Review: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

NOTE: This review will not include any major gameplay or story related spoilers. General overall opinions will obviously be given, but only a description of the opening cutscenes and features that have been revealed in official trailers or other Nintendo-released promotional material will be explained in greater detail. Similarly, all accompanying screenshots do not contain spoilers of name locations or later-game areas. If your desire is to go into this game blind, you can safely read this review with the knowledge you will not inadvertently be spoiled on any aspect of the game not already revealed.

If the series is called “The Legend of Zelda” then why isn’t she the main character? It’s a question that most of us have asked at one point, and one that Nintendo has very quietly sidestepped over the years. Since the release of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake on the Switch in 2019, fans have also been wondering if we’d be seeing more titles in this style in the future. Who would have guessed that Nintendo would address both of these points in a single brilliant counterstroke? The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is not the first time the princess has been a playable character, but it does mark her first standalone adventure, in the traditional 2D gameplay style that defined the series in its early days. But was this a smart move, or is there more than one missing Link?

Echoes of Wisdom starts at what would usually be the end, as Link enters the villainous Ganon’s lair to do battle with him and rescue the imprisoned Zelda from his clutches. However, things quickly take a turn for the unexpected, as both Link and Ganon are suddenly swallowed by a mysterious void, with Link’s last heroic act being to free Zelda from her imprisonment. Returning home to Hyrule Castle, Zelda quickly finds herself imprisoned (again!) in her own dungeon this time, after the King casts the blame for the rifts plaguing the land at her feet in a very uncharacteristic display of hostility. In the dungeons, Zelda meets a mysterious creature named Tri, and after helping her to escape, their journey to save Hyrule begins.

As this is a spoiler-free review, I will not be discussing any plot details beyond this. However, it is safe to say that the story beats here will be familiar to anyone who has played prior games in the series, barring the exception that this time, Link is the one who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances rather than Zelda. Fans of the timeline will nonetheless have plenty of new information to stew over by the time the credits roll, but of course this can be enjoyed as a standalone experience and without excessive theorycrafting. Although it arguably lacks the more emotional scenes of recent 3D titles, Echoes of Wisdom still manages to tell a complete and satisfying tale.

Echoes of Wisdom is presented in the same style as the Link’s Awakening remake, being a more traditional isometric 2D-style title. This means that when compared to the more recent 3D titles such as Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, it is notably more structured, having a series of objectives and dungeons that you’ll need to clear in order to progress. You’ll also receive more guidance and prompting to progress in a specific direction rather than being left to figure things out for yourself. However, it has taken several cues from these open world titles to offer a far less restrictive experience than its 2D predecessors. You’re allowed to approach main quest objectives at your own pace and in whatever order you choose; after the opening scenes, the world is almost entirely open to you. The main story objectives have to be completed eventually, but there’s nothing forcing you to do them right away or in any particular order, and the land of Hyrule offers you plenty to do outside of the main story quests. 

Every title in The Legend of Zelda series has its own unique central gameplay mechanic, and for Echoes of Wisdom it’s the Tri Rod. This gives you the ability to create echoes of various objects and enemies for a small energy cost, with the number you can create at once being determined by Tri’s current strength and the echo’s own individual cost. Creating a new echo that exceeds Tri’s capacity will delete the oldest echo you’ve made, providing some measure of balance and preventing you from flooding the screen with echoes to overwhelm enemies or skip past every puzzle. 

As you explore the land of Hyrule, your stock of echoes will grow, and you can use any echo you’ve learned at any time. There is a fantastic sense of progression throughout the game as your capabilities steadily expand. This does make things a little difficult to navigate as your toolbox grows, however. You can organise your Echoes by type, cost, and last used to navigate to the one that you want, but it would have been nice to have the ability to create custom lists to make the searching process a little more streamlined. Having to stop and pause every few seconds to find the echo you’re looking for can break up the flow of gameplay, especially during combat.

Echoes change the dynamics of puzzle-solving in a way more reminiscent of Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom than earlier 2D titles. There is always a clearly intended solution, but this can be ignored entirely if you can contrive a different one with the echoes you’ve learned. It can make some of the game’s dungeons significantly more straightforward depending on the order in which you choose to do them. The most remarkable aspect of this is that everything remains useful from the time you learn it up to the very end: I was still creating bridges from beds to cross over gaps in the game’s final dungeon! 

