First Look at The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Echoes of Wisdom, the latest entry in Nintendo’s long-running Legend of Zelda series, was released this past Thursday, September 26. I’ve been a fan of The Legend of Zelda for well over ten years now– few other series can get me to drop everything I’m doing to buy a newly released game ASAP the way Zelda can. And even though I’m (presumably) still far from the end of Echoes of Wisdom, I can reassure you– it’s worth the hype. I’ll be detailing my trip to Nintendo NYC to buy my copy, as well as my thoughts and experiences playing through the first three dungeons (which make up what I consider the first story arc of the game). Be warned– minor spoilers below!
In order to get my copy of the game, my roommates and I headed into Manhattan to Nintendo New York– Nintendo’s official, 10,000 square foot storefront near Rockefeller Center. I had to wait until Saturday to get my copy for two distinct reasons; firstly, because I avoid buying digitally unless I absolutely must (a blog topic for another day); secondly, because I really, really wanted to see what promotions (if any) the physical Nintendo store had for the release. (There’s also a secret third reason, and that is that I’ll never ever turn down an excuse to go visit the Nintendo store.)
The Nintendo store always has a diorama next to the main entrance depicting their most recent game releases, so it was no surprise to see an Echoes of Wisdom diorama standing near the door upon our arrival. This was the only change within the store for the game’s release– I was surprised to see that the Twilight Princess Link statue on the second floor remained unchanged. (Over the summer there was a statue of the Link from Tears of the Kingdom, the second most recent release– that one glowed!) To be fair however, there was a demo version of Echoes of Wisdom on the second floor, taking up an entire wall as a screen. I bought my copy quickly (I didn’t want to accidentally spoil anything for myself), and was pleasantly surprised to receive a free poster along with my purchase! My roommates and I booked it back to the apartment– I was eager to begin playing.
Beware! Spoilers start here!
To begin with, I’ve been having so much fun with Echoes of Wisdom. This is a very unique Zelda title– you actually get to play as the titular Zelda, instead of recurring hero Link. Additionally, the combat is entirely unique. Combat may actually be too strong of a word– Zelda herself cannot fight, save for brief transformations that deplete an energy bar. Combat in this game is done creatively, by summoning objects or friendly clones of enemies to defeat the actual enemies. I’ve been equally delighted and frustrated by this mechanic– it’s fun discovering what clones (called “echoes” in-game) are effective against which enemies, but sometimes I do miss simply whaling on the baddies with a kickass sword.
To give you a brief summary of the early plot– Zelda is about to be saved from Ganon by Link, when a rift in reality breaks open beneath the two of them. Zelda manages to break free of her crystalline prison, only to find that similar rifts have appeared across Hyrule, trapping people within them (and occasionally replacing them with evil doppelgangers, like with the King and his ministers). Zelda is blamed for the rifts by the imposter king and is jailed, but she’s soon rescued by a strange, otherworldly being named Tri, with the ability to create “echoes” of both objects and fallen enemies. Together, the two set out to rescue both Link and the King, close the rifts devastating Hyrule, and thwart whatever nefarious forces are at work.
The use of echoes for combat was definitely tricky to get used to, but I managed to get into a rhythm somewhat soon. There are so many echoes– the game keeps track of all the ones you’ve discovered in a notebook in the item menu. I stopped counting once I hit 20– and this was before I’d even gotten to the first dungeon. Your options can get really overwhelming, really fast. Granted, I’ve done a lot of exploring and have therefore found more echoes than I should have at this point (I play open world games by getting all the teleport locations, then beginning the plot), but at the time of writing this article I’ve hit 101 different objects and enemies I can summon. I have no clue how many there are– I wish that there was an encyclopedia like there was in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, although I do understand the diegetic reason for the difference (a princess’s notebook vs a millennium-old high-tech super-tablet). Despite the overwhelming numbers, I found I quickly settled into using only a few echoes most of the time– beds to build bridges, tables and crates for vertical movement, and a barrage of crows and/or armadillos to slay my enemies.
The usage of echoes places Echoes of Wisdom much more solidly in the “puzzle games” category than any of its predecessors. The myriad options for echoes, and their individual particular uses, allow for all sorts of puzzles and methods of traversing the world. Large gaps become inconsequential when you can use a bridge of beds or a floating floor tile to zip across, and high ledges and mountaintops don’t seem so tall when you can follow spiders up walls, or create stacks of boxes to climb. Torches can be lit and extinguished with elemental jelly enemies (called Zols), and fast enemies can be paralyzed by electric echoes or trapped in a corner by a series of rocks (I did this for a standalone boss I stumbled across in the overworld– it worked wonders).
Beyond the usage of echoes, the game utilizes a cooking system that vaguely resembles that of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom– except instead of food, you create two-ingredient smoothies that can heal you and give you additional perks. You can find different smoothie ingredients throughout the world, each with their own effects they impart on the smoothies such as healing, damage reduction, or increased speed. I admittedly have not explored this system very much, beyond finding 20 unique recipes for a sidequest. Hearts can once again be found in plentiful numbers by cutting grass and defeating enemies in the overworld, and you can always take a nap in an echoed bed to restore hearts.
The game sees you head into the very same rifts that Link and Ganon fell into, defeating shadowy monsters and rescuing small light creatures just like Tri in order to close the rifts, save those who have been lost, and restore peace to Hyrule. The rifts themselves are very interesting design-wise; most of the terrain pieces are copied from the overworld, but flipped on their side, leaving you to walk across the sides of trees and swim vertically up lakes. This makes traversing the rifts a puzzle in and of itself, never mind the actual puzzles found within them.
I’m liking the storyline of the game so far– the third dungeon (where I paused for this review) teased a new enemy, presumably the big antagonist we’ll fight at the end of the game. Zelda does feel passive as a protagonist– she is rescued from her cell and led about Hyrule by Tri, and then told her role and where to go by the King and Impa. Her usual lack of combat ability doesn’t help her case either. But that’s why this game is called Echoes of Wisdom. Rather than our usual hero, courageously standing tall against the rising darkness, we are a wise heroine, cleverly outsmarting our foes.
Visually, the style took me a minute to get used to– I found the blur effect at the bottom of the screen distracting at first, but I stopped noticing it a few hours in. The toy-like art style is perfect for a 3D grid-based game. The design feels like a love letter to the older, top-down Zelda games. The overworld map is an expanded version of the map in both A Link To The Past and A Link Between Worlds, and both Ganon and the King of Hyrule’s designs are incredibly similar to past iterations of them. (The shadowy monster at the end of the third dungeon was also reminiscent of a certain purple-haired villain from The Minish Cap…)
As mentioned earlier, I have yet to finish the game, but I’m very invested. As a longtime fan of the series, Echoes of Wisdom truly is a creative breath of fresh air in a series that’s had largely the same plot since the beginning– that is, save Zelda as Link and defeat Ganon. Playing as Zelda also allows us a unique insight into the way Link has affected Hyrule prior to the game’s beginning: many NPCs speak highly of him, recounting the help he’s rendered and the hardships he’s overcome. I’m incredibly excited to continue playing, and to see where the story takes me.
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