Tears of the Kingdom quickly blesses you with all of its new abilities, so you can start exploring and experimenting right away. The first few hours are a whirlwind of discovery as you learn to interact with this familiar world in new ways. Link’s new powers are so thoughtfully designed and powerful that they could carry an entire game on their own. Ultrahand, Fuse, Ascend, and Recall are all amazing in their own way, but the time-reversal power of Recall stands out as Tears of the Kingdom’s most revolutionary new ability.
It may not seem so at first glance. The Ultrahand, which allows you to smash any objects together to create something new, is by far Link’s flashiest new tool. My social media feed is full of sweet dreams and flying machines, and it’s clear that Ultrahand is meant to represent Tears of the Kingdom’s creative identity. Fuse is also incredibly inspiring. The ability to snap any object onto your weapon is a great display of Nintendo’s playful spirit. Even Ascend may seem at first glance to be a more important and impactful ability than Recall, due to how much it increases Link’s ability to traverse and explore Hyrule. These aren’t just fresh ideas for a Zelda game, they’re innovations that will impact gaming in general, just like Breath of the Wild did before it.
In contrast, Recall seems like an odd man out. Many games have allowed players to rewind time and in a similar way to what Tears of the Kingdom uses. Many people probably think of Prince of Persia, but the Ratchet & Clank series has used time manipulation as a puzzle-solving feature several times, as has Tears of the Realm. Braid is an entire game built around the ability to reverse time, and there are many other examples of games that incorporate time manipulation as a core mechanic, including Dishonored, Life is Strange, and Timeshift.
Admittedly, Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t do a good job of showcasing the power of Recall when you first unlock it, at least not compared to the other new abilities. It instructs you to spin the watermill backwards so you can complete the platform challenge, suggesting that Recall is a tool you’ll only use to solve certain puzzles. However, Recall is much more than that.
One of the most important things to learn in Tears of the Kingdom, just like in Breath of the Wild before it, is how to combine your abilities. Recall can cause any object to reverse its movement, including objects you move yourself with Ultrahand. If you want to quickly cross a gap or wall, you can use Ultrahand to pick up a board, move it to the target, bring it back, then step on it and use Recall. It will follow the exact path you move it in reverse, allowing you to ride the board wherever you want. This is a great way to get your wings in the air even without a ramp. Ultrahand him up high, drop him back down, climb aboard and use Recall. When the wing is at its highest point, cancel the recall and you will begin to fly.
When you discover how much freedom you have in recalling things, you will begin to look at the whole world in a new way. Just as Breath of the Wild’s Stasis and Magnesis abilities taught players to internalize physics concepts like momentum, force, and potential energy into their gameplay, Recall teaches us to view the world through a cinematic lens. Summoning isn’t really time manipulation, it’s control over objects in motion.
Everything that moves is under your control. When Talus throws a boulder at you, you can freeze it in mid-air and throw it back at him. Throw your weapon at the enemy and summon it back to your hand. Make the ball traps roll up and kill the guards they sent down. Let the boat go upstream, let the wing fly backwards. There is so much hidden potential in Recall that you will only discover it when you realize that the only thing you need to use it is movement.
Of all Link’s new abilities, Recall is the one that best captures the spirit of Breath of the Wild’s emerging gameplay. Working with Recall grounds objects, gives them weight, and makes the world feel like a physical place that really exists. While Ultrahand and Fuse turn Hyrule into a sandbox filled with gadgets and toys all placed there for your entertainment, Recall brings the realm to life. Building deadly fire-breathing chariots is slick, but the way Recall engages your understanding of physics and encourages the use of non-linear thinking to solve logical problems is what makes Tears of the Kingdom the most important ability.