The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomIts Recall capability is, on paper, simple: you can target an object and rewind that object’s path. To put it another way, if you throw a rock and Recall hits it where it lands, it will return to the spot it was thrown from. It is a very useful troubleshooting tool Tears of the Kingdom‘s shrines and temples, both to fix mistakes and solve complex moving puzzles.
But it is too So much more than that – especially when combined with Tears of the Kingdom‘s other incredible abilities, such as Ultrahand.
When I first started playing Tears of the Kingdom, the flashiest and most compelling new abilities were Ultrahand and Fuse, for obvious reasons. Ultrahand, for example, is the tool used to combine items found throughout Hyrule into literally anything you can imagine: Korok torture devices, devastating war machines, and even pickup trucks. Fuse is the weapon equivalent, allowing you to combine materials and weapons into Keese eye honey darts or flaming shields. That’s the part of it Tears of the Kingdom that is designed for a damn yes! from you. Meanwhile, its quieter counterpart in Recall actually steals the show.
My first encounter with Recall was using it to solve puzzles in shrines, and also to fix mistakes I made there. It’s a simple but useful puzzle tool, but it’s only when you start to understand the complexity of the ability that it really starts to shine. In sanctuaries it can become a kind of cheat code – like the Ascend ability – to skip puzzles whole. I use it when I’m feeling stumped or a little lazy, and yet I still need brain power to figure out the best way to use it. The ability is the actual definition of the phrase work smarter not harder.
Nintendo has also made Recall feel heavy in its own right; it doesn’t have the thrill of swimming through ceilings like with Ascend, but the slow-motion reversal combined with the ticking timer adds a limitation to a skill that would otherwise interrupt the entire game.
Outside of sanctuaries, I’ve used Recall as a locomotive – basically anything can become an elevator. You can use Ultrahand to move a platform like an elevator and then choose Recall to retrace that path, but the real brain movement of the galaxy is that you a lot of higher by throwing something small in the air, such as a bundle of sticks. Once the wood falls back to the ground, you can attach a platform to it – so you can stand on it – then use Recall to trace the path back to when you went.
I also found large gliders difficult at first, but the Recall and Ultrahand solution solved that too. I can launch my Zonai glider from anywhere by using Ultrahand to follow the path I want it to go and then pulling it back – landing the plane in reverse. Then I use Recall to get it moving again once I’ve managed to climb aboard.
Searching Twitter, I found even more uses for Recall that I hadn’t considered, such as his place in the fray. It’s actually brilliant: if you’re being chased by an enemy, throw your weapon forward – away from the enemy and straight in front of you. Quickly select Recall to send that weapon back at you to hit the enemy behind you.
An enemy throwing a boulder at you? Instead of dodging it, use Recall to swing it back at them.
It’s amazing that I still see Recall being used in ways that amaze me. Tears of the Kingdom is a great achievement in that way; there are certainly limits to what you can do with the game and its capabilities, but Nintendo has blurred those boundaries in a way that many developers have tried before, but haven’t always succeeded.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Tears of the Kingdom is the ultimate play-it-how-you-want game, the gold standard of the immersive sim. Link’s new abilities underscore that ethos of making the game feel even freer.