Daily Debate: Do You Prefer the Captured Memories In Breath of the Wild or the Dragon’s Tears In Tears of the Kingdom?
Posted on April 08 2024 by Sean Gadus
The narratives of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have a lot of similarities. In both games, Link awakens after a tremendous defeat to a world that has changed in his absence. Additionally, both games utilize memory or flashback cutscenes in order to fill in the backstories for Link, Zelda, and other key characters. Breath of the Wild requires the player to match different locations across the world with a picture from the Sheikah Slate. These memories and locations from the Sheikah Slate all relate to Link and Zelda’s experiences before the Calamity. In Tears of the Kingdom, Link must find a specific location in different massive geoglyphs in order to trigger a cutscene that relates to Zelda’s experiences in the distant past.
When looking at these two very similar systems for filling in backstory, do you prefer the Captured Memories in Breath of the Wild or the Dragon’s Tears in Tears of the Kingdom?
Overall, I prefer the Captured Memories in Breath of the Wild to the Dragon’s Tears in Tears of the Kingdom. First, the process of matching the images in the Sheikah Slate to the in-game locations is more interesting than searching for the geoglyphs. So much of Breath of the Wild is about exploring the world, and the memory system rewards inquisitive and curious players who know the game world well. In Tears of the Kingdom, finding the different geoglyphs is an easy process that does not require much exploration, especially because they can be seen from The Sky. Additionally, the process of identifying the correct location in the geoglyphs (in order to activate the cutscenes) can be a frustrating process. In my first playthrough, I spent a lot of time stumbling around the geoglyphs trying to figure out what part of geoglyph I had not checked yet. Additionally, some players had the frustrating experience of going to a geoglyph with one of the later memories (like Sonia being murdered by Ganondorf), and some players felt like this mistake or accident spoiled the story for them.
What do you think? Do you prefer the Captured Memories in Breath of the Wild or the Dragon’s Tears in Tears of the Kingdom? Let us know your 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. He is currently playing Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for the first time (what an amazing game!). He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
