The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Review

In returning to the top-down perspective of the oldest The Legend of Zelda games, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom seeks to upend what we understood about the series roots in more ways than one. Here, parts of Hyrule and its subjects are spirited away by miasmic tears ripping the land apart. More concerningly, these malicious purple blights are also spitting out shadow versions of its consumed residents, and they don’t look friendly. Hyrule once again needs a hero but Link has been “stolen away”, gobbled up by the mysterious rifts and is indisposed.  

When the royalty is replaced with these uncanny baddies, they frame the titular princess for the mysterious events occurring. Zelda, a powerful priestess, skirts these allegations and takes it upon herself to heal the land and save the day. But not without the help of Tri, a magical being that allows our hero to call forth duplicates of existing beings and objects. With the aid of these “echoes”, players will conjure allied enemies and assets in the world and throw them against the evil forces that the rift plague is spitting out. 

Zelda and Tri’s toolbox of creatures and objects defy any straightforward game design logic and is all the more interesting for it. Alone, Zelda isn’t capable of any direct offensive output, instead relying on her summoned creatures to lay the beatdown. Nor is she the most athletic, leaning on Tri’s ability to summon beds into staircase stacks as one possible means of overcoming obstacles. A bed is but one of the dozens of replicable assets for platforming, puzzle-solving, or whatever purpose you determine. The design pillar of the last couple of humongous Zelda games that emphasise player-led creativity and problem-solving is very much borrowed here. I don’t recall a time when there was strictly one dominant strategy to a puzzle or fight, constantly encouraging me to test switching echoes on the fly. 

I only wish there were more chickens to take flying

Echoes of different levels also carry different Tri-related resource costs, leading to a staggering inventory issue. For example, some enemies come in levels of one through three, with those cheaper lower levels often becoming ineffective and, rather quickly, bloating the echoes menu. Short of pausing the game and going through the main menu, echoes are chosen on the run while holding the right directional button. Like the last couple of Zelda outings, this opens a horizontal tile pane. While previous 3D titles made use of inventory restrictions to keep that quick menu from billowing across and off your screen, the same menu here has no such restrictions or management, meaning every single goddamn echo in the entire game will be dumped into this linear horizontal menu that comically extends off your screen and scrolls… And scrolls… 

After the first couple of hours, it becomes tricky to dig through these menus without any option of shuffling away the many redundant or highly situational echoes. This is a meaty little game, and relying on this menu for every inch of your interactions throughout this exquisite journey gives me the biggest of tummy aches.

Similarly misguided is the targeting system. As much as I enjoy the vast majority of combat in Echoes, the potential excitement of launching many echos into a busy melee rumble didn’t always meet my expectations. The single-button targeting must be mashed until it randomly selects an enemy. Without this targeting, summoned echoes won’t always immediately grock who or what they need to punch on with. In the latter half of the game, fights can involve groups of enemies that are effectively dispatched by defeating them in particular orders. Targeting and finesse are best here, but the ZR target tabbing just isn’t fit for purpose. Targeting will also select friendly echoes and any interactive objects that are within reach. So good luck, friends, but it’s most definitely the game at fault when you goof up. I have no idea why the developers didn’t think to refine the targeting, especially when the right analogue is barely touched outside of moving the camera an inch beyond the frame. It’s baffling, but it’s far from a sad tale overall. Zelda excels in the chaos, unleashing all manner of hell to play out while she steps back to watch and revel. It certainly helps that the amicable default challenge doesn’t make this con a deal breaker.

Aside from a quick mention of haphazard framerate stutters in the overworld or when a few characters are moving on the screen, very much carried over and worsened from the Link’s Awakening remake, the rest of the Echoes of Wisdom experience is top-notch Nintendo goodness.

We’re back to concocting unholy consumables

The soundtrack impresses. Every biome and corner of this setting is interestingly scored. Exploring the green areas and rivulets of Hyrule with a whimsical tune or visiting a quasi-Japanese engineer with plucky strings and Eastern woodwinds is a treat. Familiar Hyrule tunes also feature, but the music department has spared no effort in giving audiences another Zelda score worthy of the live concert treatment. 

Fans of the series’ other Switch entries will also be pleased to see many recent innovations carried over. Particular favourites include cooking and elemental systems; Zelda co-ops a smoothie bar for crafting healing brews and resistance potions. Fire propagates quickly in a field of shrubs, making Zelda’s style of landscaping (a series’ staple) the most amusing.

Platforming puzzles are a huge part of the experience too, baked into the very assets of the game. Trees that border zones from one another become little more than terraced roofing for you to skirt around the bounds of the game’s map. I felt like a menace, breaking everything sacred that functionally framed the traditional top-down Legend of Zelda experience. The game knows you’ll go out of your way to break it, and much in the same way as Switch’s big 3D Link duology, the game weaves and flows in concert with your crafty whims. And oh shit, I was able to skip over half of a dungeon by using my echoes! This is going to be a fun one for the speedrunning community.

There are some delightfully intricate platforming sections inside the rift’s Still World

Some fans might not immediately be sold on this strategy-forward, everything-is-a-puzzle bent for this latest outing. And sometimes even I have to let loose and channel my inner button-mashing swordswoman. Luckily, Zelda can channel Link’s powers for limited bouts. However, because Zelda’s creative toolbox proves so useful, the hacking and slashing serve best for catharsis and whirlwind blading out of a crowded situation. Or a quick serve during a boss fight.

Final Thoughts 

Echoes of Wisdom is an exemplary game. It has completely obliterated the limitations of the old top-down Zelda formula and will have huge gameplay ramifications for the next generation of Legend of Zelda games, whatever form they take (Zelda Maker seems so obvious). It’s heartbreaking to see some control oversights and the glossy plastic art direction hampered slightly by the technical wobbles. I barely cared, though. I just wonder how I’ll be able to go back to the overhead adventures of the little green-hooded twink after this.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch // Review code supplied by publisher

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