Tears of the Kingdom has a thousand systems that all interact with each other in myriad different ways. I dread to think what is going on under the hood in order to make it all happen, what horrors we’d see if allowed a peek behind the curtain. Recall alone is magic in action, but giving Ultrahanded contraptions accurate physics no matter what creations players make is nothing short of spectacular. When players are building phallic mechs and functioning engines, you see the power behind this Zelda game.
But Tears of the Kingdom’s most brutal challenge isn’t a particularly complicated Shrine, despite the fact that I’ve had to look up guides for some of them. It’s not a Temple, despite the fact that they’re the pinnacle of decades of Zelda design philosophy. It’s an underground fight club where you have to fight Lynel after Lynel.
That last sentence will put fear into the hearts of many a Zelda player. Unless you’re one of those amazing weirdos who managed to pull off incredible feats of one-shotting the great centaurs using Stasis and a single Bomb Arrow, Lynels were the most fearsome beasts in Breath of the Wild. Instead of putting interesting bosses at the end of the Divine Beasts, Nintendo sprinkled them across the world. Hyrule was the true dungeon, and Lynels were the Dark Link waiting behind the giant locked door. That’s changed in Tears of the Kingdom, with proper bosses locked behind proper Temples. However, Lynels remain. You can’t just take away one of the game’s most iconic things in the sequel. Wait, they did what to the Master Sword?
Beating one Lynel is a mammoth undertaking. You’d best be prepared with potions and stat-boosting edibles, and carrying plenty of weapons because your main slicer or basher is sure to shatter into pieces halfway through. It’s a real slobberknocker that you can’t take your eyes off for a second. There’s respite on the way up to the Wind Temple, but you aren’t afforded a second when faced with an angry centaur in an empty field. At least you can outrun – or outclimb – the beast if it all gets too much.
You can’t do that in The Depths. While in search of a particular piece of headwear I’ll detail later, I was sent to an underground colosseum. I lit the murky darkness, but as my Brightbloom-tipped arrows hit their marks and bathed the ruin in an eerie glow, my heart only grew darker. The challenge that faces you in this arena is taking on five Lynels in a row. If you thought preparing for one was bad, this is possibly the ultimate test of combat skill in the game. Bosses have gimmicks to counter them, and end up as combat puzzles more than straight-up fights. A gang of Bokoblins is easily taken out by the judicious application of Hylian Pine Cones, the game’s most underrated weapon. But your natural remedies are useless here.
This is a true fight club. A test of strength, not resourcefulness. Your mastery of TotK’s systems is useless here. This is a gladiatorial bout of epic proportions, and a fight to the death. You’re a poor Roman prisoner vying for freedom, but the Emperor has taken a particular dislike to this peppy young sprog and has filled the arena with a pack of ravenous lions instead of the usual one. Oh, and he’s thrown in a bear for good measure. Maybe a few wolves, too. Link must face five Lynels, and if he’s victorious there is a reward useless and satisfying in equal measure. Majora’s Mask.
What item could be guarded so ferociously, what would be worth the pain of facing five Lynels? Something that evokes nostalgia, a callback to many players’ favourite Zelda game of all-time, and one that rewrote the rulebook as much as Tears. Majora’s Mask provides a paltry single armour point, but that’s not why you wear it. You wear it as a reminder of what a great series this is, you wear this to show you admire the risks the developers have taken time and time again, and you wear this to prove you beat five Lynels in hand-to-horn combat.