Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an exciting and fun new addition to the Animal Crossing franchise, allowing players to terraform their surroundings and create any type of world they desire for the first time ever. Players can create waterfalls, cliffs, and roads, and download an endless amount of custom designs for furniture, clothes, and paths.
There are infinite possibilities for decorating your island (my island is city-core/fairy-core combination), and some fans have taken that opportunity to create their own Zelda-themed worlds. In this article, I would like to explore Hylia, a Zelda-themed island by Leahnardo (acnh.hylia) on Instagram!
If you visit this island via the Dodo Airport, you will be warmly greeted by the gates of Hyrule Castle, which were created using a variety of items including Wedding Pipe Organs, Stone Lion-Dogs, Torches, plants, and flags. Simple Panels with custom designs are used as upper windows and gate doors. A custom path is used to create a board-like effect when walking through.
If you visit this island via the Dream Code, you’re free to explore in any direction you choose. If you wander to the left, you’ll be entertained by a makeshift Hyrule market filled to the brim with clothes painted with clever custom designs. There is a mask shop that radiates Majora’s Mask energy. The lovely cake shop in the corner of the market is a wonderful homage to the cooking feature in Breath of the Wild where it’s possible to bake a cake in a skillet. The market area also offers a store that sells katanas, slingshots, ocarinas, and a Piece of Heart. The backdrop of this store presents a wall of Simple Panels designed with the iconic blue Hylian Shield.
North of the market area is a thin passageway that represents Lanayru Bridge. This bridge has an earthy feel to it. To the right, sitting on a rock, is an orange-and-red pinwheel.
To the east of Hylia lives a forest of large, dark-gray mushrooms. The flat surfaces of the shrooms create a clever re-creation of the Tundra Plateau from Breath of the Wild, and there is even a frog model which is a nod to the rare frogs that can be found in the area. This mushroom plateau area features a Simple Panel with a Goddess Statue design as well as a player house. I wonder if the player house is supposed to act as a shrine? It’s certainly possible.
Hylia is littered with little details that really make the island pop. For example, Kakariko Village is home to Rocking Horses (to represent real horses), Plush Puppies, custom designs, and everything else in between. Decoy Ducks live here too as well as a cooking area, just like in Breath of the Wild. Next to Kakariko is a small potion shop that reminds me of the one in Ocarina of Time. The pier is decorated as the pier shop in Lurelin Village and even has replicas of the red snapper and Napoleonfish in replacement of the Mighty and Armored Porgys available for purchase in the actual village. (I didn’t even know that you could decorate the pier in New Horizons, so I’m glad to know now!)
In Northern Kakariko is a neat little pumpkin patch and a flower area with sakura plants that represent the plum garden in Breath of the Wild. At first, I thought this pink flower area was a reference to Satori Mountain, but Leahnardo assured me that The Lord of the Mountain’s home was elsewhere.
Her rendition of Satori Mountain from Breath of the Wild is a neat area that I ran by multiple times before realizing it was there. The area is built upon cliffs, and I didn’t have a ladder in the dream world so my perspective is strictly from the ground level. The area is littered with pretty pink and white flowers, pink leaves, and weeds. My favorite detail is the displayed shirts with Blupee designs scattered around the area. When you set your perspective all the way up, you’re greeted with a blue Illuminated Reindeer statue on the uppermost level of the mountain which of course represents the elusive Lord of the Mountain. It’s actually fitting that I wasn’t able to fully explore this area because, in Breath of the Wild, Satori Mountain isn’t completely easy to get to either.
Hylia’s Lost Woods area is as creepy and creative as it needs to be for a wholesome game like Animal Crossing. If you open your map on Hylia, you will find that the Lost Woods area is circular and surrounded by water just like it is in Breath of the Wild. The trees used are from the Halloween event, so instead of the usual trees in the game, we get creepier ones with cute pumpkins next to them. The pumpkins next to the trees are so cute and I imagine them as Koroks (because they have faces). It’s easy to get tangled in this area because the trees are so close to each other, but I expect nothing less. There is also a shrine in this area made from Simple Panels and some stone furniture.
South of the Lost Woods (and directly East of Resident Services) is the Great Deku Tree — sort of. This tiny area is surrounded by six trees with one in the middle. The tree in the center has a stump stool in front of it with a Geisha Wig (though it looks more like a mask) on top to represent the Deku Tree’s face. This mask was a great choice because it resembles an older person’s face.
Hylia’s Hyrule Castle area is fantastic and I almost completely disregarded it. I walked past this area multiple times but I never shifted to the upward view. The ground level is decked out with Simple Panels with custom designs, cannons, lights, white silos, and a statue right in the middle. If you switch your view upward, you’ll be greeted with one of the villager’s houses with more silos and lights next to it, which act as a second floor to the castle. The juxtaposition of the house on the upper level and the ground-level decorations make for a spectacular Hyrule Castle that probably took a lot of time to plan out. I have nothing but respect for the design choices used to create this area.
East of Hyrule Castle is a shrine area that has a place to cook food, items to buy, and plenty of other things to look at.
Hylia’s Faron Forest area is surrounded by palm trees, bananas, and bamboo trees. This area has a bunch of waterfalls to the north as well as an awesome makeshift bridge that’s surrounded by bamboo. Her Faron Forest area has a bunch of small details that make it well worth the time to explore.
Directly east of Faron Forest is a two-level Kakariko Graveyard. This graveyard truly reminds me of a Zelda cemetery for its spooky yet calm atmosphere. It would be perfect for Wisp to show up here.
I also had the pleasure of interviewing Leahnardo about her island, and here’s what she had to say:
ZU: What inspired you to create a Zelda-themed island?
Leahnardo: “When I was in middle school, Taco Bell had this promotion and if you got coins that added up to 64, you’d win a Nintendo 64. My family could never afford a gaming system and we all tried and tried but never got to 64. We had no idea but that Christmas my dad had taken our coins and that morning handed them back to us with the numbers changed to add up to 64! He brought out the N64 complete with Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, and Ocarina Of Time, and I’ve been hooked ever since! The Legend of Zelda is so nostalgic and I’ve loved each subsequent game, so I knew I needed to theme my island after it.”
ZU: Which Zelda game is your favorite?
Leahnardo: “Ocarina of Time is my favorite story and has me with the nostalgia, but Breath of the Wild is my other favorite for how innovative it is, how it takes my breath away, and now many hours I’ve played it without getting bored.”
ZU: Which area was your favorite to design?
Leahnardo: “My Faron Forest/Floria Bridge was my favorite to design because I love overgrown jungles and lush areas like Faron in Breath of the WIld and wanted to emulate the falls and moss-covered bridge.”
When you get a free moment, you should definitely follow Leahnardo on Instagram and visit her island via Dream Code! She’s a super nice and creative creator and writing about her island has inspired me to think outside of the box more when writing for Tingle’s Maps. As for the talented Animal Crossing creators out there, maybe your island will be the subject of my next article!
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