Spoiler warning for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
I’ve always been an ardent defender of Breath of the Wild’s flashbacks. The open world epic is defined by an overwhelming sense of loneliness which slowly fades away as Link recruits new allies and edges closer to defeating Calamity Ganon. These memories form together to create a picture of our hero’s past he has long forgotten, helping unearth motivations both for the player and Link himself. We are each learning of these events for the first time, safe in the knowledge that their discordant delivery perfectly reflects how lost we’re meant to feel.
Stumbling across them was a sigh of relief, whether you chose to seek them out or merely stumbled onto them while exploring Hyrule. Watching as Link’s eyes grow wide and a once forgotten moment from his past springs to light is oddly nostalgic, making us yearn for lives we’ve never known. It remained passive though, treating us as observers instead of people who could have a tangible impact on events that brought us to this apocalyptic dilemma in the first place. Many of the memories amount to casual yet intimate conversations, so there isn’t much to see, but to play a role in their delivery would have been breathtaking. A slight that Tears of the Kingdom could have remedied, but instead, it repeats the same mistakes.
Breath of the Wild’s memories focused on Zelda’s struggle with destiny and harnessing a lost power, culminating in a bittersweet defeat as she dooms herself to a century trapped away in a battle against evil. Link is defeated, many of her close friends are dead, and this becomes the only way for her to make amends in the faint hope that one day Link will emerge ready to save the world.
Tears of the Kingdom is much the same, albeit Zelda now resides in the past and is placing all the pieces Link will need to defeat Ganon centuries from now. Zelda believes she was sent back in time and reunited with her ancestors for a reason: to put a stop to this legacy of destined sacrifice by subverting all that’s expected of her. She does exactly that, swallowing a tear as she transforms into an eternal dragon with the power to restore Link’s Master Sword. Even in the present day, she roams the skies to look down upon a Hyrule her charge is yet to save, tears falling to the ground as a tragic representation of the sacrifices made to bring peace to this world. I won’t spoil how this comes to a close, but I do wish these moments were more than lavishly made cutscenes.
I’ve been beating the playable Zelda drum for years now, so much so that I recently asked the voice behind her character about it. Given the majority of her screen time in Tears of the Kingdom is spent not only away from Link, but several centuries in the past without a knight by her side, it presents a perfect opportunity for us to step into isolated moments of a game belonging entirely to her. We know that Zelda possesses her own power alongside the ability of Recall, which, combined with combat and movement would be enough to hold up short yet meaningful excursions set aside for each memory Link stumbles into.
Even at just a few minutes a piece, suddenly finding ourselves in control of Zelda far removed from the Hyrule we know and love would have been magical, not to mention immersive through the mystery we are still trying desperately to unfurl. Don’t bother explaining anything to us aside from on-screen tutorials and the lightest amount of context. Much like the cutscenes that exist in the finished game, these nuggets of playable exposition speak for themselves.
There’s also room for a stunning amount of variety in these sequences, contained enough in their locations and characters that Nintendo would essentially be crafting grand set pieces now defined by narrative instead of open world experimentation. Most of the same tools, except now with a different end goal and playable character, offering a welcome change of pace I imagine would encourage players to seek out each new opportunity. Some of these would be little more than casual conversations, but the memories that concern Zelda making life-changing decisions or standing toe-to-toe with Ganondorf could have heightened the stakes beyond how it shakes out in the finished game. To me, there was something missing amidst it all.
I’d take pleasure in the mundane parts too, like a deeper dive into relationships Zelda is building in spite of her temporary spot in time. There is value to be found here, both in narrative and mechanics that Nintendo would be wise to capitalise on. Contrast the landscape Link is free to explore with confined moments of storytelling where Zelda takes centre stage, if only for a few minutes at a time. Make them matter, and it doesn’t matter how long we’re in her shoes.