The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one hell of an epic adventure game, packed with satisfying opportunities to make the most of its dynamic and surprising physics and crafting systems. But while the internet’s full of examples of remarkable feats of engineering and unexpected means of surpassing challenges, there are also countless failed attempts.
Some result in serious injury or death to Link (and others). Other mishaps are rather harmless, but still somewhat humiliating, or at least disappointing.
So we’ve gathered together a list of 19 examples of humorous failures, from vehicles burning down, to horses being sent to their unfortunate demise. Welcome to Hyrule’s Hall of Shame.
A metaphor for my life
We’ll start with one of my own deaths. Writing content for Zelda sometimes means I’m always pushing myself to get from point A to point B to test something out, discover a new strategy, or just make it to a specific area as absolutely fast as I can. And sometimes, I’m not really paying attention to what’s going on. That usually results in death and in this case, it was a steady, regular descent to my death.
This is how I feel every morning.
TerrakoFUN’s mini death compilation
Here’s a series of wonderfully unintended moments of absolute panic, destruction, and failure. TerrakoFUN has shared a number of their own failures, and it’s hard to choose among them, so here’s a quick 30 seconds of disaster in Hyrule.
When you’re almost sure you have an interesting idea
Tears of the Kingdom lets you fuse so much stuff together with a wacky physics system that often behaves unexpectedly. This quick build disaster from SloanerDoodle shows off just how quickly things can go wrong.
Horses aren’t meant to fly
This compilation of failed efforts to bring horses up to the Sky Islands from koumus certainly qualifies for digital animal abuse. As it turns out, the game really doesn’t want you taking our four-legged friends up in the air. At least they disappear when they die and don’t leave behind a giant splatfest of a mess.
What goes up
What makes JanewayForPresident’s disaster scenario here so hilarious is that they just continue to go about their business, building…what exactly I’m not sure. But right off the bat you know those cannon balls are gonna come right back down…and they do so thunderously.
Sorry, Link, you’re not the One
Stopping incoming large projectiles with Recall adds a wonderful dose of Neo to Link’s capabilities…that said, you still need to actually time it correctly. As AceTrainrBanana demonstrates, there are consequences for failing to do so.
How cruel can we be to these horses?
I’ve ridden a few horses…and you know, when they don’t want a do a thing, it’s kind of a bad idea to keep trying. Pawziplier shows exactly how that works out in Tears of the Kingdom. At least the damn thing lived this time.
Maybe don’t fuse explosives to boomerangs
Ya gotta love Tears of the Kingdom’s crafting and physics…okay well you don’t have to love it, but you should at least respect it. Here, falllingleavess suffers the consequences of tossing an explosive-fused boomerang at an enemy, only to miss and have it return right back from whence it came.
More equine abuse
Okay this one obviously wasn’t intentional, and it doesn’t look like anyone died or was injured, but it’s a perfect example of those gentle, harmless ways in which various constructed devices can fail. HARUxWAxAGEPOYO’s accidental horse bonk, however, is an important lesson in checking your glue joints.
It broke
MeryLiaril’s construction failure just makes me sad. I mean, I’m not sure where they were going to go with just three wheels…but the way the whole contraption comes apart, leaving the fan just spinning there, it just invites some Simon and Garfunkel to start playing in the background.
You forgot to glue this part
If you look carefully, you can spot the problem with nglizm’s fan-propelled balloon early on. At least it falls right back down pretty quickly. Folks, don’t forget to adhere your balloons.
‘I was so proud of myself and then I went to turn it on and… :’)‘
Joy in a maker’s life can be destroyed in mere moments, and often after serious trial and error built on the hopes and ambition of creating something amazing. And then you make one small mistake, like tweflthouse did by turning on a wind-propelled, wooden car by whacking it with a flame-based weapon, and it’s all ruined.
It sucks. But hey, at least you didn’t do it with a $400+ guitar part…oh great, now I’m depressed again.
Again, horses do not mess around!
If you’re gonna ride a horse into battle, give the creature some room. Or at least don’t park the beast near a cliff edge! Unfortunately, Neia-Baraja found this out the hard way, leaping off their horse to do battle with a Lizalfo, only to have their own horse betray them.
There’s such a thing as overdesigning something
Paulkdragon’s “rocket ship out of springs” is a genuinely interesting idea…that in practice turns out to have other ideas. Once again, failing to glue a critical component (this time it was a Zonai stabilizer) results in failure.
Yes, gravity is a thing in Hyrule
We’ve all been there. You’re trying to pull off some clever contraption or solution to a puzzle and you just conveniently forget about basic Newtonian physics. Unfortunately for Dakotalogy, it wasn’t an apple that struck them on the head.
Just let it burn
Butchbearking’s car is a good example of how a slight oversight can just destroy the whole thing. Folks, when choosing to use fire of some kind, take careful consideration for what direction it will end up facing.
I didn’t do well in high school science class either
Sometimes it looks like you’ve got everything setup correctly and then things just don’t work out. At least here, caniner12’s physics-fail can elicit a few laughs.
Is this an act of protest?
I mean, I get it if you want to burn down images of Hudson. The guy seems to be perfectly okay with sending the one guy least capable of standing around Hyrule to hold up his propaganda for eternity. But political statements or not, folks, watch out for the fire and flammable constructs.
Once again, horses are not meant to fly
Some folks simply must try to get horses as high as possible (and not in a funny way). While Tallpelican’s attempt might’ve worked if they didn’t use fire and a flammable surface, it still resulted in this poor horse’s death.
Well, that’s enough failure for now. We’ll be sure to keep our eyes out for more remarkably epic examples of catastrophe in the world of Hyrule. What’s your worst failure?
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