New Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Link Ability Seems Based on a Classic Nintendo Toy

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Earlier today, Nintendo project manager Eiji Aonuma showcased some gameplay from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in a 13-minute video. In the trailer, some of Link's new abilities for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were shown by Aonuma. However, one of the new abilities was compared to a toy from Nintendo's past, which may be considered either an Easter egg or a coincidence.

Releasing in just over a month, Tears of the Kingdom is the sequel to Breath of the Wild, which was both a launch title for the Switch and the final Nintendo first-party release for the Wii U. Taking place after the events of Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom sees Link with a new outfit and new powers that are channeled through his right arm. With it, Link can phase through ceilings, fuse weapons to enhance their capabilities in battle, and rewind the motion of specific objects to reach new areas. These areas include the new sky islands floating above Hyrule. However, one of Link's new abilities may be a callback to Nintendo's past that not many people know about.

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One of Link's new abilities, called Ultrahand, allows him to grab and combine items to use for a variety of purposes in Tears of the Kingdom. In today's presentation, Aonuma used Ultrahand to combine some nearby logs to form a makeshift raft to float across the water. He then used Ultrahand again to attach some conveniently-placed fans to use as motors on the back of the raft and reach the other side. If Ultrahand sounds like a power with a strange name, the «Ultra Hand» was also the name of a toy that Nintendo made in 1973.

As shown by a picture from CoolBoxArt on Twitter, the Ultra Hand was an