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Discussion What's your favorite Tears of the Kingdom ability?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 2
  • Start date

Which ability is your favorite?

  • Ascend

    Votes: 47 40.9%

  • Ultrahand

    Votes: 35 30.4%

  • Autobuild

    Votes: 4 3.5%

  • Fuse

    Votes: 12 10.4%

  • Recall

    Votes: 17 14.8%
  • Total voters
    115
D

Deleted member 2

Guest
Now that the game's been out for a while, which of the abilities is your favorite?

I don't necessarily mean which one do you use the most, but of course that can be a factor. Instead, which one do you think is the coolest? Which one impresses you more, or feels the best to use?

I went back and forth on it for a while. In the weeks before release, I straight up had dreams about Ascend. It was literally the thing I was looking forward to most in Tears of the Kingdom, and it certainly paid off. It feels so good to use and now I pretty much have an Ascend flag that goes up in my brain the moment I walk underneath something.

However, it wasn't until I was a dozen hours into the game that the masterful genius of Recall revealed itself to me. I've never been more impressed by a game mechanic than I have been with Recall, from a technical perspective and from a gameplay perspective. I use it all the time, on everything. It's just so handy.

So I'd like to get an idea of what the overall concensus is after a couple weeks of playing this game. What's your favorite ability in Tears of the Kingdom?
 
As much as I love to mess around with ultrahand and create the wildest stuff I can possibly imagine, on a pure mechanical level, I adore ascend to no end.

Ascending in traversal, ascending in puzzles, it’s all so much fun and rewarding. Ascending from a cave and ending up in god-knows-where never gets old.
 
A tie between recall and ascend for me. They are far more useful in combat than I gave them credit for originally.
 
Probably not going to be a popular pick, but "Recall".

I've always loved "time-based" abilities in games, dating back all the way to Flash Man's time stopper, to where the likes of Max Payne and Viewtiful Joe took them to new heights after the Matrix flicks.

Recall just speaks to me so much. Whether it be to rewind a projectile back to its sender, make a boomerang into something that just loops around 'n around for a whirlwind of pain, or work in conjunction with Ultrahand to completely game some of the puzzle solutions...and I still feel like the surface has only been scratched.
 
I like ascend and ultra hand a lot, but recall on random fallen bits of rock to get a fast lift upwards lifted up so many runs across basic terrain for me. I had one moment where I really wanted to get onto a dragon and I swear, a rock tumbled down just as my brain put that thought together. It was the strangest, most enjoyable piece of synchronicity I’ve had in a game.
 
This isn’t really fair as ultrahand is the star of the show, but ascend and recall can’t be ignored as they are critical to making everything work. Recall especially. Having an undo button in a game with this kind of building has proven to be so important.
 
Ultra hand is really the technical heart of the game, and the enabler of other functions like Zonai devices and vehicles, on top of being a better version of magnesis from BotW. I think it’s pretty easily the most important ability you get.
Where it really shines though is in tandem with Recall, which can really break open climbing and shrine puzzles.
 
I chose Fuse only because my favourite thing to do is use Muddle Buds on various mobs, sit back and watch them take each other out. It was the same thing in Horizon Zero dawn with the Corruption Arrows. Not sure why I enjoy it so much, but always get a kick out of it. Just like in BotW I enjoyed rolling/tossing long range bombs into groups of mobs and viewing the confusion on high. I just like fucking with people I guess. Hm, and I also tend to avoid confrontation. These games are teaching me so much about myself, ha.


Edit: and after reading the replies I am definitely underutilizing Recall.
 
I wouldn't mind having Ultrahand in real life.

Oh and Ascend. I hate walking up stairs.
 
neil said:
I don’t know what autobuild is,
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The name is mostly self explanatory, but the game saves your ultrahand builds and it will auto glue everything in a couple seconds for you. And if some parts aren't around, you can spend zonaite instead.

neil said:
I’m 25 hrs in but is that a spoiler?
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Like 90+% of the game, you can do/get it right after leaving the tutorial area. The game does lead you to it, if you follow the main quests, in this case look for the questline about the underground research. Or just Google the specific location since you don't need the quest.
 
I went with Fuse. It's not very flashy once you get past the initial meme combinations like sticking two spears together, but it's such a good improvement on the core systems behind BotW. I'm at the point where I'm facing enemies stronger than anything that was in that game, and I can't believe the gameplay loop is still completely functioning. It's a concept that single-handedly takes the scrappy survivalist gameplay of the Great Plateau and makes it work over the course of a whole game.

