Tears of the Kingdom is without question the game of the moment, impossibly huge in both scope and scale, as well as sales numbers. With so much to see and explore, with so many options at the fingertips of every player, the opportunity for spectacular moments is limitless. Ask a dozen people how they solved a particular shrine and you'll get a dozen different answers. But for each person, there's at least one moment in Tears of the Kingdom that stands above the others, whether it's a crazy creation, a puzzle solution that seemed like it just shouldn't work, or an impactful story beat.
The wider NVC crew shares their favorite moments below, but be advised, this is spoiler territory. But if you haven't played yet, what's your deal? This game rules!
ALSO: Unsurprisingly there are SPOILERS for the game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom below. If you don't want anything spoiled, you've been warned.
Kat Bailey
Ultrahand has justifiably received the Lynel's share of attention as fans assemble everything from killer mechs to podracers, but Tears of the Kingdom's lesser-known abilities have done just as much to enhance my moment-to-moment exploration of Hyrule.
To wit, the Ascend ability is pure joy, forcing me to think in three-dimensional terms as I examine ceilings and pillars for entry points. It's an ability that ties in well with Tears of the Kingdom's overall design philosophy, which makes a firm point of introducing the Z-axis wherever possible. I especially love the visual of Link swimming through a wall and emerging with an audible "shmmp" before pulling himself out of the floor.
Tears of the Kingdom's puzzles are designed to encourage use of these abilities whenever possible, and they've quickly become second nature. As Seth alludes to in his own answer, the Wind Temple almost feels like a final test, encouraging you to use your full set of abilities as you ascend into the heavens. It was this sequence in particular that really drove home Tears of the Kingdom's scale, making it my favorite so far, and it's all thanks to Tears of the Kingdom's well-designed abilities.
Peer Schneider
My favorite thing about the game so far isn’t any one specific moment – though dropping out of the sky all the way down into the “Mines of Moria” is quite special – it’s those moments when you feel like you’re the only person to solve a puzzle a certain way. We wrote an article about people building long bridges, so I know I’m not special. But my sons watching me play were dumbfounded when they saw me glue together an implausible amount of tree trunks just to cross the chasm to Rito Village. “If you talk to that NPC, they’ll tell you an easier way to get over there,” they said. “I don’t take directions from NPCs”, I said.
We’re still so used to limitations in games that when something like this works, we can’t help but be impressed. Someone programmed this, someone made the game systems flexible enough for it to work. It’s not long ago that characters in open world games were stopped dead in their tracks by tiny fences. Or you failed a puzzle not because you didn’t understand it, but because you didn’t stand in exactly the right place when hitting the button.
There’s no better feeling than playing a game that removes those age-old limitations and just lets you go wild. My favorite moment in Tears of the Kingdom is that sense of freedom and how it beckons players to experiment. It instantly turns side quests and minor diversions into a crucial part of the experience – and the player becomes the story, instead of just witnessing it.
Brendan Graeber
I’ve been relentlessly bombarded by favorite moments for over 100 hours now, but let’s go back to one of my first: The Depths. Every time Nintendo showed a glimpse of Hyrule, or teased a few sky islands, I knew they were holding something close to the chest, but I only had guesses at what. When we finally got a few glimpses of dark underground areas in early leaked commercials, I thought I had it all figured out. I still wasn’t ready.
There’s so much about this place that is wild to me. The fact that something this big is introduced as some small side plot to the main quest. The fact that they just ask you to jump down a hole with not even a hint or warning of how massive and foreboding this literal dark world is. The fact that hours later, I still get a chill down my spine each time the loud horn heralds my arrival.
I could handle the altered terrain of Hyrule’s surface, and I could deal with a collection of strange floating islands. But getting my first look at The Depths was when it really hit me that Nintendo wanted me to stop focusing on what had carried over from Breath of the Wild, and start focusing on how much the rules had changed.
Seth G. Macy
The wait for Tears of the Kingdom was almost unbearable for me, a fully grown man who otherwise leads a normal life. I was beyond excited when I finally started it up and set out on my new journey, but there was a problem. Breath of the Wild has been my favorite game, period, ever since its release, but Tears of the Kingdom was only meeting, not exceeding, my love for its predecessor.
