The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild / Tropes H to M

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Tropes 0 to C | Tropes D to G | H-M | Tropes N to T | Tropes U to Z

H

• Hailfire Peaks: A somewhat subdued example occurs with the Gerudo Highlands, which are always freezing no matter the time of day, right next to the Gerudo desert, which gets up to sweltering temperatures in the afternoon. Although this is less extreme than many video games, it's still a bit strange to watch the thermometer rise or drop by fifty or sixty degrees when stepping from one region to the other.
• Harder Than Hard: The Master Trials DLC includes Master Mode, which causes all enemies to become tougher and also lets them recover health if you go too long without dealing damage. Also, certain enemies like Lynels appear in more areas, there is one autosave file instead of five, and the mechanism preventing you from being one-shotted (instead leaving you with a quarter heart of health) is absent.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The early game tends to play like this. While the bosses you can find and fight are still statistically much harder than the standard enemies, in practice, they're also so telegraphed in their movements that they don't give a nimble player much trouble. On the other hand, thanks to the Breakable Weapons mechanic, actually beating an early-game boss tends to hinge on how many weapons you have stored up; too few, and you won't be able to make it through the boss's gigantic health bar. Overall, this means that while the bosses are less likely to kill the player than average enemies, the player is also much less likely to kill them compared to average enemies. Later on, the prevalence of Lynels and Guardians make the pattern even more apparent; while the former are Boss in Mook Clothing creatures in their own right, they still fight like the much-faster regular enemies and can be a pain to deal with, even in the late game. Meanwhile, the Guardians can shave off huge chunks of health relatively quickly, and are freaking everywhere, making traversing the land while avoiding their beams much more difficult than the standard boss fight.
• Hard Light: The Ancient technology Link can use relies on this, with several light constructs that look like laser or plasma, but have the same functional capabilities of their mundane counterparts:
  • The Remote Bomb rune makes either square or round bombs depending on Link's needs that appear to be light constructs. They appear to create an explosive force that doesn't rely on combustion, explaining why you can't set things on fire with them.
  • Guardian weapons and shields also employ this, having the sword blades, axe/spear/arrow heads, and shields go into and out of "combat mode". They still cut, slash, stab and deflect just like ordinary metal weaponry.
• Hard Mode Mooks: Master Mode introduces Golden-tier enemies that serve as the toughest non-boss or Guardian enemies in the game.
• Hard Mode Perks:
  • Master Mode bumps up the difficulty in a few ways, but also adds a new element: floating platforms. Sometimes it gives an enemy a vantage point, but most of the time they have a chest with an enhanced weapon in it, sometimes both. You have to work to get them, as they are spaced either near enemies or as floating puzzles, but they are unique to Master Mode. The enemies themselves are often equipped with bows that are better than what can be found in the area, such as Lynel Bows, making them worth fighting early on. These enemies also drop the arrow type they were using when defeated, can be easily dispatched, and respawn during the Blood Moon - making them a good source of bows and arrows.
  • All enemies drop a lot more arrows in Master Mode compared to Normal Mode; a single mook can drop up to 20 arrows at once when slain (double than Normal Mode). Enemy archers are much more common in this mode and they will always drop the arrow types they were using (so any type besides Ancient Arrows), so it is often more efficient to farm arrows from the mooks instead of buying them from NPCs.
  • All enemies that spawn are blue-level or above (with a few plot-relevant exceptions), which makes the early game incredibly difficult due to a lack of gear and inability to effectively stealth past enemies, once you have a few strong weapons and upgraded armor, collecting monster parts now becomes next to cake, as all common enemies now drop several monster parts at once rather than red-levels which only drop one or two.
• Harmless Electrocution: Compared to all previous games where electricity only stunned Link for a while at worst, here it can disarm him completely (and this also happens to enemies who get hit by the same element), while getting hit by lightning causes a One-Hit Kill unless he's wearing the Thunder Helm.
• Harmless Freezing: While freezing attacks always cause damage, in the coldest environments there are blocks of ice with enemies trapped inside them, which will be hale and ready to fight if you choose to free them.
• Hard Work Hardly Works:
  • Played with in regards to Zelda. She was initially fiercely jealous of Link for so easily being chosen by the Master Sword when she's worked for years to awaken her own powers to no avail. It's heavily implied in-game that her father forcing her to try and awaken said powers by constantly praying to Hylia and putting immense pressure on her is what stopped her from awakening them sooner. Not only does hard work hardly work, but it was also quite likely actually impeding her!
  • Out of the Champions, Revali is implied to be resentful of Link because of this trope. Revali is acknowledged in-universe as a skilled warrior and has trained very hard to perfect his abilities, but (in his view) he was told that some random knight has been handed the important role of defeating Calamity Ganon while Revali is given the role of support, just because Link was chosen by the Master Sword.
• Haunted Technology: Doing this is part of the main plot for the game. Link has to enter the four Divine Beasts and purge them of Ganon's influence so the souls of their pilots can regain control and aid him in the final battle.
• Have a Nice Death: If Link is killed by a member of the Yiga Clan, a dialogue box from his murderer will appear right before the game over screen:

  Beware, fool, the eye of the Yiga.

• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Of all the spells Link can get from the deceased Champions, the healing spell Mipha's Grace takes the longest time to recharge, 20 minutes; on top of that, it's the only one with one charge instead of three. Healing food, on the other hand, is extremely common.
• Healing Potion: The game lets you recover health by eating a wide variety of realistic foods, but you can also brew various elixirs that function more like traditional potions. The basic hearty elixir is essentially a reskin of the older red potion, but also gives you temporary extra life; the fairy elixir simply refills part of your health bar.
• Healing Spring: Southeast of Goron City is a network of hot springs that provide a gradual recovery of Link's health for as long as he's bathing in them.
• Heal It with Water: Mipha's magic was explicitly aquatic since she's princess of the Zora. She was a renowned healer when she was alive, and the skill she grants Link is the ability to restore his health to full.
• Heart Container: The Trope Namer can be acquired by collecting 4 Spirit Orbs from Shrines and praying at a statue of Hylia, or by defeating a Blight. Notably, you can also pray for Stamina Vessels, which increase the size of your Sprint Meter.
• He Had a Name: A visitor to Zora's Domain comments on a statue depicting a departed Zora princess and Link's childhood friend. Speaking to her about it has Link reply, "Her name is Mipha." The visitor will even get angry if you go through this dialogue again, averting NPC Amnesia.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: While the game typically has a more realistic approach to tutorials (in-universe characters will simply bring up topics like swords and horses while the game brings up a brief textbox saying how to use those things), Ta'loh Naeg's Shrine near Kakariko Village involves the monk himself telepathically telling Link how to use the advanced combat techniques in terms of what buttons to press when.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]:
  • Averted, per the inclusion of voice acting. This time around, Link is always called Link. Played straight with the horses, though, except for Epona.
  • Played with in the Akkala Research Laboratory, where the fabricator keeps calling Link "FamiliarNameMissing."
• Hellish Horse:
  • Occasionally, Stalkoblins that appear at night will ride Stalhorses as their mounts, which are, appropriately, reanimated skeletal horses. You can actually take them for yourself to ride, but you can't register them at the stable, and they disintegrate like all Stal enemies come morning.
  • Downplayed with the Giant Horse. It is a gigantic horse with a black coat and a fiery red mane, and it comes with maxed-out strength and a wild temperament, but it otherwise acts like any other horse. It's implied to be the same kind of horse that Ganondorf rode in the past, though it lacks the glowing red eyes. In a fit of irony, you can use this very horse against the final boss, Dark Beast Ganon, as well.
• Hell Is That Noise: The unnatural empty gurgling sound that can be heard in the presence of Malice. With headphones on, it becomes clear that it's not a 3D positional sound: it's in Link's head.
• Helpful Mook: The primary offensive measure of Rock Octoroks is to inhale before spitting up a fiery rock at you. However, if you toss a rusty weapon at it while it's inhaling, it will actually clean it and spit it back up as a brand new weapon of the same type (whether sword, greatsword or spear; while you can't throw rusty shields, the Rock Octorok will still clean it if you drop it nearby). The power of these renewed weapons can vary; they could be as weak as the Traveller weapons, or as strong as the Royal weapons.
• Herding Mission: The "Flown the Coop" sidequest tasks Link with returning seven escaped Cuccos back to their pen.
• Heroic Mime: As always, Link rarely says a word. However, this time it's justified, with Zelda's diary expaining that it was his coping mechanism to deal with the massive pressure and responsibility of being the Hero. It's also deconstructed to an extent, as before she larned the real reason for Link's silence, Zelda assumed he wasn't speaking to her because he thought the worst of her and treated him coldly in response. This is downplayed in the game proper, as players are occasionally given dialogue options when dealing with NPCs and their reactions imply Link is saying exactly what was picked. This is especially true in the original Japanese text, where Link is the one writing the journal entries in the Adventure Log, often while giving his own thoughts on the situation at hand. In the Western localizations, the entries were rewritten so they address the player directly instead.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Prince Sidon considers himself "pushy and unreliable" despite being viewed so favorably by his people, and seemed to think how he asks Link for help at the Inogo bridge to be rudely forceful. He later apologizes for taking a moment to himself in front of Mipha's statue as he considers missing her so openly and looking to her for guidance to be a display of weakness on his part. He also seems surprised when his father praises him for his part in helping calm Vah Ruta.
• He Was Right There All Along:
  • Taluses and the Moldugas stay buried in the ground until you walk by their resting points, although the Taluses at least stick out of the ground a bit.
  • This also applies to Waterblight Ganon. Unlike the other major bosses, he has a designated chamber for his boss battle that can be entered from the get-go as soon as you enter the dungeon. However, he will only appear after you activate the five terminals and return to the podium in the boss room, wherein he reveals that he was possessing the podium all along. It's quite a surprise if you fight him as your first boss.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Koroks have a cozy village in the Lost Woods. Since most Hylians can't see Koroks, and the woods are difficult to navigate, the village naturally doesn't have many visitors. They're more than happy to welcome Link, though.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: The game features a "Voe and You" class where Gerudo women are taught how to interact with men. When the teacher asks for the students' thoughts on how to respond to a guy who they are interested in, one student suggests initially pretending not to know the guy's language to inspire curiosity in him.
• High-Altitude Battle: The fight against Divine Beast Vah Medoh, where Link gets a ride up above the machine with Teba and must destroy its cannons with Bomb Arrows while Teba draws away their fire.
• Higher-Tech Species: The Sheikah were the original creators of the advanced Magitek found across Hyrule, though they were forced to abandon it because the other races became afraid of it. Yet when said technology was rediscovered a century before the events of the game, it is the Sheikah who are instrumental in redecifering how it functions; Zelda is the only non-Sheikah who is able to keep up with them.
• High-Pressure Blood: While the Malice is not really blood, the geysers of the stuff that spew out of the Blight Ganons when they are killed has the same visual effect as this.
• History Repeats: Both Mipha and her father were both well aware of the story of the Zora princess who fell in love with a Hylian swordsman (Ruto from Ocarina of Time), citing it as a reason they believed Mipha's love for Link made sense. It ended up being more appropriate to the current situation than they would have liked, as Ruto Did Not Get The Guy either.
• Hitodama Light: The spirits of the four champions and the king always appear with little flames around them, and so does Link, whenever he uses their abilities. In fact, you can see their spectral form when the powers are used as well.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • 100 years before the game took place, the Hylians found the buried Guardians and Divine Beasts, and started using them to help prepare to reseal Calamity Ganon. However, Ganon was able to possess the mechanical beasts, turning them against the Hylians and being the main reason for Hyrule's downfall.
  • There are many ways to defeat a Guardian, but by far the most efficient is to reflect its beam attack back at it. To quantify this, if a beam hits Link without armor it does about 24 damage, or six hearts worth, whereas if it's reflected back to a Guardian's eye it does a whopping 500 damage, enough to one-shot a static Guardian and take away 1/3 of the health of a Stalker. To do it consistently to a Stalker, get its attention and let it walk up to what it thinks is an optimum range to kill you, stand your ground, let its beam weapon charge up, and then the moment you see any of the bright blue discharge flare, do a parry with any shield. Instead of obliterating the shield instantly as with a failed parry, the shield is completely undamaged.
  • The Ridgeland Tower sits in a pool and is guarded by multiple electric Lizalfos wielding electric elemental weapons, which makes approaching the tower dangerous given that shock damage is increased when the target is wet. However, metal weapons can attract lightning bolts during storms, even the electric elemental weaponry. So it's entirely possible for a storm to form over the tower and kill the Lizalfos with lightning bolts. Even better, the tower is also guarded by electric Wizzrobes, who can summon lightning storms.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum:
  • The ancient King of Hyrule decided to alienate the Sheikah after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, since he feared that they would use their technology to wage war against Hyrule. This alienation caused the splintering of the Sheikah that created the Yiga Clan, and the complete disuse of said technology. Although the modern Sheikah were able to grasp some of the uses of the technology, a significant part of it was still effectively foreign to them, which led to Ganon's opportunistic takeover of it by blighting it with Malice.
  • Invoked with King Bosphoramus, who forbade Zelda from engaging in the research of said technology, as this was not her part to play in the grand scheme of things. He ended up lamentably being right, as Zelda wouldn't discover her part to play until the kingdom itself fell to the Calamity.
• Holding Out for a Hero: Zigzagged. Zelda had Link put in the Shrine of Resurrection in the hope that he could save Hyrule when he wakes up, but by the time he does, the four peoples are already making a good showing of dealing with the Divine Beasts themselves. Taking them involves using plans that were developed independently of Link, and the only reason he has to be the one to enter the machines is because as the bearer of the Sheikah Slate, he holds the proverbial keys. Basically, the people of Hyrule can and will defend themselves, but can’t quite finish the problem for good by themselves.
• Hold the Line: Link can come across the Akkala Citadel, where the last of Hyrule's knights and soldiers gathered for a last stand against the Guardians after the deaths of the King and the Champions. Sadly, they were quickly overrun and slaughtered. 100 years later, the area is overrun with Malice and has flying Guardians patrolling the base of the tower.
• Hollywood Chameleons: This game's version of Lizalfos resemble bipedal chameleons. Naturally, they can change color to blend into their environment, potentially enabling them to ambush unwitting players.
• Hollywood Drowning: When Link or an enemy drowns, they go under with a great deal of splashing, arm-flailing, and panicked splutters (Link), squeals (Bokoblins) or bellows (Moblins). This is particularly notable in Link's case, as he will keep swimming steadily and calmly until the moment where his stamina meter runs out, at which point he'll flail madly and sink like a stone.
• Hollywood Magnetism: The Magnesis rune only ever affects the single object you aim it at and never nearby objects.
