Tingle Bottles are Pretty Much the Best Thing Ever

It took quite a while, but Nintendo has finally entered the world of online gaming. But even though it has been over a year since the Wii U made its entrance, Nintendo still is just taking first steps into the wonderful world of internet-based hardware. And, as we all know, they can be a bit unconventional when it comes to just about everything. Naturally, the company took an odd approach to online gaming.

Arriving to the scene is

Wind Waker HD’s “Tingle Bottles.” Taking a tip from the online mechanics from Dark Souls, Tingle Bottles allow you to enclose a message or drawing along with a picture and send it off for fellow adventurers to discover. It’s a relatively simple concept that plays it safe by not drastically changing the base game. It is also, in my opinion, the greatest thing since Kirby Air Ride and a sign that the future of online gaming for Nintendo could potentially be a great one.

The beautiful thing about Tingle Bottles is how much substance comes from a tiny mechanic.

Wind Waker has always had one of the most fully-realized worlds in the Zelda franchise, and Tingle Bottles make it even better. Sailing between islands can be an arduous task for some, which is why Nintendo has taken extensive efforts to permeate the travel with bursts of excitement. Submarines, guard towers, and sharks litter the seas in order to keep you entertained between travels. Personally, I think all of these work very well, but none of them work quite as well as Tingle Bottles.

With Tingle Bottles, the ocean suddenly transforms into a game of

Where’s Waldo as you scan the waves for loose messages. I remember my brother watching the game while excitedly pointing out the bottles so I could sweep them up with my ship. It was borderline addictive collecting these seemingly pointless objects, but we did anyway.

Why? Because they’re hilarious. Just a few minutes of exploring the Hylian seas results in your GamePad becoming a Facebook feed of some of the most ridiculous messages followed by a selfie attached to every single one of them. At one point you’ll get a poorly written message asking about “wat the pirat cod is,” and just about ten seconds later you’ll uncover a bottle containing a well-drawn (or horribly illegible) illustration of Link burning in lava. Almost every bottle you find is a surprise, and if it isn’t (like when people bluntly write “this gaem is awsome”), there’s always a new one waiting around the corner.

And like most online mechanics, a large portion of the community has utilized the system to create a really interesting dynamic to the game. Scattered between the mounds of weird bottles are messages that are tad more helpful. Beyond several posts providing hints pertaining to where you can find upgrades and other secrets, Tingle Bottles have unified the community all under one specific quest: completing the Nintendo gallery.

The Nintendo gallery is one of the largest sidequests in the

Zelda universe. The objective is to take a (debatably) crystal-clear picture of every character model in the game. At first, this task can seem very daunting, especially if you don’t start the quest early. Plenty of the characters (including bosses) are only available for a photo shoot once in the game, which means missing the chance to get a snapshot forces you to wait until a second playthrough of the game to get another shot. It was a quest not for the faint of heart, and it seemed like the game took efforts to make your task pointlessly more difficult than it should have been. Of course, that was what it was like in the original Wind Waker. In the HD version, Nintendo alleviated some of these difficulties by allowing you to hold more pictures at a time. The biggest and most important change, however, comes from the Community and how they have utilized Tingle Bottles.

No matter what the picture is in the Tingle Bottle, you can save it to your own pictobox. Now, I’m sure the initial intentions behind this feature were so you could save your favorite selfies, but it has a much more practical use: you can save other people’s photos for your Nintendo gallery. This small detail has miraculously sparked a large series of chainmail within the

Zelda community. But this, luckily, is the good kind of chainmail. This chainmail, my friends, gets you super sweet Nintendo gallery models without having to play the game twice.

Suddenly, the ocean becomes one giant cheat sheet. Tingle Bottles are composed of messages that say “For the Nintendo Gallery! Pass it on!” and contain the photos someone might have permanently missed during their first playthrough. Some might call it a cheap way to finish the quest, but in reality it’s a really interesting experiment. When given the chance, would one go the extra effort to help strangers with something seemingly pointless? For a large quantity of players, the answer is a definite yes. A few reliable individuals use their Tingle Bottles to help others; it shows how a community can grow and get creative with what they’re given, and that’s awesome.

And for the other ninety percent of Tingle Bottles contain hit classics like “townspeople butts part five.” You know, when a guy just runs around Windfall taking pictures of random NPCs butts and shipping it off for the rest of the community to see. Those, in their own special way, are equally creative and awesome.

I have to say, Nintendo having something going with this whole “online” thing. Instead of creating some one-off multiplayer gamemode like previous games, they managed their time to create something clever that really works to improve the game. They have also provided ways to opt out of Tingle Bottles, allowing you options on how much you want it to be a part of your experience. It’s a good sign that they know what they are doing with the newest generation.

But, of course, this are well-designed online features in a primarily offline, single player game. Even the social aspects in

Super Mario 3D World are mere bells and whistles to the base game. Sure, they are welcome additions to the game, but the titles can still stand strong without them. Here’s the real question: can Nintendo make multiplayer work in games that truly need it? Well, with Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. soon making an appearance on the console, our only choice is to wait and see what Nintendo plans on doing for ourselves. For now, though, all we can do is enjoy the wonderful world of Link selfies and townspeople’s butts while Nintendo crafts their next big title.

So, what kind of experiences have you guys had with Tingle Bottles? What do you want from Nintendo when it comes to online implementation? Sound off in the comments below!