Tears Of The Kingdom's Ultrahand Is A Reference To '60s Nintendo Toy
Nintendo showed off ten minutes of gameplay from Tears of the Kingdom this week. Remarkable because despite showing very little of Hyrule and giving away nothing about its story, the already elevated hype for the game shot through the roof. Link will have a number of new abilities in Tears of the Kingdom, one of which will fire him through the ceiling, and another that appears to be an homage to a deep cut from Nintendo's history.
Link's new abilities were shown off during the gameplay including the power to fuse items together to create things that might be more useful. Once everyone had moved past how exciting that is, and what it means for the kind of stuff we'll be able to make, older Nintendo stalwarts clocked one of Link's new powers is called Ultrahand.
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Perhaps an odd name for the power until you compare what it does to a toy Nintendo icon Gunpei Yokoi made in the late 1960s. Called the Ultra Hand, a number of people on Twitter familiar with the popular toy have pointed out since the gameplay showcase that Link's new power is almost definitely an homage to the creation that got Yokoi a job at Nintendo before it had even started making video games.
Link uses his own Ultrahand to reach for items far away and can then fuse those items together. The Ultra Hand, on the other hand, could be used to reach and grab items from a distance, but it lacks the fusing ability once you have said items. In fairness, that would be pretty advanced for a kids' toy made today, let alone one made more than 50 years ago.
If you're still not convinced, Nintendo Life has pointed out tributes to Yokoi's Ultra Hand have appeared in other games.
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