The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Link and Zelda’s latest, centuries-spanning adventure is full of memorable moments, and its ending is no exception. It has a stellar fight with Ganondorf, some cool power of friendship moments with the sages you’ve helped across the game, and it all ends with a bonkers fight between Zelda and Ganondorf in dragon form.

But none of those are the best moments in Tears of the Kingdom’s ending. After Zelda’s Hylian form is restored, she and Link fall from the sky and plummet toward Hyrule’s surface. You’ve done this hundreds of times. You’ve traveled to the sky islands or launched yourself into the air with a Skyview Tower. At some point, you have to make it down to the ground, and oftentimes the easiest way to do that is to just dive from the sky onto the ground. But now, there are suddenly stakes. Zelda is unconscious and falling to her death, and then the game gives you the prompt: Dive to Zelda. Then you grip your controller and hold down R, and Link dives toward the princess and reaches for her. The wind picks up and you’re pushed off course, so you dive once more until you grab her hand and save her from falling as you failed to do in the game’s opening hour.

It is a stunning full-circle moment that recontextualizes something you’ve done over and over throughout Tears of the Kingdom. It’s redemptive for Link, who has failed to save Zelda from a horrible fate. I still remember how melancholy I felt learning that Zelda gave her life to become a near-mindless immortal dragon to deliver the Master Sword to Link. It was frustrating to see her sidelined once more, but I couldn’t deny how effective it was as a reveal. I carried that weight throughout my journey to save Hyrule, and if diving to save her was all I could do to repay my debt, I would hold that R button until my controller broke. — Kenneth Shepard

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