Masahiro Sakurai offers helpful advice to a Legend of Zelda cosplayer

Sakigake is a pretty accomplished cosplayer that has put together some amazing tributes and equally-impressive photographs to go along with their work. In one of their most recent efforts, we get to see Sakigake cosplaying as Link from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While the shoot mostly went off without a hitch, Sakigake did run into one particular issue you can see in the video below.

As you can see, Sakigake quickly found out that unsheathing their sword in one fell swoop was proving to be incredibly difficult. It’s not something you ever think about when playing the game, as Nintendo would never show Link struggling to perform such a basic action. What was Sakigake to do in order to make things work? Turns out they got some input from someone very close to Nintendo.

None other than Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Smash Bros., caught the video that Sakigake posted, and they had some insight to share. Sakurai may not have worked on Breath of the Wild, but he certainly put in a ton of time recreating Link’s look and moveset from that game for Breath of the Wild. That’s why it’s not surprising to learn that he ran into the exact same issue that Sakigake did. How did Sakurai get around that problem? You can see his response below.

In Smash Bros. Ultimate, Link pulls the scabbard down when sheathing his sword. That alone didn’t quite reach the mark, but I think that’s as far as we could go with our ingenuity and still replicate the action and equipment from the original. - Masahiro Sakurai

A simple solution, if somewhat inelegant solution, but one that gets the job done! Sakigake responded to Sakurai’s advice by saying they’d make sure to use Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Link as a reference point next time around.