Summary
One inventiveThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomplayer has recently designed an unusual machine shaped like a giant seahorse. The footage of their bizarre-but-formidable bony fish recreation later made the rounds on social media, adding to the still-growing list of astonishingTears of the Kingdomcommunity creations.
Although the latestZeldagame doesn’t force its players to engage with its Ultrahand mechanics beyond solving some fairly simple puzzles, its building system is extremely elaborate and conducive to creativity. Many players have hence been finding a lot of joy in experimenting with variousTears of the Kingdomapplications of Ultrahandever since the hit game debuted in May 2023.
Tears of the Kingdom Player Creates Majestic Flying Seahorse
Another testament to this trend has recently materialized in the form of amajesticTears of the Kingdomvehicleshaped like a seahorse. The contraption, designed by Reddit user Osh-Kosh-Ganache, consists of two balloons, three Colgera Jaws, and some strategically placed Zonai Fans, among several other parts. So, although its overall shape is primarily inspired by the anatomy of a seahorse, the machine itself is actually meant to fly. And fly it does, as seen in its brief video demonstration that Osh-Kosh-Ganache shared in late September 2024.
The machine’s likeness to a seahorse is far from the only impressive thing about its design. Quite a bit of engineering ingenuity went into making sure its function matches its form, with Osh-Kosh-Ganache’s use of two balloons allowing them to end up with a vehicle that can also hover and perform a controlled descent. To do the latter, the pilot only needs to temporarily step away from the Zonai Steering Stick in the middle of the contraption in order to extinguish the flame inflating its lower hot balloon. This causes the machine to gradually start descending, and is also the mode of operation used for safely piloting it on the ground while it’s hovering.
Since the seahorse-shaped apparatus only uses a few fans and some lights to facilitate The Depths exploration, it is fairly energy-efficient, and can thus be useful even for players who don’t want to spend a ton of time onupgrading Energy Cells inTears of the Kingdom. It also seems to use fewer than 21 components, so there’s theoretically enough room for it to house a weapon or two, though that would require some careful balancing to avoid disrupting its aerial stability.
Anyone who loves tinkering withTears of the Kingdom’s building mechanics might also enjoyEchoes of Wisdom, the nextZeldagame that’s scheduled to arrive on September 26. While it doesn’t mimicTOTK’s gameplay,Echoes of Wisdomplaces a big emphasis on summoning and combining copies of objects, with these titular Echoes allowing for a lot of creativity in how players approach navigation, puzzle-solving, and combat. This makes them conceptually similar to the role Ultrahand plays in the 2023Zeldagame, suggesting they could appeal to the same type of players.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to the beloved open-world adventure, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This installment once again sees Link and Zelda battling to protect Hyrule from falling to Ganondorf. This new adventure takes place in the same land of Hyrule as Breath of the Wild but sees something called the Upheaval, which allows link to travel to Sky Islands, as well as deep into the Depths beneath Hyrule. Players can use special abilities to fuse together weapons, and build items to help them progress through the release.
