What’s your favourite Zelda item? Okay, if we’re not counting the Hookshot, what’s your favourite item? Right, you’re not quite getting this, the Master Sword doesn’t count, that’s a weapon, not an item. Nope, Ocarinas are off the cards, too. How about your favourite item to only appear in one Zelda game? What, the bloody Gust𝄹 Jar? Seriously?
I doubt one percent of people who read my opening question will have answered ‘bait’. That’s fine, it was semi-rhetorical anyway. And for those of you who did say bait, well done! You have the exact same taste in Zelda items as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ben Sledge, Features Editor at TheGamer. For those of you wondering why thi𓂃s bait is so special, read on. Spoiler: it’s not just for fishing.
Now we’ve got that fantastic, pithy opening out of the way and you’re all laughed out, let me remind you of the date. 20 years ago today, on March 24, 2003, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was released, in the US at least. Which, judging from our site metrics, is probably where you’re reading this from. If you’re from Japan, you’d have already been playing Wind Waker for a couple of months by now, and if you’re from Europe like me, you’d have been looking jealously on as the rest of the world sailed the Hyrulian🧸 seas while you had to wait until May.
The Wind Waker was revolutionary in so many ways. Many people talk about its cartoonish aesthetic as its main trait but, while it’s the most obvious departure from previous games, that discussion can be reductive. Wind Waker was the most revolutionary Zelda game until 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild, and even served as the inspiration behind many of the latter’s most interesting mechanics. That groundbreaking open world? Wind Waker did it first. But one thing that Breath of the Wild, nor any other Zelda game for that matter,𒀰 didn’t take from Wind Waker is bait.
All-Purpose Bait is an item that you pick up from Beedle, the travelling salesman (should that be sailsman? Geddit? Because he’s on a boa-) and can use to lure Fishmen to the surface, from whence they will fill in a secto🌞r of your map. You remember Fishmen, right, those weird catfish-types smoking paintbrushes like cigars? Truly, no game does it꧙ like Wind Waker. Once you have the bow, you can play a minigame where you shoot the Fishmen to relieve them of their aches and pains, for which they reward you rupees. Best item in Zelda? Maybe not.
However, bait is multipurpose, hence the name. It can also be used to lure all kinds of animals to do your bidding. The giant pig🐠 called Link on Outset Island? Use bait to get him to dig up a Piece of Heart for you. Those little mouseholes in dungeons? Place a bit of bait at their entrances and a rat will emerge and sell you items. Bait is very handy in all manner of wildlife-based circumstances, but there’s one🃏 interaction that most people will have missed.
Puppet Ganon is one of the game’s most difficult bosses, far harder than the narrative-heavy Ganondorf fight that succeeds it. By the time Puppet Ganon reac🐬hes its final stage, Worm, you’re probably a little low on hearts, and landing hits on the infernal creature’s tail is a right pain. Shooting the fast-moving creature i🐼s tricky and getting up close risks taking more damage. Enter All-Purpose Bait.
Like many other animals in Wind Waker, Worm-form Puppet Ganon can’t resist the taste of bait. Sprinkle some in the arena, and it will circle the delicious fish food like it’s a rare delicacy, giving you the perfect 📖opportunity to land some shots on its glowing tail. Who’d have thought that bait, the thing you use if you want to make a pincushion of a Fishman, would be a cheat code for the penultimate boss of the game? Not me, I only realised this years later while down a YouTube rabbit hole.
That’s only three different uses of the item, granted, and two of them (summoning Fishmen and rats respectively) are fairly boring. But the utility of bait in the boss fight speaks to its potential. If future Zelda games had iterated on it, it could have become a staple of the series like the Hookshot or Pegasus Boots. Think of how Breath of the Wild could 🌠have utilised bait. Luring Bokoblins or Lynels would just be the start, it could make wrangling a Sand Seal to surf behind a whole lot easier, and it could even lead to encounters with characters diving in the rivers surrounding Zora’s Domain. It wouldn’t be much use against the Ganonblights in the Divine Beasts, but if it offered me even a slight advantage against a Stalnox – a shot at its weak neck vertebrae as it leaned down for a scran, for instance – it’d be worth its addition.
While it’s never goi൲ng to 𓄧rival the likes of the Hookshot or even the Gust Jar (which was ahead of its time, too) as people’s favourite Zelda item, Wind Waker’s bait was a great mechanic, and it’s a shame it hasn’t been revisited since. It shows just how innovative Wind Waker was compared to other Zelda games, and how much it was willing to play with the series’ tried-and-tested formula. It may not be for everyone, but bait sure reeled me in hook, line, and sinker.