be exploring floating sky islands in Tears of the Kingdom since the first trailer for the game dropped, but Nintendo managed to keep the hidden third tier of the map under wraps. The caverns beneath the surface of Hyrule (known as the Depths) are supposedly about as large as the surface map, but they’re shrouded in darkness, strewn with life-sapping goop, and populated by extra-tough enemies. It’s a tense, difficult area that makes Tears of the Kingdom feel a bit like a horror game like Silent Hill or Dark Souls.
I completed an early quest in the depths, but I haven’t had the guts to go back below the surface since then — and I’ve heard that it’s best to save extensive exploration of the area until you’re about midway through the game and have tracked down better armor/weapons and plenty of extra hearts. I’m mostly impressed that there’s another sizable area to explore that was squeezed onto this game cartridge, even if I probably won’t make the descent until much later in my playthrough (and I’ll probably keep the lights on while doing so).
A common strand
Maybe it’s just a case of recency bias, but the more I play Tears of the Kingdom, the more I’m reminded of Death Stranding. Maybe it’s the fact that both games revolve around searching for a woman who has a tendency to materialize as an apparition. Or perhaps it’s the mutual prevalence of weird black gunk oozing up from the depths. It could be the games’ shared reverence for Japanese legends, but it’s probably mostly spurred by the way that both games turn the simple act of traversing a detailed world into satisfying gameplay (while forcing you to keep an eye on the status of your decaying equipment). Plus, the directors of Tears of the Kingdom have stated that the theme of this installment is “connection,” which is exactly what Sam Porter Bridges was trying to accomplish in Death Stranding’s post-apocalyptic America.
I wish that Tears of the Kingdom made it possible to share your DIY mechs and trucks by embracing Death Stranding’s always-online “strand game” mechanics, but Nintendo was probably too afraid of giant dicks showing up in the game (a totally valid fear). I’ll settle for the similar vibes and the existence of Link as Sam Bridges fan art.
Master of interlocking
It’s not a Zelda game without a bunch of relatively simply puzzles and few that make you want to hit your head against a wall (until you have an epiphany or resort to looking the solution up online). The new arsenal of abilities at your disposal in Tears of the Kingdom feels as if it was reverse engineered to enable various physics-based puzzle possibilities, especially Ultrahand, which allows you to lift items up and graft them to one another. I’ve found that most of the puzzles I’ve encountered seem to favor solutions that require Ultrahand, to the point that I sometimes forget about other abilities that allow you to travel through ceilings (Ascend) and send objects traveling backwards through time (Recall). Adding devices like fans, flamethrowers, springs, and rockets to the mix only expands the puzzle mechanics and the potential for finding unintended solutions.
I don’t think I’ve solved any puzzles in a way that wasn’t intended yet, but I’ve seen a lot of videos that use Ultrahand to manipulate items and devices in unexpected (and sometimes glitchy) ways. The abilities in Tears of the Kingdom definitely lend themselves to puzzles that feel a bit more challenging than the shrines in Breath of the Wild. I’m really looking forward to seeing how late-game shrines and dungeons will stump me — and I’m going to try to resist the urge to look up solutions.
Get good or die trying
I’m only about 15 hours into the game, but Tears of the Kingdom feels like it presents a bit more of an immediate challenge (beyond the more complex puzzles) than the previous game in the series — or maybe it’s just been too long since I last played Breath of the Wild. I’ve already been defeated by a towering one-eyed Hinox multiple times, run away from a three-headed Gleeok dragon that I stumbled upon, and repeatedly fallen to my death due to poor glider deployment timing. Granted, the “go anywhere, attempt anything” nature of the game means that it’s easy to stumble upon challenges that you’re simply not prepared for yet, so maybe I’ve just been unlucky.
Tears of the Kingdom sets you up with some formidable powers very early in the game, so it stands to reason that the capabilities of some enemies should be commensurate to your ability to wipe the floor with them (or build an army of robots that does it for you). I’m all for a Nintendo game that gets challenging right off the bat instead of saving its toughest hurdles for optional post-game content (Super Mario Odyssey comes to mind). Eventually I’ll figure out how to fuse powerful weapons, construct machines that mow down Bokobolins, and effectively confront enemies that tower over me. For now, I’ll just try to avoid monsters that can take me out with a single swipe.
Old Style Cannes
Every year, a bunch of Chicago-based film critics curate a series of screenings at the Music Box Theater showcasing a mixture of recent festival circuit darlings and an early look at some upcoming releases. I made it to three screenings during this year’s Chicago Critics Film Festival and managed to exclusively see movies that are being released in the coming weeks. I wrote down a few thoughts about every move I saw — admittedly, these are just slightly extended versions of my Letterboxd reviews.
Sanctuary
A two-hander set almost exclusively in a hotel room starring Margaret Qualley as a dominatrix and Christopher Abbott as her hapless rich guy client sounds like a recipe for some erotically-charged scenery chewing. Sanctuary frequently makes good on that promise, but more often it feels like an extended improv scene with ever-shifting stakes. It’s fun to watch talented performers bouncing off of one another, the “game” is sometimes entertaining, but the way it finds narrative closure makes the whole exercise feel kind of meaningless.
Now playing in limited release.
Master Gardener
I’m generally a fan of the conflicted characters and dark themes that have defined the past two Paul Schrader movies (First Reformed and The Card Counter), but Master Gardener feels like Schrader overplaying his hand. Joel Edgerton (young Uncle Owen) is perfectly cast as a man with a troubled past who has found meaning in caring for plants. But there are multiple revelations about this character that are just… laughable (audibly, in the screening I attended). It doesn’t help that very few of Schrader’s painstakingly provocative plot developments feel logical — let alone earned — making it evident that someone with a steadier hand probably should have pruned this script.
Now playing in limited release.
Past Lives
The premise of Past Lives is remarkably simple, tracing the lasting connection between a pair of childhood friends who end up on opposite sides of the world. Helming her debut feature, director Celine Song approaches the scenario in a very grounded way that eschews melodrama in favor of leaving the obvious unsaid and allowing characters to candidly talk through their feelings. It’s a time-jumping story that feels as if it’s based on real experiences (just like the main character, Song moved from South Korea to Canada as a child before attending college in New York), even if the details have been changed to protect the innocent. And as blatant as the foreshadowing in the film’s opening scene may be, it actually pays off!
Opens June 2.
A Fistful of Link(s)
Former AV Club writer Erik Adams wrote this great Primetimer feature about Saturday Night Live cultivating TV show leads instead of movie stars over the past two decades. I’m holding out for the inevitable Sarah Squirm-helmed Adult Swim series…
Back when artist Geof Darrow was living in Chicago (I think he moved?), I’d get to have a very short annual chat with him at C2E2 while thumbing through his latest batch of prints. I was really happy to read this extended chat with Darrow, conducted by Matt Seneca for The Comics Journal. It’s worth reading for Darrow’s stories about French comic book artist Moebius.
I’ve seen a lot of concerts in churches, but I’ve never thought that Catholic protestors might crash one. That’s the situation that Philip Sherburne recounts for Pitchfork in a feature about a canceled show during the recent You Origin festival that was scheduled to take place in a church in western France.
I have to get back to finding Koroks and completing side quests, so that’s all for now. Adhering to EGM tradition, here is a Zelda-themed Hsu and Chan comic to cap off the issue. If you know someone else who can’t stop playing Tears of the Kingdom, please make sure they’re staying hydrated and then use that big orange button below to share this post with them. Until next time!