Hyrule's broken sword

If there’s one thing that unites all Legend of Zelda games, it is the fact that nothing unites them. Do you always play as Link, rescue Zelda, and fight Ganondorf? Not necessarily… but probably. And in most cases, Link will be doing all of that world-saving while wielding a special blade called the Master Sword, and if he happens to be fighting Ganondorf, that weapon will be the only one that does the trick.

It’s Cool Sword Day today, and there are few weapons as cool as the Master Sword. It borrows a ton of its cool factor from Arthurian legends of Excalibur, like so many other parts of Legend of Zelda. I mean, Link is basically a blend of King Arthur and Lancelot, while Zelda is the series’ version of Guinevere, and Ganondorf has a bit of Mordred and Morgan le Fay in him. In thinking about those legends, though, I realized how key they are to my own associations with the Master Sword. I think the sword is cool because of what it represents — not what it actually does.

Because it doesn’t always do that much. I mean, yes, the Master Sword seals evil and sends it back from whence it came. But having recently replayed Ocarina of Time, I gotta admit that I spent the entire last chunk of the game wielding the Biggoron Sword, a far less mystical object that you can get by delivering eye drops to a big Goron (hence the sword’s portmanteau name). And in the two most recent Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the Master Sword has great importance to the story — but mechanically? It’s kind of mid.

I can’t believe I’m calling the mystical blade that can only be wielded by the chosen one “mid,” but it is. Due to their combat design, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom just don’t seem equipped to handle a fully-powered Master Sword. Breath of the Wild controversially includes breakable weapons, which encourages creativity and adaptability in players while also pissing a lot of them off. In Breath of the Wild, even the Master Sword is breakable — or, rather, it operates on a cooldown mechanic. Tears of the Kingdom continues this. But when you have to face Ganon at the end of BotW, the cooldown mechanic becomes much more forgiving, and in TotK, it disappears entirely. The sword is essentially designed to be a Ganondorf-killing machine. But if you chop wood with it for too long, you’re going to be disappointed, fast.

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