• Holy Is Not Safe: The Master Sword has always been a holy sword that Only the Chosen May Wield (or at least remove from its pedestal). This game, however, reveals that to remove it from its pedestal requires a test of strength - it drains the life from whoever grasps its hilt, and if they aren't worthy or aren't stopped from pulling it, then they die. Link has to undergo this test in order to claim the Master Sword, and if he doesn't have enough hearts then the sword will kill him.
• Hong Kong Dub: The game itself is originally recorded in Japanese, and all of the character's vocal animations match the Japanese. While the game is given excellent voice acting in other languages, no attempt was made to change the animations to match their new languages.
• Hopeless War: Thanks to the Blood Moon, it doesn't matter how many monsters the people of Hyrule exterminate or defeat. They simply resurrect a few days later and make battles of attrition useless against them.
• Horn Attack: If Link startles certain species of large, herbivorous animals while standing in front of them — stags, water buffalos, mountain goats, moose and wooly rhinoceri — their reaction will be to lower their heads, present their horns and charge him down.
• Horns of Barbarism: The Barbarian's Helm consists of the top half of a beast's skull, decorated with tribal designs and with a large pair of forward-pointing horns attached to its sides.
• Horse Archer: With more emphasis on it than in previous Zelda games — Link can use weapons including bows while on horseback, and he can leap off his horse in midair and rain arrows down upon his foes as he leaps. Some Bokoblins also ride horses while armed with either bows or spears.
• Horse of a Different Color:
  • In addition to horses, you can tame and ride deer and bears. You can't take them to the stable, though. In snowy areas where horses don't spawn, Bokoblins can be encountered also riding on bears.
  • There are also skeletal stalhorses, which despite their disturbing appearance behave exactly like normal horses. However, they can't be stabled as the owner will worry about them eating other horses, and they'll disintegrate like other stal-creatures when the sun comes up.
  • One can catch the "Lord of the Mountain", a shining Ghibli-esque four-legged creature with four eyes and moth antennae. You can't take it to the stable either, as the owner will be scared of calling down a curse on himself if he allowed it.
  • Lynels can be mounted, although they can't be tamed. This can just be done to get a few hits in on them.
• Hostile Weather: Thunderstorms roll across Hyrule occasionally, and it is not a good idea to be outside in one, especially while wearing metal equipment. Even ordinary rain is problematic, since wet surfaces become harder to climb.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The Leviathan skeletons across Hyrule once were three enormous whale-like beings that all met their ends through various calamities. The Gerudo Great Skeleton, with its tiny wing bones, was once the Wind Fish who died of a devastating drought. The Eldin Great Skeleton, with its remora-like plate on the head, was Levias, killed from a volcanic eruption. Finally the Hebra Great Skeleton seems to either be Lord Jabu-Jabu or the Ocean King, who died from an ice age created by Ganondorf long ago.
• HP to 1: The One-Hit Obliterator is a weapon that lowers your HP to one quarter of a heart and keeps it there for the duration of the Great Plateau portion of "The Champions' Ballad" DLC. As a trade-off, it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, with an attack power of ∞; if you can get into melee range, nothing survives a blow.
• Humongous Mecha: The four Divine Beasts, giant Guardians that were created to fight the Calamity Ganon that act as the game's primary dungeons.
• Hurt Foot Hop: When Link kicks open a chest while barefoot, he'll briefly hold his foot in pain while hopping.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Unlike previous games, Link has to rely on scavenging and cooking food in order to restore his health rather than simply recovering with heart pick-ups. It even goes so far to show Link in the equipment display stuffing his gob with both hands if you rapidly choff down a lot of food.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Link can carry a huge number and variety of weapons and items; his currently equipped gear will appear on his back, while others disappear until used.

I

• Ice Breaker: Attacking a frozen monster will unfreeze them and deal quadruple damage, and the same thing can happen to Link.
• Iconic Outfit: The Champion's Tunic, which managed to earn this title despite having to fill the shoes of one of the most iconic outfits in video game history. However, the game also give the opportunity to wear almost all of the previous versions of the green Hero's Clothes that appeared in the series thanks to the Zelda amiibo figures based on Link. Then there's the Hero of the Wild version you can eventually unlock (no amiibo needed).
• Idle Animation:
  • While the idle animations in temperate areas are fairly standard, heading into a cold climate while under-dressed causes Link to start shivering, to warn you that you should really put on something warmer before you start taking damage. Other animations resulting from improper gear include breathing heavily and swaying when in a hot area, such as Gerudo Desert during the day or during a Fire Wizzrobe-induced firestorm, and grimacing in pain when far enough up Death Mountain, because he's on fire.
  • If Link is left idle for long enough while shirtless, he will flex both of his biceps.
  • When crouching for long enough, Link might suddenly lift his hand to look at it, implying a bug crawled on his hand, and then shake the bug off.
  • At night, Link may start to doze off while standing, followed by shaking himself awake.
  • The animation of Link on the equipment menu screen also changes depending on the weather. In temperate climates, he will just be standing normally, whereas he will be shaking and rubbing his hands against his arms trying to stay warm when venturing into colder territories where warmer clothes are required. In hotter areas, he will sway on his feet as if he's about to pass out from heat stroke.
• If I Do Not Return: While placing the Master Sword back in its pedestal, Zelda is about to convey something she wants to tell the slumbering Link to the Great Deku Tree. However, the Deku Tree notes that something she wants to tell Link would sound better coming from her own lips, in a variant of the "tell him yourself" response. After Link sees this memory upon retrieving the Master Sword, the Deku Tree says Link must now go rescue Zelda to find out what exactly she wanted to say. It's implied to have been an Aborted Declaration of Love, given later revelations from the conclusion of Kass's quests that Princess Zelda "only had eyes for her appointed knight".
• I Got a Rock: The reward for the Playtime with Cottla sidequest in Kakariko Village is a single piece of rock salt.
• Ill-Fated Flowerbed: The Hila Rao Shrine sits in the middle of a field of flowers that is constantly watched by a woman named Magda, and boy is the lady hell bent on averting this trope. Stepping on them repeatedly will send her into an Unstoppable Rage and she will ram on the intruder to punish him for his trampling.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: A minor sidequest in Hateno Village introduces you to the Horned Statue, a dealer in money and power who apparently earned Hylia's wrath sometime before the events of the game. He mostly serves as a means to exchange Heart Containers for Stamina Vessels or vice versa^* A player with 100% completion will be three short of maxed-out for one or the other, or two short if they've completed the Champions' Ballad DLC, in a roundabout way that makes use of this trope.
  Horned Statue: I'll give you 100 rupees to take one of your Heart Containers or a Stamina Vessel off your hands. You can have one back for 120 rupees. And if it's not the same one you gave me, why, I won't tell a soul.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Averted if Link tries to cook fairies in a meal or elixir. Instead they fly out of the pot and sprinkle dust on it, providing extra bonus health (for a Hearty dish) or a Fairy Tonic (if you mixed it with monster parts).
• Immune to Fire: Flame Guard is a type of environmental resistance, conferred by either wearing the Flamebreaker Armor or by drinking a special elixir, that prevents Link from taking damage from intense heat. It's chiefly useful for enduring flaming attacks and for exploring Death Mountain, where the ambient volcanic heat will set Link on fire otherwise. It's also naturally possessed by certain enemies, such as Fire-breath Lizalfos and Rock Octoroks, and animals, such as Fireproof Lizards and Eldin Ostriches, which live on the slopes of Death Mountain and can simply ignore the scorching heat around them.
• Immune to Flinching: Starting as early as the blue Bokoblins, monsters will have some degree of resistance being stunlocked by Link's attacks, and later monsters will take way more hits before they get knocked over. Moblins are also stated by the game itself to be able to resist getting blown away by Link’s Remote Bombs.
• Impassable Desert: The Gerudo Desert gets very hot during the day and very cold during the night outside of Kara Kara Bazaar and Gerudo Town, requiring you to wear temperature-appropriate clothes or eat special foods to traverse it safely. There are also areas with sandstorms that disable the Sheikah Slate's map.
• Implied Love Interest: As is often the case with female characters Link interacts with in the series. There are at least three different girls with feelings for Link: Zelda, Mipha and Paya. While Paya's nervous crush on Link never goes beyond that, both Zelda and Mipha are explicitly and unambiguously confirmed to be firmly in love with him. However, Link's own feelings are deliberately left ambiguous, one way or another, and likely intentionally left to the player's interpretation, to the point that, when it comes to Zelda and Mipha, the game has dialogue options that may imply he returns the feelings of either of them, neither of them, or both of them. Regardless of choices it is clear Link felt strongly for both girls in the past at least in a platonic sense, as his bond with Zelda is the primary focus of his quest to regain his memories and the one memory based around Mipha shows the two were at the very least close friends.
• Impossible Item Drop:
  • For the most part, averted for the first time in the series. Cutting the grass won't provide items like hearts anymore, although it can reveal something else to collect, like bugs. Similarly, monsters only drop either weapons that they were visibly carrying, or body parts. Rupees can only be dropped by Yiga Clan assassins, who don't die when beaten but just run away.
  • This is played straight with silver-level enemies, which drop ores despite not being shown to have any particular interest in ores.
  • Shooting an Eldin Ostritch will often drop two Raw Whole Birds.
  • While cutting down grass no longer gives Link any Rupees, it is possible to find at least a green or blue Rupee under some rocks, although this is still far from the best way to get rich fast.
• Impromptu Campfire Cookout: The system mechanics allow this; any food item which nearby a fire will become cooked after a while, meaning the player can happily bake a few apples using the burning corpse of a slain enemy. However, while it increases the amount of health the ingredient restores, it won't allow getting the food's side-effect; only cooking pots can do that.
• Improvised Lightning Rod: During thunderstorms, if Link has any metallic weapons or shields equipped, he will attract lightning. This can prove very dangerous, as being struck by lightning can kill Link very quickly. However, since there is a visual cue for when you're about to turn into a Hylian lightning rod, it's also possible to weaponize the way your metallic weapons attract electricity by throwing them at enemies before the lightning strikes. (For future reference, you CAN completely tank lightning strikes, assuming you have Daruk's Protection active—meaning the orange red barrier is up and active, or you have a full set of 2-star or higher Rubber Armor equipped.)
• Improvised Weapon:
  • Link can use nearly anything that isn't nailed down as a weapon, and most of his early gear consists of random items and farmyard tools scrounged for use as improvised weaponry, including tree branches and soup ladles used as one-handed weapons, farming hoes and boat oars swung like axes or claymores, pitchforks and mops thrust like spears, pot lids used as shields, and the detached arms of skeletal Stal-creatures. By accurately using bow and a multitude of arrows, a tree branch, a pot lid, and learning to deflect, parry and counter, one can bring down even a Lynel... but that will take forever and a day.
  • Bokoblins are often found using this sorts of improvised gear as well, and in general disarmed enemies are smart enough to find new weapons. In extreme cases, larger ones like Moblins won't hesitate to pick up a Bokoblin and hurl it at Link.
• Inconsistent Dub: Ritos were originally localized as "Traveller Hawks" in the Italian translation of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but keep the original name here.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Zelda's crying in the Japanese version of the game is extremely loud and inelegant-sounding, especially compared to the other versions.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chest: The game eschews the traditional Zelda formula of linear dungeons; thus, treasure chests can be found nearly everywhere in the open world with little to no explanation, such as being underwater, buried in the ground, etc. Some enemy camps also have chests that won't open unless you defeat all the monsters in that camp.
• Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat: Averted until Hyrule Castle: In the Dining Hall, Link can find several foodstuffs strewn about the ruined tables, with a Raw Gourmet Meat and a Raw Whole Bird being among them. Despite being in a Malice- and monster-infested castle, and the fact that they’ve been sitting out in the open for Hylia-knows-how-long, possibly a whole century, they’re perfectly safe for consumption. Maybe the monsters use the place as food storage themselves?
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • The Royal weapons are some of the strongest regular weapons, and even come with stronger, darker counterparts in the Royal Guard series, although those weapons come with lower durability.
  • The Champion equipment have very good stats comparable to Royal weapons and are received after clearing a dungeon. They can also be reforged if they are broken, though this comes at a price.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The Master Sword. It has decent attack power of 30 normally, but doubles when fighting in dungeons or enemies affected by Ganon's malice, to a very respectable 60. It can fire sword beams when Link is at max health, and it is effectively unbreakable. It still has durability (except in the final dungeon), but it doesn't break, it just runs out of energy and goes on a cooldown. Its versatility lets it either be an effective boss or enemy slayer in dungeons, or as a great grass cutter, or a reusable, sword-shaped pickaxe for mineral deposits. However, after beating the Trial of the Sword, its true power is unlocked so that it is always at 60 attack power, along with the ridiculous durability value of 188.
  • The Hylian Shield. It is the ultimate shield, with a durability so high that it may as well be unbreakable ^note The Hylian Shield is almost nine times as durable as the Amiibo-exclusive Hero's Shield, more than thirteen times as durable as the Champion equipment Daybreaker, and twenty-five times as durable as the Ancient Shield, with every other shield falling behind that.. Should the player break it, however, another one can be bought at the price of a few thousand Rupees, but it will take a very long time to break.
  • The Bow of Light, which boasts a massive 100 Attack power, infinite arrows, and is truly unbreakable, easily making it the strongest bow. It will hit like a nuke. However, it is only received during the Final Boss fight.
  • The Champion's Tunic, when fully upgraded, gives the highest defense boost at a great 32, although upgrading it that far will be quite a task. The Tunic of the Wild set, received after clearing all 120 Shrines, also has great defense stats when fully upgraded, and has the added effect of boosting the damage of the Master Sword's sword beam.
  • The Ancient equipment. The armour set boasts high defense and a resistance to Guardian attacks. The Ancient weapons are among some of the best with high attack and durability. In particular, the Ancient Bow is notable for its great Attack power, high durability, and the ability to fire arrows in a straight line, allowing Link to properly aim at his targets. The Ancient Arrows are a One-Hit Kill on almost everything. For organic enemies, a single shot anywhere will blow them away, while Guardians need to be shot in the eye for this to work. Finally, equipping the Ancient Armour set when upgraded gives a huge damage boost to any Ancient or Guardian weapons that Link uses, making them some of the strongest weapons in the game.
  • To a lesser extent, the Savage Lynel weapons. They have the highest attack stats of regular weapons, and finding ones with added Attack boost effects can easily push them into Attack stats of 100 and beyond. The Savage Lynel Bow is especially notable for being able to fire three to five arrows, which is sure to pack a punch; the latter variant is technically stronger per shot than even the Bow of Light (32 damage per arrow times five arrows equalling 160 damage per shot).
