Echoes of Wisdom: Zelda stars in one of the best games of the year

Princess Zelda uses all her wisdom in an extraordinary adventure

After Princess Peach, it’s now Zelda’s turn to star in her own title, but the princess of Hyrule lives a much more ambitious adventure than that of the monarch of the Mushroom Kingdom. And in terms of ambition, after two grandiose and epic titles, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, what could the next game in the series be like?

Nintendo’s response in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was to merge the past and present to build a unique, thoughtful title that does justice to what Zelda represents in its universe.

Zelda’s Awakening

Nintendo and Grezzo used the engine of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which received an excellent remake in 2019, as the starting point for Echoes of Wisdom. From a technical standpoint, there is a huge visual improvement over the 2019 title, with even more detailed and animated models, and scenes filled with lighting effects, dynamic shadows, and depth of field. The result is a very graceful art direction with an even more pronounced diorama aesthetic than that of Link’s Awakening.

Unfortunately, the cost of all these graphical improvements has been an inconsistent frame rate. To overcome these drops, a dynamic resolution system has been implemented in Link’s Awakening that appears to have been taken from Echoes of Wisdom. As such, we still have a game with high image quality, but it does suffer from occasional frame drops. However, fortunately, these only occur in a few places in the open world, are quick, and do not impact the gaming experience in any way. Finally, it is worth noting that, while the version of the game under review is 1.01 (which suggests it has already received some kind of update), this issue has not yet been resolved.

In terms of gameplay, Echoes of Wisdom expands and evolves what it inherited from Link’s Awakening. Although the game system and controls are similar, Zelda has much more scope for action in Echoes of Wisdom, and the princess always has multiple ways to approach both the puzzles and the numerous battles she will face during the game’s campaign.

Thanks to Tri’s powers, Zelda can create the “echoes”that is, copies of objects and enemies present in the game. Similar to mechanics such as Ultrahand and Autobuild in Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda can combine objects to overcome obstacles and reach points on the map that at first glance seem inaccessible. Therefore, exploration is also more extensive in Hyrule than on Koholint Island.

We have to capture

The Legend of Zelda games have always been about exploration and collecting treasure, pieces of heart, and various accessories. Echoes of Wisdom shares this tradition, of course, and expands on it in an interesting way: since Zelda doesn’t have Link’s fighting skills, she must use the echoes of monsters to defeat all manner of creatures that come her way.

Therefore, Zelda will soon be able to gather a collection of monsters of the most diverse types and attacks. In fact, in the best way of Pokémon, some even have more advanced levels and some monsters are “super effective” or unable to cause harm to others. In addition to battles, some monsters can also be very useful for solving puzzles, such as ravens that can activate switches inaccessible to Zelda, or bomb fish that unlock underwater paths.

Echoes of the past and present

The development team at Grezzo has done a great job of bringing together the best of Zelda games past and present, in what is the studio’s first new production involving the traditional Nintendo series. Echoes of Wisdom has explored the foundations of Link’s Awakening very well, in both areas. “from top to bottom” (top-down) and side-scrolling ones, which recall the best moments of the 2D games in the series. On the other hand, Echoes of Wisdom followed a less linear progression. So what we have is an adventure “half-open”that is, it starts in a linear fashion but soon opens up the player to choose paths, even if the progression is not completely open like recent games released for Nintendo Switch.

Echoes of Zelda meant that the boss fights and dungeon layouts were designed to allow for a variety of solutions and strategies, which in turn made for a rather fun gameplay experience. Echoes of Wisdom places a bit more emphasis on puzzles, but the action never feels neglected and the challenge of the game is very well balanced. An example of this is that Zelda takes more damage than usual in the series and hearts also appear less frequently; Zelda, on the other hand, can easily recover hearts with the echo of a bed, or by drinking juices with different properties (similar to Link’s recipes in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom).

Considerations

In short, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a masterful adventure, the debut of the iconic princess of Hyrule as a protagonist could not be better. It features the best elements of the series, such as a Hyrule full of treasures and secrets to unlock, challenging multi-story dungeons, epic battles and an interesting intrigue that keeps the player suspenseful until the end.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is undoubtedly one of the best games released this year. Fun, challenging and charming, the adventure starring Princess Zelda is already a classic in an already legendary franchise.

This analysis was performed using a copy of the game kindly provided by Nintendo.

Source: Terra

Rose

Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.