TriForce Heroes: Ice Shield, the Last Item?

According to Famitsu there will be nine different items in the game. So far we know eight of them:

• Bombs
• Bow
• Boomerang
• Hammer
• Armshot
• Gust Jar
• Fire Gloves
• Water Rod

So, what could be the last remaining item? It makes sense to look at A Link Between Worlds first, because five of the traditional items from the game return with slight modifications to the Hookshot. Of note were the four elemental rods, where it seems like they are replaced by weaker items dealing with elements. The Fire Rod gets replaced by the Fire Gloves and the Tornado Rod by the Gust Jar. And the Water Rod is similar to the Sand Rod, only on water and with a weaker effect. It might even still have an effect on sand and other things by watering them.

Now they probably did that to balance the multiplayer gameplay, but it also reminds me of the situation in Spirt Tracks, where compared to Phantom Hourglass the three new items were a lot weaker. No overpowered Magic Hammer anymore or in this case Fire Rod. But it also removes the verticality of the rods. The elemental rods added a lot of vertical gameplay to A Link Between Worlds, but they now want you to use the new totem mechanic everywhere. So, instead of shooting a huge pillar of flames, you have to climb the other Links and shoot fireballs from the top in order to attack flying enemies with fire. Makes things a little bit more difficult.

I guess that the last item will have something to do with ice, so you still get the ability to freeze enemies. That's some team play, which I would like to see, where one player freezes the enemies and the other smashes them with the Hammer. You couldn't even do that in the Four Swords games. An ice mace or an ice ball & chain could be interesting to have, but of course with that you probably wouldn't need the hammer anymore.

What could be possible is an "Ice Lantern", which emits light, but freezes things. This way you would have to be close to your enemies in order to freeze them and they could also bring back the classic lantern item. But a lantern, which puts out lights instead of creating them, would be weird and you would have the Gust Jar to blow out lights and cool down things. Plus the Fire Gloves seems to take over the lantern functionality pretty much.

However, it's also noteworthy that there doesn't seem to be a shield equipped to the shoulder buttons... but maybe it's one of the pick up items like in Four Swords? It could even be an "Ice Shield", which freezes enemies, if they touch it, though this wouldn't be exactly innovative for a fantasy action game. But otherwise this would be the first Zelda game without a shield. (I don't think that a costume would give you a shield, only upgrade it.) It also would work well in the combination with the Hammer, where one player defends and the other player smashes the frozen enemies. The more I think about it, the more I like this Ice Shield idea. It makes a lot of sense.

Of course the last item doesn't necessarily have to do anything with ice. It could be a different element or it could be no element at all. Some sort of digging item like the Mole Mitts could potentially return for example...

We'll see. I hope, Nintendo won't reveal the new item, until the game gets released, so we can find it out ourselves. And maybe there are more than nine items, who knows...?


Update:
Interesting timing for my post, a couple hours later Nintendo revealed on the site that with "nine items" they counted the sword apparently. Oh, well...