The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Review: Princess Stuns in Solo Debut
In Zelda’s first outing as the protagonist in her own game series, more brain than brawn is needed to save Hyrule – but it stays accessible to the bed-heads among us.
Posted a month ago
Platform reviewed on: Nintendo Switch
Pros
- Inventive Echo interactions
- Gorgeously detailed world
- Play your own way
Cons
- Inconsistent frame rate
- Repetitive if you don’t experiment
- Fewer side stories than you’d hope for
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone 10+
ESRB Content Descriptors: Fantasy Violence
It’s taken 38 years for Zelda to take the reins as protagonist in the game series that bears her name, but it was worth the wait. With a fresh new perspective – and game mechanics – to explore Hyrule with, and a return to the top-down format, it’s a refreshing twist to Link’s style of saving the day.
Never underestimate the power of an army of snakes.
©Nintendo / Restart
Echoes of Wisdom entrusts Zelda with the task after Link seemingly has already finished his quest, coming to rescue Zelda by defeating the final boss with a full set of weapons, gadgets, and life meter. But in a cruel final move, Link is dragged into a dimensional rift along with the boss, leaving Zelda with only his cloak and a mysterious assistant, Tri, who saw the whole thing unfold.
After being made a fugitive by rift-cloned evil variants of her father – the king – and his viziers, Zelda has to rely on Tri’s magical ability to make clones of random household objects, called Echoes, to save the kingdom. At first, this means just stacking up old beds to escape from jail, but in no time, you’ll be solving all manner of puzzles in dungeons by…stacking up old beds.
The game’s strength – and potential weakness – is that you can solve any problem with any Echo you’ve learned so far. Tri’s ability to create Echoes is limited by their cost, meaning some super-strong monsters you encounter can be added to your repertoire, but you might only be able to summon one at a time.
Beds: Can’t beat ‘em.
©Nintendo / Restart
This means some early Echoes end up being bedded into your muscle memory as the tool for a certain job. This is compounded by a pretty basic menu that forces you to scroll through dozens of Echoes to find the one you want. Need to make a bridge across a gap? Well, the humble 1-cost bed can be placed to overhang any surface. Need a staircase? The bed, when stacked overhanging itself, makes an ideal solution. Need something to stop projectiles hitting you? Or enemies from reaching you? Or gusts of wind from blowing you off ledges? Well, yes, the bed does all of those things, too.
It is a small shame that the bed is so versatile, and so cheap, as there are some exciting interactions between your Echoes. Some of them reminded me of the emergent interactions of Breath of the Wild, or Tears of the Kingdom, where fire spreads and Ultrahand can build fantastical contraptions for flinging Koroks.
Much like Cuccos in previous Zelda games, any winged creature can be grabbed and held high above Zelda’s head as a makeshift glider to softly descend from ledges (not that it matters, as there’s no fall damage – this princess has gams of steel). But when hitting an updraft, that glide becomes a soaring flight. Through the clever use of items that emit drafts, attaching them to yourself with Tri’s grabbing and tethering ability, and a winged mushroom that also blows gusts behind you, Zelda can jet across the map faster than the Switch can keep up with.
Speed, but at what cost?
©Nintendo / Restart
Unfortunately that’s not a high bar to cross in Echoes of Wisdom. Though the top-down 2D-style of the game may harken back to less hardware-demanding Zeldas, the Switch still chugs through this adventure. The frame rate is inconsistent at best, with noticeable frame drops when running around at the edge of different biomes around the map. But even when you aren’t hopping over trees or cliffs with homebrewed combinations of Echoes that you’ve been playing around with, you’re never safe from a stutter or two ruining the flow.
It’s a shame, as Hyrule has never looked lovelier. Taking the assets and tools put together for the 2019 Link’s Awakening remake – and applying them to a map that looks suspiciously like an expanded version of A Link to the Past’s – Hyrule has a beautiful diorama feel to it. A light, tilt-shift effect blurs the fore- and background of open areas, giving the sense of a camera being physically passed above a plasticine play set. And household interiors are so detailed and lived in that they give each home a little bit of character to add to the villagers milling around outside.
Sadly those houses feel like a bit of a missed opportunity, as there’s little in the way of extra side quests for Zelda to undertake. There are some, but most fall into the category of Echo Hunting, where a villager will say they saw something and wants to see it again, perhaps a monster in the caves nearby or a piece of furniture. All you have to do is go and learn the required Echo and then summon it in front of them to be rewarded with either smoothie ingredients or rupees.
Out on ofishial business.
©Nintendo / Restart
There are a few mini-games dotted around that task you with finishing a task in increasingly strict time limits. All are based around getting you to figure out how to use your Echoes most efficiently, and some even become laughably easy after finding one specific Echo out in the world. They reward you with special items, so they’re a little more enjoyable and consequential than fetch quests, but there are precious few upgrades or side stories to pursue.
For someone who enjoys figuring out different interactions and creative solutions, rather than one efficient one for the greatest number of jobs, Echoes of Wisdom offers a wonderful play box. But if you tend to stick to the first thing that worked, you may find the game's combat and puzzles repetitive. For me, I really enjoyed sticking a Deku Baba on top of a Stone Talus and creating an all-natural autonomous golem-mech for a bodyguard. We each make our own fun.
