Some The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom fans have taken online to call for a simple UI change that would fix their grievances with how the game handles the activation of certain abilities. Their pleas surfaced online shortly after Tears of the Kingdom survived a barrage of review bombs.
Warning! Mid-game gameplay spoilers ahead.While Tears of the Kingdom doesn't address every Breath of the Wild complaint, Nintendo's latest Switch exclusive managed to improve on its predecessor in most respects. One notable exception to that trend are Sage abilities, Tears of the Kingdom's version of Champion Powers. Since these talents are now tied to companions that follow Link in his adventures, Nintendo decided they should all share an activation method. So, instead of holding the jump, block, or attack button like in BOTW, all Sage abilities in Tears of the Kingdom are triggered by approaching their corresponding ally and pressing A.
Many players are finding this new activation method to vary between clunky and annoying, depending on the situation, having promptly taken online to call for improvements. One of the most high-profile such attempts at getting Nintendo's attention was authored by Reddit user Icy_Bumblebee, who recently suggested a simple but effective fix to these grievances: a quick selection menu for Tears of the Kingdom's companion abilities assigned to the down D-pad arrow. While that button is already used for whistling, Icy_Bumblebee argued that the whistle should consequently replace the map shortcut in the ability menu.
The solution makes a lot of sense, not least because the map command is entirely redundant right now, seeing how opening the map in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is already as simple as pressing the minus button on the left Joy-Con or controller. A dedicated menu would also make ability activations much less stressful in combat, especially when it comes to largely defensive powers like Sidon's shield that are extremely counterintuitive to activate by following an ally who's always rushing enemies.
Some fans discussing Icy_Bumblebee's UI fix proposal have also expressed confusion over how Nintendo managed to make Tears of the Kingdom's ability activations that much worse than in Breath of the Wild, concluding that they took the previous game's elegant control scheme for granted. Others adopted a more optimistic outlook, stating that a clunky ability activation mechanic is something that they're willing to tolerate seeing how Tears of the Kingdom's Link is no longer alone in his adventures.
While Nintendo is likely to be planning more Tears of the Kingdom updates, a user interface revamp is not something that fans should be counting on.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is available now on Switch.
