The Legend of Zelda: Link's Most Useless Items & Equipment

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Most Useless Items & Equipment

• Equipment like the Magic Armor have great utility, but their drawbacks are dealbreakers
• Some items may have been great ideas in theory, but their execution is flawed, like the original Legend of Zelda's Food
• Items like the Bomblings have little practical purpose and can be entirely ignored without consequence

One of the core elements of a classic Legend of Zelda adventure is the variety of powerful items Link gets to pick up on his quest. From neck-breaking movement boosts to devastating anti-evil weaponry, by the end of each game, Link ends his quest with an arsenal preparing him for any situation.

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However, not every Legend of Zelda game can have a perfect array of practical treasures dotted around the map or at the bottom of a dungeon. Some of the items or equipment have been outright duds that might have one or even zero practical uses in the entire game.

Magic Armor - Twilight Princess

Redirects All Damage (To Link's Wallet)

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Platform(s) Wii, GameCubeReleased November 19, 2006Developer(s) Nintendo EADGenre(s) Action, Adventure

• The item's function: makes Link impervious to damage
• What makes it useless: it costs two rupees for every second of wear and takes ten for every hit (or it stunts Link's movement speed)

A piece of equipment that nullifies all incoming damage sounds pretty useful, but the problem is the price, and it's a price that Link will feel burning a hole in his rupee bag forever (literally). Twilight Princess' Magic Armor is obtained at the end of a very lengthy sidequest that involves a lot of investment for little return, besides buying out the snootiest shopkeeper in Hyrule.

After a whole lot of grass-cutting and rock-breaking, Link will be able to buy a fancy-looking armor set for a (still pricy) discount. The armor makes Link immune from damage, but it also slowly drains his rupee funds, two at a time. If Link takes damage, he also loses a further ten. Adding insult to injury, once Link becomes penniless, the armor will gain mass and will make him run as if wading through mud. He becomes so heavy that not even Link's faithful companion, Epona, will allow him to ride her.

Food - The Legend of Zelda

An Item That Allows Link To Buy His Foes Lunch

The Legend of Zelda

Platform(s) Nintendo Entertainment System, Wii, Wii U, Game Boy Advance, 3DSReleased February 21, 1986Developer(s) Nintendo EADGenre(s) Action-Adventure

• The item's function: distracts wild enemies
• What makes it useless: enemies can still damage Link while distracted

Throughout the years, the Zelda series has had innovative mechanics, but occasionally, Nintendo will put out concepts that, while great ideas, aren't great in execution. There's no better example than the food item in the original The Legend of Zelda, which attracts enemies to its location with its succulent scent. In Wind Waker, this concept was perfected, as demonstrated by the fish-scribing, rat-bribing, and seagull-guiding. In contrast, luring foes with the food bait in The Legend of Zelda is a waste of time, as gathering a bunch of enemies into one location has little tactical advantage besides occasionally escaping to the next monster-filled screen.

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Food is required to complete one of the dungeons and is used to convince an enemy to abandon his post, but it may as well have just been a trade item. The problem with food is that it is unclear which enemies it will attract. Skeletons, which seem like they could use something to eat the most, are uninterested, whereas the land-wandering Red Octoroks, whose mouths seem to be used exclusively for shooting high-velocity rocks, can't get enough of the stuff.

Bomblings - Twilight Princess

Creepy Crawler Bombs (Without Much Wallcrawling)

• The item's function: acts as a running bomb
• What makes it useless: has no utility in the game and, despite being an insect, can't even scale walls

Even super fans of the Zelda series may not remember this optional bomb variant as an item, perhaps because it serves no purpose for adventuring or puzzle solving and very little use combat-wise. The enemy variants of Bomblings in Twilight Princess can be used to defeat the boss in the Forest Temple with the help of the Gale Boomerang. The item variant can be bought from the Bomb Shop owner in Kakariko village but can also be safely ignored.

In fact, given how chaotic these bomb-based creatures are, it's probably safer not to carry them around on an adventure. Unlike the wall-crawling Bombchu, the bombling is terrestrial only. Any distant explodable object can be taken care of with a well-timed lob or, better still, with a bomb arrow, which Link can produce as soon as he has both bombs and a bow.

Telescope - Wind Waker

A Thematically Appropriate But Short-Sighted Addition

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Platform(s) GameCubeReleased March 24, 2003Developer(s) Nintendo EADGenre(s) Action, Adventure

• The item's function: helps Link see faraway places
• What makes it useless: Link is never lost for land at sea, and the zoom only magnifies billboarded textures

As Wind Waker is a game all about sailing the Great Ocean, sometimes with pirates, it makes thematical sense that Link would be given a telescope to scan for distant land on the watery horizon. However, besides roleplay flavor, the telescope serves zero purpose. Players are only ever forced to use it when Link needs to get a better look at a giant bird carrying a mysterious girl in its talons, but even this is superseded by a cutscene with a better camera angle.

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The telescope could have served many purposes in Wind Waker, perhaps helping Link see the faraway solution to a classic, fiendishly hard Zelda puzzle. Link is hardly ever out at sea long enough to need to find land. Plus, even when used on the sea to check out distant landmasses, the texture of faraway objects is still billboarded through the glass (which is when objects and terrain that are far from the player use the low-poly model to help with performance), making distant vistas look like smudges anyway.

Hawkeye - Twilight Princess

Far And Away The Most Skippable Purchase

• The item's function: turns Link's bow into a sniper rifle
• What makes it useless: there are zero puzzles, enemies, or situations that require long-range projectiles to beat

From an overview of its item roster, it's clear that Twilight Princess has its fair share of redundant gear, from the tragically underutilized Spinner, which can basically only be used in one dungeon and area, to the exciting-in-theory-but-disapointing-in-practice Dominion Rod. However, those items actually served a purpose. Besides allowing Link to fire arrows at an extremely long distance, the Hawkeye has no practical utility.

There is no super-fun dungeon boss in Twilight Princess to take care of from afar and no tricky heart piece unlocked by some savvy, long-distance shooting, and given that Link is such a proficient and dynamic short-range fighter, stopping to zoom in on faraway targets just feels clunky. The mask probably makes Link look goofy when he wears it, but as there's no way to see him when he's using it, there's no way to know for sure.

The Giant's Knife - Ocarina Of Time

A Giant Waste Of Time That Will Snap More Than A Blade

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Platform(s) GameCube, Nintendo 64Released November 21, 1998Developer(s) NintendoGenre(s) Action, Adventure

• The item's function: gives Link greater reach with his sword attacks
• What makes it useless: it breaks after only six uses and comes with no refund

Medigoron, the seller of this particular item, is hidden behind four explodable walls, where the rest of the Gorons presumably imprisoned him for his terrible handicraft and fraudulent business practices. Link can purchase what he calls a "Giant's Knife" for a costly 200 rupees, a double-handed sword with incredible reach. The only problem is that it breaks after six swipes against enemies or solid objects.

Although Medigoron (so named for his mediocracy) won't offer a refund, he does kindly offer Link a better version for another 200 rupees. It is better in the sense that it takes a few extra strikes before it snaps again, but it will always ultimately shatter, leaving Link with nothing but a useless hilt. The only benefit that the Giant's Knife offers is relief when Link finally completes the trading quest for the superior Biggoron's Sword.

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