The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hands-on: A sequel with endless creative potential

engadget.com:

Making a follow-up to Breath of the Wild (BoTW) is an almost impossible task. Not only was the first Zelda game on the Nintendo Switch an instant classic, it’s also one of the best games in an incredibly storied franchise. To make things even more difficult, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom features the same basic graphics, map layout and general mechanics as its predecessor, which can sometimes make follow-ups feel more like an expansion pack instead of a true sequel. But after getting a chance to play a hands-on preview build of Tears of the Kingdom, I think Nintendo might have just pulled it off by making a game that expands upon the original and then blasting it into the sky (literally) with a new world of creation.

Now before we get into the preview itself, I should mention that this build didn’t touch on any of Tears of the Kingdom’s (ToTK) story. The demo strictly focused on showing off Link’s new abilities in a small area that had me battling through a Bokoblin camp before exploring some of the game's new sky islands. Now this may sound a bit contrived, but it makes a ton of sense because where ToTK shines is when you start combining Link’s new skills – Ascend, Recall, Fuse and Ultrahand – with his returning arsenal of items and weapons.

I’m going to start with Ascend and Recall because they are the most straightforward of the four. Ascend is a simple movement ability that lets you move through rock and other materials. The caveat is that, like its name implies, you can only go up and to make the ability work, you need to have some sort of ceiling relatively close above your head. It’s a great way to get to the top of a mountain or tower when you’re exploring a cavern or room below, and from there you can use