  • The One-Hit Obliterator from the Champions' Ballad DLC is another example, literally having infinite attack power. To balance this out, it loses its power for a while after two hits, can only be used in the very specific challenge it appears in, and makes you a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
• Informed Species: The dogs found around stables and other settlements are called Hylian Retrievers. However, their appearance more closely resembles herding breeds such as Collies and Australian Shepherds.
• In Medias Res: The game begins with an amnesiac Link awakening in the Shrine of Resurrection one hundred years after the Kingdom of Hyrule was destroyed by Calamity Ganon. Link must gradually figure out how that happened, why he was in the Shrine of Resurrection, and who he is both by recovering his memories from the past and by getting extra exposition from other characters who know what happened back then.
• In Name Only: The Canadian French language track is simply the European French one with a few altered lines, unlike with the two Spanish dubs which have completely separate scripts and casts.
• Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: Several times Link has flashbacks and regains some of his memories while other characters are around. Every time there are other people around they will comment on how he's acting, indicating that Link was zoned out for a long time or displaying other odd behaviors due to his flashback.
• Instakill Mook: Enemies in the Yiga Clan Hideout will kill Link in a single hit no matter how much health and armor he has. They also bypass faries, Mipha's Grace, and the game's usual Anti-Frustration Feature that prevents Link from being killed in one hit if he's at full health even if the attack deals more damage than his maximum HP. This is because the segment is intended to be a Stealth-Based Mission — the enemies kill you instantly to encourage sneaking around them rather than trying to fight. However, it is possible to complete the hideout without stealth if the player is skilled and careful enough. Or has some Ancient Arrows saved up.
• Instant Roast: If you kill a wild animal with a fire-based attack (such as the Fire Rod, a Fire Arrow, or a flame weapon), the raw meat it usually drops will be replaced by the cooked version.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: The game deliberately averts this as much as possible with its open world, as shown by how Link is able to climb virtually any surface whereas in previous games he can only climb with vines. However, there are still obstacles Link simply cannot pass.
  • You absolutely cannot leave the Great Plateau without completing the tutorial quest to obtain the paraglider. Justified by the Plateau being extremely high, so you need the glider to get down safely; however, you can use glitches to reach the main overworld without it, and even then, if the glider isn't in your inventory, the pitfall effect activates and sends you back. Other than a small inconsequential area that was accidentally left out of the exclusion-field, you cannot go anywhere outside the Plateau without this happening.
  • Unlike other surfaces, it's physically impossible for Link to climb Sheikah surfaces. This rule is probably present as not to make the shrines too easy to cheat with.
  • Approaching the edge of the map will cause a message to appear saying that it is not possible to go any farther, along with stopping Link with an Invisible Wall. In the ocean and desert, winds also push Link back, but not enough so that it is impossible to pass them and hit said invisible wall. The mountains to the west and southeast have no such wind border at all, and simply stops Link in his tracks instead. The northern border of Hyrule is more justified in that there is a colossal canyon that looks like it would be impossible to cross even with endgame gear and abilities.
  • If Link tries to climb a surface in the rain, he'll be unable to climb more than a few feet before slipping down again. This functions most importantly when entering Zora's Domain, which is cursed with endless rainfall and surrounded by steep mountains. The only opening through the mountains is a long, monster-filled road that ends in Zora's Domain, at which point Link can create a fast-travel point there. That said, it's still possible (though very difficult) to skip the quest and scale the wet cliffs (as shown here), which activates a unique cutscene since you skipped the original meeting with Prince Sidon.
• Interface Screw: Sandstorms in the Gerudo Desert generate intense electromagnetic interference, which will completely disable the Sheikah Slate's navigations features—no map, compass, shrine sensor, or even fast travel. Each sandstorm can be cleared by completing a particular sidequest.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Every disguised Yiga Clan member will have the name "Traveler" instead of a proper name like every other NPC in their dialogue box, which immediately outs them before they try to kill Link. However, this isn't an efficient method for avoiding them without being utterly paranoid, as not only will Link already be talking with the assassins when you realize they don't have a name (and some try to call out to Link from a distance), all NPCs have to be spoken to once to have their names revealed (and only afterward will their names be placed above their head out of conversation). Until you've explored all of Hyrule and talked with every named wandering NPC at least once, telling who's a member of the Yiga Clan is usually a game of chance.
  • If you take a picture of Calamity Ganon, you'll notice a missing entry after him in the compendium.
  • If you pick up every arrow type and fully expand your bow inventory with Hestu, you will notice that your inventory still has one missing space. This is a big hint that you receive the Bow of Light during the Final Boss battle. Similarly, fully expanding your melee inventory will still yield one missing space if you haven't picked up the Master Sword yet, although this is much less of a spoiler considering that Hestu appears in the Korok Forest right next to the Master Sword.
  • A complete (or even nearly-complete) Hyrule Compendium will spoil the new enemies introduced in "The Champions' Ballad" DLC. Based upon the placement of the empty EX entries, players can deduce that there is a new Molduga variant, a new Talus variant, and a new Yiga enemy. Actually, that last one is a Red Herring. There are no new Yiga enemies in the DLC... but the Yiga clan is related to the Sheikah tribe. Guess which group Maz Koshia belongs to.
  • Magnesis works on treasure chests, but not the fake ones atop Treasure Octoroks. If the chest doesn't light up pink, it's an Octorok in disguise.
  • The Champion's Tunic displays every enemy's HP number above them, Stasis+ will highlight all interactables and enemies in a bright yellow, and the Camera will hover a marker over any subjects it can register in the compendium. All of these traits can be used to sniff out enemies that are mimicking their surroundings before approaching them, such as Treasure Octoroks, Decayed Guardians, and Taluses.
  • Champion's Ballad: Maz Koshia's doubles won't register on the Sheikah Slate's camera, but the real Maz Koshia will be identified. Pulling out the camera mid-fight is definitely not the safest thing to do, but it will tell you which monk attacking you is real.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Daruk is close friends with 17-year-old Link in the backstory. In the present, Link also becomes friends with Riju, the Gerudo Chief who is a young teenager at the oldest.
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can buy a house in Hateno Village and decorate it. Most of the additions are preset and thrown in once you buy everything, but you start out purchasing mounts for weapons, bows, and shields.
• Interrupted Suicide: Subverted. If you try to jump off a bridge while an NPC is nearby, they'll think Link is trying to kill himself and stop him.
  Hey! Don't be rash! You won't change the world by jumping carelessly to your doom, don't ya know!
• Interspecies Friendship: While all the Guest-Star Party Member characters of the various races come to respect Link for helping them save their people from the Divine Beasts, Prince Sidon of the Zora is the only one who openly declares Link to be a close friend. The fact that his sister Mipha was in love with Link, which could have resulted in the two guys becoming brothers-in-law if she hadn't been killed, is also a major factor.
• Interspecies Romance: Mipha is a Zora who has strong feelings for Link, a Hylian. She even made him a special set of armor, which is apparently a custom among the Zora for a princess to give to the man she intends to be her husband. There's also another female Zora, Finley, who wants a boyfriend and you can assist her in finding one. She ends up with a Hylian man and despite Finley's body not reaching adulthood yet (she's mentally an adult), the two seem to get along well. Finley's mother was also in love with Link when she was younger.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: The previous Champions are all dead already, and the extent of their involvement is to hit Calamity Ganon with the full power of their Divine Beast. Past that, Link alone must face Calamity Ganon.
• Intrepid Merchant: One of the most common vocations in this world is the "traveler", who goes between various settlements selling wares. Because of the ubiquitous monsters, this is a very dangerous job, and travelers are generally armed. Link's appearance is seldom remarked upon because he seems to be just another traveler, and only those who notice his Sheikah Slate realize he's something unusual.
• In-Universe Game Clock: Like most console games in the series, the world cycles through day and night. Different critters and baddies are present depending on the time of day. NPCs also follow a daily schedule, like in Majora's Mask. Times flows everywhere, and NPCs have real schedules (as opposed to just spawning in one of two particular places depending on whether it's day or night).
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The game places a limit on the number of melee weapons, shields, and bows you can carry that can be increased by collecting hidden Korok Seeds from around the world and giving them to Hestu. Like with Skyward Sword, though, any armor and Plot Coupons you come across are firmly exempt from this trope. Item Crafting ingredients and food are also limited, but the cap on them is so large that it's rarely an issue. Clothing has an arbitrary limit too (5 inventory pages). With the DLC and enough Amiibo, you can run out of slots.
• Invisibility: Wizzrobes make themselves invisible while moving, only dropping their cloak to attack. However, they can still be attacked while invisible, and leave behind faint tracks while walking in the air.
• Invisible to Normals: Various spiritual beings including Koroks, dragons, and the Lord of the Mountain are invisible to almost everybody. Link, of course, can see them just fine.
• Invisible Wall: There are invisible walls surrounding the edges of the Gerudo Desert and the ocean. Trying to go beyond the borders has the wall stop you with the game telling you that you can't go any farther. The north and northwestern parts of the world map are separated by a massive chasm that's too large to cross and where constant winds blow back towards Hyrule — attempting to glide across inevitably ends with Link plummeting into the abyss. There's also an invisible barrier in the sky if you somehow manage to get Link high enough in the air.
• Invulnerable Civilians: NPCs cannot die, despite often needing to be saved. If attacked by monsters, the worst that will happen is that they're knocked out briefly.
• Irony: Typically, Legend of Zelda games end up with Zelda becoming a Damsel in Distress in Ganon's captivity. This time around? Zelda captured Ganon's iteration in this game, Calamity Gannon, in her own castle.
• Irrational Hatred: The elderly Zora (aside from King Dorephan and Kapson) harbor resentment towards Link regarding Mipha's death which is very misplaced for many reasons:
  • They accuse Link of "forcing" Mipha to become a Champion but it had been Princess Zelda who had recruited Mipha and it was Mipha who accepted the position all on her own.
  • They also blamed Link for "failing to protect her" when Link is Zelda's bodyguard, not Mipha's. And when Calamity Ganon struck, each Champion went to their respective Divine Beast while Link stayed with Zelda.
  • And finally, the elders are the only ones who seemed unwilling to accept their Champion died in the line of duty, whereas the Rito, Gorons and Gerudo all made peace with losses of their own. Even the younger Zora who also knew Link in the past don't hold anything against him.
• Item Crafting: Food and enemy drops can be combined with each other in a cooking pot to form better food and elixirs with varying effects. However, combining the wrong items will result in Dubious Food, which heals minimal hearts with no special effects.
• It Only Works Once: In the past, the Divine Beasts and Guardians were instrumental in the defeat of Calamity Ganon, so much so that King Rhoam insisted on using them again and following the same plan to the letter when Ganon inevitably returned. Unfortunately, he failed to consider the possibility that Ganon would remember how he was defeated last time and change tactics accordingly... by corrupting the Divine Beasts and Guardians and turning them against Hyrule.
• It's All My Fault: One of Link's memories shows that after he and Zelda fled from Hyrule Castle in the wake of Calamity Ganon's return, she broke down sobbing in Link's arms because, despite all their preparations, everything had gone wrong, leading to the deaths of her father and the Champions, and the destruction of most of the kingdom. The kicker? She was supposed to be the one to seal Calamity Ganon away, but she utterly failed in unlocking her power to do so. As far as Zelda was aware, the destruction of her home and the death of nearly everyone she ever knew was due to her own incompetence.
  Zelda: It's all my fault! Our only hope for defeating Ganon is lost all because I couldn't harness this cursed power! Everything — Everything I've done up until now... It was all for nothing...! So I really am just a failure! All my friends... the entire kingdom... my father most of all... I tried, and I failed them all... I've left them... all to die.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Hyrule Castle once again in the game, though in a twist the Final Boss is NOT in the absolute highest room; there are a few areas above it with optional collectibles.
• It's Up to You: There are varying reasons why the new Champions are not able to accompany Link inside the Divine Beasts:
  • Riju is still a young child with little to no combat training.
  • Teba was injured from being shot at by Vah Medoh and forced to retreat.
  • It's implied that Yunobo either wasn't able to safely board Vah Rudania like Link or was too cowardly to try.
  • Sidon appears to either believe that only the original Champions are allowed to board the Divine Beasts, or that whatever is inside Vah Ruta that killed his sister was designed to counter the Zora specifically, leaving him more of a liability to Link if he went in.

J-K

• Jack of All Stats: The amiibo-exclusive horse Epona has 4 stars in strength, speed, and stamina, as well as a gentle temperament. There are horses that outperform her, but the stats of those horses depend on luck of the draw.
• Japanese Ranguage: There are a couple of small mistranslations (for example, a "Nabi Lake" that was probably meant to be "Navi Lake"), but more interestingly, there's an in-universe example playing on the real-world B/V distinction that native Japanese speakers often have trouble with in English. Native Hylian speakers apparently have trouble with this in the Gerudo language, and considering every Gerudo greeting and several important words like "voe" have a v in them, it quickly turns into a running gag. Native Gerudo speakers even coach people having trouble with it to bite their lower lip as they're saying the words.
• Jiggle Physics: The tail and whiskers on the on the fish-shaped Rubber Helm bounces slightly. Justified, as it is made of rubber.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: After getting off the Great Plateau (which only takes about a half hour at a good pace), there's nothing technically stopping you from proceeding straight to the final boss. It doesn't matter if you haven't recovered any memories, completed any shrines, retrieved the Master Sword, or freed any of the Divine Beasts; once you get the paraglider defeating Ganon is the only mandatory quest to beat the game.
• Joke Item:
  • The game has an extensive and varied inventory of weapons and shields, including some that deal very little damage and have very low durability, such as tree branches, soup ladles, mops, pot lids, and the arms of skeletal enemies. These are present partly to make the world seem a little more complete, and partly for the chance of beating up enemies in tricky but amusing ways.
  • Defeated Chuchus drop Chuchu Jelly, which explodes in the same manner as the Chuchus they came from if struck. Thus, while the Red, White, and Yellow Chuchu Jellies could be shot at for a poor man's variety of the elemental Arrows (with an added area-of-effect to boot), the regular blue ones just pop like balloons. They can't even be spread on toast, since you can't make bread in-game.
• Journey of Reclamation: In this particular installment, Link trying (and usually failing) to prevent the release of an evil being has already come to pass, and the result is that he almost died and Calamity Ganon's corruption has now spend throughout Hyrule. When Link finally recovers he finds that he has been stripped of everything (both figuratively and literally) down to even his own memories, and must now set forth to not only reclaim what Calamity Ganon has taken from the denizens of Hyrule but also to find traces of his past.
• Journey to the Sky: One of the Divine Beasts corrupted by Calamity Ganon is Vah Medoh, which has since begun to fly across the northwestern skies and terrorize the Rito tribe. When Link reaches Rito Village, he is tasked by the Rito chieftain (Kaneli) to find a way to free the Beast, for which he has to find Teba and ask him to take him to the sky in order to reach Vah Medoh (being a Rito, Teba can fly). After Link earns Teba's trust (by passing a target test), the two embark on the travel and reach their destination; however, they'll also need to disable the Beast's protective barrier by destroying its energy sources with Bomb Arrows while avoiding the Beast's ballistic attacks. Once that is done, Link is able to enter the Beast and start looking for a way to save it.
