I got to play the latest 'Legend of Zelda' game early. Here's a preview of the biggest game the year.

• "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom," Nintendo's biggest game this year, is releasing May 12.
• Last week, Nintendo invited Insider to play a demo of the game.
• Here are my first impressions of "Tears of the Kingdom," a wonderfully creative game that delivers on its hype.

There are few games that have built more hype and anticipation than the newest Zelda game, "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom."

Since the game's original announcement trailer all the way back at E3 2019, Nintendo has treated it with an immense amount of secrecy. But with "Tears of the Kingdom" set to release on May 12, Nintendo is finally ready to give gamers a preview of what to expect from Link's next adventure.

Last week, Nintendo invited Insider to attend a sneak peek "Tears of the Kingdom" demo. This is the first time that members of the press have gotten to play the game, and likely one of the first times for anyone outside of Nintendo. Over the course of about two hours, I got to test out the game's new mechanics, solve puzzles, and even fight a boss — who promptly kicked my butt.

Here's a breakdown of my thoughts on "Tears of the Kingdom," both good and bad.

THE GOOD: 'Tears of the Kingdom' puts your imagination to the test

Even moreso than its predecessor, "Tears of the Kingdom" encourages experimentation and creativity. So much of the game is spent simply coming up with cool ways to travel from one spot to another. You can walk, climb, glide — or if you're me, strap five rockets to a log and pray. No matter which way you go, you'll find new enemies, characters, puzzles, and more. The wilder your ideas, the better. There's no wrong way to play.

The game's biggest new feature is "Ultrahand," an ability that lets Link stick items — including living creatures like Koroks — together to construct vehicles and other contraptions. Despite how complex the ability seems at first, I was delighted to find that building is both relaxing and fun. And although some vehicles are better than others, nearly everything you build will have some use.

There's even a great tactile element to the building system: When you want to detach one object from another, you rapidly wiggle the joystick, like you're trying to pull something out of a sticky pot of glue. It's delightful.

And if you don't want to spend time building things, there's an option that makes the process far quicker and easier. It's another way that the game lets you play how you want.

There's also more enemies! Breath of the Wild's four basic enemy types have been supplemented with a bunch of new creatures and bosses. I spent over 15 minutes fighting a new boss called a "Flux Construct," and still couldn't figure out how to beat it.

Before we started playing, a Nintendo rep took the controller to demonstrate some key features. Casually, he attached a rocket to a raft he was building — and the raft suddenly launched into the air, making him cry out in shock and sending Link flying. I immediately wrote in my notebook: "People are going to break this game." If the game's systems are so complex that a Nintendo employee appears to lose control of them, you can trust hardcore fans to push things even farther and find strategies that even the developers didn't think of.

It feels like players are going to sink hundreds of hours into this game and still fail to find all its secrets. I'm eager to see the viral clips, janky vehicles, and speedrunning strats that pop up once it hits shelves.

THE BAD: Poor performance and shallow mechanics break immersion

"Tears of the Kingdom" is clearly testing the limits of the six-year-old Nintendo Switch. Using your abilities in crowded areas, running through tall grass, and climbing trees all caused severe lag while I was playing, cutting performance down to about 10 FPS. It's not as bad as other Switch titles, but it's an ugly flaw in what's otherwise a beautiful game.

I'm also skeptical about another of Link's new abilities, "Fuse," which lets you combine your sword and shield with nearly any object in the world. Some combinations give your weapons special abilities, like turning your shield into a flamethrower. It also gives you a way to repair your weapons, solving one of the most common criticisms from "Breath of the Wild."

But the feature also seems disappointingly shallow. Most fusion combinations just give you a slight boost in attack power, and even the combinations that do cause special effects get recycled a lot. And although coming up with creative ways to take on enemies is fun, you can mash your way through most fights without thinking. I hope that there are more unique combinations in the full game.

Lastly: The game's controls are complicated. Most buttons have at least three uses, depending on where you are and what other buttons you're holding. Expect to struggle memorizing exactly how everything works, especially if you're coming from other open-world games like "Elden Ring."

My takeaway: 'Tears of the Kingdom' delivers on its hype

It's been four long years since Nintendo first unveiled "Tears of the Kingdom." And after my short time playing the game, I'm more excited than ever.

"Tears of the Kingdom" is huge, and despite some performance issues during my session, it's engaging enough that you can play for hours without realizing. When it comes to enemy variety, map size, and story, it looks like it'll be even bigger than "Breath of the Wild," which was already a massive game. And there's still so much more we haven't seen yet!

I'm ready to sink days into this game. And if the rest of the game is as good as this demo, it might just be the best game of 2023.

"The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" releases on May 12. It'll cost $69.99, and preorders are open now.