There were myriad reasons to be excited for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom not least of which because it was a pretty huge surprise to see another The Legend of Zelda game release so quickly after Tears of the Kingdom. With how much Nintendo had been building to that game’s release, I naturally assumed The Legend of Zelda would have to wait until the Switch 2 for a new release, but I guess with Nintendo you never really know what to expect.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a bit of a conflicting experience for me. On the one hand, much like its more grandiose counterparts, it defies convention in so many interesting ways. But on the other, it also makes so many bizarre decisions that also make it somewhat frustrating to experience.
The game begins, as I’m sure many of you are aware thanks to the June 18th, 2024 Nintendo Direct, with Link defeating Ganon and saving Princess Zelda only to be pulled into a mysterious rift. However, things take a strange turn as, after returning to the castle, another rift opens up and pulls in her father and his two aids—replacing them with corrupted doppelgangers.
The false king claims Zelda is the cause of the rifts and has the guards imprison her, claiming she is to be executed. Luckily, she meets a strange sprite named Tri who informs her it is the job of it and its friends to close rifts. Feeling the need to intervene, Tri helps Zelda escape by giving her the powerful Tri Rod which allows her to create echoes of objects and monsters.
Together, the two must travel the land, closing rifts, helping the citizens of Hyrule and rescuing Link from his terrible fate. It’s fairly standard as far as The Legend of Zelda stories go, however, it’s a bit more simple and straightforward. It feels a lot more like a children’s story than some of the more intense adventures of previous games—likely due in part to the similar toy-like aesthetic of the Link’s Awakening remake. While it has a sense of danger and drama, it is a lot more friendly and approachable with petty squabbles and simple misunderstandings forming the basis for a lot of the game’s main quests.
Obviously, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom deserves special mention for being the first official Legend of Zelda that puts the titular princess in the leading role. Nintendo has had a solid year of highlighting its major princesses, and it’s good to finally see Zelda take command.
However, this is also where the first of my problems with Echoes of Wisdom arises. I had really hoped that Zelda being the main character would create an interesting shift in perspective—travelling through a land where everyone knows and respects her. However, in almost every meaningful story moment, particularly where Zelda meets with the rulers of the other Races, no one seems to know who she is.
This was particularly egregious with the Gerudos. I thought to myself, “How does the race of all female warriors not know who the PRINCESS OF HYRULE is?” To a degree, it almost makes sense, since Zelda is considered a fugitive and needs to hide her identity with Link’s cloak—which also could have added a unique trait to her character as she helps her people from the shadows. But even after she reveals herself to others, so many people seem to not know who she is, which feels like a weird choice.
“…it deserves special mention for being The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first official Legend of Zelda that puts the titular princess in the leading role.”
It almost feels like a design holdover from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. There’s a certain looseness to the storytelling that feels like a result of the freeform nature in which you experience it. There’s a story, but it can’t be too specific so players can always experience it in any way. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s a massive disappointment that Zelda being not only the main character but also the PRINCESS of Hyrule doesn’t really mean anything. She might as well just be Link.
But The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s main selling feature is definitely its gameplay. As we saw from the Nintendo Directs, much like Tears of the Kingdom, this game takes a much more freeform approach to the classic top-down style of The Legend of Zelda. Using the Tri Rod, Zelda can copy objects and enemies and place them on the map for both exploration and combat respectively.
The idea was immediately intriguing to me, but I was genuinely surprised by how well it works. Similar to The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, it creates a new dimensionality to exploring the world, allowing players to create nigh endless possibilities for how they wish to traverse. You could make a small staircase with a crate and a table, or you can place a trampoline on a crate for higher ascension.
You could use a stack of beds as a makeshift bridge to cross a river, or you can use water blocks to create a liquid bridge you can swim through. It pulls down so many of the barriers of previous The Legend of Zelda games by making secrets less a question of when you can get something, but rather how can creatively can you get that now? This is added to further by Zelda’s ability to both jump and swim from the start of the game making this top-down style of game feel incredibly open and expansive.
