Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim wants to spread the love for a certain Hylian in need of support...
Before getting my hands on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the first time, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to achieve.
With Breath of the Wild, I had gone straight for story first and saved all of the Shrines and Side Quests for afterwards. That approach suited me and I was ready and prepared to do the same thing again with TOTK, excited and ready for the fresh Zelda narrative. What I was not ready for, was how all of that would Ascend straight out the top of my head when I first laid eyes on a man with a bowl-cut hairdo trying his best to hammer a construction sign into the ground.
Immediately, all thoughts of what I wanted to achieve in the game were gone. Zelda? Never heard of her. Ganon-who? Dungeons? No thanks. I know that there is a man dotted around Hyrule in need of my support. And support I will give.
Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration — I am still playing through the game with a story focus for the time being — but my point is that the ever-optimistic construction worker Addison has stolen my heart and I am yet to find it in me to walk past him without lending an Ultrahand.
Let's Rewind back to the beginning (yes, I'm forcing these ability puns a little now). If you have played Tears of the Kingdom for any length of time, then I would imagine that you have met Addison. I first bumped into him in Hyrule Castle Town Ruins, but there is every chance that you might have found him somewhere else. He gets around.
He quickly told me that he is out to support President Hudson (of Hudson Construction fame) after the man himself had laid out rebuild materials all over Hyrule. Safe in the knowledge that innocent Hylians will only use these materials for building useful items and definitely not any NSFW content (yep we've all seen the tweets), Addison has set out on a simple mission: spread the word of Hudson's excellence by erecting a series of signs.
The problem is, and let's be frank here, he is terrible at his job. Seriously, who goes out with a sign that big without first thinking of a way to put it up? Your job is to fashion a support for the sign by any means possible so it will be able to bear the weight of the Hudson propaganda while Addison hammers the foundations in.
It's a simple little job and one that hardly seems important as the fate of Hyrule hangs in the balance, but it has quickly become one of my favourite pastimes in Tears of the Kingdom. Why? Because Addison is absolutely hilarious.
Finding him struggling to put up a sign in Hyrule Field is one thing, but once I caught him shivering on the top of the Hebra Mountains or sweating in the Gerudo Desert, his pledged support became all the funnier. No longer was I just trying to help a guy out with his construction work, I was instead engaging in an experiment to test the limits of his thin Hylian vest and trousers. Sure, it's a little mean to stand and watch a man attempt to put up a sign in life-threatening weather conditions, but it's certainly more humane than strapping a Korok to a rocket and listening for the pitch of 'oof' it makes as it explodes.