The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (2024)

First game I played on Switch in about 1,5 year. I’ve got the last Zelda (Tear of the Kingdom) earlier last year but haven’t played it yet. It’s way longer than I want for a game now. Then I saw this on a very cheap offer on Amazon some month ago. Seems nice and way shorter!

This game is not a ordinary Zelda game. For once, you actually play as Zelda instead of Link. Which seems like a fresh change.

The story begins when Link vanishes, leaving Zelda to try out being the hero instead. Mystic rifts start to appear in Hyrule and you need to solve this.

At start you have no weapon, but you have the ability to summon “echoes”. She can summon enemies she defeat and also a lot of object she sees. With help of these you will solve puzzles, fight enemies and traverse through the map.

I like that concept, you can be creative and find different ways to progress in your quest. In the beginning you mostly stack beds and trampolines to climb over obstacles 😄 When you find more echoes you can be more creative.

It can be a bit hard to navigate through all these echoes in the menu later on. There is a total of 120-130 echoes to discover.

This is a classic Zelda 2D-game with a twist. If you like that it’s well worth a play through!

Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲

Since BotW and TotK are a bit daunting for what I've been feeling like getting into with a Zelda game, I was pleasantly surprised to see a new top-down Zelda announced, and then more surprised it was "later this year" at that point.

I really liked Link's Awakening, and then the Remake, and now this is from the same people that made that, so that was also exciting. Playing as Zelda for the first time definitely sounded like an interesting twist. Wasn't sure how the Echoes were going to work, wasn't sure I was going to end up getting into such an open-ended "figure it out" angle.

Turns out, my fears were unfounded and my excitement was.. founded..? Playing as Zelda ("most of the time") with the Echoes was fun. After watching some videos afterwards, I realized I was a little ineffecient in some of my creativity and there was definitely some boundary-pushing ideas that could have been handy along the way, but I found what worked for me and it got me through.

That said, the open-endedness of the available tools does kind of allow you to break some of the intended methods for solving puzzles, but I also think this hearkens a bit to the open world games, making this a nice bridge between the two concepts. I didn't generally feel that creative, and "cheating the system" was kind of cool, but also didn't quite end up feeling the same satisfaction of figuring out a more traditional puzzle.

I don't know everything there is to know about Zelda lore, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on the general ideas, but the story ended up with bit more meat than I expected, which was nice too.

I enjoyed going back through the "post-game" (which was mostly just quests I didn't realize already existed by revisiting beaten areas), collecting the rest of the equipment that would have been debatably helpful along the way, and hunting down the rest of the upgrades and all that. It's nice it wasn't required, but also nice it wasn't impossible to just loop back through and experience it all.

As with most of my reviews, I don't really know where I'm going with this now. Feels like kind of a mess. Feels like it's on the edge of "barely said anything valuable" and "might as well flesh out some more thoughts and really get into" but for me, these are meant to just jot down some thoughts I had in case I look back at later.

Maybe I feel like I should "do more" because it's a Zelda game. Maybe because I'd like to get into bigger deeper reviews at some point, but for now, I just really don't want to spend that much time on these. I don't even know why I'm explaining this because these are supposed to be for me and I don't expect anyone to read this, but.. here are are.. but I guess I'm done now.

It's a fun change of pace for the series that I would like to see explored more in the future, since I think there's more they could do with this tbh. So ya it was neat, but not completely different to controlling Link. In a lot of ways, this game was a return to form for Zelda. Traditional overworld, traditional dungeons, lots of familiar stuff. The gameplay of this opts for something a little more like Link to the Past where we get a larger number of dungeons that are shorter. Though this game has 6.5 dungeons, compared to LttP's whopping 11 dungeons. All the same, I still enjoyed this experience. Puzzles ranged from very easy to making me sit and think. I liked the ones where I had to sit and think, so it's no surprise I really loved Faron Temple. That one was awesome and felt unique among the whole Zelda series. You could enter the temple from multiple places, often needed to traverse outside, and asked that you recall using old tools in new ways. Love it! Many other parts of the game kinda flew by as being fun enough, but not groundbreaking.

The echoes system worked surprisingly well! It's one of the things that concerned me the most. Not that I doubted too much, but I was hoping for it to be good and it was. The different echoes provided tons of options for traversal, battle, and otherwise interacting with the world. Though it would have been nice actually if there were fewer "perfect" echoes that do everything, like the water block. I can always use more reason to have to think harder!

The one point I was not a big fan of was the overworld tbh. It did not seem to capture me the same way LttP did. There was not much urgency or danger in the world so it felt a bit bland to explore, and you don't even get the horse until the end of the game! For that reason it felt a bit less cohesive as an experience because I was more or less just moving from objective to objective, a far cry from how I normally play Zelda games(see my 260 hrs of TotK). I would welcome more games like this and want more of the stuff this game did so well(echoes system, dungeon design).

