Status Ailments & Effects in Zelda

Hey all! So here it is, my first “official” Zelda article, and while I did rush through this one I think it brings up a good topic for debate. Feel free to voice your opinion and in return I’ll try and write better articles. Also I’d like to hear any suggestions for future articles. I’m sure when we hear something about the newest game I’ll have no end of things to write about. But until then read this one.

Throughout the entire Zelda series there hasn’t been many examples of this damage/effect system. However, It has been used and I would like to explore this point of interest as my first article for Zelda Eternity. First off I should explain that a status ailment either inflicts additional damage to your player, or causes no damage but leaves the player with some undesirable effects. For example: sleep, paralysis shouldn’t cause any harm while poison or burn would make our health drop on it’s own. Also I might add that there are some positive status effects, but we’ll cover that in a bit.

So now that that’s out of the way we can start to look at how Zelda has been influenced by this popular game mechanic and what it might mean in future Zelda games. Off the top of my head when I think of this subject I come up with Majora’s Mask immediately. This is because Link’s transformations had individual weaknesses along with the fact that each area was practically based off of status ailments. Let me explain.

The Southern Swamp is a prime example of poison and what it can do, Although in MM the poison was in it’s physical form and it only hurt you when you actually touched it. Usually poison sticks around a little longer than that but I still think they did a really great job on the Southern Swamp (it’s all about the Deku Palace). An even better example would be when we encounter a Blue Bubble (one of those flying skulls engulfed in blue fire). Upon contact with this creature we immediately receive one of my favorite status ailments. It’s called curse, or being jinxed, whatever you want to call it it stinks! This time Nintendo got it right but curse stays with you for a long long time! plus it makes you unable to even draw your sword until the effects wear off, you pretty much have to run away unless you want to get cursed again. Tis a sad day for Link…

Anyway there are plenty of other instances where Nintendo decided to use this idea, Link receives extra fire damage and ice damage from fire and Ice Keese (bats). In LA you could even find Pieces of Power and Guardian Acorns, these little pick ups would temporarily boost your damage or your defense, a positive status effect! Heck even the tunics give you some protection against the various elements. Goron Link was weak to water, Fire was anathema to our wooden friend Deku Link, and I think Zora Link may have been weak against ice… Not really sure about that one. But what I do know is that MM was the best in terms of status effects.

When you think about it Zelda has been on the up and up for a while now and I think they could stand to see an even more in depth status system than ever before in future games. What do you guys think? Would the game be better without them? Could Zelda Wii pull it off? MM sure did (and so did OoT and LA) but I wonder if that’s what other gamers want to see. Probably not, but then again they did it so well in Majora’s Mask that you probably didn’t even notice. Right?