The 15 Most Awesome References in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

From the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Image from Nintendo Switch version taken by C. Wassenaar and via Nintendo.

5. Finding the Master Sword

This isn’t the first time that a Link has had to brave the Lost Woods in order to find the legendary Blade of Evil’s Bane. In fact, that’s how it all started in A Link to the Past. The Lost Woods, there known as the Sacred Grove, also hide the Master Sword in Twilight Princess. Unsurprisingly, A Link Between Worlds looks directly to Past for its hiding place for the sword.

However, the Master Sword’s pedestal and dais design also hearkens back to games like Ocarina of Time, where it was kept in the Temple of Time and had a Triforce design beneath it that lit up if you used it to travel back and forth through time.

The requirement for obtaining the Master Sword in this game is a little different, though: you’ll need a certain amount of hearts, and yes, you can actually kill yourself doing it. (You also can’t add on extra hearts by cooking or sleeping at an inn. I would know. I checked.)

For games like Past and Worlds, you only needed three Pendants of Virtue to be deemed worthy. In Ocarina, you needed the three Spiritual Stones. As for Twilight, well, just getting through the puzzles of the Sacred Grove is bad enough. You’ll learn to hate the Skull Kid’s pipes after multiple playthroughs. I know I have.