Skip To...
With Tears of the Kingdom releasing in just a day, fans are wondering which is ultimately the better experience. Is it Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom? It can be a hard choice. On the one hand, you have Breath of the Wild, which turned the community on its head. It brought about some of the biggest controversies in the franchise. On the other, you have a sequel that takes all the great things about the game and makes it better. This is a sequel that improves upon previous laurels against a game that set those expectations to begin with. As a result, it can be a tough decision as to who takes the top spot when they’re directly compared. In this article, we’ll decide which is better.
Which Is Better: Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom?
It can be a hard choice to make when you pit two of the best Zelda games against one another. Breath of the Wild was an enormous game at the time, taking the formula for the old Zelda way and throwing it out of a decently high window. It shattered expectations, which isn’t something you can do so easily now. On the other side of that coin, you have the problems that Breath of the Wild has. Breath of the Wild was inherently built with the WiiU in mind. As ambitious as the game was for the time, it doesn’t quite hit the peak limitations of a Switch.
The advantage of the sequel is that the developers get to learn from past mistakes. It’s no perfect game, which is where Tears of the Kingdom finds many of its top marks. The second game has the benefit of hindsight for the devs in that it was a great opportunity for them to right the wrongs that Breath of the Wild made. Although truth be told, there weren’t many. Despite the fact that Tears of the Kingdom may look similar, things are very much different in terms of what the dev team is allowed to do. Below we’ll get into the finer points of discussion for both games and which is better in each area.
Console
Breath of the Wild is unique in the sense that it had two different console lifespans, being both a launch title for the Switch and a reliable title for the WiiU. Tears of the Kingdom is different in that it exclusively launched on the Switch. When you compare the two, you can see the limitations from the very first moments of gameplay. You could go as far as to say that Tears of the Kingdom does need to make limitations for versions such as the Switch Lite. And for that assumption, you’d be right. Tears of the Kingdom still has limitations due to the various consoles and undocked modes it needs to adhere to. But, at the base, Tears of the Kingdom is simply more optimized and polished than its predecessor.
There are plenty of things that Tears of the Kingdom has going for it that zoom right past Breath of the Wild. It seems this time around, there’s more loading in at once than in Breath of the Wild. As you might have been able to tell from the trailers, there are islands in Tears of the Kingdom just floating on the horizon. You can get to these islands in all manners of ways, depending on what you build and how you navigate. In Breath of the Wild, it would be rather hard to render all kinds of islands as well as the overworld. So performance-wise, we got to give Breath of the Wild the back seat here and let Tears of the Kingdom take the win.
Enemies
In terms of the base enemies that you face throughout Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, there is much parallel. However, that parallel ends when it comes to the creatures themselves. When they move around, the attack pattern you want to take is pretty similar: hit and don’t get hit. There are plenty of new enemies in Tears of the Kingdom that help keep things fresh. For example, there’s a brand new enemy called a Construct, one that looks very similar to the Guardians from the first game. These enemies tend to send Link flying more than usual, making the gameplay pattern ever so slightly different than what we’ve seen before.
Another major improvement that the sequel improves upon the original is flying enemies. This changes up the battle formula yet again, forcing the player to use their bows and arrows more often. Instead of just brute forcing a path, you’ll have to think of new and creative ways to take down enemies this time around. While the first game definitely had some great enemies at the start, boss enemies are specifically lacking in comparison to the ones Tears of the Kingdom has to offer. For instance, this time around, we have a proper Ganon. And one of them was the final boss. Now we get a proper Ganon, in the flesh, to battle it out with. This alone is a significant improvement for a lot of people and makes Tears of the Kingdom better, at least in that isolated regard.
Story
The story of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are set apart by one major factor: time. Breath of the Wild took place in the past, while Tears of the Kingdom is where it should be: the present. When we played as Link in Breath of the Wild, we pretty much started things off on a clean slate. He had no memories, we didn’t know what transpired before us, and the world was open to us as we saw it. For the record, having this mini-reset was a great thing for the new game. With a new formula came a grand reset of everything. We learned the lore, characters, and map all from scratch again, seeing Hyrule as something new.
In Tears of the Kingdom, however, we’re in the present. This narrative is proving to be far more set in stone, with characters that are already established from the previous game. Having a story that takes place in the here and now makes the threat present. It gives players a sense of urgency. If the threat is here, now, and in your face, the game will likely be way more impactful. The only issue with the first game’s story is that it was juxtaposed with the past. Lots of characterizations were limited to stories and memories. Now, we have a cast of characters here with us. Characters like Pyurrah and Impa can shine far better in the context they’re given through a sequel.
So, Which is Better?
Ultimately, the decision comes down to personal preference. As for impact, it’s fair to say the first game made the bigger splash. One of the largest criticisms of the sequel is that things look too similar. However, now that we have the game in our hands, that’s simply not true. The game is completely different. With the combination of new enemies, a new terrain to explore, and a fresh story, Tears of the Kingdom is set up to be a far better game than its predecessor.
What do you think of our comparison? Do you have opinions concerning which game is better? Is Tears of the Kingdom a letdown or an upgrade? Let us know your thoughts using the comment section below.
