Like these bots, Link is bound to his duty as Zelda’s knight and inextricably connected to the generational cycle of heroes and princesses that must rise to defeat the enduring evil of Ganon. Thinking about the Zonai Constructs’ odd state of purgatory, looping through instruction and menial work, adds an interesting perspective on The Legend of Zelda’s frequent themes of living up to past legends, mythology, and fate. It’s hard to remember that sometimes when you’re desperately fleeing from them after wandering too close to Hyrule Castle, but we were all on the same side! The Guardians and the Divine Beasts were invaluable foot soldiers for the ancient Sheikah people, staving off Calamity in Hyrule for many years before it could have occurred. Guardians weren’t inherently bloodthirsty, but their directive was hacked by Calamity Ganon to make them the enemies we feared. Just like the Zonai creations, the Guardians were suddenly thrust from dormancy into a world inhabited by people with only basic knowledge of their nature. Basically the only person who learned to love the aggressive Guardians in the original game was maybe the Sheikah researcher Robbie, as well as of course the ball-hugging NPC Loone who was behind one of BotW’s funniest side quests. While the Sheikah populate Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, they don’t seem to have the same connection to the Guardians as their ancestors did. The ghost of Rauru, a mysterious Zonai who plays a major role in the game’s plot, observes his home’s mechanical servants and expresses distress in his inability to break their ongoing loops of maintenance tasks around the Great Sky Island. I may be sympathizing with the Zonai Constructs more because their relationship with their creators is explored more deeply in Tears of the Kingdom. Even though plenty of the stewards just dryly explain control elements, a few of them seem to have patched in friendliness and other quirks through their centuries of operation, like the steward who offers your first tutorial as “unsolicited advice.” The stewards have a cool design, slightly resembling their Zonai creators, and their sound design lets some personality shine out. Seeing the Zonai Steward Constructs throughout the Great Sky Island stuck cycling through their work tasks centuries after their creators were long dead made what could have been a dull tutorial delivery system compelling and tragic.
Once I had better gear and understood their movement, I found myself gleefully toying with Guardians because of how much they terrified me in the early game, destroying their legs one by one and soaking in the victory as they couldn’t move.Īfter playing Tears of the Kingdom, which introduces you to a greater number of Constructs both friendly and aggressive, I came to regret my treatment of the original game’s Guardians. Their iconic theme still makes the hairs of my arms stand on end, and their obnoxiously powerful laser attack left me flummoxed before I could figure out the dodging and parry timing. Along with being terrifying, they marked an important point in progression when you finally had the strength and know-how of the game’s systems to face one or multiple of the spidery bots down. Guardians were a phenomenal enemy from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
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