• Jump Physics: This is the first time since Zelda II: The Adventure of Link that Link can jump freely without an item. Also some of the most realistic jumping in video games — Link can only jump about a foot off the ground and maintains momentum, meaning running lets him jump farther and he can't change direction in mid-air without the Paraglider.
• Jungle Japes: Faron Woods, especially once you get down below the cliffs. The area gets a lot of rainfall, and there are palm trees and tropical fruits (bananas and durians) growing everywhere. The enemies are much the same as those found everywhere else (although the Bokoblin camps are overgrown with moss and shaded with roofs made of banana leaves), but the jungles are inhabited by wild water buffalo.
• Just Add Water: Just add up to five ingredients to a lit cooking pot, and presto! Instant meal, no matter how complicated the recipe.
• Justified Extra Lives: The game uses this trope not for Link, but for the Respawning Enemies. Because of Calamity Ganon's curse over Hyrule, every now and then a "blood moon" will occur - at the stroke of midnight, the moon will shine red and all of the monsters killed across Hyrule return to flesh. If Link is unlucky and unaware of his surroundings, the blood moon can happen while he's in the middle of an area he just cleared - and the enemies he just killed will return to life.
• "Just So" Story: A Stable worker says that the Dueling Peaks used to be a single mountain before the spirit dragon Farosh carved a path through it.
• Kaizo Trap: There's a subtle example in the Trial of the Sword. After each gauntlet, you walk up a stairway to the ending platform. Said stairway, however, is not enclosed and can be walked off into a bottomless pit, so if a player isn't careful and made it out with only one heart, they could very well die in the victory segments by falling off the stairs.
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: While the selection of goods varies from merchant to merchant, they mostly always charge the same amount for any given item. However, you can sometimes buy items in bundles (typically arrows), for a discounted price. There are exceptions to this, however, due to some of the traveling merchants:
  • Kairo, a Goron who walks around between the Maw of Death Mountain and Foothill Stable, sells Topazes, Rubies and Sapphires for significantly less than the ore shop in Tarrey Town.
  • Agus, who walks around between Duelling Peaks Stable and Hateno Village, gives a lowers his prices by two rupees if it happens to be raining.
  • Yammo, who travels throughout the Ridgeland region, actually charges two rupees more than usual for his wares when it's not raining. When it is raining, he'll sell Goron Spice at a slightly lower price than the shop in Goron City does.
  • There are a few Yiga Clan members who disguise themselves as normal-looking merchants. When you speak to them, they will offer to sell you Mighty Bananas for the extravagant price of 99 Rupees each (they can be bought in Gerudo town for 20 Rupees). While you can buy them, the Yiga member will still attack you afterwards. Humorously, the Yiga member has an inventory of 99 Mighty Bananas, and will sell you as many as you're willing to buy before attacking.
  • There are a few fetch-quests where characters will ask you to bring them a specific item. In return, they will pay you an amount higher than the market price. They'll usually offer to keep buying more of that same item, but they usually will not pay you quite as much as they did the first time around. They still tend to pay more than the shops typically would.
  • On that note is Ledo, a Zora who will at first offer to trade you two Diamonds in exchange for ten Luminous Stones. While this is a good deal, any subsequent exchange will only yield one Diamond for ten Luminous Stones. Although Diamonds can be sold to vendors for 500 Rupees a piece, the ten Luminous Stones that you might otherwise exchange for a Diamond can instead be sold for 700 Rupees. Mind you, it's not a terrible deal if you desperately need Diamonds for crafting or armor.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Subverted in terms of plot and gameplay. It is mentioned that Hylians could not become accustomed to the katanas wielded by the Sheikah, who had to learn new smithing techniques. The katanas that Link can use in the game, such as the Eightfold Blade, also have limitations. They are advertised in their descriptions as having the sharpest conventional blades and they are a step up from the initial weapons, but they can be outclassed by future ones.
• The Key Is Behind the Lock:
  • Early on, one of the first four shrines you visit is completely surrounded by walls, with one heavily guarded wall having cracks in it. The problem? The Remote Bomb rune that would enable you to break it is located within that very shrine. How do you get to it? Faking out one of the buried Guardians to hit the cracked wall instead of you is extremely difficult to do (because their accuracy is absurd, you have to jump just before they fire). Instead, you just climb up and over any of the walls surrounding the shrine. Right about there is where it probably hits most fans of the series, even the most stubborn, that this is not going to be anything like the Zelda games they're used to.
  • The Tah Muhl Shrine has a literal example. Two treasure chests are in a cage with a locked door, and one of them has the key in it. The solution: The chest with the key can be set on fire from outside the cage, which destroys the chest and leaves the key behind. You can then grab the key through the bars with Magnesis.
  • Inside Vah Rudania, one of the terminals Link needs to activate to regain control of the beast is behind a sealed door, which only opens when a torch inside the room is lit by a blue flame. Fortunately, a small hole in the middle of the door is enough to fire a lit arrow into to open it.
  • The armor shop in Gerudo Town sells Gerudo Vai clothing... which you need to wear to get into Gerudo Town in the first place. Instead, you must track down an NPC outside the town who will sell you the same set of clothes.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Played with. Depending on the enemy, Link gets engaged in different ways:
  • Monsters will seldom attack Link if he's knocked down on the ground, unless they have started an attack before Link was brought down by a different enemy.
  • True to their mechanic nature, Guardians (and even Guardian Scouts) will attack Link with successive laser beams even if the first one hit him to begin with. However, further beam hits after the first one will not register further damage.
• Kill Enemies to Open: Certain monster camps contain a treasure chest that can only be opened when all of the monsters have been defeated.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: In the backstory, Prince Sidon is stated to have defeated a giant Octorok that had swallowed him and many other Zora warriors this way.
• Kill It with Fire: Fire-elemental weapons kill Ice-elemental enemies in one hit. And to an lesser extent, setting an wooden weapon on fire slightly improves its attack power at the cost of gradually reducing its durability.
• Kill It with Ice: Likewise, Ice-elemental weapons kill Fire-elemental enemies in one hit.
• Kill It with Water: Standard enemies not only can't swim, but they instantly die in water. Luring them into the water will instantly kill them, and Link can also dispose of Stal- enemies by breaking their bodies, picking up the skulls, and throwing them into any body of water. Lizalfos and overworld bosses are not so easily dispatched, though even the Hinox will eventually drown.
• King Mook:
  • Taluses are just enormous Pebblits, having the same body type as them. This also applies to Frost Talus and Igneo Talus (them being respectively the alphas of the Frost and Igneo Pebblits).
  • Being the leader of the Yiga Clan, Master Kohga serves as a boss version of the Yiga mooks Link finds over the course of his adventure. He can also use some of the abilities stored in the Sheikah Slate, thus also doubling as a Mirror Boss.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Almost every previous Zelda game lets Link take items from all sorts of places, including NPC houses, but Breath of the Wild takes this several steps further. This time around, there are many different weapons and food items that the player can collect from almost anywhere, and taking everything that can be found is encouraged ^note Taking stuff that isn't tied down at a stable for the first time has a nearby NPC comment that the stable owners put stuff out for travelers to take, so feel free.. In addition, enemies occasionally hang out in encampments with their own supplies of food and weapons, and it's totally possible for the player to rob them blind.
• Knighting: The first recoverable memory shows Zelda "knighting" ^note He was already a member of the Royal Guard and a knight beforehand Link as a member of the Champions and as her personal bodyguard in a ceremony on the suggestion of the Goron Champion Daruk. Though she is so somber because of her own insecurities and jealousy of Link's apparent ease in meeting his destiny during the ceremony that Daruk admits that she's "making it sound like we've already lost" against Ganon.
• Knockback: This is a major part of combat. All weapon strikes will cause a flinching animation in basic enemies that will cancel their current action, while Link and large enemies are Immune to Flinching. Landing a full strike combo (four strikes for one-handed weapons, eight for spears and two for heavy weapons) will also cause full knockback on all enemies and send them toppling back and often ragdolling for a while before picking themselves back up. Likewise, powerful strikes by large enemies such as Moblins and Lynels will always send Link flying back several meters if they land. Link can also obtain a gimmick weapon, the Spring-Loaded Hammer, which causes low damage but deals increased knockback and will send enemies flying several times farther than normal weapons will.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Mina and Mils, a brother/sister duo wandering Hyrule searching for treasure among the ruins of destroyed towns, are frequently found running into various monsters that they attempt to fight against until Link comes to the rescue. But even Mina admits that conducting a similar raid on Hyrule Castle would be suicidal because of all the Guardians roaming around it.

L

• Lady and Knight: True to form, Zelda and Link are the Bright Lady and the White Knight respectively. In the backstory, Link was a Master Swordsman appointed as the princess's personal knight, sworn to protect her at all costs.
• Lady Land: Gerudo Town. Only women are allowed in, bar Gorons (which Goron visitors hang a lampshade on). To get in, Link has to disguise himself as a woman. A few people figure it out, but decide to keep quiet for one reason or another. However, this is not because of any animosity towards men, but rather to encourage young Gerudo to leave the town and search a husband for themselves instead of staying within Gerudo Town for their entire lives.
• Laser Blade: Ancient and Guardian weapons have blades made of glowing blue energy that are only deployed when the weapon is drawn, although being made of Hard Light, they lack many of the special properties typically associated with Laser Blades and are functionally identical to any other cutting or stabbing weapons.
• Laser Sight: The Guardians aim a laser sight at Link before shooting at him. The four Divine Beasts also aim a huge targeting laser at Hyrule Castle from the moment they're liberated, before unleashing a devastating attack at the start of the final battle.
• Last Chance Hit Point: If Link is at full health, he may be able to survive a single hit that would otherwise take him down in one shot, instead surviving with a quarter heart. However, if the hit is exceedingly powerful enough, the protection will not take effect and the hit will still be fatal. The mechanic is absent completely in Master Mode, and even when present, the mechanic doesn't save Link if an otherwise fatal attack sends him flying off a cliffside. If the attack didn't kill him, the fall most likely will.
• Last Lousy Point: The Korok Seeds. There are 900 of them. You only have to find a little less than half of them to get all the upgrades, but all 900 count towards your file's completion rating, so if you want that to say 100% you have to collect them all. Bizarrely, the game seems to taunt you for actually doing this, as your reward for finding every single one is a literal pile of golden shit that does absolutely nothing. ^note On the bright side, if you know a bit of Japanese puns and gift choices, it's at least a pretty straightforward good luck (or unko) charm. You also gain the ability to make Hestu dance whenever you want just by asking. Still does nothing in the way of game benefits, but if you found that entertaining, it’s a fun gimmick.
• Last Stand: The ultimate fate of Hyrule Kingdom's powerful military. An NPC at Akkala Citadel explains after Hyrule Castle fell and the royal family was presumed dead, the military retreated to Akkala Citadel, the largest fortress in the land, and tried to avenge them. Though the Hylian soldiers fought valiantly, as dozens of surrounding destroyed Guardian hulks attest to, they were eventually overwhelmed and slaughtered.
• Last-Second Photo Failure: During Link's various flashbacks, we see the ceremony where he was knighted and recognized alongside the other champions of Hyrule. At the end of the ceremony the group went to take a formal picture, but just before the picture could be snapped the Goron champion and Boisterous Bruiser Daruk started to sweep the entire group into an enormous bear hug. The picture gets snapped while they're right in the middle of being knocked around by Daruk. While their reactions and feelings about it vary, Revali, Link's arrogant Rito rival, was furious about it.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: Invoked as part of the game's attempt to redefine what a Zelda game could be, as the franchise had become somewhat infamous for being Strictly Formula.
  • The game incorporates more RPG elements than usual. Link is able to carry around and equip different weapons and armor, has to cook food and mix potions to heal and give himself stat buffs, and can get the ingredients for such by foraging around the land for fauna and flora. While you can find merchants in towns and stables, their stock tends to be limited to arrows and a few foodstuffs; you're expected to get the things you need out in the wilderness.
  • The game is open world to an extent no other Zelda title has been before. As soon as you complete the tutorial area on the Great Plateau, you're given a short questline that will take you to meet some important NPCs and get useful information and equipment from them, but you can ignore that objective and go and do whatever you want. This is also the only Zelda title to have a questlog to keep track of different tasks you've been told about by NPCs (unless you count the Bomber's Notebook, but it had a smaller scope than the questlog in this game).
  • Everything except the tutorial and the final boss are optional — you can free as many of the Divine Beasts as you want or not free any of them, and you can acquire the Master Sword or not. As soon as you leave the Great Plateau, you can head straight to Hyrule Castle and go to the final battle, and if you're skilled enough, you can defeat Ganon and win the game without ever even seeing the Divine Beasts or the Master Sword.
  • The game employs a lot of Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay with its physics engine and how Link and enemies interact with objects and the environment. A full list of examples would be too long to give here, but as one example; rainfall. It's harder for Link to climb objects due to the slippery surface, any uncovered fire source will be extinguished, and if it's a thunderstorm, lightning will be attracted to metal objects and will strike them, even if it's a metal piece of equipment Link or an enemy is using, and the resulting discharge will damage anything nearby not immune to electricity.
  • While Zelda has always had some instances of Magitek, it's usually downplayed in favor of Medieval Stasis. In this game, Sheikah Magitek is everywhere — Guardians are all over Hyrule, Sheikah shrines and towers utilize various advanced technologies in their workings, and Link has a Sheikah Slate like a smartphone or tablet computer he can use to take pictures, activate app-like rune powers, and keep track of his inventory. In the DLC, Link even gets a Magitek motorcycle, the Master Cycle Zero.
• Late to the Tragedy: Zigzagged. Link was present when Calamity Ganon began to destroy Hyrule. He would be mortally wounded protecting Princess Zelda and placed into a rejuvenation chamber to recover. By the time Link awakens, he no longer has any memory of what happened, it has been 100 years since he was placed in the chamber, and the near entirety of Hyrule has been laid to ruin. The player learns about the whole thing as he does, as he slowly regains and pieces together his lost memories.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Zigzagged: Metal objects placed into lava using Magnesis will slowly sink and eventually be melted by the intense heat, and fiddling with Magnesis some more will reveal that dragging those metal objects through lava will cause some resistance. However, the act of dropping something into the lava will cause it to splash like water, and the melting only happens if the object in question is fully submerged. This means that if a metal crate is almost completely deep in lava with only one edge sticking out, nothing will happen to it.
• Lava Pit: Several of the Shrines found in the Eldin region have lava pits as navigational hazards.