That is, until I hit my first dungeon.
I had read, and heard, dungeons were back for Tears of the Kingdom, something everyone had said they wanted for years. But I had also heard they weren't "Zelda" dungeons in the traditional sense. There was no secret item locked away you had to first uncover before you could solve the puzzles, no iron boots to allow Link to sink to the bottom of a water hazard or hookshot to swing across open gaps.
That remains true, but I would argue the dungeon are as "Zelda" as they come, but they smartly use the vocabulary of Tears of the Kingdom and all its varied powers and abilities in a way that makes them feel perfectly familiar without feeling tired. As I made my way through my first one, using the powers of Ultrahand and Ascend and Rewind, I found puzzles requiring me to use the special powers of my companion, which is what makes these classic dungeons afterall. "How do I get there?" was a question I found myself asking quite a lot, but the solution was always within my reach, it just wasn't always immediately apparent to my mental grasp.
Once I completed my first dungeon (I've taken great pains not to say which one I did first), I felt a level of satisfaction that I didn't know I needed in my life, and I looked back at my time with Breath of the Wild with a touch of sadness. It was a bittersweet realization that Tears of the Kingdom is now my all-time favorite game, but I don't know if I have any reason to return to a post-Calamity Hyrule in Breath of the Wild ever again.
Reb Valentine
When I first played Breath of the Wild, I liked the game immediately. But I didn’t love Breath of the Wild until a magical moment early on when I, with only a few hearts and a smattering of stick and rusted weapons, followed a series of quests and landmarks to the top of a mountain where I met the dragon Naydra. She was covered in Malice, and despite being weak and barely able to handle the cold around her icy form while stuffing my mouth full of peppers, I fought off the Malice and saved her.
Once she was set free, I flew with her across the plains below, riding on her icy updrafts, surrounded by frosty magic and wonder. The encounter with Naydra, totally organic and born of my own curiosity, was the first moment of pure magic I experienced in Breath of the Wild, and it colored my experiences of the entire game from then on.
A few nights ago in Tears of the Kingdom, I was trying to sneak around a guy who wouldn’t let me explore some ruins in Kakariko Village when I suddenly saw her: Naydra. She was descending into a nearby chasm. I immediately dove from the nearest cliff after her, riding in the winds alongside her snake-like body until we arrived in the Depths, where her blue glow was the only light around.
I drifted onto her snout and sat there, transfixed, as we floated through almost total darkness for several minutes, before finally riding straight up through another chasm for a patrol around eastern Hyrule. After some time, she looped back to Kakariko Village, and I said my goodbyes.
I could praise the puzzle design, or the open world, or the witty NPC writing, or the music, or anything else about Tears of the Kingdom all day. But nothing about this game is as memorable to me as these sudden and unexpected moments of pure magic born out of nothing more than curiosity and a world that moves on its own, with or without my input. Thanks for the ride, Naydra.
Brian Altano
Diamonds are one of the rarest and most valuable resources in Tears of the Kingdom, and while selling them off to buy armor sets or upgrades for Link’s house is certainly a good bet, fusing them to certain weapons can create some really strong and durable results. Unless you’re an idiot like me. Early on in my adventure across (and above and below) Hyrule, I got my hands on a Royal Shield, a fairly tough shield with good defense.
At this point I had already experimented with lots of creative weapon fusions and had mostly gotten lucky with the outcomes so I confidently tried sticking my one and only diamond to my shield thinking it would create some incredibly shiny, beautiful, and super tough shield that would last me for hours against hordes of Bokoblins and even a Stone Tallus or two. Instead I got a.. Shield with a big ass diamond stuck to the front of it. It made no sense and it made perfect sense at the same time, and it’s stupid to part with or destroy, so I’ve kept it 90 hours later as a reminder that not all fusions are created equally and to never get too cocky or confident in Tears of the Kingdom because there’s always a chance your really great idea turns out to be a really dumb one.
So there you have it, our favorite moments so far. Feel free to share yours in the comments, I read them. Seriously!
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