Breath of the Wild Is Getting One Questionable Change on Nintendo Switch 2
A head-scratching update.
The Switch 2 may not feel like as drastic a leap forward as most of Nintendo’s consoles, but the company is still planning a ton of software support to take advantage of the increased specs. A key part of this is “enhanced” versions of Nintendo Switch games, and it should come as no surprise that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are two of the first to get the treatment. Both games are getting big updates that improve performance and load time, but there’s another update that went under the radar during the announcement — a Zelda Notes phone app. There are some great ideas in Zelda Notes, but one change in particular only adds to both games’ biggest frustration — a disappointingly fragmented narrative.
Both Switch Zelda games are nearly universally beloved, and generally recognized as some of the most influential games of the last decade. But if there’s a single flaw you can point to, it’s the way the duology tells its story.
Exploration is key in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and what makes the experience so compelling is charting your own unique journey through Hyrule. But along the way, the game sprinkles in memories you can uncover that provide context for what happened in the past. The problem is that these memories can largely be found in any order, meaning you’re seeing events out of sequence, and there’s often a lack of a driving narrative force behind what you’re doing. The narrative approach has been one of the game’s most divisive elements, and now, the Zelda Notes app is making it even more convoluted.
Zelda Notes will be accessed through the Nintendo Switch App, available on both iOS and Android. The Zelda Notes section is used exclusively with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and adds on a bunch of nifty features to enhance your experience. Some of these sound extremely useful, like a Zelda Notes item box you can put items into for storage, or extra navigation hints to help find Koroks. But the one that stands out is Voice Memories, brand new dialogue bits scattered around the world of Hyrule from Zelda and other characters.
It seems these memories take the form of a glowing flower you can activate in-game, to hear the dialogue play out on the app. Adding new bits of voiceover that add some extra context to the world is a great idea, especially for an enhanced version like this. These are, of course, very likely small additions that don’t hold any major story revelations. But it adds some extra value for returning players, but it’s the implementation that has me scratching my head.
The addition of new memories is great, but it’s needlessly complex to access.
The fragmented nature of these two games’ stories already makes them a bit of a chore to get through, and locking story features behind a phone app just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the same concept as locking crucial story behind DLC, a roadblock that players simply shouldn’t have to deal with.
All of the other Zelda notes features are entirely optional things that simply build off of the game, but memories and story snippets are a different thing entirely — even if they’re just small throwaway details. It sets a precedent of locking the story behind ancillary experiences, not to mention the fact that a huge swathe of players likely won’t ever know these new memories exist.
A majority of players will likely play these games never knowing Zelda Notes is even a thing, and because of that, it’d be much better if these were layered into the actual game on Switch 2. That’s not even to mention that Zelda Notes isn’t even an app itself, but a feature within another app — adding another layer of needless complexity.
It’s a bit baffling that they aren’t, honestly, as Super Mario Jamboree and Kirby and the Forgotten Land are both getting big new pieces of content for their enhanced versions. By comparison, the Zelda games are more just performance upgrades — unless you use Zelda Notes.
The Switch 2 enhancement primarly affect texture quality, frame rate, and load times.
Nintendo’s whole philosophy to game design has always been about creating fun experiences, with as few barriers to experiencing that fun as possible. Putting new memories behind an app feels counter to that entire idea.
A lot of the other features on Zelda Notes are genuinely interesting additions to how you play the game, but locking out story content is a slippery slope that can easily go the wrong way — and I hope this isn’t a precedent moving forward for Switch 2.
