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How Zelda’s Bad Economy Made Weapons Degradation Great Again

Zelda TOTK Rupees
Image: Nintendo’s Life

Soapbox features allow our writers and individual contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve mulled over. TodayKate examines how Nintendo took economic lessons from previous Zelda games in Tears of the Kingdom…


Like me, Hyrule has always been bad with money. It’s hardly surprising. In an economy where you can find hard, cold coins in rocks, trees, bushes, potted plants, grassand even just lying on the floor sometimes, you don’t have to be a financial expert to know that at some point you will experience inflation.

In most games, money is used for things that make the game better, such as upgrades, new weapons, and new skills, but in Zelda games those are the goddesses. send to. Why buy new weapons when you have Master Sword? Why learn new skills when dungeons give you all you need? Why buy an upgrade when you can roam a cave and find a Great Fairy to do it for free?

And so the money issue becomes more complicated: you end up with a lot of money and you have very little to spend, which makes the poor Rupee feel undervalued and useless. So why have Rupees?

The problem is that games all involve dopamine. We played the game like rats in the maze, racing to win delicious cheese. We are reward-oriented creatures, and that means we must have anything else to entice us to explore, discover, and excitedly open chests in the hope of finding something new, which means designers need to come up with something to put IN the chests don’t break the game. Hence, Rupees – something that is not even really a prize, but a promise It is possible to achieve greater prizes in the future through the exchange of money for goods.

The problem is this: The rupee itself is not a prize; They must be valuable something, they have to be included in the purchase, for them to have any value to the player. As Zelda games struggle to offer fun purchases, the Rupees in the chest can also be a piece of paper that says, “You made it, here’s a gold star!”

Previous Zelda games have tried to repeat the Rupee economy to make it a bit more interesting, but all have failed:

  • Ocarina of time there are many sizes of Wallets, each with a limited capacity, but this is like a restriction for the sake of restriction; If Link can carry bombs, shields, three changes of ao dai, many pairs of shoes and a whole chicken in his pocket, why not add some money?

  • Majora’s mask resets your Rupees at the start of each cycle, making them more precious, but then also introduces a bank that can somehow prove causal that can retain Rupees over cycles period, completely disable the reset point

  • The wind awakens causes you to pay Tingle for items required by the plot, and then introduces Magic Armor, which consumes Rupees instead of hearts for damage – but that only reinforces Rupee’s uselessness , especially in the late game

  • Virtual hourglass introduced Rupoor, which deducts Rupees from your wallet, but you can easily earn it back from a single treasure

You get my point. Opening a chest containing Rupees in the game Zelda starts to feel like some sort of cosmic joke is being played on you, like a Christmas present of socks (again). Gradually, however, over the last few Zelda games, things started to change.

Introducing Skyward Sword Treasures – not the first time they appeared in the game, of course, but the first time they existed free from the economy. You can sell them, but they are mainly used to upgrade weapons and items, such as the crafting system. Suddenly, a treasure chest is a more attractive proposition, because it can contain Rare Treasures instead of a coin vault.

Zelda TOTK Rupees
Image: Nintendo’s Life

IN Breath of the Wild, this further expands from Treasures to Materials. Again, you can sell them, or you can cook with them, craft with them, upgrade armor with them, or create elixir that boosts stats and encourages survival. Even the item description points you to a good use of these resources: “You can sell it to a shop,” read the dragon’s claw description, “but it must have some other use. “

Weapon degradation gave the designers something to put in the huge number of chests strewn across Hyrule – the cheese in the open world maze

But the big change to Breath of the Wild’s treasure system is controversial. Weapons will now break after just a few uses, even though that’s what swords and shields are special designed to not do. The weapon degradation system comes from a place of purpose designed, hoping that players will be willing to experiment, mix things up, and not overvalue their hoards; it also gives the designers something to put in the huge number of chests scattered throughout Hyrule – the cheese in the open world maze.

But players don’t like the weapon degradation system in BOTW, do they? It feels picky, unfair, and annoying, especially when it comes to changing weapons in the middle of an intense boss fight. Besides, isn’t the Master Sword a bit stronger and more durable than a sponge? Didn’t it last through hundreds of years of Zelda lore? Why was it nerfed to a sharp stick that needed a nap? Sure, the treasure chests in Hyrule have had a new purpose, but only thanks to a system like someone taking all your pencils.

Enter Kingdom Tears. They basically didn’t change much in terms of the amount of items in the game – you can still get Bokoblin Fangs, Rusty Halberds and dragon scales – but suddenly, the ability to combine turns weapon degradation and hunting Find treasure into a whole new ball game.

chicken sticks
(Drum)stick it to them — Image: Nintendo’s Life

Everything Now is a treasure worth having, limited only by your imagination. Do you like to keep your distance from enemies? Combine one crazy spear with another crazy spear to create a double crazy spear, twice as long! You’re about to fight Lynel and you’re aiming to not die a billion times? Combine your Super Durable wooden club with one of your rarest materials – be it a Black Bokoblin Horn, or a Diamond – to create something that can take a piece out of your health bar. That Lynel is just one swipe. Each treasure chest is either an interesting mystery or a real gift, something you can actually use right away instead of putting it in a pot of money for some undecided purpose. .

isn’t the Master Sword a little stronger and more durable than a sponge?

Of course, Rupees still exist in TOTK’s Hyrule, and they can still – rarely – be found under rocks and pots, mostly just as a pleasant reminder of the old days, but thanks to their popularity and the variety of weapons and treasures have degraded to merge, Rupees no longer need to bear the weight of creating dopamine for the player. Instead, they are obtained as quest rewards or through the sale of items to merchants and only very rarely as a treasure chest prize (or as the lifeblood of a poor Blupee). You know, like real money. It’s almost like Rupees have been allowed to retire comfortably after carrying Hyrule’s treasure economy on its glittery back for decades; allowed to return to a monetary economy meaningful.

Listen, I know a lot of friends probably still wary (heh) about the weapon degradation that persists in Tears of the Kingdom. I get it – it’s still a bit fussy, a little annoying, and a bit unfair. But the trade-off is that every cave, every chest, every Bokoblin camp becomes interesting again. Money is also more precious, as it has more prizes to compete with.

You see, dopamine isn’t really about rewards. It’s not about the cheese at the end of the maze. Dopamine is what drives you towards those rewards – which means it’s really about expected. You’re more likely to be more excited to find a chest and open it than to have what’s inside. That’s the thrilling part. When you learn that a chest is likely to hold the exact same prize as the last ten, that excitement goes down and so does the dopamine.

Zelda TOTK Rupees
Image: Nintendo’s Life

But in Tears of the Kingdom, with hundreds of items, weapons, clothes, shields, bows, etc., each chest is a mystery, and even if you have something in the chest, there are still unknowns. what is it do when merged with other items.

The joy is unknown, and Tears of the Kingdom is the most confusing Zelda game ever. I hope I never know it all. I hope there’s always a little more cheese hidden somewhere in that maze.




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