The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom review – top-down magic reinvented for the better

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom walks a fine line between blending ideas old and new, resulting in a unique series entry that absolutely stands on its own.

The eponymous princess finally gets her chance to shine in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom; a more classic adventure that sees her using knowledge instead of strength in the hopes of saving the kingdom of Hyrule.

After the near infinite well of surprises provided by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, playing through The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom feels much like cosying up with a nice warm blanket. Because sure, while the version of Hyrule featured in this traditional top-down Zelda might be more compact and familiar, it isn’t any less intriguing to pick away at. It helps that the game is a tight knit adventure that, you know, is an actual Zelda game – with the titular princess finally made playable for the first time in a mainline series entry. Far from a cheap gimmick, though, Nintendo has lovingly capitalised on such an occasion by presenting a joyous world that's contents also double up as a creative toolset. And while it might not be the giant leap forward this blend of old and new ideas may suggest, it’s still a delightful twist to the nearly 40-year-old formula that is equal parts inventive and charming.

From a pure story perspective, it’s fair to say that Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom won’t be winning any awards. A world-tearing calamity appears at the beginning of the game to see Hyrule’s various regions ripped apart and separated by purple rifts. Said rifts cause our typical hero, Link, to be swallowed-up whole and rendered out of action, leaving the responsibility of saving the kingdom to Princess Zelda. Alongside her fairy companion Tri and magical echo-summoning Tri Rod, she must then defeat the source of this new evil. As far as setups go, I’d say it gets the job done, yet I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few twists in the tale I didn’t see coming. For the most part, however, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom plays it safe from a narrative perspective, being noticeably more creative in the way it has Zelda herself push the plot forward using her distinct set of powers, as opposed to events simply happening around her

The way she primarily does so, of course, is through her core ability to summon the eponymous echoes when wanting to solve any combat or puzzle-solving scenario. Almost every monster and item of interest you come across out in the world can be summoned once you find it and learn its essence, resulting in a far more creative way to get around in what is otherwise a fairly conventional The Legend of Zelda adventure. Summoning the echo of a flying Keese to battle snake-like Ropes from above, for instance, negates the need for sword swipes entirely, while placing a trampoline onto a bed and then hopping up to it to reach a seemingly out-of-reach location instantly renders the entire map your playground. Zelda does eventually gain the ability to mimic Link’s traditional move set via what’s called Swordfighter form, but this can never be relied upon entirely.

The sheer number of echo combinations Zelda can make use of is nothing less than staggering, and various times during my 20 or so hours in Echoes of Wisdom did I find myself experimenting with which echoes worked best with each other in different scenarios. Doing this was what made it immediately clear that every dungeon and area of the map has been designed with multiple solutions in mind by Nintendo; to the point you can sometimes skip past circumstances that, in other Zelda games, would have a pre-defined path of progression through the use of one specific item or another. Your options only continue to grow the more echoes you collect further into the game, although a lot of echoes I found later on mimicked the purpose of ones I’d found previously – but were a more efficient variant.

No tears left to cry

Because of the sheer variety found in each echo, it makes sense that Nintendo elects to limit how much you can summon in the early hours. Every echo requires a specific amount of energy to use, relating to the number of pieces that make up Tri’s tail. Leaving this limitless would’ve no doubt caused the Nintendo Switch to struggle whenever you’d try to fill the screen with endless Spear Moblins, after all. Besides, initially withholding the number of echoes Zelda can summon simultaneously also makes improving these skills – either by lessening the amount of energy certain echoes require or straight-up improving Tri’s energy – makes unlocking Zelda’s full potential in the late-game even more fulfilling.

Outside of the echoes system, much about Zelda’s first mainline outing will feel familiar to players fond of the franchise’s other top-down adventures – most noticeably The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake. That 2019 redo gave the original Game Boy adventure a claymation-like makeover, which returns here in full force with great aplomb. Though the game does regularly suffer from the same slowdown and framerate stutters whenever moving from one particularly dense location to another, every area from the always-raining Faron Wetlands, to the snowy Hebra Mountains, appear rich in colour and detail, packed with new echoes to discover and side missions that usually have Zelda assisting locals in need. A stamp collecting mini-game further rounds out the believability of this Hyrule, being a good cause to make me want to explore even more.

Obviously, a return to this more classic style of Zelda games also means that dungeons are placed firmly at the forefront. It’s in this regard that I’m pleased to report that Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t disappoint. Whether it’s navigating through a giant ice cave by melting and re-freezing water features as needed, or how to best float over lava using the littered-around bursts of air, all the main seven featured boast a unique gimmick that had me chaining echo combinations in creative ways. Interestingly, it’s the last dungeon before the final boss that’s the weakest of the bunch, if only because of what it has you doing compared to any Zelda dungeon before it. Without giving too much away, it has you wielding Zelda’s summon abilities in a ‘rub your head, pat your belly’ kind of way; the problem is, it doesn’t spend the time to fully develop on this idea and is so unique compared to any others it feels jarring. Overall, though, there’s a decent selection of dungeons to get stuck into here.

I went into The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom wondering about where the direction of more classic Zelda games might go. Now, after rolling credits, I was delighted to see that Nintendo has (mostly) been able to find a nice middle ground about how to best pay tribute to this classic adventure series’ past while also incorporating elements of where it is now, thanks to the likes of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel. While it’s true that echo summoning is full of potential it also has its limits, as proven by that last pesky dungeon and many of the 127 featured echoes doubling up for one other. This, combined with the Nintendo Switch continuing to show its age via some less-than-ideal technical performance, holds Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom back from achieving true legendary status. However, Zelda’s time in the spotlight is still a refreshing and often surprising top-down adventure that, thanks to its central idea, comfortably stands apart from what’s come before.