After thinking it would be a glorified Escape Rope, I did end up really liking Ascend, but I've come back around to being slightly frustrated with how fussy and limited it can be when it's already such a context-specific ability. If you could use it in midair, I think that would help a lot in making it feel more powerful.
 
Hosermess said:
I chose Fuse only because my favourite thing to do is use Muddle Buds on various mobs, sit back and watch them take each other out. It was the same thing in Horizon Zero dawn with the Corruption Arrows. Not sure why I enjoy it so much, but always get a kick out of it. Just like in BotW I enjoyed rolling/tossing long range bombs into groups of mobs and viewing the confusion on high. I just like fucking with people I guess. Hm, and I also tend to avoid confrontation. These games are teaching me so much about myself, ha.


Edit: and after reading the replies I am definitely underutilizing Recall.
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Lol this is the best though, it's pretty much how I handled the entire second half of Ghost of Tsushima too. Why fight enemies when I can make them fight each other?
 
Ultrahand is the most interesting and recall seems like it may be the most broken... but when I'm playing other Zelda games the ability I'm missing is Ascend.
 
Ascend and it's not even close. I love being able to get out of any area as long as there's a ceiling relatively close to my head.

bellydrum said:
I pretty much have an Ascend flag that goes up in my brain the moment I walk underneath something.
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Same lol.

Ultrahand is nice, but is clunky at times and sometimes takes away from the feeling of progression because I'm busy trying to set up something. I can tell the game really wants me to build traversal machines (especially underground) but I just can't be bothered.

Recall so far seems like a boring gimmick and like every time I see something moving I'm sarcastically like oh boy I wonder what the devs want me to do here... Maybe that'll change though, think I'm like just 25-30 hours in.

I straight up hate Fuse and when I'm being forced to use it, which is all the time if I want decent weapons or arrows.
 
neil said:
I don’t know what autobuild is, I’m 25 hrs in but is that a spoiler?
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Honestly if you haven’t come across it naturally I I think you should look it up and beeline towards it. It is a big time saver if you like building stuff. I had to look it up after 80 hours. It is super easy to miss the quest.
 
I low-key love rewind because you can cheese so many shrine puzzles with the good ol' "use Ultra Hand to elevate a platform as high as you can -> put it back down to your feet -> get on the platform -> use rewind to elevate together with the platform -> reach whatever raised point of interested you wanted to reach"
 
DunningSmith said:
I low-key love rewind because you can cheese so many shrine puzzles with the good ol' "use Ultra Hand to elevate a platform as high as you can -> put it back down to your feet -> get on the platform -> use rewind to elevate together with the platform -> reach whatever raised point of interested you wanted to reach"
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One of the things I like most about this game is how the abilities interact with each other. It’s neat that you can manipulate objects with ultrahand and then rewind them and then ascend through that rewound object. It makes for some super cool puzzle solving.
 
They're all great in their own ways honestly, but like people have said Ultrahand is the star of the show. The game just isn't what it is without it

I might like Fuse just as much though - it's just a really fun take on a weapon crafting system and I'm still finding fun interactions ~50 hours in

Ascend is so much more fun than I thought it was going to be beforehand. I was right about it not being that useful for puzzles but as a traversal tool it's second to none. Having such relaxed restrictions on where you can use it helps a lot

Recall is the one I've used the least and I'm honestly least enamored with. It's definitely cool and there's some really nifty things you can do with it but it still strikes me as the least fun of the abilities
 
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I was torn between UltaHand and Fuse, ended voting Fuse because I'm constantly using it to create new weapons and shields and try new interactions with the enemies. Right now I'm loving my spring shields and bomb-barrel-spears :)
 
My favorite is Fuse, there’s a ton of fun interactions. I rarely used elemental arrows in BotW but in TotK I’m flinging all sorts of stuff everywhere. And even seemingly kooky combinations can find some use, like how mushrooms add that extra bounce, perfect for pushing Moblins into water.

All the abilities are really cool though, and I use every single one constantly. Not like in BotW where I didn’t really use Cryonis or Stasis unless I made a point of doing so.
 
I went with Ascend. It really renegotiates how you approach traversal, it's super useful, and while I know nothing about programming it's probably the most mind-blowing to me? I saw an interview quote from Fujibayashi -- I'm paraphrasing here -- where he's like, "I was exploring a cave and thought, 'It'd be great to get back to the surface quickly.' And it turns out we were able to do that," which I thought was a hilariously succinct way to describe what must have been one hell of a nut ache to getting all of that engineered and working.
 