3.5/5

Finally, after 38 years, it's possible to play Zelda in a Zelda main game. As expected, she was not a 1:1 Link copy but brought her own new gameplay features in the form of echoes, copying items or enemies, and revealing many different approaches to solving puzzles and battles. This is also quite fun, but towards the end there are so many echoes (most of which are simply different enemy types) that it's easy to lose track. A better grouping of items and enemies and a ‘favourites’ panel for quick access would have helped.

After BotW and TotK, which offered an open world and were also quite open in their dungeon design, EoW is now a somewhat more linear Zelda game again, which I personally very much welcome. It fits the story and the general gaming experience super well here. The dungeons are mostly well and beautifully designed, but not too challenging, which is why it would probably be advisable to play Hero Mode right from the start.

Visually, the game looks very nice and even better than the LA remake. The world and the villages are also gorgeous, and there is always something to discover. Just the placement of the heart pieces is mostly completely random. The caves are also mostly rather small, easy puzzles with manageable rewards, but it's nice that many of them are placed in the world so that you always come across small, special features while exploring. This benefits the game experience and the sense of reward when exploring, making it a nice experience overall.

4.5/5 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom finally puts you in the shoes of Princess Zelda! After a brief intro where you play as Link, he gets trapped into a crystal (that looks like Zelda has countless times before), and disappears into some other dimension. A brief chase scene takes place where as Zelda you are trying to escape the cave you are in as this dimension that took Link is spreading. You make it out of the castle and see an overview of Hyrule while the title screen plays. Begin adventure.

The story here is the typical Zelda style story, just swapping the playable heroes. Hyrule is under attack by some kind of evil force, go defeat these dungeons to unlock some more, rinse and repeat until the day has been saved. The major difference in this game though lies in the moment to moment gameplay. Zelda isn't the skilled swordfighter so she cannot directly attack enemies. Instead, you are given a special rod/staff that lets you summon any items or enemies you've previously defeated. This creates that hidden difficulty and game flow where you can try to go almost anywhere early on, but unless you have built up your list of "echoes" (the aforementioned previously defeated enemies), you will unlikely be able to defeat stronger enemies. The sense of progression is done very well here and as long as you follow the general path the game lays out for you, you will rarely find yourself in serious danger. Which leads me to my next point...

My biggest gripe with this game is the difficulty, or lack thereof. I only died once the entire game, and that was very early on when I was basically just experimenting with the various game systems and didn't pay attention to my health. Even though you can't directly fight enemies (except using an ability you get relatively early on..trying to avoid spoilers), the combat encounters are usually just a quick roadblock to slow you down and nothing more. Enemies find you, you summon an echo or a few to fight for you, and you just move around to keep yourself out of harms way while your echoes fight for you. It was fun trying to complete fights with the various echoes, but other than that combat isn't really fun. The only real difficulty in this game I'd say are the puzzles. Not being able to fight, they did focus more on the puzzles being the focus of this game. I don't think I had to look up any solutions at all, but there were a few times I sat and stared at the screen for a bit until the solution (or at least, an unintended) solution came to me. The real fun of this game I would say are finding different ways to advance the game or complete puzzles, that aren't the intended solutions.

Side quests are pretty disappointing this go around as well. Due to the smoothie crafting system (BotW or TotK's cooking), most of the quest rewards or chests you find in the world are just more ingredients to make smoothies. Huge fetch quest you warp around and have to backtrack several times for? Here's some grapes! While some of the side quests are lazy filler content (several character's quests are just "show me this echo!"), a few of them are interesting or sweet. Though these are few and far between, and still usually over pretty quickly.

It may sound like I did not enjoy this game. I did complete it nearly to 100% (only missing a few heart pieces) and did as many other side quests and exploring as I could. I'm just more critical on this as I'm a huge Legend of Zelda fan, and was excited to see a new game in the isometric style of the originals. If you are a fan of the series at all, or a passing interest in mostly puzzle type adventure games, definitely check this out. I know many people yearned to play as Zelda and we finally got that, but I don't think this is what most had in mind.

This is a followup to my original review, which was fairly high praise. There is a lesson here that gimmicks don't always hold up until the end of the game.

I'm not having fun anymore with Echoes of Wisdom. The clutzy UI is frustrating - every inkling of action requires pausing the game to scroll through an endless list of things to summon. And due to this, I am abandoning my first Zelda game since Spirit Tracks.

Let me start by saying that I already don't enjjoy these games where there are many solutions to a problem, because I like to play games "the intended way". I'm an engineer by trade and solving problems is something I enjoy doing, but I pride myself in simple solutions. This is the exact opposite mentality to have while playing Echoes of Wisdom.

Time after time I find myself entering a room in a dungeon that is clearly a puzzle, I can see what they want me to do (to say "this isn't my first rodeo" is an understatement when it comes to Zelda games), but my first instinct is always to go with the path of least resistance, which so often is to stack beds or water blocks. I've side-stepped so many puzzles it doesn't even feel fun anymore, like I'm just going through the motions.

I've been led to believe that if I can solve a puzzle in a creative way, I should do so - well, rather than scrolling around my echoes for 5 minutes figuring out wacky ways to clear a room, I can just stack the same 3 objects. Why would I sit around figuring out ways to avoid the path of least resistance? That's the antithesis of solving a problem, and I don't understand this endorphin rush derived from doing things in the most convoluted way possible like I'm making life-hack videos on TikTok.

Let's talk about combat. It's a fairly common occurrence that you get mobbed by enemies, and while you're fumbling around trying to summon some echoes to defend you (assuming the AI doesn't poop the bed), there's also the nuclear option to take out my sword and tear everything down in an instant. Why does this feature exist?

The inclusion of the sword and bow abilities, is as if the developers are speaking to me directly: "we realize not everything can be easily solved with summons, so.. just take this sword and bow. But you can only use it for a certain period of time so you have to go back to messing around with summons." It feels half-baked and I never know when I'm supposed to use it, but I do know that, as with most things in life, instantly spawned swords and bows is a guaranteed solution to a problem. If Echoes of Wisdom truly believed in its own system, this would have been implemented differently (ie. not on demand), or 86'd from the feature set entirely.

If you played Tears of the Kingdom, you certainly remember the first time you learn to use Ultra-Hand. You are presented with a long, rapidly flowing river that you cannot possibly swim across. There are some logs, wood panels, fans, etc. on the river bank. At this point the game is teaching you (or more accurately, leading you to teach yourself) how to attach items to create something to solve a puzzle, which in this case is a sailboat.

Do you remember that part? Remember that feeling when you figured it out? Felt good?

Now imagine if right next to all of those items, there was a jet ski. A fully functioning jet ski.

Now ask yourself: would you have had as much fun building the boat if there was already a water vehicle sitting right there for you to freely use, or would the mere existence of the jet ski diminished the enjoyment, knowing that you were, in essence, wasting your time coming up with an extracurricular" solution?

This is how I feel about the inclusion of a sword and bow in Echoes of Wisdom. A solution that's ever-present, but you're only supposed to use it some of the time. Perhaps limiting its use to during boss fights would have made more sense, tying it to some "greater power" lore that was only present during such fights. But all of the time? Why would I fumble around a menu when I could whack an enemy twice and be done with it?

It would not be a stretch to say that the rewards for exploration are one of the finest parts of Zelda games. However in Echoes of Wisdom you are essentially limited to finding golden eggs and other smoothie ingredients. Great, I guess... although does anyone really optimize their smoothie consumption to enhance certain scenarios? If you're swimming underwater a lot, do you go through the trouble of scrolling through your smoothies to get better swim speed or breath time? I sure don't. I use smoothies to heal, and any extra side effects are a bonus.

Perhaps it is obvious at this point, but I don't generally enjoy "sandbox" games, or at least any longer, and I certainly don't like the vagueries found in the most recent Zelda games. I did enjoy Tears of the Kingdom for the most part, but there is a simple comparison to be made. One time while I was playing I figured out, independent of the many Youtube videos I would later see, that if you attach two fans to a steering stick, you can essentially go anywhere. This now became the path of least resistance. Now, doing literally anything else felt like a chore. Why would I go out of my way to give myself a harder time to get from Point A to Point B? Well, tying this back to Echoes of Wisdom, beds and water blocks are the "hover bike". The difference here is that I only invented the hover bike in hour ~80 of Tears, but I got the bed and water block the first night I played Echoes.

I can't fathom the idea that taking a simple and making it needlessly convoluted and complex can be fun, but I guess that's where we are in the Zelda timeline. I understand that it is for some, but it certainly isn't for me.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ys X just arrived last night.

2/5

Here's my Echoes of Wisdom bets you can take to the bank!*

1. We'll see Ganondorf and get some lore. Whenever they include Gerudo, they know it is also their opportunity to add to the ganon canon.
2. Link will still not talk besides the occasional hyah. Sure, he's silent because the player was meant to inhabit the character, but now Link is his own halfly-baked person. Nintendo likes that boy silent and I'm pretty sure Zelda likes her himbo mute.
3. Tingle will be back. It's time! I feel it in my bones!!
4. There will be an evil lady villain alongside Ganon. She might be the main villain, she might be secondary to Ganon, but she will be there because despites Nintendo's progress in casting a leading lady for their Zelda game, they don't think a male counterpoint to Zelda makes sense.

I feel good about these four. I know that's not an attractive number, but I don't have a fifth bet I think you can reliably take to the bank. They should go big into the goddess stuff. Will they? IDK they're geniuses they're idiots but if you want money you should call your bookie now.

*the betting bank where you can make bets and also receive winnings