• Lava Pot Volcano: The slopes of Death Mountain are crossed by rivers and lakes of glowing lava, ultimately pouring from the perpetually seething lake of molten rock in its crater.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Many enemies appear in color-coded variants according to how strong they are. Unusually, red enemies are the weakest, surpassed by blue, black, and finally silver (and gold in Hard Mode). This can be dangerously misleading with Lizalfos, the weakest of which are green, and besides the normal enemy levels, Lizalfos have an additional three types which are elemental, and the fire ones are red.
• Lead the Target: Enemies with ranged attacks tend to be quite skilled at this. Octoroks in particular have a potentially frustrating ability to track Link's movement, while Lynels are so uncannily skilled that their arrows land wherever Link will be, even if he changes direction while they're in midair.
• Leaking Can of Evil: Calamity Ganon has become this. Although sealed up, the years sealed have only caused Ganon's power to rise, to the point where his energy takes the form of a giant boar that surrounds the castle and animated the Guardians to turn against Hyrule, leading to its destruction.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The Sheikah Slate is shaped like a Wii U GamePad / Switch in portable mode. The flavour text even says there's "something familiar about it" even though Link has never seen it before, or at least doesn't remember yet (although this could reference traces of his lost memories still being present). The way the Slate interacts with various terminals around the world is also reminiscent of the NFC technology used by the GamePad and Switch to communicate with amiibos. Ironically, the Wii U version of the game doesn't use many of the second screen features, since according to Eiji Aonuma, using the second screen during gameplay was distracting, and they wanted parity between the two versions since the Switch can only be used with one screen at a time, either a TV's or its own.
  • After Hestu upgrades one of your inventory sections, he sings the jingle that follows. The text even appears in time to the music. This is sort of appropriate, since he directly talks about expanding your "stash" when no other characters seem aware of Link's supernatural item-carrying abilities.
  • Oman Au introduces himself as the creator of this trial. As Oman Au is an anagram of Aonuma, and if you take the trial as meaning not just the shrine, but also the entire game, you can see where this is going.
  • The Great Deku Tree notes that the Master Sword will test your inner strength, see through artificial enhancements, and that, if you fail, that you'll need to strengthen the hearts that are a measure of your inner strength. Basically, you need a certain number of hearts, and any temporary hearts gained through food will be ignored.
• Leave No Witnesses: The White-Maned Lynel's Compendium entry says the reason there are so few eyewitness accounts of them is because White-Maned Lynels won't let even a single passerby escape with their lives. This isn’t actually borne out in-game, where Lynels are the only type of monster that don’t immediately attack when they notice you.
• Ledge Gravity: Link will avoid stepping off cliffs while using Magnesis, preventing the player from accidentally killing him whilst trying to manipulate a metal object. However, he can step down small distances, causing Magnesis to disengage.
• Left Hanging: A player-dependent example — Eii Aonuma warns that players who refuse to take their time and decide to rush straight to the Final Boss will be able to finish the game, but won't learn anything about the world or the nature of this Link's true identity.
• Left Stuck After Attack:
  • Moblins holding two-handed weapons such as clubs, axes or claymores will often attack with a powerful overhead blow. If this attack misses, the weapon will embed itself in the ground and remain stuck there for a few seconds while the Moblin tries to pull it free, giving Link a brief window to attack them while they're immobilized and vulnerable.
  • Lizalfos armed with spears will occasionally leap high into the air and try to impale Link as they fall back down. If they miss, however, their spear will jam itself in the ground and leave them briefly vulnerable as they pull it back out.
• Legendary Weapon: The Master Sword. It's famed in this world's history as the sword that only the chosen hero can wield. The Rito Elder's dialogue will actually change if you're carrying the Master Sword when you meet him. Without it, he identifies you as the Hero's Descendant when he sees your Sheikah Slate, but if you have the Master Sword and he'll say something like "That sword! That means you're the actual..."
• Leitmotif:
  • The main theme of the game pops up in many of the musical tracks.
  • The four Blight Ganons' battle themes have the same tune (as well as Calamity Ganon when he Turns Red, but each is flavored with the instrumentation of the region and town their Divine Beast menaces.
  • The themes for Mipha, Urbosa, Revali, and Daruk all return for the new champions for each race: Sidon, Riju, Teba, and Yunobo, but always in different keys so it's hard to notice.
  • When Hudson goes to Tarrey Town, a small theme plays as he walks away, and that theme is present when you first go to Tarrey Town, but as you gather more people to Tarrey Town, bits of the themes from the Goron, Gerudo, Rito, and Zora settlements, and even Hateno Village become part of the ambient music in Tarrey Town, building upon one another.
  • When Kass tells Link the story about how a hero and a princess sealed Ganon 10,000 years ago, the iconic Hyrule Field theme is playing in the background. The Hyrule Field theme is widely considered the series' leitmotif as a whole, as it's just as iconic to the Zelda franchise as the Star Wars theme is to Star Wars.
• Lethal Chef:
  • The "Dubious Food" — an absolutely disgusting green and purple meat "dish" — is censored by a mosaic, and the description says that it probably won't hurt you if you eat it. Trying to eat this dish even causes Link to hesitate for a moment, then eat it followed by a very nauseated expression.
  • Cooking inedible materials like wood or rocks produces Rock Hard Food, described as being incredibly hard on the jaw and only worthwhile in an extremely tight spot. It only heals a quarter of a heart, the same as an uncooked acorn.
  • There is an NPC who gives really bad cooking advice that results in producing the above "dishes". She can be found next to a smoking cooking pot surrounded by piles of trash in the middle of the wilderness.
• Lethal Joke Item: Some of the more odd weapons, like the Electric Rod and the Korok Leaf, seem rather sub-optimal. That said, they can be powerful in the right situations (namely, the Electric Rod doing major damage against enemies in water and being capable of disarming enemies, and the Korok Leaf being good at throwing enemies off cliffs and are also useful for powering sailed rafts). Likewise, the Spring Loaded Hammer can only cause Scratch Damage, but it will send enemies flying far away on the final swing and can be quite handy to have on hand if you're on a cliff.
• Lethal Lava Land: Death Mountain. The extreme temperature will set Link alight if he doesn't have the right gear to handle it. Lava is a common hazard and behaves like muddy bogs found elsewhere, fire enemies are everywhere, and Vah Rudania's rampage causes parts of it to be periodically boarded with lava bombs. Any wooden equipment you have equipped will quickly be set ablaze, and Bomb Arrows will immediately blow up in your face. Since the Gorons' Divine Beast (Van Rudania) resides in the core of the volcano, fire protection is a must in its interior as well.
• Level in Boss Clothing: The "battle" against Divine Beast Vah Rudania is actually more of a Stealth-Based Escort Mission. Link must guide Yunobo to the various cannons dotted around Death Mountain, using them to launch Yunobo at Rudania. All while avoiding (or destroying) the search drones that it deployed.
• Level in Reverse: The interiors of the Shee Vaneer and Shee Venath Shrines are mirror images of one another. Downplayed in that the shrines are very short in length, and are more about figuring out their shared puzzles.
• Level-Map Display:
  • At the start of the game, the world map on Sheikah slate is blank. Each region on the map contains a Sheikah tower where Link can gain the regional map by climbing to the top and activating the terminal there.
  • The Divine Beast maps gained from their map terminals not only reveal the entire layouts of those dungeons, they also let you physically manipulate certain mechanical sections of the Divine Beasts to solve puzzles.
• Level of Tedious Enemies:
  • The route to Zora's Domain is a narrow, winding path through gorges and thick woodland and crawling with Lizalfos, electric Keese, and Octorocks, none of which are particularly threatening. Lizalfos shoot electric arrows and the electric keese try to hit Link directly, causing the electrocution effect that deals modest damage and makes him drop his held equipment, while the Octorocks pelt him with rocks that do low damage but use up shield durability if Link blocks them. There are also environmental rocks and boulders that will try to hit Link at certain points. In addition to all of this, it is constantly raining so Link can't just climb up the sides and skip the path.
  • The Test of Wood, one of the three Korok trials, requires Link to follow a clearly-marked road to a shrine without dropping, unequipping, or breaking a set of Korok weapons. However, a number of enemies with few hitpoints and only lightly-damaging attacks will harass him every step of the way, with their goal being to distract and disorient Link and get him lost.
• Level Scaling: The game uses a system where, each time an enemy is defeated, a number of points are added to a hidden ledger; the weakest enemies give none, stronger enemies give more, and bosses give the most. As open as the overworld is, most areas will be populated by easy enemies early on, which avoids Beef Gates and gives you a lot of flexibilty in where to explore first (thought some areas, like the Hebra Mountains, still have reasonably tough enemies even early on). Certain monsters in the game, usually one or two in each camp, are marked with a specific tag; every time a specific points threshold is reached, all tagged monsters of a specific type are upgraded to the next strongest tier. As you adventure, both the enemies you face and the weapons they carry will gradually get replaced with stronger variants (weapons obtained from Amiibos will also scale in power). By the time you've finished the main quest and found a good percentage of the Shrines, it's not uncommon to see at least one Silver enemy at every encampment. This even extends to Lynels as well; if you thought the only Silver Lynel you'd ever see is at the Coliseum Ruins, you'd be dead wrong. The power of the weapons that amiibo gives scales as well depending on progression. This can lead into Permanently Missable Content, as one feature of the game involves getting pictures of enemies for the game's Monster Compendium, and after a certain the weakest enemies may simply stop spawning (thankfully pictures can also be bought).
• Levels Take Flight: The Divine Beast Vah Medoh is a giant mechanical bird flying in a circle around Rito Village. You must team up with the Rito warrior Teba to take out its cannons and shields in an aerial battle in order to climb aboard and free it from Ganon's corruption. As a dungeon, Vah Medoh requires you to tilt it left and right while also using the fan-generated streams of wind to reach higher sections of the mechanism.
• Levitating Lotus Position: In "The Champions' Ballad" DLC expansion, Monk Maz Koshia does this to move around for the third phase of his boss fight.
• Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: Calamity Ganon is a malevolent, writhing mass of shadow and chaos, and Zelda keeps him at bay with her magic, which manifests as bright golden light.
• Light 'em Up: Only the Light Arrows can hurt Dark Beast Ganon during the Final Boss battle.
• Lighthouse Point: The game features a former lighthouse in the Akkala region that serves as the base for the Akkala Tech Lab.
• Lightning Bruiser: Lynels. Even the base Red-tier Lynels hit like a freight train, move scary fast, and have more HP than Guardian Stalkers.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: According to the in-game Compendium, Gold Monsters were created when Silver Monsters survived getting struck by lightning.
• Limited Window of Vulnerability: During the fight against Dark Beast Ganon, you can't attack him normally; you need to wait for Zelda to open up weak points for you to fire at, and they only stay open for a short while.
• Lineage Ladder:
  • At Riverside Stable, Gotter noticeably describes his ancestor as his "grandfather's grandfather", who was a chef at the castle one hundred years ago when it was still in operation. Likewise, Gotter is also a cook, and he just loves to indulge himself in food to the point where he requests Link to look for the royal cookbook for recipes twice.
  • After being bested in battle, Master Kohga resorts to summoning a particularly large spiked ball, bigger than the ones he used in the fight, explaining it as technique passed down by his great-grandfather but addresses him by a repetitive line of parents instead..
    Kohga: I need to bust out my serious moves... A secret technique taught by my father's mother's father! It will... destroy you!
  • Impa's family has guarded a shrine orb for several generations, and it's considered a sacred heirloom to the point where not even Link is allowed to touch it until they found out he is supposed to use it to unlock a shrine after he completes all sidequests in the Journal of Various Worries. Paya, who took over from her grandmother Impa, explains how long the orb has been in the family, though it's likely far longer than what it implies given how Long-Lived the Sheikah are compared to Hylians:
    Paya: "The hero, as chosen by the Sheikah heirloom, will be gifted the blessing of antiquity". With these words as our guide, we here watched over this sacred artifact since my grandmother's grandmother's time... and even since HER grandmother's grandmother's time before that!
• Literally Shattered Lives: Although freezing on its own is just a temporary stun, hitting a frozen enemy with a weapon, or the ground, will un-freeze them and deal a huge amount of damage. The same thing can happen to you, making ice-wielding enemies very dangerous.
• Living Gasbag: Water octoroks are normally aquatic, but they can float through the air when changes in barometric pressure cause gases in their bodies to inflate, swelling them up like balloons and lifting them out of the water. Sky octoroks float all the time, thanks to lighter-than-air gases filling their mantles. All octorok types will drop their internal flotation bladders when slain, which if attached to objects will automatically inflate and lift their burdens into the air.
• Living Lava: Igneo Taluses are giant Cephalothoraxes made up of glowing, semi-molten rock that live near the lava lakes around the Death Mountain. Their weaker offspring, the Igneo Pebblits, are the same thing on a smaller scale.
• Living Weapon: Fi still resides in the Master Sword, and she is the one who tells Zelda to get Link to the Shrine of Resurrection before he goes for good. She later tells Zelda as the Sword is to be put away that her role is still unfulfilled.
• Loading Screen: Unlike all previous 3D Zelda games, which simply faded to black or white whenever Link went to a new location or a cutscene would begin or end, this game features a traditional loading screen with tips provided to alleviate the wait. The enormous size of the world map makes such screens a necessity.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: The game has some pretty lengthy load times when loading into the overworld since it's basically loading the entire massive map. On the Nintendo Switch version, loading into the overworld from the main menu can take roughly 30 seconds and it's a few seconds quicker if one loads into the overworld from a shrine or other enclosed location. However, playing the downloaded version of the game loads everything a few seconds quicker than it does on the cartridge version due to the console having immediate access to the data whereas the data on the cartridge version needs to be pulled from it.
• Loads and Loads of Sidequests: One of the distinguishing features of the game is that all the content is optional to complete the plot except for The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Even the four main dungeons besides Hyrule Castle can be skipped if you want to head straight for Ganon. This is not recommended though, as completing the four dungeons along with as many Shrines as you can make Storming the Castle much easier. And skipping the dungeons and the retrievable memories would result in you missing the bulk of the story.
• Logical Weakness: Given the sheer freedom you have and how close to reality the gameplay is, several, and some less obvious than others:
  • Fire Keese, Fire and Meteo Wizzrobes, and Fire-Breath Lizalfos are wreathed in fire or use it as a weapon. Therefore, a single hit from an ice weapon will instantly put them down, even disregarding the tier difference between Meteo Wizzrobes and the weaker Fire Wizzrobes. Fire Keese are also vulnerable to rain due to it putting out their flames.
  • Ice Keese, Ice Wizzrobes and Blizzrobes, and Ice-Breath Lizalfos all embody ice, and are just as weak to fire as their cousins are weak to ice.
