Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Almost Had A Different Name

You would have needed the 7 Dragontears to summon Shenron and get your wish granted.

I'm glad they went with tears of the kingdom. I'm sure stupid people like me would have compared it with Dragonball otherwise.

after playing Totk, and know the mystery on botw it makes me Tear

Should've been "Tears of the Timeline Enthusiasts".

Could have had a banging pre-prepared Bruce Dickinson theme song though

https://youtu.be/w2WIWtffuRA

@Andee My immediate thought too!

It will be funny if the subtitle was Tears of the Crocodile. 😆

I pretty much knew that had been the working title after I actually played it because I remember them holding back on the title reveal for that reason. The current title doesn't actually make any sense. The kingdom isn't really crying about anything. The present Hyrule hasn't permanently lost anything in dramatic fashion and the game isn't framed well around the tragedy of the past. Maybe if the Secret Stones were called tears instead.

I still would have preferred Tears of the Dragon, honestly.

its always interesting learning concept names of games, i imagine totk had dozens more

with so much thought and brainstorming that goes into it, it makes me wonder how a game like ARMS had that name be its best case scenario

Or Tears of Boredom and choretime..... if you ask me!

Echoes of Wisdom looks like a nice course correction to me.

I wish Aunoma would move on and bring in some talent in charge of LoZ going forward (and back some too)!!!

Anyone else with me on this?

Legend of Zelda, Tears of Time.

That title would completely lose the double meaning (tear as in crying and tear as in tearing apart). So, TotK is definitely better.

@Erigen Tears of the Random (timeline placement)

Tears Of The Dragon sounds too much like a late 90's Kung Fu movie.

Definitely would’ve been too on the nose and would’ve taken away from the surprise

Tears of the Dragon would have been a spoiler.

TOTK is vague enough to be a title but actually describes the game. A lot better than the punny ones they try to make in English. LBW and LTTP come to mind. I don’t really notice titles but do like TOTK. In hindsight I feel like it fits better than BOTW even though Ganon pretty much bombed them back a few ages (and Link’s actions breathed new life into Hyrule).

Honestly after AOC and TOTK (still playing) Zelda (to a lesser extent Impa too imo) is probably ready to put Ganondorf in a meat grinder. She has been a witness/fighting against for ALL the destruction he has caused. Almost makes him feel realistically evil when you look at all the damage wars cause and the leaders that make them happen don’t care about the devastation they leave (this is a general comment, don’t hijack it).

Either one is still a better name than "Breath of the Wild."

@NIN10DOXD I actually like the name "Breath Of the Wild" more than ToTK personally. However I just didn't like the story of BOTW or ToTK.

It's a take, but im taking it. I'm just personally not invested in Ganondorf as a villain. I get he is a series staple, but I feel like his story was wrapped up wonderfully in Wind Waker.

Then they bring him back in in Twilight Princess which undercuts what could have been an interesting villain Zant, and then bring him back a boring mindless beast in BOTW. Next comes ToTK and despite being the central antagonist (again) the writing is just meh.

Breath of Wild the title sounds fun, and when you remove the whole Ganon is back thing again, it can be viewed has a Link living in this vast strange world going on a grand adventure of self discovery.

The outline was there, and there just so much potential for a fresh start villain wise, but the insistence on Ganon/Ganondorf just brings it down a tad bit.

Im not trying to knock down Ganondorf as a villain. I just wanna see a major mainline Zelda game with a entirely new bad guy.

That’s also the name of a great Bruce Dickinson song!

Tears of the Kingdom ended up being an awesome title. Tears of the Dragon sounds like a postmortmen Bruce Lee movie.

@msvt Big time agree with you, yes. Playing Breath of the Wild felt new and clever back in 2017. The idea of playing what is basically a DX version of the same game in 2023? No thanks.

kinda glad they went with kingdom hehe

I heard a lot of people were mad it took so long for the title to be revealed because they thought it might have spoilers but looks like they didn’t even have it at the time 😂

Good story.
Tears of the kingdom is better name for this game. İt could be something else too like Tears of the Hyrule.

@msvt lol, that was the exact same thing that came to my mind. Tears of Boredom

@FaroreAbhorsen The name could allude to Zelda being the ruler of the Kingdom of Hyrule. It could also allude to how Hyrule lost both of its rulers in the imprisoning war.

@NFrealinkling From what it sounds like, the name was going to be "Tears of the Dragon" when they made that statement, hence why they held off on saying anything name-wise until the name change to "Tears of the Kingdom."

Why would you tear a dragon?

Makes as much sense as Wind Waker did.. There was no winding in that.

@VoidofLight yeah I just thought it was funny hearing other people theorize what took them so long to reveal the title

I much prefer "Tears of the Kingdom", primarily because it's a pun. All the holes in the ground are literally tears (rips) in the kingdom.

Plus using "of the Dragon" is unnecessarily similar to House of the Dragon. Not to mention Like a Dragon.

@karlhendrikse when the name was revealed I joked that it was a phonetic mistranslation and that the title was actually TIERS of the Kingdom. You know, because of the sky islands and the depths and the different elevations and that people just misunderstood.