Ascend is amazing, the real star of the show for me. That said, both Recall and Ultrahand are simply amazing and I have no words to describe how cool they are. But... yeah, I'm afraid the three are reeeeeeeeeeeeally above Fuse. By far my least used ability - I consistently use it on Proving Grounds shrines and when I defeat a big miniboss, and only because I'll loose the upgrade, but... that's it, basically. For me, Ascend, Recall and Ultrahand are pure joy, while Fuse it's just useful for an autogenerated problem.
 
big lantern ghost said:
I went with Ascend. It really renegotiates how you approach traversal, it's super useful, and while I know nothing about programming it's probably the most mind-blowing to me? I saw an interview quote from Fujibayashi -- I'm paraphrasing here -- where he's like, "I was exploring a cave and thought, 'It'd be great to get back to the surface quickly.' And it turns out we were able to do that," which I thought was a hilariously succinct way to describe what must have been one hell of a nut ache to getting all of that engineered and working.
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Ascend should break this game. I keep trying to break this game, and it doesn't work. I think back to one specific shrine where you cast recall on a gear and ride its cogs to the exit. I used ascend while standing on the moving gear, while it was being recalled, to phase through a cog. It wasn't the intended solution. It didn't save me any time. And by all rights it shouldn't even have worked in any other game. There's no  reason for that to work. I love how many inane things just work in this game.
 
Tough choice between Ascend and Recall but I pick Ascend. It totally recontextualizes your relationship with the map and the animation of Link jumping through a surface never gets old. Also possibly the most technically impressive ability.
 
The second I see any topographical or architectural feature that even looks like it might possibly vaguely resemble something like an overhang I'm pulling out Ascend to see if I can get up there. Part of the fun of Ascend is its limitations in that you can learn about the environment from not being to Ascend through it
 
Ascend. I said this before but it's a pity that it's used in a world we already know. Had some good moments in sky and depth using ascend and appearing in a totally new location.
 
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Same as you, @bellydrum, I was all hyped on Ascend (especially since the first trailer featuring the Sky, where it looked like Ascend would be the primary new ability), but as I spent more time with it, Recall became my favorite. I've cheesed several shrines with it where I was really hitting a mental brick wall about what I was supposed to build, only to just Ultrahand a thing up somewhere, then let it fall, and Recall ride it back up. 😅 And it's so satisfying to have an enemy throw/spit something at me only to Recall it right back in their face. What a kick.
 
Recall has probably generated the most mind-blowing gameplay moments I've experienced, but on the whole Ascend is for sure the big game-changer.
 
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I love all 4 of them to the point that I will miss them if they don't return in future zeldas. The thing I love about them is how versatile all are both in combat and in traversal. For example Fuse looks like a combat only ability, but fusing explosives to your shield also makes you jump higher. Ascend looks like a traversal only ability, but you can use it while fighting Taluses for example.

In short:
Ultrahand: the star of the game. I voted for it simply because its possibilities are endless. It's useful in combat, traversal, puzzles or simply messing around.
Ascend: so good that after Totk I can't think of playing an open world game without it. Similar to how after Botw paragliding and climbing anywhere felt like a necessity.
Fuse: based on the votes I assume people forget that Fuse also includes fused arrows. Can you really go back to elemental arrows instead of using a fire item? How about fusing stuff to your shield? There's so much stuff you can fuse, so many combinations.
Recall: the unsung hero of Totk. It feels like while most people use Recall for mundane stuff like undo or reversing a fallen rock, there's so much potential there we may never realise.


In short every one of them is an integral part of the game, none of them feels like second thought.

Autobuild is more like a companion to Ultrahand so it doesn't really count imo.
 
Ultrahand is the star ability in the game. There’s a big part of me that doesn’t like the building focus it brought with it, but it is still very cool to scrap together solutions to problems in a game so open like this and I appreciate an easy way to grab and move things. It can be finicky in some ways (rotation, angles, and precise gluing), but it generally being so easy to work with is amazing. Recall and Ascend pair well with it too.
 
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It's insane how different the impressions are in comparison to pre-release. I think Ascend was distinctively the least rated mechanic and fuse & ultrahand were the top ones.
 
Peleo said:
It's insane how different the impressions are in comparison to pre-release. I think Ascend was distinctively the least rated mechanic and fuse & ultrahand were the top ones.
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The idea behind Ascend just felt really abstract in trailers. The concept of it essentially being a mode of transportation didn't really click until playing the game.

I'd say that goes for a lot of the game really. It has all of these disparate ideas that shouldn't work together but somehow it all does in the final product.
 
