When you startThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you’re able to go in any direction and tackle any of its four main quests from the start. That means that, even if you have 100 hours in the game, you may not have done the Wind Temple yet. That would be a shame because the Rito quest line — especially the run-up to the Wind Temple — is some of the best Zelda I can recall playing.
The rest of this article will contain spoilers for the TOTK’s ‘Tulin of Rito Village’ quest. If you don’t want to have it spoiled, go play it! It only takes a couple hours and it’s wonderfully unlike anything else in the series.
The quest begins with Link heading to Rito Village and finding out that Tulin, the little gray Rito he met inBreath of the Wild, has flown off to a mountain to deal with the strange wind storm spinning in the sky above the village. A Rito named Harth points Link in the right direction, and Link follows lit bonfires up to the top of the mountain, where he finds Tulin, who is upset that a monster stole his bow. The pair team up to take back the bow, and Tulin offers his power, a gust of wind that boosts the speed and distance of Link’s glide. Bow in hand, Tulin assists Link in his ascent, up past the peak of the mountain and into the sky surrounding the swirling blizzard. This process leads them up a spiral staircase of floating ruins and wooden ships until, finally, they are above the storm, looking down at the flying ark at its center.
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But it’s the process of getting there that’s most exhilarating. Teaming up with Tulin gives Link the ability to call for a gust of wind on command. So, as you ascend, you have to cross lengthy chasms that you wouldn’t be able to clear on your own. Pressing A causes Tulin to prepare to send wind your way. Pressing it again makes him shoot a burst of air, carrying you toward the destination. I wrote before thatthis ability is no substitute for Revali’s Gale, but this sequence is the game’s most effective use of it. This gust carries you between hunks of limestone that Link needs to scale vertically, and they’re interesting little climbing puzzles in and of themselves as you use Link’s stamina to position our Hylian hero beneath spots that are flat enough for him to Ascend through. At one point, you need to useUltrahandto assemble a makeshift tower of blocks so you’re able to get close enough to a ceiling above to use Ascend. And, given that this is Tears of the Kingdom, there are always second, third, fourth, and fifth options at your disposal if you want to get creative en route to the summit.
As you go, there are multiple shrines to complete. This is smart for a couple reasons. For one, it allows for shrines that directly build on mechanics that would otherwise be one-offs, each only incorporated into this sequence. Particularly, I’m thinking of the trampoline boats flying around the storm which Link can use to soar to higher and higher levels. These wouldn’t make sense in shrines anywhere else in Hyrule, but by including them in the climb, the developers can build on mechanics you’ve recently learned. Tears of the Kingdom’s shrines often remind me ofPortal, but these ones, which can play with verticality in ways that others don’t, are where the game most reminds me of the sometimes vertigo-inducing first-person platforming inValve’s classic.
The other benefit of having shrines en route to the temple is that it gives you an out if you need it. The game actually introduces one shrine right as you reach the altitude where the air is cold enough to hurt you. So, you can use the shrine to save your progress, then head out and get some warm clothes or spicy food. Or you can take a break and do the shrine before continuing up. It’s both a makeshift checkpoint and a fun, iterative puzzle in one.
Eventually you reach the top, bounce off the highest trampoline, and skydive down into the eye of the storm where the boat-shaped temple is waiting. It’s an exciting moment, in and of itself, but it’s especially good as a capper on the lengthy ascent that brought you there.
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