Throughout the Legend of Zelda series, our favorite hero,
most likely dubbed Link, has had a slew of frankly annoying helpers. He has
never had a perfect companion. What may come to mind is a sickening chorus of, “Hey!
Listen!” However none of the other helpers fit just right, did they?
To start, think on Navi. That annoying fuck of a fairy in
Ocarina of Time. The little chirping of her freaking out every time you come
across a monster is migraine inducing. But after about half an hour of
gameplay, you tend to drown her out. She blends into the background noise,
which is plentiful in most areas. Now, I won’t say that at times she doesn’t
grate on even MY nerves. But she can be tolerable, and almost always has something
helpful to say about an enemy. About everything else? No. Well, a few tidbits
of direction, but usually something general, and really just a reminder of what
was already hinted at but you’re too dense to remember. There are only a few
enemies that I recall that she had no useful information on. Namely, Dark Link
and Ganon. As these are designed to be a challenge in every way, this is
understandable. She had insight into pretty much every monster, and when I
first played, her advice was invaluable. Being a little kid and all.
Now we move on to a fairy of a different color, if I may
say. Tatl. Now I really disliked Tatl. Majora’s Mask was my first three
dimensional Zelda game. I had no clue half of what was going on. At a young age
I occasionally found myself muttering, “The fuck IS this?” Tatl was, at times,
rude and no help. “What, you don’t know about the-?” “Isn’t that a Skullfish?
Look, don’t ask me about everything, alright?” I was rather peeved at her. Not
to mention how she was introduced to the story. She and her brother were
terrorizing you with the Skull Kid. She only travels with you because she wants
to get back to her brother and you were going after them anyway. The little prick
had planned to just turn her back on you, until Skull Kid hit her brother. Then
the gloves came off, and she was yours to keep. I could have done without her,
honestly. Most of her information was, “You’d better do something about this
monster!” Her attitude was simply deplorable. Probably the least helpful
companion, her only purpose was to add to the story.
Still thinking along the lines of fairies, we have Ciela
from Phantom Hourglass. Her in game uses are, especially at first, few if any.
She is very active in the storyline, but provides little to no help. According
to the story, this is very understandable, and the enemies in this game require
little explanation. She’s much more useful later, giving you a sword upgrade
and a fun new move. Until then, she’s really just a willing companion as you search
out your lost girlfriend. She’s a good friend to talk to, a lighthearted ball
of magic fluff with wings and a ‘tude against Linebeck. Zelda gold right there.
Getting out of the realm of fairies, we see companions that
are looking remarkably more human. Considering I just talked about Phantom
Hourglass, I’ll look at that game’s immediate sequel. Spirit Tracks featured
none other than Zelda herself as your helper. Well, sort of. Ghost Zelda. She
provided bits of insight and wisdom, basic direction to your quest, and a whole
lot of sass and dramatics. She was the epitome of annoying. She had her perks,
the ability to take over certain enemies during the sneak missions of the game.
This unfortunately consisted of half the game, if not more. I rather detest
sneak missions. This is beside the point entirely. She was useful in these
sneak missions, until a rat was in the room. Then she would scream bloody murder,
alerting all of the enemies in the area and immobilizing her. This was featured
in Phantom Hourglass, in one small section of game, and they decided to include
it in this one. At times it was featured rather heavily, screwing you over. Did
I mention dramatics? The cutscenes were littered with dramatics and attitude
from her. It made the game even more comical than it already was thanks to the graphics
alone. The gameplay with Zelda was frustrating. If it wasn’t her getting stuck
somewhere, it was her getting immobilized by rats, or her just not being able
to get places. The final boss was terribly annoying. Come on, Zelda. Ghost
rats? You’re a ghost, I know, but they were just materialized by the enemy.
They aren’t real.
Stepping back some, I’m rather thankful that Link had little
in the way of companions during Wind Waker. He had the King of Red Lions, who
chimed in only at certain points. He had Tetra, who only interrupted the quest
a handful of times. I could probably count them on one hand. Tingle was the
closest to a helper, and he was optional, and even absurdly helpful. The Tingle
Tuner even ran a shop from your GBA that you could access whenever you needed.
I liked the companion in Wind Waker.
The next helper I’d like to talk about is remarkably more
humanoid than her fairy predecessors, though not nearly human. In Twilight Princess, you get
propositioned by an imp. In exchange for her help in returning to your true
form and rescuing your friends, you have to help her get whatever it is she
wants. Sounds good. She’s got the attitude a few of the other companions have.
But she provides huge in-game services. Namely, the attack in wolf form that
essentially ruins the day of anything in the proper range. She also helps you
travel where a normal wolf couldn’t. Then you get into the portal hopping. This
is the most efficient travelling you will do in a Zelda game. The game
designers actually placed these well. There’s one just outside or on the
outskirts of every village or town. There’s one in every main section of land.
If you need to go somewhere, there’s a portal within reasonable distance. The
world isn’t very large, I suppose, so travel wouldn’t be too much of a hassle,
if you had your horse for a majority of the game. Oftentimes you couldn’t
access your horse because you can’t call it. You don’t have an instrument to
call it with. You need the horse reed. Those aren’t in very convenient places.
Midna provides an excellent option of simply teleporting there. She also is
very active in the story. She’s probably more integral to the story than Zelda
herself. Rather than your usual story, which was, “Evil is at work, Zelda is either
the target or the only hope at defeating it and gets kidnapped,” you have
another princess, another world tied into our sacred Hyrule, that you are fated
to save. She doesn’t give as much useful information as you’d like. But I think
the portals make up for that tenfold.
Skyward Sword gave us Fi. I have mixed emotions about Fi.
She gave plenty of information at the times I didn’t actually need it. When I
did need it, certain fights with Ghirahim, she had nothing. She provided a
wealth of information at any given time. Talking to her was informative, though dry. She didn’t
develop a personality until the very end. If she had one throughout, that would
be fine. If she never had one, that would also be fine. It irks me that she
developed one at the very end. I’d have liked to see more. Or less. Whichever.
She provided little use other than information enough to make you feel like an
expert on the area. In the story, she was a dancer and a singer. I didn’t quite
understand the need for the dancing. Skyward Sword was in general more
elaborate than I understand. I’m not complaining, but it didn’t necessarily
need all that fluff. That was just a perk.
I find myself a bit disturbed to realize that the perfect
companion was in fact Tingle.
