Daily Debate: Do You Prefer A Link Between Worlds Or Breath of the Wild’s Approach To Key Items?
Posted on March 05 2023 by Sean Gadus
One of the most interesting innovations in the Zelda series is how players acquire the items they use throughout a game. For years, the method of acquiring items remained relatively unchanged in Zelda games. Players acquired items at the midpoints of dungeons, often after solving a puzzle or defeating an enemy. This item would then help the player progress through the rest of the dungeon. In 2013, Nintendo made a huge tweak to the Zelda formula in A Link Between Worlds by introducing Ravio’s Shop. Instead of acquiring most of the key items in dungeons, the player could rent or buy many items from the shop. This change helped pave the way for Breath of the Wild, which also strayed from the series’ traditions about items. Instead of traditional dungeon items, the player had access to set of physics abilities called Runes, which could be used for many different purposes.
With this in mind, which change to the Zelda item formula do you prefer: Ravio’s Shop from A Link Between Worlds or the Runes from Breath of the Wild?
Overall, these two systems play a big role in defining how each game plays, so looking at how they help shape the structure and dungeons of each game is useful. In A Link Between Worlds, Ravio’s Shop allows the player to complete seven of the game’s dungeons (the dungeons after Hyrule Castle but before Lorule Castle) in any order. The shop system also puts an emphasis on Rupees because players use the currency to rent and eventually buy items, and it can take a lot of work to collect enough Rupees to purchase all of the items. In Breath of the Wild, Runes make it possible to complete the different Shrines and Divine Beasts in any order. This gives the player an impressive amount of freedom during exploration. One of the only potential downsides of the Runes system in Breath of the Wild is that since the players gets most of the Runes at the start of the game, the structure of dungeons has to change drastically. As such, there is no longer a reward at the midpoint of a dungeon.
What do you think? Do you prefer the Ravio’s Shop in A Link Between Worlds or Runes in Breath of the Wild? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Sean Gadus is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. His first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time, and he loves all of the 3D Zelda games from 1998-2011. The final battle of Tears of the Kingdom is one of his favorite final battles in the entire series. He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