Fuse/Ultrahand is fantastic fun and a great implementation of a classic gamer fantasy.

I voted for Ascend however, because it’s pure genius both in its simplicity (one of those ideas you’ve never had but immediately makes you go « but of course! ») and in the way the whole game needs to be built around it. I get an intense feeling of satisfaction every time I use it to sneak somewhere.
 
I love the ability to suck 80 hours out of my life and still give me the feeling that I've seen nothing.

Ascend is the game changer for me though.
 
Dekuman said:
I received an email from Nintendo last week telling me my ability usage.
Utrahand won by a mile.
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I mean the game is kinda designed in a way to where that's gonna be the case. It's easily my least favorite of the new abilities but it's definitely my most-used just because I gotta in order to progress through most things.
 
Subrosian Link said:
...For me, Ascend, Recall and Ultrahand are pure joy, while Fuse it's just useful for an autogenerated problem.
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What's this "autogenerated problem" you speak of? IMHO Fuse is a huge triumph of game design precisely because it solves a core game design problem that's always existed in all games with an inventory: You only use one or 2 basic items and just ignore the rest of the stuff, or just hoard everything until after the final boss' last phase "just in case". Thanks to Fuse, I'm using everything in my inventory and seeing what happens when I use it in an arrow, or in a weapon, or when I block attacks with it, or shield surf on it...or just throw it at an enemy's face (sure, you´re not using Fuse for this but the many special properties of the items have surely been created as a consequence of the Fuse system). Mundane stuff like fruits or meat that you would only use for recipes can now be used in combat (and in more ways than just to deal raw damage), to improve traversal or to solve puzzles. I'm discovering new stuff every day, just yesterday I learned that some monster parts like fangs and nails double their attack power when fused with arrows, or that iced meat is the best thing you can put on a shield for shield-surfing. Using springs, rockets or bombs on your shield allows for some DMC-esque combat maneouvers, I'm really surprised at the huge transformative effect this mechanic has in the game.
 
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Fuse is great because Mosnter parts, their scalling properties and combat itself makes way more sense with it. It's so simple and yet it solves so many things...
 
correojon said:
What's this "autogenerated problem" you speak of? IMHO Fuse is a huge triumph of game design precisely because it solves a core game design problem that's always existed in all games with an inventory: You only use one or 2 basic items and just ignore the rest of the stuff, or just hoard everything until after the final boss' last phase "just in case". Thanks to Fuse, I'm using everything in my inventory and seeing what happens when I use it in an arrow, or in a weapon, or when I block attacks with it, or shield surf on it...or just throw it at an enemy's face (sure, you´re not using Fuse for this but the many special properties of the items have surely been created as a consequence of the Fuse system). Mundane stuff like fruits or meat that you would only use for recipes can now be used in combat (and in more ways than just to deal raw damage), to improve traversal or to solve puzzles. I'm discovering new stuff every day, just yesterday I learned that some monster parts like fangs and nails double their attack power when fused with arrows, or that iced meat is the best thing you can put on a shield for shield-surfing. Using springs, rockets or bombs on your shield allows for some DMC-esque combat maneouvers, I'm really surprised at the huge transformative effect this mechanic has in the game.
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As said in the post you quoted, the only times I use it is for Proving Grounds (where they take out your weapons, thus autogenerated) and for fusing the miniboss parts after beating them (thus something autogenerated as well). You can fuse things? Yes, but... I can't see how that wouldn't work if instead of making you build your weapons they would give them as is - with that I mean, yeah, sure, now I can fuse a korok frond to make a korok fan, but... I already could do that with a korok leaf in BOTW, a weapon that has dissapeared, and thus... autogenerated as well. I get that it is more convenient than having to find the item you want, but that convenience is, again, something that only exists because they decided to go with that solution, and to make it more convenient they actually eliminated things that were already useful, like the korok leaf or elemental arrows or rods or bombs or even the spring loaded hammer, things that were already solved in BOTW but they actively decided to take out here (and thus, autogenerated).

Again, this how I see it from my experience with this game - I find myself time and time wishing to have things that, for me, are now QoL features when thinking about Breath. And I get that Fuse is useful for things like inventory use, but, hell, I think it'd be even way more useful just to be able to craft your arrows (even bulk crafting, and even if it's just a menu thing or that needs an item you can carry with you, like the portable cooking pot) and being able to shoot them constantly without having to literally pause the game to craft one every single time you want to shoot an "special" one - and that added with the already existing ability to just... throw those things? I think that Fuse, the solution they opted for, introduces more problems and take out convenient features and (and this was the intent of my original post, given the thread), this makes it my less favourite ability in this game. Do I still have fun with it? Yes, but I can't find equivalent restrictions that are imposed just because they choose to go with this ability when I think about Recall, Ascend or Ultrahand - those are abilities that only add to the game, but they don't take things out to make them shinier.
 
