This article contains spoilers for all Tears of the Kingdom boss encounters.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I'm over the moon about pretty much everything - the vertically-oriented open world, the much-improved shrines, the memories. The only thing that hasn't really clicked for me is the bosses. And let me tell you upfront, this isn't about the bosses not being indomitable From Software clones, or that I prefer the ones from the older Zelda games (though I still think Twilight Princess's Fossil Stallord was the pinnacle of the series with its Beyblade-like battle).
Rather, it's about how the main bosses in Tears of the Kingdom–those who pop up after each temple–feel lackluster compared to their predecessors (the Divine Beasts in Breath of the Wild), missing crucial elements that usually give boss fights their spine-tingling allure and heart-pounding thrills.
Let's take a look first at the matter of size, which is the most glaring contrast between the bosses here and Breath of the Wild's colossal Divine Beasts. It is an issue that is very apparent with Mucktorok, touted as the fearsome scourge of the water temple. 'Scourge' is a word carrying immense weight - 'a source of severe punishment or agony' - so naturally when I hear it, I picture a formidable foe of grandiose proportions (Starscourge Radahn, anyone?), befitting the splendor of the aerially-suspended temple.
Yet, Mucktorok (even in its sluggish whale form) lacks that sense of scale, almost like those lackeys you brawl with before confronting Ganon, or any run-of-the-mill Bokoblins in the untamed wild. What makes this more glaring is that the game's secondary encounters, like the colossoal toad Frox or the multi-headed dragon-like Gleeoks, are way more intimidating. Even without prior knowledge of their arsenal, their sheer bulk instantly puts you in bow-and-bomb-flower alert mode and wary of what they have in store.
The others ain't exactly lacking in size but aren't really divine-sized either. And even if we ignore that criterion, their battles still feel too gimmicky to be taken seriously because of the new companion-assist thing.
Take the showdown with the Colgera dragon in the wind-bound Rito mountains for instance—a clash that our own Chad Thesen ranks dead last in terms of difficulty. Here, all you gotta do is use your Rito friend Tulip's gust-blowing ability to control your mid-air trajectory and swoop down on its vulnerable spots, pounding away to drain its health in hefty chunks with each strike instead of dealing with a tangible HP bar or getting creative your arsenal of weapons and items.
The Goron domain's Marbled Gohma is a gigantic arachnid with legs so blatantly exposed that they beg for a beatdown from your trusty wham-a-ball-in-it Goron sidekick. It's no different to putting Mucktorok into stasis with your fish buddy Sidon's water skills. And don't even get me started on the Queen Gibido skirmish in the scorching Gerudo desert, where you can simply zap any pesky secondary foes with beams of light and lighting strikes to instantly nullify their movements, leaving me to question why they exist in the first place.
I get that many of these battles are about letting your companions shine with their unique mechanics (glide aids, bubble protection, etc.), but it feels like the combat, and enemy designs by extension, are all about their gimmicks instead of me and my wit. These skills aren't technically in your pocket either, since you have to chase these sidekicks around to actually initiate their abilities, which can often be frustrating and immersion-breaking. But above all, none of the encounters where these companions are obligatory offer distinct or unique experiences that recall the water and sand surfing days of Breath of the Wild.
While I don't want to go in too heavy on FromSoft comparisons, I can't help but reflect on the epic folding screen monkey battle in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a boss fight that completely blew me away with how it took a departure from the game's grueling fights to toy around with the player.
The developer cleverly designed the three monkeys' techniques in this boss encounter based on three senses: one with keen vision but poor hearing, another with sharp hearing but limited sight, and a third one lacking in both senses but serving as an alarm for the others. Then there's the fourth (invisible) monkey, straight from the pages of the original Japanese folklore, which you have to use all your mental fortitude to detect and hit correctly. It was not only refreshing, but it also made me think, "That's a fight straight out of Zelda!"
Tears of the Kingdom's 'big' bosses simply don't live up to their supposed "boss" status. Most, if not all, of what you do with them are things you can easily experience elsewhere, and without giving too much away, this problem trickles all the way through to the climactic boss battles of the game.
It's all a bit disillusioning, especially considering Tears of the Kingdom builds anticipation for these fights with its brilliantly-designed temples. In the end, it leaves me with an indifferent impression that falls neither in the realm of amazingly good nor terribly bad, just plain 'meh'.