Daily Debate: Do You Like to Solve Zelda Puzzles on Your Own or Consult a Guide?
Posted on February 28 2022 by Michaela El-Ters
A core principle of the Zelda experience is the intuitive combat, epic story, and challenging puzzles that force you to use every tool at your disposal and think outside the box. When I played Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword for the first time, I made it a goal of mine to solve as many puzzles as I could without using a guide. I would get home from school and, after finishing my homework, would sink so many hours into finding solving each puzzle in the dungeons, or figure out how to beat bosses by relying on my own intuition to get me through it. As a result, video games would usually take me 4-5 months to beat at a time. It was a ton of fun!
The one thing I missed about being young is having all that time to play video games without having to worry about things like working, cooking, or shopping. Adulting can be pretty lame sometimes, and it surprisingly sucks a lot of time from being able to play video games. By the time I get off work, do a workout, and prepare dinner, I’m lucky if I have a couple of hours to play any games, and that’s if I push it and stay up pretty late. Because of that, if I can’t solve a puzzle in Link’s Awakening reasonably quickly, I’ve started using guides to solve them. I still like to make the effort to solve them on my own if I can, but these days, I try to be a little more forgiving to myself. What do you think? Do you prefer to solve Zelda puzzles on your own, or consult a guide if you need to? Let us know in the comments!
Michaela El-Ters is a Senior Editor for Zelda Dungeon. She is also an Senior Writer for Boss Rush Network, and writes blogs and streams games on Objection Network. Her favorite Zelda game changes with the seasons, but the series as a whole is near and dear to her heart.