I'm voted Fuse because from it I can dup****** items, weapons, bows & shields v1.1.2 (memory glitch but it's very hard for other than items. Need a perfect timing/reaction of throwing. Only items is easier in one special location). Other abilities also are very good
 
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linkwashere said:
Fuse is great because Mosnter parts, their scalling properties and combat itself makes way more sense with it. It's so simple and yet it solves so many things...
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If I think about going back to BOTW, what's the ability I'm gonna miss the most?

And the answer is definitely Fuse. It completely changed how the combat works. That's it, I'm changing my vote to Fuse.
 
Also, hot take: Autobuild shouldn't be considered a "base" ability like the other 4, it's an extension of Ultrahand and wouldn't exist without it.
 
Subrosian Link said:
As said in the post you quoted, the only times I use it is for Proving Grounds (where they take out your weapons, thus autogenerated) and for fusing the miniboss parts after beating them (thus something autogenerated as well). You can fuse things? Yes, but... I can't see how that wouldn't work if instead of making you build your weapons they would give them as is - with that I mean, yeah, sure, now I can fuse a korok frond to make a korok fan, but... I already could do that with a korok leaf in BOTW, a weapon that has dissapeared, and thus... autogenerated as well. I get that it is more convenient than having to find the item you want, but that convenience is, again, something that only exists because they decided to go with that solution, and to make it more convenient they actually eliminated things that were already useful, like the korok leaf or elemental arrows or rods or bombs or even the spring loaded hammer, things that were already solved in BOTW but they actively decided to take out here (and thus, autogenerated).
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You're not counting the part where you try different combinations to see how they work, that's a big plus of the mechanic. Sure, you could have 1000 different weapons, shields and arrows with all the combinations you can do now just lying around in the world, but that would rob you of some amazing moments when you stick 2 things together and discover they work. To me, it was a very memorable moment when I discovered I could fuse a spring to a shield and use that for instant Revalis' Gales (or when I created my first boomstick, or laser shield, or homing arrow...). And I think this is a big part of the BotW/TotK experience, just trying crazy stuff and finding out that it works.


Subrosian Link said:
Again, this how I see it from my experience with this game - I find myself time and time wishing to have things that, for me, are now QoL features when thinking about Breath. And I get that Fuse is useful for things like inventory use, but, hell, I think it'd be even way more useful just to be able to craft your arrows (even bulk crafting, and even if it's just a menu thing or that needs an item you can carry with you, like the portable cooking pot) and being able to shoot them constantly without having to literally pause the game to craft one every single time you want to shoot an "special" one - and that added with the already existing ability to just... throw those things?
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Agree, it would be nice to have an option to lock the last item so it can be applied by default every time.


Subrosian Link said:
I think that Fuse, the solution they opted for, introduces more problems and take out convenient features and (and this was the intent of my original post, given the thread), this makes it my less favourite ability in this game. Do I still have fun with it? Yes, but I can't find equivalent restrictions that are imposed just because they choose to go with this ability when I think about Recall, Ascend or Ultrahand - those are abilities that only add to the game, but they don't take things out to make them shinier.
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The only "problem" (more a nuisance, really) is having to select the fuse item repeatedly. Fuse solves some big problems, like:
  • In BotW when all your hammers/Korok leaves/whatever broke, you had to go out to hunt one if you needed it, or waste some of your precious weapons chopping trees or breaking or deposits. Fuse allows you to make any type of weapon you need, anytime, anywhere.
  • In BotW your inventory would end up cluttered with a hundred useless items, to the point that the Master Cycle Zero was released as a way to address this. In TotK, almost everything in your inventory is useful thanks to Fuse.
  • In BotW, durability was something a lot of people perceived as the #1 problem in the game. At one point in the game you would actively start to avoid combat encounters because you would waste your more powerful weapons and walk away with worse ones. Thanks to Fuse, you're almost guaranteed to come out of every encounter with better weapons and materials for arrows. I really think Fuse is a genius way of reversing the weapon durability problem on it's head and actually making it a strong point of the game. I'm constantly throwing weapons at the enemies and breaking them to make room for new, cooler Fused ones!
 
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