  • Fire Chuchus and Ice Chuchus are very weak anyway, so using opposite elements against them doesn't make a huge difference in defeating them, but it does cause them to safely evaporate without creating an area-of-effect blast that may hurt Link.
  • Igneo Taluses and Frost Taluses are so hot and cold respectively that they can't be safely climbed without upgraded resistant armor. Hitting them with the opposite element will briefly neutralize the rock, however, making it climbable and letting you fight the Talus easier.
  • If you have plenty of Shock Arrows, any water-dwelling Lizalfos become a complete joke, as the resultant electrocution is both damaging and can trap them in a loop if you shoot them again just as their "stunned" animation ends.
  • The Lizalfos' hunched-chameleon build means that they cannot see directly underneath them. A bit tricky to pull off, but if you're stealthy enough, you can really confuse the hell out of one.
  • Guardian Stalkers shoot lasers with fearsome destructive power that can one-shot Link at lower heart counts. However, their six legs can be destroyed to cripple their mobility, and they're built in such a way that they have a blind spot right on top of their heads. If you can manage to stand on it and wail away, the Stalkers' targeting system cannot locate you, and it therefore cannot hit you.
  • Stone Taluses have ore deposits as their weakpoints. Mining tools break the ore much faster and use less durability in doing so.
  • Lynels are demonic centaurs found in wide open spaces with monstrously strong weapons and bows. Their MO is to gallop around the field and then rush directly at Link, or use their fire breath and elemental arrows if he's far away. Therefore, if you can lure them to a place with limited elbow room for them, like forests or ruins, their attacks are much more easily telegraphed, especially with Spear-wielding Lynels.
• Lonely Piano Piece: Rather than the boisterous, orchestral Hyrule Field themes of the previous games, a good amount of Breath of the Wild's overworld music consists of simple piano tunes. It adds to the empty atmosphere of exploring a ruined Hyrule.
• Long-Lived: While most of the settlements in Hyrule have long since forgotten the world of 100 years ago, and Link and his exploits are mere distant myths, the Sheikah and Zora peoples are both long-lived enough that there are individuals among them who recognize Link personally.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The Guardian battle theme has a B section. However, you'd probably never know this, because when you meet a Guardian, engaging in a protracted battle with it isn't really feasible - either it's going to die quickly, or you will, or you'll hide or run away. All of these make the theme stop in one way or another.
• Loophole Abuse: Normally, being hit by a Yiga Blademaster while infiltrating their hideout will result in instant death regardless of how many Heart Containers you have gathered. But this only applies to your normal health; yellow temporary hearts will still deplete like it’s a regular hit, so with enough defense, temporary hearts, and skill, you can survive a few hits from the Blademasters, and possibly take out all of the guards without resorting to stealth at all.
• Lore Codex: The Hyrule Compendium describes the various things that Link can encounter in his journey through Hyrule, and is split into sections listing animals, monsters, edible plants and fungi, weapons and shields, and treasure (the shortest section, listing only treasure chests and three types of ore deposit). The Compendium is filled in piecemeal after upgrading the Sheikah Slate's camera rune; after this, Link needs to take pictures of desired items or creatures, which will cause their associated entries to be filled in, or failing that to purchase random entries at Purah's lab; these will include the picture alongside a short description and some areas in the game where the subject can be found.
• Losing Your Head: Attacking the body of a Stal creature will just cause the head and body to separate when the body collapses, and the bones will reassemble and put their head (or another Stal's head) back on. They can only be defeated if Link destroys the head.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In Gerudo Town, there's a Running Gag that visitors have trouble speaking the Gerudo language, which has lots of "v"s in it. This is because Japanese has no such sound, and Japanese speakers emulate it with "b"s generally. Of course, English has both sounds, so the joke loses its sense.
  • Before the final battle, in the English translation, Zelda states Dark Beast Ganon is the result of Ganon giving up on resurrection. In the original Japanese, she states he has devolved into this form because he refuses to give up on resurrection.
  • The Adventure Log was originally in first person, being essentially Link's diary. A lot of bits and pieces of Link's personality are lost when turning it into the impersonal version used in the English translation, where the player is directly addressed, such as how he talks about Zelda with significant romantic undertones, strongly suggesting that he reciprocates her feelings, instead of the English version's ambiguity about his thoughts on Zelda and Mipha.
  • Memory 9 has Zelda reflect on the flower Silent Princess. In the English version, she says that she hopes the flower can continue to survive in the wild. In the Japanese version, she thinks of it as a portent, the Princess of Extinction in her words.
• Lost Technology:
  • The Guardians, Divine Beasts, Sheikah Slate and all the super-advanced Magitek of the ancient Sheikah are an enigma to modern civilization. By the time of the Great Calamity, they were just barely understood enough to be used, let alone analyzed or imitated. A hundred years later, leading scholars on the subject have some understanding of stationary machines and basic weapons, but still haven't approached the complexity or scale of a Guardian.
  • Most NPC characters who weren't alive before the Calamity have no idea what the Sheikah technology they've discovered is, or what it is meant for. While the player soon learns Sheikah orbs and pedestals are relatively common pieces of mechanisms (either in conjunction or not), you'll see characters musing about pedestals as things of legend and using orbs as trophies, ceremonial heirlooms, companions, or in the case of the Yiga in the DLC, stealing one but having no idea that it unlocks a shrine in the pit just behind their hideout. And they were former Sheikah! Some characters do know tales of shrines and recognize what you've unlocked, but the means to do so are completely lost on them.
  • An armor set gives resistance to electrical damage thanks to being made of an ancient material that no one left has the knowledge to create: rubber.
  • It's all but stated that Pictoboxes (series equivalent of cameras) fell to the annals of history even before the Great Calamity, judging by Zelda's notes at the time of discovering the Sheikah Slate 100 years ago and being enthralled by its Camera Rune's ability to instantly create replica images of whatever you point it at, since their usual practice was to get an artist to do it.
• The Lost Woods: The Trope Namer returns as the Great Hyrule Forest, completely encircling Korok Forest. Attempting to just run through them will result in getting teleported back to the last location Link was in, so he must pay attention to various clues (what they are depends on which parts of the forest he's in). The woods aren't actually malevolent and house no more dangers than most other locations in Hyrule; they're just really creepy.
• Love at First Sight: From the moment Link appeared on Paya's doorstep, she never understands why his appearance and heroics won't stop running through her mind. She even dreams about Link during the limited amount of sleep she finds.
• Love Before First Sight: Downplayed. Paya was raised on tales of Link's heroism and his coming reawakening, and upon meeting him for the first time deems him "the very picture of the hero I always imagined," but it wasn't until actually seeing him in-person that she becomes truly enamored with him.
• Lovecraft Lite: In this game, Ganon takes a form that can only be described as an Eldritch Abomination. Presumably, you can still kill it. In the true ending, even after Ganon gives up his attempt at reincarnation, or fails at incarnating, in the Japanese version... he still doesn't die, and just is sealed for now.
• Love Dodecahedron: Mipha is a childhood friend of Link's who harbors feelings for him, even wanting to marry him, yet it is unknown if Link felt the same. Zelda also appears to have developed a Bodyguard Crush on Link and again, it's left up to the air if Link reciprocated those feelings. Kass's teacher was the court poet for the Hyrule royal family and fell for Zelda but she only had eyes on Link. There was also Kodah, another childhood friend of Link's, who also chased after him.
• Love Triangle: Link is involved in four of these. Among the Champions, there is Zora Champion and childhood friend Mipha and the princess of Hyrule Zelda who both harbor a crush on him. He also had another one going on between Mipha and another Zora childhood friend called Kodah. The third is between him and an unnamed Sheikah poet regarding Princess Zelda's affections. The final would exist post-game between Impa's granddaughter Paya and Princess Zelda, who again, both harbour feelings for him. Though, as Paya makes it clear in one of her diary entries that she would support Link and Zelda if they were to become a couple.
• Luck-Based Mission: The "Under a Red Moon" shrine quest requires you to perform an action on the shrine pedestal during a Blood Moon. Simple enough, right? Only one problem: Blood Moons occur completely at random and the player has no direct way to trigger one.^note Some players have luck by killing a large number of enemies, since one purpose of the Blood Moon is to respawn slain monsters. However others see no difference whatsoever. The player's only recourse is to either go on to other things and warp to the nearest fast travel point the moment they finally see one, or to camp out at the pedestal and wait doing nothing until it finally triggers. Although, there's one moon-obsessed NPC at the Dueling Peaks Stable who will tell you if a Blood Moon will occur that night.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me:
  • Some enemies come equipped with shields that will block your attacks, which is troublesome in a game with Breakable Weapons. Heavy weapons like axes can knock their shields out of their grip.
  • Some attacks can be parried using a shield. This includes laser fire.
• Ludd Was Right: Zigzagged. Turns out the Hylian King who forbade the Sheikah from using Guardians, Divine Beasts, and Energy Weapons might not have been an overly paranoid fool after all, since Ganon did end up using the technology against them the next time. On the other hand, it's implied that modern Hyrule's limited knowledge of how to use the technology was what allowed Ganon to take it over so easily. Plus, the technology that the good guys do still use in the present (the Sheikah Slate, the Shrines, the Towers, the ancient oven, etc.) seems to work pretty reliably for them.
• Lunacy: The Blood Moon, said to be the time when Calamity Ganon's powers reach its peak, will turn bigger and red, a reddish-purple miasma will envelop the land, any monsters Link's fighting will be healed, and defeated monsters will come back to life.

M

• Macho Masochism: One Shrine quest requires Link to stand on top of a roasting hot platform to prove to the "Goron Blood Brothers" that he is tough enough to do so. Unbeknownst to them, completing this unlocks one of the many shrines Link can access to acquire a Spirit Orb, meaning that this was also the intention of the monk that set the trial. Link isn't permitted to equip fireproof armour to protect himself from the flames, though there's nothing stopping from eating to heal, or drinking an elixir with the Fireproof buff. Of course, it's also possible to survive it unprotected if he has at least 24 hearts' worth of health.
• Mad Marble Maze: There's a number of Shrines that require you to use motion controls to roll an orb through a small maze and then fling it up into the air onto a ramp. Though the way the motion controls work with the platform means that you could turn it upside-down to its smooth underside and skip straight to the flinging part.
• Made of Evil: Calamity Ganon is the raw, unbound spirit of the promise Demise made to the hero who ended his reign of terror so many generations before. A swirling, malevolent cloud of pure hatred, destruction, and anger that has soiled the lands of Hyrule and is barely kept in check by Zelda's efforts to keep it sealed within Hyrule Castle.
• Magic Fire: Sheikah technology is often powered through Blue Flames that don't burn out.
• Magic Knight:
  • This incarnation of Link uses magical arrows and the Sheikah Slate, a Magitek device that allows him to use magic for various purposes.
  • All four of the Champions possess unique magical powers in addition to their combat abilities. Daruk is a Barrier Warrior, Urbosa and Revali control lightning and wind respectively, and Mipha has Healing Hands. By purifying their respective Divine Beasts, Link can gain the ability to use the powers of the Champions himself. Link's own ability to slow time under certain conditions seems to be analogous to the Champions' powers.
• Magic Mushroom: Multiple types of mushrooms grow in the wilds of Hyrule, and when harvested and cooked can confer bonuses like elemental resistances or increased stealth, strength, toughness, stamina and speed. Silent shrooms, in particular, also glow blue at night.
• Magic Potion: Instead of the usual set of three to five potions available in Zelda games, you can use the pots you use to cook to create a variety of brightly-colored elixirs by mixing at least one small critter (like a frog or a butterfly) and one monster part. Each eligible critter has an adjective in its name denoting its uses, and the elixir's effects are determined by the critters you toss in (monster parts determine how long the effect lasts); "chilly" critters and elixirs give you heat resistance, "electro" ones give resistance to electricity, "enduring" and "energizing" refill your stamina wheel (enduring supercharges it, while energizing stops at your current maximum), fairy tonics (made with a fairy's help) and "hearty" ones heal you, "fireproof" elixirs make you immune to fire, "hasty" elixirs make you faster, "mighty" elixirs make you stronger, "sneaky" elixirs make you stealthier, "spicy" ones give you cold resistance, and "tough" elixirs increase your defense.
• Magic Wand: The game brings back the Fire and Ice Rods and introduces the Lightning Rod. In addition, Rods are one handed weapons (so they can be wielded with shields) and can be charged up, firing multiple elemental balls around Link. They aren't very good for melee combat through. There are also upgraded versions of the three rods, the Meteo, Blizzard, and Thunderstorm Rods, each with more firepower and durability and the ability to fire off three balls of energy naturally, which you had to use the throw button to do so with the regular ones.
• Magitek: While The Legend of Zelda is no stranger to the marriage of magic and technology, Breath of the Wild takes it to a level never before seen in the series:
  • The Guardian set of equipment utilizes Hard Light to form the blades of swords, spears, axes, and shields in different types of configurations, and the Ancient set based on the more-advanced Guardian set uses physical blades but ones that are emphasized to be quite sharper and stronger than weapons made of other materials. Both sets, and Guardians and ancient Sheikah technology as a whole, are also built of unknown materials that are non-metallic and non-combustible, and don't seem to require any sort of power source to function.
  • Guardians are robots who come in a variety of forms, and while robots are not new to the Zelda franchise, they're usually confined to a specific region and built by an unknown lost peoples, but Guardians can be found all-across Hyrule and are explicitly the creation of the Sheikah, who mass-produced them. They also created the Divine Beasts, Humongous Mecha designed to combat Calamity Ganon.
  • The Sheikah Slate is reminiscent of a smartphone or tablet; it has GPS and camera functions, can be used to activate portals to shrines in a manner reminiscent of NFC technology^note The very same technology used to power amiibos, in fact. and obtains magical runes by seemingly downloading them like apps inside said shrines.
  • Both Ancient Tech Labs have equipment that runs on Sheikah technology — Purah's Guidance Stone and Robbie's Ancient Oven, Cherry. Both are activated by carrying a blue flame from an Ancient Furnace and lighting the one at the Lab. It seems to be implied that all Sheikah tech uses this same power source.
• Make an Example of Them: This is standard procedure for the Yiga Clan against members who defect from them. They've already killed Dorian's wife for his defection, they're threatening to kill his daughters if he doesn't do their bidding again, and they're about to kill him anyway before Link intervenes.
• Male Gaze: One of the memories has Zelda on her hands and knees examining a flower, with her butt pointed right at the viewer. And when the angle changes to reveal Link is behind her, he's staring pretty blatantly right at her ass.
• Marathon Level: The Trials of the Sword, three special missions of increasing difficulty which reward the player with an upgraded Master Sword upon completion, require them to complete numerous floors in one sitting, and forcing them to start all over if they die.
