One of Nintendo’s longest-running series aside from Super Mario is The Legend of Zelda. Over the years Link and Zelda have been on many adventures from the 2D to the 3D space and are best known as pop culture icons who have been featured prominently within their Action Role Playing Games. This year they have returned in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom although this time the title isn’t misleading because for this adventure Princess Zelda is taking the reins on this adventure. What happened to Link and the rest of Hyrule? Let’s find out together, shall we?
The story of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom occurs after Link attempts to rescue Zelda from captivity by the evil wizard Ganon. After Ganon’s defeat, a dark rift opens up swallowing Link just as he fires an Arrow shot that helps liberate Zelda from captivity. After she escapes the rift continues growing until the entire castle she was imprisoned in is consumed by it. At the same time, other rifts of different sizes begin appearing across the land swallowing up kingdoms and villagers while also spawning monsters at the same time. After being discovered by Zelda’s royal guard she is brought back to the kingdom of Hyrule and has an audience with the king, General Wright, and Minister Lefte. However, before they can all devise a plan to deal with the rifts, one of them appears in the middle of the throne room, consuming everyone but Zelda. Once consumed three corrupted versions appear before Zelda who all convince the guards that she is responsible for the rifts and needs to be locked up and executed. She is then locked away in a dungeon with seemingly no hope until a spirit going by the name Tri appears before her and bestows a Powerful wand upon her called the Tri-Rod.
The wand is capable of copying any object or living creature and spawning an echo of themselves that can help Zelda fight creatures and help her get around puzzles and other dangerous situations. After she escapes and avoids all the guards she is tasked by one of her loyal friends to discover and receive aid from the man who helped construct Link’s mighty Sword. After some puzzle solving and world exploration Zelda obtains not only a method of dispersing the rifts but also a way of fighting off enemies using the spirit and sword of Link. Now armed with her knowledge and magic, Zelda must do everything in her power to stop the rifts and save her people before it is too late.
The gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom centers around utilizing the Tri-Rod to copy objects and creatures to solve various puzzles and combat several enemies. The power of the Tri-Rod is not Unlimited however as Zelda can only spawn a certain amount of items and enemies depending on how much power Tri has at their disposal. The core gameplay loop mostly revolves around solving puzzles both in dungeons and in the open world of Hyrule and its various other kingdoms. This can either be a good selling point for players as it involves more creative thinking as nearly all the puzzles can be solved in more than one way or an aspect that can turn players away as this game is not as action-oriented as Breath of The Wild or Tears of The Kingdom. Even with the ability to use Link’s spirit as a way of bridging the gap of close quarters combat it is akin to an ultimate move due to it requiring a bar that drains the more Zelda uses it. Link’s Spirit can be upgraded using material gathered from closing rifts to have more energy and access to other weapons like Link’s bow and bombs. Zelda can also utilize Tri by having them possess objects and creatures that are in her path to move them around, especially massive boulders that will block the way.
While the premise and abilities of the game are fun there are a couple of drawbacks, especially from the AI of the creatures who fight for Zelda. For one thing, during my playthrough, the creatures took a while to understand their assignment of fighting with her against her enemies causing their attacks and movement to be delayed. This also poorly affected them when they were the ones being attacked unless they were more powerful and heavily armored. However, a lot of the fighting is optional except when battling bosses or using Link’s Spirit so it isn’t a complete mess there is also the possibility of a possible patch that could fix the issue shortly.
Overall Zelda‘s outing as the main protagonist is solid, though not as complex of a gameplay style as Breath of The Wild or Tears of The Kingdom, Echoes of Wisdom does offer a fun experience for anyone who enjoys creative puzzle-solving adventures.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch