echoes-of-wisdom

The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom Review

Echoes of Wisdom is the latest mainline game in the Legend of Zelda series, with one big difference, this time we play as Zelda. Everything you’d expect from a top down Zelda game is here including Dungeons, boss fights, puzzles, interesting characters to meet and Hyrule to explore. However it’s Nintendo’s blend of the past and the future which should excite fans with open-world freedom carefully mixed with the traditional top-down Zelda formula. Today I’m going to bring you my review of The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom.

We start out as we have done so many times. Link is making his way through a castle, stalking his enemies and taking them out one by one, searching for Ganon. Nintendo throws us right into the action. We see Zelda, she’s trapped in a crystal and Ganon is there, then a battle ensues. All looks to be going well when Link defeats Ganon, but then rifts open up and swallow Link, not before he can fire off one last arrow to help Zelda escape. Zelda then legs it away from the growing rifts and outside the castle.

Link isn’t the only one sucked into the rifts, Zelda’s father The King of Hyrule and his trusted advisors also get pulled into the rifts. When you go into the rifts you get replaced rift version, and this is what happens to the King, who immediately throws Zelda in jail. Then the scene is set – Hyrule is in danger, there’s no Link to save the day as he’s been dragged into a rift. The King has been replaced by an imposter and the rifts are growing across Hyrule. It’s up to Zelda to save the day.

In her new jail cell, Zelda then meets Tri. Tri gives Zelda the Tri Rod, which introduces us to the main mechanic of the game – the echo system. This allows Zelda to copy shiny objects and enemies she sees in the world then use them to help solve puzzles, in combat and traversal around Hyrule.

In the opening hours of the game we introduced to our main gameplay tools. We have the echo system, copying and building up an array of echoes for various tasks. Bind allows us to attached to items and then move them, or move with them through Reverse Bond. Plus we have Swordfighter Form which allows us to briefly take on Link’s form and use his sword, and later other classic weapons too. From a story perspective I like the start of the game; it’s flipping the formula on it’s head, Zelda has to make her way out of the jail through a nice stealth sequence, and we’re introduced to the main mechanics. From a gameplay perspective it’s a relatively slow start to the game, and you have to switch up your mindset because playing as Zelda is more passive, especially earlier in the game.

Combat is a staple of the Zelda series, and here combat is completely different. That isn’t to say it’s bad or lesser, it’s different and it takes time to get into the swing of things. At first you have to pick up rocks and pots and throw them, essentially using what you have around you to damage your opponents, or set rooms of grass on fire to take out hordes of enemies. Later in the game you’ll be able to summon huge monsters with swords and shields and combat feels much more engaging, but it’s a sluggish start to the game. I do think you are rewarded for pushing through the slow start, as things really open up as more choice is introduced into the game.

As the game opens up, Nintendo’s plan for Zelda is also revealed to us with this blend of top-down Zelda and open-world Zelda. After we beat the first dungeon in the Suthorn Ruins, we’re equipped with our weapons, abilities and new mechanics, we then have a choice – we can go to the Gerudo Desert or the Jabul Waters Dungeons. Choice isn’t limited to where we go, it’s also in our ability to solve puzzles. A direct comparison could be A Link To The Past Remake on Nintendo Switch, which is very old-school linear Zelda. Puzzles in that game tend to have a single solution. Open-world Zelda game like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom introduced us to freedom of expression and choice through Link’s abilities, and also multiple ways to solve puzzles.

There’s that classic ball and maze puzzle in Breath of the Wild and the eureka moment when you realise you can simply flip over the board and roll the ball on the other side and solve the puzzle. Echoes of Wisdom has similar moments where you realise you can solve puzzles in multiple ways and you can see the marriage of open-world and top-down, thus a new direction for the Zelda franchise as a whole. I don’t think we’re going back to linear Zelda, and I’m glad, I like what I am seeing here in Echoes of Wisdom.

There had been calls from Zelda fans to return to classic staples of the series including items, dungeons, non-breakable weapons, and we get all of that here in Echoes of Wisdom. The dungeons for me started out pretty simple, and there’s one dungeon where you can simply skip most of the puzzles and jump straight up to the boss room. However, the dungeons later in the game had me laughing out loud with their mechanics. Somehow the team is still bringing fresh ideas into these dungeon designs and the latter dunegons are some of the most memorable moments here. I don’t want to spoil what these moments are because it’s discovering the solutions to these puzzles that make the game stick with you for years, and you’ll look back on these puzzles. I still remember solving puzzles in A Link To The Past and the original Link’s Awakening today, and I’d say the later dungeons in Echoes of Wisdom are on par with the great dungeons of top down Zelda games.

We do have items in the game – Link’s Sword, Bow and arrows, plus bombs too. I see why they added Swordfighter form, but ultimately I don’t think it’s neccessary, I don’t think I would have minded if it wasn’t here. These abilities can be upgraded later the game as you collect currency – more damage can be applied to the weapons and the energy bar can be increased. By the time I had rolled credits on the game I had only upgraded the sword, I didn’t touch the bow and the bombs, and one upgrade to the energy bar. I was more engaged with the echoes, and if you get a powerful one then you are pretty much set, although the dungeons and regions in the game tend to introduce you to a new set of echoes, which are then useful for solving the dungeon, similar to old-school items paired with dungeons. There are some classic items like Zora’s Flippers too, plus plenty of new items to find and experiment with.