• Marooned on an Island: The Eventide Island shrine quest. Link is stripped of his entire inventory, to scavenge for weapons and armor on the island in order to survive the many enemies found on the island and collect three large orbs to complete the trial.
• Matchmaker Quest:
  • Played straight with the Lover's Pond sidequest, and hilariously executed. Lover's Pond is the fabled area mentioned not only in Gerudo Town's Vai and Voe class, but also in the diary in Kakariko's armor shop. You can find it on Tuft Mountain, in the southeast area of the map, near Lurelin Village. The sidequest involves giving flowers.
  • There is a sidequest in Hateno Village, in which Link is able to help the stable hand, Manny, woo the village innkeeper. The trope is hilariously played with, as when you ask the innkeeper, Prima, what sort of gift she would like, she quickly lies and says she'd like 100 crickets. Talk to her again, and Link will find out that she actually has eyes for a different guy in the village, and that she is already aware—and put-off by—Manny's interest in her. The quest also appears to be a bit of a reference to the sidequest in Skyward Sword, in which Link attempts to help a Hopeless Suitor with his crush, even down to the character designs of the NPCs involved being similar.
  • The Zora girl Finley and the Hylian guy she had been writing love letters to. Link is able to follow Finley's letter down Zora River to its receiver, and encourage the guy to actually go and meet Finley in person.
• Matter Replicator: One of the ancient Sheikah's many super techs. The Remote Bomb rune can be used to create a limitless number of bombs (with a short cooldown in between), and the Master Cycle Zero is somehow converted into data and stored in the Sheikah Slate when not in use.
• Maybe Ever After: Zelda is explicitly stated to have been in love with Link this time, and there's even one flashback where she is implied to have an Aborted Declaration of Love of the If I Do Not Return variety. When they are reunited in the ending, however, they seem to be too preoccupied with their upcoming plans to rebuild Hyrule to be thinking about romance in the immediate future. That said, this could change when the sequel comes out.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Rupees. Most races simply use them as a medium of exchange, but the Great Fairies require a number of rupees to revive them. However, it's ambiguous whether the rupees actually do something or if it's simply a tithe. Additionally, they are dropped by glowing rabbit-spirits called Blupees when you shoot them, despite the fact that Money Spider is otherwise averted in this game and you normally need to sell things or complete sidequests to get money. One NPC wonders if this is where all rupees originate, but the status of that NPC as a child-like Korok makes it unclear whether or not this should be taken seriously.
• May–December Romance: Robbie and Jerrin. The former is a Long-Lived Sheikah (a tribe of humans capable of reaching 150 under normal circumstances) who is at least 120 when Link meets him in the present day, while his wife is a Hylian who is about 50 years younger than him. They're Happily Married and have a mixed-race son named Granté.
• Mayfly–December Friendship: Link was Childhood Friends with several Zoras (exact lifespan not stated, but it's at least 200). They're quite surprised to see him alive a century after his presumed death.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Mipha was the Zora princess and she fell in love with Link, whom she notes at one point looked grown-up faster than she did. She even wished to marry him. There's also a side quest where you can enforce the trope by getting a young Zora girl and a Hylian man together; said Zora girl is the daughter of one of Link's Childhood Friends named Kodah who was in a Love Triangle for his affections with Mipha, but Link's century-long slumber in the Shrine of Resurrection and Kodah finding a Second Love put an end to this dynamic.
• The Maze: The game features the Lost Woods as a tricky maze. Keeping in line with the more open-world design of this game, you can technically walk between any trees in any direction, but taking the wrong path will put you back at the entrance. There are also three "Lomei Labyrinth" areas that are homogeneous stone mazes; activating the local Sheikah Tower to get a map of that region will make navigating them a bit easier because the paths are open to the sky, but there are still hidden passages not shown on the map.
• Meaningful Rename: Ganon, the Big Bad of the whole Zelda series, is almost consistently referred to as "Calamity Ganon." Not "the calamity, Ganon," but "Calamity Ganon" as a whole proper noun. Previous incarnations of Ganon(dorf) were given fancy extra titles such as "Prince of Darkness," "Great King of Evil," and "Dark Lord," but this incarnation of Ganon is considered to be such a destructive entity that "Calamity" has come to be considered part of its proper name.
• Meat Moss: In various places such as Hyrule Castle and the Divine Beasts, one can see horrifying organic growth called Malice as a result of Calamity Ganon's corruption. Some of the growth has eyes and fanged orifices.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Guardians are Magitek robots built by the Sheikah to combat Calamity Ganon. Unfortunately, Ganon's Malice causes them to turn on Hyrule and wreck it, as well as mortally injure Link to the point where he has to rest at the Shrine of Resurrection for a 100 years while Zelda keeps Ganon contained at Hyrule Castle until Link has recovered. Guardians come in different makes and models, from the dimmunitive close-combatant Guardian Scouts to the standard hexapdeal laser-blasting Guardian Stalkers, up to the flying Guardian Skywatchers.
• Mechanical Abomination: The Blight Ganons are gruesome mixtures of Sheikah Magitek originally manufactured in the distant past and the gelatinous, vaguely flesh-like Malice that Calamity Ganon generates to spread its vile influence across Hyrule. Calamity Ganon itself is an especially large Cyborg made of this same mixture. Zelda had to let herself be Swallowed Whole by it to make it a Sealed Evil in a Duel for a century lest it bring about The End of the World as We Know It. When Link eventually defeats Calamity Ganon, the next form it takes, Dark Beast Ganon, is a machine-free amalgamation of Malice that is actually much weaker than its previous cybernetic form.
• Mechanical Horse: The Master Cycle Zero in the Champions' Ballad DLC resembles a charging unicorn. Appropriately, apples are one of the best fuels for it.
• Mechanical Monster: The Guardians and the Divine Beasts]]. The Guardians are massive Spider Tank machines capable of firing extremely strong lasers, while the Divine Beasts are four Humongous Mecha shaped like animals. While the Guardians and the Divine Beasts had been built to protect Hyrule, all of them were literally Hijacked by Ganon 100 years before the game takes place, and have since been a very high threat for the lives of everybody living in Hyrule.
• Medieval Stasis: The introductory cinematic explicitly states that this game takes place over 10,100 years after the last time Ganon attacked. Despite this time period encompassing most of modern human technological development, Hyrule is still a land of horseback knights, towns and castles built of wood and stone, etc. While the Sheikah had Magitek 10,000 years ago, they kept it a closely guarded secret that only they and the Royal Family understood, and it's ambiguous how advanced Hyrule as a whole was relative to the norm for the franchise. Regardless, by the events of the game Sheikah technology has become Lost Technology and only a handful of researchers employed by the Royal Family understand how to utilize it.
• Medicinal Cuisine: Enforced. Cooking and eating is the only way for Link to recover hearts as opposed to drinking health potions in previous games (although such potions are one of the food items you can cook). Depending on the ingredients, and to some extent how Link combines them with each other when cooking, Link can cook up a wide variety of platters with an equal variety of effects that benefit his health. Some of the effects include increased resistance to cold or hot temperatures, while others may only recover a few hearts or completely restore Link to full health and add on several more hearts.
• Memorial Statue: The Zoras and Gorons erected monuments of their respective Champions in the hundred years since their deaths during the Calamity, both placed in such a location that are always visible within the city limits. The Zoras placed an ornate statue of Mipha within the center of Zora's Domain, while the Gorons carved Daruk's likeness in the northern cliff side overlooking Goron City. Seeing them is what triggers Link's memories for the Champions.
• Memory-Restoring Melody: At the end of the Champion's Ballad, Kass's completed song causes Link to remember the day of the Champions's royal ceremony.
• Memory Trigger: Link is an Amnesiac Hero as a side effect of spending a century in the Shrine of Resurrection. He can remember more about Princess Zelda and the Champions by seeing objects and places he associates with memories of them. For example, having Revali's Landing pointed out to him gets him to remember a meeting he had with Revali there, while seeing Riju wearing the Thunder Helm gets him to remember Urbosa when the helm belonged to her.
• Mercy Invincibility: Played with. Being hit hard enough to ragdoll will make Link invulnerable to further attacks. It will not make him immune to gravel rash, slamming into rocks, or tumbling off a cliff.
• Message in a Bottle: It is a tradition among the Zora to drop a message in a barrel from the Bank of Wishes in hopes that their wishes will come true. Link can help one Zora girl by following the barrel downstream and talking to the Hylian guy she has been sending love letters to in it.
• Metal Detector Puzzle: You can use Magnesis to spot buried treasure chests, as all Magnesis-susceptible items glow when looking for a target for Magnesis or Stasis. When you get there, simply aim at the ground and yank away. This also has the added effect of blowing the cover of Treasure Octoroks, as since the chest is part of their body, it won't glow when you scan it with Magnesis or Stasis.
• Metal Slime:
  • Blupees, creatures that resemble glowing blue rabbits. If you manage to shoot them with an arrow before they run away and disappear they'll give you a random amount of rupees — in a game where rupees almost never drop from enemies. However, they're also rare — individual blupees spawn only in out-of-the-way, unmarked forest areas — and elusive; they startle much more easily than other animals and will quickly flee if startled, vanishing in a puff of magic a few seconds afterwards, and only respawning with the next Blood Moon.
  • Bears are very rarely encountered in the game; they are fixed spawns in a few very remote areas and extremely rare random spawns in most other forested areas. They also take a lot of punishment unless they're shot in the head with an arrow and can deal heavy damage if they maul Link. Successfully killing a bear nets Link a generous amount of Prime and Gourmet Meat with an occasional Courser Bee Honey or Hearty Salmon thrown in.
• Metaphorically True: Although the Climbing Set makes you more efficient at climbing walls and vertical surfaces with its no-slip gloves and shoes, they will still slip in rainy weather. It does, however, appear that the average amount of climbing steps between slips increases (from 3-5 to about 5-8 with the full set).
• Militaries Are Useless: While the Hyrulean Army gets utterly annihilated in the backstory to an even greater extent than usual, the set-up takes pains to justify it this time around. The main culprits behind the total bloodbath were the Ganon-possessed Guardians, an army of powerful Magitek robots that the Kingdom of Hyrule had originally dug up for the express purpose of fighting against Ganon. Not only were the soldiers woefully outgunned, they hadn't anticipated their own weapons being used against them. We never get to see whether or not the army was truly useless as usual under normal circumstances, but it's clear the odds were heavily stacked against them this time, and compared with previous games NPCs are far more likely to praise the strength and bravery of those doomed soldiers.
• Minecart Madness: A few minecarts show up in various places, particularly in the Eldin region. When placed on a track and powered with a bomb (or kinetically charged with the Stasis rune), they can be ridden.
• Mini-Boss: The Guardian Scouts fought in the Shrines based on the Test of Strength. The test comes in three difficulty levels (Minor, Modest and Major), each of which will determine the strength and resistance of the Guardian Scout designated to fight Link. They respawn after a Blood Moon, allowing Link to farm Ancient Weapons easily.
• Mini-Dungeon: The 120 Shrines scattered across all of Hyrule. They feature no more than a handful of puzzles or just a combat encounter against a small Guardian. Some don't even feature those, as they require completion of puzzles or other challenges on the overworld. The DLC The Champions' Ballad add 16 more, raising the total to 136. There is also the Yiga Clan Hideout, required for the Vah Naboris storyline, a stealth-centric area that ends with a miniboss.
• Miserable Massage: Happens off-screen, but there's a special treatment called a bed and massage at Rollin' Inn in Goron City. When you choose it, a Goron named Tray leads Link to the bed to have another Goron named Volcon massage him. As the screen goes black, we can hear Volcon give Link a painful massage and Link screaming in pain. It gives Link three extra hearts and a bit of Stamina wheel, however.
• Misplaced Vegetation: Acorns are found at the bases of fruit trees. While this is strange in and of itself, the game also puts them near trees that grow in the tropical regions, such as Palm Fruit and Mighty Banana, where no oak-like trees grow at all. Possibly A Korok Did It.
• Missing Mom:
  • An NPC Zora child in Zora's Domain is depressed that his mother hasn't returned from her errand. The child's father is worried that Vah Ruta's constant rainstorm caused the mother to be washed downstream and fears the worst. She's okay- you can find her in Lake Hylia alive and well as she catches fish. When you tell her that her husband and son are worried about her, she freaks out over completely forgetting about them and rushes home right away.
  • Koko and Cottla in Kakariko Village talk about their mom being gone in a vague way that gradually makes it apparent that something happened to her. In fact, she was murdered by the Yiga clan because Dorian, her husband, defected from them and refused to continue spying for them.
• Missing Secret: There are a few of these thanks to its open nature.
  • After completing every Shrine and slaying every Blight Ganon, you'll be three upgrades short of maxing both Hearts and Stamina. How do you fill up those last three slots? You can't, because then the food items that give you temporary extra hearts/stamina would be rendered worthless. The Downloadable Content has enough new Shrines for one more upgrade, still leaving you two short.
  • You can customize your horse's saddle and bridle at any stable, and one of the monstrous item sets you can get from creepy Kilton are the Monster Saddle and the Monster Bridle. All of Kilton's items involve and are based around the various enemies and monsters in the game, and these two items mention that he made them with a "monstrous" horse in mind. Two of the rarest horses in the game, which you can only tame temporarily and can't register at stables, are the Lord of the Mountain and the skeletal Stalhorse, which are both pretty monstrous. So hey, maybe the Monster gear will let you keep them forever? Nope! Only your regular horses can wear the armour and it's just for show with no actual effects.
• Mission Control: Princess Zelda is a downplayed example. She contacts Link telepathically when he wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection and points him in the basic direction of his quest while he's still on the Great Plateau. After that, though, she only contacts him to let him know when he's accomplished a major task (freeing all the Divine Beasts, recovering all his memories) or to warn him when a Blood Moon is rising. The spirits of the Champions are more straightforward examples in the dungeons, telling him what to do to free the Divine Beasts and giving him advice during the Blight Ganon fights. And Zelda ultimately tells Link what to do in the final battle against Dark Beast Ganon, though she's also actively helping in the fight herself.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: 10,000 years before the events of the game, the Sheikah tribe built a huge army of Magitek machines in order to defend Hyrule from Calamity Ganon. This worked out, but the power of said machines made the other inhabitants of Hyrule fearful, and the Sheikah were banished from the kingdom lest they become a threat. While some abandoned their technology in order to be readmitted back into mainstream society, others, who came to be known as the Yiga Clan, decided to take revenge against Hyrule by swearing their allegiance to Ganon and eliminating any who opposed the Demon King.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Blupees have rabbit bodies, owl faces, and moth antennae, and their animations are occasionally very catlike. The Lord of the Mountain, their apparent leader, looks like a horse but with no muzzle, and two of those owl faces replacing the horse's eyes, with the moth antennae on top.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Octoroks can dig through the dirt while staying under the plants as they stalk Link.
