So you’ve decided to venture into Hyrule. Specifically, to inhale the Breath of the Wild. Let us help you with pre-trip planning….
First things first: Are you a solo traveler, or do you have a companion on your adventure? Zelda for Elders highly recommends a sidekick to make the most of the experience. You’ll appreciate having someone to identify tourist attractions you might otherwise miss, to remind you to get your rest and keep up your energy, and to point out dangers along the way. We certainly did. Thus, although even the lone wayfarer will find wise (or snarky) counsel here, as we go along we’ll assume you have a duo to your dynamic. After all, it’s dangerous to go alone! Take us.
So who does what?
In any given gaming session, one person will be our hero, Link. This person wields the controller and is responsible for climbing hills, fighting enemies, building ice blocks, and deploying the paraglider, among other tasks. For purposes of this blog, you may call this person Itzal…because we did. (Itzal bows, waves, swirls his drink.)
The sidekick sits nearby on the sofa and yells timely instruction or recriminations, as the case may be. (Editor’s Note: recriminations often are the entire case.) The sidekick is also tasked with researching the flora and fauna in the vicinity, hunting and gathering during off hours, and preparing meals. Indeed, if this were a game of politics, you might call that companion your advance team. Here we call this person Demelza, who eschews bowing and waving and long ago spilled her drink (Zelder code for “drank too fast”).
It is certainly possible to switch these roles from session to session, or even within a session, but it has been our experience that one Zelda Elder generally falls into one or the other role and stays there. In a gender-neutral fashion, of course; we’ll have no stereotyping about who cooks and who fights. Itzal could have cooked, if he didn’t have the attention span of a gnat, and Demelza could have done the fighting, but she’s prone to falling into the enemies’ campfire and torching herself.
And, to be clear, each person is an equally valued member of the troupe, even if the hero tends to overstate his importance and whine about the dangers he faces, while the sidekick must issue constant reminders of the importance of after-hours capturing of crickets and lizards or gathering mushrooms to exchange for badly needed rupees — not to mention the perils of falling into the cooking pot while making the hero’s stew! (Editor’s Note: guess which member of the duo wrote that description! The Discerning Reader will rightly conclude that it was not Itzal the Hero, his hands being full of the controller and his psyche full of more than a little anxiety about poor Link.)
Handy Pre-trip Checklist
- Compile a list of options for a given session’s play. These options may be organized by geographical region, such as the Gerudo desert or Kakariko Village, or by task or theme, like climbing new towers, opening shrines, or seeking out where dragons be. The list should include shorter and longer choices, easier and more difficult, dangerous and just plain fun.
- Do some advance research on these options for purposes of discussion; then be prepared to do more on-the-fly research the day of play, once a course of action is chosen.
- Early in the game, you have little in the way of equipment or pantry items. But as you progress, it’s a good idea to shop and cook the night before play, so you can go straight to the day’s adventure.
- Speaking of cooking, don’t forget about the needs of Zelda Elders: have appropriate snacks and beverages at the ready. And unlike Link’s pantry, yours (and your liquor cabinet) can be stocked as early and as plentifully in the game as you desire! If you care to pair your play with one of our recommended beverages, decide on the day’s game plan in advance to ensure you have the requisite ingredients.
- The night before, or at least a couple of hours in advance, make sure that your controller — whether an all-in-one master controller or joy-cons attached to a charging grip — is fully charged. Nothing worse than curling up on the sofa in front of the big screen, ready to tackle a Divine Beast, only to discover that you have 12 percent battery.
- Choose the appropriate cocktail for your day’s sojourn. The cocktail is for you, not Link in the cyber world; he’s not of legal drinking age. We have found that the stress of fighting and the stamina required for yelling about why someone isn’t fighting better are, shall we say, juiced by the addition of an enjoyable adult beverage.
There. You’re ready. Fasten your seatbelts. (Here the sidekick will yell, “Not that way! Fasten your seatbelt this way! Check your mirrors! And I get to be in charge of the radio.”)
Switch on the Nintendo. Grab your controller.
[Or you could put the controller down, order some liquor, and read our next blog with the list of things we wish we’d known before we started playing.]