Oh, you think you know everything about Zelda, don’t you? Name all six sages.
Juuuuust joke, we don’t have a doorkeeper (time) here – but we have lots of facts for you about Breath of the Wild, it’s a game of relentless dedication. Not a week goes by that we don’t learn anything else about Nintendo’s open world on the Zelda canon, whether it’s a new glitch to save time in speed races or a secret chest hidden somewhere really little known.
In preparation for the long-awaited sequel of 2023, Tears of the Kingdomwe’ve rounded up just 17 of our favorite discoveries from Breath of the Wild – how many do you already know?
17 Zelda: Breath of Wild Secrets
Link opens chest like an idiot
You all know the classic Link-open-a-chest animations, which often leave the viewer in awe as the boy opens the lid and picks up the treasure inside, before showing the audience like a toddler. toddler with a toy. But Breath of the Wild allows the guy to be in a number of poses – crouched, leaning, naked – and each of them has its very own animation.
Sideways is probably the most popular non-traditional opening, and it has a Link kicking the chest to open. Hey, as long as it works, man. However, if Link wasn’t wearing shoes, kicking his chest would hurt his toe. We could have told you that, stupid.
Likewise, if the Link is shrinking and close to his chest, he will have to punch it to open it, which – again – hurt his hand. Here is your hero? This guy???
There is a reference to Ocarina of Time in the late game
Follow the road to Hyrule Castle and you’ll find this neat little reference to Ocarina of Time – the notes for Zelda’s Lullaby, placed in a circle around the Triforce.
Given all the twists and turns in the Tears of the Kingdom trailer, it’s enough for us to speculate as to what this means – why is Zelda Lullaby instead of the more traditional Hyrulian Crest? What did it mean when it was found in the room where the final battle with Ganon began? And why isn’t there an ocarina or any other instrument for Link to play in Breath of the Wild? Even Twilight Princess playable grass!!
You can run fast bread
It is called Bread%, it was invented by a speedboat called The Bread Pirate, and the current world record holder is Cephla, with a time of 16min 27s. This run involves you having to find the ingredients for the bread, and then make the bread. That’s it! No Ganon, very little Zelda, but who needs those when you have good bread?
Zora is secretly music
A lot of the names in Zora Domain are derived from musical terms. You have Bazz, Trello, Keye, Cleff and Laflat, among a bunch of other names that we can’t associate with anything musical, like “Fronk”.
There are also several references to Majora’s Mask, which features a plot of Indigo-Gos, a dead bass player, and tadpoles acting as musical notes. Turns out the Japanese word for “tadpole”, , is also the word for “music note”, hence the musical theme to the Zora – and there is a bridge into the Domain Zora is known as the Inogo Bridge, a reference to the Indigo -Gos.
But it goes even deeper than that. The Zora Royal Family, from King Dorephan and Crown Prince Sidon to Mipha sadly gone, all have their own topic – and they’re even named after them. You’ve probably heard of solfège, even if you didn’t know it was called: It’s the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do scale. You know, from The Sound of Music.
Sidon is si-do – Japanese solfège uses “si” not “ti” – and you can hear those notes in his subject. Similar to Mipha, or mi-fa, and Dorephan, do-re-fa. It could even be argued that Zora in Japanese is so far away!
Kakariko villagers are pumpkins
It’s not as interesting and profound as the Zora naming convention, but many people in Kakariko village are named after fruits. You have Cado for avocado, Nanna for banana, Koko for coconut, Mellie for melon, Steen for mangosteen, Paya for papaya and Dorian for durian.
There are also less obvious ones – Olkin is said to allude to pumpkin, and he’s called Tiron in French – short for potiron, the French word for pumpkin. Rola is named after a cherrola tomato, Lasli is named after raspberry, Trissa is a citrus, Ollie is olive, Cottla is apricot and Claree is cranberry. A lot of these names are clearer in French!
The divine animals have an ancient secret
Have you discovered the theme here? A lot of things in Breath of the Wild are named after other things! It makes sense for a game with therefore many things to name.
The names of the Beast Gods are no exception to this rule:
- Vah Medoh = Medli from Wind Waker, the Rito Sage of Earth
- Van Rudania = Darunia from Ocarina of Time, Goron Sage of Fire
- Vah Naboris = Nabooru from Ocarina of Time, Gerudo Sage of Spirit
- Vah Ruta = Ruto from Ocarina of Time, Zora Sage of Water
Never Forget Tingle (And His Brothers)
Okay, one last thing “do you know what this thing is named after”. You may have discovered that Tingel Island, in the Akkala Plateau, is named after everyone’s favorite t-shirt fairy, but did you notice that all the other islands are named after the his brother?
Tingle’s brothers were introduced in Wind Waker: Ankle, David Jr. and Knuckle both wear different (but still skin-tight) outfits, and they reappear in The Minish Cap, where they are able to help Link obtain the Magical Boomerang.
Here are the islands – you can find out which are:
- Tingel Island
- Ankel Island
- Davdi Đảo Island
- Knuckel Island
Bridge of Hylia wants you to look ugly
Here’s a secret we actually discovered on our own – and it certainly wasn’t intentional!
Breath of the Wild’s art style sets the line between realism and ghosting, and you might not even realize that the look and feel of the characters is thanks to special rendering effects layered on top of the characters. 3D model. That is, unless you go to a very specific point on the Hylia Bridge, where – for whatever reason – there is a slight angle that takes away the effect and makes the Link look… very flat. And shiny.
The programmers even tried to apply this shiny look to the whole game, which you can see right here!