This extends to the combat which I actually liked a lot more than I thought I would. It can be a bit difficult when starting out, equipped with a few basic monster echoes that can feel pretty useless against groups of Moblins or tougher enemies. But you pretty quickly start finding more powerful monster echoes and expanding your repertoire of ways to approach combat—I was pretty surprised how quickly you get a Darknut.
It leans into the idea of Zelda using her Wisdom over sheer strength—not only needing to outmaneuver her foes but find monsters that are more effective against others in order to tip the scales in combat. But it’s not so simple as throwing monsters against others like a Pokémon battle. Tri has a limited amount of things it can summon—starting with three and unlocking more as the game progresses.
“Visually The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is as good-looking as the Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.”
Both items and monsters have different values so players need to think about which echo will be the most effective while considering whether to utilize one powerful monster or try for a small army to flank troublesome opponents. This extends to the exploration as players need to consider which objects will make the most effective bridges and ladders out of as few objects as possible.
However—though Nintendo saw fit to ruin the surprise on social media—Zelda does not simply have to sit back and let her echoes do all the work. Early in the game, after defeating a doppelganger Link, Zelda gains the ability to utilize the Spirit of the Swordsman allowing her to temporarily use a sword and shield similar to Link in Link’s Awakening. This adds an interesting extra layer to the combat as players can use their echoes to distract tricky opponents while attacking them head-on in Swordsman form.
However, much like the story, Echoes of Wisdom’s gameplay suffers again from how much it borrows from its Switch predecessors, namely Tears of the Kingdom. At its core, it’s rock solid, but it’s the little things that make it a somewhat frustrating experience. The biggest issue is how, much like Tears of the Kingdom, all of your echoes are placed into a linear menu that you constantly have to pause the game to scroll through in order to find what you want in a way that feels designed to actively waste the player’s time.
I’d argue it’s a bit less frustrating in a game like this which is a lot slower and more manageable than its more grandiose, action-oriented counterpart; but it shows where Echoes of Wisdom would have been made a bit tighter and less cumbersome to have more of the classic Legend of Zelda formula.
It’s a bit of the double-edged sword of this game’s variety—players get so many items that function identically that, while it’s good for creativity and expression, it fills up the menu with perfunctory objects that just adds to the time it takes to scroll past them to the familiar items you end up using. Variety may be the spice of life, but you can’t just throw a million spices into a stew and not have it end up tasting awful.
However, much like Tears of the Kingdom if you can look past these issues, at its core Echoes of Wisdom is a thoroughly captivating experience. Despite the majority of the game being much more straightforward, with several of the dungeons feeling a lot more linear; there is a certain chill vibe to overcoming the game’s obstacles using the cornucopia of items at your disposal.
“Echoes of Wisdom expands on the visual theme by literally giving players every toy in the toy box and allowing them to play with them in this world in whichever way they see fit.”
Visually The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is as good-looking as the Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. That’s a bit of a glib joke, but there really isn’t any other way to put it since the latter borrows the former’s art style almost whole cloth. However, that isn’t necessarily a point against it. The Switch remake of Link’s Awakening established a unique aesthetic that was highlighted by its bright colours, and beautiful textures, and punctuated by the toy-like plastic sheen applied to everything that gave the visuals a fun and playful feel.
Echoes of Wisdom expands on the visual theme by literally giving players every toy in the toy box and allowing them to play with them in this world in whichever way they see fit. Furthermore, its incredibly interesting to see a reimagined Hyrule given the same openness and freedom that the Link’s Awakening remake achieved for the top-down style.
Similarly, the music does an excellent job adding a light whimsical tone to the game, while maintaining a sense of adventure and danger. From the fluttery piccolos to the piercing violins, Every theme, from the iconic overworld theme to the various locations of Hyrule have been altered but given familiar leitmotifs to add to the sense that this is both Zelda’s adventure, but a Legend of Zelda nonetheless.
It’s been incredibly interesting seeing Nintendo experiment with a more free-form Legend of Zelda even in the more “traditional” top-down games. And while it seems to borrow both the good and the bad from its Switch counterparts, it remains an incredible experience that I couldn’t seem to put down.
