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Review of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Heory
Review of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

This year, Nintendo finally gave its iconic princesses the royal treatment, putting Peach and Zelda at the center of their own games. But with all due respect to the Mushroom Kingdom’s monarch, the head of Hyrule’s adventure isn’t just another second-tier spin-off. Trust me when I say that in every way that matters, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom East the next Zelda game in the main series (at least the 2D series). It takes all the linear dungeon progression and key item progression that I missed in the older games in this series and perfectly combines it with the ridiculously clever and free-form problem-solving that made Tears of the Kingdom so captivating. It doesn’t always take that exciting step with unflappable royal grace, but it’s still easily one of my favorite Zelda games – with or without the green tunic on its back.

While Echoes of Wisdom’s mechanics are substantially changed from its predecessors, the practical differences related to swapping main characters are actually pretty negligible. There were even a few times during my 23-hour playthrough where I was briefly sidetracked by a conversation because I legitimately forgot I wasn’t Link. Perhaps the most surprising difference to me, however, is how much more engaging the story is. Rather than being yet another rehash of a mute swordsman’s journey to save the day, Zelda is THE central character in the plot. As a result, I felt much more important and involved as I explored Hyrule to seal the mysterious purple rifts that were forming across my kingdom.

Of course, the most constant reminder that you’re not Link is the more indirect way Zelda interacts with this world and fights the wide variety of enemies within it. With a little floating friend named Tri accompanying you, you have the power to create echoes of any enemy you defeat and a range of specific objects you encounter. This means that defeating a Moblin once will let you summon it to automatically fight for you in the future, and you’ll frequently create beds, boxes, and even trampolines to span gaps or climb ledges as you explore. The menu you use to switch between your collection of creatures and summonable items quickly turns into a boring pile to navigate, but it’s so cool that the number of Echoes you can actually have at one time is only limited by an evolving points system – starting at three and increasing from there – and it still feels fun to plan around rather than too limiting.

It encourages the same “game-breaking” creativity as Tears.

Echoes encourages the same “go ahead and break our game” creativity that Nintendo embraced with Breath of the Wild and doubled down on with Tears of the Kingdom, but this time in a 2D Zelda game that borrows the Link’s Awakening remake’s delightfully toy-like art style and occasional side-scrolling segments (as well as a bit of its inconsistent framerate, which isn’t hugely distracting but also seems somewhat inexcusable at this point. Where’s that Switch 2, Nintendo?).

I understand that the echo system may seem far too bizarre to be considered anything other than an experiment in the traditional sword-and-shield combat we’ve seen in nearly every 2D Zelda game since the original in 1986, but the reason it’s able to remain so distinctly Zelda is that many of these echoes essentially act as classic key objects. You may not have a grappling hook, but that floating floor tile you’ll only find in a certain cave can suddenly let you clear large pits in the same way; there’s no shovel this time, but a little mole friend will happily dig up secrets for you; and Skyward Sword’s gust bellows isn’t back, but holding a wind cannon over your head will clear out sand piles just as well.

The fact that so many of the most useful Echoes are hidden in optional caves or found in dungeons (alongside some important central abilities, like Tri’s power to lift and move any object, Ultra Hand-style) gives Echoes of Wisdom a sense of progression that I have to admit I missed playing Breath of the Wild and its sequel. You still have a huge amount of freedom to explore wherever you want and solve problems in unexpected ways, but I also like that you also get that classic Zelda feeling of leaving most dungeons with something new in your pocket. Sure, sometimes you’ll just get another average summonable monster that you’ll probably never use – but other times you’ll be randomly handed something like the Water Block, a Minecraft-like cube that fundamentally changed the way I moved around the map by letting me swim up walls or around them with ease.