Hyrule is pretty big this time around and we have Hyrule Town with Hyrule Castle, Gerudo desert, Eldin Mountain paired with Kakriko Village, Suthorn Forest, Faron Woods, The Eternal Forest, Hebra Mountains, Jaul Waters and more. This is a large map for a top down Zelda game, but I like it a lot. It opens up relatively quickly and you are free to explore from early on. Trees normally act as a boundry for the top down games, but you can simply fly, climb and get into areas you probably shouldn’t be early on. There is a flying trick where you hold a crow and some meat which means you can essentially fly anywhere on the map. This is the perfect example of the open world freedom blended with the top-down Zelda formula I was talking about before. Right at the start of the game I had barely done anything, and I flew into Faron Woods, and immediately thought… I shouldn’t be here, and that was great, I wasn’t punished, or didn’t get taken back to my location, I could simply continue on with my adventure.

The main story is roughly 25-30 hours, but there’s plenty of sidequests to keep you busy in the game. Dampe is back with his automatons, which allow you to contruct robot versions of creatures and monsters. While fun, these didn seem a little weak to me. I would place them down and they would keep getting destroyed. There are loads of outfits to collect; right off the bat you get Link’s cloak as a disguise, then later in the main story you’ll get a more traditional Zelda outfit. You can get cat clothes and talk to the cats (there are a lot of cats in the game). There are also lots of accessories to collect. Accessories give you buffs and you can wear a certain number of accessories at the same time. For example, you might have one that allows Zelda to jump higher, or one that allows hearts to appear more often when you defeat enemies or cut. You can upgrade the number of accessories with the Great Fairy, then collect accessories to help Zelda on her adventure. It’s a pretty standard system, but I like the implementation here and the sidequests along the way are engaging.

Echoes of Wisdom has a paired back cooking system too allowing you to combine two ingredients to produce a smoothie. Smoothies can help Zelda restore health, plus apply other buffs like faster swimming, longer time to dive under water, faster climbing that kind of thing. The smoothie system is a good microcosm of the whole game; overall this is a simplified version of modern Legend of Zelda. While I am enjoying this as an adult, the game doesn’t really get into it’s stride until the second half, where the puzzles are more engaging, the combat is harder and I have more of an array of echoes and abilities. I could see Echoes of Wisdom being a great entry point for younger fans. This is the first new top down entry for the Zelda series in 12 years, so many players who were introduced to Zelda through Breath of the Wild won’t have experienced anything like this, and I could see this being a good entry point with it’s simplified gameplay systems when compared to the 3D open-world games.

As well as the numerous side quests we also have a number of mini games and activities. There’s the horse riding at Hyrule Ranch, plus acorn collecting dotted around the place, and my favourite activity, the time trials at Slumber Dojo in Kakariko Village. Here you have to take on a number of echoes in a time trial manner, where you have to beat certain times. Sometimes you’ll have your full inventory, sometimes you’ll start with nothing. It fleshes out game nicely without it feeling too busy. Much of the time the rewards are ingredients for Smoothies, which can get a little frustrating, however, sometimes you’ll get a new outfit for Zelda and there are some surprising outfits that are worth the grind and time in the mini-games.

There is a lot to like about the gameplay. I should mention the performance of the game which seems on par or perhaps worse than Link’s Awakening. It would be good to not be talking about the performance issues given we had a similar performance issue with the last game from this team on the same platform, however, the performance issues didn’t negatively affect my time with the game. It’s noticeable, but not game breaking. Hopefully with the Switch 2 coming very soon, this will be a solved problem, but I can’t go through a review without at least mentioning it and giving you a heads up.

This is a good moment to talk about Grezzo, the team behind the game. Grezzo have worked on many ports for Nintendo games, specifically in the Zelda series with the most recent being the 2019 Link’s Awakening Switch remake, and now they had the chance to create their own Zelda adventure. Nintendo published some good articles on their website in the build up to release with Eiji Aonuma plus Tomomi Sano (Nintendo’s Director) and Satoshi Terada (Grezzo’s Director). They talked about working on a Zelda Dungeon creator for around a year before the change of direction and the emergence of the Echo ability concept, which Aonuma really focused on. Grezzo here are emulating some of the Nintendo magic. I do think the game starts off slowly, but gets into it’s stride after the middle portion of the game (Hyrule Castle Dungeon). Given the length of time it takes to make a new Zelda game (6 years for a 3D Zelda and 5 years for a top-down Zelda) it’s good to have multiple teams working on the franchise because then hopefully Nintendo can put out more games in the franchise. This new top-down Zelda was a complete surprise, I don’t think anyone expected it until we saw that trailer at the Nintendo Direct in June. Grezzo did a great job with this one, and I’m looking forward to see what they come up with in the future.

Overall I would recommend Echoes of Wisdom. It’s charming, once you get into the combat and find your way around the Echo abilities I think it’s really fun and some of the puzzles and dungeons stand up to any from the Legend of Zelda series. I do think this is a peak into the future of the Zelda series, marrying elements of the old-school top-down linear Zeldas with the open-world 3D Zeldas and bringing that sense of freedom to the player. My only thought is what are Nintendo going to do next here? My hope is they continue to dual produce top-down and 3D Zelda games and keep pushing the boundaries. We’re going into the Switch 2 era, which should provide the team with a new platform to do new things, and I’m always excited to see what the team beind the Zelda franchise are going to do next. For a first outing for Zelda I do think Nintendo and Grezzo have been successful, and I hope we can see more games with Zelda as the lead character in the future.

Let me know what you think about Echoes of Wisdom in the comments.


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