The Legend of Zelda has returned with a pretty big adventure on the Switch. It took me a while to finally get this one but you know what they say, better late than never right? I’ve always preferred the 3D Link adventures to the overhead ones personally. It’s like how for me 3D Sonic beats the 2D ones and 3D Mario beats 2D. Once you go 3D it’s really hard to go back but this one has a lot of quality of life enhancements and fun features that put it above all of the older Link overhead titles. It’s a quality game all the way through so you should have fun here.

The basic plot is that Link was adrift at sea and gets knocked out. When he wakes up he’s in a bright world filed with various Mario villains, evil Kirby, and a Yoshi Egg on top of the mountain. It’s all kind of weird and doesn’t feel like he’s in the real world anymore. An Owl shows up and tells him that he will need to wake the Windfish up and get all of the legendary instruments across the world. All of the bosses beg Link not to do this though or the whole world will be destroyed. Who should Link listen to here? Is he even on the right side anymore? There’s only one way to find out and so Link gets ready to destroy all of the monsters guarding the instruments.

In a lot of ways the story reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics where the lead is in a fantasy world and has to destroy everyone even though he knows it will destroy their world. Of course there he knows that he’s in a different world and is sure of how to destroy everyone while here Link doesn’t know anything for a fact and has to really tread carefully the whole time. One wrong step and he may make a mistake that he could end up regretting. It feels like the game has a deeper story than most of the overhead ones so that’s a good point in this game’s favor.

The graphics are definitely really high tier as you’d expect from a first party Nintendo game. It just looks really modern and sleek all the way through. The soundtrack is also a lot of fun. It’s got all of the classic Zelda tunes you can picture and they work well with the gameplay. It’s all got a very light atmosphere to it. Link can also move around decently fast so even though the world is rather big it doesn’t take too long to get anywhere. You also have a bit of a sprint option with the way Link does the dash attack even though bumping into anything will still slow you down.

There’s a fast travel here which saves time on going back and forth. You unlock more travel points the more you go through the game. Each dungeon can be tricky but you should get through as long as you’re really inspecting everything. There’s a lot more direction than in the old games and there are a lot of treehouses where you can call someone who will help you out. It’s a great mechanic because otherwise the game would fall into that hole of not telling you much. This way that is never an issue at all.

In terms of game length it felt reasonably long. I forget exactly how long but I would wager you’ll be playing for around 15 hours before you’ve beaten the game and maybe a bit longer. I wouldn’t say it’s super difficult but some of the puzzles will likely take you more than one try to get through. Legend of Zelda puzzles are never a walk in the park after all and each dungeon gets trickier since you have more and more items which could all be an aspect of the puzzle you are trying to solve.

With all of these options you can also ensure that you will have lots of ways to tackle each boss. There will always be a best way but figuring that out is on you. For me I liked using the Boomerang a whole lot because it dealt a serious amount of damage and could also be launched very quickly. It seemed even more efficient than the Master Sword at times which I think is an issue of getting the sword too quickly. It should be an end game weapon so you can make it like 20 times stronger than a normal weapon and have it live up to the hype. By the final dungeon make all of the other weapons completely powerless. It would be a bold approach but one that could make a lot of sense.

I enjoyed using all the weapons though, they were all handled well. The dungeons also have a lot of variety in them so you never feel like you played the same one twice. If there’s anything I’d want more of in a sequel it would be more cutscenes. The ones we got were great of course but I do think nowadays you could probably push things a bit and give us more cutscenes. Maybe throw in a surprise boss during the game outside of one of the dungeons. That would really shake things up in a really fun way. Do some small things like that and the Legend of Zelda series will stand out even more. If not? Well there’s no issue really, the formula has worked thus far so it can keep on working as is.

Overall, Legend of Zelda is back with another solid title here. I had a good bit of fun and I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a fun time. It’s really done about all that it can with this gameplay style and there are even some fully animated scenes. It avoid most of the pitfalls I usually give these titles which is impressive. It feels like a very focused game with a good story and at the end of the day that’s exactly what I’m looking for here so I was super satisfied.

Overall 7/10