No more Tears with these Ten Top Tears of the Kingdom Tips

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is finally here, and to help you get started, we’ve put together a bunch of tips to make life easier in Hyrule.

Some tips are pretty simple, and some detail new features and help you through them. There’s one that might be considered a spoiler, but it’s revealed to you in the first hour of the game. We’ve hidden it just in case!

Collect Everything 

There’s no limit to the amount of stuff Link can keep in his, um, pockets? Wherever Link is used to store things, use it to your advantage. This tip would have applied in Breath of the Wild too, but now with the ability to fuse things, you’re going to all the stuff around the world to ensure you’re ready for anything. You might find Fusing an item to your arrow helps you defeat a particular type of enemy a little easier.

You’ll need a unique Firefly, Frog or Mushroom on your trek at some point. A lot of stuff is edible too, so if you’re low on cooked items, caught in the middle of somewhere, and need to regain some health, just jam 20 apples into you. 

Use the Recipe Book

New to Tears of the Kingdom is a handy recipe book. You can find it in the Food menu, which will show you all of the recipes you have collected so far. You don’t collect them as items; once you cook something or hear someone say a recipe, it’ll be in the book. 

Tears of the Kingdom goes one step further in helping you fulfill your culinary dreams, if you select edible items from the menu, you can check the cards and see if you have enough to create meals from what you have in your bag. You’ll have needed to make one of the dishes once already to make it again. 

Each recipe card tells you what you need to make something, but also the effects it gives. 

Import your horses 

If you’ve got a Breath of the Wild save file on your Switch and you’re playing Tears of the Kingdom on the same profile, you can import your stabled horses from the original game. This gives you another way to get around the map faster, right from the beginning. 

Is there anything else having a Breath of the Wild save gives you? We’ve not found anything yet, but that’s not to say it isn’t there. 

Zonaite Economy 

Rupees might be the actual currency of Hyrule, but in Tears of the Kingdom, there’s something else powering Link’s personal economy. Zonaite is a mineral found in the game and is the building blocks for all of the Zonai’s power. You’ll need Zonaite to refine into charges to power your Zonai abilities and to use their technology. You can also refine it into crystalized charges to expand your Energy Cell capacity to fly further, drive faster and use their weapons longer. 

Zonaite also is used with another ability Link uses. Since we’re keeping it light on spoilers, just to keep it short – collect Zonaite and use it wisely.

Keep the receipts

Like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom is filled to the brim with side quests and side adventures. Because of the game’s non-linear structure, you’ll always come across hints and rumours. While you can now view a log as you’re chatting to someone in a particular conversation, you can’t go back to that conversation unless you’re talking to them at the time. 

So it’s best if you come across anything particularly juicy, screenshot it, and it’ll be in your Switch’s album, so when you come across someone who mentions something, and you can’t quite remember what they wanted – it’s there. This is Distraction: The Game, after all, you’re going to go off-task.

Fusing Disaster 

When you select from your materials to Fuse to either your sword, shield or arrows, you can sort materials by Fuse power. Some really great powers can be gained from minerals, and even some other items (which would be spoilers). These items unleash potent attacks and give your arrows a lethal touch – but they’re also dangerous. Attaching a Ruby to an arrow unleashes a massive fireball and explosion – which is excellent – but it often ends up hurting you more. 

Keep them for special occasions or sell them. They’re worth a lot more as Rupees than third-degree burns. 

If you can’t go over it, go under it 

A lot of the time in Tears of the Kingdom, you’ll see something on the map or through some bars and wonder – how do I get there? In other Zelda games, you would blow a hole in a wall or find a switch and lift the grates. 

Now with the Ascend ability, you might be better off going under something to get to it. Look for a cave or another way around, and go down. Then pop up from the ground using the Ascend ability. It’ll happen more often than you think. 

amiibo’ll do it

If you’re lucky enough to be in possession of any of The Legend of Zelda amiibo, or any amiibo, actually – then help is here. If you’re having a tough time, especially in the earlier parts of the game, go ahead and tap that amiibo into the game. It can build your resources, especially food to cook easily. Just remember that any one amiibo can only be tapped once daily. 

Also, a warning – some of the Zelda amiibo give special items, and some of those are available to find in the game. You might even find them before you scan the amiibo and get them, but the game will tell you if you already have it! Don’t worry; you’ve got enough to collect already. 

Also, pick up your meat before the dog eats it.

Arrows, Arrows, Arrows 

With the removal of the remote bombs in Tears of the Kingdom, ranged attacking is more limited this time around. Sure, you can fuse a million and one things to arrows, but what happens when you run out? With no arrows, your ranged attacks are limited to throwing melee weapons at the start of the game.

Even when you unlock something else later to help Link out, you’ll have to get in close quarters a lot more than Breath of the Wild. There’s no real solution to the great arrow shortage other than to be more careful when you use them, and if you miss – go pick them up.   

Gotta Gacha Them All 

Those Zonai gacha dispenser-looking things have yet to be detailed by Nintendo, so technically, the below is a spoiler. We’ve hidden it if you don’t want to know about them. 

May be spoilers for some

The Zonai dispensers take Zonai charges, and depending on how many charges you put in affects how many devices get spit out. These devices include the fans, balloons and rockets you’ve all seen in the trailers, but much more has yet to be shown. Even after 100 hours in the game, I still found new ones! 

So how do you get what you want? If you want to build a massive rocket ship made out of rockets, how do you get what you want and not a random selection? Check the map! 

On the map, it’ll show what these Device Dispensers actually give out and how many you already have. You won’t be able to get exactly what you want, but it’ll show you the four types of devices that the machine spits out. 

These are some simple tips and tricks to get you started in your journey through Hyrule again, be sure to check out our review as well as our bargain guide to find the cheapest copy.