My 2025 GOTY was Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 2 |
I didn't like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom much when Nintendo first released it in 2023. It was dull, I incorrectly thought. It was ugly, I accurately concluded. Why bother? This year, I've played it more than any other game, and it's entirely because of the Switch 2's upgrades.
The yellow of the Sky Islands looks gross on the original Switch. That was my initial take after entering the game's tutorial area, and it shaped what I noticed the most about everything else afterward. The color is too garish in general, and the low resolution just makes it look bad. Then, it turned out, the low resolution made everything else look bad as well, from Link's blurry face to the appallingly gritty-looking half-shapes in the distance that were meant to be attractive enough that I'd want to explore them. Even the grass was crappy, all jagged edges and visual noise.
Using Link's Ultrahand powers caused some issues as well, since building and moving larger objects tended to make the resolution drop in handheld mode, and things get a bit fuzzy even when you're moving small stuff like mushrooms that are just a short distance away. Breath of the Wild has similar resolution issues. But, whether it was from Nintendo using not-atrocious color choices or doing a better job of managing how far you can see, they never stood out as much to me as they did in Tears of the Kingdom. Here, along with:
It was all just a constant reminder that the game wasn't as good as it should have........