This is basically Breath of the Wild but with every complaint I had fixed. The Fuse ability alone makes this the better game since you’re no longer scrambling for weapons constantly. Just grab a stick and fuse something to it and you’re good to go.
I originally beat this on my regular Switch and I’m still amazed it runs as well as it does on that hardware. Frame rate drops below 30 sometimes especially in busy areas but it holds a steady 30 most of the time which is impressive for what the game is doing. When I got my Switch 2 I came back to finish shrines and side quests and the performance boost makes exploration even smoother.
Ultrahand is genuinely fun even for someone like me who isn’t creative. I kept my builds simple and functional. Basic bridges and flying machines rather than elaborate contraptions. But the fact that it all actually works and the physics hold up is impressive. You can tell they built the entire game around making these mechanics function properly.
The story has a better hook this time with the opening sequence actually establishing stakes, but it still has the same disconnected memory problem from the first game. Finding them out of order ruins the narrative flow and just forcing an order would make the story so much better. The villain is more compelling this time and actually has presence in the world while side characters have more to do and feel more involved in what’s happening.
The new areas add so much to explore. The sky islands give you these playground spaces to experiment with building while the Depths are genuinely creepy and oppressive in a good way. Mapping them out completely was oddly satisfying and having three layers to explore triples the content without feeling like padding.
Shrines are better designed this time around with more variety in puzzle types and the blessing shrines that reward you for solving overworld puzzles are a nice touch. Combat shrines are more interesting with Fuse combinations adding strategy and I did 108 of them and could have kept going if there were more.
The new abilities change everything about how you approach the world. Ascend lets you cheese so many situations in the best way while Recall creates puzzle solutions that feel like you’re breaking the game even though you aren’t. Everything interconnects in ways that reward experimentation even more than the first game did.
Enemy variety is improved with new types and variants that keep combat fresh. The gloom enemies add actual danger to encounters while boss fights are more memorable with better designs and mechanics. The temple bosses especially are huge improvements over the bland Divine Beast fights from the first game.
Quality of life improvements are everywhere you look from better inventory management to recipe tracking to multiple save slots. Map pins actually help now and all the little annoyances from the first game got addressed which shows someone was paying attention to feedback.
The building mechanics could have been a gimmick but they’re integrated into everything you do. Shrines require building solutions and Korok puzzles need creative transport while combat scenarios give you advantages if you build something clever. It all feels purposeful rather than tacked on which is impressive for such a big new system.
This is just better Breath of the Wild in every way that matters. The weapon problem is fixed and the new mechanics feel meaningful while the story presentation is improved even if it’s still flawed. More enemy variety and better dungeons plus so much more to explore makes this feel like what I wanted the first game to be. The rating difference between this and BotW reflects how much better this feels to play.
120 hours and I could easily do another 50 just messing around with builds and exploring. Sometimes a sequel comes along that makes the original feel like a rough draft and this is definitely one of those times.