Echoes of Wisdom’s exceptional puzzle rooms also make great use of the absurd range of options available to you. Seeing a chest just out of reach immediately sent my mind spinning as I thought back to the endless list of items I could summon that could help me. This could be as simple as creating a monster to press a switch for me, or as bizarre as stacking multiple items in just the right way to allow me to grab an item with Tri, then lift it past a series of obstacles and place it on a button from afar. There’s rarely a single right answer, and the “aha!” moments are plentiful.

Exceptional puzzles make great use of your absurd range of options.

That said, the one area where Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t really benefit from being built entirely around summons is combat. While puzzles are more of a focus this time around, there’s essentially as much combat as ever, and summoning a few echoes only to have them slowly attack your target isn’t exactly exciting. This is coming from someone who’s used to love playing with summon classes in games like Diablo or Frosthaven, but in those cases you’re usually not just spawning a few guys and sitting back until they finish the job. You get faster or more impactful options (the wide-swinging Peahat was an early favorite of mine) as you go, and the fights aren’t by any means unpleasant or anything like that, but wielding a sword as Link is still fundamentally more fun.

Thankfully, Zelda isn’t a helpless damsel who relies entirely on others to fight for her: she literally possesses Link’s sword and can switch to “swordsman mode” to attack directly at any time. However, your energy bar drains quickly in this form, and it’s a limited enough resource that you can’t rely on it too much. The bar can be upgraded, but running out in the middle of a tougher fight or boss fight can be a real problem if you don’t have any energy-recovery items on hand, so I was always a little cautious about when I chose to draw my blade. This means that your combat options essentially consist of letting someone else handle the fights or taking matters into your own hands with the pressure of a ticking clock, both of which are possible options. are entertaining, but not to the same smooth degree that echoes enhance exploration and puzzle solving.

Combat gets at least a little more interesting later on thanks to the completely optional (and surprisingly easy to mess up) automaton system. This small selection of buildable robots doesn’t cost any points to pull out of your pocket, but you can only use one at a time, they then have to be manually reassembled before they can start doing their thing, and you’ll have to pay to repair them if they take too much damage. The game can still be worth it, though, with options like a Deku Baba that can devour enemies whole and a Moblin wielding a sword with a slow but massive area of ​​effect. It makes for a pretty interesting high-risk/high-reward option, and gives you a bit more to do after summoning echoes into combat without having to spend any energy.

Another way to balance the power of the automatons is that you have to help a character build by completing a series of side quests – and Echoes of Wisdom has one. plot side quests. While it took me about 23 hours to complete the opening, you could certainly get there much faster if you dedicated yourself to the main story. My runthrough was pretty thorough, completing every quest I could find and hunting down collectibles, but I wasn’t trying to achieve 100% completion either. Putting in the effort was always worth it, whether it was for the tangible rewards I’d get, the helpful new Echoes I could find, the charming characters and stories I’d encounter (a village of adorable, candy-obsessed Deku Scrubs is a real highlight to watch out for), or the multiple entirely optional mini-dungeons I could complete, each of which had its own unique boss fight.

Tom’s Top 10 Zelda Games

Here is my personal top 10 Zelda games in order.

Exploring Hyrule for these extras is one of the clearest places where Echoes of Wisdom feels like a Zelda chimera – an explicit hybrid of A Link to the Past and Tears of the Kingdom. Longtime fans will notice that parts of the map are near-exact replicas of the SNES terrain, right down to the small raised platform just south of Hyrule Castle that Link’s house used to sit on (though it’s absent here). Meanwhile, other areas have defining features of Breath of the Wild’s map where you’d expect them, from the Gerudo village to the southwest to an electricity-filled jungle to the southeast. The Zoras are even split into two rival tribes: one with the fishtail heads of their modern design, and the other with the finned faces of the ones that would emerge from the water to attack you over 30 years ago. In this way, Echoes of Wisdom feels like Nintendo is fully embracing both Zelda’s past and present, blending what that series was and what Breath of the Wild so abruptly pivoted toward into a single game that honors and makes the best of both halves.