Daily Debate: How Do You Feel About The Way The Great Fairy Fountains Are Implemented In Tears of the Kingdom?
Posted on June 17 2023 by Sean Gadus
Spoiler Warning: This article contains minor spoilers and the comments section might contain spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom.
Great Fairies have been a staple of The Legend of Zelda series since A Link To The Past. These benevolent beings function differently from game to game. Some Great Fairies upgrades Link’s items while other Great Faeries provide Link with useful new items. In Tears of the Kingdom, the four Great Fairies (Cotera, Kaysa, Mija and Tera) have returned from Breath of the Wild with the same functions, but unlocking the Great Fairies is a very different process. In Breath of the Wild, the Great Fairies need to be given an offering of rupees to emerge from their flower buds. The Great Fairies cost 100 Rupees, 500 rupees, 1,000 rupees, and finally 10,000 rupees to unlock. In Tears of the Kingdom, the four Great Fairies have their own dedicated side quests that must be completed before they can be unlocked. Each Great Fairy must be serenaded with music before they will emerge from their flower buds. Link must perform a side quest to get the required musicians to each flower bud.
With this in mind, how do you feel about the way that Great Fairy Fountains are implemented in Tears of the Kingdom in commparison to Breath of the Wild?
Overall, I did not enjoy the way the Great Fairies were implemented in Tears of the Kingdom as much as how they implemented in Breath of the Wild. One of the nice things about Breath of the Wild‘s implementation of the Great Fairies is that it is easy to get 100, 500, or even 1,000 rupees by collecting and selling materials and items from across the world. Once the player finds the flower buds in Breath of the Wild, the Great Fairies are fairly easy to unlock. In Tears of the Kingdom, finding the flower buds are only part of the process of unlocking the Great Fairies. It will likely take the player longer to unlock the Great Fairies in Tears of the Kingdom due to the side quests related to each Great Fairy. Locking the armor upgrades behind side quests could frustrating to some player who want to focus on completing the main quest or who might not enjoy the musician side quests.
How do you feel about the way The Great Fairy Fountains are implemented in Tears of the Kingdom? 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.