Another major element of Echoes of Wisdom is the Still World, which you’ll be entering frequently in order to return the land of Hyrule to normal. Although the existence of a second realm is not something new to the Zelda series, this feels more like the Distortion World from Pokemon Platinum in terms of design. The scenery is fragmented and disjointed, and these segments are almost like miniature platforming challenges as you navigate between the smaller land masses to rescue Tri’s friends, who are hidden throughout the area behind small environmental puzzles or within the bodies of shadowy enemies. These short sections are a nice break from the open world exploration and more rigorous dungeons, and are some of the more rewarding side activities you can partake in, typically yielding fragments that you can use to upgrade Zelda’s capabilities in Swordfighter Mode.

Echoes will also drastically affect the way that you approach combat, as defeated enemies can be learned and then summoned to fight on your behalf. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as defeating an enemy and then immediately unleashing it on its former comrades. Echoes of enemies will automatically attack the closest target, but you can also target an enemy directly. This can feel quite clunky at times, and  you’ll often need to dispatch an echo closer to enemies to land a hit reliably, all whilst taking care to avoid damage yourself. Zelda can also take a direct hand in combat by way of Swordfighter Mode, which allows her to transform into a ghostly apparition of Link for a short period of time, but energy for this is limited and drains quickly, meaning that for most of the game you’ll be relying on summoned echoes to defeat enemies.

As previously mentioned, Echoes of Wisdom has a lot to do outside of the main story, and it has incorporated many systems from the more recent 3D titles to flesh out the world and reduce that feeling of linear progression. As well as the usual hidden Pieces of Heart and minigames scattered across the map, there are also numerous sidequests to complete, ranging from simple fetch quests to longer ones that can lead to areas you wouldn’t otherwise visit as part of the main story. These breathe some life into the world, as the various NPCs of Hyrule struggle to pick up their lives in the wake of the rifts opening up across the land, and there are some engaging (if often not very rewarding) short stories to come from doing these.

You can also create smoothies in a simplified version of cooking, combining two different ingredients to restore hearts and for short passive buffs depending on what you used; these are particularly useful when faced with environmental hazards such as extreme heat, cold, or when needing to dive underwater for a time. Zelda can also equip accessories, and there are a handful of costumes to find with their own benefits, giving you a limited amount of character customisation. How useful these smaller features are largely depends on what difficulty you play with. The customary Hero Mode, which doubles damage received and eliminates heart drops, makes a return in the game, although you can freely toggle difficulty during gameplay this time.

Echoes of Wisdom has the same toy-like aesthetic to its visuals that we saw in the Link’s Awakening remake, however, the world design is far more expansive and impressive. No longer bound by the dictates of an existing map of limited scope, the developers have been able to unleash their full creativity, and it shows. There is a much greater variety of biomes in this new vision of Hyrule, and these are as spectacularly presented as they are diverse, with some fantastic lighting effects and colours that pop on the screen of the Switch OLED in particular. There are plenty of returning locations from previous games for fans alongside the new ones, which even come with a remixed orchestration of their original theme, making them feel both fresh and familiar.  

Although the game runs flawlessly, it does quite heavily implement blur to keep the action at a consistent frame rate and higher visual quality. This was thematically appropriate for the Link’s Awakening remake due to the game taking place within a dream world, but for Echoes of Wisdom, it can feel a little incongruous at times when the edges of the screen begin to blur, or when you’re looking down from above at enemies. It’s not something that ruins the overall ambience of the game or the quality of its visuals and performance, but can be slightly distracting at times during certain parts of the game when altitude plays a slightly greater role in things and you need that sense of verticality to navigate. 

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom feels like the perfect compromise between old and new. It incorporates some of the best elements of open-world design from the more recent 3D titles into the solid linear structures of the classic 2D instalments to create something that feels familiar without being too stale, and structured without being restrictive. No matter what your history with the series is, you’d be wise to check this one out. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches for Nintendo Switch on 26 September 2024.

9.5/10

A copy of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was provided by Nintendo UK for the purposes of this review

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