• Moby Schtick: One of the DLC trials involves hunting down a unique Molduga — a species of giant, desert-dwelling sand whales — known as the Molduking, which attacks by aggressively swimming towards anything in its territory and breaching (like all moldugas do), and which is distinguished by its extreme resilience, a number of lances and weapons stuck in its hide from previous attempts to kill it, and a white coloration as opposed to the usual dark brown.
• Money for Nothing: Breath of the Wild is relatively non-linear for a Zelda game, and doesn't require you to spend any money to beat it. All items of any practical use (mainly arrows and food/potion ingredients) can also be collected for free out in the overworld; the convenience of buying them, and the amount of money you can spend doing this, is limited by the extremely small quantity of items each store carries. The weapons and shields you must constantly replace cannot be bought anywhere. Very few enemies drop money, but gems can be collected from ore deposits found all over the place and from a few types of monsters; selling these will earn you tons of money. The main money-sinks are optional, although some of these are very useful—most infamously the Great Fairies, who you must bribe with rapidly-increasing amounts of cash (100 Rupees for the first, ten thousand for the last) to max out their armor-upgrading abilities. Ancient weapons and armor cost thousands of Rupees in addition to Guardian parts; the armor is ridiculously effective when fully upgraded, although the best offensive outfit—Barbarian armor—cannot be purchased.
• Money Sink: There are several ways of spending vast sums of rupees that are not at all necessary to a full enjoyment of the game. Furnishing your house for 1400 (on top of the 3,000 to buy it in the first place) is worthwhile only for players who enjoy interior decorating and/or want a free alternative to inns, while unlocking all four Great Fairy Fountains gets very pricey, the last costing a whopping 10,000 rupees, when any fairy boosts beyond the first two are of relatively lesser benefit. There's also the Horse God fountain (1,000 rp to unlock, additional 1,000 per use) who is only valuable if a particularly beloved horse dies. Finally, there are several armor sets that can be quite pricey, and it's seldom necessary to buy the whole set. Adding in the ability to dye clothes means there's incentive to buy multiple copies of the same set at further cost (though the clothing inventory, while generous, can hit a limit, and it can't be expanded by Hestu).
• Money Spider: Averted for the first time in the series, as monsters do not inexplicably drop Rupees when defeated, only weapons and body parts (which can be sold for rupees, if you wish). The lone exception are the Yiga Clan members, who are humans, and thus could reasonably be expected to be carrying some money with them. Downplayed in the case of Silver and Gold monsters, who do drop gemstones; not money exactly, but still a valuable object that they have no actual need for.
• Mono no Aware: Hyrule has become more fragile and lost many of its past glories, but it is still beautiful and ultimately life goes on as it always has.
• Monster Compendium: The Hyrule Compendium feature, a Lore Codex that also covers weapons, flora, fauna and treasures in addition to monsters. Each entry is filled in by photographing the subject with the Sheikah Slate's Camera rune, with the photos you took becoming the icons in the Compendium. They can be replaced by later pictures as long as the subject registers on camera. If you want guaranteed clear photos or have missed a chance to take a picture of something — the game's Level Scaling means that weak monsters are gradually replaced by stronger variants, removing the ability to photograph them — photos can also be purchased from Symin in the tech lab where you get the Camera feature. However, each regular photo costs 100 Rupees while photos of bosses cost 500 Rupees each.
• Monster in the Ice: Icy mountain areas contain large chunks of ice scattered about the landscape, often blocking off passages and roads unless Link melts them with fire arrows or fire-infused weapons. However, many of them also contain monsters frozen within them, visible as dim outlines from the outside, and if the block holding them is melted through they will break free and attack.
• Monster-Shaped Mountain: One of the shrines is buried beneath a snowfield which, if viewed from the right mountaintop, resembles a bird in flight.
• Mook Debut Cutscene: There's a cutscene to introduce one of the decrepit, stationary Guardians blocking one of the routes to a Shrine. It's only after you complete the Great Plateau section that you find out about their significance to the plot. Also, the Zora's Domain section tasks you with retrieving Shock Arrows used by a Lynel, who gets an introductory cutscene (though you can encounter other Lynels before this point).
• Mook Maker: There are some malice pools that have clashing maws that periodically spit out floating stal heads.
• Mooks Ate My Equipment: Subverted. Rock Octoroks inhale a bunch of debris, then compress it into a giant flaming boulder to spit at you. They also consume any weapons left on the ground when they inhale, and, after chewing them up a bit, hurl them back at you at high speed. However, when a Rusty weapon is inhaled, pink gas will be emitted from the Rock Octorok and it spits out your weapon, but cleaned and upgraded to either Soldier, Knight or Royal rank (though what you actually get is a crapshoot).
• Mook-Themed Level: The Yiga Clan Hideout, a Mini-Dungeon that is part of a Stealth-Based Mission where Link must sneak past several rooms patrolled by powerful Yiga soldiers — the only enemies in this area — by dropping bananas on the floor to lure them out of their patrol routes so that he can move past them or try and brute-force the Yiga Clan, which includes many Blademasters which can One-Hit Kill Link (with certain attacks) in order to eventually comes face-to-face with Master Kohga, the leader of the Yiga Clan and the Hideout's boss. The Champions' Ballad DLC requires Link to revisit the Hideout to look for a luminous orb that is key to unlock a Shrine, and has to be entered from what was originally the exit due to the main entrance being now locked.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: "The Eighth Heroine" sidequest requires Link to find a statue of the titular heroine, with the only hint given that someone in Gerudo Town might know about her. One would assume it would be the librarian who tells Link about the seven other heroines, but she doesn’t even interact with the quest — her dialogue stays the same as ever. Instead Link finds the Eighth Heroine's location by... feeding the chief's pet seal, who turns out to be an oracle and can at random tell Link the rough location of the statue or just give him pun-heavy advice, either of which it only gives if fed a certain type of fruit (all other fruits randomly pull from a different pool of advice). Also it's the only talking animal in the game (in seal-speak; it requires a human translator), so most players wouldn't even be aware that asking an animal was a possibility.
• Mordor: As a combination of being at the epicenter of the cataclysm that ended Hyrule and a century of being exposed directly to Ganon's influence, the area around Hyrule Castle — most notably the ruins of the ancient capital — is a field of barren black soil, burnt tree stumps and the shattered ruins of buildings, all covered in puddles of Malice and stalked by a large number of Guardians.
• More Diverse Sequel: The game features Hylians of multiple skin tones and ethnicities where all of them had previously been white. It's justified for two reasons: Your adventure now takes place all across the greater part of the continent rather than being mostly confined to the (vaguely European-analogous) kingdom of Hyrule and its immediate surroundings, and most of civilization being wrecked a hundred years before scattered the population and left them living a nomadic, foraging existence for many years (with many still doing so). Even then, the different Hylian cultures are still largely clustered by region, with the classic "white" Hylians found mostly to the north while the darker-skinned peoples mainly live in the warmer tropical climate in the south.
• Mounted Combat: Link can fight and shoot on horseback. There are some enemies who also do this. A Mounted Archery Camp provides a minigame as training for such scenarios, though for most players, the task is most likely miles harder than shooting Bokoblin riders off their horses. This skill also comes in handy during the final boss.
• Moving the Goalposts: At the very beginning, the Old Man offers to let you have his paraglider if you'll get something out of a nearby shrine for him. After you do, he decides that nope, you have to go through all the other three shrines on the Plateau before you get it.
  Old Man: I said "treasure," but I never said there would only be one treasure.
• Mr. Fanservice:
  • Link is a Long-Haired Pretty Boy who wears a ponytail and has a softer, more feminine looking face than usual. He starts the game shirtless and you can technically play the game with him only wearing boxers if you want (though it would be challenging). At E3 2016 many jokes were made by Nintendo's Treehouse crew about how attractive Link is (especially shirtless). He's a huge Chick Magnet in-game as well.
  • There's also Prince Sidon, who is a Zora that doesn't wear any form of clothing other than a belt and other accessories, is quite muscular, and is darn tall. Whenever Sidon appears, you'll be seeing his built body quite often.
• Mugging the Monster: The Gerudo traveler Lukan deliberately takes advantage of this trope. She is a soldier from Gerudo Town wandering the desert region disguised as a common merchant in order to fool the Yiga Clan into thinking she will be an easy target for them.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Calamity Ganon has nearly a dozen appendages, each armed with unique weaponry.
• Multi-Mook Melee: As part of the Master Trials DLC, Link can accept the Trial of the Sword as soon as he pulls the Master Sword out of its pedestal. This challenge takes place within the Sword Monk's Shrine, and revolves around defeating all enemies in each floor. Some of the floors have either an overworld boss or a very powerful lone enemy instead.
• Multinational Team: The Champions meant to lead the charge against Ganon included representatives from each major race in Hyrule: Zelda and Link are Hylians, Mipha was Zora, Daruk was Goron, Revali was Rito, and Urbosa was Gerudo. The only races not represented are the Sheikah and the Koroks (although the Sheikah provided all the technology used in the battle, while it's hard to imagine the Koroks being capable of physical combat).
• Multi-Platform: The game was taking too much time in development than expected, and since the Wii U was not selling well anyway, the decision was made to delay the game even further and simultaneously release it on their next platform, the Nintendo Switch. This left the Wii U in the position of being the only Nintendo home console without a unique Zelda game of its own, since its only other Zelda games were remastered ports of the two GameCube games (Wind Waker and Twilight Princess).
• Multiple Endings: Downplayed. There is one basic ending that occurs regardless of what you've done, and then additionally there is a Stinger after the credits that only plays if you've completed the "Captured Memories" quest.
• Multishot: Some bows shoot multiple arrows at once, while only costing one arrow from your inventory. They're very effective against Guardians.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Some of the weapons have secondary uses depending on their element or characteristics. For example, a Flaming Sword can be used to warm yourself, melt ice, and so on. Likewise, the effective indestructability of the Master Sword means it can be used for mundane tasks such as cutting down trees or splitting open mineral deposits without spending an inventory slot on a dedicated tool or wasting the durability of your other weapons.
  • Urbosa's Fury is activated by a charged attack and has a glowing holographic dome that shows what areas it's going to affect as long as you're charging up. This makes it useful for traversing the Thyphlo Ruins when used with a two-handed weapon, as the dome shows the silhouettes of the scenery and lights up the areas it passes, allowing you to use them as a point of reference, and the two-handed weapon charged attack allows you to move freely while swinging it around.
  • The bomb runes' short cooldown (plus the fact that you get two - a round one that can roll and a square one that can't) makes them excellent to use in many cases where you might otherwise be tempted to use up a weapon with limited durability, and you get them well before you have access to the Master Sword (at best, you have to clear 40 shrines to get the sword, while the game forces the player to get the bombs no later than the third shrine). Want to harvest some fruit, but you don't want to climb the tree or waste arrows trying to knock the fruit down? Blow up the tree and drop all the fruit at once. Want to turn the resulting fallen tree into usable wood? Bomb it, and it'll instantly become several bundled piles of wood. Want to get some gems out of ore but don't have a hammer? Well, there's a reason miners use dynamite, after all. Need a distraction? Throw or set a bomb in one area, then detonate it when you have sufficient distance. While there are practical limits to how much use you can get out of bombs (explosions can throw resulting materials far away, particularly near cliffs, and Link can injure himself if he's too close to the explosion, although that also has a practical use), they've got a remarkable range of uses beyond their more obvious applications in clearing away obstacles. Besides, more insane mobility glitches have been found with Bombs than with any other item.
• Musical Nod:
  • The ambient background music that plays in the ruins of the Temple of Time is a very slowed-down rendition of said temple's theme in Ocarina of Time.
  • When Link sees the Calamity Ganon for the first time and Zelda speaks to him about how he must hurry, a rendition of Zelda's Lullaby is playing in the background.
  • The stable theme can be played in counterpoint with "Epona's Song". It becomes much more obvious when Kass the wandering bard is in the area and strikes up a Counterpoint Duet with his accordion.
  • In a flashback scene, Fi's theme from Skyward Sword plays when the Master Sword tells Zelda how to save Link once he's mortally wounded.
  • Death Mountain's ambient piano theme is the same theme from the final dungeon all the way back in the original game. In here, it's a bit more subdued overworld exploration music instead of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon music.
  • Goron City has a jazzy version of their usual theme that first appeared in Ocarina.
  • Zora's Domain has a much quieter version of the theme that appeared in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Twilight Princess. Its guitar melody is absent, but it has the same stanza flow so you can still hear it in your head.
  • Rito Village uses a more subdued variation of the Dragon Roost Island melody, with the second stanza in a different and major key.
  • The Gerudo Valley theme makes a reappearance as the background for Gerudo City. It also shares phrases from a later version of the area.
  • The song that plays when you get the Master Sword is a remix of the theme used in A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.
  • Hyrule Castle's exterior music contains portions of the main Zelda theme. Meanwhile, the interior BGM is a medley of the series' usual Hyrule Castle theme, Ganon's Theme, the Ballad of the Windfish from Link's Awakening, the prologue music from A Link to the Past, and a chilling remix of Zelda's Lullaby.
  • Hestu's usual maraca riff is a sped-up Manbo's Mambo.
  • The theme that plays in the Shrines is a remix of the dungeon music from the first game.
  • The musical sting that plays when you successfully cook a good meal is the same one that plays in Skyward Sword when Pumm fixes up a batch of pumpkin soup for Levias.
  • An interesting visual example is that inside the Throne Room of Hyrule Castle, there's a circular ornament broken into three equal pieces, each consisting of 4 lines and 6 dots. This ornament is fashioned like the musical notation for Zelda's Lullaby, as seen in Ocarina of Time.
  • The Great Fairy Fountains' theme is nearly identical to the traditional Great Fairy Fountain used since A Link to the Past, this time led with piano, and in 3/4 time instead of 4/4.
• Musical Spoiler: The piano melody that plays when you meet the Old Man sounds suspiciously similar to the opening fanfare of the traditional Hyrule Castle theme. Because the Old Man is actually the spirit of King Rhoam Bosphoromus Hyrule.
• Musical Theme Naming: The names for the royal family of the Zora are derived from the Japanese version of solfège: Do-Re (Dorephan), Mi-Fa (Mipha), So-Ra (Zora), Shi-Do (Shido/Sidon).
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Enemy equipment will never ever break, but will start to wear down the moment you swipe it for yourself and use it. There's an inversion to the trope when it comes to metal weapons and thunderstorms; enemies using metal weapons in thunderstorms can and will be struck by lighting like Link does if he uses metal weapons.
• Mythology Gag: A whole bunch, as this was going to be the 30th anniversary game before it was delayed. As a result, it gets its own page.