Tears of the Kingdom Earns Rare Review Accomplishment

Early reviews for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were glowing, to say the least. However, the praise for the game hasn’t exactly slowed down since the first wave of pre-release reviews was released. Actually, a recent review from a notable source just put Tears of the Kingdom in some rare company.

Recently, Japanese magazine Famitsu gave Tears of the Kingdom a 40/40 score. For those who don’t know, Famitsu is a legendary Japanese publication that assigns four reviewers to major new releases. Each reviewer assigns that new release a review score of 1-10. For a game to achieve a 40/40 score, it has to earn a perfect review score from four reviewers. That’s a pretty rare accomplishment. In fact, it’s only happened 28 times in the magazine’s nearly 40-year history.

However, that’s not the rare accomplishment we’re talking about. See, VCG recently noticed that the UK-based video game magazine Edge also gave Tears of the Kingdom a perfect score. It’s the 25th perfect score that Edge has given out in its nearly 30-year history. It’s also only the sixth time that a game has received a perfect score from Famitsu and Edge. In case you’re wondering, the other five games to earn perfect scores from both publications are The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Bayonetta, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Grand Theft Auto V, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

But let’s go deeper than that. See, IGN also gave Tears of the Kingdom a perfect review score (10/10). While perfect scores are a little more common in IGN’s 26-year history, it’s far less common that IGN, Edge, and Famitsu all assign a game a perfect score. In fact, the only games to earn that honor (to date) are The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Grand Theft Auto 5, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. In case you’re wondering, games like Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Super Mario Odyssey just missed joining this list by a single Famitsu point (39/40).