Author: Leslie Jacobson

Allow me to start by saying that I consider myself a veteran fan of the Zelda series. My journey started with Ocarina of Time and I’ve been able to see the series grow over more than 20 years. When “Breath of the Wild 2” was in production, many veteran fans wanted more of what they considered “traditional” elements of the series (themed puzzle-box dungeons, the Triforce back in the story, an actual difficult fight with Ganon/Ganondorf, differentiated bosses and more of a linear…

Earlier this month, composer Marcus Hedges announced his orchestral tribute to Twilight Princess titled Hyrule in Half-Light. The album is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. Hedges does an excellent job of both provoking nostalgia with familiar themes and making the tracks sound new and fresh. Alternate arrangements of main melodies, different instrumentation, and added vocals provide plenty of variety. Each song feels new enough that even someone who has listened to the Twilight Princess soundtrack since it…

The version of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom throws a huge wrench in the established timeline presented in 2012’s Hyrule Historia.  Major geographical features have names from numerous games across multiple timelines. Players can find armor sets and weapons from nearly every mainline Zelda series game even though those items should not be in the same timeline. Perhaps one of the oddest examples of how the newest version of Hyrule eschews the timeline is…

When listening to Breath of the Wild‘s soundtrack, words like “rock” and “metal” may not immediately spring to mind. Perhaps that is what makes the recently released Return to the Wild so refreshing. Musician and arranger Ro Panuganti takes fan-favorite melodies and themes from all over Hyrule and somehow captures both the chill nature of some of the originals and the energetic feel of progressive rock. Tracks that were already high-energy, such as the Hinox and Molduga battle music, dial it…

Wow. I cannot believe 20 years have passed since The Wind Waker‘s release. What has become a beloved entry in the Zelda series certainly did not start off that way. The cartoonish graphics set a deep divide in the fandom at the time. In order to understand some of the roots of the controversy, allow me to give a brief history of The Wind Waker‘s development from a then-casual fan’s perspective. For me, the hype leading up to The Wind…

In the months leading up to the release of Tears of the Kingdom, we saw new artwork and symbols that made us think, “I wonder what that is?” We have the Zonai lettering found on Zonai gadgets and in Shrines. There’s the not-quite-Ouroboros logo for Tears of the Kingdom with the dragons circling each other. The symbol pictured at the top caught my eye right away. It was first revealed when Nintendo announced the Tears of the Kingdom edition of…

Update: Tabletop RPG-drinking game hybrid Drinking Quest: Belch of the Wild  has re-launched on Kickstarter! You can check it out for yourself here. As of the time of writing, the project has raised over 200% of its goal and has a variety of stretch goals already unlocked. Some of the stretch goals include stickers of characters from previous Drinking Quest games, extra heroes and sidekicks added to the game, and upgrades to the quality of the cards themselves. To get…

As you’ve spent a little over two months exploring Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom and finding Shrines along the way, you’ve no doubt come across a particular category of Shrine: Rauru’s Blessing. These Shrines are very simple. You enter, you get the title, you proceed to the treasure chest, and you move on to the end of the Shrine for the Light of Blessing. There is no other puzzle or task to perform. Most of these Shrines require you…

So far, I think most people would agree that Tears of the Kingdom is an enjoyable experience, filled with some fun things to do and plenty of surprises.  I was surprised to see the return of Memories as a way of building background information.  When I was playing, I watched the first couple of Memories out of order, but then I realized there was a certain order, and continued to watch them sequentially as the game hints at the order…

Even though seventeen years have passed since the original release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, cosplayers still draw inspiration from the incredibly detailed character art. French costume designer and cosplayer Corneline recently won two awards at the French Cosplay Cup for her cosplay of Twilight Princess Zelda. She won the Public Prize, which was voted on by the audience, as well as the Cosmazing x EICAR Special Performance Award, with praise for her incredible staging around The Legend…