@WaffleRaptor01 I only ever want to see Ganondorf again if he's deeper than Wind Waker. Both TP and TotK made him a brute and that's not interesting to me at all. In general I'm tired of villains in media who just want to rule everything for no reason and with no actual philosophy for governance or to just destroy everything. It's super boring. Does Ganondorf want to lead the Gerudo to conquest or is he just on some pro-Demon stuff. How does that transition happen? At least Bowser wants to marry Peach so his kid can have a mom.

@FaroreAbhorsen Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf has a good amount of depth to him. It just doesn't come across as that in the English release of the game. In most of the other releases, Ganondorf wanted to knock the Zonai down a peg due to being jealous of Rauru and believing that Rauru was too "soft" or "weak" to rule. That he only had the position he did due to being a Zonai. He took Rauru's arrogance to his advantage and effectively was able to take out both the Queen of Hyrule and eventually the King of Hyrule at that time, with him trying to establish a world where only the strong may survive.

With Twilight Princess, Ganondorf wasn't really a brute either. The man effectively offered Zant power as a way to get back at the kingdom who "wronged" him. He was pretty much to be executed originally for crimes he only really committed in the Adult Timeline. His motives in Twilight Princess were partially revenge, but partially desiring to rule the Kingdom.

I feel like all of his appearances outside of Ocarina were pretty well done. His character is at its best when he isn't "sympathetic," and is more of a man angry at the world around him. I personally think Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf would've been my favorite if the story was told in a way that actually showcased his effects on the ancient past and gave us more moments with him on screen.

@VoidofLight But then that's what makes it funny. Ganondorf has become sympathetic, just not in an interesting way. Rather now you pity him because he's becomes obsessed with Hyrule to the point of no return.

He's so pathetic now with his one desire, that he's sympathetic.

@Selim tbh.... The story isn't all that ... A step up above botw since it actually has one that's slightly more involved..... And playable ...but one of the weakest in the series since it jumbles everything, retcons and leaves too much vague causing plot holes in itself ...not even gonna mention how time travel worked here.... Zelda would've lived through botw events twice one as a human and another flying over the skies as a dragon. She should've created a new timeline and never returned to the current post botw one.... Like how timelines work in oot, age of calamity and etc.

I don't see how that would have been a spoiler.

It would've been funny if the title was Tears of the Past. I like Tears of the Dragon more, it's not like the kingdom is crying.

Zelda transforming herself into the Light Dragon deeply affected me on an emotional level. It still does to this day. That she sacrificed her humanity (Hylianity?) to become a mindless beast for thousands of years for the sake of her people--after all, her final conscious thought was "Protect them all!"--only proves that she is kind, caring, and strong of heart. It is for that reason why she is my favorite monarch, real or fictional.

I said that to Patricia Summersett (the English voice of Zelda) when I met her at FanExpo Chicago a few weeks ago. She agreed that it was quite the sacrifice for Zelda to make. And when she autographed my copy of TOTK, she wrote "Protect them all!" on the slip cover. She also autographed my copy of BOTW, Age of Calamity, my F4F statue of Zelda from BOTW, my TOTK-themed OLED Switch, and a holographic poster of Zelda in all of her various outfits from the games.

I thought the name release was also delayed due to the death of queen elizabeth? Or did I get caught up in internet rumours?

@AstroTheGamosian as happy as it made me to save her, I really do think we should not have gotten her back. It felt a little bit like cheating the audience after all the build up of her “sacrifice” to be like “nah, you’re good! Go be with your guy!” I was half expecting Rauru, the queen, and Zelda’s dad to pop up and be like “we’re gonna be alive now too yay!”

This certainly explains why it felt like it took so long to get the title of the game so long after the announcement and teasers. This is a real neat little tidbit!

They held back the title for a long long time to avoid spoiling things so it checks out. The final title was probably only decided a few months before they told us

@OFFICIALMichi Well, you can't really have a Zelda game where you don't save her in the end. Granted, there are a few like that (Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask, Tri Force Heroes), but for the most part, she is basically the one you have to rescue at the end of the game.

It is interesting to note, though, that it is only in recent Zelda games that her imprisonment was self-imposed (sealing herself into a crystal in Skyward Sword to prevent the return of Demise, sealing herself and Calamity Ganon away for a century in BOTW, turning herself into the Light Dragon for an indeterminate amount of time in TOTK).

So Echoes of Wisdom is REALLY going to shake up that formula, with Zelda being the one to save Link and Hyrule this time around. But I welcome it. It hasn't been since Spirit Tracks that Zelda was playable in a mainline Zelda game (so no Hyrule Warriors or Cadence of Hyrule), and it hasn't been since 1996 that Zelda was the main protagonist (when Zelda's Adventure was released on the Philips CD-i). Echoes of Wisdom is the first mainline Zelda game where the titular princess herself is the playable protagonist, something that fans had been wanting for years.

@msvt yeah! I couldn’t get into this game, I’ve tried twice and it doesn’t click with me. I think we need some more traditional Zelda back. Dungeon crawler with a little more linear feel to it.

@AstroTheGamosian not all fans, I really much prefer not to play as Princess Zelda. I can’t wait until this segment is over and we go back to more traditional games (I hope at least).